Thinking about this article and things like the Fermi paradox, I sometimes wonder if we're approaching things the wrong way?
Similar to how the current branch of life as we know it evolved on planet earth after what we assume was a large meteor impact and the resulting effects on the environment, what if the universe (or at least our local galaxy) was once much more populated and "busy", and then along came a cataclysmic event that wiped out the vast majority of life, resetting the stage for other more discrete, gentler and less energy hungry forms to thrive and exist. What if all those black holes and interesting space phenomena are the result of massively powerful weapons from a massive galactic scale confilct which literally destroyed entire solar systems by imploding stars? Or perhaps they are just clever physics tricks which fool outside observers into thinking there is nothing there, or what is there is so immensely dangerous/destructive that it's best to steer clear and leave well alone?
Furthermore, what if the majority of advanced life simply doesn't want to be found. Assuming that the development of other species in other worlds would roughly follow our own path (struggle for habitable space / usable resources), there would be an inherent distrust of other galactic civilisations at a percieved lower/higher level of development. The "dummies" would be avoided for (looks at today's news headlines) obvious reasons, and the more advanced civilisations would be an obvious threat which could not be defended against and so would not be targets for our exploration (a la "Dark Forest Theory" et al).
So, we're either in the first wave and we have some trouble headed our way sooner or later. Or we're in the second wave, and have likely been infiltrated culturally/genetically many millennia ago by the surviving intelligences (in whichever form, take your pick) from the first wave.
Forgive my rather crude treatment of the topic, I realise there is much more nuance and detail to these things. I simply present this idea in a rough form as a means to keep things within our realm of understanding.
Technical wonder aside, the argument for using nuclear power over fossil fuels really hits a faultline in situations like this. I wonder how the majority of folk rationalise their viewpoint surrounding this situation without being seen as massively hypocritical?
Nuclear power is vastly better in terms of emissions, so I'd argue that blowing up a plant or two is worth stopping global warming. But why target plants when a dirty bomb attack would be way easier and more effective?
Additionally, most countries don't have the resources to pull off something like Stuxnet, and the ones that do have much more to gain through corporate and government espionage.
The exploited software is conveniently developed and controlled by Iran’s adversaries. In another episode of the geopolitical sabotage show,
“In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a memoir by a Reagan White House official.”
True or not, the risk of software Trojan horses in the big energy game was recognized pretty early. The lesson here is, potentially dangerous technology ought to be matched by a comprehensive security protocol.
Yep, don't run your centrifuges on windows 98 is probably sound advice.
>In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions..
Is it? The nuclear fallout of a plant may linger for longer than any destruction done by the water of a large dam I would say or do you mean something else?
A modern nuclear powerplant is incapable of exploding, at worst it can meltdown and leak radiation in the vicinity. This can of course have very bad results, but check Fukushima - more people died from the evacuation, and from a fire caused by a fuel tank in another city due to the natural disasters that caused the meltdown, than did from radiation. A radiation leak is easy to detect (and all areas near nuclear power plants in semi-developed countries have automated collection of radiation), and isn't an immediate death sentence.
Meanwhile when a dam breaks, immediately everyone and everything in its path will be obliterated. Vastly more people have died from dam failures than even the worst of the worst of nuclear power plant incidents, Chernobyl, where staggering incompetence met horrific design flaws and bugs. Something like that is impossible to happen today.
A dam failure was caused by the nationalistic Chinese government fighting against Japanese forces in the 30s. It killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Do you have an example of nuclear energy plant being weaponized to the tune of hundreds of thousands of deaths?
This is fearmongering disguised as "just asking questions" and critical thinking. If your concerns were genuine, the answers about the effectiveness of nuclear would be easy to find.
I specifically remember during a morning assembly with our head of year a brief mention of politics during the run up to a general election, and her advice (instruction?) was that in polite society, people do not discuss their political views. This was around the ages of 9/10 y/o, I believe.
Recent events make me think this may have been a better approach to the state we have devolved to currently. But the internet happened, people started waking up and talking more, so now you have the opposite approach which is an endless torrent of bipartisan squabbling hypercharged by social and traditional media, and everything in between. This has resulted in low turnouts and a level of general disinterest in local and national politics. People now have stronger opinions about things happening in far away places than their own (crumbling) local towns and cities, because it's just too tiring to care about things which at best won't care about you, and at worst will actively try to harm you.
That said, what was interesting is that some years later there was discussion about opening up the vote to 16 year olds, and most of the discussion/pressure/focus was on the 6th formers who stayed on at high school, as it was assumed the dropouts and academically un-serious college-goers would have little interest in such things. There is certainly a pre-political class present in these institutions and their societies, leading to the public (read private) school system providing the majority of our politcal representation, with sadly no change in sight for the forseeable future.
My opinion is that the cynics were/are correct, politics is a class based business/sport/game depending on where you should happen to find yourself within the socio-economic strata of the UK.
Also, we share our horribly broken voting system with one other country in the world. That country would be Belarus. I haven't visited Belarus, so can't comment on how it's working out for them. But in this country, it has driven mediocrity in our representation and leadership much to our detriment. And a party called ReformUK (previously known as UKIP then the Brexit Party) may not be the panacea some people expect it to be. So you now have a choice between the joke of a party in power, and the joke of a party in opposition.
-The thoughts and opinions comprising this comment were generated by a human being using hardware and energy paid for by a human being. I would like to thank the internet and the HN website for enabling them to be published to the wider population for general consumption.
>Also, we share our horribly broken voting system with one other country in the world. That country would be Belarus.
Apparently there are only 2 countries in the world where clergy automatically get seats in government, the UK (bishops in the house of Lords) and Iran.
Belarus and Iran. Not the greatest of company to keep.
>in polite society, people do not discuss their political views
Discussing politics with friends and family can be fraught. Personally I think politics is too important not to discuss[1]. But I think it would be good to be more informed, even if you prefer to keep your opinions to yourself.
[1]But maybe not with your anti-vaxx, racist uncle.
This thread reminded me of this old gem: https://thesecatsdonotexist.com/ (warning: you may see some catspiders / r/Imsorryjon material!)
Now what would be interesting is a "demixer" which allows you to locate the source image(s) from multiple interations of a given image. Like a reverse image search but for generative images. I suppose it would rely on artefact matching or some other kind of granular pattern matching, along with other more general methods (assuming the source material is actually available online in the first place).
I suppose it depends on your use-case. For personal tasks like this it should be more than sufficient, and won't need user details/cc or whatever to use it.
