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RoboRodent posted:Caves of Steel, and the other Robot novels, are great, I love them. The best thing about caves of steel was how in this far-flung future year, men were silent in the communal bathrooms and women were all chatty and gossipy. Oh, Asimov. 
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Nov 16, 2021 00:59
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Extremely unrealisitc because we all know what men do in a communal bathroom
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Nov 16, 2021 01:14
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Sighence posted:Park life? Park death, surely
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Nov 16, 2021 02:27
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Brawnfire posted:The best thing about caves of steel was how in this far-flung future year, men were silent in the communal bathrooms and women were all chatty and gossipy. Oh, Asimov. Asimov is one of my personal heroes but he had a problem keeping his hands to himself as well. :/ i don't remember the timeline exactly, but he did eventually marry a feminist, and i think (hope) that helped him improve how he thought about women.
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Nov 16, 2021 04:45
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Carbon dioxide posted:At the very least post a graph. This is the graph thread you know. plus or minus half a child
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Nov 16, 2021 07:02
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For the price of one coffee a day, you can save a child (plus or minus half a child).
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Nov 16, 2021 14:34
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https://twitter.com/_kueller/status/1460359163838664707
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Nov 16, 2021 15:09
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Where's the ring
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Nov 16, 2021 19:00
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Brawnfire posted:The best thing about caves of steel was how in this far-flung future year, men were silent in the communal bathrooms and women were all chatty and gossipy. Oh, Asimov. Complete digression: A little while ago I read this one short story, "The Star-Stealers" by Edmond Hamilton, from 19 goddamn 29. Like, before anyone had even figured out that stars are powered by nuclear fusion. Considered foundational to the space opera genre, it's set like a hundred thousand years in the future and follows a human-crewed starship that encounters an alien menace from outside our galaxy. Impressively, one of the named characters is a young female officer, and she's exactly as competent and brave as the men, equally effective at fighting extragalactic tentacle monsters. The author doesn't even waste any space on describing her appearance as far as I remember. (Characterization is typically paper-thin anyway, nobody is developed beyond "young officer" or "distinguished academic" etc.) But then. At the end. Once the menace is defeated and the surviving heroes get to go home for some shore leave. The author remarks that her first plan is to head straight for a beauty parlor, as is ever the unchanging way of the female sex. I died laughing and am posting from the afterlife.
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Nov 19, 2021 11:11
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From history of French acronyms, should this be TRAB?
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Nov 19, 2021 13:16
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 It’s that time again.
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Nov 19, 2021 18:57
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I'd like to see stats for 2015-2020.
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Nov 19, 2021 20:54
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Paladinus posted:I'd like to see stats for 2015-2020.  
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Nov 19, 2021 21:36
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So in its July 1997 issue, WIRED's centrepiece article was about the possibility of a "long boom" and how it was in fact quite likely that the world would experience unseen levels of prosperity and peace in the years to come. You can read the whole thing here but be warned, it's just page after page of weapons-grade 1990s neoliberal wankery about how globalisation, market privatisation and big tech would bring about a new US-led utopia in no time. You still should read it though because it is ridiculously, utterly wrong in just about everything it predicts, it's hilarious. The article was accompanied by a timeline of the possible future they were talking about (which isn't part of the online version) which I want to show you:  Tag yourselves, I'm "American deep into making the multicultural society work" exactly during the Trump years. I also "like" that even in their perfect utopia five million black Africans need to die for no reason at all. The article also had a side bar with ten possible "scenario spoilers" that might throw a wrench into this nice future of theirs. Check it out, it's a doozy: 
System Metternich has a new favorite as of 22:43 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 22:30
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loving nostradamus writing the sidebar lmao.
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Nov 19, 2021 22:40
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I wonder if someone who actually was paying attention to politics and the world wrote the sidebar first, and their editor came back "no this is the end of history, you have to be more positive" so they had to write the whole BS chart and sneak in their actual predictions as a "well this is something that also could happen"
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Nov 19, 2021 22:45
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System Metternich posted:The article also had a side bar with ten possible "scenario spoilers" that might throw a wrench into this nice future of theirs. Check it out, it's a doozy: Oof.  Imagine going back in time and telling this author that nine out of ten of his worst case scenarios either came completely true or came partway true.
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Nov 19, 2021 22:57
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Yeah, we were talking about it in yospos and the only one that we can unequivocally say did not happen is the toxic waste super cancer scenario. Everything else, especially 2, 5, 6 and 10, is completely spot on. (For 2 we're going with the interpretation that the productivity boost and economic gains did happen, but they didn't lead to any improvement in society because 10 billionaires stole everything)
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Nov 19, 2021 23:04
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System Metternich posted:So in its July 1997 issue, WIRED's centrepiece article was about the possibility of a "long boom" and how it was in fact quite likely that the world would experience unseen levels of prosperity and peace in the years to come. You can read the whole thing here but be warned, it's just page after page of weapons-grade 1990s neoliberal wankery about how globalisation, market privatisation and big tech would bring about a new US-led utopia in no time. I'm "Immigrants drive revival of the family." Except my rear end which is "Italian nation state becomes first in Europe to dissolve." By dissolve does it mean subsuming into EU-as-nation-state?? How can that happen with just one nation? Blue Footed Booby has a new favorite as of 23:13 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Nov 19, 2021 23:10
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8 was pretty spot on as well, oil was around $20 a barrel when that was written and has since been up to $170 a barrel. Nuclear fusion is exactly as far away as it was then, and government and corporate cartels have done their best to ensure that wind and solar don't get a look-in on any major scale. Texas is going to be paying for the "surge pricing" for the February snowstorms for the next 20 years, and it's probably going to happen again and again.
