pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
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User ID: 278
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
3d ago
Looking for new books as I approach the end of the Harry Bosch series.
A genre I really enjoy is "competence porn," in which a character or characters overcome challenges and trials via being really good at what they do, either against the uncaring Universe or against an opponent who is also really good at what they do. This was always the appeal of Star Trek, and in books I've enjoyed Andy Weir's novels, the earlier Took Clancy books, Bosch and Reacher, Starship Troopers, Sherlock Homes, and nonfiction like The Right Stuff and Failure is Not An Option. Looking for suggestions of a similar nature.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
3d ago
Second this. Expanse does a great job of crew as family in a fascinating evolving world.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
8d ago
It's simplistic but there's https://slowroads.io/
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
8d ago
If battery life is a top priority, you're probably going to want something based on an M-series chip (Mac) or Snapdragon (Windows). The Snapdragon devices are still pretty new. Microsoft has them in a version of the Surface Book: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-laptop-for-business-copilot-pc/8tkcbz02bdvk
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
8d ago
Well now they have the option of becoming women.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
9d ago
Factorio maybe? Exploration is not strictly required but is beneficial if you want more resources to exploit.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
9d ago
The Empire at least, seems to be able to produce new ships and even new ship designs. I think there are a couple of things happening, though.
First, technological advancement has stagnated, and given the apparent inability to develop integrated circuits, progress is severely limited by the lack of information processing. Other technologies appear to have been developed to about the limits of the in universe science, and as a result designs have been basically fully optimized for thousands of years already. New designs are still useful to make ships fit for purpose, but the technology level of new ships is not appreciable better, and so old ships can, with enough maintenance, perform just as well. (Similar to fantasy tropes where technology stays at late medievel level for thousands of years or longer.)
It also seems evident that while energy production is superior to our own, it is nowhere near a Kardeshev II civilization. While they are capable of orbiting and moving large masses, this is due to technological physics cheats such as gravity manipulation and not the expenditure of the kind of energy such things would otherwise imply. This explains why they are not post scarcity despite having interstellar space stations. It is a place with some advanced technology, things are still relatively expensive, partly due to the absence of microchips, but also because gravity manipulation, cybernetics, and FTL doesn't relieve you from still needing bucketwheels and giant smelters to mine metals.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
10d ago
It seems apparent to me that digital computer technology in the Star Wars universe is roughly equivalent to human technology circa 1977. They exist and can be used to perform some tasks, perform data collection and analysis, and perform various forms of numerical control. But any electronic devices shown virtually never contain any advanced form of digital processing, and displays and controls are mostly analog or have rudimentary capabilities.
The one exception is the droids, seeming to possess artificial intelligence more advanced than we have with our vastly improved computational capabilities even today. Such computational power as they seem to exhibit implies powerful, tiny, and efficient digital electronics.
However, that is a case of us projecting our own AI developments onto the fictional world. I believe the most parsimonious explanation is that the droids are in fact cyborgs, that consist of a lab-grown and conventionally trained organic brains, embedded in a mechanical body.
Points in favor:
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This handily explains the discrepency between the capabilities of electronic devices depicted and the capabilities of the droids.
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We already know that medical technology in that world is more advanced than our own; e.g., Luke's replacement hand and Vader's elaborate mobile hyperbaric chamber. The most salient example is General Grievous, who, but for a few organs, is practically a droid already. Based on this it is reasonable to conclude that bio-electronic integration is more advanced than our own.
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This explains the relative paucity of droids generally. They are expensive and somewhat rare because they take nontrivial time to grow and especially to train. They cannot be programmed like computers beyond simple instincts but must be trained via reinforcement feedback training to learn the jobs they are expected to perform as well as basic information about the world and how to behave.
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This also explains why droids have very different language capabilities, based on the lab-induced growth of the language center of the brains. Presumably a mech droid like an R2 unit has a stunted one adapted for a tone-based pidgin, possibly adapted from a bird brain, and a droid like C3PO has a much larger one. Threepio also probably had to spend more time actually learning language nuances. With more advanced medical technology, it is plausibly possible to adapt the structures of the organic brains of a wide variety of species to select the traits most favorable to the droids you want to produce.
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This also explains the seemingly genuine emotions the droids have. They exhibit these even when not interacting with humanoids, so this is not a case of performing emotions for the benefit of their owners. In reality, these are actually real emotions from real brains, expressed cybernetically.
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This also explains frequent less-than-computer performance from the droids in tasks involving computation as well as their never being shown to perform tasks that should be trivial for a digital computer, such as high-speed communication between each other or between themselves and another piece of electronic equipment. Their ability to recall facts is also less than perfect and appears to be similar to how organic memory works.
