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Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

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Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#241

Post by astrange »

NilMostChill wrote: post #96
figassis wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We invented technology and methods to make things that are meant to be difficult, easy (like food, transportation, mating, surviving). So now we have to invent more technology and methods to find an equilibrium for the system that we broke and barely understand, so we continue to break it and abstract away the instability, understanding it less and less. I mean, what is the purpose of the stock market? housing/mortga…

- Maintaining and increasing high level wealth, also Control - Control, also profit - Control, albeit in a less direct form than housing also data and profit - The pretense of caring about privacy issues, so politics and control - Profit/control If you ask, "why?" for almost anything in today's society it'll come down to money/power, which are functionally mostly the same thing. Exceptions exist sure, but they are ca…

The purpose of the stock market isn't "control". If you wanted control of something you owned you wouldn't be interested in selling it. This is why some fascists were opposed to capitalism, they thought corporate owners should be running them like kings and not selling it for money.

It's to reduce risk by letting other people share in funding a venture.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#242

Post by astrange »

figassis wrote: post #68
wayoverthecloud wrote: post #25

When you get caught up on the hustle of modern society and lose yourself in modern technology, it's so easy to forget that you are a part of a larger whole and there is more life on Earth besides human. For some reason knowing that other animals exist just for the sake of existing and even sleep off when life gets harder gives a new perspective. I feel that we humans use too much knowledge and complicate problems eve…

We invented technology and methods to make things that are meant to be difficult, easy (like food, transportation, mating, surviving). So now we have to invent more technology and methods to find an equilibrium for the system that we broke and barely understand, so we continue to break it and abstract away the instability, understanding it less and less. I mean, what is the purpose of the stock market? housing/mortga…

The point of the housing market is so you can buy a house without anyone except the seller having to like you enough to interact with you. The alternative is a popularity contest, which doesn't work out for unpopular people or minorities, and doesn't encourage production of new houses.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#243

Post by czl »

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #239
lebean wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most exciting phrase that heralds a new discovery is not "eureka!" but "holy shit!"

The legend of “eureka” is that a fellow who had a specific problem in mind noticed something specific to his problem. Discoveries like sticky notes are not the same thing.

Yes. The "eureka" legend refers to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. He was tasked with determining if a gold crown commissioned by the king was pure gold, or if the goldsmith had substituted some silver. While taking a bath, Archimedes noticed that the water level rose as he got in, and he suddenly realized that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the submerged object. This gave him the insight that by measuring the volume of water displaced by the crown, and comparing it to the volume displaced by an equal weight of pure gold, he could determine the purity of the crown. Excited by his discovery, Archimedes supposedly leapt out of the bath and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting "Eureka!" which means "I have found it!" in Greek.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#244

Post by czl »

COGlory wrote: post #16
kylehotchkiss wrote: post #2

> Karla Helena-Bueno discovered a common hibernation factor when she accidentally left an Arctic bacterium on ice for too long. I love how this story follows the magic pattern of so much of innovation and discovery - an accident. It's refreshingly human and not a mode of discovery that machine learning is going to completely take away from us.

I'm all for it. People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative. Then they soak up all the grants.

> People get lucky, then try to rationalize the past with a skill narrative.

Aka "fundamental attribution error" - overemphasizing internal or personal factors (such as skill or ability) while underemphasizing external or situational factors (such as luck or opportunity) when explaining someone's success or behavior. Fun fact: This bias has a tendency to leave stock traders bankrupt.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#245

Post by ses1984 »

pwillia7 wrote: post #203
ses1984 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolutionary biology and game theory can offer insight here. Ants are genetically identical which drives this behavior.

Interesting! I didn't know that

Actually I remembered that wrong, ants aren’t identical, in fact they may be less related than siblings because the queen could have mated with more than one male. Sorry!

There is an evolutionary biology and game theory perspective on this but it’s more complex than the case of genetic clones.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#246

Post by NilMostChill »

astrange wrote: post #241
NilMostChill wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Maintaining and increasing high level wealth, also Control - Control, also profit - Control, albeit in a less direct form than housing also data and profit - The pretense of caring about privacy issues, so politics and control - Profit/control If you ask, "why?" for almost anything in today's society it'll come down to money/power, which are functionally mostly the same thing. Exceptions exist sure, but they are ca…

The purpose of the stock market isn't "control". If you wanted control of something you owned you wouldn't be interested in selling it. This is why some fascists were opposed to capitalism, they thought corporate owners should be running them like kings and not selling it for money. It's to reduce risk by letting other people share in funding a venture.

