Fricken

The article links to a report from the library of congress, from which it gets it's numbers. The congressional report is quite informative, and and non-partisan.

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R49057

2-3°C of warming by 2050, 4-5°C by 2100. There's no rule saying it will stop there.

https://www.dpg-physik.de/veroeffentlichungen/publikationen/...

From the perspective of our evolutionary fitness function the most critical thing is to eliminate existential risk, and from the dawn of the industrial revolution to now all we've done is create them. Fossil Fuels allow us to keep 8 billion people alive at the same time temporarily, which is a reckless and irresponsible thing to do. If it isn't sustainable it's a joke.

Everybody alive today will die. We're mortal, that's just how it goes. So with or without fossil fuels, billions of people will die regardless, that much is baked in. It's a moot point.

As a species, however, we can persist indefinitely so long as our lifestyles are sustainable. If it's not sustainable it's a joke.

Go free solo El Cap or something before telling me you're cool taking those kinds of risks on behalf of all humanity.

Yes, he wrote the original short story and also the screenplay for the film.

Johnny Mneumonic (1995), set in the mid 2020s, depicts Beijing as the global epicentre of power and wealth. Much of the action is set in Newark New Jersey, a dystopian hellscape where civil order has broken down.

I could show up at your doorstep, declare myself at your service, and then spend the rest of my days catering to your every beck and whim. There's no law against that. Can it even be slavery if it's voluntary?

Facebook is legal, like alcohol. People drive drunk and kill people. People drive while using facebook and kill people as well.

Elite cyclists are all about maximizing their sugar intake. The more sugar their bodies absorb the better they perform. They chug liquid sugar until they puke, and then drink some more. It trains their guts to absorb more sugar.

That's what's happening whether anybody wants it to or not.

The IPCC consensus is limited to what politicians can agree on.

Scientists all over have been observing the acceleration of climate change for some time, but it has until now been difficult to tease real change out of conventional temperature variabilities.

The newsworthy part is that statisticians now have enough data to claim with strong certainty that warming has significantly accelerated.

Huh? Oh, I thought you were talking about the climate change part of my comment.

Everything about the data centre buildout is a bet on the singularity, that's the whole operating premise behind what all AI researchers are doing. The most grandiose charlatans of silicon valley talk about that stuff and everyone else has got in line whether or not they believe it. Trillions of dollars have spent on bringing about AGI. If it doesn't usher in AGI (and it won't) then it's all a catastrophically stupid thing to do.

Does our evolutionary fitness function count as self-interest? Climate change is on a runaway trajectory. We're in line for Darwin's top honour, but no one will be around to receive the award.

The most reasonable and sober-minded people are counting on that:

https://www.dpg-physik.de/veroeffentlichungen/publikationen/...

Climate Change has accelerated rapidly. We're expecting 3 degrees of warming by 2050 now, 5 degrees by 2100. Betting on the singularity to save us is culty wankery.

German Climate scientists are claiming with 98% statistical certainty that warming has accelerated significantly since 2015, and believe we are looking at 3°C of warming by 2050, 5°C by the end of the century. That does not bode well for the future of anything.

https://www.dpg-physik.de/veroeffentlichungen/publikationen/...

My latest box of Trix cereal lacks the bright reds and blues of artificial dyes, the first of its kind at my local grocer. It turns out General Mills announcement to shift to away from artificial colours in Trix came over a decade ago:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/general-mills-to-end-use-of...

The rate of climate change also accelerates. The scientists are projecting 3°C by 2050 with 98% statistical certainty. Other scientists estimate 3°C of warming will kill off about 4 billion people. So yeah the old world is dying. The new one too.

Builder Andrew Eylar built the Red Room of the IBM building on king street in Lego, which I thought was cool:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hoyvinmayvin/40487057474/

The important part is that it's sustainable.

Before 200 years ago we lived as hunter gatherers, and we did it sustainably for millions of years, longer than we've been human.

200 years is nothing. It's nothing, unless that is, we try to think about what the mess we're currently making will look like 200 years from now. Then 200 years from now is a terrifying prospect. It has to be sustainable. If it isn't sustainable it's a joke.

Labour conditions in the capitalist west 200 years ago were some of the worst in history, so it's easy to make yourself look good in comparison.

It was signed into law with the fair labour standards act of 1938, as part of the New Deal under FDR.

Most people landscape their own yards recreationally. They do it for fun, in their free time, at their own expense.

Labour saving devices do not save any labour for the employees, their workday is just as long.

Engaging with the ecological concerns requires real intelligence. The intelligence in Silicon valley is not real. It is artificial, as in fake. They're just doing make believe, and ruining it for everyone in the process.

One characteristic of a nerd was that they spent the dominant share of their time immersed in media, detached from the world of their immediate surroundings.

There's nothing novel about that in the age of smartphones. The afflictions of the socially isolated, overstimulated, detached and anxious nerd have gone mainstream.

Not being able to see the forest for the trees I suppose is a prerequisite for success in Silicon Valley, because it one had even a fraction of Stross's perspective on the matter they'd be in a different line of work.

I love her writing. Her early work is strikingly depraved, as if Bukowski were a woman.

Her novel "Eileen" was adapted for the screen in a film of the same name starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway. The Cinematography is reminiscent of Edward Hopper. I think the film would have been better regarded critically if more reviewers understood where Moshfegh is coming from as a writer.