pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
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User ID: 278
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1d ago
It does create credibility. He's willing to eat the criticism and the bad press and enact the consequences, so it is known that he is not bluffing. In game terms, it's like showing up to a game of chicken with a 5-point restraint and a bashed-up car.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
2d ago
Big Fat Quiz of the Year from last month was the last thing I really belly laughed at.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
5d ago
Doesn't the federal government contract out almost all of that actual wrench-turning work? E.g., NASA doesn't build rockets (Boeing/ULA/SpaceX), satellites (Lockmart, Northrup) or probes (JPL, Northrup). But they do a shit-ton of paperwork.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
8d ago
I dislike how long it takes to heat up just to fry a couple of eggs though.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
8d ago
Beaux arts for any building intended mainly for public use, collegiate Gothic for anything related to research or science, neoclassical or international modern for bureaucratic offices, and brutalism for law enforcement.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
8d ago
It's TEOTWAWKI, and I feel fine.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
9d ago
For almost any serious problem, so long as technology is increasing and wealth is increasing, it makes sense to wait as long as possible to address it, so that you can use the most efficient and effective versions of your tools.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
11d ago
The big players are slowly moving to effective whiteallow lists. It's already the case that most isps block outbound port 25 traffic by default. Then, if you get that unblocked, you need them to modify your pointer record to pass the spamhaus DNSBL, which requires static IP and a business class isp contact. This is table stakes. Then, it's all about meeting security and finally reputational requirements, but even that is IMO inching from "trust but verify" to "distrust until proven". Though if spam really is declining then this may ease.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
12d ago
This is overstated. Apple existed as a viable competitor during the entire period, and while Microsoft used what amounted to strong-arm commercial tactics to get its OS onto every PC sold, it was indeed this OS that enabled those sales. Microsoft should get credit for providing workable baseline software, that was very open to developers, and didn't cost much money. Did they push OS/2 out of the market? Maybe. It's also possible OS/2 wasn't a viable competitor to begin with. Sometimes companies dominate because they get first mover advantage and manage to build a large moat. Sometimes companies are dominant mostly just because they have an overall superior value proposition. Microsoft, for long periods, had both.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
15d ago
I think he simply forgot to point his index finger
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
16d ago
Didn't catch that, but the (impromptu?!) a capella America the Beautiful by Carrie Underwood was delightful. Hearing the crowd sing along like a proper church hymn gave me a little thrill.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
16d ago
Would it be fair to say, then, that if it could be demonstrated that the costs are not inherent to the technology, then you would support (or at least not oppose) nuclear power installation?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
16d ago
I think what you are missing is that there are parallel developments which call into question whether the high price is actually inherent to the technology in the way we've been led to believe. The most direct parallel here is space launch. Not very long ago, the price per kilogram to orbit was high enough to make satellites prohibitively expensive for anyone but nation states and extremely well-capitalized corporations. Human spaceflight was all but unthinkable for anyone except national astronautics programs. The conventional wisdom was that this is just the nature of the problem: rockets are expensive and expendable, development requires decades of engineering, and there are no real major technological advancements achievable without new fundamental breakthroughs.
But this turned out not to be the case! SpaceX entered the market and proved that using iterations of well-known designs, hiring the right people and compensating them properly, and leadership pushing hard at schedules and milestones while also driving on costs, you actually could dramatically lower the cost to orbit beyond what anyone thought possible, while still being profitable!
So with this context, there's lots of reasons to be skeptical that the cost and feasibility barriers cited for nuclear power are real. As with liquid-fueled rockets, this is a reasonably well-developed and very well-understood technology. The bulk inputs are concrete and steel, inexpensive things we know how to build with. We don't need fundamental breakthroughs. What we need are industry leaders with the drive to engineer better reactors designed for safety and mass production and for the NRC to streamline the permitting process to something with clear, reasonable requirements. Unlike with rockets, we unfortunately also need reform in the building permitting processes that are also used to block or delay every other major infrastructure project, but I don't think that's an impossible dream.
So, your interlocutors may well believe that the cost factor, as real as it is today, not be inherent to the technology, and that we have everything we need to unlock the capability to manufacture and deploy nuclear power facilities as quickly and cheaply as combustion turbines, if only the right combination of leadership and policy falls into place.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
20d ago
I think you are underestimating the raw appeal of simply being willing to lead people to attempt glorious achievements.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
22d ago
The serious response is that if you are a physical threat to someone (and almost all men are to almost all women in a one-on-one situation), or otherwise in a position to hurt them (let's say your wife, who will predictably take your side in a dispute, is their boss and landlord) it is really easy to make saying "no" difficult.
This is a slippery slope all the way to "all hetero sex is rape". Would you bite that bullet? ISTM that there needs to be a pretty large bias against second-guessing the judgment of individual women if their claim to fully equal members of society is to hold any value.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
22d ago
Just dropping a couple bucks in the tip jar is usually enough
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
23d ago
Everyone dies. The goal is to die well.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
27d ago
On balance I think it did
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
27d ago
The question is very concrete and clear: is it bad for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to threaten to invade several countries which until now considered themselves as US allies?
I reject the premise: neither Trump nor Musk is seriously proposing a full-scale military takeover of any U.S. neighbors. Contingent on them actually doing so, I would judge it to be a bad idea for reasons completely unrelated to fascism.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
28d ago
That depends a lot on who is doing the invading and who is being invaded, doesn't it?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
28d ago
So, if all the really bad things about fascism are not the ones that we are doing, what exactly is bad about fascism?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
1mo ago
Does that apply to contractors?
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
2mo ago
Isn't the through-line that connects these things together just good, old-fashioned Gnosticism? The religious view that the material world is evil and that the subjective relgious experience is primary is all that is needed for to connect propensity to suicide, disgust with the material world, obsession with purity and disease, and antinatalism.
There might be some psychological root to that as well, given that it seems to pop up many times through history, or some kind of philosophical prion that warps the perception of reality of anyone who comprehends it.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
2mo ago
Heinlein was directly on point:
“Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house . . . and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken—whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment, please?”
“Why . . . that’s the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!”
“I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be?”
“Uh . . . why, mine, I guess.”
“Again I agree. But I’m not guessing.”
The hell of it is I wouldn't even be that opposed to a legitimate US aid organization that is run competently and efficiently. I would support at least the amount of funding that USAID gets of I were persuaded that it was doing tangible good of an equivalent value. What sickens me is money taken under such noble pretenses and used to fund wickedness, graft, corruption, and even ops against the republic itself. This government has rightfully lost the trust of a large part of the population, and should reap the wages of sin.
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