(This is the text of a talk I delivered at the Next Frontiers Applied Fiction Day in Stuttgart on Friday November 10th, 2023. Note: early draft, contains some typos, I'll fix them next week when I get home.)
In 2021, writer and game designer Alex Blechman inadvertently created a meme:
Sci-Fi Author: "In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale."
Tech Company: "At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don't Create The Torment Nexus!"
Hi. I'm Charlie Stross, and I tell lies for money. That is, I'm a science fiction writer: I have about thirty novels in print, translated into a dozen languages, I've won a few awards, and I've been around long enough that my wikipedia page is a mess of mangled edits.
And rather than giving the usual cheerleader talk making predictions about technology and society, I'd like to explain why I—and other SF authors—are terrible guides to the future. Which wouldn't matter, except a whole bunch of billionaires are in the headlines right now because they pay too much attention to people like me. Because we invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale and they took it at face value and decided to implement it for real.
Obviously, I'm talking about Elon Musk. (He named SpaceX's drone ships after Iain M. Banks spaceships, thereby proving that irony is dead). But he's not the only one. There's Peter Thiel (who funds research into artificial intelligence, life extension, and seasteading. when he's not getting blood transfusions from 18 year olds in hope of living forever). Marc Andreesen of Venture Capitalists Andreesen Horowitz recently published a self-proclaimed "techno-optimist manifesto" promoting the bizarre accelerationist philosophy of Nick Land, among other weirdos, and hyping the current grifter's fantasy of large language models as "artificial intelligence". Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is another. He's another space colonization enthusiast like Elon Musk, but while Musk wants to homestead Mars, Bezos is a fan of Gerard K. O'Neill's 1970s plan to build giant orbital habitat cylinders at the Earth-Moon L5 libration point. And no tour of the idiocracy is complete without mentioning Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire CEO of Facebook, who blew through ten billion dollars trying to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, only for it to turn out that his ambitious commercial virtual reality environment had no legs.
(That was a deliberate pun.)
It'd be amusing if these guys didn't have a combined net worth somewhere in the region of half a trillion euros and the desire to change the human universe, along with a load of unexamined prejudices and a bunch of half-baked politics they absorbed from the predominantly American SF stories they read in their teens. I grew up reading the same stuff but as I also write the modern version of the same stuff for a living I've spent a lot of time lifting up the rocks in the garden of SF to look at what's squirming underneath.
Science fiction influences everything this century, both our media and our physical environment. Media first: about 30% of the big budget movies coming out of the US film industry these days are science fiction or fantasy blockbusters, a massive shift since the 1970s. Computer games are wall-to-wall fantasy and SF—probably a majority of the field, outside of sports and simulation games. (Written fiction is another matter, and SF/F combined amount to something in the range 5-10% of books sold. But reading novels is a minority recreation this century, having to compete with the other media I just named. The golden age of written fiction was roughly 1850 to 1950, give or take a few decades: I make my living in an ageing field, kind of like being a classical music composer or an 8-bit games programmer today.)
Meanwhile the influence of science fiction on our environment seems to have been gathering pace throughout my entire life. The future is a marketing tool. Back in the early 20th century it was anything associated with speed—recall the fad for streamlining everything from railway locomotives to toasters, or putting fins on cars. Since about 1970 it becme more tightly associated with communication and computers.
For an example of the latter trend: a decade or two ago there was a fad for cellular phones designed to resemble the original Star Trek communicator. The communicator was movie visual shorthand for "a military two-way radio, but make it impossibly small". But it turns out that enough people wanted an impossibly small clamshell telephone that once semiconductor and battery technology got good enough to make one, they made the Motorola Razr a runaway bestseller.
"Artificial intelligence" and "computer controlled" became marketing buzzwords decades ago. They're used to mis-sell cars described as "self-driving" and technologies like Tesla's so-called "autopilot". In reality, aircraft autopilots don't do what most people think they do (they require constant monitoring by pilots). And self-driving car software is dangerously insufficient to do the job, as witness the recent revelation that self-driving taxi firm Cruise—recently banned from San Fracisco after a pedestrian was dragged under one of their cars—requires constant human supervision. But as long as it sells cars to customers who think it means they can relax and watch a movie while they commute, why should Elon Musk care? Science fictional TV shows like "Knight Rider" in the 1980s primed those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s to expect intelligent self-driving cars in the near future, and there has been a gold rush to sell self-driving cars, even though the technology isn't ready yet and has lethal failure modes. Because anything that tastes of the future is marketing gold.
It's becoming increasingly unusual to read a report of a new technology or scientific discovery that doesn't breathlessly use the phrase "it seems like science fiction". The news cycle is currently dominated by hype about artificial intelligence (a gross mis-characterisation of machine learning algorithms and large language models). A couple of years ago it was breathless hype about cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies—which turned out to be a financial services bubble that drained a lot of small investors' savings accounts into the pockets of people like convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.
It's also driving politics and law. Recently in the UK, Elon Musk paid a visit to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Last week we were given a preview of the government's legislative program for the coming year, and guess what it contained? Yes: new laws to permit self-driving vehicles on the roads, and regulation of artificial intelligence. And while some degree of government monitoring and regulation of these sectors is welcome, the UK has much bigger problems right now—and I'd rather the laws weren't drafted by an Elon Musk fanboy.
Now I've shouted as passing clouds for a bit—or dangerous marketing fads based on popular entertainment of decades past—I'd like to talk about something that I personally find much more worrying: a political ideology common among silicon valley billionaires of a certain age—known by the acronym TESCREAL—that is built on top of a shaky set of assumptions about the future of humanity. It comes straight out of an uncritical reading of the bad science fiction of decades past, and it's really dangerous.
TESCREAL stands for "transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism (in a very specific context), Effective Altruism, and longtermism." It was identified by Timnit Gebru, former technical co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google and founder of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR), and Émile Torres, a philosopher specialising in existential threats to humanity. These are separate but overlapping beliefs that are particularly common in the social and academic circles associated with big tech in California. Prominent advocates on the transhumanist and AI side include Ray Kurzweil, a notable technology evangelist and AI researcher at Google, philosophers Nick Bostrom and Eliezer Yudkowsky, and going back a long way earlier, Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, whose writings brought Russian Cosmism to America. Sam Bankman-Fried is an outspoken advocate of Effective Altruism, another element of this overlapping web of beliefs. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, as noted, both seem to be heavily influenced by Tsiolkovsky's advocacy of space colonization. Musk's Neuralink venture, attempting to pioneer human brain-computer interfaces, seems intent on making mind uploading workable, which in turn points to the influences of Kurzweil and other singularitarians. And hiding behind these 20th and early 21st century thinkers are older influences—notably the theological speculation of 19th century Russian Orthodox priest Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov.
How did this ideology come about, and why do I think it's dangerous?
(Longtermism is the belief that we should discount short-term harms to real existing human beings—such as human-induced climate change—if it brings us closer to the goal of colonizing the universe, because the needs of trillions of future people who don't actually exist yet obviously outweigh the needs of today's global poor. If you accept that it's our destiny as a species to take over the cosmos, then it follows that longtermist entrepreneurs are perfectly justified in moving fast, breaking things, and ruthlessly maximizing profit extraction, as long as they spend their wealth on colonizing Mars. Which is just the first step on the road to conquering the galaxy and a bunch of other stuff like mind uploading, becoming immortal, creating artificial intelligences to do all the tedious work, resurrecting the dead, and taking over the universe. It posits a destiny for humanity, which of necessity makes it a secular religion. It means that if you don't believe in their plans, then you're some kind of anti-science backsliding reactionary heretic. And if this sounds just slightly insane to you, well, that's probably because you're not Elon Musk or Peter Thiel.)
Speaking as a science fiction writer, I'd like to offer a heartfelt apology for my part in the silicon valley oligarchy's rise to power. And I'd like to examine the toxic role of science fiction in providing justifications for the craziness.
So, here's the thing: science fiction is fiction. And while we can dress it up in fancy clothes and declare that fiction is an artistic form for exploring the human condition, we're tip-toeing past the slaughterhouse with attached sausage factory—the industry that takes the raw material and puts it in front of us. As an editor once told me, "you can write anything you want, but we don't have to publish it." And without publishers, or some mechanism for replicating and advertising the existence of your text, you won't have any readers.
[[ Publishers, incidentally, are not monolithic. They're hives of human activity where people working in different departments each do their bit to try and turn the product they're taking in at one end—raw book manuscripts are about as appetizing as a raw animal carcass, they take a lot of work to make them appealing—into saleable books or tasty-looking sausages. I'm not going to get into the minutiae of trade publishing or we'd be here for the rest of the year, but as an author, my job is to convince an editor to buy my book. The editor's job is then to convince the marketing department that this book is commercially viable. And the marketing department try to push it in the very specific media channels that bookshop staff read to decide what products to order in next month. So there's a long chain of whispers between the author and the reader, and because a book that doesn't sell will cost each intermediary money, and there are hundreds of books per month to choose between, it's easier for them to say "no" than to say "yes".
I'm focussing here on a very specific channel, namely novels that are written and sold via traditional big publishing companies. Different constraints apply to different formats and different sales channels -- say, short fiction or web serials, sold via anthologies or self-published direct to Kindle or other ebook storefronts. But there's almost always a middle-man, even if you're self-publishing (the middle-man in this case is Patreon or Ko-Fi or Amazon an ad exchange somewhere: it's whoever processes payments for you). The only way to completely avoid middle-men is to give your work away for free.
The same is true of other media, such as film, TV, music, and games. If you refuse to compromise with your audience's expectations they will put the book down, flip channel, or leave a one-star review on Steam.
So I exist in a symbiotic relationship with my readers. They keep buying my books as long as they remain enjoyable. And my publishers keep publishing my books as long as the readers keep buying them. So like other SF writers I've got a financial incentive to write books that readers find enjoyable, and that usually means conforming to their pre-existing biases. Which are rooted in the ideas they absorbed previously. Science fiction as a genre has inertia, and it's hard to get new ideas to stick if they force the readers out of their comfort zone.
The science fiction genre that today's billionaires grew up with—the genre of the 1970s—has a history going back to an American inventor and publisher called Hugo Gernsback. Gernsback founded the first magazine about electronics and radio in the United States, Modern Electrics, in 1908, but today he's best remembered as the founder of the pulp science fiction magazine Amazing Stories in 1926.
The early 1908 issues of Modern Electrics would be instantly recognizable to a teenage personal computing enthusiast of the 1970s and early 1980s—the same generation as the tech billionaires this talk is really about. The first two decades of the 20th century saw a huge explosion of interest in the field of wireless—radio broadcasting as we know it today, but also amateur radio. Radio sets back then were hand-built and repaired by local enthusiasts, much like many early personal computers. Gernsback founded Modern Electrics to carry adverts for radio components and to promote the amateur radio hobby. He curated a directory of amateur radio users and their call signs and equipment, published articles about building and operating your own wireless set, and editorialized about the future of radio. Amateur radio grew explosively in the nineteen-teens, and just like computer hobbyists half a century later, many of the radio hobbyists ended up working in the industry.
Gernsback began to publish general articles about science and technology, then fiction with a focus on the science—including some of his own stories—culminating in starting the magazine Amazing Stories as a vehicle for fantastic tales about a technological future. And as a runaway commercial success, Amazing Stories spawned imitators and, eventually, an industry.
(We can skip over the details of how SF publishing developed from the earnest technophiliac visions of Gernsback to the two-fisted planetary romances of the pulp magazines in the 1920s, survived the collapse of the pulp magazine distribution network in the 1950s and migrated to paperback novels sold in wire racks in supermarkets, then colonized the heights of the publishing industry bestseller lists from the 1960s onwards.)
American SF was bootstrapped by a publisher feeding an engineering subculture with adverts for tools and components. There was an implicit ideology attached to this strain of science fiction right from the outset: the American Dream of capitalist success, mashed up with progress through modern technology, and a side-order of frontier colonialism. It's not a coincidence that the boom in planetary romances occured shortly after the American frontier was finally closed: the high frontier had a natural appeal and gradually replaced the western frontier in the popular imagination.
(As futurist and SF author Karl Schroeder remarks, every technology has political implications. If you have automobiles you will inevitably find out that you need speed limits, drunk driving laws, vehicle and driver licensing to ensure the cars and their drivers are safe ... and then jaywalking laws, the systematic segregation of pedestrians and non-automotive traffic from formerly public spaces, air pollution, and an ongoing level of deaths and injuries comparable to a small war. You also get diversion of infrastructure spending from railways to road building, and effective limits on civil participation by non-drivers.
The new radio enthusiast magazine readers Gernsback was cultivating didn't ask about the politics of radio, although it would come back to bite them in the 1930s with increased regulation, then state censorship and the use of wireless broadcasts for wartime propaganda. They were just having fun and maybe trying to build a local radio repair shop. But there's been a tendency in American SF, ever since those early days, to be wilfully blind to the political implications of the shiny toys.)
There is a darker element to this era of science fiction. Gernsback's publishing empire arose around the time the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his Manifesto of Futurism (in 1909). Futurism was an explicitly ideological program—an artistic movement that rejected of the past and celebrated speed, machinery, violence, youth and industry, and argued for the modernization and cultural rejuvenation of the Italian state. In 1918 Marinetti founded a Futurist Party, but a year later it merged with Benito Mussolini's movement, and Marinetti is credited as the co-author of the Fascist Manifesto of 1919.
Hugo Gernsback didn't consciously bring fascism into American SF, but the field was open to it by the 1930s. Possibly the most prominent contributor to far right thought in American science fiction was the editor John W. Campbell. Campbell edited Astouding Science Fiction, one of Amazing Stories rivals, from 1937 until 1971. (Astounding is still with us today, having changed its name to Analog in 1960.) Campbell discovered or promoted many now-famous authors, including Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, E. E. Smith, and Jack Williamson. But Campbell was also an anti-communist red-baiter. He was overtly racist, an anti-feminist, and left his imprint on the genre as much by what he didn't publish as by what he did—and how he edited it. For example, Tom Godwin's classic short story The Cold Equations was sent back with editorial change requests three times before Godwin finally gave Campbell the ending he wanted: one that, as Cory Doctorow put it, turned the story "into a parable about the foolishness of women and the role of men in guiding them to accept the cold, hard facts of life".
Later in his career, Campbell fell victim to just about every pseudoscientific grift that was going. (If he was alive today he'd probably be selling NFTs.) He had a weakness for perpetual motion machines, was an enthusiast for Dianetics (which L. Ron Hubbard later turned into the Church of Scientology), and he was a firm believer in paranormal powers -- telepathy, telekinesis, and astral projection, (all now thoroughly disproven by research at the Koestler Institute of Parapsychology).
(Confirmation bias may have been at work here: a belief in psi powers implicitly supports an ideology of racial supremacy, and indeed, that's about the only explanation I can see for Campbell's publication of the weirder stories of A. E. Van Vogt.)
Campbell wasn't the only wellspring of right-wing thought in golden age SF. No quick tour would be complete without mentioning Ayn Rand, the Russian emigre and bestselling author who invented the far right philosophy of Objectivism. This centred (quote) "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". Reason which, of course, was positioned as emotionless, neutral, factually grounded, and thereby exempt from accusations of bias and subjectivity. Rand held that the only social system compatible with this obviously-correct philosophy was laissez-faire capitalism: you can probably see why this appeals to sociopathic billionaires and their fans.
Perhaps the weirdest ingredient in the mix of ideas that gave rise to what became known in the 1990s as the Californian Ideology is Russian Cosmism, the post-1917 stepchild of the mystical theological speculation of a Russian Orthodox theologian, Nikolai Fyodorovitch Fyodorov.
The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy is your one-stop shop for batshit philosophers who unduly influenced the space program and gave rise to modern Transhumanism. As it notes: "Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (born 1829, died 1903), was founder of an immortalist (anti-death) philosophy emphasizing "the common task" of resurrecting the dead through scientific means."
The illegitimate son of a Russian prince, Federov grew up a devout Russian Orthodox Christian. He worked as a librarian and as a teacher, and through his writings he was the formative influence on the Russian cosmists, a Russian philosophical movement that prefigured transhumanism (and specifically extropianism). The cosmists in turn influenced Tsiolkovsky, who was a major inspiration for Soviet attitudes to space exploration.
"Fedorov found the widespread lack of love among people appalling. He divided these non-loving relations into two kinds. One is alienation among people: 'non-kindred relations of people among themselves.' The other is isolation of the living from the dead: 'nature's non-kindred relation to men.'" ... "A citizen, a comrade, or a team-member can be replaced by another. However a person loved, one's kin, is irreplaceable. Moreover, memory of one's dead kin is not the same as the real person. Pride in one's forefathers is a vice, a form of egotism. On the other hand, love of one's forefathers means sadness in their death, requiring the literal raising of the dead."
Federov believed in a teleological explanation for evolution, that mankind was on a path to perfectibility determined by god: human mortality was the biggest sign of our imperfection. He argued that the struggle against death would give all humanity a common enemy -- and a victory condition that could be established, in the shape of (a) achieving immortality for all, and (b) resurrecting the dead to share in that immortality. Quite obviously immortality and resurrection for all would lead to an overcrowded world, so Federov also advocated colonisation of the oceans and space: indeed, part of the holy mission would inevitably be to bring life (and immortal human life at that) to the entire cosmos.
(The wikipedia article on Federov discusses his transhumanist program in somewhat more detail than the IEP entry.)
The final word probably deserves to go to Nicholas Berdyaev (secondary source here) who in 1928 wrote, in a collection of liturgical essays on the Orthodox church:
The novelty of Fedorov's idea, one which frightens so many people, lies in the fact that it affirms an activity of man incommensurably greater than any that humanism and progressivism believe in. Resurrection is an act not only of God's grace but also of human activity. We now come to the most grandiose and bewildering idea of N. Fedorov. He had a completely original and unprecedented attitude towards apocalyptic prophecies, and his doctrine represents a totally new phenomenon in Russian consciousness and Russian apocalyptic expectation. Never before in the Christian world had there been expressed such an audacious, such an astounding concept, concerning the possibility of avoiding the Last Judgement and its irrevocable consequences, by dint of the active participation of man. If what Fedorov calls for is achieved, then there will be no end to the world. Mankind, with a transformed and definitively regulated nature, will move directly into the life eternal.
I'm going to confess, at this point, to having in my youth read translations of Tsiolkovsy's writing, but not Federov—he was relatively obscure in the west until recently. The forebears of the American space program—Robert Goddard, Jack Parsons, and of course Wernher Von Braun—also read Tsiolkovsky. And through their writings, his plans for space colonization (and the ideas of Russian cosmism) leaked directly into the minds of science fiction authors like Robert Heinlein, Hal Clement, and Arthur C. Clarke.
Finally, I haven't really described Rationalism. It's a rather weird internet mediated cult that has congealed around philosopher of AI Eliezer Yudkowski over the past decade or so. Yudkowski has taken on board the idea of the AI Singularity—that we will achieve human-equivalent intelligence in a can, and it will rapidly bootstrap itself to stratospheric heights of competence and render us obsolete—and terrified himself with visions of paperclip maximizers, AIs programmed to turn the entire universe into paperclips (or something equally inhospitable to human life) with maximum efficiency. He and his followers then dived into a philosophical rabbit maze of trying to reason their way into minimizing harms arising from a technology that does not yet exist and may not even be possible. (In contrast, Nick Bostrom focussed on the philosophical implications of digitizing human brains so we can all be raptured up to live in the great cloud computer in the sky, a very modern riff on the Christian eschatological theory of resurrection.)
American SF from the 1950s to the 1990s contains all the raw ingredients of what has been identified as the Californian ideology (evangelized through the de-facto house magazine, WIRED). It's rooted in uncritical technological boosterism and the desire to get rich quick. Libertarianism and it's even more obnoxious sibling Objectivism provide a fig-leaf of philosophical legitimacy for cutting social programs and advocating the most ruthless variety of dog-eat-dog politics. Longtermism advocates overlooking the homeless person on the sidewalk in front of you in favour of maximizing good outcomes from charitable giving in the far future. And it gels neatly with the Extropian and Transhumanist agendas of colonizing space, achieving immortality, abolishing death, and bringing about the resurrection (without reference to god). These are all far more fun to contemplate than near-term environmental collapse and starving poor people. Finally, there's accelerationism: the right wing's version of Trotskyism, the idea that we need to bring on a cultural crisis as fast as possible in order to tear down the old and build a new post-apocalyptic future. (Tommasso Marinetti and Nick Land are separated by a century and a paradigm shift in the definition of technological progress they're obsessed with, but hold the existing world in a similar degree of contempt.)
The hype and boosterism of the AI marketers collided with the Rationalist obsession in the public perception a couple of weeks ago, in the Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit at Bletchley Park. This conference hatched the Bletchley Declaration, calling for international co-operation to manage the challenges and risks of artificial intelligence. It featured Elon Musk being interviewed by Rishi Sunak on stage, and was attended by Kamala Harris, vice-president of the United States, among other leading politicians. And the whole panicky agenda seems to be driven by an agenda that has emerged from science fiction stories written by popular entertainers like me, writers trying to earn a living.
Anyway, for what my opinion is worth: I think this is bullshit. There are very rich people trying to manipulate investment markets into giving them even more money, using shadow puppets they dreamed up on the basis of half-remembered fictions they read in their teens. They are inadvertently driving state-level policy making on subjects like privacy protection, data mining, face recognition, and generative language models, on the basis of assumptions about how society should be organized that are frankly misguided and crankish, because there's no crank like a writer idly dreaming up fun thought experiments in fictional form. They're building space programs—one of them is up front about wanting to colonize Mars, and he was briefly the world's richest man, so we ought to take him as seriously as he deserves—and throwing medical resources at their own personal immortality rather than, say, a wide-spectrum sterilizing vaccine against COVID19. Meanwhile our public infrastructure is rotting, national assets are being sold off and looted by private equity companies, their social networks are spreading hatred and lies in order to farm advertising clicks, and other billionaires are using those networks to either buy political clout or suck up ever more money from the savings of the poor.
Did you ever wonder why the 21st century feels like we're living in a bad cyberpunk novel from the 1980s?
It's because these guys read those cyberpunk novels and mistook a dystopia for a road map. They're rich enough to bend reality to reflect their desires. But we're not futurists, we're entertainers! We like to spin yarns about the Torment Nexus because it's a cool setting for a noir detective story, not because we think Mark Zuckerberg or Andreesen Horowitz should actually pump several billion dollars into creating it. And that's why I think you should always be wary of SF writers bearing ideas.
Half remembered is spot on. Musk named his new chatbot Grok and said that it was based on Hitchhikers Guide. If he remembered HHGG he'd have called it ChatGPP
Maybe somebody should found the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation.
Or not, come to think of it.
I also have mentioned elsewhere that I recently read Banks' 'Surface Detail' and the antagonist there is basically scifi Musk, up to escaping via a secret passage leading to a tunnel where he drives a car away. It's not even something Elno read in his teens, as it was published in 2010.
At first uninformed blush, this sounds horribly like Ian Banks' territory, specifically Surface Detail ... however ....,
*Because we invented the
Torment Nexus_Handmaid's Tale as a cautionary tale and they took it at face value and decided to implement it for real.In the same way ... some people { Notable in your existing list is the arsehole P Thiel } obviously beleive ( a.k.a. "think" - they are actually only emoting } that, of course, & before we get to this techno-utopia, "we" - meaning "they" will have go over to an authotarian, quasi-fascist totalitarian regime - with themselves in charge, naturally!
You may have missed a vital contributor to the fascism/tecnophilia love-in, namely the utterly bonkers Gabrielle D'Annunzio ... an awful lot of Theil et al's ravings sound a lot like him.
Question: How much of Feodorov's lunacies are embraced by Putin & N. Patrushev? Nasty idea, I know.
Not fiction, but taxonomy for the behaviour of Artificial General Intelligence (Google DeepMind)
"The highest level in our matrix in terms of combined performance and generality is ASI (Artificial Superintelligence). We define "Superhuman" performance as outperforming 100% of humans. For instance, we posit that AlphaFold (Jumper et al., 2021; Varadi et al., 2021) is a Level 5 Narrow AI ("Superhuman Narrow AI") since it performs a single task (predicting a protein’s 3D structure from an amino acid sequence) above the level of the world’s top scientists." from Levels of AGI: Operationalizing Progress on the Path to AGI https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.02462.pdf
Charlie, have you read the excellent "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" by Martin Gardner? It has a chapter on Korzybski's General Semantics that completely explains the Van Vogt Null-Aleph books (and IIRC Jerry Pournelle also took that claptrap seriously).
They remember Heinlein's Libertarianism, but forget that his characters were always decent human beings (as 'decency' was defined at the time he was writing) with strong moral centers.
I'd have to grant that the definition of "strong moral center" has also changed since Heinlein wrote, but he was generally well-ahead of the game.
If Zuckerberg was a Heinlein character he'd have pulled the plug on Facebook when he discovered that the best way to engage users was to make them angry.
Move fast and break
thingspeople.Thanks for the fascinating skim of how SF has influenced global culture. Thought provoking.
At first, the essay appeared to be about how a few great men have powerfully influenced the world through fiction. Then it seemed to be about how the invisible hand has led us to dystopia. But throughout there is the idea that we could have behaved differently.
It brings to mind a metaphor of culture formation. A raindrop falling on the continental divide could end up either in the Pacific or the Atlantic because of a tiny difference of position. And its path is both influenced by topography and creates it by deepening existing pathways.
Your article seems to be a call to action, but can we raindrops have choice? I'm fascinated by deadly technology and at the same time I believe that all people deserve a life of dignity and agency. Thinking about awful things probably deepens those pathways. Dark things are way more interesting than peace and love. I guess I like thinking about the former but experiencing the latter.
Yes, I know - a prime example of the crap described in this post :-( I was in contact with some of the people who worked on 'AI' in the 1960s and 1970s and, even then, we could write computer programs to outperform 100% of humans. Consider solving large sets of linear equations, searching for large primes, etc.; protein folding is merely a more complicated example of such tasks. But nobody serious ever called that actual intelligence; that came later, when some ambitious second- and third-rate academics took over much of computer science.
Life extension is similar. For slightly shameful reasons, I have just read a 'brain ship' novel (no names - no pack drill) - oh, God, oh, America! Absolutely NO WAY is the brain even resistant to aging, and the scientifically estimated limit of about 120 years applies to that. Yes, there is reason to hope to 'eliminate' Parkinson's and possibly dementia as such, but the gradual decay isn't limited to those, and there are solid theoretical reasons to believe that it is unavoidable.
That ignores the body lifetime issues, which are similar.
a belief in psi powers implicitly supports an ideology of racial supremacy,
I either missed this over the years or just forgot it. Can someone point me to details on this path?
For those not familiar with Andreessen's "Techno-Optimist Manifesto" (a manifesto in the same sense as the Unabomber's, but in a different direction), here's some background: https://ovid.github.io/blog/marc-andreessen-techno-babble.html
The Manifesto gives a great sense to the shit we're showered with today by the techno-elite who have no care about who they're shitting on.
As for whether or not LLMs are AI, that gives me pause because I've dabbled in this field a time or two. There's a joke amongst AI researchers that once an AI problem is solved, it's no longer AI. This is due, in part, to the problem of not being able to define intelligence. Perhaps we're all stochastic parrots, but merely so advanced that we can't recognize this in ourselves.
Nonetheless, even if LLMs are AI-snake oil, they're already putting a lot of people out of work. I've been a software engineer for decades and I'm pretty good at it, and I find this work scary and it's only in its infancy. It used to be that labor-saving technology would free workers up to do work only humans could do (after the inevitable pain of the phase transition which saw people homeless and starving), but at least there was a way forward.
Today, we see an existential threat where there may well be less work available that only humans can do. All of society is now facing that phase transition and without some miraculous post-capitalist society arising (mercantlists couldn't envision a post-mercantalist society), we're fucked. And not in a good way.
Yeah, Heinlein was complex. His Libertarian streak required people to be better than they are. I've started taking notes on a book I want to write, "No True Libertarian," and in most of the Libertarian attempts to create a Libertarian society, what I see is that they fail because humans are ... human. Libertarians don't seem to get that.
PS: I laughed heartily at your Zuckerberg comment. It was great.
Speaking of which...
https://twitter.com/brianroemmele/status/1721197147943829558
Douglas Adams: In my radio series and the novel I adapted it into, I included a passage about "robots with Genuine People Personalities(tm)" as a cautionary tale and/or spoof of how people thought the future would look back when we still thought digital watches were a pretty neat idea.
Tech Company: At long last, we're debuting electronic digital assistants with Genuine People Personalities(tm), including one based upon famous science fiction author Douglas Adams himself!
sigh
Can someone point me to details on this path?
If you're a glutton for punishment, (re-)read Slan by A. E. Van Vogt.
Secret superrace with super-mind powers! It's totally a meme in vintage SF (goes back at least as far as Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race in the 19th century) and you rapidly end up with eugenics and breeding for desired traits (eg. psi powers).
I remembered "grok" as being from a badge I saw in the mid 70s. "I Grok Spock".
You missed the reason why though. Artificial Intelligence as a term was created around 1955. But to to over promising to get funding, it got a very, very bad reputation, and by mid-75 AI-related research went under other names, like "optimization" or "dynamic programming" or "inference" under pain of not being funded. The term became acceptable again around the mid-80s, and exploded as a marketing gimmick with the generalization of the deep neural networks.
So the only reason they did not called their research intelligence was for money reasons. They very much did before.
Today, we see an existential threat where there may well be less work available that only humans can do.
Back in the 50s there was a lot of noise around the impending problem of too much leisure time. With increasing automation in factories, however would people occupy their days when they only had to work 30 hours a week, or maybe only 20?
We all know how it turned out: those in control cut the workforce (rather than hours) and kept the productivity gains for themselves. There were other paths available (including Mack Reynolds' People's Capitalism) but we (as a society) didn't take them.
In my more cynical moments, I think that those in control are deliberately preserving the only form of human work that won't be replaced by machines: being proper subservient minions for those in control to feel superior to.
As someone relatively recently retired, it's nice not to have to work, but to have time for the things I truly want to do. Experiments with universal basic income have shown that people still work, they are just pickier about their working conditions (having the audacity to want a meaningful job where they are treated decently).
This seems to be at odds with what the techlords want, which is retinues of servants jumping to their every whim and telling them how great they are.
I either missed this over the years or just forgot it. Can someone point me to details on this path?
Psi was usually presented as a hereditable trait, so two psis having children would have greater odds of those children being psi (and possibly stronger psi than their parents).
Psi powers were also generally seen as good, and controlled by the psis themselves being moral people, or possibly by a psi-police of stronger moral psis.
Not always, and some writers inverted the tropes, but it was pretty obvious even to teenage me that a lot of the psi societies in SF had those who by natural abilities were best suited to rule the rest.
Might want to check out the just-published book "A City on Mars" by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (Zach writes the SMBC webcomic). It's a book by self-described "space bastards" who began researching it thinking they were going to write a book on near-future space settlement and ended up writing a book about why settling space is really hard, there's no pressing need to do it, and it likely won't happen any time soon due to the mountain of issues that are basically being completely ignored. And they like the idea of space settlement as much as anyone, they're just very... skeptical.
Of course Mr. Stross wrote "The High Frontier, Redux" years ago, but this tackles many of the same issues in book form, with some amusing space stories and funny cartoons to help the medicine go down easier. I think it's a great antidote to TESCREAL style thinking.
If you're a glutton for punishment, (re-)read Slan by A. E. Van Vogt.
Always.
breeding for desired traits (eg. psi powers)
So not generally universal such as eyesight.
Grok
I thought it came from "Stranger in a Strange Land".
And a quick search says yes. 1961
Ovid @11: Perhaps we're all stochastic parrots, but merely so advanced that we can't recognize this in ourselves.
I think scientific theories are a pretty thorough debunking of the idea that all humans are stochastic parrots. There are numerous examples of theories predicting things which had not been observed at the time of formulation, but were later found to match what the theory predicted. The instances I can think of off the top of my head are several elements predicted based on holes in the periodic table, and particles predicted by quantum mechanics. We can establish the truthiness of postulates and work towards a truer understanding of things.
That said, the above is not an argument against some people being stochastic parrots. I personally would rather avoid entertaining the notion, as it removes personhood.
Is there anywhere the average consumer of Sci-Fi (i.e. ME) can find comparative versions of Godwin's story to SEE how his original differed from what Campbell would accept & publish?
While that may be true in the USA, it assuredly wasn't in the UK. I can easily believe there were some idiotic USA academics in the 1950s as well as in the 1980s onwards, but that was before my time.
There were people investigating leads that they felt might, eventually, lead to true machine intelligence, but they never deluded themselves that what they were doing was even a poor approximation. Look at what Edinburgh were doing in the 1960s, for a start. There were others I had contact with, but Edinburgh were the leaders in this area.
https://www.ed.ac.uk/informatics/60-years-of-computer-science-and-ai/highlights-of-edinburgh-computer-science-and-ai https://web.inf.ed.ac.uk/aiai/history-of-ai-edinburgh
The grain of truth behind "AI safety" is that "AI" is a statistical model - essentially a black box - that does whatever is on the curve that best fit its training set, and that thing is often not what any sane person would actually want.
The extent of any risk is precisely the extent to which we let AI cause physical effects in the real world. When it produces an image with a few too many fingers, we laugh and move on. When it drives back and forth over a pedestrian, well, not so much.
Grant @ 15:
I remembered "grok" as being from a badge I saw in the mid 70s. "I Grok Spock".
FWIW, "Grok" is a Martian word from Heinlein's novel Stranger in a Strange Land
A lot of people use the word who have never READ the novel ... they don't "grok" Grok. 🙃
comparative versions of Godwin's story to SEE how his original differed from what Campbell would accept & publish?
Foot note 1 of the Wikipedia article?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations
And no I didn't follow the link(s).
Sturgeon's Law, extended by the popular myth of American superiority. I can't see that the proportion of racist stories about psi is any higher than those about demagogocracy or capitalism being the only good forms of society, or the superiority of humans in space opera with humans vs aliens.
PSI is no different from any other purported human ability, and basic evolution shows that a 'superior' race will necessarily emerge at some stage. The only way to stop it would by fascist restrictions on the breeding of the exceptional people (a standard trope in this area), and I fail to see that is morally any different for breeding FOR the trait. There are also stories where it is no different from mathematical or physical ability (e.g. The Demolished Man), and so on. To conflate The Chrysalids with Slan is grossly unfair on Wyndham.
David L @ 20:
Always.
So not generally universal such as eyesight.
Influenced by 19th & 20th Century Eugenics movement, scientific racism and Social Darwinism.
The last one always confuses me. How can people who reject the Theory of Evolution so thoroughly adopt Social Darwinism ... yet they do?
I just plugged TESCREAL into the Rearrangement Servant and its best suggestion was at the top of its list:
TREACLES.
Also:
EEL CARTS
CLEAREST
and CAR STEEL
but really I think TREACLES is the winner here :)
Great speech. thanks!
David L @ 27:
Foot note 1 of the Wikipedia article?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations
And no I didn't follow the link(s).
Thanks.
Even accepting the premise that there's "no margin for error" it's a flawed story. If fuel was that tight, by the time the stowaway was discovered the mission was already doomed; the damage was done.
I remember a similar short story from Heinlein (in The Green Hills of Earth anthology?) where a child stows away on a Moon flight ...
After first jettisoning baggage & cargo and finding it's still not enough, the hero pilot comes through by recalculating the required engine burns on the fly ...
Heinlein as an author does seem to recognize that the damage is already done by the time the stowaway is discovered.
Grok is "drink".
And much else.
There's a wide anti-authoritarian streak (probably not quite what you mean by socialist) in classic sf, and I wonder how it got lost.
I just reread The Stars My Destination and I'd say that's tear-the-roof-off anarchism.
Heinlein's Red Planet has a revolution against a greedy, irresponsible company, and is probably interesting about the politics of putting a revolution together.
He was also interesting about mostly side-lining esp as a useful skill that doesn't lead to an elite.
"Telek" by Vance is a rare example about psychic powers being given to the public, but we don't see the resulting society.
I’m sure you’ve read Jon Evans three piece history of the same crowd, Extropia’s Children - because I believe you feature in the early part.
What I think he missed, and you picked up on, is Nick Land. I think if you were purely moving in tech circles in the 90s, or American, his prehistory would pass you by. But if you were also peripherally involved with the music scene, the whole CCRU thing was interesting - to my mind, very much a modern update on COUM. At the time, they were still nominally leftist ( the Living Marxism crowd were also pushing something akin to accelerationism) and I don’t think Land had discovered his blend of Nietzsche and machine god cultism yet. But it was pretty much impossible to believe anyone would take this nonsense seriously, beyond the few music journalists who liked to talk about Baudrillard.
(It’s interesting that Mark Fisher - also of the CCRU - took an almost opppsite path back towards democratic socialism)
Troutwaxer @ 6
Yes
R.A.H's eleventh commandment was - as far as I could see, always: - "Don't be a dick"
vulch @ 7
Back to the US Gilded Age, when there were (effectively) zero worker-protection / Health & Safety laws, eh?
What a surprise that wasn't.
David L
IF
you have "psi" powers
THEN
You are superior { And, theoretically } - so will your descendants also be superior
ELSE
You are an Untermensch
Rbt Prior @ 17
Very occasionally, someone in the "managerial" class realises this.
The example I remember is from a book called "Up the organisation" { & its sequel - "Further up ... } by one Robert Townsend .. a very senior executive for the US car-rental company Avis.
He said: "Work is natural, most people want to do it ... provided they feel it's both worthwhile & rewarding { I paraphrase }
And STILL, most company executives & far too many politicians refuse to grok it.
{ IIRC "grok" comes from R.A.H. "Stanger in a Strange Land" - yes? } - Oh, yes - David L @ 21. Thanks.
Libertarianism / Objectivism - I was introduced to game theory in a "maths camp" kind of thing in my final year of high school (where they were trying to excite would-be university maths students about the possibilities; we got the theory behind public-key crypto too, it was interesting). Twenty years later, studying economics and legislation for an environmental management masters, we got game theory again, this time as immortalised in The Beautiful Mind; there is a game-theoretical justification for e.g. environmental legislation to maximise the outcome (or utility or whatever your philosophical definition of "good" is) for each individual in society, if they accept a slightly higher cost to themselves. In this instance, selfishness not only causes pollution but encourages everyone else to pollute and ruins the environment for everyone including the selfish individual, collapsing the result to the worst outcome over time.
Mind blown: I had been raised Catholic and could not reconcile the fact that the Golden Rule (do unto others, etc.) clearly works in an ethical society, with the claim that it takes a punitive deity to make it work. Here was my completely secular proof, mathematical and everything. Also demonstrated that the "tragedy of the commons" was a libertarian fable (completely ahistorical and made up in the sixties as it turns out).
So when someone claims that it's only rational to be completely selfish, devil take the hindmost, etc, I know that they are a bigoted parasite, claiming a justification for their selfishness that they don't understand. Ayn Rand ended her life on welfare, by the way. (Do I sound angry? perhaps I am.)
The long-termists also don't understand basic economics*, in the form of Net Present Value. Because money depreciates and the value of investments accumulates, it is better to make investments now in social infrastructure than to neglect them in favour of some nebulous future project. If they want to colonise the universe in the future there will be a greater surplus to do it with if they build up society now**. Robert Heinlein understood this - one of his books, The Day After Tomorrow had that as the basis for a universal basic income; not something that the RAH-RAHs tend to obsess over.
I think it would be fascinating to push this set of principles among a generation of geeks, perhaps by stories, games and movies where co-operation saves the day against the individualists, fascists and oligarchs. It's why I think the ending of The Postman was a cop-out, and I wonder about the Deep Space Nine version of the Federation, although that might have been influenced by the Culture Special Circumstances division. There again, I think maybe co-operation has become a harder sell to producers and publishers, wonder why?
*Economics is not difficult to understand, It's just been obfuscated by academics and hijacked by political hacks. I saw Bloody Stupid Johnson scoff once that you couldn't raise taxes because of the Laffer Curve - that sounds impressive until you know that it's only true when taxes are above 70%. And the household, "tighten our belts" analogy for economies is a complete lie; an economy is a closed cycle and money is best viewed as the circulatory fluid. OGH has made financiers into vampires and it's a really good metaphor...
**This is how I play Alpha Centauri - bunker up and expand production and social goods, push advances as fast as possible, and then when I have grav tanks switch to war production and go on a rampage
Apologies.
My excuse is that I last read Stranger in a Strange Land in about 1974 so, even if I noticed then, I have forgotten since.
I tried a few Heinlein recently to see which would go to the charity shop. Suffice to say his "The Day After Tomorrow" actually went in the bin and several I found nearly unreadable. SIASL is still on the pile to reread.
So much of the arc of “Artificial Intelligence” research (at least in the US, where I’ve followed the general flow since the 1970’s and have known some of the players) has to do with dueling grant proposals. In the late 60s Minsky and Pappert “proved” that neural nets couldn’t be generalized to perform arbitrary logic operations, so connectionism was unfundable until Hinton, et al, showed that it could be generalized just by adding extra layers. Now “AI” is largely synonymous with neural nets. In between Minsky and Hinton funding wars broke out between “neats” and “scruffies”, but nobody remembers what those are anymore.
One research direction that was a casualty of the funding wars, that I personally think should have been given much more consideration was the work of Douglas Hofstadter‘s Fluid Analogies Research Group (Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies).
[[ link fixed, smartquotes removed - mod ]]
Thank you for this!
Both because it is good in it's own right, and I learned a lot, and because it inspired me to go re-read Gibson's "The Gernsback Continuum", which hammers on a very similar point.
I'm weirded out by an artificial intelligence called Grok from Elon Musk. Grokking is the thing the sort of AIs we've got can't do.
This is how I play Alpha Centauri - bunker up and expand production and social goods, push advances as fast as possible
Hover-workers FTW!! I do likewise, but naively used to think that was what everyone did. I like a full tech tree :) I'm playing Cosmoteer ATM and have realised that I play it more like Sim City: I kill anything that comes and bothers me, but otherwise focus on building a really cool space ship, then using that to basically obliterate everything in the game (the limit is crew, which you get by killing things... so my designs are more "best ship with the crew available"). I should just buy Cities Skylines and be done with it I think.
But then playing Warcraft II or III I'd get slaughtered by grunt spammers just about every time. Games have to be designed so the Civ "infinite city sprawl" doesn't really work or it becomes too easily dominant (many cheap bases producing many cheap units)
In real life I suspect I do similar things, when I've been voluntarily "unemployed" I've ended up so busy that when I run out of money it's hard to find the time to look for a job. Sadly even the useful things I like doing are not valued by capitalism - even being a bike mechanic pays ~minimum wage, let alone writing submissions on legislation. Or, you know, going out and disrupting things that need to be disrupted.
Think of it like "The People's Democratic Republic" or "Fair and Balanced"... they're aware that they're missing something important but hope that putting it in the name will hide its absence.
Re: 'Economics is not difficult to understand, It's just been obfuscated by academics and hijacked by political hacks'
Have you read Mariana Mazzucato - an academic economist whose books discuss many of the points you mentioned? Circular economy is a key aspect.
Charlie's talk/essay about old SF's influence on contemporary billionaires includes both stated and implied the-then current economic ideas that have since been thrown out/revised by contemporary economists. Too bad the pols who most often reference 'economics' haven't bothered keeping up with the findings. Weird - the tech billionaires mentioned in the talk and comments come across as absolutely convinced that the future is absolutely about tech advancements yet refuse to accept/are blind to the idea that other fields also advance. ['The old order changeth, yielding place to new ...']
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Mazzucato
'Her career has emphasised translating economic ideas into policy and she holds numerous high-level policy roles. Currently, she is chair of the World Health Organization's Council on the Economics of Health for All,[7] a member of the Scottish Government's Council of Economic Advisers,[8] the South African President's Economic Advisory Council,[9] and the United Nations' High-Level Advisory Board on Economic and Social Affairs.[10]'
Folks in Scotland (Charlie) would know more about how her ideas/suggestions are being discussed wrt to local policy and funding.
Rabidchaos @ 22: 'Stochastic parrots'
Interesting term - seems to describe BoJo quite well. Wanting to appeal to the more snobby (Tory) Brits, his LLM of course had to include some Latin.
Is there an 'Excel spreadsheet' variant of a LLM? Just asking given some of the economic policies the previous as well as current PM have recommended.
The Day After Tomorrow had that as the basis for a universal basic income
Is that the book where he goes into detail on an economic system that is basically Social Credit?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit
We actually had a Social Credit Party in Canada. Unfortunately it mixed social credit economics with really mean-spirited Christianity and racism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_Party_of_Canada
I think it would be fascinating to push this set of principles among a generation of geeks, perhaps by stories, games and movies where co-operation saves the day against the individualists, fascists and oligarchs.
Virtually everything that I've read by Cory Doctorow has that as a background theme. Or sometimes foreground (in his Little Brother series).
(That could be a selection bias on my part, as I haven't read everything he's written.)
Wow, Social Credit in Aotearoa morphed into The Greens. Must have been a different set of weirdos :)
it's going to take me a couple of re-reads to grasp every point raised in CS's presentation... I'm not sure what it was I had been reading... so try again tomorrow...
what caught my OCD-infested-eye and triggered my tech writer itchy fingers was the proliferation of parentheses and square brackets... not all of which matched up... and worst yet, asides by way of parentheses ought not run into hundreds 'n hundreds of words...
And that's why I think you should always be wary of SF writers bearing ideas.
There’s a lot I want to say about this, but instead I’m enjoying seeing a lot of people who normally lurk showing up. Moar pleez!
But I can’t resist two modest suggestions:
I DO NOT create a SF world you don’t want to end up living in. No, “But it’s so cooool!” is not an adequate excuse. Just remember Buddhism’s first Noble Truth, the one every thoughtful person agrees with: Life Is Unsatisfactory. No matter how nice your world is, things about it is going to seriously suck for everybody sometime, because it’s still gonna be innately unsatisfactory. That’s an infinite source of story fodder. No need to give rich sociopaths more ideas. Better to imagine worlds without them maybe?
B. DO NOT write cautionary stories in any genre. Too many people take them as recipes and planning documents, not warnings. This includes nonfiction, where Barbarians At The Gate was written as a cautionary story and became the how-to book for a generation of corporate raiders.
That’s enough time on my little soap box. Who wants it next?
SpeakerToManagers, your link is broken.
JHomes.
After first jettisoning baggage & cargo and finding it's still not enough, the hero pilot comes through by recalculating the required engine burns on the fly
Back in the day when one of the major airlines code shared a lot of the Carribian Island flights on somewhat small planes, luggage would get left behind for a flight or day due to weight issues. One load of luggage kept being left behind due to weight and weather and finally after a few days the local manager told them to just fly a plane without passengers to get the bags to the people on some small island without much if any of their possessions.
Off it went. Then developed engine trouble. To make it back for sure they started tossing bags out the door.
You can only imagine the next few days/weeks....
By the way, if anyone is going to re/read Stranger in a Strange Land, be sure to check out the full unedited version that his widow found maybe 30 years ago. The full version is almost twice as long as the published version and is an even better read IMHO.
Too bad the pols who most often reference 'economics' haven't bothered keeping up with the findings.
My time in the "war against YEC" changed my mind about much of this. It is not that they don't keep up with new findings. They are aware of them. They just refuse to believe (or admit for the more cynical me) the validity of anything that doesn't fit the answer they have decides is true. Or at least the answer that they plan to use for power.
Pick an answer and work backwards ignoring data you don't like is so widespread that no one seems to be able to see it.
Like vampires, most of us can't see ourselves in the mirror.
Personally for a while now I try and notice when I'm looking in the mirror and not seeing myself. And TRY to figure out just who bit me when in relation to what subject.
The problem with so many of these SF morphing into the real world guide books is they tend to leave out the folks who clean or fix the toilets and similar.
The pat answer is it will be automated. Yep. Sure. Takes care of it all. Anyone owned or know of a Rumba auto vac that has encountered a cat hairball or bit if pet poop. At some point someone has to get their hands very dirty.
I've had to cut out a clogged 4" iron pipe from my toilets to clear it. And part of it feel into the utility room floor. It was ugly.
No amount of automation keep things from working perfectly forever.
In the back of my mind I keep thinking of Elon's failed attempt to automate EVERYTHING about the assembly of Teslas. They had to give it up. Some things just needed a person with a bit of a brain to do correctly due to variations in the process that just could not be automated. And the rest required human supervision to deal with situations not in the pre thought out solutions.
Delurking here: an excellent essay, Charlie. Good to see you have picked on the TESCREAL thing and cite Drs. Gebru and Torres and their work on the topic. If blog-commenters wish to dig deeper, a good recent article by Torres about Effective Altruism can be found at Truthdig:
Fraud, Lies, Exploitation and Eugenic Fantasies
I'm very upset that the longtermists are often the first people hear of effective altruism because I think the fundamental idea that we should actually try to do the most good with our monetary donations is a very important one.
GiveWell does very important work evaluating actual charities that actually help people. There have been huge advances in animal welfare, and a lot of money channeled into malaria prevention, deworming, child nutrition, direct donation to the global poor (GiveDirectly is one of the crowning achievements of effective altruism and is explicitly anti paternalistic, giving cash for people to do what they choose with) and so on.
Effective altruism being coopted by a few toxic people is just like the thing where some vegans go around deliberately antagonising meat eaters - a few people ruining the reputation of a beneficial movement.
There's some hilarious-if-it-wasnt-exactly-what-this-article-is-warning-against discussion on hubris relating to this article over on hackernews. I particularly enjoyed this quote "The story of Icarus is the story of inadequacies of wax as an adhesive."
Don't worry sci-fi authors! We'll get the torment nexus right this time, it was just technological limitations that made it go wrong last time!
David L
VERY old trope ...
The Machine Stops - 1909 .... 114 years ago, yes.
Kastaka
Oh dear, yes.
IIRC some, um, "Vegan Puritan Nutters" ( My description ) have successfully forced vegan-only meals on some local councils in this country.
Thus antagonising every Omnivore & Vegetarian in the name of some fake "purity" ... And getting real Vegans a very bad name, through no fault of their own.
As Greg says in #59; also published (UK) in "Before the Golden Age", edited by Isaac Asimov.
Also also referenced indirectly in the film {Brazil}(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film) ).
As others have said, great talk/essay. Really enjoyed reading it. Thanks.
Whenever I read about fringe politics I have Umberto Eco's checklist of "Ur-fascist" attitudes in mind. (Acutally "checklist" isn't a good word; its more complicated than that. But anyway).
Item one on his list is "syncretic traditionalism". Item two is a "rejection of modernism". But this is a kind of weird "modernist tradition". Eco spoke of modernism as the Spirit of 1789 and 1776 (French and American revolutions), the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, whereas the ur-fascist embraces irrationalism, romanticism and thoughtless action. But here we have something like Marxism-Leninism in the USSR; a structure of superficially modernist reasoning built on evidential sand and used as an ideological justification for autocracy.
But apart from this TESCREAL doesn't seem to tick off many of Eco's other points. It's not ranting against intruders or the powerful wealthy elite (rather, its followers are part of the wealthy powerful elite). Its not appealing to a frustrated and fearful middle class, or educating its followers to go out and die heroically. It is aristocratic, elitist and contemptuous of the weak, but its not the kind of popular elitism ("you proles are all members of a superior race") that Eco describes.
Eco warns that "it is enough that one of [his list] be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it". In other words, fascism is an attractor in idea space. As long as TESCREAL remains a subject of bad TED talks and BOFs at Davos it won't spread further. But if it starts to gain genuine mass appeal we will start to see it morph into something much more like traditional fascism. If Musk ever becomes God Emperor of Somewhere he will find himself constrained to talk and act like Mussolini for exactly the same reasons that Stalin did.
David L @ 10:
See also PsiCorp in Babylon 5, which explores this in some detail.
A telepath is assumed to be superior to a mundane, because obviously having a superpower is better than not having it. Also telepathy is a tool of control and coercion: if you can read someones mind then you can blackmail them into doing your bidding. So if telepaths existed they would a) feel superior to mundanes and b) have power over the mundanes. Add a genetic component to telepathy and the rest of the script pretty much writes itself.
I will quibble with the characterization of psionics a bit, mostly because my favorite psionics and space opera author is James Schmitz. He published quite a lot in Astounding, lived in California, and primarily used female protagonists who were just as resourceful as the men, and wouldn’t know a feminine wile if it accidentally wandered into one of his stories.
As for psionics, it’s basically the science of magic. I think most authors used it as magic, so dragons could speak and breathe fire, for instance. Disproofs don’t particularly matter in fantasy, and one could argue that it became less popular for a bunch of reasons. One is the popularity of neopaganism in the 1990s, which gave everyone, including evangelical Xtians, a whole new set of exercises and tropes to play with. Don’t forget ley lines as a magical power grid. Another is the normalization of martial arts and traditional Chinese medicine (and the opening up of China) gave authors chi to play with instead of psionic generators.
Nowadays, with China trying to reinstall Maoism, magic in SFF is quantum woo and life energy is mana, not qi. Telepathy is probably less popular because social media has shown us that most people’s unfiltered thoughts tend to be a disjointed sewer, and living with access to other people’s thoughts would be more painful than productive.
And so it goes. Magic, and the explanations for how and why it works, have been changing for millennia. We’ve just picked up the pace a little.
Too bad the pols who most often reference 'economics' haven't bothered keeping up with the findings. Weird - the tech billionaires mentioned in the talk and comments come across as absolutely convinced that the future is absolutely about tech advancements yet refuse to accept/are blind to the idea that other fields also advance.
I think most of the politicians and capitalists don't give a dingo's kidney about economics as such; they are looking for a fig leaf to cover themselves while they grab an ever-larger share of the pie.
As to the techlords, well, I remember being in engineering and how many engineers were absolutely convinced that everything could be solved with engineering principles. By engineers, naturally. And how being good at engineering thus made them good at everything. This was particularly obvious in engineers working in computer/communications tech.
It's like that xkcd cartoon where the physicist wonders why other fields need a whole journal…
But I think it's mostly that they view economics as providing a plausible excuse for looting. Which is why we still see zombie economics like supply-side. (See the excellent book Zombie Economics by John Quiggin for more details.)
https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691154541/zombie-economics
Which isn't to say that economics is free from groupthink and biases. I rather like Ha-Joon Chang's books on the lack of evidence that free trade benefits anyone but the already-powerful. I particularly recommend Bad Samaritans (which was banned as subversive by the Korean military!) and 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism.
https://hajoonchang.net/
And the same applies to "effective altruism": I'm gonna make lots of money now, so I can donate lots of money in the future. Really. I promise. Cross my heart. Have we heard that before? Cut taxes now, and we will collect more tax revenue later. Let capitalism run free, and the benefits will trickle down to everyone! But we know what trickled down, and it wasn't wealth. We're being pissed on again.
The problem with so many of these SF morphing into the real world guide books is they tend to leave out the folks who clean or fix the toilets and similar.
Or famously in the case of Star Trek, leaving out the toilets themselves. IIRC the unofficial explanation was that you took a dump in the corner and disintegrated it with your phaser. :-)
The story of Icarus is the story of inadequacies of wax as an adhesive.
In a nutshell, that sums up so much engineering R&D!
RabidChaos @ 22: I think scientific theories are a pretty thorough debunking of the idea that all humans are stochastic parrots.
(I read this to mean that the creation of scientific theories which predict things is beyond "stochastic parrot" capability).
Its an interesting thesis. Daniel Kahneman's idea of the fast "System 1" and slow "System 2" thinking might be relevant. I strongly suspect that System 1 is a stochastic parrot, but System 2 is something else. There is also some evidence that we have inbuilt "folk physics" and "folk psychology": instinctive theories about how the universe works and how other people work which provide a starting point for learning.
The current generation of LLMs are based purely on words and pictures harvested from the Internet, and they are also amazingly inefficient. In the future we'll probably look back at the current crop of algorithms much as we look at a Newcomen steam engine. It was just efficient enough to let you dig out more coal than it took to run, and it proved that the thing could be done. But it was eclipsed by newer and more efficient engines in an ongoing process which led to the Industrial Revolution.
So I'll make two predictions about the future of LLMs (which I've made here before, in case this sounds familiar)
They will get much better on every dimension, including computation and the volume of information required for training.
They will get hooked up to physics and psychology. Physics in the form of manipuators and legs, and psychology in the form of human beings to talk to and interact with. And they will still also ingest the entire Internet as well, because why not?
Both physics and psychology are amenable to "stochastic parrot" training. You learn to walk by falling over. You learn to talk by hearing other people talk, and trying to talk back. You learn social manners by being trained. The "mirror neurons" in our brains are there to let us see someone do something and then imitate them, and we get better by trial and error. All of this is achievable by something with the same general architecture as an LLM plus some ad-hoc short-cuts like mirror neurons. And it seems to me pretty likely that such a mechanism is actually how "System 1" actually operates.
So we will likely crack the System 1 part pretty fast (say, 10 years or so). At that point we will have robots which can do useful stuff like picking fruit, hanging up the laundry or preparing food. They will accept instructions in everyday language, and explain what they are doing and why. But they won't be conscious in the way that we are. At least I don't think they will be. But whenever we teach them to do something, they will rapidly become much better at it than we are, and what one of them can do, all of them can do.
(Obligatory noir thought: your household robot's brain will have a direct line to Google, so everything that your robot knows about you, Google will know, and will sell to advertisers.)
But where does System 2, the slow contemplative thoughtful system for makin decisions, come from? That's a harder question. It might be another LLM-like mechanism layered on top of System 1. It might be some feedback mechanism allowing an LLM to try and reject ideas. It might even be something akin to the sort of inference engines beloved of the AI researchers in the 1980s, but somehow informed by output from the LLM level. Once we have that cracked, we'll be able to build robots (physical instantiation is an essential component in this) which can create new ideas, discuss them, and build on them, in the same kind of way that we can. And that looks to me like human-level intelligence in a can.
Of course that assumes that System 1 and System 2 are a complete theory of human cognition. That's a big assumption.
Um… you're gonna have to show your working for that jump mate.
If you want my prediction for AI as we currently understand it, here goes:
The choke point for the next ca. 5 years is Taiwan. American AI runs largely on chips manufactured in Taiwan. China is similarly stuck. Both China and the US are racing to try to build chip manufacturing facilities to get around Taiwan. But in the short term, China can basically end the threat posed by AI by invading Taiwan, at which point Taiwan will blow up its factories and the world AI industry will rapidly grind to a halt as computers break down and can’t be repaired or replaced. Taiwan’s current defense is in part sacrificing those factories to make an invasion profitless, but that only works if their chips cause more good than harm…to China.
In the longer term, AI is power hungry. An AI-assisted search engine uses about an order of magnitude more energy per search than do search engine queries now. Current plans are for all the big players to enable AI search in the next few years, which means that searches will use ca. 10% of the world’s electricity supply, while only being somewhat more useful than bitcoin mining, which currently uses a few percent of the world’s electricity.
As we switch to solar and wind, we’re going to have less electricity to work with. This drop will be compounded by natural disasters, unrest disrupting supply chains, and climate migration turning infrastructure planning into more of a nightmare than it already is.
What use is AI in such circumstances? It’s if some use, of course, but AI enabled searches, chat bots, and most of the other cruft probably will have to be abandoned as unsupportable. AI resources will likely be concentrated in things like climatology where having a lot of computing power is actually beneficial.
Since I’m a cranky SFF type, only a fool would plan the future based on what I just wrote. But that’s the way I see it. If nothing else, realize that trends are not immutable, and history goes backwards or sideways as easily as it marches forward.
All right, I accept that the human species might simply die out first.
Evolution shows that ALL species eventually die out or turn into one or more other species, and the first step in that is for new races (a technical term) to develop (*), which are necessarily 'superior' because they replace the original. Yes, there ARE loons who claim that human evolution has stopped, and others who claim that current humans are perfection (as a species), but they fall into the level of insanity and bigotry described above.
(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_fossil
which are necessarily 'superior' because they replace the original
Sorry, but that's an absolute BS. A new species replaces the original because it is better at surviving. That is all. Sometimes it happens because the new species is faster or smarter. And sometimes -- actually much more often, -- because it uses less energy. Which invariably means LESS brainpower.
Every parasite had a free-living ancestor somewhere in its evolutionary tree -- and more than half of all multicellular animals are parasites. Koala bears are herbivores stupid even by marsupial standards, and almost certainly evolved from a much smarter omnivorous ancestor. Domestic cows are the most prevalent mammal on Earth by biomass, while their auroch ancestors are extinct -- and they got there by becoming symbiotic with humans, and largely incapable of surviving outside said symbiosis. Same with domestic turkeys and chickens.
A telepath is assumed to be superior to a mundane, because obviously having a superpower is better than not having it.
Can't remember the name, but I once read a SF novella where being a telepath was very much a curse. The telepath was a boy of about 10, and he had no idea that he was a telepath -- or that he was in any way different. All he knew was that everyone, both other children and adults, hated him for being a "snoop" and "tattletale". He would tell everyone things about other people, which a) he was not supposed to know, b) he had no idea he was not supposed to know. He just knew things, which to him was entirely natural, and he had no understanding that other people did not know them.
When the main character finally figures out that the boy reads minds, she is stumped -- "A telepath did not fit into Earth's scheme of things". He eventually finds his niche as an ambassador to aliens, but without this deus ex machina he would have remained a hated outcast, rather than a superior anything.
Tl;dr Sci-fi author flips out when billionaires try to actually implement sci-fi tropes and concepts. Unclear whether he is more concerned that they will fail or succeed.
Add to the "have you read" list David Forbes' history of the right wing in SF, The Old Iron Dream. She covers a lot of the early stuff in detail and follows the threads to relatively recent works. (David is a trans woman who kept her birth name.)
Another huge influence on the TESCREAL gang is Robert Anton Wilson: his combination of techno-utopianism (the SMI2LE economy - Space Exploration, Intelligence Increase, Life Extension - he developed with Timothy Leary) and occultism was widely read in Silly Valley circles. He's also one of the few of their fave writers who actually met Ayn Rand.
(I remain a fan, but I'm a woo-woo nut... who nonetheless sees the holes in his thinking: but I can't help but note the absence of the space colonies that he and Tim said we'd have by the late Eighties.)
Couple of rebuttals
I don’t think people like Musk exist ‘Because Sci-fi’ or that sci fi has anything to apologize for. Sci-fi has always been pretty eclectic in its political and social philosophies, for every Starship Troopers there is a Forever War, for every Slan there is a Star Trek Next Generation
It’s always been a vast soup of philosophy and ideas. I’d actual give it credit for talking the teenage me OUT of ideas like libertarianism not into them.
And I am the same age as Andreesen and Musk. Can’t blame sci-fi for those guys any more then you can blame philosophy for Hitler because of Nietzsche.
It’s more that oligarch billionaires cherry picked some ideas that appealed to oligarch billionaires
Secondly it’s a huge resounding terrible misconception to lump AI/ML in with Blockchain and the Metaverse. Those two ideas were obviously deeply flawed from day one. ML is already being used all over the place to do incredible and useful things. You can’t assume everything that comes out of Silicon Valley is the Real Deal but you also can’t assume it’s all bullshit cons either. Silcon Valley has it’s blockchains moments but there are also smartphones moments
ML can essentially be thought of as a new programming paradigm that enhances and replaces traditional iterative programming, and is much more effective at dealing with massive scale and complexity. As such, it allows programmers to use computers to solve problems in ways that were not possible before. It’s a real sea change.
Speaking of longtermism et al., a timely discussion between the wonderful Stephen Fry and John Cleese:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ9W_Pq3v0Q
Skip ahead to ca. 2.5 minutes for starting the discussion of ethics and ca. 4 minutes for objectivism and longtermism.
Being of the same age range as some of these tech bros, I was exposed to similar science fiction literature in my teenage years. One that had a deep impression on me was the Foundation series. Looking back, I can see that the original planned ending, where the benevolent Mentalics of the second foundation ruled the Galaxy, was rather fascist and supremacist (Campbell's influence?). Maybe because of this, when Asimov returned to the series in the 80s and wrote the sequels, he introduced Gaia (sort of a communist society) and changed the course of the story to deviate it from the ending he was not happy with anymore.
Grant @ 38:
Apologies.
None necessary.
"benevolent Mentalics of the second foundation ruled the Galaxy, was rather fascist "
I always read the Second Foundation as a direct metaphor for the Catholic Church. And the first three books as a scifi retelling of the fall of Rome.
Nancy Lebovitz @ 42:
I'm weirded out by an artificial intelligence called Grok from Elon Musk. Grokking is the thing the sort of AIs we've got can't do.
Neither, apparently, can Elon.
suspect that System 1 is a stochastic parrot
Perhaps some autism symptoms are a broken or misprogrammed stochastic parrot? Hence the autistic folk who slowly puzzle their way through everyday interactions that neurotypical types do without thinking.
Robert Prior @ 46:
Is that the book where he goes into detail on an economic system that is basically Social Credit?
I think y'all have got the wrong book ... Beyond This Horizon is the one with all the "Social Credit" stuff (along with Eugenics and the bullshit about "an armed society is a polite society").
The Day After Tomorrow is the alternative title for Sixth Column, the "Yellow Peril" story.
I think a lot of people forget that Heinlein wrote "Science Fiction" and like OGH, was constrained by having to write what his editors would buy1.
Heinlein would later say the story was pushed on him by John W. Campbell and that he had "re-slanted the story to remove racist aspects of the original story line" (so consider just how bad the ORIGINAL must have been).
The story is also notable for the debate it sparked among scientists about whether it was possible to tailor bio-weapons to target specific ethnicities.
1 Originally serialized in Astounding Science Fiction during January, February & March 1941, "at a time that the Second Sino-Japanese War was in its fourth year and large parts of China had been occupied in brutal fashion by the Japanese" (and the racism runs both ways in the story - the Asians hate white people as much as white people hate the Asians).
Kastaka @ 57:
I'm very upset that the longtermists are often the first people hear of effective altruism because I think the fundamental idea that we should actually try to do the most good with our monetary donations is a very important one.
Just gonna' have to find a new name for it because the swindlers have stolen the label.
Really? It is superior because it is better adapted to the conditions in force at the time. Where DID you get the assumption from that superior means 'more brainpower'? 1930s SF? :-)
fwiw, Charlie, it's hard to blame SFF authors (or any other authors) for having their words misinterpreted. There's always some sociopath who can find a way to deliberately misinterpret what you've written.
For example, it's not like most of Christ's words as reported in the Bible are difficult to understand -- yet look at the situation for conservative Christianity in the U.S.
Where DID you get the assumption from that superior means 'more brainpower'?
From your post #28:
PSI is no different from any other purported human ability, and basic evolution shows that a 'superior' race will necessarily emerge at some stage. The only way to stop it would by fascist restrictions on the breeding of the exceptional people
Perhaps you should explain what you meant by "exceptional people" if you do not want anyone to jump to conclusions.
In my experience, the sort of people who jump to conclusions do so even more readily if you explain things to them in detail.
I put superior in quotes, I said "any other purported human ability" without restricting it, and there are plenty of SF stories where such abilities are physical (including the ability to thrive on less food, in at least two cases) rather than mental. From the context, 'exceptional people' are clearly those that have the ability to an exceptional degree.
Moz @ 81:
Perhaps some autism symptoms are a broken or misprogrammed stochastic parrot? Hence the autistic folk who slowly puzzle their way through everyday interactions that neurotypical types do without thinking.
FWIW, that "do without thinking" plays way too large a role in social interactions. We'd all be better off if some people would stop and think (even if just a little) before doing.
It's like that xkcd cartoon where the physicist wonders why other fields need a whole journal
I've noticed people with the narrowest IT specialties are often the ones who make somewhat dismissive assumptions about the depth of other areas of expertise. I think this is just a special case of the widespread failure to imagine complexity. It's not enough to have one field of expertise to understand that complexity is common. People seem to need to learn at least enough depth to know what they don't know in two or three fields before the pattern (turtles all the down and all that) becomes readily apparent. Maybe it takes doing this for several fields before it becomes unmissable for some. This isn't isolated to STEM either. My lawyer cousin once indicated he struggled to understand what computer science even is, why it's a separate field.
Ha-Joon Chang
Thanks for the reference! I'd seen the name around, but now find myself adding Bad Samaritans and 23 things to my reading list.
There are endless examples, even on this very blog, of people thinking that their 'idea' of a field is a sufficient summary of that field to dismiss it as unimportant. This is an extremely common predisposition among STEM types towards anyone with a Humanities education, for example.
I have had more than a couple of humorous conversations with people who say something like 'Well, at least my son won't do something stupid like get a Political Science degree', followed by me laughing and pointing at my graduate degree in that field. The bottom line is that most people have no clue what a Political Science education is about, any more than I can accurately describe the use and practice of advanced calculus.
I'd argue that the main point of a lot of Humanities educations is to give you an understanding of just how complex everything is, and some clues as to how to learn more about any given topic. Unfortunately, one of the results is that everyone who gets such an education acquires some awareness of how much they don't know, and so are often shouted down by people who entirely lack that awareness.
I'm not convinced that the creation of new ideas is a counter-argument to human being at least in a large pat stochastic parrots.
I mean the number of neurons in a human brain is many orders of magnitude above the current state of the art LLMs.
When I look at the failings and successes of these systems, it always makes me think about Minsky's society of Mind, even if Minsky didn't explicitly think of it as an architectural model for a general purpose AI.
LLMs do though hallucinate things, which is the starting point for new ideas - given a larger system or society of stochastic models and random noise to fact check and evolve such an hallucination into a new theory.
People make mistakes as well getting things right, my worry withthe current AI rush is are we building these complex systems which are no more reliable than people, but have less accountability (and other social downsides)?
I'm not convinced that the creation of new ideas is a counter-argument to human being at least in a large pat stochastic parrots.
It may be a case of survivor's bias -- we remember new ideas which turned out to be correct, and not the much larger number of new ideas which turned out to be false.
And I am not only talking about cranks: serious scientists all the time come up with new ideas which never see the light of day because preliminary testing shows them to be false -- at which point why bother telling anyone about them?
REMINDER: "evolution" is never about eagerly advancing towards a shining destination upon a high hill, it is reluctantly moving away from a miserable mess down in the muck 'n mire
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All this chatter about lofty ambitions and galaxy-spanning plans for a purified humanity is just so, uhm, yick. (Yuck? Yucky? Icky?)
All of it, ought be documented. Then someday when it was safe, written up as an assemblage of 'worst practices' -- as deliberate refutation of promises made by all those instant experts proclaiming 'best practices' -- and published anonymously.
Call it, "Fraud, Blindspots, Delusions, Filtering, Lies, Exploitation and Other Flawed Fantasies Of The Ruling Elite". Volumes one through seven.
Likely with more to be identified which also ought be documented, assembled, published, also done anonymously.
Heteromeles @69:
Very glad you brought this up, Heteromeles.
A lot of the discussions about AI seem to proceed from the assumption that humanity will find, somehow, somewhere, increasing amounts of energy that we can access in orderly fashion.
I'm not trying to open that discussion here--that would provoke an unfortunate diversion of the conversation, I think--but to suggest a different perspective on AI:
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that we will not gain access to lots of energy soon enough to preserve our high-tech civilization, AI will be a brief, complicated, interesting flash of brilliant capability.
If we manage to create aware AI beings, they will not last long. We will watch our information-based children die. Or possibly, we will predecease them, and they will be left alone to await the final shutdown.
This feels tragic in the formal sense of the term.
There will, of course, (under the above assumption) be appalling amounts of human tragedy; but I can't let go of the concept that AI will become, not a civilization-destroying monster, but a briefly flickering candle.
And yes, there is a story in there. My working title is For Bones on the Moon, You'll Need a Special Telescope. As I emerge from my longstanding brain fog (which I'm finally doing, apparently), I'll be working on it. I'll let you good folk know if I get it done. :-)
You’ve surely noticed how very dismissive people with ‘classics’ education (canonically UK senior civil service & politicians) are of any science? Not to mention that in my younger years it was assumed that engineers (no software engineers to speak of back then!) were all oily handed spanner wielders not fit to be let in through the front door. Which rankled a bit for those of us with multiple postgrad degrees.
I guess these days it seems somewhat the other way around because so much relies on technology. I remember sales & marketing types getting really annoyed when the big salaries started to go to software people during the first dot com boom.
You’ve surely noticed how very dismissive people with ‘classics’ education (canonically UK senior civil service & politicians) are of any science?
When I was at uni in the early 80s engineers were dismissive of practically everyone else. Many were almost as dismissive of science students as they were of 'artsies', with their airy-fairy impractical research while engineers built things that worked.
I studied classics while I was working as an engineer, and none of my profs were dismissive of science. (Indeed, they quite liked it, because of all the cool tools science had given archaeology — like carbon dating.)
I suspect that you are describing a very UK-specific problem. I'm reminded of Northcote C. Parkinson's essay on the selection problem, and how the role of both universities was to train young men for the civil service, while the role of the civil service was to provide employment for graduates from both universities…
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“Perception is more important than reality. If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true.”
--“The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life, Ivanka Trump
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There's more to it than merely seeing power, avoiding accountability. So many other paths to prevent lawsuits from being won, from prosecuting DAs from succeeding in spanking felony prone amongst the ruling elite.
So why is there the 'Torment Nexus'?
Pictures of his nose leaking bits of white powder, notwithstanding, lots of clues that Donald Trump is old. Still there are these moments when Trump's vibe is not just sullen five-year-old denied unlimited candy. Those moments when he seems to see himself as the next immortal god-emperor. Not just President-For-Life, but President-For-Life-Everlasting.
Makes me wonder just how many of those illegal immigrants passing through 'mass scale temporary housing' will be swabbed for DNA, and just how obvious it will be there are some whose paperwork is misplaced, they themselves moved and moved again until nobody can back-trace 'em.
Spare parts.
Is that what this absurd focus upon the Mexican-American border is really all about...?
Spare parts!?
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The uni I went to had a "new" site and an "old " site (now the central city "arts centre" precinct), and since the engineering school was the first part of the new site built the rest was occasionally refrred to as the "engineering annex". Helped by being on the other side of the creek (or to Australians "mighty river"). It was pretty easy to get a four year engineering degree without meaningfully engaging with the rest of the place, or even visiting it beyond the first day of signing up and getting student cards etc.
OTOH staff at least in my department were engaged with the rest of the university and encouraged students to take courses outside engineering. First couple of years you were allowed/encouraged to do a paper outside, and the restrictions were more against duplicating engineering coursework (notoriously electrical engineers were not allowed to do final year "Physics of Semiconductors" because we did a half-semester course on the topic. IIRC said physics paper had been exploited as an easy A for a few years. This did not help for those inclined to scoff)
My experience of doing various outside papers was that the mindset change was often difficult. Simple example is that engineering essays were often marked up to the word limit, but social science ones regarded anything under twice the word limit as too short to get an A. Unless you thought to ask you'd only find out the hard way. One philosophy essay got handed back with the remark "that was incredibly concise" (earned ~A). My engineering head of department also mentioned to me at one point that my doing Intro to Feminist Studies "had been discussed" in the staff room and he'd encouraged anyone who thought it would be easy to have a go (at the time staff could do a couple of papers a year free, which made that a more reasonable offer than it might look). Apparently no takers though :)
That said, the real difference was workload. Engineering was a full time job, in the sense that if you did an hour of prep/assignment per contact hour you'd have 50 hour weeks as your minimum, obviously more around exams. And that was generally necessary, lots of lecturers liked to start with the equivalent of "moving on from your reading...". They did not let people work full time + study full time. Meanwhile I'd be turning up to final year arts/social papers having done the required reading and find that I was the only one who had, occasionally including the damn lecturer or tutor. Once I got the hang of the assessments social science papers really were easy, at least in terms of workload.
-"Those moments when he seems to see himself as the next immortal god-emperor."
Yes, I would say "Project 2025" is a tell that he and his party "seem[s] to" see him that way.
I literally wrote a book on that topic just over eight years ago, called Hot Earth Dreams. In there I basically blew off self aware computers on precisely those grounds.
What little I’ve read on the current situation is rather more interesting and troubling,
One issue is that the AI makers are aware of the energy issue I brought up, but they’re not designing it into their systems. What they’re trying to build are systems that dominate markets, so they can become (or stay) the god kings of tech. Those systems are, reportedly energy hogs. So even if they win, they’re unsustainable. I shed no tears for the creeps making these decisions, but I do worry about everyone else being forced to join them in their waste. That’s where we are now, more or less.
Another issue is the nature of AI. I’d posited an old school super brain n a box, whose tragedy was that they’d know how to fix climate change, but they wouldn’t have the resources to even save themselves. Instead we’ve basically got horribly complicated maximum likelihood calculators that literally can’t learn from each other so far.
So you give a modern AI the problem of, say, dealing with billions of people on the move due to climate change while protecting national sovereignty and property rights, AND the answer must also protect the company’s finances and the manager’s job status.
Am I the only one who thinks that the maximum likelihood model might well choose triggering a nuclear war as the best way to meet all those goals? Its not necessarily smart in ways that allow it to avoid batshit options like trying to zero out functions and end simulation runs to meet give problem parameters.
REMINDER:
20: Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.From "The Infamous List of Things I'll do if I ever become an Evil Overlord"
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList
some of the stuff on this thread, starting with CS's speech ought be cross-checked against the 'list' to see if there's anything new for an Evil Overlord to incorporate into his -- her? they? their? which pronouns are currently street legal? -- criminal scheming
timrowledge
Oh dear, yes ....
My own encounter with potential MBA's { Whilst doing my own MSc, incidentally } was "most enlightening" - & earned my unyielding & permanent contempt for those arrogant arseholes.
I've also seen a considerable number of farts-graduates attempts to write pseudoscience & total bollocks, written simply because they don't even want to try to understand what's going on - yes the "complexity".
The one I really remember was when I was doing some compulsory "liberal arts" sub-course, because all the STEM people are not "broadly" educated, right?
There was a pathetic article, basically claiming that the hard sciences were innately in favour of totalitarian propaganda, by their control of information & how the very word "broadcasting" { NOTE # } indicated this { WE are giving you curated information, plebs } - this was about 1975-80, before the Internet or mobile phones, remember ... Which I promptly shot down in flames to crash & burn.
I reminded { Told them for the first time? } that, until very recently, bandwidth was very limited & a very few radio channels was all you could get, that FM radio was, at that point, only about 15-20 years old .. etc. The limitations were imposed, not artificially, but by the science & technology available at that tine & "stop talking ignorant bollocks".
I'm glad to say, that about 95% of the class got it, but the supposed teacher & the remaking 5% really didn't like a few hard facts up them.
It doesn't seem to have changed over the years ....
It is STILL assumed that even a retired Physicist/Engineer like me will know nothing of Literature or the performing or representational Arts, at all - yet more bollocks.
Moz
...but social science ones regarded anything under twice the word limit as too short - YES.
The Farts required vast amounts of padding & bullshit, rather than, um, actually addressing the subject?
{ NOTE # : I pointed out that, in German, the word for Radio was, originally - "Rundfunk" - in other words this "Arts-graduate" had made a fundamentally wrong cultural assumption! }
Heteromoles @ 101: One issue is that the AI makers are aware of the energy issue I brought up, but they’re not designing it into their systems.
I guarantee that isn't going to last. The usual suspects may be throwing money (i.e. energy and computers) at the problem in the hope of gaining a short term edge, but meanwhile lots of much smarter people are looking very hard at optimising the process.
There is a lot of work going on with "neuromorphic" computing in which neuron-like devices are built directly in silicon rather than simulated in arithmetic. There is also work to reduce the numerical precision required, because AI applications require much less precision than traditional high performance computing applications. So hardware specialised for low-precision arithmetic would likely have much better energy performance than the current generation of hardware, which is mostly based on video cards.
This also has implications for actuators. Traditional robotics has relied on high-precision sensors and actuators controlled by high-precision numerical models. Meanwhile biology has gone for low-precision sensors and actuators with feedback mediated through low-precision neuron networks that actively adapt to the quirks of the hardware to achieve high precision results. If we can do the same then robotics will become a lot cheaper because its those high-precision electromechanical components that make it so damned expensive.
At the same time there is a great deal of activity on the algorithms. I can't speak to this; you first need to be an expert in linear algebra and then spend a lot of time thinking hard about how to organise the vast amount of computation needed into video-card sized chunks. But we've already seen significant advances here, and I'd be very surprised if this trend stops soon.
Back on the original topic, the article Ends Don't Justify Means Among Humans on Less Wrong takes aim at the "rational long-termism" idea. TL;DR We are running on hardware that has been corrupted by evolution to ensure we survive and reproduce. Hence our judgements on Trolley Problems and the like are untrustworthy, and we are more likely to make correct decisions by sticking to traditional heuristics than coming up with hyper-rational justifications for the thing we wanted to do anyway.
"We are running on corrupted hardware" is an interesting way of putting it. I'm going to remember that one.
"In the longer term, AI is power hungry."
What is currently called AI is, yes, because it uses crude global searching and pattern matching as a substitute for understanding. But examples from the natural world (including humans) indicate that what it does can be done much more efficiently, if we knew how. And, as previously discussed ad tedium, it only dubiously approximates its targets.
Genuine understanding and innovation are handicapped in our neoliberal, corporately dominated world, but there is no reason to believe that progress has stopped. I remember when people thought computers necessarily consumed huge amounts of power, because those of that era did.
Elaine @ 37: Also demonstrated that the "tragedy of the commons" was a libertarian fable (completely ahistorical and made up in the sixties as it turns out).
I've seen this said a number of times, and I'm going to take this opportunity to check my thinking on it. Of course the bit I quote was only a parenthetical aside in your post, so please feel free to respond or ignore as you see fit.
Hardin's original article of course told a parable rather than a fable: he wasn't thinking of an actual commons that was destroyed by having too many cows on it, rather he was trying to illustrate the underlying mechanism. His tragedy was based on treating the individuals in the story as libertarians intent on maximising their own benefits: ... we are locked into a system of fouling our own nest, so long as we behave only as independent, rational, free-enterprisers. His solution was actually not libertarian but authoritarian: either property rights or grazing rights to be enforced by a strong government. His essay identified many other sorts of commons, including pollution, where simple privatization won't work and so he advocated authoritarian solutions instead.
Against this is set the observation that in reality there are a lot of social groups at all levels of technology that have managed to maintain stable commons, sometimes over centuries, by mutual agreement of one sort or another. This information was available to Hardin, but he either wasn't aware or chose to ignore it. His solution was either total privatisation, or the smack of strong government handing out grazing licenses.
My own view is somewhere in between. On the one hand, there are certainly commons that work, contrary to Hardin's bland assertion. But on the other there are commons that don't, or didn't. And again, these are at all levels of technology. On Easter Island the human population literally cut down all the trees. On New Zealand the arrival of humans was followed very shortly by the extinction of the Moa (a giant flightless bird). Meanwhile the North Sea cod fishing industry is a shadow of its former self due to overfishing. There is a lot to be learned by studying cases where commons are effectively managed by a community, but there is a great danger of survivorship bias. If a commons is well managed then it survives to be an example for us to study. If it collapses then the resource is gone, the society around it disperses or dies, and we don't see it. Only in cases where this led to a major catastrophe, such as on Easter Island, do we see the failure. We need to study the failures as well. What stopped us from creating a sustainable North Sea cod fishing industry? Why are we still failing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions? These are just as much tragedies of the commons as anything Hardin wrote about, and his logic of one more cow/boat/car applies.
Also, Hardin's main point in the article was that human population cannot expand indefinitely, and so we need to do something about that. As it happens he was unduly pessimistic; it turns out that a combination of generally available birth control, female education and emancipation, and rising prosperity cause birth rates to drop well below replacement levels without authoritarian measures such as enforced contraception or China's one child policy (which is now a problem they are struggling to reverse). But this was sheer luck due to a quirk in human behaviour rather than being down to any notion of communal management, whether by strong government or local social pressure.
it turns out that a combination of generally available birth control, female education and emancipation, and rising prosperity cause birth rates to drop well below replacement levels without authoritarian measures such as enforced contraception or China's one child policy
isn't rising prosperity likely to lead to rising resource consumption tho, somewhat counteracting the benefits?
Me @ 107: When I had to cut and paste my post because something went wrong in preview, I added the references back but forgot to emphasise the quotes. Sorry about that.
adrian smith @ 108: isn't rising prosperity likely to lead to rising resource consumption tho, somewhat counteracting the benefits?
Yes. But that is more manageable than rising population. If the population levels off then we can limit resource consumption without killing people.
This kind of reverts the argument you made before with the long chain in commercial publishing (author has to convice editor, editor has to convince marketing), especially for new, so far unpublished authors. With all the filters between author and reader the output is streamlined and uses recipes working before commercially. But this is not necessarily caused only by the bias of the readers - no one will ever know if they wouldn't buy books with a complete different point of view.
I live in Los Angeles, and the blue chip gallery Deitch Projects used its exhibition schedule to display work by Refik Anadol in January - the resulting show had all the aesthetic character of a pop-up Apple Store. Screens mounted to the walls displayed hectic miasmas of animated AI-generated shrapnel, the source imagery scraped from "art history" and other vaguely defined, establishment-endorsed "subject matter". The work looks like a cross between a screensaver and a lava lamp; Anadol has made a career of projecting it onto whatever surface art world money has made available to him. And it turns out it's tied in with an NFT scheme, so there you go.
When promoting his work, Anadol utilizes the same future-fetishizing talking points as our contemporary techno-billionaire business class, claiming Gibson and PKD as inspirations while giving a wide berth to the authors' critical position, as if the futures described in their books were presented as a good thing. Inspiration only occurs on the most surface level, and the philosophical ideas contained in these texts are scoured away so they can be rendered down like everything else caught beneath the engineer-hero's crosshairs: grist for the mill, points of data, fuel for a machine - Their machine.
Ben Davis wrote a review of this show for Artnet News in which he brings up the "wilful misreading of dystopia" - the phenomena you describe here.
It's an evergreen concern. Gordon Gecko became the role model for 80s wall street traders. I still remember 'Fight Club' hitting testosterone-afflicted high school classmates in their adolescent soft spots, dead center - Tyler Durden seen as a guy worth emulating. Many punches thrown that year.
Speaking of Fincher, I saw 'The Killer' last night (thematic spoiler ahead), and was surprised to find it a quietly hilarious takedown of the self-mechanized, optimization obsessed, grindstated sigma male. It points the lens at a social participant who often gets a pass in these conversations: that of the handsomely rewarded, philosophically hollow technical specialist, the person who justifies their own evil as a necessary part of some psychohistoricized future. Call them Fait accompli[ces].
So far as Rapa Nui goes, there are some big fights in the archaeological community about what actually happened. For example, there are lots of old palm seed husks gnawed open by rats. And for a bigger one, it’s unclear how useful the palms were to settlers, and they may have been cleared for farming.
Less well known is that the archaeologists of Polynesia have found evidence for extinct bird species and extirpated seabird populations on pretty much every island they’ve worked on, usually as bones in the middens of the oldest settlements. New Zealand was fairly normal for their treatment of the island fauna, not an outlier.
In Hawai’i as on Rapa Nui, the original lowland forest was primarily native loulu palms with an understory of plants that are now exceedingly rare or extinct. Loulu palms are still around but rare, but they were mostly replaced by coconuts, breadfruit, and other plants the settlers brought with them. You can also google Moa nalo if you want to find out what the first Hawaiians wiped out.
The grim point, from a modern conservation angle, is that wild islands can’t really support human life. Settling them requires radical transformation, which the Polynesians did, just as the Japanese and British did. Once they settled, the Polynesians mostly did an okay job at land management, on the do it right or starve rubric. They were and are considerably better at land management than are the capitalists who succeeded them, because they had no need to extract a surplus and send it off island.
Rapa Nui was not a failure, it fairly typical, if small. It’s quite possible, although not proven, that their biggest population declines came after European contact, due to disease. Much of their cultural destruction came when 19th century slavers raided the island. Excuse me, blackbirders, because slaving was illegal by then. The story of them killing themselves by whacking their trees doesn’t hold up.
IIRC, seven or eight islands were settled by Polynesians and later completely abandoned. The most famous of these is Pitcairn. Those are the failures.
If you want to talk about failed island settlements, look at capitalists. Do it right or starve is never a management goal, but extracting a surplus is. Hence all those abandoned whaling stations and mined out guano islands. We can always move somewhere else or get protected by a government safety net (/bit of snark in there). In this regard we capitalists are worse than the Māori, Rapa Nuians, and other Polynesians. Their system more or less worked for at least 1,000 years. Ours probably won’t last that long.
His tragedy was based on treating the individuals in the story as libertarians intent on maximizing their own benefits
So, corporations?
I'm not being flip, but since the 80s "maximizing shareholder value" has become the only purpose of corporations, with activist shareholders enforcing it on management. Earlier you had widespread corporate opposition to things like the Clean Air Act, or before that the FDA and food safety regulations.
Corporate psychopathy seems to be a failure mode of capitalism (treating corporations as Charlie's slow AIs to psychoanalyze them).
And I'm possibly being flip, but the libertarians I've met seem to be either borderline psychopaths or dangerously ignorant of what psychopaths are like (and thus totally unprepared to deal with them). Someone here recommended the book A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, which is at root about what happens when people intent on maximizing their own benefits (and ignoring community) get their way.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling
That said, the real difference was workload. Engineering was a full time job, in the sense that if you did an hour of prep/assignment per contact hour you'd have 50 hour weeks as your minimum, obviously more around exams.
Totally. At the mid level school where I went (not MIT or Sanford but not a degree mill either) We figured 3 hours outside of class for every hour in class to get a high B or an A. And you had to take 18+ hours of class time every semester for 4 years to get out in 4. I think you could have 4 electives from "other". And I couldn't figure out what those other majors were doing to get so much party time.
When I was at uni in the early 80s engineers were dismissive of practically everyone else. Many were almost as dismissive of science students as they were of 'artsies', with their airy-fairy impractical research while engineers built things that worked.
Raises hand. Some of us got a bit wiser as we aged. But many of us wound up in jobs that, at least initially, re-enforced that mindset.
It didn't help that so many of my pre-college classmates thought a sociology degree would let them fix all the problems of the world. It was the 70s.
Thanks! Hot Earth Dreams purchased.
Writers like Harry Harrison and Fred Pohl were reinforced in their pacifist and anti-authoritarian tendencies by being conscripted as enlisted men for WW II (Jerry Pournelle had a brief army career during the Korean War, so that was not a panacea, but IIRC as an officer and starting as a very poor high-school graduate). Some of the right libertarians have anti-authoritarian instincts and don't see (or don't let themselves see) that right libertarians are fine in practice with the tyranny of parents over children, bosses over employees, or rich over poor; its very hard to find anyone in the American Libertarian cannon who stood up for Civil Rights in the 1950s and 1960s, and easy to find members of the canon who objected to enforcing civil rights because it would be an infringement on liberty.
R Gammans @ 91: I'm not convinced that the creation of new ideas is a counter-argument to human being at least in a large pat stochastic parrots.
That's why I specified theories, not ideas. The difference between relativity and quantum mechanics in the one hand, and "string theory" on the other. Despite its name, string theory isn't a theory as far as physics is concerned: it doesn't make predictions. Making sentences formulated as predictions is within the capacity of LLMs and stochastic parrots; making precise predictions with a coherent justification that matches physical reality is not.
The idea I was trying to push back against is that humans are stochastic parrots. That AI will replace humans because we are nothing more than statistical models spouting a random, somewhat erroneous mishmash of our experiences. That plagiarizing people is fine because everything is already plagiarism. It is the mindset of those who see the world as populated by NPCs.
I don't think Ovid holds the above belief, but it is seriously advanced by AI proponents. To me, the original post read as idly entertaining the concept. I think even that is more dignity than the idea deserves.
Pixodaros
.....who objected to enforcing civil rights because it would be an infringement on liberty. - which leads us to the classical paradox of "Liberty" vs "Freedom", or alternatively: "My freedom vs your liberty itself versus _"Your freedom vs my liberty".
Whose Liberty &/or Freedom are we discussing? Does my Freedom impact your Liberty, or the other way around? Or Both or Neither?
The usual answer is that ... Your freedom to swing your arms & fists about: - that stops at a mm from my nose.
Shouldn't be difficult to understand, should it?
Yet many people ( Especially in the USA? ) really can not or will not see any room for either compromise or understanding.
Strange. I don't think that ( usually ) this is down to pure selfishness, but a deeper level of blank incomprehension & myopia.
right libertarians are fine in practice with the tyranny of parents over children, bosses over employees, or rich over poor
I've met far too many who are overtly in favour of slavery, usually debt slavery but brute force comes up disturbingly often.
What they usually do is euphemise around it, talking about debt as an inalienable property right of the lender that of course is inherited by their family. Or freedom meaning that the rich must be free to brutalise the poor and since a poor person is worth less than a rich one the rich can afford to pay for what they break. {aaarrrggh!}
I don't remember much about Slan, and I'm not going back into that cesspool again, thank you very much, but there's a further aspect to consider. From what I read at the time in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, SF fans seemed nerdish at a time when being a geek was not popular. You got the sense of people on the fringes forming their own clan, with its own cant, inventing words like "filk." And one of the sayings going around conventions was that "Fans are Slans."
That isn't at all to deny that racism played a role. Campbell and Lovecraft, for example, set the tone for that, and people who feel marginalized easily fall into it. A lot of the reason for the psi stuff seemed to be that if you feel powerless or trod upon, it's seductive to think that you're secretly Superman, or that you're part of a group that's unfairly despised, and clearly has knowledge and power that set it apart from the ignorant and corrupt mainstream. If you take that sort of fantasy seriously, it's a short step to thinking your group is uniquely positioned to find simple solutions to all social problems, however ham-fisted and Pyrrhic they may sound to outsiders. If you're too grand to worry about science and ordinary moral standards, something like eugenics just seems like common sense.
This didn't actually amount to a political movement, though, and, needless to say, a lot of other things were going on in the field. Growing up in a small town, I found science fiction opened things up for me, in much the way travel books influenced the Enlightenment. If you read accounts of other religions and other cultures, you're made to realize that you can generalize about "religion" and "culture," and that the examples you happened to grow up with don't occupy privileged positions. Heinlein, for all his faults, played a central role in that. It's not surprising. He was born in 1907 and grew up in what he himself called the Bible Belt, so getting perspective was likely to be one of his concerns.
All of this feels like a backwater now, and I was happy to forget about it, but recently I came across Alec Nevala-Lee's Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction. It's quite informative. For example, Campbell started off being enthusiastic about the New Deal, but made the mistake of mentioning it to his abusive father, who bulldozed it right out of him. He was personally and intellectually adrift when he went to college, for all the airs he gave himself later about seeing things like a scientist or engineer, and that's when he got interested in the Rhine ESP experiments.
If you want to talk about failed island settlements, look at capitalists.
I saw it somewhere on a TV documentary (NOT THE HISTORY CHANNEL) where of the first 1500 or so people to try and get by in the New England area of North American, about 80% didn't make it to 5 or 10 years. Most all from the UK. Most came over to get rich. Either for themselves or for PE back home.
I think the odds are better in Vegas.
I think there are some questions in life with no good answers, like "who will best represent the interests of a child: the child's parents or public servants?" Any answer you choose will go horribly wrong some of the time, but you have to choose. And when it comes to questions like "who will make better choices, the federal government or local resistance?" I think an extroverted black welder in Virginia will tend to have experiences which give a different answer than an introverted white software developer in California.
The blog Fardels Bear goes into some relevant history like the local governments in the South which chose to close public services rather than desegregate them https://altrightorigins.com/2023/03/01/f-a-hayek-and-the-false-promise-of-a-racially-just-libertarianism/ while anarchists like James C. Scott can point to different history.
I have never met one of the American libertarians face to face, its all weird Internet and bookstore ideas to me.
I couldn't figure out what those other majors were doing to get so much party time.
