The last comment about 'be a nice guy' is interesting.

I was listening to Joe Rogan Experience, and they mentioned something about how the genesis of the 'woman hater' is actually the forever-friend-zoned-nice-guy who gets so fed up with being 'taken for granted'/'shot down' that his niceness turns into hatred

It made sense to me. Essentially, the woman hater is what becomes of a boring nice guy who lacked the patience/endurance to wait for women his age to make their way through all the exciting unreliable men before being satiated (or just getting too old to fetch the interesting men's attention) and finally settling for the nice guy that was boringly always available.



And I get it. It plays into the human natural value system, where things that are scarce are more valuable.

The ahole is fleeting. You can't always have him, and if you do you can't hold him, so he has an element of scarcity, which creates value.

The nice guy will reliably stick around if you go with him, so he is less scarce, so he is less valuable. The lower value in turn makes him more likely to be single and always available, further reducing his scarcity, and further devaluing him, and further increasing his chances of being single. A feedback loop.

I suppose that there is also a 3rd path - the element of nice guys that just stop giving a crap before turning into haters, which makes them more scarce, which actually finally gets them attention, and they stop being single.

(And a 4th path - nice guy finds 'a girl who wants a nice guy from the start'. In my observation this isn't the typical case.)



Cases like this (forever alone nice guy, not specifically Mr Van Driver) are when I think 'arrangement' web sites create a good solution. The guys get to not be lonely anymore, and the women gets taken care of. Kind of plays into the nice guy natural instinct, too.

Amusingly, 'arrangement' may be a better fit for the forever-alone nice guys than 'waiting it out'.
In both cases (waiting vs arrangement) the women are mainly after stability/support.
The older women 'nice guy' matches with by 'waiting it out' would not have picked 'nice guy' if they still had the looks to keep pulling exciting men.
So, if you're gonna be with someone because they want you for support, why not just go with a younger woman and be up front about the situation. If it doesn't work out, either party can walk away. No messy divorce. Seems like a safer and more practical option.

(Not picking on older women, just observing that : as people get older, the single scene becomes more and more 'leftovers' that are 'left over for a good reason'. The odds of finding anyone worth while diminish with time, because the highest quality individuals get retained first. Wait long enough, and you're left with over the hill jaded pragmatists who once may have had looks but now have nothing left to offer. At which point, both 'arrangement' and 'being single' are legitimately better options.)



Regarding Mr. Van Guy specifically, I'm not sure if he had a chance. He had some social anxiety that made him unable to talk to people. So he was likely not gonna get a partner naturally, and was unlikely to succeed among professional peers well enough to get the financial security necessary to be some sugar daddy.

So, yeah, dude was likely a romantic dead end. Possibly even the same mental (brain developmental?) issues that made him unable to talk to people also made him susceptible to getting the sort of crazy tilted that allowed him to run people over. The dude could have actually been fated (circumstantially) to end up in tragedy. Just speculating, wouldn't shock me.

-scheherazade

Hmmm, even though I love Kurzgesagt and this is an informative video. There are easy answers to the questions posed at the start.

How does homeopathy work? It doesn't.
How did it become what it is today? People are easily swindled.
What can modern medicine learn from it? NOTHING.

Yeah, they go on to talk about viewing the patient as a person, etc, but that is not that important. I don't want my doctor sitting down and having a chat with everyone, I want them to treat them and move on to the next patient. Maybe when we get to our AI-led post-scarcity utopia, but right now, medicine (like everything else) is a game of finite resources. Do you really want to waste the time of a highly trained (and highly paid) medical professional? Because while they're talking to you about your vague sense of unease, someone else is dying.

Thoughts:

1) There has been a ban on sales of new, fully-automatic firearms ("machine guns") since 1986. That leaves some loopholes (can still buy them if they were manufactured before then, but that demand plus scarcity makes them expensive, etc.) but in general, there isn't a whole lot of uproar over that 20-year-old ban.

2) These bump-fire stocks don't technically convert a firearm into fully-automatic; the trigger is still being pulled 1 time for each bullet that comes out (semi-automatic).

