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Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

reuters.com

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Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#101

Post by seanmcdirmid »

master_kuro wrote: post #61
lostlogin wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relatively recent genocide also points to a high level of dysfunction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_genocide

This is absolutely insane. It's almost cartoonishly monstrous. Why isn't this better known? The way the Tamils were treated is so pure a representation of evil that I can barely get through the Wikipedia page. This was the work of Buddhists, too! I've been taught that Buddhists were peaceful and non-violent by creed, but clearly not if the only Buddhist majority nation is capable of such abomination.

We just romanticize some things we know less (eg buddhism) to somehow be more noble than the things we know more (eg christianity). The noble savage (aka dances with wolves syndrome) is just as much a fallacy as the savage savage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#102

Post by KingMob »

roenxi wrote: post #30

It is hard to think about Sri Lanka without recalling [0] that this is the country which recently attempted to institute a fertiliser ban. My default assumptions about their general infrastructure management are unflattering. [0] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d...

[flagged]

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#103

Post by nisalperi »

nreece wrote: post #36

Related: just today came across this post on X.. "Sri Lanka will become next Bali as long as it gets fiber." https://x.com/strzibnyj/status/1890628037529727220

As a local, Sri Lanka turning into Bali is one of my biggest anxieties at the moment. I've grown up around the hospitality industry all my life, it's not a good outcome for locals. Tourism should be considered an auxiliary industry not the primary industry.

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#104

Post by s1artibartfast »

rectang wrote: post #85
s1artibartfast wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you judging by the median or the extreme? I dont really see why the latter would be a reasonable way to asses species.

I'm primarily responding with skepticism to JumpCriscross about humans minimizing "sentient suffering" — which would be measured by the aggregate of total suffering inflicted by all members of a species. The extremes contribute the most in the ledger of agonies, but I don't think they are the most relevant — rather I fault human nature for tending to produce extremes. Is it Vladimir Putin who is personally responsibl…

I think there is a tremendous amount of empathy, if one isn't blinded to it. For every person that dies a violent death, there there are thousands engaging positively with friends, family, loved ones.

If you care about sums, you must also acknowledge positive within the Russian state as well? On a given day, it also has lovers meeting, mothers nursing children, friendships.

Surely, humanity doesn't have enough empathy to dissuade violence, but that is an argument about purity, not aggregates. The typical person spends an exceedingly small amount of time engaged in violence, and this is a testament to both our empathy, intelligence, and the social systems we have built.

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#105

Post by ForOldHack »

jll29 wrote: post #15

As much as I love REUTERS, this one is incomplete: what about the monkey? And can we have a photo?

"A group of monkeys who entered the Panadura Power Station had ended up in a spat." Yes, it is incomplete.

https://bmkltsly13vb.compat.objectstorage.ap-singapore-1.ora...

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#106

Post by dredmorbius »

roenxi wrote: post #30

It is hard to think about Sri Lanka without recalling [0] that this is the country which recently attempted to institute a fertiliser ban. My default assumptions about their general infrastructure management are unflattering. [0] https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d...

This story keeps rising from the dead as if it was a simplistic anti-technology action when in fact (as has already been mentioned in this thread) Sri Lanka's economy had collapsed to the point that it could not afford to pay for inputs to industrialised agriculture, including chemical fertilisers.

I'd addressed many of the usual specious claims made on this in a thread from 2022, here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32419111>

In particular, the situation was, as I'd put it there, "the driver was not 'let's de-grow the economy', but 'we can't afford what we had'".

(The larger context of that particular thread was degrowth, on which I'd addressed some other points separately here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32419768>.)

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#108

Post by baq »

abe94 wrote: post #2

can coming into contact with a single transformer disrupt power to the entire island?

When ercot tells Texans to turn off their ac this is exactly to prevent a cascading failure which trips all breakers everywhere because one transformer died on a maxed out grid.

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#109

Post by rectang »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #104
rectang wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm primarily responding with skepticism to JumpCriscross about humans minimizing "sentient suffering" — which would be measured by the aggregate of total suffering inflicted by all members of a species. The extremes contribute the most in the ledger of agonies, but I don't think they are the most relevant — rather I fault human nature for tending to produce extremes. Is it Vladimir Putin who is personally responsibl…

I think there is a tremendous amount of empathy, if one isn't blinded to it. For every person that dies a violent death, there there are thousands engaging positively with friends, family, loved ones. If you care about sums, you must also acknowledge positive within the Russian state as well? On a given day, it also has lovers meeting, mothers nursing children, friendships. Surely, humanity doesn't have enough empath…

All those Ukrainians basking in that tremendous Russian empathy…

It only takes a moment for you or your loved ones to receive death or grievous injury, but not to worry because they’re “spending an exceedingly small amount of time engaged in violence”. Rape might be over in minutes! And besides, it only affects… how much of the population?

Those who are most confident about human righteousness are the least qualified to minimize “sentient suffering”. It is often said that one’s foes “only understand violence”, and the essential truth in that assertion is that indirect empathy is utterly insufficient compared with direct, personal pain as a motivator for changing behavior.

Re: Sri Lanka scrambles to restore power after monkey causes islandwide outage

#110

Post by roncesvalles »

Holy clickbait. The title implies that Sri Lanka is totally out of power like Haiti, but that's far from the truth.

>Ninety-minute power cuts were implemented on Monday and Tuesday to manage demand. An investigation into the outage was being conducted by the energy ministry.

This is the extent of the "outage". It's more of a capacity reduction than a grid failure.

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