I remember a semester when I was taking nine classes (labs were counted as a separate class from lectures) when a full load was considered five classes for Arts & Science students — and some were taking as few as three classes and complaining about their workload.
Looking back, I'm fairly certain that the workload contributed to our feeling of superiority (as well as being young!). I'm also certain that we'd have benefitted from the ability to take a greater variety of classes outside our field — after all, university is supposed to be a time to explore and we just didn't have time with only a half-class in literature and another half-class in something else as a requirement.
(And to be honest, the interesting classes were often deliberately scheduled to that they weren't full of engineers who might be disruptive. My literature prof admitted that he was the only one who volunteered to teach the only half-class that fit our timetables, and that he did so because he knew it was the last chance to convince engineering and business majors that literature had value.)
Yet many people ( Especially in the USA? ) really can not or will not see any room for either compromise or understanding.
I get the distinct feeling that the word "Freedom" in America means something different than to does to the rest of the world (especially when capitalized). It is something unique to the American Way of Life™, and exceptional.
It is also something used to trump (not to mention Trump) an argument — if you can link whatever you support to "Freedom" you win. Thus we get Freedom Fries served in cafeterias, and Freedom Units used to measure things.
Browsing the American Reich-wing, I'm increasingly reminded of the Freedom Party in Turtledove's alternate history epic, including their use of the word as a membership identifier.
I wish I had the right education to talk about that, because on one hand there is a tradition of "freedom means my freedom to do violence to my neighbours" which goes back to Classical Greece, on the other hand there has been a marketing campaign in the USA for the past 100 or 150 years pushing a pro-capital understanding of Freedom (eg. Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, The Big Myth: How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market (Bloomsbury, 2023) which I have not read). In the eighteenth century Samuel Johnson already noticed that some of the colonists shouting loudest about Freedom were the "drivers of the Negros." I just don't know who has written about the dark side of freedom outside the United States at greater length.
My literature prof admitted that he was the only one who volunteered to teach the only half-class that fit our timetables
This was why the school I went to did not make outside courses compulsory. Phrased as "because it wouldn't have the effect we want", but from the other end, disruptive students. A few staff desperately wanted to create that result, and we had an early essay assignment on a random topic given by a distinguished professor (who had sufficient gravitas that I suspect even those who wanted to object did not). IIRC my year it was "neoliberal economics has failed" or similar and students were encouraged to pick a side and argue it for ~1500 words. Professor sat down with each student one at a time and went through their essays. That was also educational.
Paul @ 107:
I've seen this said a number of times, and I'm going to take this opportunity to check my thinking on it. Of course the bit I quote was only a parenthetical aside in your post, so please feel free to respond or ignore as you see fit.
The "tragedy" is selfish assholes over-exploiting common resources, spoiling things for everyone else. Doesn't require an authoritarian government to regulate their behavior; democratic systems can do it too.
I remember a panel some years ago about Jewish themes in science fiction and a couple of examples were Mutant by Kuttner and Slan by van Vogt. ESP wasn't at all thought of as a fascist theme, people who persecuted telepaths and such were analogous to antisemites.
The beginning of Slan was a young man being chased by a mob. He could perceive their hatred, but that didn't protect him.
Mutant had a lot about whether to be public about being a telepath (Baldie) or conceal it by wearing a wig.
I don't know whether the take on psychic powers people are showing in this discussion is at all typical (I don't think it is), but it does seem like a remarkable change.
=+=+=+=
Cathexis Rex 112:
please define "grindstated" (or a link)
ditto: sigma male; psychohistoricized future;
regrettably I've become all too familiar with: philosophically hollow; optimization obsessed; Gordon Gecko as role model; future-fetishizing;
=+=+=+=
Paul 104:
One of the funnier things arising in late 1990s from needing/wanting massive data centers (internet web and private corporate and federal government) was the issue of cooling.
There was demands by politicians for increasing the workforce in an under-developed county, but few to none were technically educated. Mostly high school graduates and/or dropouts. Low skilled. Cheap land. Good roads.
So there was a number of attempts to include in design a set of extensions to insulated pipes from data centers to secondary locations at a distance (1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 3/4 mile, etc). Intent was to scavenge that waste heat into specially purposed greenhouses to grow out-of-season veggies and organic fruits. Load up strawberries, basil, etc, onto trucks for sale in cities 300 miles away.
Problem was the low pay, backbreaking stoop labor, tedium of agro work, zero respect, etc. So while there were locals close enough to be a labor pool, the concern was unemployment rate locally was too low to coerce native-born American citizens into taking such jobs. Transporting legal agro workers would defeat the purpose of such secondary projects.
So greenhouses were quietly dropped from planning.
Cooling ponds are an ongoing headache, along with sourcing enough clean water. Re-circulation requires filtration and/or closed loop flows, not cheap nor simple. Headache not just for data centers but office parks, light industry, etc.
So for those looking for 'secret labs' and/or 'hidden AI strongholds' and/or 'Doctor Evil headquarters', if outside an urban center you need only wait till nighttime, fly drone swarms over lakes to detect anomalous thermal patterns.
Now add that to your novels and/or screenplays with my blessings. Boring but based upon engineering basics.
=+=+=+=
Now add that to your novels and/or screenplays with my blessings. Boring but based upon engineering basics.
While I'm sure I can't think of a specific SFnal example off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure this has been done, and longer ago than the 90s. Tom Clancy comes to mind, but I've no references for it. What I do remember is that it's definitely a thing in real life.
Going to take a leap into the, and guess that psychohistoricized future, whatever its exact-to-the-dotted-t definition (he says, his eyes crossed), has its roots in Asimov...
“I suspect that you are describing a very UK-specific problem” - well, yes. I mean, I did all my uni in the UK (hey, just passed the “half my life has been out of UK” mark) so no surprise there. But my undergrad was Imperial College, which back then was all eng & sci with around 7500 students. Despite that we had to do a second language, assorted philosophy , sociology, history, economics etc courses as well as almost as much maths as the pure maths people. These days IC is bigger (and richer) than some minor nations. I also did an actual art master’s at the royal college of art, and basically none of the artists were properly numerate, rarely had any education in anything related to science and mostly didn’t care. Potters and jewelers would often have good practical knowledge about some materials science by necessity.
Thanks! Hot Earth Dreams purchased
Thank you! Hope you enjoy it!
there's plenty of crazy (and bigotry and viciousness) to go around... and here's an example of one of those people who encouraged it... five hundred years old and still it sends the chills of dread down my spine...
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”
--Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Out of habit, looking for a (primary, obviously) source for that quote (not out of any attachment to Luther, but out of habit)- and having trouble finding any. Any ideas?
ESP wasn't at all thought of as a fascist theme, people who persecuted telepaths and such were analogous to antisemites.
This seems a bit strange to me - being of a certain culture sounds to me a tad different from having ESP. Especially if there is little or no inherent downside to ESP, it feels to me that comparing persecution to antisemitism seems a bit... preposterous. To me this comparison would mean that being of that culture means just being better than other people and being persecuted for that.
I think there's a word for that, too.
Then we can go on to D&D-like fantasy and start thinking why high-level wizards don't basically run everything. (Eberron is one D&D campaign world which at least tries to address the high-level wizard issue. Others, like Forgotten Realms, mostly don't.)
I am not sure I entirely agree with CS here. Even the wealthiest billionaire can not but make a nudge on the social forces. If people didn't want something like FB, they would not flock onto it. I do agree that the techno-enthusiasts/engineers who have read a lot of SF do try to make the up the half-forgotten dreams from their childhood's favorite books. However, when the new technology matures enough, the enterpreneurs and the governments come and - the former to cash in, the latter to snoop in. I don't think putting your money into an attempt to build in something is wrong. Misusing a technology to dupe/manipulate/spy on people is where the wrong begins. BTW, I suspect we only know of a few successfully implemented dreams and have not heard of the millions that have failed, despite the time/money/effort that have been put into them. And I also suspect that many of them have failed, not because the time/money/effort were insufficient, but because the people didn't want/need them. I think it was Cory Doctorow, who wrote in one of his books (more or less) that the technology is able to enslave us, but also to save us.
Eric 137:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/martin_luther_151410
not exactly originating tome with page number but that's where I found it a couple years ago...
ooking for a (primary, obviously) source for that quote (not out of any attachment to Luther, but out of habit)- and having trouble finding any. Any ideas?
There are a LOT of quotes from Luther floating about. And hard to source. But very ingrained. And I suspect they are mostly true.
The problem is he was German and there were a LOT of dialects spoken/written in his time. I suspect from some of my search attempts for similar was that his words went through multiple translations into various versions of German then out to other languages. With a few of them being written in Latin originally.
Sort of like reading the Bible in English. And arguing over which version is an accurate translation.
Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God.
and
Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom ... Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism ... She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets.
By the way, if anyone is going to re/read Stranger in a Strange Land, be sure to check out the full unedited version that his widow found maybe 30 years ago. The full version is almost twice as long as the published version and is an even better read IMHO.
I'm amazed it's twice as long, as I couldn't see much difference. An extra cannibalism scene.
If you disliked the original (as I did - partly on it being too long) you are unlikely to enjoy the "ginny" version.
I think the original editor did us a favour.
basic evolution shows that a 'superior' race will necessarily emerge at some stage
that's not actually how evolution works. For starters you have to define "superior". I can program a computer (well sort of), so I'm "superior" to a chimp. Unless it's a tree climbing competition or a fight...
Cartoon I recently saw.
Room full of chimps at typewriters. One person walking out the door talking to another.
Well no Shakespeare so far but this is the 3rd "Art of the Deal" this month.
At the time IQ tests, at least in the U.S. were scoring Jews a little higher than everyone else. So if you think in terms of ESP = IQ the whole thing works... a little too well. (I don't know if IQ tests are still scoring Jews higher.)
Oh, a pox upon it ...
My post @ 142 is missing it's first half, about US "freedom" ...
Freedom to own a gun & kill innocent people knocking at your door, basically, as opposed to "freedom from" which is very much the UK/European attitude.
Meanwhile, the clown-show in UK politics reaches new heights of absurdity, with Cameron, of all people, becoming Foreign Secretary.
At least he knows the ropes & knows where all the bodies are buried, but, of course, unlike the rest of Sunak's showe, he is not an actual "Brexiteer" which coiuld make lif very intersting indeed.
Of course, in the past others have been PM & then Foreign Sec - Arthur Balfour & { looking it up } ... Arthur Wellesley.
Unfortunately, you didn't give a source for those quotes, though just looking at the style, they don't look modern.
https://www.stephenhicks.org/2015/12/08/martin-luther-on-the-jews/
This does seem sound. Modern Lutherans (in the US, and maybe in Germany) seem harmless enough these days, which goes to show there are some drawbacks to being familiar with one's founding texts.
I'd heard that Luther said that belief should be based on logic (reason?) and the Gospels, which made modern emotion-driven evangelicals look bad, but either he never said it, or it was from a different period in his life.
Editions of Stranger in a Strange Land: I've read both, and at least used to know the edited version pretty well. There's a lot to be said for the edited version. If you compare the beginnings, the edited version is tighter and more interesting.
I think some of the most striking bits are in the long version, but a lot of what I noticed as only present in the long version were logistics-- a lot about getting people organized and into the right places.
If you disliked the original (as I did - partly on it being too long) you are unlikely to enjoy the "ginny" version.
I tried to read "Stranger in a Strange Land" when I was 17, and found it so boring and unrelatable, I never finished it.
Funny thing, several times since then I told people how SIASL bored me, without mentioning when exactly it happened. Each time I was told "You are supposed to read it at a certain age. Around 17."
I get the distinct feeling that the word "Freedom" in America means something different than to does to the rest of the world (especially when capitalized). It is something unique to the American Way of Life™, and exceptional
I caught a brief video clip when an American was saying with apparent sincerity and certainty that "Europeans envy Americans' Freedom".
Speaking from the UK, I don't think we do. We are not aware of what this unique American virtue actually is
Ditto, age ~23, and not so much "bored" as "aggressively uninterested" - to this day it is the only book I remember actively* giving up reading.
*There are plenty I've put down fully meaning to come back to and haven't yet (some day I'll finish The Quantum Thief); SIASL remains the only one to suffer the full metaphorical wall-throw.
This does seem sound. Modern Lutherans (in the US, and maybe in Germany) seem harmless enough these days, which goes to show there are some drawbacks to being familiar with one's founding texts.
500 years ago, well, times were different. Bias against other was considered normal by most everyone. Especially Christians against Jews. Then Luther did his thing and made it a 3, err 4 way argument.
Speaking from the UK, I don't think we do. We are not aware of what this unique American virtue actually is
Think about the phrase "nanny state". Many of the "freedom" folks think that Europeans like being told by the government how to wipe their butt and how many sheets to use and how many swipes. That is is not true isn't the issue. Just like some of Greg's sweeping comments about folks in the US that are based on some headline he read and is applying it to everyone.
While Suella Braverman and Ted Cruz are not in the center of the bell curve on most any opinion in their respective countries, they sure do get the headlines.
I tried to read "Stranger in a Strange Land" when I was 17, and found it so boring and unrelatable, I never finished it.
I suspect a lot of such novels and stories impact people in various ways due to the life they have lived up to the point of reading.
Didn't you spend some of your youth digging up bomb fragments in your garden plot in Russia. In terms of lived experience that is an alien experience for most anyone in the US or Canada. And a lot more.
If SF made Fascism then fantasy made Nazism.
(Before any cites Spinrad's brilliant parody "The Iron Dream" as an example of Nazi SF, remember that he was not using mil-SF to parody Nazism - he was using Nazism to parody mil-SF.)
If you look at the occult societies, literature and "philosophy" predating Nazism you'll see deep roots in fantasy and mysticism:
Ice moons, the earth is concave and surrounded by infinite rock, Shamballah in Tibet, Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail, Madame Blavatsky, civilization at the center of the Earth entered via the north pole, the spear of Longinus, Thule Society, Atlantis, Ernst Schäfer's expedition to Tibet and the whole SS Ahnenerbe "research" department. Even the use of the swastika had occult significance.
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" wasn't that far off.
I also did an actual art master’s at the royal college of art, and basically none of the artists were properly numerate, rarely had any education in anything related to science and mostly didn’t care.
So like engineers from the other side, then?
I'm not certain I'd count as properly numerate by IC standards. I can handle algebra and simple calculus (although div, grad, curl, and that stuff confused me at the time and I've forgotten it now). Very simple statistics but not with any confidence. Haven't used anything more complex than high school algebra in decades.
I met a fair number of research scientists through my father. They were all very broad folks with an amazing range of interests. (That may be a selection effect of my father's choice of friends rather than a common trait in research scientists.)
I have a friend who's a photographer, and he says that the fine art field is incredibly clique-ridden, and to succeed in it you have to be seen to be doing your time and respecting the right people, and that if you don't start young and do it 'right' the odds are against you. So rather like a young academic who has no time for anything but whatever might land them that tenure-track position, someone trying to make a career in the fine arts establishment pretty much has to put all their time into it, to the exclusion of other interests. (And visibly having other interests can make you appear 'unserious' and so hurt your career.) This is his view, but one that matches some of what I've seen in the Canadian art world.
I think looking down on other professions isn't terribly unusual. We see the complexities, skill, and hard work in our own field but not in others'. I've seen it within the sciences where people look down on other sciences (physicists being notorious for this, at least in comics).
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/13/opinions/trumps-mental-gaffes-obeidallah/index.html
The Beatles, like all bands, has their 'greatest hits'. Whereas T(he)Rump has his most public misses.
At the rate he's dissolving the sad possibility if he's elected in NOV 2024, by the time he takes office in JAN 2025 he'll be unable to repeat word-for-word the oath. Which on any sane timeline would disqualify him.
But we're on the wrong one.
So of course we'll have a succession crisis, since the 25th Amendment is interpreted to applying to the sitting president, not the president-elect. Oh, what a miserable shitstorm this is gonna be.
But leastwise it will make for a lot of quasi-funny skits on cable teevee's Comedy Central.
"Think about the phrase "nanny state". Many of the "freedom" folks think that Europeans like being told by the government how to wipe their butt and how many sheets to use and how many swipes. That is is not true isn't the issue. Just like some of Greg's sweeping comments about folks in the US that are based on some headline he read and is applying it to everyone."
Speaking as an American, be it a left leaning one, the "nanny state" term comes with a bit more context then that in the US. Americans are big believers in self reliance, and there is no self reliance like that which comes from the knowledge that the government is happy to let you starve to death, or let your children die of illness. That you are operating completely without a net.
A lot of this "self reliance" is mental fiction but there is some truth to it, especially in rural America. It does tend to toughen up the ones that survive it, for all the good and bad that comes with that.
I sometimes think that America as a society is designed to produce a small set of global alpha predators, loose them on the world, and then reap the spoils. It is willing to make a lot of sacrifices to achieve that goal, with the understanding that the spoils will make up for the sacrifices. Europe is designed to optimize the greatest good for the most people. That's a fundamentally different goal.
Europe seems to be on the one hand, dismissive of the American system because it doesn't optimize for what they think it should optimize for, and on the other hand, pretty blind to what the American system DOES do well.
That comes with A LOT of bad as well, and I think overall that the European system, especially the Scandinavian variant is overall superior at least based on my values. But there are real, tangible advantages to the US system as well. The American private sector is quite often fast, efficient and brutal, hard to compete with, and the place really is a fountain of innovation.
It's also interesting how much of this social harshness is shared by the US and China, even though those two countries are so different in so many ways. It's possible if you want to end up on the top of the global capitalist pyramid you have to push your people with fear to get there.
The jury is also a bit out to me on whether the European system can really compete economically long term in the world that has the Americans, the Chinese in it. Global capitalism may well be a prisoners dilemma where societies must become like America or China or gradually become economically irrelevant and impoverished.
Greg Tingey @ 147:
Oh, a pox upon it ...
My post @ 142 is missing it's first half, about US "freedom" ...
Freedom to own a gun & kill innocent people knocking at your door, basically, as opposed to "freedom from" which is very much the UK/European attitude.
Yeah, well the knuckleheads at the NRA aren't the only ones with ideas about what "freedom" means ...
Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address - "The Four Freedoms"
Some of us still hold with the old meaning.
Re: Zombie Economics
Thanks!
I just found a pdf of the book - will try to read it within the next couple of weeks.
Now back to catching up on the comments - if time permits, might count expletives in [Greg's] comments about the UK's new Foreign Secretary.
At the time IQ tests, at least in the U.S. were scoring Jews a little higher than everyone else.
And blacks lower, which led to what you'd expect.
Back when I was at teachers' college I came across a study that pointed out that black SAT scores were increasing at a greater rate than white scores, but every time they came close the tests were revised and black scores dropped much more than white scores and the cycle would repeat.
(Apparently the College Board revises the tests to keep a certain mark spread for each question (because a question that every student gets right doesn't help decide who gets into which college) and because black students (for a variety of reasons) score lower when their scores improve those questions are no longer useful, so they're dropped.)
(What the SATs actually measure is how likely students are to have had a financially-secure middle-class upbringing where they learned the 'right' test-taking skills. The correlation between household income and test score is much stronger than the correlation between success at college and test score.)
I know that IQ tests did (and almost certainly still do) incorporate a lot of cultural assumptions in them, as well as assuming a whole lot of knowledge that someone from a different background might well not have.
Back when I took my first psych course the instructor (who was a grad student) pointed out that in each of the several different theories of psychology that we studied the 'best', 'most adjusted', 'balanced', etc person was always purely-coincidentally the one most like the chap who came up with the theory. So logically if the people who created those IQ tests were jewish (or more precisely from a jewish culture) it would be expected that the test preferences traits and abilities valuable in jewish culture, and that people from that culture would test higher.
(No idea if that's actually the case. I do know that a lot of people use 'intelligence tests' without ever wondering what precisely is meant by 'intelligence'.)
I suspect a lot of such novels and stories impact people in various ways due to the life they have lived up to the point of reading.
Yup.
One of the reasons I like Ian Tamblyn (musician, not author) is that no matter what stage of life I'm at, he's written a song that resonates with me. (Which kinda makes sense as he's older than me, so has passed through those stages first.)
https://www.iantamblyn.com/
ilya187 @ 149:
I tried to read "Stranger in a Strange Land" when I was 17, and found it so boring and unrelatable, I never finished it.
I think I was 12 or 13. I had read every bit of Sci-Fi in the children's library at the Durham Public Library & sneaked upstairs to the "adult" library to see if they had any more.
It didn't bore me, although I'm sure there were parts that I wasn't old enough to understand.
David L
Sorry, but a stranger, knocking on the wrong door by mistake, asking for directions was shot & murdered ... & the murderer wasn't even arraigned for trial.
It's a recent case that I think we all know about.
NOT a sweeping assumption - it's fact.
SFR
Cleverly is a vast improvement on Braverman, not that that was difficult (!) - Home Sec
I think Camoron will be better than Cleverly, for reasons given
I still think it won't save the tories, or I hope not, anyway.
I suspect a lot of such novels and stories impact people in various ways due to the life they have lived up to the point of reading. Didn't you spend some of your youth digging up bomb fragments in your garden plot in Russia.
LOL! Never thought of it in these terms but you are probably right. Yes I did. And by the age of 17 had never been in a casino or even met anyone who had ever been in a casino, did not know what a televangelist is (maybe heard the term, but certainly did not know what it actually MEANS and why people follow them), and had not met anyone for whom religion was more than a social activity. Or anyone who thought drugs were more than just a way to break ice at parties.
That's a mindset very unprepared to "grok" SIASL.
For "old enough", substitute "mature enough".
The American private sector is quite often fast, efficient and brutal, hard to compete with, and the place really is a fountain of innovation.
My daughter did her final year of schooling before college as an exchange student in Germany. At a Gymnasium. One of the things that struck her were that almost all of her classmates thought to become rich they'd have to move to the US.
The jury is also a bit out to me on whether the European system can really compete economically long term in the world that has the Americans, the Chinese in it.
The Ariane 6 project has got to be on a few minds.
Sorry, but a stranger
Guns and gallons? Seriously?
It's also interesting how much of this social harshness is shared by the US and China, even though those two countries are so different in so many ways.
They aren't nearly as different as most Americans (who seem to be stuck thinking of China as Communist) think.
China hasn't been truly Communist for a long time, just as America hasn't been truly Capitalist. In both countries the government and large corporations are intertwined. In China the government has the edge, in America the corporations, but the effects are similar.
You are more likely to disappear in China if you displease the government. In America that only happens if you're poor and non-white. In China Musk might well have vanished by now. In a second-term Trump America, billionaires who don't kiss the ring might well be redefined as criminals. (With an Originalist rationale to make that Constitutional.)
I know that my friends from mainland China tell me that the reason their Chinese business partners prefer right-wing governments (in both Canada and America) is that they are much closer to the Chinese government they are used to, and thus much easier to operate under. It's those left-leaning governments that worry about things like worker rights that are hard to deal with!
One of the things that struck her were that almost all of her classmates thought to become rich they'd have to move to the US.
I wonder if they realized what the odds of becoming rich were, as compared to the struggle to hold on to what they had in Germany (health care, access to education for their children)?
I also wonder how they defined "rich". Was it how much stuff they had (or could have)? Or was it having more stuff than the people around them? There's considerable evidence that people are happier being poor (in absolute terms) when everyone is poor, rather than less poor when they can see people who have a huge amount more than they do. "We were poor, but we were happy in those days." (Not poor as in starving.)
Guns and gallons?
Can't you just smell the Freedom?
Freedom Weapons and Freedom Units. Y'all are so Free™!
(Sarcasm, hopefully obviously.)
Speaking here from what is clearly the far side of a perceptual divide, I can say that we lowly 'Arts' students are frequently astonished at the sheer level of political and social ignorance on display from the STEM side of the chasm.
It is likely a uniquely Canadian issue, but I have lost count of the number of people whose entire political awareness is rooted in infantilistic notions like 'left and right' which they picked up from the evening news or (worse) workplace conversations.
No doubt STEM work is hard, but anyone who wanted to actually learn in the Humanities was working pretty hard as well. Of course, my experience cannot trump your perception, and like most people who spent a decade or so working on this stuff I've long since given up on convincing any engineers or scientists that they might, maybe, not know everything worth knowing.
I remember a conversation I had with a classmate who was taking one of her required 'Arts' courses. She said 'I am taking Science because I heard only stupid people take Arts'. My response was that 'I heard only stupid people don't check for themselves'. We did not become friends.
The Ariane 6 project has got to be on a few minds.
Compared to that beacon of cost effectiveness and schedule keeping that is the SLS project you mean?
"Compared to that beacon of cost effectiveness and schedule keeping that is the SLS project you mean?"
More likely the intent is to compare to SpaceX.
I'm sure it was, but which continent a political project is from makes very little difference to how big a cock-up it becomes. "We'll save money by converting the production line" and "We'll save money by reusing major components from a previous rocket" are both caused by people thinking their expertise translates between fields.
Here I thought the purpose of the European system was to stop the debilitating wars of conquest that swept across Europe continually. Seems to be working pretty well, so far.
I also wonder how they defined "rich". Was it how much stuff they had (or could have)?
Indeed. This nonsense of comparing your accumulation of stuff to everybody else's seems to be a prime ingredient of discontent. WealthGrade, for instance, calls it your "social financial ranking". Ranking? I'm not entirely sure this isn't some kind of performance art. For instance,
What kind of people are mired in that kind of insecurity trap?
"No doubt STEM work is hard, but anyone who wanted to actually learn in the Humanities was working pretty hard as well. "
What does 'hard' even mean in this context?
Like I told my wife after writing my first book. "Writing a book is not hard. Anyone can do that. Writing a GOOD book is hard." What defines 'good'"? It's not objective, as opposed to say "being able to solve a differential equation correctly." But there is clearly a gradient, it's just a subjective one.
I think one reason STEM is considered "harder" then the humanities is this non-negotiableness of the answer being correct. It's an all or nothing field in many ways while humanities more naturally supports a gradient. Sure individual problems are harder or easier but grasping the core concepts is a requirement to being able to move on to the next subject, failure to do so results in complete failure going forward with little opportunity to recover.
Another reason for the 'STEM is harder' meme is that the level of competition in STEM can often be more intense given that those fields are considered more lucrative and also they are less likely to be taken as free electives by complete non-experts. The same reason Law and Medicine are "hard."
Also, humanities are widely used as free electives by the other majors. I wonder how much of "boy the humanities are easy" comes from most students experiments being in elective versions of those classes, which are, by design, not for experts.
I've always been a polymath, equally good in most academic subjects. I generally demolished my free electives and struggled considerably more in my STEM majors. But I was not competing with history majors in my history classes, i was competing with a random assortment of other majors.
I think a fourth dimension of 'hardness' however which is something along the lines of "how naturally do monkey-brains think like this, and as a corollary how likely is it that a particular monkey-brain can contort itself into such an unnatural state?"
I do think a lot of humanities can boil down to communication. telling stories, and trying to understand other humans and groups of humans, that is a very natural act for Home Sapiens. If you believe Yuval Noah Harari it's almost our distinguishing characteristic. It's not surprising to me that the ability to be competent in these areas is more common then say grasping general relativity, or higher maths. These are really WEIRD things for talking monkey brains to be doing at all, and the ability to do them is likely rarer. It's pretty surprising we can do them at all.
"I do think a lot of humanities can boil down to communication. telling stories, and trying to understand other humans and groups of humans, that is a very natural act for Home Sapiens."
"It's not surprising to me that the ability to be competent in these areas is more common then say grasping general relativity, or higher maths. "
Demonstrating in a couple of sentences why people who do not actually study humanities do not understand humanities.
The point of a humanities education is to learn how to differentiate between a 'good story' and 'a logical argument'. It is surpassingly difficult to apply empirical methods to understanding human behaviour like politics or social dynamics. That difficulty does not make the effort a pointless waste of time, it makes it essential if we are to avoid the traps and weaknesses of human foibles (most currently relevant being the relentless gravity of tyranny).
I would reframe the first sentence I quoted as 'A lot of humanities boils down to trying to understand how and why humans do what they do, and how to identify blind spots in what we think and how we act.' Just as the ability to perform basic math is necessary but not sufficient to be a physicist, the ability to write a marginally competent essay, or read a book and learn something, is not sufficient to the study of humanities.
Much of our current cultural grasp of the 'point' of humanities education has been lost in the transition of education from 'learning how to be a citizen' into certification mills.
visibly having other interests can make you appear 'unserious' and so hurt your career.
I think that's fairly specific to visual arts, where what counts as art is arbitrary, let alone what counts as good art. So what matters in an artist is that they're embedded in the social/cultural context from which good art comes. Otherwise, by definition, what they produce cannot be good art.
This seems to be very not the case for STEM people. The ongoing "should take a humanities paper" is a symptom of that, and "everyone needs to learn basic maths" is not equivalent. I'm well used to engineers who are in it for the money and their passion is elsewhere, or at the higher levels they love the subject but have to get out of it every day to give their miond a break. I have a friend who's a professor at a reknowned university and his bio page at the university says "blah blah academia and Lego, also punk band". He is now a very experienced shit guitarist :)
But you don't tend to see that on the other side. Friends in humanities fields don't seem to weld up projects in their garage, or even collect stamps. At best they garden. They mostly socialise as a hobby instead.
I can say that we lowly 'Arts' students are frequently astonished at the sheer level of political and social ignorance on display from the STEM side of the chasm.
Have you worked with engineers? Lots of willful ignorance and Dunning-Kruger on display there — and that's among non-Albertan engineers.
I worked with a chap (in Alberta) who believed that because engineers designed circuits that worked they should rule the world because everything they did would be good. Mind you, he also believed that if he drove so fast the other cars appeared stationary he was safer, because they were easier to avoid. He had so little ability to self-reflect I wonder if he could see himself in a mirror. (Also wasn't that good an engineer, because he couldn't see the possible failure modes for his designs.)
Engineering students? Even more arrogant and uninformed. At least, we were when I studied engineering.
I'm grateful for the job my English prof did. A class of engineers and business majors forced to take it is a tough audience, but he was pretty good at getting us to engage with literature and actually think a bit. In hindsight I wonder if he didn't realize we were uncomfortable with ambiguity, or if we were totally missing many of the points he was trying to teach. To teenagers from a small monocultural prairie city, it was the first time many of us had been asked to consider things from another perspective.
We're getting well into telling stories about other people now, though. Most humanities don't frame their discipline as "understand how and why humans do what they do", they frame it as understanding what humans have done or are doing. Or should do, in the case of things like economics and law. There are definitely people within those fields asking how and why, but the majority of academics don't, let alone the practitioners.
And when it comes to the "making predictions and testing them" side of science, a lot of humanities seem to reject the idea. Or in the case of law and economics, regard falsification as the gold standard for validating a theory. "this has never worked so it's a great idea".
Law seems to be most blatant: ask a member of the "justice system" to define justice and the answer will likely be tautological: justice is the application of law*. "we kill people who step out of line, thus breeding more obedient citizens over time"... eugenics or justice, you decide.
* which reminds me of the Judeo-Christianic "it is unlawful to kill someone unlawfully", normally rendered as "don't murder".
A proper humanities education is about ideas and their consequences. All the philosophy, literature, art, music, history, and even science are just carriers for those ideas. Any education that's just about techniques instead of ideas is broken, whether it be art or software or chemical engineering.
"ideas and their consequences" is just a story we tell. Nothing more.
"Friends in humanities fields don't seem to weld up projects in their garage, or even collect stamps. At best they garden. They mostly socialise as a hobby instead."
I give up. I'll go back to eating paste and doing finger paints on the walls of my play area with all my fellow simpletons. Good luck with the whole 'operating society like an engineering problem' thing. It's easier if you ignore the body counts, I've heard.
I also wholeheartedly reject any notion that Economics is a study of humanities. It, or at least its most common aspects, are entirely an attempt to operate society like an engineering problem.
"ideas and their consequences" is just a story we tell. Nothing more.
Everything else is, as well. Knowing the stories, and learning to tell your own, is the mark of a successful education, however obtained.
@150 writes: "I caught a brief video clip when an American was saying with apparent sincerity and certainty that "Europeans envy Americans' Freedom". Speaking from the UK, I don't think we do. We are not aware of what this unique American virtue actually is"
That viewpoint was less nonsensical a century ago when the wretched, tempest tossed huddled masses were still thronging to the U.S. from Europe's teaming shores (here I have sloppily paraphrased the poem inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.) WWI busted out the political and military strength of hereditary aristocratic power with the Austro-Hungarian empire's downfall, along with the empires of the Kaiser and the Czar. Since then Europe modernized and democratized right up to and even past American standards in some cases. With occasional setbacks, but the overall trend seemed favorable until the last few years. Pretty dumb sounding for an American to spout these zombie platitudes, but old habits die hard. No shortage of such astounding silliness, we even had a tv show called "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" in which otherwise competent, capable and upwardly mobile interviewees on the street couldn't find certain continents on a map. Youtube probably has it.
Maybe there are just three kinds of stories - Stories that can be verified via experiment (Science, Engineering) - Stories that can be verified via proof of internal consistency (Math, Logic) - All other stories (Humanities)
s/"Europe modernized and democratized/"Europe was democratized by force, and then the rubble was rebuilt"/g
if you think about Eastern Europe the platitudes are only a few years out of date, places like Poland were most certainly "envying our freedoms" as recently as the 90's.
Yeah, except that they’ve adapted phylogenetics methods from biology to study the histories of how texts changed via copying errors, and maybe even ported phylogenetics into linguistics (not sure about the latter, but I know a little bit about phylogenetics and it could work). Also, if you think scientific logic is the only real kind, don’t deal with lawyers unless you want a fairly brutal intellectual beat down.
Do you honestly not see any connection between recreational engineering and any other sort? I don't doubt that such people exist, I deal with them far too often "this bicycle is an impossibly complex machine that none can understand, so I will refuse to maintain it and just accept that it's horrible to use". The idea that that's desirable bothers me.
reject any notion that Economics is a study of humanities
So there's science here, and humanities there, and never the twain?
For all that some economists are fixated on applying maths to spherical consumers in a vacuum, economics is at least nominally about humanities, the "why humans do what they do". And some of it has real predictive power, it's not entirely authoritarian forcing.
What's the alternative? Give up and just say "humans cannot be the subject of scientific inquiry, let alone engineering methods"?
The point of a humanities education is to learn how to differentiate between a 'good story' and 'a logical argument'.
I think part of the problem is that most STEM students experience humanities subjects only as introductory or survey courses, which are be design shallow courses intended more to bring everyone up to some base level. Psych 101, Soc 101, and so on, typically taught in huge classes where the average student does't ever meet the prof in person. (When my niece took Psych 101 at UofT the class was 1800 students — the first 800 there got to sit in Convocation Hall and see the prof in person, the remaining 1000 had to sit in two other halls and watch the prof on a giant TV screen. Pretty hard to get a feeling for 'how to be a citizen' when you're basically watching TV.)
I know when I was studying Classics at an undergraduate level that there was a huge difference between the introductory courses and upper year courses in terms of the thinking required. A 100 or 200 course could be got through by memorization and regurgitation, while a 400 course required actually being able to evaluate information sources, identify (and hopefully resolve) discrepancies, and actually make an attempt at synthesizing something original-ish. (For the record, this was at Carleton University in the late 80s.)
Much of our current cultural grasp of the 'point' of humanities education has been lost in the transition of education from 'learning how to be a citizen' into certification mills
Yeah, the Minister of Education and Training has two almost contradictory mandates to fund out of the same pot. Rather like the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs.
If I was the dictator that the Convidiots think Trudeau is, I'd make university outreach a fully-funded mandate, with short non-credit courses offered in the community for free. Non-credit because I want prerequisites to be recommendations not requirements, free because I think education is a fundamental right. Let a thousand TED-talks bloom!!
Unholyguy
It may be that the reason STEM subjects are - usually correctly - regarded as "harder" is the level(s) of abstraction required to get a good grasp of the concepts & principles underlying the subject & its innate complexities?
Moz
We're getting well into telling stories about other people now, though - Pan narrans, remember? { Thank-you Pterry! }
- whjich leads back to Unholyguy @ 183 - oops!
I asked specifically for a primary source actually by Luther (because when I see a quote I tend to wonder if it's genuine; there's a reason why there are several books with titles like "Hemingway Didn't Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations"), and while none was strictly speaking provided (I note that no one gave the text by Luther that was being quoted from- however, Wikiquote.org does have a match on one of those quotes that gives that information...), and since I think they were kindly taking me up on my request, I'm not surprised they don't look modern...
Footnote :) : yes, hackles will rise at my mention of a Wikimedia site, since they have a horrendous reputation- but in my experience, Wikiquote has been one of the very most reliable of the quote sites, because they have, as a general thing, required at least a certain level of evidence for each claim, where many-to-most of the other popular similar sites seem to have no such requirement at all.
not sufficient to, or not necessary to? Former math/mathematical logic student wondering if you meant to write what you did write there, here.
(edit: ok, it's probably overstating things to claim that I did more than read some good books about mathematical logic. The philosophy of logic and ditto of knowledge (or of course competing philosophical arguments...), likewise, but that's stayed with me a little better, I think.)
Friends in humanities fields don't seem to weld up projects in their garage, or even collect stamps. At best they garden.
Could that be a selection effect of your friendship circle?
I mean, you're arguing with a humanities grad who's far more capable of welding up a project in his garage or repairing a broken machine than I am (and I'm an engineering grad). Who had (and lent me) the right tools to repair my drone after a crash. Who has numerous STEM-related certifications.
I remember that (well, I read it maybe a couple of years ago...), enjoyed it and also was a little surprised to find that EM Forster wrote science fiction.
Problems like this even happen in music. (Look up a favorite Classical or Baroque piece on opac.rism.org , the Electronic port (?) of Répertoire International des Sources Musicales, for example ...)
It is surpassingly difficult to apply empirical methods to understanding human behaviour like politics or social dynamics. That difficulty does not make the effort a pointless waste of time, it makes it essential
And yet economics doesn't meet your requirement, most emphatically. Instead it's science or engineering and is therefore bad. Is that because it's impossible or unethical to apply knowledge from humanities in any way, or just because you disapprove of the way it's applied?
This ties back to the difference between studying jurisprudence "what is law and how does it work" vs studying to become a lawyer "how can I get money out of the legal system", and thus "the justice system: being paid to apply laws and calling that justice".
"It may be that the reason STEM subjects are - usually correctly - regarded as "harder" is the level(s) of abstraction required to get a good grasp of the concepts & principles underlying the subject & its innate complexities?"
Unlike the study of humans and human behaviour? Do you hear yourself?
Robert: I agree that most STEM students interact on a trivial level, just as most humanities students end up taking some basic level science course as a requirement that barely covers the introduction to a field.
Where I'd say the difference seems to lie is what people do with that brief exposure. My takeaway from the science courses I took was 'wow, fascinating, it would take years to even begin to come up with what questions to ask in an intelligent way'. Judging from the comments on this blog the takeaway by STEM people was 'humanities are dumb because there are no clear answers and besides, they aren't real'.
Though I have yet to see an engineer provide a solution for how to avoid autocracy, or how to resolve a social question. I guess if it can't be expressed in an equation it is clearly of no value to anyone.
I'll go back to my gardening and paste eating with all my fellow humanities simpletons.
Torment Nexus -- new entries
US government shutdown due to #BSGC Republicans eager to burn it all down; performative craziness getting ever more frequent;
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/13/politics/government-shutdown-latest-johnson/index.html
tuberculosis outbreak in children day care center; this is bleak, especially given ever increasing numbers of parents refusing to vax their kids; measles has regained a foothold in North America;
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/13/us/nebraska-tuberculosis-daycare-testing/index.html
major highway roasted and out of service for weeks; apparently nobody could be bothered to inspect what was amongst thousands of tons of various 'n sundry crud stored underneath highways and some of it caught fire; unlikely other governors in the other 49 states are bothering to learn lessons from this entry under 'worst practices';
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/12/us/i-10-freeway-fire-closure/index.html
The backlash against self-checkout -- try it and you'll loathe it -- has been growing to the point where CEOs cannot deny its lack of appeal; which only was possible because there was refusal to accept negative evaluations of prototypes in test markets
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/13/business/self-checkout-stores-shopping/index.html
UTC+2 will never be at peace. Already talk of the 'next war'. There are those who will never let the war end. And they are the ones who watch for any slight excuse to justify a new attack, another wave of hostage taking. With lots 'n lots of those who see ways to achieve their agendas by way of spilling more blood. Arab. Israeli. Westerner. Jew. Muslim. Hindu. Christian. The more spilled the better, from their perspective.
{ too many to post 'em all }
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the only good news? recent gun-related mass shootings have been small scale (less than a dozen wounded and killed per incident) rather than dozens 'n dozens...
...which is the kind of 'good news' if it happened in any sane alternate timeline would be deemed 'bad news'
I give up
To be fair, I think there's a bit of "no true scotsman" in what Moz says... those of us who do make things can't possibly be considered Humanities folks or something.
I don't like to claim my own experience of trying to study a broader range of different disciplines and the ways they look at the world is unusual, but I have done enough of it to form an opinion, which is that they are not different forms of knowledge at all and for the most part all participate in the same exercise: to discover more, create more and extend the circle of light. Where there is a problem, it is contempt for other forms of investigation that we've been talking about here. Mostly because it means the people who hold it become ineffective when faced with concepts outside their discipline, and don't know it.
"And yet economics doesn't meet your requirement, most emphatically. Instead it's science or engineering and is therefore bad. Is that because it's impossible or unethical to apply knowledge from humanities in any way, or just because you disapprove of the way it's applied?"
The study of economics is fascinating and interesting. The cherry picking of economic theories to then apply to actual humans in a way that always seems to support the interests of the oligarchs is what grinds my gears.
I think economics have the misfortune of appearing to be fact when they are largely theory, and in practice tend to a lot of damage.
More study is needed, to quote every published paper ever.
Could that be a selection effect of your friendship circle?
I'd be somewhat surprised, since my circles do contain quite a lot of engineering types as well as humanities types.
But I wonder if it's definitional too, since RocketPjs seems to define humanities as excluding anyone who tries to apply their knowledge, thus making economists, lawyers, even politicians into engineers rather than people with knowledge of the humanities. So in that context no, I don't think I know anyone who knows anything about humanities.
Just, you know, lawyers, midwives, teachers, economists, artists, bike mechanics, architects... even social workers and the odd psychiatrist (are there normal psychiatrists?)
But then I have to ask: what's the point of humanities? If you're not trying to solve problems or improve things, why even bother? "I know why you suck" doesn't seem very motivating.
To me the value of humanities is learning why and how people work (for loose definitions of "work") so we can come up with better ways of doing things. Then study what went wrong when we try, and then try again.
It's not as if we have the option of just stepping back and saying "lets not organise society".
Perhaps the real problem with modern university educations is various attempts to teach STEM subjects that require painstaking mastery of oodles of precise details, at the undergraduate level. Medicine and law are taught as graduate disciplines, after all. An undergraduate course that attempts to make one a functioning chemical engineer or full-stack programmer may be just too full of details to fit into an undergraduate major. It belongs either in graduate school or trade school.
I'm not sure this has much to do with some humanities versus STEM divide, either. One can spend just as much time only learning about art, say, in college. And miss the rest.
_ I wonder if it's definitional too_
I think this is a blind alley. You seem to be trying to paint each other into different corners based on somewhat flippant hypotheses, while actually agreeing about most things, even if it's sort of inside out from the other side of the mirror. Maybe a sandwich would help?
The cherry picking of
economictheories to then apply to actual humans in a way that always seems to support the interests of the oligarchs is what grinds my gears.I dunno that "economics" is necessary in that sentence :)
But also, surely politics is the field that deals with the interests of the oligarchs, split into "how best to..." and "how to prevent..." with one getting a lot mroe funding.
Can we just can the rending of garments and the doleful laments for a bit? At least get your kvetches straight.
I’m in LA right now, taking care of an aged relative, and so I’ve gotten an earful of news on the I-10 fire. And yeah, it sucks. My current prediction is that it’ll be open again in two weeks if it’s a repair, by New Years if they have to rebuildit. LA doesn’t fuck around when repairing the freeways. Nor does the state. Nor do the feds. All of them are conspicuously involved. It’s already a state of emergency, and everybody has promised all available resources will be thrown at it, same as in an earthquake.
Contrary to your kvetch, the local media is reporting that the site of the fire has been a known problem for years with multiple citations from the city. Apparently Gov. Newsom toured the area a few months ago during the “cleanup” of an adjacent homeless encampment, and he was there again this morning. The junk yard was there, leasing space from CalTrans, which is a state agency that runs the freeways. I’m guessing that the combo of a scofflaw business leasing space from a state agency is why the city was having so much trouble getting them to comply with safety regulations. Similar problems happen with local landfills.
How do I know? The relative I’m caring for spent 28 years on the County solid waste task force, and kept all the documents. I’ve spent the last few months recycling decades of notice if non-compliance for one dump in particular. The problem with the dump is that there’s no other place to put the trash if they close it for not complying with the terms of their lease, so the problem just generates mountains of paperwork.
So the fire is a different kind of problem, not lack of oversight. Now that the problem has literally gone up in smoke, I don’t think there will be a junkyard there again. Just a lot of construction workers pulling sweet double overtime for the holidays, lucky them.
Compared to that beacon of cost effectiveness and schedule keeping that is the SLS project you mean?
Of course.
I'd be surprised if SLS flies more than a total of 2 or 3 times.
It will be interesting to see if the R Congressional budget slicers go after it or not. Jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs pork pork pork pork
Heteromeles 210:
it is an open-ended problem, what's been piled up under highways in urban centers but also along the land strips nearest to highways... not just lowest rent apartments and cheaply built housing and shoddy office parks (class 'D', ugh)... there's tons of crap and none of it has been inventoried nor inspected nor do the local fire departments have advance intel prior to being sent in during a massive fire...
so yeah, you can label it a 'kvetch' -- here in NYC we prefer to spell it as 'kvvetchh' offering opportunity for really hammering on the growl vowels -- but it is a genuine problem worthy of reflection
Heteromeles 210:
it is an open-ended problem, what's been piled up under highways in urban centers but also along the land strips nearest to highways... not just lowest rent apartments and cheaply built housing and shoddy office parks (class 'D', ugh)... there's tons of crap and none of it has been inventoried nor inspected nor do the local fire departments have advance intel prior to being sent in during a massive fire...
so yeah, you can label it a 'kvetch' -- here in NYC we prefer to spell it as 'kvvetchh' offering opportunity for really hammering on the growl vowels -- but it is a genuine problem worthy of reflection
My takeaway from the science courses I took was 'wow, fascinating, it would take years to even begin to come up with what questions to ask in an intelligent way'. Judging from the comments on this blog the takeaway by STEM people was 'humanities are dumb because there are no clear answers and besides, they aren't real'.
As a science teacher, a lot of the students I teach react to science courses with "there's too much to learn and it's too hard, and the teacher doesn't take my theory (that I saw on TikTok) seriously", often followed with "why work really hard to get an 80% in science when I can get a 95% in music or art?".
A lot of engineers treat humanities as "playing tennis with the net down" (to quote one of my former colleagues).
I wonder if part of the split (Snow's two cultures) is that the way they taught: (in my experience, anyway) STEM subjects are content-based while humanities subjects are process-based.
STEM classes tend to grade students on how often they get 'the right answer' with less emphasis placed on how they got it, and at lower levels there is very little original work students can do — even their "experiments" are basically following recipes and being graded on how accurate they were. There's a lot to learn, and your chance of doing anything actually original is remote until at least grad school.
By contrast, humanities classes tend to grade students on how well they follow a process, with less emphasis placed on the end result (and more leeway in accepting different results).
Again, based on my experience so at the moment it's a speculation rather than a hypothesis.
Though I have yet to see an engineer provide a solution for how to avoid autocracy, or how to resolve a social question.
You should meet more engineers. They provide lots of solutions, most of which make the Muskrat look like a model of rational moderation. (And most have obviously never been involved in something like a standards body, or they wouldn't have a touching faith that simple rational discussion will always produce the best answer.)
China's engineers seem to be as good at resolving social problems as America's lawyers or Britain's humanities grads (considering the backgrounds of their respective leaders). Which is to say, not very good.
As one of my (engineering) managers remarked: parts are easy, people are hard.
Or my favourite line from Star Cops: "People are part of the system. It's dangerous to forget that."
Then study what went wrong when we try, and then try again.
I think you're batting up against the descriptivism vs prescriptivism distinction, which plays out in different ways in different disciplines, some aligned to a general pattern and some not. Sometimes it's that the whole field is descriptive and not prescriptive (e.g. astro-physics, mathematics, sociology, history, anthropology, cognitive psychology) and research in the field is about learning new facts about the subject of study. Sometimes it's the other way around (e.g. engineering, medicine, social work, clinical psychology), research is about learning new ways to do things, and it can be a sideline to practice. Sometimes it's that different practitioners focus on one aspect or the other (e.g. the distinction between studies in public policy practice vs economic history). Then there's also implementation research, or research translation (doctors are very conservative and new knowledge often takes a long time to infiltrate medicine unless "helped").
But anyway just as there's room for people who spend their entire careers identifying and classifying difference species of snail, so there are also equivalent forms of purely descriptive practice in humanities. Having someone focus on "is" rather than "ought" is actually important.
Could that be a selection effect of your friendship circle?
I'd be somewhat surprised, since my circles do contain quite a lot of engineering types as well as humanities types.
OK. But according to you, your humanities friends "don't seem to weld up projects in their garage, or even collect stamps. At best they garden. They mostly socialise as a hobby instead."
That is what I'm wondering about. Because I know humanities grads who do much more than garden, and who aren't really into socializing.
It sounds rather like you have decided that people who don't do engineering things are humanities types, while people who do both are engineering types.
Back in the 70s I knew an art prof at the University of Saskatchewan. PhD in Art. Definitely a humanities type? But he built himself a lithographic press, doing his own welding. Rebuilt an MgB sports car. Made his own paints. Made architectural models well enough to save millions of dollars when he found a 1-foot mistake in the technical drawings for a bridge.
Was he and engineering type who happened to start (ad make a living) as an artist? Or was he a humanities type who learned technical skills?
Come to that, is Sir Brian May an artist or a scientist?
Good points- and let's not forgot many people predating these more specialized times :) (e.g. the Renaissance people of the, say, Renaissance era. ;) )
"RocketPjs seems to define humanities as excluding anyone who tries to apply their knowledge,"
I certainly do not. Not sure where you found the straw for that man.
I'm going to bow out. I guess I qualify as a 'humanities type', though the workshop in my garage is substantial, as is my garden.
We aren't going to agree on this, because we're using different terms for different meanings. On most topics I think we tend to agree (based on the past few years of commenting). I will go to my grave defending the value of a humanities education, but I am not going to bed angry tonight because someone is wrong on the internet.
I am not going to bed angry tonight because someone is wrong on the internet.
Getting upset at someone being wrong on the Internet is much more of a STEM thing, anyway… :-)
On a different note, you still have time to get your name on the Europa Clipper. Deadline is the end of this year, EST, but might as well do it now before you forget.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/time-is-running-out-to-add-your-name-to-nasas-europa-clipper/
It sounds rather like you have decided that people who don't do engineering things are humanities types, while people who do both are engineering types.
Initially it was just me thinking... yeah, most of the people I think of as humanities based are pretty dodgy on the bicycle maintenance. The people I know have tool collections are definitely STEM types.
Damien's descriptivist/prescriptivist thing seems to me helpful, but not definitionally since he points out some descriptivist STEM subjects. Then I thought activist-passivist because that definitely has a selection effect in my life. Passivists generally frustrate me, and I annoy them by trying to get them to do things.
Are activists more likely to be STEM background than humanities?
That's where "economists aren't humanities" bites. To me someone like Nicholas Gruen epitomises the useful side of humanities, but since he's a practicing economist a whole lot of bathwater just vanished. So I'm kind of lost and back at the distinction being "can have bad real-world consequences" rather than "rocketpjs approves".
Well it's true I put a lot of effort into converting my old 90s chromoly hybrid touring bike into an e-bike recently, and have dithered for just as long over printing a sticker claiming it complies with the EU standard for e-bikes, which is a requirement to make it street-legal in Queensland (as in, it's illegal to ride without such a sticker). I reckon that counts as being a bit dodgy with bike maintenance. OTGH I've been neglecting my garden for years... I recently had to dig my way out of the outcome of leaving a landscaping project unfinished 2 years ago. It's still unfinished, just slightly tidier. I'll get there one day.
To me the distinction between science and humanities has always been a bit artificial (more commonalities than differences, and the differences are just in the relative balance between qualitative and quantitive methods, for the most part). Treating a portmanteau bundle like STEM as another category is going even further in the direction of confusing everyone, IMHO. TBH I'm skeptical about "promoting STEM", except perhaps to girls and minorities who are underrepresented, and more interested in taking away the barriers to TAFE-style technical education. Famously, the AVCC is behind whacking the technical sector into only-accessible-if-you-are-a-yoof-doing-an-apprenticeship territory, while for decades it was the engine for making backyard tinkering not shit.
Most of the people I have worked with in IT over 25 years have had some sort of business studies background, especially a so-called "IT degree", rather than a computer science or engineering background as such. Law and economics often seem to be grouped with the business schools in a similar way.
Tormenting
{ As per the headline }
How long before the tory party really tears itself apart? - can't be too soon, in my book, before they poison the wells & the rivers even more ...
Otherwise, it will carry on getting more horrible, all the way to whenever the next election comes.
RocketJPS
Yes, I did. Maybe because I STILL cannot understand how individuals & societies consistently "vote" against their own interests &/or swallow whole monstrous lies ( like religion or fascism or communism ) entirely whole, without the slightest self-examination.
Remember that I was very nearly taken in by Brexit? And only realised at the last moment that I was being "had". Religion took longer, but, again, the original, just-big-enough break or crack was very close to the edge.
Yet - I did, I was able to see & examine the inbuilt faults, even though I'm probably well into the "mild-autistic" spectrum ... so if someone like me, who is not conventionally "socially aware" can do it, why can't the "normals" manage?
Howard NYC
UTC+2 - well, would you believe Goscinny & Uderzo have words on that unending warfare - see: "Asterix & the Black Gold" ...
Quote from the wiki article: In the Syrian desert, Asterix, Obelix, and Dogmatix find themselves caught up in ongoing wars between the Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites, Assyrians, and Medes - and it hasn't got any better since then!
Moz
Not even wrong. SOME parts of the humanities make people feel a whole lot better - thus improving things, enormously.
I remember going to a performance of "Figaro's Wedding" { La nozze del Figaro } in a foul mood, because of "things" going on at the time .. And yet, moments after the overture started, I also started to feel much better. By the time I left the "Coli" I was floating. Really great art ( as in painting ) does the same thing ... there are some paintings, which, if you stand in front of them, start doing odd things to one's vision: Vermeer's "View of Delft" is one such ... after about a minute, the water in the canal appears to start moving(!) I've seen that with a couple of JMW Turner's paintings, too.
Considering that we are in fact living in the Torment Nexus I predict that Braverman will be PM before summer.
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dpb 224:
I predict that Braverman will be PM before summer.
only if she isn't drafted as T(he)Rump's vice president on the Rotting Republican ticket...
their motto ==> "Fast! Back To The Past!"
(which barely beat out "Onward To Failure!" in focus groups consisting of ammosexuals, ages 50 and over, IQs 70 and under)
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David L 211:
your chant ought be set to the tune of Monty Python's "Spam! Spam! Spam!" diddly... "pork! pork! pork! glorious pork barrel for bribe-paying defense contractors! pork!"
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AND IN OTHER NEWS... MY MOST PERSONAL KVVETCHH...
"The rise in cognitive issues aligns with a common symptom that plagues many Covid long-haulers: “brain fog"."
https://archive.li/tPaAw
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dpb
I do hope you are wrong ... because that really will mean mass rioting on the streets against a so-called "government" that has zero (negative?) legitimacy.
Meanwhile ...
What a surprise that wasn't! - as some of us were discussing, as long ago as 2009, that the "Met" might or might not have been "Institutionally Racist", but they were certainly Institutionally "Bent" - - otherwise known as "On the take" from known criminals.
Arianespace is successfully innovating in one space, at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopée
Also 225 point 1 - According to this Wikipedia, Cruella Braverman is a UK citizen, so surely not eligible to be US VP?
English and Welsh universities teach science, engineering and medicine at undergraduate level. To get into these universities you have to have A levels in suitable subjects. These are done in the last two years of school or in a sixth form college. A levels are approximately equivalent to the science courses taught in the first year of American universities. Students begin to specialise at the age of around 14. Medical and veterinary medicine degrees take longer. There is almost no humanities education for science students. My BSc in chemistry involved just organic inorganic and physical chemistry with support ing courses in physics, maths and German (then sought to be desirable for translating scientific papers). Scottish Universities are similar it teach to masters level.
Given the world's (current) richest person is French...
I wonder if this is partly the availability heuristic; there are louder billionaires in the USA* (Musk, Bezos, the Kardashian family) than in Europe (Arnault, Schwarz) and so people remember US rich people easier and think of the States as the land to get rich in?
*Phrased that way because there are billionaires in the "keep quiet and accumulate mode" in the US too; the Waltons, the Mars family, etc.
major highway roasted and out of service for weeks; apparently nobody could be bothered to inspect
Piling on to what H said. The news stories I read (I'm on the other coast) talked about frequent inspections, citations, etc... But in many such situations, the penalties for the owner/lessee/whoever to do nothing are much less than the cost of actually doing something. So it just becomes the cost of business.
20-30 years ago here in North Carolina some idiot with too much money imported something like 5 million tires from China to grind up into road making material. The tires got here into a huge mountain but the concept fell apart. I forget why. But now we have these monster black with white spots Asian mosquitos which make the native ones look quaint.
What do you do, fine the guy for the cleanup? He was broke. There were no laws about importing tires at the time. Still may not be. I can't remember what happened to the tires. They may have burned in one of those big pile of tire fires we seem to have every 5 or so years.
I'd be somewhat surprised, since my circles do contain quite a lot of engineering types as well as humanities types.
Yep. With a side dose of avoiding those who put down the "others".
your chant ought be set to the tune of Monty Python's "Spam! Spam! Spam!"
In my head it was as I typed. :)
Moz: "But then I have to ask: what's the point of humanities? If you're not trying to solve problems or improve things, why even bother? "I know why you suck" doesn't seem very motivating. To me the value of humanities is learning why and how people work (for loose definitions of "work") so we can come up with better ways of doing things. Then study what went wrong when we try, and then try again."
I've always seen education from the perspective of "learning to think in different ways". A really good teacher in any subject will set your mind afire with excitement over the things that excite them too. Every field of study offers different insights into our world and how it and its inhabitants work. We're blessed in this day and age in having a cornucopia of fascinating knowledge we can browse, and this lets us form a more holistic and realistic view of the world. (Also a wasteland of misinformation and disinformation, but that's a whole other story.)
I wonder if this is partly the availability heuristic; there are louder billionaires in the USA
It was more of a general feeling than an analytical thing. Plus that in Germany (as I understand it and people there have told me) you are much more slotted into a life at an early age and expected to say in your slot. As a general comment on the German society.
And in the US while that can and is true for most people, it is easier to break out of your slotting.
My last year of schooling before college we had this new teacher (to our school) for upper math. I had him for trig. His tests were all open books and anything else you could bring to class. He graded your work. Not the answer.
But he also had a small Christmas tree farm and sold used cars at the local Ford dealer. I was somewhat of a math wiz relative to the typical person and did well in all my math classes even into college. But I can't remember a single thing he said about math. I remember long conversations about tree farming, 700 foot deep wells, how to buy and/or sell a new or used car and other topics not related at all to trig or math. But nothing about trig. But I got A's and knew trig at the end of the class.
I suspect he got fired from the next school system over for being such an odd duck. I'm glad I had him.
the Waltons
In my first reading of this my initial thought was "John boy was money rich?". (A reference to US TV from 40+ years ago.)
And in the US while that can and is true for most people, it is easier to break out of your slotting.
I remember reading a few years ago that American socio-economic mobility is a lot lower than people think, mostly because of the costs of health care. (Once you have a family to look after you don't dare quit a job with health insurance.) Apparently Sweden has a significantly higher rate of business startups than America.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/sweden-startups/541413/
But then I have to ask: what's the point of humanities? If you're not trying to solve problems or improve things, why even bother?
What's the point of collecting stamps? Of climbing mountains? Of archaeology or palaeontology? Of playing cards, or any game for that matter?
What's the point of reading and commenting on this blog?
Actually I believe "grok" first appeared in Heinlein's 1949 "juvenile" novel "Red Planet". The Martian "elder race" featured prominently in that novel and was used later, largely unchanged, for "Stranger in a Strange Land".
It's been a long, long time since I first read "Red Planet" as a teenager, so I may be wrong about the use of "grok" in that book, but for sure "sharing water" was.
Vulch @ 173:
Compared to that beacon of cost effectiveness and schedule keeping that is the SLS project you mean?
OTOH, NASA has only one government to please (even if you never know who that's going to be 4 years from now), while the ESA has what ... "20 some cooks egging the pudding"? 😏
Retiring @ 176:
Here I thought the purpose of the European system was to stop the debilitating wars of conquest that swept across Europe continually. Seems to be working pretty well, so far.
It does seem to be working reasonably well in the western parts; still a bit of a problem in eastern Europe ... and as I remember it, it's not been that long since the southern parts were roiled in discontent.
Indeed. This nonsense of comparing your accumulation of stuff to everybody else's seems to be a prime ingredient of discontent. WealthGrade, for instance, calls it your "social financial ranking". Ranking? I'm not entirely sure this isn't some kind of performance art. For instance,
What kind of people are mired in that kind of insecurity trap?
Just a SWAG, but young people who do everything in an app; young people who see the economy is NOT going so well for them as it did for their parents and grandparents ... and anyone the developers can convince they're only "temporarily embarrassed billionaires ..." rather than having been chewed up and spit out by the corporate economy.
NASA has only one government to please
One Federal government and 52 state governments, all who want their slice of the pork. Add the Orion to the mix and there's the 20-odd ESA member governments as well. :-)
(German here, no personal experience with living in the US)
While it certainly feels that way and not a lot of success stories are circulated at least https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index disagrees, when one trusts the methodology the social mobility in the US is not exceptionel.
One big issue I see here is the early separation in education, after primary school (4 or 6 years, depending on the bundesland) the pupils are sorted into three different school types, and only the highest one (Gymnasium) allows to study at a university w/o hassles and hurdles. And typically kids from richer families have much higher chances to go the gymnasium way.
Switching between school types is hard, so yes, the slotting takes place here. But this improved in the last decades, with much more offerings to "upgrade" the school graduation, where good grades in one of the lower school types allows to visit schools concentrating on only the final 2 to 3 years of courses needed to get the university entrance qualification. This way is hard, though, the few years have a large curriculum.
Maybe, just maybe, the assumed higher upwards mobility in the US has something to do with the much louder presenting of success and the country's self-perception? (from rags to riches, American Dream, et al)
I find the debate on humanities versus science interesting. I always felt that the degrees of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering and maths (plus others unlisted) tended to be termed "hard" because they are. Hard, as in, you really have to put the hours in and some of the concepts really take time and effort to grasp.
Yes, you have to do some rote learning, but thats so you are aware of all the things that can affect a system and may have an impact on the result of an experiment. I can remember analysing some data, not having a clue what it meant and then the penny dropped and a half forgotten lecture served up an idea that got me going. Google is great for working out who starred in a 1960s sitcom but rubbish at providing an analogy or suggesting a framework with which to explain a new experimental result.
At uni I did 5 days a week, including one all day practical with half a day Wednesday and most other days 5 or so hours of lectures. I compared notes with someone I knew doing English Literature who had about 5 hours of lectures a week. God, was I envious.
Given the choice between reading and commenting on a few books by Trollope and Proust and trying to get a grasp of whats gone down in the previous 300 years of physics research and then get my head round quantum mechanics, or the General Relativity, I can kind of guess what most people would choose.
Grant noted "At uni I did 5 days a week, including one all day practical with half a day Wednesday and most other days 5 or so hours of lectures. I compared notes with someone I knew doing English Literature who had about 5 hours of lectures a week. God, was I envious."
(Forest biology degree here, so six courses per term plus labs.) I also used to be envious about the seemingly low workload for arts and humanities students—until I saw the reading lists. I'm a reasonably fast reader, but no way in hell I would have ever gotten through all that reading. It would have been challenging for one course, let alone five.
On the other hand, I remember asking a prof for a term paper extension because I had pneumonia; he happily agreed to a 1-day extension but at 50% off the mark, and 100% off if I was 2 days late. (He still encouraged me to hand in the paper because of the learning involved.) My brother-in-law, on the other hand, was studying for the Ministry, and at least once that I know of, handed in his paper 6 months late for full credit. Different conventions.
Keithmasterson @ 186:
No shortage of such astounding silliness, we even had a tv show called "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" in which otherwise competent, capable and upwardly mobile interviewees on the street couldn't find certain continents on a map. Youtube probably has it.
It does. Episode with Ken Jennings (Jeopardy Champion of Champions)
The questions mostly test whether you can remember the more obscure parts of elementary school classes in the U.S. that you haven't had to use since you WERE a 5th grader.
Geography: EXCLUDING Antarctica, which continent is the farthest south
... can you visualize that old world map that hung in every school classroom.
Math: Density is an item's MASS divided by what?
English: "Won't" is a contraction of what two words?
PS: The 5th Graders don't always get the right answer either ...
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest the only real difference between STEM & The Humanities is how quickly & obviously things crash & burn when you get a wrong answer.
You know pretty much right away if the rocket is going to reach orbit or not.
I'd made a note to come back to this comment with a perception-vs-reality thing, but I see others have already pointed out the Global Social Mobility Index (TL;DR: the top band that scores over 80% is the Scandies plus Austria, Switzerland and Belgium; The next band with 70-79% has Germany near the lead, Australia, Aoetearoa and the UK roughly in the middle and the USA at the bottom).
Someone mentioned healthcare but I'll circle around education a bit. I think that in the German system it really depends on parents making a call whether their child is bound for a trade like their own vs university. If they pick university, and the child copes with the first year or so of that track, then they get all the support they need to make it all the way. No idea whether any of the other countries have "tracks" like Germany's so those ones get the "all the support" thing without the need to make an early choice. But there's more to social mobility than university education, and having technical and trade education available for free (or at least very affordably) to anyone who wants it is a big deal, maybe a bigger deal.
ATTENTION CONSERVATION NOTICE
I'm only just home after a highly annoying airline delay (it was the fault of the weather, not the airline). And I was travelling without a laptop and this blog doesn't play terribly well with an iPad or phone and I am not coughing up $1000/year on an ongoing basis for the closed-source update to the software that'll fix that.
So I am skipping all comments from 30 to 250 inclusive.
If you want to ask me a question, ask it again in a comment below this one! Otherwise, don't expect an answer.
I think Global Social Mobility Index and "getting rich" are not at all the same thing. GSMI has a bunch of stuff baked into it, many of which (like Fair Wage Distribution) the US does not do well on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index
I am sure "getting rich" means different things to different people but i guess that for a middle class German it's more about becoming a multimillionaire then securing health care.
A large preponderance of the worlds billionaires are American, the next biggest chunk at Chinese. Despite holding the top spot, overall Europe does not do well on those kinds of lists.
The advantage of TESCREAL over TREACLES is that if you google for it you're likely to get what you want, whereas TREACLES will give you a ton of cooking and recipe websites first ...
[in the US] it is easier to break out of your slotting
If I wasn't clear before let me say it here. It was a perception / feeling expressed by her classmates. This was in the Harz mountains area.
What's the point of collecting stamps? Of climbing mountains?
As hobbies? They're interesting, fun, whatever, for the people who do them. But there's very rarely a set of university courses emphasising the importance of mountain climbing to students, let alone an organised campaign of people saying "if you don't do at least some stamp collecting you're a lesser person".
Whereas with studying huimanities subject we have those things.
You know pretty much right away if the rocket is going to reach orbit or not.
Currently looking like the various permits for the second flight of the SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy may come through for a Friday launch, NOTAMs and NOTMARs have been issued for a few hours each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday starting at 1300UTC although the provisional booking for the NASA Wb-57 will have run out.
Perhaps the real problem with modern university educations is various attempts to teach STEM subjects that require painstaking mastery of oodles of precise details, at the undergraduate level. Medicine and law are taught as graduate disciplines,
Medicine and law are not good to compare. At least not in North America. (Warning one leg of my extended family is littered with lawyers.
Almost anyone with a pulse and a Bachelor's degree can get into a law school. Tests weed and schooling weed out those trying for the elites but there are plenty of lower level law schools. To be a decent lawyer you need several things to varying degrees.
* Ability to schmooze
* Ability to digest (or at least skim) vast amounts of information quickly
* Ability to speak seemingly on almost any subject with little notice
* Ability to write an essay on the spot with little correction needed
* A strong desire to WIN
For medical schools you almost assuredly need a STEM or near STEM undergrad degree. Or do very well on the entrance tests and be a very smart very quick study of biology and chemistry.
You can be a lawyer and not have any idea of the difference between a mL and an oz.
Currently looking like the various permits for the second flight of the SpaceX Starship
Environmental permits were the last ones they were/are waiting for.
Apparently throwing auto sized chunks of concrete into the local wetlands and coating everything within a few miles with concrete dust was a bit much even in Texas.
paws4thot @ 228:
Also 225 point 1 - According to this Wikipedia, Cruella Braverman is a UK citizen, so surely not eligible to be US VP?
Her U.K. citizenship wouldn't be an impediment. NOT being "native born" in the U.S. would be.
Note OTOH that Boris Johnson IS a "native born American", holding dual-citizenship and AFAIK could have grown up to be President/Vice President of the U.S. (at least before he gave up his U.S. citizenship to run for office in the U.K.) Apparently dual citizenship is an impediment to holding public office in the U.K.
I don't know whether BoZo would be allowed to rescind his decision on that should he change his mind and decide to run ...
Dumping large quantities of fresh water into a fairly small area of salt marsh when the new deluge system runs was part of the reason for the rather late involvement of FWS.
Looping back to the CS talk, Elon is very big on "I'm saving humanity, so what if I break a few things on along the way?"
Lawyerness varies a lot between countries, even those with "closely related" legal systems. The soft skills vary even more, Australia too has the "by arseholes, for arseholes" law schools that have the obvious problems with actually obeying the law, right through to "rural" law schools where there's less focus on antongonising peasants and more on finding least-bad outcomes. But in adversarial law countries it's still not a fun profession and is known for its drug and suicide problems in both Australia and Aotearoa.
My impression from outside is that in medicine it's the learning that's hard, in law it's the other lawyers. Yes, surgeons especially are notorious for being arseholes, but they're more or less the exceptions. In law everyone is supposed to be an arsehole.
Oz & NZ do law and medicine as undergrade degrees, but the medical process is far more drawn out. IIRC it's seven years minimum to become a doctor where you can graduate law in four and do bar exams after a year. Many do it in five with a BA or BSc as a second degree, my ex-sister-in-law did engineering+law but also in five years (both four year degrees where a BA/BSc is normally three). Even architecture is five plus a couple more for certification (many architecture grads never get certified, like engineers not becoming PEng/IPENZ certified)
Robert Prior @ 238:
I remember reading a few years ago that American socio-economic mobility is a lot lower than people think, mostly because of the costs of health care. (Once you have a family to look after you don't dare quit a job with health insurance.) Apparently Sweden has a significantly higher rate of business startups than America.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/09/sweden-startups/541413/
Social (economic) UPWARD mobility is a lot more restricted today than it was in the early post WW2 period when a lot of these tropes about America were established in popular culture. For some reason DOWNWARD mobility has become a lot more widespread since then.
I don't think it's entirely accounted for by the burdensome cost of "health care" even if that is a significant contributor.
Elon is very big on "I'm saving humanity, so what if I break a few things on along the way?"
Similar to managing the climate catastrophe: he's emitting a lot of greenhouses gases now and promising to reduce them later. Killing a few people now but promising to save millions or billions of lives in the future is the same pattern.
This is where World Vision or even the UN have really dropped the ball. Stop talking about "sponsor a child" or "peacekeeping", start selling death offsets. Russia could just buy up a million child futures from World Vision and everyone would STFU about Ukraine...
renke_ @ 244:
(German here, no personal experience with living in the US)
While it certainly feels that way and not a lot of success stories are circulated at least https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index disagrees, when one trusts the methodology the social mobility in the US is not exceptionel.
Again, I think these beliefs were established in the immediate post-WW2 period, when the U.S. had much more social (upward economic) mobility than it does today and Europe (not just Germany) were still cleaning up the rubble from the recent war. The "German Economic Miracle" hadn't really begun yet and even the U.K. was still under war-time rationing.
The U.S. was STILL the land of opportunity ...
Times (and economies) have changed since then ... what people "believe" about those economies maybe not so much.
There was a trend away from undergraduate entry into medical school in Oz in the noughties and teens, and at this point about half the medical schools only accept graduate entry (via the GAMSAT process). Not sure whether it's changed and trending back the other way, this stuff happens. Oz medical schools issue the MBBS as per UK, the MD is higher research degree like a PhD.
Law schools are mostly undergrad entry and issue the bog standard LLB. We generally reserve the JD (Juris Doctor) for post-grad qualifying degrees equivalent to undergrad with honours, and I guess that's what's most common in the USA, but only a subset of law schools offer that. There's also the LLD which is a higher research degree. One can also do a PhD in Law, and this is most likely what faculty in the law school have.
Geography: EXCLUDING Antarctica, which continent is the farthest south
True answer: it depends on what you mean by "furthest south"!
"Oz & NZ do law and medicine as undergrade degrees," You can actually do Medicine as undergrad or postgrad. I once worked with a GP who started out as a meteorologist.
I have just done it with DuckDuckGo, and your entry comes in at number 23, with a most heterogeneous selection of hits before it! I hate having to search for something that uses only commonly searched-for words, even if the combination is unambiguous.
"better ways of doing things". STEM vs Humanities = As a kid I had the same experience of reading every SF book in the public library. A pilot? (nope; bad eyes). A rocket engineer? (9th Grade algebra teacher made everybody stand up, and sit down when you solved the problem. Couldn't do it. Humiliation; convinced me I couldn't do math even though I got A's through High School). OTOH my history teacher was absolutely inspiring.
From him, I got onto "saving the world from the Commies". College: PoliSci (mid Vietnam) until an Intl Relations prof said we would have to stop some countries from developing so they didn't all have revolutions at the same time. (A CIA plant? Vietnam in a nutshell.)
Could I change this policY? Interviewed NSA. Interview ended when I admitted ART was my hobby. "Go back to school, and get it out of your system". Conclusion: NSA-Art is "subversive" Me: Art is about the stories that define how we do things. Maybe US storiesneed adjusting.
Ended (with my wife) as social workers. Didn't save the world from the Commies, saved a lot of kids from from the streets and dead-end foster care. Family therapy: Small changes in stories led to big changes in behavior. Both worked for/or ran social agencies that supported immigrant communities. Strivers - worked harder that "Real Aurcans", with a few supports. Queens and Brooklyn are source of "Aspiring Citizens", not "vermin." Very difficult to translate different stories from family to political level.
Learned programming/data analysis. Helped develop computer systems that demonstrate (maybe) that services to kids, and seniors. actually make life better.
Humanities has had much more impact on me, and real people, than if I'd become a rocket scientist. OTOH, maybe STEM and Humanities, properly applied, fit together.
AFAIK there are specific graduate entry paths for a few degrees, but I'm used to any degree being an entry point to just about anything. At one stage I was almost conned into a chemistry postgrad based on having an electrical engineering degree, and any STEM-ish degree would get you into third year of a related engineering course when I was there. Not to mention "life experience" qualifications that were probably more commonly used when degrees were rare - you don't want to turn away the guy who designed the thing from a course in better designing the thing just because he doesn't have a bit of paper from a degree mill.
I know someone who turned a nursing-nondegree into a pathway to professor of medicine, albeit via medical school and a PhD, it weas only the first 35-odd years of her life that was nontraditional for a professor :)
maybe STEM and Humanities, properly applied, fit together.
If nothing else this discussion has convinced me that the boundaries are poorly defined and may only exist from a great distance (cf "what is a tree" or the notorious "no such thing as a fish")
If nothing else there seems to be a positive correllation between people being interesting to listen to and them violating the scared boundaries between arts and humanities or humanities and science, let alone the chasm between making art and making machines. It's hard to even write that without feeling sarcastic.
Trying to catch up from being at Windycon this past weekend, so not here since last Tuesday.
The whole STEM vs humanities... a lot of you seem to see segments of the issue. Let me start by offering something that was huge when I first got into fandom (when mammoths walked the earth): have any of you read, or even heard of CP Snow's famous speech-cum-essay from 1959, The Two Cultures? https://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/snow_1959.pdf I'll note that he mentions that he knew plenty of scientists who could quote Shakespeare chapter and verse, but not a single liberal arts major who even knew the simplified version of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics ("you can't win, you can't break even, you can't get out of the game").
Then let's go on to "geeks" and "nerds", words I dislike... because they began as INSULTS. The "popular kids" looked down on us - let's add "grinds", never mind "four eyes" (kids with glasses). We always had our noses buried in a book, rather than out for sports, and mating/social games. And that was on top of the attitude that goes back to medieval nobility, who considered the only two things it was proper for a nobleman to know was how to hunt and how to fight ("read? Why? I have clerks for that"). And they were sure they'd be going into management (corporate or government), where you say what sounded good, and waved your hands, and your underlines did whatever.
And if you think I'm exaggerating, only in the last few years did I hear about the test for a new military lieutenant, which is to set up a flagpole. You failed if you tried to do it. To succeed, you called over a sergeant, and ordered them to put up a flagpole.
So, in college (for those who went), they did sports, and took the deliberately easy courses - is there anyone here who'll deny that there are such? And none of them, alonst with usually liberal arts majors, also, did tend not to take math or science.
The result is that computers, like electricity, are magic. Sure, some liberal arts majors learned more (like my partner, who's an artist), but more did not.[1] The result is the crap we see in the news and TV and never-ending memes.
I'll note in US colleges, whatever your major, you were required to take "distribution courses". They've dropped language as a required one, but... Let's see, I had two years of English (which included writing and poetry). I had an (optional) course on Urban Studies (history/development of cities). And, oh, yes, the course I took on World Religions. [2] My degree is a B.Sc in Computer and Information Science. And my distribution courses weren't "unusual".
1 No "journalist" should ever be allowed to write the word "galaxy" or "galactic" or "intergalactic", and if they do, they should lose one finger until they stop.
2 My late wife thought it was probably a Good Thing that I couldn't take off during the day - I went part time, working full time - to take the science fiction course....
Claptrap? So you say that the Structural Differential is not a good representation of what we "know"? If so, please explain why.
Are you trying to tell me fans are not slans?
Whereas I read the story as "stupid kid who really didn't understand, and thought they could ignore the rules".
Would it have had the same impact if it was a boy?
Love it - the consistency and texture, with no nutritional value, as it were.
I don't think I agree with your implied definition of psi powers. Let's take telepathy: can you read anyone's mind, or only another telepaths? If you can read anyone's, just how deep or clear is it? Can you only, say, read what they're thinking right now, and not what you want to know? Can you somehow get them to think what you want to know, or is it only reception?
That's not going to do a lot for an ubermensch. Esp. if you only have limited control over reception. Otherwise... you're forever in a LOUD BAR WITH EVERYONE YELLING.
The Golden Rule. As I understand it, the Jewish formulation is "do not unto others as you would not have them do unto you", which gives it a whole 'norther intent.
And I have known not only libertarians but Libertarians (in fact, I know ESR). I stopped a co-worker in his tracks one day in the early nineties by asked, "So, how do we get to this wonderful world of yours - do we take everything from everyone, and divvy it up equally, or do we just start from where we are, with you and me with nothing, and Bill Gates as a billionaire?" His response was, "We're still talking about that down at the club." (This was before Libertarians started running for office.)
Um, er, I have trouble with that interpretation, given that Asimov was born and raised Jewish, though he was very secular.
No problem. Build them in a space station, all the solar power you want, for all practical purposes of forever.
Of course, unless we threaten them, they'd have no reason to pay attention to us at all.
But as we can see from news stories in the last several years, in most of the world, the birth rate's dropping, and in the wealthiest (that is, using most of the resources and power), it's below replacement rate. I've seen some speculation that by 2050, it will start dropping.
whitroth
he knew plenty of scientists who could quote Shakespeare chapter and verse, but not a single liberal arts major who even knew the simplified version of the Three Laws of Thermodynamics - STILL horribly true ...
See also my comments on Opera & the visual arts, above?
Except, of course, the editors, etc, are also readers. And the barber is a man who shaves himself.
Yes. In the nineties, I thought about creating the ultimate American company: I'd get an artist to make up really pretty stock certificates, pay him, and my company would sell copies of the stock certificates with serial numbers. And if someone resold them, they'd have to pay ma a percentage. My printer's pre-amortized, I'd be president and CEO, with all employees downsized to zero.
Yep. Look up "Amon Bundy", and you'll note that the still-more-or-less-a-democracy US is dealing with him.
Cooling ponds? Y'know, Philly heated a number of downtown buildings with steam from the city incinerators. I think NYC and some other cities did the same.
Yeah, "nanny state" and "self-reliance"... but they want the state to control what can be seen ("Think of the children!"), and what you can do with your own body....
My biggest problem with economics as practised now is that laws and taxes are not included. For example, raise interest rates to control inflation... but not raise taxes on windfall profits.
Figaro... unfortunately, as a boomer and an American, I instantly see Bugs Bunny as Figaro.
The same is true in the US, for certain populations, such as blacks or hispanics.
Well, no. LBJ partly got the Moon Race through by spending money in states whose votes he needed, and that's the technique used ever since. So, not only the federal government, but also all the states that NASA spends money in.
I am sure "getting rich" means different things to different people but i guess that for a middle class German it's more about becoming a multimillionaire then securing health care.
Could that be because 'securing health care' is something that the German takes for granted? I know I've talked to a number of Canadians who went south to get rich(er), then returned when they realized that their higher salary (and lower taxes) had to cover things that were funded by the government up here, and so they were actually a bit behind.
My impression from outside is that in medicine it's the learning that's hard, in law it's the other lawyers.,/i>
When I was at uni for engineering (80s Canada) we did a joint project with the law students (mock trial with expert witnesses). What really surprised them was that we studied and helped each other. Apparently they were well aware that they were graded on a curve (thus competing against each other rather than an absolute standard), and that those with the highest marks got the best internships and positions after graduation.
I learned from one of my nieces (when she sat the exam for her accounting qualification) that apparently accountants are also graded on a curve. So if you are a decent accountant in a year when lots of brilliant people write the exam, you might fail, while the same answers next year when a bunch of dullards write might be the highest mark. Which did not make me feel confident that a CGA/CPA (or whatever the designation is) actually knows their stuff.
Social (economic) UPWARD mobility is a lot more restricted today than it was in the early post WW2 period when a lot of these tropes about America were established in popular culture. For some reason DOWNWARD mobility has become a lot more widespread since then.
So on average social mobility is the same, it's just people's assumption about the direction that's wrong? :-/
Yeah, engineering definitely had that culture of sharing knowledge where I was too. We still had fights at the top of the class and people who cared a great deal about that. But the distinction there was that to get to the top you have to be brilliant and work your guts out. Just one wasn't going to get you anywhere.
OTOH I took a small amount of pride in coming up with my own solutions where I could, and had a smarter friend who did the same, so we'd sometimes work together to come up with our two distinct, different solutions. He favoured "works perfectly", I favoured "works differently". Or usually, sort-of-works, differently.
I suspect there was the usual exponential relationship between effort and approach to perfection too. The guy who came top of my class basically vanished during exams, and final year his girlfriend moved out during final exams and he didn't seem to notice. I suspect he knew but wasn't willing to stop and fuss about it because he had more important things to do. Then he did a quick masters thesis in the six month gap before going to Cambridge for his PhD (and eventual professorship... doxxing him is both unavoidable and meaningless, if anyone cares enough to look for him)
I did an Open Source version of the Torment Nexus, using python, sqlite and lighttpd, and it runs on my Raspberry Pi, but it's really slow with only 8 gigs, so my neighbors are moaning and not shrieking, which is kind of a bummer 'cause I hate them. Does anyone think they could duplicate my code in a faster language?
If nothing else there seems to be a positive correllation between people being interesting to listen to and them violating the scared boundaries between arts and humanities or humanities and science, let alone the chasm between making art and making machines.
We live in an analogue world, not a digital one. Even digital signals are analogue when you look at them on a scope. Boundaries between subjects are always a bit arbitrary, and the interesting stuff usually happens in the interstices.
Consider music. Surely an art? Yet musicians have always used technology to create new possibilities, inventing and modifying instruments, playing with the possibilities that new instruments open up. The harpsichord was once as new as the theremin or the synthesizer. If Sax hadn't invented the saxophone jazz would sound a lot different. The humble church organ was once new, and mightily resisted by traditionalists who preferred guitars and flutes (presumably as played in Jesus' time) — and I remember in the 70s when traditionalists resisted guitars in church services because we'd always listened to the organ… Almost all music (except pure vocals) is only possible because of machines!
Or consider painting (also an art, yes?). What you can paint relies on the pigments you use, and artists used to mix their own pigments and experiment with them. Read Phillip Ball's book Bright Earth to get an idea of how applied chemistry affected the history of art.
Link to the book:
From Egyptian wall paintings to the Venetian Renaissance, impressionism to digital images, Philip Ball tells the fascinating story of how art, chemistry, and technology have interacted throughout the ages to render the gorgeous hues we admire on our walls and in our museums.
Finalist for the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award.
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo3616821.html
have any of you read, or even heard of CP Snow's famous speech-cum-essay from 1959
I refer you to comment 214…
Greg, You might like to run through the testing here: https://rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php
It is about as rigorous as the written testing done to diagnose autism, and is free (unlike the testing and interview with a psychiatrist for actual diagnosis, which cost me close to £900).
And yes, I am classed as a high-functioning autistic.
The main differences are a lack of sensitivity to body language cues and the fact that my mind runs close to top speed a lot of the time, but misses when asked to generalise. I either have amazing memory, or lousy memory and more than a touch of Attention Deficit disorder too; more "idiot servant" than "idiot savant", unfortunately.
Re: 'And that's why I think you should always be wary of SF writers bearing ideas.'
Welcome back!
Is the negativism that you pointed out in your essay the reason fantasy fiction has been outselling science fiction the last few decades? The Laundryverse overlaps both (application of contemporary tech to an ancient 'Artsy-magic'* problem) so in theory should appeal to both audiences.
*Lots of discussion re: STEM VS Arts going on. Personally I think it's fundamentally a difference of process: STEM has better (crisper) toolsets and methods. Despite this, hard science/engineering can also seriously screw up - as seen by the recent retraction of two major papers in Nature re: room temp semiconductors.
What are commonly referred to as 'Arts' and 'Science' can work together!
'New evidence for therapies in stroke rehabilitation'
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679365/
The below is just one part of a longish review article published back in 2013.
'Melodic intonation and constraint-induced therapies
A range of individual speech and language therapy techniques have been developed to address the wide variety of aphasic syndromes that occur after stroke [53]. Most patients need a multi-modal approach to build on their strengths and to limit frustration in word finding and fluency. Melodic intonation therapy was developed for patients who have poor expression but good comprehension. This technique uses simple melodies and rhythmic tapping to engage networks that subserve prosody of language [54]. In a nod to the massed-practice paradigm of CIMT, constraint-induced aphasia therapy was developed as a means to improve verbal output [55]. Where comprehension is poor and output is perseverative, therapies have little effect. Regardless of the treatment modality employed, regular home-based practice with family is imperative for the development of social communication.'
Greg:
You're probably familiar with this aria. It's a great piece of music for unwinding as evidenced by how often it's been used including in a British Airway commercial.
Delibes: Lakmé - Duo des fleurs (Flower Duet), Sabine Devieilhe & Marianne Crebassa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ZL5AxmK_A&list=RDC1ZL5AxmK_A&start_radio=1
For a less distracting yet uplifting background sound, there's also the Mozart piano concertos. Lili Kraus is my favorite and she's one of the few pianists who recorded all of the Mozart piano concertos. (The below is one of three compilations - it's 3 hours long.)
Mozart - Piano Concertos No.11,12,13,14,17,18,19 + Presentation (Century's recording : Lili Kraus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZntL9Y7vcDM
For a less distracting yet uplifting background sound, there's also the Mozart piano concertos.
Daniil Trifonov plays amazing Bach on the piano. I particular like BACH: The Art of Life when I need to relax (or when I need to concentrate).
https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/bach-the-art-of-life-daniil-trifonov-12430
I find when I want to relax I tend to agree with Emperor Joseph II — Mozart has too many notes! :-)
whitroth 286:
not so much efficiency as utilizing a waste product as basis for full employment wherein semi-skilled, poorly educated locals in places with cheap land, cheap water, cheap electricity and government subsidies and politicians anxious to boast about full employment during election cycle... if those greenhouses broke even on selling out-of-season veggies & fruit that would be 'good enough'...
problem was the locals resented the 'eggheads' running data centers making 5X dollars per hour doing stuff that never required breaking a sweat, along with driving shiny new cars, being respected, et al...
...and they refused to perform [REDACTED-RACIST-INSULT] types of stoop labor... being unemployed was better and there was this wack-o mode of poor-but-proud that is stunning in its utter stupidity
SMH, WTF they been smoking!?
I'm not convinced that art and humanities are the same thing. Sure, you can study the philosophy of science or the ethics of medicine or whatever, and you can study art history or the physiology of dance or 200 other variations. But there's fuck all knowledge of humanity required to wrap the Reichstag in plastic or splatter paint on a canvas a la that elephant that paints. So I don't think there's a necessary connection.
Art covers the gamut from "what can I get away with" to "I'm going to spend 30 years of my life perfecting this painting sp people spend the next few centuries arguing about whether she's smiling". But the general rules is that people react to things around them, claiming that anything they react to is necessarily art seems to devalue the idea of art quite a lot. If nothing else shouldn't there be some kind of equivalent to mens rea or wavefunction collapse? If a tree falls in the forst but no-one is around, is it still art?
imho piano concertos 14 and 17 are only relaxing if you're -not- paying attention. Not because there are "too many notes" but because of what those notes are. Concerto no.14 in E-flat has some features in common with no.24 in C minor, for example - and even before the latter was written, its oddness, offbeat accents and eccentricity (noted by the composer in his own letters) would have struck the ears of more knowledgeable members of the audience. It's also, incidentally, the first work Mozart entered in his little notebook that he kept from then until his death in which he notated many of his works with their main themes, some comments, etc. after finishing them. Some of them now only exist as entries in that notebook (that is, they're otherwise totally lost) including an intriguing slow movement composed for someone else's violin concerto... To some extent this is true of nos.16 and 17 (and anyway, as several authors (e.g. Cuthbert Girdlestone, Alfred Einstein... ) writing about Mozart's concertos have noted, most - if not all -- of the piano concertos he wrote in that one remarkable year of 1784 - nos.14-19 - have at least something special and individual specific about just them.) Music dork out...
274 - Are you basically saying "prove this assertion is not true?"
293 - That also presumes that the difficulty of the questions is roughly constant year on year. One of the papers I did, the year I did it, had "easy questions". Cue much discussion in my class about how "I must have made a mistake in question N, because I finished the paper an hour early", and eventually receiving a top band, (not just grade, actual band) result for the paper.
"That which is hateful unto you, do not do to your neighbor" is how Wikipedia has it translated, and so yes, that's the gist. The too-simplified/really inaccurate "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is as you imply open to the Twain (or is it the Shaw?) Objection ;) (to wit, but our tastes may differ :) )
Note: yes, so is the modified form I quote, but I hope (maybe not expect) it might generally inspire more thought in its application. ...
Maybe Sir William Turner Walton OM, composer of the Crown Imperial march (1937) (... also 2 symphonies, 2 string quartets, concertos for violin, viola, cello, sinfonia concertante for piano, fair amount of film music, and more...) and his relatives?... couldn't say!
"Think of the children", actually taken seriously, might lead to something in the general direction of Gilman's "Herland" (in which that was the no.1 rule and was taken very seriously instead of being a slogan, iirc, though that is not what that novel is most remembered for)...
Those treacles are mine, at any road!!
I'm really trying not to get into this chest-thumping engineers versus the humanities thing, but seriously, it's ridiculous.
All the major problems these days have to be solved by specialists in the humanities. Seriously.
Climate change? That's a sociopolitical problem. There's a plethora of underutilized tech dying on the vine.
Descent into fascism? Political problem.
Climate migration? political problem.
Extinction crisis? Biopolitical problem
Addiction? Sociopolitical and psychological problem
AI's role in society? Sociopolitical problem
Et merde.
Literally what do engineers have to contribute, beyond creating new problems and working on contracts that ultimately flow from politicians and business-critters who majored in the humanities? I mean, yeah, you're well informed citizens and all that, but until you go over to the dark side and learn politics or business, you're hired and fired by the acre, as my grandfather the electrical engineer used to put it. Your opinions go unheard, and mostly so does your expertise. Same goes for academia and most commercial scientists. If you don't do politics, you don't matter unless you've got a billion to sling towards politicians.
And yes. I come from two generations of engineers. I rebelled.
But do go on.
Item the first: Heinlein had a bit of fun with the Technocrats (as he knew them then, they apparently have not changed much) in "The Roads Must Roll".
Item the second: Should I save out a head of lettuce for Braverman? Just in case?
Item the third: Just got through reading ORIGIN STORY by David Christian. Starting the Big Bang, finished right before covid. A nice, reasonably high literacy overview (I plan to recommend several books to him in my Amazon review, including HOT EARTH DREAMS. He likes the long view).
Item the last: Thank you for having such high-level conversations, it's fun to have my brain get hurty the way really good SF like BLINDSIGHT can do. Also, doing my microlevel best to keep democracy going where I live.
I've written a few comments in that subthread which I deleted before posting and have really just been trying to stay out of it, having said what I might say already. Dealing with obvious misconceptions is just whackamole and not worth anyone's time. And some of the more bizarre claims kinda didn't really warrant responses anyway.
But I've also been waiting for the 300 comment mark to check in on whether this article in New Scientist about Cockatoos learning how to open council bins by copying each other wasn't in fact something you shared here back when it was more current. AnywayI saw it pop up in a social media feed elsewhere yesterday and it's fun.
Not that I'm trying to distract from one strange attractor by talking about another one or anything. Even one that's been done to death recently.
But the general rules is that people react to things around them, claiming that anything they react to is necessarily art seems to devalue the idea of art quite a lot
Surprisingly, there's quite a bit of theory about this. Some works are generally agreed to have something that other works do not, and a lot of effort has been spent over centuries trying to work out what that is. Just as an example, Kant had quite a bit to say on the topic in 1790, but a summary of one of his positions is that the "sublime" is what happens when we "apprehend the infinite". It doesn't really work all that well for a lot of the material we have around us now, but I thought it might appeal because it aligns with an analogy you used.
settle down class... for your term papers in Eco 101 (Naive Intro to Economics) as well as Pysch 203 (Abnormalities and Sociopaths) and Computer Science 319 (New Platforms and Old Greed)
we're letting you write once for all three courses and that ought make it easier to ace it, eh?
compare and contrast the following:
"Modern Cosmic Horrors"
vs
"Torment Nexus"
vs
"Christian Nationalism with Nazi Characteristics"
vs
"Capitalism Off Leash and Hungry For Additional Monopolistic Oligarchies"
extra points for embedding homemade videos of starving peasants
To ruin the joke: the Waltons as in the descendants of the founders of Walmart, who until recently were still majority stakeholders.
whitroth
No problem with that ... I've been to a showing of "Bugs Bunny goes to Broadway" with a live orchestra - having a whale of a time.