3) However, they easily allow for rates of fire (bullets per minute/second) comparable to fully-automatic weapons. So, I think an unbiased and reasonable person would say that while a firearm equipped with one of these does not violate the letter of the ban on fully-automatic firearms, it does quite reasonably violate the spirit of that ban.

4) Doing anything to correct that discrepancy will require updated laws. Updating the law requires a legislature that generally supports the update and a president that agrees, or a legislature that overwhelmingly supports the update and can override a presidential veto.

5) None of that exists at the moment in the US. So, it is (perhaps coldly) logical to say that these bump-fire stocks will not be banned as an extension to the 1986 ban on full-auto firearms, at least not in the short term.

6) However, before quietly accepting that, it is worth noting that political fallout amongst those individuals in the legislature that refuse to consider updating the law is a very real possibility. Plenty of people, even on the right, even plenty of gun nuts, say that they are in favor of some degree of "common sense" gun control. Pointing out that bump-fire stocks essentially circumvent the already in-place ban on fully-automatic firearms seems like a good way to test that professed adherence to common sense.

7) Get that word out there, and pretty importantly, try to do it in a way that is as respectful towards the average "gun nut" as possible. Their minds can be swayed. Hunters, sportsmen, and even people that have guns for self defense can be persuaded with reason -- they can still do their thing even without bump-fire stocks, just like they can do their thing without fully-automatic firearms. Congresscritters probably can't be convinced, because they've already been bribed"persuaded" with campaign donations, NRA lobbyists, etc.


So, don't preach to the choir. Try to convince the people that do actually own guns. The good news? You've got "common sense" on your side.

No Netflix for me, and no luck on a quick search of torrents, but I'll keep my eye out for that show/series.

Many metrics to compare. Ecologically, that system sounds great for static locations with enough of an elevation gradient and reservoir areas to make it work. On the other hand it seems like the ecological damage done by constructing batteries, factories, and disposing of them is likely quite small compared to many other alternatives, particularly fossil fuels (which also have long-term scarcity concerns on top of plenty of other issues).

A major advantage of battery tech over hydro storage would be mobility. If the thing consuming energy doesn't sit in one place, hydro storage won't work. Another somewhat less significant advantage is the ability to install anywhere -- a battery farm recharged by mains and/or a solar/wind farm could be installed in places where hydro storage couldn't. And for one more item in favor of batteries, I'd wager that the land area footprint required for batteries is much smaller per kWH stored, although that might be wrong for extremely large reservoirs (ie. a hydroelectric dam, pretty much). But by the time you're getting to that large scale, the location requirements and ecological disruption are also much more extreme.

Anyway, I don't mean to pooh-pooh the idea of hydro storage -- it really does seem like a very good and ingenious idea where it would be applicable. But there's certainly room for improved battery tech, too. I don't think that we're going to get fully or even significantly weaned off of fossil fuels quite as fast as the video would have us hope for, either. Fossil fuels were the primary tool in our toolbox for a LONG time. And as the saying goes, since all we've had is that "hammer", we've started to think of everything as a nail.

If they think that people are starting to lose interest in the main parties, they will spend the next 4 years highlighting war, terrorism, uncertainty and scarcity so that people are less likely to take any kind of risk. They will also highlight the uncertainty of voting for anyone else - i.e. these third parties are inexperienced, they don't understand, they are weak and/or sympathetic towards our enemy.

It's basically what they've done with Corbyn over here. "They" control the press so they also control the national will.

I think the only way we progress beyond this profit for the few, managed decline for the rest phase is to destroy the stranglehold that the media moguls like Murdoch, Barclays (the brothers, not the bank), etc. have over mainstream media.

They are literally peddling falsehoods and distractions so that people will target anyone other than those responsible.

Your video, The Mechanics of Storytelling pt.2- Scarcity, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

There's a difference between the implementation of government and the concept of governence.

I will happily concede that every government in the world has flaws, because people are greedy or stupid or incompetent or coereced/ threatened by other greedy stupid people or sometimes with the best will in the world and all the competency to go with it, they just make mistakes.

