Don't touch the tow vehicle brakes. Braking (gently) from the trailer is ideal, assuming you have that option. Braking both with the brake controller adjusted to provide slightly more braking from the rear (as it should be configured) is also good, but the ideal is to ease off on the throttle and gently activate the trailer brakes.
if at speed, don't countersteer!
Oh, hell no. I suppose that it's possible to counter the motion with vehicle steering, but you'd have to get the timing and amount so precisely correct that I'm not sure a human driver could do it.
You are correct that hitting the brakes is the absolute worst thing that the driver can do.
Assuming you have them, the best thing to do is to hit the trailer's brakes. If you're towing a largish trailer you should have electrically-controlled brakes and a brake controller where the driver can easily reach it. Just brake gently from the trailer and it will straighten out immediately.
As demonstrated in that video, trailer sway isn't caused by rocking back and forth between the wheels causing swerving but by weight distribution away from the axle creating large yaw inertia. With suitcases, while packing the weight far from the wheels does make the rocking worse, it will still happen even with the weight packed close to them (low yaw inertia). So, we're mostly talking about different effects. As evidenced by the fact that if your trailer starts rocking you should ease off the throttle, not go faster.[1]
Even if this were the same effect, there's a huge difference between merely knowing about a phenomenon and having some rules of thumb about how to handle it, derived from experience, and having a mathematical model and a computer simulation of the phenomenon. Having those opens up many more options for finding solutions.
[1] In my experience, the very best thing to do is to use the brake controller to activate the trailer brakes and slow that way, assuming a trailer that has electric brakes. I've only experienced sway on one trailer that doesn't have brakes; my flatbed (no brakes) when I have the tractor loaded too far back and not enough weight on the tongue. Easing off the throttle calms it down. None of the other trailers I've had (boat, utility, ATV) have ever swayed.
Or just get one that has 4 wheels and don't look like a dork
Most of the four-wheeled ones are designed also to be tipped forward and roll on two wheels. But, actually, I think they solve this problem even when on two wheels.
To work in four-wheel mode, the wheels have to be on swiveling casters. When you tip them into two wheeled mode, the casters go into a restricted movement position, but they can still move a little. When you hit a bump, then, and one side bounces up, the caster on the other side can turn, allowing it to maintain a straight line rather than tipping to the side and causing a turn which flips the bag the other way on to the opposite side, etc.
It's definitely the case that none of the four-wheeled suitcases I've owned have had the rocking problem, while all of the two-wheeled ones have. I thought this was just a result of better design, since my four-wheeled suitcases happen to be much higher-end, more expensive brands. I have a $200 bag purchased when I got tired of various problems with cheap suitcases and decided to see if more expensive was actually better, and a $600 bag given to me by the airline when I hit a million miles.
BTW, the $200 bag really is much better than a $20-40 bag, in many ways, though probably not twice as good as a $100 bag, which I think is probably the sweet spot in rollerbag luggage today. The $600 bag is only marginally better than the $200 bag. It's lighter while still being quite sturdy, and looks classier. As is common, the best price/performance is midrange.
We're supposed to tolerate sodomites, freaks of nature, satanists, transvestites, criminals, pedophiles, anyone who wants to see the human race burn and celebrate it like it's normal.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, and no, respectively.
But natural male masculinity?
Natural male masculinity is great, as long as it doesn't abuse or belittle anyone. But that's not a problem because abuse and belittlement is what weak assholes do, not strong, confident men. Or strong, confident women, for that matter.
You're welcome, glad I could clear that up for you.
Not excusing harassment, but going the HR route is the worst way to handle what should be an adult-adult situation.
You're assuming that the other person is an adult. It might surprise you that not everyone who grows up is an adult. I've met more than a few children in the workplace. HR can either send them away or babysit them. If HR decides to babysit them, it's time to find a new job elsewhere.
I thought it was normal for a 2x4 to actually measure 1.5x3.5 because of the planing that happens or somesuch.
