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Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

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Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#51

Post by michaelmrose »

xamuel wrote: post #42
H8crilA wrote: post #13

Fake news is not new. It is at least as old as the oldest written texts. The religions of the world are the largest fake news outlets out there, and those are going along just fine. I mean they kind of have to be - even if you do believe in one of them the rest must be concluded as millenia old fake news. "Our times are different" thrown around without care is a very widespread cognitive error.

>"Our times are different" thrown around without care is a very widespread cognitive error. Absolutely right. The Book of Ecclesiastes talks about this at great length. History repeats, no-one will remember those of us alive today, and the people who follow us will also be forgotten by those who follow them. >even if you do believe in one of them the rest must be concluded as millenia old fake news A religion would n…

If we were on the decline since Homer we would already be living in caves grunting at each other. Perhaps what is being lamented is that the successful found their offspring lesser not just because the properties that made themselves notable weren't heritable that they ultimately arose from circumstances they naturally strove to prevent.

If adversity results in 70% dead or broken, 20% damaged, and 10% triumphant what survivor of adversity gambles with his loved ones. The weaker children of better men then aren't an example of universal decline but rather the result of softer situations.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#52

Post by base698 »

cjlars wrote: post #12

I'd be curious if everyone is also experiencing the so called "the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect" in the same way Crichton describes. In my own areas of expertise -- data analysis and economics -- the answer is "Yes, very much so". Certainly there are pockets of high quality writing, but that mostly comes from experts writing on their own blogs in their own areas of expertise, or from periodic guest articles by the same e…

Yes, starting with my youth in computing and video games. Following my hobbies in aviation and skydiving.

It's routine to find accidents that are 100% inaccurate when reporting the cause.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#53

Post by base698 »

starpilot wrote: post #35
rayiner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an AE major, what aerospace discussion do you think is terrible?

The "as a pilot..." posts baffle me. It's like asking a car driver for his thoughts on automotive engineering, or asking a random computer user about which programming language is best for whatever. This of course is fine if the topic is piloting, but there's a vast gulf of understanding between aircraft pilots and aeronautical engineers.

Maybe, but as a pilot you are tested in depth in systems to a degree not found in automobiles.

Aeronautical engineers also miss a lot of the skin in the game that a pilot would have.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#54

Post by AgentOrange1234 »

> He was wrong about diminishing resources, he was wrong about the population explosion, and he was wrong that we would lose 50% of all species by the year 2000. He devoted his life to intensely felt issues, yet he has been spectacularly wrong.

Spectacularly wrong... by about 20 years.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#55

Post by [deleted] »

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #54

> He was wrong about diminishing resources, he was wrong about the population explosion, and he was wrong that we would lose 50% of all species by the year 2000. He devoted his life to intensely felt issues, yet he has been spectacularly wrong. Spectacularly wrong... by about 20 years.

[deleted]

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#56

Post by [deleted] »

foldingmoney wrote: post #49
abtinf wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's "bullshit on the front page of the Times". Now, I happen to agree that tariffs may cause prices to increase. I've been educated in economics and study it as a hobby; I can explain my point-of-view from the concrete facts to the high level theory. The most definitive statement I would ever be willing to say on the subject is that tariffs always harm the economic, moral, and political interests of the citizen…

>If someone tells you, without further qualification (as is nearly always the case for TV and newspaper pundits), that a tariff of x% will cause a price change of y%, they are either incompetent or they are lying to your face in order to advance a hidden agenda. That's unfair. First of all, their interviewer probably demanded that they give a quotable figure, because the readers want some quick concrete takeaways and…

[deleted]

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#57

Post by arkades »

vpribish wrote: post #21
cjlars wrote: post #12

I'd be curious if everyone is also experiencing the so called "the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect" in the same way Crichton describes. In my own areas of expertise -- data analysis and economics -- the answer is "Yes, very much so". Certainly there are pockets of high quality writing, but that mostly comes from experts writing on their own blogs in their own areas of expertise, or from periodic guest articles by the same e…

my goodness, yes. My background is aerospace engineering, software engineering, and finance. Here on hacker news, the software discussion is good, aerospace is terrible, and finance/investing is teeth-gnashingly, garment-rendingly hopeless. Despite this I do read lots of the health and wellness discussions - and have no idea whether they are really any good.