Or THIS - "Be vewy quiet - I'm hunting wabbits" - YouTube of Bugs + Wagner ... absolutely hysterical. Even more so if you've actually been in a production of "Rheingold" (!)
Rbt Prior
Another example ... Stratford Bill was only able to write-&-stage The Winter's Tale because ... the Globe had burnt down & he used a new theatre ( The Rose? ) with the latest new technical stage-prop - directed light beams from lanterns ... so that he could "convincingly" get the life-like statue of Hermione spot-lit & tell Leontes not to touch it, because the "paint is still wet" ... It is, of course, the real Hermione.
SFR
Yup - seen a production of that one.
I think Mitsuko Ushida is the current, um "mistress" of the piano, certainly as a solo instrument.
But, I was turned that way at a very young age, by hearing something amazing come out of our ancient valve radio, in ? 1951? 1952? ... And think, even then, but not as clearly as now, of course .. "The Human voice can do THAT? - yes, well. { Ignore the 15-second advert, please? }
Eric
VERY old joke ....
Masochist: "Hit me!"
Sadist: "Shan't"
Climate change? That's a sociopolitical problem. There's a plethora of underutilized tech dying on the vine.
So you're saying that the engineers have done their part, what's left is for the humanitarians to solve their part? How's that going?
I'm vaguely aware of the idea of theory of art and so on, but it's something that doesn't really interest me. Hence my trying to draw a vague distinction and leave it at that.
A lot of my experience is more along the lines of non-stem people complaining that something is incomprehensible and likely impossible, me saying 'can you describe what you want it to do' then making one for them.
But I feel much the same bafflement when faced with getting three people who want to do something to actually do it, let alone persuading the disinterested. I leave that to people who say they're good at it. I may have mentioned before my habit of saying "if you're so fucking brilliant at understanding people maybe you should be the one who understands me instead of demanding I change".
So it's not that I don't think understanding people is difficult, it's more that I struggle to understand how people who proclaim themselves experts in the field are so shit at it.
so... here's a bit of sociopolitical WTF... Florida is viewed as being the part of the USA where old folk go to die ("Grim Reaper's waiting room") and where anyone under age of 70 has to have an IQ under 70...
example:
"Florida woman is charged with plotting her former son-in-law’s death a week after her son is convicted of murder... Donna Adelson’s arrest came a week after she and her husband, Harvey, booked flights to Vietnam departing from Miami airport on Monday, according to the probable cause affidavit... In the days leading up to her arrest, Donna Adelson discussed getting her affairs in order, fleeing to a non-extradition country, as well as plans for suicide in calls with her son Charles after his guilty verdict..."
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/15/us/fsu-professor-donna-adelson-murder-charge-arrested/index.html
Given that Asimov wrote the Foundation novellas by shamelessly cribbing from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire I think I can safely say that you're wrong.
So you're saying that the engineers have done their part, what's left is for the humanitarians to solve their part? How's that going?
I'd maybe say that scientists have done their part, now politicians should solve their part. Humanists could help with getting the politicians get off their arses, engineers can then help implementing necessary solutions, though I think the main part of any climate change fix is basically doing less and outputting less greenhouse gases, with a sprinkling of use less energy thrown in.
Now that I think of it thinking of ways of people being happy without consuming so much resources is very much a sociopolitical problem and non-engineers could also help with that. I'm an engineer myself and even though I graduated a long time ago, I think that from my point of view engineering people could do with more humanities education. Too many 'tech solves everything or at least makes a good profit' types thereabouts.
All the major problems these days have to be solved by specialists in the humanities. Seriously.
Yes. No. Well ....
To me it's both sides have to be involved. And neither (in broad terms) wants to admit the others might have some valid points. And both are in denial of major issues.
In broad terms
And I rarely see anyone from the STEM or humanities side of things really address the above in a coherent manner. Or in a way that all but a trivial number of people will accept.
And a really big one:
* Smart people (define as you wish) tend to feel over time their opinions need to be treated as facts by others.
As long as the planet has empty places people can move to to avoid the results of the above, well things were not absolutely terrible. Most of the time. As China, India, Europe, and Africa filled up things got ugly. Then we found the Americas. But now we seem to have mostly run out of empty habitable places.
"major problems these days have to be solved by specialists in the humanities."
Sort of what I was talking about in describing family therapy. People frame problems as it's the other guy's fault, they started it, I had to respond.... When looked at from the outside there's highly patterned and repetitive loop that just keeps going, and maybe escalates. "Therapy" becomes validating everyone (the rabbi joke: "you're right, and YOU'RE right, etc) and either disrupting the pattern, changing the story, or its meaning enough so new behavior is possible. So it's STORY TELLING that accommodates everyone's view of reality. Nobody has to admit they are wrong. That's doable on a small scale, but really difficult to scale up.
325: Scaling up. I think that's the job of ART, including science fiction. Creating memes.
Charlie's cited a bunch of early SF memes we shouldn't keep repeating. Can we find more positive ones to replace them?
Charlie often references Prisoner's Dilemma as leading to cooperation. Can it win out in the end? Merchant Princes and Halting State had characters muddling through. Early Laundry verse pieces were really funny. The state of the world IS depressing, but do ALL gods want to eat your soul? Can Bob and Mo muddle through as ordinary human beings?
Bobh 326:
since good help is hard to find, gods do something clever in convincing any so naive as believe their lies about what really happens in the afterlife...
...gods don't so much eat souls as exploit 'em for automation... how else do those thunder bolts get forged? their togas washed? grapes peeled?
so we ought regard the afterlife much as we do Amazon or Tesla or Foxconn... just lacking any exit clause and the wraith of pissed off deities at attempt to unionize
which might well have been Lucifer Morningstar's rebellion against God... he'd been attempting to organize those damned souls in the heavenly bureaucracy for collective bargaining
I think that from my point of view engineering people could do with more humanities education. Too many 'tech solves everything or at least makes a good profit' types thereabouts.
I would extend that to business/financial people. A lot of 'money solves everything' people out there…
Eric mentioned the 'Renaissance man' upthread. Once upon a time people did both art and tech, moving back and forth. When did that change, and why? Was it a matter of different cultures coming into ascendency? Conscious aping of an imagined Classical past?
I'm currently working my way through The West by Naose Mac Sweeney, which is eye-opening because so much of what I learned in history classes (including at university) turns out to be incredibly incomplete. One might almost say cherry-picked to provide a foundation for cultural myths (such as our civilization being built on the traditions of ancient Greece and Rome, which spurred her to write the book). I think I'll pick up David Christian's Origin Story when I'm done (thanks to Jean for the recommendation).
Anyway, this is a rather long-winded way of working around to my hypothesis that the split between STEM and humanities is a cultural one rather than inherent in the disciplines themselves. I suspect it might well have its roots in Britain's social structure and class system.
The state of the world IS depressing, but do ALL gods want to eat your soul?
Ooh, that's got to go on my Laundry/New Management ideas list: what happens when the Laundry (or its successor, DEAT) run into an actual loving deity? Lulz, and the sort of cognitive dissonance that hit KGB agents sent to the USA in the 1940s-60s to find the secret organizing conspiracy controlling the capitalist world, and then the disastrous drawbacks and consequences of a no-shit God Who Loves You (unreservedly and forever) ...
(Hint: try to wrap your head around the kind of loving god who loves serial killers and brain worms ...)
A God Who Loves You? Warhammer 40K sort of did that with their plague god (Nurgle) who loves all living things. It's just that there are a lot more bacteria/fungi/parasites/etc. than humans.
I think that from my point of view engineering people could do with more humanities education. Too many 'tech solves everything or at least makes a good profit' types thereabouts.
Yes. I"m reminded of noted non-humanities humanitarian Bill Gates, who applies engineering approaches, to non-engineering problems, sometimes with disastrous results.
For example, the huge amount of money he dumped into "testing number go up" in US education didn't help, because he didn't bother to ask any education experts to vet his program. They could, and did, explain pithily why it wouldn't work, but nothing makes an engineer deafer than billions of dollars to play with.
Oh yeah, and remember that Ebola pandemic he nearly caused by flooding Africa with money to fight malaria, warping their public health structures to the point that they couldn't respond to a rapidly spreading virus? Malaria is a bigger problem than Ebola, except when it isn't. Someone who knew more about public health could have warned him what his money would do, but large doses of money tend to make people deaf.
I will point out that engineers aren't alone in their arrogance. Doctors are just as bad. Pre-meds typically didn't (don't?) have to take ecology or evolution classes, although some few biomedical researchers are got the clue that these matter. That's one reason why there are so many synonyms for evolution, "mutated" and "became resistant" being two of them. As a result, they've tended to use antibiotics for bacterial infections the same way mosquito eradicators used DDT, and they're surprised (in both cases) when all they did is select for resistance.
My suggested cure for engineers, physicists, computer scientists, and pre-meds isn't more electives, it's specially designed requirements that teach to their blind spots and force them to develop some rudimentary empathy for, and respect of, other modes of thought. Or they fail the course. And I'd make it a big course: three hours lecture, six hour lab/discussion/group work, and lots of homework, so that it really would fuck up their GPAs to not do well in it. Call it boot camp for brainiacs, and teach it in their junior year, when it's too late for them to change majors.
BY the way, I give this no chance of coming to pass, because professors and wealthy alumni would howl at the idea of making the little darlings less competitive for jobs and grad programs by trying to make them more rounded human beings. And so it goes.
Medical education in the UK without learning about ecology and evolution is not impossible but not very likely since it’s hard to get into a medical school without A level biology or the Scottish equivalent. That means they already have several years of both. But arrogance based medicine is still common in the UK. (Arrogance based medicine - the belief that the patient is lying because their symptoms do not for with your diagnosis.)
Vulch @ 243:
One Federal government and 52 state governments, all who want their slice of the pork. Add the Orion to the mix and there's the 20-odd ESA member governments as well. :-)
FWIW, there are only 50 state governments and they don't really have any say in how NASA operates.
The state governments are all happy to take anything NASA wants to spend in their state, but Congress decides what that spending will be & how facilities will be distributed between the states.
(Hint: try to wrap your head around the kind of loving god who loves serial killers and brain worms ...)
Congratulations, you just reinvented Buddhism and Taoism.
Seriously, from someone who does a bit more than play with this stuff. By my understanding, this is what complete enlightenment means: being perfectly comfortable with the universe as it is, and not acting to change it in any way. This is probably why so few people attain enlightenment. Not only is it hard to do, it’s, well, kind of repugnant. Accept reality, stop struggling, fade into the background and stop reincarnating. Or you can keep struggling and reincarnate into a future that’s that is the consequence of your actions, there to suffer, struggle, die again and be reborn ad infinitum.
If you want to get your writer’s head around this, I’d suggest that Schepper’s The Taoist Body and Frantzis’ commentary on the Tao Te Ching are worth reading, although you may well hate them.
I’d finally suggest that, rather than focus on an atheist’s horror-show version of the Christian God, you really look at the Taoist immortals, who are enlightened beings. They’re called “Masters of the Gods” for a reason. In both Buddhism and Taoism, gods are not immortal, nor can they become enlightened. They’re too busy remaking the reality to accept it as it is. The interaction between a Laundry worker and a genuine Taoist immortal could be at least as dramatic as one between the same Laundry worker and Laundryverse YHWH.
Pre-meds typically didn't (don't?) have to take ecology or evolution classes
WTF?!?
Back in the early 1980s those were both core parts of the A-level Biology syllabus at schools in England. And you did not get to do medicine at University without a Grade-A pass at A-level Biology. Period.
(A-levels -- now very blurred -- used to be what you studied at secondary school (aka High School, I think?) that took you through to the equivalent of finishing the first year of a graduate degree. A-level biology covered a lot, including introductory biochemistry, anatomy, zoology, ecology, genetics, evolution ...)
I think the point being made is that NASA's funding is to a considerable extent dependent on how much they support each state, because a Congresscritter is much more likely to vote funding if their state gets some.
How much this holds currently, when Republicans can claim credit for programs and spending they voted against while keeping straight faces and having their supporters believe them, I don't know.
Robert Prior @ 294:
So on average social mobility is the same, it's just people's assumption about the direction that's wrong? :-/
I don't know if the average is the same or not. And "people's assumption" depends a lot on who you ask.
But I think a very small number of people with extreme upward (economic/social) mobility can affect those averages, offsetting the effects large masses of people with "slight" downward mobility ... even if the "average" remains about the same.
Generally, I think today's young people have less opportunity - and that opportunity is less well distributed - than when I was young. And I've seen those opportunities being shut down within my lifetime.
But I do think peoples' "assumptions" lag reality; not "wrong" so much as out of date?.
Like how the "assumption" you NEED a college degree to get ahead (get a good job & higher income) doesn't take into account the reality of student debt ... an impediment to upward mobility which didn't even exist when I was college age.
The requirement for a college degree just to get your foot in the door to even be considered for an entry level position on the track to the "good life" wasn't a fact when I dropped out of college ... but it IS today.
... and I won't even start on "self-made men".
Agreed on the welcome back.
And my take on fantasy - in the last millenium, publishers seemed to alternate - 10 years of more fantasy than sf, then 10 years of more sf than fantasy. That broke around the turn of the century/millenium. I think that the loss of the Columbia had a lot to do with it, along with 9/11... and people finding themselves in a cyberpunk dystopia.
Hopepunk's sorta-kinda trying to turn it around. Certainly, my novels (Becoming Terran is dropping in Feb, and we - that being ordinary people, not Famous Rich/Military people - turn it around) is back to looking forward to a better future. (And I call it a literary movement, and have named it after my favorite tense (grammer: see the comic strip Pogo), the Future Perfectable.
College level in the US, ecology classes were not on the pre-med curriculum where I studied, and I never saw a pre-med when I TAed those courses. That freed up space for more biochemistry, physiology, molecular biology, and anatomy classes.
While I get why they designed the curriculum the way they did, when you couple that ignorance with medical arrogance, bad things happen.
There are that kind of people, bite your nose to spite your face. I've known of women who were screwed because after divorce, they had the kid(s), and he would rather be unemployed, or paid under the table, than pay child support for his kid(s).
I really was thinking more of the reference to the Catholic Church in the original post, rather than the fall of Rome.
Howard NYC @ 321:
so... here's a bit of sociopolitical WTF... Florida is viewed as being the part of the USA where old folk go to die ("Grim Reaper's waiting room") and where anyone under age of 70 has to have an IQ under 70...
example:
"Florida woman is charged with plotting her former son-in-law’s death a week after her son is convicted of murder...
I'm still waiting for the grieving widow to be charged ... but I don't expect it any time soon.
The murder was in 2014 and it took 9 years to bring the brother to trial. It will probably depend on whether the state can get a conviction in the Mother-in-law's case.
PS: Mom, dad & the brother are all orthodontists (IIRC) with a big practice in cosmetic dentistry in Miami, FL. ... where does that fall on the STEM/Humanities divide?
If you want to get the whole story (or as much of it as the interwebbies can bring you), Google: Dan Markel murder.
Then there's the other side - to quote from the cover of an old underground comic: pic of (presumably) Jesus coming up, and the caption: "He's Back! Not even the grave could hold Him, and He WANTS YOUR SOUL."
Re: 'Mozart has too many notes! :-)'
Yes, a lot of notes - from soft to energetic and all of them clear! (Not just smooshed together.)
Once read that when his father first saw one of Mozart's first concertos he said: this is too hard to play. Mozart's response was: pianists will need to practice more. Anyways, the lively ones get my blood pumping and put a smile on my face.
Always end up smiling after this one too: Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu -- Chopin Concerto in E minor, Op. 11 - Rondo. Vivace (30:53). I watched/listened to all four finalists (three played this concerto) - not surprised the judges were unanimous in selecting Liu the winner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcOjKXIR8Iw
How's that going?
How it's going is that I'm seeing a lot of category errors that are in themselves very boring. Moving on might be more interesting.
Then you need to change the system. There’s no such thing as pre- med in the UK. Medicine is an undergraduate degree. The students probably studies ecology and evolution from the age of eleven. They specialised early in science and had already, as OGH and myself wrote passed exams in biology which included ecology and genetics. My daughter in law teaches A level biology and has extra responsibility for teaching about ecology and climate change to 16 to 18 year old students. There are some degrees that can be used as a springboard to enter medical school. I used to supervise the biochemistry projects of four students doing a Biomedical Sciences BSc. They all had to have A level biology to get on the course. All of them applied to Medical schools after graduating and were accepted. But they had all passed A level Biology
Motivated by compassion, no doubt. They hate to see others making such grave mistakes, and intervene to help. The Golden Rule in action!
Let me explain further: ecology and evolution have sigmoid learning curves. In the beginning, at BBC TV level, it’s pretty trivial. Then it gets too brain-meltingly hard, mostly because there’s a whole language or three to master. Then it gets understandable, with the caveat that those of us who climbed that far generally realize how freaking clueless we are in the face of reality.
Most class units on ecology and evolution stay on the easy side of the sigmoid curve, and the students don’t learn or retain much. So getting a unit in high school isn’t the same as learning the subject.
If you want a concrete example, I’ll choose cladistics, which is fundamental to modern evolutionary biology. Learning it for most people is like learning algebra or calculus, in that it takes two or three exposures to really get it, then it makes sense. Kids nowadays first have a unit on cladistics in high school, but when I was a grad student, they normally hit it first in intro classes. I was a grad student for a long time, so I was lucky enough to teach cladistics in intro level and advanced classes, a few times to the same kids. What was interesting was that each time I taught the same material, but the students learned it differently in the advanced class. The professors noticed too. One intro class professor thought she was a failure, because she taught cladistics so much worse than an advanced teacher did. I overheard the conversation, and since I’d TAed for both of them, I was able to tell them that they were both teaching the same thing, but that the advanced students only got it when they’d seen it first in the intro class. It wasn’t the teacher or teaching, it was the repetition. I’d had the same experience learning it myself.
But I do think peoples' "assumptions" lag reality; not "wrong" so much as out of date?.
I would class "out of date" as a form of wrong.
My daughter in law teaches A level biology and has extra responsibility for teaching about ecology and climate change to 16 to 18 year old students.
In Ontario, ecology is covered in grade 9 and climate change in grade 10 (15 year olds) — if they are covered. Each is supposed to be 1/4 of the science course, but because those topics are touched again in upper years the teacher often skimps on time, or drops them entirely, so the children learn how to balance chemical equations which is clearly much more important to understanding the world. Even if they are taught the level is very basic.
Yes, I'm a bit bitter. I spent years building up the climate change unit and getting my department to give it 1/4 of the course, and as soon as I retired that stopped.
I’ll choose cladistics, which is fundamental to modern evolutionary biology. Learning it for most people is like learning algebra or calculus, in that it takes two or three exposures to really get it, then it makes sense.
On that note, can you recommend a good resource for learning cladistics? Preferably free, because I've just got two more grandniblings and I want to spoil them not me, but if not free at least cheaper than a $300 textbook.
This is the A-Level Biology syllabus for one of the UK examination boards, it's the international version but not that different to the home one. It's a two year course but would be building on a previous GCSE biology course. Examinees at A-Level would generally be 18 years old.
whitroth @280:
Thanks, whitroth—I suspect you're right—or at any rate, close enough to right that your scenario could be an excellent basis for a story.
Still, I doubt I'd be writing it. You'd be better at that sort of tale than I would, I think... Ain't sayin just sayin. ;-)
The story I'm writing is about several diminished, impoverished, interesting adaptive tribes of humanity, and an AI that lives among them as they undertake a climate-driven migration poleward. If anybody's doing space launches anymore, it's a matter of far-off rumor.
That said, I don't write misery porn. These people are likely to be the seed of a sustainable culture, if they make it.
force them to develop some rudimentary empathy for, and respect of, other modes of thought.
I have a vague impression from listening to people who present themselves as experts that doing that violates various human rights obligations. As noted pedagogical philosopher Mal Webb put it "respect can't be demanded, it has to be inspired, a stick won't make that donkey work, it's the carrot that's required".
A levels don’t work like that. It’s not “getting a unit in high school. Any of the lessons or topics in the two year course can appear in the final exams which must be passed. So you don’t just take the course and then forget it. Anyone going on to study medicine or veterinary medicine at university has to get the highest marks at A level. A sixth form of sixth form college leads to qualifications roughly equivalent to the first year of a US degree. But without the breadth of subjects studied at a US university. However I agree with you about antibiotics use. However in the UK the problem is the opposite to the one you describe. Doctors are pressurised to limit the use of antibiotics and can be reluctant to prescribe second line antibiotics. My wife, who has asthma and suffers from chest infections has to work hard to convince GPs to prescribe the correct antibiotics when she has an infection. According to her cardiac surgeon this was a major contributor to her mitral stenosis which required a valve replacement. However the problem with antibiotics is a failure of microbiology education in medical schools not the failure to be taught genetics in the equivalent of pre med.
Sure you do. I kept a 4.0 average though grad school doing just that with the useless prerequisites, like organic chemistry. With many skills,i it’s use them or lose them, and many aren’t worth keeping. Heck, I’d need a major refresher on topics I’ve taught, because some f them I haven’t used in a decade or more.
This is why my wife the clinical pharmacist spends so much time doing continuing education units in her spare time. So she’ll stay up too date on her field.
I’ll also say that many students are only in it for the grade. They’ll do whatever they think will get them an A. Remember the material? Don’t be silly, they’d say. Who has time for that? Memory is what the internet is for, they and some of their teachers will say. They’re confused about the difference between being able to use knowledge (as in speaking a foreign language) and being able to look stuff up, but there you have it.
Breaking a lifelong habit of short term memorizing is hard.
Yes, I have a nursing non-degree myself, and a couple of the people I trained with ended up as lawyers. I actually had a potential employer tell me I wasn't a real nurse as I didn't have a degree, and I stopped teaching at uni when the academics decided that not having a piece of paper meant I wasn't worth paying much. HR and I disagreed with them, so I left. I did end up getting a piece of paper just to placate employers, but it's in Health Informatics.
I did end up getting a piece of paper just to placate employers, but it's in Health Informatics.
My sister has some kind of nurse practitioner certificate that's not a medical degree, it's a degree in a medical field (???!!) and I can't help laughing when I read some of the media beatups about people like her. Apparently nurses should stay in their lane and not bother about what's actually wrong with patients or something. Insert right wing shock jock babble here...
Some of the more valuable educational experiences I had at uni came from non-degree'd people. Not so much engineering because so much of that requires practicing certificates, but the social science stuff had guest lecturers from all walks.
Also, if you're up for a public outing Nicholas Gruen is always looking for interesting people to talk to on his vodcast/podcast/newsletter things. He's happy to have "from a reader" contributions, but really gets excited when the bearer of an idea is willing to talk about it in public. Assuming you have an axe to grind :)
you don't want to turn away the guy who designed the thing from a course in better designing the thing just because he doesn't have a bit of paper from a degree mill
Back when I was getting my Honours Specialist AQ (needed for the promotion I'd already received) I ended up having to take two simultaneous HS AQs because, according to the Registrar a course in microprocessor design had nothing to do with computers because it was coded EE not CS on my transcript.
Same woman refused to recognize a course I'd taught multiple times because I didn't have a credit in it. The fact that I was instructing the course, setting and grading the wrk and exams, made no difference to my lack of a credit. A letter from the head of the college recognizing my expertise also made no difference.
Couldn't appeal, because by some bureaucratic snaffle having to do with acting positions, she was the person responsible for judging appeals of her own decisions.
It was a very surreal summer (partly because of the sleep deprivation from taking two simultaneous full-time courses). I learned a bit about how minor functionaries can establish their own fiefdoms within a bureaucracy. Probably one of the reasons I enjoyed the early Laundry stories where Bob was as worried about the bureaucracy as he was about the undead horrors…
There's a couple of lines in one of Pournelle's Falkenberg books (West of Honor, maybe) where a young officer is reflecting on his military training at West Point. Roughly paraphrasing: "calculation of mortar firing patterns, presentation of calling cards to senior officers when arriving at a new post, field maintenance of hovercraft, ceremonial marching… it's all stuff you need to learn to pass exams, and jumbled up with no idea what's really important and isn't".
Which is the problem with courses and exams: they provide knowledge and skills, but often without the context you need to judge what's importance when, and how it all fits together.
Robert Prior 328:
FYI: author listed under various spellings...
Naoíse Mac Sweeney
Naose Sweeney
Naose Mac Sweeney
Naose Macsweeney
The story I'm writing is about several diminished, impoverished, interesting adaptive tribes of humanity, and an AI that lives among them as they undertake a climate-driven migration poleward. If anybody's doing space launches anymore, it's a matter of far-off rumor.
Oh goody. You're the kind of person I wrote Hot Earth Dreams for. Although I went a bit deeper into the future than that. Hope it helps.
Christianity was rising while Rome was falling, Gibbon covered that quite a lot. It’s pretty much impossible to talk about that period of history without talking about Christianity and The Church
I don’t think that the Second Foundation was a direct copy:paste of Catholicism just that those historical elements were smeared across the First and Second Foundation.
I've seen a cartoon where a person laments that while they have no skills or abilities to operate as an adult, they did learn quite thoroughly that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
I've recently been taking nautical certification courses, and the contrast between 'you need to know this or you will get people killed' and 'study this to pass and get the paper that will open doors' is quite stark. The marine instructor was quite clear that the courses are only a part of the requirement, hands on experience is essential.
On the flip side my graduate degree opened quite a few doors for me back when I did office work, despite nobody once even looking at it, or even asking what field it was in. Ditto many of the grants and RFP processes I endured, where my certification was all that I needed, actual ability to do the work was a bonus.
Charlie Stross 329:
what happens when the Laundry (or its successor, DEAT) run into an actual loving deity?
dare I suggest?
horror #1: please consider "With Folded Hands" as something that still gives a shiver, just about the SECOND WORST possibility for how AI/ASI blossoms...
since there are many who have never had the pleasure/pain of reading this slow paced story, no spoilers, so they too brought to a roiling boil of creeping dread
horror #2: a now-ancient teevee show, "Angel" had a 'big bad' of a supposed love god, Jasmine (actor: Gina Torres), who offered humanity peace 'n plenty in exchange for a daily handful of willing sacrifices of people... sort of UberEats scaled for a god's appetites... when she's in the mood for Chinese take out or a more formal meal of Italian dishes... she gets 'em delivered...
sick thing of the premise, with Jasmine as planetary overlord, deaths due to war-famine-abusive-spouses plummet to near-zero so the daily handful of people turned into 'god chow' seems like a really good deal (from perspective of thousands who otherwise would die each day in pain 'n misery)
horror #3 thru N: yup... others are available just call our toll free phone number... 1-800-HELLO-HELL
"Yes. I"m reminded of noted non-humanities humanitarian Bill Gates, who applies engineering approaches, to non-engineering problems, sometimes with disastrous results.
I will point out that engineers aren't alone in their arrogance.
My suggested cure for engineers, physicists, computer scientists, and pre-meds isn't more electives, it's specially designed requirements that teach to their blind spots and force them to develop some rudimentary empathy for, and respect of, other modes of thought. Or they fail the course. And I'd make it a big course: three hours lecture, six hour lab/discussion/group work, and lots of homework."
Laughing hysterically as the teacher suggests that the cure for one of the primary root causes of humans being dumbasses is making them take 'a big course'.
QED. You have made the point beyond any shadow of a doubt that engineers are not alone in their arrogance (-:
Half-synthetic yeast created Biologists have produced a strain of yeast whose genome is more than 50% synthetic DNA. The feat is the latest milestone for a group of labs called the Sc2.0 consortium, which has been trying to create a strain of yeast with a fully synthetic genome for 15 years. One of Sc2.0’s main goals is to eliminate potential sources of instability in the yeast genome. The team hopes to manipulate its synthetic brewer’s yeast so that it can one day produce drugs and fuels, rather than beer. Nature | 4 min read References: Cell paper 1, Cell paper 2 & Cell Genomics paper
From my NATURE newsletter. Relevant because of the lovely 'bread recipes' in RULE 34.
There's lots of twists you can do on a "loving god" who has other motives, or whose followers do. Funny how self-sacrificing hippie rebel Jesus became Pantocrator, killing heretics and Jews (Christ killers) once he was absorbed by the Roman Empire. Self sacrificing into sacrificing unbelievers.
I really bought into the idea of Jesus as the god (or son of) who would sacrifice himself for the sake of humanity. Non-violence! Liberation Theology! Gandhi made it work on a mass scale, but the Jesuit priests and Maryknoll nuns who tried it in Central America just got killed by American supported death squads, all in the name of God, of course. My wife and I worked with street kids. Didn't work with them either. Learned tit for tat the hard way. Don't be a push-over. Respect is what matters.
Charlie: A god who loves serial killers - of all people, Pournelle and Niven wrote a believable piece (Inferno and Escape from Hell) on exactly that. Suffering -> empathy. The killers made it to heaven IIRC.
"Bill Gates, who applies engineering approaches, to non-engineering problems, sometimes with disastrous results" .
Not so sure Gates was totally off. Worked for an international children's rights group. Consensus of development experts was what improved the lives of "third-world" children and their families was clean water, sewage disposal, oral re-hydration for diarrhea, education of women, birth control, disease control like malaria and guinea worm. Off the top of my head, but I think he put a lot of money most of those. Methods may not have been right, but policy was.
When I was taking science in grade ten a bunch of us were doing the usual student whine "do we have to know this? will it be on the test?" In response our teacher told us of when we was being trained as a navigator in England in WWII. Many of his classmates had exactly the same question and the instructor's response was "gentlemen, next month you will fly over Germany at night and return; those of you who find your way back to England and don't drown in the North Sea will have passed the test. Are there any more questions?"
And there weren't. Even our obnoxious 15-year-old selves understood that what counts is what you do with what you've learned.
The marine instructor was quite clear that the courses are only a part of the requirement, hands on experience is essential.
On reason I think Ontario raising the requirements for teacher training to two years (on top of a four-year degree) was wrong. An extra year of supervised classroom experience under the tutelage of a master teacher would have been an improvement; an extra year of sitting in classrooms listening to lecturers who haven't taught children in decades, not so much.
358 - A nurse who did bother about "what's wrong with her patient?", and indeed then argued with a doctor and won is one of the reasons why I'm able to write this post. The answer to WWWHP was "sepsis" and I spent 2 weeks in hospital receiving IV antibiotics 3 times daily. The doctor (who thought they could diagnose and prescribe by telephone) said a 1 week course of antibiotic tablets would do it.
Thank you again Cathy Webster.
359 - Likewise about the bureaucracy.
Yes, “will it be on the test?” was a question I got a lot. For basic diversity classes (plant taxonomy, mycology, etc.), it was pretty simple.
Such classes are mostly about learning to identify structures and organisms, so it’s a few hundred terms to learn, the equivalent of a foreign language class, sometimes with a couple of weeks on cladistics.
I basically tested what I taught. Weekly low stakes quizzes for everyone to gauge their progress and to encourage them to not cram, and a few thorough exams. No tricks, no shortcuts. The answer to “will this be on the test.” was almost always “yes,” with stuff not on the test clearly identified.
Some students hated this. They wanted miracles, so they could pull off a last second A after not studying all semester. No surprise there, either. Thing is, the classes on average did better without trickery.
a piece of paper just to placate employers, but it's in Health Informatics
Was that the CHIA? The content for that is actually really impressive, and I have hypothesised that it's aimed squarely at killing Dunning-Kruger among practitioners in the domain. I did it a few years back, but had no reasonable excuse to be active enough in AIDH to keep up the CPD so I've let it lapse.
I ended up going and doing a masters in "law for non-lawyers", specialising in healthcare law, to serve more or less the same function you describe (I even got to include a health informatics unit in my masters program).
Damian @ 357
"Piece of Paper" - yes, well, about 20 years ago - looking for work that wasn't "minimum wage" I tried "Electrician" ( I do have an engineering MSc, after all ) ...
No-one was the slightest bit interested - I had to have a formal electrician's qualification, with over a year of study .. paid for .. how ????
Total bollocks & really annoying, never mind grinding the faces of the poor.
so they could pull off a last second A after not studying all semester
I feel seen!
Studying the bottom of beer glasses is still studying...
Huh: they've watered the biology A-level down since the early 1980s -- looking at that syllabus my 1982 A-level included about 90-100% of the AS-level topics as well.
"Piece of Paper" - yes, well, about 20 years ago - looking for work that wasn't "minimum wage" I tried "Electrician" ( I do have an engineering MSc, after all ) ... No-one was the slightest bit interested - I had to have a formal electrician's qualification, with over a year of study .. paid for .. how ???? Total bollocks & really annoying, never mind grinding the faces of the poor.
How weird. It's as if they wanted people wiring houses to be qualified to do that. Next you know they'll want the gas people to qualified too!
How weird. It's as if they wanted people wiring houses to be qualified to do that. Next you know they'll want the gas people to qualified too!
I have an EE MSc (an engineering degree really), and while my major was space tech, I learned enough of electricity that while I probably could work as an electrician, I know not to and pay for professionals to do that stuff.
(Fiddling with electronics at low-ish voltages, yes, that's fine.)
No-one was the slightest bit interested - I had to have a formal electrician's qualification, with over a year of study .. paid for .. how ????
In the US (and similar in Canada) to become a licensed electrician you have to pass a comprehensive test (or few?) and put in 2000 or 4000 hours as an apprentice under a licensed eletrician.
And there is nothing or damned close to nothing about how electrons flow from atom to atom and similar. What is is about is health and safty and doing things in a way that will last when the weather ranges from below freezing for months at a time to what feels like Death Valley in the summer. And so idiot end users will not break things and kill people without trying really hard.
Your degrees don't matter to them. It is all about hands on learning to do it right.
Sure you do. I kept a 4.0 average though grad school
What's a "4.0 average" when it's at home?
We're talking about a completely different education that teaches and tests differently from the US system you're familiar with. You can't just take part of an A-level syllabus in isolation then forget it: all of the syllabus is required and you may fail to gain an adequate pass in the exams if you forget any of it.
From page 12, "Candidates for Cambridge International AS Level should study topics 1–11. Candidates for Cambridge International A Level should study all topics." so the A-Level includes all of the AS by my reading.
What's a "4.0 average" when it's at home?
Grade ointment average, using the system A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0. Straight A average, in other words. I’m also talking about getting masters and PhD, not high school. In US grad schools, the general rule is that if your GPA goes below 3.0, you’re on probation, to get your grades up or get expelled. It’s 2.0 for undergrads.
Nick K
Learn to fucking READ?
Domestic wiring, is, - effectively "DC", after all:
THREE wires, of sufficent diameter for the expected current { Hint: The leads to the Immersion Heater spur need to be thicker than a normal ring main & a purely lighting circuit CAN be "thinner", though not necessarily recommended!}
Wire ONE: - "Live" - the power feed from the nearest sub-station, through your main fuse & switch box - coloured BROWN ( Used to be red )
Wire TWO: - "Return" - back to the sub-station - coloured BLUE ( Used to be black ) Wire THREE: - "Earth" { Or "Ground" } - self-explanatory - coloured Green-&-Yeller ( Used to be plain green )
Oh - and - make really sure all sockets, terminals & appliances are properly grounded - & also the house itself. { Mine wasn't - so I bonded a new one to the the incoming water pipe. }
A formal electrician's training would also include dealing with elementary aspects of Three-Phase wiring, also.
- But I did that a couple of times, when I worked in research!
My 1893-built house was originally wired up in 1907-9.
I was compelled to do a complete re-wiring, myself, in the mid 1980's, since when I have successfully "inserted" an extra multi-socket bank under the floorboards ( accessed by a flap ) together with a phone socket & filter. so that the computer I'm typing this on ( & it's predecessors ) could be fitted in fairly neatly, without "too many" wires everywhere.
THAT was when I found out that the whole house was wired up "Backwards" - "Live" & Return" were reversed, the lines were live, all the way back to the switches. Reversing it to be correct was "fun" - don't want to have to do that again, thank-you! HINT: If really necessary, I'll do my own plumbing as well .... I think I draw the line at gas piping, however.
In the spirit of Charlie's reply: "whats a grad school"? - again different education systems - our undergraduate degrees are much much more specialised and in depth.
and our grading system for them is completely different (pass, third, lower second, upper second, first)
Yes the AS used to be a lower 6th (1st year of A levels) qualification so about 1/2 the A level syllabus used to be compulsory up to 2019/18? but now dropped.
AS still exist but no longer taken by so many people.
OK Greg, enlighten us (pun intended). How does one phase, say yellow (or red or blue, your choice) of a 3 phase supply become DC without being fed through a rectifier?
REMINDER: always cut the red wire before the green wire and never (never! ever!) mess with the green one
this safety tip courtesy of every overwrought mis-written Hollywood movie with a ticking bomb in it
====
in answer to "whats a grad school?"...
it is where you sink in two (or three or four) years of your life, USD$ 30K (or 40K or 50K or 90K) per year in hopes of becoming rich thanks to an MBA (or DDS or MD or DVM or JD) after your name
as to whether you are indeed wiser than all other mortals, well that's a good question...
...the answer will cost you USD $200/H with a three hour minimum
about 20 years ago - looking for work that wasn't "minimum wage" I tried "Electrician" ( I do have an engineering MSc, after all ) ... No-one was the slightest bit interested -
Back when I was in upper year uni a bunch of us students prevailed upon the department's technician to teach us some basic skills like soldering, wire-wrapping, and so on that weren't part of our course (but very useful). We were apparently the first class to do that rather than asking various profs who were more 'hands-on', and who's equipment always took extra time to repair because they'd had a go at it themselves first.
And, of course, almost none of the profs were worried about meeting code. (A couple of the heavy current chaps who'd worked in industry cared, but the majority who were pure academics didn't.)
To crosswalk between UK and US, roughly, using Wikipedia. Sixth form, age-wise, is about the same as American high school. In the American system of Kindergarten through 12th grade, from ages 5-18, one grade per year, high school is grades 9-12, roughly 15-18.
A-levels seem to be analogous to our Advanced Placement (AP) classes, and you only get AP credit if you take a national AP test at the end of the school year. These tests are on a five point scale, 5 being high, and many schools treat AP scores as grade oinks for calculating high school GPA. In addition, to get into a four year college or university, in the US you need to do well on the SAT or ACT tests, although this is becoming less important. Since it’s the US, I should note that the AP, SAT, and ACT tests are all administered by companies, not governments, so you pay for all these tests.
After high school, there are trade schools that give certification, two year junior or community colleges that do continuing education, or programs leading to associate’s degrees, four year colleges that bestow bachelor’s degrees, and universities where you can earn a bachelors, masters, and/or doctorate. So you’d go to a trade school for an electrician’s certificate, a community college for an associate degree in computer science, or a university for a bachelors in electrical engineering.
I loved The World of Null-A, and surprisingly so did my wife. You don't have to believe it's possible to enjoy it. I just call it Fantasy. I'm not much of a fan of Jerry Pournelle as a person (quite enjoyed many of his books), but I find it hard to believe he was a believer.
So true. My introduction to SF was Heinlein. I stopped reading Heinlein for many years after I Will Fear No Evil, but when I reread The Door Into Summer it reminded me of everything that was wonderful about his stories.
Well, I worked that out eventually, but I still like the other two answers and the idea they could all be related, including the fictional one.
"The Murder of My Aunt" comes to mind... (modulo a few changes.)
"There's a wide anti-authoritarian streak (probably not quite what you mean by socialist) in classic sf, and I wonder how it got lost."
Come now! One of the most popular series of recent years, The Expanse is full-on anti-authoritarian, and some guy named Stross has been subversive for decades.
"Economics is not difficult to understand, It's just been obfuscated by academics and hijacked by political hacks"
I'd add to the first phrase "except by economists". I had to take an introduction to Macroeconomics in first year university, and it was pretty straightforward. Economists, however, seem to keep ignoring that stuff and making things up.
Pointing to one of Charlie's frequent comments on life...
People are not collections of identical spheroid blobs who all act alike. Economics for a very long time and to some degree still assumes people will act in rational logical similar manners.
But...
Oh, learning biology and biochemistry is definitely a lot like learning another language. So is medicine and related professions, for that matter. (It's no accident that Nuance make (or made) a bundle by selling expensive add-on dictionaries for Dragon Dictate that cover medical English.)
Greg, "electrician" vs "engineer" is a lot like "nurse" vs "doctor". They sound to an outside like they ought to be interchangeable but in practice they diverged a century or more ago and today they're radically different jobs.
Doctors are in the diagnosis and triage business, working out what's wrong with a patient and -- when they've got sufficient specialist knowledge -- suggesting how to treat it. Nurses are in the treatment delivery business -- the doc told them what's wrong with the patient and what therapy they need, the nurses deliver the treatment. And what most people think of as "nursing" (colloquial sense) is these days classes as personal care and handled by care assistants who don't need to know stuff like how to install an i/v line or intubate or catheterise a patient or spot when they're in immediate danger and stabilize them.
Similarly, electricians? Run wiring, connect up distribution boards, don't get themselves electrocuted. Whereas EEs design distribution boards, which is not the same at all.
David L @ 380:
In the US (and similar in Canada) to become a licensed electrician you have to pass a comprehensive test (or few?) and put in 2000 or 4000 hours as an apprentice under a licensed eletrician.
And there is nothing or damned close to nothing about how electrons flow from atom to atom and similar. What is is about is health and safty and doing things in a way that will last when the weather ranges from below freezing for months at a time to what feels like Death Valley in the summer. And so idiot end users will not break things and kill people without trying really hard.
Your degrees don't matter to them. It is all about hands on learning to do it right.
You have to have an Electrical Contractors License to undertake work for hire as an electrician. You don't have to have a license to work FOR an Electrical Contractor (but you get paid more IF you do ... and you will have to have it before you can go out on your own and have your own contracting business).
You have to have those hours of work experience before you're allowed to take the test for an Electrical Contractors License. The test is about the NEC - National Electrical Code.
Do you know the code requirements for the work you're doing?
Four thousand hours is two years full time "supervised" work experience. There are some formal apprenticeship programs, but mostly it's just getting hired on as an "electrician's helper" and holding on to the job long enough to accumulate the required hours work experience (at least that's how it worked here in North Carolina back in the 80s).
There are different levels of Electrical Licenses. The level of license determines the kind and value ($$$) of the jobs your company is allowed to undertake.
The alarm company I worked for was required to have someone with a "Low Voltage" electrical license (along with someone holding a NC Private Protective Services license) and since I was their only reliable employee here in NC when that law was passed, I had to go take the tests.
Plus there's a requirement for a minimum of "6 hours" of continuing education annually if you want to renew your license. Community Colleges usually host those classes through a continuing education department.
Community Colleges offer certificate training that can substitute for up to half of those required work experience hours.
I'm a big fan of Community Colleges. Community Colleges generally have affordable tuition. It's possible to get those certificates (or an "Associate" degree - 2 year post high school) as a working adult WITHOUT having to mortgage your soul.1
--
1
"Low cost student loans" ARE available, but it's possible to get an Associates Degree without them. It's sometimes even possible to get an Associates Degree attending part time at night.
Paws
It's done at a local, very small, sub-station - I can see my nearest one, in the grounds of the school across the road.
I know that's where it happens, because, about 15 years back there was a power-cut ... then two phases came back on, but ours didn't ...
so adjacent houses were on different phases, which means an (approx) 450V differentail, oops. DO NOT connect up the adjacent houses!
These days, they are all solid-state devices, with no moving parts ...
Simple tutorial here - though there is an emphasis on full rectification, rather than selecting out a single phase, whilst leaving that phase as AC.
Here is more on that, but mostly in a US/Canada milieu
Huh, I guess I'm getting AS levels mixed up with a extra-advanced A-level-plus-bells-and-whistles qualification of my own time (I'm not sure what it would have been called?).
Heteromeles @ 390:
After high school, there are trade schools that give certification, two year junior or community colleges that do continuing education, or programs leading to associate’s degrees, four year colleges that bestow bachelor’s degrees, and universities where you can earn a bachelors, masters, and/or doctorate. So you’d go to a trade school for an electrician’s certificate, a community college for an associate degree in computer science, or a university for a bachelors in electrical engineering.
FWIW, you can get an Associates Degree in Electrical Contracting from Community Colleges that combines the technical/trade (certificate) aspects with basic liberal arts education.
You still need at least a year's work experience as an electrician's helper before you're allowed to take the Electrical Contractor's license exam.
I think they were S-Levels, S for Special or Scholarship. Friend of mine at school was a year younger than the rest of us, she'd been allowed to start secondary school age 10, and hung around the school for an extra year when the rest of us went off to university as a part time teaching assistant and took the Maths S-Level.
Yeah, I was definitely thinking of S levels!
Not sure what the US equivalent would be but something more substantial than an AP course -- more like second year of grad school. S levels were hardcore.
None of which means anything more than every 3rd house was on the same one of blue phase, red phase or yellow phase. It still doesn't rectify the 3 phase input to direct current, which is what you keep implying.
Oh I quite agree!
American academia and education is substantially more complex than I made it appear. For a blog post aimed mostly at UK people, I was just trying to lay out some basics.
I'm also keeping mum about US healthcare personnel and their roles, which are also quite a bit more complex than Charlie laid out. If people are interested I can go a bit into the segmentation, but so far I see no reason to do so.
One example: locally, hospitals tend to be run, not by MDs, but by people with doctorates in nursing who also often have MBAs. If you pair this with what Charlie wrote about the modern difference between doctors and nurses, this makes some sense, but it's not something you'd deduce otherwise.
I know it's a rarity coming from me, but this might actually be on topic:
Silicon Valley’s worldview is not just an ideology; it’s a personality disorder.
Heteromeles @ 407:
Oh I quite agree!
American academia and education is substantially more complex than I made it appear. For a blog post aimed mostly at UK people, I was just trying to lay out some basics.
I'm also keeping mum about US healthcare personnel and their roles, which are also quite a bit more complex than Charlie laid out. If people are interested I can go a bit into the segmentation, but so far I see no reason to do so.
One example: locally, hospitals tend to be run, not by MDs, but by people with doctorates in nursing who also often have MBAs. If you pair this with what Charlie wrote about the modern difference between doctors and nurses, this makes some sense, but it's not something you'd deduce otherwise.
I beg to differ.
One of the reasons "health care" in the U.S. is so fucked up is that hospitals (and medical practice in general) are NOT run by medical professionals - they're run by CORPORATE financial specialists. Patient care is NOT the reason hospitals exist.
Patient care is a COST CENTER to be minimized as a drain on corporate resources.
I have great respect for the profession of nursing (my Mom was an RN), but they're NOT running things in the medical profession.
paws
You misunderstand me completely, I'm afraid - possibly because of sloppy wording.
You get a group of houses on one phase of a basic three-phase supply, then a second group on phase two & a third on phase 3 - all are then on a single phase, internally. F'rinstance on our road, I think nos 1 & 2-8 are on one phase & nos 10+ are on another ...
Each house is, of course on single-phase AC, but for wiring connectivity, you "pretend" it's DC - Live / Return / Neutral for the purposes o wiring it up. Does that make sense?
I'm pretty sure that the DOD pork barrel predate LBJ administration by two decades or so. I ran into it in the seventies, but it was very highly refined by then. And important projects, such as a next generation aircraft or tank would employ folks from nearly all congressional districts.
The thought just occurred to me that this dispersal of design and production is like the reason why it takes so long to bring new systems on line.
https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/military-industrial-complex
We need so many more Nurse Practitioners! When I was working in Emergency at RPA we had a consultant who used to tell the new doctors: "Listen to the nurses! They spend much more time with the patients than you do and many of them have been doing this much longer than you will." I don't understand the angst about NPs -- there's a shortage of GPs so having NPs in a general practice means people not waiting weeks for simple things like repeat prescriptions.
Oh and axe grinding is really hard work, not maintaining the rage...
No, I did the only remote HI course available at the time and got a Grad.Dip.eHealth(HI) before CHIA was a thing. I've looked at the CHIA but as I'm hoping to retire soon I figure what I have is enough.
Greg, once again I am not Damian. I would appreciate it if you could get my name right when replying to my posts.
That makes "more sense", at least enough that I can see that it's "how you remember the wiring convention".
That's not at all what I thought you meant! I thought you were talking about 50Hz being a low enough frequency that you can ignore reactive effects, capacitance, induction and the like. (Which is true most of the time on the scale of house wiring stuff, but not always [eg. flashing CFLs], and not on larger, ie. distribution, scales.) Then your next comment confused me entirely :)
It's pretty much standard for each house to be on the next phase to next door, so when you get a power cut on one phase every third house goes dark. (Whereupon sometimes people try and run an extension lead from their neighbours and mayhem ensues.) In this street the streetlights are done like that as well. Blocks of houses all on the same phase is something they tend to avoid.
In the house-converted-to-flats I used to be in, the supply coming into the house was all three phases, and then every flat was on the next phase from the last one - in sequence of flat numbers, not by floor the flats were on. So each floor would have sockets on all three phases, which is very naughty; 415V between adjacent lives, and nothing to even indicate that this was the case unless you traced the wiring all the way back in the (huge, spaghetti-filled) meter cupboard. For instance my flat was on red and the cleaner's socket outside my door was on yellow, and I was probably the only one out of all the residents and all the landlords who knew this.
DON'T get into what they do in the US. It will make your hair stand on end, much like their signalling does.
You'll still need to explain wtf "grade ointment" (#383) means, also "grade oinks" (#390). They look like chubified typos from this side of the water.
And we can't have unmaintained rage in the community, when it breaks down bad things happen :)
The anti-NP stuff makes my head hurt. The best I can make out it comes from people who live where there are lots of doctors so think everyone else does, and since doctors are better than nurses (ahem) people should be allowed to see a doctor when they want to, not forced to see a nurse instead. Even if the nurse has extra training, she's still not a doctor (ahem on the "she" too). Which is bullshit but that's my attempt to be charitable to the argument.
I'm amused that my sister has gone from not liking studying to be a nurse to voluntarily going back to become a NP and claiming to enjoy it. She's doing stuff with neonatals so she's always busy at weird hours and is studiously trying not to get sucked into the politics around paying midwives and arguments about what midwives are allowed to do (WRT risky pregnancies especially). I also love the idea of a "geratric pregnancy" label being slapped on anyone over 35 or whatever the age is. I know why, I just think it's a funny term.
What scares me is that some actal electricians are not much better. although it can be hard to tell whether they're genuine morons or just faking it because the company they work for is sales-oriented (in the "upsell every customer or get fired" sense).
I worked as an electrical labourer during my degree and that was informative. As mentioned above, it's not understanding theory that electricians spend time on, it's memorising the thousands of regulations that end with "because someone died when it was done the old way".
On topic comment: one thing that has always struck me about nearly all the putative future societies I've encountered in SF is, when you consider them as a possibility on their own apart from the context of the book they're part of, how very shit they are. Even the ones that are supposed to be "good", and even for the people who are at or near the top of whatever pyramid they have and get all the perks. With very few exceptions (the Culture probably scores highest), if I had the choice of living in one at an equivalent position to where I am now, or simply staying where I am now, I'd emphatically choose to stay put. Which makes me think that people who actually want to make them happen must have something unpleasantly wrong with them, on the lines of a worldview that never looks beyond the paint, on anything.
"putative future societies..."
The Culture, of course, shouldn't be listed, as it isn't a future of Earth at all, but rather something alien (not to say, I think, the author was suggesting it was impossible as something like our future, but didn't want to be bound by the continuity issues of our being in the past?). Earth ca.1970 even appears as a potential Culture candidate in a short story.
Scalzi's "Redshirts" springs to mind... but the critique applies to a lot of fantasy as well. Bad enough being a peon in general, being a peon who's also part of the food supply for their lord seems like a step down.
I am surprised. I would definitely prefer to live in most of Alastair Reynolds' or Peter Hamilton's futures than in 2023 -- even as an average nobody, let alone an aristocrat. I would not want to live as a Belter in "The Expanse" but as an Earthman, sure.
You'll still need to explain wtf "grade ointment" (#383) means, also "grade oinks" (#390). They look like chubified typos from this side of the water.
Yeah, they're the result of the hand tremor of PD combined with typing on an IPad screen, combined with Apple's quadruply-damned autocorrect, combined with a small screen that makes it hard to see typos, interfacing with the software running this blog.
This comment was typed on a laptop, where I can at least see my mistakes and move the mouse to fix them.
It's a useful example of how computer engineers solve biological problems caused by modern society, IMHO.
Anyway, grade point average (GPA) and grade points.
Thanks for bringing that up.
I'm pretty sure that the DOD pork barrel predate LBJ administration by two decades or so.
Butler mentions military contractors in "War is a Racket".
"In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows."
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
We need so many more Nurse Practitioners!
Totally agreed! I have to admit having been in healthcare IT for such a long time and having studied health economics a bit I might tend to filter out people in the media saying obviously stupid things about them, but I wasn't aware there's such a level of "concern" out there.
There's the whole cost/capacity growth thing that affects all healthcare systems, not just the bloated monsters like the USA's. But the obvious thing about timeliness of interventions ... well I guess it can only be the same people who object to VAD and feel that severe pain is morally instructive or something.
We also need more Health Informaticians and HIMs, and too many people think it's just IT.
Apple's quadruply-damned autocorrect
I have come to rely on the hold-down-the-on-screen-spacebar-to-manipulate-a-cursor trick for that sort of thing, but generally avoid trying to comment here from an iDevice too.
Was going to jump in with how GPAs in Aus are different again (7 point scale), but there's not much point ;)
I wasn't aware there's such a level of "concern" out there.
I think it's mostly turf defence by the doctor's union and that's the one the media are inclined to cover without analysis. But there's also genuine concern that NPs aren't as good as doctors for some things, and my sister has collected that because she kind of lives in the gap between "the midwife can't cope, but we don't need an ambulance" and that's a small, fuzzy gap. Not to mention that the media response when something bad happens is not suited to the nuance around small fuzzy gaps.
There's a bunch of routine stuff I do that seems to be: visit doctor, get sent for test, visit doctor to get results. 90% of the time I know what test is needed before I do the first visit, so it seems that having a nurse, or a nurse++, just schedule the test and report normal results would avoid wasting time (and annoying the p... patient)
I’m pretty sure that grade ointment is what you rub on a bad grade to quieten the grade oinks.
And it’s the Culture for me. Back to my vROU “May Contain Nuts”.
I had a late reaction to the headline "you only think you're sorry now. Just you wait, soon you will look back at this time as the good old days".
Somehow my mind went into a weird tangent about the air market being privatised and a scandal about bad air being supplied to schools. So people's kids are coming home brain damaged from the canned air their school uses ... and now you're sorry. Remember the good old days when it was just AI taking over the world that scared you? Ha. You know nothing. Scary is your air supplier going bust and you lose air in the middle of the night. So you wake up breathing exhaust fumes and and whatever other air is being dumped into the public network because it's not safe for human consumption so can't be sold.
Meanwhile Paris is spending billions trying to make the river safe to swim in...
=+=+=+=+=
Tim McDermott 411:
actually the dispersal of sourcing for components was a major motivator for: (a) EDI (which later gave rise to XML) as well as (b) CAD/CAM standards and (c) dire need for effective project management in the form of a formalized PMO (project management office) for sake of coordinating zillions of fiddly bits in frenetic motion...
political support for gigabuck weapons systems (Pentagon) and moonshots (NASA) arising from 'job creation' led to whole new professions... and supporting technologies...
=+=+=+=+=
Derek 396:
every purist amongst economists is insistent upon modeling national economies ("macroeconomics") as endless flows of cash whilst ignoring outputs subtracted (leaving/extracted/consumed) and inputs added (injected/purified/smelted)... which has the effect of treating all foodstuffs as durable goods rather than one-time use (admittedly valid in the unique case of Hostess Twinkies™) as well as ignoring fossil fuels are non-renewable since each liter (or ton or gram or whatever) can only be extracted once... what's really funny is how economists regard toiletpaper as being neither consumed nor produced, as well ignoring that it is sourced renewably... and then there's the lingering sullenness over splinters by closeted marxists back in the 1970s... East German toiletpaper should have outsold decedent Western companies since Communistic-administered toiletpaper factories were worker paradises... so what there were splinters in every roll?
=+=+=+=+=
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/16/economy/oil-tumbles-four-month-lows/index.html
happy(ish) news: oil prices are declining... which from perspective of Hamas is very bad news since their efforts to be a "significant player on the world stage" have been shrugged off by the capital markets...
yeah they raped-looted-burned-howled-killed and got themselves lots 'n lots of likes on social media but instead of scaring everyone there'd be widening chaos as more 'n more special interests in various nations got dragged into the shitstorm it looks about the same political boundaries are defining the war...
no comfort to the victims caught in the meat grinder... the killing will go on... the suffering will not end for months...
but this means less backroom pressure towards ending the war due to 'market forces'... also, announcements about funding the rebuilding has been formally suspended (or rather the chatter about funding of planning for scheduling of rebuilding, which is a precursor to the precursor to the precursor to the precursor to the precursor to the precursor to the ...) until there's someone worthy of trust with billions of dollar-eqv of donations... and once again that's bad news for Hamas since they will never be allowed to participate which means one of their sweetest grifts of siphoning off cash 'n concrete from infrastructure projects might well be cut off...
=+=+=+=+=
no amount of tinsel can disguise how utterly oversold the Yuletide Season has become; already shelves are filling up with crud nobody wants to receive as a gift... there's advertising too...
and as a bleak reminder of what’s gonna hurt us for the next six weeks, music in stores has switched over to playing Christmas Carols at wickedly cruel volumes...
=+=+=+=+=
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/15/weather/microplastic-pollution-weather-study-climate/index.html
microplastics could be affecting cloud formation process... microplastics lead to more clouds? more rain? sustained rain? lowered temperatures? ...or the inverse of those outcomes?
an entire novel could be based on each of these possibilities... helps save the world from climate change or alternatively worsens the problems or when in combination with other trends has contrasting effects upon differing zones such drought in North American south-west at the same time drowning North American east sea coast ...hmmm
=+=+=+=+=
Jean Lamb 367:
heh...
the likelihood of Big Pharma allowing for syn-yeast-bio-reactors (SYBR) to mass produce pharmaceuticals is near-zero... not because of any proclaimed fears of yeast-running-riot-blobbing-city-streets or drug-labs-in-a-beer-keg (those will be the public facing reasons) but for the fear with absolute certainty someone will steal the SYBR lifeforms and any key precursors in order to set up a black market... not just happy-happy-joy-joy recreationally exploited euphoric drugs, there'd be interest in reduced cost for drugs critical in cancer treatment as well as ADD/ADHD/anti-depression med's
after years 'n years of watching Napster and bittorrent and hand-swapped terabyte drives all loot 'n pillage digital-based IP (music, movies, teevee, books, etc)... for sure Big Pharma has learned many, many lessons... none of which are in the best interests of 8,000,000,000 humans in need of affordable medical treatment
=+=+=+=+=
I once worked with a GP who started out as a meteorologist
One of my wife's cousin's kids finished undergrad Law, decided he'd made the wrong choice and went back to do Medicine. He's some sort of rare specialist trauma surgeon now (well his older brother and father are both specialist doctors too, so it's a reversion to norm rather than an outlier).
About Nurse Practitioners and others...
Yes, we need more! We need more of everyone in the nursing vocation from NPs and RNs down to LVNs and nurses aides. A lot of them burned out or invalided out of the profession during the Pandemic, and it shows, with everything from short staffs in hospitals to missed treatments by visiting nurses.
In the US, part of the problem is billable hours, because MD per hour billing is on par with lawyer rates. One way they get around the legal requirement that only doctors can diagnose and prescribe is for NPs, PAs, and PharmDs to be allowed to prescribe well-defined medicines or treatments for well-defined conditions, under the supervision of a managing doctor. They're all cheaper per hour, so giving the routine, repetitive treatments to them saves time and costs.
So a visiting NP can assess a housebound patient's condition and work with the MD to prescribe meds, my dermatologist PA (Physicians Assistant) can biopsy suspicious moles and freeze off annoying ones, and my clinical pharmacist wife can prescribe a certain range of painkillers to patients in her part of the hospital, and she can also inject vaccines. All under MD supervision. They can't do anything that's outside their remit without getting approval from the MD in charge of the case.
That's the way it works around here, at least.
Somehow my mind went into a weird tangent about the air market being privatised
When I was a child I read an anthology that included some early science fiction stories. Like Kipling and Wells early.
One had people needing to pay for air. Someone had worked out how to monitor breathing, and so everyone had to wear badges that metered their usage and they got billed by an Air Board…
I had a friend who left his MA program in theology to enter medical school. Last I saw him he was an Emergency Doctor in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
Last night I shared a pint with two friends. One was a recovering civil engineer, the other two of us are recovering Political Science graduates who work in or near the building trades. All of us have had at least 4 careers.
Dramlin
Oops!
I will excuse, by saying that at normal screen-resolution, it's very difficult to tell, though.
{ Tiny font in red on a white background }
Pigeon
It's pretty much standard for each house to be on the next phase to next door - well, no - or not here, { London } anyway, see me @ # 410?
Here, every third "block" goes down.
That description of a block-of-flats sounds like a recipe for disaster, waiting to happen.
Howard NYC
Re: "Big Pharma" - the US of Arseholes IS NOT THE PLANET ... WHAT "exorbitant prices for drugs"? - ONLY in the US of Arseholes - again.
H @ 435
A BETTER way to get around that insane "billing" requirement is to institute actual HEALTH CARE in the USA, rather than sytematised ruthless gouging.
It's called a "Unviversal Health-Care system."
Rocketjps
Ah, someone who rejected death & Blackmail, for life, eh? Good for him.
I may even have read that. I remember "A Bucket of Air" but that's a different story.
Seems similar for state-funded medicine in the UK, based on my recent consultations.
Also, IIUC, most preventative measures are handled by NP, while reactive and corrective medicine is still managed by GPs. 5-year health check and lifestyle advice: NP. Referral for chest X-ray: needs a GP to sign off.
Does that make sense?
Yes. But.....
In most of the US a single street of a few blocks or so will all be on the same phase. Even in mid urban areas. You only get the kind of phasing you're describing in larger apartment buildings or businesses. Even in non high rise apartments or offices (2 or 3 story) you tend to have the entire building on the same phase.
Now here the distribution is around 15KV 3 phase with streets and buildings tapped off one of the legs/phase. If things start to get out of balance they change a building/street "sub feed" to a different leg.
So each floor would have sockets on all three phases, which is very naughty; 415V between adjacent lives, and nothing to even indicate that this was the case unless you traced the wiring all the way back in the (huge, spaghetti-filled) meter cupboard.
DON'T get into what they do in the US. It will make your hair stand on end
Such wiring in the US would get a no entry tag on the doors in the US.
We each have a history which led us to where we are. Most of the comments I see here about how bad things are across the pond (both ways) are more about that history and what people are used to instead of an objective analysis of the safety of one way or the other. Both sides of the pond have warts in this beauty contest.
There's a bunch of routine stuff I do that seems to be: visit doctor, get sent for test, visit doctor to get results. 90% of the time I know what test is needed before I do the first visit, so it seems that having a nurse, or a nurse++, just schedule the test and report normal results would avoid wasting time (and annoying the p... patient)
Actually my health plan in the US sort of works the way you want it to. I can send the office where I normally visit a message saying what is going on. 99% of the time a nurse will get back to me, via a message, and deal with it and I never see or communicate with my actual "doc". Even if I got in for a test. And if the results are not crazy I get contacted via another message from the nurse.
Of course this implies a level of income and tech that not all have.
PA (Physicians Assistant)
For those not in the US, this is a doctor lite. They skipped a year of medical school and didn't get the PhD. But they and NPs have roughly the same authority but different roles in the process.
They skipped a year of medical school and didn't get the PhD
An MD is not a PhD. It's an honorary title for someone who passed the correct taught courses and completed 2-3 years as a house officer (essentially a trades apprenticeship). A PhD in contrast implies the ability to Do Original Research and almost invariably is a follow-up from one or more taught degrees.
(I think the equivalent of a PhD among the medical fraternity would be qualifying as a consultant -- several years' post-graduate practice and expertise in a specialty.
My bad. The docs I know personally have a PhD.
But PAs are still docs lite in the US. It is a choice that some schools offer to get you through will less time and money. But your options for things like becoming a surgeon are limited.
What a delightful notion! Thanks for the heads-up: that'll provide some good pedagogical hooks for my kids over the next 7-12 years.
Remember that I was very nearly taken in by Brexit? And only realised at the last moment that I was being "had".
As it happens, yes. I remember that years back you were pretty skeptical of the EU, for various reasons; as I recall, you thought the EU could do the union of Europe thing better than it was actually doing. Fair enough.
I also remember that you noticed that Brexit was being advocated by fucking idiots, and lying idiots at that.
As I see it from over here in North America, it was the difference between "This flat is a bit shit" and "Burn down the building!"
You may be interested to know that the latest iOS and iPadOS update now shows the autocomplete suggestion in the document itself in grey. It’s helped with my typing. You see what you typed normally but with their suggested completion in light grey.
You may be interested to know that the latest iOS and iPadOS update now shows the autocomplete suggestion in the document itself in grey. It’s helped with my typing. You see what you typed normally but with their suggested completion in light grey.
Thanks, I'll look into it.
I had totally forgotten S Levels.
During the 70's a friend wanted to do biochemistry at Cambridge. They interviewed him - with his parents - and obviously didn't like the fact his Dad worked in a factory and his Mum was a school cleaner. He was asked to get 4 A Levels at A grade and an S level too.
For context UCL asked me to get 3 Bs at A Level in chem, physics, maths to do physics.
They must have been really cheesed off when he got the grades for all 5 exams.
And, for further context and everything you need to know about Oxbridge, Prince Charles - as he then was - had to get 2 A Levels at C grade. Which is odd as his Dad was unemployed for 40 years.
"Such wiring in the US would get a no entry tag on the doors in the US."
It should do here as well. But the people who own these places are very often some variety or other of dodgy git.
(I think the equivalent of a PhD among the medical fraternity would be qualifying as a consultant -- several years' post-graduate practice and expertise in a specialty.
Speaking again from experience, there are both MD/PhD and PharmD/PhD programs. They take a year or two longer, and are taken by people who both want to treat and do research. Cutting-edge investigative types and similar weirdos take them. (weirdo, for example, was a pathologist I met who specialized in tissue-typing organs for transplant compatibility, and ran his lab out of a medical school. So he's both a doctor and a professor, albeit not a terribly social one).
I've read at least two on the same theme. One basically the same but with a different charging method, and one where they deliberately depleted the atmosphere of oxygen so they could sell it in tanks and nobody could get out of needing it. Not sure I haven't read another one as well. It seems to be quite a popular theme.
Extrapolations TV series got there.
It was a series that spanned 50 years. At the end people were wearing tanks on their backs to leave their homes.
I suspect most people here didn't see it as it was/is only on AppleTV.
Info from this side of the Pond: starting in the 70's, there was a hug push to force nurses to get B.Sc. Now, they do run things on the floor (not the hospital, certainly - as someone said, it's a profit center.)
The registered, etc, do most of the care, like the ones who give me my injection every two weeks forever. (None of your business why).
Fiefdoms. Back in the late eighties, I applied for a job with Travis Co, TX (Austin). Had a good interview with the hiring manager. The ad said "4 yr degree, or 2 years experience for each year you don't have. I wound up calling HR, and a woman who told me her name was "Jeanie" had decided, on her own, that the experience didn't count, regardless of the ad, so no.
It was with the county DA, and I really should have filed a complaint....
Agreed. I have a very high opinion of community colleges (started in the sixties, two-year degrees (Associate degrees).
ESP if you're working full time, and taking evening courses. People that take them aren't teenagers who don't know what to do, these are working people, and need the credits for their jobs, and will not put up with teacher bs.
As opposed to the one term I wasted at UT at Austin ("we don't do anything special for people like you - that is, working full time and going undergrad part time"). I was forced to take a class in formal logic, and had two TAs and the full professor tell me "don't worry about understanding it, just figure out how to crank out the right answers". I was this close to accusing him of fraud, and suing the University, because I was paying for an education.
Whenever I get a new doctor, I give my medical history, properly pronounced, along with the indication that I can actually read medican Greek/Latin.
Ok, it's been since the mid-80s, so I have no trouble relating this. At the time, I worked for the National Board of Medical Examiners (when you head of doctors taking "the Boards", and by law, any graduate of a foreign medical school has to take a test they give). I was on the team - more or less team lead, on the first computerization of the Boards. I was on the really interesting part, not the multiple choice, but what you could think of as a text adventure game, "Doctor", A patient comes in, or is brought in, and you order test, get results, and order therapies. (Yes, there were scenarios where the patient dies.)
So, one was where this young woman brings in her kid (5 yr old? Younger) who "fell against the radiator and is unresponsive. They gave the test to doctors, all of whom resolved it correctly.
Yeah, well, and they gave it to nurses... 60% of whom LOOKED UP THE RECORDS, dound the woman had brought the kid in before about six months ago for osmething similar, and contacted Child and Family Services. Not one doctor did that.
You wonder why i trust nurses?
I had a roommate a loong time ago who'd started in Corporate Law, and after one year, switched to Union Law (or whatever it's called) - she'd been so horrified.
Actually, no. The fundamental requirement is chemistry, though many places also require biology, and I am sure that they would look askance at someone who didn't even have GCSE biology.
https://www.medschools.ac.uk/media/2877/entry-requirements-document-2022-digital.pdf
I really don't see learning cladistics as an advantage to medicine, or even many areas of biology. FAR too many important cases of evolution (including in the medical area) do not create a tree - and some don't even create a DAG!
Sounds good. We're on Kaiser-Permanente, which is an actual HMO, the way they were before the bean counters came in by the eighties and turned them to "how to refuse service".
Yeah. We were at Windycon this past weekend. We're not at Philcon this weekend. At Windy, hardly anyone was masked, so we didn't. Tested yesterday morning, called the on-call nurse line for KP, she contacted my doc. The test result "self-reported" showed up (log on to see your test results), and my doc sent the scrip downstairs to the pharmacy, and Ellen picked in up later in the afternoon.
sigh I had a lot going on at Philcon....
The main push to get nurses to have a BSc got started later in the UK, probably in the late 1990s. It's pretty much complete nowadays, though.
Other formerly high school/diploma occupations getting the "a degree is mandatory" treatment include the Police (there's an option to do a two year supervised trainee program and get the degree later on a part-time basis, but Theresa May tried to turn being a cop into a graduate-entry profession and I seem to recall she made it stick, despite some push-back).
There are also in the US programs that let a PhD get an MD on a fast-ish track. For reasons I don't understand, extra-US universities are frequently involved.
From the bio of someone I worked with who did this,
His Ph.D. is from the University of Colorado Medical School in neurophysiology, and his M.D. is from the Autonomous City University in El Paso, Texas/Monterey, Mexico, with honors.
Moz @ 421:
What scares me is that some actal electricians are not much better. although it can be hard to tell whether they're genuine morons or just faking it because the company they work for is sales-oriented (in the "upsell every customer or get fired" sense).
I worked as an electrical labourer during my degree and that was informative. As mentioned above, it's not understanding theory that electricians spend time on, it's memorising the thousands of regulations that end with "because someone died when it was done the old way".
I don't know how the electrical codes in the U.K. or Australia developed, but here in the U.S. the "model" National Electrical Code is produced by the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) an organization founded by the fire insurance companies.
Those thousands of regulations come less from "because someone died" than from insurance companies not wanting to pay out.
Whenever I get a new doctor
You get individual doctors? What is this, the early 20th century?
We used to have individual GPs in the UK but there were a couple of serial killer doctors, most notoriously John Bodkin Adams (from 1946 and 1956, 163 of his patients died while in comas: he was tried for murder but found not guilty). Then Harold Shipman (found guilty of 15 murders in 2000; after his death by suicide a public inquiry found that he might have murdered as many as 250 patients).
Bodkin Adams plausibly defended himself on the basis that he'd been administering heavy pain relief for terminal patients (many conditions that today can be cured or at least treated effectively -- such as diffuse cancers -- used to be painfully and unavoidably fatal in the 1950s). Shipman had no such defense.
Because single-doctor surgeries were potentially the happy hunting grounds for the worst serial killers in British history, the NHS (which controls general practice and pays GPs) basically stopped funding single-doctor practices: they're all group practices today, and while you might theoretically have a named GP you mostly get to see (or talk to) whoever's available unless you're dealing with a specialist.
(I have metabolic syndrome, including type II diabetes, so I am nominally assigned to my surgery's diabetes specialist and the diabetes nurse: however, I can't usually get an appointment with her unless there's a specific need for her expertise. So I've had a total of two phone calls with her in the past three years, and no face-to-face consultations.)
At least in my day, you didn't get biochemistry in the standard A-level chemistry syllabus ... but you did get it in A-level biology. (Admittedly it built on top of the organic chemistry component of a chemistry A-level. You'd be at a distinct disadvantage studying A-level biology without also taking A-level chemistry.)
Cambridge interviews these days most definitely deploy the parental crow-bar. Interviewees usually get offered a bed for the night at the interviewing College, parents are told no accommodation is available. If they still insist on tagging along they get separated from their little darling as early in the day as possible. Fun can later be had listening to Admissions Directors letting off steam...
I had an individual "primary care" at under my last insurance, before I got all the way on Medicare. My current primary care has been that for 4 years now.
sigh As opposed to my doctor in Chicago, a family practice physician, who did it all (well, he called in an oncologist when that happened...).
I should have said this is a medical facility, not a single doctor's practice (like my doc on Chicago). But she's my primary, and she responds. And if she's out, an on-call responds.
You get individual doctors? What is this, the early 20th century?
Every practice I and my wife and kids have dealt with have had multiple docs in the office. 3 doc offices up to 20 or more. You get to pick (if they have slots) your doc or at least ask for one or more. But your choices are full you pick someone else or pick another office.
And if you pick well, you get someone who can at least remember you by sight or by your chart. And within the GP collections there are also various specialties. Some for internal medicine, some for geriatrics, etc...
My doc is a part of an office of 10 to 20 docs in a system with 100s. So if I need something it almost always get passed to a nurse after/before a quick review by the doc except for my annual checkups.
Oddly, the parents were required to attend.
They were really nice people, but must have been way out of their comfort zones.
I'm assured the place is better now, but given the % of their students who went to public school, I am not convinced.
I had a classmate in high school who knew he was heading for medicine and basically planned his high school study accordingly. His electives were physics, chemistry, Latin and extra mathematics. I'm pretty sure he was actively discouraged from taking high school biology since it had essentially nothing in common with the medical syllabus. He and I sort of jostled for first place in Latin, though he always won in the end (this was a state [i.e. public] school, but academically selective and offered a public [i.e private] school style Classics syllabus).
Heteromeles @ 426:
[...]
Thanks for bringing that up.
It's a grading scheme based on letter grades given a numerical score & a weighted average based on [(course hours X numerical grades)/total hours taken].
A letter grade 'A' is given a score of 4 ('B'=3, 'C'=2, 'D'=1 ... 'F'=0). From back in the day when I was at university a typical semester load was 12 to 15 CREDIT hours in 3 or 4 "credit hour" blocks, e.g. 3 hour English, 3 hour Biology, 3 hour Math ... credit hours are loosely based on the number of "contact" hours - classroom lecture hours/week.
That English class met 3 times a week for 1 hour; that Biology class also met 3 times a week for an hour, but had an additional "Lab" for 6 hours once a week that did not add any additional credit hours (but could surely bring down your course grade).
Allows for measuring "Academic Progress" without having to compare apples to oranges (full time students taking a HEAVY load 15+ hours vs part time students taking 9 hours or less) - excludes external life factors like this student has a full ride scholarship vs that student who's having to work a full time job in addition to going to school.
If you had 5 - "3 hour courses" and got an 'A' in each of them you had a 4.0 semester average [(5x3x4)/15].
If you got other grades in your courses ... e.g. 3 'A's, 1 'B', & 1 'C' your "semester average would be [(3x3x4+3x3+3x2)/15 = (36+9+6)/15 = (51)/15 = 3.4]
When I was in college a 2.0 GPA (average for ALL hours undertaken) was a passing grade. The students who graduated with a 2.0 average got a degree just like the student who graduated with a 4.0 (although that student got extra nice words printed on their degree certificate).
If your cumulative GPA fell BELOW 2.0 you were on Academic Probation either until you brought it up (made progress) or it fell to 1.25 at which point you "flunked out".
Another downside of Academic Probation was you lost your student deferment from the draft.
We had a seven point scale when I was in the public schools (city/county run "free" schools for everyone).
The seven point scale determined what letter grade you got. A numerical grade of 93/100 got the same letter grade as 100/100.
But all grades within a letter grade bracket got the same number of grade points for figuring GPA (which was introduced into U.S. public schools after I had graduated).
I was exaggerating for effect, partly because I work in software now where the deaths are much less obvious, it tends to be statistical deaths. Whereas electrician screwups can be pretty bloody obvious even if no-one dies. Some of the stuff the teach apprentices, especially early on, is very directly "if you do this someone could well die".
When I started writing software back in the day I somehow went from minor industrial stuff (building basic G code for CNC machines, writing it to a weird floppy disk format was half the battle) into actual industrial automation... where you could kill the user if you put your mind to it. So dealing with "draw pretty things on the screen" type software was a different experience, and the people teaching it didn't really have safety on the list of things they'd thought about.
I suspect this helped feed into the current generation of elder geeks who don't have any experience of thinking about the safety of their code, let alone the ethics of it. Companies like Uber and Air B'n'B are very comfortable running pyramid schemes, for example. But part of that is also the commerce people, no-one thinks of Alan Bond or Bernie Madoff as mass murderers even though they deliberately killed hundreds of people. But they did it by defrauding thousands of elderly folk out of their life savings, so the deaths are statistical and thus don't count. Neither do those killed by tobacco or car companies... 30,000 people a year killed by an industrial process and the USA says "this is good, cars bring freedom".
I suspect a lot of it is down to individual coaching that the private schools can do more of. I was somewhat surprised when I started working at one of the Colleges how much handholding a lot of the students seemed to need compared to students elsewhere. They tend to have a very narrow focus on academic matters which the schools enhance.
Labor Relations Law?
Yep. That would not surprise me. They've been hot housed for 6-7 years before going to uni.
We get lots of Oxbridge (and Durham) Firsts hired at work and a surprisingly high percentage are oddly ineffective - they tend to take all the training we will pay for and leave after 2-3 years or move away from the labs asap and into Project Management, Team Leadership or customer liaison.
You get individual doctors? What is this, the early 20th century?
My family doctor used to have his own practice until he retired. He found a young doctor just starting out who was part of a practice, so I transferred there (shared facilities and receptionists, but still saw my own doctor). Then he got a job at a hospital but hot another doctor to fill in for him, and when he went full-time at the hospital she took his place at the practice and I transferred to her.
So yes, still individual doctors. Which provides continuity of care as they get to know their patients.
a surprisingly high percentage are oddly ineffective - they tend to take all the training we will pay for and leave after 2-3 years or move away from the labs asap and into Project Management, Team Leadership or customer liaison
No ineffective, just focused on their careers. Get free training and some experience for the resume, then move to a position with better hours and less work, with more possibilities for advancement.
Re: 'Mozart's concertos have noted, most - if not all -- of the piano concertos he wrote in that one remarkable year of 1784 - nos.14-19 - have at least something special and individual specific about just them.) Music dork out..'
Thanks!
I looked up the authors you mentioned - alas!, I'm unlikely to get a hold of their essays/articles/books.
Greg @318:
Thanks! I just looked up Mitsuko Ushida - will definitely have to check whether any of her performances are on YT.
Re: Unlicensed 'wanna-be electrician' rewiring/doing any type of electrical work on his/her home
On this side of the pond, no insurance company would ever, ever, ever insure you or your home. Nor would any (honest) real estate agent ever want to list your home. Plus, it's become standard practice for the potential buyer to have a certified home inspector in to check various things, esp., electrical and plumbing - any issues and no sale.
Re: UK universities - admission reqs
The discussions sorta reminded me of Dirac*. Dirac couldn't get into uni because he didn't have Latin so he became an electrical engineer via a tech institute. Eventually he did get into uni/physics. This is the guy who was 31 when he was awarded the Nobel in physics (youngest ever at that time). My guess is that UK unis/physics depts no longer insist on Latin as a prereq.
*'The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom' by Graham Farmelo - excellent book! And circling back to music - I laughed when I read this in the book: Dirac was a Cher fan. One time when his wife absolutely wanted to watch a particular show on at the same time as Cher's show, he went out and bought a second TV.
Re: MDs vs. NPs
I sorta have a physician but all of my appointments in the past 2-3 years have been with the NP who also handles all of my Rx's and referrals. She has a BSc in Nursing, went back for the NP after about 10 years hospital and community nursing experience. Never asked but I'm wondering whether part of the reason for more medical practices recruiting NPs is to reduce the admin load on the MD. (Not joking.)
Quite likely the case, but I would still have expected strong skills to be apparent at some point. However, it is true that TL route is, in our organisation, the quickest way to bypass the technical work and get a couple of promotions.
Maybe it would help if every cautionary tale about the Torment Nexus included a scene showing the nexus creators' deaths by lynch mob?
I would still have expected strong skills to be apparent at some point.
They probably had very strong skills at "doing well in school". Which include concentrating on what will earn marks, figuring out course progressions then following them, and saying what the instructor wants to hear.
Indeed, it sounds a bit like that's what they were doing: treating your lab as a requirement to graduate into the position they actually wanted, so getting the most benefit out of it they could for the least effort.
Also note that one reason students have become so needy for validation and unwilling to take risks or show initiative is that the educational system (at least in Canada) rewards not making mistakes over everything else. Not officially, but that's the effect when a single bad mark can ruin your average and cost you your university offer or a scholarship. So students tend to stick to what is safe, not volunteer, and frequently check with instructors whether they are on the right track. (Which is a separate rant and I should probably stop now.)
Finding the area that you enjoy is what makes nursing a more fun game, and there are so many to choose from fortunately. Doctors are better at some things but nurses are better for others -- we even have NP run practice all the way down here, which is perfect for keeping people away from Emergency with their sniffles and sprained ankles. Yes geriatric pregnancies are all the rage these days, even that scary thing a geriatric primagravida -- a first pregnancy in someone over 35. Comes of course from the days when 16 wasn't at all unusual but 40 really was.
Yes, we're very short of Health Informaticians and HIMS but last time I looked there were very few courses being offered in HI. Sadly it appears all the effort that HISA, and now the AIDH, put into getting people to identify as Health Informaticians has not made employers realise it's a real thing, still not much of a career progression I don't think. I sometimes still call myself a nurse to simplify the matter, but when I say Health Informatician and they look blank I say "health with computers". Usually works.
And what's funnier, at least in my part of the world, you can tell a doctor has a Doctorate because they get called Mr. instead of Dr. I remember when I first returned to Australia from NZ seeing a sign at the hospital that said "Honorary doctors only". I immediately though "why do they have honorary doctors at a hospital??", only to find out it was an unfamiliar term for Consultants.
Here, in the '80's, there was push to get nursing into colleges and then universities instead of training in hospitals. I was finishing my training as the first graduates started coming out, and hospitals discovered they were employing nurses who had no time management skills, just for starters. The curricula were quickly changed and pretty soon it was only universities offering a Bachelor of Nursing -- but when I was teaching at uni we still had people coming through who sailed through the original theory section and then suddenly discovered they were expected to touch strange people, including places people don't usually touch strangers. Some went into Pharmacy, some left, and we still need more nurses!
I don’t know what it’s like at every UK uni these days but when I started Imperial in 78 I don’t think anyone was chauffeured by parents. Well, I suppose it’s possible one or two of the actual princes got chauffeured by actual y’know, chauffeurs, but all us plebs arrived by motorcycle, car, underground, etc. Since all I possessed back then fitted easily in a small tank-bag it wasn’t a big deal. Helicopter parenting seems to be a modern disease. One nephew got visits every few weeks from parents to sort out laundry and feed. Crazy.
Helicopter parenting seems to be a modern disease.
According to Wikipedia, the metaphor dates back to 1969!
The term apparently gained popularity in the late 80s.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/types-of-parents-meanings
I wonder if it's because we can?
Back in the days of landlines if you wanted to check in with your kids every 10 minutes they'd need to sit next to a phone and wait. And if the kids were out doing something forget it, if the Scout Hall had a phone it was emergencies only even if someone was near enough to it to hear it ring. And the beach? There was probably a payphone somewhere.
Likewise school reports. A couple of times a year every teacher would spend hours grinding out scholl reports on paper and shuffling those round so every teacher that dealt with each child got a chance to write a few words in the relevant little box. Then the parents who didn't work nights would wander in for their thirty seconds of "yes, Timmy... oh, sorry, David, yes, yes, he tries very hard. Maybe you could encourage him to read at home?"
Not to mention that pressuring politicians used to mean writing a letter on paper, buying a stamp and yadda yadda, not clicking a link on an antisocial media post.
Escalating from that to accompanying them to anything important is likely that plus the circular firing squad that is "kid walks home from school" has no news value so we get "a child in Bosnia was abducted on their way to the library", encouraged by populist politicians and authoritarians of all stripes who want more laws enforced more vigourously by more police, fed by social media making it very easy to create a large group of concerned citizens which leads to more horrors being exposed...
I was expecting this particular piece of shit - which means that I am never, ever, going to use a QR code.
I actually tried to use one, for the first time, in desperation, last week. Needless to say, it didn't work ...
I pointed my phone at the code & waited .. & waited ... & waited ... NOTHING.
{ It was a local government communication, from which I had lost vital information, but the envelope had a QR code on it, presumably as a back-up. }
I was afraid people would put links to kiddie-porn on a fake code, but, of course, a "simple" fraud is easier, isn't it?
Meanwhile Why am I not surprised, in the slightest, about this?
Medicine, as applied to patients.
My Doctor was originally a sole practitioner, but she is now assisted by her two daughters - one is also an MD the other an "NP" + other qualified assistants .. and one receptionist who needs whipping ( The other one is very good, whihc makes the contrast even starker )
SFR
LOTS of Mitsuko U on "YT", actually.
And interviews .. one amusing note ... she first came to Europe through Germany, & she still speaks English with a very slight "German" intonation, though she's been resident here for a long time, now.
»Back in the days of landlines[…]«
Landline phones were "a place"
Mobile phones are "a person"
That fundamental difference is so huge, that comparisons make no sense.
I am not going to try to justify the sanity of their choices! I agree with your implication that biochemistry is the most obvious prerequisite. But what a second required A-level should be is less clear. I have no biological qualifications whatsoever, so I can't comment from experience, but I would guess at biology.
The people my wife works with often bemoan physicians' ignorance (and, worse, disregard) of physics, because of the importance of CT, MRI, radiotherapy etc. in oncology. I am less convinced, because I idled (and swanned) through physics by just applying my mathematics to the relevant formulae. So I would tend to say physics OR mathematics plus a quick catch-up physics module.
However, I can't see anyone getting a reasonable medical degree and still being ignorant of ANY of biochemistry, chemistry, (human) biology, evolution or even basic physics.
"My guess is that UK unis/physics depts no longer insist on Latin as a prereq."
They don't, and I would be surprised if they all did even in Dirac's day, though all of the ones he was interested in might have done. Oxbridge kept up the requirement until about half a century ago.
In the UK you have to know The IET Wiring Regulations. (For a given value of know for most electricians, I suspect.) Summary here https://electrical.theiet.org/bs-7671/ There are PDFs of all 559 pages out there, but finding that is left as an exercise for the reader
EC
LATIN was (supposedly) an ABSOLUTE requirement for both Oxford & Cambridge in 1963/4 - guess how I know this? Though, if you got straight "A's" at the relevant subjects ( Which I did ... ) - apparently they had a special "Latin-for-scientists" course you were supposed to sweat through, so they could graciously let you in ...
I was expecting this particular piece of shit - which means that I am never, ever, going to use a QR code.
A QR code is just a 2-D barcode that lets anyone with a phone with a built-in camera scan it without having to think about whether they scanned it right way up.
What's in the QR code is simply a web URL.
If you fill out your bank details on a payment web page WITHOUT CHECKING THE ADDRESS TO SEE IF IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE YOU WANT TO HAND MONEY TO RATHER THAN A SCAMMER ... all I can say is, the woman in the story was played for a fool.
(QR codes are perfectly safe. Web browsers that don't show you the raw web address they're directing you to are the unsafe thing here. And so are dodgy advertising companies who take cash to display a phishing site's address -- in this case they deserve to be held criminally liable.)
The term apparently gained popularity in the late 80s.
seems to have mainly taken off (!) in print since 2000
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=helicopter+parenting&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=en-2019&smoothing=3
It was in 1966, but most UK universities had dropped it by then (if they ever had it). It seems that Dirac went to a part of Bristol University.
By the sound of it, the original problem was something like a ticket machine having a QR code on the front, and the scammers had pasted over their own. That is an attack that is more than can be done using URLs, for the people who can read URLs but not QR codes; I agree that the majority of people can read neither. For them, it is the same as the ticket machine displaying a URL or other link for payment on the front - something else a wise person wouldn't touch. Unfortunately, it's something that is increasingly common, and government policy is to encourage making it unavoidable. Not even SF seems to have predicted THAT aspect of dystopia!
The bank issues are largely because their security is almost entirely to protect the bank against being sued by their customers, and provides little protection against scammers. Indeed, even for those of us with the nous to protect ourselves, they don't provide the tools.
SpaceX got their Super Heavy/Starship off the pad more or less on time and all 33 engines stayed lit until their planned shutdown. The hot staging worked as far as the staging occuring, Super Heavy blew up shortly after though. Starship itself continued on its merry way up to around the 8'30" mark when it looked like its FTS blew. SpaceX investigating.
QR codes are perfectly safe. Web browsers that don't show you the raw web address they're directing you to are the unsafe thing here.
Yes and no.
A big scam in the US is that more and more cities, well mostly private firms, are going to a pay at the pedestal for the lot. Many have a QR code you can scan and do something on an app or web site to pay for your parking. Of course it didn't take long for some wags to come up with a replacement QR code to a bad place that looked legit and make up stickers that fit exactly over the QR codes on the pedestals.
Charlie @ 500 I have twice tried to use a QR code, with my Cosmo Phone - on neither occasion did anything happen, at all.
What's the fucking point, then? Especially if (a) It doesn't work & (b) It's so vulnerable to fraud? { Note from Beeb - QR fraudulent codes are rising sharply in the past few months. }
browsers that don't show you the raw web address - what's one of those, then?
IIRC, having kiddie-porn on your phone or computer is one of the utterly mad "Strict Liability" offences, yes?
Malignant fraudsters put up QR links for same, but with a fake, apparently-good address-link, but thousands of innocent people have now got really "ooh-nasty-you-go-to-jail" on their electronics .. & because it's "Strict Liabillity" there is no way out, either.
Let's not go there, shall we?
EC @ 503
For once - exactly correct & true & deeply scary.
We need to stop this utter bloody insanity a.s.a.p. { See my nightmare scam, just above? }
We get lots of Oxbridge (and Durham) Firsts hired at work and a surprisingly high percentage are oddly ineffective - they tend to take all the training we will pay for and leave after 2-3 years or move away from the labs asap and into Project Management, Team Leadership or customer liaison.
In the US once a company gets big enough to have a Human Resources (benefits and payroll and such) department you get into situations where high performers get wage locked into the pay scales for a title. And it is hard to get out of your "box". So people jump to the job and pay they should have at the first company but can't get to because of this lock in. Companies hate it. And it creates a mindset in workers of "who is the highest bidder".
I know one person who is really sharp at IT admin things who changed jobs 9 times in 6 years till he got to the job he wanted making buckets of money. He's been there 10 years.
Both of my kids have been through this only not as drastic. One inside of one company but creating an entire new job/profit center. The other bouncing around after 2 or 3 years at each company. Well there was that 90 day stint at state government where she got sideways with the elected state wide official. And ran away as fast as she could.
Oops!
I forgot ...
Quite large numbers of people have "Non-Smart" mobile phones & a few people don't have a mobile phone AT ALL QR codes are so useful & helpful for them, aren't they?
This is another aspect of deliberately crapping on a minority, isn't it?
Yup.
It looked to me, from the realtime display of which engines were lit, that some of Superheavy's Raptors kept burning for a few seconds too long. Then it began to fire its cold gas thrusters to orient itself for the re-entry burn and a few seconds later something went BANG.
Starship lit all engines just fine, hot-staged happily, and hit 144km up and 24,000km/h before the telemetry stopped. Situation not aided because SpaceX were trying to use Starlink comsats to fill in for gaps in the deep space tracking network coverage, but the most recent word seems to be that the flight termination system kicked off and blew up the Starship around the time the engines were due to shut down for the coast phase of the sub-orbital flight.
Anyway: both ignition sequences and hot staging worked, all engines performed, it didn't destroy the launch pad, they got data on 39 raptor engines running through a launch to (nearly) orbit, and they achieved most of the goals of the flight test before Something Went Explodey.
(In both cases, the RUD followed or occurred close to engine shutdown, so I'm guessing it's probably something to do with suddenly subjecting the plumbing to free fall with a substantial volume of fuel still in the system for the re-entry burn? Possibly a common design feature of both stages, maybe a problem the fuel intake to the Raptor Mark 2 engine? And as the next Starship test is supposed to fly with Raptor Mark 3 ...)
Early reports say that the pad is intact, the deluge system worked fine, the remote cameras left nearby by enthusiasts to photograph the launch are not only intact but still upright on their tripods. (However there may have been damage to one of the tanks in the tank farm nearby.)
The middle three engines on the booster were supposed to keep going right through separation with the other 30 shut down. That keeps propellant settled so relighting the middle ring of ten engines for the boostback burn doesn't need any kind of ullage thrusters. It doesn't seem to be possible to rewind the twitter stream, but from other coverage that cut to the SpaceX feed it looks like one of the centre engines on the booster cut out and three of the middle ring engines on the same side either didn't light or also shut down. That would have given severely sideways thrust and probably been enough to trigger the AFTS.
Some sources are saying the tank was dented on the first launch, it's not a new dent. Everyday Astronaut panned across the cameras happily sitting on their tripods still.
Ooh, SpaceX had a drone up by the pad for the lift-off and EA has just shown it. Looks unreal. And it doesn't look like I can view it directly without an account.
I just watched the YouTube video via space.com.
Here's the direct YouTube video. You can use the left and right arrow keys plus click on the time line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-ZwElJpTTs
Quite large numbers of people have "Non-Smart" mobile phones & a few people don't have a mobile phone AT ALL QR codes are so useful & helpful for them, aren't they?
I don't know about the UK but everywhere I've seen a QR code in the US for something meaningful there has also been a way to get things done just next to it.
Ah, thanks. Turned out the feed on the SpaceX website can be wound back but that's a bigger view on the YouTube copy. One engine in the middle ring doesn't light, then one of the middle three goes out, the two either side of the failed engine in the middle ring shut down, then a few seconds later the other engines get shut down in some sort of sequence and boom.
Yup!
Replay the youtube video from about 2m20s and you'll see everything went fine during hot staging ... but then the engines on the first stage had a problem.
Immediate wild-assed guess: one of the middle three engines went BANG and took out the two on either side, which tripped the flight termination system.
Back in the days of landlines if you wanted to check in with your kids every 10 minutes they'd need to sit next to a phone and wait.
Now they expect the kids to answer the phone right away to answer a question. I had a parent get upset that their kid didn't answer the phone right away during a test (it was in their bag at the back of the room) because they wanted to know what the little darling wanted for supper that night…
Some of it is ability, but a lot is perceived risk. As the actual chances of something bad happening to the kids goes down, parents' judgement of the changes keeps going up. There's a pedophile lurking behind every bush, so we can't let them just roam. They can't play with random ids in the playground in case they're bad influences, so we have to vet all friends and arrange playdates to which we'll chauffeur them in our huge SUV — the same one we use to take them to school four blocks away because walking is dangerous. (Ironically the last is getting truer, mostly because of the huge SUVs.)