Yes. Rough-cut 2x4s are 2 inches by 4 inches. When they are planed to smooth them and round the corners, they lose about a quarter inch in each side, resulting in the final 1.5x3.5-inch size.
Oh, hey, it's the ole Kafka trap! "They don't have a 'code of conduct' they're toxic bro culture" ok, we'll adopt a code of conduct... "obviously you had to adopt this because you had so much toxic bro culture"
No. Most companies never bother to send out a memo like this, because they don't need to. They may or may not have something in the employee handbook about relationships between superiors and subordinates, but none of them ever feel the need to put in writing that you should get permission before having sex with someone.
This memo is compelling evidence that either (a) they had some serious problems or (b) the CEO was ridiculously over-cautious, warning his employees not to do something that no one was doing anyway. Is there anything about Kalanick that makes you think "there's a dude who's always worried about things that aren't problems yet."?
And something Really Bad will happen. Whether it's a chain of supervolcano explosions, a mega meteor, a world war with planet-shattering doomsday weapons or out of control bioweapons, or gray goo, something will happen. Maybe we can figure out how to address each of the existential risks, eventually, but there's no way of knowing if we'll do it soon enough. To put it in a nutshell: We have no disaster recovery strategy. We need an offsite backup of our species.
And we have no disaster recovery strategy for the heat death of the universe, we should start looking for another one right now.
/me rolls eyes
There's been life on this planet for billions of years and despite our best ambitions humanity is not nearly capable of eradicating all life on this planet. Maybe ourselves, but not every plant and cockroach and fish in the sea.
Did you even read my post? What gave you the idea I'km worried about cockroaches and fish?
You seem to be buying the vision of Democrats that some of those people have.
I don't buy the vision. I do know what it is. I think I have an understanding of how many city folks see Republicans as well. There's a lot of inaccuracy on both sides. Undoubtedly, there's a lot I get wrong as well, though I think I try quite a bit harder to understand all sides than the demagogues like rsilvergun do. The fact that I often get mistaken for a conservative Republican by liberal Democrats and a liberal Democrat by conservative Republicans is a good thing, I think.
Whoa there. You're glossing over a huuuuuge difference.
I'm not glossing over it. Clearly there are differences. The point is that those differences are a matter of degree, not of kind. You can't live anywhere without technology. Yes, you need a lot more of it to live on Mars, than you do to live in Antarctica, and more to live in Antarctica than to live in Alaska, and so on, but it's all a matter of degree.
Colonizing other planets is a pipe dream. The energy and technology requirements are mind-boggling.
Your great-great-great grandfather would have said the same of many of the great engineering projects which have been completed. Many people, just a few generations ago, said that the energy and technology requirements of producing food to support three billion people were unreachable. Just because we don't know how to do something now doesn't mean we can never do it.
On the contrary, the only rational position is that nothing that is not prohibited by the laws of physics is impossible.
They will never be more than a curiosity, dependent on Earth for their survival.
That is clearly nonsense. Every element that exists on Earth exists on Mars. There is ample energy available on Mars. The only thing missing is putting the matter and energy into the correct configurations, which at core, is what technology is: techniques for arranging matter and energy in convenient configurations.
All human survival is also dependent on symbiotes.
At present, yes, but this dependency isn't inherent.
Big things like fellow animals
Those we can actually do without just fine.
and the bacteria in our gut. The mites in our eyelids.
Those matter, though they're not irreplaceable. Note that I'm not saying we know how to replace them. There are many, many things we need to learn to be able to thrive in space, or on Mars, etc. Perhaps we need to learn to replace some of our internal fauna. Or perhaps we just take them with us.
To travel to space we would need to transport big samples of the Earth's biomass with us.
Or develop alternatives.
And we don't even really know what part we have to take, really.
An essential element of figuring that out is to try.
Then you almost immediately walk back your argument with:
There are some regions where the tools and knowledge required are fairly minimal
That's not a "walk back". What I said means that in all regions, at least some tools and technology are require for human survival.
