What the Future Fiction of 2015 Revealed About Humans Today (vice.com) 179
An anonymous reader writes: There were a lot of stories told about the future in 2015. More than usual, maybe. Big budget blockbusters, hefty, idea-rich novels, and epic, dystopian video games—there was complex, stirring speculative fiction dripping from every media faucet we've got. And it spoke volumes about our anxieties about the present. In 2015, those anxieties are, apparently, concern the rise of science denial, climate change, total collapse.
Let me guess... (Score:5, Funny)
That humans today are still terrible at predicting the future?
Re:Let me guess... (Score:4, Insightful)
That humans today are still terrible at predicting the future?
This one's a given. People overestimate what happens in 50 years, but underestimate what happens in 2. Personally, I would be quite interested to see what 2018 will be like, though I suppose in 24 months I'll find out. After all, just three years ago, we didn't even know about PRISM...
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Society scrambling to find "make work" jobs for the masses that include the army and pointless infra projects?
This is not a new phenomenon.
Re:Let me guess... (Score:4, Insightful)
> and pointless infra projects
That simply isn't true, if anything the exact opposite is true. America's buildings, bridges and other critical infrastructure is crumbling and falling apart. You're risking millions of lives every day with unmaintained infrastructure.
If anything - you can't manage even the most basic infra projects required to prevent disasters !
Infrastructure projects are not sexy, they aren't politically appealing - and they don't attract donor money. What corporation is going to give you campaign finance because you "promised to patch the crumbling concrete of a bridge in your town" ?
Whatever the reason may be, despite the fact that infrastructure projects would not only have short-term employment benefits but the much more important benefit of actually keeping the stuff your entire economy depends on to function working past the end of the decade - they aren't being done.
I haven't read the book - so I can't say how accurate the rest of your description of it is, nor how much modern America really reflects that - but this claim was simply outright provably and factually incorrect.
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The reason they're not being done is precisely because they'd employ people. It's a lot easier to abuse your employees and the lower classes in general if they're desperate. McDonald's and Wal-Marts have every incenti
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"Income disparity" is an irrelevat measure.
No, it's a pretty good measure of unhappiness in a society. The countries with the highest over all happiness ratings tend to be places like the Scandinavian countries where the disparity is relatively low.
All that has meaning is the average health and wealth out there, and it is skyrocketting as China and India come online into modernity.
Even if true, that is meaningless to someone in the developed world. Why should I care if the average goes up elsewhere but my income slowly goes down in real terms?
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Infrastructure projects are not sexy, they aren't politically appealing - and they don't attract donor money. What corporation is going to give you campaign finance because you "promised to patch the crumbling concrete of a bridge in your town" ?
Umm, the construction company that stands to get the contract to rebuild the bridge?
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"Infrastructure projects are not sexy, they aren't politically appealing - and they don't attract donor money. What corporation is going to give you campaign finance because you "promised to patch the crumbling concrete of a bridge in your town" ?"
Simple construction companies,
Infrastructure projects like highway bills are massive pork barrel job making bills.
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Then *why* is America's infrastructure falling apart ?
Oh - that's right - because construction companies would much rather donate to the guy who promises to clear zoning rights for a new strip-mall because building a new private development is *much* more lucrative than maintaining or building infrastructure.
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The rumor about the North Stars hockey team is that the owner wanted to move to a place with less stringently enforced sexual harassment laws.
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Then you have your priorities screwed up.
A sports stadium is essential infrastructure, unlike the others. That's why the others are usually outsourced to utility monopolies, or left to the Free Market as in the case of communications networks, particularly last-mile internet (and phone and TV) service.
(/s)
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Honestly, there is a valid argument about cities subsidizing stadiums to bring in other businesses and get economic benefits that way. I don't agree with them, because I think if you look at the actual numbers for these projects in recent years it hasn't turned out well for the taxpayer, but the argument has some merit.
However, the big problem is the idea that local governments should be funding sports crap, but then neglecting or privatizing other, far more important infrastructure. If a city has all the
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Not when that company would rather pay the politician who would massage their zoning application for a new highrise.
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Are they though? There are a lot of SF writers that get the details wrong but get the overall state of society right. Go read "Player Piano" and tell me that Vonnegut did not nail the current economy. A small number of automation engineers making tons of money? check.
A small number of an elite knowledge class making tons of money? This isn't new. In the past, it was the literate elite. Now, when everybody in the civilized world could read and write, it's the technical elite. Of course, above them, in any age, there's still the ruling class, which include not just the MPs and dictators of the world, but also the members of the sub-1%, the CEOs and plain filthy rich.