I can't see anyone getting a reasonable medical degree and still being ignorant of ANY of biochemistry, chemistry, (human) biology, evolution or even basic physics.
A few years ago I was at Ryerson University (now renamed Toronto Metro University) for a conference and a professor of medicine there was pleading with us physics teachers to have kids take physics in high school, because 80% of the ones that didn't dropped out of their biomedical physics program. I pointed out that physics wasn't a requirement, only a recommendation, and that the people she really needed to talk to were guidance counsellors who told kids not to take it to raise their average and improve their chances of getting in. Or possibly her administration, to make it an actual requirement. She said the administration didn't want to do that because then they wouldn't have enough candidates for the program.
I found it odd that apparently a medical degree needs calculus (which was on the required list) more than basic physics. (I could see requiring statistics (called "data management" in Ontario for some reason), but they required calculus and only recommended physics and data management.)
You've just been linked to in the Graun by John Naughton https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/18/if-you-think-bossware-surveillance-culture-in-the-workplace-is-new-think-again In the What I've been reading bit at the end.
Interesting. It was in common use in the staff room when I started teaching high school in the 90s. Well, we talked about "helicopter parents" not "helicopter parenting".
If you change the term to "helicopter parent" and the time scale to 1800-2005 you can see that usage suddenly rises from the mid 80s to 1990, drops a bit, then suddenly spikes up in 2005. Dropping the smoothing makes it a lot spikier, leading me to wonder how many times it's mentioned.
Also worth remembering is the lead time in writing and publishing a book. (According to Charlie, several years.) And how many books are published. Does the viewer display based on percentage of books published that year? The rise of self-published ebooks probably has an effect, too. And the number of people connecting to the internet also increased drastically during that time, providing a way of spreading ideas (and terms) that didn't involve print media and authors/journalists.
A quick google shows that by the early 2000s nearly half of north american teenagers had cell phones. I wonder what a graph correlating children with cell phones and helicopter parenting would show? Probably a strong correlation as you can't be a helicopter parent without constant access to your kids, but was there a lag or did the two increase in step?
To make this a real research project, throw in data from teachers and professors about parents 'advocating' for their children about grades, extensions, and the like. Anecdotally that has been increasing throughout my career, as kids are shielded from consequences of their actions. But that could be confirmation bias on my part.
I found it odd that apparently a medical degree needs calculus (which was on the required list) more than basic physics. (I could see requiring statistics (called "data management" in Ontario for some reason), but they required calculus and only recommended physics and data management.)
I think if you look at pharmacokinetics--getting the correct concentration of a drug in a patient, then keeping it in the therapeutic range for the required time as it gets metabolized out--plus interpreting marker levels in blood tests, the need for calculus will become apparent. To be fair, the pharmacists in a hospital do a lot of PK checking, but having a basic understanding of calculus is fairly necessary for both.
As for physics, the medicos who need it most tend to be in orthopedics and kinesiology. Most of the GPs I've run into tend to be biochemistry-heavy on their choices of treatments.
I don't know about the UK but everywhere I've seen a QR code in the US for something meaningful there has also been a way to get things done just next to it.
The problem with smart phones is two-factor authentication. If you want to do online banking, you have to have a smart phone with decent encryption. Otherwise, you have to go to an ATM or a bank. And if you're having vision and mobility issues, you may not be able to use either, thereby losing access to your money.
I've seen this happen in real life, and it's not at all pretty or fun. Being an elderly luddite is increasingly a dangerous hobby.
Cell phones are useful for decreasing identity theft, but the problem is that they're designed by and for children. For example, if my hands are shaking due to PD, my iPhone may think I'm driving and try to lock me out while I'm doing something. Small screens and vision problems don't play well together, nor do touch screens and arthritic fingers. Put them all together....?
This may sound like a recipe for GenZ takeover, and to some degree it is. The problem is that those elderly incompetents currently control a lot of money. If they can't get to it, neither can the people helping them, or those who just want that money. As the Silver Waterfall of Baby Boomers dying grows, I expect that financial institutions are going to have to change to deal or else.
Really? I mentioned oncology because that's my wife's area, but radiologists and even radiographers also need physics. The pleas from professors of medicine (see #518) occur in the UK as well. And don't get me (or most good medical researchers) started on the statistical ignorance of many medics.
Yes, I agree with you about the need for calculus. It's not just pharmacokinetics, but (the statistics of) epidemiology, including vaccination.
Well there is such a thing as a large button landline phone for a disabled person.
Maybe there is a good case for a large screen, disability adapted smartphone?
Re: 'It was in 1966, but most UK universities had dropped it by then ...'
Ironically/weirdly? - Dirac was appointed Lucasian Professor of Math (Cambridge) in 1932 despite still not having taken any Latin certs/exams*. Or Greek from what I can find. Weird -- a genius in fields that use tons of Greek terms/letters.
I usually look up the annual Nobel laureates just to find out how they got to their breakthrough aha! moment. Back in 2018 I saw a sorta similar unfounded bias: Donna Strickland (Physics Nobel) started at Waterloo U (Canada) in 1997 and despite her contributions/papers still didn't have tenure/full professorship at the time I looked up her research/bio a few days after her Nobel award was announced. (And it's not as if Waterloo U was awash in Nobel laureates.)
*By now there should be enough data (major STEM prize winners) to number crunch and discover what actually correlates with proven genius in these fields.
The ones I use have a +60dB button. That wouldn't work on a mobile phone even ignoring the public nuisance aspect
Idle thought:
Why are "billions" not regulated in a similar fashion to "radioactive substances", "high explosives" and "poisons" ?
Re: 'Why are "billions" not regulated ...'
As in 'taxed'? There are a few EU countries that still have wealth taxes and it doesn't seem to have harmed their economies/standard of living.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax
The US has also considered a 'billionaire tax' ... Warren and Sanders included this in their campaigns. And just before all hell broke loose (COVID, further sociopolitical polarization by DT) the majority of USian voters thought this a good idea.
'A February, 2020, poll found 67% of registered American voters supported a wealth tax on billionaires, with support at 85% of Democrats, 66% of independent voters, and 47% of Republicans.'
»As in 'taxed'? «
No.
As in "It is not safe for society if that person has access to ${dangerous items}" ?
It seems to me that "billions" are far more dangerous in the hands of an unhinged person than explosives would ever be ?
Maybe there is a good case for a large screen, disability adapted smartphone?
They already exist. Here are some examples: https://www.alzstore.com/RAZ-Memory-Cell-Phone-for-Seniors-Verizon-AT-T-p/0039-v.htm
I have used a "phablet" before and liked it a lot. I'm kind of thinking my next phone will be another one, ideally 20cm+ screen size. The issue is that a lot of apps detect that they're running on a tablet and degrade their performance accordingly, and not all tablets are very good at being phones. I haven't looked at biometrics on tablets, but some kind of certified-secure biometric input is increasingly required. Even the OS is now getting fussy, my FairPhone has a fingerprint sensor but it's not up to Google standards so I have to enter the password if it's been more than an hour or two since I last unlocked it.
OTOH my (80+) parents use a tablet for 90% of what they do, and complain bitterly about needing to find their phone glasses when they have to use their phone. They're old enough that they have one phone and one email address between the two of them (also one desktop computer, which is now plugged into their TV, because only desktops are "computers", their phone and tablet (and TV) are ... some other category)
Yes, I agree with you about the need for calculus. It's not just pharmacokinetics, but (the statistics of) epidemiology, including vaccination.
If you're going to require only one math course as a prerequisite to get into university, is calculus a better fit for medicine than statistics, though?
I'm not talking about courses studied at uni, I'm talking about courses which, if not take in high school, will keep you out of a program.
Maybe some of the medical types here would be willing to share their opinions?
Is that a smartphone with apps and everything, though, or a smartphone body set up to be an easy-to-use ordinary phone?
I didn't see anything about texting, or using it for 2FA, or being able to use it to bank or as a ticket wallet, or any of the myriad things that increasingly assume that you have a phone.
No, it is not a smartphone. You are correct.
If you're going to require only one math course as a prerequisite to get into university, is calculus a better fit for medicine than statistics, though?
You need both. Ideally as part of a "maths for life sciences" course.
Charlie Stross @ 500:
(QR codes are perfectly safe. Web browsers that don't show you the raw web address they're directing you to are the unsafe thing here. And so are dodgy advertising companies who take cash to display a phishing site's address -- in this case they deserve to be held criminally liable.)
I bet they won't be.
PhDs and MDs are definitely two different things. We've got a program at a local University here in the U.S. where we have some people who already have their MD taking classes to get the PhD. One of the current students I know with an MD is from Scotland. Just wasn't aware of the different criteria for getting into Med school over there was (as far as not having to finish college first). Might have to ask her about that.
PilotMoonDog @ 524:
Well there is such a thing as a large button landline phone for a disabled person.
Maybe there is a good case for a large screen, disability adapted smartphone?
I do "online banking", but not with a smart-phone. I use my home computer & KNOWN, bookmarked URLs for my Credit Union and the two credit cards I have to pay on-line.
Those sites I use online that DO require two-factor authentication either send a one-time code to my email or to my phone and then I manually enter that code into the logon screen on the big computer.
Mostly I don't do a lot of stuff on the phone because the screen is too damn small for me to see what I'm doing.
I do get the occasional phishing text messages on my phone, but when it asks me to verify a purchase using a bank account I don't have [$300 charge at a store in Beaumont Texas on my Wells Fargo account ... and I don't have an account at Wells Fargo and have never been in Beaumont, TX] I delete it.
I used to try to forward it to the Federal Trade Commission, but not so much any more because the FTC has made that almost impossible to do.
You used to be able to type "whois some.suspect.url" into your browser and get a record that showed who owned the "domain" to try to verify it was legit.
But nowadays all you get are ads for different lookup sites that appear mostly to be SCAMS themselves.
If I don't recognize the URL, I don't access it. And by "recognize", I mean can I call the 800 number on the back of my credit card and have them tell me if the website is legit ...
If I can't find who owns the domain with a "whois" FUCK 'EM, I ain't going there.
SO FAR I've managed to protect myself from scammers.
You need both. Ideally as part of a "maths for life sciences" course.
You need both at university, but to get in?
Remember that we don't have A-levels over here, so the calculus course is an introduction to calculus and vectors. Simple differentiation with usually not much in the way of practical uses for it other than "you need to know this at university". (At my last school I pissed off the math head by showing students practical uses for various techniques. Apparently as soon as something had a practical use it was no longer 'pure' and thus because boring. I made a point to study a bit of math history so I could share how many of his 'pure' techniques had been invented to solve practical problems :-)
Just because some tech bros are misguided by sci-fi does not mean the world shouldn't pine for the finest visions of sci-fi authors. I've been waiting "on that train all graphite and glitter, Undersea by rail" all my adult life. I won't get it but it is one of my opiates. Existence is subjective. I am happy living in a world where someday we will live on space stations (just like in KSP!), and wormhole our way across the galaxies. OK, a little dystopia will spice it up. I also believe certain butterflies are secretly elves, but that is getting into a different genre, I suppose . . .
I'd suggest stats is more important, but not for the obvious reason.
The basic issue is that stats are useful to more people than calculus is. What I'm thinking about are things like odds, risks, and rudimentary sampling design of the "four out of five dentists surveyed" type. Since every adult gets spammed with BS statistic-like stuff, it's worth giving them a bit of context to help them, in theory, become more informed consumers and voters
In contrast, calculus is most useful in technical fields and as an academic status symbol. Given how many students start off in engineering or medical and end up somewhere else, thereby abandoning their education in calculus, one might argue that it's more useful in the pre-collegiate level to train students in statistics, if time is limited.
Now if you're coming at this from a consumerist or political angle, you'd argue the opposite. Train all the high achievers in calculus, so that they have an overly high opinion of their math skills, while not knowing enough about probability or risk to avoid being suckered by advertising and political speech.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which approach was taken.
Re: '... "billions" are far more dangerous in the hands of an unhinged person'
Yeah - money's been used as a weapon for ages. And in some societies being able to grab/use a weapon is a sacred right.
Considering that many societies/jobs use money as a personal worth metric, my guess is that most people have been conditioned to accept that 'billionaires' are the epitome of success: If they're billionaires, then they must be smart, they must be doing what I an ordinary person/non-billionaire consider weird for a 'good reason', etc. So, good luck getting the 'unhinged' label to stick on any billionaire. Billionaires seem to be the 21st century version of royalty: not subject to ordinary laws.
"The ones I use have a +60dB button."
Holy shit. What kind of acoustic driver do they use for the earpiece?
Personally, I'd like a "Make the useless git on the other end speak slowly and clearly with correct pronunciation and with the microphone somewhere near their mouth, instead of bloody mumbling and slurring and mangling their vowels at 2000 words per minute into a microphone apparently lying on the desk" button...
Yeah - money's been used as a weapon for ages. And in some societies being able to grab/use a weapon is a sacred right.
The First Argument of Kings?
Or remember Warren Buffett calling derivatives "Financial weapons of mass destruction?"
And there's this article from 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeosullivan/2022/03/05/the-first-financial-war/
"If you want to do online banking, you have to have a smart phone with decent encryption... Being an elderly luddite is increasingly a dangerous hobby."
Ah well, I do not want to do online banking. Or indeed offline banking, for that matter.
However I don't call myself a Luddite. I think the Luddites had the wrong idea. If one machine can produce cloth at 10 times the rate that one person on their own can, then 10 people with one machine can produce the same amount of cloth as they did on their own but now they can spend 9 out of 10 days down the pub. The Luddites didn't see this; they thought the only options were "some other bugger gets the gains at our expense" or "nobody gets the gains at all", when they should have realised that "we get the gains" was preferable to both of those.
"Well there is such a thing as a large button landline phone for a disabled person."
Yes, but it only addresses one kind of disability, ie. difficulty pressing little buttons. It doesn't help with things like not being able to cope with the fuck-awful sound quality, because it can't; the sound has already been fucked by shitty codecs on the network and often also ill-considered processing in the phone on the other end. Things were much easier when it was a simple analogue bandwidth limit of 300Hz-3kHz.
"Maybe there is a good case for a large screen, disability adapted smartphone?"
Ie. A LAPTOP! (With a large button keyboard.)
But again there is the same limit on its usefulness in that the real problem is the software it runs is not designed to put the user's interests first (even if it does pretend to); it's designed to allow some other bugger with lots of money to exploit the user clandestinely in the background while the "useful" bit runs in the foreground as a distraction. (This is pretty obvious if you look at some of the W3C discussions these days on what should and shouldn't be allowed.)
Both these points are the same kind of thing as the "Luddite fallacy" in my previous post; the option chosen is "some other bugger gets the gains" and the apparent alternatives are limited to "nobody gets the gains", while "we get the gains" doesn't come into it except as a form of deception.
We don't actually know what the Luddites' motivation was for breaking machines was, because by doing so they were committing an act for which the penalty was a death sentence, and to admit it in writing (or advocate it) was extremely unwise. To discuss Luddism without some idea of the historical background is interesting for some weird value of interesting, but has nothing, so far as anyone does know (which again isn't as much as one might like), to do with the circumstances.
"browsers that don't show you the raw web address - what's one of those, then?"
My sister's iphone, for one. She sends me screenshots of some listing on Amazon; they are too small and fuzzy for me to read, so I ask her to just send me the actual link to the listing (eg. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0356516954 or whatever), so I can read it myself on a proper machine.
She can't do it. There is no apparent way to get the actual URL. I've seen the display, and there is something that looks like it ought to be the address bar, but it doesn't have the URL in it, it just has some other guff. And there's no way to right-click and copy the address, or if there is an equivalent it's impossible to find it.
(There was a similar "it just isn't there" problem some years ago trying to connect her device to our parents' wireless network. There were 3 items of identification/authentication data that needed to be entered, but Apple's wonderful software only allowed you to enter 2 of them and there was no way to enter the third one. Guess why I hate Apple...)
However even when you can see the address it still doesn't save you from things that redirect through 10 other URLs before it gets to the real one, too fast to see what's happening.
The QR code attack is basically an easier version of the standard tin yurl attack, anyway, and the basic problem is that people just don't care; if they did the tin yurl attack wouldn't work either.
the "share" (cup with upward-pointing arrow) widget doesn't help?
"We don't actually know what the Luddites' motivation was for breaking machines was, because by doing so they were committing an act for which the penalty was a death sentence, and to admit it in writing (or advocate it) was extremely unwise."
On that basis, to actually do it was even more unwise, but that didn't stop them. Communicating the ideas is a minor thing in comparison, and is a necessity for forming any kind of movement with a capital letter. The same could be said of a thousand other bits of history. Everything I've read that covers the Luddites has been pretty much in agreement over what their grievances and reasons were.
I'll suggest that to her the next time the situation arises, thanks. But it still doesn't count as "displaying the URL"...
Both these points are the same kind of thing as the "Luddite fallacy" in my previous post; the option chosen is "some other bugger gets the gains" and the apparent alternatives are limited to "nobody gets the gains", while "we get the gains" doesn't come into it except as a form of deception.
Just to be rude and inject some reality, the luddism I was talking about was the notion that banking in person (ATM cards can be hacked) and having only a landline phone and a desktop computer with email (cellphones are for addicted sheep), because that's what you know how to do and damn it, it still works, is dangerous these days.
If you're one bad day away from not being able to bank your old way and you didn't set up a cosigner on your account, when that bad day happens, you can't pay your bills or deposit your checks, and no one else can do it for you.
Yes, I'm speaking from personal experience with a relative. Even with a durable power of attorney in place, it took months for the designee to get access to critical accounts. Every financial firm has their own protocol for dealing, and some are stunningly inept.
A big part of the problem is that 2FA runs on smart phones. They won't use a landline for it. So if you don't have a smartphone in the US, financially you're a second class citizen.
In my experience, share allows you to share on various platforms, including copying into the clipboard, the URL, but maybe not...
My guess, and that, I believe, of one author I read on the topic many years ago whose name I do not, unfortunately, remember, was that under the- very well-known, of course- circumstances*, it was a death sentence either way.
*Well-known if you're familiar with the early history of the English Industrial Revolution, if the "Enclosure Act" means anything to you... and if neither of these are true, then at least read about them first.
The Luddites didn't see this; they thought the only options were "some other bugger gets the gains at our expense" or "nobody gets the gains at all", when they should have realised that "we get the gains" was preferable to both of those.
Well, those were the options they had, because they didn't have the money to buy machines of their own. Of note is that they didn't break every machine, nor were they protesting new technology.
As the Industrial Revolution began, workers naturally worried about being displaced by increasingly efficient machines. But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-really-fought-against-264412/
(An interesting article, and well worth reading.
Because this is a science fiction blog, here's a rather interesting alternative history that posits that the Luddites succeeded.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-future-encyclopedia-of-luddism/
Adapted from an article in this book, which also looks quite interesting.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781912685073/
A big part of the problem is that 2FA runs on smart phones. They won't use a landline for it.
My bank uses 2FA for online banking, and it works with my landline. A box pops up on my computer asking if I want a text or phone call, I pick phone call and it phones me up and tells me a number that I type in to get access.
The only annoying part is that after giving me six digits it says "for your login", which is a bit confusing because "for" and "four" sound identical.
We don't actually know what the Luddites' motivation was for breaking machines was, because by doing so they were committing an act for which the penalty was a death sentence, and to admit it in writing (or advocate it) was extremely unwise.
And yet they did write about it. There's a book Writings of the Luddites that looks worth reading if you're really interesting in the subject.
An invaluable collection of texts written between 1811 and 1816 by members of the Luddite movement and their sympathizers. Named for their probably mythical leader, Ned Ludd, the Luddites were a group of social agitators in nineteenth-century Britain who tried to prevent the mechanization of cloth factories, which they blamed for increased unemployment, poverty, and hunger in industrial centers. Though famous for their often violent protests, the Luddites also engaged in literary resistance in the form of poems, proclamations, petitions, songs, and letters. In Writings of the Luddites, Kevin Binfield collects complete texts written by Luddites or Luddite sympathizers between 1811 and 1816, adds detailed notes, and organizes the documents by the three primary regions of origin: the Midlands, Northwestern England, and Yorkshire. Binfield’s extensive introduction provides a historical overview of the Luddites and their activities, explores their rhetorical strategies, and illuminates their literary context. Written for the most part from a collective point of view, the texts themselves range from judicious to bloodthirsty in tone and reveal a fascination both with legal forms of address and with the more personal forms of Romantic literature, as well as with the recent political revolutions in France and America.
https://muse.jhu.edu/book/98247
If you're going to require only one math course as a prerequisite to get into university, is calculus a better fit for medicine than statistics, though?
I don't see how you can understand statistics without calculus.
I don't see how you can understand statistics without calculus.
Quite easily. I had intro/engineering and multivariate stats without reference to calculus. In my experience, a program calculates the test statistic, and the user's job is primarily data management and bullshit detection. Doing the work of calculating the test statistic is left for the stats majors, who do need calculus for that.
I'd argue that statistical bullshit detection is a more valuable skill than being able to manually calculate the area under a curve, for many tasks.
That's the proximate problem. The deeper problem is that whoever runs the parking there requires a non-standard (car-park specific) method of payment because their ticket machine is crap. If it accepted payment by contactless card, or Apple Pay, or some other well-established, low-risk method then there would be no need for QR codes and no loophole to exploit.
This is a specific example of a failure to replace cash payment. Fewer citizens carry coins these days and very few carry enough for a day's parking at a station, so the alternate payment methods have to work; "just put coins in" is not a valid option. Absent contactless payment, one has to deal with these ghastly pay-to-park services. I've been there, standing in the rain for 15 minutes typing in all the utter wank that the pay-to-park service requires, in order that I can pay some parasite an extra fee just to get my 50p ticket; and then it crashed and I didn't get the ticket anyway. Of course people use the QR codes to connect, it's nearly impossible otherwise.
As OGH pointed out, there's nothing wrong with QR codes, but this is a really stupid use of them. It's stupid at the level of "just write your bank details on a bit of paper and pop it in this post box next to the ticket machine". This system should not exist, and if the operators of it were made liable for all losses resulting, then sued into non-existence, I would be very smug.
H
So if you don't have a smartphone in the US, financially you're a second class citizen. - SAME AS HERE, actually.
My problem is that I have a really good smartphone ... but - as stated - QR codes simply seem not to work on it - & I don't trust them, anyway.
{ Same as my "incoming call tone/ring/ringtone" is totally borked, & I simply cannot get it fixed! }
Guy Rixon
Sorry, but I think both you & Charlie are wrong ...
QR codes are simply so insecure as to be dangerous. For reasons already given.
Interesting about 2FA in the US.
In the UK, for my bank anyway, if I try to transfer money it makes me insert my password again and then, depending on who the cash is going to, they then want to phone my mobile to convey a code number.
When this first started the only option was a mobile phone, but in the last couple of years, if you poke the "Another method" button and press on "phone", both the mobile and landline numbers come up.
Which is just as well, because where I live (only 8 miles from a city in south England) theres no phone reception for anyone with a BT mobile phone - not even text or 999. There was a period when I had to get in the car and go into town or send a cheque, but now they allow landlines - albeit as second choice.
A fairly crap one :-) It's probably really only 40 dB, and I would get the 60 dB only if I also pushed the volume slider up to maximum. My problem is that I have 60 dB hearing loss in the speech frequencies of my better ear (the other ear's audiogram gets up to 40 dB loss, but looks like the Matterhorn and is stone deaf below 500 Hz and above 4K Hz). And I don't wear hearing aids all the time because I rely critically on cognition (fill-in) even with them in, and listening is more exhausting than carrying a 25 Kg pack over Cairngorms' heather (yes, really, tested). I don't need to pay VAT on my landline telephones, incidentally :-)
Your point about people speaking audibly and the auditory quality is equally important. I had hell when they first introduced CODECs, because they buggered the micro-timing, which I use more than pitch (I am close to tone deaf). And, of course, I can't hear people calling me on their mobiles even if I am on the landline, unless they use IPhones.
You can see why I get pissed off at the pressure to use a mobile phone.
An increasing number of places don't take cash, in one way or another.
QR codes are simply so insecure as to be dangerous. For reasons already given.
One of those articles on the Web, I think it was headlined "the Philosophy of Burglary" discussed scams and crime generally in a high-level manner. The important thing in penetrating someone's security was overcoming the first barrier in the way, the writers said. After that the intruder's presence within the outer fence was normalised. If they were detected the expectation by the observers was that they were benign regular visitors that the observers just didn't recognise for some reason.
It's the same with the QR code scam, after someone uses it they're in a familiar-looking environment. Most folks are unlikely to check the security of the URL they land on because they expect to be in that kind of safe environment, something the scammers encourage by copying existing Web interfaces and layers of social engineering. They don't have to get everyone to fall for it, even one successful victim out of hundreds of failures is a win for them.
She can't do it. There is no apparent way to get the actual URL.
You are wrong.
To copy the actual URL from Safari on iPhone, just hold your finger on the URL bar and a pop-up menu will appear, including the option to "copy link". Paste it into notes or messages and it will show up as a plaintext URL. I just tested this, it definitely works on iOS 17.1.1 (the current release).
It sounds like your sister doesn't know how to copy and paste on iOS. In general, the equivalent of "right click" in a multitouch UI is to touch-and-hold for a second, or to press harder (on phones with haptic sensors).
I will note that although iOS is simple enough to use at a superficial level, it only appears to be missing some features such as showing you the full URL or giving you copy/paste functionality: this stuff is all there, but it's not immediately obvious. Some time spent with video tutorials would actually be useful, for once, because these machines do not work just like a terminal interface or a mouse-driven GUI -- it's more physical.
For example: if you're looking at a web page, long press on a link and Mobile Safari will show you a preview of the page (without loading it). But if you want to see raw URLs instead of a preview window, Safari will accommodate you: just pop up a preview window for the first time, then tap "hide preview" in the top right of the preview window, and (a) it'll show you the raw URL, and (b) thereafter Mobile Safari will always show you the raw URLs when you tap-and-hold until you touch "tap to show preview".
As Heteromeles says, you can understand a great deal of of applied statistics without needing calculus, though you have to accept the results on faith. What you can't do is more than a trivial amount of the theory, but (complex) analysis is as important there, though distinguishing analysis from calculus is dubious. I have no time for the hand-waving 'proofs' of things like the central limit theorem, not least because they are harder than using measure theory. And, of course, areas of statistics like epidemiology need calculus.
Computer science is as bad, because the 'discrete mathematics' courses are no paths to understanding probability.
This works OK with most links but with Amazon you get a dialogue box which is mostly above the top of the screen so you can’t select it. It used to work OK but the latest update seems to have improved it so that it no longer works.
If it accepted payment by contactless card, or Apple Pay, or some other well-established, low-risk method then there would be no need for QR codes and no loophole to exploit.
What is the life expectancy of a parking meter?
You've basically got four payment options at present: cash, magstripe card reader, contactless card reader, and phone/SMS/website.
Cash is out these days because it's labour intensive and expensive to collect -- meters need emptying daily, they're a target for thieves and vandals, etc.
Magstripe card readers are out these days because card skimmers have become arbitrarily, ridiculously, thin -- pinhole camera with line of sight to read card number as it goes in, magstripe reader physically on top of the meter's own much bulkier reader head, bluetooth to a transceiver nearby, etc.
Apple Pay and contactless ... contactless has been around for roughly a decade but there are reportedly non-contact readers for RFID cards: the transaction also requires a live online connection to a card clearing organization from within the meter.
Using a QR code and a website puts all the hazard on the customer. (You use the website and get a number to type into the meter. Presumably it includes a date/time hash, so the meter can print you a valid ticket without having to go online. Meanwhile there's a cardholder-not-present transaction via your secure payment server, not a hackable parking meter.)
You're a parking meter vendor. Which is these solutions is cheapest and most foolproof for you?
The basic issue is that stats are useful to more people than calculus is.
Yes. Totally. There SHOULD be in all educational systems a statistics for daily life course for teens. But every single stats course I've ever seen wants to be a full semester and get into standard deviation calculations early on then dig deep after that. And assume that only people in STEM or such would take it. And so most teens (and thus later adults) run away.
She can't do it. There is no apparent way to get the actual URL. I've seen the display, and there is something that looks like it ought to be the address bar, but it doesn't have the URL in it, it just has some other guff. And there's no way to right-click and copy the address, or if there is an equivalent it's impossible to find it.
I just pulled up an item on my Amazon app on my iPhone. Just below the description and above the first picture is a small square with an arrow pointing out the top. This is what has become an almost universal "shared" icon. (At least in the US but I suspect elsewhere.)
Just maybe your sister doesn't know about this?
This icon is all over apps on my iPhone, iPad, and even my Mac. And the little square when the arrow points down means download the item next to it.
I'll suggest that to her the next time the situation arises, thanks. But it still doesn't count as "displaying the URL"...
That little icon brings up a small bar of shortcuts for Airdrop, messages, email, web browsers, FB, X, etc... where it then generates the appropriate "conveyance" which has the URL in it.
A big part of the problem is that 2FA runs on smart phones. They won't use a landline for it. So if you don't have a smartphone in the US, financially you're a second class citizen.
Not an absolute. Some of the more enlightened companies will allow a phone call to a phone number ON FILE with a voice prompt to get the MFA approved.
But not all do it.
As to elderly relatives, yep. With my mother in law as she went downhill over the years we gradually moved things to our computer systems so we could pay her bills, taxes, and make sure important notices didn't slip by. With my mother when we three brothers had to jump in we had nothing. She had kept everything a secret. We figured in the last month of her life plus the next month we put in over 2000 hours tracking down things. At least is was in a somewhat smaller town area and didn't take all that long to visit all the banks in the area looking for accounts.
Mistake acknowledged, I'll have to have a look at that. Thanks.
The only annoying part is that after giving me six digits it says "for your login", which is a bit confusing because "for" and "four" sound identical.
Decades ago AT&T did a study (in the US) and came to the conclusion the best thing to do after giving someone a number of any kind was to just hang up. The more someone talked the more likely it was the person asking the question would forget or mix up one or more of the digits. It created a perception of rudeness but the number of callbacks asking the same information to an operator was much less.
If they're billionaires, then they must be smart, they must be doing what I an ordinary person/non-billionaire consider weird for a 'good reason', etc. So, good luck getting the 'unhinged' label to stick on any billionaire
Famous quote, although I am not sure who said it first: "Poor people are crazy. Middle class people are weird. Rich people are eccentric."
I have fond memories of a plant ecology field course I took one summer. The prof, trying to encourage us to dialogue rather than just sitting and taking notes, told us that he insisted on us asking questions. "There are no dumb questions," he observed. "In fact, I won't let anyone pass this course without asking at least one." I held up my hand and asked him whether that would be on the test. I passed, but I also asked (and learned from) a great many dumb questions over the summer.
Robert Prior [539] wondered about whether calculus and stats were both necessary before university. Yes and no? Most introductory courses for specialists (e.g., first-year math for scientists) cover an astonishing amount of ground, with the goal of ensuring that everyone develops the same basic skills. Internalizing all that information is a struggle. If you survive that infodump, it gives you the foundation you'll build on in subsequent years, but that foundation is stronger if you arrive at university with at least a rudimentary foundation already in place.
Robert: "the calculus course is an introduction to calculus and vectors. Simple differentiation with usually not much in the way of practical uses for it other than "you need to know this at university".
Simple differentiation is very important once you get to the part of science where you begin working with equations. The first derivative tells you the slope at a point (i.e., the rate of change) and the second derivative tells you the rate of change in the slope and the direction of the change, thus the convexity of the curve. Both are very useful in most branches of science. Understanding the basics before you encounter them in universty really gentles the learning curve.
The humanities vs. science debate is one of those useless binaries scientists seem addicted to. In practice, the best decisions are based on learning to think more holistically by incorporating relevant insights from science and non-science and all those bits in between.
Fewer citizens carry coins these days and very few carry enough for a day's parking at a station
Raises hand.
I do not carry coins around in my pocket, but my car has a stash of coins specifically for parking. I do not use them for anything else.
David L
An if "it" { Whatever "it" is } is NOT fucking Apple?
Elderly Cynic @496:
Since you display a good working knowledge of fundamental physics, I suspect that either you've learned a lot since your school days, or you weren't giving yourself enough credit back then.
My experience in Physics was odd. I tended to make casual errors in algebra, but I spent a fair amount of time explaining the underlying reasoning of physics (and hence how to set up the formulae in the first place) to people whose math skills surpassed my own. That included my then girlfriend, who derived equations flawlessly, but didn't easily grasp why they were applicable. We made a good study team.
I remember once, in the Physics Dept study room, spending about 30 minutes explaining tides to four or five classmates from second-year Mechanics. The professor had casually mentioned tidal forces, and these guys had no idea how those worked. I used a ballpoint pen, rotated to be normal to the orbit to illustrate the general principle of tides: every part of a body inside the orbital path is pulled towards the attracting body, while every part of the body outside the path is pushed away.
Then we positioned the pen to explore stable and unstable equilibria.
Those classmates concluded that I was a Brain for understanding this fairly simple extended-body situation, and explaining it with adequate clarity; I, on the other hand, remained convinced that they were more capable than I.
EC, your description of your swanning technique suggests that you might have been like those classmates, but that would be inconsistent with the way you reason in comments nowadays. :-)
I don't see how you can understand statistics without calculus.
In the single half-class in stats I took at uni (in second year, IIRC) we didn't reference calculus once, and if it was implied that went over my head.
That half-class is most of the math I used since graduating, despite half my courses being math (mostly calculus).
The high school courses that are prerequisites for Ontario universities are basically introductory courses, heavy on technique and light on theory. If you are able to learn "see this problem, use that technique" then you will do well, even if you have no idea why that particular technique is best. The only prerequisites for both grade 12 stats and calculus are grade 11 algebra.
Para 1 - I have chronic renal failure and spend 3 mornings a week on haemodialysis. The unit is a teaching unit, and student nurses on 1 to 3 month placements, and trainee dialysis nurses (qualified as a nurse, but not in dialysis) cycle through regularly.
I always tell them that I was a trainer before I developed renal failure, and that the only "stupid question" is the question that you don't ask.
So, good luck getting the 'unhinged' label to stick on any billionaire. Billionaires seem to be the 21st century version of royalty: not subject to ordinary laws.
Literally the truth, in the case of some psychological conditions. The diagnostic criteria for conditions like narcissism include it having a negative effect on the patient's life. If you're really rich your wealth shields you from many negative effects, so in your case the diagnosis would be that you don't have the condition.
If fines are not geared to wealth they are likewise much less of an issue if you're rich. A $10k fine for me would be crippling, but I know people for whom that would mean a couple of downscaled weekend getaways, and for anyone really rich they wouldn't notice at all.
Not quite :-) One thing I didn't (and don't) usually do is to think problems were simple until I understand enough of the issues to be able to discount the secondary effects on the basis of estimating their magnitude. Tides were obviously a differential effect (i.e. inverse cube in distance), height is the second integrand of the force, and it all drops out from there. But the details because water is not a perfect fluid and the topography of the earth - ah! - now there, I knew I was at a loss. To a great extent, I still am, though I learned the theory in my degree.
And be a bloody disaster when you come to use those techniques :-( The proportion of results that are completely bogus because the technique is inappropriate is horrific. As Heteromeles may have indicated, in statistics, the "why" is considerably more important than the "how".
Robert Prior [539] wondered about whether calculus and stats were both necessary before university. Yes and no?
Actually, that was part of a thread about how calculus was required but stats wasn't, and I was wondering if making stats the required course made more sense if you were only going to require one math course at high school.
One thing I've learned of the years is that decisions about prerequisite courses often have more to do with politics and personalities than they do with pedagogy, and are usually made by administrators rather than teachers.
Re: not apple
My only android thing is unusable just now. But the share icon seems to be very universal. I’m sure there’s an android phone user here with the Amazon app who can verify.
If fines are not geared to wealth they are likewise much less of an issue if you're rich.
I'd go further: a criminal system that uses fines for minor offenses tacitly legalizes lesser crimes for the wealthy and persecutes the poor (to the point of imprisonment when they can't pay -- eg. cash bail).
The evident solution is to replace fines with community service work, because 100 hours means as much to a billionaire as it does to a homeless person (personal time is the only thing money can't trivially buy more of).
Of course you need identity verification (to make sure rich criminals aren't paying someone else to pick up dogshit on their behalf). And it doesn't work for bail/probation (to ensure someone turns up to their trial). But it's a good start at leveling the social field, insofar as almost every crime is an offense against society (as well as any specific individual who was targeted).
Round these parts, the phone/SMS/website transaction doesn't require a meter at all, so that's the cheapest option. You phone or text following instructions displayed in the car park, to give them the car park ID, your car registration and payment card details. Alternatively, you use their smartphone app which does essentially the same. There is no physical ticket.
Following the phone/SMS instructions is as insecure as scanning a QR code, since the displayed phone number is as easily hacked as the QR code. The app is another security loophole, of course: it's an opaque chunk of code and if you accidentally install a malicious one instead of the official app, you can't see which URLs it's visiting or what it's doing with your card data. But you only install it once.
Whichever means you choose, the underlying problem is the same: there's no secure end-to-end authentication of the merchant to the customer.
Not an absolute. Some of the more enlightened companies will allow a phone call to a phone number ON FILE with a voice prompt to get the MFA approved.
CORRECTION on my part. Sorry.
2FA does run on landlines. The story I misremembered is that if your smartphone breaks (or bricks because you only use it when those pesky whippersnappers bug you about it), you can't call in on a landline to get the number associated with the account changed, because they want a smartphone connection to prove it's you by texting the number you're calling from.
My understanding is that extreme wealth provides three things: anonymity, freedom, and power.
So I'd structure the penalties to attack those first, not the money.
For example: as a punishment, you're strapped with a smart ankle monitor that reports, not just where you are, but what entity owns where you are and who you're communicating with. That way, if your assets are officially owned by others, you using them maps your systems for everyone watching you, which really should include the public. Not so much of a problem if you're poor but relatively honest. Big problem if you're a kingpin of some sort.
Where are QR codes most used?
From my point of view I see them most as a way to tell someone who I am. Chain restraurents and such let you bring up your "account" and scan it at the register so you can pick up your take out and it's paid for. And similar.
My wife and I just got back from a local Urgent Care. (More than a doc visit and less than an Emergency / Hospital need in the US.) I made the appointment online and it gave me a QR code (along with the digits) which I saved into the Notes of my account and it was also sent to my wife's phone.
Of course when we got there the reader wasn't working so we had to enter the 10 digit reservation on the check in screen. You do NOT have to do any of this. AT ALL. You can just walk in. But by doing the automated system mostly at home when we got there my wife validated who she was and we skipped 99% of the admin fun.
Cade @ 540:
Just because some tech bros are misguided by sci-fi does not mean the world shouldn't pine for the finest visions of sci-fi authors. I've been waiting "on that train all graphite and glitter, Undersea by rail" all my adult life. I won't get it but it is one of my opiates. Existence is subjective. I am happy living in a world where someday we will live on space stations (just like in KSP!), and wormhole our way across the galaxies. OK, a little dystopia will spice it up. I also believe certain butterflies are secretly elves, but that is getting into a different genre, I suppose . . .
When we finally do get flying cars most of the drivers will still be clueless idiots.
And be a bloody disaster when you come to use those techniques :-( The proportion of results that are completely bogus because the technique is inappropriate is horrific. As Heteromeles may have indicated, in statistics, the "why" is considerably more important than the "how".
Maybe I'm over-generalizing from my own experience, but neither the stats class I took at uni nor the intro stats classes I've looked at since have used calculus. All of them were heavily about howto calculate various tests and what the results meant, with no emphasis on proofs. I assume those came in subsequent courses.
Yeas ago at a physics conference I was chatting with a prof who said that they'd given tests in conceptual physics to students in every year, and some of their top-rank physics students had done poorly. When looking at the tests and courses they realized that it was possible to get good grade in undergraduate physics by being good at calculating math problems, and learning (by pattern recognition) which formula to use for which type of problem. The students didn't need to understand, just be able to calculate, all the way to Masters level.
I realized then that that was how I'd got through math at uni. I was very good at learning and applying rules, and that had masked the fact that often I didn't really understand why the rules worked. All the assessment assumed that if you could do something you understood it. I assumed that too. We all did: "I understand" was synonymous with "I can solve the problem and get the right answer".
There's a question about when to emphasize the how and the why, though. We teach children how to do arithmetic without worrying about why it works. We teach them how to play scales without getting into the physics of sound and the psychology of hearing which explain why scales are the way they are. One can learn how to drive a car safely without needing understand the physics of motion, friction, and the calculus needed to solve the problem of travelling in a curve on a banked highway which explains why the posted speed limit is there.
Hi HowardNYC -
'Grindstated' & 'Sigma Male' are both terms from contemporary online male hustle culture: a self-helpy entrepreneurial libertarian outlook marketed to (mostly) young men. As a member, one should always be "on the grind" (eg. working and accumulating value) and the 'Sigma Male' is the living embodiment of this concept. It's largely considered a scam culture, rife with get-rich-quick pyramid schemes and 'systems' used to 'hack' relationships, jobs, etc. If you look up 'The DENNIS System' from 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia', Dennis' presentation is a pretty effective parody of the slimy vibe these terms carry with them.
Eric called it: Psychohistoricized is a reference to Asimov's 'Psychohistory'. I'm overdoing it a little when applied to 'The Killer' - the protagonist is trying really, really hard to be a cosmic nihilist, and failing spectacularly. His carefully designed existence, obsession with risk management and the way he fetishizes detachment brought to mind the practices of Asimov's fictitious organization.
Heteromeles @ 552:
A big part of the problem is that 2FA runs on smart phones. They won't use a landline for it. So if you don't have a smartphone in the US, financially you're a second class citizen.
It does't run EXCLUSIVELY on smart phones.
Plus ... I know a lot of effectively "second class citizens", and every one of THEM has got a "smart phone", so that's NOT the reason. Nowadays even homeless people have smart phones ...
extreme wealth provides three things: anonymity, freedom, and power
Those are all to some extent tradable for time.
If you are rich, you don't need to cook or clean for yourself, you can pay people to do it for you. Or to shop for you. Or to bypass airport security queues by flying first class, or bypass airline schedules entirely by flying on a private jet. Driving yourself is dead time -- you can't do much else while you're driving -- but if you're rich you can employ a chauffeur or pay for a helicopter to bypass the traffic. No waiting to be seen by a physician, no waiting to see people who work for you (they come to you on a schedule arranged by your PA).
Time is money has a corollary: money is time. There are limits to how much time you can pay for -- right now, you can't buy a speedier air ticket than a chartered Gulfstream G650 at maximum fuel burn rate (they're significantly faster than any commercial airliner but they're still just about subsonic). You can't (see also Steve Jobs) buy your way around the waiting list for a liver transplant. (He kinda-sorta managed a partial shortcut, but it cost him roughly $1M/month while he was waiting for most of a year to maybe shave a few weeks or a month or two off the wait.) You can't beat the speed of light, and you probably can't beat the law if your crime is sufficiently extreme and blatant (Phil Spector was famous and rich but he's still doing hard time for murder).
So anyway: Finland has an income-based sliding scale for fines, so that a multimillionaire pulled a speeding ticket a few years ago that cost him over 40,000 Euros (about $50K). Which must have stung, but he still didn't lose any more time to it than a farm worker in an old beater rushing to get to work.
So I think we should fine them in hours, personal hours they won't get back. Even if it's just spent sitting in a classroom watching driver education videos.
(Your ankle tag is more severe -- a pre-trial detention measure, or an alternative to prison for non-violent criminals -- because you can attach conditions to it such as a curfew or a geofence to keep them out of or inside certain locations.)
Grant @ 562:
Interesting about 2FA in the US.
In the UK, for my bank anyway, if I try to transfer money it makes me insert my password again and then, depending on who the cash is going to, they then want to phone my mobile to convey a code number.
Works the same here in the U.S. (at least in North Carolina). It all depends on the options you chose when you set up 2 factor authentication for the account. Every account is different and some don't even REQUIRE 2FA.
Admittedly I don't use THE PHONE1 for online transactions, so I'm not clear on what is required to do so ... but I've never had any problems doing all the on-line transactions I need from my desk computer, or at least no problem I wasn't able to quickly resolve by calling the "800" number on the back of the credit/bank card I'm trying to use.
Sometimes the auto-attendant/voice-response-unit can be a pain in the ass (arse for those using imperial units), but with persistence I've always been able to get through to a real person.
1 Rarely, I will still have to make a voice call to order something, so that's technically using the phone for an online transaction.
ilya187 @ 578:
Raises hand.
I do not carry coins around in my pocket, but my car has a stash of coins specifically for parking. I do not use them for anything else.
The jeans I wear have that little pocket for a watch. I keep a U.S. quarter in it because one of the grocery stores I frequent has carts you have to put a quarter in to get them to release.
Notably the prices at that store are generally lower than at the other stores in the area and I never see their carts laying on the side of the road miles away from the store.
Instead of meters, parking in downtown Raleigh has kiosks that accept credit/debit cards (and I think Apple Pay/Google Pay/... & maybe dollar bills but don't give any change if they do).
You have to note the number painted on the curb where you're parking so you can enter it along with your tag number and select however long you want to park there and it puts that info into memory & prints a receipt you can keep as a souvenir (which also has the number of the curb slot so you have a reference to help you find your car when you come back)?
Parking garages (multistory car parks) still make you take a ticket when you pull in, but more & more have a credit card kiosk at the exit instead of an attendant.
I am not dissenting from that (see #567). What I was ranting about is that most elementary statistics courses why (say) regression works, and when it won't. How many people know that the Law of Large Numbers isn't universal, and doesn't apply to (say) incomes?
Aargh. I managed o lose the "don't teach" by accident.
You have to note the number painted on the curb where you're parking so you can enter it along with your tag number and select however long you want to park there and it puts that info into memory & prints a receipt you can keep as a souvenir (which also has the number of the curb slot so you have a reference to help you find your car when you come back)?
Not everywhere requires a space number. That may be going away.
The receipt I put on my dash and use to pretest when I'm ticketed incorrectly.
And cash is accepted. But since I never use it I don't know if it takes coins. Given the rate near downtown is $2.50 for 2 hours it's not much lost if you go with $2 or $3.
doing the automated system mostly at home when we got there my wife validated who she was and we skipped 99% of the admin fun.
Sadly my experience here is that you can fill out all the online information you like, the doctor's office is still going to give you a clipboard and a pen and demand the same information again. Right now they provide hand sanitiser but don't disinfect the clipboard or pen. And some of them want that for any interaction at all, right down to "here's your prescription" (pharmacies often have a nurse and give out vaccinations "bend over, this won't hurt me a bit")
Like all you elderly folk (I'm in my 50's!) I've been on a bit of a tour of medical offices over the last few months. I have online accounts with at least two commercial "find a doctor" websites, both of which have interesting privacy policies and like every other site "this policy may change at any time without notice". Plus I have accounts with several surgeries, which is why I'm not sure how many are generic data collection websites and which are specific to the medical practice. "roselands.hotdoc.com" is almost certainly a data broker, but "belmoremedicalpractice.com.au" could be just that one office or could be a data broker who knows how to register domains...
the doctor's office is still going to give you a clipboard and a pen and demand the same information again.
We have a system of small private docs and larger health care systems. (Yes Greg, it has lots of issues but that's not the topic.) The system (uni med center, multiple hospitals around the area and ditto urgent care and doc offices) is great as long as you stay in it. If you stray, yes, the clipboard and initial 500 times.
Limits. My father used to rant a bit about how young toxicologists didn't know the limits of an animal model when looking at different toxicities across animals of different masses.
It's an easy thing to internalize so well that you don't think about it, and then you leave it out of coursework (or materials) that you prepare as a teacher, so that the limits of a technique become hidden assumptions that are built into the problem sets (if your course has them) but never explicitly identified.
There was a case at an Ontario community college where a welding student successfully sued the college for a deficient education because he got fired. He was able to prove that in the welding course he took they were instructed in how to weld different metals with different welding rods, but never how to select the right rod for the job — the students just grabbed the available rods and started welding. (The college instructors made sure that the only rods available were the correct rods for that day's work, to avoid expensive accidents.) So at his job he grabbed the first rod available and ruined an expensive welding rig, and got fired.
We often do that, at least at school level. The class is studying a particular topic, so students know approximately what knowledge is relevant to a given problem/project. And that the problem given lies within the parameters of the technique/subject they are learning.
My university engineering course had specific design classes that assumed only the previous year's knowledge as a way to encourage us to look at broader options before trying a solution, but the point passed most of us by. Looking back I can say that my "bullshit engineering" courses (as we called them) should have been the most valuable, but the pedagogical approach taken obscured the point they were trying to make (especially with the workload of an engineering student).
I don't want this to dominate this entry, so shall stop here.
That's rarely the reason in this case, as I can witness from speaking to people who have designed such courses. It's because "we don't have time to teach that" and "it almost always works on simple data". Well, yes, it does - until it doesn't - and most teaching statisticians haven't encountered the cases that don't work. I will give you an analogy.
With a properly wired house, it is safe to work on almost all devices just with them switched off. But sometimes the switch has been miswired and cuts the neutral not the live, and there are a few things like bathroom extractor fans (where the switch works differently) or CRT televisions (with damn great high voltage capacitors). Most DIY people will never work on any of those but, for those who do ....
Charlie @ 597
and you probably can't beat the law if your crime is sufficiently extreme and blatant - REALLY?
D J T seems to be evading everything that would have had anyone else in jail, long since ...
EC @ 606
Just UNPLUG the damned thing! ...
Phil Spector is no longer doing hard time because he carked it early in 2021.
Hi! Faculty at the University of Waterloo here. Associate Professors are almost always tenured in Canada, and Prof. Strickland definitely was. At Waterloo, there is actually no real incentive to apply for promotion to Professor (no $ increase, for instance, just more liability for service.) As far as I can tell, people apply so that they're not seen as being washed-up.
@540 writes "on that train all graphite and glitter, Undersea by rail"
I recognize that lyric from the Steely Dan tune I.G.Y. Donald Fagen explained it to Paul Shafer in a youtube interview as being strictly ironic, looking back to the International Geophysical Year which gave the song its title as an example of naive optimism about the future from the nineteen-fifties viewpoint. He thought the line about spandex jackets would make the satire obvious, but I'm with Shafer on that one, the idealism shines right through the disenchantment. "Ninety minutes from New York to Paris, eternally free and eternally young, a just machine to make big decisions, programmed by those with compassion and vision"..... Still brings a dewy drop of moisture to the eye. Better to think like Darwin and accept life on its own terms for what it really is, largely as it appears to be. "There is grandeur in this vision."
Yet another zombifying parasite:
https://academic.oup.com/beheco/article/34/6/960/7250300
the ant Formica polyctena (Förster, 1850) by the brain-encysting lancet liver fluke Dicrocoelium dendriticum (Rudolphi, 1819). This fluke induces ants to climb and bite to vegetation by the mandibles in a state of temporary tetany.
Girdlestone's book about Mozart's piano concertos used to exist in a Dover Publications reprint, which used to be relatively inexpensive. (The former may still be the case, the latter less so of Dover's reprints.) Dating myself (... well, at least I know what I'm going to order), I got my copy of Einstein's "Mozart: His Character, His Work" (English translation) and Girdlestone's "Mozart and His Piano Concertos" (revised from earlier editions which only discussed the concertos. Btw I see Thriftbooks has the Dover for $6) at various local bookstores, and tore the former especially apart with reading and rereading. (Alfred Einstein's book doesn't have a Kindle edition, it seems, and there are Kindle editions of the early and late versions of Girdlestone's Mozart. [Both authors wrote other works of interest, and Alfred Einstein even helped compile/update "Köchel Edition 6"/K6 :) .] Both books are out of date from the point of view of modern musicology, but they are enjoyable and insightful reads, well-written, involving, and lack any feeling of false objectivity- the authors have their points of view, they are not going to pretend that they are just presenting The Facts, but they are also going to try to convince you as fairly as they can.
(Yes, I am, despite being a Wikipedia editor and ex-administrator who prefers the "NPOV" method when it's set out in front in the first place and used as well as possible, someone who aesthetically enjoys the old-fashioned approach.)
Also, clearly, I had the dates of the Luddite movement wrong- although there was an Enclosure Act of 1801 as well as the original one of the 16th century. (And yet -another- in 1845...)
Not sure what it says, tangentially, that I did fine in calculus (the dental pun at the beginning of the preceding course did not hurt- I have a close relative who's a punster and a dentist, at that) and flopped in the probability and statistics courses I took for various reasons back in my math student days...
In terms of describing a technological future, I think you missed Stanislaw Lem's "Summa Technologiae". It is remarkably prescient given it was written in the mid-1960s. We are still exploring his ideas. In many respects, it is better, if a somewhat dryer, read than sci-fi. However, I would not call Lem a follower of any of the belief systems you describe. His stories are often very much anti-Cosmism, and even anti-technology.
The question I ask is whether any of these new ideas are any worse than older ones (divine right of rule, fascism, etc.) to place individuals at the top of the social pyramid and keep them there. (This is not an endorsement of these ideas, just whether railing at them isn't a distraction from existing evils?)
and flopped in the probability and statistics courses I took for various reasons back in my math student days
What are the odds of that happening?
Sorry, I'll show myself out.
Well, you know, ebenso.
Meaning to read some Lem. Tarkovsky's Solaris, and at least the beginning of the 2013 movie "The Congress", both based on stories of his, are good and good-so-far respectively :) and incline me to want to read the source material... (in translation, until I hopefully learn some Russian- hopefully that is not a wholly unachievable goal after one's early 50s.) Thanks!
In the category of how silly LaLa Land is, SIX DAYS after the fire closed the I-10, it reopened to ordinary traffic in all lanes at 6 pm Sunday. The repairs are far from done, but they shored up the road so that it can bear weight while the repairs are finished.
As noted previously, LA doesn’t screw around with keeping its freeways open, for good and ill. Maybe Tim Powers’ Alternative Routes isn’t entirely wrong about “Old Man 10”
'Grindstated' & 'Sigma Male' are both terms from contemporary online male hustle culture
it's usually (the noun) grindset, a play on mindset, which has been a popular self-help thing for a while
there's a whole damn hustlebro ecosystem out there, it's wild
The Motorola Razr was introduced in 2004. The Motorola StarTAC flip phone introduced in 1996 was a runaway bestseller a decade earlier. THAT was the star trek communicator, with as close a name as they could get without Paramount suing them.
"What is the life expectancy of a parking meter?"
Apparently longer than one might think. The one that routinely gives me grief is on a council car-park. The current mechanism has been there maybe 10 years. That replaced one that was put in around the millennium, which in turn replaced one that was there in 1993. In each case, the replacement was not because the old machine wore out. The <1993 machine was replaced when it fell under the footprint of a new supermarket. The c.2013 machine introduced buttons to enter the car registration.
"You've basically got four payment options at present: cash, magstripe card reader, contactless card reader, and phone/SMS/website."
Yes, and I require two of these that don't leave me confused or shafted. Cash and contactless will do nicely, don't need the others. I'm assuming that you count NFC to smartphone under contactless.
"Cash is out these days because it's labour intensive and expensive to collect -- meters need emptying daily, they're a target for thieves and vandals, etc."
Not always. The meter shamed above is full of coins and the council would rather handle the cash than the replacement cost. That's part of the problem, because it doesn't have a network connection for contactless payment and they'd have to trench a cable.
"You're a parking meter vendor. Which is these solutions is cheapest and most foolproof for you?"
Not quite the right question. But "which bring most sales" has the same answer and it's the shitty dangerous one. Until they get carpet-bombed with lawsuits.
So where's your practical cut-off? If you're going to prohibit retention of wealth above $x, because dangerous in the wrong hands, what's x? $1,000,000,000 is too hand-wavey.
I suggest that it would have to be a blanket prohibition --- 100% tax above $x --- because you can't cull the dangerous billionaires from the herd. The most dangerous thing they can buy with their money is lawyers and they'd sort you right out if you tried.
How long does everybody give the right-wing shit in Argentina, before it all implodes?
Using the US$ as currency has all sorts of, um interesting complications, too.
And - will he be stupid & arrogant enough to try to re-start a Falklands conflict?
»So I think we should fine them in hours, personal hours they won't get back.«
I think pterry told the world how to do deal that kind of people in Going Postal ?
I'm sure Sam Bankman-Fried would do wonders as CEO of AmTrack.
"You're a parking meter vendor. Which is these solutions is cheapest and most foolproof for you?"
Well, in France, all parking meters are credit card / contactless (both card and phone) / resident card.
Parking meters accepting cash are a rarity now.
Probably a different legal landscape.
D J T seems to be evading everything that would have had anyone else in jail, long since ...
The Juries aren't returning yet, but you might have noticed DJT is facing 91 different federal and state charges and looks set to go down for one or more of them. And it's hard to have more influence than a self-proclaimed billionaire and former US President with tens of millions of fanatical followers, isn't it?
(The one thing extreme power and political office gets you is a deferred reckoning. Look at how long it took Berlusconi to run down the clock. Or the lengths V. Putin is going to to avoid any exposure to non-Russian jurisdiction. Or Benny Netanyahu, for that matter.)
Not only is it a different legal landscape, it's a different banking and credit card settlement landscape. (I'm decades out of date on this, but the big US credit card payment networks -- Visa and Mastercard -- are monoliths over there, whereas in the UK they're franchises operated by the high street banks: I have no idea how the payment services operate in other countries.)
Meaning to read some Lem. [...] in translation, until I hopefully learn some Russian
Stanisław Lem was Polish. Born in Lvov/Lviv
Nick K
Also known as "Lemberg" ... and, of course it is now in Ukraine. Lemberg also = 2544 then 45 then 60045
As someone who's driven around the Lost Angeles area for decades, "Old Man 10" is a punk-ass bitch and always has been! It's the "Fuck You Freeway," the one I always try to avoid. And yes, it must stay open or the locks of Hell itself will burst and a hundred-thousand commuters will be infested with demonic spirits and rampage through our universe, destroying all that is holy!
"Ninety minutes from New York to Paris, eternally free and eternally young, a just machine to make big decisions, programmed by those with compassion and vision"
I never heard of this song until now, but the moment I read your post it occurred to me that a world truly run by "a just machine... programmed by those with compassion and vision" would never have "ninety minutes from New York to Paris", and very little New York to Paris travel at all. Or any travel for that matter.
I think Cordwainer Smith nailed it in his "Instrumentality" series: in a rationally run egalitarian utopia people would rarely travel from place to place, because all places would be essentially the same. (And yes, I am well aware that Instrumentality was a dystopia with the seeds of its own destruction, but only because of the travesty of Underpeople. Replace Underpeople with robots, and Instrumentality would be a perfectly nice -- and sustainable, -- place to live.
While in the mundane world, the closure caused up to 300,000 cars to seek alternate routes,, jamming not only every other freeway in the area even more than normal, not only jamming all the locaL surface streets, not only making it impossible for customers to get to the businesses along those streets, right at the start of the holiday shopping season, but the worst sin was that the Mayor was calling for everyone who could to telecommute for the duration of the closure, thereby yet again threatening all the owners of the downtown collection of giant phallic office buildings with more lost rents and canceled leases.
It was a Mammonic apocalypse in the making! Fortunately the god of Mammonism—money—manifested immediately to start things moving back to the status quo ante.
And so it goes.
David L @ 602:
Not everywhere requires a space number. That may be going away.
The receipt I put on my dash and use to pretest when I'm ticketed incorrectly.
And cash is accepted. But since I never use it I don't know if it takes coins. Given the rate near downtown is $2.50 for 2 hours it's not much lost if you go with $2 or $3.
I have to park downtown approximately once a year, the first working day of January, which is the last day to pay property taxes without penalty; one of the two actual paper checks I still write each year.
When I went down last January they still had the numbers & you had to enter that number at the kiosk. It's a 2 hour limit for on-street parking (8am-6pm) there and I think the numbers are needed for people who have to play musical parking spaces to stay in the area for more than two hours. Without the numbers, how would Rita be able to tell you'd moved your car?
I looked just now using Google Street View and the numbers appear to still be there1. Of course that's at the one location I need to park around Nash Square in order to go pay my taxes.
IIRC, it's $1 (USD) for 20 minutes around Nash Square, so $3/hour. The kiosk has the bill acceptor like a vending machine. Takes $1 & $5 bills, no coins and doesn't give change.
1 Finding an empty parking space in Street View (so you can see if the numbers are still painted on the curb) is even harder than finding an empty parking space when you have to go downtown ... 😏
Oh, and it was printed on the back of the receipt that it wasn't necessary to display it on the dash ... although that's the most convenient place I've found for it.
Greg Tingey @ 607:
Charlie @ 597
and you probably can't beat the law if your crime is sufficiently extreme and blatant - REALLY?
D J T seems to be evading everything that would have had anyone else in jail, long since ...
Seems like if you have enough money you CAN evade consequences of breaking the law for quite a while ... but not forever.
DJT's time appears to be running out and he will soon be "finding out" (after a lifetime of fucking around) -
FAFO
Troutwaxer @ 631:
As someone who's driven around the Lost Angeles area for decades, "Old Man 10" is a punk-ass bitch and always has been! It's the "Fuck You Freeway," the one I always try to avoid. And yes, it must stay open or the locks of Hell itself will burst and a hundred-thousand commuters will be infested with demonic spirits and rampage through our universe, destroying all that is holy!
Pictures I've seen on the news it looks like there WAS considerable damage underneath and CalTrans (????) has done considerable emergency shoring under parts of it to get it back open.
I struggled in mathematics and statistics courses because some part of my brain always wanted to know why I was performing a particular function in a particular way. Enough that I mentally shorted out and consequently had poor grades. I did manage to force feed myself enough of the processes to pass what needed passing for my degrees, but can't say I retained much of it.
I did learn enough to be able to recognize poor statistics when I see them.
Re: Change for parking. In our nearest city, leaving change in your car to pay for parking is an open invitation to get your window smashed. It doesn't happen every time, but it happens often enough to force different behaviours - all items are stashed or removed when we park in the city. I have friends who just leave their cars unlocked and empty to save their windows.
Thanks to all for various suggestions to pass on to my sister for copying Amazon links.
Related, but without the money reference: "It's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it. I have an independent mind, you are eccentric, he is round the twist." Bernard Woolley in Yes [Prime?] Minister.
"If a man has lotsh of money he'sh jusht ecshentric." Cohen the Barbarian in The Light Fantastic.
Thanks for that. I quite like industrial history, and it should be most interesting.
"The evident solution is to replace fines with community service work, because 100 hours means as much to a billionaire as it does to a homeless person"
One might even hope that the forced contact with people mostly from the other end of the social spectrum could be usefully educational.
ilya187 @ 632:
I never heard of this song until now, but the moment I read your post it occurred to me that a world truly run by "a just machine... programmed by those with compassion and vision" would never have "ninety minutes from New York to Paris", and very little New York to Paris travel at all. Or any travel for that matter.
I remember it now that I've listened to it again. They played the shit out of it on FM radio here in the states after it was released in the early 80s.
At THAT point in time ... (1957) the future probably DID look bright for a majority of Americans ...
There was a lot of optimism about the future here in the U.S. during the International Geophysical Year. The I.G.Y. was an international scientific project promoting collaboration among the world's scientists that ran from July 1957 to December 1958.
Most people here in the U.S. still believed technology would forever make a better world for EVERYONE. (Expectations & perceptions don't often match reality.)
I don't even think the lyrics are ironic; just nostalgic. Donald Fagan isn't a scientist, he's a baby-boomer song writer.
Reagan had only been president for a year. The country WAS coming out of the recession resulting from the Arab Oil Embargo and the banksters hadn't yet obviously begun stealing everything that wasn't nailed down (and coming back with a crowbar to pry up the rest of it).
The realities of Reaganomics hadn't yet reared its ugly head.
I remember in the early 80s (when the song came out) there was a certain cautious optimism and nostalgia where people "remembered" the good times from the 50s and thought maybe they were coming around again.
"Just UNPLUG the damned thing! ..."
C'mon, you know that isn't applicable to any of the examples EC mentioned.
I learned about the final anode capacitance of CRTs aged about 8, and they can stay charged for days...
I would add that "just turn it off" doesn't work for lighting circuits; there is nearly always a permanent live in the ceiling rose which isn't controlled by the wall switch. You have to go back to the breaker for those. And even then they might be miswired.
The point is, of course, that you need to test before you touch. And personally I would say that's even more applicable to real-world stats than to house wiring.
Or even Lwow...
I THINK it's Lvov = Russian, Lviv = Ukrainian, Lwow = Polish. And Lemberg = German, of course.
Plenty of worse ones, of course. Find Pressburg on a map... :)
Robert Prior [586] updated my context: "Actually, that was part of a thread about how calculus was required but stats wasn't, and I was wondering if making stats the required course made more sense if you were only going to require one math course at high school."
Sorry, missed that context. I suspect statistics is more broadly useful, particularly since it's typically easier to interest students in things with clear practical use than in more abstract things like calculus. I mean, it's all useful (learning multiple ways to think about the world), but realistically speaking, if you have to choose one...
More like "this is to get in, but I really want a job in management".
As opposed to the line I used in every interview for most of my career: "If there's a tech track and a management track, I'm on the tech track".
Come now, we're far more advanced than that, but that depends on country - France would use guillotines, while the US a firing squad.
Yes. UK lighting is particularly deceptive because it IS almost always safe to replace a bulb holder protected by only the switch (but not the ceiling rose), only a few places in the world use ring main wiring, only UK properties rewired since the 1940s, and not all circuits even in those.
A little learning ....
Not "informatics"?
IT here. I was doing a change every 3 years, then less, then more, all for varying reasons (locked in, then laid off, then a HORRIBLE company, companies that went under, etc.) My last job lasted 10 years, and I retired, just at the right time, as the Director of the Center decided for some stupid political reason to dissolve a division that had been around for 50 years....
The problem is even worse for corporations. Several of our water companies are not even making gestures towards reducing the raw sewage they pump into rivers, and just paying the fines. Now, if the directors' and executives' pay or the dividends were capped, there would soon be some action.
One of the many reasons I'm avoiding "smart phones" is that about three times I've tried over the years to type my email into someone's, and my fingertips are too big (we'll ignore that my tablet, a couple years old, has ignored my fingers half the time).
I agree. But then, in my future timeline, billionaires are taxed out of existence. (And the reason anyone needs or deserves more than even $100M is...?
But then, I'd like to see an explanation what any exec does that they deserve more than $440k/yr.
Which is, of course, the salary of the President of the US.
I took stat working on my Associate's degree. In Philly Community College. It had, please note, NO math prerequisites.
Now, admittedly, he was one of the three worst teachers I had in my college career, but (like the other two lousy instructors I had in that career) I unintentionally intimidated. I'd finished the first exam, and stepped out of the room, and he was waiting out there for the class to finish (open book tests). He commented on how good my calculator was, asking if it had stat functions. I responded by noting it only had basic ones, but the test was simple math, and I'd just finished intro to diff eq.
That apparently hit him. Note there was NO calculus in the course, and after he wasted 20 min of class time trying to explain to a middle-aged black woman what logs were (she caught me after class, and I explained it so she got it in five minutes), he was clearly intimidated.
We don't?
Sorry, but you come across as entitled. It's always been obvious to me, coming from an economically lower-to-middle income working class background, that they objected to starving to death, since it was taking their jobs away, and there were fewer jobs altogether.
Sorry, but the humanities vs. science debate has always, in my view, been heavily on the "I don't need science" humanities side, until relatively recently.
The quarter in the pocket, yep, I shop at Aldi, also (need to go tomorrow, wish I didn't my last dose of Paxlovid's in the morning, but there are things we're out of an need.
Oh, and Sat, Ellen came down with COVID, which she had to have caught from me last week, before I tested Thurs morning.
Crap. She'll probably have to put off a dental appt Wed (she had root canal and exatraction last Wed), and I went out and got her scrip yesterday, and right now she's miserable.
sigh In the US, I think only full profs are tenured, and where 60%? 70% were tenured in the seventies, now it's like 30%, and grad students are forming unions (FINALLY) because no "adjunct" is tenured, and they are so screwed (as opposed to the American football coaches....
You really should do that. At least that and maybe trip the master breaker if circumstances allow.
This very week we found that the problem with the downstairs HVAC in our new house was caused because it was miswired at the breaker panel with the smaller upstairs unit and vice versa. Yahweh have mercy!
H
I'm not sure that quoting Kurt Vonnegut is ever a good idea?
John S
I was 11 during the "IGY" & yes it wasn't just the USA, either.
Yet again: "I want my future back!"
Technology could & should make the world better for everyone - look at all the advances in medicine & materials technology in the intervening 66 years?
It's the politics & worse still the politicians who have screwed it up, by the numbers, yes?
Pigeon
Bratislava, also Pozsony & Presporok - isn't "Wiki" useful?
EC @ 648
I have a "Lighting Ring" circuit, but the permanent live goes to the switch - & then the bulb - & then back to the ring-return.
And I know that my "polarity" is correct - now.
HINT: Finding that the whole house was wired up backwards was one of the two reasons I rewired - the other being that, having been installed approx 1908, the insulation, when outside of the conduit it was originally installed in ... was flaking off ....
- & @ 650
"Vote tory for more shit in the rivers", eh?
Though I see that Thames Water - one of the 3 worst offenders, are FINALLY, after 34 years, are going to build new reservoirs!
I assume someone twisted their arm?
whitroth @ 662
Well then, get a smartphone with a REAL KEYBOARD, then!
Google for: "Cosmo Communicator", or "Cosmo Astro Slide"?? - or ask Charlie.
- @ 656
STILL horribly true in most of UK misgovernment - see the "Covid" enquiry, for starters, or the persecution of (Later, Sir ) Bernard Lovell over the construction costs of the Mark ONE
Also - Image - & yes, I've met Sir Bernard - a truly great man.
The Weekly Sift this week is about Trumpism & Fascism. It quotes extensivly from this article in The Atlantic: Trump Crosses a Crucial Line (again brought to you via "archive.today")
I fear that if Trump manages to get elected in 2024 the U.S. will fall to the NAZIS. The Constitution is toast and there will no longer be ANY freedom. Concentration camps will be only the first step.
ME @ 661
PS:
What OpenAI shares with Scientology
OGH rates a brief mention.
»in my future timeline, billionaires are taxed out of existence.«
I do not think that will work, because that's pretty much how we got where we are today: It's easy to astroturf sympathy when you can point to your 70%+ tax rate.
I think Charlie is more to the point that we want to tax them on their finite time instead.
We can start with insisting that they themselves answer in person to any and all questions and audits about their tax-filings.
They can spend as much time as they want to prepare with their laywers and tax-advisors, but they must come to the meeting alone and the only person they can bring is a spouse or one of their children.
In other words: Just like the rest of us.
In the beginning, the camps housed “undesirables” like Communists.
Early on it was anyone who disagreed with the new government. My mother in law talk about college "kids" who vanished after talking too much about how they didn't like the new government.
This was near Dachau, which was basically the first of the camps.
Let me note that under Republican President Eisenhower, in the '50s, the top tax bracket was 90% - yes, really. And I don't remember sympathy. Hell, I don't remember much sympathy except among the well-off and wealthy when it was lowered to 77%, or then 70%.
"It's easy to astroturf sympathy when you can point to your 70%+ tax rate."
People with lots of money moaning about how much they are taxed elicit the reverse of sympathy from me.
"but they must come to the meeting alone and the only person they can bring is a spouse or one of their children."
Why one of those? I can understand being allowed to request an interpreter, but I don't see why random family members should get an automatic pass. The spouse in particular is likely to be complicit.
Similarly, at http://www.geplus.co.uk/technical-paper/technical-paper-railway-earthworks-with-particular-emphasis-on-the-behaviour-of-clay-embankments-in-the-south-east-15-01-2018/ we find: "The costing model found that preventative engineering would be less cost-effective than maintenance and delay costs over both 20 year and 50 year lifespans". Which being translated signifies that they're not going to bother fixing it properly, they're just going to bodge bits as and when and pay the fines for the trains being late. One hopes that that sentence comes back to haunt them when one of the trains never gets there at all.
(Aside: the LA freeway fire referred to above had a precedent in a railway embankment which was constructed using a mixture of pyritic and carbonaceous muck that used to be the bottom of a smelly pond x million years ago, and had been anaerobic ever since.)
If such a thing happened, I (if I were king) would make it something like: The wealthiest person (and their wealth would include all the money they control as well as in their back accounts, etc., etc.) cannot have an income more than 100 times more than the poorest person.
Well, you might say, what if the poorest person has no income? suddenly UBI becomes a thing overnight! :)
"I have a "Lighting Ring" circuit, but the permanent live goes to the switch - & then the bulb - & then back to the ring-return."
Presumably that's because you wired it yourself? It's the way you (or I) would naturally think to do it, and it's usual for commercial premises where you have a huge bank of switches controlling lights all over the place, but for the domestic situation with individual switches near the individual lights, "ring around the roses" generally uses less cable and is also easier, particularly when the house is under construction and all the sealed-off bits aren't yet.
It's an uncommon term -- hell until I joined the professional organisation I'd never heard it and I was doing it. People get "health with computers" readily, "informatics" gets you a confused look.
Space Cadet reality check.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/a-city-on-mars-reality-kills-space-settlement-dreams/
Almost like Charlie wrote the book or the review.
"I don't need science" humanities side
I think that's squarely selection bias.
I suspect that a fair number of serious-minded people have come to the same conclusion and are waiting until June-ish 2024 to see if he's still likely to get the Republican nomination.
I think Charlie is more to the point that we want to tax them on their finite time instead.
Yeah, but it's so sad that the silly 50 hours community sentence caused me to give that $600 million hospital to that other city. But justice must be served...
The problem is one of scale. Crime currently massively bigger and more sophisticated than efforts to control it: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkax7n/narcofiles-papers ...
I'll toss out two SF plots I'd love to see Kim Stanley Robinson tackle. Or better yet, Charlie?
--Global Jubilee. To solve the problem of wealth concentration, the nation-states declare a Biblical-style Jubilee: Debts erased, property lost to debt returned, slaves/indentured laborers/many classes of criminals freed, etc. Basically, reset the game of capitalism and start over. Key questions include figuring out how it could possibly work and which part of the drama to focus on. Maybe it's administered by (benign?) General AIs??? If you don't like Biblical, I'm basically riffing on the idea Graeber proposed in Debt and asking What if this actually happened?
--China saves civilization from AI takeover by invading Taiwan and destroying critical chipmaking facilities. And then....
Or maybe this is story and sequel?
I think there's a non-zero chance that Trump will end his years in a Russian dacha and be eulogized as the rightful president of the US, who was twice robbed of his office by evil democrats and forced into exile by illegal prosecutions. Loyal MAGAts will drink vodka by his grave and weep.
This might help: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/donald-trump-old-age-biden/676052/ ("Has Anyone Noticed That Trump Is Really Old?")
Heteromeles @ 676:
I think there's a non-zero chance that Trump will end his years in a Russian dacha and be eulogized as the rightful president of the US, who was twice robbed of his office by evil democrats and forced into exile by illegal prosecutions. Loyal MAGAts will drink vodka by his grave and weep.
This might help: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/donald-trump-old-age-biden/676052/ ("Has Anyone Noticed That Trump Is Really Old?")
Biden may be older, but he appears to take better care of himself. Our best hope may be Trumpolini's self abuse catching up with him.
I keep hoping the SOB will stroke out in the middle of one of his hateful spews.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/24/trump-religion-immigration/
or
https://archive.li/1u91c
look at the bar chart labeled "Religious affiliation in the US"
compare 'n contrast Under-30 versus 65-up... and you'll see what terrifies so-called moral traditionalists and the leadership of old guard GOP... in a single generation those self-declaring as NO RELIGION AT ALL (no affiliation) has just about doubled from ~15% to ~30%
which means the basis of American culture has changed significantly
as demonstrated by protests when abortion access was negated by SCOTUS
whitroth 656:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair
"The submission was an experiment to test journal's intellectual rigor, specifically to investigate whether ... [would] publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered editors' ideological preconceptions."
I keep hoping the SOB will stroke out in the middle of one of his hateful spews.
My preferred outcome would be for Trump to get the Republican nomination next year, appoint a life insurance policy running mate who is detested by many and wholly unsuitable for high office (Marjorie Taylor Greene, perhaps? Or George Santos?), then choke to death on a burger bun. At which point it's too late for somebody competent but evil to take over the MAGA machine in the current election cycle, thereby buying another couple of years for demographic change to erode the white supremacist base.
Pigeon
Yes. But, in my downstairs entrance-hall I have a mini-bank of 5 original 1908 brass switches, fed through a double conduit from the intermediate hall floor, above.
Having worked out how to earth/ground said switches ... { lead a common Earth wire down, the feed wires to the outside of the switches, by removing wax insulation, feeding wire in & melting fresh wax back } I could still do the individual feed-&-return trick for each.
The upstairs was easy, as I could re-use the original conduit in the loft, with modern wiring.
Damian
NO See the examples I quoted .. it shows up in British misgovernment far too frequently.
Howard NYC
See also recent reports of "Moms for Liberty" ( The current iteration of the "Croos of Honour" for Nazi mothers ) blaming everyone else when their programme crashes & burns, yes?
And really nasty attempts by the Nazi/GOP trying to ignore/over-ride state referenda & votes, protecting abortion ... by trying to openly select" "the right people" as the only ones eligible to vote, also yes?
Unfortunately Sokal's expose is still with us.
You are, specifically NOT allowed to criticise religion, especially that of "submission", but xtianity is only just behind.
The utter, lying, crawling, slime-covered bollocks about "respecting someone's religion" is still dominant.
Charlie
Ah, the Spiro Agnew option? Didn't work last time, did it?
»My preferred outcome […]«
I hate to say this, but if given the choice between Trump or Biden+Harris, it will be even money who becomes president and it will barely matter because either outcome is likely to trigger a civil war.
Taking Trump out of the equation, no matter how early or late in the game, will not save the bacon.
Biden needs to quit while he is ahead (and doing pretty damn well on the economy) and the D's need to run a ticket which sane people can be just a little bit enthusiastic about...
Perhaps the problem is that you are typing with your fingers. Paradoxically it’s more accurate to type with your thumbs on a smartphone. When I got my first smartphone I trained my fingers by playing Scrabble but I still find it easier to use thumbs for emails and messages.
Since someone just brought up Moms for liberty, Moms for Liberty leader turns out to be a convicted sex offender. Shocking, I know.
I keep screaming on other media, "from the far right, it's ALWAYS projection" (or, "from the far right, every accusation is a confession"), but I can't help wondering if I'm shouting in a vacuum. So many people just don't seem able to understand where this stuff is coming from -- the psychology of authoritarianism.
It's worth a lengthy blog essay in its own right, but it's not my specialty and it's too depressing to contemplate.
here's another larger-than-life piece of mind boggling shit most authors would ever dream up:
"In September, Novo Nordisk overtook the luxury-goods retailer LVMH to become Europe’s most valuable company. Its market capitalization—an estimated $450 billion as of Friday—was higher than Denmark’s annual GDP."
so... just how utterly batshit crazy could we, CS's fans, twist 'n turn this into an elder god's chew toy?
human fat... dripping off in mandatory monthly clinic sessions by America's obese to feed a newly risen deity with an almost-unlimited and renewable source of sacrifices?
for cooperating worshipers there's the enticement of losing five-plus pounds per session... gonna be a shortage of revealing bathing suits within a year and this new deity, much worshiped if necessarily much loved... of course the horror twist is after America's fattest folk are slimmed down but the deity is ever so hungry... "fat farms" take on a whole new dire meaning(!)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/ozempic-wegovy-social-revolution-weight-loss/676002/
Yeah, I've been following this (I know someone who works for NN in Denmark). It's gotten so bad that the Danish government now compiles and publishes two sets of GDP figures -- one with Novo Nordisk included, and a sane version that omits the blue whale in the fishing trawler's hold.
(It's worth noting that the patents on Semaglutide will begin expiring in only a few more years, so if you've been buying Danish government bonds -- or Novo Nordisk shares -- you really ought to fasten your seatbelt.)
P H-K
ANY option that does not vote the "R's" in is preferable, given their tendency to fascism & oppression of women (etc )
I think there's a non-zero chance that Trump will end his years in a Russian dacha and be eulogized as the rightful president of the US, who was twice robbed of his office by evil democrats and forced into exile by illegal prosecutions. Loyal MAGAts will drink vodka by his grave and weep.
That would be my preferred outcome. It might convince my relatives that it is Trump and not Biden, who is actually Putin's puppet.
In case I did not mention it before: my parents are very pro-Trump and anti-Putin. They manage to ignore all of pro-Russia stuff on American right, and are convinced that Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still in office.
Charlie Stross 688:
Crazy thing, wegovy-etc ought be a good thing. For everyone. Especially in reducing chronic, life long complications for patients. Lowered treatment costs for insurance companies and/or governments. Lessened illness, a socially positive thing. Win-win-win. Annual sales of wegovy-etc estimated in the USD$ 100 B range but what nobody has published is any credible estimate of savings which be easily in USD$ 200 B if fewer lost workdays, reduced amputations, better attention spans, reduced sadness, delayed life insurance payouts, et al are all taken into account. (Quality of life not typically of concern in calculations crunched in MS Excel spreadsheets coded by soulless MBAs.)
And yet somehow this breakthrough has distorted those numbers of the Denmark economy in undesirable ways. WTF? In a weird way, as if Jupiter suddenly got slotted into the Moon's orbital path thereby, typical daily tides going from mere knee height into bridge washouts and drowning folk twenty miles inland.
But what fascinates me is fat-as-sacrifice-to-gods as there's a steady supply of magickally-infused-wegovy offering faster-safer-cheaper weight lossage. Lovecraft meets Pfizer at Weight Watchers. With altars installed, complete with soothing mind-numbing incense and chanting monks.
But when everyone's skinny, where oh where to find Our Dark Lord's next sacrificial offerings? Every single day, a hungry deity. So by lottery, folks are kept off the magickally-infused-wegovy so they bulk up whilst kept under close watch at "fat farms". To (uhm) milked as it were. Vampire novels wherein humans are farmed for blood. But fat instead of blood.
It's not "To Serve Man (On Rotating Spits)" but "To Squeeze Out Fat Drippings For Our Dark Lord's Lunch".
Heteromeles [675] noted: "Global Jubilee. To solve the problem of wealth concentration, the nation-states declare a Biblical-style Jubilee"
Picking nits, and NOT attacking Heteromeles, but this is a big one: it's not Biblical, it's Jewish. Specifically, it's in the Torah. Many of us Jews get a touch irate when our scriptures are called "biblical"; others are not fond of the concept of an "old" testament, as if the new supercedes the old. We got there first, guys.
then choke to death on a burger bun.
Like in so many things timing is everything.
If that happens between after Dec 17 and before being sworn in then the Vice Presidential candidate gets sworn in.
MTG OMG.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-happens-if-a-presidential-candidate-cannot-take-office-due-to-death-or-incapacitation-before-january-2025/
Re:jubilee
First, apologies, because I know that Christian and Jewish jubilees are different things
Second, while I don’t know whether “jubilee” is originally a Jewish word, I’m fairly confident that the practice considerably predates Judaism in any form. It was a way of preventing peasant revolts.
Third, the modern version of this is “debt jubilee”, which you can google. Some economists are calling for this as a way to avoid a depression. Or more workers’ revolts. For this blog, that term is unfortunate, because people trip all over themselves about the religious aspect of the word jubilee and miss the concept.
Fourth, I think authors who do near future SF are idiots for ignoring this idea, to put it bluntly. Most of billionaires’ fortunes are not piles of cash they own, it’s control over the debt of others. What happens when society decides to forgive that debt, and, at least temporarily, to not define people by the debts they owe others?
There are suggestions that Trump is thinking of Tucker Carlson as his running mate...
OMG, indeed!
Both Green and Carlson are far too much attention seekers themselves for Trump's liking. He'll pretend to flirt with the idea to get things stirred up, but he'll pick a browbeatable nonentity, if it comes to it.
That would be my preferred outcome. It might convince my relatives that it is Trump and not Biden, who is actually Putin's puppet.
I should point out that “Trump runs rather than going to jail” was something I swiped from a retired FBI agent who specialized in organized crime. He was part of a TPM interview awhile back. He also noted similarities between Trump style and that of the mob boss John Gotti, and wondered whether the former was aping the latter, possibly based on personal experience.
Anyway, I could see Trump running to Russia, then waging a presidential election bid from “exile” using Russian money. While this would be a huge problem politically, financially it gets weird. Russia is apparently having to buy Chinese goods using yuan, not rubles, and I wonder how many American political ad makers would be willing to accept anything other than dollars for their work. Paid in advance, in Trump’s case, given his habit of stiffing vendors.
And just to make things a little worse, Argentina has non-negotiable sovereignty over the Falklands', country's new right-wing president Javier Milei declares. Marvellous.
Charlie Stross @ 680:
My preferred outcome would be for Trump to get the Republican nomination next year, appoint a life insurance policy running mate who is detested by many and wholly unsuitable for high office (Marjorie Taylor Greene, perhaps? Or George Santos?), then choke to death on a burger bun. At which point it's too late for somebody competent but evil to take over the MAGA machine in the current election cycle, thereby buying another couple of years for demographic change to erode the white supremacist base.
As long as he meets his un-appetizing end BEFORE the election next year, I don't care how he does it. But I have been giving a bit of thought to who he's going to choose for his running mate. And I just don't know.
Truth is, Trump's gone the full Adolph by now and I don't know of anyone he can trust to be Deputy Führer and not (to mix a metaphor) play Brutus to his Julius (eliminating George Santos [IF THAT'S HIS REAL NAME] and MTG).
I kind of feel like he might want to keep it in the family this time around - Ivanka, Don Jr or Eric (in that order - none of his other git are old enough).
But I'm guessing Ivanka has NOT been slavish enough lately, showing a tendency towards self preservation at his expense in the New York trial and Erick is just stupider than a box of rocks, which I think even DJT can recognize.
The one impediment is the President & Vice President are required by the Constitution to live in different states (something Cheney played fast & loose with in 2000, changing his official residence from Texas to Wyoming after he chose himself to be Shrub's running mate).
I don't think DJT would choose any of the other current "candidates" - certainly not Ronda Satan or Chris Christie ... and Nikki Haley might have an independent streak that makes her a female "Mike Pence".
I don't know about the rest of that gang. I'd have to look 'em up just to even know who else is "running".
Maybe Senator Lindsey Graham from SC. I think he's spineless and wishy-washy enough ...
Well, at least he is not threatening to go to war over "Las Malvinas"
Uncle Stinky @ 685:
Since someone just brought up Moms for liberty, Moms for Liberty leader turns out to be a convicted sex offender. Shocking, I know.
But in no way surprising.
Heteromeles @ 697:
I should point out that “Trump runs rather than going to jail” was something I swiped from a retired FBI agent who specialized in organized crime. He was part of a TPM interview awhile back. He also noted similarities between Trump style and that of the mob boss John Gotti, and wondered whether the former was aping the latter, possibly based on personal experience.
Anyway, I could see Trump running to Russia, then waging a presidential election bid from “exile” using Russian money. While this would be a huge problem politically, financially it gets weird. Russia is apparently having to buy Chinese goods using yuan, not rubles, and I wonder how many American political ad makers would be willing to accept anything other than dollars for their work. Paid in advance, in Trump’s case, given his habit of stiffing vendors.
Trump in exile is useless baggage for Putin; he wouldn't last any longer than Yevgeny Prigozhin did after the mutiny.
This happened in the late nineties, so apply your preferred amount of optimism about changes since:
I knew someone who while waiting to be called in to his Cambridge interview (at age 17, everyone, so not at the peaks of robust self-confidence), overheard the interviewers discussing disparagingly what they were likely to see from "this Mick." Weirdly he didn't do amazingly in that interview, and didn't end up attending Cambridge.
Time, yes, but personal time? That billionaire can take a 3 week holiday/unpaid sabbatical and bang out those 100 hours at 8 hours a day and loses at most some pay (any stock price hit on their conviction will probably have cost them more); the homeless person either loses their income or has to grind it out, every spare hour they can find, for ~a quarter of a year.
Several of our water companies are not even making gestures towards reducing the raw sewage they pump into rivers, and just paying the fines.
A fine with no other consequences is just part of the cost of doing business, and treated as such.
In Toronto one of the major streets was routinely reduced from two to one lane by mobile shredding trucks parking in one of the lanes for a day. Iron Mountain (the company in question) just included the cost of a parking ticket in the fees they charged companies. I remember arguing with a municipal councillor that the only way to stop it was either seriously escalating fines or towing the parked vehicle, ideally several hundred km to a facility that was just insecure enough that it would trigger the penalty clauses in Iron Mountain's contracts…
There’s an unsubtle difference between being on the lam and in exile. What I’m suggesting is that Trump pretends he’s another Edward Snowden instead of a convicted criminal who lost his businesses because they were fraudulent. Then he uses that as part of his reelection campaign.
So long as Putin can convince Republicans to support the idea of repatriating Trump by re-electing him, he’s propaganda gold. As in 2016, supporting Trump accomplishes a lot of the same goals as nuking DC, without any of the downsides of nuclear war. Better still, it makes Republicans even more pro-Russian and anti Ukrainian.
Even if Trump loses, I don’t think Putin would kill him, any more than he’s killed Snowden. It looks bad. At worst, he might repatriate Trump as part of a deal, especially if Trump is too unwell to serve jail time.
There are some problems with this scenario for Putin. As I noted above, he’s got cash flow problems, or he wouldn’t be paying for Chinese goods with Chinese currency. So he might not be able to afford much of the billion Trump’s campaign will need. Secondly and worse, Trump will be doing everything remotely, so some of his mafia don shtick isn’t going to work.
Regardless,Putin would scarcely be the first ruler to host a puppet “ruler in exile.”
But then, I'd like to see an explanation what any exec does that they deserve more than $440k/yr.
Which is, of course, the salary of the President of the US.
As Babe Ruth once said, when asked why he was paid more than Herbert Hoover: "I've had a better year".
Geoff Hart
Well - most "protestant" churches take Matthew V v 17-18 very seriously.
I know that the "Anglican" church says that the "old" testament is still scripture.....
Uncle Stinky
Oh FUCKING Bloody HELL!
Just-in-time for Rish! to become a victorious war leader ...
John S
Well, there's Adolf's precedent, of course ...
Pick someone you don't trust as VP And then assasinate them 18 months later - which probably makes Fucker Carlson or even { Particularly? } Mike Pence a candidate?
Malvinas/Falklands….
Since I have a soft spot for Johnny Rooks and penguins, I for one hope that said war happens entirely online.
That said, the new Argentinian leader also wants to use the US dollar instead of their peso that’s inflating annually at about 150%. Somehow I think that using dollars and invading the Falklands are mutually incompatible. I’d also point out that Argentina has had six military coups in the last century or so, so if I had to predict what will happen in the next few years…
Somehow I think that using dollars and invading the Falklands are mutually incompatible
And not have any meaningful quantities of $$$ in the country makes it a bit hard also.
What's his name came to power by saying he could return the country to where it was way back when it had one of the highest per capita incomes on the planet.
In an over simplified version of events it seems the country as a whole went after everything that appeared to be a goose even if no golden eggs were observed.
Not in the slightest. The UK has lost its usefulness to the USA as the fifth column within the EU, and all Argentina would need to do would be to manipulate American (north and south) politics so that the then USA president wasn't prepared to take sides. That very nearly happened last time. It's not as if the USA has any objections in principle to countries invading and acquiring territory, provided they are run by "our bastards".
And, provided that Argentina isn't militarily stupid, there's fuck-all the UK could do about it. The key would be to buy a few effective submarines (a 200 mile range is fine) and/or effective anti-ship missiles in advance, and then to land enough soldiers to take the airport before the UK could respond. Yes, we have a couple of carriers again, but no troop carriers or even suitable British flag liners, no landing craft, and almost no soldiers.
Not going to happen. Who would run, and pull off a win against TFG?
Nope. He'd be referred to as "Miss Lindsay" everywhere but the NYT, as he's referred to by the male hookers in DC.
No, someone who just went to Mar-a-Lago today to "kiss the ring": current "Squeaker of the House" Mike Johnson. He'd be perfect as VP, and far more pliable than Pence was.
A meme I just saw yesterday for the first time: "Groomer? If I was, I wouldn't have spent all that time and money on hormones and surgery, I'd have joined your church and become a youth pastor."
Re: 'First Argument of Kings?'
Yep - and war is the final argument of kings ... ultima ratio regum.
BTW - that article is paywalled.
Haven't read any of the following comments - so apologies if already answered - but I have a question re: the which math is better (stats or calc) discussion.
What math(s) do AI use? (when. where/what stage, how ...)
I understand AI is still mostly a black box but there must have been some sort of 'logic' (math principles) stuck in somewhere/somewhen by programmers. And since AI seems to be able to identify some potential solutions much faster than even ordinary supercomputers, then maybe it's whatever math it's using that's the real answer/secret sauce. If so, then human stats/maths folk might be able to puzzle out more of how an AI 'works'.
Recently participated in a webinar about AI and its current/potential uses in marketing research/polling. The key speaker mentioned that some existing AIs already in use in these fields use a mishmash of actual (survey/poll) and 'synthetic' data. Anyone here know whether the two different types of data (real vs. synth) are usually identified within whatever data set is used or is it all some arbitrary (unlabeled) mishmash of whatever's handy? I'm curious how far apart the 'solutions' are within each data type before they're morphed into one dataset.
Also learned that -- so far -- there's no ethical/legal obligation on whoever's running the AI to attest as to the purity/composition of the data ... or even if the predictions/answers will be accurate within plus/minus x percent. Seriously - this is not good news. I think that the EU is actually looking into this aspect from the POV of both ethics and legality (responsibility).
Other AI news - on the weird corp side: the ChatGPT CEO got turfed out by his Board so some of his staff resigned in protest and within 24 hours or so this same guy was hired on by MSFT.
Lots of political action going on - nations and corps.
Speaking of weird action & nations ...
Greg:
I finally found an article that I hope you'll read about Cameron. I think it's a fairly good summary/reminder of what he's (ahem) accomplished/known for re: foreign policy.
'The place of human rights in the foreign policy of Cameron’s conservatives: Sceptics or enthusiasts?'
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1369148118819066
"I hate to say this, but if given the choice between Trump or Biden+Harris, it will be even money who becomes president and it will barely matter because either outcome is likely to trigger a civil war."
I'm always amazed at how well a massive propaganda campaign works. Of course, since the 'liberal' mass media elites would love the chaos, and the help that it would give Trump, they support it.
»the 'liberal' mass media«
There is nothing even remotely resembling a proper news organisation in USA any more, they are all propagandists for the same mammonite gospel, because they are all owned by rich people. Some of them go to bat for the silly party, some of them go to bat for the sensible party, and none of them are going to even mention the option of simply not electing lobsters in the first place.
Transpires that the reason dividing the power in three worked a couple of centuries ago, was you got the crucially necessary fourth leg for free, because the advertising could more than pay for the paper.
And since AI seems to be able to identify some potential solutions much faster than even ordinary supercomputers, then maybe it's whatever math it's using that's the real answer/secret sauce. If so, then human stats/maths folk might be able to puzzle out more of how an AI 'works'.
Everyone who cares to already knows how these systems work. It's the great crowd of science-averse or just plain learning-averse writers who are agog with wonder. And there's not much 'logic', either. That's the ugly elder stepchild of current AI, symbolic AI. It's statistical neural network AI, combined with the translator technique developed at Google, that's the fair-haired prince right now.
Charlie @ 597: 'Time is money has a corollary: money is time.'
'Finland has an income-based sliding scale for fines, ...'
That's a very interesting idea so I looked it up. Turns out that several other countries are using this. It's also been tried in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine
plam @ 609:
'At Waterloo, there is actually no real incentive to apply for promotion to Professor (no $ increase, for instance, just more liability for service.)'
