GreenBeard

@GreenBeard@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The best way I can say it is it’s kind of like exercise. Going to the Moon makes about as much sense as " pick up heavy object, put down heavy object." The Moon itself doesn’t really accomplish a lot in the moment, but the practice of engineering all the little things that it takes to get to the Moon, and learning about the universe along the way, is kind of like exercise for society coming together to solve hard problems.

  Now you’re correct that there’s a lot of hard problems right here on earth for us to try and solve, and that’s valid. But I also need you to think about just how little funding actually goes to NASA. Or Space X for that matter. It’s actually a lot less difficult (and expensive) to get to the Moon than say, teach all our children to read properly.

  The skills we build and the things we learn along the way however can be turned around and repurposed for lots of other hard problems down the road that are a lot closer to home. It sure as hell beats the other kind of “exercise” we’ve historically done to advance our skills which mainly consists of killing each other by the millions.

  Does that make sense?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If all taxes got turned into bonds, so when they hit the limit the tax would end be way better than an infinity tax?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You get that an infinite pool of money has no value right? Like, the value disappears the more is in circulation. Part of the role of taxes is to prevent runaway inflation. If there’s no taxes, your greenbacks very quickly lose all meaning and they end up worth less than the paper they’re printed on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is it now (with last few years) studio's don't release controversial movies or tv shows? People used to go see them because they were controversial. What happened?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s 3 errors here.

  1. You’re overestimating how much people watched controversial movies. Yes, people still went, but they still had relatively small audiences.
  2. Major studios don’t publish niche movies anymore. There was a time where they put out like 1 maybe 2 major blockbusters a year and then had a 100 small “eh, it’s ok” movies along with a few experimental things. They don’t do that anymore. If it’s not a $100M movie, they’re not interested. This is in no small part because people don’t have the time or attention to give to something that isn’t knock-your-socks-off spectacular.
  3. The nature of what we consider “controversial” has changed. 99% of “controversial” movies aren’t an unpopular take on something, they’re either deranged and delusional flights of fancy, OR they’re a perfectly normal take that contradicts someone’s delusional fantasy, and thus gets review bombed.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What would climate change be like on a Type 1 world on the Kardashev scale?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  We could literally just pump energy into space and have more than we need left over.

  Mars isn’t only colder because it’s further from the sun, it has a very thin atmosphere that largely radiates heat away into space, no thermal retention. The only reason we would need to “Pump” anything is because we’ve effectively wrapped the planet in an invisible thermal blanket that won’t let the heat out. The energy “wants” to flow out of our atmosphere and leave us a snowball. In fact, we were, basically a snowball for a few million years until we learned how to use oxygen to metabolize hydrocarbon fuel.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What would climate change be like on a Type 1 world on the Kardashev scale?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Presumably, you would have figured out how to stabilize atmospheric gas concentrations to optimize radiant thermal control before you reach Type 1 or you would cook yourself, yes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the name of this knot? And how does one tie it?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This is correct, that’s a buntline hitch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is everyone now so afraid of AI and machines? Machines print the money we live by, machines help us to connect to the internet and so forth. Why now are we all afraid of what they will do?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  And they were usually right. Books shortened our active memories. TV and Radio both hurt our ability to discern truth from fiction, and the internet has, very much been a mixed bag. That doesn’t mean we stopped using them, but we got better at limiting what we used them for. Eventually we tended to set up guard rails to limit our reliance on these tools, but I stand by my statement, to use AI effectively, we need to figure out what not to use it for, which is anything you value knowing how to do for yourself, anything you expect to be done right the first time, and anything that is more than just busy work, and you should probably take the time to do some of that yourself too, just to stay in practice, for the many, many times the clanker is going to screw it up on you.

  Look, ultimately, I’m not against AI, I think it’s fine. As a tool. Which it is. I do not trust the companies building it, selling it, or promoting it, their products are dangerous and they’re going to hurt people, but the tool existing is not a problem, if you don’t let yourself depend on it, which is all too easy to do, and if we start creating real consequences for people who are using it recklessly or maliciously. And I do mean very real consequences.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is everyone now so afraid of AI and machines? Machines print the money we live by, machines help us to connect to the internet and so forth. Why now are we all afraid of what they will do?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  No, people need to learn how to live without it. By far it does more harm than it does good in almost every case. Use it if you like, you won’t know what to do when it fails you, and it absolutely will. If you want to regress to being an ignorant ape, have at it. Those of us who are willing, able, and curious enough to understand the world will run circles around you when you’ve forgotten how to tie your own shoes. When it costs you a year’s wage to have it tell you how to write your own name, assuming you have a wage, don’t come looking for help.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it possible to store information in your brain that you can visually access it like in this clip?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s difficult to explain in text. Basically you’re trying to create an emotional state. Your brain indexes memories using emotions, so by creating a scene in your imagination that makes you feel something, you create a mental association with a piece of information. Objects in the. You map objects in the “Room” with words and ideas. By creating that scene again, it makes it easier to recall what you were thinking about the last time you imagined that thing. So like you build a comfortable study room with a nice warm fire place to generate a comfortable atmosphere, then you place a red book on a shelf and think “Fire Truck” and when you recreate the room the red book reminds you of the fire truck. It works best if you have a particularly vivid imagination, the weaker your ability to visualize things the less emotional weight and specificity you’re going to get. People with Aphantasia (inability to imagine visual images) can’t use the mind palace technique and average imaginations can only store so much per “room” before it gets too complicated. People who can render complex scenes and move through them in real time can create dense emotional/visual libraries to recall specific details.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why weren't telephone lines and electrical lines not buried under ground? Which would have saved a bunch of money from upkeep and accidents?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s 3 answers.