Society scrambling to find "make work" jobs for the masses that include the army and pointless infra projects? Double check.
How do you think Hitler got Germany back onto its feet after World War I? FDR had managed to stabilize thin
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Society scrambling to find "make work" jobs for the masses that include the army and pointless infra projects? Double check.
How do you think Hitler got Germany back onto its feet after World War I? FDR had managed to stabilize things a bit, but the US only got out of the Great Depression thanks to the birth of the military-industrial complex.
That's a myth that keeps getting repeated. No. Wars do not bring a society out of depression. If you look at the actual standard of living, the second world war depressed it further by almost every measure, and most essential goods were actually rationed. What the war does, instead, is gi
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Society scrambling to find "make work" jobs for the masses that include the army and pointless infra projects? Double check.
How do you think Hitler got Germany back onto its feet after World War I? FDR had managed to stabilize things a bit, but the US only got out of the Great Depression thanks to the birth of the military-industrial complex.
That's a myth that keeps getting repeated. No. Wars do not bring a society out of depression. If you look at the actual standard of living, the second world war depressed it further by almost every measure, and most essential goods were actually rationed. What the war does, instead, is give people a good reason for their privation. They're not scrimping and getting by with less because the economy is bad: they're scrimping and getting by with less to support the war effort-- in Germany , as well as in America (not to mention England and the Soviet Union)..
What pulled he economy out of the Great Depression was the end of the war.
Wars might bring countries, especially the losers, to ruin, but the preparation for war, before the first bombs are dropped or the first tanks roll in from across the border, results in an increase in production. This is no different from any pump priming scheme. Of course, a drawn-out war can bankrupt even a resource-rich country far from the theater of conflict. But this wasn't the case for US during WW2. Also, jingoistic nationalism, while ultimately destructive, also helps give people a sense of purpose
A sense of purpose makes it right [Re:Let me g...] (Score:2)
Also, jingoistic nationalism, while ultimately destructive, also helps give people a sense of purpose, such that they see their "privation" as part of their noble duty to the motherland.
Exactly.
The economy is no better in any real terms, but now people have a reason for the privation.
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Economic downturns can come from a variety of causes. If it's caused by people not wanting to spend money, so it's hard to make money, and then there's less money to spend anyway, spending on anything can stimulate the economy and have lasting effects. Lots of people in the US were very worried that, when WWII was over, the economy would return to what it had been. From an economic point of view, war materiel is almost pure consumption, and there was a lot of consumption. The USN built four Iowa-class
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Go read "Player Piano" and tell me that Vonnegut did not nail the current economy.
I have and he did not nail the current economy unless you are reading things so broadly as to be meaningless.
A small number of automation engineers making tons of money? check.
Since I actually work with a lot of this stuff I'm curious where you think automation engineers are making all this bank off of automation. Seriously, give me examples. The automation engineers I know do ok but they are hardly in danger doing a Scrooge McDuck dive into a pile of gold.
Society scrambling to find "make work" jobs for the masses that include the army and pointless infra projects?
"Pointless infrastructure projects"? Seriously? If anything we aren't spending enough money on infrastructure. In
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air traffic control systems that are in desperate need of upgrades
No, they're not. The Republicans in Congress are currently working on legislation to private air traffic control in the US, so this will be completely fixed very soon. /s
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A small number of automation engineers making tons of money? check.
Since I actually work with a lot of this stuff I'm curious where you think automation engineers are making all this bank off of automation. Seriously, give me examples. The automation engineers I know do ok but they are hardly in danger doing a Scrooge McDuck dive into a pile of gold.
You are being too literal. For the1950's "automation engineers" read 2016's "software developer".
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OK, and how many software developers make it into the 1%? I'm getting by very comfortably, thank you, but I'm far from rich.
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No,humans today can't write a fucking gramatically correct sentence:
In 2015, those anxieties are, apparently, concern the rise of science denial, climate change, total collapse.
WTF.
Re: Let me guess... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean http://goatse.cx [goatse.cx].
Ordinarily I have no use for stupid fucking hashtags, but.... #kidstoday
The irony was irresistible. You couldn't even make it a live link...
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You mean http://goatse.cx [goatse.cx].
Ordinarily I have no use for stupid fucking hashtags, but.... #kidstoday
The irony was irresistible. You couldn't even make it a live link...
I think it was supposed to be a joke.
Drama people (Score:5, Insightful)
tell dramatic stories about a dramatic future. Stories about a future where a guy goes to work and installs software on computers for an insurance company don't get made into movies.
And Hollywood continues to turn out lots of bland, unimaginative, formulaic movies that are less and less compelling relative to TV and video games.
