I disagree that life requires a narrow set of conditions to continue. What I believe is the case is that life requires specific conditions to begin, but once it exists, it is incredibly resilient. There are extremophiles which could reasonably survive in the vacuum of space, and from a more anthropocentric perspective, humans have proven ourselves to be remarkably resilient in the face of climatic tests. Sure, the most inhospitable of earth conditions is a paradise in comparison to something like Mars as it exists now, but we adapted to those when the height of technology was a flint knapped hand-axe. It’s safe to say that the technological aspect of humanity has come a long way, and our ability to survive in and adapt to the conditions of bodies other than earth improves steadily day by day as the wheel of technology turns ever-faster (to say nothing of outright space habitats, which we could absolutely reasonably build with our current understanding of physics). I don’t mean this as a glorification of human industry; rather, I mean to say that ingenuity, adaptability, and tenacity are fundamental characteristics of our species - it’s why we’re here today.

I will also note that there’s no guarantee that there aren’t habitable worlds in other solar systems, and no reason to assume that they couldn’t be found. Even within our solar system, there are planets which, with sufficient effort, could feasibly be colonized near to our current tech level (looking at you, Venus. I know Mars gets all the attention but you’re my one true love).

And, indeed, I wonder if you’ve proven the fundamental point yourself with your observation on organization and long term planning. After all, is it perhaps possible that the very reason we have never demonstrated that level of resource management in our modern, industrial world is itself capitalism? Such a duplicative, wasteful structure is fundamentally inefficient, and more to the point, is fundamentally at odds with the communalist nature of humanity. We are a species which, historically, shares, and just the mere fact that we have convinced ourselves that selfishness is in our nature does not make it true. Additionally, centuries of planning becomes a lot more reasonable when humans reach the point of living for centuries, which is a prospect that I think a lot of people ignore the (relatively speaking) imminent nature of.

All that is to say: we are a species of firsts, and typically when we are met with a survival challenge on a physiological level, we conquer that with technology. Clothing, fire, tools, and planning allowed us to conquer the arctic despite a body plan which is adapted for equatorial living, why should we assume we won’t also eventually rise to this technical challenge in the long term? I have no idea what that intermediary period will look like (except that it will likely be, at minimum, equally unpleasant for us as it is at present), but if history shows us anything it’s that we eventually pull through. Humanity tried to migrate out of Africa several times before it stuck, populations died out, and we find fossil remains which have genomes entirely unrelated to anyone not from Africa, but the notable thing is that we kept on trying anyways.

We’re just stubborn like that.

Do we think that’s actually true, though? Life, all life, has a tendency to spread out when a niche is open in a new environment which it can fill, and there’s nothing shown there that isn’t technically within the bounds of humanity. Before capitalism, before humans were even Homo sapiens, we were already migrating out of Africa and into Eurasia. The drive to explore is, in my opinion, deeply human, and nothing says that the model of that exploration or expansion needs to be capitalistic. We wouldn’t have colonized the world in prehistory if it did.

SpaceX lifts more raw tonnage into orbit than all other agencies and private organizations combined iirc, and directly controls an ever-increasing proportion of US government space-based assets, to say nothing of Starlink. Tesla, while sales have dropped, has not really seen a corresponding sustained drop in stock price (where most of his corresponding net worth from Tesla is actually located) in the meantime, though we will see if that can be sustained long term (I, for one, hope it falls off a goddamn cliff). As for your other point, Twitter (now X) and Grok by extension are, frankly, not a major factor in his worth, when assessed next to those other factors.

Correct. When we hear concerns about a declining population, the concern (typically) isn’t that a population should always be rising, or even that it shouldn’t shrink, it’s more about the long-term economic stability of the age distribution of a population within the demographic pyramid. If your demography skews significantly older, you’re going to have fewer working age people supporting your economy and more post-retirement age people needing to be supported. This can do double damage to government revenue in particular, as they will see a simultaneous decrease in tax income and an increase in pension payouts, and this can lead to a sharp contraction in the available share of the budget for all of the other government priorities.

It’s a bit ironic in this case, as this is pretty common in developed economies, and typically the way you would offset this is via immigration, as that allows you to tailor your requirements to exactly what you need to balance your demography, and so anti-immigration sentiment is only likely to cause a more severe spiral.

Hey, don’t let me stop you. I only mean to say that you’re very likely wasting your breath, and I know that from my own experience losing the argument against the expanded definition of literally. Languages change, prescriptivism is a losing battle, and that’s just the nature of things. It’s why we aren’t having this exchange in Proto-Indo-European.

Just mentally insert “you are observing” after the “POV:” and move on with your day. This argument has been a lost battle for a long time now, in much the same was that “literally” was.

I will say, as someone who personally went through the American education system, that the genocide of Native Americans is actually something that is talked about in our schooling, though really only in broad terms, with basically only the trail of tears getting a specific mention. Consequently, the scale of the atrocity is not properly conveyed, but we’re pretty much all at least generally aware. In my opinion, though, that cognitive dissonance makes us worse, not better.