  1. It’s shitty to maintain underground wiring and it’s shitty to trench it in the first place, so while you are saving money in the long run, you’re paying upfront to run it and your routine maintenance costs are higher in short bursts instead of lower cost per issue, but a lot more issues. This makes people angry the money line didn’t go up enough that month and now you’re fired… even though you saved them money in the long run.
  2. You can’t run it very far underground. I won’t get into the physics, but suffice it to say, running power underground tends to be “leaky”, and it will bleed away very quickly over relatively short distances.
  3. Sunk Costs. Tech for trenching and boring has gotten a lot better, it costs less to do than it did 100 years ago, but moving the lines now and tearing down the old ones would cost money upfront and no one wants to pay for that.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The worst is when it’s a big, human sized sign, with a map and an arrow, and they have to walk around the sign to find a person to ask. And they will walk around it. And it will take every ounce of self control not to violently use the sign to correct their behaviour. Sideways.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s true, in fact I curse in way more languages than I can speak fluently. You should hear me when I pinch my finger while working.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Translation: Thinking is HARD and humans are GROSS. Can’t I just be Scrooge McDuck and have a machine print money for me?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Our WiFi was unprotected

  starts typing in U-N-P-… hey are there any capitals in that?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For all the years it has existed, all the money spent on immigration and deportation why hasn't the US come up with a better system? And become an isolated country for a while to help itself?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Why would the US become an isolated country? In all of history, the only time America hasn’t wanted to be a global power is when there’s responsibilities attached to that role, or the consequences of their own actions come back to haunt them. They literally kicked down Japan’s door when they tried to isolate and demanded their people be let in. They blew up Haiti, repeatedly, for declaring independence, they wiped democratic governments out of Guatemala, Panama and El Salvador, they’ve routinely disrupted South American countries, and when people come knocking looking for work after you burn down their house NOW you want isolation?

  America is like those deadbeats that want to play house, beat their wives and have a dozen kids, only to find out being a husband and father is work and then dip. Or worse, the serial rapist with a breeding kink. Your president is about to invade the rest of the continent brother, there aren’t going to BE any borders anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh I hate that one.

  “The company” doesn’t give two flying f***s about me, I’m here to do a job and get paid for it, not join a cult."

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “Why do you trust the government so much?”