Well, of course we can't support our current population without technology
I'm not talking about "current population", I'm talking about any humans at all
What you really mean is, "There isn't space on Earth where 7 billion people can live without advanced technology."
Nope. I mean that all human life is technology-dependent, in any numbers, and in any locations. Different locations require more or less, but the point is that it's only a matter of degree. Space is just another environment. One that requires a greater degree of technological knowledge, but it's still just a difference of degree, not of kind.
She read it through twice and then came back with, "Ok, so where's the sexism that people are complaining about?"
It's in the fact that memo contained new policy, put in place to address a history of problems caused by a company culture that didn't have those basic and obvious norms. Even the CEO apparently hadn't previously felt it important to avoid sleeping with his subordinates. The fact they felt it necessary to tell employees to get permission from someone before having sex with them is particularly chilling.
Within 500 years we may see the planet support over one trillion people, it seems likely to me at least.
I doubt it. Our global birth rate is already declining, both in relative and absolute terms. This isn't because of insufficient resources. Indeed birth rate is strongly negatively correlated with wealth. Even if the birth rate were to suddenly freeze at its current level (stop the decline), we'll still peak at just over 10B people, barring significant life extension.
I think the only way we'll ever see even double our current population is if we eventually conquer death, and I'm not sure even that would do it. I think most people with unlimited years ahead of them would defer children indefinitely.
If we would spend less time focused on killing one over trivial shit such as oil and religion and more on putting our petty differences aside we sure as hell could easily support 30+ billion on this planet.
We'll never need to do that. The global birth rate (babies per year) has already peaked and has been declining steadily for a while; it looks like global population will peak at 10B and then start falling. But in any case overpopulation isn't the only issue (and space travel wouldn't be a solution for it if it were the problem). The motivation for getting off of Earth is that having the entire species on one planet means that if something Really Bad happens to this planet, we're gone.
And something Really Bad will happen. Whether it's a chain of supervolcano explosions, a mega meteor, a world war with planet-shattering doomsday weapons or out of control bioweapons, or gray goo, something will happen. Maybe we can figure out how to address each of the existential risks, eventually, but there's no way of knowing if we'll do it soon enough.
To put it in a nutshell: We have no disaster recovery strategy. We need an offsite backup of our species.
Plus, we'll learn one hell of a lot in the process of trying to colonize another planet. It's worth doing just for that reason.
OR you could work to improve things here on Earth, rather than dreaming about leaving it.
Or we could do both.
You can't live anywhere else but Earth anyway.
This is both illogical and demonstrably false, since people have been living off of this planet for most of the last half century. All human life is technology-dependent. Many of the places lots of people live are unsurvivable without fairly extensive technology. Living on other planets, or in space, will require more and different technology, but there's nothing inherently impossible about it.
Yeah, but we're in the only livable part of space that we know of.
You are under the mistaken impression that unaided humans can live on Earth. This is not true. There is nowhere on this planet that I could drop you, sans technology (remember; clothing is technology) or any knowledge of the local environment, and reasonably expect you to still be alive in a few months. The only way humans can survive anywhere on Earth is through the application of specialized knowledge and tools.
There are some regions where the tools and knowledge required are fairly minimal, where temperature swings are mild, food is easy to identify and obtain, and there aren't too many dangerous plants or animals. But much of the human population today lives in regions where the required tooling and knowledge for survival is quite extensive. For example where, I live no human could survive the winter without knowing how to obtain or make heavy protective clothing, a good insulated shelter, some method for generating external heat (e.g. fire), and extensive knowledge on the collection and preservation of food. Other places have steeper survival requirements yet.
I'll readily grant that Mars, for example, requires more technology that any place on Earth where significant populations of people are found. It requires less, though, than is required to live in orbit, and we've had people doing that almost continuously for the last half century or so.
The key thing to note is that all human survival, everywhere, including on Earth, is technology-dependent. Our evolution has lost us the physical characteristics and instinctual knowledge that our distant ancestor species had. We survive by the use of our big brains, but even with them we generally aren't capable of figuring out enough stuff, fast enough, to stay alive. Culturally-received knowledge is indispensable to us. That is true whether the knowledge in question is how to make crude fire-hardened spears or build space ships. It's just a matter of degree.
