You just can’t make this stuff up...

Non-fashion, non-skirt, non-gender discussions. If your post is related to fashion, skirts or gender, please choose one of the forums above for it.
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by crfriend »

Grok wrote:A key point is that the USA is no longer motivated by the Cold War.
The USA is already at war with itself and that is expressed as class-on-class economic warfare -- and it's entirely prosecuted from the top down. This has been the case since 1981 -- possibly before, but the legal framework dates to 1981.

Most of the populace, though, is easily distracted by the Washington Circus and the assorted twits from POTUS so miss the real gist of what's going on. I especially get a kick out of the religious fundamentalists and Trump's Brown Shirts who are actively working against their own self-interests in their zeal to "follow the leader". They have no clue how fast they will be cast aside when they're no longer convenient.

When the USA finally comes apart it's going to make October of 1917 look tame.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
User avatar
beachlion
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1627
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:15 am
Location: 65 year The Hague, The Netherlands, then Allentown, PA, USA

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by beachlion »

Speaking of the Cold War, it reminds me of a dialog between the Russian and the American leaders in the early 60s. They were boasting about the technological advancements of their countries. At a certain moment the Russian leader said that his country could destroy America 10 times over. Not to be outdone, the American leader said that his country could broadcast that event worldwide in full color. In those days the Russian TV-system was just starting in a crude black and white.
All progress takes place outside the comfort zone - M J Bobak
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by crfriend »

The joy of that exchange is that all that would have been on the airwaves would have been static. Nobody seems to have gotten that point.

I'm starting to wonder how long it will take the footprint of "humanity" to disappear from the world once homo sapiens become extinct. Roads deteriorate -- at least here -- in about five years, buildings start falling down after about 50 unless rigorously maintained. The remains of the RMS Titanic may yield some clue; a recent dive to the wreck indicates that she is slowly returning to nature as various micro-organisms digest the steel that comprised her hull and frame. Soon there will be nothing there. Likely all we'll leave that'll be measurable after any meaningful length of time will be radioactive waste, but even that has a decay-to-background time on it. Yet, life will go on. At least until the sun transitions into its expected red dwarf state.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
User avatar
Daryl
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:25 am
Location: Toronto Canada

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by Daryl »

crfriend wrote:I'm starting to wonder how long it will take the footprint of "humanity" to disappear from the world once homo sapiens become extinct. Roads deteriorate -- at least here -- in about five years, buildings start falling down after about 50 unless rigorously maintained. The remains of the RMS Titanic may yield some clue; a recent dive to the wreck indicates that she is slowly returning to nature as various micro-organisms digest the steel that comprised her hull and frame. Soon there will be nothing there. Likely all we'll leave that'll be measurable after any meaningful length of time will be radioactive waste, but even that has a decay-to-background time on it. Yet, life will go on. At least until the sun transitions into its expected red dwarf state.
"Meaningful length of time", heh.

I'm fond of telling apocalyptically inclined eco-activist types my theory about how life on this planet will end. There will be only two species left alive, human and coackroach, and the very last human will eat the last cockroach.

The nice thing about colonising Mars is that there is no ecology to screw up, but once we have developed warp drive we will be able to go about messing up the ecology of every goldilocks planet within range of a full tank.

All of which will take place within a meaningful length of time.
Daryl...
User avatar
moonshadow
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 6994
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 1:58 am
Location: Warm Beach, Washington
Contact:

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by moonshadow »

Sheesh! And to think I'm accused of being dark! :lol:

Don't worry Daryl, we'll never develop a warp drive or anything like it (humans are just too stupid). Actually, I rather suspect that if we manage to not drive ourselves to extinction, we'll likely become the slaves of some superior extraterrestrial species.
-Andrea
The old hillbilly from the coal fields of the Appalachian mountains currently living like there's no tomorrow on the west coast.
User avatar
Fred in Skirts
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 3988
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 6:48 pm
Location: Southeast Corner of Aiken County, SC USA

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by Fred in Skirts »

Actually we will be driven to extinction by computers as they take over the earth and find us as useless extraneous scrap to be recycled.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
"It is better to be hated for what you are than be loved for what you are not" Andre Gide: 1869 - 1951
Always be yourself because the people that matter don’t mind and the ones that mind don’t matter.
Big and Bashful
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 2921
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2006 3:51 pm
Location: Scottish West Coast

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by Big and Bashful »