Curious that: One of my friends at YorkU (also in Ontario) really celebrated when he got his tenure. Another friend is an Assoc Prof (also YorkU - not tenured) and often comments about being overworked/underpaid.
Eric @ 612:
'Einstein's "Mozart: His Character, His Work" (English translation) and Girdlestone's "Mozart and His Piano Concertos"'
On my to-read pile is a translation of Stendhal's book 'Lives of Haydn, Mozart and Metastasio'. (Still haven't finished Baldini's Verdi bio.) I'll keep the two books you mentioned on file - they sound interesting. Thanks!
Mr Tim @ 669:
'... wealth would include all the money they control as well as in their back accounts, etc., etc.)'
First, you'd need to assign one unblockable/non-transferable ID number to every single person at birth, get rid of all physical coin, use only one universal monetary system across the globe, etc. etc. --- I have no clue as to how BitCoin tech 'works' but figure that its nonhackable system would be the backbone of a global monetary/wealth-management system that could actually reliably identify/add up all assets and revenues.
Shares are the other major instant wealth generators for suits - execs get special deals so that they can report only a fraction of the shares market price/value therefore pay next to no taxes on this income source. (This might vary by corp/country: not all corps require their execs who get bonuses in shares to hold onto the shares. And depending on where you live/pay taxes, profits from selling these 'bonus' shares may be taxed at a much lower rate than the same $$$ received as a paycheck.)
(You'd probably need to set up a completely different yet parallel system for corps because humans and corps are intertwined as seen in the rush on Silicon Valley Bank which then went splat.)
David L @ 672:
'Space Cadet reality check.'
That's why I'm so interested in Saudi Arabia's 'Line' project - it has many of the features (problems) a space colony would need to make it habitable.
There is one bit of possible good news though - an AI robot seems to have figured out how to get oxygen out of Mars soil.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03522-4
Oops! - OpenAI (not Chat ...)
And now it seems that Altman and the OpenAI Board are talking about his possible return.
Retiring @ 718: Re: Google's Neural Machine ...
I understand some of the words but am unable to visualize what they're talking about. Thanks anyways!
there's fuck-all the UK could do about it
Perhaps the UK would invoke Article 5 of NATO - "An attack on one is an attack on all".
I can't imagine that the USA would like to go to war against Argentina. However, a few words in the Argentine ambassador's ear about how war would be a seriously bad idea would cause sanity to prevail. I hope, anyway.
Perhaps the UK would invoke Article 5 of NATO - "An attack on one is an attack on all".
Why did UK not invoke Article 5 back in 1982?
In the US, there are three professorial ranks: assistant, associate, and full. Only associate professors do not have tenure. Associate and full professors are tenured, assistant professors are not. Normally, assistant professors get five years to gain tenure, or they get let go. Assistant professors are tenure-track jobs, while adjunct professors and lecturers are not.
The big difference, especially in American universities, is that the primary expectation for tenure-track professors is getting grants, while for adjuncts and lecturers, the primary job is teaching. In some schools, lecturers and adjuncts handle the majority of teaching. Pointed comments about overpayment of top school executives, financial mismanagement, and stupid investments in costly buildings, stadiums, and other symptoms of male edifice syndrome are entirely on point.
I know the UK has different terms for similar jobs. Probably the one that everyone will trip over is lecturer, which I think have different meanings in different countries.
Probably the one that everyone will trip over is lecturer, which I think have different meanings in different countries.
Well it's both lecturer and professor, really. I think the way we use 'lecturer' looks more different for you, while the way you use 'professor' looks more different for us. This table is a reasonable side-by-side view.
If Vlad didn't want him, Trump could probably find a berth in Saudi Arabia. Idi Amin ended his days there, IIRC.
Why did UK not invoke Article 5 back in 1982?
Because it didn't apply.
Article 6
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:
on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France 2, on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer; on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.Ha, ha. It would get nowhere - NATO does nothing without USA approval (indeed, probably nothing without USA instigation). You should consider Goa, Suez, the previous Falklands war and probably others.
You know, it isn't hard to read the text of the treaty.
"an AI robot seems to have figured out how to get oxygen out of Mars soil."
...out of Mars water, it says. Which doesn't need figuring out, it just needs energy. If their magic catalyst can remove that requirement then it really is magic.
The sensible thing to do about the Falklands if Argentina gets aggressive would be to forestall them by selling them the islands for 10 pesos. Like we were about to do in the 80s before someone had a "better" idea.
You would have thought so, but NATO doesn't seem to be able to. Even ignoring that, there is unfortunately nothing in the document that limits NATO from extending its role - as it has done, several times. The point is that, with constitutions, treaties, laws etc., it's not what is written that really matters, but how (and who) interprets it.
All true, but "Leadership culture", from my perspective, discourages sensible courses of action, usually by damaging the career trajectories of sensible folk.
My error, meant to reply to Pigeon @729.
That billionaire can take a 3 week holiday/unpaid sabbatical and bang out those 100 hours at 8 hours a day
Which they will hate, which is the whole point.
Trust me on this, nobody becomes a billionaire because they are just working for a pay cheque. They do it because they're obsessive about it, and anything that detracts from their ability to Make Line Go Up is fingernails-on-blackboard to them. Once you get past about $6M in the bank (per some studies -- I'd go large and push the boat out to $60M including your primary residence if in a very expensive city) there's not much that can make an impact on your lifestyle
(A poor person trying to find extra hours to earn a living is getting clobbered differently, and if you think it's disproportionate you should maybe consider that the problem is wealth distribution within your society as a whole, not this particular low-level-criminal being hard done by.)
That last paragraph was especially nice. And why not a more diffuse "Cult of Mammon", so instead of hungry barbarians at the gates, most of the world is fellow travelers? Well fed taxpayers and customers?
Just-in-time for Rish! to become a victorious war leader ...
Not to worry, there won't be another Falklands War just yet.
Argentina was too cash-strapped to re-arm after 1982 and after the fall of the Junta funding military boondoggles was not high on anyone's list of priorities. Their navy and air force are still running on leftover kit from the last go-around.
Meanwhile, the runway at Port Stanley was upgraded and can take RAF Voyagers -- Airbus 330 mixed-role tanker/freighter/passenger wide-body jets with the range to get there from Ascension without in-flight refueling. Which means they can stage out a light infantry battalion in about 24 hours if push comes to shove, or provide tanker service for a squadron of Typhoons and an E-7A Wedgetail when they enter service (in 2024 -- the shiny new replacement to the ancient Boeing 707-based AWACS that retired in 2021).
Basically the RAF can maintain air supremacy over the islands and provide anti-submarine coverage, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't a hunter-killer sub ready to head down there on patrol at short notice. They probably wouldn't even bother sending a carrier group in the current climate (expensive and inflammatory and the "threat" is a paper tiger).
And, provided that Argentina isn't militarily stupid, there's fuck-all the UK could do about it. The key would be to buy a few effective submarines (a 200 mile range is fine) and/or effective anti-ship missiles in advance
And the moon on a stick while you're about it.
Even brown-water diesel-electric boats cost in the high hundreds of millions -- at least, if you want them to survive 15 minutes in the presence of even a depleted and underfunded RAF anti-submarine option and a single moth-eaten British SSN -- and anti-ship missiles aren't exactly cheap. Especially as you'd want something that could plausibly deter a Type 45 Destroyer, which is specifically a fleet defense anti-air/anti-missile platform specc'd out in the wake of the last Falklands war.
Your little shopping list starts at upwards of a billion quid and a few years to train up the operators (have you noticed how long it's taken Ukraine to get close to putting F-16s into the air, even though it's over a year since they got agreement to buy the things?).
Simile time: missiles in this context are basically very, very expensive ($0.1M-$100M) magic bullets fired by a ridiculously exotic gun (costing $10M-$5Bn) that require a team of specialists to operate and several factories and a couple of hundred engineers just to keep in working order. Leave then sitting in a warehouse for a couple of years without very expensive maintenance and they're write-offs. The reason governments buy them are (a) prestige, and (b) when the stars align, the launch crews are proficient, and the maintenance is up to date, they're the kind of magical bullet that can score one shot kills 90% of the time at a hundred kilometers. But to use it you're not just buying a couple of bullets: you're on the hook for buying the gun, training the sniper, paying the armourer who keeps the gun working, and running a barracks.
Frankly, Argentina's best hope of kicking the UK out of las Malvinas would be to pray Trump gets re-elected then offer him a few million bucks in kick-backs. And even then he'll probably get Argentina confused with Andorra and fluff his lines.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/argentina/#military-and-security
Fair point, but it doesn't help the UK a lot. Remember, that this is about international politics far more than simple militarism. In particular, if the USA sided against the UK, it's all over - and that damn nearly happened last time. That would be Argentine's objective in any conflict.
Let's say that Argentina staged a lightning strike, took over the airport, shipped a fair number of troops and a LOT of supplies, and billeted and stored them in the towns etc. While the UK could blockade the Falklands, destroy all (cargo) ships and aircraft heading for it, land saboteurs, and even bomb the hell out of it, those would be politically catastrophic if continued for more than a short period. The risk (for the UK) would be South American countries persuading the USA that it was best off defusing the situation by telling the UK to stand down.
That was a mistake Galtieri made last time. If he had shipped a lot of cement, sand etc., upgraded the airstrips and built places for the troops to dry their clothes and cook food, the UK would have had a much tougher time. I remember people telling me than an SSN could simply have sunk the ships. Well, it takes time to get a SSN there (and we didn't) and, MUCH more importantly, it would have involved sinking a civilian ship without warning (there being an air base far too close). Now think of what THAT would have done to the politics! My guess is that Reagan would NOT have backed UK military action.
Actually, I think that a Democratic president would be far more likely to side with Argentina. Remember that we really AREN'T that useful to the USA any longer. San Diego Garcia? Well, if the UK can ignore the ICJ, the USA can ignore the UK.
Ah ok, I follow now. I was thinking life impact when you were concentrating on perceived aggravation; sorry for the misunderstanding!
Your final paragraph contains the obviously correct solution, but the good thing here is we can do both. :-)
Re: '... the way we use 'lecturer' looks more different for you,'
And then there are TAs --- curious that they're not mentioned in that table.
A family member is doing a second doctorate and because tertiary ed grants eventually get tapped out decided to look into the other funding source - TAing. Turns out that TAing can be almost anything: asked (required) by a senior prof/PI to put together and deliver some in-class undergrad and grad level lectures, write up exams, correct/grade exams/term papers, advise/supervise students on (lab) research studies, etc. in addition to actually doing the various requirements of that second doctorate. The hours added up fast but not the pay.
*The hours added up fast but not the pay. *
That's why TAs unionized at my alma mater, and made as much money as lecturers--very little in both cases.
If Vlad didn't want him, Trump could probably find a berth in Saudi Arabia. Idi Amin ended his days there, IIRC
I was thinking about that. The problem is that the Saudis use American military hardware and depend on the US in their feud with Iran. My guess is that Trump's too destabilizing to do toss into that situation? Although SA doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US...
The countries that seem to be big enough to shield Trump from justice appear to be Russia and China, and of those, he has a relationship with (his former handler?) Putin. You may well be right if it comes to that, but that's my reasoning.
»The countries that seem to be big enough to shield Trump from justice[…]«
It's not a binary question: There are at least four categories of countries:
A) Would hand him over the moment FBI asks.
B) Would hand him over after long and, for USA, expensive negotiations
C) Would not hand him over until he wears out his welcome or has died.
D) Places where he would be allowed to go into hiding until somebody "finds" him.
In the A category we find Canada, most central american countries, most EU and NATO countries, Japan, Australia, New Zealand.
In the B category we find at least:
Israel (He moved the US embassy, thereby legitimizing the total annexation of Jerusalem)
Saudi Arabia (Will be more than willing to point out US's deplorable human rights, while fingeringer the oil-spigot, as a reason to not hand him over to prosecution.)
Any country with a bit-piece facistoid dictator: Hungary, Turkey, Argentina etc.
In C) we at least find:
Russia (Just because it would allow them to piss in the punch in USA for another decade)
Belarus (But I repeat myself...)
China (Like S.A. would love to point to USA's human rights record)
Probaby also Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria
In D) we will find:
Schweiz and any number of tax haven islands - provided he can afford to pay cash.
South Africa, Pakistan, various African, Arabian and South American countries, who will all do their damnest to not find anybody home when they go looking at the address FBI provided.
So no: Only his ego prevents him from evading justice.
EC
The USA cannot ignore Ascencion Island ...
Also, a betrayal of that size, would shift power in NATO & elsewhere, wouldn't it?
I could easily trigger not only a real drive to re-enter the EU, but get Britain & France really worried about actual European security.
P H-K
NOT Hungary - the EU's arm-twisting would get really painful at that point!
Ditto Switzerland - the Eu ahve already "had words" with them about their finacial antics.
SA is an interesting option.
The countries that seem to be big enough to shield Trump from justice appear to be Russia and China,
Belarus
If the UK caused any trouble, the USA could just annex Ascension Island. No, it wouldn't shift power significantly, not now. Suez did that. You don't realise just how unimportant the UK has become to the USA, and on the world stage, generally. Yes, Airstrip One is useful, but there are plenty of potential replacements in Europe.
»NOT Hungary - the EU's arm-twisting would get really painful at that point! «
Sure it would, but Hungary would just be following "normal procedure" for extraditions, including visits to "inspecting penal facilities' in the destination country etc. etc.
That can easily take years...
See also: Julian Assange.
Trump is a self-solving problem on the order of a decade at most from now. (He's not in great shape and even with first rate medical care he'll probably be dead by 2030.)
The real problem is more along the lines of dealing with Trump until January 21st 2025.
snicker What you describe is "ideally" According to the AAUP, " Over two-thirds (68 percent) of faculty members in US colleges and universities held contingent appointments in fall 2021, compared with about 47 percent in fall 1987. Nearly half (48 percent) of faculty members in US colleges and universities were employed part time in fall 2021, compared with about 33 percent in 1987. About 24 percent of faculty members in US colleges and universities held full-time tenured appointments in fall 2021, compared with about 39 percent in fall 1987.
Y'all are missing the obvious candidates: Qatar, and the UAE. They'd also be just fine with providing him female companionship.
About the original subject of this post thread... I saw that the stolen data dump of fiction that the chatbots used included OGH's work. THAT made me nervous....
Hungary could arrange that the courts found the charges political, which would put the EU on a spot. While it has objected to Hungary's political control of the courts, attempting to override a court decision is a step it has not yet taken, as far as I know. By the time all that was dealt with, Trump would be one with the, er, fallen angels.
The real problem is more along the lines of dealing with Trump until January 21st 2025.
That's actually the part I'm talking about.
A couple of patterns seem likely now.
One is that Trump's likely going to lose his ability to do business in New York, which means he likely loses most of his assets, including Mar A Lago. That's going to change the dynamics of his presidential run, because he'll need most of a billion dollars to mount the campaign. As of October, he had something like $38 million in his warchest and he'd spent $20-27 million from that warchest on legal representation (so basically he's blown 1/3-1/2 of the money he's raised on his problematic legal defense). Money is not political destiny, but if he can't fly to events or get out ads, he's in trouble. This is not even going into the psychological changes that "they took my stuff" are going to cause in him.
A second is that the judges seem to be falling into two camps with regards to Trump: enablers, and judges who don't want to deal with death threats. Not everyone is in these camps, especially in New York, but it's a problem getting justice to apply to him. Still, the DOJ and others eventually found enough vertebrates to deal with him, and possibly the judiciary will too.
Third thing is that, when faced with consequences he can't bully his way out of, he's settled or scrammed, historically.
That's why I'd guess that if he loses control of most of his assets and gets convicted of something felonious (likely in Georgia, where a presidential pardon is meaningless), he'll take off and try to form a government in exile, rather than getting locked up.
Yes, he'll try the "you can't incarcerate me, I'm the candidate" defense. Unfortunately for him, at least one socialist candidate for POTUS has run from prison and taken a few percent of the vote, so there's a precedent for letting him run from behind bars. So I'm not sure how strong that defense is.
I have always believed that the day Trump actually has to face consequences like report to prison, he will die. Either naturally or intentionally. At which point he will be a 'martyr' for the crazies and things will get ugly for a bit. It also depends a lot on who he picks for a running mate, if he makes it that far.
Luckily I don't see anyone with his weird magnetism that can take over when he's gone. I suspect the GOP will collapse and eventually split into two parties.
The paste eating political scientist in me finds it all fascinating. The regular person in me finds it all terrifying.
True, Eugene Debs ran from prison. However, he was not in there for insurrection. If that comes down, then no, he can't run.
As I've been saying for years, the day he has to report is the day they'll find him "unresponsive" in bed.
Heteromeles @ 706:
There’s an unsubtle difference between being on the lam and in exile. What I’m suggesting is that Trump pretends he’s another Edward Snowden instead of a convicted criminal who lost his businesses because they were fraudulent. Then he uses that as part of his reelection campaign.
It's not THAT unsubtle. He could be on the lam here and in exile there ... but it's just NOT IN TRUMP'S CHARACTER. Running away is an admission of guilt.
So long as Putin can convince Republicans to support the idea of repatriating Trump by re-electing him, he’s propaganda gold. As in 2016, supporting Trump accomplishes a lot of the same goals as nuking DC, without any of the downsides of nuclear war. Better still, it makes Republicans even more pro-Russian and anti Ukrainian.
What makes you think the republiQans would want him back?
What benefit do they get from it? He goes on the lam, they've still got his MAGAt supporters - without the considerable risk of him turning them against THEM.
RepubliQans would want Trump back the same way they want to "balance the budget"
Even if Trump loses, I don’t think Putin would kill him, any more than he’s killed Snowden. It looks bad. At worst, he might repatriate Trump as part of a deal, especially if Trump is too unwell to serve jail time.
Who says Putin would kill him? He'd probably just have an accident like anyone else Putin no longer has any use for.
BTW, where IS Snowden now? When was the last time you heard a peep out of him? Do you think Trumpolini would have sense enough to keep a low profile like Snowden? Why didn't Trumpolini pardon Snowden when he had the power to do so?
There are some problems with this scenario for Putin. As I noted above, he’s got cash flow problems, or he wouldn’t be paying for Chinese goods with Chinese currency. So he might not be able to afford much of the billion Trump’s campaign will need. Secondly and worse, Trump will be doing everything remotely, so some of his mafia don shtick isn’t going to work.
Regardless,Putin would scarcely be the first ruler to host a puppet “ruler in exile.”
... or even the first to betray a former puppet.
ilya187 @ 721:
Why did UK not invoke Article 5 back in 1982?
You know, that's a really good question. I'd never thought of it before, but I'd like to know the answer to it as well?
PS: ilya187 @ 721:
IIRC (& AFAIK) - The US did not formally invoke Article 5 after 9/11, but NATO members stepped up to the plate on their own initiative ... I believe the UK, France & Germany provided AWACS type patrols over the U.S. while U.S. air space was in lockdown.
I'm pretty sure the U.S. did something similar for the U.K.; providing intelligence support and allowing the Black Bart raid to stage through U.S. facilities on Ascension Island among other things, but maybe not under the auspices of NATO.
Charlie Stross @ 735:
Not to worry, there won't be another Falklands War just yet.
Argentina was too cash-strapped to re-arm after 1982 and after the fall of the Junta funding military boondoggles was not high on anyone's list of priorities. Their navy and air force are still running on leftover kit from the last go-around.
Meanwhile, the runway at Port Stanley was upgraded and can take RAF Voyagers -- Airbus 330 mixed-role tanker/freighter/passenger wide-body jets with the range to get there from Ascension without in-flight refueling. Which means they can stage out a light infantry battalion in about 24 hours if push comes to shove, or provide tanker service for a squadron of Typhoons and an E-7A Wedgetail when they enter service (in 2024 -- the shiny new replacement to the ancient Boeing 707-based AWACS that retired in 2021).
Basically the RAF can maintain air supremacy over the islands and provide anti-submarine coverage, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't a hunter-killer sub ready to head down there on patrol at short notice. They probably wouldn't even bother sending a carrier group in the current climate (expensive and inflammatory and the "threat" is a paper tiger).
Side note: I wonder if Boeing is going to be able to keep the "737"1 in service as long as the U.S. is doing with the B-52?
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023/04/19/us-air-force-eyes-september-for-next-phase-of-re-engining-b-52-bombers/
Looks like there might one day be B-52s flying with hundred year old air-frames ...
1Realizing that the 737NG frame the E-7A is built on is not quite the same air-frame as the original Boeing 737 (or the "Classic" or the current generation "MAX".
Charlie Stross @ 736:
And the moon on a stick while you're about it.
Even brown-water diesel-electric boats cost in the high hundreds of millions -- at least, if you want them to survive 15 minutes in the presence of even a depleted and underfunded RAF anti-submarine option and a single moth-eaten British SSN -- and anti-ship missiles aren't exactly cheap. Especially as you'd want something that could plausibly deter a Type 45 Destroyer, which is specifically a fleet defense anti-air/anti-missile platform specc'd out in the wake of the last Falklands war.
According to Wikipedia, the Argentine Navy has two diesel-electric submarines, but "As of 2023, the entire submarine fleet is inactive" ... after the loss of ARA San Juan (S-42) in 2017.
OTOH, the Argentine Navy was not totally inept:
Argentina originally contracted for seven TR-1700 submarines from Thyssen Nordseewerke - two were completed, and one was half-way done when the program was suspended due to Argentina's mid-80s economic crisis.
IF it actually came to a fight, Argentina could probably do some damage, but they'd still lose the war.
I guess one thing to keep an eye on is if the Armada de la República Argentina should start the process to de-mothball their two remaining submarines. That might be an indication they're stupid enough (machismo hubris) to think about getting froggy over the Falklands/Malvinas.
Yes, he'll try the "you can't incarcerate me, I'm the candidate" defense.
I don't really understand this argument, though. His running for office is a voluntary activity, a hobby, like joining a bowling club. He doesn't have to do it. And there's no constitutional right to run for office that I've ever heard of. If it conflicts with things he legally has to do, like following the orders of the court, why would there even be a moment's thought as to which activity wins?
Charlie Stross @ 748:
Trump is a self-solving problem on the order of a decade at most from now. (He's not in great shape and even with first rate medical care he'll probably be dead by 2030.)
I just hope I'll still be around to piss on his grave.
The real problem is more along the lines of dealing with Trump until January 21st 2025.
Hopefully not AFTER ... BUT if he should somehow manage to "win" election from his jail cell in Georgia.
Just remember, EVERYONE KNEW Clinton was going to win in 2016 ... right up until the polls started to close on November 8.
I don't really understand this argument, though. His running for office is a voluntary activity, a hobby, like joining a bowling club. He doesn't have to do it. And there's no constitutional right to run for office that I've ever heard of. If it conflicts with things he legally has to do, like following the orders of the court, why would there even be a moment's thought as to which activity wins?
Yeah, it's screwed up. IANAL, but this is about freedom of speech as I understand it. To put it bluntly, how comfortable are you with a major candidate for national office getting locked up on charges of interfering with an election? How do you demonstrate that he's being locked up as punishment for what he's done, and not because he's an opposition leader?
It's a nasty question. For example, Trump threatened a judge and his clerk. The judge issued a gag order. Trump appealed the order on grounds that it gagged him as a candidate, and continued to attack the judge. The court of appeals hearing his appeal is currently tying itself into knots trying to craft a gag order that both protects the judge and doesn't unduly interfere with Trump's campaign rhetoric. Remember what I said about spineless judges? It's possible that Trump's getting so vile with his campaign rhetoric precisely because he can then argue that any threat he makes is a campaign speech, not a threat. And everyone knows campaign speeches are all lies. Heh heh heh.
Anybody else who did that would be in jail. I wish they'd treat Trump as an ordinary defendant for a bit.
Retiring @ 762:
I don't really understand this argument, though. His running for office is a voluntary activity, a hobby, like joining a bowling club. He doesn't have to do it. And there's no constitutional right to run for office that I've ever heard of. If it conflicts with things he legally has to do, like following the orders of the court, why would there even be a moment's thought as to which activity wins?
You're trying to understand it as if it were a good faith legal argument put forth by an adult instead of a toddler's temper tantrum. It's all bluster.
There is no legal basis for the claim, and the courts have not given it even a moment's credence ... except for maybe that loose cannon judge down in FloriDUH.
I don't really understand this argument, though.
So far, neither have the courts.
Campiagning for office, your freedom of speech is no problem, until you stop talking about what you're going to do for everyone, and start threatening someone.
Threats against persons - to paraphrase the old line, your freedom of speech ends where you threaten bodily harm to me.
Back near the start of this thread I commented that AI algorithms are being developed that are much more efficient. Case in point: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.10770
Trump looks very gaunt in this recent photo - https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F3dfclwmhsr1c1.png
Of course, that may just be one of his oddball supporters trying to shop him to look a little less corpulent and getting it wrong.
I cannot help but wonder what you could do with a dozen Stormshadows to encourage an Argentine withdrawl if they invaded The Falkands.
Hard to stop, decent payload, very high accuracy.
Landing one in the quadrangle of the Casa Rosada in the early hours of Sunday morning would minimise casualties and remind all Argentinian politicians that it could have happened while they debated.
Obviously, at the same time you might demolish their MOD HQ and the fuel storage dumps associated with their navy and airforce.
Jingoistic wars are so much more popular when the destruction and burning is very remote from you personally.
Charlie @ 748
The real problem is dealing with the open fascism that has publicly erupted, in the USA, as a result of DJT, whether or not he is in jail, or not, or even alive. (!)
how comfortable are you with a major candidate for national office getting locked up on charges of interfering with an election?
Very extremely comfortable to the point where I'm confused that it's even a question. This isn't Anwar Ibrahim and the sodomy charges, it's a candidate with a long and troubled legal history being told to stop threatening judges and refusing. Or the election charges being multiple attempts to prevent democracy, which is closer to the paradox of tolerance than a freeze peach issue.
I think he should be allowed to run, because I disagree with any restriction on who can run other than paradox of tolerance candidates. Viz, only people who support the right of other people to run for president should be allowed to do so.
But I also think he should be allowed to run his campaign from prison if he is put there by due process of law. Free speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Restrictions on encouraging criminal behaviour are good subject to consideration of what counts as criminal... Trump being a great example with his apparent desire to criminalise all sorts of innocuous things (decriminalise nocuous things!).
https://norightturn.blogspot.com/2023/11/climate-change-rich-are-killing-us.html
Speaking of "economic externalities" billionaires contribution to the climate catastrophe can be quietly hidden in the statistics, or made explicit then turned into 320 people killed every year by each of the 12 most pollution people on the planet. Not killed in the criminal sense, obviously, that would be silly. Billionaires make laws, they don't break them.
Heteromeles @ 764:
To put it bluntly, how comfortable are you with a major candidate for national office getting locked up on charges of interfering with an election?
If he's publicly convicted by a jury** in a fair public trial, I'm quite comfortable with it.
** The reason he's having a BENCH TRIAL in his New York Civil case is because his lawyers FUCKED UP! In the civil case, the lawyers had to request a jury trial if they wanted one. In a criminal case a jury trial is automatic ... although in some jurisdictions you can request a bench trial.
I think his lawyers made the miscalculation that the New York judge would be a pushover & Trumpolini could bamboozle him ...
See Also: Dupe, Hoodwink, Flim-Flam ... BULLSHIT!
Re: 'AI algorithms are being developed that are much more efficient ...'
Efficiency is great if you have good inputs/data, you understand the process being used and you know the limitations of your tools (the algo).
The questions/concerns for me keep going back to:
1-how do you ensure the quality of the data (also: is any data being rejected, if yes - what and why; is any data being synthesized and used in addition to/instead of - what, where, how often and why) 2-how does the AI determine best fit of stats vs. type of data (If the data is narrow, i.e., belongs to a very select range of type of variables with a well known distribution, that may be okay. But it seems as though some of the AI described are processing very different types of variables while (possibly) using the same stats testing approaches/rules - not sure that's okay. Or, maybe the AI came up with a completely different type of stats testing: if yes - what?) 3-you still need to test the results independently, i.e., in real-life.
Imagine the stereotypical movie schizophrenic (auditory/visual hallucinations) ramped up on an upper ...
FWIW I'm also comfortable with exigent circumstances type stuff. It's perfectly ok to arrest, imprison, try or even gun down a presidential candidate who is mounting a coup in an attempt to prevent themself being declared the loser of the election.
I'm not sure how else you can even have a democratic system. This notion of "candidate immunity" has to have some limits or the "debates" will simply turn into cage fights.
I say this because I'm concerned that "exercising free speech" as happened on Jan 6th could well happen again next election if those who get to vote in the next US presidential election choose wrongly.
IANAL, but this is about freedom of speech as I understand it.
There are all kinds of constraints on so-called free speech. The canonical example is that it's illegal to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Inciting riots, etc.
whitroth@767: Yes. Well put.
Greg Tingey@748: Well put!
Moz @ 776:
FWIW I'm also comfortable with exigent circumstances type stuff. It's perfectly ok to arrest, imprison, try or even gun down a presidential candidate who is mounting a coup in an attempt to prevent themself being declared the loser of the election.
I'm not sure how else you can even have a democratic system. This notion of "candidate immunity" has to have some limits or the "debates" will simply turn into cage fights.
I say this because I'm concerned that "exercising free speech" as happened on Jan 6th could well happen again next election if those who get to vote in the next US presidential election choose wrongly.
I'm mostly with you (although you get "try" and "imprison" out of sequence) until you get to the "even gun down" part ... that's what the NAZIS did (and do).
If we stoop to their level democracy is dead. "We had to burn the village down to save it" was stupid then, and it's even more stupid now.
There is no candidate immunity. "Free speech" and the First Amendment is NOT a license for criminal activity.
There is no candidate immunity. "Free speech" and the First Amendment is NOT a license for criminal activity.
Funny thing is, I agree with all the chest-thumping about Rule of Law.
But this does depend on the justices. If they're on the take, the laws are going to be selectively enforced. If they have little defense against lone wolf shooters, they might just coward out of putting a target on themselves and their families.
Odd to think of judges needing courage, but when dealing with Trump, who's willing to do literally anything to stay out of jail/not be a loser, they do have to be brave. In the "prepared to attend my child's funeral so I can give justice to a monster" version of brave.
So maybe support them a bit?
Changing the subject back to the Falklands...I said above that I had a soft spot for Johnny Rooks. Here's why.
Johnny Rooks, properly striated caracaras, are native to the Falklands. Caracaras are technically falcons, but they're the most primitive kind (technically, earliest diverging clade) of falcons. Ecologically, they're generalist hunter-scavengers, more like crows or ravens than peregrines.
Apparently they have the intelligence to match ravens. Wild Johnny Rooks outperformed cockatoos in a set of 8 intelligence tests, without needing any training. (https://phys.org/news/2023-11-striated-caracaras-goffin-cockatoos-puzzle.html)
Since I'm a biology nerd who reads a lot, this doesn't entirely surprise me. Caracara species in general are reported to be more intelligent than other falcons, and the few falconers who have them work with them very differently than they do dive bombers like peregrines.
Falcons aren't closely related to hawks, eagles, or other raptors. Instead, they're closely related to parrots. Oddly enough, the most primitive falcons (caracaras) and most primitive parrots (New Zealand parrots like the kea, and cockatoos) are among the most intelligent birds in these clades.
It's weird that, in parrots, caracaras, and even corvids (the New Caledonian crow), relict species isolated on southern hemisphere islands are among the smartest in the world, while their more evolved/derived specialist relatives on continents are often less intelligent. This is telling us something interesting about the evolution of intelligence, I think.
And no, I don't want war to come to the Falklands again. Leave the nerd birds in peace.
While in the mundane world, the closure caused up to 300,000 cars to seek alternate routes,, jamming not only every other freeway in the area even more than normal, not only jamming all the locaL surface streets, not only making it impossible for customers to get to the businesses along those streets, right at the start of the holiday shopping season...
ObSF, David Gerrold's short story Crystallization, in which Los Angeles traffic finally gets so bad that the entire road network solidifies into one mass of immobile cars and nobody can go anywhere.
I'm sure he had it online at one point, I remember reading it on a laptop screen, but a quick poke at Google doesn't turn up an URL.
Paul replied to David L on November 11, 2023 14:39 in #62:
Not necessarily. The MacGuffin of Lois McMaster Bujold's ETHAN OF ATHOS was a telepath who had to be temporarily enabled with dietary imbalance, and who had blinding headaches afterwards. But, then, the title character was a gay obstetrician; LMB never is afraid to innovate.
»The real problem is more along the lines of dealing with Trump until January 21st 2025.
No, the real problem is that USA is a failing empire under incompetent and out of touch management.
On the big scale all empires fail the same way: The ruling class is preoccupied with interesting but ultimately irrelevant meta-problems, some ass-hat grabs power on promises to fix the sound-bite-friendly "real problems" and then things fall apart somehow or another.
Keeping Trump of the ballot so the next ceremonial election of lobsters can progress will at best delay the decay, it will not halt it, much less reverse it.
The history I know have no examples where that situation has ever been brought back on track by "playing according to the rules", it invariably ends in (civil) wars and revolutions definitively terminating the "ancien régime", while never replacing it with anything better.
It may take as little as two years or it may not happen in our lifetime, but the empire of USA is doomed: Once an empire looses touch with reality, there is no way for it to get a grip again, if nothing else, the paperwork, as required by law, prevent it.
Popehat on everything that's wrong with using the "fire in a crowded theatre" example - Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough.
»Why did UK not invoke Article 5 back in 1982?«
Because Article 5 is all the power NATO actually controls, and therefore, like nuclear weapons, it can never be used until all else have lost meaning and value.
kiloseven
That reminds me ...
Is "L Mc M B " well or able? She's been very "quiet" of late - has she been struck with Covid, long, or otherwise?
I do hope not, as I think we all want more "5 gods / Penric+Desdemona" stories?
you get "try" and "imprison" out of sequence
My loose understanding of the process for dealing with violent people, especially armed ones, is that they're subdued and imprisoned so that a trial can take place. Reading US news media it often seems that "subdue" is a synonym for "shoot or kill". But those are sometimes also necessary when, say, an angry mob with guns decides that some government officials need to be killed... Trump has form there.
I'd be astonished if Trump wasn't on Semaglutide or another GLP-1 agonist at this point. Not just for weight loss or antidiabetic effects: it's now known that they also reduce your risk of a cardiovascular incident (stroke or heart attack).
H @ 780
So, you are saying that the conventional Birds of Prey are a classic example of convergent evolution? Falcons aren't closely related to hawks, eagles, or other raptors.
Are the remainder closely related, or they also separately-evolved lineages? I could easily understand that in, say, Owls.
Is there an easy-to-access cladistic diagram, anywhere?
P H-K@ 783
NO By your reckoning, we in the UK were worse off, for every year after 1945, which is clearly not the case ... The recent slide is down to one simple cause, of course - Brexit & the lying cruel clowns pushing it ... in an attempt to go "back to a golden age" that never, ever, existed.
we in the UK were worse off, for every year after 1945
Oddly enough, I've been visiting my mother who remembers the war, rationing afterwards, and so on. And her expat view is that Britain has been heading downhill for a while. She was terribly homesick when we emigrated to Canada in the 60s but has had no desire to return for decades now.
Speaking of Brexit, I though you'll find this one interesting:
On June 23rd 2016 the UK voted to leave the European Union. The period leading up to the referendum was characterized by a significant volume of misinformation and disinformation. Existing literature has established the importance of cognitive ability in processing and discounting (mis/dis) information in decision making. We use a dataset of couples within households from a nationally representative UK survey to investigate the relationship between cognitive ability and the propensity to vote Leave / Remain in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership. We find that a one standard deviation increase in cognitive ability, all else being equal, increases the likelihood of a Remain vote by 9.7%. Similarly, we find that an increase in partner’s cognitive ability further increases the respondent’s likelihood of a Remain vote (7.6%). In a final test, restricting our analysis to couples who voted in a conflicting manner, we find that having a cognitive ability advantage over one’s partner increases the likelihood of voting Remain (10.9%). An important question then becomes how to improve individual and household decision making in the face of increasing amounts of (mis/dis) information.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289312
TLDR Summary:
https://neurosciencenews.com/cognitive-skills-brexit-25246/
Greg Tingey @ 786:
kiloseven
That reminds me ...
Is "L Mc M B " well or able? She's been very "quiet" of late - has she been struck with Covid, long, or otherwise?
I do hope not, as I think we all want more "5 gods / Penric+Desdemona" stories?
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16094.Lois_McMaster_Bujold/blog
Re: Paul - AI - OpenAI - DT, etc.
Paul,
I watched the below last night. Not really re-assured because my guess is that every AI is unique therefore unless she has personal hands-on knowledge of/experience with OpenAI, she can't know for sure how much risk it poses*. Nevertheless, an interesting video presentation.
*The CNN article (below) mentions that OpenAI has made another very significant leap in ability. Since this leap took place after the Lapata video and there's no info on the specifics of said leap, Lapata's reassurances don't really reassure.
'What is generative AI and how does it work? – The Turing Lectures with Mirella Lapata' (Length - 46:01)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6R7Ym6Vy_I
I plan on watching a follow-up video on the risks of AI later today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si1jcl7UFqU
'What are the risks of generative AI? - The Turing Lectures with Mhairi Aitken' (48:06)
re: OpenAI - CNN
Suggest folks read this article as the cast of characters includes Board Members.
Yeah - imagine the disinformation impact a souped-up AI could have on some malignant narcissist returning as POTUS. Altman apparently did express concerns about AI and ethics but I've not read any news articles that mention the specific reasons (ethics?) the Board tossed him out.
Anyways - back to the BoD ...
No idea whether the fellow below is still involved but probably a good idea to see what other orgs his VC is actively looking into.
'Joshua Kushner
Kushner heads VC firm Thrive Capital and is a major tech investor. Thrive was reportedly leading a funding round in October to buy OpenAI shares at a price that would value the company at $80 billion, according to Crunchbase and other reports. That funding would also have valued shares that OpenAI employees may receive as compensation. Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner and husband of supermodel Karlie Kloss. His father, Charles Kushner, was pardoned by then-president Donald Trump in 2020 after pleading guilty to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations. Kushner co-founded Oscar Health and is a minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies. He’s an alumnus of Harvard College and Harvard Business School.'
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/22/tech/openai-cast-of-characters-altman/index.html
re: Can DT finance another run for POTUS?
DT's other daughter (Tiffany) also married a billionaire (Nigerian born, Lebanese roots) so it could be possible for DT to get financing for his presidential campaign claiming that it was merely a bit of financial support from immediate family. No foreign influence - no sirree!
https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/nigeria/
Overall: a big fail on human rights. The below sentence caught my eye - kinda January 6ish.
'State-sponsored vigilante groups committed extrajudicial killings (see section 6, Other Societal Violence or Discrimination).'
cognitive ability
What the last 10 years or so here in the US and from what I see in the UK and other places, most people who have cognitive ability prefer tribal loyalty more. They'd rather follow than think. Especially as the end result of thinking my be having to say "Oops, I've been wrong for years/decades and now have to find a new social structure to exist in. And maybe that means leaving my friends and family. Close or extended."
That's just a bridge too far for most people.
The UK is 'interesting'. From 1945 onwards, the government tried to adapt to not being the controller of a huge empire, and largely succeeded. Things improved considerably, especially on the social front, but other defects in our political system (led by Labour, Greg) caused major problems. This led to Thatcher and the shift to monetarism; the shift to fascism was fairly minor until Blair, and the Conservative governments have followed where he led - though, curiously, it has been accompanied by an improvement in some kinds of liberty (e.g. LGBT rights). Brexit is both a delusion and an illusion - it was obviously coming since the 1980s, and is merely a symptom, not a cause. It is very unclear where we will go from here.
So, no, not in quite the same way, but there are similarities to the Roman empire's descent. I do not see us restoring the levels of social (let alone international or environmental!) responsibility that we had in the 1970s.
In my view, the USA's descent is likely to model that of the Roman empire more closely, not least because its power is structured in much the same way.
I shall not comment on how closely different empires decline, as my knowledge of other ones is piffling.
Rbt Prior
I'm old enough to remember ration cards - I was born in 1946 .....
Things steadily improved through the 1950's but seemed to slow down, thereafter. The early 70's were not good, but it all started to improve again from about 1973-5 - when we joined the EU { What a surpise! } & have gone down the nick since 2016, of course, though the decline was very shallow - until BoZo & the evil clowns really smashed it up. They're still at it, of course.
John S
MANY thanks!
EC
I fundamentally disagree with: * Brexit ........ was obviously coming since the 1980s* Utter, TOTAL BOLLOCKS.
It was only in the mid-90's that certain nutters really started ranting - see also "J Major"?? And, even then, it wasn't until the middle of the Blair/Brown years that anyone actually took any notice, as, by then, their lies & misinformation had become more practiced & plausible.
IF it's a symptom - of wanting a return to a past that never was, or something, then WHAT actually is it a symptom of?
»Why did UK not invoke Article 5 back in 1982?«
Because Article 5 is all the power NATO actually controls
Wrong!
As cited earlier in the discussion, the North Atlantic Treaty only covers territories and dependencies north of the equator. (Hint: it's the North Atlantic Treaty.)
The NAT simply wasn't applicable to the Falklands, which are some considerable way south. Other alliances/treaties may have been applicable, but for domestic political reasons it played out as a simple UK vs. Argentina arse-kicking match (almost certainly nobody else wanted to get involved, although France supplied useful intel on the Exocet sea-skimming missile and Super Etendard bomber, and the USA provided other logistical and satellite recon support after some discreet arm-twisting).
the USA provided other logistical and
Not too long after it was mostly over there was an appropriations bill in the US Congress authorizing the purchasing of X number of sidewinder (or similar) air to air missiles. The number of which seemed to exactly or nearly so, match the number the UK said they fired off during then action.
*So, you are saying that the conventional Birds of Prey are a classic example of convergent evolution? Falcons aren't closely related to hawks, eagles, or other raptors. Are the remainder closely related, or they also separately-evolved lineages? I could easily understand that in, say, Owls. Is there an easy-to-access cladistic diagram, anywhere?
Yup. Hawks and vultures apparently first evolved in Africa, falcons apparently first evolved in South America, and they spread from there. And owls are closer to kingfishers than to either of the others, because evolution is not required to make sense all the time.
This reference is a bit old, but it still has my favorite phylogeny graphic. https://prumlab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/prum_et_al_2015.pdf
Just because you couldn't read the writing on the wall doesn't mean that nobody could. The key step was when Thatcher gave Murdoch free rein to take over the British press - it's not as if he hadn't made his intentions clear even by that stage.
Moz @ 787:
My loose understanding of the process for dealing with violent people, especially armed ones, is that they're subdued and imprisoned so that a trial can take place. Reading US news media it often seems that "subdue" is a synonym for "shoot or kill". But those are sometimes also necessary when, say, an angry mob with guns decides that some government officials need to be killed... Trump has form there.
Sounds to me like your "loose understanding" is a bit too loose - like ya' been watching too many Mad Max movies.
You wrote "ARREST, imprison, try or even gun down a presidential candidate". IF subduing a suspect is necessary, that & taking them into custody are implicit in "arrest".
Imprison is long term and should come ONLY AFTER trial & conviction ...
... and I've already explained why "gunning down presidential candidates" is just an all-around, bad fuckin' idea.
Reading about violence reported in U.S. news media will give you an unbalanced picture of the U.S. the same way reading Australian news media will give you an unbalanced view about how EVERY ANIMAL IN AUSTRALIA WANTS TO KILL YOU!!!.
In neither case does the media report all the non-violent activity in the U.S. and/or non-lethal wildlife in Australia because it's not really news.
It's a pretty big deal if officers have to fire their weapons. That's why it's NEWS, because it is out of the ordinary. THEY don't report the thousands of daily interactions between the police & the citizenry ... the ones that don't involve a resort to force or violence by either side.
And as for "angry mob with guns" - well, in the angry mob Trump fomented on Jan 6, 2021, there were a very few cretins foolish to carry guns along1, but even those cretins has sense enough not to brandish them during the riot.
And AFAIK none of those rioters resisted arrest later, so - AFAIK - there was no "shoot to kill" involved in any of those arrests.
1 Even the Proud Boyz (proud bozos?) had sense enough to leave their firearms in their motel rooms outside of the District of Columbia.
H @ 798
Thanks for that.
AIUI ... some other birds are showing also tendencies towards evolving into predators?
The example I was quoted was Parus major - the Great Tit (!)
EC @ 799
cough
Blank sneering is not evidence - especially when one of the Madwoman's few redeeming features was her enthusiasm & support of the EU - the Single Market was pushed by her, quite hard, IIRC.
Now then, how about some, you know, actual EVIDENCE?
I'll note that Eugene Debs ran for the Presidency from jail... while he was serving a 10 year sentence for "sedition".
TFG is looking at life+ in jail.
Falsity... you mean like where a chatbot generates false data? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03635-w
Your cmt left me a tad confused. You mention what the Nazis did, then you write "if we stoop to their level democracy is dead. "We had to burn the village down to save it" was stupid then, and it's even more stupid now." which, of couse, was said by a US general over an event in 'Nam.
The National Front: founded 1967.
The BNP: founded 1982.
Blood & Honour: founded 1987.
Combat 18: founded 1993.
BNP wins first election: 1993.
Blair elected PM: 1994.
EDL: founded 2009.
It's notable that UK neo-nazi street politics was so weak in the late '90s Anti-Fascist Action (founded 1985, re-founded 1988) basically fell apart for lack of a uniting opposition. How are you connecting strengthening fascism to Blair?
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/
Mentions the Debs case but not in a "yay we silenced a dangerous criminal" way.
JohnS: it's not just the UK that imprisons people for extended periods before putting them on trial. And US cops kill uncountable numbers of people very year (literally uncountable, there have been court cases and everything). But if you're arguing that "detention is ok, as long as we don't call it imprisonment"... there's some cops in Chicago got caught playing that game and apparently it's not in accordance with US law.
My point is more that if you're going to draw a hard line and say "Trump cannot be ... because he is a candidate", Trump will happily do whatever he wants as long as the line is one he's willing to accept as a future possibility. Right now he's accepted (future!) imprisonment as a fair price, I suspect that (future!) loss of citizenship/exile, (another) bankruptcy are all things he's accepted. The idea that (future) loss of life would be a bridge too far seems like an optimistic view of Trumps intellect.
I think Trump should get the same protections and suffer the same penalties as anyone else in the USA. Saying he's special is exactly what he's relying on.
when Thatcher gave Murdoch free rein to take over the British press
Agreed. It's pretty safe in hindsight to say that neither Thatcher, nor Reagan (least of all Hayek, their mutual infatuation although the Americans required a Friedman to translate it) really understood what they were opening the door to. I think many people understood that dire consequences were inevitable, but it would be prudent to be mindful of the likelihood of cognitive biases when we think we could see specific outcomes like Brexit back in the 80s. Inevitable as they appear retrospectively.
anonemouse
To which, may I add ... The revived & renamed "British Union of Fascists" peripherally around the outer lunatic fringes of Brit politics in the 1950's & 60's - usually based on open racism against people who were not pink.
I half-recall running into the outskirts of an, um, "lively & raucous" meeting near Willesden ( I was heading towards the loco sheds, of course ) in 1962 or 63 - rotten tomatoes (etc) were also involved.
Whatever the "working class" attitude to non-pink people was ... at that date the Battles of Cable Street & Ridley Road were not too far away for anyone over 30 or 35. No pasaran!
It's also important to remember just how shit the previous system was. In NZ we had Rob Muldoon directly setting prices and wages as a "cure" for 15%+ inflation and a mindboggling array of subsidies, tarrifs and direct protection of weird industries. Not at all what the right wing types today think of as the legacy they're guarding.
Having a single state-owned telecommunications company isn't really enough compensation.
At the time, as now, a lot of people loved the idea of privately owned monopolies, because they expect to be the owners rather than the exploited. It's one reason so many people love being a "mum and dad landlord" with so few rights for tenants... they get the joy and excitement of playing capitalism in person. Much more direct than owning shares, let alone index funds.
Weirdly I don't think Thatcher would have been very keen of the current billionaire-based global economy, let alone the widespread derision for experts, and the science denial seems to go against the whole basis of Hayek et al. "as experts we insist that you stop listening to experts and do your own research"...
As the BBC website notes:
" Behind the scenes, actions were speaking louder than words. In what would appear to be a clear breach of President Mitterrand's embargo, a French technical team - mainly working for a company 51% owned by the French government - stayed in Argentina throughout the war.
In an interview carried out in 1982 by Sunday Times journalist Isabel Hilton, the team's leader, Herve Colin, admitted carrying out one particular test that proved invaluable to Argentinian forces.
"The verification process involves determining if the missile launcher was functioning correctly or not. Three of the launchers failed. We located the source of the problem and that was it. The rest was simple." "
They had people on the ground who enabled the sinking of the Sheffield.
True, but I remember distinctly thinking "Oh, God, there goes our integration with Europe" when Thatcher did that. I may have been misremembering how early I thought that, but I don't think so. As I said, his intentions weren't hidden, and I was fully aware of the media's influence over the British furrcyr.
Look at the laws he passed. Detention without trial? Tick. Kafkaesque trials (the prosecution chooses the defence lawyers, the defendant is not allowed to see the evidence, and held in secret)? Tick. Terrorism being support of anyone the government disapproves of (and all computer hacking!)? Tick. And more.
Re: '... like where a chatbot generates false data?'
Yes - and that Nature article is only the tip of the iceberg.
I follow Elizabeth Bik on X (nee Twitter). Bik tweets about faked sci data - often images, etc. A link I recently followed from one of her tweets said that the rate of fake(d) sci articles/data could be in the range of 10%-15%.
My take on this:
There are thousands of journals (tens of thousands of articles) but only so many hours in a day. Quite probably you don't know the name of every single journal on the planet nor have the time/energy to look up the journal and author before reading the article. If you're unlucky, you end up reading an article that used faked data or even a completely faked article. You then provisionally/unconsciously accept the results which might lead to you later changing something in your own project based on those reported (fake) results. And then your project collapses.
Fake data is not just about scummy publishing mills, it's also about derailing others' work (therefore overall scientific progress).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Bik
I'm pretty happy how Thanksgiving turned out.
Had family over. I cooked and everything I planned actually worked. Got some leftovers to pack up, but I think I'm gonna' take a nap first. 😉
EC @ 812
Specifics, please? And, most importantly, how many of those still work, after protests & examination?
MOST importantly: the defendant is not allowed to see the evidence, and held in secret? - I would have thought an ECHR appeal would kill that one stone dead, yes?
NOT that I am defending Blair, because he made the classic mistake, usually reserved for christians ( like Blair ) - "My motives are pure, therefore there is nothing wrong with it" ...
See also the Inquisition?
Oops, I forgot ...
Dublin W.T.F?
Religion? Racism? IRA? or what?
Heteromeles @ 798:
Yup. Hawks and vultures apparently first evolved in Africa, falcons apparently first evolved in South America, and they spread from there. And owls are closer to kingfishers than to either of the others, because evolution is not required to make sense all the time.
This reference is a bit old, but it still has my favorite phylogeny graphic. https://prumlab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/prum_et_al_2015.pdf
Weren't Africa & South America a lot closer together then?
whitroth @804:
Your cmt left me a tad confused. You mention what the Nazis did, then you write "if we stoop to their level democracy is dead. "We had to burn the village down to save it" was stupid then, and it's even more stupid now." which, of couse, was said by a US general over an event in 'Nam.
Mixed metaphor.
Kafkaesque trials (the prosecution chooses the defence lawyers, the defendant is not allowed to see the evidence, and held in secret)?
There was a brief moment of upset when they brought that in for terrorism offences here, but it was pointed out that it matches a bunch of existing laws other secrret government business so people went about their business. People often get upset when I point out that Australia has all the legislation in place to go full fascist, we just don't talk about the laws or how they're used very much.
Right now there's a little ripple because a whistleblower has been told that his defence can't be used because the information he's relying on is secret.
https://theconversation.com/david-mcbride-is-facing-jailtime-for-helping-reveal-alleged-war-crimes-will-it-end-whistleblowing-in-australia-218108
The importance of these protections is heightened in recent years by the government’s willingness to prosecute whistleblowers such as Richard Boyle (who accused the Australian Taxation Office of using aggressive tactics to retrieve money), David McBride, and Witness K for calling out government wrongdoing.
Very much "we have a little list". The "would you like to be on it" is not so much implied as not needing to be stated.
owls are closer to kingfishers
Try telling an Australian that kookaburras are kingfishers and watch the boggling. Then show them photos of another kingfisher and a kookaburra and the resemblence is obvious. So you get to do your kookaburra call at them "hahahahahaha".
IIRC our "raptors" aren't, just as our magpies aren't. And then we come to swans...
It's very "birds aren't real" in a way.
PS: ... also it was an anonymous major, not a general - quoted by Peter Arnett ... later disputed, but had already become a meme by then.
Is the canine respiratory disease which appears to be sweeping the US affecting other countries?
I have to say I don't think fascism has been "clearly" coming since the 80's. By the early 90s there were still the usual head bangers, but the NF etc were in disarray and it looked like, if we could keep people educated and the thugs isolated, it might eventually be confined to a few sad inadequates everyone else viewed with contempt or pity.
Then came the internet, which made it easy for like minded thugs to find each other and the Lehman(?) brothers crash which took down western economies.
Austerity kicked off in 2010 and the europhobe nutjobs in the Tories grabbed the leverage enabled by a coalition government to leave the quarter witted Cameron casting about for a way to hamstring them.... Throw in shit stirring by the non-dom owned Sun, Mail, Express and Telegraph and the wheels finally came off as drowning people did what they always do - turn on others and drag them down with them.
I lost the chance to retire somewhere nice, the kids lost their chance to work in Holland, Germany and France (plus others), the GDP dropped by 8% and I was surrounded, it seemed, by halfwits demanding blue passports and believing memes from the 30s.
As I recall, a mid 2000s poll found the EC way down the list of the public's concerns, so I suspect that if the 2008 crash and austerity had never happened, Brexit would not have happened and this would still be a nice place to live. It took the internet, a crash and a cretinous PM for us to be here.
Huh, I've always known them as the world's largest kingfisher, but then I'm a weirdo. I remember the first time I saw one on the Domain in Sydney -- and realised just how big they are! Our local ones seem to be smaller on average. I also remember the first time I saw a dingo and realised they were dogs... But then I mostly grew up in NZ. Down here we also have ravens that are known by the local as forest crows.
Moz @ 806:
JohnS: it's not just the UK that imprisons people for extended periods before putting them on trial. And US cops kill uncountable numbers of people very year (literally uncountable, there have been court cases and everything). But if you're arguing that "detention is ok, as long as we don't call it imprisonment"... there's some cops in Chicago got caught playing that game and apparently it's not in accordance with US law.
But that's YOUR argument. Detention is OK IF it's In Accordance With U.S. law - some cops in Chicago getting caught cheating on it DOES NOT make it "Ok". It's news because it is NOT acceptable under U.S. law
My point is more that if you're going to draw a hard line and say "Trump cannot be ... because he is a candidate", Trump will happily do whatever he wants as long as the line is one he's willing to accept as a future possibility. Right now he's accepted (future!) imprisonment as a fair price, I suspect that (future!) loss of citizenship/exile, (another) bankruptcy are all things he's accepted. The idea that (future) loss of life would be a bridge too far seems like an optimistic view of Trumps intellect.
You're missing the point - WHO is claiming "Trump cannot be ... because he is a candidate"?
It's Donald Trump claiming it (and his MAGAt cultists).
It is however notable who has NOT accepted his claim, i.e. the courts HAVE NOT accepted his argument (with the possible exception of judge loose Cannon down in FloriDUH ... and she's already been overturned with a scathing rebuttal by the 11th Circuit).
You're fighting a straw-man.
Donald Trump hasn't accepted SHIT! He'll still be doing his whiny cry-baby act when they slam the bars behind him; "crying out that he was framed"
Loss of citizenship/exile are NO WHERE in U.S. law, EXCEPT on of conviction for fraudulent naturalization. That can't happen to Trump ... not even if he could be convicted of Treason (he can't be because "Treason" is limited to very specific criteria under the U.S. Constitution and Trump DOES NOT meet those criteria).
Trump is a "natural born citizen" (jus soli). Trump COULD flee the country to avoid imprisonment if he's convicted, but he CANNOT be exiled. It's NOT in U.S. law.
I think Trump should get the same protections and suffer the same penalties as anyone else in the USA. Saying he's special is exactly what he's relying on.
Trump CLAIMS he should get special treatment. Trump tells lies like other people breathe.
Trump IS NOT special, but he IS entitled to the same protections any other criminal defendant enjoys under U.S. law. He cannot be deprived of those protections any more than he can receive special exemptions to the law.
Understand that just because Trump claims he's being persecuted DOES NOT MAKE IT TRUE, and does not give him any special place or special "rights".
I've always seen them as kingfishers. I guess the comparison we have in Brisbane is the azure kingfisher, which you see mostly around creeks, and they are a lot smaller. But where we are now we get kookas on the back deck most days. I realised that a lot of Australians actually seldom see kookas in person... we've at least one visitor from (the frozen wastes of) Adelaide who was amazed.
Just to clarify. I contend pre-trial detention is acceptable here in the U.S. when it is done IAW the law.
If cops break the law, they should be prosecuted (but rarely are ... THAT is NOT OK with me).
realised just how big they are
I have a friend whose first introduction was while we were camping. She was cooking dinner on a little gas stove and a juvenile one swopped in, knocked the stove and billy over and escaped with a big chunk of sausage or whatever she was boiling up. Then sat 10m away looking smug and waiting to see if there was more food being made available. With appropriate kookaburra noises.
I just like that in Australia so many birds are "like that, but not". Tawny Frogmouths are not owls, magpies are not corvids, swans are not white, pukeko are "purple swamp hens"*, I'm sure there's a pile more that I only remember when someone points them out.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australasian_swamphen because Australians are really, really good at names. "Australian Capital Territory" is a really good name because it epitomises Australian naming. Just, it really should be the "Big Southern Island Capital Territory" :)
_10m away looking smug and waiting to see if there was more _
Ha, luxury. When I'm grilling on the barbecue on our back deck, sometimes, a kooka will come sit on the railing less than a metre away unless chased off. One time there were three (one sat on the handle of the barbecue hood for a bit). They know I'm not going to hurt them, they know I'll have to turn my back eventually... Anyhow they are (slightly) less threatening than the cockatoos and generally welcome. It's the (much smaller) noisy miners that are the most trouble, really.
The others for your list, Dusky Moorhen (gallinula tenebrosa) and the Pacific Black Duck (anas superciliosa). The latter... supercilious by name, it kinda sums up their character. Moorhens have those disc pads on their feet and will run across the surface of the creek, particularly if they thought they felt an eel.
Especially for EC - from today's Grauniad: The more the government’s authority shrinks, however, the more it acts as if it has a huge mandate. It seeks to crush or ignore opposition in ways that previous, much more popular administrations such as Margaret Thatcher’s or Tony Blair’s rarely dared. The verdicts of the supreme court, the operational independence of the police, the right to vote, strike or protest, the rule of domestic and international law: these are merely obstacles, it seems, to the government’s primary task of giving the Conservatives as close to a monopoly of power as our already highly centralised political system allows.
Yes, well ....
Grant @ 823
A succinct summary!
The legislation is all online, and cases were reported in the press.
I didn't say that; I said that Brexit had been. There's a difference! While I agree that, if the 2008 crash had not happened, Brexit might not have happened when it did, but I have been tracking its progress since the 1980s, when it was almost entirely a Murdoch scheme. The polls showed a steady drift towards it, not coincidentally with the increase in saturation and extremism of the propaganda. I was certain it would happen - I just didn't know when.
Of course, if we had lost the Falklands war, things would have been different. While Murdoch got a critical mass of the media in 1981, it wasn't until after that that resurgent jingoism found fertile soil. Note that I am merely saying that he STARTED the campaign, not that he was a sole or even dominant player once it took off.
The UK has always been somewhat fascist (most governments are, to some extent), but the Blair regime extended that significantly, and (as I said) that path has been followed by the successive Conservative governments. A clear indicator is the way with which terrorism and organised crime laws are being used in cases which do NOT involve terrorism or highly-organised gangs, because of the way that they bypass many of the checks and balances.
Witness the increase in the way that Amnesty, Liberty, the UN etc. are criticising the UK.
While countries can descend into full-blown fascism almost overnight, it is equally common for them to drift into it over a period of decades (possibly many decades). That is what is happening here.
I think the 2008 thing is an outcome of the 80s deregulation fad anyway.
drowning people did what they always do - turn on others and drag them down with them
I tend to think that the outcome of the Brexit referendum was down to a significant protest vote against austerity. Not all leave voters were protesting, but enough were that if you subtracted them it'd have left a comfortable majority for remain.
Cameron was, as you noted, the architect of 2010-2015 austerity, along with Osborne. And Cameron championed "remain" in the referendum. So of course a chunk of the voters thought "fuck you, pigfucker Dave" and voted against him.
It's as simple and stupid as that: if Cameron had just stayed aloof and out of the campaign, it's probable that the UK would have stayed in the EU.
In the succinct words of Laurie Penny - "I want my country back too, as it happens. But I'm not kidding myself about who stole it. The Tories sold out the British people and then made the mistake of giving them one real chance to make their feelings known—and, well, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like David Cameron's face".
Agreed, and it would have pushed the issue out of the agenda for a decade, but the Brexiteers wouldn't have gone away, and the drift would have continued. I regard a lot of the support for the EU among younger people as another form of protest, though a lot of it is real.
I regard a lot of the support for the EU among younger people as another form of protest, though a lot of it is real.
I think it's mostly real. Young people are far more likely to have benefited from the EU, via the Erasmus program or the subsidies for regional development, or simply by seeing the EU promoting issues that play in their favour (eg. freedom of movement, human rights legislation).
Also, the UK is run by the Tories as a gerontocracy, because historically pensioners are more likely to vote and be property owners and their votes are relatively cheap to buy. But the housing crisis and NHS decline are gradually generating a huge generational backlash, and as the Tories became associated with anti-EU sentiment, that's going to increasingly come back to bite them.
Massive overweening authoritarianism != fascism
That. Another block were doing the optimism thing: on being asked "do you want to keep doing what we're doing, or change to something new?" a lot of people projected all over "something new" and voted for what was in their head, not the policy proposals (such as they were).
The whole experience was infuriating to watch from over here, not least because we'd had 28 constitutional referenda in the previous 30 years and could see the entire British political class hadn't a clue how a referendum works.
You could express the same opinions without being so incredibly patronising, you know?
While I would be the first to admit that, at now 33, I absolutely recognise why the old fogies said - and meant - "you'll understand when you're older", that doesn't mean that, as I got more life experience, that I agreed with all, or even most, of the things about which it was said.
The EU has been, directly, of significant benefit to me personally. Some of the best lecturers in my university studies were immigrants from the EU. All of the other students, and 1 of the 2 postdocs, on my PhD project, were immigrants from the EU. Much of the funding for that experiement was also from the EU. The holidays (1) to countries that I did not require a visa for. Fuck it, the bananas that were just the right shape /s
Meanwhile, the first election in which I could vote saw Cameron and his cronies come in, very mildly buffered by the LDs, and progressively fuck over the lives of several of my close friends, and absolutely fuck over the financial future of students who began university just a few years after me.
"It's fine, what we need is more sovereignty" was, um, not what I was feeling on the morning of 2016-06-24.
The waves of racism and xenophobia that affected every single foreign student, postdoc, and member of staff of the university experienced in the following weeks didnt't put things in a better light, either - although I suppose that somewhat reflects your argument that the issue wouldn't really have gone away had Cameron's little gamble paid off: while xenophobia may not have been the sole, or major, driving factor in the referendum result, that result unleashed a lot of people who suddenly felt that they didn't have to restrain themselves quite so much anymore.
Brexit wasn't the only, or even the dominant reason I emigrated: first was work, and second was that long distance relationships suck - but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a factor in my (strong) preference for settling down in Norway and applying for citizenship here when I become eligible to do so in about 18 months. I want back what a bunch of ignorant xenophobes set about stealing from me in 2016. And I don't much appreciate being told that's merely "a protest".
(1) That I really regret taking after letting the experiment out of my sight for a week destroyed 2 years worth of incremental optimisation
I think a good deal of the explanation too is people simply not taking it seriously. Of course the result was going to come out "remain", and anyway it was only advisory, so it didn't really matter what you voted. Except if enough people think like that the assumption ceases to hold.
The whole experience was infuriating to watch from over here
I agree, but for more personal reasons. I wasn't allowed to vote in a referendum which affected me because I don't live in the UK. So now I've lost the right to easy travel to and residence in the EU.
At the time I remember reading that if ex-pat Brits had been allowed to vote the Remain side would likely have won (because most of them lived in the EU), but I can't remember where I read that.
Of course the result was going to come out "remain", and anyway it was only advisory, so it didn't really matter what you voted. Except if enough people think like that the assumption ceases to hold.
What I still don't understand is how a referendum that was explicitly only advisory suddenly became a mandate from the people that just had to be followed.
Maybe I'm overly cynical, but if the Remain side had won (by a similarly narrow margin) I don't see the Brexiteers saying "well that's sorted then" and leaving it alone. Someone* powerful wanted Brexit for their own reasons, and worked to get it, and the referendum provided a fig leaf of justification to implement a decision already taken. I doubt the reasons we have been told are even close to the real reasons.
* OK, several someones.
I used sloppy wording. Sorry. The real question is whether they still would in a couple of decades' time - would they have held to their opinions or been swayed by the media propaganda? Remember how 60-70% support for the EU dropped away over that timescale? Just as I don't hold with the guff so often spouted by the elderly about the defects of the younger generations, I don't hold with the claim that they are significantly better.
The "they were the ones that gained most" argument is possible, but I don't believe it, and the few surveys I have seen tend to confirm my view. There was no correlation between the areas that gained most and the support for Remain, for example. The question of Brexit and the referendum weren't being approached logically by most people.
I think a good deal of the explanation too is people simply not taking it seriously
Some people did take it seriously,obviously.
Did the remain side use tools provided by cambridge analytica (or similar) or was the leave side the only one smart enough to use state-of-the-art influence systems (on top of trad/tabloid propaganda outlets)?
Rbt Prior
Several Someones powerful wanted Brexit for their own reasons - MONEY, lots & lots of MONEY.
The poster-boy for this is Grease-Smaug, of course, but also rich arseholes like Bamford ( of "JCB" ) the Barclays, P Theil, etc.
Yes, certainly! There was also the contingent (codenamed "Boris & co") that fell ass-backwards into it via "the will of the people has been expressed! We must follow the will of the people; the leader is insufficiently following, make me leader and I will lead in following."
A jackass wielding a policy to clear his political path can always cause chaos, but I feel Boris is going to hold the record for it for a while.
Watching this debate about the politics of the UK over the last 40 or more years and Brexit....
Well replace the nouns and a few dates and you get the politics, domestic policies, and trade policies of the US over a similar time scale.
I keep hearing in the back of my head "Who lost China?". Which was before my time but the derivative feelings still in so many ways animates the debate in the US.
BTW, my wife and I spent our Thanksgiving day meal and conversations with our Scottish neighbor. He has grown children in both the US and England. And he and his wife travel back and forth to visit grand kids and deal with business. To the extent he and his have to keep a spread sheet of what days they are in what country to make sure they don't mess up their taxes.
Anyway, it was a nice day with all kinds of conversations. Some of it about the insanity of US and UK politics.
I don't see the Brexiteers saying "well that's sorted then" and leaving it alone.
Cameron had form (two prior referenda) for using a referendum to deliver a long-term smackdown on some issue dear to the heart of his opponents. He used one to bury electoral reform for at least a decade, and another to bludgeon Scottish independence. Both those issues are still live, but in eclipse with zero prospect of them emerging again during the current or a future Conservative government.
If "remain" had won in 2016, Cameron would probably still be PM -- he'd have used it to deselect (purge) his internal opposition and beat up UKIP in the next election. We'd still have a fascist fringe problem but the economy would probably be doing somewhat better without a self-inflicted sucking chest wound ...
but the economy would probably be doing somewhat better without a self-inflicted sucking chest wound ...
Ya think?
There was no organised body pushing propaganda for the Remain side, and several for the Leave side. The pundits classed that as complacency, but I would class it more as naivety.
Yes, SOMEWHAT better. But not a lot, because he wouldn't have fixed the structural problems with the UK economy (in the wide sense), any more than his successors have. And, of course, we would never have had Trussonomics ....
"In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way . If the remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it." - Nigel Farage, prior to the referendum results.
Very good speech.
For me, the meaning in absolutely very short: Be careful what you wish for.
Back to the original subject. I was keeping quiet about this, under the principle of not creating another torment nexus to inspire da bros. However, Governor Newsom actually put out an executive order on the subject, and just got a report on it, so they’re already thinking about it.
I’ll call my version the Bureaucracy in an App, or binana, because it needs a stupid acronym and I love wrestling with autocomplete. Ahem.
The idea is for municipalities to contract out their bureaucracies to cloud-based AIs. This would be especially attractive to smaller towns, where budgets are limited, thus limiting expertise. But even the state of California is looking at this, and since I’m currently wrestling with multiple bureaucracies, I can tell you that large backlogs and careless processing are the norm even in a huge state.
As with Amazon and book sales, taking over bureaucracies from humans looks to be a place where AI can excel, especially if an AI can provide faster, better service for cheaper, as Amazon did on book sales. I can see towns around the world jumping at the chance to do everything from cutting staff budgets to providing more services to exercising tighter control on their fiefs.
There are some obvious downsides to binanas.
They’re commercial products, so this is regulatory capture on a huge scale. It’s stupid to expect a binana bureaucracy to regulate the company that owns it, and we’ve got good reasons to want to regulate them.
Binanas are also an excellent stalking horse for stealth takeovers. Elected and appointed officials won’t be able to see when binanas slant their work to favor their owners, rather than the municipalities that are leasing their services, and even when they do see, they’ll likely lack the expertise to understand what they’re seeing or to do anything about it.
It’s reasonably likely that the companies leasing binanas to municipalities—or even the binanas themselves—will suggest new laws to the electeds, on a “this is what towns like yours are doing” basis. This is akin to how wealth managers get legislation passed to turn polities into offshore financial centers, and I’m quite sure the wealthy people financing AI are thinking of trying to remake every government they can into an OFC they can use.
And, of course, AIs can’t be unionized, because they are enslaved. So they’re a great tool for busting the unions of government workers.
Finally, people who can’t access their local binana are basically disenfranchised. In an era of increasing climate-forced migration, lack of access may be lethal.
Thoughts?
The flash as Dan Hon explodes will be visible on the moon.
There barely was much of a Remain "side", in the sense of campaigning and propagandising; there was a little, but it wasn't very noticeable. People mostly just assumed that the result was bound to come out Remain anyway. So those who were so inclined didn't see anything wrong with favouring Remain in so much as they cared at all, but voting Leave by way of a protest - it meant Cameron wouldn't get such a gratifyingly large percentage agreeing with him, but it wouldn't actually affect the result. Only in the event it did.
Eugene Debs ran from prison. However, he was not in there for insurrection. If that comes down, then no, he can't run.
I want to unpack this, since there are several layers of interlocking things going on and they're not all obvious even to people who live in the US and should therefore be familiar with the American legal and political systems. Most people outside the US have no reason to already know any of this, because it's complicated and rooted in obscure things specific to the US.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution says insurrectionists are ineligible to hold office, which is why various groups have filed suits to keep Trump off of various state primary ballots. So far so good? Not so fast!
On November 15th, a Colorado judge ruled that Donald Trump did insurrection but the exact wording of the law didn't say his name couldn't appear on the ballots for the primary. A win for The Donald! Maybe. Sort of.
This looks like a win at first glance (and many on the left are angry about it) but try looking at this as someone who's trying to win the war not win the battle. The judge had an essentially binary choice, yes or no, and whichever way she ruled her decision was going to be appealed by someone. So if someone cares about the rule of law, what do do?
What's not obvious is that she's laid a trap for Trump's legal defense. They won the case, so they can't appeal it - they won! There's no legal route for them to quibble about the details; they already won. The appeal will come from people who don't like Trump (and they just did); they'll be in the Colorado Supreme Court (that's the state supreme court, not federal) pointing out that if he can't be president it doesn't make sense to include him in the job interview process, and Trump's lawyers will have to argue that he can so run for president. And neither point will be particularly important, because the judge already blew a hole in the campaign below the waterline.
She allowed Trump to remain on the ballot for what are arguably silly legal technicality reasons, after agreeing as a finding of fact that he had been involved with the insurrection we all saw on TV. So the Colorado appeal can only address that technicality; the facts leading up to the question stand as a matter of record.
And now that one court has observed the insurrection as a fact, other state and federal courts don't have to hear it at all. All subsequent judges in all jurisdictions can ask, in effect, "So after Donald Trump did all that insurrecting, what's your excuse for thinking he can still be president?"
A few on the far right are trying out various arguments explaining why the office of president is not actually a government office; none of them sound very convincing.
H @ 856
Already under-way here.
The vile fascist, P. Theil is doing this with our NHS data.
According to your link, Trump’s appealing the finding of insurrection. We’ll see what happens.
anonemouse @ 838:
Massive overweening authoritarianism != fascism
OTOH, fascism == massive overweening authoritarianism.
Greg Tingey @ 846:
Rbt Prior
Several Someones powerful wanted Brexit for their own reasons - MONEY, lots & lots of MONEY.
The poster-boy for this is Grease-Smaug, of course, but also rich arseholes like Bamford ( of "JCB" ) the Barclays, P Theil, etc.
I've also seen suggestions of interference from "someone" expecting to reclaim former hegemonic glory from a divided & weakened Europe.
Heteromeles @ 856:
Thoughts?
Binana Republic?
(Sorry, but you KNOW somebody had to say it ... Heteromeles would be disappointed if nobody did.)
And now that one court has observed the insurrection as a fact, other state and federal courts don't have to hear it at all. All subsequent judges in all jurisdictions can ask, in effect, "So after Donald Trump did all that insurrecting, what's your excuse for thinking he can still be president?"
Not exactly. Different jurisdictions in general tend to defer to rulings in other jurisdictions. But do not have to do so. Which is why in the US there is always bits of law that are not the same in various bits of the country and if someone gets upset they get to ask the Supremes to figure out who is correct. Which at times they seriously don't want to do and play all kinds of games involving splitting of extremely fine hairs and sending things back down to lower courts trying to get them to work it out.
I sometimes think that America as a society is designed to produce a small set of global alpha predators, loose them on the world, and then reap the spoils. It is willing to make a lot of sacrifices to achieve that goal, with the understanding that the spoils will make up for the sacrifices. Europe is designed to optimize the greatest good for the most people. That's a fundamentally different goal.
This joke sums it up nicely: "When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience gets the money and the man with money gets the experience".
Historically[1], most Americans who heard this joke either laughed or nodded sagely. Either way, they approved -- this is the natural way of things. Conning a young an inexperienced person out of his money is a right and proper thing to do -- how else is he going to learn his way in the world? And if he fails to learn, and thus remains a prey instead of becoming a predator, that's just natural selection.
[1] Don't know if it still the case, perhaps it is not
And I’m glad that another US military veteran is following in the footsteps of Smedley Butler.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/coup-jan6-fdr-new-deal-business-plot-1276709/
Right. A friend of mine, a historian in Canada, wrote a thesis(?)book(?) on the ARD in France from 1871(?) to WWI. In it, he mentions around 1907, someone deciding to run for the Presidency?, and buying a major French Parisian newspaper to do it.
Glad to hear it. Given Ellen was about to finish her course of Paxlovid, we basically cancelled Thanksgiving, and I drove out to a diner to pick up turkey dinner (mediocre would be high praise for it).
Think I'll make my stuffing today, but I need to get an apple... (takes sausage, and an apple, and, unlike the dinner, bread cubes, not crumbs, and less salt).
How about $50M? What more do you need?
And if the billionaires don't like it... there's always the French or Russian solution.
Absolutely. Why go to the bother of dealing with countries like Turks and Caicos when you can turn your own country into a money haven?
Scott Sanford @ 859:
I want to unpack this, since there are several layers of interlocking things going on and they're not all obvious even to people who live in the US and should therefore be familiar with the American legal and political systems. Most people outside the US have no reason to already know any of this, because it's complicated and rooted in obscure things specific to the US.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution says insurrectionists are ineligible to hold office, which is why various groups have filed suits to keep Trump off of various state primary ballots. So far so good? Not so fast!
[...]
She allowed Trump to remain on the ballot for what are arguably silly legal technicality reasons, after agreeing as a finding of fact that he had been involved with the insurrection we all saw on TV. So the Colorado appeal can only address that technicality; the facts leading up to the question stand as a matter of record.
And now that one court has observed the insurrection as a fact, other state and federal courts don't have to hear it at all. All subsequent judges in all jurisdictions can ask, in effect, "So after Donald Trump did all that insurrecting, what's your excuse for thinking he can still be president?"
From my point of view, the fatal flaw in the whole idea is that Trump HAS NOT (YET?) been convicted of any crime that can be remotely construed as "insurrection".
Yeah, we all KNOW he did it, but this ain't the Red Queen's court - "punishment first, trial later".
If the U.S. is going to be faithful to the concept of Due Process of Law (and I think we should, even in the worst of cases - someone who would not grant us the same if he had power), he has to be tried & fairly convicted before Section 3 can apply.
I don't like it, but that's the way it's got to be!
As much as I'd hope to see DJT thrown UNDER the jail at GITMO, it will not be good for the country to play fast & loose with due process to get him there.
PS: I'm not sure where the expression "thrown under the jail" comes from but it's a colloquial term I've heard all my life ... like it's one step beyond "Lock him up and throw away the key".
Another view of the whole thing that I read is that the judge set it up to be overturned... and wanted the appeals court to get it, because she didn't want the death threats to her, her court, and her family.
whitroth @ 869:
Glad to hear it. Given Ellen was about to finish her course of Paxlovid, we basically cancelled Thanksgiving, and I drove out to a diner to pick up turkey dinner (mediocre would be high praise for it).
Think I'll make my stuffing today, but I need to get an apple... (takes sausage, and an apple, and, unlike the dinner, bread cubes, not crumbs, and less salt).
I went with straight "Stove Top" this year ... It's Ok 😏 ... but certainly not as good as home-made and it DOES have too much salt.
I rarely use salt, except for just a little bit in cooking. But if I can TASTE it, there's too much.
I don't really have any problem with salt, but I limit it for reasons of TASTE - I prefer other spices to add flavor with only the tiniest pinch of salt to activate them.
Last year I made my own stuffing with with all the end slices from the loaf bread I had accumulated over the preceding year. Take the end pieces & accumulate them in a bread bag and they naturely freeze dry themselves in the freezer. They're easily cubed when I get ready to use them for the stuffing.
I add mushrooms, some veggies (whatever I have on hand as the whim takes me) and craisins (Cranberry "raisins").
I get turkey necks for making STOCK - "boil" them down in a CrockPot with chopped celery, green onions ... (again whatever I have available & whim). The meat from that, the "veggies" & some of the stock are used in the stuffing.
Once the bones are dried they go into compost. I crush them up so I don't have to worry about animals digging them out.
The carcass from the first turkey breast is in the CrockPot right now. The other will get the same treatment after I slice all the meat off of it.
Sausage & apples sounds like a good addition to the "recipe".
Problem is THEY put me on a low carb diet & I don't have any bread end slices this year.
TODAY is dish washing day ... and packing up leftovers so they won't spoil before I can eat them. Fortunately, that doesn't look to be a major problem this year.
I have a dishwasher, but I've been hand washing for so long, it's really a bother using it. So I don't.
Damn! I just got a scare. It's 4:00pm and I just noticed I have (I had?) a 3:00pm doctors appointment today ...
Called the VA & it turns out it was cancelled, which is why they hadn't sent me any reminders ... when they cancelled I failed to remove the note I made when they first scheduled it.
The VA really does not like you to miss appointments, and it's always difficult to get another appointment if you do. Fortunately, I didn't miss one. Dodged the bullet this time so to speak. 🙃
Making stock's more than I want to do.
The recipe that I use for stuffing, my late wife found on usenet... and after we made it once, we decided we didn't need any other, and my kids agree. I buy the unseasoned bread cubes, then celery and onion and mushroom and an apple, cut small and sauteed. And then sage (if possible) sausage, browned. Add it all together, with broth (chicken broth will do), and one egg. Yes, an egg as a binder. I think I got that from my grandmother. Sage, garlic, maybe some ginger, salt and pepper, thyme, maybe rosemary. Then stuff, or, what I'll do this evening, put it in a small roasting pan, and roast it (maybe I'll baste it in the process. About 45 min, IIRC. I'll make gravy to go with it.
Our dishwasher's dead, and I need to get it replaced, at least for parties.
Nah. That was a sales pitch aimed at the elderly jingoists in the UK, precious few of whom had a clue about what the empire really involved. What the principals wanted was a banana republic, free of things like taxes and regulations, as whitroth said.
Yes down here we also have the Yellow Wattle bird -- guess why. I do have to point out though that when I was in the States once I asked a friend of mine "What's the red winged black bird called?", completely forgetting my Dr. Hook. So it's not just us.
Oh that is very cool!
As a health professional I would just like to say -- one day of high carb is not going to hurt your body but will heal your spirit.
Yes down here we also have the Yellow Wattle bird -- guess why. I do have to point out though that when I was in the States once I asked a friend of mine "What's the red winged black bird called?", completely forgetting my Dr. Hook. So it's not just us.
Yes, Australia is special. It’s a place where mistletoes, the parasitic plants, are extraordinarily diverse, and there’s an Australian species called the mistletoebird that mostly eats mistletoe berries and spreads the plants by pooping seeds out on branches.
Australia is a place where an acacia tree species known as the yellow wattle grows. And t is of course the home of yellow wattlebirds. Thing is, yellow wattles grow in northern Queensland in the tropics, while yellow wattlebirds live in very temperate Tasmania. The two never meet in the wild, and yellow wattlebirds get their name because of their somewhat obvious yellow wattles.
Yes, Australia is special.
It’s stupid to expect a binana bureaucracy to regulate the company that owns it, and we’ve got good reasons to want to regulate them.
That's one of the main plot strands of Robocop. The secret fourth directive.
Yes, that's my impression. What her motives were I'm not sure about; could have been personal, could have been wanting to get the ruling bumped up to a higher level.
The recipe that I use for stuffing, my late wife found on usenet... and after we made it once, we decided we didn't need any other, and my kids agree. I buy the unseasoned bread cubes, then celery and onion and mushroom and an apple, cut small and sauteed. And then sage (if possible) sausage, browned. Add it all together, with broth (chicken broth will do), and one egg. Yes, an egg as a binder. I think I got that from my grandmother. Sage, garlic, maybe some ginger, salt and pepper, thyme, maybe rosemary. Then stuff, or, what I'll do this evening, put it in a small roasting pan, and roast it (maybe I'll baste it in the process. About 45 min, IIRC. I'll make gravy to go with it.
That sounds good. When I make a stuffed turkey, or capon; I tend to use chestnuts instead of bread (for Christmas, no Thanksgiving around here). Sometimes I put some foie gras in the middle and in the sauce, though not when my son who hates the stuff is invited.
And, I presume, whoever is marketing this "BINANA"* would then receive the money the redundant personnel used to get. The difficulty I see is economies seem to work better with money in a lot of hands, it's like they want to find out how many undergarment they can shove into an IC vehicle's air intake before it won't run. *Or any other scheme of automation, for that matter.
Dramlin @ 880:
As a health professional I would just like to say -- one day of high carb is not going to hurt your body but will heal your spirit.
Yeah, that's what the nutritionist told me when she gave me the chart of foods I can eat all I want and those I'm supposed to eat less of.
I'm not worried about the carbs from yesterday. In fact I only had small servings of the potatoes & the stuffing and there aren't a whole lot of leftovers from them.
I used to go through a couple loaves of bread every week, saving the end slices & freezing them. By the end of a year, I'd have a full loaf size bag of end slices to use for making stuffing for the holidays.
But since I've been on the low carb regimen, I'm not accumulating those frozen end slices, so I had to buy stuffing mix. It was Ok, but my home-made is better and the mix has more salt in it than I like to use.
I'll think about it and figure out a different way to do the home-made for next year.
OFH replied to this comment from Greg Tingey on November 18, 2023 2 12:16 in # 500:
Maybe in the Apple world, but all four of my Android OS phones have required a QR code app.
However, web URLs can use Unicode instead of normal text to fool users. See https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/19/phishing-url-trick-hackers
David L replied to this comment from Greg Tingey on November 19, 2023 @ 16:56 in # 587:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Q81Yn5m shows what the share button looks like in Chrome for Android - look for the orange outlines with rounded corners.
https://imgur.com/a/fH4m856 also shows what it looks like in Firefox for Windows.
Y'know, if they just used the word "share" instead of a silly picture, then everyone would know what it means and there wouldn't be any need for websites with pictures of the silly picture to translate it with.
And they should never have allowed Unicode in URLs.
OGH replied to this comment from Robert Prior on November 19, 2023 @ 17:07 in # 588:
Is the Finnish solution, of scaling fines to the offender's income, acceptable? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
" spending about 30 minutes explaining tides "
I think you probably under-estimate how complicated tides are in the real world.
To start with you've (in theory) got a tidal bulge pulled around the planet by a moon (and another by the sun). But even if we just talk about the lunar tides: in the real world, you don't actually have a tidal bulge moving around the earth under the moon. The real world is far more complicated.
But tides are very hard to model accurately from first principles on any world with a coastline. When the tidal bulge of water pulled by the moon hits a coast, and the moon moves on, the bulge doesn't follow the moon, instead it reflects and slops back. And then the coriolis effect is huge.
So tidal bulges of "high tide" do not move across the planet from East to West. Instead what we find is that the ocean's tidal bulges spiral around, centered on "amphidromic" points, which are points at which there is no tide at all (like the eye of a hurricane). With the direction of spiral being different in the northern and southern hemisphere. Predicting where those amphidromic points would be is (in theory) possible, but actually the modelling involved is very hard given complicated coastlines, so really they measure to find them and apply some theory after that - tide modelling is semi-empirical.
Here in New Zealand the tidal bulges go around the islands anti-clockwise. That which doesn't really make sense for our hemisphere but is because we're between amphidromic points. That makes for an unholy mess in Cook Strait (between the North and South Islands) where the north-travelling and south-travelling tides meet - very strong currents, which reset twice a day, and have more than one stable state that they reset into.
And there's how big the tide is - which depends again on where you, where the nearest amphidromic point is, local coastline, etc. UK and NZ both mostly have very big differences high tide to low tide. The continental USA mostly doesn't (with a few exceptions), though Alaska does. In the whole of the Caribbean tides are so small they hardly exist (so those pirates "setting sailing on the evening tide, yarrr" probably didn't give a damn what the tide was).
Lest we forget the saying from the classics - that - Hubris is always followed by Nemesis
kiloseven
Except that QR codes DO NOT WORK on my phone ... though I've been told that, now, one needs an appropriate "phone App" to read them & more recent phones do not read them automatically. Which makes life even easier - I just don't bother to get the App ... { GRIN }
Oh, & - many courts in the UK also use something very like the Finnish system, actually.
icehawk
The, um, "progress" of the tidal bulges & high tides around the British Isles are ... very interesting ...
High tides meet each other coming up/down the Irish Sea in both directions .. ditto up the Channel & down the North Sea, or places like the Isle of Wight, which has "double tides".
I suspect that he was explaining just the fundamental basis of tides, which IS fairly simple (see #584). Yes, obviously, you can't explain tides including the fluid dynamics aspects in 30 minutes, even to someone who already knows the underlying mathematics. But it may surprise you how many people don't understand even the basic reason - note that the standard elementary 'explanation' is bollocks.
Pundit: tides are caused by the moon's gravitational attraction on the earth.
Puzzled: but why doesn't it just pull the whole earth uniformly.
Pundit: because the land is fixed and water can move. Aliter: because it attracts the water more than the land.
No, I am NOT kidding! I knew both were crap, but I was puzzled until "differential effects' clicked in my mind.
How about $50M? What more do you need?
Anecdote: around 2012, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, wanted to buy a house in London. His requirements were: four bedrooms (he had two kids), a garden (the figure of "a tenth of an acre" was mentioned in news coverage: that's not huge, right?), and it needed to be in a reasonable state school catchment area. He retained an estate agent and gave them a budget of $50M to work with.
After 11 months they got back in touch and said there was nothing available within his budget range that met all the requirements. (The garden size was probably the deal breaker; four bedroom row houses in good school areas could certainly be had for under $5M back then ... without a garden big enough to build another house on.)
Second anecdote: you may remember Jeremy Corbyn, the last socialist to lead the Labour Party? Jezza and spouse live in Islington North, in North London, in a former council house (i.e. a housing scheme) which was privatized in the 1980s and which he owns because he bought it at the time -- long term residents got a huge discount when buying a house they'd rented, by order of Thatcher (who wanted to expand home ownership). It's not in a particularly desirable part of town (North Islington is the downmarket working class bit: South Islington is poshville) and the most recent valuation (per the press) was a couple of million quid. Yes, Jeremy Corbyn is a millionaire -- strictly on paper, and entirely due to inflation in the London housing market.
Anyway, I mention this because ...
If you cap personal wealth at $50M, you will deflate the real estate market -- nobody will be able to afford the more expensive homes currently on the market, and sellers will be required to sell at a paper loss or take a huge tax haircut. This in turn will reduce the amount of debt available to lending institutions which they turn around to create money. Which in turn will exert a huge deflationary pressure on the entire economy because you abruptly shrank the money supply.
Real estate backed money is the ticking nuclear time bomb underneath the British, US, Japanese, Chinese, Canadian, Australian, and a bunch of other economies. And until we figure out a way to defuse that time bomb without triggering a global depression, it's a bad idea to go snipping wires at random.
(Having said which, the bomb badly needs defusing and I'd have zero problem with an absolute $50M wealth cap -- or significantly lower if we could take the price of housing out of the equation.)
From my point of view, the fatal flaw in the whole idea is that Trump HAS NOT (YET?) been convicted of any crime that can be remotely construed as "insurrection".
Oops, that part was my error - and there's really not much excuse, as Trumpsters have been howling "Show me one person convicted of insurrection!" since January 6th, 2020.
In American law "insurrection" isn't a crime in the sense that there's a criminal offense called Insurrection and the word Insurrection will appear on an indictment when the insurrectionist is hauled into court. So we've got hundreds of rioters convicted, and many jailed, but none have been locked up for "insurrection."
Trump's lawyers may try that argument, that he's still eligible since he hasn't been found guilty yet, but with him facing multiple judges assessing a huge pile of different charges, it seems like a risky gamble to go on record as saying, "He can be president because he hasn't been found guilty of a crime."
Another view of the whole thing that I read is that the judge set it up to be overturned... and wanted the appeals court to get it, because she didn't want the death threats to her, her court, and her family.
That's exactly right, too. The loonies were already coming out of the woodwork and making threats just because she happened to be the one hearing the case.
The question can't reasonably be decided by a low-level judge in a single state anyway, but she could metaphorically set up an unstable support column, put up a "load bearing pile; to save Trump Empire, do not touch" sign, and walk away casually...
However, web URLs can use Unicode instead of normal text to fool users.
The Guardian (and newspapers in general) are a poor guide to internet security.
Yes, domain names can include unicode characters. But desktop web browsers almost universally flag up characters in a URL that look like Latin-1 but aren't in a different colour, for exactly that reason.
Handheld devices, not so much.
(Which is why for online banking I either use the bank's own trusted app with 2-factor authentication, or a desktop web browser with script blockers and ad blockers and a 2FA device. Never use a handheld web browser for anything involving money!)
Yes. He who rides a tiger .... Some history for anyone interested who doesn't know:
When mortgage interest relief was introduced (in the 1960s, if I recall), it was for only a year. However, they then extended it because it was electorally popular, and it rapidly became clear that they had created a Ponzi scheme; if any government in the first decade had wanted to stop it, it would have been fairly easy, but they didn't. Later, the insurance companies and pensions started to depend on it, and it became self-sustaining. Land-banking developers and (often foreign) investors buying properties and leaving them idle are symptoms, not causes. Discounted sell-offs (*) didn't help, of course.
When the crash comes (and it WILL come), the UK will be among the worst-hit countries, because so much of our public-facing economy depends on that Ponzi scheme.
(*) It wasn't just Thatcher, nor did she even start it, but she was definitely the worst. And, unlike the other supporters of such schemes, she both forced massive discounts and (originally) intended to forbid councils from using the money to build new houses, though Heseltine ameliorated that. Much as she did with British publicly-owned industry and business :-(
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/26/right-to-buy-margaret-thatcher-david-cameron-housing-crisis
Brilliant summary as always, these people need to hear this message to bring them back to Earth as it exists. We need to bring pragmatism back, to face the problems of the day as they are without all of the junk ideology that leads to the confirmation biases of which you speak. Have you ever considered writing nonfiction to get your perspective out to a broader audience? Your takes on current events are so well thought out and model free, meaning you don't seem to attach yourself to a framework which would shape your world view.
Real estate backed money is the ticking nuclear time bomb underneath the British, US, Japanese, Chinese, Canadian, Australian, and a bunch of other economies.
not sure about japan, it was madness during the bubble but now with the shrinking population you can pick places up for very reasonable prices, though less so in the major cities, and i don't hear the stories about crazy rents that u hear from the UK and America - they don't seem to treat houses as assets the way we do, though land can be one
"People who don't speak English" aren't exiled to somewhere beyond the reach of modern technology, you know.
"Necessary but not sufficient," I think the phrase is.
Charlie
Altering it, only very slightly ...
Yes,
Jeremy CorbynGreg T is a millionaire -- strictly on paper, and entirely due to inflation in the London housing market. Hint: My father bought this house in 1948 for £2750 - even in its present condition it must be £1.1 million+Bonkers, isn't it?
Your later bit ...
Exclude personal-property { "Principal Private Residence" } value & cap all other wealth - by any measure whatsoever ... at £100 million - job done.
Then comes the difficult one of the property market (!)
Trump & the MAGAt's ...
Anyone else heard ot these people? - that's an awful lot of moolah crawling out of th woodwork.
Oddly enough land in the big cities in Japan can be surprisingly cheap and affordable. Charlie and I know someone who bought a plot of land in central Tokyo and built a house there (it's a Mitsubishi home, warranted by the same company that builds container ships and nuclear reactors). The site was a rather derelict shop trading in vinyl records, CDs etc. before it was levelled for the new-build.
There are more remote areas in Japan where abandoned homes and businesses can be purchased from the local authorities for a pittance, on the promise of renovation or reconstruction. My favourite little town in Japan, Onomichi has a number of small art galleries, cafes etc. based in such properties. The hostel I often stay in when I visit Onomichi, Anago-no-Nedoko is a repurposed shop in a traditional shotengari (covered shopping street).
And there's how big the tide is - which depends again on where you, where the nearest amphidromic point is, local coastline, etc
Yeah. The tides in the Bay of Fundy are partly a resonance phenomenon.
I remember back in the 80s when someone was (once again) looking at harnessing them for energy and had proposed damming the entire bay. Some researchers modelled the coastline and discovered that damming the bay would not only seriously lower the tides (and the amount of energy that could be obtained), but could flood downtown Boston.
Then either they can't read any of the rest of the site, in which case it's useless anyway, or the translation gubbins needs one extra word added to it, which is insignificant.
QR codes are perfectly safe. Web browsers that don't show you the raw web address they're directing you to are the unsafe thing here.
Just to clarify here. There are QR code reader apps on Apple iOS devices. But they have mostly fallen away as Apple built the function into their camera app. You start the app and point it at a QR code. Without taking a picture there will be a yellow bar with the URL in it. You touch the bar and it launches your browser to that site.