Given that it's a matter of degree, there is no reason why we cannot survive and thrive just as well on other planets as we do here. Doing so will require creating lots of new knowledge and technology, certainly. That's a good thing. We should do it just for the opportunity to learn. Moving some of our eggs to another basket is another good reason to do it.
people who would consistently vote against their own best interests
If you think people vote against their best interests, odds are very strong that you don't understand those people. They may be voting against changes that would benefit them in a way you think is important, but they're doing it because they're voting for something that is more important to them.
Take the case of poor rural whites. In their case I think it's mostly about identity. Poor white people vote for Republicans because they're voting to bring back the day when they had more respect. Democrats offer to help their economic problems by make them dependent on the state... and in the eyes of many, though they may not admit it, reducing them to the level of black people. Further, those poor white people know that the Democrats' plans will be funded with taxpayer money, and although they actually aren't among the group that really provide the funding, they see themselves as that group. Then there's also the urban/rural divide. Rural whites see Democrats as being primarily city-bred and educated, and that makes them "other", from another group and not to be trusted. They would rather vote for someone who seems to be more like them, even if it's just by saying the things they think.
That's just one example, but the principle holds in general. If you assume that what people vote for really is what they actually want (more even than what they say they want), you're going to be much closer to the mark than if you decide what you think they should want, and assume the reason they don't vote that way is because they are stupid and/or tricked.
So, no offense to Jack Ma, but what exactly does he think will happen in the next 30 years that will break the trend of excess productivity and profits going to the upper classes, rather than being distributed more evenly and allowing less worktime?
It seems likely that we'll see the same pattern that we've seen before, in the agricultural and (especially) the industrial revolution. In the short term, technology-driven economic restructuring concentrates wealth because the already wealthy are best-positioned to exploit the increase in productivity. In the longer term, though, as the change settles in, competition arises and starts forcing prices down (so the people on the bottom can afford more) and wages up. Also, all of the people whose jobs were eliminated by the new technology adapt (or, perhaps more accurately, the next generation adapts) and find/create new jobs, including many entirely new categories of jobs, doing things that were either too frivolous to be jobs (e.g. hairdresser) or never even though of.
I think there is a difference that we need to address this time, though. The rate of change. While the extent of previous technology-driven economic restructurings has been just as large as the coming one promises to be (promises, because we've only barely begun), what took multiple generations in the 19th century seems likely to be accomplished in a single generation now. Or less. This will mean that the set of displaced workers whose skills have no place in the new economy is going to be enormous. I'm fairly confident that new jobs will be invented -- probably mostly in the service sector, and many will exist only because people like being served by people -- I'm even more confident that relatively few of the displaced workers will be able to retrain into new jobs. And basically none of them will without some assistance to get the retraining.
As an aside, if we believe that the rate of change is going to be the biggest problem, we should be careful not to make policy changes that increase the pace. One such policy change that would dramatically accelerate the spread of automation is the adoption of a significantly-increased minimum wage. OTOH, adoption of a UBI, concurrent with elimination of other welfare programs, the minimum wage and perhaps some other labor regulations, would serve to slow the rate of change. If the cost of funding the UBI were shifted in large part to the owners of capital, this would make capital investment (e.g. robots) more expensive and labor (people) cheaper. That situation wouldn't last, because automation is just too compelling in the long run, but it would slow things down, and also address the possible scenario in which there aren't new jobs (though I don't think that's likely).
Slashdot Mirror
One thing is for certain: Don't touch the brakes
Don't touch the tow vehicle brakes. Braking (gently) from the trailer is ideal, assuming you have that option. Braking both with the brake controller adjusted to provide slightly more braking from the rear (as it should be configured) is also good, but the ideal is to ease off on the throttle and gently activate the trailer brakes.
if at speed, don't countersteer!