On facebook there is a group who discuss extreme weather, they had a debate today about the rain forest fires, I threw this in:

There is a conundrum here, living in the UK which some hundreds of years ago cleared most of it's forests to turn into farmland, how the hell can we pretend to have the right to stop another country doing exactly what we have already done ourselves? We have no moral high ground to stand on. The world needs lots of forests, not just Amazonia, but the many countries who now have farmland, or wasteland where the damage has already become permanent and the topsoil has been washed away, all need to take a good look at themselves (ourselves). We only have what's left of one planet to save,
It's nice having trees, drugs, furry and feathery animals, we have all contributed to the loss of trees, if we want the Amazon preserved, we should be assisting by supplying financial aid, not to the rich and the industries which are doing the damage but by making sure the money goes where it will actually help things, I don't know where, maybe the farmers and poor people who are cutting trees down to earn a pittance and survive. We also should be adding to the green leafy stuff by restoring the things that keep us alive. I don't think it will happen, the people who are in control only care about their bank accounts, not about the future, or the next election. Maybe the next ecosystem that comes along once we have destroyed ours will have better priorities!

No real response to it, then someone posted a message about rich people clearing the woods from Scotland so they could hunt grouse etc. (Why would you shoot a bottle of reasonable blended whisky?), so I responded thusly:

A few years ago there was a series on the telly which explained how the Scottish countryside has evolved. I used to believe that we had cleared the trees so that landowners could plant sheep. Maybe so in the lowlands, but in the Scottish highlands the story is actually very different. It was climate change. The climate changed, it got much cooler and wetter, too wet for the natural forest, which slowly died out. They showed many "fossilised" tree trunks from where trees had died and sunk into the wet peat. Unfortunately the hills are mostly not covered in deciduous forests but in soggy wet grass and heather because the weather here is cold, wet and miserable, yes, I live in one of the wettest bits of Scotland, looking across a loch at a mountain, nice and clear today, either I can see the other side of the loch (It's going to rain) or I can't see the other side (it's raining!), so rain must be due because the other side is currently visible.

On this august forum there are quite a few intelligent people, any thoughts? am I spouting drivel or do I have a point, or points? Please note I have not mentions Trump, Bojo or and Brazilian political figures, keep politics away, think ecology and Global whining, not political bickering, much as I would love to debate politics, it wouldn't end well!
I am the God of Hellfire! and I bring you truffles!
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by crfriend »

Big and Bashful wrote:[...] any thoughts? am I spouting drivel or do I have a point, or points?
You have points, mainly in the fact that we cannot change history -- no matter how hard some will try -- and we're stuck with what we're faced with. I have long held the rather pragmatic view that, "I'm not sure what humankind's contribution to climate change is, but what I do know is that we're the only species on the planet that can possibly do something about it, and it would behoove us to start acting sooner rather than later because if it keeps up we've all got a lot to lose."

The above having been said, it is worth recalling that extinction is the rule, after all, not the exception -- and humankind for all its tech is just one more species on a small dust-mote orbiting an entirely ordinary star in a perfectly ordinary galaxy. So it snuffs humans out. Big fat hairy deal. However, we'd be damn fools if we didn't try to do something about the matter.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
User avatar
Daryl
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:25 am
Location: Toronto Canada

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by Daryl »

Fred in Skirts wrote:Actually we will be driven to extinction by computers as they take over the earth and find us as useless extraneous scrap to be recycled.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
Unless they find our bodies useful for generating electricity or heat, then they will put is in pods and keep our minds in a virtual reality so we don't wake up and revolt or something.

(The Wachowskis didn't feel the need to account for the energy inputs required to keep human bodies alive, but I still loved "The Matrix".)
Daryl...
User avatar
Daryl
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:25 am
Location: Toronto Canada

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by Daryl »

moonshadow wrote:Sheesh! And to think I'm accused of being dark! :lol:

Don't worry Daryl, we'll never develop a warp drive or anything like it (humans are just too stupid). Actually, I rather suspect that if we manage to not drive ourselves to extinction, we'll likely become the slaves of some superior extraterrestrial species.
We might wind up being the Pakleds of the galaxy, not smart enough to build our own warp drives but cunning enough to steal someone else's.
Daryl...
User avatar
moonshadow
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 6994
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 1:58 am
Location: Warm Beach, Washington
Contact:

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by moonshadow »

Daryl wrote:
moonshadow wrote:Sheesh! And to think I'm accused of being dark! :lol:

Don't worry Daryl, we'll never develop a warp drive or anything like it (humans are just too stupid). Actually, I rather suspect that if we manage to not drive ourselves to extinction, we'll likely become the slaves of some superior extraterrestrial species.
We might wind up being the Pakleds of the galaxy, not smart enough to build our own warp drives but cunning enough to steal someone else's.
Our ship broke. He make our ship go.

