The ACA is an attempt to apply capitalistic principles to universal healthcare. Many conservatives would back it if it wasn't called Obamacare. If it dies get ready for Euro-style single-payer.
Only people who want babies are having babies. Think about it. All the people who don't want babies are being bred out of society. You have to really want babies to have them these days, and if any of that baby crazy is genetic, in a few generations we are going to have a world of people who compulsively baby-talk to anything with a disproportionately large head.
On one side you have the "This is the price of freedom" argument, where people are given the chance to speak freely and anonymously, where they might fear to speak openly because there are powerful forces at work that do want to silence people. On the other side you have the "This is why we can't have nice things" argument, where the assholes abuse these open forums and harm others behind the cloak of anonymity. From what I can see of human nature, I see the "This is why we can't have nice things" winning, and it will probably lead to a world without anonymity, privacy, and ultimately without freedom.
Hey, everyone needs a side-gig these days, and mine happens to be writing novels about how we're going to lose our freedom when they get rid of the anonymous internet.
When I read this article I was surprised at the tone and how they treated the troll. The attitude of the writer was, "Hey everyone! We finally caught a troll! He acts all big and bad online but once we got his name he was all scared and apologetic. Don't be a scared little troll, be good online or we will find you like we found this troll." I think the writer thought he was doing a public service, but in reality he was being a corporate despot. There are people in power who want to get rid of anonymity on the internet, and the fact is, if The Man really wants to know what you do online, The Man will find out. The thing is, this problem with Russian hacking and talk of fake news is giving The Man more reasons to get rid of anonymity online.
Shameless self promotion, I wrote a cyberpunk novel about this sort of thing called Girl in a Fishbowl
You would also disprove about 90% of Earths religions.
It depends on the aliens. If we can talk to them and they say "Your God is BS, you should worship Flarg instead." I'm sure it would cause lots of confusion. Or they might clumsily try to get on our good side by lying. "Oh yeah, we know Jesus. Yep, he visited our world last year. We thought about killing him too, but we couldn't decide on a method. Nailing on a cross, we'll remember that the next time we see him."
And you type your comment on a what? And stop lights are controlled by what? And your bank account is controlled by what? Need more examples?
We just haven't gotten to the apocalypse part..... yet.
I didn't say we weren't heading for a computer controlled apocalypse. I just said that I was sick of being told my future was fucked when I was a kid in the 70s. If you want to know how much I agree with you, read my dystopian teen romance, Girl in a Fishbowl.
2001 is probably my all time favorite movie, but if you strip out Clarke's star baby space mysticism, the crux of the movie is that a computer decided that the best way to finish it's mission is to kill the people around it. "Logic dictates we must kill the humans to satisfy our programming." Same premise as "The 100". Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if Clarke was named after Clarke. Anyway, Clarke is great, and "Rendezvous with Rama" is one of the best science fiction books of all time, but his space mysticism is a bit too new agey and unscientific for me.
There is no 'continuity' in a Science Fiction audience that leads to Star Wars. Star Wars was what George Lucas came up with after he was denied the right to produce Flash Gordon remakes.
Star Wars was a continuation of the Flash Gordon styled pulp given a flashy modern look. People still remembered that kind of "science fiction", or more accurately, "science fantasy" adventure. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of real science fiction, and I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars, but in the late seventies science fiction was super heavy and we were ready for some light entertainment. And when I said 'we', I'm talking about us pre-teens at the time who were getting bummed out by all the stories that told us we were going live in a computer controlled or ape controlled apocalyptic waste land eating soylent green, which is people, by the way.
> The Martian is a remake of this: Robinson Crusoe on Mars
You're kidding, right?
Apart from the premise of a man being stranded on Mars, they have literally nothing in common.
I'm not entirely serious, but they do have some things in common. They both have astronauts who have to figure out how to get oxygen and water and food on Mars. I do think that "The Martian" would have been significantly improved if it had a monkey. Of course, most things are improved with a monkey.