Oh, hell no. I suppose that it's possible to counter the motion with vehicle steering, but you'd have to get the timing and amount so precisely correct that I'm not sure a human driver could do it.
You are correct that hitting the brakes is the absolute worst thing that the driver can do.
Assuming you have them, the best thing to do is to hit the trailer's brakes. If you're towing a largish trailer you should have electrically-controlled brakes and a brake controller where the driver can easily reach it. Just brake gently from the trailer and it will straighten out immediately.
People who tow trailers have known about this for decades.
As demonstrated in that video, trailer sway isn't caused by rocking back and forth between the wheels causing swerving but by weight distribution away from the axle creating large yaw inertia. With suitcases, while packing the weight far from the wheels does make the rocking worse, it will still happen even with the weight packed close to them (low yaw inertia). So, we're mostly talking about different effects. As evidenced by the fact that if your trailer starts rocking you should ease off the throttle, not go faster.[1]
Even if this were the same effect, there's a huge difference between merely knowing about a phenomenon and having some rules of thumb about how to handle it, derived from experience, and having a mathematical model and a computer simulation of the phenomenon. Having those opens up many more options for finding solutions.
[1] In my experience, the very best thing to do is to use the brake controller to activate the trailer brakes and slow that way, assuming a trailer that has electric brakes. I've only experienced sway on one trailer that doesn't have brakes; my flatbed (no brakes) when I have the tractor loaded too far back and not enough weight on the tongue. Easing off the throttle calms it down. None of the other trailers I've had (boat, utility, ATV) have ever swayed.
Or just get one that has 4 wheels and don't look like a dork
Most of the four-wheeled ones are designed also to be tipped forward and roll on two wheels. But, actually, I think they solve this problem even when on two wheels.
To work in four-wheel mode, the wheels have to be on swiveling casters. When you tip them into two wheeled mode, the casters go into a restricted movement position, but they can still move a little. When you hit a bump, then, and one side bounces up, the caster on the other side can turn, allowing it to maintain a straight line rather than tipping to the side and causing a turn which flips the bag the other way on to the opposite side, etc.
It's definitely the case that none of the four-wheeled suitcases I've owned have had the rocking problem, while all of the two-wheeled ones have. I thought this was just a result of better design, since my four-wheeled suitcases happen to be much higher-end, more expensive brands. I have a $200 bag purchased when I got tired of various problems with cheap suitcases and decided to see if more expensive was actually better, and a $600 bag given to me by the airline when I hit a million miles.
BTW, the $200 bag really is much better than a $20-40 bag, in many ways, though probably not twice as good as a $100 bag, which I think is probably the sweet spot in rollerbag luggage today. The $600 bag is only marginally better than the $200 bag. It's lighter while still being quite sturdy, and looks classier. As is common, the best price/performance is midrange.
People who tow trailers have known about this for decades.
I wonder how much money was spent on this, rather than, say, cancer research. Sigh...
These are physicists. Whatever they might study, it won't be cancer.
We're supposed to tolerate sodomites, freaks of nature, satanists, transvestites, criminals, pedophiles, anyone who wants to see the human race burn and celebrate it like it's normal.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, and no, respectively.
But natural male masculinity?
Natural male masculinity is great, as long as it doesn't abuse or belittle anyone. But that's not a problem because abuse and belittlement is what weak assholes do, not strong, confident men. Or strong, confident women, for that matter.
You're welcome, glad I could clear that up for you.
The idea that this is some newly developed superpower by women is not just laughably historically ignorant, it is offensive.
Historically, do you think more women have harmed men with false allegations, or more men have harmed women with actual abuse?
How about today? Do you think it's more common that women allege abuse, or that abuse against women occurs?
Not excusing harassment, but going the HR route is the worst way to handle what should be an adult-adult situation.
You're assuming that the other person is an adult. It might surprise you that not everyone who grows up is an adult. I've met more than a few children in the workplace. HR can either send them away or babysit them. If HR decides to babysit them, it's time to find a new job elsewhere.
If the CEO is one of them, run screaming.
