Bravo, [email protected]

Ah yes, I hadn't intended that part to be considered a continuation of the Columbus point. "Sometimes idiots like Columbus get things done that nobody else was gonna do because everybody else understands just how monumental the task actually is and are deterred from doing it" is a separate point from "often even when a project was more trouble, time and effort than bargained for, it's still worth it". My apologies for the confusion. I've edited my other comment to make it clearer on that score.

Irish man here; I've never been to a funeral that was open casket but I've also never been to a removal that wasn't.

Probably not a coincidence that most Golden Age superheroes were created around the beginning of WWII:

• Superman 1938

• Batman 1939

• Captain Marvel/Shazam 1939

• The Human Torch 1939

• Namor the Sub-Mariner 1939

• The Flash 1939

• Captain America 1940

• Green Lantern 1940

• Wonder Woman 1941

When I was a kid in the 90s, the 70s were in vogue and if you wanted to be retro it meant the 70s. That 70s Show for example, plus N-Trance doing all those old disco remixes, plus Dazed and Confused, plus Almost Famous, plus the disco songs in The Full Monty, etc.

And in the 70s, retro chic meant the 50s, what with Grease and American Graffiti (which was actually set in 1962 but was still about the 50s aesthetic) and Happy Days etc. So it seemed like "retro" meant "20 years ago".

How, in 25 years, have we only advanced to the 80s for retro chic? Shouldn't we be on the 90s by now at least, if not the 00s?

PS: perhaps this is indicative of a reduction in cultural influence, today, for the 20-to-30-something demographic, compared to the cultural influence that demographic had in earlier decades. Quentin Tarantino was 29 when he made Reservoir Dogs so he made a movie steeped in 70s vibes. Because in the 90s that age range was where revolutionary thinkers were expected to come from, so naturally the decade of their childhoods, the 70s, was in vogue. Do today's 29-year-olds have the same platform and opportunities?

True, but sometimes the only way something worthwhile ever gets done in the first place is because somebody started on it without realizing how hard it would be. Columbus only discovered the New World because he'd underestimated how far away from Asia he was. Sometimes you NEED an optimistic idiot to actually get something done. Nobody else wanted to sail west because they (correctly) assessed that the Earth was bigger than Columbus thought, and it was only blind luck that Columbus encountered an unknown continent before running out of supplies. So an idiot was necessary.

And (as a separate point) yes, when an idiot embarks on an overly-optimistic project it's a pain in the ass for everyone else who has to clean up the mess, but often the achievement lasts a lot longer and outweighs the trouble by orders of magnitude. For example the Moon landing ended up costing ten times what was originally budgeted, but I'd still say it was worth it.

Musk is going the Genghis Khan route. In 500 years he wants to be genetic ancestor to the majority of humans. To accomplish this goal he must:

1. Have many children (we're seeing this)

2. Encourage his children to provide him with grandchildren (we see his reaction to his trans child who is therefore unlikely to give him biological grandchildren)

3. Maximize the amount of wealth and assets he earns in his lifetime so that all his children and grandchildren can each be obscenely rich as well, thereby increasing their chances of having many descendants

4. Leverage the capitalist system to give him and his descendants as much control over the means of production and the levers of power as possible, thereby making them more likely to survive societal upheavals

This will give him the posthumous status he desires the most, as people are more likely to forgive historic wrongs if those wrongs were committed by their own ancestors. He can be as horrible as he wants and still be remembered in a good light if the only people around to remember him are people for whom he is intertwined with their own sense of identity.

He expects the future to slowly reduce the amount of children poor people can have as the global population drops due to obvious and intractible economic pressures.

It's a series of vignettes like The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, except the vignettes are based on dreams Kurosawa had.

I've only seen Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Dreams. Of those, I actually like Dreams the best. I suppose that's probably going to be an unpopular opinion.

Yeah someone who cares enough about security to switch to Signal in the first place will be willing to go into the settings to get everything just the way they like it, but everybody else will only keep the app if it doesn't bug them.

Gattaca is the semi-dystopian vision of our future if we just walk blindly down this path without legislating it properly in advance.

For those who haven't seen the movie: Rich people start paying for perfect "designer babies". A person's genetic information becomes their whole identity; businesses only hire employees with the most genetic predisposition towards being good at the job, while regular people conceived "the old-fashioned way" get McJobs. Even wearing glasses is treated like a crippling disability that immediately and visibly marks someone as "inferior".

It is extremely important that we pass laws to ensure that genetic engineering doesn't create a new caste system.

Does anyone have a link to the actual Russian text?

They've already moved on to ideas; ask Minnesota.

Historically, it's:

• People who can be visually identified as different

• Then people who take political stands openly against them

• Then people whose neighbors/coworkers are snitches

Has anyone actually confirmed that those guys are actually ICE? Because they look like I could pretend to be ICE and get away with it.

Marvel still lacks a definitive solution for the problem of new potential audience members being intimidated by how much existing backstory there is.

Well, they're DEVELOPING them. They're not MAKING them yet.

https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/hyundai-developing-hydrogen-powered-military-tank-with-rapid-acceleration-quiet-driving-and-stealth-features/2-1-1728622?zephr_sso_ott=ZTJkra

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.”

― Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

Does this mean that Musk's address is stored on Fastest Lab's servers?

Edit: nvm I found his address

Hypothetically, we could terraform Venus. At the very least, it shares a lot of the issues that we're trying to fix on Earth, just dialled up to 11 - its main problems are that it's way too hot, the atmosphere has way too much carbon in it (96.5% vs Earth's 0.04%), and the atmosphere has way too much sulfur (0.015% vs Earth's 0.00000002%, making the atmosphere highly acidic). So if for example scientists had an idea for causing a chain reaction in a planetary atmosphere that rapidly sequestered all atmospheric carbon but were worried about unknown strength or side effects, instead of testing it on Earth where it could kill us all, they could test it on Venus where any failures would have no serious consequences. And if it worked, not only would it mean that we fix climate change on Earth but we partially terraform Venus into the bargain.

Venus has roughly similar gravity to Earth and has a ferrous core which could hypothetically be turned molten (and therefore ferromagnetic) to provide the same kind of magnetosphere that Earth's core does. Mars has neither of these things and would therefore never be able to sustain human life naturally - Venus potentially could. On Mars, the atmosphere is just one of many obstacles. On Venus it's THE obstacle. Solve the atmosphere, you solve Venus.

All four games are available for cheap on GOG, though, and with GOG once you own them you own them forever. I suppose online play is appealing, but judging by the SF 30th Anniversary Collection, the lobbies aren't likely to be very active.

“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents*, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

--Matthew 25:14-30

• A talent was a monetary unit worth about twenty years' wages for a laborer