Re:Drama people (Score:4, Informative)
Stories about a future where a guy goes to work and installs software on computers for an insurance company don't get made into movies.
No, I disagree that this is insightful.
A large amount of spec fic, especially sci fi (not space opera though) is to examine the *present* and the human condition (literally the title, summary and text of TFA). What does your supposed story say about the present or human condition? Does it bring any new insights?
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Stories about a future where a guy goes to work and installs software on computers for an insurance company don't get made into movies.
Yes, they do, and then that guy has an anxiety attack, and Morpheus comes and gives him a pill which sends him on a trip through a hallucination where the world is a computer simulation.
I thought we were done arguing about the new Star Wars film.
Alternate Title (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting repeatedly called out on thinly-veiled, agenda-driven clickbait like this is exactly why Motherboard Vice censored its comment sections.
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Yeah because anything that clashes with left wing narratives is 'regressive.'
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I guess.. if you buy into the required newspeak premises.
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I stopped reading after he claimed "Hard to be a god [wikipedia.org]" was a call for "good" science (whatever good means in this context) when it is (at least in my opinion) nearly the opposite: A tale that even the best intentions do not guarantee favorable outcomes and that even scientist are not save from believing otherwise until their intentions fail.
So I take the rest of the article was similarly messed up?
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Agreed, an alternate title: "How science fiction is or isn't meeting our goals as a propaganda tool for 2015's approved list of progressive causes". The writer obviously doesn't have any science background nor has he read much sci-fi. It's such a third rate article. Why is this even on Slashdot?
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It's such a third rate article. Why is this even on Slashdot?
Odd, I thought the question was supposed to come before the answer.
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Except reality was a guy handing a script to a woman who also works in the movie industry and asking her opinion - just like what happens with many scripts only this time you somehow think the woman was pushing a feminist agenda instead of doing a job.
Uhh. yeah, that's kinda the definition of 'doing her job' in this particular case. In any movie made in the last 15 years or so, the men are either made into insecure, bumbling fools, killed off, or used as emotional tampons for the new heroines to take their places (eg: Transformers series, mad max:fr, Star Wars:TFA, Thor). Of course, unlike the strong male character leads of the past, this isn't considered sexist by feminists. When this bullshit is pointed out, feminists 'justify' their own sexism by spew
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Like Max who saves the fucking day?
I know you got this shit from some guy who thinks the entire fucking world is out to get him because he lost his kids to a court decision, so he's willing to even blame some guy half way around the fucking world making a testosterone fuelled action movie despite how utterly fucking STUPID that is - but why are you letting his shit dribble out of your mouth? You have not been hurt enough for sanity to no longer matter so
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It's obvious that Bay grafted Megan Fox's character into the story to be titillating to male audiences and 'empowering' to female ones: ie a feminist view of what men 'only' want and what women 'should' want (it backfired however, there's no pleasing feminists). In the opening scenes, it's clear she knows cars and understands tech while Spike/Sam can barely handle the car he just bought. Throughout the movie, he's relegated to clueless idiot status. Even when he's entrusted with important tasks, the implica
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It's obvious that Bay grafted Megan Fox's character into the story to be titillating to male audiences
In what bizarre alternative world is this an example of "feminists" taking over the movies?
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It IS feminist. They had feminists review the script and make changes. They VOLUNTARILY did this, of their own free will. Scary, isn't it? Even McCarthy didn't do things like this.
I think you need to see your doctor and get a new prescription, as the current pills obviously aren't strong enough.
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You sound pretty angry about misuse of the term "censorship" -- and it turns out you don't even know what it means. A website that disables comments because they find them objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient is exactly what censorship is.
Kind of like if I stop myself from writing in my own journal something that I think future readers may find objectionable or might impugn my character, that is called "self-censorship" -- or do you not believe that concept exists either?
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Censorship is not the same as not being able to speak your mind at any place, at any time for any reason. Locking you out of somewhere is not censorship. And frankly a website without a comment system is indistinguishable from one that never had one.
People like you do a real disservice to actual real censorship by cheapening it with incessant butthurt.
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Of course, siteops can do what they like with their own sites, but shutting down their comments when they're called out by readers send a message that they don't want their views challenged. Despite the usual sanctimonious statements made after such action, this is not a position of strength, it's one of weakness (butthurt). At that point such people have zero credibility. A good example would be creationists abusing the youtube copyright arbitration system a few years ago to get critical replies taken dow
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You're equating a group who closed comments on their own website to a group who uvexatiously abused an arbitration system to silence people on a third party website.
Because that's like totally the same.
mmm hmm.
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The motivation was exactly the same, yes: to silence criticism of their viewpoints.