I thought it was normal for a 2x4 to actually measure 1.5x3.5 because of the planing that happens or somesuch.
Yes. Rough-cut 2x4s are 2 inches by 4 inches. When they are planed to smooth them and round the corners, they lose about a quarter inch in each side, resulting in the final 1.5x3.5-inch size.
Oh, hey, it's the ole Kafka trap! "They don't have a 'code of conduct' they're toxic bro culture" ok, we'll adopt a code of conduct... "obviously you had to adopt this because you had so much toxic bro culture"
No. Most companies never bother to send out a memo like this, because they don't need to. They may or may not have something in the employee handbook about relationships between superiors and subordinates, but none of them ever feel the need to put in writing that you should get permission before having sex with someone.
This memo is compelling evidence that either (a) they had some serious problems or (b) the CEO was ridiculously over-cautious, warning his employees not to do something that no one was doing anyway. Is there anything about Kalanick that makes you think "there's a dude who's always worried about things that aren't problems yet."?
And something Really Bad will happen. Whether it's a chain of supervolcano explosions, a mega meteor, a world war with planet-shattering doomsday weapons or out of control bioweapons, or gray goo, something will happen. Maybe we can figure out how to address each of the existential risks, eventually, but there's no way of knowing if we'll do it soon enough. To put it in a nutshell: We have no disaster recovery strategy. We need an offsite backup of our species.
And we have no disaster recovery strategy for the heat death of the universe, we should start looking for another one right now.
/me rolls eyes
There's been life on this planet for billions of years and despite our best ambitions humanity is not nearly capable of eradicating all life on this planet. Maybe ourselves, but not every plant and cockroach and fish in the sea.
Did you even read my post? What gave you the idea I'km worried about cockroaches and fish?
I don't think you really read my post.
You seem to be buying the vision of Democrats that some of those people have.
I don't buy the vision. I do know what it is. I think I have an understanding of how many city folks see Republicans as well. There's a lot of inaccuracy on both sides. Undoubtedly, there's a lot I get wrong as well, though I think I try quite a bit harder to understand all sides than the demagogues like rsilvergun do. The fact that I often get mistaken for a conservative Republican by liberal Democrats and a liberal Democrat by conservative Republicans is a good thing, I think.
Whoa there. You're glossing over a huuuuuge difference.
I'm not glossing over it. Clearly there are differences. The point is that those differences are a matter of degree, not of kind. You can't live anywhere without technology. Yes, you need a lot more of it to live on Mars, than you do to live in Antarctica, and more to live in Antarctica than to live in Alaska, and so on, but it's all a matter of degree.
Colonizing other planets is a pipe dream. The energy and technology requirements are mind-boggling.
Your great-great-great grandfather would have said the same of many of the great engineering projects which have been completed. Many people, just a few generations ago, said that the energy and technology requirements of producing food to support three billion people were unreachable. Just because we don't know how to do something now doesn't mean we can never do it.
On the contrary, the only rational position is that nothing that is not prohibited by the laws of physics is impossible.
They will never be more than a curiosity, dependent on Earth for their survival.
That is clearly nonsense. Every element that exists on Earth exists on Mars. There is ample energy available on Mars. The only thing missing is putting the matter and energy into the correct configurations, which at core, is what technology is: techniques for arranging matter and energy in convenient configurations.
All human survival is also dependent on symbiotes.
At present, yes, but this dependency isn't inherent.
Big things like fellow animals
Those we can actually do without just fine.
and the bacteria in our gut. The mites in our eyelids.
Those matter, though they're not irreplaceable. Note that I'm not saying we know how to replace them. There are many, many things we need to learn to be able to thrive in space, or on Mars, etc. Perhaps we need to learn to replace some of our internal fauna. Or perhaps we just take them with us.
To travel to space we would need to transport big samples of the Earth's biomass with us.
Or develop alternatives.
And we don't even really know what part we have to take, really.
An essential element of figuring that out is to try.
You contradict yourself. First you say:
No, I didn't.