Admittedly the original intended purpose of the stock market might not have been control but that's certainly a big feature of it now.

Unless you are already ultra wealthy there is little to gain from individuals entering the stock market directly.

It's a vehicle for those with power and/or money to gain more power/money by siphoning it from everyone who isn't them.

Sure, some people make money, in the same way people in a casino make money.

The house, however, always wins.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#247

Post by anticensor »

withinboredom wrote: post #174
mistercheph wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many work hard designing and assembling perpetual motion machines

I can understand why, it's clearly possible. Just look at the galaxies moving away from us faster than the speed of light. Anything is possible, if you work out the magic.

It makes sense if you consider our obsevable universe as the inside of a huge black hole.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#248

Post by astrange »

NilMostChill wrote: post #246
astrange wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of the stock market isn't "control". If you wanted control of something you owned you wouldn't be interested in selling it. This is why some fascists were opposed to capitalism, they thought corporate owners should be running them like kings and not selling it for money. It's to reduce risk by letting other people share in funding a venture.

Admittedly the original intended purpose of the stock market might not have been control but that's certainly a big feature of it now. Unless you are already ultra wealthy there is little to gain from individuals entering the stock market directly. It's a vehicle for those with power and/or money to gain more power/money by siphoning it from everyone who isn't them. Sure, some people make money, in the same way peopl…

> there is little to gain from individuals entering the stock market directly.

There is approximately 8% a year to gain from entering it. Just buy VTSAX.

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#249

Post by _wire_ »

tracker1 wrote: post #190
thimkerbell wrote: post #179

"Biologists discovered a widespread protein that abruptly shuts down a cell’s activity — and turns it back on just as fast." Maybe we need this for dogs, so their lifespan isn't substantially squandered when their owners are at work.

Is the value of a dog's life subjectively tied to the enjoyment of the owner? May as well shut down when the owner is asleep too... or, get a robot dog instead.

#In a Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong franchise on the outskirts of Phoenix, Rat Thing number B-782 comes awake. Fido is waking up because the dogs are barking tonight. There is always barking. Much of the barking is very far away. Fido knows that faraway barks are not as important as close barks, and so he often sleeps through these. But sometimes a faraway bark will carry a special sound that makes Fido excited, and he can't help waking up. He is hearing one of those barks right now. It comes from far away but it is urgent. Some nice doggie somewhere is very upset. He is so upset that his barking has spread to all the other doggies in the pack.

Fido listens to the bark. He gets excited, too. Some bad strangers have just been very close to a nice doggie's yard. They were in a flying thing. They had lots of guns. Fido doesn't like guns very much. A stranger with a gun shot him once and made him hurt. Then the nice girl came and helped him.

These are extremely bad strangers. Any nice doggie in his right mind would want to hurt them and make them go away. As Fido listens to the bark, he sees what they look like and hears the way they sound. If any of these very bad strangers ever come into his yard, he will be extremely upset.

Then Fido notices that the bad strangers are chasing someone. He can tell they are hurting her by the way her voice sounds and the way she moves.

The bad strangers are hurting the nice girl who loves him!

. . .

At first, the only trace that B-782 leaves of his passage is a dancing trail of sparks down the center of the franchise ghetto. But once he makes his way out onto a long straight piece of highway, he begins to leave further evidence: a spume of shattered blue safety glass spraying outward in parallel vanes from all four lanes of traffic as the windows and the windshields of the cars blow out of their frames, spraying into the air like rooster tails behind a speedboat.

As part of Mr. Lee's good neighbor policy, all Rat Things are programmed never to break the sound barrier in a populated area. But Fido's in too much of a hurry to worry about the good neighbor policy. Jack the sound barrier. Bring the noise.

https://hell.pl/agnus/anglistyka/2211/Neal%20Stephenson%20-%...

Re: Most life on Earth is dormant, after pulling an 'emergency brake'

#250

Post by tracker1 »

tzs wrote: post #205
tracker1 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the value of a dog's life subjectively tied to the enjoyment of the owner? May as well shut down when the owner is asleep too... or, get a robot dog instead.

I think you and most of the other commentators are not reading the suggestion the way it was intended. Dogs are usually very social. If they are left alone they will often be very unhappy. I think what was being suggested was that if a dog that was going to be left alone for half the day each work day could be "turned off" during that time so it would not experience those hours of loneliness it would make the dog's l…

I'm not a fan of having a single dog... I think you should usually have at least two a few years apart..

Right now we have 4, spaced apart about 3-4 years.

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