He smart.

*he tries to leave, a weapon is pulled*

You go nowhere. You one of us now, you make us go.

Well shoot.... I guess the Trump dynasty will still be in power in 2400 after all! :mrgreen: :twisted:

:hide:
-Andrea
The old hillbilly from the coal fields of the Appalachian mountains currently living like there's no tomorrow on the west coast.
User avatar
moonshadow
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 6994
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 1:58 am
Location: Warm Beach, Washington
Contact:

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by moonshadow »

...and how the hell did the Klingons manage to build a warp drive complete with a cloaking device?

I mean... every other episode their empire was on the brink of political disaster!

And @#$% Wesley Crusher! :twisted:

:alien:
-Andrea
The old hillbilly from the coal fields of the Appalachian mountains currently living like there's no tomorrow on the west coast.
User avatar
Daryl
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:25 am
Location: Toronto Canada

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by Daryl »

crfriend wrote:
Big and Bashful wrote:[...] any thoughts? am I spouting drivel or do I have a point, or points?
You have points, mainly in the fact that we cannot change history -- no matter how hard some will try -- and we're stuck with what we're faced with. I have long held the rather pragmatic view that, "I'm not sure what humankind's contribution to climate change is, but what I do know is that we're the only species on the planet that can possibly do something about it, and it would behoove us to start acting sooner rather than later because if it keeps up we've all got a lot to lose."

The above having been said, it is worth recalling that extinction is the rule, after all, not the exception -- and humankind for all its tech is just one more species on a small dust-mote orbiting an entirely ordinary star in a perfectly ordinary galaxy. So it snuffs humans out. Big fat hairy deal. However, we'd be damn fools if we didn't try to do something about the matter.
My viewpoint is quite pragmatic too. However, I love examining the wiggle words we use when we try to avoid being (or at least sounding) idealistic or realistic. "Behooves" is a word I really like. It can have a moral connotation of obligation but can also stand in for "would be most wise." Although I am primarily a pragmatist I think keeping some idealistic sense of moral duty alive in our language (and thereby in our thinking) is also wise. You could say that I think it behooves us to maintain a sense of being behooved.

:lol:

We can fight climate change to our benefit even if climate change theory turns out to be completely false, because what we do to fight it is all beneficial anyway. The biggest danger is not getting the theory wrong but getting the measures wrong such that they damage or distort human systems (eg. of governance or economics) to cause even greater harm. Famines tend to be caused by politics and economics more than by nature, in the modern world, so these systems are not things to tinker with trivially or radically, as is sometimes prescribed by idealistically-minded people. Working towards a workable middle ground is impossible while we are polarised, because our polarisation assigns moral/ethical, ultimately partisan, value, to every proposition no matter how pragmatically it is conceived. In polarisation, the middle ground seems entirely about compromising one's ideals, therefore always loss and never gain. May we enjoy a future where good pragmatic leaders capture the support of the people, rather than idealists and ideologues and populists who pander to those urges.
Daryl...
User avatar
Daryl
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1219
Joined: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:25 am
Location: Toronto Canada

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by Daryl »

moonshadow wrote:...and how the hell did the Klingons manage to build a warp drive complete with a cloaking device?

I mean... every other episode their empire was on the brink of political disaster!

And @#$% Wesley Crusher! :twisted:

:alien:
Wesley Crusher managed to muck it up even when he was in that episode of Outer Limits where his actions led to destroying the planet.

The character of Daniel in SG-1 always struck me as very Wesley Crusheresque; equally annoying, at least.
Daryl...
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: You just can’t make this stuff up...

Post by crfriend »

moonshadow wrote:...and how the hell did the Klingons manage to build a warp drive complete with a cloaking device?
Cloaking device? You're thinking the Romulans. I hear they make powerful ale.

I had about as much problem with the Klingons (in Star Trek) as I had with the Soviets at the time, which meant precisely zero so long as everybody could keep their cool. There's a big reason I was so much in favour of the policy of détente that emerged in the Nixon era but which was so unfortunately tossed aside a decade later.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
Post Reply