Then you almost immediately walk back your argument with:
There are some regions where the tools and knowledge required are fairly minimal
That's not a "walk back". What I said means that in all regions, at least some tools and technology are require for human survival.
Well, of course we can't support our current population without technology
I'm not talking about "current population", I'm talking about any humans at all
What you really mean is, "There isn't space on Earth where 7 billion people can live without advanced technology."
Nope. I mean that all human life is technology-dependent, in any numbers, and in any locations. Different locations require more or less, but the point is that it's only a matter of degree. Space is just another environment. One that requires a greater degree of technological knowledge, but it's still just a difference of degree, not of kind.
She read it through twice and then came back with, "Ok, so where's the sexism that people are complaining about?"
It's in the fact that memo contained new policy, put in place to address a history of problems caused by a company culture that didn't have those basic and obvious norms. Even the CEO apparently hadn't previously felt it important to avoid sleeping with his subordinates. The fact they felt it necessary to tell employees to get permission from someone before having sex with them is particularly chilling.
Within 500 years we may see the planet support over one trillion people, it seems likely to me at least.
I doubt it. Our global birth rate is already declining, both in relative and absolute terms. This isn't because of insufficient resources. Indeed birth rate is strongly negatively correlated with wealth. Even if the birth rate were to suddenly freeze at its current level (stop the decline), we'll still peak at just over 10B people, barring significant life extension.
I think the only way we'll ever see even double our current population is if we eventually conquer death, and I'm not sure even that would do it. I think most people with unlimited years ahead of them would defer children indefinitely.
If we would spend less time focused on killing one over trivial shit such as oil and religion and more on putting our petty differences aside we sure as hell could easily support 30+ billion on this planet.
We'll never need to do that. The global birth rate (babies per year) has already peaked and has been declining steadily for a while; it looks like global population will peak at 10B and then start falling. But in any case overpopulation isn't the only issue (and space travel wouldn't be a solution for it if it were the problem). The motivation for getting off of Earth is that having the entire species on one planet means that if something Really Bad happens to this planet, we're gone.
And something Really Bad will happen. Whether it's a chain of supervolcano explosions, a mega meteor, a world war with planet-shattering doomsday weapons or out of control bioweapons, or gray goo, something will happen. Maybe we can figure out how to address each of the existential risks, eventually, but there's no way of knowing if we'll do it soon enough.
To put it in a nutshell: We have no disaster recovery strategy. We need an offsite backup of our species.
Plus, we'll learn one hell of a lot in the process of trying to colonize another planet. It's worth doing just for that reason.
OR you could work to improve things here on Earth, rather than dreaming about leaving it.
Or we could do both.
You can't live anywhere else but Earth anyway.
This is both illogical and demonstrably false, since people have been living off of this planet for most of the last half century. All human life is technology-dependent. Many of the places lots of people live are unsurvivable without fairly extensive technology. Living on other planets, or in space, will require more and different technology, but there's nothing inherently impossible about it.
Yeah, but we're in the only livable part of space that we know of.
You are under the mistaken impression that unaided humans can live on Earth. This is not true. There is nowhere on this planet that I could drop you, sans technology (remember; clothing is technology) or any knowledge of the local environment, and reasonably expect you to still be alive in a few months. The only way humans can survive anywhere on Earth is through the application of specialized knowledge and tools.
There are some regions where the tools and knowledge required are fairly minimal, where temperature swings are mild, food is easy to identify and obtain, and there aren't too many dangerous plants or animals. But much of the human population today lives in regions where the required tooling and knowledge for survival is quite extensive. For example where, I live no human could survive the winter without knowing how to obtain or make heavy protective clothing, a good insulated shelter, some method for generating external heat (e.g. fire), and extensive knowledge on the collection and preservation of food. Other places have steeper survival requirements yet.
I'll readily grant that Mars, for example, requires more technology that any place on Earth where significant populations of people are found. It requires less, though, than is required to live in orbit, and we've had people doing that almost continuously for the last half century or so.
