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Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

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Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#91

Post by berntb »

Klinky wrote: post #65
JanezStupar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where and how did I do that? All I am saying is that us Humans are a vicious bunch. I have no illusions that Indians would have slaughtered Europeans if they had the means to do so. If Dutch didn't buy slaves, they would die working for someone else. Was Japanese military and economic oppression merely an attempt to dethrone The White Man(tm) as chairman of hell? What if Mongols had managed to get their act together?…

The fact that you can imagine hypothetical situations where the oppressed was the oppressor, or was oppressed by others, doesn't excuse the actions taken by their actual oppressor. "...us Humans are a vicious bunch" is merely a statement, not a valid excuse.

>>us Humans are a vicious bunch" is merely a statement, not a valid excuse.

If I understand your position:

1. Occupation, slavery and aggression were parts of most/many historic societies.

2. Just because a behaviour is universal among human societies at the time doesn't stop you from judging a subset of the societies that committed them. (I seldom see condemnation of Arab slavery for sexual purposes etc.)

3. As a bit of extra humour -- the societies you condemn are the ones that did most for finally lifting the standard for human behaviour and implementing real rule of law!

(I might add that some societies would, given the opportunities, probably still act in similar ways. No condemnation from you, of course...)

Edit: Clarity

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#92

Post by ramanujan »

pretoriusB wrote: post #11
shanelja wrote: post #2

I hadn't thought of these individual achievements as being that big until I saw them all together in one place and now I can say that this has truly been a breakthrough year all across the technology sector. Every year we seem to be accelerating our speed of development when it comes to technology, I'm only 19 and in my life I've seen us go from 56kb/s internet to 1gb/s internet, go from the rare NASA launch to regul…

> We live in the golden age of human history up to now and I would be willing to place a long bet that in 100 years, we will look back on the last 30 years as the dawn of the modern age. Well, we live in the golden age of human _technology_. But, I'd argue, far from the golden age of human history. And maybe closer than ever to the extinction of mankind, if that "let's fix the climate issue with even more technology…

When, in your opinion, was the golden age of human history?

The reason I ask is that something like 80% of the world today has mobile phones. Or, as another example, this source says about one in seven people don't have clean water: http://water.org/water-crisis/one-billion-affected

So that means ~85.7% of people do have access to clean water. Do you think that fraction has ever been higher in human history?

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#93

Post by AlexeiSadeski »

redwood wrote: post #72
AlexeiSadeski wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excepting instances of extremely small storms, Category is in fact the second most important factor when determining the destructiveness of a storm. First most important is geography - where the storm hits. Size of the storm is the least important factor. A large but weak storm (such as Sandy) will always be less destructive than smaller but more intense storm - assuming that they make landfall at the same location.…

Aren't you leaving out storm surge, which is just as much of a result of wind speed as it is of size... it was the surge that made Sandy at landfall truly unique.

Storm surge is related to intensity much more than size.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#94

Post by berntb »

jacquesm wrote: post #89
berntb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I fail to see the link between the Scandinavians and their current state of welfare and the Vikings, as far as I know the Vikings were no better or worse than what the rest of Europe was up to at the time But according to your previous comment, the West owed the third world an incredibly amount. The Scandinavians are OK because their victims (France farmers, etc) were as bad as themselves. That means the third worl…

The West still owes , not owed the third world an incredible amount. And that's because we still have the books from those days, the stock of some of those companies is still being traded today, there are still vast fortunes that trace their origins directly back to those crimes. The same does not hold for the Scandinavians and French farmers. My position is mostly based on bookkeeping.

There are lots of documentation of atrocities made by states.

So, you judge the west with a differently different yard stick because there are corporations here and they are different in quality from e.g. the mass murders of Communist parties (google Great Chinese Hunger etc etc), the Mongol invasion, the Spanish state (South/Latin America), etc...?

Here, in the real world, we consider it bad form to blame e.g. Germans (or the Swedes, or...) for their parents/ancestors misdeeds.

But YOU blame the west for 600 years old crimes -- because some of the countries had partly free corporations at the time!! Wow...