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Ah so you are equating the shutting of their own message boards to people trying to force others to silence on a third party service. It's also a stretch to call shitposting and rampant trolling "criticism of viewpoints" but whatever.
And secondly, so what? People can have whatever silly views they want (e.g. you). The problem comes when they try to force those on other people. One half of the ones you're equating are doing that, the other half are not.
The silly thing is your completely over the top nutty vi
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I'll quote myself just to be sure you read it.
The motivation was exactly the same, yes: to silence criticism of their viewpoints.
As in 'motivation', not as in 'method.' Both situations are examples of censorship because the intent was to silence opposition. Whether this or that group's methods are moral or legal is immaterial. It's still censorship. Speaking of 'forcing opinion', censorship is probably about as close as most can get to it. After all, the purpose of censorship is to control the narratives that shape opinion.
The terms 'trolling' and 'shitposting' are rampantly abused. Eve
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Why do you care so much about censorship anyway? Could it be because it's a moral issue?
Whether this or that group's methods are moral ... is immaterial.
No, it makes all the difference. Because if morality is immaterial, then censorship is immaterial.
Speaking of 'forcing opinion', censorship is probably about as close as most can get to it.
Closing comments is not forcing anything on anyone morally or otherwise.
The terms 'trolling' and 'shitposting' are rampantly abused. Even around here, 'troll' is used to
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The easiest way to shut down criticism and/or discussion is by slinging mud. If there's ever a discussion you want to shut down because it offends your puritanical ideals, simply call the other party names until they get annoyed. *Then* you get to play the victim card using their annoyance as proof of their aggression.
This is basic lawyering - Seen it, done it, in multiple courts.
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Are you referring to the previous post where I called people regressive? Other than that, I'm not sure what precisely you're referring to.
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The easiest way to shut down criticism and/or discussion is by slinging mud.
Precisely! And that's why comment systems were removed from many websites. There was nothing but mud slinging, shit posting and trolling going on. Meaningful discussion had long since left. Flipping the off switch wasn't stopping any remotely meaningful discussion because those had long since been driven off.
*Then* you get to play the victim card using their annoyance as proof of their aggression.
That does indeed seem to be happenin
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I want progress - just not progress in the same specific way you want it.
Yeah sure.
I'm not referring to that though.
I'm specifically referring to regressive as people who eant to regress and go back in time to a place where gender roles were rather more strictly adhered to than they are these days.
Have you read some of the regressive crap that gets posted to message boards, though? I'm not talking about people debating whether affirmative action is a good thing, I'm talking about people pretty much whining
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A website that disables comments because they find them objectionable, harmful, sensitive, politically incorrect or inconvenient is exactly what censorship is.
No, it's exactly what censorship is not. The internet is not some monolithic government publishing house.
Any privately owned/run website is perfectly entitled to refuse to publish things it doesn't want to. Do you really think you have a right to go to the Vatican website and flood it with "the Pope's the Anti-Christ" rants? Or to post feel-good inter-racial porn on Stormfront?
I think the slashdot way of down-modding crap but leaving it for people to find if they want is a good solution, but that's up
Basically people are cowards. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maintain the status quo, that is what people today and people of yesterday are all about.
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Think of the case where you have 9 people 1% above average and one person 11% below average. 90% of people above average.
I'd suggest that you learn some critical thinking before ranting about others lack of thinking.
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Human intelligence as determined by IQ is designed to generate a normal distribution. If you were talking about IQ tests, then your scenario will only hold if you're selecting a subset of a greater set, where the distribution of intelligence was calculated on the superset. If that is the case, you could take a random subset of values and have the odd scores you suggest. However, if IQ was calculated on the subset again, then the normal distribution would apply because new scores would be calculated to en
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The 1% can suck my dick (Score:2, Insightful)
"If only they [men] saw us for the filthy creatures we really are." Daisy, 27, told me. "Take me for example" as she lifted up her right pant leg, "I haven't shaved my legs or my pits in 5 years."
How did she get dates, I wonder. Was she married to a blind man?
"I love to live as I really am! In fact, if every feminist were true to themselves they would live as I do. No razor, even if your upper lip sprouts hair." She leaned forward towards me and whispered as if the whole world were listening, "no waxing, no
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She reached for a coffee mug and pointed to her hairy legs. "This is what we really are! This is how we really should appear. Why hide it?"
And yet "neckbeard" remains a major pejorative here on Slashdot, both in usage and in negative connotation index.
Somehow, I suspect both sexes will continue shaving things for the foreseeable future.
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Is this "letters to slashdot", some weird funhouse mirror image of "letters to penthouse"?
