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Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

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Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#242
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'living memory' claim seems a bit far fetched, too. Let's pretend living memory means the last 100 years, that'd mean air pollution levels in 1920 wee so poor you couldn't see Everest from Kathmandu. I'm no expert, but I don't think Nepal and the surrounding area of China were industrialised at that time, and there definitely weren't many vehicles on the road at the time, so where would the air pollution have com…

I agree with you, but pollution could have come from burning wood or coal for heating and cooking it isn’t all from industry.

Particulate pollution from burning is mostly non-combusted junk. The bigger the scale the more it makes sense to invest in technology that lets you get more out of your fuel from more complete combustion. Someone just burning trash to get rid of it can burn it in a pit. Someone burning trash as a fuel for their industrial process that requires heat is going to invest in a gasifier burner so they're not spewing wasted joules out the smokestack.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#243
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't the 70B of farm animals just a part of the "7.5B humans" problem? Anyway, i think that it is a crying shame that we're still farming animals instead of growing artificial meat. Once we finally have artificial meat and thus stop killing sentient beings, i think that would result in a great leap in our conscience, empathy, etc. - it will unleash a great deal of human mental development with natural results in soc…

Every time I see discussions like this I never see thoughts on what to do with all those animals. What do you do with the 70B animals we're no longer consuming?

It's unlikely the world would decide all at once to not need farm animals anymore so I think it would be a case of the population falling over years as less were bred.

Also, some species have been altered through selective breeding so much they would have trouble survinging normally e.g. rapidly growing animals that would have difficulty supporting their own weight after the age they would normally be slaughtered.

There would hopefully be more land for wild cows, chickens, pigs etc. to thrive after too.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continue eating them as usual but stop breeding new ones. Most of them only live a few months, they'll all be gone within two years. The species won't go extinct either, we can still keep some around in their natural habitats and zoos, which are both much nicer conditions than most farms. Preferably we won't keep around the breeds that were created for farming, they just aren't healthy animals.

That appears to be a practical approach. The next quandaries are what do farm owners, farm workers, slaughterhouses, tanners, textiles, feed companies, agriculture focused veterinarian services and products, etc, do now that they're no longer needed?

What do you do with all the coal miners? What happened to all the telegraph operators and town criers?

I'm sure we'd work something out in terms of retraining and government support for new businesses.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last study I read put a 99% correlation on vitamin d deficiency and getting a severe case of covid19. Which was significantly more than age correlated on the same dataset.

Interesting, however I wonder how they accounted for the fact that most everyone is deficient in vitamin d.

You have to be careful in general whenever you are correlating two common features. If 80% of your deaths to a disease are among people who are overweight or obese, and 70% of your population is overweight or obese ... yes, there is a correlation. But it's a much weaker and less interesting correlation than if 20% of your population were overweight or obese, or if 97% of the people who died were obese or overweight.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#246
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever genes make it possible for you to say that, even if they are as strongly selected for as the ability to write, are going to go away...

Can you point to the studies which suggest that the ability to write is a strongly selected genetic ability? Because that doesn't seem right to me. It's only been a few generations since we've had mass literacy. Genghis Khan and Francisco Pizarro are the few two very famous people I could think of who were illiterate a few hundred years ago. Even 100 years ago, I've read about successful businessmen who couldn't read…

>Can you point to the studies which suggest that the ability to write is a strongly selected genetic ability?

You're confusing phenotype and genotype. The genes for the ability to write include the ones for the citric acid cycle, which I think we can all agree is selected for. Nobody knows what mutations would be necessary to stop antinatalism from catching on, but natural selection will probably be able to find them. If the answer was "humans are now too dumb to talk about antinatalism," then that would happen, although something else could happen as well. (Maybe "humans now love kids way more than previous generations thought possible.")

>I just remember. The Cherokee language turned a completely illiterate culture into one with more per capita readers than the recently introduced English culture.

Yeah, so obviously whatever genes give people the ability to write, from the citric acid cycle to the mysterious neurological stuff, are selected for strongly enough to be fixed in a population that was separated for a long time. You're not really disagreeing with me... I'm saying that "writing genes" are selected for, potentially because of benefits unrelated to writing, and you're saying that the behavior of writing isn't selected for. Those two statements do not contradict.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#247
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'living memory' claim seems a bit far fetched, too. Let's pretend living memory means the last 100 years, that'd mean air pollution levels in 1920 wee so poor you couldn't see Everest from Kathmandu. I'm no expert, but I don't think Nepal and the surrounding area of China were industrialised at that time, and there definitely weren't many vehicles on the road at the time, so where would the air pollution have com…

I agree with you, but pollution could have come from burning wood or coal for heating and cooking it isn’t all from industry.

> burning wood or coal

Brick kilns, yes. Heating and cooking, not really. People either use LPG stoves or induction cookers.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#248
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re hardy scavengers that benefit from human settlement and food waste.

Benefit in the most horrific of ways. I once watched a cockroach eat a dead cockroach. It was very... enlightening.

Cockroaches eat almost anything, like rotting wood, glue, toothpaste, dead things, food waste, etc.

And they can also go about a month without eating anything.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#249

Hm, is this actually true? According to this travel site, it was already possible before Corona? https://www.nestadventure.com/blog/mount-everest-from-kathma... "Contrary to everyone’s belief, Mount Everest can actually be seen from Kathmandu. The Chandragiri hills in Kathmandu offer a panoramic view of the Himalayan ranges and Mount Everest on a clear day. There are also viewpoints and hill stations just outside Kat…

I've been to Chandragiri and I can attest to this. You can almost see the entire Himalayan range on a clear sunny day (including Mt. Everest). They even have powerful binoculars set up for better viewing.

Re: Mount Everest is visible from Kathmandu for first time in living memory

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. Some folks need to grow another mouth to tell themselves what they wanna hear. Not being status quo is probably a bit too much for them. The exchange of opinions concept does work well for most though.

isn't this is a very simplistic view on having children? There are much more obvious reasons to have some. also, .. most of use have enough mouths to tell them what they wanna hear, including you and me and our supposed echo chambers all over the internet (yes, having children is egoistical and naive! you're right aSplash0fDerp man! .. yes, we will overcome those problems, children are our duty, you're right alehande…

Why some people want a trophy for ejaculating in a vagina, I will never know.

With the popularity of brainwashing and groupthink, talking out of someone elses butt should be considered an evolution of ventriloquism.

Its a neat trick if you don`t get out much.

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