But this is true of every human institution/concept. Even science can and does get misrepresented or misused.

That doesn't mean we throw out the concept.

One day, we may arrive at some kind of Iain M. Banks Culture-esque post-scarcity utopia where we no longer need government and the day to day running of society is taken care of benevolent AIs that devote a billionth of their processing power to taking care of the mundanity of life.

But right now, we need government. If there are problems with it, they should be fixed.

not really-life = sentient life is the only assertion which i clarified and this assumption was stated from the beginning so was implied. the suggestion that this changes everything is a classic straw man fallacy.

the imperatives which i am espousing on are merely non-violence and a rejection of oppression, exploitation and using others as property and economic commodities which almost every human believes when it concerns humans and perhaps a few other species. it is only the others whom should be considered under the umbrella of moral concern which is the key point of the issue for most people.

as far as the population, the main reason WHY the human population IS such an issue is due to the consumption of animal products. along with the obvious moral and ethical issues of murdering other sentient beings, the production of animal based foods requires many times the resources to produce an equivalent calorie compared to plant based food which drives things like climate change, resource depletion, water scarcity, biodiversity, species extinction and other aspects of environmental devastation.

when a video such as this one comes up which highlights people being kind to an animal, it is disturbing that people are so disconnected that they do not make the connection between the animals in the video whom they feel good about being rescued and the countless others which are being tortured and murdered for their dinner plate. this is exactly what the short article i posed above articulates so well.

“Ask ten people on the street if they think it’s wrong to injure or kill animals for one’s amusement or pleasure, and nine or ten will say yes, of course. Chances are all ten of those people freely consume animal products, simply because they like to and they’re used to doing it." - Karen Manfrede

I just can't tell if you're serious with this, or ridiculing them for their ridiculous biased stance.

The human appetite for spawning children is THE driving force behind every single major and minor category of environmental damage now threatening the human future - deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities and the spread of disease. -Reality and Logic

There was a lot of posturing from Star Wars fans (from stardestroyer.net, I think) for a long time, with exaggerations about the power of imperial starships. However, some fans have done an extensive (and pretty ridiculous) amount of work to make a lengthy comparison, that, while only as accurate as can be interpreted from the provided material, does come out in strong favor towards Star Trek technology:
http://www.st-v-sw.net/
So yes, NdGT is correct, and really, you don't need to do the extensive research the fans did to confirm that. Logistics in a post-scarcity civilization alone gives a significant advantage.
But this is to be expected. When you have a TV show as focused on science and technology as Star Trek, it will certainly excel.
Meanwhile, Star Wars isn't supposed to be about high end technology. For them the technology is only there to highlight the story. The charm of the Millenium Falcon is not that it's a god-like ship that can mop the floor with everyone else, but that it's some guy's souped up junker that's full of surprises. The Death Star isn't the ultimate weapon, but a weapon of fear. (A weapon that destroys excessive amounts of available resources is impractical for anything else, and that especially includes Starkiller Base.)
And if there really needs to be some sort of sci-fi-peen competition, you can go the complete nonsense route with Doctor Who, where one Dalek could probably conquer both the Trek and Wars universes with minimal effort.
Or the overkill route with the Culture, where wiping the rest out would be an idle task, pursued for entertainment.
Star Wars fans just need to chill and embrace their universe of junkers and quaint technology. Star Trek fans have already embraced the fact that their universe isn't about action and explosions. (No, we don't include the Abramsverse.)

Didn't watch the video, but did skim the comments... Christ...

First off, moving to Canada and any other decent first world nation be it New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Iceland, Netherlands, Canada etc... not as easy as just packing up and moving. You need a very narrow set of skills to move to those countries. We looked into all this countries, and all of their entry requirements exceeded what we had to offer them. People always say if you don't like it leave, but that ignores several facts. It isn't we don't like it, we just think it can be improved, change isn't bad. Humanity isn't bad. Caring for those less fortunate isn't bad. Guaranteeing everyone a minimum level of affordable health care isn't bad. Working to insure that all workers get a living wage (the way we used to have before the employers/owners started getting greedy and redistributing more wealth to themselves), isn't a bad goal, in fact it's a very good thing. The famed clip from the Newsroom's first episode when he goes on about how America isn't great anymore but it used to be...