Star Wars had such an impact because of the world building - that element was good science fiction. The actual story was pretty shallow fantasy, but so many more stories were told in the world that movie created.
I was 12 when Star Wars came out. I'll tell you why it was popular. All of the big science fiction of the late 60's and most of the 70's was heavy with political and social messages. There was no real pulp science fiction. According to "Logan's Run" and "Soylent Green" we were doomed because of overpopulation. "2001" was about a computer killing people. In "The Omega Man" humanity is wiped out by a disease that turns people into zombie vampires. The only real movie science fiction franchise of the time, "Planet of the Apes", was about civilization being wiped out by a nuclear war. Star Trek of course had its social messages. By the late 70's we were more than ready for some good mindless fun.
Having programmed computers since the 1980s, I can't imagine what it's like to just come into the field now. There are so many layers from brain to bit, I would be quite intimidated if I was just starting out. Learning the new technologies as they came out over the years made it manageable. Of course, learning is different these days. Back then if I wanted to understand an operating system or a programming language I would get a manual and read it cover to cover. Now I just look things up when I need to know them. I wonder how much of the underlying architecture kids understand these days, as opposed to just following recipes from stackoverflow?
I remember first seeing that scene in the theater and laughing and hearing audience members already repeating his line right there, because while we had seen plenty of situations in movies and tv where the characters were in hopeless situations, it was the first time we saw a character lose it like that. I think we, in the audience, were thinking, "Finally someone reacting like a real person would in a crazy movie scenario."
Then Trump, who is a master and leading the public around by the nose, tossed back some halfassed bullshit that he flat out didn't CARE if it was true, and the Liberals proceeded to go into a full-on nervous breakdown while foaming at the mouth.
I can't wait to see what he does to distract everyone from the Muslim Travel Ban. It will take something truly batshit crazy. At this rate he's going to be fucking a pig on stage to distract us. (Yeah, I know, Black Mirror reference. That blue bear episode hit the nail on the head, didn't it?)
The end game is near: the 1% will have everything, and you will have the clothes on your back, if you're lucky.
Naw, the 1% will need about 5% with military training to protect them and another 5% with technical skills to keep the robots working. Throw in another 9% for 3S (servants, sex slaves, and sycophants) and you have 20% with actual cash to spend. I plan on keeping the robots working.
I hope they don't change it too much, I'm happy with the way it is. I have this little Minecraft world I play locally on my computer, I've had it for years. If I get stressed at work I can just go into this world and do a little more building and exploring. There's always something that needs to be done and it is satisfying and stress free (except for the occasional creeper blowing stuff up.) I'm not a fan of the mods, if it got much more complicated it would become stressful. It's my little escape I plan to retire to someday, maybe pass on to my kids.
This is what a slow motion train wreck looks like.
The Chinese will want the United States and Trump to lose face because of what Trump said about Taiwan. Because Obama is still in power, Trump will make fun of him for being a weakling in his response to China, whatever it is. Then, once Trump becomes President, he will have to respond in a way that escalates the problem, to differentiate himself from the "weak" Obama. China will do more of these types of actions to make Trump lose face. Trump will continue to escalate the crisis by tweeting insults to China, because Trump will rather start a war than lose face. Add to this the fact that the Chinese government needs to distract its population from its own failures and corruption, and what is better to do that than a potential war with the United States? This is a perfect storm of stupid, needless crisis, and it will end very badly.
You have 2 opposing sides. One side uses far more lying and deception to delude its base than the other side. The lying side makes greater gains,because its lies are more attractive than the truth, but its base is so deluded that it can't see that it's electing a leader who is completely incapable of leading the nation. Our present day situation is going to be used as a morality tale about the excessive use of propaganda.
Slashdot Mirror
Omni magazine helped me survive the 80s.
The ACA is an attempt to apply capitalistic principles to universal healthcare. Many conservatives would back it if it wasn't called Obamacare. If it dies get ready for Euro-style single-payer.
Fusion is the power of the future, and always will be.