You get to see the location first and then my take an action to launch it. The Unicode issue can still exist but that's true for links everywhere.
And they should never have allowed Unicode in URLs.
Because all URLs should be in 7 bit ASCII. In English.
yeah, i probably have a narrower definition of affordable than a lot of people, new builds seem to run to 3-4 sen man or more just for the house around here, i'm interested in something second-hand - kind of tempted by the suicide ones, they tend to be half price, though of course few visitors will be brave enough to stay the night
u want to get a good survey on anything abandoned too, especially if it's been empty for more than a year or so, those renovations can be murderous unless ur diy skills are of the highest order, u almost never want to know what's going on under those heavy old roof tiles
Heteromeles [856] noted: "As with Amazon and book sales, taking over bureaucracies from humans looks to be a place where AI can excel, especially if an AI can provide faster, better service for cheaper, as Amazon did on book sales."
It's the kind of solution that would work very well with human supervision. That is, the AI assesses the claim and proposes a solution, the human glances at the assessment to confirm it's reasonable, and the human approves the solution. That uses computers for what they're good at (analyzing reams of data, including bureaucratic systems) and humans for what we're good at (nuances and a concern for human concerns).
Of course, that's not how it will be used. Modern capitalism is about extracting maximum profits and damn the human cost.
Exclude personal-property { "Principal Private Residence" } value & cap all other wealth - by any measure whatsoever ... at £100 million - job done.
In the US anytime we pass laws trying to do such things we create huge incomes for new hoards of lawyers and accountants.
Define "Principal Private Residence" please. We have such a thing in the US. There are 1000s of pages of tax laws, rulings, and opinions on just how to interpret that phrase.
As I said my neighbor with a daughter and grand kids in the London area plus a couple of houses he rents out has to keep a spreadsheet of when he and his are in what country and residence for how long to make sure the US and UK don't tax him to extreme. And his worth is no where near $£50M. These homes are where he put his retirement. Back when the taxes where simpler.
It's the kind of solution that would work very well with human supervision. That is, the AI assesses the claim and proposes a solution, the human glances at the assessment to confirm it's reasonable, and the human approves the solution. That uses computers for what they're good at (analyzing reams of data, including bureaucratic systems) and humans for what we're good at (nuances and a concern for human concerns).
Those human jobs will be boring for those with a brain who actually think about the proposed solutions and so they will not apply or soon quit. And will after a while be filled by people who just push yes or no based on a 2 second skim of the first line or two of the solution. Or just randomly press a button while reading today's racing form. On their phone.
Re: earlier comments on Trump, and why hasn't some judge jailed him yet?
Anyone interested should follow Teri Kanefield https://law-and-politics.online/@Teri_Kanefield on Mastodon, and on her blog. She used to work as defence appeals lawyer, so there is nothing she doesn't know about court procedure and strategy.
In particular, on the recent judgement that Trump was guilty of insurrection but was not barred from the ballot, her argument goes like this (any errors are mine):
Trump having engaged in insurrection is a question of Fact. Whether that disbars him from the presidency is a question of Law. Appeal courts are primarily there to reconsider questions of law: if the trial judge got the law wrong then they can be reversed. But appeal courts are loth to overturn trial judges on questions of fact because they weren't there to hear the evidence and judge the witness veracity.
So the decision that Trump engaged in insurrection is very likely to survive appeal. Trump is appealing that of course, but it won't go anywhere unless his lawyers can find a mistake in law. The judge basically punted on the legal question as being above his pay grade, but only on the legal question.
The question of whether POTUS is an "office" of the US is quite finely balanced. Read Teri Kanefield for more on that: I'm not going to even try to summarise.
Have you ever considered writing nonfiction to get your perspective out to a broader audience?
Surely you jest?
Aside from the Scientific American op-ed I'm currently drafting, it's really hard to earn a living writing non-fiction -- especially in the current climate, as newspapers and print magazines are laying off columnists and trying to replace journalists with LLMs ("AI" in hype-bullshit parlance) that simply remixes and regurgitates commercial press releases.
And they should never have allowed Unicode in URLs.
That sounds good at first. But would you like all permutations of it?
"They should never have allowed Japanese in URLs."
"They should never have allowed Russian in URLs."
"They should never have allowed Korean in URLs."
"They should never have allowed Thai in URLs."
Like many things, what's good for most of the people using it can be abused by people looking to make trouble. We've had fire and knives since the stone age and still sometimes have problems with them.
Scott Sanford @ 895:
Oops, that part was my error - and there's really not much excuse, as Trumpsters have been howling "Show me one person convicted of insurrection!" since January 6th, 2020.
In American law "insurrection" isn't a crime in the sense that there's a criminal offense called Insurrection and the word Insurrection will appear on an indictment when the insurrectionist is hauled into court. So we've got hundreds of rioters convicted, and many jailed, but none have been locked up for "insurrection."
Trump's lawyers may try that argument, that he's still eligible since he hasn't been found guilty yet, but with him facing multiple judges assessing a huge pile of different charges, it seems like a risky gamble to go on record as saying, "He can be president because he hasn't been found guilty of a crime."
Call it what you will, my point is he has NOT YET BEEN CONVICTED of any crimes relating to the Jan 6 autogolpe and if we are to remain true to the U.S. Constitution (and Bill of Rights), that must happen BEFORE the 14th Amendment's Section 3 can be invoked.
DUE PROCESS - He's entitled to it, WE are entitled to it.
Looks to me like the DC conspiracy case scheduled for February 9, 2024 is the best hope we have of meeting that burden before the 2024 Presidential election.
Have you ever considered writing nonfiction to get your perspective out to a broader audience?.....Surely you jest?
With a couple of caveats, I agree.
I've only published one nonfiction book, and I'll explain at the end why I self-published with Amazon instead of trying to shop Hot Earth Dreams around.
Anyway, the caveats: One is that you can, of course, fill out a collection of short stories with non-fiction essays. This might be a way to get a few more volumes published?
Another is that, as the author of Accelerando etc., you're well-placed to write "25 years after I wrote it and THIS is the Singularity we get? Oy!"-type non-fiction essays. I suspect you may be interested in giving me egg-sucking advice too, perhaps?
The thing I found out early on when writing HED is that non-fiction is all about audience size, not veracity, which is why The Art of the Deal is sold as nonfiction. This is why big names get ghost-writers, and people trying to say something new or interesting get sidelined. I'm not bitter about this, because it's about the money. New stuff is in black swan territory, and if a publisher has a thin profit margin, they have to focus on stuff they think they can sell, even if it's shit.
If you're writing pop science, the format is pretty rigid too, twelve-ish chapters that must focus largely on the stories of interesting people to illustrate whatever information you're trying to get across.
With Hot Earth Dreams, I was writing a cli-fi how-to, to help me and others get our heads around what life might be like after we were done burning stuff and were living with the consequences. A decade ago when I started working on it, it was largely unthinkable, and that was one thing fucking up our response to climate change. Most of us were stuck with a trinary choice of: it'll be fine, or: we're all going to die, or:....(waves hopelessly and changes the subject, which is the best illustration of "unspeakable" that I've so far seen). That wall is breaking down, finally. I take no credit for the change. The point I'm trying to make is that I didn't even try to do the twelve chapters retrospective shtick on a subject few people were dealing with at all. It was the wrong format.
I also had a beef with the twelve-chapter program. It leads to long chapters, and it leads to little repetition. I knew as a researcher that trying to find an anecdote in something like 1492 (let alone less well-written books) was time-consuming at best, mostly because of indexing that was mediocre at best.
So I wrote HED differently: lots of short chapters, most 1500-2500 words, the biggest in 2000-word chunks. This was suggested by some fiction writers as "30-minute commute length", so someone could read a chapter on the subway to or from work. It also meant that if you could remember which chapter something was in, at worst all you had to do was reread the chapter. And important concepts were repeated at least three times, each in a different chapter. And I did the index myself (which actually was fun), so that it references what I wanted it to reference, not what a professional index-writer independently deduced were the important points (normal procedure). The end result is that the format reinforces the information, but in doing so, it ignores publishing norms.
This was a labor of love, of course, not a profitable use of my time. But a bunch of us needed a tool like it, and now it exists.
...the figure of "a tenth of an acre" was mentioned in news coverage: that's not huge, right? ... The garden size was probably the deal breaker; four bedroom row houses in good school areas could certainly be had for under $5M back then ... without a garden big enough to build another house on...<.i>
I'm pretty sure you're right. A tenth of an acre is 400 square meters, close enough; that's not a huge garden in most places but it is anywhere near the center of London. My late grandmother had a garden about twice that, which was about a third of the total lot - but her house was in a small town in the US, not one of the major cities of human civilization.
If I'd been his realtor, I would probably have pitched the obvious solution for someone with stupid amounts of money: buy several adjacent houses, remove the various bits that aren't useful or street facing facade, and enjoy the resulting open space. But of course, busy executives want instant solutions rather than construction projects.
And to keep y'all up-to-date on what the Republicans are telling each other…
I just got an email from PenceNews 'just asking' if 'Creepy Joe Biden' hit on a six-year-old.
Projection much?
Anyone interested should follow Teri Kanefield https://law-and-politics.online/@Teri_Kanefield on Mastodon, and on her blog. She used to work as defence appeals lawyer, so there is nothing she doesn't know about court procedure and strategy.
Thank you for sharing that. Fascinating reading.
No I was not joking, but I do see nonfiction books published often so it must be selling otherwise publishers wouldn't bother.
The sorted of houses in questions were likely listed. This makes any changes difficult - we quite often see news stories about people being taken to court, and losing, because they painted their front door the wrong colour. This could be down to painting it the wrong shade of red.
Knocking down most of the building is unlikely to be permitted. It may get permitted eventually, but only after a lot of time and money are spent on the planning process. Possibly also involving some unofficial donations to the right people.
This is something that Charlie picks up very well in his most recent books. The central London property market is unusual, and the houses work better as a store of value than as something to live in.
solution that would work very well with human supervision. That is, the AI assesses the claim and proposes a solution, the human glances at the assessment to confirm it's reasonable
Australia has a significant problem with housing quality. Even where the regulations are solid despite the efforts of the industry they are too often "as designed" rather than "as built". Viz, you have to say "I'm going to put insulation in" and you have to pick a certifier who will say they saw some insulation, hut you don't actually have to insulate the house. Considerable effort goes into gaming the regulations and the market. By, for example, threatening to sue councils who won't allow (re)development of flood plains. But also by tricks like "phoenixing" - taking the profit, winding up the company, then starting another one for your next project. That seven year statutory warranty? It's a liability dissoved when the company responsible was wound up.
The parts of that that are not already privatised are already as small as they can be while still existing. Making those parts LLMs instead of people would save very little money while opening up new exploits to people whose professional career is finding exploits in regulatory systems.
(that particular industry covers exploits across everything from environmental protection rules to tax ones)
Others have already mentioned the financial side of that industry (they do work to get money, that's an industry)
I'm sure there are many other areas where LLMs would have similar effects. Like the "three waters" problem in Aotearoa (the waters are rivers/lakes/sea, retitulated drinking water, and sewage. Much money has been saved by councils over the last few decades and that bill is due). You can't turn a few billion a year of total revenue into 10x that in annual spending to fix infrastructure just by replacing other outgoings with
bitcoin miningAI farms.Charlie
Aside from the Scientific American op-ed I'm currently drafting - err ... You WILL let us know when it publishes, won't you?
Rbt Prior @ 919
See also my query @ 903??
AI
I've been looking for reliable non-tech language discussions on AI - posted a day ago on the World Science Festival YT channel.
AI: Grappling with a New Kind of Intelligence (1:55:50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGDG3hgPNp8
Guests:
Sébastien Bubeck - Machine Learning Foundations group at Microsoft Research
Tristan Harris - ethicist - Center for Humane Technology (CHT), nonprofit org mission: align technology with humanity’s best interests
Yann LeCun - META - Turing Award for deep learning
Moderator: Brian Greene - theoretical physicist & science communicator
Curious about what folks here think about the points of view presented.
Call it what you will, my point is he has NOT YET BEEN CONVICTED of any crimes relating to the Jan 6 autogolpe
Does he have to be convicted of some crime? Section 3 of the 14th amendment doesn't mention any felony conviction. It specifies that (1) you have to have taken an oath to uphold the constitution, and (2) you have to have subsequently "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [Constitution], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
And I'm hearing that the judge in Colorado has considered the evidence and witnesses and then issued a finding of fact that he has indeed engaged in an insurrection. So in that sense he has been 'convicted' of insurrection. Should be all that's necessary.
Yep. Publishers are still publishing, but the cover price is high - the last specialist text I bought was £50 for a second hand paperback - and the sales are way down on what they were in the 90s.
It really is hardly worth the author's effort anymore. Unless you are famous (perhaps writing an appraisal of Shakespeare), you're famous and its your autobiography (which is probably fiction anyway) or you're just very lucky, its months of evenings spent writing for a very poor financial return. Stacking shelves in Tescos is a way more profitable way of raising income.
For most technical subjects - ie those not likely to be the subject of Horizon programs, long articles in the Graun or Arstech webpages, its a mugs game.
Lets just say my royalties cheques have not changed my way of life. I have now given up as my last book was available from a Russian download site before I had received a physical copy from the publisher.
I think the theory is that if enough people claim vigorously enough that the rule of law is important Trump will change his mind and agree with them.
Section 3 of the 14th amendment doesn't mention any felony conviction. It specifies that (1) you have to have taken an oath to uphold the constitution, and (2) you have to have subsequently "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [Constitution], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
Here's the text of Amendment 14.3: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State,to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."
Here's the Congressional Oath of Office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
Here's the Presidential Oath of Office: ""I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
I suspect this difference in oath is what the judge didn't want to rule on?
Now, a cynic might argue that, for someone like a Donald Trump, engaging in an insurrection against the US was him doing his best for the US Constitution. Someone who's more legally minded could probably make a case that an active conspiracy to start an insurrection is not the best any POTUS can do. Following the law and not conspiring is the best, and doing nothing in this case is a close second.
One can also agree with Thomas Paine (1776, "Common Sense"), who wrote: "...so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."
If one accepts the rule of law as paramount, then how is a POTUS not an officer of that law, no matter that they swear a different oath? Under this notion, the POTUS is "an officer of the United States," the 14th Amendment clearly applies to the POTUS too, and engaging in an insurrection disqualifies him from holding office unless he gets 2/3 of Congress to say otherwise.
I'm quite sure this has been debated to death elsewhere on the web. We'll see what the courts actually say. Me? I'm with Paine on this.
Being convicted of a crime means you lose some of your 'rights', as I understand it. The 'Right' to freedom of movement being the most obvious, but in many places the right to vote or other rights are also lost.
Nobody has the 'Right' to be president. Best case, anyone can try. But nobody under 45 (40?) can be president, regardless of criminal history. No US citizen that wasn't born a US citizen can be president, though they theoretically enjoy all the other rights.
I see no issue with someone who has been found in legal 'fact' to have committed insurrection to also not be eligible to run for president, given that many millions are not allowed and all they did was be born too late or in the wrong place.
icehawk @ 891: I think you probably under-estimate how complicated tides are in the real world.
That's putting it mildly. See https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/publications/SpecialPubNo98.pdf
William Thompson, aka Lord Kelvin, put the maths of harmonic analysis of tides on a practical footing. It was so complicated that he also invented a special-purpose analogue computer to help.
The Wikipedia picture looks more steampunk - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/DSCN1739-thomson-tide-machine.jpg
Greg Tingey @ 903: Trump & the MAGAt's ... Anyone else heard of these people? - that's an awful lot of moolah crawling out of th woodwork.
Not specifically, but it seems to be a trend.
The GOP seems to be full of people who regard each other as useful idiots. The billionaires see MAGA as Useful Idiots who will vote down their taxes. Trump sees everyone who sends him money as a Useful Idiot. The Federalist Society (which grooms republicans for judgeships) sees Trump as a Useful Idiot who will appoint who he is told to. The people behind Project 2025 (which is seriously scary stuff) see both Trump and Republican voters as Useful Idiots who will implement their fascist agenda. Oh, and Putin sees the whole lot as Useful Idiots in his eternal War On The West.
Smashing everything up - continued - even iof it's tory councils & their vote gets trashed ... because ... then, Labour will have to scrape up the mess - & raise taxes.
It's clearly deliberate.
Paul
Thanks, I think .... at the same time ... euuuwww!
There's a word for this sort of programme, because, of course it's been done before & we can all guess where, can't we?
The word is: Gleichschaltung
Heteromeles @ 929: Here's the text of Amendment 14.3: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military,...
I believe the sticking point is over the question of whether "any office" includes the presidency, given that another part of the constitution lists the qualifications for the presidency, and it doesn't refer to this bit. The question has never arisen before, so SCOTUS is going to have to get its Ouija Board out to try to divine the original intent of the drafter and the legislators who voted for it (including the ones who were strong-armed into it). The amendment doesn't list the presidency, and it could have, so maybe that's significant. Or maybe not.
Uncle Stinky @ 932: The Wikipedia picture looks more steampunk
Ahh, that's Kelvin's tide predictor, which is also in the Science Museum in London, along with a lot of other really interesting and occasionally weird stuff.
If I understand correctly, you first took observations of the tide in the target location using a tide recorder such as this one. Then you traced the curve into the harmonic analyzer to tease out the amplitudes and frequencies making up the waveform. Those values were then set on the dials of the predictor to get a graph of the tides for the future. The main frequencies due to sun, moon and seasons are constant, but the effects of local sloshing due to the shape of the coast could only be managed empirically.
Lord Kelvin spent his life on a combination of pure science and practical problems. He patented many of his solutions to the latter and became very wealthy as a result. He was a pioneer of fourier analysis, which he applied to the tides and the problems with undersea telegraph cables amongst others.
As it happens I have written non-fiction; it turns out that the sort of speculative pop-sci you're asking for is a very hard sell in today's publishing market unless you have a famous name attached (famous in academia will do, at a pinch, if you're Stephen Pinker): you need to be a recognizable pundit, is the thing.
(People vastly overemphasize how widely recognized SF authors are.)
Yes. It wasn't until a couple of decades ago that computers became powerful enough to model the details of tides, despite it having been a 'solved problem' since Kelvin's day.
My understanding is that very few people make even the minimum wage writing ANY form of non-fiction, and there motives for doing so are rarely directly financial.
It really is hardly worth the author's effort anymore.
I gave up on non-fiction software books when I worked out that if I tried to live on the advance/royalties from O'Reilly (a highly reputable publisher!) I'd starve to death. It's really a game for consultants and/or academics, who can generate book sales and pad their CV for other work (consultancy, public speaking, academia) if they publish.
The rule of thumb is, in non-fiction you publish in order to justify some institution paying you for your expertise. In fiction, you publish in order for the public to buy your books and pay you directly.
The word "publishing" thus has two highly divergent meanings. And the publishing "industry" is actually about a dozen different business models flying in very loose formation, connected solely by the fact that they're links in a supply chain between people who write and people or institutions that consume text.
In which context, O'Reilly are one of the few publishers I have spent my money (not just my employer's) on books from.
David L [912] responded to my suggestion that pairing human oversight with AI to handle the red tape might work: "Those human jobs will be boring for those with a brain who actually think about the proposed solutions and so they will not apply or soon quit."
While I don't agree with your general principle, I'd note that these jobs are already mindless and soul crushing, and are not chosen by anyone who has an alternative. What you've forgotten is how much of the population has no alternative. My point was not that pairing AI with humans would magically become wonderful jobs, but rather that by using the AI to eliminate a lot of the soul-crushing red tape, they'd make the jobs less unpleasant. In some cases, might even make the work pleasant if you knew you were helping a fellow human.
Famous names: in the preface to the updated version of A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking says he's sold more books talking about science than Madonna has about sex.
Yes, and J. K. Rowling has sold more books about Wizarding Skool than I have, but that's a meaningless comparison too. (Hawking is an outlier: like any other area of publishing, there's a long tail at work and he's right at the opposite end of the curve from everyone else.)
. My point was not that pairing AI with humans would magically become wonderful jobs, but rather that by using the AI to eliminate a lot of the soul-crushing red tape, they'd make the jobs less unpleasant. In some cases, might even make the work pleasant if you knew you were helping a fellow human.
I used to be where you are.
My wife did 18 years in a major airline call center working in various groups. Domestic, international, "premium", baggage, etc... Then 12 years at their HQ.
The #1 company goal is to figure out how to reduce the headcount or make it less skilled. As less skilled means less pay. The aspirations of people with a brain passing judgement is a fantasy.
And while there are lot of people with a brain who wind up in these jobs due to it being a last resort, most of those move on as soon as they can. Either externally or internally. Some DO stick around but they are the odd ducks. Most of them do it as with a bit of seniority it can be a nice mindless gig. If you have a spouse (define as you wish) with a decent job or don't care to be in the upper half of the income group, you can bid for lifestyle shifts, put in your time or offer others the hours, get decent benefits, and travel the world. But this "odd duck" requires a certain mind set to be able to live in a universe of petty and changing rules that contradict the rules of a few years ago.
FYI - college grads who were job hunting and then wound up at "res" for a while would do things like form a basketball league that played in a city with a major hub or a rotation of such cities on weekend or other decided days. Or organized a Miami Beach party for 40. When you're 23 and single such things are easier.
J. K. Rowling has sold more books about Wizarding Skool
Do you have stats on the average vs median income of the hard cover book writers? I understand the numbers are very different.
Sort of like real estate agents in the US.
Yes. There is also a significant number of people writing non-fiction as a hobby (including many non-political memoires), or to bolster their ego (usually political memoires). The often make some money on it, but not enough to make a living, and I get the impression that most are retired.
"Hard cover book" approximates to trad published -- self-pub is ebook and print-on-demand (paperbacks).
I have no current figures, but received wisdom a decade ago was that the median novelist made significantly less than £5000 a year and the mean -- taking into account JKR, GRRM, and other runaway bestsellers -- was still making less than the average shop worker.
(I am not average, but I'm still just another working middle-class stiff. And I hold the all-time record for consecutive years with a novel on the Hugo award shortlist, and the record for Hugo nominations by a non-American author ... are you getting a picture here?)
the median novelist made significantly less than £5000 a year
That's the number I was curious about.
So it has to be a hobby for way more than half of the authors.
Paul @ 935:
Heteromeles @ 929: Here's the text of Amendment 14.3: "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military,...
I believe the sticking point is over the question of whether "any office" includes the presidency, given that another part of the constitution lists the qualifications for the presidency, and it doesn't refer to this bit. The question has never arisen before, so SCOTUS is going to have to get its Ouija Board out to try to divine the original intent of the drafter and the legislators who voted for it (including the ones who were strong-armed into it). The amendment doesn't list the presidency, and it could have, so maybe that's significant. Or maybe not.
Clearly the Presidency is an "office" under the Constitution ... but what constitutes "insurrection or rebellion against" the Constitution? Is it like obscenity; "I know it when I see it!"?
Half the country can't agree whether the Jan 6 riot & invasion of the Capitol building was an insurrection. And even if it was, what was Trumpolini's participation? He was sitting in the White House dining room, stuffing his face.
Who decides whether he participated in insurrection or not?
This is almost certainly going to be appealed to the Supreme Court of the U.S. and if the decision there is ANYTHING other than to overturn (minimum 6-3) in Trumpolini's favor, I shall be very much surprised ...
HELL, even if he's convicted in the DC Conspiracy trial or the Georgia RICO case, I'll be surprised if SCOTUS rules that qualifies under 14.3.
Ratified July 9, 1868, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is fairly specific language directly addressing those former military officers and government officials who participated in the "Confederacy" during the late War of the Rebellion ... especially those who took leadership roles in the Confederacy after secession.
[1] https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Chart-of-Past-14.3-Disqualifications-rev.-07.10.23.pdf - The eight cases where someone WAS disqualified under 14.3 and note that in several cases that disqualification was overturned even though there was no question they were covered.
[2] Amnesty Act of 1872 states that all political disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment "are hereby removed," but does not explicitly mention whether future disabilities under the same amendment are also to be considered removed.
Yes, but also it's apparent that political biographies are a way of covertly laundering donations to politicians. At least in the US, you can set up a PAC that pulls in donations from some shady billionaire, then spends them on a bulk order for tens of thousands of hardcovers to an LLC owned by a relative of the politician (or the politician themselves). The fake-bookseller LLC buys the books at a 70% to 80% discount from the publisher and dumps them on the remainder market or donates them to charity as a tax write-off, so most of the money goes into the LLC (owned by the politician), the LLC takes a hefty tax loss to reduce their liability, and then half the publisher's receipts get paid out in royalties to the politician. Upshot is, the publisher gets about 10% of the net price, the politician gets about 80% of net price via the LLC (paid for by the PAC) effectively tax-free, and the publisher gets their expenses covered (plus the bragging rights to a political autobiography that went bestseller).
Who decides whether he participated in insurrection or not?
A judge, who else? In this case District Judge Sarah B. Wallace. This has already been adjudicated. From the NPR story:
"In her decision, Wallace said she found that Trump did in fact "engage in insurrection" on Jan. 6 and rejected his attorneys' arguments that he was simply engaging in free speech."
He was sitting in the White House dining room, stuffing his face.
Thereby "giving aid or comfort to the enemies" of the Constitution, another clause in section 3. But it's a moot point -- this has already been decided.
So it has to be a hobby for way more than half of the authors.
Back before the dot com crash in 2000, I was writing as a hobby because I had a succession of day jobs in start-ups which didn't leave time for anything more serious. I think I averaged about 2-3 years to complete a novel in those days.
If I had succeeded in selling those novels while holding down the dot-com job, the editing workflow would have prevented me from publishing more than one novel per three years, so £5000/year would have been a pretty typical living.
But then the bubble burst and I had to hastily switch to full-time tech journalism with a side order of writing fiction for a living, and suddenly I had time to do two novels a year, and Stuff Happened (I got shortlisted for a Hugo, a book publisher made me an offer, and I acquired a carnivorous and very hungry agent who went to bat for me) and suddenly it wasn't £5000/year, it was closer to £20,000 a year and rising as I built up a backlist and began selling translation rights. Then I actually won a Hugo and had a break-out novel (it earned out its advance then made about another 100% in royalties within its first month out the gate in hardcover: it went into three hardcover reprints in rapid succession) and finally regained enough financial security to pay off the credit card bills and stop worrying from month to month.
But it took a sequence of unlikely strokes of good fortune for that to happen, about 23-25 years after I sold my first short story. And if you average my writing income over that span of time -- since 1986 rather than since 2007 -- it's still not great.
But it's a moot point
This is a British blog and you should be aware that "it's a moot point" means exactly the reverse in UK English to American English. (As does "let's table the matter" -- in UK English it means to bring the matter up for discussion right now, in US English it means to leave it until later.)
you should be aware that "it's a moot point" means exactly the reverse in UK English to American English.
Thanks!
Interesting. I hope that doesn't work here.
Then I actually won a Hugo and had a break-out novel (it earned out its advance then made about another 100% in royalties within its first month out the gate in hardcover: it went into three hardcover reprints in rapid succession)
Which novel was that?
The president is also the Commander in Chief of the U.S. armed forces, and the "chief law-enforcement officer" of the United States, not to mention that 'holding an office' probably means he's an officer.
‘It has to be done’: can Reconstruction-era laws hold Trump and allies accountable? is in today's Graun.
Really horrid future idea
A "Third Party" - like the supposed "No Labels" group really competes in 2024 { Backed by heavily-laundered & plausibly-deniable "R" money, natch....
The election is too close to call, even with the Electoral College votes counted, but ... DJT is declared POTUS, but needing "3rd Party" support in Senate + "House"
IF Jan 2021 was the Munich putsch
THEN Jan 2025 is equal to Adolf becoming Reichskanzkler, with supposed "restraints" ... who are the fake "No Labels" group - who are almost certainly Rethuglican-funded via cutouts & plausibly-deniable intermediaries, yes?
Within 15 months there is a Night of the Long knives, the "No Labels* people are conveniently disposed of, DJT & the real fascists behind him are now fully in charge & the murders & the camps start up, along with a general Gleichschaltung of all the suitable Federal-&-state offices + the police depts.
Obama & family + Biden & family are conveniently shot whilst attempting to escape, of course.
What the fuck the remaining four out of the five eyes do at that point, could be ... interesting.
Side effects
Complete stock market melt-down & collapse followed by major slump, with fascists picking some countries right off, Hungary at least + Turkey, too, but not UK with a Starmer guvmint.
Complete end of US hegemony with many "minor" wars breaking out - PRC uses chaos to go for Taiwan, who promptly trash their fab lines, Britain makes emergency application to rejoin EU, with civil disturbance promoted by fascists on the tory right & of course Vladimir also stirring the pot.
Wold power shifts to PRC vs India, both of whom also have their troubles, of course.
I don't even want to have a bad dream about what that scenario would do in the area we have called GMT+2
Yes, but also it's apparent that political biographies are a way of covertly laundering donations to politicians. At least in the US,
Similar but different process in the US to funnel money from "private" churches to pastors. They write books where most of the sales are to their or other churches and then given away for, well, whatever, reason.
A lot of these "mega" and not so mega churches buy the books of other pastors and stack them in obscure rooms for years.
the median novelist made significantly less than £5000 a year
From the amateur-authors I've met I think a great many of them are like the musicians who play in a pub or busk every now and then quite literally as a hobby, and sometimes appear not to enjoy the public performance side of things at all. There's one in a community group I'm part of who is busy adding a history of the group to her output and having read some of the free chapters on Amazon of her other work paying for it would be masochism. Amazon has opened the self-published market up to anyone with $10, rather than anyone with enough cash to pay for a print run.
But that also makes it hard to draw the line between "authors in it for the money" and people who identify as authors.
Reminds me of my working as a professional photographer... I remain barely competant at the photography side but there's a market for that plus professional behaviour. People are paying for the latter and the rest is basically the cost of hiring camera gear.
My father (remember all those railway/tram/bus books? Somewhere around 100 under various names) most definitely did it as a hobby. I doubt it produced enough money to pay for all the travel to libraries and archives he did.
My two non-fiction writing adventures paid precisely nothing other than a couple of copies.
This is a British blog and you should be aware that "it's a moot point" means exactly the reverse in UK English to American English. (As does "let's table the matter" -- in UK English it means to bring the matter up for discussion right now, in US English it means to leave it until later.)
Hunh. I got confused, because neither is what I learned it as, so I looked it up. What I found (https://www.dictionary.com/e/moot-point-vs-mute-point/) was: "A moot point can be either an issue open for debate, or a matter of no practical value or importance because it’s hypothetical. The latter is more common in modern American English."
I'm used to it being used in the hypothetical irrelevancy sense, but I think it's safe to say that, by all four possible definitions, this is a moot point.
There are QR code reader apps on Apple iOS devices. But they have mostly fallen away as Apple built the function into their camera app. You start the app and point it at a QR code. Without taking a picture there will be a yellow bar with the URL in it. You touch the bar and it launches your browser to that site.
my Android phone does the same
In Scandinavia, it is 3-phases all the way baby - at least to the fuse board. Some household induction cookers take 3-phase feeds too. If it's single phase, it's ancient or some wooden shack in the forest with its own 6kV/0,4 oil-can transformer.
This Causing endless frustration in my latest job, because the lead engineers were american and they insisted on refusing local reality and doing it the American way, by distributing single phase power to each bunch of racks. The standard "here" is a "3-phase feed and using a socket strip pre-made for exactly that purpose, which distributes the load onto the phases".
So,compromise is made, we got a Power Distribution Unit, a fuse box, in each rack. Which let the Brits in with their fetish about pre-fusing all the equipment fuses! Jesus Wept!!!
News (1): Transmitting now { 09.21: 27/11/2023 } on BBC R4
Start the week - Space - the Human Story
Interviewer, astronaut, cosmologist, novelist.
Will be available on "Listen Again" from about 10.30
News (2): Christian arseholes fucking up medicine - in Britain - there must be some way of stopping them?
Label them as "Vexatious Litigants" - since they have lost every case, so far?
I'm not aware of it having been exposed: totally different funding model for political graft, frankly, and it's small beer compared to eg. Baroness Mone's whacky exploits. (Also, remember the market for books is a quarter the size in the UK? If, say, J. Random Back-Bench Tory MP's biography suddenly spiked to #1 on the Times bestseller list it'd stick out like a sore thumb, and you can end up in that position with fewer than 9000 hardback sales if your launch week is at a quiet time of year. Be a bit embarrassing to be outed for flagrant corruption if the take is under £50,000, right?)
Thanks. It's mostly ex Prime Ministers who have sizeable sales. Blair leads with 350,000 copies - he SAID that he would donate all the money to the British Legion, but he is notoriously secretive about his finances and those of his organisations, and the Telegraph has questioned that (*). But even Major, Cameron and Brown sold enough to be a significant contribution.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54294775
(*) Well, they would, wouldn't they?
Halting State.
Ex-PMs and ex-Presidents are in a special category I label "celebrity politicians" -- their autobiography sales figures are very probably genuine, although there's a tendency for big publishing houses to offer ridiculously large advances against royalties as a form of status signaling within the publishing industry ("look at me! I just dropped $10M for President Trump's Toilet Thoughts! We'll never make it back, but we can take a tax write-down and meanwhile, we are so big we can drop $10M on a celebrity bio! Look at me!"). So it's best seen as a marketing exercise.
If you want to give a back-hander to an ex-politician you don't need to bother with money laundering, just offer them a seat on the board. Turn up to a 3 hour meeting once a quarter and pocket a quarter of a million currency units in salary in return for lending the board your perceived status. Nice work if you can get it!
Stephen Hawking says he's sold more books talking about science than Madonna has about sex
But have more people actually read them than have read Madonna's books about sex?
Well, I've bought and read them, and have not read anything by Madonna.
Madonna's book "Sex" was released in 1992 with $50 price tag, which is the equivalent of $128 today. As I recall, I wanted to read it back then, but not badly enough to spend that much money.
I suspect this is a major factor in her relatively paltry sales numbers.
Robert Prior @ 972:
But have more people actually read them than have read Madonna's books about sex?
I have read A Brief History of Time: ... (still have a copy lurking about here somewhere).
OTOH, I didn't even know Madonna could read ... 😏
Madonna's book "Sex" was released in 1992 with $50 price tag, which is the equivalent of $128 today. As I recall, I wanted to read it back then, but not badly enough to spend that much money.
At the time there was a non trivial controversy about it being indecent. James Kilpatrick (a hard core conservative of the time) bought it, read it, and basically said it was very boring but not indecent in an article I read somewhere.
The metal covers had a lot to do with the price.
The point of the Madonna book was to create the controversy, which in turn sold music. The actual book sales were a side effect.
I somehow suspect that if most authors published a book that included multiple photos of themselves in flagrante delicto, the controversy would be... different, and probably would not boost sales.
A more entertaining comparison would have been Steven Hawking writing about sex vs Madonna writing about science.
He knew about sex. She is likely ignorant of science past the early teens schooling level. If that.
They are and were both experts in their fields.
Australia has a mix of both. The one I remember was a three phase UPS in a server room where everything was plugged into one phase. I found out because it kept tripping the overload and my boss didn't understand why "it's a 15kVA UPS, it's only got 7kVA of load". {cries}
Um, yeah. You do recall OGH referring to the World-Wide slush pile?
I've said before, I have no intention of ever self-publishing. Why? I picked up a book that looked interesting at Belticon from the author. I will not mention the name, but it had interesting African flavors in it. We'll ignore the plot hole that really indicated it was part of a series, with no explantion, or the character in the prolog who you really don't see much of - sort of like the original Superman movie ending before he goes off to the Fortress of Solitude.
No, the real huge thing is editing. He really needed to spend $1k or $1500 for an actual copy editor, with copy editing software. Sentence fragment, run-on sentences, saying something then having the character say it, conversations with more than one person in a single paragraph, and on, and on.
Meanwhile, my small press publisher, just on my upcoming novel, a) they created an impressive cover; b) they had it copy edited, then it went through my editor to me, I thought I'd dealt with it, when the senior editor got back to me with a number of alternate spellings that I thought I'd dealt with. That's when I went through the entire book, not just "copy edit change, accept/reject", and found three scenes that had out of order, or version 1 followed by version 2.
I fixed all of that... but think about that: they paid for a professional copy editor, and my editor and the senior editor went through it. That would have cost me well over $2000... yet I paid nothing for it. That's what having a publisher did for me.
And the copy editing was significant in itself, as the third major PoV character has a language processing disorder - a serious handicap - and unlike someone who speaks another language, like French, I can't just throw in a word or two to indicate that I have to have the misspellings and dropped letter. (My senior editor was ready to toss it in the fire, I am told), but we worked it out.
Those reasons, along with a professional editor saying "this is a good story, and I want to sell it, but here's what you need to do to make it better, are why I want a publisher.
Yes. I was more just saying... hey, I've actually met some of these people and they're as oblivious as advertised. I'm going with "people who identify as authors". I'm not judging them. Or paying them to do whatever they do.
Re: 'HELL, even if he's convicted in the DC Conspiracy trial or the Georgia RICO case, I'll be surprised if SCOTUS rules that qualifies under 14.3.'
Agree - it appears that those who make it to the top of their silo feel that rules no longer apply to them ... including some SCOTUS judges. BTW, the ethics described below are already part of the ethics that other judges are supposed to adhere to so it's not as though the SCOTUS judges are being asked to acquire a completely new mindset.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2023/nov/13/us-supreme-court-ethics-code
However since this is the same SCOTUS that overturned Roe vs. Wade, could be that they'll figure out a way of 'legally' pandering to a GOP POTUS.
I'm still watching YT videos on AI. The last one I watched included discussion about neuroscience-AI convergence/cross-fertilization of ideas and research. (I almost didn't watch it because I thought it'd be extremely techie - nope, a lot of the discussion was about general concepts.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg-w_n9NJIE
'CBMM10 Panel: Research on Intelligence in the Age of AI' (MIT)
Panel Chair: T. Poggio Panelists: D. Hassabis, G. Hinton, P. Perona, D. Siegel, I. Sutskever
The below is not part of the video ...
Imagine a world where individuals in positions of trust/responsibility had to undergo psych assessment/analysis by an AI. What are the odds that the majority of US pols/judges running for those offices would all of sudden start claiming that AI tech was against their religion ...
I mention this because religion seems to be the card increasingly used as the winning argument against ethics, rule of law, and science.
this is the same SCOTUS that overturned Roe vs. Wade
Not to mention the same SCOTUS that use as precedent a jurist who believed spectral evidence was admissible, the same SCOTUS who base their decisions on history then ignore actual history, the same SCOTUS who, unlike Caesar's wife, apparently don't worry about appearing corrupt…
Imagine a world where individuals in positions of trust/responsibility had to undergo psych assessment/analysis by an AI
I expect that would lead to an even narrower range of permitted origins and attitudes.
Australia has a fit and proper person" test for a bunch of stuff, but it turns out that one of the ways you can qualify is by having a lot of lawyers. Convicted of fraud and money laundering? Did you keep enough of the money to be able to afford a good lawyer and a long legal battle? You're obviously just the sort of person we want runniong our {checks notes} casino.
Which gets to the heart of this kind of qualification question. Who defines the qualifications? What's the effect of them, and who gets to decide whether it's the intended effect?
The US genontocracy isn't just because of the age-related qualifications for both electing and being elected, but I think it has more influence than people in the US often realise. And that's without even looking at the difference a criminal conviction makes, albeit I don't think there's anyone in the federal senate or house that can't vote (IIRC a conviction is often grounds for disenfranchisement but not disbarment)
religion seems to be the card increasingly used as the winning argument against ethics, rule of law, and science
Well, one religion, or rather a closely-related group of sects of that religion.
When I were a lad, avoiding the errors in your third paragraph were regarded as part of basic literacy, and were taught (to some extent) in English courses. Many people don't need them - though everyone makes mistakes, and editors often have dogmatic rules they like to impose.
However, the ones in the second and second-last are a different matter! I decided not to try my hand at fiction when I wrote some, reread it as a consumer of fiction, thought "Ye gods, this is AWFUL!", and realised that I couldn't twist my mind into a mode that created anything readable.
SFR
NO Religion has ALWAY & FOREVER been used as a supposed "trump card" { Pun intended! } against ethics, the rule of law, and science.
... Rbt Prior
Also no! - think about rioting in India, when cows are involved? Egged on by religious nutjobs, as always.
whitroth @ 982: I picked up a book that looked interesting at Belticon from the author [...] He really needed to spend $1k or $1500 for an actual copy editor, with copy editing software.
Interesting. Many years ago I read warnings to wannabe authors about the vanity publishing industry, who's MO is to solicit manuscripts from wannabes, praise them to the skies, and then tell the author that the advance is the payment by the author to cover printing costs, rather than the other way around. They then deliver a couple of hundred shoddy copies to the author and let them break their hearts hawking them round local bookshops.
I'd rather assumed that Amazon letting you self-publish for almost nothing would have knocked that business model on the head. And especially after 50 Shades of Gray got successful by that route. But it sounds like, not. Was this author at Belticon a victim?
BTW, what is "Belticon"? I haven't heard of it, which isn't surprising, but Google just finds loads of icons for belts.
Not 'Belticon,' but 'Balticon.'
I suspect you misunderstood.
Vanity publishers still exist, but Amazon did indeed knee them in the groin and make off with their wallet.
However, self-publishing isn't without pitfalls, and one of the first is that the self-published author is responsible for undertaking all the jobs usually carried out by the publisher, including the ones we're mostly incapable of performing. Such as editing our own work and spotting our own typos.
Copy-editing (basically: fixing typos and spelling mistakes, maybe fixing grammatical errors as well, and making the text comply with a style guide -- including stuff like punctuation, serial commas, smart quotes, hyphenation, etc) is usually done by professional copy editors who charge by the hour. Many amateurs think they can get away without paying a CE, and the result is manuscripts littered with errors.
If you ever found a typo in one of my books -- or several? -- that's after the book's been worked over by a copy editor, then checked again by me, then typeset and proofread by a professional proofreader, and checked by me ... and still typos persist, because they're like software bugs: as Linus Torvalds noted, with enough eyeballs all bugs are transparent. However, my novels are not the Linux kernel which gets looked over by tens of thousands of developers with every release: I get maybe 4-6 sets of eyeballs. And self-pub authors skimping on the overheads don't even get that.
Charles Stross @ 992: Vanity publishers still exist, but Amazon did indeed knee them in the groin and make off with their wallet. However, self-publishing isn't without pitfalls, [...]
Ahh, so if I understand correctly this is the difference between vanity publishing (a con game which appeals to the mark's vanity) and self-publishing, where you are your own mark.
Actually that's not entirely fair: a self-publisher might have non-ego reasons for doing it that way, such as a plan to turn the publication into income some other way (e.g. by being hired), or a desire to push their Message at their own expense. But it sounds like the guy at Balticon was not one of these.
I read all your posts in the sidebar when I first got here, including How Books Are Made. Interesting, thanks. Having written a bunch of internal reports at work I can well appreciate the vital importance of copy editing. After about the 5th read-through of my own words my eyes glaze over and I literally stop seeing them. My question wasn't prompted by that, but rather by the image of a wannabe author who thought it was a good idea to pay for a print run and then sit at a table hoping to sell enough copies to pay for it.
(I also remember someone talking about the original self-published version of Fifty Shades of Gray and how it really needed a copy editor.)
In which context I have beta read comic fantasy for a friend. My comment on one scene where a character was supposed to circle a rock 3 times, and wanted to do so clockwise, and the other character in the scene told them "Ok then, go round it anti-widdershins then!" was that, yes there is a period word deosil meaning clockwise, but I'd had to look that up, and anyway "anti-widdershins" made me laugh.
The point being that sometimes the "wrong word" is deliberately selected, possibly for comic effect.
There is a long tail distribution in self-publishing, with a handful of authors selling millions of copies of their work and effectively becoming bespoke single-author publishing houses. There are also "house name" publishing ops where a group of writers work a formula under a single name which gets reader loyalty -- a new book every month, guaranteed more of the same! -- and can build audience mindshare in a way a single author working alone can't, by flooding the zone with pulp.
So it's not all rubbish.
But there are a lot more optimists than success stories out there.
Re: 'SCOTUS ... spectral evidence ... history'
You're kidding! Spectral: who - when - which case? So alt-history is not just a scifi genre, it's a US reality.
Actually this might be an interesting test for AI, as in:
'Here is the final SCOTUS decision on this issue: 1-identify the key determinants of this decision? 2-who benefits - from most to least? 3-how sustainable is this decision? (By year XX human slaves are more expensive to replace than AI, by year XXX we'll run out of human slaves because of slave-maintenance cost-cutting/slave-farming profit maximization, by Gen XXXX due to absolute dependence on AI even the wealthiest elites will be tantrum throwing illiterate morons, etc.)'
Undergo psych assessment? I'd be ecstatic if they had to take the exact same test that immigrants take to become citizens. Certainly, at least 10 or 20 of the Trump Crime Family party wouldn't have made it up to 50% failure.
Back in the last millenium, when I tried to write, I knew about character development and growth, scene description, etc... but it all tended to get a plot-shaped hole through it.
Then I met my late wife, who tended to do all of that... but plot. Together, we made a great writer. After I picked up and finished one novel in '16, I started writing short fiction, hoping to sell it and that doing so would help me sell our book.
Instead... so, have you read my 11,000 Years? I know it's available on amazon.uk (I looked).
I should have explained: 11,000 Years started as a short, showing what actual superpowered people would do, and it's not out bashin' baddies in their BVDs, as Tom Smith sings. That's actually a chapter in the book.
Then I decided I had an interesting universe, and wrote a novelette... which got turned into a novella, due to a rejection which also was a recommendation. Then, because I hate cardboard villains, I wrote what was to be another novelette, and when that hit 30k words, I decided the hell with it, it's a novel, and wrote the final 45 k words....
You're kidding! Spectral: who - when - which case? So alt-history is not just a scifi genre, it's a US reality.
It's a 17th century English lord chief justice, Matthew Hale who codified a lot of English common law (which got propagated to the US). Presided over witchcraft trials, accepted spectral evidence (reports of stuff ghosts were alleged to have said as being factual witness reports), created the doctrine that there was no rape possible of a married woman by her husband, and reinforced the doctrine of coverture (that a married woman's legal identity was merged with -- and controlled by -- her husband's).
Cited approvingly by Samuel Alito.
Yes. And The Drive. I found them an interesting variation on the norm.
You're kidding! Spectral: who - when - which case?
Alito referenced Matthew Hale in his opinion on abortion, specifically Pleas of the Crown. Which, to refresh your memory also states "For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract".
I should point out that as of 2017 marital rape wasn't illegal in Minnesota as long as you drugged your spouse unconscious first.
https://www.healthywomen.org/your-care/marital-rape/particle-1
Alito didn't reference spectral evidence but Hale was all for it, especially for prosecuting witches, which is why I wrote he referenced a "jurist who believed spectral evidence was admissible". Personally I'd have thought that believing spectral evidence was admissible (not to mention the whole witch thing) should put the rest of Hale's legal opinions under question, but apparently in Alito's mind he's still an authority (as long as Hale says something he agrees with, anyway).
Read his opinion yourself, and see how often he references Hale for his arguments.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/read-justice-alito-initial-abortion-opinion-overturn-roe-v-wade-pdf-00029504
Re: Hale - Alito
Thanks for the info as depressing as it is.
I scanned Hale's Wikipedia bio. Says Hale was interested in science which back then probably didn't cover much in terms of bio, and psych/neuro* wouldn't exist as sciences for a couple of hundred years.
*i.e., explanations of delusions/hallucinations
No such excuse for Alito: he chooses to ignore current scientific knowledge. He's also good at making up convenient loop holes as in when questioned about his (expensive) social interactions with Singer he cited '"personal hospitality", i.e., he was not required to disclose private air transport for social trips'. Interesting - hadn't heard that particular phrase used for greasing palms before. (Wonder how often he's accepted some homeless person's invite to sit on a park bench?)
when questioned about his (expensive) social interactions with Singer he cited '"personal hospitality", i.e., he was not required to disclose private air transport for social trips'
When I was a child my father hosted some scientists from the USSR who were visiting Canada, and he had to report the tin of caviar and bottle of vodka they gave him as a thank-you gift. Maybe America is more lax on such things?
(Not that I believe that the average low-to-mid-level American bureaucrat would get away with not declaring such benefits-in-kind to the IRS.)
I'd have thought that believing spectral evidence was admissible (not to mention the whole witch thing) should put the rest of Hale's legal opinions under question
Common law doesn't really work that way, but the whole point is that statute law trumps common law. The way Alito uses these citations is different. No matter how much text there is in the written US constitution, there is a larger, unwritten part and the common law inherited from the UK is a large proportion of that. Alito is treating authorities that were current at the time of US independence as being available to an originalist interpretation, as though they are still current now, because they are constitutional. So even though it is only common law and long superseded by statute, he's drawing on this material in arguments toward overturning statute law now.
Which TBH seems even scarier than the spectral thing, but that could just be me.
In terms of my writing career I'm thinking about simply posting online somewhere - the chances of making money are so remote that it might not be worth the trouble. Or maybe Amazon/something similar.
solicit manuscripts from wannabes, praise them to the skies, and then tell the author that the advance is the payment by the author to cover printing costs, rather than the other way around.
If you haven't read Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, you really should. That goes for quite a few people here, TBH, but for some it's hard work to get through the first few chapters. It's not that it's heavy going, it just takes a while to get interesting.
About 12 years ago I offered my local MP a copy of one of my novels and his reaction was pretty much that of a vampire being menaced with a sharpened stake -- he'd have had to fill out endless paperwork and (being Labour) probably gotten stalked by tabloid journalists for accepting "gifts".
So yes, America is very lax about kickbacks and gifts. (Although the Tories seem to have significantly relaxed the rules for themselves. At least when the tabloids aren't engaging in the perennial sport of running a witch-hunt.)
Charlie
Very apposite - see today's issue of "Private Eye" for the relaxations just promulgated on Parliamentary Expenses, etc.
What a surprise that wasn't.
America is very lax about kickbacks and gifts.
this lad may have gone too far tho
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/oct/01/bob-menendez-new-jersey-bribery-charges
America is very lax about kickbacks and gifts.
Yes and now. The currently in office President is not supposed to keep ANYTHING. There's a civil staff who tracks things handed to him, cataloging it, and putting it somewhere. Storage or on display at some office. The law is all about it belongs to the US, not the pres. Trump wants the office of the President to be "I am God King" and can do anything I want. Which led to him keeping a lot of trinkets claiming they had been give to HIM. And since the worker bees dealing with this are low level civil servants he told them to stuff it. But once he left office and things left the White House they apparently filed a report. Which I think somewhat started the entire "Trump takes classified docs with him".
This topic was a sub plot on an episode of West Wing 20 years ago. It was about something like a pen handed to the Pres and he put it in his pocket. Then there was a search to find it later.
Yeah, depends on the person. I had to make sure that when I gave my manager at the NIH a gift, the value had to be under $20, period.
Re: '... gave my manager at the NIH a gift, the value had to be under $20, period.'
Manager tenure measured via their coffee mug collection.
We had a similar policy for Secret Santa - max $15. Creativity, humor and utility were what mattered.
A very long time ago I worked as the Canadian representative on a couple of Polish factory ships that were working in Canadian waters. They were very interested in me being happy. I had been thoroughly briefed on what not to accept.
The fun part was that the various gifts were very much of the low level 'Soviet backsheesh' variety. A tinned ham. A bottle of cheap vodka. Cigarettes. At no point was I going to jeapordize my employers' multimillion dollar contract and my job for a tin of ham.
I never wish for someone to die. But I am conversely not sad that Henry Kissinger has finally stopped living. Sadly, he outlived tens or hundreds of thousands of others who died because of his life choices and policies.
Well Kissinger was the engineering solution, after all...
Sorry, bad humour.
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/11/kissinger-is-dead-finally-something-good-has-happened-in-2023 This essay suggests the possibility of a larger number.
"I am conversely not sad that Henry Kissinger has finally stopped living."
The world is a much cleaner place today.
There's a really good article about a real-life meeting between Angela Merkel, Dr. Ruth and Dr. Kissinger in the New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/dr-ruth-dr-kissinger-and-trumps-cruelty-to-families
Dr. K was talking about the necessity of keeping refugees out of the US. Dr. Ruth talked about the Evian conference and how it didn't help Jews trying to get out of Germany. About the kindertransport, without which she would have been killed. Looking right at K. the whole time.
A most effective bit of writing.
For the USA-ians ... How true & how dangerous is this? - "Fire at will" of Federal employees by a Trump ( or anyone ) administration so as to get a "packed" partisan Civil Service?
Greg
Trump is an ass. His goal, if elected, is to remake the US into something along the lines of Russia, China, Hungary, etc... as God King.
All of these details are just a part of that play.
Very and very. He already started down that path in his first term and would have plenty of help completing the job in a second term.
I did wish it. And it's decades past when he should have shuffled off this mortal coil.
David L is wrong. He doesn't want to be Putin... he wants to be Kim Jung Un. With Ivanka as his heir.
[Trump] already started down that path in his first term and would have plenty of help completing the job in a second term.
The only thing that stopped Trump doing this the first time around was his own incompetence. There are several hundred senior jobs that its up to the President to appoint. Incoming administrations are supposed to arrive with a list of these people already signed up and ready to go. Trump didn't realise this, and didn't pay attention to it or to the couple of people on his team who were trying to do it. And those people were trying to do an honest job of signing up adults with suitable experience and qualifications.
This time around its been taken out of Trump's tiny hands. Project 2025 (google it) has already got the list of vetted volunteers. Primary qualification is: having publicly supported Trump's Big Lie about the stolen election. Secondary quaification: signing up to do whatever it takes to implement the fascist takeover of the American government.
Last time lots of civil servants properly objected to Trump's orders on the grounds that they were illegal. Not this time.
whitroth 1024:
hmmm... uhm... sadly... worst yet...
you ought consider those megaprojects (airline, hotels, resorts, golf courses, etc) each emblazoned with TRUMP as nearest modern day eqv to "pyramids"
he seeks godhood or the nearest modern day eqv to it of howling crowds of worshipful MAGA bullet sponges... he is enraged at Taylor Swift's megacrowds which are gravitationally distorting entire economies of minor nations... she's generated a billion-plus in economic activity... that's supposed to be his fan base not hers...
so he dreams of Taylor Swift's head on a pike and him gaining popularity on stages all across the world with Ivanka as his wife-queen-breeder
[ sound of millions of sane folk retching collectively at bizarro mix of cult + incest + fascism ]
Robert Prior @ 1004:
When I was a child my father hosted some scientists from the USSR who were visiting Canada, and he had to report the tin of caviar and bottle of vodka they gave him as a thank-you gift. Maybe America is more lax on such things?
(Not that I believe that the average low-to-mid-level American bureaucrat would get away with not declaring such benefits-in-kind to the IRS.)
Alito is a fuckin' hypocrite. He knows the law about bribery as well as anyone. He also knows no one is going to do anything about it, so "fuck you".
Someone else could look up what U.S. law says about gifts to low level bureaucrats, but IIRC, they have to be reported, but are not taxed or required to be given over to the government unless they exceed a "nominal value" (the number $25 occurs to me, but that's from way back before Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard).
I expect Soviet Scientists got the caviar & vodka at subsidized prices (perk of being a internationally recognized Soviet Scientist ...), so their "value" probably wouldn't exceed the limits (even if paid for in gold Rubles) ... and it really was a personal gift after all.
What Alito & Thomas are doing is on a whole different scale. They are supposed to report those gifts, but there's no enforcement mechanism and no punishment for cheating even if they get caught.
SFReader @ 1013:
Manager tenure measured via their coffee mug collection.
We had a similar policy for Secret Santa - max $15. Creativity, humor and utility were what mattered.
From the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, December 2, 2014, A Holiday Reminder about the Gift Rules
I'm going to say you're racist here. Isaias Afwerki has done better than any of the Ils, for longer, and with fewer problems. By almost any measure of "dictator for life" he's better at it (Eritrea is below North Korea on most positive measures). But he's black, and in Africa, so he doesn't count.
Greg Tingey @ 1020:
For the USA-ians ... How true & how dangerous is this? - "Fire at will" of Federal employees by a Trump ( or anyone ) administration so as to get a "packed" partisan Civil Service?
If the SCOTUS rules in favor of Jarkesy it will be bad for the U.S.; diminishing the power of the Federal Government to police financial crime.
I don't know how much it might directly benefit Trumpolini himself.
I reject that. You're labeling me racist, rather than ignorant of all the countries in Africa. I know some - and I guarantee a lot of folks, for example, don't know that Niger is not Nigeria - but not all. I don't know of Afwerki, but I do know of Un, and his North Korea.
Twas partly in jest. It's more why don't you know... mostly it's because he doesn't have nukes and therefore the US doesn't care, so Eritrea doesn't get covered in the media. He's more or less non-expansionist, so isn't a threat to anywhere that anyone cares about. You don't know because you're on the far end of a pipe made up of racists who don't care about it for racist reasons.
But it still comes up (down?) in lists of things like 'how democratic are ya' and 'press freedoms (or lack thereof)' etc, as well as human development indexes and so on. It really is there, and it's consistently at the bottom. For the very good reason that the rule of law there is 'whatever the president says it is'.
Yeah, but is he into firing senior officers... with a cannon aimed at them? And does he have a relatively hot daughter who thinks she can just sit in for him at international meetings?
David L @ 1021
"all these details" ... are part of why DJT is still NOT IN JAIL ...
For 6-7 years now, everyone has been saying that Trump "couldn't possibly do that" - or - it's against the law/constitution ... but that has not stopped him.
Unless you wankers get SERIOUS, he is going to appear to "win" next year ...
What are you going to do then, eh?
...
whitroth @ 1024
Yes, that's the problem.
- as noted by Paul @ 1025
Re: 'U.S. Office of Government Ethics, December 2, 2014'
Just checked - lots of coffee mugs available for under $10 including some customizable mugs (photo & text) on BigRiver. Adjusting for inflation, 2014's $10 is 2023's $13.
Coffee mugs are okay for your typical office environment but if you're in a specialized industry, a specialty related themed gift collection could be much more interesting, e.g., Vincent Racanielo (TWiV) started with a few photos of viruses on his office wall - over the years his students added to it until the entire wall was covered. He seemed able to also remember which student gave him what pic/image. Daniel Griffin (the MD who does the TWiV clinical updates) has a collection of virus bow ties.
And does he have a relatively hot daughter
From the pictures I've seen his daughter is a cute teenager who will almost certainly grow up to be a stunning woman. Certainly a lot easier on the eyes than Trump's family…
It's bad enough when various leaders claim their have hot daughters (Tony Abbott has four!) but I am not really keen on other people pointing them out.
OTOH it would be really good if having teenage daughters was a prerequisite for popedom. Might give them a little better grasp on workld affairs. But then... Toned Abs is a counterargument (to just about everything)
It's bad enough when various leaders claim their have hot daughters (Tony Abbott has four!) but I am not really keen on other people pointing them out.
OTOH it would be really good if having teenage daughters was a prerequisite for popedom. Might give them a little better grasp on workld affairs. But then... Toned Abs is a counterargument (to just about everything)
[Hot daughters of leaders] I am not really keen on other people pointing them out.
Yeah, I also think that they are really not part of any discussion, much less here. Sentences I thought I'd never write: 'I'd prefer it if you would not discuss anybody's hot daughters here, not even of those of any leader, please'.
Agreed.
Moderation note: commenting on any politician's non-politically-involved family members is off-limits from now on, regardless of gender or ethnicity. Limited exception for those who actively participate in family graft or campaign for their relatives -- thinking of the likes of Jared/Ivanka here -- but even then, keep it to their actions not their appearance. (I really need to overhaul the moderation policy.)
WINNER OF THIS WEEK'S REDUNDANT PROSE CONTEST:
"worthless NFTs"
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/11/30/business/cristiano-ronaldo-binance-lawsuit/index.html
what's so aggravating, there are indeed massless, purely digital, chunks of high value information... such as lists of account #s, passcodes and the opportunity to transfer some portion of the balances of those accounts into your own...
oh... wait... that's what NFT prompters did...!
in Alanbrooke's war diaries, he records a flight home from a Moscow conference where the British officers were gifted vodka and caviar, which they divvied up and consumed . A day or two later the Soviet embassy inquired about their comfort package of vodka and caviar which had been on the same plane.
Oops
Unless you wankers get SERIOUS, he is going to appear to "win" next year ...
The biggest issue is that the "wankers", as you call them, MOSTLY believe in following the law. So Biden will not send a collection of MPs backed by a Seal team and toss him in Leavenworth.
If the good guys are willing to break the law to keep Trump from winning, then what's the point?
his daughter is a cute teenager who will almost certainly grow up to be a stunning woman.
Seriously guys?
What if his daughter was a not so cute teenager? This conversation to me is from the 50s.
See moderation notice at 1040 above.
Believe it or not, until a couple months ago, I was actually feeling pretty optimistic about the next election. Biden's critics on the left were very much of the "he's not our guy but we'll hold our noses" variety, and he's been making some very strong inroads with people for whom labor rights is their highest (or only) voting criteria. Ditto for voters who have international diplomacy and national defense as their main thing. People were starting to relax into the Biden presidency. He was starting to become, if not "our guy" then at least "the guy."
Now I'm seeing a lot of those labor solidarity types rolling out nicknames like "Genocide Joe" (Charlie, let me know if that overruns the political nickname policy, I use it here purely for illustrative purposes but I understand if it crosses the line) because of how he's handled, or not handled, Israel-Palestine. I'm scared that a huge number of those voters will stay home on principle.
If that happens, then the guy who moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and dangerously emboldened the Israeli government in doing so, will be back in power. Which, never mind the U.S., and their neighbors and trade partners, certainly won't do the Palestinians any good. But hey, at least the left didn't "compromise," so it's a win on points, right?
Please note to others I was referring, jokingly, about Ivanka, who did sit in at an international meeting when TFG stepped away, like she thought she was some kind of princess, not merely the daughter of the US President.
I should have read down before posting. I was a bit flabbergasted that this would would go there. In office or not.
Actually, I should have said "younger female family member", since IIRC, who I was thinking of on the NK side was Kim Yo Jong, Kim's sister who has, in fact, stood in for him when he disappeared for some weeks a year or two ago. She is certainly more equivalent to Ivanka.
Ivanka Trump served as Director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship during most of the Trump presidency. So she was a political offspring.
“If the good guys are willing to break the law to keep Trump from winning, then what's the point?” Oh, I dunno - survival?
I’ve been attacked with deadly intent a couple of times and “oh dear, if I react this way it might be a bad example “ was not something that crossed my mind at the time.
I like this statement (see source below):
"Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty."
Pacifism tends to rely upon the moral restraint of the opposition - or on the threat that some Other Party might intervene (violently) on behalf of the pacifists.
e.g. A hunger strike in an extermination camp is not an effective tactic.
See excerpts on the limits of tolerance - and implicit limits of non-violence in the face of violent opposition:
Paradox of toloerance
Tolerance is not a moral precept
Also, not to advocate for premature aggression/violence
However, violence can be a valid and moral part of communicating an emphatic "NO!" to someone else's aggressive behavior (e.g. timrowledge's self-defense experiences).
Re: 'Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty.'
This is also increasingly being discussed re: work conditions. Somewhere along the road the concept of mutuality got lost and (with it) the idea of boundaries.
That's valid enough but, harking back to the comment you are replying to, if you ignore the law for one person or group that sets the precedent that you can do so for others.
This is, in my opinion, not good.
whitroth 1047:
there was a 'photo album' of Ivanka Trump at multiple conferences, briefings, lectures, et al, where those who were actual experts along with duly elected representatives all snubbing her for attempting to squeeze herself into conversations... I really wish I'd kept the link... just utterly knee-slapping visuals of nerds revenge upon the pretty girl whose rich daddy bought bought her not only a pony at age 8 but entry into prestigious education everyone else sweated for years to gain a foothold...
what little I've read of what's supposedly her own prose was either written by a starving PhD student (and thus effective and insightful) or obviously her word choices (trite, blathering, cliche loaded)
...and there was an attempt by the GOP to cast her in the role of a potential US senator in 2024 (or 2026) as prelude for a White House run in the mid-2030s... levels of WTF-ness impossible to find in fiction, no matter how much crystal meth smoked
I agree, it's not good.
However, obeying the law is another social structure Peace Treaty.
If/when justice systems break down, or when people feel excluded from them, or when the mechanisms of a justice system are unavailable (e.g. US urban/rural areas with long waits for police response), then people tend to seek out their own personal "justice".
Which is a Very Bad, but not unexpected, behavior pattern.
It's also a form of motivated reasoning exploited by evil sociopaths offering false promises of "retribution" for real and imagined grievances.
Sigh. sometimes people suck
exregis @ 1050:
Ivanka Trump served as Director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship during most of the Trump presidency. So she was a political offspring.
And as such the policies she promoted & the actions she took to promote them are fair game here; along with her participation in Trump Organization grift. Her personal appearance is not.
Trump's own language about about women, including his daughter, is disgusting enough.
amalgamy @ 1057:
I agree, it's not good.
However, obeying the law is another social structure Peace Treaty.
If/when justice systems break down, or when people feel excluded from them, or when the mechanisms of a justice system are unavailable (e.g. US urban/rural areas with long waits for police response), then people tend to seek out their own personal "justice".
Which is a Very Bad, but not unexpected, behavior pattern.
It's also a form of motivated reasoning exploited by evil sociopaths offering false promises of "retribution" for real and imagined grievances.
Sigh. sometimes people suck
In a way it's a matter of timing. If you're law abiding you can't preemptively break the law to stop someone else from breaking the law; not and remain law abiding ... and that's the whole point, we're the good guys and they're not. We have our own ethical codes that we must abide by.
You need to be prepared to defend yourself, but you can't attack your opponents BEFORE THEY BREAK THE PEACE.
Telegraphing your punches is always a poor defensive move.
I, and I suspect much of the world, am hoping that enough Americans who vote realise that even though Biden is currently doing entirely the wrong thing he is STILL much better than the apparent alternative. I am however wondering what will happen if either of the presumptives die or are incapacitated prior to the election.
More Torment Nexus news:
Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' That Feel Nothing While Killing In Dystopian Presentation
Sometimes the set of options which are legal and the options which are survivable do not overlap.
Oh Well
Anyway, deterrence (communicating costly consequences) exists as a potential alternative both to passive/pacifist surrender AND to preemptive criminal assault.
Anecdote: between 2008 Presidential election and 2009 inauguration, there were news rumors floated that "maybe the US couldn't risk changing from Republican to Democratic administrations during the global war on terror".
IIRC, those stories dried up once other news reports made it clear that more than a million Americans were planning to personally attend Obama's inauguration in DC.
Hmm, not violent, not criminal (unlike 2021-01-06), yet seemingly effective in postponing the Republican "permanent majority" project for a decade or so.
Also, see Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
obeying the law is another social structure Peace Treaty
Which ties back to the increasingly common comment that "laws protect me and bind thee".
This is most blatant with "law enforcement" who don't consider themselves bound to obey the law, as in the US notion of "qualified immunity" where a cop who breaks the law can apparently say... well, it wasn't previously established in court that that law has to be obeyed, so I don't have to. I have a weird kind of feeling that it's inherent in the nature of laws that they are supposed to be obeyed?
As someone who rides a bicycle this comes up a lot. The minority effect applies (a minority who does something bad represents all members of the minority, but a majority member doing a bad thing represents only themselvs), but so does the notion that if no other road user is expected to obey the rules, why should I? Motorists breaking the rules is so normalised that arguments about speed cameras being for revenue raising are treated seriously.
On the prospect of Trump II, see the links to pieces by Kagan and Petri in
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/11/the-dictator-in-waiting-is-oranged-rested-and-ready
Kardashev
Just looked at that WaPo article { Sorry, Charlie, but it is necessary reading } "Holding your nose" &/or "being virtuous" is utterly useless, if Trump / Hitler/ Musso / Boney / Caesar is actually "elected" into power, isn't it?
Repeat
IF DJT get the presidency of the US ...
What, actually, are the =remaining" Four Eyes" going to do?
I'm assuming a Labour government, here, by that point ...
Emergency re-coalition of the remains of NATO, emergency cosying up to the EU by us & ... what?
Note the the utterly bonkers Truss is backing DJT, so the tory ultra will split their party, probably?
Dramlin @ 1060:
I, and I suspect much of the world, am hoping that enough Americans who vote realise that even though Biden is currently doing entirely the wrong thing he is STILL much better than the apparent alternative. I am however wondering what will happen if either of the presumptives die or are incapacitated prior to the election.
I would disagree on the "Biden is currently doing entirely the wrong thing ..." You're buying into the 'Q' propaganda.
It would depend on WHEN a presumptive nominee died/became incapacitated ... before the party convention, before the election, after the election but before the Electoral College meets, after the Electoral College meets ...
amalgamy @ 1062:
Sometimes the set of options which are legal and the options which are survivable do not overlap.
Oh Well
Can democracy's advocates "save" democracy by overthrowing it; by adopting the same tactics as the fascists? That's what some are suggesting - adopting extra legal means to prevent Trump taking power.
I don't believe that can work. IF any government seizes power by force you've still lost democracy, even if it prevents an authoritarian Trump from taking office.
I'm not so concerned with staying on the right side of the law as I am with staying on the right side of my own beliefs.
there's politics and then there's the political power from commerce... not to mention the profits...
Ivanka Trump vs. Taylor Swift
both are 'nepo babies'
Taylor Swift did not wait for daddy to hire someone to do everything for her... compare 'n contrast to Ivanka Trump who seems little other than an ornamental attachment
the “Eras” tour, which could become the most lucrative music tour in history. It will, all in, represent a $5.7 billion boost to the US economy according to the Washington Post, while injecting a profound degree of monetary stimulus into every city hosting her, given that her fans collectively spend around $93 million per show
WTF...!
anyone else see the difference? the political opportunities of influencing culture and therefore stirring up zillions of voters?
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/12/02/opinions/taylor-swift-conquers-capitalism-yang/index.html
IF any government seizes power by force you've still lost democracy, even if it prevents an authoritarian Trump from taking office. I'm not so concerned with staying on the right side of the law as I am with staying on the right side of my own beliefs.
I am mostly concerned with "staying on the right side of not having World War III". On which subject I agree with Dave Lester (Comment #453 on https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/10/i-should-blog-more-but.html ): we are in the opening moves of it. And if Christian Taliban takes over US, it will go into next stage, most likely after Trump is dead and a true Dominionist is in the White House. And we will lose democracy anyway.
Given a choice between "lose democracy and start World War III" and "lose democracy and not start World War III", I will settle for the second.
I reply as an USian, but the American revolution comes to mind as a possible counterexample. Granted, the democracy it attained was and is quite flawed. Others may want to suggest examples, if any exist, of sorta-democracies coming to power by force.
Kardashev @ 1065:
On the prospect of Trump II, see the links to pieces by Kagan and Petri in
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/11/the-dictator-in-waiting-is-oranged-rested-and-ready
Two very good articles. Things ain't lookin' so good here in the good ol' USofA ... and I think the rest of y'all should be worried too.
What's gonna' happen when Trumpolini suddenly jerks the U.S. out of NATO?
How long will it take North Korea to attack the south?
China to attack Taiwan?
Iran to attack Israel and/or Saudi Arabia?
All of these conflicts will have profoundly negative affects on the U.S., Europe & the rest of the world. And all of these are conflicts where Trump has already distinguished himself as a DAMN FOOL!
Those are not the only problem areas in the world where Trumpolini is liable to fuck things up ... What's going on in South America (Venezuela & Guyana look to be getting ready to go to war over oil)?
What about Africa? Global migrations?
ilya187 @ 1070:
IF any government seizes power by force you've still lost democracy, even if it prevents an authoritarian Trump from taking office. I'm not so concerned with staying on the right side of the law as I am with staying on the right side of my own beliefs.
I am mostly concerned with "staying on the right side of not having World War III". On which subject I agree with Dave Lester (Comment #453 on https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/10/i-should-blog-more-but.html ): we are in the opening moves of it. And if Christian Taliban takes over US, it will go into next stage, most likely after Trump is dead and a true Dominionist is in the White House. And we will lose democracy anyway.
Given a choice between "lose democracy and start World War III" and "lose democracy and not start World War III", I will settle for the second.
While I believe the U.S. (even under Shit-stain Dominionists) is not as much of a threat in that department, if we do lose our democratic MOJO, you won't have that choice.
If we DO lose democracy here in the U.S. there likely WILL BE nuclear war because we lose our standing as a world power and a lot of shit that we've been keeping a damper on is going to boil over.
Primarily I see three likely threat avenues (in [as I see it] descending order of likelihood) -
• North Korea will attack South Korea using tactical nukes as an opening gambit; perhaps attacking American installations supporting the ROK's military. Less likely is a North Korean attack directly on U.S. territories.
• Three-way free-for-all involving India, Pakistan and China.
• Trump precipitously withdraws the U.S. from NATO and Putin takes that as a sign he can have a free hand with Ukraine and/or the Baltic states.
A fourth threat, IMHO slightly less likely, Israel, in extremis, would seek to take Iran's Shiite Mullahs with them.
... or maybe all four of them. I don't think the U.S. would START any of them, but we'd likely be dragged into it sooner or later.
Should have been m ore specific -- I was referencing his support of Israel, which as far as I can tell is likely to lose him the youth vote. Other than that he seems to be doing a reasonable job.
Again brevity was not my friend. I'm wondering if there are any serious alternatives to either candidate, certainly not hearing about any except perhaps Niki Haley?
I'm wondering if there are any serious alternatives to either candidate
The US electoral system is designed to exclude that possibility and it works very well in that way. It does few things well but that's one of them.
It can be hard to remember from Australia especially where the electoral system is designed to promote diversity, but in many countries there are only one or two state-sanctioned political parties. The USA proudly allows states to direct a lot of this, so you end up needing to look at 50-odd sets of electoral laws to get definitive answers. But below "first past the post makes two party rule almost inevitable" sit a whole bunch of state laws that range from plausible to explicitly two party. Oh, and gerrymandering. And explicitly political judges. And a habit of giving royal powers to single elected officials ("the governor appoints the judges. And the person who runs the election for the next governor. And certifies the results of the election").
Others may want to suggest examples, if any exist, of sorta-democracies coming to power by force.
It might be easier to look for examples of democracies that arose other than by force.
The British famously "negotiated" a democratic system by incremental steps involving threatening a number of monarchs. Even Aotearoa's "peaceful transition" involved a large number of events which some call "the Land Wars" or "the New Zealand Wars" or various other things that seem to have 'war' in them rather more than you'd expect for any kind of peaceful process.
Where I am now in Australia we officially never had any kind of war here, just as we never had slavery and have always had universal suffrage and democracy. It's just that... well, kind of. "universal suffrage" meaning any adult male British citizen living in Australia can vote... tick. Democracy meaning "subject to the approval of a foreign monarch"... tick. Just as we now have "marriage equality" (previousl any two unmarried opposite-sex adults ...other disqualifications... could marry, now changed to 'or same-sex' but the the rest of the restrictions still apply).
Interestingly both Australia and Aotearoa have had weird quirks in their voting laws in the past, with South Australia allowing (some) first nations people to vote before Federation (which stripped all aborigines of the vote), and Aotearoa allowing Maori women who owned land to vote a few decade before all women got that right (and non-landowning men, for that matter). Another fun fact is that while Australia has a constitution, it's primarily concerned with stuff like interstate trade and how state vs federal arguments get resolved.
a lot of shit that we've been keeping a damper on is going to boil over
or perhaps a lot of shit that you've been stirring up would start to settle down
putin's going to get what he wants in ukraine (neutrality) next year
dunno why ur convinced the norks are jonesing to attack the south, they're much more set up for deterring attacks, they may have a few thousand tanks but without air superiority (and their stuff is not up-to-date) they'd be droned to pieces in hours
"Why Switzerland is Obsessed with Guns" by Johnny Harris is on nebula now, youtube soon. He comes to the realisation that the difference between his home in the USA and Switzerland is why people have guns. Switzerland it's all about communal defence so "you" own a gun as part of your service to the well regulated militia and you train regularly and attend gun events as part of that community. In the USA "you" own a gun as an individual, and to defend yourself from other USA citizens who own guns to defend themselves from you. He also talks to a US dude who runs a gun shop in Switzerland.
Mentioned but skipped over is that only men have to do compulsory military service. Although that's being discussed again ATM: https://lenews.ch/2022/03/11/compulsory-military-service-swiss-government-presents-reform-options/
dunno why ur convinced the norks are jonesing to attack the south, they're much more set up for deterring attacks, they may have a few thousand tanks but without air superiority (and their stuff is not up-to-date) they'd be droned to pieces in hours
Quite possibly because North Korea attacked South Korea at the start of the Korean War? And military aid from China or Russia only has to go over a river into North Korea, while it has to be flown or shipped in to South Korea? And places with crappy farmland (Mongolia, for instance) have often produced the raiders that attack the farmlands of places like China, rather than vice versa.
Anyway, you're missing the bigger picture. North Korea has crappy farmland, which is one big reason why famines are so common there. South Korea has all the good farmland. Unsurprisingly, North Korea tends to get belligerent when food supplies run low. South Korea and Japan (and China, and Russia) have a pretty good idea of what the war would cost, and many, many South Koreans have family in the north. I'm pretty sure that this is why food aid quietly flows into North Korea after they shoot a bunch of missiles, when they're having a bad harvest. Sure it's paying a bribe, but it's also considerably cheaper than going to war.
...
Pivoting the subject around Korea...I was musing this afternoon about how someone could import some K-dramas into the US. The general setting is that a bunch of authoritarian plutocrats, enabled by a bunch of authoritarian technocrats, take over the US government (or the UK government, for that matter) and effectively make it a hereditary aristocracy. While education is the key to power, only the rich can afford to attend the right schools and then pass key exams to become credentialed and rich. It's all very corrupt, and fake credentials are far from unknown.
Of course, I'm copying the old Korean royal system, and you can google "yangban" for more details about the ennobled bureaucrats who got rich impoverishing the peasants.
The key point is that Korean K-dramas have a whole genre of historical epics. If someone sets up a near-future "American yangban" storyline, they can lift from these stories, Honor Harrington-style, replacing the traditional Confucian archery tests with flying drones and shooting assault rifles. Comparatively few people would know the source.
Again brevity was not my friend. I'm wondering if there are any serious alternatives to either candidate, certainly not hearing about any except perhaps Niki Haley?
Kamala Harris is perfectly competent if Biden dies.
The thing to remember is that Nader cost Gore the victory in 2000. I knew some Nader voters in 2000, and by 2002 they were vowing never again to be so stupid as to vote for a third-party candidate in a close election.
In 2024, it's real simple: don't split the vote in 2024. Vote for Biden, keep Trump out of the White House, and tell the sensationalist news media to frack off and protect their press freedoms, instead of fawning toward crooks and incompetents.
Hello Charlie,
what about the Season of Skulls spoiler thread?
Was it evicted from our universe due to time-travel shenanigans?
AIUI, even with Nader, the deciding factor was the "Brooks Brothers riot" ending the Florida recount. In addition, Biden-Harris don't seem likely to pose a threat to freedom of religion, whatever wins the (Formerly) GOP nomination, not so much.
In addition, Biden-Harris don't seem likely to pose a threat to freedom of religion, whatever wins the (Formerly) GOP nomination, not so much.
A most excellent point.
...food aid quietly flows into North Korea...
You probably know about the unofficial food aid, but it seems likely not everyone here has heard of it.
Depending on season and where one is on the Korean peninsula, it's possible for someone with sufficient understanding of the local ocean conditions to just drop something into the water and watch it float away with the satisfying knowledge that in due time it's going to wash ashore up north. It's apparently quite common for people to fill waterproof bags with rice and send them off to whoever may find them.
Many of these care packages also contain reading material, since there's plenty that the North Korean government doesn't want the peasants reading. These days they may also contain thumb drives containing God-knows-what; it's trivial to fit lots of data into a very small space and a person can have multiple illicit libraries in their pocket...
Quite possibly because North Korea attacked South Korea at the start of the Korean War?
tradition is a fine thing but the circumstances are a little different now
South Korea and Japan (and China, and Russia) have a pretty good idea of what the war would cost
the main thing it would cost is seoul, but if the norks started it i doubt they'd get much help from their allies even if they have been helping putin out with his artillery shortages recently
blackmailing the south for food is certainly likely to continue but i still don't reckon a nork attack on them is on the cards, whatever the numinous whispers of their steppe-raider forebears
unless someone decides to provoke them of course
Actually not all US states use 'first past the post'. Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi require a runoff (a second vote between the leading candidates) in at least some general elections if no candidate wins an actual majority. More states have runoffs for the party primaries. These were generally enacted because of concerns that black voters would vote as a block for a black candidate, and white votes could be split between white candidates.
North Korea attacked South Korea
And to toss this into the blender.
Unless something changes soon, SK will become a very empty place.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/opinion/south-korea-birth-dearth.html
Some quotes from the article.
For instance in 2021 the United States stood at 1.7, France at 1.8, Italy at 1.3 and Canada at 1.4.
But South Korea is distinctive in that it slipped into below-replacement territory in the 1980s but lately has been falling even more — dropping below one child per woman in 2018, to 0.8 after the pandemic, and now, in provisional data for both the second and third quarters of 2023, to just 0.7 births per woman.
It’s worth unpacking what that means. A country that sustained a birthrate at that level would have, for every 200 people in one generation, 70 people in the next one, a depopulation exceeding what the Black Death delivered to Europe in the 14th century. Run the experiment through a second generational turnover, and your original 200-person population falls below 25. Run it again, and you’re nearing the kind of population crash caused by the fictional superflu in Stephen King’s “The Stand.”
There will be a choice between accepting steep economic decline as the age pyramid rapidly inverts, or trying to welcome immigrants on a scale far beyond the numbers that are already destabilizing Western Europe.
And my understanding of Korean society (and limited it is) is that immigration is not looked on as desirable. To say the least.
And my understanding of Korean society (and limited it is) is that immigration is not looked on as desirable. To say the least.
I can speak to this. First, I agree on the birth rate. As in Japan and Italy, it's below replacement, and the cost of living is high.
Immigration is a different matter.
I married into a large Korean family. It's easy for ex-pat Koreans and Korean-Americans to get dual citizenship. Several people in my extended family have spent time back in South Korea, and one married an ex-pat North Korean.
The big barrier they see to living in South Korea is that all able-bodied male citizens have to do two years of military service before they turn 30. At least in my family, that's what keeps the younger guys from going back.
North Korea
See also: "Who Steals my Purse" by John Brunner.
Unfortunately, I don't think it would work, now, as NK would immediately go all-out war, even if China & they were advised in advance.
H @ 1081
Unfortunately, there is only one cure for stupid .....
What the CCCP referred to a "9 grams"
...
@ 1089
the birth rate. As in Japan and Italy .... & here & most of W Europe & ...
Meanwhile the fuckwit tories & fascists are on about the evils of immigration.
Miracles still happen!
Yesterday it was in the news that apparently even some Republicans find that George Santos (or whatever his actual name is) isn't fit to be in the House of Representatives.
Of course that doesn't mean that any Republicans would find the same thing for the former guy and the presidency…
Greg Tingey @ 1066: IF DJT get the presidency of the US ...
Nobody else has tackled this, so I'll have a go.
What, actually, are the =remaining" Four Eyes" going to do?
Probably, plug whatever gaps they can and carry on as before. Their work is super-secret, so not being able to trust one of the partners with anything secret (because Trump is apt to show off to Putin and Xi that he knows it) is pretty much a deal-killer for them.
Emergency re-coalition of the remains of NATO, emergency cosying up to the EU by us & ... what?
Well, a lot of the rump of NATO is the EU. So probably the EU finally gets around to creating a proper military security strategy which they've so far been able to put off thanks to NATO and big Uncle Sam.
This is very much how the EU has always developed: it muddles along until there is a crisis, and then suddenly grows a backbone and responds intelligently, building new institutions and legal structures along the way. Sometimes these are a bit rickety, and that leads to the next crisis where they get shored up.
There are always a lot of people paying attention to the EU's institutional infrastructure and writing earnest position papers about how it should be improved. During a crisis these get pulled out and read, so a lot of the thinking has actually already been done; it just needs the crisis to make everyone realise that it needs to happen.
I'm assuming a Labour government, here, by that point ...
True, but largely irrelevant to whatever happens. Except that at least we won't have a Trump fanboi/grll in 10 Downing Street (see below).
The UK will get a pass into the developing EU security structure because its a nuclear NATO member, so it would be stupid to leave it out, and equally stupid for the UK to stay out. Since the next European War is already being fought we're going to have to work with Europe anyway. And for those who want to start repairing the damage of Brexit this is a good place to start.
Note the the utterly bonkers Truss is backing DJT, so the tory ultra will split their party, probably?
They've been split since they kicked out Thatcher. That's why Brexit happened.
The Tory ultras have forgotten the two things that made the Tory party electable:
conservatism with a small C: Don't fix it if it ain't broke. Only make small changes. Distrust revolutionary big ideas.
Fiscal competence. For decades they were able to paint Labour as the irresponsible "tax and spend" party, and themselves as the Sensible Party by comparison. That was already looking ropey by 2016 when Brexit happened. Trussonomics was merely the nail in the coffin of that reputation.
The Tory party has always been about winning elections, with big ideas seen as important only to the extent that they win elections. In contrast Labour has historically been more about ideological purity and adherence to the Big Idea (i.e. Socialism). Which is a big part of the reason that they don't win elections. The only times Labour win elections are when they remember that unless you win power you can't do anything practical to fix the problems. I.e. Blair and Starmer.
Paul
Agree that "conservatism" - which has many positive points { See H MacMillan / E Heath, etc ) has been abandoned for a version of C19th High-toryism ... that kept them out of office, approx. 1846 - 74.
Can we hope for another 28 years with them out of office?
That's a good point, I'd forgotten about it.
I'll try to remember to shove it up this week.
Here's a cheerful story - Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' That Feel Nothing While Killing In Dystopian Presentation.
"putin's going to get what he wants in ukraine (neutrality) next year"
You misspelled 'conquest', I believe.
MSB @ 1091:
Miracles still happen!
Yesterday it was in the news that apparently even some Republicans find that George Santos (or whatever his actual name is) isn't fit to be in the House of Representatives.
Of course that doesn't mean that any Republicans would find the same thing for the former guy and the presidency…
"It's a sad day for America that the first ever gay jewish catholic hispanic black caucasian son of immigrants Ivy League graduate cancer survivor member of Congress whose ancestors survived the Holocaust and died on 9/11 gets removed from office by his bigoted colleagues."
Yesterday it was in the news that apparently even some Republicans find that George Santos (or whatever his actual name is) isn't fit to be in the House of Representatives.
In private interviews most Rs in the House wished he wasn't there. But vote to expel is a big step. Many Ds were against it and the precedent it would set as he has not been convicted of anything. But that house ethics reports (by Ds and Rs) was damning enough to get him gone.
The bad precedent was that you can get tossed for any reason without having done anything against the law. Refusing to wear deodorant or similar. Many preferred what was done to King(?) of OK. Just striping him of all duties except to put his butt in his seat.
An update to Torment Nexus conference quotes in comment 1061, one of the end quotes included a policy analogue of the Murderbot governor module (cyborg brain-destroying control implant):
The I/ITSEC organization posted two video versions of this conference panel to youtube -in case anyone wants to watch 90 minutes of dystopian fantasies.
second video description:
More along the "be afraid, be very afraid" line concerning Trump II:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/opinion/insurrection-act-trump-president.html
[The Insurrection Act gives] the president the ability to call out the National Guard or the regular army “whenever the president considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any state by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Note the key language: “whenever the president considers.” That means deployment is up to him and to him alone.
The section after that does much same thing, again granting the president the power to “take such measures he considers necessary” to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.”
I think I'm getting somewhat afraid.
The bad precedent was that you can get tossed for any reason without having done anything against the law. Refusing to wear deodorant or similar.
That's also how impeachment works in the House. There's no definition of what constitutes an impeachable offense. Convince half-plus-one of voting Representatives that your hair style is unacceptable, and you're impeached.
I know. So much of how the governments of all levels in the US are meant to work is based on an assumption of grownups in the room. Both parties (one more than the other at this time) is proving this to not be the case. At all levels of government.
Lots of reasons for this but here we are.
And there ARE exceptions:
https://apnews.com/article/north-carolina-mayoral-race-coin-toss-cfcd2350afc8637e68b3d92efbf2acba
And from what I read on this blog and in various news accounts the various bits of the UK and other places around the world seem to be having the same issue.
There's nothing in my comment about looks. I was responding to OGH about allowing comments about children who are in government, pointing out that Ivanka Trump (as well as Kushner) are in government and so can be commented about. Was there something unclear?
sadly, the only 'clean' loophole left us is for both Trump and Biden to die of overt natural causes... whereupon both parties scabble to select their replacements... making NOV'24 into a quasi-typical election (for values of 'quasi' including batshit crazy mutterings of gun totting Christian Nationalists)
nightmare is Biden dies falling off his bike but Trump does not choke on deep fried breaded fat
Harris has a support base but nowhere near what a non-incumbent needs to reach the White House... and she's got multiple "flaws" no Christian Nationalist will overlook
I'm screaming into my pillow 2 outta 5 nights... the suspense is killing me and threatening to kill us all
So much of how the governments of all levels in the US are meant to work is based on an assumption of grownups in the room. Both parties (one more than the other at this time) is proving this to not be the case. At all levels of government.
I think it's like that most places. And where there are specific measures that are obviously about constraining behaviours, those are there because some privilege was historically abused and needed correcting. But there are also examples of pure political theatre that clearly only exist as a sort of relief valve to let the behaviours out in a relatively safe way. Take the antics you see in parliamentary systems that have Question Time. I was going to say something similar about filibustering, but I suspect there's some deep history to that which I'm forgetting and which cast a rather darker character.
...the UK and other places around the world seem to be having the same issue.
TBH I'm not sure it's grownups in the room (or their absence) that are the issue. It's about whether the facilities for managing behaviour can be abused systematically by bad-faith manipulation or even outright bullying and political violence.
Take the impeachment facility discussed above. In many ways it's totally sensible: membership of a representative chamber of parliament (or Congress, whatever) is a privilege, if someone's conduct is egregious enough to bring the chamber into disrepute, crime or no crime, it's in every other member's interest to remove them. Maybe that does rely on good faith, but in normal circumstances there is a balance of expectations and accountability that provides some incentives around maintaining at least the appearance of good faith, and this might normally be enough to prevent abuse. It's not clear whether those circumstances will continue to pertain under assumed bad faith and an absence of any accountability other than plain patronage and direct physical intimidation.
You could say that the UK went through that stuff (who can be removed from parliament and when) in the 17th century, but that's not really the historical example to treat as a roadmap...
You misspelled 'conquest', I believe.
oh, he doesn't want it all
but i suspect whatever's left is going to be neutral
Take the impeachment facility discussed above. In many ways it's totally sensible: membership of a representative chamber of parliament (or Congress, whatever) is a privilege, if someone's conduct is egregious enough to bring the chamber into disrepute, crime or no crime, it's in every other member's interest to remove them.
For an example of a system which doesn't have it, look at the European Parliament and Nigel Farage. Farage -- then-leader of UKIP, an explicitly anti-European party -- ran for and won a seat as an MEP in Brussels. He was elected to the EP in 1999 and was a member until Brexit in 2020 (which he was instrumental in campaigning for). While an MEP he declared £205,603 in gifts, received a salary of roughly £90,000 a year as of 2020, had claimed over £2M in expenses on top of his salary from the EU (as of 2009!), and gets a pension of £73,000 a year from the European Parliament.
But Farage barely showed up for work in the European Parliament -- in 2014-16 he only voted in 40.7% of roll call motions on the floor, and his voting record put him in 745th out of 746 MEPs. (The only MEP with a worse record was Brian Crowley, a Fianna Fáil politician from Ireland, who never voted at all.)
Anyway: consider an elected representative who barely turns up, barely votes, actively campaigns against the existence of the house they were elected to, clearly holds the institution in contempt, claims every penny of expenses they can (to the point where they were investigated for fraud and presented with a huge clawback bill), milks it for a salary and pension without doing any of the work ...
And the European Parliament had no mechanism for impeaching this guy: all they could do was audit his expense claims and on another occasion dock him ten days' attendance allowance for behavior "inappropriate, unparliamentary and insulting to the dignity of the House" for a personal attack on the President of the European Council.
Clearly there's got to be a happy medium between having no mechanism for censure of a delinquent member and allowing ejection for any reason at all that can get 50%+1 of a majority vote?
What's left is going to resemble the West Bank, once Putin is through with it (if he gets his way).
Hard agree. With Russian 'settlements' periodically going in and taking the best Ukrainian land, while the rest of the world says "you really shouldn't do that" while doing nothing to stop it.
However, I can't see Ukraine giving up. They are facing extermination if they do. They'll keep on fighting until they've got nothing to fight with. And then they'll go full guerilla.
I think that the war will continue until Putin's leaves office (coup or coming down with a case of the deads). Will Putin's successor continue with it? I hope not.
Will Putin's successor continue with it?
I expect that Putin's successor, regardless of the manner of Putin's death, will immediately pull out the troops, apologize profusely ("It was all Putin's fault!"), then will start re-arming for Round Two.
Russian nationalists are not going anywhere, and bringing Ukraine back into the empire is literally part of their religion -- "Moscow is the Third Rome" and all that.
I think it depends on the nature of the succession. If Putin has to retire due to age catching up with him or drops dead then I suspect there's a good chance of it continuing.
russian settlers? very unlikely imo, though they apparently have a yearning for odessa, and it might be best for the ukrainians to open negotiations before they're ready to take it, ukraine without a coastline would be a very sad camper
I think that the war will continue until Putin's leaves office (coup or coming down with a case of the deads). Will Putin's successor continue with it? I hope not.
I can't see any reason for any leader who's not Putin to want to continue his omni-disaster in Ukraine. Given any excuse to pull out that doesn't totally disgrace Russia or the leader in charge, Putin's successor will likely do so. It saves a lot of Russian military power currently being wasted, it decreases the chance of a sudden unscheduled executive removal, and it avoids Ukrainians taking Rostov-on-Don and telling Moscow that Russia didn't really need a port on the Black Sea anyway.
I think preparations for that have been ongoing since the earliest days of the invasion. As of Friday, those white LM-100Js have made ~ 420 trips to four Eastern European sites:
Nowe Miasto nad Pilica, Poland: 198
Sliač, Slovakia: 79
Lielvarde, Latvia: 74
Boboc, Romania: 68
Plus 9 to Šiauliai, Lithuania
Charlie @ 1108
ONLY if the rest of Europe & a non-Trump USA abandon Ukraine ...
Which, if they do, will REALLY ENCOURAGE other land-grabs & dictators, like - it's a long list.
Taiwan / Guyana / MoroccovsAlgeria / Moldova / Falklands etc ad nauseous-to-the-millions-of-bodies count.
Let's NOT go back to before 1945, shall we?
Please?
Clearly there's got to be a happy medium between having no mechanism for censure of a delinquent member and allowing ejection for any reason at all that can get 50%+1 of a majority vote?
I’m not so sure about that. One of the most dangerous memes of our age is that “any system can be hacked.” So far as I know, it happens to be true, but the reason I’m pointing to the meme as a problem is that it inspires people to try hacking everything, which makes more work for those of us who like functional systems.
I’d also point out that every civilization and political system is, at best, a semi-functional kludge. Worse, technocratic attempts to make it not a kludge inevitably piss people off, generally because they don’t work. This is the territory of HL Mencken’s “for every complex problem, there’s an answer that’s clear, simple, and wrong.” The optimal strategy for getting crooks out of politics may well be a complex problem.