Of course the whole concept of American exceptionalism, or any nation exceptionalism is flawed. We are all humans on this planet. Being American doesn't make you superior to somebody born in China or Mexico, Ethiopia, Syria or anywhere else. Location of birth is an accident of timing... and if it is divine intervention by God that placed you here instead of Ethiopia where you may have starved to death with an inflated malnourished belly despite all your prayers, then God is an ass and not worth serving. So if he's not an ass, then it is pure accident that you are here and not there. To think oneself superior and better than somebody in another nation because of their location of birth, and the religion that comes with that location, is insanity. And I draw that all ways. The Muslims who despise Christianity for not being the true faith, and Christians who despise Islam for not being the true faith. You are your faith by accident of birth, be it location and/or parentage etc... all of which is getting away from the point. Which is simply that to say that Chinese worker doesn't deserve a job manufacturing something that you think you should be building is asinine and not respectful of their humanity and a complete lack of any sort of empathy. Christ, I have Aspergers and I have more empathy in my farts than the entire Tea Party Christian Right.

Yes we need to respect the individual, but "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one"... and that quote is in context and not just a cherry pick sample. If it benefits just one and damages the many, then it is not a good thing. Most every faith in the world has some variation of the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you want others (not that specific person, but people as a general whole) to treat you. Christianity's Christ went further and said the greatest commandment was love, to show love to one another. Greed and selfishness is not love. Collectivism has many faults as well, but it isn't tyranny, and is certainly better for society as a whole in the long run than unrestrained greed motivated individualism. Like Pink Floyd's song, On the Turning Away, says, we are all "just a world we all must share". We can't turn away from the coldness inside towards others. We need to lift all of humanity up. Perhaps showing the Muslims love instead of hate and bigotry would convince them that perhaps Christianity isn't the enemy, that perhaps it is the answer, but showing them hate, and bigotry... and denying refugees trying to flee a horrible civil war is bigotry and hatred, and the fact that a rather disturbingly large percentage of the right can't see that isn't bigotry and hatred is scary beyond measure. I again find it amazing that people could lack that much empathy without a neurological disorder.

To invade others, tell them how to live their lives, to force democracy on them if they aren't ready, to insult them and belittle their faith, and all that isn't world building. It isn't reaching out with empathy. It's hate. It's bigotry and as noted by artician, it's what helps drive people to fly into buildings. They know that they know that their faith is the right one, and the lack of empathy to see that people of the Muslim faith have just as much faith in their religion as Christians have in theirs, that they have the same amount of knowledge and comfort from god that they are the correct faith, is what drives extremism.

And oh my god the guns. Guns would have saved the Jews. American mainland can't be invaded because too many people own guns... ask the Branch Davidians how well having not only military grade weapons but also training on how to use them worked for them against a slightly militarized police force, let alone an actual military. Yes, it would be incredibly hard, and resistance would probably eventually wear any invading force down the way the Taliban wore the Soviets down, or the Viet Cong did against the US Military might. So perhaps that can be counted as a victory, but would be long fought. Look, I support gun ownership. All I really call for is 1) allowing the CDC get back to it's job of collecting the data and finding out what's really going on with gun violence, and 2) closing the gun show loophole unless the CDC's investigation shows that it has zero effect, 3) you have to have a legal ID to own a gun and can't be on the no fly list, 4) the existing background checks kept the same, but also add a drug test, the right wants drug tests for welfare, then we should be testing for gun owenrship too. (I see little reason for "assault weapons" but aside from perhaps having perhaps a slightly better background check, I don't know if a ban yet needs to be called for, but I'm in the middle here.) Once we have have better data points from the CDC then we can really tackle the issue of gun violence. Yes, it will take years to get those answers, but I find it insane that the Republicans refuse to allow the investigation to go on, which says to me that they are afraid of what the data will show.