The key thing to note is that all human survival, everywhere, including on Earth, is technology-dependent. Our evolution has lost us the physical characteristics and instinctual knowledge that our distant ancestor species had. We survive by the use of our big brains, but even with them we generally aren't capable of figuring out enough stuff, fast enough, to stay alive. Culturally-received knowledge is indispensable to us. That is true whether the knowledge in question is how to make crude fire-hardened spears or build space ships. It's just a matter of degree.
Given that it's a matter of degree, there is no reason why we cannot survive and thrive just as well on other planets as we do here. Doing so will require creating lots of new knowledge and technology, certainly. That's a good thing. We should do it just for the opportunity to learn. Moving some of our eggs to another basket is another good reason to do it.
The shooter was a big fan of Oliver
Cite?
people who would consistently vote against their own best interests
If you think people vote against their best interests, odds are very strong that you don't understand those people. They may be voting against changes that would benefit them in a way you think is important, but they're doing it because they're voting for something that is more important to them.
Take the case of poor rural whites. In their case I think it's mostly about identity. Poor white people vote for Republicans because they're voting to bring back the day when they had more respect. Democrats offer to help their economic problems by make them dependent on the state... and in the eyes of many, though they may not admit it, reducing them to the level of black people. Further, those poor white people know that the Democrats' plans will be funded with taxpayer money, and although they actually aren't among the group that really provide the funding, they see themselves as that group. Then there's also the urban/rural divide. Rural whites see Democrats as being primarily city-bred and educated, and that makes them "other", from another group and not to be trusted. They would rather vote for someone who seems to be more like them, even if it's just by saying the things they think.
That's just one example, but the principle holds in general. If you assume that what people vote for really is what they actually want (more even than what they say they want), you're going to be much closer to the mark than if you decide what you think they should want, and assume the reason they don't vote that way is because they are stupid and/or tricked.
So, no offense to Jack Ma, but what exactly does he think will happen in the next 30 years that will break the trend of excess productivity and profits going to the upper classes, rather than being distributed more evenly and allowing less worktime?
It seems likely that we'll see the same pattern that we've seen before, in the agricultural and (especially) the industrial revolution. In the short term, technology-driven economic restructuring concentrates wealth because the already wealthy are best-positioned to exploit the increase in productivity. In the longer term, though, as the change settles in, competition arises and starts forcing prices down (so the people on the bottom can afford more) and wages up. Also, all of the people whose jobs were eliminated by the new technology adapt (or, perhaps more accurately, the next generation adapts) and find/create new jobs, including many entirely new categories of jobs, doing things that were either too frivolous to be jobs (e.g. hairdresser) or never even though of.
I think there is a difference that we need to address this time, though. The rate of change. While the extent of previous technology-driven economic restructurings has been just as large as the coming one promises to be (promises, because we've only barely begun), what took multiple generations in the 19th century seems likely to be accomplished in a single generation now. Or less. This will mean that the set of displaced workers whose skills have no place in the new economy is going to be enormous. I'm fairly confident that new jobs will be invented -- probably mostly in the service sector, and many will exist only because people like being served by people -- I'm even more confident that relatively few of the displaced workers will be able to retrain into new jobs. And basically none of them will without some assistance to get the retraining.
As an aside, if we believe that the rate of change is going to be the biggest problem, we should be careful not to make policy changes that increase the pace. One such policy change that would dramatically accelerate the spread of automation is the adoption of a significantly-increased minimum wage. OTOH, adoption of a UBI, concurrent with elimination of other welfare programs, the minimum wage and perhaps some other labor regulations, would serve to slow the rate of change. If the cost of funding the UBI were shifted in large part to the owners of capital, this would make capital investment (e.g. robots) more expensive and labor (people) cheaper. That situation wouldn't last, because automation is just too compelling in the long run, but it would slow things down, and also address the possible scenario in which there aren't new jobs (though I don't think that's likely).
Come back in a few years and find out just how wrong you and the author are.
Come back in a few years and find out how right we are.