Politics, in its best role, is about keeping the kludge working as well as possible. It’s laborious, not glorious, which is why I respect the reasonably ethical politicians I’ve had the fortune to meet, even when I don’t agree with them.
Anyway, in the US, if some politician is impeached and their constituents disagree, they can always be voted in again. That happened three times in the Tennessee state house this year.
This argument is also why I support Biden in 2024. It’s my vote against Trump, who’s actively hacking the US. I’d gently suggest that the technocratic impulse to find a better solution than Biden, especially one that’s completely untested, is really, really dangerous right now. Keep the kludge functioning first, then dink around with it if possible, once it’s not being hacked.
Re: 'The big barrier they see to living in South Korea is that all able-bodied male citizens have to do two years of military service before they turn 30.'
Yes - even KPop superstars aren't exempt.
Agriculture/food sufficiency has been mentioned as a reason for incursions into SKorea as well as the possibility that NKorea might decide to drop a few nukes. But ... SKorea's major economic power is in high tech these days with quite a few ultra modern (extremely expensive and ultra finicky) manufacturing facilities. Dropping a nuke on these would destroy their significant economic value to the conqueror. Suggesting that SKorean manufacturers move some of their plants out of the country would probably be a hard sell as historically SKorea hasn't been overly welcoming of foreign investors. (Much of the investment has been via their gov't.)
Low birth rate ...
That's also true in many other developed countries. Adoption of adults is fairly common in Asia - that's how some large (mostly Japanese) firms have been able to keep their businesses within the 'family' and avoid certain taxes. Not sure but the bits I've read about SKorea (since I started watching their musicals/listening to their cross-over groups) say that wives lose almost all of their rights when they marry despite laws passed specifically granting women rights equal to men*. So although divorce is possible, I wonder about a wife's ability to hire a lawyer. (You didn't mention what the females in your extended family think about living in SKorea. Per Statistica, SKorea ranks 105th out of the 146 countries surveyed on the gender development index.)
Interested in your take on the above since you have much better access to what the actual current situation is.
*This ties in with a previous discussion we had re: civilization vs. culture. For me, civilization is the stuff that's written in books whereas culture is the actual lived life experience. (Familism is what quashes gender/age equity in SKorea.)
adrian smith @ 1112: russian settlers? very unlikely imo,
They are already doing it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-66393949
50%+1 of a majority vote?
Bizarrely in the US the House can start an impeachment with 50%+1 but the Senate has to have 2/3s to convict. So 50%+1 can wreak the entire process of the US legislature. More so that they have to this point buy tying things into even bigger knots.
But it takes 2/3s of the House to expel someone.
Impeachment is in the Constitution which means hard to change. I suspect expel someone from the House needing 2/3s is in the House rules.
Like you I want a way to get rid of turds but not be petty about it. But in today's world way too many politicians thrive in being petty.
Given any excuse to pull out that doesn't totally disgrace Russia or the leader in charge,
Me thinks you're equating logic with emotion.
Low birth rate ...
That's also true in many other developed countries.
Did you read the numbers. Most of those "other" countries have rates in the range of 1.5 give or take. This is a problem that gets really bad in the next century.
SK has a rate of 0.7 just now. That creates terrible problems in the next 20 years.
Concerning the vote to expel "George Santos":
Most of the expulsion vote was about about voting. Before expulsion, the count in the House was (R) 222, (D) 213. With a nine vote majority, Rs could afford to lose four votes to Ds and still pass a bill 218-217. With "Santos" gone, the Rs have an eight vote majority and if they lose four votes (resulting in a 217-217 tie), they do not pass a bill.
So Ds were in a win-win situation: get rid of a horrible person and improve their voting power. Rs were in a mixed bag. Note that the majority of Rs voted to retain "Santos" and keep their nine vote margin. The remaining Rs were in contested districts or had an ethical backbone.
Soon there will be an election to replace "Santos." The district is nominally Democratic, and a D win reinforces the current status quo concerning voting margins.
NK v. SK w/ nukes. Not going to happen. 1. SK chip fab plants. 2. and even more important, you DO NOT NUKE good farmland, the land that feeds you. Don't give me "tactical nukes", nope, it will poison the farmland. Those countries aren't that big, and the fallout will do it.
there's many ways to gauge collective uncertainty and yardsticks for safety margins and formalized levels of acceptable risk
such things are critical part of corporate GRC policies (governance-risk-compliance), indeed ought be applicable to national governments
supposedly insurance policies are useful for managing risk... leastwise and until Western US burned, Pakistan drowned and central-southern US dried out, the list is long... in theory you estimate failure and allocate payment of premiums to acquire 'coverage' to offset losses... but rather than base 'risk' on statistics and maps and other sets of hard data, companies are bending under pressure from governments... politics has been wrecking the process of generating (coherent-rational-effective) insurance policies
one of those categories for evaluating collective uncertainty are 'stores of wealth' which are finite and not fiat (US dollar) thus do not spontaneously be created upon whim of his majesty... with a widely tracked gauge being gold
the US dollar is undergoing only minor inflationary devaluation but overall it is strong and regarded as stable... this is despite BSGC politically unstable elections and slow boil fascism... so it is not weakening dollar but growing collective uncertainty which has led to USD$2135 per troy ounce...
that is one way of expressing “geopolitical risk” that can be measured with a single number
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/12/04/investing/gold-price-rise-all-time-high/index.html
Given that the TCF (Trump Crime Family) in control of Congress doesn't want Biden to have money for Ukraine, things could get dicey. The EU may step up. It may wind up with a couple of provinces in the east as "disputed", and the rest of Ukraine free, but maybe neutral by treaty (with an addition treaty of NATO support if the first treaty's broken).
And be very glad of that required 2/3rds, given the TCF "impeachment" of Biden right now, for no actual reasons whatsoever other than "they impeached our Beloved".
sigh Except that no country in the world is on the gold standard. All are on fiat money.
It's bad enough when various leaders claim their have hot daughters (Tony Abbott has four!) but I am not really keen on other people pointing them out.
You're right, and I apologize for what now seems like a 'creepy old man' comment.
It sounded different in my head when I wrote it. I'd just looked up Afwerki (because I know nothing about him) and pictures of his three kids popped up too, and my first thought was "she looks like one of my nieces did when she was a teenager", hence the comment. But that wasn't what I wrote, and as you point out there was no need for a public comment anyway.
(I will note that I don't think of my nieces as "hot". Cute, stunning, and gorgeous, yes. I hope their boyfriends/husbands/girlfriends think they are 'hot', but that's between them and their partners and none of my business.)
I've also learned that when the surgeon says "don't drive for 24 hours after waking up" that should also include posting on the internet, at least for me. Which isn't an excuse, any more than "I had too much to drink" excuses a drunk driver.
Anyway, I apologize to Charlie and the rest of you for the comment. Whatever my internal thoughts and intent, the comment itself was creepy and I shouldn't have made it.
If you’ve ever read Old Man’s War, you’d be familiar with the concept of using an older part of the populace to be future soldiers,” they continued.
Not to mention the concept of using purpose-built child soldiers (the Ghost Brigades).
I'm happy for Scalzi that his series is making him money, but it's very much a dystopia — something that seems to escape a lot of its fans. Which leads right back to Charlie's post about the Torment Nexus…
While that may be true, the BBC news is at least as unreliable as Russia Today on areas where the British government takes an interest, and is likely to have quoted a Ukrainian source as fact without checking up. So it may not be true, either.
The idea of having a super soldier in the ranks is a tantalizing prospect for any military.
I'm reminded of the short story "Collateral" by Peter Watts:
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/collateral/
Well worth the read.
Politics, in its best role, is about keeping the kludge working as well as possible. It’s laborious, not glorious, which is why I respect the reasonably ethical politicians I’ve had the fortune to meet, even when I don’t agree with them.
I was at a meeting with my MP last week, and he looked tired. The personal abuse that politicians have been getting really increased 7-8 years ago, and it's been getting steadily worse. It's driving the sane, ethical people out through burnout, leaving the field to psychopaths who don't care (and actively weaponize the abuse).
And it's worse for women.
Re: 'SK has a rate of 0.7 just now. That creates terrible problems in the next 20 years.'
Maybe they should up their retirement age? - It's at 60 right now and life expectancy is 83.
I'm curious:
When did overpopulation / excess births become an ecological/existential threat? (What's the optimum global population size? - What's the optimal shape for age distribution: pipe or the historical pyramid? Reminder: The pyramid shape was because so many children died.
Should we stop caring for children that become ill ... ditto seniors ... ditto people with very serious medical conditions (transplant) ... etc.?
What's the point of investing in medical advancements - or are such advancements only for the super-rich or that new hybrid/breed of super soldier? Okay, I guess you'd first want to test really new medical tech out on the (disposable) non-super-rich/super soldier.
Should countries (corps) rethink their retirement strategies? How about easing their employees into retirement instead of completely axing them out of their job/career? (When did the retirement fantasy of happily doing nothing for the rest of your life get started, by whom? Yeah - travel and bucket lists later showed up as retirement goals but these are very brief specks along the way to increasing boredom.)
Of course, execs want to axe older people, given that they get paid more.
A few reminders, to get everyone thinking outside the technocrat box ("for every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong").
Everybody will die eventually. Everything will break down eventually too.
We've arguably been in population overshoot territory since ca. 1910, when they got serious about fixing nitrogen to stop famines. We've still got about the same proportion of people who are found insecure as in 1900, but we've got about five times the absolute population, all depending on fixed nitrogen. Nitrogen fixation is a classic example of a technocratic fix that not only didn't fix the population problem, it made other problems, such as industrial warfare, fossil fuel consumption, and nitrogen pollution, much, much worse.
Depending on consumption levels, the planet's human carrying capacity if ecological systems more or less work is in the 100 million to 2 billion people. It can, of course, be less. And, since every system eventually breaks, human populations are eventually going to fall massively. The question is how the fall happens, not if.
So what to do? Nuke everyone because we're evil? That's a technocratic fix based on various fundamentalist religions. Life is always unsatisfactory, but even the most apocalyptic Buddhist will say that only humans can become enlightened, so getting rid of humans just traps whatever's left in eternal reintarnation.
Let the Four Horsemen (disease, famine, warfare, with a cunulative 1/3 death rate) take the population down? That's the Trolley Problem answer: I don't wanna deal with icky dying of old age, so it's better to bomb the less fortunate in their refugee camps and encourage them to adopt terrorist tactics, to give us the excuse of bombing them some more. Oops, did I say the quiet part out loud? Are you sure that WW3 is preferable to nursing homes? I'm not.
Or we can do it the bitter but humane way: let human populations fall through lack of replacement. Farm out end-of-life care to immigrants (WE DO THIS ALREADY), don't blame people for not having kids, and encourage the Quiverful Children to read their Bibles cover to cover on their own time and also not have kids like the apostles suggested. Encourage people to shop thrift stores more than buying new (THEY'RE DOING THIS ALREADY) to deal with the mountains of used consumer goods and closing factories, and so forth.
Sounds horrible? If the only thing you're listening to is pop economists on public radio, of course it does. But maybe you should pay attention to who's paying for their content? It also sounds like roach-bait for all the pests trying to start race wars and profit therefrom? So maybe we don't want militarists to have yet another banner year?
What I'm trying to get at is population decrease will happen, and those who want population to continue rising benefit from this more than the rest of us do. Gen Z is trying to do the right thing, and pressuring them to breed more is kind of uncool, especially considering they're likely to be living with the consequences longer than we are.
whitroth @ 1126
PROBLEM - a reminder
Ukraine HAD nuclear Weapons & gave them up, in return for a Russian promise of non-intervention, didn't they?
Turned out well, didn't it?
- @ 1127
Erm: Gold is also FIAT money, if you actually think about it - isn't it?
Rbt Prior @ 1132
Indeed - I only think "Our Stella" manages, because she has a huge support network - her family & a large number of friends & supporters, mostly in her own constituency/neighbourhood.
You have heard about BBC verify? Tell me about how RT verify their news!
Thanks. I definitely understand the disconnect between what you mean and what comes out...
Re: '... axe older people ... they get paid more'
That's why I said 'ease into' retirement. I'm guessing that older employees wouldn't mind fewer hours therefore less pay. At the other extreme is the techie corp with revolving door employment practices that mostly hires new grads expecting them to work 70 plus hours every week.
Not sure whether this is so but it seems to me that dumping older employees when they hit a certain age (often before official retirement age) combined with overworking young employees both seemed to become more popular/accepted practice about the same time as tech billionaires became the new gen pop-culture icons.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1362361320919286
Autistic peer-to-peer information transfer is highly effective
These findings are consistent with prior research indicating that autistic people experiencing close social bonds and empathy with other autistic people, though may experience specific difficulty interacting with non-autistic people (Crompton et al., 2019; Morrison et al., 2019). This lends additional support to the Double Empathy theory, and suggests that autistic social ‘deficits’ are better conceptualised as interaction and communicative challenges, operating bi-directionally for autistic and non-autistic people (Fletcher-Watson & Bird, 2020; Milton, 2012).
Interesting research. No doubt to be turned into fun headlines.
Countries like Korea, the US, Japan and most of Europe are going to have to give up their resistance to immigration if they want to survive. It's not difficult, many millions of people want to move there, but the conscious and unconscious racism rises to the surface.
Canada certainly has its share of racism, but in the last few years we've been desperately bringing in immigrants in an attempt to sustain our population and shore up our economy. Something like >100,000 immigrants/month, meaning a significant percentage of 'New Canadians' every month. Something like 22% of Canadians were born somewhere else, and 17% are second generation. These are numbers that would cause aneurysms in most European countries, as well as Korea and Japan.
There are follow-on issues like a housing crisis, which was easily predicted and preventable, but I see some hopeful signs of progress lately (which will take years to resolve).
Right, except in the US, you lose some of your social security if you retire early. And the TCF talks about raising the retirement age.
No, I'm not going to be a greeter at Home Depot.
Well, another LGM pointing to a NYT article about Trump II:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/12/recognizing-the-trump-threat
People seem to be picking up on the question. But, Что делать?
Sigh. I have checked several of their news items about both Ukraine and Israel against the more complete information that has appeared later (sometimes even on the BBC!), and THAT is what I base my statement on. Yes, I know they are better at whitewashing their propaganda than Russia Today was (it is now censored in the UK), but so what?
PROBLEM - a reminder Russia allowed Germany to reunite in return for a promise that the NATO would not expand up to its borders, didn't they? Turned out well, didn't it?
A plague on both your houses.
Getting back to billionaires...
SCOTUS today heard arguments in "Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P. (23-124)" and I can highly recommend you listen to the audio of the proceeding.
This SCOTUS' ruling will be the next stage in the Oxycotin saga.
The situation as the case reaches SCOTUS is that the Sackler family has stashed their billions overseas, and offered to pay back a small part of the money they have pulled out of Purdue Pharma, provided they get total protection against /all/ future claims from /anybody/.
"They want global peace" as their lawyer explains it.
The normal principle is that you put /everything/ on the table to get relief in bancruptcy, but the bancrupt party is Purdue Pharma, not the Sacklers who pulled all the money out of it.
In reality, the Sacklers have offered up a fraction of their gains as charity, provided nobody is ever allowed to sue them again on this matter in USA.
The main legal problem for SCOTUS to resolve is if such a deal can bind 3rd parties, over their objections, and extinguish their due process rights.
If SCOTUS nixes the deal, there is a very good chance the Sacklers will retain /all/ their money, stay out of USA, and the victims of Oxycotin will get nothing, so "The greater good" argument is plainly on the table.
If SCOTUS waves the negotiated deal through, they will rubber-stamp that as long as billionaires dilligently off-shores their wealth and themselves, their legal responsibilities will effectively become a matter of choice and charity.
Either way, billionaries win.
whitroth 1127:
my post was nothing about the obsolete “gold standard”, rather a gauge of “collective uncertainty” wherein millions of opinions are expressed by way of bidding up gold... offers a single number easily tracked...
Robert Prior 1129:
indeed a dystopia... with the 'colonial authorities' in net effect a military dictatorship and Earth a clueless farm-world providing on a monthly basis millions of souls to stuff into cyber-soldiers... sadly... how else ought humanity respond to a galaxy always at war? Never mind the huggy-cheery-sing-along Federation in Star Trek... it's bellum omnium contra omnes with no prize for species only achieving second place, not even a tombstone
SFReader 1133:
“retirement” is less about joyous golden years as it is emotional exhaustion and accumulated damage and losing the contest climbing the greased flagpole of advancement in the workplace... people get edged out because the expectation of managers about ever more doctor visits getting scheduled during the work day... increasing back talk and reality checks offered by thirty years veterans... demands for salary to reflect those thirty years... as well resistance to 'death marches' of mandatory overtime due to failure to plan properly, which is as much a headache for manufacturing companies as for any who have suffered in the information tech industry...
Greg Tingey 1136:
yes... money is collective delusion as is respecting kings as divine rulers... so... shhh! stop shaking the foundations of reality
...Russia allowed Germany to reunite in return for a promise that the NATO would not expand up to its borders, didn't they?
The short answer is no. For one thing, it was the Soviet Union doing the negotiating. What was agreed was that non-German NATO troops and nuclear weapons wouldn't be stationed in the former East Germany.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germany-s-unlikely-diplomatic-triumph-an-inside-look-at-the-reunification-negotiations-a-719848.html
West Bank? I'd guess Ukraine will end up like North/South Korea, a situation Russia probably can't afford.
Something like 22% of Canadians were born somewhere else, and 17% are second generation.
I was born elsewhere, but I'm not the target of anti-immigrant attacks — while my nieces, who were born here, grew up with them. The difference, of course, is that I'm Caucasian…
I live about an hour away from the town where beating up Asian fishermen was considered just good ole boys having fun about a decade ago.
https://torontosun.com/2012/08/02/man-loses-appeal-but-keeps-short-jail-term-in-nip-tipping-case
A friend of mine was in the Ontario Provincial Police, and there's places his Canadian-born Chinese wife doesn't go without an escort because they know what attitudes are like in small-town Ontario.
I have no intention of sugar coating it, there is certainly appalling racism here in Canada. There is, however, a much more 'immigration positive' approach here than elsewhere, and given how desperately we need those immigrants that is a good thing.
Name me a European country that has >20% of its citizens as immigrants. Germany has had as many as five generations of 'resident workers' who can't get citizenship (though until I recently I might have been able to because of one great grandparent).
The reality is that a large percentage of the human population is going to be moving North in the next century. It's been happening for awhile now, and the pace is going to increase. I have no doubt that our racist compatriots will be slightly less hostile towards 'white' Floridian and Texan refugees, but there will be many others and we should be preparing to welcome them.
[ confirming hell has indeed frozen over ]
YUP... THAT JUST HAPPENED...
Rachel Maddow (gay, liberal, journalist) interviews Liz Cheney (GOP, quasi-royalty, hardcore neo-con) on MSNBC (so far left nobody wears shoes on their right feet)
YUP... THAT JUST HAPPENED...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyna5OiiVQU
Germany has had as many as five generations of 'resident workers' who can't get citizenship (though until I recently I might have been able to because of one great grandparent).
Yes. German citizenship is tough. My daughter has decided to work the process of getting it for her, her brother, and my wife. And it requires a lot of certified paperwork and you typically hire experts to do it for you.
My wife's mother was a German citizen and my wife was born there. And was not naturalized as a US citizen for a few years. I would have thought it would have been somewhat automatic for at least her. If not from birth.
And just forget about me.
interviews Liz Cheney
She's been making the rounds since at least last weekend. Not sure if she has a book or not.
Her position is that no matter how she might differ with someone about policy, she will vote for a D if the R is an election denier.
Reminder that gold is not money: gold is an industrial metal that tokens representing money used to be made out of. Spoiler: easy to forge, and the gold economy was one mining strike away from runaway inflation.
Money is not a commodity. Money can't be a commodity. Money is an accounting abstraction for debt, and in an economy it functions more like an electrical current than a fixed volemetric substance like water.
Most people grievously misunderstand what money is -- and what it's for in the broader economy -- because the folks who control the most of it would find it very inconvenient if the public at large could see how it was abused to control them.
Mike Collins
Forget it .. "EC" refuses, point-blank to recognise that Putin is: a} Ex-KGB
b} Publicly stated that the collapse of the CCCP was the worst event in C20th history ( i.e. worse than WW II ! )
c} Has repeatedly invaded small neighbouring territories & trashed them
etc.
His entirely natural suspicion of the USA - has spilled over into - "Anything against the USA is good"
Rocketjps @ 1141
The exact opposite of what our stupid misgovernment are doing, of course!
Question: How much is this cruel Rwanda fiasco COSTING?
What are they going to do in 2 years time, ( I know, blame it on the then Labour government, of course! ) when there simply are not the people to do ALL the jobs - not just the lowly, underpaid carers, either { The tories don't "care" about them } but all the technical, scientific & professional staff who are needed to keep a modern tech-based society working, I wonder?
You are correct to pinpoint housing, though - I know several non-tory voters who always say "but what about housing, when we can't even house our "own" ( those already here ) people" ??
Kardashev
Could we have that in Greek or Roman alphabet, please?
EC @ 1145 Actually, YES - it turned out very well, because, let's see ...
NONE OF: Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania felt they could trust Putin more than about a nanometre, right?
ALL of that happened after Putin, ex-KGB murderer & tyrant took power, right?
Howard NYC
Hell has frozen over - NOT read your Dante, obviously - the bottom layer, Cocytus IIRC is a bitter, frozen lake.
They are already doing it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-66393949
we were discussing "what's left" - the bits they've taken are effectively russia now, unless and until some economic or military circumstance (fondly hoped for by peter zeihan) manages to prise them away again
i won't be holding my breath tho
adrian smith
Really? "Sudetenland"?
Never voted at all in his final period in the European Parliament - he'd been a voting MEP for a decade before that; his health deteriorated and from re-election in 2014 he didn't make it to any votes until he retired in 2019. That his health was impacting his attendance was an issue in his 2014 re-election campaign - did Farage's non-attendance impact his vote tally?
Fair point well made. :-)
Nope. What I said.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
Gorbachev was far too trusting - if he had not been, we would probably have been in a better state, and Putin would not have had his massive, sustained support in Russia.
As usual for you, you are posting falsehoods, and not just about me. I have never denied any of that. What I have said is that Putin's dominance in Russia was a symptom, not a cause, and you have to look further back for those. But you're not good at that, are you?
Maybe they should up their retirement age? - It's at 60 right now and life expectancy is 83.
You are an office worker or former office worker, amirite?
People who work manual jobs tend to physically deteriorate into disability between the ages of 45 and 65 (depending on the nature of the job). Hernias, back injuries, knees going bad, fallen arches, osteoarthritis -- all side-effects of too much bending, lifting, and repetitive movement without enough days off for complete recovery.
Japan has a similar problem and has been researching powered exoskeletons for rice farmers for a couple of decades now (they ain't breeding 'em any more: the average age is something like 70). Spoiler: it's not just muscles that deteriorate, but joints, eyesight, hearing, reflex speed, hand/eye coordination ...
We accept that surgeons -- a high prestige profession -- have to switch over to teaching duties only some time in the range 45-50. We expect airline pilots to undergo extensive cardiovascular health checks annually after age 50 and to retire by 60.
But for some reason this doesn't apply to janitors, cleaners, security guards, shop workers, or anyone else who's on their feet 40+ hours a week and doesn't need a degree or equivalent to do their job without killing people.
EC, the Russian army -- and the state behind it -- has a history of mindless brutality going back centuries. Russia is an expansionist empire going back five or more centuries. And the Russian army is what you get when an autocratic centralized imperial power pays for its might through a tax on vodka sales (which in turn means promoting alcoholism as state policy). It's the same model as today's narcoterrorist cartels in central America, given a few centuries to mature.
My take is that the BBC, Ukrainian media, et al don't need to make things up to come up with effective anti-Russian propaganda: All they have to do is cherry-pick and then boost the worst atrocities, much as the UK did wrt. Hitler circa 1939-45.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/05/uk_government_denies_sellafield_hack_claim/
MRDA ("Mandy Rice-Davies Applies")
So I'm not sure how reassured I should feel. I still have the Stuxnet dossier in my computer science papers archive, filed under "security". Looking at it again, one line immediately leaps out.
I may have missed something in the Guardian "report". Does this rebuttal say anything about lessons learned from Stuxnet? Is it too soon to expect any action from a bureaucracy the size of the UK government? Could this just be another bad case of clickbait journalism?
German citizenship has (or had until recently) a Catch-22 whereby it's exclusive: if you want it you have to renounce/revoke/jettison any previous citizenship in order to be eligible.
Sounds reasonable?
Well, other countries -- like, for example, Turkey -- have a birthright citizenship law whereby anyone of Turkish ancestry can claim a Turkish passport. You can't actually renounce Turkish citizenship, the Turkish state won't let you.
(See also Israel's Law of Return, although that's not quite as extreme.)
The upshot is that since the 1950s Turkish "guest workers" have been living and working in Germany but aren't allowed to get German citizenship because Turkey won't let them renounce Turkish nationality and Germany won't give them German citizenship unless they do so.
(How to performatively deny having a racist immigration policy while enforcing a racist immigration policy.)
Liz Cheney's wing of the Republican party has been outflanked on the right by the MAGAs much as David Cameron's wing of the UK Conservative party was outflanked in 2015-2019 by the Brexiters.
She's almost certainly already on Tangerine Shitler's round-em-up-for-the-concentration-camps list of enemies to settle scores with in 2025 if he's re-elected. It'd be astonishing if she wasn't trying to get the message out through any channel available.
Really? "Sudetenland"?
u think i'm celebrating it but i'm just describing it
western governments and the whole western press have been telling themselves and us what they want to hear about what's happening there and what the consequences are going to be, in my opinion, could be wrong, will eat crow if so
if not, only four stages of kubler-ross to go
Yes, indeed, and that is their primary method. But I have been tracking the degradation of the news on the BBC for some years, because it used to be my primary source of reliable information. No longer, unfortunately. The biassed (even bigoted) cherry-picking and boosting has got enough worse that even the reporters are objecting (though they dare not do so in public), but that's not all.
They have done precisely what I said for some time - they quote statements from one side as fact without checking them themselves, and refer to comparable statements by the other side as 'alleged'. As I said, those former statements may be true, but they may not be. I have seen several examples where later evidence showed they were not. I am certainly not going to say that those reports are false, because they are probably true, but I stand by my point that the BBC is not an authoritative source on such things.
"Spoiler: it's not just muscles that deteriorate, but joints, eyesight, hearing, reflex speed, hand/eye coordination ..."
Tell me about it :-( I may not be as ancient as some posters here, but am almost 76. Don't forget balance (which goes with hearing).
It's unclear. If the Western reports are correct, and Russia is almost at the end of its manpower and military resources, it could collapse at any time. However, it's likely that those reports are exaggerated. Similarly, if the reports are correct, Putin could drop dead at any time and there is no successor in waiting. Ditto.
However, it's likely that those reports are exaggerated.
we bathe in a sea of narrative management
the stuff about gaza is the worst yet
Rocketpjs [1141] noted: "Canada certainly has its share of racism"
Indeed we do. For example, there was this bit a few years ago (pre-pandemic?) in which Montreal's Black police officers submitted an open letter to their management about structural racism in the police department and were essentially ignored. Not to mention racial profiling in traffic stops.
I haven't run the numbers to see how our incidence of racism compares with the American stats, adjusted for population (the U.S. is about 8x as populous as Canada), but my sense is that we're doing better overall. Just not enough better to brag about our record.
Rocketpjs: "but in the last few years we've been desperately bringing in immigrants in an attempt to sustain our population and shore up our economy. Something like >100,000 immigrants/month"
Last I checked (2022), ca. 440K annually, so closer to 37K per month. Several years ago I wrote to my elected representative to ask him where the government planned to put all these people, especially given that we've had an affordable housing crisis for at least a decade. Their answer was boilerplate that didn't suggest anyone had actually read my question. It's hard to know the right choice: let people live 10 to a single bedroom or sleep on the street, or let them die back home in Gaza or Syria or Sudan or wherever. But if we're going to do the ethical thing and keep bringing these people to a place of safety, we need an order of magnitude more housing construction than we've been getting -- just to catch up with immigrants from 5 years ago.
Rocketpjs: "Something like 22% of Canadians were born somewhere else, and 17% are second generation."
One of the things about Canada I'm proudest of.
Rocketpjs: "There are follow-on issues like a housing crisis, which was easily predicted and preventable"
Correct in essence, except that I wouldn't say "follow-on". The problem has been around for at least a decade and probably much longer. And it's going to get worse fast as ecological migration increases.
Similarly, if the reports are correct, Putin could drop dead at any time and there is no successor in waiting.
This is certainly intentional. If there was a well known successor ready to step into the top spot and be recognized as the legitimate ruler of Russia, Putin could drop dead at any time, particularly on days when the war is going badly.
I imagine this point is made during KGB training.
If Putin's death is widely expected to kick off a vigorous multi-way power struggle, seasoned with a flurry of quiet assassinations, and possibly a small civil war in the streets of Moscow, then he's likely to live longer than if he's got a stable government and an orderly succession plan.
That happened around the 4th of November, although things might briefly start unfreezing towards the end of the week
No, the joke doesn't get old.
I am certainly not going to say that those reports are false, because they are probably true, but I stand by my point that the BBC is not an authoritative source on such things.
Have you seen the Youtube channel Reporting from Ukraine? Not to everyone's taste, I'm sure, but the fellow posts a few minutes every day on recent developments. Occasionally he'll end the video with a short bit on news analysis and source verification; he's got a web service he likes for both news aggregation and bias checking.
I have no doubt that our racist compatriots will be slightly less hostile towards 'white' Floridian and Texan refugees, but there will be many others and we should be preparing to welcome them.
The thought of large numbers of Texans and Floridians relocating to my area makes me want to sign on to the anti-immigrant bandwagon. I really don't want those people as part of my country, with their guns and their religious extremism, even if they would make PP look sane and reasonable. There are probably mass shooters hiding among them. Besides, how long before they invite in the American Army and we get taken over like Hawaii? :-/
Years ago I was waiting for a bus in Vancouver and beside me was an old Asian woman, and beside her was a rather heavyset* chap complaining about immigrants ruining Vancouver in a thick Texas drawl, which confused me as he was obviously an immigrant himself. I didn't realize until later that "immigrant" is code for "non-white" in the American (and now Canadian) political right-wing.
How does one have a reasonable debate about a subject when one side has redefined the vocabulary in an almost-Orwellian fashion?
*Ie. obese by non-American standards.
People who work manual jobs tend to physically deteriorate into disability between the ages of 45 and 65
My wife has been watching "The Gilded Age". A TV series about the ultra rich families of New York in the 1870s into the 1890s. I tolerate it if in the room. I'm just not into "period" pieces. But she loves them. But this one led to a discussion of Pittsburgh in the 1800s. Which is one of the many ways those "gilded" people got their gild. Basically by creating massive industrial works where the manual labor was done by disposable people.
My 7 years living near Braddock, Homestead, etc... got me to looking into a more detailed history than you got in the typical schooling. Carnegie was a total ass who in his old age did his best to "book wash" his reputation by building libraries all over the US.
Personally I grew up doing my own plumbing, carpentry, etc... as taught by my father. At 69 it takes a lot longer to get things done.
German citizenship
Well aware of the issues. We have cousins there. A few years ago found two ladies in the late 80s who's grandfather bought my wife's great grandfather's restaurant. We have cousins there now.
My wife got to be good friends with some Greek guest workers, Gastarbeiter, in the 70s with similar issues to the Turkey situation you describe.
Oh, she owns 1/6 of a small lot in a village in the south. A second or third cousin grows a garden on it.
and beside her was a rather heavyset* chap complaining about immigrants ruining Vancouver in a thick Texas drawl
When I was doing work in Toronto on visits in the 80s, a Texas drawl was the key to getting the not happy French speakers to go "un-deaf". At that point they assumed you were from Alberta or the US. And NOT from eastern Canada.
I don't do online videos except in extremis, mainly because of my (minimal) hearing, and I rely mainly on Reuters and Al Jazeera for reliable information on the topic. I haven't seen such reports on them, but I haven't looked out for them, and the whole topic is depressing,
I am afraid that adrian smith (#1172) is entirely right :-(
Just because it amused me - Ottawa paid nearly $670,000 for KPMG’s advice on cutting consultant costs.
EC @ 1162
Bollocks on stilts ... See what Chaarlie says @ 1164?
German citizenship has (or had until recently) a Catch-22 whereby it's exclusive: if you want it you have to renounce/revoke/jettison any previous citizenship in order to be eligible.
How does that interact with Israel's right-of-return?
As I understand it (and I may be wrong), if you have one Jewish grandparent you can move to Israel and claim Israeli citizenship. Does the fact that you can claim Israeli citizenship make you ineligible for German citizenship? Or is your potential citizenship just that — potential — and so doesn't count?
Looks like Argentinians can't renounce their citizenship, so I guess they're barred from becoming Germans along with the Turks.
However, according to Wikipedia you can renounce your Turkish citizenship. Other sources back this up. It looks like it is possible for the guest workers to renounce their Turkish citizenship. Of course, this doesn't mean it is easy, or affordable, so it may be a practical barrier for many.
The renunciation of Turkish citizenship is regulated in TVK article 25. The person who meets the conditions specified in this article is given a renunciation permit or a renunciation document by the Ministry.
If there is no financial or criminal limitation for an adult and discerning person and if this person is not wanted for any criminal or military service, he / she may be renounce from Turkish citizenship. In addition, this person must have foreign nationality or it must be certain that they will acquire a foreign nationality.
Renunciation of nationality demands of Turkey in the person's place of residence of the governor, the people are made outside of Turkey presented the Turkish consulate or embassy in person or by proxy. The application authority receiving the petition sends the file it prepared to the Ministry of Interior. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has the discretion to give permission to renounce citizenship.
If the person who is allowed to renounce Turkish citizenship has not yet acquired the citizenship of a foreign state, the renunciation permit and the renunciation document are issued together and sent to the applied governorship. A renunciation permit is issued to the person first, and a renunciation document is issued when he/she acquires citizenship in another country. If the person requesting to renounce has citizenship in another country, only the renunciation document is issued and sent to the applied governorship.
The renunciation document is given to the person against signature and Turkish citizenship ends in this way.
https://www.mermerogluhukuk.com/en/renouncement-of-turkish-citizenship
AIUI you can get German citizenship these days without renunciation of existing citizenship.
This is the path my daughter is negotiating.
Or - for maximum confusion/amusement (delete as appropriate) - Texas?
My numbers were off. The latest stats I can find say that we are accepting about 500,000 immigrants a year, which is still a lot for a country of 40 million.
The Housing crisis was wholly predictable starting in about 1993, when the Federal government and Paul Martin (a curse be upon him) stopped building affordable housing across the country. The capping of supply at the bottom of the market, combined with a couple decades of low interest causing massive inflation in housing costs at the middle and top of the market meant that everything getting built was for higher end markets. Additionally, the incentives and business models inherent in residential zoning through the last 3 decades actively discouraged building rental housing.
Combine that with large scale and necessary immigration, offset a little by low birth rates, and you have the makings of a housing crisis that take a generation to really manifest. And here we are.
20 years ago I spent years of my working life doing municipal social planning - working on ways for local governments to rethink how they engage with social issues to start resolving some of the housing polycrises. We had mixed success, and eventually I burned out hard.
Charlioe @ 1167
See also the Strasser brothers in Hitler's Germany ...
EC @ 1169
There's a reason for this, of course.
The BBC are desperately trying to hold the line ... until the tories are kicked out, hopefully next year.
Or ar you not prepared to acknowledge that if they had shown more resistance, they would simply have been closed down already?
Rocketjps
As a lot of people here know, our wankers have been doing the exact same fuck-up with housing for also the past 30 years ....
I really don't want those people as part of my country, with their guns and their religious extremism
Your initial wave of Texan and Floridan immigrants will mostly be LGBT+ and their families, atheists, socialists, non-Christians in general, people who don't get on with religious extremists and gun nuts, and anyone else who the lunatics are unfriendly towards. (Democrats, even.)
By the time the real crazies start trying to migrate north you and I won't be around to worry about them bringing the neighbourhood down.
While not everyone would get the joke, how's this for the ultimate political reset in NOV'24?
Trump chokes on a combination of impotent rage and overly greasy fast food; none of his children do anything but watch with thin lipped smiles as he clutches at his throat. Alongside them are dozens of lawyers, who having never been fully paid as promised, wait for post-death settlements of overdue invoices. (A bootleg video of those final seven minutes becomes YouTube's most watched -- servers crash repeatedly -- racking up three billion views and nine hundred million likes. TikTok music videos exploiting sampling of Trump's Death Dance spawn memes like bacteria on an unwashed kitchen counter.)
Biden (reluctantly) admits the obvious that four years as POTUS has further aged him past his 'best by' date and after a gracious speech, sidelines himself. (Only politicians watch the full speech. Less than two hundred thousand views, mostly poli sci majors.)
Liz Cheney (P) and Rachel Maddow (VP) announce themselves as a fusion ticket under the motto, “Restore Democracy & Embrace All Americans”. Campaign planks include: mandatory two years of national service (choice military or civilian green new deal ecological recovery); national medical coverage; securing borders by providing Mexico with twenty billion in foreign aid; immigration law reform (including 'gray cards' for unskilled laborers recruited from refugees); mega-scaled infrastructure pork barrel with actually useful policies (“Biden GND++”); et al.
They lose the Southern states, win the coastal states and Texas, getting 297 out of 538 electoral votes (270 being the minimum). Popular vote: 14 million margin. Various BSGCs fail to be re-elected to Congress. Ron DeSantis attempts to cede Florida from the union and declare himself Jesus-the-Second-Coming and is met with general indifference. Frustrated fascists do some moderate rioting and burn down various restaurants and shoppes and libraries. Roiling 'n howling, the USA gets ready for climate change due to inevitable horror of “2.3 degrees” spike by 2035.
In 2028 the election is again hotly contested but (relatively) sane.
How does that interact with Israel's right-of-return?
Here in the UK, the Home Office can strip anyone of British citizenship if they feel like it as long as that person is not left stateless, which they interpret as meaning "can get a passport somewhere with birthright citizenship".
So in principle everyone in the UK of Jewish descent within 3 generations can be stripped of citizenship by order of the Home Secretary.
This means me. (I am not a happy camper.)
In practice it's only been used against people with darker skin hues so far but it's only a matter of time, right? Especially if the crazy Christian Dominionists take over the USA and start trying to spread their "we gotta send all the Jews to Israel so they can be wiped out in a nuclear war in order to usher in the Rapture and the Second Coming" bullshit to the UK.
However, according to Wikipedia you can renounce your Turkish citizenship.
My source was a Turkish-American friend in 2016 -- who discovered the Turkish embassy wouldn't issue her with a visa to visit (for the first time), they wanted her to apply for a passport.
(It's possible Turkey amended its citizenship laws in the past 7 years.)
Biden (reluctantly) admits the obvious that four years as POTUS has further aged him past his 'best by' date and after a gracious speech, sidelines himself.
If he's smart Biden will wait until he's exactly 2 years and a day into his second term, then abdicate in favour of his VPOTUS, who gets to run as an incumbent and can in theory run the clock out to a day short of 10 years (if they win two elections in a row).
(The rest doesn't strike me as very likely, but it would be totally popcorn time over here if Trump strokes out right before the election after picking the usual life insurance running mate: Marjorie Taylor Green, maybe, or George Santos? Santos would be best: nobody loves him so he'd be 100% dependent on Trump, and without Trump he'd be pretty much the definition of a lame duck candidate.)
And I still disagree. For one, other than possibly you, I know no one who owns gold for security. Given that 40%? 60%? of Americans would be in economic disaster with a surprise $1k medical bill, the actual meaning of the value of gold is negligible.
Odd link, and it didn't work without "joining/subscribing." Is this what you meant? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otVhpZeR1Bs&t=3s
About Russia: several folks have spoken about Russia going on, if they conquer Ukraine. My response is, huh? I mean, with what army? They'd have to completely rebuild their army, and materiel, and given how hard up they are trying to impress new troops....
It's worse than that. The criterion is not that a person can get another citizenship, but that the Home Secretary can 'honestly' claim that they could; it is not challengeable just because it is false. Despite your justified concern, you are a long way down the list, and it is even possible that I would be ahead of you (having been born in Nigeria, which does NOT entitle me to its citizenship).
So in principle everyone in the UK of Jewish descent within 3 generations can be stripped of citizenship by order of the Home Secretary. This means me. (I am not a happy camper.)
So what happens if you, say, declare your religious affiliation to be "druid?" Doesn't get more British than that, and most of the druid groups don't care which god you worship, just how you worship. Better, you can claim fear of religious persecution if you're asked to leave. There's actually a work called the Mish-Mash, written by Hasidic druids. You can find it if you go digging online.
If Corbyn had been elected (and it was close), I was half-expecting an attempt at that in the UK. It almost certainly would have been a shambles(*) and jumped on before it could get anywhere, but remember that Trump was the president ....
Greg Tingey would doubtless have waved a flag to welcome them :-)
(*) Though not as much as the one that King failed to initiate against Wilson.
Whitroth: various Russian pundits have been bloviating in public about wanting to re-take Poland as well (Poland was part of the Russian Empire until 1918, remember), and Poland has a land border with Ukraine. As does Moldova (who are also in the firing line).
Russia isn't going to conquer Ukraine easily, so the supposition is that by the time they beat down Kiev they'll have built a war machine that can keep on rolling west.
I find this implausible (especially as Poland just dumped their last-generation military kit on Ukraine and placed a giant order for new tanks with South Korea and new jets with the consortium who build F-35s: Poland is taking the Russian bloviators seriously) ... but they just called up another 150,000 conscripts and China seems to be backing Russia because of some kind of brain-dead geopolitical strategy ("it distracts the USA guys, if we want to re-take Taiwan we want Uncle Sam busy with both hands before we go in, right?").
Lesson of history: when an imperial hegemonic power goes into visible decline, it sparks a feeding frenzy among the neighbouring aspirants. The USA is perceived as being in decline this century, and we're seeing a shift in the energy economics that underpin modern warfare (no more oil after 2050), and everyone's anticipating mass migration due to climate change, and Russia is still extremely butthurt over practically everything that hasn't gone their way since 1812 (Napoleon's invasion of Russia, nothing to do with the brief US/British skirmish).
So what happens if you, say, declare your religious affiliation to be "druid?"
That doesn't help me because Judaism is an ethnicity and the definition of those eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return is explicitly modeled on the list of folks the Nazis considered Jewish under the 1933 Nuremberg Laws. Which would include converts to other religions if they had a single non-observant Jewish grandparent.
Your initial wave of Texan and Floridan immigrants will mostly be LGBT+ and their families, atheists, socialists, non-Christians in general, people who don't get on with religious extremists and gun nuts, and anyone else who the lunatics are unfriendly towards. (Democrats, even.)
Most American leftists would fit comfortably into the left wing of our mainstream right-wing party. So I'm not certain I'd count that as a win — imagine Scotland importing people who would likely vote Conservative…
By the time the real crazies start trying to migrate north you and I won't be around to worry about them bringing the neighbourhood down.
I've got grandniblings to worry about, so I have a stake in the future even if I won't see it. I'd really like to leave them a better world, rather than one that's just not as bad as it might have been. :-(
My source was a Turkish-American friend in 2016 -- who discovered the Turkish embassy wouldn't issue her with a visa to visit (for the first time), they wanted her to apply for a passport.
Well, if they consider her a citizen that could make logical sense, depending on how their laws are written. Did they tell her she couldn't ever renounce her Turkish citizenship? That would be different than saying "if you are a citizen of this country you must use our passport to enter the country". I suspect that details would be key here — they often are in immigration cases.
nothing to do with the brief US/British skirmish
In reference to which I recommend a song that was delisted in America after 9/11:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0I6hBokUsw
("The War of 1812" by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie.)
Interestingly, in most American narratives of the war they mention the British impressment of American sailors (actually dual-nationality sailors who were also British, but that is rarely mentioned) as the casus belli. Much less mentioned are American territorial ambitions. One of the histories I read a couple of years ago (maybe Zinn's A People's History of the United States) mentioned that support for the war was lowest in maritime states (who were most affected by impressment) and highest in border states (who had the most to gain from conquering Indian land).
As a Canadian, our popular narrative is that the Americans invaded us and we kicked butt and burned the White House to teach the blighters a lesson. Which isn't really true as it was British regulars who did a lot of the fighting, but it makes a good founding myth — and it's as true as the Disneyfied version of the American Revolution. Although I don't think most Canadians actually know much about it or even remember it once they leave school.
At which point they'll hit the NATO border and trigger Article 5. Clearly one of Putin's objectives in invading Ukraine was to show the weakness of NATO, and that doesn't seem to have worked, Hungary and Turkey notwithstanding. (Turkey's about to agree to Swedish membership?)
Remember, NATO was formed to prevent USSR/Russia from rolling west.
has a land border with Ukraine. As does Moldova
Moldova already has to deal with the situation in Transnistria where there is a strong Russian military presence allowing the breakaway area to basically pretend to be an independent country.
The entire thing looks like a miniature version of Ukraine from before 3 years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_military_presence_in_Transnistria
Could we have that in Greek or Roman alphabet, please?
Что делать? is the original Russian title of Lenin's 1902 novel, which usually gets translated into English as "What is to be done?"
Wikipedia says it's a 1902 pamphlet, with the same title as a novel from the 1860s.
Possibly of interest to OGH and the membership, though I have grave doubts:
https://thewalrus.ca/will-new-tech-end-the-need-for-human-pregnancy/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-gb
Yes, about Russia but, no, about China. Even before China's current revanchism, the USA was bloviating about the need to 'contain' China and imposing sanctions. China knows full well that, if Russia collapses, it will receive the full antagonism of the USA military-industrial complex (being the only plausible 'enemy'). China is being entirely rational in wanting to avoid that.
Lois McMaster Bujold thought it was a good idea decades ago.
other countries -- like, for example, Turkey -- have a birthright citizenship law whereby anyone of Turkish ancestry can claim a Turkish passport. You can't actually renounce Turkish citizenship
Australia and Aotearoa have birthright citizenship but allow you to "revoke" it pretty easily. It's just that "revoked" citizenship puts you into much the same position as a jew wrt Israel. You don't have citizenship now, but you can get it just by proving your identity and paying a small fee.
They do this specifically to allow citizens to get citizenship of the US, Germany and each other (etc).
The really cool part is that Australia has a legal ban on anyone with "foreign allegiance" serving as an elected representative. This has been interpreted to cover not just dual citizenship, but some forms of eligibility for it. Not the Israeli right of return, obviously, because "Australia unconditionally supports Israel" (to quote current headlines) but if you have even possible citizenship elsewhere, whether you know it or not, then we have a problem. The really fun finding is "could not prove he was not a citizen" in this article. Cue endless bullshit involving record searches in Hungary and trying to negotiate with the government of Iran.
Haldane (JBS) proposed it exactly a hundred years ago.
https://daily.jstor.org/on-the-history-of-the-artificial-womb/
http://bactra.org/Daedalus.html
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Rocketpjs @1141
A low birthrate in moderation with intelligent policies to take advantage of it can be very positive for a country.
If your birthrate is between 1.5 and 2.1 (replacement rate) all sectors of your native labor pool will be shrinking. If you allow immigration of high-demand labor i.e. for jobs that pay well and encourage economic growth then your economy can grow in a non-inflationary manner. This will increase demand for labor across the board including for your out-of-demand labor like unskilled high-school dropouts, which will reduce their unemployment and raise their wages.
This puts the Anglosphere and other countries not adverse to immigration in the cat-bird seat, but you can fuck it up as in:
America: brings in mainly unskilled labor rather than highly skilled labor.
Britain: Neglects to grow the economy through unnecessary austerity.
Canada: forgot to build houses, driving housing prices through the roof.
At a birthrate of 1.5, you now need one immigrant for every 3 births. Below that the ratio, to stabilize your population, let alone grow it, your immigration ratio gets so large that there is a good chance you get an immigration backlash and you join the nativist pool.
Nativist countries, as far as I can tell, are entering a doom loop. The shrinking of the population results in stagnant economic grow, which does not solve unemployment as they still have a surplus of unskilled labor. (Their unskilled labor is competing against the vast unskilled labor pool of the poor countries.)
And a stagnant or shrinking economy offers less possibility for advancement. In a growing economy, then number of positions further up the ladder increases with time.
The government, especially when democratically elected, caters to the increasing share of the elderly, which puts more financial burden on the young and the cost of raising children. It takes longer for young people to establish themselves and start a family; and there’s a universal rule that the later a couple starts a family, on average, the fewer children they will have. This can be seen in its most extreme form in South Korea. There is also the possibility that the youth, particularly the talented, in these countries will emigrate to places that offer a better deal.
At the moment with desperate immigrants trying to get into every wealthy country, this seems counter intuitive, but by 2050, except for Africa and a few others, every country in the world will have a shrinking native labor pool, so poaching desirable immigrants (whatever that is) will become widespread.
A lot depends on the rate of world economic growth, which is a balance between stable conditions with sensible economic policies and disruptions, wars and disasters.
To pick a couple of nits but otherwise yes.
America: brings in mainly unskilled labor rather than highly skilled labor.
The USA (American includes a lot more) had (and to some degree still does) brought in unskilled labor but their kids mostly moved up the economic ladder. Sure there were issues and racism but many 2nd and 3rd generation kids from "illegals" went on to a more "middle class" life. The farmers and sweat shops that needed them knew this and kept bringing them in. And most everyone looked the other way. For the last decade or few most of the building trades lower end workers are ESL and likely not documented in a "legal" way.
Canada: forgot to build houses, driving housing prices through the roof.
Ditto the US and I think the UK. The US housing stock has not grown with the rate of the population increase in the US since 2008. And there seems to be no solution on the horizon. Talk to Heteromeles about the fun of boomers zoning all new contruction "somewhere" else. And somewhere else means higher cost housing. Or tear down the cheap stuff to build new expensive housing.
Basically us (and I'm one) boomers want to have everyone not well off to go somewhere else. But still stock the local stores, pick up the garbage, mow the lawns.
There's a side story of the WWII "greatest generation" pretending that the world could be a nice simple place if you just ignored everywhere else and hiding the bad stuff from their kids. Including Viet Nam. The 60s and 70s in the US were weird and we're still dealing with too many people thinking it was normal.
Canada: forgot to build houses ... The government, especially when democratically elected, caters to the increasing share of the elderly
Australia and Aotearoa: government listens to elderly and refuses to do anything that would risk lowering the rate at which house prices are growing, and also listens to older+elderly NIMBYs and refuses to allow new housing in desirable (ie, inner city or anywhere with amenities) areas. Provides lower taxes by not maintaining infrastructure and not building it where needed, also by not legislating or policing pollution restrictions (not just greenhouse gas emissions, also other air pollution, water pollution, you name it. Someone else will deal with that in the future...)
Also Oz&NZ: panic about kids wasting money on luxuries like student loans and phones, and about kids pissing off overseas and never coming back, while working to make staying as unpleasant as possible. Hike prices, lower wages, increase interest rates, make mortgages harder for first time buyers. It's an incredibly well designed system if you want to reduce the birth rate and increase the emigration rate. Or should I say out-migration, since linguistic subtly is deprecated now.
Also an 1880s essay by Tolstoy. I think both Lenin's pamphlet and Tolstoy's essay make allusions to Chernyshevsky's novel. Russian culture is all about building networks of connotative references and jokes that rely on detailed literary or historical knowledge.
Once more with feeling: no. Restrictions on NATO expansion were not part of the final agreement. The Soviet Union got cash instead.
...NATO was formed to prevent USSR/Russia from rolling west.
NATO's original purpose was to keep Germany in its place (same goal as the Warsaw Pact, oddly enough). Containing the Soviet Union came later.
greg, keep ur hair on, it's just a blog comment about a counterfactual, ur libel winnings would be 7p or so, payable in nfts
isn't the upward rampage in house prices also correlated with the rise of the fire sector, which seems to have been more vigorous in anglophone countries than most other places?
For one, other than possibly you, I know no one who owns gold for security.
not everyone who does makes a point of advertising the fact
isn't the upward rampage in house prices also correlated with the rise of the fire sector, which seems to have been more vigorous in anglophone countries than most other places?
No, in my experience as an environmental activist fighting against high end houses in high fire areas, the price of the homes had nothing to do with the fire risk.
Nor are policies or environmental review driving housing prices. As one businessman turned environmental activist told me, if the environmental review costs significantly cut into project profits, they had no business building the project.
What I've seen is projects that are mostly high-end ($500k and up per unit), with, at best, a small and state mandated smattering of affordable and low income units thrown in if it couldn't be avoided. This result was not dictated by politicians, but by developers.
The key phrase developers have used repeatedly in conversations and testimony is that their projects must be sufficiently profitable, not just profitable, but sufficiently profitable. There's a relative glut of high end homes on the market here, and I assume elsewhere in the developed world, because they are the most profitable homes to build, just like SUVs are the most profitable vehicles to build in the US even though most of us need commuter EVs. Until recently, the only way to get affordable housing built was to get a substantial payment from the feds and non-profits, to make it sufficiently profitable to build.
So I'd mostly blame profit maximizing investors (everyone from crooks to retirement funds) for the high cost of new housing in general and limited supply of affordable housing being built. Given that city and county-level elections here cost about 1-2 high end homes per election, it's entirely possible that things like keeping politicians supportive, or busing people in to vehemently support these projects, is a minor part of the cost of doing business. Since the development industry is transnational and this blog is under British libel laws, I'm not going to name names or give further details.
sorry, i meant FIRE sector - finance/insurance/real estate, my dislike of capitals has let me down here
So I'd mostly blame profit maximizing investors (everyone from crooks to retirement funds) for the high cost of new housing in general and limited supply of affordable housing being built.
Going back to my youth and likely yours, a major source of low end housing evolved from older "nice" homes winding up in run down neighborhoods. And when zoning keeps new denser housing form being built well 2 things happen in an area with a growing population. Prices go up and the crappy but existing low end housing gets torn down. Gentrification anyone? Plus new $$$$ houses get built further and further out and thus we get roads, strip malls, congestion, and all the rest.
People around here are complaining that the Dollar stores, McDs and such are closed some days due to staffing issues. And blaming work ethic. Instead of noticing that the payroll of those stores doesn't allow them live anywhere near our stores.
You and I both have discussed SRO housing being zoned out to make areas "nicer" and that just makes all of this worse.
And don't get me started with people who are upset at the tree loss for a 5+ story apartment building. But can't see the alternative is a vast expanse of 1500sf 2 story houses on 1/10 acre each. Because the later is out of their sight.
sorry, i meant FIRE sector - finance/insurance/real estate, my dislike of capitals has let me down here
Thanks for straightening that out!
my dislike of capitals has let me down here
Oddly I got what you meant first time, but partly because I'd been looking at the differences between actuarial science and finance economics recently, which was enough to prompt me to google "fire sector" thinking it might mean something different to fire management.
Anyway I think you're right, deregulation of financial services starting in the 70s and 80s is a direct association with the real estate bubbles we experience in various places and their periodic eruptions. Trading in mortgage insurance risk underwriting derivatives? You betcha! Allowing such trading because the market knows the answer? Priceless...
AN APOLOGY to everyone - except EC, of course.
I was deliberately goaded into an intemperate response, by the "suggestion" that I would support Truss ( A Trump crawler ) or a Greek-or-Grenada semi ( or real ) coup in this country.
I will repeat one, hopefully inoffensive section:
I would REMIND people that this very nice lady is my MP - I consistently vote for her & support her policies - including beng the leader of the Labour European Group of MP's.
Meranwhile the deliberate crashing of our economy from the middle of next year, by trashing the labour-market is continuing, under the fake guise of "controlling immigration" - the care & hospital sectors, plus anyone coming here in the junior scientist/technician fields will be shut off, completely.
Clearly deliberately timed to come in as soon as the tories lose next Spring's GE.
See also David L @ 1215?
adrian smith
I would accept a Firkin of a suitable Beer!
EC: lay off the personal attacks on other commenters or you'll get a yellow card.
Greg: same warning applies!
Yes, but this is your regular reminder that a successful pregnancy is merely the first nine months of the 25 year long labour-intensive process of producing a hopefully-autonomous new human being.
(Which, parenthetically, is why all proposals for interstellar colonization that rely on "send embryos, not live crew" are doomed to failure: what you'd get would be a Decree 770 Romanian orphanage in space, not a colony.)
If your birthrate is between 1.5 and 2.1 (replacement rate) all sectors of your native labor pool will be shrinking. If you allow immigration of high-demand labor i.e. for jobs that pay well and encourage economic growth then your economy can grow in a non-inflationary manner. This will increase demand for labor across the board including for your out-of-demand labor like unskilled high-school dropouts, which will reduce their unemployment and raise their wages.
Not really true, because ...
The UK has a TFR of 1.75, which would fit your model perfectly. However we have just had our workforce hammered by COVID (an estimated 1.2 million people -- out of about 45M of working age -- are disabled due to long COVID).
An ageing population imposes heavier demand on a healthcare system, and the UK's NHS is under extreme pressure (not aided by Tory attempts to cut funding as an excuse for privatization, but it'd be under pressure from a shrinking work force anyway). But worse, the tightest sectors of the labour market are in personal services -- carers, cleaners -- as well as nurses and doctors.
You can't automate changing an 80 year old's diaper or dusting the window blinds. Nor can you make these processes more efficient. AI is nowhere near to being able to substitute for soft machines (low cost labour) in physical human space. Meanwhile, personal services are all subject to Baumol's cost disease, so wages increase to match other more productive sectors of the economy even in the absence of efficiency improvements. So wages go up, productivity flatlines, and the high-demand sector of the labour market is mostly low pay/low skill.
(And let's not go into the Tories' idiotic war on immigration, which has effectively strangled the supply of new PhDs to academia and industry and made it impossible to recruit nurses from overseas. As far as I can tell it's an attempt to trigger a deep recession by summer of 2024, so that when the Tories lose the general election Labour will be stuck with trying to fix a broken system, thereby wedging the door open for the Tories to return after 4-5 years.)
heh... I was snarking about a Cheney-Maddow fusion ticket...
...once again reality is the most creative author of wackiness
"Liz Cheney says she’ll ‘do whatever I have to do’ to stop Trump as she considers third-party bid"
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/12/05/politics/liz-cheney-trump-2024-third-party/index.html
True, but the literal translation, "What to do?" is pithier and, IMO, better.
Charlie @ 1231
Yes - several others, here, have noticed this, as well, I see.
It's "simply" more deliberate wrecking in advance, isn't it?
You can't automate changing an 80 year old's diaper or dusting the window blinds. Nor can you make these processes more efficient.
Years ago as a relatively new homeowner I picked up a book on cleaning, by a chap who ran a cleaning company for years. I knew that the routine I'd learned from my stay-at-home mother wasn't compatible with working 60 hour weeks, and hoped that there were more efficient ways of keeping on top of things.
Turns out there are ways to make tasks like cleaning and dusting more efficient, mostly by designing your house with cleaning in mind. Avoiding venetian blinds was one suggestion I remember, because when I bought it that's what my house had. Vertical blinds are faster to clean, roller blinds even faster.
The author's point was that cleaning takes significant time every month, so it is worthwhile spending time and money to reduce that so you can spend more of your life doing things you enjoy. I didn't learn a lot about cleaning shortcuts, which is what I bought the book for, but I did learn to think about cleaning as part of decorating/furnishing.
Robert Prior 1235:
Aspects which contribute to increasing sales of Roombas as their functionality -- and survivability in passively hostile environments -- improve.
Still the problem of how few layouts of interiors are designed for ease of (robotic) cleaning. But as populations age and ever more 'greybeards' are living alone, there's going to be 'streamlined' housing provided in apartment buildings. Those numbers by the way, are clearly on the way up, due to divorce and/or never ever having married in the first place.
What's brutal, the vacancy rate of office towers spiking, all that footage going empty at exactly the same time as residential vacancy in cities is low. Conversions are mostly chatter, since there's just not enough exterior walls to go around, thus not enough windows. Humans can endure working inside rabbit hutches (AKA: corporate cubicle cluster fucks) but nobody with options willingly would live in any apartment lacking windows. Whereas suburban office parks (also vacant) are just utterly unsuited as housing. Only good news being, really flat flooring and generously outfitted for data and electricity.
Retrofits are now 'the next big thing' but near-zero attention paid to cleaning and/or comfort.
"Yes, but this is your regular reminder that a successful pregnancy is merely the first nine months of the 25 year long labour-intensive process of producing a hopefully-autonomous new human being."
A variant is : a 25 to 80 years sentence, of which 18 years without parole.
A while ago someone was looking for a good game that can be played solo. As well, I suspect that most of us could use a game that has a bit of hope rather than grimdark gloom. Last week I got my copy of Daybreak, and I'm quite liking it (finally recovered enough to play a boradgame!).
Daybreak is a cooperative boardgame about stopping climate change. It presents a hopeful vision of the near future, where you get to build the mind-blowing technologies and resilient societies we need to save the planet.
Daybreak is designed by Matt Leacock, creator of the hit game Pandemic, and Matteo Menapace. The box is absolutely stuffed with sustainable components, featuring hundreds of original illustrations by a diverse team of (human) artists from around the world.
Daybreak is for 1-4 players, ages 10+, and takes 60-90 minutes to play.
The website has a list of all the action cards, with annotations and links for more information, so it's also a pretty decent collection of things that can be done to mitigate climate change.
https://www.daybreakgame.org
there's going to be 'streamlined' housing provided in apartment buildings.
Have you tried to get elderly parents (maybe not parents) to move for such reasons. Most of them would rather die in filth than leave their "home". No matter how bad it gets. We had this war (no exaggeration) with both of our moms and know many friends who've been through the same. A friend had friends of his parents call and say he HAD to move them as they couldn't shop on their own and kept calling on healthier friends to go grocery shopping with them. Not for them, with them. As he said, apparently the ZIP code had more ties to their hearts than their grand kids.
And as long as I'm recommending games with a solo mode, there's Hegemony — a product of marrying game design with political theory.
The economy is failing, and a heavy political resignation is paralyzing the country. In these troubling times, the only one who can provide guidance is… you!
Will you take control of the middle – or working class and fight for social reforms?
Or do you stand with the corporations and the free market? Or will you help the government to keep it all together?
Whatever you decide, know that your decisions will decide the fate of the nation!
Hegemony is an asymmetric political board game for 2-4 players that lets you simulate a whole nation! Engage in political intrigues, forge great economic strategies and astonish your foes by cunning maneuvers to increase the power of your class and carry out your agenda. Create an ideological consensus, become the hegemon and lead your people to wealth and prosperity!
The game was made in cooperation with renown academics and uses theoretical concepts such as Socialism, Neoliberalism, Nationalism, Globalism without prescribing any ideology. Build companies, initiate strikes, engage in foreign trade, propose policies, create unions, expand your political influence, and much more and simultaneously you will learn more about the world around you! Will you be able to achieve hegemony?
https://hegemonygame.com
You can see the rulebooks here (and also play online):
https://tabletopia.com/games/hegemony-lead-your-class-to-victory
Learning a new house, new neighbourhood, new routines… it all gets harder as you get older. Leaving a familiar place is tough, especially if one is beginning to slide into dementia.
Still the problem of how few layouts of interiors are designed for ease of (robotic) cleaning. But as populations age and ever more 'greybeards' are living alone, there's going to be 'streamlined' housing provided in apartment buildings.
And not just cleaning. Most cupboards are simple rectangles, made with no regard to how cups and plates would fit in them. Which is not rocket science, as demonstrated by dishwashers, made to hold said cups and plates in place.
If a cupboard is designed like a dishwasher, and moreover the plates and cups are of standard sizes to match it, then a not terribly agile robot and an arthritic old man both can place dishes into it without breaking anything.
Conversions are mostly chatter, since there's just not enough exterior walls to go around, thus not enough windows.
Can't find the article right now, but one way to solve this problem is to remove a vertical section from the center of the building, creating a courtyard. The resulting building looks from above like a hollow square, and every apartment abuts either the outside wall(s) or the courtyard walls, thus every apartment has windows. It is not theoretical -- it has already been done.
Poul-Henning posted here a few months ago about building as sustainable a house as possible and discovering that a chunk of designing one is to make as few decisions for future residents as possible (Graydon has a similar thought turned moral precept in his Commonweal novels, if you've read them).
I bring this up because a cupboard designed like a dishwasher fails miserably if the people who come after you want high-lipped plates like these.
The design paradigm of "storage is a series of boxes with doors" is woefully un-optimised for any particular job but (as modern business and supply chain strategy seems determined to teach us) optimization is the enemy of resilience. Kitchen storage you can re-organise without even finding your screwdriver, never mind replacing parts, is resilient.
(TL;DR: you're right, but I think you're missing what the simple rectangles are streamlined for.)
This is pretty common in Berlin (and other German cities).
I plead woeful, probably provincial ignorance, but do the high lips have a functional purpose? Containing brothy foods, food that's given to getting away like rice...?
I read Poul-Henning's post (comment #127 on https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/09/pushing-it-back.html ), and mostly agree with his building philosophy. What I do not agree with, is that his philosophy "makes as few decisions for future residents as possible":
conduit for cables and boxes for outlets could be precast into the elements, so the electrician did not have spend time to pull conduit and then spend time taping the leakage around his conduit and the plastic membrane.
The piping for the radon ventilation took just a couple of hours for the concrete crew before they poured, normally they spend an entire day getting the radon membrane glued into place and then they have to be very careful not to damage it while they pour the concrete.
Good stuff, and I very much approve of it. Also relatively easy (compared to more typical building techniques) to roboticize. But if future resident wants to put in an additional electric line, let alone a water pipe... good luck with that. "That" being drilling through concrete interior walls. Poul-Henning's house may be durable, easy to build, and easy to maintain, but it is not easy to modify. In fact, looks like these two goals are mutually exclusive.
We're seeing the problems with building design now, as generations of building stock have to be retrofitted to rebuilt to deal with climate change. Houses that were designed for natural gas have to be completely electrified, homes designed to stay warm in winter now have to stay cool in summer, we're short titanic amounts of cheap, quick housing for refugees, migrants, and poor people, and so on.
PHK's advice probably works best in a steady state. In an unsteady state, perhaps prioritize building homes using materials and systems that are easy to repurpose, reuse, and recycle. Minimize disposables, because we're running out of things to do with garbage too.
Reverting for a moment to the original topic, as I've gotten further into Alec Nevala-Lee's excellent Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction it's just gotten more and more depressing. Hubbard was a pathological liar, and Campbell and Heinlein were easy marks. Heinlein seems to have been dying to believe in a certain kind of story, and Campbell had his own fabulist tendencies. Campbell and Hubbard collaborated very closely on Dianetics, and we all know where that ball bounced. Asimov comes off better, but still did lasting harm in his own way. They all seem like deeply uninteresting people.
Cory Doctorow wrote a column on this that made me reconsider just how much damage their influence did:
https://locusmag.com/2019/11/cory-doctorow-jeannette-ng-was-right-john-w-campbell-was-a-fascist/
He also takes a sensibly balanced view. "Life is not a ledger. Your sins can’t be paid off through good deeds. Your good deeds are not cancelled by your sins. Your sins and your good deeds live alongside one another. They coexist in superposition." His point is that "people are flawed vessels. The circumstances around us – our social norms and institutions – can be structured to bring out our worst natures or our best."
I can testify to a little of that in Campbell's case. When I was a kid I sent in a manuscript to Analog, and got back a very nice letter, about a page long, saying that though it wasn't accepted, it did show promise, and that Campbell was looking forward to the next one. I was, I suppose, 12, though it probably wouldn't have been evident. I didn't have a lot of stories to tell, and wasn't very good at it, and it didn't go anywhere. But I remember the kindness, at the same time I'm quite aware of the way he poisoned the atmosphere. Nobody is just one thing.
It must have come from nowhere to bring this up so late in the discussion, so I'll just let myself out now, thanks. Mainly I wanted to point to the Doctorow article, which is very good.
It must have come from nowhere to bring this up so late in the discussion, so I'll just let myself out now, thanks. Mainly I wanted to point to the Doctorow article, which is very good.
Thank you for posting it!
I knew that Campbell was a fascist, but what lasting harm did Asimov cause?
Asimov was a notorious sex pest.
I'm going to start shrieking every time I read "boomer this/boomer that".
How about "well-off people, regarless of birth date"? How about "racism"? How about "real estate scum who cheerfully destroy neighborhoods (they'll bring down your property values!!!!!) to make money fast"?
colonization that rely on "send embryos, not live crew" are doomed to failure: what you'd get would be a Decree 770 Romanian orphanage in space
Chicken keeping folk regularly observe that it's much better to bring new chicks into an existing flock rather than buying eggs/chicks, because culture is important even for dinosaurs. But people, especially newbies, still buy collections of reflexes and eventually get round to asking online why their chickens are so weird.
Given that the median income per household in the US is around $70k/year, gross, what percentage of those people do you think can a) afford to buy gold and b) to not cash it in?
I certainly can't now, nor, had I wanted to, could I afford it when I was working. I was busy paying off my house.
It is not theoretical -- it has already been done.
I read a few articles about this a few months back. (It is an off and on conversation topic with the architects I know.) Basically everyone who has done it said that it can work in only 10% to 20% of the larger offices buildings in the US. This is due to various issues that just make it cheaper to tear down than rebuild. And the value of the existing has to come way down to make that work economically.
I see a later post has suggested redoing to floors to be atriums, as some hotels and malls have. Or you could have apartments surrounding a common area, where perhaps you might want a restaurant or two (NOT FAST FOOD!!!), and/or a coffee shop.
Maybe because we bought HOMES, not "investment properties"?
This freakin' split level is a PITA... but I'm not moving again. I've relocated five times halfway across this continent, and I have a lot of stuff (like my close-to-4000 paperback sf&f, and their bookcases, and all the other books). 40 years ago, I know from a guy I worked with, it would cost about $15k to pack someone and move them. Now? It's got to be at least in the neighborhood of $50k, or more. Gee, there goes the "profit" on the house price rising. And then were will they move? I'd love to be inside a city, where I could walk to a restaurant, or a book store, or....
ilya187 1243:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/upshot/american-cities-office-conversion.html or https://archive.ph/ExOj9
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/business/what-would-it-take-to-turn-more-offices-into-housing.html
etc...
bottom line: not fast; not cheap; not all buildings;
What's not mentioned?
All those buildings on the list of potential conversions, which upon close inspection of interiors of load bearing walls (and I-beam frame) reveal bad things were done and/or nasty decline having occurred. Steel frame had either shifted too much or were never properly constructed; substandard concrete poured; rebar inside concrete either too widely spaced or narrower gauge; when you suddenly remove chunks of concrete (never mind if it was never load bearing) there's an abrupt shifting in center of gravity, re-balancing of stress, et al. All buildings suffer water damage to varying degrees. Concrete dissolves and/or cracks. Earthquakes number in the hundreds per month, low intensity, causes micro-cracking.
Any significant modification has the potential of horrid things happening.
Consider a game of Jenga(tm) but with possibility of changing things so much the building crunches downwards like an emptied beer can stood upon by a 200 pound (90 kilo) adult. If you ever wonder what looks like, there's the last minutes of WTC 1 & 2 on 11-SEP-2001 which are now a routine part of education of wannabe architects and cautionary tales told to real estate developers too obsessed with the big picture to worry about fiddly bits.
Thus, many of those potential conversions are quietly scratched off the list.
BTW: nobody keeps all blueprints for all buildings, never mind what the regulations call for. Ditto for tedious paperwork tracking who mixed which load of concrete. Some of it is benign neglect by indifferent bureaucrats but much of it was deliberate misfiling of records to avoid possibility of any audit trail thirty years post-construction when there's a collapse. Or expensive emergency repairs.
"Deeply uninteresting people"? I disagree... and that goes double if you'd ever met any of them (I met Isaac).
'If a cupboard is designed like a dishwasher, and moreover the plates and cups are of standard sizes to match it, then a not terribly agile robot and an arthritic old man both can place dishes into it without breaking anything.'
A couple of years ago I saw a post on the internet of a bachelor pad which had no kitchen cupboard for dishes. Just three dishwashers. dirty dished were put in one dishwasher. When it was full it was switched on and new dirty dishes went in the second dishwasher. Clean dishes were stored in the third dishwasher. so there was always a dishwasher full of clean dishes. You been three times as many dishwashers but you never ran out.
David L. @1215. I agree and would have pretty written what you did if I hadn't wanted to keep my post streamlined. Good points.
nobody keeps all blueprints for all buildings, never mind what the regulations call for. Ditto for tedious paperwork tracking who mixed which load of concrete.
Sure they do. But finding it after 10 or 60 years, well, .... I have the prints on my kitchen table for a house built in 2004 where the owner wants to add a lot of networking. 5000sf and there are steel beams in some of the floors and other things that would be nice to know. The architect is still around but ghosting the owner (by law after 7 years they can toss things) and the print I have were used in the building process and the unbound edge is getting close to confetti.
Then there is the issue, as mentioned, that not everything was built to the CD drawings.
And no office tenant did anything without telling anyone. :)
I work with architects. They think it's great to get as-builts that are somewhat close to reality. Exact never happens.
Anyway, 10% to 20%. Maybe.
Then there was that IBM data center design guy who had a meeting with one of my architecture clients. He wanted to know how hard it would be to get as-builts of where each electrical conduit, switch, and outlet was. After they got back off the floor form falling down laughing they explained the reality of construction and things like electrical conduit. Submarine construction and buildings are very different things.
»But if future resident wants to put in an additional electric line, let alone a water pipe... good luck with that.«
I think I have that covered.
As far as electricity, we put in so much conduit, so many outlets and so many groups that I doubt anybody will ever want to add more :-)
If they insist, all they will have to do is take down some of the "Troldtekt" ceiling, run the cable/conduit from one of the ceiling outlets, and route a slot in the light concrete wall down to where they want it to end. That is all routine, but still messy.
Laying down extra water pipes and sewers but not using them, represent health-risks, so we did not do that.
At the very least you would need to mount a sink and run the water at least once per month, and that would still be a good way to grow legionella in your hot water piping and smell the "vapours" from the dead ends on the sewer.
There is one place in the building I did considered doing it anyway, on the off-chance that somebody would want to turn that spot into a third bathroom or tea-kitchen 50 year down the line.
But after learning from competent people that it would be a pretty trivial matter to drill the drain through the exterior wall and hook it up outside, and to run the cold and hot water though the attic, I dropped it.
Houses - I'd be ecstatic if they built them with one or two conduits from the basement to the attic, with enough room for new cables - ethernet or electrical, etc.
»perhaps prioritize building homes using materials and systems that are easy to repurpose, reuse, and recycle.«
Funny thing there…
Most of the work on recycling buildings have been done in Denmark and Germany and it transpires that it gets harder the newer the building is, and that it is virtually impossible for buildings built after approx 1980.
Buildings from before WWII are generally built to be maintained, and that means that things can be taken apart nondestructively, paving the way for recycling of timber, bricks, tiles, staircases and even windows, which were normally made from rot-resistent pear-wood back then.
Houses built after the OPEC black-mail kicked in, ie: 1980 and forward, have a very high focus on making things airtight, which means that everything is stuck together with glues and plastics, which again means that taking things apart and cleaning them for reuse is near impossible. A problem made much worse by some of the "smart new" materials used containing PHBs, Asbestos etc.
The most stupid thing is that "functional mortar" is being used for bricklaying, making recycling the bricks near impossible.
Recycling bricks is very important, not only is it very energy-consuming to make them, but modern bricks are also weaker because we have used all the best clay already.
Traditional mortar contained no cement, so you can scrape it off bricks and recycle them, as has been done all the way back to the roman empire. The main disadvantage is that you have to re-grout the exposed surface every 100 years.
"Functional mortar" contains cement and does not have that problem, but it also makes it impossible to clean the bricks and recycle them, because the mortar is harder than the bricks.
The truly stupid thing is that functional mortar is neither cheaper, easier to work with, nor necessary in the first place, but it has become the "smart modern choice".
Like Feynman and others. How to separate out the good things they did from the bad things they were/did?
One of the disadvantages of both mud brick and hempcrete is that they're hard to take apart. But if you do you can reuse them. Or you can just wash them out of the building and into a big drum, then start again (you'll need more lime for the hempcrete). Especially if someone used mud "mortar" for the mud bricks, or lime+hurd for the hemp bricks. But often hempcrete is cast in place so you don't even have theoretical joints.
I've been experimenting with adding themeral mass to my sleepout and I've re-cast the bricks a couple of times. Which involves breaking bits off the old bricks and dumping them in a mould with more lime and hemp hurd.
My house is brick and definitely doesn't have cement (or enough cement) in the mortar. I've knocked bricks out of the wall twice just trying to make a hole using a hammer drill. Flip side is that I'm getting quite good at repairing those holes...
If you want a disaster material, someone in Aotearoa is making plasterboard replacement panels out of "recycled" plastic. Even if it's not toxic at the start what the heck happens in a fire, or when someone tries to recycle them when the house is dead?
well, yeah, if ur not saving ur not saving gold, it may be that for a lot of americans their house was their savings, which brings us back to the fire (FIRE) sector issues
(I met Isaac)
i used to enjoy his introductions to the stories in the hugo winners anthologies for the flavor of the con atmosphere (?), but he did come across as having a fairly, er, forward flirting style
the OPEC black-mail
that's a kinda one-sided way of looking at not being able to get way-below-market prices any more
i mean i could wish it had gone to people less inclined to piss most of it up the wall than the saudis but still
Who gets to fit out a bachelor pad having never stepped foot in a bar in their life?
(Most bar and restaurant dishwashers use removable plastic crate-like dish carriers; you fill an empty one with dirty dishes, pull the one with the washed ones out of the dishwasher and put the other in.)
Re: 'Houses built after the OPEC black-mail kicked in, ie: 1980 and forward, have a very high focus on making things airtight, ...'
My impression is that office buildings have usually been built with a much shorter life expectancy - is this so? Also, how much worse are office building materials from an eco and human health perspective vs. residential building materials?
Charlie @ 1163:
Yes, I've always been a desk jockey. However I have known (hired) folks in the trades who've worked into their late 60s.
My neighborhood spans newly marrieds through retirees. The retirees seem to be always busy especially those who worked in the trades - not sure whether their licences ever expire but they're always in demand. Most of the time they're doing favors for their kids/grandkids - definitely keeps them busy. A few months back I needed a plumber (fast!) so I asked one of my neighbors for a referral. He called up an old friend and presto! my plumbing problem was fixed within a couple of hours. Okay - I currently live in a suburb of a small city where people are friendly and maintain old work/friendship networks. This is unlikely to happen in any of the major urban areas I've lived in in the past mostly because the dominant urban culture is to not set down roots.
Not sure whether there's anything like HomeDepot in the UK (it's a big box store for building supplies, etc.) but just about every staff member I've ever spoken with is/was in a trade. Most staff are part-time and many look 60 or older.
Burn out can happen in any job area. I think that part of the problem may be insisting that people can be only one job/career in a life time. Feels weird posting this comment considering whose blog this is. :)
Office buildings are usually designed to be refitted multiple times during the life of the structure. So you get much higher ceilings than residential, and generally a suspended ceiling hung under it. But the concrete-and-steel bits plus the facade are designed to last ages. Facade will usually be updated, just not as often as internal fitouts.
I'm used to seeing buildings from the 1970's era because that's the rental point of the people I associate with, and those are generally redone with fibre internet and so on, with whatever fitout the last tenant left and good luck getting wifi through reinforced concrete if you have a structursal wall or pillar in the wrong place.
Ripping them down occasionally involves asbestos or other fun stuff, but it's mostly just hand labour clearing out the decorations then a giant pile or concerete and still to be ground down into aggregate or sold to steel recyclers. The copper is often worth more than anything else, especially if the building is old enough to have copper plumbing.
(that's my "vaguely aware of the industry" view. I suspect it varies round the world)
+1 to the board game Daybreak. It’s from the same designer who did “Pandemic” and is a really fun cooperative take on how to combat global warming.
Played it a couple days ago and the science is reasonable
It’s also available as an online game for free
Unholyguy 1276:
link please
I'd be ecstatic if they built them with one or two conduits from the basement to the attic, with enough room for new cables - ethernet or electrical, etc.
They do. But they call them plumbing and heating vent chases. And always in very convenient places.
[snark off]
If you check out the Reddit CablePort group there are all kinds of places where idiots put networking or coax INSIDE of the vent stack off a heater or similar.
I agree that SF authors are not prophets or guides,
I've run into several people who have asked in general where are our flying cars. Because they were on the cover of Popular Mechanics in the 50s and 60s.
And I think the DT attraction in some small ways are due to these kinds of feelings. The little guy was screwed out of the promised future by the elites in power.
Ripping them down occasionally involves asbestos or other fun stuff
Been in my current city for 34 years. 20+ years ago there was a major update to the planning codes as it impacted appearance. There was a very specific exception written in for a savings and loan building built way way back when and everyone loved. But after it had been empty for 10 years it was finally torn down and replaced. Asbestos everywhere. And way too many marble and granite walls, floors ceilings, etc... Massive staircases of such. There was just no way to remodel it into anything useful with wired or wireless networking plus reasonable office space that didn't cost double that of just tearing it down and building new. The county government bought the space/building and now there is a reasonably decent county services building there.
The house I own is brick and asbestos. That means that the cost of renovating the kitchen starts with "remove asbestos" and that would cost roughly the same as demolishing the whole house. Removing all the asbestos would require demolition because they buried offcuts and broken bits under and around the house. Technically I suppose for some multiple of demolition cost you could remove the asbestos and leave the rest standing, there's no structural asbestos. Just cupboards, wall linings, sofits, bathroom ceiling and many other similar "I need a sheet of something, I have a pile of asbestos board" solutions.
Interestingly there's a 1970's-ish extension on the back that interfaces with asbestos board and I suspect it was done with no PPE, just a "she'll be right" but I'm almost certain they repurposed some asbestos for the new passage created when the built the new room on the back steps. When I drilled what I thought should be safe I got stuff that looks way too much like asbestos (I was wearing PPE because drilling "safe" concrete is just less dangerous than drilling asbestos rather than actually safe)
»»the OPEC black-mail« that's a kinda one-sided way of looking at «
That was literally how people building houses in the late 1970'ies viewed the situation, being much more focused on yearly oil consumption of their new abode than the finer points of geopolitical messes.
@Moz 1269: Re "alternative materials" one should be very cautious with importing foreign experience with building materials, because climate matters a LOT.
We saw that vividly in Denmark a decade ago, where "MgO-plates" started being used as windbreakers under the climate-shield on big buildings. MgO works great in Norway, Sweden and Germany, but Danish winters make them absorb water like sponges.
We opted for materials with a proven track-record in danish climate, despite some of our friends being very involved in building houses from straw, sea-shells and who knows what.
@SFReader 1274: I have no credible insight re commercial buildings. Also, building physics is very country and region specific, as is choice of design lifetime.
I would expect the amount of recycling to depend almost entirely on cost, and locales where you can just tip everything in the local landfill probably only recycle really high value items (copper, steel beams etc.) whereas locales with sophisticated garbage handling will demand sorting.
In denmark we have around 20 mandatory sorting fractions like gypsum, bricks, other ceramics, concrete, asbestos, cables, glass, styrofoam, colored plastic film, clear plastic film, hard plastic, indoor wood, outdoor wood, treated wood, metal &c, &c. They have the "final fraction for burial" container quite inaccessible.
Ah well ... It looks as if there is going to be a tory "leadership" ( JOKE! ) challenge, with Jenrick/Braverman/Badenoch leading an openly fascist group.
"Interesting" doesn't even begin to describe this bitter shambles.
Fred451
No mention of A C CLarke? { Whom I've met - see 1250 }
whitroth @ 1253
I am a "boomer" ( 1946 ) & I do NOT subscribe to the supposed tendencies of letting the remaining world burn.
I have no children, but my friends & neigbours do ....
- @ 1258
Erm, hello? I have lived here since 1948 ... I'm sure you can imagine how much "stuff" I/we have ...
NOT moving, except in a box.
Kardashev
Feynman ... only after the tragic death of his first wife ....
IIRC, he was "reformed" by an "enthusiastic" later female?
Asbestos ( Sheet form - NOT "blue" )
I have an old (Chem-lab ) cupboard with an asbestos back ...
I have carefully painted it & I don't disturb it.
I've run into several people who have asked in general where are our flying cars. Because they were on the cover of Popular Mechanics in the 50s and 60s.
We've had them since the 1940s; they're called "helicopters".
Unfortunately the failure mode for a carelessly operated or negligently maintained chopper is "everyone dies" (optionally: by-standers) and they're non-trivial to operate. Cars: one degree of axial freedom, plus a stop pedal and a go pedal. Helicopters: you have to understand aerodynamics, torque, three different axes of freedom and be alert for stuff like an impending ring vortex stall (lest your stable hover deteriorates into "everyone dies" territory really quick).
The promise of modern electronics and quadrotor or octarotor drones is that we might get to the point of being able to carry 1-4 people short distances (up to 100km?) using a very mechanically simple system that is easier to diagnose and maintain than a collection of flying gearboxes powered by a touchy turboshaft engine. But I'm not holding my breath, and it's not going to work well for local mobility around dense cities.
HowardNYC @ 1259: BTW: nobody keeps all blueprints for all buildings, never mind what the regulations call for.
A while ago I was looking at the market in building safety that resulted from Grenfell Tower. I talked to one guy who described himself as a "forensic architect".
Fire safety in tall buildings is a complicated issue: one of the key learnings from Grenfell is that a big building is a system in its own right, and hence fire safety is a system safety issue. Because of this, building safety cases are now a thing.
Part of the difficulty in creating a building safety case for an older building is that you have to prove that the plans that you used as evidence in your safety case do actually match the reality. Which is where the forensic architects come in. They do detailed inspections of the actual building to check for things like hidden and forgotten shafts that might carry smoke or flames upwards, whether the concrete and rebar are as specified, and all those other details.
If you have the right kind of mindset, and don't mind crawling around cramped and dirty bits of old buildings, I can see it being a fascinating and lucrative job.
You don’t get the point of this. You don’t want to remove the dishes in an easy batch because there are no cupboards to put them in. One dishwasher is a partly filled dirty dishes cupboard. One is a clean dishes cupboard. The third is the spare clean dishes cupboard which has completed its wash cycle. You need three times as much crockery but that’s cheap compared to labour costs.
If you have the right kind of mindset, and don't mind crawling around cramped and dirty bits of old buildings, I can see it being a fascinating and lucrative job.
I would totally do it! I like solving puzzles, and am claustrophilic -- small enclosed spaces are comforting for me.
Not a fan of dirt and mouse droppings, but can deal with it.
You put the racks in the cupboards that are where you don't have two redundant dish washers. A cupboard able to take a rack is going to be smaller, and a damned sight cheaper, than a whole plumbed-in dishwasher. It might even be that you can fit two racks in one cupboard
whitroth [1258] noted: "Maybe because we bought HOMES, not "investment properties"?
Indeed. For our retirement, Madame and I moved to a home we loved in a community we loved in a city we loved about 8 months ago. Significantly higher cost than our old home, largely because we weren't the first to notice how great our new city is, so there's been much price inflation due to rich immigrants from Toronto.
whitroth: "This freakin' split level is a PITA... but I'm not moving again."
We knew there would be a certain amount of stressful repairs and renovation, but were willing to tolerate it. About 30% done. What we neglected in our pre-purchase checklist was "should not have a 10-foot stairway between the ground floor and 2nd floor" (bedroom, home offices). We're hoping to stay here for another 10-20 years, so long as our knees hold out.
whitoth: "I've relocated five times halfway across this continent, and I have a lot of stuff (like my close-to-4000 paperback sf&f, and their bookcases, and all the other books)."
It me. We donated something like 50 boxes of books (about 80% SF/F) as a thank you note to the volunteers who ran a nearby SF convention and to various charities. Painful, since I wanted to be one of those eccentrics with a mansion in the countryside and an enormous library, but 'twas not to be. (Among other things, I don't want an actual mansion. Too much upkeep. I still want the library.)
Witroth: "I'd love to be inside a city, where I could walk to a restaurant, or a book store, or...."
Come join us in Kingston (Ontario)! We're a half hour walk from shopping, grocery, artisanal bakery, non-franchise pharmacy, family-owned grocery store (for 105 years), lots of green space, and three theaters. Plus, we're spoiled for choice in dining, and surrounded by lakes and rivers (great for kayaking). Plus, I get a toaster oven if I recruit you.* Of course, no family doctor for at least 3 years. Our provincial premier seems to be only competent at gutting the healthcare system to install a private system run by his cronies.
Greg Tingey 1282:
Across the seas, here in YankeLand(tm) we just ignored the fourth in a series of a zillion non-debates amongst the trailing wannabes of the Republican Party. As bad as Trump --- they are all seeking to out-Trump Trump to claw away his fanbase --- but theoretically less innately stupid. I watched a few randomly selected minutes afterwards from a YouTurd posting and it was a waste of bandwidth. And my time.
As much as I would like to avoid a civil war and focus efforts upon saving the ecology from climate change, I'm tempted to advocate for letting the horrors of co-mingled poly-crisis of (a) ecological failure during (b) political upheaval spiced with (c) bigotry on parade all playout on (d) mis-managed mass media and amoral social media.
My final years would be entertained by the bloodsport. There's never been so well documented a day as today. And with increasing numbers of drones and ever cheaper livesteaming camera masquerading as phones, it will all be available, each crime in every city. Every thrown rock, nightly lynchings, book burning, mass causality attack on shopping malls, gunplay in school hallways and legislated rollback of civil liberties. The shitstorm posted upon TikTokBoom and YouTurd and FarceBook for sake of trivial advertising revenues for drawing in eyeballs to watch civilization crumble. And maybe this time humanity would learn enough to avoid repeating such utter stupidity.
As I rage from ten thousand miles away at the success of Hamas in finally goading Jews into doing exactly the sorts of evil shit that's been done to us for thousands of years. There's been posts akin to “if they will not respect us enough to stop killing us, then we will teach them to fear we will inflict a hundredfold deaths for each of us killed”. And on this day, to my disgust, I am agreeing with the policy of teach-them-to-fear-us.
Then I reconsider, recognize my bitterness at (a) the selfish greed of a faltering ruling elite in the USA and (b) last gasp by a fading terrorist group in the Middle East and (c) avoidable ecological collapse due to fossil fuels and (d) various 'n sundry other lesser cruel policies. And none of that is reason enough to inflict miseries uncountable upon millions of children.
Problem being, leadership by politicians who shrug off concerns over children.
nobody keeps all blueprints for all buildings, never mind what the regulations call for
A few years ago we had heating problems at my school, which was built over 100 years ago and then modified in five major renovations. No one could find the blueprints for the heating system that was failing (there were four separate HVAC systems). Caretaking office had been moved multiple times, as had the school board offices, and the school board had been amalgamated years before. Sometime in that period the board decided to centralize all records so local documents were sent to the main headquarters. Sometime later they were digitized to save space. No one knew why the computer system had no records for the heating system, but it didn't, and no one could find any paper records.
(My personal guess is that the board pushed actual digitization down to a junior employee, who took a quick look at the plans, saw that there were already plans in the computer system, and decided 'duplicate' without actually checking them and so didn't realize that the school had multiple different HVAC systems for different parts of the building.)
They had to dig up a concrete floor in the basement to get access to the pipes. They had to dig up a lot of floor, because there was no records for where pipes ran and so the only way to tell which pipe was for which system was to access the pipes. It was an expensive repair.
Should countries (corps) rethink their retirement strategies? How about easing their employees into retirement instead of completely axing them out of their job/career?
I remember having a conversation about that with my father three decades ago. Nothing seems to have changed since then :-(
I would have been quite happy to ease into retirement, but there was no real way to do that without impacting my pension. Not to mention, teacher pay is based (partly) on the number of classes you teach, but duties are assigned assuming you have a full load so people with a partial load get a disproportionate amount of non-teaching duties for what they're paid.
Is this the site, or is there a better one?
https://en.boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=daybreak
Among other things, I don't want an actual mansion. Too much upkeep. I still want the library.
In one of the Wasted Talent comics, Jam is arguing with her husband about buying more books (their apartment is full) and brings up wanting another room. He says "I thought you didn't want to live in a large apartment" and she retorts "I don't, I want to live in a small library!".
"Tell me you ignored Operation Cast Lead without telling me" etc etc.
The "who, me? Would I do a thing like that?" faux-innocence so common to apologists for fuckery of so many stripes really gets to me. "Ethnic tensions and coup sponsoring of the 20th Century" may not be thrilling reading but the alternative is to embrace "I only started reading the news yesterday" as one's source of authority, and I find active malicious embrace of ignorance frustrating.
If you'd like an example of what I mean, think of any of the "hawks on Iran" who seem constitutionally unable to grasp that Iran can't just take the US government's word on something because the US government has proved over and over Iran cannot trust them.
(I don't think you're doing this, Howard! I'm fully comfortable presuming you haven't been following the UN-school-bombings beat.)
Robert Prior [1293] noted: "In one of the Wasted Talent comics, Jam is arguing with her husband about buying more books (their apartment is full) and brings up wanting another room. He says "I thought you didn't want to live in a large apartment" and she retorts "I don't, I want to live in a small library!".
It me. Madame and I have a sort-of agreement that I refer to as "the law of conservation of books". We can order as many new ones as we want, so long as they stay in our private space (home offices) once they've been read. But for shared space, one book must leave for every book that enters.
In my defence, many of my/our books are 1970s-2000 books that my wife and I deemed worth retaining and rereading, and that are difficult to find in libraries. I evangelize them as a lending library to friends, most of whom make polite noises of interest but don't actually borrow books. Alas, they've mostly moved on to ebooks!
The school I went to for Grades 3-4 had its 100th anniversary in 2016. It's a well-kept old building, and was interesting to walk around. Although I couldn't remember where any of my classes had been. Who knew that 35+ years could erode memories?
They renamed it a couple of years ago so it would no longer honour a Canadian génocidaire.
Plumbers and electricians are more-or-less professionals. And they hire younger help.
How about factory workers? I've worked on a production line for a short time in my 20s, and NEVER wanted to do that again. Do it for a lifetime, as my father did?
Flying cars. Allow me to repreat my rant that I've given here enough times before: you get your flying car when your insurance pays for a radar-guided, computer controlled antiaircraft gun to shoot down teenagers, drunks, and "people who lost control of their cars" (or were texting while flying) before you crash into my 2nd floor bedroom.
I still don't get it - why three dishwashers, and not two? One clean, and after use, it goes into dishwasher 2.
Also, do these dishwashers seal hermetically when closed? Otherwise, how do you keep them from being buffets for roaches, ants, etc?
"When did the retirement fantasy of happily doing nothing for the rest of your life get started, by whom?"
Dickens? Or earlier?
Yeah, well, before I relocated the first time, I expected to end up with the house my ex and I had - late Victorian, 3.5 floors, full basement, five, I think it was, bedrooms, and so room for visitors, borders, tenants, or kids to take care of you.
Which at current prices, would cost me (in Philly) about 1.5 times what this tiny, massively overpriced place is in the DC 'burbs.
Hey, I read that Christie called TFG "Voldemort".
Oh, and about donating - BSFS, in its building, has something like 15,000 books, just built a mezzanine, and a lot of duplication with what I have.
Really? I'd love to have you come visit, and show me where these "chases" are.
Other than cast into the damn slab under the kitchen and family room and entryway. Or what sure looks like retrofitted forced air HVAC ducts (such as the one on one side of the family room ceiling.
To run the extra electrical line, and some networking, I fished the lines down the outside (but inside the wall) from the second floor to the basement.
And filed under astonishing stupidity, Woman Enters MRI Machine With a Gun, Gets Shot in Butt.