Only people who want babies are having babies. Think about it. All the people who don't want babies are being bred out of society. You have to really want babies to have them these days, and if any of that baby crazy is genetic, in a few generations we are going to have a world of people who compulsively baby-talk to anything with a disproportionately large head.
Thanks for the warning. The book is on topic so I thought some people might be interested.
On one side you have the "This is the price of freedom" argument, where people are given the chance to speak freely and anonymously, where they might fear to speak openly because there are powerful forces at work that do want to silence people. On the other side you have the "This is why we can't have nice things" argument, where the assholes abuse these open forums and harm others behind the cloak of anonymity. From what I can see of human nature, I see the "This is why we can't have nice things" winning, and it will probably lead to a world without anonymity, privacy, and ultimately without freedom.
Hey, everyone needs a side-gig these days, and mine happens to be writing novels about how we're going to lose our freedom when they get rid of the anonymous internet.
When I read this article I was surprised at the tone and how they treated the troll. The attitude of the writer was, "Hey everyone! We finally caught a troll! He acts all big and bad online but once we got his name he was all scared and apologetic. Don't be a scared little troll, be good online or we will find you like we found this troll." I think the writer thought he was doing a public service, but in reality he was being a corporate despot. There are people in power who want to get rid of anonymity on the internet, and the fact is, if The Man really wants to know what you do online, The Man will find out. The thing is, this problem with Russian hacking and talk of fake news is giving The Man more reasons to get rid of anonymity online.
Shameless self promotion, I wrote a cyberpunk novel about this sort of thing called Girl in a Fishbowl
You would also disprove about 90% of Earths religions.
It depends on the aliens. If we can talk to them and they say "Your God is BS, you should worship Flarg instead." I'm sure it would cause lots of confusion. Or they might clumsily try to get on our good side by lying. "Oh yeah, we know Jesus. Yep, he visited our world last year. We thought about killing him too, but we couldn't decide on a method. Nailing on a cross, we'll remember that the next time we see him."
I guess mixed reality is the new term for augmented reality.
And you type your comment on a what? And stop lights are controlled by what? And your bank account is controlled by what? Need more examples?
We just haven't gotten to the apocalypse part ..... yet.
I didn't say we weren't heading for a computer controlled apocalypse. I just said that I was sick of being told my future was fucked when I was a kid in the 70s. If you want to know how much I agree with you, read my dystopian teen romance, Girl in a Fishbowl.
> "2001" was about a computer killing people.
Worst. Oversimplification. Ever!
2001 is probably my all time favorite movie, but if you strip out Clarke's star baby space mysticism, the crux of the movie is that a computer decided that the best way to finish it's mission is to kill the people around it. "Logic dictates we must kill the humans to satisfy our programming." Same premise as "The 100". Come to think of it, I wouldn't be surprised if Clarke was named after Clarke. Anyway, Clarke is great, and "Rendezvous with Rama" is one of the best science fiction books of all time, but his space mysticism is a bit too new agey and unscientific for me.
There is no 'continuity' in a Science Fiction audience that leads to Star Wars. Star Wars was what George Lucas came up with after he was denied the right to produce Flash Gordon remakes.
Star Wars was a continuation of the Flash Gordon styled pulp given a flashy modern look. People still remembered that kind of "science fiction", or more accurately, "science fantasy" adventure. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of real science fiction, and I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars, but in the late seventies science fiction was super heavy and we were ready for some light entertainment. And when I said 'we', I'm talking about us pre-teens at the time who were getting bummed out by all the stories that told us we were going live in a computer controlled or ape controlled apocalyptic waste land eating soylent green, which is people, by the way.
> The Martian is a remake of this: Robinson Crusoe on Mars
You're kidding, right?
Apart from the premise of a man being stranded on Mars, they have literally nothing in common.
I'm not entirely serious, but they do have some things in common. They both have astronauts who have to figure out how to get oxygen and water and food on Mars. I do think that "The Martian" would have been significantly improved if it had a monkey. Of course, most things are improved with a monkey.