As a physician, I can tell you that the health and wellness discussions in the media, Internet, and HN are horrendous.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#58

Post by liability »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #48
Diederich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guy who literally made his career on fear mongering in fiction ... Can you expand on that? I presume you're talking about his book, "State of Fear". I guess "Andromeda Strain" could be in that category. I found most of his books interesting, educational and often insightful.

Isn't the premise of every one of his books "scientists fuck it up, leading to exciting circumstances"? Even if he has written books that don't follow this pattern, Jurassic Park surely does; I'm not sure why you didn't mention it yourself

> Isn't the premise of every one of his books "scientists fuck it up, leading to exciting circumstances"?

No, that's an inaccurate and uncharitable summarization of his literary career. Scientists fucking up covers some of his more popular works accurately, Jurassic Park more than the rest, but other stories have the scientists/doctors working hard to save lives, or otherwise behaving admirably. Sphere has the scientists accidentally acquire godlike powers, only to willingly relinquish those powers for the greater good.

In fact, in several of his novels, including Jurassic Park, I think there is stronger anti-corporate sentiment than there is anti-science sentiment. The book makes clear that the problems at Jurassic Park are caused by a corporation cutting corners to turn a profit on a complex system before pausing to understand what they were dealing with. In the novel, the park owner John Hammond is consumed by dinosaurs. For whatever reason the movie let him live, and otherwise tuned down the anti-corporate angle. In the book his idiocy and greed made him a villain, but the movie makes him seem like a cuddly victim. In the book the two heroes are paleontologists (scientists) who were not to blame for the disaster but nevertheless behaved heroically in their attempts to mitigate harm.

A similar theme is found in Airframe though, which covers the interactions between a crash site investigator trying to find a truth that's inconvienent to the airline (that the pilot was to blame.) It could have been about aircraft engineers or aerospace scientists fucking up... but it wasn't. Disclosure and Rising Sun are controversial for their own reasons, but both have prominent anti-corporate themes.

Then there are the novels that seem unrelated to the discussion at all, like Eaters of the Dead which was a retelling of Beowulf from the perspective of an Arab traveler from Baghdad.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#59

Post by Diederich »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #48
Diederich wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Guy who literally made his career on fear mongering in fiction ... Can you expand on that? I presume you're talking about his book, "State of Fear". I guess "Andromeda Strain" could be in that category. I found most of his books interesting, educational and often insightful.

Isn't the premise of every one of his books "scientists fuck it up, leading to exciting circumstances"? Even if he has written books that don't follow this pattern, Jurassic Park surely does; I'm not sure why you didn't mention it yourself

> Isn't the premise of every one of his books "scientists fuck it up, leading to exciting circumstances"?

Some of his books have the premise that some scientists are short sighted and myopic, while others aren't. We can briefly talk about Jurassic Park the book, which I assume you have read. The movie shares only the most broad story arcs with the book.

....and I started typing a synopsis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(novel)#Plot_sum... is pretty good.

To your point: yes, there's a group of scientists that fucked up, and there's another group of scientists that are trying to honestly work things out.

I'd say the biggest antagonists in Jurassic Park are big corporate interests.

Upon reflection, aside from his first couple of books, that seems to be a common theme.

Re: Michael Crichton: Why Speculate? (2005)

#60

Post by beefman »

melling wrote: post #44
jbay808 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth reading this response by James Hansen: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200604/viewpoint.cf...

That’s from 2006 and extrapolates to 2020. Has anyone updated it?

See this page

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

and in particular, this graph

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/graph_data/Global_...

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