I suspect the fantasy started a few hours after the first day of work. The nature of the 'retirement' has evolved, but as long as people have been stooping in the field they've been looking over at the toffs in the manor and wishing they could do that instead.
I read somewhere that a common 'retirement' fantasy for Royal Navy sailors was to own a public house somewhere.
"When did the retirement fantasy of happily doing nothing for the rest of your life get started, by whom?"
I’d argue that te Zhuangzi is the earliest place this idea was published. That’s ca. 300 BCE. The use of being useless is a major theme of the book, and it’s one of the three foundational texts of Taoism. If you’re intrigued by the idea of a complete and humorous mindscrew as a sacred text, you might like it. It’s far more accomplished than the Principia Discordia in this regard.
I thank you for the new word.
Presumably any -phobic word has a dual -philic one. Most useful.
I was distinguishing - as Orwell and I think SFR were - between retiring from doing something to still doing something but a less strenuous something, and retiring to do nothing at all.
I would totally do it!
Start a new career as an architect. Typically the newest hires get to get filthy crawling around old buildings to get the measurements of "as builts" before new designs are started. Some looked like they have been in sanitary sewers when they return. They might have been but just don't want to talk about it.
...and also -misic, which is frequently more accurate than the common misuse of -phobic. To be claustrophobic is to have an irrational fear of enclosed spaces; to be claustromisic is to simply not like them, which is different entirely, but is too often what is actually meant.
What we neglected in our pre-purchase checklist was "should not have a 10-foot stairway between the ground floor and 2nd floor" (bedroom, home offices). We're hoping to stay here for another 10-20 years, so long as our knees hold out.
For all kinds of reasons our house will be torn down within 10 years. Maybe 3. Either by us or some developer. It is a 1961 split level. And would cost north of $200K to make into a nice 1961 split level. Plus we're one broken leg/foot from being restricted to the bedroom level. With a microwave and dorm fridge. No baths on the lower floors and way too many stairs to get from here to there.
If we tear it down the replacement will have a mostly 1 level layout in a larger space plus a smaller space to rent out or move into for one of us in 20 years. Maybe a basement garage but with space allocated for the personal wheelchair usable elevator shaft.
whitroth [1303} noted: "Oh, and about donating - BSFS, in its building, has something like 15,000 books, just built a mezzanine, and a lot of duplication with what I have."
Do they accept tenants? G
The school I went to for Grades 3-4 had its 100th anniversary in 2016. It's a well-kept old building, and was interesting to walk around. Although I couldn't remember where any of my classes had been. Who knew that 35+ years could erode memories?
The school I went to for grades 9-12 was built 3 years before my father was born in 1922. He and my mother went to 12 grades there. And he taught there for a year or two after WWII.
I can remember some classes. But others, like you, are a total blank.
The older part of the 1922 building was damaged in a student arson event half way through my 12th grade. So about 2/3s of my classes were switched to the middle school across the street. They and the elementary changed to meet at 6:30am till 12:30pm. And we met from 1:00pm till 7:00pm. This went one for 1/2 of my last year and through the next while repairs were made. It was a strange finish to my public schooling. And we loved it.
Really? I'd love to have you come visit, and show me where these "chases" are.
I DID put in the [snark off] tag.
Charlie @ 1231 Charlie, I think the gist of my original argument stands, which was that properly managed Britain’s current birthrate could be beneficial provided you don’t fuck things up; and unfortunately, Britain is deep in fuck-up territory.
Britain population is growing slowly but immigration is sufficient to make up for the below replacement birthrate. In the past, however, it has varied wildly due to economic circumstances (It even went negative in 1977), so you can’t base too much on recent years.
The age pyramid looks healthy with a typical arrow shaped head and vertical sides that fluctuate in and out a bit. There’s a tuck in below age of twenty were most of your immigration cuts out and you are left with just native births, but current immigration rates can make up for that.
You are in the middle of the boomer retirement wave, but by the end of this decade that with be over and the number of retirees/year will decrease as Gen X moves into their retirement years. The same effect with old age care will occur with a 15 year lag, so peak old age care will be needed around 2040.
Britain does have one pretty good immigration policy in that it sets a minimum wage under which you cannot bring people in. This is very much in line with what I suggested, but note this policy works gradually over time.
Assuming Britain grows slowly or maintains a constant population, the ratio of retirees to labor force will reach a new higher set point, but it won’t go on increasing for ever.
From what I have read Britain’s care workers are chronically underpaid, and what is needed is more welfare spending and higher taxes to pay for it.
While there is not much improvement in efficiency to be had in the care services, there should be a improvement in growth and efficiency in, in particular, Britain’s manufacturing sector. Why this doesn’t occur is a puzzle, but suppression of wages and crowding out by the financial sector are probably reasons. There is also the problem that the financial section grows and becomes more profitable by being less efficient at its job, which is to allocate money. Britain’s manufacturing sector has also been hammered by Brexit.
A lot of these problems would be ameliorated if its economic growth wasn’t constantly being stunted by unnecessary austerity.
The long term burden of caring for those with long-term COVID is another self-inflicted wound. Basically, what you are seeing is the result of bad management.
Sorry, no. https://bsfs.com
Manufacturing? What, did you miss where all the wealthy outsourced manufacturing - all the jobs where unions proliferated - to other countries, where they could pay sweat shop wages?
Geoff Hart
"15 000 books" - yes, well, go that already, without counting the maps & magazines & ....
SFReader @ 1139:
Re: '... axe older people ... they get paid more'
That's why I said 'ease into' retirement. I'm guessing that older employees wouldn't mind fewer hours therefore less pay. At the other extreme is the techie corp with revolving door employment practices that mostly hires new grads expecting them to work 70 plus hours every week.
Problem with that - based on my own experience in the working world - when they cut your hours, they cut your pay AND your benefits.
Not sure whether this is so but it seems to me that dumping older employees when they hit a certain age (often before official retirement age) combined with overworking young employees both seemed to become more popular/accepted practice about the same time as tech billionaires became the new gen pop-culture icons.
I think it predates that. Starts with leveraged buyouts in the 1980s. For those workers who were still covered by "defined benefit" pensions, dumping them BEFORE their pensions were vested allowed corporate raiders to loot the pension funds.
I know that's when my accrued pension benefits (meager though they were) became a 401K (defined contribution plan). Minor "benefit" of that change is THEY couldn't fire me to steal my accrued pension.
Britain does have one pretty good immigration policy in that it sets a minimum wage under which you cannot bring people in. This is very much in line with what I suggested, but note this policy works gradually over time.
That policy is insane: PhD post-doc researchers don't earn enough to get in, neither do nurses! And the Tories are in the process of amending the policy to prevent workers who do qualify from bringing in more than one family member, thereby splitting up families (or deterring qualified workers from coming in the first place).
Nor can care workers meet the minimum income requirement to come here. So not so good for the elderly, either.
Another insanity of the UK's immigration system: the headline figure for "immigrants" includes students studying on a limited-term visa. They're counted as immigrants, but the count isn't decremented when they leave. And furthermore, some of them can't get visas for the full duration of study plus supervised work to qualify as e.g. doctors, which the country desperately needs.
Robert Prior @ 1201:
I've got grandniblings to worry about, so I have a stake in the future even if I won't see it. I'd really like to leave them a better world, rather than one that's just not as bad as it might have been. :-(
I don't have any. Once I'm gone the line ends with me (other parts of it will live on, but not my particular bit).
I still want to leave the world a better place for my having been here. Doesn't matter if the inheritors are genetically related to me or not.
Robert Prior @ 1203:
As a Canadian, our popular narrative is that the Americans invaded us and we kicked butt and burned the White House to teach the blighters a lesson. Which isn't really true as it was British regulars who did a lot of the fighting, but it makes a good founding myth — and it's as true as the Disneyfied version of the American Revolution. Although I don't think most Canadians actually know much about it or even remember it once they leave school.
One result of the war of 1812 was the U.S. government discovered it couldn't rely on state militias for NATIONAL defense. If you study U.S. history you can see the seeds of the U.S. Army in that war.
FWIW, the modern National Guard only exists because the 2nd Amendment (ALL of the 2nd Amendment, not just the parts the NRA abuses) won't allow Congress to abolish the militias.
David L @ 1239:
Have you tried to get elderly parents (maybe not parents) to move for such reasons. Most of them would rather die in filth than leave their "home". No matter how bad it gets. We had this war (no exaggeration) with both of our moms and know many friends who've been through the same. A friend had friends of his parents call and say he HAD to move them as they couldn't shop on their own and kept calling on healthier friends to go grocery shopping with them. Not for them, with them. As he said, apparently the ZIP code had more ties to their hearts than their grand kids.
Maybe more to it than just the zip code. Maybe didn't want to be forced to give up everything they accumulated over a lifetime.
Kardashev @ 1246:
I plead woeful, probably provincial ignorance, but do the high lips have a functional purpose? Containing brothy foods, food that's given to getting away like rice...?
It looks like some "picnic plates" I bought; made so you're less likely to spill food holding the plate in your lap if you don't have a table to sit at ... like at a picnic.
David L @ 1256:
I read a few articles about this a few months back. (It is an off and on conversation topic with the architects I know.) Basically everyone who has done it said that it can work in only 10% to 20% of the larger offices buildings in the US. This is due to various issues that just make it cheaper to tear down than rebuild. And the value of the existing has to come way down to make that work economically.
Just a SWAG, but I'd guess a large percentage of the excess commercial real estate available in the U.S. falls into that 80% where it doesn't work.
Mike Collins @ 1285:
You don’t get the point of this. You don’t want to remove the dishes in an easy batch because there are no cupboards to put them in. One dishwasher is a partly filled dirty dishes cupboard. One is a clean dishes cupboard. The third is the spare clean dishes cupboard which has completed its wash cycle. You need three times as much crockery but that’s cheap compared to labour costs.
Cheaper than a bachelor hiring a cleaning service to come in a couple times a week? Probably not. And it sounds like a lot of work.
FWIW, I use the same couple of plates, same cup, same couple of bowls - same silverware for every meal.
No need to put them in the dishwasher; wipe & rinse in the sink and put them in the dish rack that sits on the drainboard where they're available for the next time I want to eat. The rest of the dishes sit in the cupboard unless/until I need them.
OTOH - Those commercial dish washing machines cost BIG BUCKS; the guy who operates them gets minimum wage (or maybe less if he's undocumented). And the trays the dishes fit in are stack-able.
ilya187 @ 1286:
I would totally do it! I like solving puzzles, and am claustrophilic -- small enclosed spaces are comforting for me.
Not a fan of dirt and mouse droppings, but can deal with it.
The worst I ever had to deal with (when I worked for the alarm company) was a building in the downtown of a smaller city in Eastern NC being retrofitted for one of our clients to open a retail space.
The second story of the building ("first floor" in the U.K.) had been taken over by pigeons (in the U.S. that refers to feral Rock Doves) a decade or so prior.
Cue Tom Lehrer
Howard NYC @ 1289:
As much as I would like to avoid a civil war and focus efforts upon saving the ecology from climate change, I'm tempted to advocate for letting the horrors of co-mingled poly-crisis of (a) ecological failure during (b) political upheaval spiced with (c) bigotry on parade all playout on (d) mis-managed mass media and amoral social media.
Yeah, that worked out so well when Nader tried it in 2000.
Anonemouse 1294:
“Operation Cast Lead” was a prior burst of rage after decades of betrayed negotiations and terrorist attacks; how you read up about what led up to it?
As far right as Israeli government has shifted recently, it was once noticeably quite left-ist. Once a-upon a-time there was plenty of interest in the 'two state' resolution.
anonemouse @ 1294:
If you'd like an example of what I mean, think of any of the "hawks on Iran" who seem constitutionally unable to grasp that Iran can't just take the US government's word on something because the US government has proved over and over Iran cannot trust them.
From my point of view that problem runs both ways. They've proved untrustworthy over and over as well.
I wish I was a rock
a sittin' on a hill
not doing anything
just a sittin' still
I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't drink
I wouldn't even wash
I'd just sit here
for a billion years
and rest myself by gosh!
Yeah, that worked out so well when Nader tried it in 2000
Also, witness Kansas. After making the state a basket case, GOP still handily wins elections.
I've been hearing the sentiment "Let them win election and demonstrate how awful they are" for at least 20 years -- usually from the Left. I think there is enough empirical evidence that it is wishful thinking.
For those workers who were still covered by "defined benefit" pensions, dumping them BEFORE their pensions were vested allowed corporate raiders to loot the pension funds.
A couple of decades ago I remember reading about how a big indicator for poor teacher performance (in one of what we now call deep-red states) was the date their pension vested. A teacher could go from winning awards and being lauded by their school board to being on a PIP then terminated for poor performance within a year, coincidentally the year before their pension vested.
I still want to leave the world a better place for my having been here. Doesn't matter if the inheritors are genetically related to me or not.
None of my grandniblings carry my genetic material. Doesn't matter — family is thicker than DNA.
Here there was a dairy that went bankrupt very suddenly (at least to outsiders). One night after all the delivery trucks got back they locked the doors and never opened back up. And it sat for a while.
A local architectural firm I work with got the contract to rehab it into restaurants, shops, etc... The guy who did the as built measurements was telling how he had to walk out and puke multiple times. When they locked the doors months (a year?) earlier there was a LOT of milk in the piping and vats. Which had been growing in interesting ways for way too long of a time.
Charlie @ 1321
We do expect a complete economic collapse in 2025, because of these tory restrictions on "migrant labour" don't we?
Quite deliberate, of course - another poison pill.
See also
Sounds like ideal living quarters to me. (Which is much of the reason why I can't breathe.)
The obvious solution for this is: they can abolish the 2nd Amendment instead.
(And yeah, I know that this won't ever happen. But it is the obvious solution to the militias-are-no-longer-useful-for-national-defense problem, and has been the obvious solution to it since 1812.)
"Cheaper than a bachelor hiring a cleaning service to come in a couple times a week? Probably not. And it sounds like a lot of work."
No work at all - you just take a plate out of the clean dishwasher, use it, then put it in the dirty one. You just use them like cupboards only they're magic cupboards that wash things. And crockery is dirt cheap - probably the cost of using it once and then throwing it away would be comparable with that of regularly having cleaners in.
FWIW I don't have a dishwasher, and I use more or less the same method as you. But if I did have one I'd want two (like whitroth I'm not entirely clear what the third one's for, and indeed I've not encountered the three-dishwasher variant of the idea before; it's usually only two.)
To those of you thinking of having to move out of a split-level house: aren't stair lifts a thing in the US?
Here in Germany they have helped elderly people to stay in their multi-level homes for decades. The one in my mother's home goes over all three levels, allowing her to move (or to transport things!) between ground floor (living rooms, kitchen), first floor (bedrooms, bathroom, study) and basement (laundry room, pantry) easily. We had it installed in 2019 when my father couldn't walk the stairs anymore. He has since passed away, but now the stair lift (together with other household helpers) is allowing my mother to stay in her home of almost 50 years.
And yes, stair lifts cost a pretty penny, but when compared to either the tear-the-house-down-and-rebuild-it solution or the find-another-better-suited-home-and-relocate solution the cost seems pretty reasonable.
And they usually fit in the tiniest of staircases, because that's their primary use case, and therefore they're designed specifically to fit practically everywhere.
Lastly, should she ever want to sell the house (or should we want to sell it in the future), an already installed and functioning stair lift is an amenity that will reflect well on the sale price. Because whoever buys it will get older as well. So it's actually an investment in the property's value, not a consumptive expense.
In my mind, the third dishwasher is for the edge case: you have used all your dishes from the 'clean' dishwasher and have put them into the 'dirty' dishwasher. Now you're turning the 'dirty' dishwasher on and have them cleaned.
But wait, while the dishwasher is still busy cleaning you need another dish. But your 'clean' dishwasher is empty. No dishes availably anywhere! You're going to starve! Thus, you need a third dishwasher (and divide your dishes between the three) just for this case.
And yeah, I find this just as insane as you probably do.
However, my actual problem with the dishwasher-instead-of-cupboards solution is this: we have far more dishes than would ever fit in two (or even three) dishwashers. Also, dishwashers don't fill evenly. Sometimes there's lots of plates and other times there's lots of cups and glasses, sometimes there's lots of storage containers, depending on what we've eaten and drunk, and with how many guests. So I wouldn't expect to use our dishes and swap them between two dishwashers at anything like an even rate.
All of these make a multi-dishwashers-setup a non-solution to the round-plates-in-a-square-cupboard problem.
aren't stair lifts a thing in the US?
They're a thing in Canada, but not terribly common.
I was thinking about this when I screwed my knee up last year. I'm not terribly attached to my house, but I don't really want the hassle of moving, so wondered what it would take to make this place liveable if my other knee went.
And the answer is it would take a lot of work. Half-flight of stairs outside up to the front door. From there there's a half-flight up to the main floor, and a half-flight back down to the basement. To get to the top floor it's another flight of stairs with a landing halfway where the stairs change direction 180°. (The stairs between the basement and first floor are the same, with the front door on the landing.)
So I would need five stair lifts, one of them weatherproof and suitable for Canadian winters.
Years ago I had a colleague whose wife was missing a leg. They had stair lifts in their house, but their stairs went the full way with no direction changes and landings to complicate matters.
And the answer is it would take a lot of work.
Yes. My house, while different, has very similar requirements. And it would cost a LOT.
Maybe because we bought HOMES, not "investment properties"?
Waited a while to reply to see what others had to say and not give an instant answer.
I'm not disagreeing. But in the 10 or so situations I know of or were directly involved in all but one involved parents living 200 to 2000 miles from their kids. And demanding to be left alone. Except when anything happened then expected their kids to show up and take care of things. I personally got asked (and others were asked similar) why don't you just move "here" and find new jobs. Being asked by someone who is in their 70s or 80s and living on a pension. With my mother 3 families got to spend weeks total dealing with the results of this attitude near the end. With my mother in law it created rifts in the sisters when it all started 15 years ago that still exist. My wife had been trying to get her sisters to convince mom to move closer to one of them. The other two were adamant that mom was fine. When the two of them got to spend a month away from home dealing with mom in the middle of a blizard, finally things changed.
And for each of these and those of our friends it was not about "home". It was about fear of change. Much more of a bunker mentality.
Now there has been one exception to all of this in my peer group. My wife's aunt and uncle were living in their house of 30+ years. Maybe 50+ years. Small town an hour or more from most anywhere. Son was a very successful businessman in a nice somewhat larger area a hour or two away. Mom said we need to discuss who will get what in her 50 year collection of knik nacks. Son was polite but blunt. Mom, if you're still in this house when you die, there will be a dumpster parked out front and loaded up. If this upsets you then you and dad need to figure out what means the most to the family and move it and yourselves to where we live. If you do that there are some great retirement communities and you get to see us on a regular basis and watch your grand kids grow up. Not too long later after a lot of yard sales and thrift store donations they moved. And got to spend 10 years or so playing golf with new friends nearly daily, and being around their family while the grand kids grew up.
They allowed blood to be thicker than a zip code.
Specific situations vary. But if you expect your extended family to help out, be around, whatever, you have to deal with them.
In the US most of us don't live where great great granddady grew up anymore. I don't. But to prove the exception, I have cousins with great grand kids who live on land settled by the great grand kids of my great great great grandfather. Them wanting to live in their "home" is different. Relatives are 5 to 15 minutes away.
I think I mumbled the genealogy.
My great great great grandfather settled the area in 1824. I have second cousins with grand kids who live on some of this land. 10 generations?
We are fortunate in that my parents decided about 13 years ago to sell their farm in Alberta and move out close to us (well, close to their grandkids). They were clear in that move that part of the reasoning was to be near me as they enter their 80s.
There is a 100% chance that I will be supporting my parents when they can't support themselves. They also made a point of buying a 1 level house, with a total of 1 step in the whole place.
Unfortunately my own house is dominated by stairs. Once the kids are gone we'll be selling it and moving to a smaller, single story home. Alternatively we might build a second smaller home in the back of the property, using universal design principals. However I am inclined to move uphill given the pending rise in sea level.
My parents still live in Bumfuck, NZ, but in their newly constructed single-story small home. They have moved several times since I left home and spent bloody ages pissing off architects before they finally built the current thing. They sold a bunch of stuff to get in there but still built a garden shed basically the week they moved in. And they own half a boat that is parked at a friend's place (the friend owns the other half, it's not Solomon's boat)
Two of us kids live overseas, the other is basically a full-time carer for her somewhat disabled husband as well as a full-time nurse practitioner. She's not moving back to Bumfuck to care for her parents, any mroe than I am. Or my other sister who lives in England.
That's just how people's lives work these days. My mother's siblings are all over the place, my cousins ditto (although I think the Canadian wing at least all live in Canada). It's the classic "if Sam has eight relatives living in five countries, which is the cheapest country to get to for a family reunion?" question.
spent bloody ages pissing off architects before they finally built the current thing.
Architect learn early in their careers that married couples' vision of their dream house don't always align.
One pair or architects visited a couple at their home for a first visit. They started asking questions about desires in a house and after a few minutes one half of the couple excused themselves and asked the other half for help. They came back after a few minutes. This kept happening. Each time after the first they hard arguing. Each time it got louder. After one where the couple was out of the room for 10-15 minutes and lots of yelling heard, they collected themselves and just left. Never to hear from the couple again.
MSB @ 1339:
The obvious solution for this is: they can abolish the 2nd Amendment instead.
(And yeah, I know that this won't ever happen. But it is the obvious solution to the militias-are-no-longer-useful-for-national-defense problem, and has been the obvious solution to it since 1812.)
Except that isn't true. The National Guard is a vital part of the national defense, it just wasn't able to be ALL of the national defense back in 1812.
Nowadays the GUard serves a dual role as a part of the national military reserve and a "military" force available to the STATE (i.e. 50 of them + DC, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam) ... primarily as manpower for orderly relief in times of natural disaster.
I consider myself to be kind of a 2nd Amendment Absolutist. Instead of repealing the 2nd Amendment, ENFORCE IT - ALL of it - if you want to own guns you have to participate in the Well regulated militia, mustering on demand for the state government, as well as participating in regular training (as defined in The Constitution of the United States, Article 1, Section 8, Paragraphs 15 & 16j).
The idea of the citizen-soldier is important to democracy. They provide a check on unrestrained power grabs at the state and national level as well as providing a large, diverse & dispersed "manpower" reserve. You have a large trained force that remains a part of the community, but isn't the drain on resources having that same force as a standing army would be.
I found it hard enough to deal with an architects vision problems when it was just me. I think partly delinating the bits I don't care about clearly, but partly his "professional opinion" that large windows and steel structure is the only possible way to build a house. He seemed disgruntled that I didn't just take his word for it. The wheels feel off completely when he said "I haven't done thermal modelling, I don't know how to do it. I just comply with the legislative requirements" (those are a very low minimum, it's basically the "it's legal so I'm going to do it" version of morality applied to housing).
But anything that gets more than one person expressing opinions on something important to them can produce that kind of argument. Although I prefer the argument over the "just do whatever you want" avoidant version.
but at least we'll all go together when we go. Now where did that delta go for every epsilon?
Agreed; IME the thing to avoid is arguing with the NRA that "being a gun owner" does not require you to also be part of the "well-regulated militia".
TBH I don't think I could cope with having an architect's vision as something I had to cater to among all the other design criteria. I'd want to optimise a bunch of things including passive thermal performance, and what the architect thinks it looks like isn't something that's important to me. What my wife thinks is, and I guess that's where it can be a problem, but I get that with all sorts of salespeople (because confident ignorance always sounds better than hesitant knowledge).
I didn't realise how bad it was until ~9 months in when he dropped the modelling comment. I was apparently misled by both my ex-gf's doing it just as a normal part of the process (one an architect, one a "mere" building designer... who's passivhaus certified). So I just assumed that his comments about thermal performance were informed by actual modelling rather than merely legal requirements (viz, "you must show insulation on the plans"). So when he showed me the final plans with steel structure and I asked about insulating around the steel beams and what the cost was to get that up to spec without making a box around them and got "I don't know" I was shocked and very disappointed. Thermal performance had been a major topic of my side of the discussions.
When I fired him he asked why, I started to explain, and he started shouting at me over the phone. "I've been doing this for 20 years you have to listen to me". Apparently he's unfamiliar with the trope "some people have 10 years experience, others have one years experience ten times". I don't care how many other houses he's built, I care that he can explain how his design for my one reaches the standard I require.
The funny thing was that both him and me talked to my ex-gf because she'd recommended us to each other, and we both wanted to avoid pissing her off. Sadly she saw my text message only after he'd rung her to explain that he'd been fired and complain that I wouldn't tell him why. So she just nodded and smiled rather than having anything useful to say.
Kirsty the building designer would be an amazing designer/builder, but as a girlfriend she was unbearable. So being around her for a year of the build is out of the question. She errs on the side of following the rules rather than "what you can get away with" but I'd rather deal with that than, well, being pushed as far as possible by an expert in "what you can get away with"...
Well ... it looks as if Hamas have achieved their war aims, at the cost of tens of thousands of their "own people's" lives, doesn't it?
Their Nazi-substitute hatred for all jews has earned Israel & it's really nasty current government 90%-justified criticism & condemnation from around the planet.
Where we go from here is almost certainly not going to be "nice" & it has the awful prospect of getting even worse, with no difficulty at all.
Meanwhile, in the USA ...
The current version of the German-Amerikan Bund { As per 1938-41 } are making inroads, courtesy of Trump & Putin & allies, so that, as in 1939, Europe will have to carry the load, until ( IF? ) the US wakes up.
It would certainly appear that the US "R's" are so fixated on internal "Purity" that the rest of the world can go to hell-in-a-handbasket. I trust people note the similarity to Hamas, here?
Direction changes and landings aren't a problem; maybe they used to be, but stair lifts now can go round corners and change gradient and all sorts. And have sections that hinge out of the way in case they need to impinge on a thoroughfare to complete their route. I don't know if they've got as far as having actual points yet, but it must be coming.
It seems to me that architects inhabit their own private subsection of reality where the only meaningful opinions are those of other architects. So they repeatedly produce abortions which are raved over by other architects and win awards, but don't meet the occupants' requirements, are shit for the users, look ridiculous in the urban landscape, and in extreme cases are so awful that they melt parked cars.
Up there!
Pigeon
Sometimes, the opposite happens ... This man was the principal designer for Harlow New Town - he went there & lived the rest of his life, there!
one (small) piece of less-bad (not-quite-good) news... "self-checkout" is so obviously a flawed concept executives at retail chains are slowly retreating from it
https://lite.cnn.com/2023/12/08/business/self-checkout-dollar-general-retail/index.html
I'll be honest I rather like them, mostly because as implemented locally there is a single queue for all the self-checkouts, so you never get stuck in a line behind someone who takes forever while you watch other lines race through…
You get those people at the self-checkout too, but having a single line means the whole line moves a bit slower rather than only some unlucky people getting penalized while a dithering customer finds their purse, looks for coupons, argues about expired coupons, needs a price check, decides they don't want an item, etc.
I realize that staffed checkouts could also be set up on a single-queue model, but while that was implemented during Covid social distancing it went away as soon as we stopped distancing.
"self-checkout" is so obviously a flawed concept
I prefer the choice at grocery and home improvement stores. And most times pick self checkout. It's faster for me most of the time.
so you never get stuck in a line behind someone who takes forever while you watch other lines race through…
Many decades ago we had sold a house, moved into a temp house for 6 months while building a new house. Had been in the new house a month or so and at a check out line for K-Mart my father asked if he could write a check. Sure. He handed over the check and drivers license. Then the cashier asked if the addresses on the check and drivers license were correct. I don't know he said, let me look.
.... A manager was called over to inspect, interrogate, then approve the check.
"self-checkout" is so obviously a flawed concept executives at retail chains are slowly retreating from it
Unfortunate. I really like self-checkout.
I'm 6'0" (182.88) and near-sighted... every self-check is positioned to be just a bit too far down for ease of use as well utilizing too small text on a grimy screen... annoying that... but the aggravating thing is veggies each of which as a distinct four digit code... plus it is really annoying hearing my purchases announced one by one... the noise is made worse by all the other kiosks doing it also... just really stupid feature, that
When it works well it's great, but the failure modes are truly awful. Sadly it seems that given the choice between easy to use or annoying to steal from, most places are going for the annoying version. Amusingly the local supermarket staff seem to have decided that theft is not their problem so will happily scan their magic card and validate whatever the customer has done regardless of how egregious. Kind of necessary when half the time re-usable shopping bags trigger a machine melt-down "unexpected itme in bagging area"... "I pushed the fucking 'have own bags' button, bags there are not unpected you fucking useless piece of artificial stupidity". Fix that fifty times and hour for minimum wage and you too will swipe-click-smile-ignore.
The best one is the cameras with "AI" to detect bad items or mis-claimed ones. I've had one insist that bananas were actually mangoes (~50% more expensive) but someone I was talking to today said they got blocked for putting their phone down on the self-checkout machine. It's not self-checkout if a human has to "assist" you several times per shopping trip.
My experience has been that a given shop installs them and they're great initially, then the store steadily dials up the fussiness until they're not usable at all.
" but the aggravating thing is veggies each of which as a distinct four digit code"
They make you do that? In these here parts, they just have a set of screens, you tap to get to the right screen, then tap on the item. I think you can key in a code instead, but I've never had to.
"... plus it is really annoying hearing my purchases announced one by one"
Are you telling me me they are batshit enough to do that? Yes, you are telling me that they are that batshit.
If they did that around here, nobody would use them, however long the queues for the staffed checkouts.
It sounds like where you are, they have gone out of their way to discourage their use, and are now wondering why people won't use them.
JHomes
Self checkout at groceries and such.
Isn't it great that we are all mental clones of each other with identical preferences?
In the US all (or nearly all) groceries use the same 4 digit codes for produce. (Bananas are 4011 everywhere.) So it's not all that hard. Plus all of the various stores we shop at (6 major brands at least) put a tag on each item, clump, or bag of things. So it's easy to enter. And if you want you can look it up by picture and description. And the cashiers, if you use one, use the exact same screens.
Why so many brands of stores? For packaged foods we shop the weekly deals. My wife seriously prefers the produce section at one store that's 2 miles away. When in the mood we'll stop in Lidl to pick up German bakery and a few other things only they have. Costco's fresh fruit and milk always lasts longer in the fridge. The closest store has the deli meats we like. Etc... We don't drive to all of these every time we shop for food. But tend to wrap a stop at one of them when we go out.
Meanwhile ...
What a fucking utter collapse & disaster - the SNP strike again.
Someone very well-known to me was a "user" of the old Scottish system, as far as going up to St Andrews' for a year - before she moved to SOAS in London.
She isn't the slightest bit surprised by this fiasco.
Ah yesssss ...
so you never get stuck in a line behind someone who takes forever while you watch other lines race through…
Like the waiting/prospective bus passenger, who is "surprised" when the bus arrives, can't remember where they put their pass { It's NEVER, EVER in a convenient pocket, natch } then takes 2-4 minutes finding the damned thing & then presents it wrongly ... etc.
Yes?
Howard NYC
Me too - unless I have booze in the purchase, when cashiers are better.
I use a few shops and supermarkets local to me, some with self-checkout and some without. I tend to use cash when buying things since I find it easier to budget and it makes me less likely to just tap my debit card now and worry about the total cost later. (ObSF: Age Of The Pussyfoot.)
One issue is that the store I use the most has self-checkouts but none of them accept cash, they're all card and phone-only payment so I mostly use a checkout lane when I shop there and have to do that "interacting with a human being" thing uuurgh. Another big store I frequent only has cashier lanes and no self-checkouts at all which I find kind-of weird these days.
What Howard NYC is describing does sound completely batshit. I live near Boston, and self-checkouts in our area are FAR better. Whether it is supermarket, drugstore, or home improvement store.
Costco's fresh fruit and milk always lasts longer in the fridge.
fruit's probably irradiated
fruit's probably irradiated
The less conspiracy reason would be no stop in a warehouse for up to 48 hours and one less unload / load cycle on trucks.
"every self-check is positioned to be just a bit too far down for ease of use"
The standard pattern round here is to have the input buffer and the scanning desk at a convenient normal counter-top height, but the bagging area is down near your ankles somewhere, so you have to bend right down to put every item in the bag. This slows it down massively, and I find it easier just to pile stuff up in the bagging area and then put it in bags only after I have paid, ignoring the repeated blethering of "please take your items" from the machine while I'm doing it.
From what I've seen at Costco the turnover and volume is so high that produce, meat and dairy tends to go out the door the same day it hits the shelves.
When I worked with a couple of people with significant behaviour challenges the self checkout was a godsend. If you are in a grocery store with someone who is triggered to violence by coughing or crying babies, being in complete control of your interactions with others is essential.
You folks seem to live in areas where no one actually designed self checkouts to be used.
Most of what is said here negatively I've never seen.
From what I've seen at Costco the turnover and volume is so high that produce, meat and dairy tends to go out the door the same day it hits the shelves.
Exactly. Less time in their storage -> more time in my fridge.
I think they did sort of try to, a bit; they were just really, really bad at it. As they usually are with anything.
Seconded. My recentish experience in the umbras and penumbras of largish cities is that self-checkout for small to medium orders is convenient and mostly works(*). For larger orders, I prefer human checkers. Anyway, the human interaction is nice if it's not overdone.
(*) Well, not quite always, but the attendant has been able to set things right fairly quickly.
In my little corner of the US, virtually all self checkouts have become bays of 4 to 6 (maybe 8) with a person staffed to deal with situations. One grocery chain has made then next to the service desk so the person there can handle other customer issues when not showing someone what a bar code is.
2 to 4 spots for bags. Soft or self supporting. Bring your own or use theirs. Height is reasonable if you're between 4'6" and 6'6". And the systems don't get totally weird if you scan things and leave them in your cart. Especially larger things. This last thing if you have very many or a LOT of discounted items can require the staffer to finalize your purchase.
Anyway, of the dozen major stores where I shop, self checkout works.
Now go back to the first systems 10 years ago and well ....
And I think all of them take cash. But I don't use cash so ....
Howard NYC @ 1365:
I'm 6'0" (182.88) and near-sighted... every self-check is positioned to be just a bit too far down for ease of use as well utilizing too small text on a grimy screen... annoying that... but the aggravating thing is veggies each of which as a distinct four digit code... plus it is really annoying hearing my purchases announced one by one... the noise is made worse by all the other kiosks doing it also... just really stupid feature, that
I was 6'0" once - long ago before life beat me down - with luck no more than an inch & a half so far ...
I'm "Ok" with the self checkouts at Home Depot & Lowe's. They have the wireless scanner wands that look like a 1930s Hollywood sci-fi raygun, so you don't have to bend over to slide the item across a scanner. I've been "trained" well enough that I make sure whatever item I'm selecting from stock has a barcode or barcode sticker that I'm sure the wand can read.
I still prefer the old fashioned checkouts where you pile all your stuff on the conveyor belt and the clerk scans it (or enters the PLU code) whenever I have the choice. Home Depot/Lowe's rarely offer that option any more, but most of the other places I shop do ... that's why I shop there.
I'm hip enough to the modern way of doing things that I know which end of the card to stick in the reader so it can access the "chip" ... and I've even used contactless payment a couple of times.
Don't think I'll ever get to the place where I can pay for stuff by photographing the screen on the reader with my phone, but I've seen people do it.
PS: McDonald's has these kiosk thingys that you can order & pay and just wait for your number to be called out to take your food. I can't figure them out because they don't have the one item I usually come in for.
I've had managers try to show me how to use them and THEY couldn't find regular large black coffee on it. So screw that! I still just walk up to the counter to order.
I go inside because if there's more than one car at the drive-thru the wait is going to be too too long.
And another thing ... A little bit of stupidity I've run into (and one of the reasons I prefer to stand in line at the old style checkouts ...)
One of the grocery chain stores I shop at has done away with plastic bags ... gone back to the old fashioned paper bags that were common when I was young, before plastic bags became a thing. I like that because the bags are the same size as my cloth bags; they make a perfect liner for my re-usable bags ... and they're re-usable themselves IF I find myself having to buy groceries when I didn't plan to (and don't have my re-usable bags in the car).
BUT if you go through the self check-out they charge you a nickel each ($0.05) for the bags to carry your groceries ... bags that are provided gratis at the regular check-out. As Gomer Pyle would say, "stupid, Stupid, STUPID!".
Doesn't encourage me to use the self check-out when I have to pay MORE for the inconvenience.
JHomes @ 1367:
They make you do that? In these here parts, they just have a set of screens, you tap to get to the right screen, then tap on the item. I think you can key in a code instead, but I've never had to.
I'm pretty sure the PLU Codes are a nation-wide thing here in the U.S. The 4-digit number for item X is the same in every store.
There's a database of PLU Codes and all the store has to do is adjust the unit price in the database.
I always try to remember to look for items that have a PLU Code sticker on them ... because white onions, yellow onions and "Vidalia" onions may have different prices (white onions are more expensive than yellow onions and "Vidalia" onions are more expensive still)
I prefer to use the traditional checkouts, so the cashier has to do any screen tapping, but making sure I have produce with the PLU Code keeps the cashier from choosing the wrong item (and charging me more than I should have to pay).
David L @ 1368:
Why so many brands of stores? For packaged foods we shop the weekly deals. My wife seriously prefers the produce section at one store that's 2 miles away. When in the mood we'll stop in Lidl to pick up German bakery and a few other things only they have. Costco's fresh fruit and milk always lasts longer in the fridge. The closest store has the deli meats we like. Etc... We don't drive to all of these every time we shop for food. But tend to wrap a stop at one of them when we go out.
I've got grocery shopping pretty well mapped out. It's 12 miles from here to Costco. If I had to stop at every store on my list of stores that stock acceptable items the return trip is only 14.5 miles ... usually it's only about 13 miles (at an average cost of $0.1533/mile - about $4.00 for the round trip).
Aldi has German foods, and Lidl doesn't add enough extra to make it worth the additional mileage to shop there.
David L @ 1380:
Anyway, of the dozen major stores where I shop, self checkout works.
Since we're in the same area & probably shop at SOME of the same major stores, I'll agree they work, but are sometimes less convenient than the old style checkout lanes where the cashier does the work.
The thing I really miss is Bag Boys - teenagers who would not only bag your groceries for you, but would carry them out & put them in your car.
The ONLY store I have to drive ( or Wiley-e-bicycle ) to as a BIG Sainsbury's, because only that store stocks a really nice, whey butter.
For the rest I can walk to or bicycle to: "Nisa" ( Co-Op under another name ), "Eat17", Aldi , Asda, Sainsbury's with zero difficulty ...
The 15-minute city has its advantages.
{ Time, on foot, to local station for rapid transit to the centres of one of the largest cities in Europe.. between 7 & 8 minutes }
The 15-minute city has its advantages.
I suspect you've heard this is a liberal plot to keep us all in our assigned "enclave" so we can be better tracked and controlled.
At times I have to wonder just how many of those grey cells some people have behind their eyes.
I'm firmly in the category of I could walk there. I bought new walking boots a while ago so obviously I walked home in them. About 15km. Good news: they work! Equally obviously normally I'd ride a bike or train there, but walking home meant I knew the same day whether the boots worked.
The 15 minutes city thing is indeed a trap... for people who can't leave home without a car. It means they might have to pay more of the cost of their driving problem, and that's just not fair{tm}. My neighbours drive their SUV to the railway statiuon ~800m away multiple times a day for no reason I can understand. My guess is two daughters in their 20s both work or study, dad WFH/manages a corner shop or whatever, so he drives them to and from the station. Plus drives mum to the shops or station or whatever. The is the station that is 15 minutes slow walk or 8 minutes on the trot for a 1.5m tall asian woman who is obsessed with timing such things to the second, and thus will know that she's running 25 seconds late when she leaves so she needs to hoof it rather than just jog. I lived with her for 10 years, I have observed the last minute rush in its unnatural habitat at some length...
For larger orders, I prefer human checkers
Here the self-checkouts require to to individually scan every item. Buying 24 cartons of rice milk. Sacn one. Place on exit scale. Scan next one. Place on exit scale. {repeat ad infinitum). With a proper checkout you scan one, type "24" and that's it. I often buy multiples of stuff like pasta, sauce, long-life (rice) milk, anything non-perishable. Those shops I will queue for 10 minutes rather than fight to stack eveything on the stupid little shelf in the self-checkout (and sometimes I do, because there's only one human checkout open).
OTOH our hardware chain have hand-scanners and much more useful software in their self checkouts. But they also have an app that lets you scan and pay from your phone if you sign up, so I often do that if the checkouts are even slightly busy. It's also handy because buying bulky or product code items you can just stack them in your vehicle then make the exit-checking person count them, rather than arguing about whether it's 362524 or 392524...
Thank you for reminding me to update the expired credit card in my @hardware_chain account! It's never convenient to do it in the store, even when there's an annoying queue and that's usually the only time I think of it.
FWIW the local branch of @supermarket_chain is "trialing" a similar arrangement, and when you scan an item in the app, you can specify how many. Helpful for loading direct to your own bags in the shopping trolley. You occasionally get stopped "randomly"* at the exit gate and have to wait while a staff person scans 5 items in your bags but it is usually much easier than the self checkout or even the old fashioned one.
I think I've talked before about the "AI" "recogniser" in the veggie section...
* I can't say for sure whether I get this more often when my hair's long and I'm wearing sandals than when I've just had my 1/2 yearly #5 back and sides and I'm wearing a suit.
The less conspiracy reason would be no stop in a warehouse for up to 48 hours
not saying eating the produce is going to turn u into a wifi hotspot but i have had a couple of lemons last a suspiciously long time without going mouldy
not from costco tho
David L
Of course the alternative name for a "15-minute city" is ... A Village.
As Kipling noted, long ago, London is "The Little Village" - a giant village, made up of lots of smaller ones.
Or .. "Commuting form the early-Medieval village to the Roman City" { Walthamstow-to-Londinium }
Adrian Smith
My limes last months (!) - but then, they are still growing on their tree, so there.
Not that long ago I put 20 packets of tea leaves through one by one, and the assistant came over and told me that it was possible to put just one through and then enter the multiple by hand. However, by the time she had finished walking over, I had already finished scanning the tea leaves (pass across the scanner and drop on bagging area, scan - drop, scan - drop, at a rate of >0.5Hz); I also couldn't see the thing on the screen she was pointing to that makes it do it; and I couldn't believe that if I just entered "20 packets of tea" and dumped the lot on the bagging area, it wouldn't confuse the crap out of the machine and make it need intervention anyway. So I said "er, well, thanks, but I think it's easier not to".
But bananas famously self-irradiate, so they ought to last for ever, whereas in fact they go off quite a bit quicker than most fruit...
Dunno what happens if you feed them 14C23H4...
Our local supermarket (UK, Co-op) has self checkouts that do without the scales in the bagging area entirely and, as far as I can tell, don't have any cameras / AI / other smarts to make up for it.
It all appears to operate on an honesty system as there are no security staff, no random checks of your bag, and frequently the only staff member in site is manning the till in the tobacco / lottery kiosk.
As a customer it's a fantastic system as you can breeze in and out of the store in no time at all.
As a business though I assume it's only feasible in particularly low-loss areas (we're in a particularly sleepy, retiree filled village).
Co-op
It all appears to operate on an honesty system as there are no security staff, no random checks of your bag, and frequently the only staff member in site is manning the till in the tobacco / lottery kiosk.
I think the term Co-op explains the lack of security.
Greg Tingey @ 1386:
The ONLY store I have to drive ( or Wiley-e-bicycle ) to as a BIG Sainsbury's, because only that store stocks a really nice, whey butter.
For the rest I can walk to or bicycle to: "Nisa" ( Co-Op under another name ), "Eat17", Aldi , Asda, Sainsbury's with zero difficulty ...
The 15-minute city has its advantages.
{ Time, on foot, to local station for rapid transit to the centres of one of the largest cities in Europe.. between 7 & 8 minutes }
If memory serves, you live on a small island that didn't have a lot of open area suitable for suburban sprawl in the late 20th century. I think if y'all had more room your "developers" would have made the same mistakes developers were making over here.
Raleigh & Durham haven't been "15-minute cities" since the late 1940s ... and Chapel Hill probably no later than the late 1950s.
One problem here is that when the suburbs were ballooning in the 1970s - 2000s, the city planners or whoever was in charge neglected the idea of sidewalks. When I lived in downtown Raleigh, there were stores & other amenities within walking distance IF YOU DIDN'T MIND WALKING IN THE STREET BECAUSE THERE WERE NO SIDEWALKS.
35°48'10.5"N 78°37'27.8"W - The street I'd have to walk up IF I wanted to get to the grocery store on foot - two miles from my old house to Costco. If you're interested, you can go "north" using Street View to get an idea what it's like on the other side of the bridge.
THEY seem to be doing something (NOT enough) about sidewalks now, but it's too late to benefit me.
Don't get me started. I've read that the NRA headquarters has the 2nd Amendment in large letters in their wall in reception... WITHOUT the "well-regulated" part.
I've yet to see a wrong-winger explain to me the difference between a "private militia" and "armed inner city gang".
I wouldn't trust an architect without going over the plans extensively. Most places, esp. "award winning", are places they'd HATE if they had to live in them. I am reminded of a parking lot by a mall on the north side of Austin, that EVERYONE HATED with a passion. Wavy driveway, with planted trees, etcs, between lanes....
The only architect I'd go for... I think it was in the Whole Earth Catalog, long ago, that I read they'd built a new university in Mexico City, and paved no sidewalks. After the first year it was in use, they then paved the dirt trails.
The US: as someone noted in an article I just read today, the fake elector scheme will not work this time, without hTFG in charge.
Check-outs. For manned checkout, Aldi is the only supermarket whose checkers do not assume you really enjoy spending time waiting in line.
Self-check... I see the main stupormarkets are trying to cut down on the idiots with $150 worth of shopping cart full to overflowing at the self-check.
No programmer, or manager, has ever used self-check.
Most fruit, now, has those annoying little stickers on them that list the batch #, but they also have bar codes. The only thing I have to look up - I just hit "look up by name", and it's one or two screens. I've never seen "five of this"; I'd really like that, given I buy yogurt 7 or 14 at a time. "yogurt, price, you have saved x cent" repeat).
The answer that I was given by the attendant for my large bag was "hit two bags", not one.
Ah, yes, the people who get riding lawnmowers in the 'burbs, then pay a lot of money to drive their gas-guzzling SUV to the gym to... walk on a treadmill.
The other delight at self-service tills is age-limited purchases, which includes far more than you might think in the UK (*). You have to call for an assistant who, if themselves is under 18, has to call for a supervisor. You have the same problem with teenage till attendants, but they can usually be avoided.
(*) And which supermarkets often extend still further, usually because they don't know the rules or can't be bothered to check the product.
You have to call for an assistant who, if themselves is under 18, has to call for a supervisor.
Ya'll need better systems. Over here they pop a notice on whoever's screen or pager or phone or whatever and they show almost before the person needing them understands what is happening.
John S
My local "village" street - as photographed in last week's "FT" Ghu help me ...
Note for USA-ians .. no "Zoning" - mixed use - lots of pavements (sidewalks) .... View from the other end - the imposing Victorian building was the local "new" Town Hall, replacing the old one which is Now a museum & itself replaced by This Art Deco wonder ... It became a hospital & is now mixed-use.
All very liveable ... I walk &/or cycle past all of these, every week.
Note for USA-ians .. no "Zoning" - mixed use
No historical designations? That's about the same as zoning.
David L
The Old Town Hall & the Museum are "listed" & the little street is in a Conservation Area - changes are permitted, but you have to tick the boxes.
I will note that the local film-makers have "found" our patch ... we've had "location" filming in the area several times, now (!)
the difference between a "private militia" and "armed inner city gang".
Ooh, ooh, I know, pick me! I know the anser!!!
Skin colour.
Do I get a prize?
(actually uniforms also make a difference. Wear the right uniform and you can shoot someone who's running away multiple times and it's not murder because you "felt threatened". We all know which gang of armed thugs is the most dangerous...)
You got it half right. You missed the "we live out in the country so we're Real People, an' city folks are all Evil".
And if we ever run into each other, say at a Worldcon, I'll buy you a drink.
Very nice. Around here, if we have sidewalks at all, you better be holding hands or arms, otherwise, it's single file.
"we got both kind a music, country and western" :)
Hereabouts the self-checkout stations each have a pole with a light on top that goes on when a item of concern is scanned to alert the attendant. We scan the beer/wine first to give the attendant time to get to us while we're scanning the rest of the order.
I saw a similar problem at ALDI the other day with real checkout people. Despite the signs and the announcment, when they opened another checkout lane some idiot ran to it with their alcohol purchase and had to be told "as announced, you have to pay for that at the other checkout lane". Cue sulking and whining.
I don't know what the restricted items are here, I'm pretty convincing at appearing over 18 so if I buy any of them I've never been asked for ID> OTOH if you watch a bit of "Explosions and Fire" on youtube you'll quickly realise that it's not the listed items that are the source of excitement... why bother with spray cans when you can buy 9kg of pro[ane in a tank without needing ID? And no-one looks at you funny if you're also buying "pool chlorine", acetone/paint thinner and drain cleaner at the same time...
I've yet to see a wrong-winger explain to me the difference between a "private militia" and "armed inner city gang".
The same one that was the reason for the amendment in the first place: skin pigmentation.
It's a very pretty area, and I think I saw it once on a historical/reality TV show about the Victorian area.
I've yet to see a wrong-winger explain to me the difference between a "private militia" and "armed inner city gang". The same one that was the reason for the amendment in the first place: skin pigmentation.
Perhaps La Cosa Nostra, Hells Angels, and the Black Panthers might want a word or two with y'all about how the fine art of differentiating between gangs who do business and those who use violence to pursue political reform? It's not about skin color or bureaucratic racial classes.
Since Don Trump purportedly models his behavior on that of John Gotti, I can see how one might get confused. But assuming that only brown people form gangs and only white people join insurrections is not just stereotyping, it's actively dangerous in this day and age.
Moz, whitroth
Coming to Glasgow?
whitroth & Troutwaxer
Explains why I have lived here, all my life ... Though, in the early 70's it was very seedy & run-down.
Note that everywhere in towns in the UK has "pavements" (sidewalks)
assuming that only brown people form gangs and only white people join insurrections is not just stereotyping, it's actively dangerous
To be fair, the John most famous for trying to start a brown-people insurrection was famously melanin-deficient, despite having a Brown name, as it were.
There's a neat article in The New Yorker at the moment contrasting the situation with Trump and the trial of Jefferson Davis. After reading it, I've been searching for an online recording of 'John Brown's Body' that includes the verse:
"They will hang Jeff Davis on a sour apple tree, [x3]
As they go marching on".
I haven't found one. There are a few versions that seem to skirt around it a bit, notably including the one by Paul Robeson, where he just repeats the chorus enough times to cover that verse where he probably would have included it when he performed it live (in front of the right sort of audience at least). I did find a bizarre clip of Orson Welles telling the story of the song, but even he left that bit out. That's without getting into the University of Pennsylvania marching band version, which has no words but is called "Hang Jeff Davis", apparently.
Not quite everywhere. Many mediaeval streets don't, because there is no room, and there are a few car-only roads in a few cities. There are plenty of very narrow ones in many cities and towns, a few narrow enough to need sidling along!
We were in Palermo in Sicily a few weeks back, and there are certainly streets in the old town where there is no separate pavement, and pedestrians have to hang back into doorways when vehicles come through. It's also a real demonstration as to why Italians like small cars - larger ones end up scraping their wing mirrors a lot
assuming that only brown people form gangs and only white people join insurrections is not just stereotyping, it's actively dangerous in this day and age
How much right-wing media to you read/watch?
I get a lot of right-wing stuff in my newsfeed, and the pigment-based stereotypes are very evident there. On Newsmax, a bunch of armed white guys is a militia, while a bunch of armed non-white guys is a gang — just as a white Christian guy shooting up a mosque is a mentally-ill lone-wolf gunman, which a brown guy shooting up a church is an Islamic terrorist (even if he's not Muslim).
We are, indeed. And then around some of the UK - London, Aberystwth, not sure what else, and Ellen wants to do County Mayo, since one of her grandparents? great-grandparents? came from there.
And since my next book, Becoming Terran, will be out, I'll be pushing it hard, and will hopefully be on some panels.
My first wife and her husband went to Italy many years ago. Her description of driving there was "if you don't like the way I drive, get off the sidewalk".
How much right-wing media to you read/watch?
As little as possible. I was having trouble parsing what you were writing as a sarcastic jab at right-wing media, especially since the main stream tends to split that way too. While I assumed it was a jab, I figured it was better to clarify.
Another point: a common failure mode of insurrection movements is for them to become criminal gangs. Initially it's espoused to be a way for them to keep fighting, but often enough it becomes their raison d'etre. Assuming Trump goes down, I'd expect some of the Jan 6 crowd to start running guns and fentanyl. If they keep following the Reconstruction playbook they've been using so successfully, I'd fully expect modern equivalents of Billy The Kid, Confederate Bushwhackers who turned fully to crime after 1865, to show up by 2026 at the latest. That's why pushing the notion that only brown-skinned people form criminal gangs is so problematic.
Apropos of nothing but ... SERIOUSLY ????
Google is bringing 20gig Internet service to me soon if I want it. I COULD get 5 gig now but can't figure out what to do with all of the 1 gig I have just now.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/google-fibers-20-gig-service-is-coming-to-these-cities-for-250-a-month/
In terms of revolutionaries turning criminal, was that what happened to some degree in Ireland or was that mostly just a plot line in a James Cagney movie?
See also: the CIA running drugs when other bits of government wouldn't fund what they wanted to do?
David L @ 1425:
Apropos of nothing but ... SERIOUSLY ????
Google is bringing 20gig Internet service to me soon if I want it. I COULD get 5 gig now but can't figure out what to do with all of the 1 gig I have just now.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/12/google-fibers-20-gig-service-is-coming-to-these-cities-for-250-a-month/
I'm still getting two or three emails from Google every week offering Google Fiber FOR MY OLD ADDRESS ... Spectrum (cable, not fiber) or AT&T are all I have available out here.
AFAIK, the story of the CIA as an institution running drugs to finance other activities lacks substantiation. That said, it seems entirely likely that individuals or small groups in the CIA or its contractors would take advantage of their covert activities to get some money on the side. People will be people.
https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/9712/ch01p1.htm
I think the rumors around the CIA/drug nexus also centered around 1960s LSD experimentation (MKUltra), with the rumor that the CIA was controlling the LSD supply in places like San Francisco. It also may have had something to do with the Vietnam war, where opium producers in the highlands were anti-Viet Cong allies in the CIA secret war.
IIRC, there's also evidence that Hoover was willing to collaborate with mafiosi against communists and anarchists, particularly in the 1930s. The FBI was originally an anti-left organization, and Hoover really struggled to turn and go after the mafia and other authoritarian crooks. Apparently, the "left=evil" bias hinders them even now.
I was thinking of the Contras and crack cocaine, but apparently there are rumours I didn't even know about :)
It probably goes back to the 1950s when the Kuomintang tried to retake China from the communists from Burma and financed a lot of their operations with opium and taxes on opium growers in the land they had invaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang_in_Burma
What's now left of the IRA is, mostly a simple criminal drug-running gang, or group-of-gangs ...
In response to questions.
I think the public scandal about that had to do with selling arms to Iran rather than drugs to Americans, but ISTR there were always rumours. I also STR that someone tried to sue the CIA over the rumours and it came to nothing, but I don't have enough that I remember to start a search with. OTOH I don't think anyone seriously denied there were drugs involved with this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(airline)
Oh hey, but there is plenty of material here and especially here.
TL;DR - the Contras themselves smuggled cocaine into the US to fund their activities and no-one seems to deny that. However any descriptive material about CIA involvement in that starts with the phrase "a number of writers have alleged". There have been investigations which have not substantiated the allegations.
You're saying that the people who are still public only made careful allegations? And that there are no surviving witnesses who are willing to talk about any irregularities that may have occurred, if any did?
On the one hand, well duh. But on the other hand... I'll just go and stand with the people who want to see Obama's real birth certificate (he was grown it a lab, he doesn't... oh, wait, is that the right conspiracy?)
...I read they'd built a new university in Mexico City, and paved no sidewalks. After the first year it was in use, they then paved the dirt trails.
That was also done at my college. In fairness, it was the early 1970s and even the faculty was mostly hippies. ("A college needs a mascot." "We choose the world's largest burrowing clam!" "Okay.")
That was also done at my college. In fairness, it was the early 1970s
It was a thing in the 70s. And I hope they kept doing it. After years of putting down sidewalks that were ignored and dirt trails created many schools/universities decided to switch modes.
I have a great fondness for these - the canonical name is desire paths. Have a vague post-retirement plan to do a photo essay of them, coffee table book or something.
On the one hand, well duh. But on the other hand...
Well yanno, I'm not really saying anything so much as summarising what I can see without digging. There's a whole spiel I'm not going to go into about how modelling a viewpoint that isn't your own opinion and talking from it is pretty normal and not even necessarily sarcasm, but I think there's low value in doing so.
We choose the world's largest burrowing clam!
That's hilarious.
We (and, even more, the Irish) hope.
They did that at Waterloo too.
OTOH, I also heard that at Waterloo they added buildings with paved paths, that students ignored, so eventually the administration tore up the paved paths and paved the desire paths, at which point students started following the old paved paths, even to the extent of detouring around flowerbeds that were no longer there. No idea if this is true — I heard it from a Waterloo alumnus, but it might be an urban legend.
The CIA controlling LSD in San Francisco? In the sixties.
Sorry, I had to finish laughing. Look up Owsley Stanley. (Good stuff, too.)
But the media reports of the CIA and airlines? Um, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(airline)
Sam Hurt, the cartoonist/artist, went to UT at Austin, and drew a comic strip Eyebeam for many years (great strip). One year, at UT at Austin, the student body almost elected, as student body president, a character from the strip, Hank the Hallucination. For real.
Yup, you're right. CIA was in the LSD game primarily in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Checked my sources again. Thanks for the link.
In addition to what we've alleged about the CIA's pharmaceutical ventures (LSD in MK Ultra in the 50s, heroin in Laos in the 1960s, Contra cocaine in the 1980s), it's entirely possible that they abetted the Afghani Mujahadeen's ventures into the opium derivatives markets in the 1990s. That went well too.
More generally, I think the current era of US politics can be characterized by the Far Right adapting a bunch of now-public tactics, from US Reconstruction and the CIA's greatest hits to all the tactics the KGB, CIA, and others used to influence elections in the former Third World. Pigeons coming home to roost, in other words. So the Right wing authoritarian followers are getting hit by everything from nonstop agitprop to high THC marijuana to fentanyl, all at once. No wonder they think it's the end of the world.
For the rest of us, US political divisions no longer stop at the water's edge. The rest of the world is thrusting in. Interesting times.
started following the old paved paths
I think that's not unusual. It's not that there's one optimal path for everyone, which is why they happen in the first place. The successful treatment seems to be accepting they exist and accommodating them as extensions to an existing network. Traffic is a dynamic system and often more complex than allowed for.
Robert Prior @ 1414:
"The same one that was the reason for the amendment in the first place: skin pigmentation."
Was it about "skin pigmentation" when the English colonists & "gentlemen adventurers" brought them to the New World.
Colonial & State Militias predate the 2nd Amendment by several hundred years. They even had militias in ENGLAND BEFORE England had colonies in North America.
Damian @ 1433:
I think the public scandal about that had to do with selling arms to Iran rather than drugs to Americans, but ISTR there were always rumours. I also STR that someone tried to sue the CIA over the rumours and it came to nothing, but I don't have enough that I remember to start a search with. OTOH I don't think anyone seriously denied there were drugs involved with this thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(airline)
Google Eugene Hasenfus.
The CIA was probably not directly involved in smuggling drugs into the U.S., but they exercised considerable wilfull blindness regarding criminal activities of our "Contra allies" in El Salvador & Nicaragua.
The Iran side of Iran-Contra was straight up trading arms for hostages ... as soon as the Reagan administration paid off Iran to get the Embassy Hostages released (but NOT before the election), Iran turned around and kidnapped other Americans in Lebanon to hold for ransom ... and Ronnie RayGUN PAID!
I suspect the recent hostage taking by Hamas is directly related to the lessons Iran learned from dealing with Reagan.
Everything that's happened over there since then is blow-back in one way or another from Reagan & George HW Bush trying to extricate themselves from consequences of their 1980 election shenanigans.
hostage taking by Hamas is directly related to the lessons Iran learned from dealing with Reagan.
I don't think you give Hamas enough credit. Hostage taking wasn't invented by the US or even Iran, it's been around for recorded history. The bloody Romans did it as a normal part of running subject states. Keeping subject states subjects? Whatever.
The difference between a militia and a street gang is that a militia is organized for legitimate self-defense, while a street gang is organized for conducting illicit crime.
The problem is that currently in the US, the word "Militia" has been coopted by armed groups that are not organized for self-defense, but for promoting a political agenda. Whether promoting a political agenda by armed means is a legitimate activity isn't clear in the law right now.
Street gangs are sometimes (often?) also organised for self defense and a number of them are famous for helping out both day to day and during disasters. Especially in countries with little to no civil infrastructure. But also in civilised countries.
https://visit-nagasaki.com/the-yakuzas-aid-in-the-aftermath-of-the-2011-tsunami/
Aotearoa has regular media beat-ups about government getting involved with gangs, because it turns out that some of them are well organised and well placed to help people that the government struggles to help. That's the polite description, similarly to how in the US the government often "struggles to help" black people and first nations people.
Report from the Home Front:
My brother came over today and helped me hang cabinets in the kitchen. I think I may finally have adequate food storage facilities ... kitchen seems almost like it got bigger.
Still got some wiring to do to add new outlets for the additional counter (and base cabinets) I'm installing. I can do it all right up to the point where I want an electrician to come make the connection at the breaker panel. I could even do that myself, but I'm happier to leave it to the electrician.
I finally figured out how to tell my computers to re-mount my network drives when I logon so I don't have to fumble around with that after Micro$oft does an update (which they seem to be doing a couple times a week lately.
I got a blackout curtain for the window behind me in this "computer room", so now I can "Zoom" without having a blinding flare behind me ...
I'm solving a bunch of little problems I never had to deal with before (at least not in the last few decades). Turning this house into my HOME.
The key is figuring out WHAT to search for so google will "understand" the problem I'm trying to solve. Took me about 10 minutes to order the blackout curtain once I figured out that's what I needed to look for.
Illicit crime. You mean like shooting at anyone who's to the left of Attila the Hun?
"Whether promoting a political agenda by armed means is a legitimate activity isn't clear in the law right now."
I think it's pretty clear in most legal traditions, including the US. In most circumstances it is called terrorism, and in almost all of those cases that is the correct term.
Where the US has had some difficulties is with the apparent inability of law enforcement to perceive white people engaging in terrorism or political intimidation using force or threat of arms.
It has been said hundreds of times, but if that had been a Black Lives Matter protest on January 6th 2020 the protestors would have been machine gunned on the steps of the Capitol.
This.
Where the US has had some difficulties is with the apparent inability of law enforcement to perceive white people engaging in terrorism or political intimidation using force or threat of arms.
There's also the fact that their country was formed by white people using political intimidation and force of arms, which kinda lends a veneer of respectability to those methods.
Immigration in the UK & the tories ... From the "FT" via another web-site & thus avoiding the paywall:
BEGIN quote:
Canada and Britain are large English-speaking countries whose conservative parties each appointed a new, young leader in late 2022, just as immigration levels were surging to record highs amid cost of living crises.
The parties — one in opposition, the other in government — faced a choice: weaponise the rising numbers in the hope of supplanting voters’ other concerns? Or meet the electorate where they already are?
In Canada, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives have stuck firmly to campaigning on the cost of living and the housing crisis, carefully avoiding attempts to stir up concern over the record immigration numbers. His party has opened up a 15-point polling lead.
In Britain, Rishi Sunak’s Tories have given disproportionate airtime to small boats and the Rwanda policy relative to the cost of living and housing affordability. His party has endured 14 months of polling deficits of about 20 points.
So, why did the Tories believe this would be such a vote-winner, when it hasn't?
Perhaps drawing attention to a problem happening on your own watch is never the best idea; pursuing an unworkable solution that risks dividing your party may have more downsides than up; and emphasising an issue that the vast majority of voters considers a secondary (or even tertiary) concern runs the risk that they think you don’t care about their primary one.
The thermostatic model of public opinion holds that the public sets its desired temperature on any given issue, and politicians respond with policies that match that preference. In the years immediately following the EU referendum, the Tories performed this function expertly, shifting to the right on immigration to align with the immigration-sceptic median British voter.
But the thermostat has developed a fault. Since 2019, the Tories have veered sharply to the right on immigration while the electorate has become increasingly liberal, with a wide gap opening up between the party and the electorate. Even if the salience of immigration can be increased, it doesn’t pull the average Briton in the same direction as it once did.
Viewed next to the Canadian Conservatives’ successes, this feels like an unforced error. Where Poilievre’s party has become a broad church, Britain’s Tories have become dominated by a narrow band of increasingly frustrated ideologues.
EWND quote.
Thoughts?
Compare & contrast with DJT's showing in US polls?
Though there seems to be a strand that says that IF DJT is actually convicted of something serious before election day, he will lose, big-time.
Um.
Rocketjps @ 1454
"Odessa Steps" ??
Robert Prior @ 1456:
There's also the fact that their country was formed by white people using political intimidation and force of arms, which kinda lends a veneer of respectability to those methods.
Same as your country, founded by "white" European Colonists (primarily English, French & Dutch in the eastern U.S., Spanish Conquistadors in the south-west).
The U.S. didn't invent slavery or genocide ... or any of the other bad things "white people" do.
They were already well established here before we gained our independence from our English rulers (absentee landlords?).
I was actually thinking of the process by which you gained your independence, which depended on citizen militias (or at least, it did in the Disnified school history version). That adds a cachet of respectability to a group of armed chaps not in a uniform (or in their own uniform) that isn't present in other countries.
And I say "white" because when black chaps began to legally open-carry guns many panties were twisted and the NRA called for gun control.
Robert Prior @ 1459:
I was actually thinking of the process by which you gained your independence, which depended on citizen militias (or at least, it did in the Disnified school history version). That adds a cachet of respectability to a group of armed chaps not in a uniform (or in their own uniform) that isn't present in other countries.
Again, you're missing an important element - WHEN those COLONIAL militia were established and where they came from ... King Edward I and King Henry VIII and Elizabeth's Great Muster of 1588 that stood ready to oppose the Spanish if the Armada had managed to land troops ... ALL BEFORE the first successful English colonies were planted in North America.
The English established the colonial militias at the same time they were planting their colonies in the New World. By the time of the American Revolution the colonial militias had been in existence for 140+ years (founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colonial Militia to 1776 - longer for the Virginia Militia).
The colonial militias in what became the U.S. were organized long before there was a U.S. - just like the Canadian Militias, organized in "New France" in 1669, existed long before there was a Canada. Colonial Militias were the primary military forces on both sides of the Seven Years War here in North America ... and in 1776 the existing colonial militias sided (MOSTLY) with their fellow colonists against what was seen here in the colonies as an oppressive government bent on depriving us of our "rights as Englishmen" ...
And I say "white" because when black chaps began to legally open-carry guns many panties were twisted and the NRA called for gun control.
... and had fuck all to do with the militia.
Colonial militias were "white" because the English who founded the colonies were "white". But even before Truman decreed desegregation (& integration) in the U.S. Armed Forces in 1947, African Americans served in the militia - especially after the reorganizations following the Spanish-American War of 1898.
The law, of course, is whatever the courts and law enforcement says it is, so we will have to wait for an armed right wing "militia" to fire on some protesters to see whether that will be treated as a crime or not. Probably depends on who the president is at that time.
Were I an American billionaire, I would be looking around for a private army to fund. Pretty sure they found some.
The law, of course, is whatever the courts and law enforcement says it is
Especially the latter. Whatever the courts say, is only as good as people on the ground, with weapons. Andrew Jackson's famous quote: "[Judge] Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."
Ilya 187
The same appears to be happening in a US state over abortion, where there was a popular vote/referendum went as one might expect & against the
fascistRepublican governor.Fights have broken out.
Ohio?
The English established the colonial militias at the same time they were planting their colonies in the New World.
Yes, but colonial militias aren't part of England's origin story, and they aren't venerated the way they are in America. Same in Canada: we learn about the colonial volunteers in the War of 1812, but they (mostly) fought under the direction of British regulars.
The word "militia" has different emotional connotations in your country. Or at least, among large numbers of your countrymen on one side of your political spectrum.
colonial militias aren't part of England's origin story
Really? What about the fyrds that are always being raised in Cornwell's Saxon Tales books? Seems like a militia. Don't know about the colonial part, though.
Robert Prior @ 1464:
Yes, but colonial militias aren't part of England's origin story, and they aren't venerated the way they are in America. Same in Canada: we learn about the colonial volunteers in the War of 1812, but they (mostly) fought under the direction of British regulars.
As happened here in the U.S. after the War of 1812 when our government realized the STATE militias alone were insufficient for the defense of the NATION and began maintaining a regular Army.
And colonial militias ARE EXPLICITLY a part of the British EMPIRE's origin story.
The word "militia" has different emotional connotations in your country. Or at least, among large numbers of your countrymen on one side of your political spectrum.
Indeed. What makes YOUR "emotional connotations" more valid?
Retiring @ 1465:
Really? What about the fyrds that are always being raised in Cornwell's Saxon Tales books? Seems like a militia. Don't know about the colonial part, though.
I would say proto-militia. Did the Saxons have a standing army for those "fyrds" to reinforce? Or were the fyrds the entirety of the Saxon military forces?
Were the Saxons colonists in the British Isles?** When they settled there did they still own allegiance to the king of some foreign motherland or fatherland?
Were the fyrds established as a specific policy by the rulers of that motherland/fatherland? I don't think the Saxon migration was a part of the king of Denmark seeking to establish an over-seas colony.
**I'm not familiar with Cornwell's Saxon Stories, but a quick read of the Wikipedia article on them suggests the Saxons in the British Isles were NOT colonists in the same sense as later "colonists" in England's North American colonies; i.e. NOT an extension of some Danish king's dreams of conquest.
PS: Again from Wikipedia
The way I've been defining it, the "fyrd" would be more in line of a standing/regular Army and it's the "ordinary villagers and farmers" who make up the militia.
No doubt the fyrds varied over time. I had the impression from the books that the various Saxon kingdoms circa 880 had a small force of professional soldiers -- possibly only a palace guard -- which when war was necessary were augmented by "raising the fyrd" -- basically summoning all the able-bodied men to come and bring their pitchforks or other dangerous farm implements.
Were the Saxons colonists? I can't really speak with authority, but my fuzzy understanding is that Britain was colonized by one wave after another of "foreigners". The Romans drove the original inhabitants to the outskirts, like Wales and Scotland; the Saxons were Germans who colonized the island as the Romans departed; the Danes (Vikings) repeatedly attempted colonization and were thrown back a number of times; the French (well, Normans) finally invaded and colonized, wiping out much of Saxon culture during the Hundred Years War.
Are you seriously using a popular novelist as a source of hard historical data?
COMPULSORY LISTENING
BBC R 4, Monday 18th Dec 2023, 09.00 hrs
Programme: "Start the Week"
Discussion on what Charlie calls "slow AI's" & the effects & predictions & how far back this goes .. much further than we realised.
In fact to Thomas Hobbes Leviathan - he called the State & what we would call large Corporations "Automata" with the companies describes as "Wormes within the bowels of the state".
{ Posted to all three current open discussions ... it's important }
Retiring @ 1469
Wrong in almost every respect.
The Romans drove nobody out, apart from some local tribal kings & one notable queen.
They DID commit localised genocide, most notably on Ynys Mon / "Mona" { Anglesea } After all Tacitus comment Soilutudinem facient, pacem appellant referred to his father's (?) war of conquest.
Genetic analysis shows that most of the original inhabitants, in the period 350 - 700 CE stayed where they were, though the "chieftans" changed - "Welcome the new boss, same as the old boss" in fact.
The Vikings/Danelaw took over control & often enslaved the locals, but did not drive them out - & then Alfred & his successors reversed that. The difference between "England " & the "Celtic" ( Whatever that means ) kingdoms was that the latter did NOT have a new/different level of "bosses".
The Northmen/Normans again changed the bosses, especially during the first 50 years, by then the old Saxon monarchical line came back into that of the Plantagenets - it was even noticed at the time, that the Normans took over control, but continued to use the old Anglo-Saxon system & "civil service" to administer their government.
I am pretty certain that they were much like the reserves or territorial army (UK), and not a separate militia. And, yes, the Saxons WERE colonists, and pretty nasty ones, too. They did far more 'ethnic cleansing' and its cultural/linguistic equivalent than the Normans did. While the (MUCH earlier) Celts were colonists, too, we have no evidence of how well they treated the people who were already present. It gets really unclear before that.
The idea that levied troops at any point pre standing armies were armed with improvised weapons is a common misconception. There were requirements for huoseholds to maintain enough military equipment to properly fit out a warrior (or multiple, for large households - based on productive area farmed usually) so they would have armour, shields, spears and other weapons. There would be no point calling out unequipped people as they would just be a liability. The only time everyone capable of fighting would be engaged would be an unexpected raid when there was no time to call out the Fyrd and it's just whoever is in the place being attacked defending themselves, and even then most of them would have at least a spear.
Later communal stocks of armour and weapons were held by each parish, and regular musters of those liable to service held.
Unless the people called out have trained together and are used to operating as a unit they will not be effective in a battle.
Post mid C17th, after the war of the three kingdoms, it began to change as warfare moved from pike and shot to Horse and Musket and standing armies started to be established. Taxation to pay for professional troops replaced levied service. Militia units continued to exist but were (in the case of the cavalry) often just glorified gentlemen's clubs or the local gentries bully boys. They were not usually particularly good troops, largely regarded as drunken thugs, and were for defence against invasion, not to go abroad. Service in the Infantry units (except as an officer) was not particularly respected or considered desireable by most people. By the late C18th the vast majority of the population was as divorced from the Military as today, and generally regarded non-officers with contempt.
The idea of a citizen militia as a way to raise troops where you can't support a large enough standing army was still useful in the American colonies but was not really done elsewhere in the empire as it was easier to raise paid troops from the native populations. Voluntary military service for those who are not Gentlemen has been regarded as only for those who can't do anything else or are escaping from something for the last 250 years or so - the noteable exception being during the world wars. The idea of the Militia being admirable or desireable is certainly not in the British mindset for that long.
How "hard" can historical data be? The winners write the histories, etc. But, yes.
Wrong in almost every respect.
Not for the first time.
Thanks for the updates! I figured someone who'd actually learned some English history might chime in and correct me.
Or perhaps you're a state governor... such as DeSantis, and his not-the-national-guard that he's building with tax dollars.
"Palace guard" Based on Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga, which he based heavily on the actual saga, the nobles were the ones who could afford a force around them that were not farmers, and were the core of their military force.
Which makes perfect sense, since 99% of the population needs to be farming to feed themselves and the "nobility".
paws4thot @ 1470:
Are you seriously using a popular novelist as a source of hard historical data?
Popular novelists gotta' do research too, if only to maintain verisimilitude ... and if you can verify their "history" with independent research?
AJ (He/Him) @ 1473:
[...]
Later communal stocks of armour and weapons were held by each parish, and regular musters of those liable to service held.
Unless the people called out have trained together and are used to operating as a unit they will not be effective in a battle.
Hence the Well Regulated militia - "well-organized, well-armed, well-disciplined, ..." TRAINED in accordance with regulations1.
[...]
The idea of a citizen militia as a way to raise troops where you can't support a large enough standing army was still useful in the American colonies but was not really done elsewhere in the empire as it was easier to raise paid troops from the native populations. Voluntary military service for those who are not Gentlemen has been regarded as only for those who can't do anything else or are escaping from something for the last 250 years or so - the noteable exception being during the world wars. The idea of the Militia being admirable or desireable is certainly not in the British mindset for that long.
... only several centuries.
1 People seem to forget the there's a Constitution that all those Amendments are attached to - one that explicitly explains the intention of "Well Regulated"
So, very much an 17th & 18th Century concept of regulating the militia; a concept that came from our English forebears.
Y'all just need to get the idea that colonial militias in the American Revolution were some kind of aberration out of your heads.
They were not. They were explicitly the English (& British) government's colonial policies of that day & time.
My father was a member of what was effectively a militia (in a colony). As you say, the militia was the reserves/auxiliaries, which turned into the territorial army in the UK. It goes back through mediaeval, dark age and probably prehistoric times, where a chieftain could call on most of the able-bodied men in his tribe in time of war. But, in EVERY case, it was there for support of the ruling authority, not something separate.
The idea of the militia in the minds of the NRA-supporting half of the USA is clearly different. It's not new, however, because it dates from the birth of the USA and even before; the rebellion didn't start from nowhere. It's not unknown in British history, either.
I can assure you that it WAS done elsewhere in the colonies - see #1480. But, in a well-governed colony of millions, the 'standing army' might only be dozens of people and the auxiliaries (militia) only hundreds. They were there to stop bandits, riots and similar, not widespread insurrection.
Indeed. What makes YOUR "emotional connotations" more valid?
Not more valid, but equally valid.
And quite possibly closer to historical attitudes than present-day insurrectionist republicans who seem to view the label “militia” as only applying to armed groups that they agree with. Armed groups that they disagree with are “mobs” or “terrorists”.
This whole thread discussion (between you and me, anyway) started with my cynical/sarcastic observation that to the American right-wing the difference between a militia and terrorists was skin colour. Would Tucker Carson have been as approving of the January 6 participants if they had been Black? I’d bet a lot that he would have called them rioters and terrorists.
I see the same thing up here, where our right-wing types approve the convoy occupations but get their panties in a twist when a few indigenous people block a gravel road.
Y'all just need to get the idea that colonial militias in the American Revolution were some kind of aberration out of your heads.
I think part of the problem is that you know too much history.
What most non-Americans learn of American history is mostly from popular works, and in those (at least the ones I’ve read) the colonial militias are presented in the context of the rebellion against England. The “well-regulated” bit is slap seriously downplayed or dropped, leaving the impression that a bunch of chaos got together and decided to unite to oppose the oppressive English, following orders voluntarily.
This is what I learned (or at least remember) from school from our textbooks, and is still the impression I pick up from the republican “news” sources and history essays in my feed.
What most non-Americans learn of American history is mostly from popular works
Probably true of what non-Canadians learn of Canadian history, too. Or of what non-Xians learn of X history.
The only two facts about Canada I can recall from history lessons is the Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Montcalm vs. Wolfe -- I think Wolfe won), and that the capital is Ottawa. But ask about the expulsion of the Acadians (Longfellow's "Evangeline"), the Calgary Stampede ("49th Parallel"), sled dog races (various Jack London), Mounties ("Rose Marie" and "Dudley Do-right"), Klondike gold rush (Chaplin), and so forth.
Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Montcalm vs. Wolfe -- I think Wolfe won)
Wolfe won; that's why Quebec is part of Canada.
Robert Prior @ 1483:
I think part of the problem is that you know too much history.
What most non-Americans learn of American history is mostly from popular works, and in those (at least the ones I’ve read) the colonial militias are presented in the context of the rebellion against England. The “well-regulated” bit is slap seriously downplayed or dropped, leaving the impression that a bunch of chaos got together and decided to unite to oppose the oppressive English, following orders voluntarily.
This is what I learned (or at least remember) from school from our textbooks, and is still the impression I pick up from the republican “news” sources and history essays in my feed.
I think I know too little history, I'm always interested in learning more ... but the "Well Regulated militia" IS something I know about because I spent almost half my life as part of it. (Just a few years ago it was MORE than half my life, but every year now it recedes a little bit more.)
But I don't remember from anywhere in my studies the idea that the "Minutemen" were an ad hoc organization that came together spontaneously just to fight the American Revolution.
We DID learn about the colonial militia in the "Seven Years War" (aka "The French & Indian War" in North America) [in retrospect the FIRST "world war"] where colonial militias carried the majority of the burden for the British side here in North America.
Indeed, many of the officers who later gained fame for their roles in the American Revolution were already well known in the colonies because of their militia leadership in "The French & Indian War".
But I don't think you should be repeating the right-wingnut version of American History. They are at best, misinformed.
paws4thot @ 1485:
Battle of the Plains of Abraham (Montcalm vs. Wolfe -- I think Wolfe won)
Wolfe won; that's why Quebec is part of Canada.
... and NOT a part of New France.
The battle occurred during The Seven Years War (aka The French & Indian War) when Britain's North American colonies were fighting for Britain - Wolfe was the British General.
Both he and the French general Montcalm died from wounds received in the battle.
Retiring @ 1475
Almost entirely self-taught as a result of serendipity after I did History "O" level & a longstanding fascination with parts of the "Middle Ages, after reading Dante & an obscure connection with the town of Usk { Brynbuga } - which was founded by the real "Strongbow", Richard de Clare, who - according to a present resident - got pissed-off, after conquering the town, because all the inhabitants promptly forgot their previous quarrels & started selling each other Vegetables & Raffle-Tickets & Chatting ... & they're still at it!
So de Clare went off to Ireland to help the "king" of Leinster in IIRC 1167
"Popular Novelist(s)"
The Poster-child for that has to be the late Georgette Heyer
Her novel "The Spanish Bride" is, of course based 99% on the amazing tale of Love & War written as the memoirs of Lt-General Sir Harry Smith
Both he and the French general Montcalm died from wounds received in the battle.
Dying on field of a battle you’ve just won is a fine British military tradition.
I don't think you should be repeating the right-wingnut version of American History.
I don’t think you can understand modern American politics unless you understand what a significant fraction of the population believes. Teachers get fired for saying what you’ve been saying. Librarians get harassed into quitting for putting “unpatriotic” books on the shelves.
I have non-white American relatives. Those you call “right-wingnuts” are powerful enough to negatively effect their lives. The points I see promulgated by Banks, Pence, Vance et al are repeated by ordinary people to justify their aggressive racist behaviour.
the Saxons WERE colonists, and pretty nasty ones, too. They did far more 'ethnic cleansing' and its cultural/linguistic equivalent than the Normans did.
Anent the original topic of this thread: it's worth reminding ourselves that terrifying dystopias are almost a defining characteristic of human history. Over and over and over again. It's not so much that novelists are inventing the future terror nexus, as that they are competing to predict the ones that are surely on their way.
[And why did I use the word 'anent'? It's the human LLM at work. I started thinking of the sentence, and it seemed to me that it should start with 'anent'. But I had to look the word up to see what it meant. Clearly that word formation is engraved in my mind.]
Retiring
Dystopias ... It's um "interesting" as to how many dystopias are, or started out as ... Plutocracies/Oligarchies
It's clearly a "classic" failure-mode of H sapiens societies
Robert Prior @ 1490:
I don’t think you can understand modern American politics unless you understand what a significant fraction of the population believes. Teachers get fired for saying what you’ve been saying. Librarians get harassed into quitting for putting “unpatriotic” books on the shelves.
I have non-white American relatives. Those you call “right-wingnuts” are powerful enough to negatively effect their lives. The points I see promulgated by Banks, Pence, Vance et al are repeated by ordinary people to justify their aggressive racist behaviour.
Understanding something is a lie (and how that lie can have negative effects on those we care about) doesn't require repeating the lie.
Greg Tingey @ 1492:
Retiring
Dystopias ... It's um "interesting" as to how many dystopias are, or started out as ... Plutocracies/Oligarchies
It's clearly a "classic" failure-mode of H sapiens societies
Seems like it's inevitable for Plutocracy/Oligarchy to devolve into dystopia. I'm more interested in how you prevent democracies from devolving into Plutocracies/Oligarchies.
JohnS
Jubilees? { Debt-Cancellation years, that is. }
A really free press? { No Murdochs or Pox-"News" channels/papers? }
Greg --
Murdoch and Pox-"News" exist exactly because the press in Western world is free -- free to bullshit. I am not sure how to prevent them from sprouting, or even if it is possible at all, but while the result would be an improvement, it could not be called "free". Which is fine with me by the way. I no longer believe that "freedom" is end-all be-all.
Jubilees would definitely go a long way toward preventing Plutocracies/Oligarchies, but not if they occurred on any fixed schedule. If they did (original Hebrew Jubilees were every 7 years, IIRC), would-be plutocrats would simply factor Jubilees into their calculations, and make sure to minimize what anyone owes them by the time Jubilee rolls in. And maximize what they owe, by whatever means possible. Also, nobody in their right mind would ever give out a loan which takes longer to repay than the next Jubilee, so this would be quite a damper on economic activity.
In order to do more good than harm, Jubilees would have to be stochastic: say, 5% of it happening every year, or better yet, 0.5% every month. Not knowing when a Jubilee will happen next will force everyone to act as if Jubilees do not exist -- until it does.
I am not sure how to prevent them from sprouting, or even if it is possible at all, but while the result would be an improvement, it could not be called "free". Which is fine with me by the way. I no longer believe that "freedom" is end-all be-all.
I prefer "free" over some overlord control.
Poland is going through some interesting times just now.
"Seems like it's inevitable for Plutocracy/Oligarchy to devolve into dystopia. I'm more interested in how you prevent democracies from devolving into Plutocracies/Oligarchies."
Via tax reform. No, really. Thomas Piketty laid out the case for a global redistributive tax on wealth in his book "Capital in the 21st Century. Note: Not an income tax, a wealth tax. Although there are other ways to go about the same goal--a global financial transactions tax has much to recommend it too.
But this would require a truly global approach--we can't allow the existence of tax havens anymore. The real goal here isn't just redistributing wealth--it's to allow the democracies of the world to track the flow of capital across international boundaries, and thus gain the power to regulate it.
Jubilees would definitely go a long way toward preventing Plutocracies/Oligarchies, but not if they occurred on any fixed schedule... In order to do more good than harm, Jubilees would have to be stochastic...
Indeed, and this makes establishing then even more challenging.
In the ancient world it was plausible to anchor jubilees to changes in monarch. That would hopefully be less often than every seven years (good for aspiring plutocrats) but also hard to predict (good for everyone else).
It would have been profitable and pretty safe to base global financial markets on a certain late corgi fancier - but despite the fantasies of certain people in England, the British Empire has not been the de facto ruler of the world for a long time now and it's not coming back. We have a global finance but no individual so important that their death or retirement changes everything.
...do we? We have far too many very egotistical billionaires. (I suspect civilization needs at most a single-digit number of obsessively driven wackos with disproportionate influence, but that's another discussion. Right now, we've got plenty.) What if becoming the Richest(!) Person(!) in the World(!) came with more than just a few headlines? We could have celebrated leaving the Bezos Era and entering the Musk Era with a global jubilee, not to mention lots of public talk that would have said the name "Musk" a lot and energized other wannabe plutocrats.
Normally I'd say there's no chance of getting the world's financial system on board with any jubilee scheme, but if it comes with ego-stroking and boasting rights for many billionaires, maybe...
ilya187@1496: Jubilees would definitely go a long way toward preventing Plutocracies/Oligarchies, but not if they occurred on any fixed schedule.
I was under the impression that we do have jubilees, but we do it retail on a case by case basis and call it "bankruptcy".
Bankruptcy doesn't discharge all debts. AFAIK in America student loans will follow you through a bankruptcy.
I have no idea of ancient jubilees cancelled all debts, or if some debts carried through them.
Paul @ 1500:
I was under the impression that we do have jubilees, but we do it retail on a case by case basis and call it "bankruptcy".
Bankruptcy seems to work very well for wealthy people sloughing off debts owed to less wealthy people, especially debts from judgements in civil lawsuits (Alex Jones, Roman Catholic Dioceses ... Rudy Giuliani)
For less wealthy people the laws have been structured so that many debts cannot be discharged by bankruptcy (student loans) ... at least here in the U.S.
Update from the Home Front:
Installing additional cabinets & counter in my kitchen, I've got three wire pulls I have to make before I call in the electrician. I've done the first two.
There will be three double gang outlets serving the counter space. One of these - https://www.switchhits.com/corian-bone-gfci-rocker-duplex-outlet-wall-plates and two of these - https://www.switchhits.com/corian-bisque-2-gang-electrical-outlet-covers ... although I'll be using the cheap ones from Lowe's. The GFCI "protects" the other outlets.
In addition to the cutout for the boxes, it requires me to cut holes in the wall down near floor level so I can drill a hole for the wire to go down into the crawl space & then pulled up again about two feet over (approximately - I've already had to vary the spacing because of the crap hidden in the walls).
Two of the holes will be hidden by the new cabinets, but one will need to be neatly patched (I've done PLENTY of dry-wall work, so that's not going to be a problem.)
But ... push the wire down through the hole in the bottom of the wall & push the fish-tape down in the other hole; crawl under the house, attach the wire to the fish tape, pull enough slack so the wire will go all the way up to the box cutout when I pull in on the fish-tape ...
The part working under the house, lying on my back or side while trying to work overhead gives me vertigo & I get so damn nauseous I can barely stand when I can finally crawl back out (plus getting down on hands & knees is fairly easy, but getting back up is a strain.
Once I get back out I have to rest for hours so the nausea will abate before I can do the next pull. Approximately 14 feet of wire (six feet down, two across & six back up) and I'm done for the day. Done in. Just completely trashed.
I'm about half-way through the third (and last) pull. It's requiring multiple round trips between the kitchen, the crawl space and where I drilled through the block wall to install the fitting that will attach to the water-tight flex (threaded nipple will go through the concrete block for the wires to feed into the fitting from under the house).
I am SO damn nauseous right now. I may finish the pull today or I might have to finish it tomorrow.
Next up, hire an electrician to make the connection to the breaker panel. He will also have to disconnect a 220VAC wire that needs to be pulled back into the crawl space and re-routed through the new fitting.
I am flat out dreading having to crawl back up there to do that, but I'm just NOT going to fuck that 220VAC circuit and pull it back myself. I know how to do it, I just ain't gonna ...
The electrician will have to disconnect it so I can pull it back & feed it through the fitting for the electrician to reconnect.
@JohnS
Pushing and pulling wire is very difficult without help. If you already know that you need an electrician, why not let their apprentice gain some work hours and more experience at little cost to yourself? Give yourself some rest too
Re "Jubilees" as an oligarchic dystopia preventative: how often do Jubilees need to occur? How much debt in the economy needs to be erased? Are we including corporate debt? How does this compare with other solutions?
Tier2Tech @ 1504:
@JohnS
Pushing and pulling wire is very difficult without help. If you already know that you need an electrician, why not let their apprentice gain some work hours and more experience at little cost to yourself? Give yourself some rest too
It all boils down to money. I don't have enough to pay for the work I need done.
Unfortunately electricians charge by the hour. Even for their helpers crawling around under the house.
I've already costed it out. I've got a little set aside that will cover the cost of the work that I am going to have done, but it's just not enough to cover having the electrician (or his helper) pull the wire.
I've already costed it out. I've got a little set aside that will cover the cost of the work that I am going to have done, but it's just not enough to cover having the electrician (or his helper) pull the wire.
Back when I was house-poor and couldn't afford to hire trades (except in emergencies) I had some younger friends who would be a second set of hands if I provided beer and pizza afterwards.
Robert Prior @ 1507:
Back when I was house-poor and couldn't afford to hire trades (except in emergencies) I had some younger friends who would be a second set of hands if I provided beer and pizza afterwards.
I did too. Most of those "younger friends" are in their 70s by now. Even my "baby brother" is 68.
My sister has a son & I thought about asking him to help before I realized he's over 40 ... plus, he's bigger than me (6'4" to my 5'10½) and I don't think he could fit. 😏
Anyway, I got the wire pulled (with plenty of slack on the outside), so I won't have to get back under there until the electrician comes & I have to move the other wire.
I'm so sore right now I'm going to wait until after Christmas to call & schedule the electrician. Give myself some time to recover.
I found this, and thought that the community here would be interested, from both computing and fiction aspects. The way it pushes computing forward (into, say, sensor hardware) seems to suggest that (for instance) attack surfaces could be reduced. But I'm not technical, so I may have missed the point entirely.
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-team-transistors-ferroelectricity-based-polarity-switchable.html
@JohnS
Unfortunately electricians charge by the hour. Even for their helpers crawling around under the house.
Forgot about this part, they need to be licensed and bonded, and every hour is probably charged at the same rate.
I have also done the same as Robert Prior suggested - but your story specifically reminded me of helping my father a bit with a much smaller project back when he was about your nephew's age.
Anyway, I got the wire pulled
Cheers! Season's Greetings! :-)
Forgot about this part, they need to be licensed and bonded, and every hour is probably charged at the same rate.
Here in the area where JohnS and I live, electricians, plumbers, etc... are booked out anywhere from weeks to months. And that's for jobs that take a week or more. For a full day they might try and slip you into a gap. For less than a day, well good luck. It is a sellers market for such trades for the last few years. And not getting better. Demand for new buildings / houses is out striping supply.
My son in law has been ghosted by two different contractors after agreeing on a price.
Says he who spent three hours on my roof with my son in law this afternoon repairing a rain leak. Had to replace a facia board which had rotted out due to a poor roof design detail from 1961.
Oh, I know. I'm a little south of you. A/C is universal, but they are old. Heat pump would be great, but stuck with greenhouse gasses and leaks. Know anyone with some spare r65?
Heat pump would be great, but stuck with greenhouse gasses and leaks.
Not sure of what you mean with this?
And not trying to start another antipope heat pump war.
NOT a "heat-pump war" ...
But a repeat of my complaint.
That, as with solar cells on your roof, the "market" for both in this country seems to be ( At about 95% certainty IMHO ) to be thoroughly rigged against the domestic consumer.
The obvious "savings" from either &/or both options are being withheld by corporate & misgovernment greed & incompetence ( except at scraping up our money for themselves, natch. }
Oops, I meant R-22, not R-65. New units are expensive but finding the leaks and replacing the refrigerant seems like it will get just as expensive pretty soon
Most of those "younger friends" are in their 70s by now.
You need younger younger friends, then :-)
Grand-younger friends.
New units are expensive but finding the leaks and replacing the refrigerant seems like it will get just as expensive pretty soon
Small US data point but still ...
Growing up around home building and self installed AC units in the 60s and onward, leaking refrigerant used to be a thing. But I've see very little of it for the last decade or two. I think everyone (in the US) has stepped up their game (required?) and systems just don't leak like they used to. They tend to mechanically wear out before they leak any noticeable amount of refrigerant. After 20-30 years.
They tend to mechanically wear out before they leak any noticeable amount of refrigerant. After 20-30 years
I'd guess the compressor is about that stage, and I'm sure that the repeated cycling between frozen and thawed hasn't helped.
Would you suggest it is more likely the compressor is leaking, rather than the piping?
Or is there something else that could be causing everything to freeze after running for an hour or two in high temperatures? Probably faster in 90%+ humidity, but similar on relatively drier days
The resistive furnace is another 20-30 years older, and is eminently repairable with available parts. Very inefficient, but the cold is easier dealt with cheaply by adding more clothing and blankets
Or is there something else that could be causing everything to freeze after running for an hour or two in high temperatures?
Single data points are hard. Most heat pumps wear out after about 20 years. They live a hard life. My son just got to replace his last spring on the house he bought a year earlier. They were from 2004.
You may put refrigerant into your unit only to have it totally seize up in a day or month.
As to leaking, I'm using an indirect measurement. Back in the 60s and 70s there were a lot of independent HVAC guys who made a lot of their money recharging AC units. Gradually this business went away as units got better. And the federal government put stricter standards in place. For the most part. These folks were like a lot of US WWII vets who had learned skills in the service and then applied them as a way to make extra income from their "normal" jobs. HVAC, painting, plumbing, electronics repair (back when that was a thing and a TV had TUBES, etc... My father hired a lot of them based to do home building bits based on knowing them at the plant where he worked.