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LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

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Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Work for us or we'll keep you locked up for 3 years longer than if you did" isn't really volunteering - more like extortion.

Flip it around and it's not. The base case is the full time. Taking the option away doesn't help anyone.

> Taking the option away doesn't help anyone.

Except firefighters, prisoners, and society.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the requirement to work and how does it punish them additionally ? Sentencing is provided completely independent of labor and 99% of prisoners are ineligible or unable to firefight. >firefighters have been explicitly cited as the reason it is important to maintain that system and maintain prison populations to feed it. Cited by a proponent of maintaining prison populations, or cited as allegations against su…

> What a strange take. Why would the passage of a proposition redefine the reality of the situation? If the proposition was passed, and the State acted in accord with it (as I stated before, not just the passage, but the action), then the labor would not be coerced , because the mechanisms by which it is currently coerced would be prohibited. That was the whole point of the amendment, banning California continuing to…

But prisoner firefighting isn't an involuntary work assignment covered by prop 6, it is a volunteer work assignment program of the type prop 6 allows.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#573
post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The human mind is hard-wired to want to explore and get out. We also have a self preservation instinct.

True, but it doesn't trigger when you hear about the fire in the abstract. It triggers only once you are face-to-face with the smoke and wall of fire.

Right, this is the loophole in the human psyche that California is exploiting in their slaves.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#574
post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah to me this sounds like letting slaves pick their bunks. It’s technically autonomy but not in any meaningful way. It’s certainly not a free person choosing their living arrangements. I guess if you don’t consider prison labor to be slavery then it might be palatable but I just can’t draw that distinction. Especially given the history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_St... https://en.m.wi…

I don't think anyone says prisoners having a choice means they're not prisoners or they are free from jail. Nobody is claiming picking bunks means they're not a prisoner. It's still a free choice among bunks

Yes, exactly! And the presence of a choice in labor doesn’t change the fact that they’re slaves.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#575
post #477

Such a tragedy. I am very sorry for anyone affected by this :( As a non-local it’s hard to judge how big this is. Can anyone point to map or explain to what extend LA is affected? Is it 5% of the area/population or rather 50%?

I saw a sibling comment posted a link to a map, but I wanted to provide you some context. As you can see on those maps, these fires are quite big in terms of land area/acreage. The thing it's important to understand about Los Angeles, though, is that there's a "mountain" range that runs east/west literally right through the city itself (mountain in quotes because as it bisects the city the mountains aren't very tall). Where it bisects the city itself you may recognize the names of some of the areas with houses plastered all over the "mountain:" Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, Bel Air. As you get east and west of the city, though, those mountains get a bit taller and way less populated. The Palisades fire, the first one that started, is the literal western/northwestern end of the city of LA. Its northern border is, albeit low elevation in mountain terms, mountainous and is more or less the definition of urban/wildland interface. That's part of the reason the fire spread so quickly, though in this case not even the primary reason. The other major fire is not in the city of LA, but just north of the city of Pasadena, which is east of Los Angeles. But the geography/topography is nearly identical (down to a similar east/west mountain range, but with much taller mountains). A majority of the area that's burning out of control there is largely mountainous with very little habitation (if anyone who lost a home there reads this, I don't mean to diminish how much damage has occurred in Altadena; I'm just pointing out that the massive land area of the fire is not representative of the impact on inhabited areas).

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing certain about that.

100% certain that no human deserves to be a billion times wealthier than the least wealthy human.

I don't know why you think that.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#577
post #486
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with fireproofing one building in a fire-prone area is that neighboring buildings that aren't fireproof will build, and they will release toxic substances that make your fireproof building toxic.

Seems like properly-priced insurance should fix that, if you add a little bit of tort for the owners of the hazardous housing?

It's more like all of us have houses that release toxic fumes in fires. It's in the basic building material and furnishings.

https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/as-global-fire-risk-rises-...

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#578
post #479
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect a lot of crossover between web dev and space exploration.

(As an ex-JPLer,) you would be very surprised how many internal tools this decade have been web-stack. Flight systems are one thing, but you need plenty of ground systems to support the effective use of assets in flight, and there's no reason to avoid one of the biggest UI platforms out there.

That makes a lot of sense! Thanks for pointing that out.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#579
post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been well-studied by disaster recovery and business continuity boffins. There are sites that are known to be (1) effectively disaster-free, whether earthquakes, severe weather, volcanoes, tsunamis, wildfires, flooding, etc, and (2) sufficiently connected to commerce and the economy that you can reasonably build and fully operate a business from there. Climate change has relatively little impact on the suitab…

Phoenix and Las Vegas may be a great place for a secondary data center. But for humans, they are very vulnerable to water shortages, and power outages during the summer can be deadly. I have seen them referred to as places people weren't meant to live, more than once.

> for humans, they are very vulnerable to water shortages, and power outages during the summer can be deadly

These are both mitigated with on-site reserves.

Re: LA wildfires force thousands to evacuate, NASA JPL closed

#580
post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flip it around and it's not. The base case is the full time. Taking the option away doesn't help anyone.

> Taking the option away doesn't help anyone. Except firefighters, prisoners, and society.

I think having the option helps firefighters, helps prisoners, and helps society.

Everyone is better off.

Firefighters get additional support combating a huge problem, prisoners get shorter sentences, in society gets better fire prevention leading to fewer lives and Land Lost

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