The larger problem, however, is in my opinion twofold. The first is that it is often framed as something which was regrettable but ultimately inevitable “they were just in the way”. This inevitability this is often presented as a component of manifest destiny, that the “American people” (who, curiously, do not include the people who were here first) were always going to end up controlling the lands that we did (see: from sea to shining sea) and so as a result we are somehow absolved by fate. The second issue is that the way that native Americans are talked about in our education system are as something that either is or soon will be a part of history, rather than as still living groups of people who we are actively continuing to oppress and marginalize in the present.

All that is to say, rather than ignorance, we’ve chosen to believe paper-thin lies to absolve ourselves instead; arguably even worse than not knowing at all.

Regrettably, Americans come factory new without the long term memory module installed. Typical cost cutting enshittification, you know how it is.

Christ, I thought we moved past random = funny a decade ago, but apparently it’s alive and well.

Interesting! That’s a very reasonable view, and I hadn’t considered that problem of hybridization, but put in those terms I definitely see your point of how these are somewhat mutually incompatible. I would think, however, that energy storage and grid upgrades would, if I’m understanding correctly, also assist in solving the hybridization problem, as it brings those unpredictable generation methods closer to a stable output value, allowing for it to be more easily accounted for alongside the stable output of fission, with bursts either being handled by storage or some other generation method like conventional generators (after all, we don’t actually have to take carbon emissions to zero, simply get them below the value at which more carbon is absorbed than released). Additionally, while solar is unpredictable as a result of weather, what we can say is that it only produces power during the day, and the daytime is generally when power consumption is at its highest (not universally true, particularly in that evening/early nighttime period, but the daytime is a significant spike), so I would think that helps to some degree with the variable power output problem.

Still, I can see your point, definitely. I don’t think this reduces fission’s viability for stable generation, in particular for countries which might not have the right kind of geography for those other power generation methods to be viable, but when you have the geography of a country like the US, I’ll concede that it’s definitely not your only option, and that there are others with lower upfront cost than fission. Even this isn’t necessarily true if countries were willing to link their grids to expand the available geography, but that is unlikely to become widespread practice anytime soon due to the geostrategic risk that energy dependence like that exposes you to.

And, to your point, if we’re looking from a raw economics perspective, building a fission plant which you plan to replace with fusion in 30-50 years is actually even more expensive, because a large portion of the reactor’s operational lifespan is not being utilized and so therefore isn’t offsetting that initial upfront cost.

True, but I would argue that this isn’t an issue with fission power so much as an argument that it should be handled, either in part or in whole, by the government rather than the market. All kinds of things exist which are necessary for a populace which are not economically viable for private operators (fire departments, postal services, public transit, etc.), and typically the role of government in that scenario would be to step in and either make it viable through subsidy or just pay the cost outright and personally operate it (indeed, this is part of a larger argument that public utilities like power probably shouldn’t be privately owned in the first place). Nonetheless, if we’re being realistic, that is unlikely to change anytime soon, particularly in the US, so I can see the value in assessing from a perspective of optimizing for raw economic pressure, as that is likely the only way we’ll be able to get the people and organizations with significant capital on hand to align with the goal of renewable energy.

Correct. This is another part of why fission can’t be our only solution, but that doesn’t mean that we should be betting on fusion in place of fission. Typical times to build and operationalize a fission reactor are in the 5-15 year range from what I understand, but that is significantly lower than the expected timelines for us cracking fusion power and getting the tech mature enough to be able to implement it at scale for power generation. Additionally, the most likely type of fusion that we would be using in this case would be Deuterium-Tritium fusion, which generates neutron radiation and nuclear waste as a result (though significantly less than fission), so you would be likely to see similar waste disposal requirements. Consequently, I would expect similar timelines as fission power operationalization for a fusion plant (though likely still lower than fission, of course, due to the lack of reactor meltdown risk needing to be accounted for).

Between the research component which we have no true ability know the timeline of, only make educated guesses, alongside the construction and operationalization timeline, you’re probably looking at twice the length of time as bringing a fission plant online as a hard minimum, and I’m of the opinion it will likely be even longer. As a result, I think there’s a compelling argument for fission in the interim, though I will admit you are correct in that fusion research investment may have the ability to significantly change this calculus, so I understand your perspective.

I agree we need to fund it more, absolutely, but I heavily disagree with your assessment. Our fossil fuel emissions are a problem we need to address now, and I think it would be incredibly unwise for us to gamble on the unknown timeline of fusion to mature enough to address the problem in time. In my view, we should be focusing on halting our emissions with current, proven tech first, and then once fusion power becomes viable and scalable, then we can start switching from fission to fusion.

For real. The only maybe compelling arguments are the risk of reactor meltdown and nuclear waste, but modern reactor design and safety practices make that essentially a non-issue (indeed, nuclear power is safer even than wind power, statistically), and people typically vastly overestimate the amount of waste that is produced (all of the nuclear waste from power generation that humanity has ever produced could fit on just six cargo ships with some room left over, and that ignores the fact that not all waste is equally dangerous) and it’s not like other power generation methods don’t generate pollutants and waste either, it typically just gets vented into the atmosphere. Personally, I’d rather the waste be in a form we can contain.