Unless you are nearly a pure Native American, then you are a refugee to the US.

The primary problem here and around the world is poverty and lack of proper education. This drives people to crime and extremism in religion which makes them susceptible to acting out terrorist acts, be it in the name of Allah (as is the public perceived norm) or Christ (ala the Planed Parenthood terrorist attack, the 2011 Norway attacks, etc). We need to address the growing income and wealth gaps. The way to doing that isn't by giving those at the top even more tax breaks and losing regulations (which is funny thing to complain about, too many regulations here in the US, meanwhile the same people complain about the low quality Chinese goods that aren't safe due to low regulations and poor labor conditions etc). We need to push education, and proper STEM programs, not deflated science trying to force Creationism in via so called "Intelligent Design" or "teaching the controversy" stick to the actual science. Don't object to the "new math" if it's teaching better fundamentals of understanding what the numbers are actually doing even if it doesn't teach the shortcuts we were taught... and lots of the stuff people complain about is just the fact we don't skip right to the shortcut that works. Yes, it works, but it helps if they better understand the underlying fundamentals of the numbers and the actual math. Again, change isn't a bad thing, to object just because you don't understand or don't like it compared to the simplified shortcut we all learned doesn't make it bad. Reading also needs pushed, and understanding of logical fallacies and logical and faulty thinking.

I believe that a post scarcity world is impossible due to the nature of humanity. There are far too many greedy people that will never want the world to get to that point. However, that should be the noble goal. Post scarcity society has many issues, but perhaps by the time we actually got there we'd be able to solve them.

TLDR: Basically it all comes down to empathy. To view everything as the others view it. I get the fear and panic and all that the right has, and not just because I once upon a time was a right wing evangelical Christian who called those who received food stamps lazy bums, who said that Democrats and the liberals just wanted to keep the poor trapped so they would always need help. Yes, I was there and that helps, but I can still empathize with them without that past. I've never been a Muslim raised in a nation dominated by Islam, but I can still empathize with the way they see what the US is doing to them, the way they have to see people like Donald Trump and the scary amount of Americans that support him. It's easy to see why some are driven to extremism. I can empathize with that Mexican who just wants a better life and knows that Mexico can't give it to him so he has to risk it all to try and immigrate to the US. I can empathize with the Chinese worker who has been given an opportunity to build something, to escape the poverty... for while perhaps still poverty, less poverty than before, and I'm thankful that I got that opportunity, and I'm sorry that somebody in the US doesn't get to do it, but I'm a human too. Empathy. Learn it. It can be learned, neurological disorder or not.

I'd hazard that it doesn't make much difference how thick the sword is as long as it has a reasonable edge angle made of something harder than the bullet. I'd contest that Katanas aren't good for cutting (weight of blade + curve), but yeah, the whole mythos about them being extraordinarily more sharp than other swords is bullshit. I've read that the reason for blending high-carbon steel with softer steel was more a matter of scarcity of high-carbon steel than deliberate design.

They say with overpopulation and scarcity of food, we will have to eat insects. Protein shakes seem like a great option.

OK
#1. Your study quote which said no mechanism had been discovered.
#2. "but the drivers, magnitude, timing and location of methane consumption rates in High Arctic ecosystems are unclear."...LOCATION UNCLEAR MEANS NOT FOUND.
#3...this does not make sense, "this feedback will be moderate: of a magnitude similar to other climate–terrestrial ecosystem feedbacks" is self contradictory, since many terrestrial ecosystem feedbacks are NOT moderate...depending on the definition of "moderate". If less than 10 deg C is moderate, then they're right.
#4. You can tell them 98%+ of scientists in the field of climatology say side effects of industry/technology will cause "X" at a minimum in 100 years, and it has already caused "Y" (warming, weather changes, ocean acidification, environmental pollution, rising cancer rates, water shortages, other indisputable factors), send him back with proof of those effects, and I think same result..."no thanks".

