Talcosis

I mean if we’re looking at pure economics, it’s probably not even worth running power lines to your parents. Matter of fact, they probably wouldn’t even have electricity if the government didn’t force electrical companies to build power lines to everyone, with the electrification act of 1968.

Companies get penalized if a lot of their former employees start getting unemployment.

Replied to wrong comment.

“American companies have long taken advantage of these trends. A leaked report from the 1980s, which was prepared for a waste-management company seeking a community for “locally undesirable land use,” listed the “least resistant personality profile” as: “longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest,” “conservative,” “Republican” and “advocates of the free market.””

See above comment for link

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-is-china-treating-north-carolina-like-the-developing-world-122892/

Specific quote:

“American companies have long taken advantage of these trends. A leaked report from the 1980s, which was prepared for a waste-management company seeking a community for “locally undesirable land use,” listed the “least resistant personality profile” as: “longtime residents of small towns in the South or Midwest,” “conservative,” “Republican” and “advocates of the free market.””

Facebook and shit don’t matter much, but whatsapp is the primary form of communication for a good chunk of the world.

Fun fact: in some places, whatsapp and Facebook (and a few other sites) isn’t even considered to be “internet”. Like, if you don’t pay an ISP you still get access to those. Then paying for “internet” gives you access to everything else.

I already seek out “made in China” for certain goods, because of the quality

It’s still being built, I think they had one of the planned production lines close to complete?

Chip fabs take like 10-15 years to get going

I don’t much like hypotheses that require certain size groups of people.

But I guess that’s just the instability of the dictator applied to the entire world.

That knowledge is nowhere near as restricted as you think. People regularly build small thermonuclear reactors in their basements for shits and giggles. It’s not exactly cutting edge technology.

Similarly, anyone with slightly more than a passing interest in model rockets knows someone who’s been visited by the ATF, as your average solid fuel model rocket engine is basically a pipe bomb with one of the endcaps taken off.

I came across this conspiracy theory the other day.

You know how back in the day, company towns had to use company scrip to make sure workers couldn’t leave?

Well, not you can be tracked by AI, and as soon as you leave your “boundaries” granted to you by your level of privilege, suddenly your bank card stops working, because that looks like a “fraudulent transaction”.

The systems are already in place, too. If I go on an impromptu road trip and spend money six states over, my bank calls me and tells me my card is being used in a weird place, and they ask if that transaction is legit. Usually I can be like “yep, let it through” and everything is fine.

What if the AI decides that in fact everything is not fine, and I don’t need to be able to spend money outside of my town?

This feels a lot like the collapse of the USSR. Like, yeah, shit wasn’t necessarily great before, but what comes after is worse.

Conduction sigh

Convection works with all matter, just that we normally associate it with air. There is the question of conductivity.

No, it will stay overpriced because it becomes a part of the NASDAQ 100 on 7/6 and 401ks are then legally required to buy it.

The thing about Chernobyl was that it was, ultimately, an unwanted mistake.

The thing about AI is that the shitty mass casualty outcome seems like the intended outcome.

Could you imagine being in orbit during an AI datacenter kessler collapse, and just getting smoked by an rtx 5070 travelling at mach fuck?

Yeah, I think we’re in full agreement.

I guess the part that kinda annoys me is that the common advice is “use deodorant” and not “try going for a walk and eating a carrot”. This ties into the many issues I see in industrialized society being caused by shortcuts. Yeah, smearing yourself in deodorant fixes the problem for today, but the underlying issue will be worse tomorrow. I guess there’s no profit in worrying about tomorrow.

So I tend to go on long trips, and I end up going 3-4 weeks without a shower if I’m off sailing or camping in the deep woods or whatever. Edit: of course I do make sure to get naked and air out regularly, if I’m not able to wash.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that I get pretty funky, but I’ve never gotten jock itch or anything. No skin conditions.

I think a lot of modern “hygiene” standards have less to do with hygiene and more to do with selling people more crap. Actually, the only time I remember having skin issues was the three months in 8th grade equivalent that I used deodorant. Once I stopped that, all the irritation went away.

I occasionally ask people around me if I smell, or if it’s obvious I usually only shower 3-4 times per week, and most people are surprised to find out I shower 3-4 times per week and don’t wear deodorant.

Edit2: diet also plays a huge part. I tend to eat almost exclusively rice, beans, and veggies. I recently let a friend who had some shit going down live in my basement for six months, and his primarily junk food diet definitely did a number on both odor and my toilets. I didn’t even know that level of mess was possible in six months.

So? Doesn’t mean they’re (a) bad for your health or (b) able to outcompete everything else to the point of becoming problematic.

There’s a lot of space between “that dude smells bad” and “that dude is hurting his health by not showering”.