There are a few pieces that don't fit and may be counted as points against:
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C3PO, despite having his language enhanced, also appears to have computer-like ability to perform calculations, e.g., the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field. However, this may only be a piece of recalled information, and as it turns out, he was probably not correct. In another case, R2D2 performs a similar probability calculation on the odds of Luke's survival, though as a tech droid it is plausible has a cybernetic pocket calculator embedded in his toolkit of a body. Such calculators are compatible with the circa 1977 level of electronics.
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Droids are never shown to eat or consume any organic substances that would sustain their organic brains. However, this may simply never be shown, and it is possible that they have the capability to generate to synthesize ATP in a closed loop purely from the stored power we see used to charge them up as with R2D2 on Dagobah.
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It would seem plausible, with this technology, to place these trained brains into ships and facilities, to act as integrated operators, but we typically see that things are always operated by humanoids. For example, why are there no self-flying TIE fighters? There may be several explanations. First, being partly organic, droids would require periods of rest and be subject to some of the same limits of focus and attention as humans, so their supremacy at given tasks may be minimal in the first place, and if you are going to have a slave, it would make sense to make as general purpose as practical. Second, if electronics are limited to circa 1977 levels, it is likely that droid vision is greatly inferior to the Mk. 1 eyeball, a considerable limitation in many applications. The brains may not easily be adapted to perform motor control of things not closely analogous to body parts, and as stated in Andor, it is highly probable that due to their self-replicating and self-training nature, fully organic humanoids are less expensive than trained and purpose-built droids, particularly for an organization like the Empire capable of conscription.
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On a couple of occasions, a droid is seen communicating with a "computer", either internal to the ship or the Cloud City facility. These are suggestive of computers that actually do have droid-level intelligence. However, it seems likely that these are colloquial terms for cyborg agents and not digital computers. There are non-primary resources that suggest that the Falcon does actually have a salvaged droid brain integrated into it, which apparently has some sensor input but is not shown to be capable of directly controlling the ship. Luthen's ship Fondor is directly shown to have what appears to be a droid integrated into the ship as well, which evidently is capable of some control over ships systems, though never pilots it during critical moments and is implied to be a ship full of unusual and expensive upgrades. The Cloud City "central computer" talks to R2D2 over what is probably, given the speed of communication, a simple analog language channel like a telephone, and again is probably just a droid charged with administering simple facility operations such as work dispatch and security lockouts.
Probably the biggest counterargument is the droid army depicted in the phantom menace. These appear to be simple electronic robots and crucially they shut down when the central command center was destroyed. However, the cyborg theory is still salvageable if we assume that the organic brain in each battle droid is designed to be tiny and grown quickly in large quantities, and deployed with minimal training beyond instincts, explaining their dimwitted nature and inability to do much more in combat than advance and fire. Because of this, they could not be relied upon for reliable operation outside a command and control structure issuing a constant stream of detailed commands, likely from a smaller number of more advanced and remotely positioned command droids, and therefore it would make sense to engineer a simple failsafe shutdown mode in the event that command and control is lost that cannot be overridden by the local wetware. This would also explain why they were never used much in other conflicts – the trade federation had a unique combination of high wealth and low manpower, and while they were somewhat effective in combat, humanoid soldiers with initiative and capable of independent operation would invariably be superior soldiers. The more advanced combat droids were presumably capable of independent operation, but likely much more expensive than conscripts or even a volunteer army, with the resource better used on more advanced weapons and vehicles, as shown in the Republic Army.
So if droids are expensive and have these limitations, who would want one? They would be useful in several scenarios:
- Where manpower is limited or unreliable, as with the droid army
- Where they can be superior at specific tasks, such as mechanical maintenance and repair (R2) or translation (C3PO) or brute force (K2SO, IG88)
- Where they need to work in harsh or unpleasant environments (R2)
- As a personal servant with high up-front cost but lower TCO (C3-series)
- As helper pets (B2, mouse droids)
In conclusion, what we see in the Start Wars universe is a world in which computer technology is circa Earth 1977, but with much improved medical technology, energy storage and production technology, and both gravitic and FTL technology (possibly related and possibly not). As a result, there are some substantial holes in their technology for computer processing and automation, but these are filled somewhat by the existence of cyborg slaves, which are manufactured using organic brains specially grown and requiring considerable training, but can perform basic and specialty tasks in harsh conditions and without pay. They will still have personalities and emotions, based on the characteristics of the brain and the training received, but are in nearly every case considered to be property.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
10d ago
Same. My parents also recalled I had a fascination with signs, especially road signs and exit signs.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
11d ago
Here's a compromise: a huge operational shelter, complete with three hots and a cot, and you can stay as long as you want and even get basic medical services. You can even camp on the outside where no rules are enforced. The only catch: it's in the middle of nowhere. If you're arrested for aggressive vagrancy in a metro area and can't prove you have a residence or employment, you are put on a bus and sent to the camp shelter. You are not required to stay, but the state will not give you a free ride out.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
12d ago
Are they going to get the immigration crackdown?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
14d ago
Because the bureaucrats who implement the statutes can not be trusted to do so.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
14d ago
Couldn't resist just dwelling on this for a second too. Now, obviously no-one has to buy into avant-garde views of gender/sex, but to be simply unable to entertain the plausibility of a scheme of gender which includes trans women among women betrays a quite remarkable lack of intellectual imagination, and, frankly, intelligence.
