i_haz_rabies

Good take. Vegans are so silly. So hilarious and worthy of criticism when people take the time to consider the ethical ramifications of their actions and move their moral bar without descending into absurd reductionism. /s

It's so weird how uptight some people get at the concept of... not eating meat.

The problem is that if we introduce it, it might take a while for those evolutionary pressures to show up. Uncontrolled growth isn't an immediate pressure, it kicks in after the damage has already been done.

Why the downvotes? This is a really important question given just how easy it already is to design a virus.

I think the problem is that collapse _is actually inevitable_ if we don't solve climate change, and if you don't think humanity is capable of the coordination and sacrifice necessary to solve it, you are left with one conclusion.

It's crazy to me how discussions, especially on HN, about some place being less livable always produce comments to the effect of "why wouldn't they just move." Family, friends and history are a tight tie. Probably the tightest and most human tie. Extremely understandable.

I find myself thinking about this novel more and more.

yeah, the great lakes have enough problems.

"put it all on black!"

I wonder if there isn't already a team at SpaceX or something working on a few moonshot solutions.

I think trying to fit the populations of North America, Europe, Russia, China, Japan, Korea, the Stans, Mongolia, the Baltics, New Zealand, Chile, and Argentina, not to mention alpine countries like Nepal, into the ideal human habitability zone would go poorly.

Heat is necessary, AC is not necessary (I realize this is not entirely true, but I think it's fair to say a lot more people would die without heat than without AC).

I fear the "for now" is shorter than we think.

Programmers have the worst intelligence to gullibility ratios of any profession.

* I should elaborate. We tend to easily accept the "this work is meaningful" line, we volunteer our time because "programming is a craft," and we will hop on tooling bandwagons like this because it's shiny and new without considering the ramifications.

I think the most objective criteria to evaluate this is how many people would want to immigrate to the US and how many would want to immigrate to China.

Can you provide some reading for me that argues that the United States has jailed or killed political dissidents on anything approaching the same scale as the Chinese Communist "Tiananmen" Party?

That isn't even remotely similar to what China has done to Hong Kong.

Many Americans are furious and frustrated with their country's actions in that region, and can say so without fear of reprisals.

The difference is that most Americans are ashamed of those parts of their history.

I saved my beech tree by wrapping the trunk in burlap starting mid-may, and then burning it/squishing all the (thousands of) caterpillars under it on a weekly basis. It has been traumatizing, but my tree is fine. I also sprayed BTK on my small fruit trees and they have been unaffected. So it can be done... but it is time consuming and disgusting.

Maybe I can one day achieve my dream of home grown olive oil... living in zone 6b.

Also, what is up with all the perfectly relevant comments getting downvoted here?

The gypsy moth problem where I'm from seems like it could become genuinely catastrophic in a few years. That or we figure out how to seed clouds with BTK /s

It feels like even if we were to invent scalable and affordable fusion, EVs and carbon capture tomorrow, we would still be in serious trouble.

You're going to have to boycott a whole hell of a lot of businesses if that's the standard. Not saying you'd be wrong to do it, just... godspeed.

Caitlin Flanagan is one of the most entertaining writers around.

I dunno about that, although it's certainly a selfish first world life goal that the planet cannot support (if you fly).

There are amino acids you can't get from plant protein.

I did my masters in journalism in 2015... you have no idea how right you are. It was more or less a masters in blogging about your feelings on a topic you just heard about.

This is a really great way of summarizing it.

Even Taiwan would be an unacceptable Pyrrhic victory at best.

I keep having to downgrade my baseline for "the good in human nature."