I misunderstood I guess. If you did that, he would just be in a rubber room for claiming to be a time traveler, not seen as a visionary. ;-) If he could offer proof of the time travel, the state of the planet, and the environmental trends showing every issue is seemingly getting worse leading to cluster f*ck, it would not be a hard sell in the least, IMO. At least not to people with an IQ over 90. You don't have to abandon all those things (coal, yes), you would just have to design them better. Electric cars were often the norm before Ford in towns. Planes might be electric dirigibles, and satellites might be put in orbit by rail guns.
If you don't think 1/3 of the planet's population (a reasonable guess if water shortages continue the current trend) being migrant doesn't warrant 'panic' (which I never suggested, I will say it warrants concern even by those in the '1st' world) then I don't know what to tell you.
Citations:
#1. It may be unfishable in 15-20 years (I was off by 5 years) at current acidification rates.
http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/05/climate-change-threatens-crucial-marine-algae/
"By 2040, most of the Arctic Ocean will be too acidic for shell- forming species including most plankton. Significant areas of the Antarctic Ocean will be similarly affected, oceanographer Carol Turley from Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK previously told IPS."

#2. by 2025 it's estimated that 2/3 of people worldwide will live in a water shortage.
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/interesting-water-facts/
"Unless we change our ways, two-thirds of the world’s population will face water scarcity by 2025"

#3. Northern India/Southern China is nearly 100% dependent on glacial melt water, glaciers that have lost 50% in the last decade
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/interesting-water-facts/
"Rapid melting will reduce the Tibetan glaciers by 50 percent every decade, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences
More than two-thirds of Chinese cities face water shortages"

The world wide web is under attack
They're taking it away but we're pulling it back
The world wide web is under attack
They're taking it away but we're pulling it back

So the FCC won't let me be
They want to stack the deck for the ISPs
but we've got a couple of tricks up our sleeves
It's far too important to leave to police
it could lead to the streets
a breach of the peace
and even decrease our freedom of speech
there's never been a bigger reason to read up
and see what's agreed 'cause of greed for the green and deceit
The greener the leaf, the sweeter the tree
the quicker they'll chop it down and leave nothing but tree stumps; debris
the damage is done, no refund received
see, the thing about net neutrality
is unless you get huge salaries
? the paramedic won't rescue casualties
' til they've seen to the rich next dude's allergies
they'll prioritise cash over content
wanna send one bit? That's one cent
What nonsense, man it's scaring me
a planet of plenty's selling scarcity
Innovation paved the way
Now invaders are paying to take it away
but they ain't gonna make it today
! Letting that happen's a major mistake
If Lessig was rapping he'd tell you the same
LETTING THAT HAPPEN'S A MAJOR MISTAKE
Tim Berners Lee baked us a cake
and they've taken the cherry.. AND THE CAKE
discrimination is happening today
to blacks and to gays and to packets of data
though ethically they're exactly the same
so Oi, we're not gonna stand 4 it m8

U WOT?
THE FOK U SAYIN BRUV?
U WOT M8??????
! THE FOK U SAYIN BRUV
U WOT?
FAK OFF U ARSEHOLE!

The world wide web is under attack
They're taking it away but we're pulling it back
The world wide web is under attack
They're taking it away but we're pulling it back

I'm from the place John Oliver came from
but no matter where you live you should be singing the same song
at long last, I'm putting Comcast on blast
'cause they never learn their lesson like they're in the wrong class
well I'm the professor and I'm setting you with one task
Get them knocked back like a shot glass
Straight in front of me's a cable company
The way they're behaving's unbelievable
Comcast is in league with the devil
and it's pissing me off, I'm not even American
! Take a peek, see from the evidence
Netflix had to pay a fee to get better links
it's a shakedown, communication breakdown
There's a bully in the playground
I had enough of that at school, won't lay down
lay a finger on me, you'll be laid out
You'll be laid out
You'll be laid ou
You'll be laid out
You'll be laid out
lay a finger on me, you'll be laid out

The world wide web is under attack
They're taking it away but we're pulling it back
The world wide web is under attack
They're taking it away but we're pulling it back

Taking it back, we're taking it back
We're taking it, we're taking back