This is completely missing the point. Most people who are not academics do not live in a world of intellectual imagination, they live in a world full of practical concerns, and these questions need to be boiled down into yes/no policies, procedures, and judgment calls. When a teenager with a penis demands to use the girls locker room, you cannot handwave the issue and appeal to imagination! Do Democrats understand that they are running for control of the government, and not the English studies department?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
14d ago
It would be a highly costly victory for the other side, though: having to, in public, defend the veracity of very unpopular and uniquely broad pardons by refusing to cooperate and invoking privilege.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
15d ago
There's an app for Android called Physics Toolbox that basically allows you to directly read and plot data from all the phone's many sensors. It effectively makes the phone into a tricorder and you can gather information about acceleration, angular velocity, magnetic bearing, GPS position, temperature, pressure, ambient light, noise levels, audio spectral analysis, magnetic field vectors, all kinds of fun stuff.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
15d ago
Mainly because crime is a local issue, not a federal one, and nearly every metro area is firmly under local single-party rule.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
18d ago
My metaphor was much more literal than that. The corn of a society is its people. If your society has values that cause it to not reproduce itself, as ours does, it will simply cease to exist. Young people alive now will, if things don't change, see their societies wither to failure within their lifetimes. That seems to me to be an unambiguous lack of success. That it will leave a beautiful corpse is cold comfort.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
20d ago
If eating the seed corn causes starvation, why is my belly full?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
20d ago
Even granting that in this specific case the subject in question is not broadly anti-American, the principle being proposed - that permanent residents cannot have their status revoked for any free speech activity, even including explicit subversion and undermining of our own policy - is so broad as to make vetting earlier in the process much more important.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
20d ago
These foundational ideas are good as far as they go, but I think makes it clear the point the girl was getting at: these are the minimum basic requirements to be an American. Is there nothing more? Is that all there is? Sam might say, no there is nothing more. Everything else is an illusion or not genuinely American, but I think this is (a) profoundly unsatisfying for a lot of people and (b) not historically genuine. What are the aspirational aspects of being an American? I can think of a few things that I thing makes someone a good American:
- Industriousness and/or self-reliance
- Charity and respect for strangers
- Weak regard for social class
- Civic nationalism
I don't think there's anything the slightest bit untoward about desiring to live in an America with more people who share those values and fewer people who wreck the commons, bugger their neighbors, and exhibit antisocial behavior. Yes, it's possible to tolerate those who don't share these values, and it's better to grant dispensation than engage tyranny to force an outcome. But it is unpleasant and it would surely create a more desirable society if people would, through the power of assimilation and persuasion, voluntarily adopt such values. I'm baffled and increasingly despondent that people find this to be a totally unreasonable imposition, and demand that instead Americans give up these values to accommodate people who don't share them and don't feel inclined to change.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
21d ago
If so the only logical response would be to dramatically increase the scrutiny applied to granting of permanent resident status. It is unacceptable that we would be required to import people who seek to destroy us.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
21d ago
Charitably, Walsh must be communicating something other than the plain meaning of his words. In this case, he must mean "I don't think the media is covering this enough", or "the media isn't being adequately sympathetic to Tesla".
They are "covering" it in the sense of reporting that it is happening , but not in the same way they would cover it if there was an opposite political valence, e.g. haranguing political leaders to demand accountability or issue groveling condemnatiions, and heavily insinuating wider responsibility to political fellow travelers.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
21d ago
This is the most important point. You can't appeal to a "Rules-based order" by handwaving the rules, which explicitly do not guarantee Ukraine's territory against Russian perfidy.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
25d ago
Once it becomes clear that this is a long war, and that support for Ukraine is going to start coming out of the budget rather than existing idle resources, the goal is to maintain a leading role while dumping the economic cost on Europe. So say, first quietly and then loudly, that the US is happy to continue helping Ukraine, but after some reasonable period of time (3-6 months) they are not going to do so for free. Then follow through - based on the above analysis the Europeans will grumble, but pay up. The US should chip in enough to retain a seat at the table - say 10-20% of the cost.
This is the part that seems like the lynchpin to me. Suppose that the Europeans reasonably believe, as they have for 50 years now, that they can call America's bluff here and either not pony up, or only pony up for things that are not useful to the war effort like expanded benefits for servicemembers? Are we willing to back that up by writing off Europe? Is Europe able to hold us hostage by putting a knife to their own throats?
I really don't think that's enough for them. If it was just about body modification, then appeals to autonomy would be fine and a sensible position. But they want more than that. They want the right to do want they want, and make everyone else approve of it. They seek self validation from external sources and are sad at not getting it. Hence the moral blackmail.
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