211–220 of 452 posts
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I typically avoid the streisand effect by not reacting when something has attention, and then subsequently removing all references to it months later. Nobody important/loud enough notices.
My strategy is to never do anything noteworthy.
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> He wasn't defending destroying the frames though Agreed > In modern developed countries we have social security benefits, health care and such, to varying degrees depending on the country, to try and make sure people don't starve like that. And the country with the highest GDP lacks anything other than the bare minimum social security and the article is very-USA centric. (Both China and Europe have a more stable so…
Well I'm a Brit, but I did write that with an eye to the fact that most people here are yank... er, I mean my esteemed colonial colleagues. Yes you have fewer and more threadbare social safety nets that in Europe, but a heck of a lot more than in China.
> “Oh, boy,” Kelly said after Sale wrote out the check. “This is easy money.”
> For the men involved, the bet’s outcome would be a personal validation—or repudiation—of their lifelong quests.
Neither man comes through looking good. Kelly seems to have wanted to kick a weak adversary.
Kelly did win, literally (according to the bet/judge) and conceptually:
> [Sales's] book is called The Collapse of 2020—and yes, the neo-Luddite’s latest work is available on Kindle. In fact, Sale has made compromises with technology. He recently moved back to Ithaca with his wife to be near family. He does have a computer, as well as a printer, a land line, a stove, two televisions, and four radios. He draws the line at microwaves and smartphones. Despite believing that social media has “a visible deleterious effect,” he has a public Facebook page
But this is just sad all round.
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Well I'm a Brit, but I did write that with an eye to the fact that most people here are yank... er, I mean my esteemed colonial colleagues. Yes you have fewer and more threadbare social safety nets that in Europe, but a heck of a lot more than in China.
I am from Latin America though and have a 0.025 USD / year tuition on my current math undergrad education, public healthcare, and a more robust social security net overall.
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Actually the global poverty line has been on a steady decline over the last three decades ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty ). We have made untold advances in the medical sciences (hello MRNA vaccines), we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels, and we are living in a time when there is an unprecedented level of awareness for basal human rights (well, primarily in the West a…
It's not that simple. Sure "the good old days" wasn't that good, but that doesn't mean he was completely wrong. >We have made untold advances in the medical sciences Out of reach of a lot of humanity and for those that can access it it is not without risks (just look at the medical devices debacle in the US). It also isn't as good as we often seem to believe. For example the US is number 7 in Deaths by heart attack b…
I recently watched the documentary The Man Who Saved the World[0], about Stanislav Petrov, who one day in 1983 made the decision to ignore the early warning system computers telling him the USA had fired 5 missiles at the USSR.[1] It seems had he followed orders, a report to his superiors would have resulted in mass retaliation. The decision was in his hands.
In the movie, as well as a reenactment of the incident, the real Petrov visits the USA to speak at the UN, and visits Kevin Costner, his favourite actor. Costner asks him how many people would have died if not for his actions that day. You expect him to say millions. Petrov explains that everyone on the planet would've died.
They visit a disused missile silo in the USA and Petrov explains to a guard there that just one of those missiles had more explosive force than all the weapons used in WW2. According to this page[2], in 1985 the USA had 21,000+ nuclear weapons, USSR 39,000+.
It's very chilling, to say the least. It makes humans seem so very crazy, to create the possibility of that situation in the first place. Petrov explains emotionally to the guard that the Russian people wanted peace, and thought the USA wanted to attack them.
I can't help thinking about that, reading about Whether Tech Has Destroyed Society?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Saved_the_World
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nuclear_weapons_sto...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually the global poverty line has been on a steady decline over the last three decades ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty ). We have made untold advances in the medical sciences (hello MRNA vaccines), we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from our reliance on fossil fuels, and we are living in a time when there is an unprecedented level of awareness for basal human rights (well, primarily in the West a…
Back breaking labour, very long working hours, poor health care and for the most part, endentured servitude to those who own the land/mills/factories you toil away in? All of these things are more true now than they were in the average subsistence based society. Amazon warehouse workers have a worse deal than serfs, and a much much worse deal than hunter gatherers. Oh and this we are rapidly divorcing ourselves from…
And of course you can make liquid fuels by cracking water and then doing chemistry to add carbon (which can be from atmospheric CO2). This is what Musk has planned for Mars, the process is from 1897: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
Further chemistry can turn that into long chain hydrocarbons, from what I remember of school.
> Has Tech Destroyed Society? I recently watched the documentary The Man Who Saved the World [0], about Stanislav Petrov, who one day in 1983 made the decision to ignore the early warning system computers telling him the USA had fired 5 missiles at the USSR.[1] It seems had he followed orders, a report to his superiors would have resulted in mass retaliation. The decision was in his hands. In the movie, as well as a…
This is one of the facts from this era which seems completely irrational to me. Considering the damage each one of these devices can do why do you need so many.
Lets presume you're in fact a genocidal maniac (i didn't say the roleplaying would be difficult America) 1 bomb per enemy military installation and 1 bomb per population centre over 100k population friend, foe, own country included.
Why do you need the other 18,000 bombs?
> Has Tech Destroyed Society? I recently watched the documentary The Man Who Saved the World [0], about Stanislav Petrov, who one day in 1983 made the decision to ignore the early warning system computers telling him the USA had fired 5 missiles at the USSR.[1] It seems had he followed orders, a report to his superiors would have resulted in mass retaliation. The decision was in his hands. In the movie, as well as a…
> in 1985 the USA had 21,000+ nuclear weapons, USSR 39,000+. This is one of the facts from this era which seems completely irrational to me. Considering the damage each one of these devices can do why do you need so many. Lets presume you're in fact a genocidal maniac (i didn't say the roleplaying would be difficult America) 1 bomb per enemy military installation and 1 bomb per population centre over 100k population…
> Has Tech Destroyed Society? I recently watched the documentary The Man Who Saved the World [0], about Stanislav Petrov, who one day in 1983 made the decision to ignore the early warning system computers telling him the USA had fired 5 missiles at the USSR.[1] It seems had he followed orders, a report to his superiors would have resulted in mass retaliation. The decision was in his hands. In the movie, as well as a…
> in 1985 the USA had 21,000+ nuclear weapons, USSR 39,000+. This is one of the facts from this era which seems completely irrational to me. Considering the damage each one of these devices can do why do you need so many. Lets presume you're in fact a genocidal maniac (i didn't say the roleplaying would be difficult America) 1 bomb per enemy military installation and 1 bomb per population centre over 100k population…