Star Wars had such an impact because of the world building - that element was good science fiction. The actual story was pretty shallow fantasy, but so many more stories were told in the world that movie created.
I was 12 when Star Wars came out. I'll tell you why it was popular. All of the big science fiction of the late 60's and most of the 70's was heavy with political and social messages. There was no real pulp science fiction. According to "Logan's Run" and "Soylent Green" we were doomed because of overpopulation. "2001" was about a computer killing people. In "The Omega Man" humanity is wiped out by a disease that turns people into zombie vampires. The only real movie science fiction franchise of the time, "Planet of the Apes", was about civilization being wiped out by a nuclear war. Star Trek of course had its social messages. By the late 70's we were more than ready for some good mindless fun.
The Martian is a remake of this: Robinson Crusoe on Mars which is a great movie, although it's no Forbidden Planet.
Having programmed computers since the 1980s, I can't imagine what it's like to just come into the field now. There are so many layers from brain to bit, I would be quite intimidated if I was just starting out. Learning the new technologies as they came out over the years made it manageable. Of course, learning is different these days. Back then if I wanted to understand an operating system or a programming language I would get a manual and read it cover to cover. Now I just look things up when I need to know them. I wonder how much of the underlying architecture kids understand these days, as opposed to just following recipes from stackoverflow?
I wish they would be more direct and stop alternating about their position.
For the rich, money is no longer money. It is a point system in a game they are playing against each other. We are the pieces in that game.
I remember first seeing that scene in the theater and laughing and hearing audience members already repeating his line right there, because while we had seen plenty of situations in movies and tv where the characters were in hopeless situations, it was the first time we saw a character lose it like that. I think we, in the audience, were thinking, "Finally someone reacting like a real person would in a crazy movie scenario."
Then Trump, who is a master and leading the public around by the nose, tossed back some halfassed bullshit that he flat out didn't CARE if it was true, and the Liberals proceeded to go into a full-on nervous breakdown while foaming at the mouth.
I can't wait to see what he does to distract everyone from the Muslim Travel Ban. It will take something truly batshit crazy. At this rate he's going to be fucking a pig on stage to distract us. (Yeah, I know, Black Mirror reference. That blue bear episode hit the nail on the head, didn't it?)
The end game is near: the 1% will have everything, and you will have the clothes on your back, if you're lucky.
Naw, the 1% will need about 5% with military training to protect them and another 5% with technical skills to keep the robots working. Throw in another 9% for 3S (servants, sex slaves, and sycophants) and you have 20% with actual cash to spend. I plan on keeping the robots working.
I hope they don't change it too much, I'm happy with the way it is. I have this little Minecraft world I play locally on my computer, I've had it for years. If I get stressed at work I can just go into this world and do a little more building and exploring. There's always something that needs to be done and it is satisfying and stress free (except for the occasional creeper blowing stuff up.) I'm not a fan of the mods, if it got much more complicated it would become stressful. It's my little escape I plan to retire to someday, maybe pass on to my kids.
This is what a slow motion train wreck looks like.
The Chinese will want the United States and Trump to lose face because of what Trump said about Taiwan. Because Obama is still in power, Trump will make fun of him for being a weakling in his response to China, whatever it is. Then, once Trump becomes President, he will have to respond in a way that escalates the problem, to differentiate himself from the "weak" Obama. China will do more of these types of actions to make Trump lose face. Trump will continue to escalate the crisis by tweeting insults to China, because Trump will rather start a war than lose face. Add to this the fact that the Chinese government needs to distract its population from its own failures and corruption, and what is better to do that than a potential war with the United States? This is a perfect storm of stupid, needless crisis, and it will end very badly.
You have 2 opposing sides. One side uses far more lying and deception to delude its base than the other side. The lying side makes greater gains,because its lies are more attractive than the truth, but its base is so deluded that it can't see that it's electing a leader who is completely incapable of leading the nation. Our present day situation is going to be used as a morality tale about the excessive use of propaganda.