The only actual problem with nuclear is that there isn’t enough nuclear material in the world for it to provide for all of our power generation needs, but that’s not even really a problem so much as it just means it can’t be our only solution to the problem, and nuclear is incredible for generating a stable baseline, an advantage that something like wind and solar lack. Until we crack profitable fusion, it is far and away one of our best options.

Yeah, I’m realizing this is just a bias toward familiarity on my part. There’s several bad assumptions that I made in there which I hadn’t really given too much thought; bad practice on my part, I’ll admit.

Fair. I’ll acknowledge I’m biased here in retrospect. In particular, I’ve realized my argument for Fahrenheit (increased granularity) is directly contradictory to my argument against centimeters (too much granularity). Indeed, my view (however poorly conveyed) was that imperial units of length measurement, and the foot in particular, lend themselves to day to day estimation of size, as meters require estimation with fractions/decimals and centimeters require estimation in quantities too large to be reasonably accurate, so I was of the view that the lack of decimeters in common usage was a problem, but you make a good point that this is a fundamentally flawed assumption. After all, if you’re familiar with metric already, it’s not particularly difficult to just say ‘10cm’ and estimate in relation to tenths of a meter.

Well argued, and certainly more impassioned than my tepid defense of imperial. Consider me convinced; I’m switching teams lol.

If I might make an argument for the imperial system? I’ll acknowledge that it is bad, particularly from a scientific perspective, but one advantage that imperial has over metric is its use case for human related issues. Most of the stuff you interact with daily is much more easily measured in feet and inches vs meters and centimeters (this ignores decimeters, but I’ve literally never seen anyone use decimeters in my entire life). Another good example is temperature. Celsius is more objective, but when dealing with the standard sorts of temperatures humans are generally concerned with, Fahrenheit gives you more granularity within that range.

All that is to say: If I’m at work and someone uses imperial for an official measurement, I’m putting my fist through the drywall, but from a day to day perspective, I actually prefer imperial.

Also, the mile is fucking indefensible. I’ll happily leave all 5280 of its feet out to rot.

Here’s the thing: I’m with you. I agree as an American that the only thing that can stop this train is a wholehearted, full-throated rejection of everything this administration represents. That comes with a couple of issues, though, and the first is that the body politic here is intensely complacent; much too comfortable to be driven to action. The fact of the matter is that disapproval of Trump is the majority view, and even at the beginning of his second term that was still about a dead even split, but not even Trump’s atrocious performance in his first term was enough to galvanize a large portion of the US voter base in the 2024 election, despite it clearly being a critical inflection point. Unfortunately, if it doesn’t affect their life immediately and directly, a large portion of America simply doesn’t give a shit. Overcoming that apathy is likely going to require something large, noticeable, bombastic, demonstrably wrong, and personally painful, and by that point there’s a good chance it’ll be too late. Additionally, any revolution or unrest is likely to be heavily suppressed by the second issue: the US police state and its willingness to use deadly force, regardless of the severity of the situation. Between police forces, riot police, swat teams, the national guard, domestic surveillance, and now the might of the US military turned on its own populace, the Trump administration has all the tools to make any true resistance deeply costly and incredibly painful. Talk of resistance, of revolution, of taking up arms against this fascist takeover is easy, but the feasibility of a clean revolution in the face of the US police, military, and intelligence apparatus is doubtful. More likely we would end up with either civil war or insurgency, fighting an asymmetric campaign against an overwhelming force. We know that the US is vulnerable to such tactics (see: US expeditionary wars in Vietnam and the Middle East), but we also know that those tactics are incredibly costly, and require a populace that is highly motivated by what they perceive to be an existential threat.

The key here, in my opinion, is the military. Historically, he who controls the military, controls the state. The victors of coups and revolutions practically always have the military on their side, and for good reason; very few things are as persuasive as the threat of a bullet. Morale in the US military right now seems to be low, and if we can manage to break the trained obedience to hierarchy, we might just have a chance, but without them, I don’t see a way forward. Even every citizen striking and causing a complete shutdown of the US economy would just be likely to lead to threats being made to and examples being made of them, and getting people onboard for that is unlikely to be feasible from a fundamental level, given that the majority of America lives paycheck to paycheck.

I don’t want to be fatalistic or claim that this can’t be done or that we shouldn’t be doing anything about it; we should, and have a moral obligation to act, but the reality of the situation is that the time to act while avoiding discomfort was last November, and the viable options available to us now are going to hurt, and will likely only get more painful as time goes on. That makes people hesitant to act, and until such a time as they have more to lose from inaction than they do from action, I don’t expect that to change.

God, do I hope I’m wrong, though.

Is that more or less powerful than god and anime?

Good. We saw what happens when you give those fuckers an inch in 2014; they take a mile in 2022. Especially because Crimea is a bit more than an inch, and the claimed/annexed/occupied regions are a hell of a lot more than a mile.

Anyone who thinks that Ukraine ceding any of their sovereign territory is a strategy to buy long-term peace is either a Russian asset or fucking stupid. Full stop.