  I don’t. I just don’t trust private entities any more than the state. I don’t trust government, private corporations, churches, non-profits, sales/marketing/public relations/propaganda/advertisements, shibboleths/dog whistles/virtue signals, or anything else I can’t independently verify. I believe people generally believe what they say (although there are plenty of active liars too), but also everyone, myself included, is wrong. About what? I have no idea, but I don’t take anything on faith. I believe in well supported arguments, historical observations and that people will continue to do and be what they have historically done and been (barring a significant outside influence or incentive), that who people are on the inside is not always going to be reflected in their actions (we are creatures of habit that do not always live our values and will rationalize away any internal contradiction), and that the only thing that can’t be taken from you is your own integrity, it can only be given away, so do your best to be worthy of the misguided trust others put in you. You will fail sometimes, but that doesn’t mean the effort isn’t worth it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are we looking for fossil's on Mars along with gathering rocks? Or at least some form of life evidence? What about that big ice cap at the top of mars?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I believe the closest we’ve got to fossils is some chemical signatures that indicate at least at one point there may have been some kind of very early microbial life. Maybe. Could have formed by other processes and the concentrations we see could be coincidence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there anything else to this person?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  He was a talented young actor once, and then he let past trauma and bad decisions absolutely destroy his brain and his career. Not much else to say. It’s a tale as old as history, and probably older. The specifics aren’t terribly important.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨On 9/11 what was the internet like after it happened? Did people quit being dicks or trolls and showed some decency? Or was it like we have today and nothing changed?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  For people who only know the internet past 2010, the 2001 internet would be unrecognizable, so the question doesn’t really make sense. The world was an entirely different place before modern algorithmic media. There were trolls, and there were decent people, but the whole context of the world changed after the emergence of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Arguably for the orders of magnitude worse. It’s not really fair to compare then to now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨War attention priorities⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Also, the first three all involve a nation that produces oil and/or gas. Even people who don’t care about their neighbours killing each other, tend to get a little touchy about fuel prices.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨To Quote Contact. If alien life does not exist then why is there so much space out there?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The question is not whether life exists “out there” the question relates to how common it is for complex life to noticeably emerge. Statistically it’s almost impossible for a universe the size of ours to NOT have it emerge multiple times. It doesn’t matter worth a damn if we’re the only sapient organisms in our observable light-cone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do we stop people from defending billionares and trillion dollar companies?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s the fun part. You don’t. It’s human nature, at least for neurotypical hominids to submit to confident icons, even when that confidence is unearned and grounded in hubris, not competence. Wealth makes people very confident, even about things they don’t actually understand. You’re not going to educate them into abandoning millions of years of human instinct. What you can do is make people angry enough at the current crop of billionaires they’re ready to put them up against the wall tell them you have a way to keep terrible people from getting that obscenely wealthy again, and then do it… with the knock on effect of making that level of obscene wealth disparity systemically impossible for anyone. That’s going to make people angry too though, you’re probably going to end up crucified for it, because you know, it’s a country of temporarily embarrassed billionaires.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is ASHDOL a good company for an external cd/dvd drive?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And how many typical users who are using it for backing up old albums or movies or burning a one-time disk for the sake of keeping some woe-begotten antique that hasn’t been modern since Alan Turing built it himself happy, are going to know or care about the very small and exceptionally niche differences. In any case, those kinds of features aren’t exclusive to a brand, they’re model specifications. My point stands, brand is effectively irrelevant as long as you avoid the obvious scammers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Could you make a maglev marimba that would resonate for longer than ordinary models?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, technically it would probably work, although it might impede the performance of the resonators. I know it’s done with Glockenspiels, but you do have to be a bit careful, because not every tonal percussion instrument is just bars sitting in a tray and marimbas in particular have resonator tubes underneath each bar…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is ASHDOL a good company for an external cd/dvd drive?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  CD/DVD external drives are niche commodity products. The brand makes almost no difference. You’re unlikely to find high quality equipment since they’re now extremely niche products with next to no market for them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it possible to store information in your brain that you can visually access it like in this clip?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You mean the Mind Palace Mnemonic technique? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If the bible is real and dealt with real people, what were the 3 wise man wise of? Like subjects and stuff for their time?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, Zoroastrianism, the original state religion of Persia, now Iran before the Arabic conquest. Its still practiced by a small minority in Iran, as well as parts of India, Afghanistan and other places in the region. Famously Freddy Mercury was Zoroastrian. It’s a belief system closely related Vedic Hinduism and more distantly related to the polytheistic traditions of ancient Europe (Slavic polytheism, Norse/Germanic Polytheism, etc.). It was the official belief system of King Cyrus the Great, who has been spoken of in recent years due to his conquest of Babylon being the thing that freed the Jews and he was the king who rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. That’s prompted comparisons among some with Trump, being the goyim defender of the Jewish state. It was on his orders that the surviving texts of the Jewish Torah, Nevi’im, and Ketuvim (what a Christian would call the Old Testament) were compiled into something recognizable today.

  Zoroastrianism believes in a true Creator god (Ahura Mazda, yes like the car, long story) and a Lord of Chaos (Ahreman), with the creator slowly releasing the world he created from the clutches of the jealous lord of chaos who tried to take it. All of the other “gods” (Amesha Spenta) are “Faces” of Ahura Mazda. Some have speculated Zoroastrian influence may have been the thing that finally pushed second temple Judaism to abandon the last vestiges of pre-Babylonian polytheism, though there were trends among the last remaining Jewish communities in that direction prior to the conquest of Babylon. Some have also speculated that some of the gaps in the Jewish tradition were filled in by Zoroastrian beliefs when reconstructing Jewish tradition, and that may be one of the distinct “Voices” in the modern Torah (see JEDP Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis). Interestingly enough concepts like heaven, hell, judgement day, and a messiah at the end of the world may also originate in Zoroastrianism.

  The Magi (plural), or Magus (singular), is the Persian word for a Zoroastrian priest and loosely translates as “Wise Man” in English. The words in English like Magic, Mage, Magician, etc. is actually derived from it because their legendary supernatural powers were famous across the ancient world. The Magi were also well known for the practice of Astrology in ancient times and much of modern astrological practice is adapted from Zoroastrian tradition.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If the bible is real and dealt with real people, what were the 3 wise man wise of? Like subjects and stuff for their time?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, but at the end of the day, France and England are really more like one people divided by a thousand year old argument over whether German bastardized Latin or Latin bastardized German is the superior language.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If the bible is real and dealt with real people, what were the 3 wise man wise of? Like subjects and stuff for their time?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Weird linguistic coincidences like that seem less weird when you remember that at its core English is just a strange dialect of German that’s been mugging other languages for loose vocabulary for a thousand years or so.