I'll just take one argument here:

The western world started science, partly through corporate research. This has increased peoples' food/health/education for centuries. This effect should be much larger than any corporate atrocities can be. (It would surprise me if you think that is relevant... :-) )

I have a conclusion:

If you're not trolling, I think you "know" that corporations(/the west) are bad -- and really are willing to make any logical sophisms to keep your faith.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#95

Post by jacquesm »

berntb wrote: post #94
jacquesm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The West still owes , not owed the third world an incredible amount. And that's because we still have the books from those days, the stock of some of those companies is still being traded today, there are still vast fortunes that trace their origins directly back to those crimes. The same does not hold for the Scandinavians and French farmers. My position is mostly based on bookkeeping.

There are lots of documentation of atrocities made by states. So, you judge the west with a differently different yard stick because there are corporations here and they are different in quality from e.g. the mass murders of Communist parties (google Great Chinese Hunger etc etc), the Mongol invasion, the Spanish state (South/Latin America), etc...? Here, in the real world, we consider it bad form to blame e.g. Germa…

No, it's simply because I still benefit from those crimes even today.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#96

Post by jacquesm »

ramanujan wrote: post #90
jacquesm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's actually a very Euro-centric and arguably racist model of the world to believe that only whites have agency and that everything hinges on what whites did or did not do. Feel free to read into my words whatever you want but don't make it sound like that is what I wrote it makes any kind of discussion impossible. The world is a lot more complex and involved than you make it seem, the west does have a debt and I…

The dead white guy was responsible for 100 million people dead, most of them non-European. If you want to feel guilty for something, feel guilty for denying that. His great idea was to abolish private property, such that you didn't own the very toothbrush in your hand, the clothes on your back, the house you built with your own hands - or your farm. Why is it that rejecting the ideas of Marx led China (and Vietnam, a…

I think you're confusing Marx with Stalin, Mao and a bunch of other guys.

Marx -> philospher, Stalin, Mao etc -> opressors, mass murderers.

> That is your sin: converting millions of indigenous people to an alien, white, Western ideology that promised heaven and yielded hell.

So sorry, no that is not my sin.

But part of my sin is the fact that the country that I live in exports a lot of weaponry, that the larger portion of the wealth this country was founded on was based on the slave trade and a few other dirty pages in our history.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#97

Post by Deprogrammer9 »

How could they forget this prediction of the smartphone by inventor & futurist Nikola Tesla?

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket." - Nikola Tesla 1926

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#99

Post by dredmorbius »

dhimes wrote: post #3
shanelja wrote: post #2

I hadn't thought of these individual achievements as being that big until I saw them all together in one place and now I can say that this has truly been a breakthrough year all across the technology sector. Every year we seem to be accelerating our speed of development when it comes to technology, I'm only 19 and in my life I've seen us go from 56kb/s internet to 1gb/s internet, go from the rare NASA launch to regul…

I believe you are correct; the beauty of exponential growth is that at any point you can make the same observation about the previous 100 years.

There were long periods of world history where growth and development were anything but exponential, and for significant periods were reversed.

The period since the Italian Renaissance has been pretty spiffy though.

Re: Futuristic Predictions That Came True in 2012

#100

Post by berntb »

jacquesm wrote: post #95
berntb wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lots of documentation of atrocities made by states. So, you judge the west with a differently different yard stick because there are corporations here and they are different in quality from e.g. the mass murders of Communist parties (google Great Chinese Hunger etc etc), the Mongol invasion, the Spanish state (South/Latin America), etc...? Here, in the real world, we consider it bad form to blame e.g. Germa…

No, it's simply because I still benefit from those crimes even today.

OK... So, only crimes done by a corporation -- not a state. And the crimes can be 600 years old, no statute of limitations!!

And there is no bookkeeping for boons the corporation(s) did for victims (industrialization etc etc etc).

Probably billions of identifiable people (Mongols in China, people in Argentina where they slaughtered the locals, etc) enjoy a better life from atrocities the last 600 years. But those that did invasions without corporations has no responsibility!?

Now, after at least three explanations, you still argue something that is completely weird -- compared to every similar case in history/law/morality I have heard of/read about.

That is enough for me.

(If you're e.g. Belgian and rich because of what happened a hundred years ago in Africa, that is unpalatable -- but doesn't reflect more upon you personally than WW II on Germans. And 600 years?! both our ancestors ought to have been on all sides of all atrocities in Europe at that time... I'm not going to beat myself up over that.)

Edit: On the other hand... I have played with the thought of keeping track of people whose family fortunes were gotten in an inhuman way (corruption, part of a tyrant regime, etc). The perpetrators should lose motivation when their future rich relatives will be badly shamed. I might agree with that setup, but not only for corporations -- and hardly 600 years back(!).

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