Random Thoughts XIII - Radioenergopithecocracy

[EgonSpengler]

I read it is the anniversary of the soviet victory at Stalingrad. I wonder if any fanfare is to be organized, @red_elk

A new bust of Stalin was unveiled in Volgograd and the government took a poll to see whether people wanted to rename the city 'Stalingrad' (they didn't; 2-to-1 against). I think someone may have taken the wrong lesson from that whole affair. [EDIT: ...but I suppose we knew that already.]

 

[Kyriakos]

A new bust of Stalin was unveiled in Volgograd and the government took a poll to see whether people wanted to rename the city 'Stalingrad' (they didn't; 2-to-1 against). I think someone may have taken the wrong lesson from that whole affair. [EDIT: ...but I suppose we knew that already.]

Glorious Putingrad will be glorious.

 

[warpus]

Metamucil isn't very meta

 

[Birdjaguar]

Dear Diary:
I was making my regular morning commute from my home in Park Slope to my office in Midtown Manhattan.
While I was waiting for the F train at the Seventh Avenue stop, I saw my friend Ronit, a talented musician, on her way to her day job.
When the train arrived, we found two seats together. The train continued to fill up as it headed into Manhattan, but it was much less crowded by the time we got to 23rd Street.

At that point, a seat opened up next to us, and an older woman began to make her way toward it. The train began moving and jolted her right into our laps. She gathered herself, apologized and took the empty seat.
Ronit and I got off at Rockefeller Center. As we began to go our separate ways, she turned to me.
“At least I can tell my boss that I’m late because Patti Smith fell on my lap,” she said.
— Doug Schneider

 

[warpus]

You had me at "the F train"

 

[Farm Boy]

After years of being annoyed by him, I gotta give Mr. Beast the youtuber full credit for his cataracts video. There is so much preventable blindness in the world, every little bit of light helps in ways we can scarcely predict.

 

[Birdjaguar]

You had me at "the F train"

That very short story is from the NYT "Metropolitan Diary" which they publish on Sundays. Each week they have 4-6 iconic NY moments experienced by those who live there.

 

[Kyriakos]

Going from horses to spaceships in less than a century, is dramatic, but I wonder if having a species which almost entirely consists of consumers (juxtaposed to creators of tech etc) is viable.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Going from horses to spaceships in less than a century, is dramatic, but I wonder if having a species which almost entirely consists of consumers (juxtaposed to creators of tech etc) is viable.

Humans have always had a culture dominated by consumers. Creators have always been limited to the few. The leisure time and resources to create life changing stuff has not been available to the masses. The transformative inventions of the past 200 years have been created and built upon by a very few people. Once a new idea gets made to work, the rest is copy/paste.

 

[Kyriakos]

Starting from the last thing, it's not copy/paste if you don't know much about it. Eg one could name 100 math theorems that are known and this in no way means the average person could prove them. Creating a computer is also known tech, doesn't mean you could do it.
Secondly, it's one thing to have a minority create tech/science when the total number of people is x, and another to maintain that if it is 10x. In the last 100 years, the global population has quadrupled, but that in no way means you have four times as many significant scientists - because to increase what exists, better is needed.
So no, in my view it is not sustainable to have this massive gap between a few and the rest, when the total number expands while the critical number does not; for it to be sustainable (without doing anything) there'd have to be no limit to the population increase (let's assume the ideal condition where the latter wouldn't cause collapse for other reasons; still it would not be possible).

 

[Gori the Grey]

it's not copy/paste if you don't know much about it

Ackchually, it is. The very nature of technology is you only need one person to invent a thing and then billions can use it without knowing the first damn thing about it.

that in no way means you have four times as many significant scientists

I suspect we in fact do, and in fact more than four times as many, though I'll have to scratch my head about how one would establish it either way.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ackchually, it is. The very nature of technology is you only need one person to invent a thing and then billions can use it without knowing the first damn thing about it.

Monkey can press the start button of the computer, but not fix the computer ^^
That anyone can use stuff is true, but not the issue (the issue being very few can rebuild/improve on stuff)

 

[Gori the Grey]

Nobody fixes a computer, Kyr. Not even (perhaps especially) scientists. They go buy a new one.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not in the metaphor, they don't!
Anyway, you get the point, having the vast majority of the population be unaware of how what they consume works, is not a good state. It's also imo not sustainable.

 

[Farm Boy]

Anyway, looking forward to more visual images of the smells around you.

Dad found a 1903 catalog that an ancestor had turned into a scrapbook filled with pasted articles and pictures from shortly thereafter. It's been fun to leaf and read through.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[Birdjaguar]

Not in the metaphor, they don't!
Anyway, you get the point, having the vast majority of the population be unaware of how what they consume works, is not a good state. It's also imo not sustainable.

As soon as labor began to be specialized, the majority of people no longer knew how to make/do many of the things they used or depended on. That has been even more true in the last 500 years than ever before. Of course it is sustainable.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, I guess I didn't think of branching of jobs. Or somehow it is not on the level of what I posted about. One of the two.
Regardless, the point is in post #230.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Anyway, you get the point,

No, I don't get the point. I am arguing against your thesis, Kyr. For every technological advance, there has been a smart person who invented it, and then it could be used by the whole population, without their having to understand how it works. And not only has the species proved sustainable under such circumstances; we've multiplied like cockroaches.

xpost with Bird (though I put the point even more emphatically).

Dad found a 1903 catalog that an ancestor had turned into a scrapbook filled with pasted articles and pictures from shortly thereafter. It's been fun to leaf and read through.

Interesting (and I'm trying to figure out what is being communicated by the political cartoon in the second one). But remember, part of your job is to tell us how these things smell.

 

[Kyriakos]

No, I don't get the point. I am arguing against your thesis, Kyr. For every technological advance, there has been a smart person who invented it, and then it could be used by the whole population, without their having to understand how it works. And not only has the species proved sustainable under such circumstances; we've multiplied like cockroaches.

I mean, my post specifically mentions that the global population cannot keep multiplying, and that this is why not changing anything is not sustainable. How you can mention increase of population, then not link it to there being an obvious higher end for that on Earth, is a question.

 

[Gori the Grey]

If global population increases are not sustainable, that won't be because I can use a microwave even though I couldn't build one. It will be because there's not enough food for everyone to put in their microwaves. Your two things have nothing to do with one another.