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It’s an age of marvels

blog.plover.com

81–90 of 425 posts

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#81
post #58

I am just glad to see I am not the only one making up imaginary scenario where I bring people from the past to have them marvel at our world.

me> in my pocket contains a device that gives me access to all of the world's information almost instantly person from the past> wow! what do you do with it? me> look at pictures of cats and argue with people i don't even know /i think that's from an xkcd

Xkcd having a joke for every occasion might be a true modern marvel.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#82
post #54

"It's a bit fiddly because time isn't passing at the same rate for the device as it is for the satellites, but we were able to work it out." that just knocked my brain down.

The fact that we worked it out before sending out those satellites is a minor miracle in of itself

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#83
post #23

More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…

It brings to mind the story of how when Boris Yeltsin was visiting the US, he took an impromptu detour to a random American supermarket to try to catch them off guard, only to be blown away that Americans really did have supermarkets everywhere practically overflowing with food. The story goes that the experience played a big role in shaping his vision for Russia when he went on to become its first freely elected lea…

Although, Yeltsin was already a liberalizing reformer. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was playing it up a bit.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask certain people, everybody is still racist right now.

Well, racism and discrimination still exists among genpop today, even if on paper it's outlawed. These kind of biases are impossible to remove just with laws.

Racism isn't outlawed, at least in the US.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#85
post #23

More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…

And yet a lot of people go hungry in this age of marvels. We have enough homes to house all the homeless, we have agencies, money, social workers. And yet we somehow can’t seem to figure it out.

We can. It's just uncomfortable to admit. For example, making housing an investment steals from the poor to give to the rich.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#86
> An obvious winner, something sure to blow Franklin's mind is “yeah, we've sent people to the Moon to see what it was like, they left scientific instruments there and then they came back with rocks and stuff.” But that's no everyday thing, it blew everyone's mind when it happened and it still does. Some things I tell Franklin make him goggle and say “We did what?” and I shrug modestly and say yeah, it's pretty impressive, isn't it.

I hate this sort of writing - 'WE did this or that', 'shrugging modestly'. It has this arrogance about it. Pride for being part of something that the individual had nothing to do with. It reminds me of the kid at school that joins the winning team to get a medal, but can't even play the game and only gets in the way.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is amazing, that's why we really need to appreciate and protect what we have. The incredible abundance we currently have is not the norm. It was not even 100 years ago that people were starving in the US during the great depression. Think about this every time someone promotes extremist violent rhetoric.

But at what cost? How much should we sacrifice so that blueberries exist year round?

My problem with it is that not only are we paying the environmental cost to have berries all year round in the grocery store, it's that they're also just shit quality. Like not just passable, but are bitter and sour and not worth it at all. And it's sort of at the expense of really good, local berries when the real season hits. For example, I live in Brooklyn and the grocery stores last summer barely had any local blueberries from New Jersey. Everything was Driscolls branded berries, and they're always bad. They look like berries, but they taste awful, or at best like nothing, 95% of the time. I don't know much about the market, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had a year long contract and the local producers get shut out during the real season. Luckily there are farmers markets and CSAs near me.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#88
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the cost we are paying that you imply is too high?

Shipping blueberries around the world can’t be great for the environment.

Why not? Bulk shipping is really efficient, local farmers markets can easily be worse for the environment than going to a supermarket. A Semi moving 35 tons at 7 MPG is 25 times more fuel efficient vs a ford F-150 moving 1/2 ton at 20 MPG and trains or boats are even better.

In the end fuel costs money so more efficient logistics is often good for the environment. Buying local makes a lot more sense if you live in a farming community than a port city.

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#89
post #66
post #23

More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. You have blueberries for sale in January??? A variety box of tea from 7 different countries? A wall of spices? Pineapples? Packaging made from aluminum that is just thrown away? The bread isn't full of sand and grit? And it's sliced!!! All relatively affordable and…

> More than anything else, I think the modern American super market would blow the minds of anyone born before 1900 more than any other marvel that exists. Modern American supermarket would blow the minds of anyone from the Warsaw Pact countries ;), up until probably mid 1990's.

There is a video where it literally blows the mind of an immigrant from Cuba:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBA41QgIty8

Re: It’s an age of marvels

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is amazing, that's why we really need to appreciate and protect what we have. The incredible abundance we currently have is not the norm. It was not even 100 years ago that people were starving in the US during the great depression. Think about this every time someone promotes extremist violent rhetoric.

> It really is amazing, that's why we really need to appreciate and protect what we have. The incredible abundance we currently have is not the norm. It was not even 100 years ago that people were starving in the US during the great depression. This is fine and a good exercise (like a gratitude journal). The problem is that this is often used to tell people indirectly that they should stop with their political compla…

As far as I use the term, extremists are people who advocate for tearing the system down via revolution and rebuilding from scratch. They have no idea what it takes to build this modern world, but they love the idea of guillotines.
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