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Nov 19, 2021 23:11
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Sagebrush posted:Yeah, we were talking about it in yospos and the only one that we can unequivocally say did not happen is the toxic waste super cancer scenario. Everything else, especially 2, 5, 6 and 10, is completely spot on. They're calling out 200 million deaths for their super plague. Officially we're at about 5.5 million, and while that's an undercount, it's not off by a factor of 40.
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Nov 19, 2021 23:14
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So I guess be on the lookout for that toxic waste supercancer, huh.
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Nov 19, 2021 23:39
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Memento posted:Nuclear fusion is exactly as far away as it was then,
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Nov 20, 2021 00:01
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System Metternich posted:The article also had a side bar with ten possible "scenario spoilers" that might throw a wrench into this nice future of theirs. Check it out, it's a doozy: hahaha Holy poo poo. 
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Nov 20, 2021 00:21
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Scarodactyl posted:We've actually made some pretty good advances on this front in the past few years and there are a lot more companies working on it now. There's some cause to be hopeful, though we'll see. Yeah, scientists have reached ignition (the phase where the rate of nuclear fusion greatly increases) and there's a lot of evidence that multiple avenues are gaining traction (and providing data to each other to make predictions). ITER, NIF, and a few other experiments are getting to 70% of the energy input for confinement (doesn't include auxiliary power requirements like cryocooling or facility operations) and getting closer to break even quite quickly.
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Nov 20, 2021 00:24
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"I hope I get to write an important, meaningful article someday" *finger curls on monkey's paw*
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Nov 20, 2021 00:26
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All hail sidebar, prophet of the future.
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Nov 20, 2021 01:12
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The nice thing about fusion is you know it has to be possible cos the sun is doing it.
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Nov 20, 2021 01:44
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OwlFancier posted:The nice thing about fusion is you know it has to be possible cos the sun is doing it. If only we could be so grossly incandescent...
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Nov 20, 2021 02:02
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Top 10 things The Simpsons predicted.
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Nov 20, 2021 02:22
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Phy posted:So I guess be on the lookout for that toxic waste supercancer, huh. It's lead poisoning and the cancer is an entire generation.
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Nov 20, 2021 02:28
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Outrail posted:It's lead poisoning and the cancer is an entire generation. microplastics
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Nov 20, 2021 03:11
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If my arm ain't splortching out into a hideous purulent mass as I watch like I'm fuckin Tetsuo from Akira I'm not gonna call it supercancer
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Nov 20, 2021 05:25
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redleader posted:microplastics It's the lead poisoning for the new generation.
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Nov 20, 2021 05:56
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OwlFancier posted:The nice thing about fusion is you know it has to be possible cos the sun is doing it. The Sun cheats though by compressing plasma via gravity, so fusion can happen at lower temperatures. Here on piddly little 1-G Earth we have to apply insane amounts of heat to get the atomic nuclei to whiz around fast enough to bang into each other. Plus we have to worry about containment if we want to do anything long-term useful with fusion, whereas "perpetual thermonuclear explosion" is basically what a star is when you get down to fundamentals.
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Nov 20, 2021 09:52
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This page is a bummer
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Nov 20, 2021 10:01
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OwlFancier posted:The nice thing about fusion is you know it has to be possible cos the sun is doing it. Let's move to the Sun. Elon Musk can lead the way.
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Nov 20, 2021 10:08
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Picnic Princess posted:This page is a bummer https://twitter.com/PossumEveryHour/status/1461982662353108995 look at this adorable possum 
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Nov 20, 2021 10:26
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OwlFancier posted:The nice thing about fusion is you know it has to be possible cos the sun is doing it. I mean, getting energy from fusion is a solved problem, it's called a hydrogen bomb. The hard part is getting it under control so I can mint NFTs from it or whatever. The sun don't care about control, it's literally a giant exploding fireball.
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Nov 20, 2021 10:56
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System Metternich posted:So in its July 1997 issue, WIRED's centrepiece article was about the possibility of a "long boom" and how it was in fact quite likely that the world would experience unseen levels of prosperity and peace in the years to come. You can read the whole thing here but be warned, it's just page after page of weapons-grade 1990s neoliberal wankery about how globalisation, market privatisation and big tech would bring about a new US-led utopia in no time. Kinda impressive that the only accurate predictions in the positive side of that article are the rise of e-commerce and the rise of telecommunications (including video calling). This is what might have been if Al Gore had won in 2000... lots of 'economic restructuring', and hybrid cars.
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Nov 20, 2021 11:02
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