Funny thing about 'cautionary tales' (Score:2)
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That mashup of "1984" and "Idiocracy" is Gilliam's brilliant "Brazil" (1985)
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1984 and Idiocricy come to mind immediately.
Good work on spelling "Idiocracy" wrong.
seven eves...? (Score:2)
Anyone else read seven eves?
I did and I quite enjoyed it but well, ehhh.
First it was waaay too long. Dude needs an editor. Second, boy does he really REALLY like orbital mechanics. That seems to be a theme across his books, but a times kinda becomes a bit like reading about someone playing KSP. Also, I find his long desciptions where he's describing the relative spatial layout of things (space or ground) to be really hard to follow. I find I don't get a clear picture of what's going on often which makes act
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That's what publishers want at the moment.
Agree. It's like two different books, almost two different genres.
Greg Egan suggests pencil and scratch paper to follow some of his stuff and Stevenson is getting close to that at times :)
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"- For the people that survived on earth, where did all their heat go? How did they not cook from the heat generated by their plant growing machinery?"
Finally - SOMEONE got this point! I liked Seveneves a lot but the power source for the tribe that survived in a deep mine was a science hole that really bothered me. Their power source was handwaved as being "geothermal" but when we make use of geothermal energy, we are exploiting the Carnot differential between hot rock underground and the much cooler surfac
In America our top anxieties are... (Score:2)
From Gallup (Dec 2015 - http://www.gallup.com/poll/187... [gallup.com]) American's top anxieties are:
#1: Terrorism (16%)
#2: Government (13%)
#3: Economy (9%)
#4: Guns (7%)
>> In 2015, those anxieties are, apparently, concern the rise of science denial, climate change, total collapse
None of those seem to be top-of-mind here.
Do Not Listen (Score:2)
The podcast is a total waste of time, mostly devoted to noodling about comics and the reappearance in 2015 of a certain major movie franchise. The subject of books comes up in minute 47, immediately before it's time to wrap.
Star Wars? (Score:2)
One prominent picture is from starwars? That is about 2015? It is set a long time ago in a far away galaxy. Makes the title of the article seem pretty stupid.
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On Jan 25th, 2016 [cbsnews.com] "the world will reach a point of no return". It's not next week, it's 3 weeks from now.
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The future is now and advertisers know too damn much about us.
Besides, I don't know enough about the topic to know if Gore is wrong, do you? Remember all those "future shock" predictions about world starvation? Those sort of numbers would have been correct if Mao hadn't died and China hadn't got their shit together, not to mention the "green revolution" in agriculture that gave us
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It's a classic denier pattern of course, which is either a deliberately attempt at deception or a massive failure at understanding even the most basic premise of science.
Science makes a very specific kind of prediction: if X then Y.
Then, when we take steps to prevent X the result becomes: !X therefore !Y - and deniers declare that this somehow DISPROVES the original prediction (when, in fact, it confirms it).
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The forms of scepticism that I've encountered most frequently is the refusal of any data that is presented by any sources but themselves. (Note that not all of the sceptics are like this. But many of those with a particularly loud voice are like this)
Then it doesn't matter whether there are rather reliable temperature records for the past 200 years. Since the chair of IPCC was accused of sexual harassment every single thing that is connected with the issue must be a lie.
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They are not skeptics. Skeptic has a specific definition - and they are literally the opposite of skeptics.
Skeptics are people who believe only that which has evidence, they embrace science and reject pseudo-science, religion and other ideologies not based on evidence.
Skeptics accept climate science as one of the most thoroughly tested scientific theories in the world today (we have more evidence for this theory than we have for the link between tobacco and lung cancer and very nearly more than we have for
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Skeptics accept climate science as one of the most thoroughly tested scientific theories in the world today (we have more evidence for this theory than we have for the link between tobacco and lung cancer and very nearly more than we have for evolution - and there isn't a shred of scientific evidence against it).
Look, it doesn't make sense to say that there is evidence for or against "climate science" -- that just doesn't make sense. But is there evidence for or against a particular climate model? Absolutely. Every time they adjust a model or present a new one, that is evidence that the previous models were flawed.
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Just because models get updated does not mean the premise is flawed. It may just mean that variables are known more accurately.
Consider other science where there is consensus like the theory that stars get their energy from nuclear fusion. The consensus is pretty high that the Sun is powered by nuclear fusion which leads to models showing the Sun is getting more dense due to an increasing ratio of helium to hydrogen and a more dense Sun burning hotter. Some models show that in 500 million years the oceans w
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But in most conversations I've been, they were adamant on being labelled as "sceptics. Many of them state that they'll believe reliable evidence and then ask for such evidence. But in the end virtually everything will be shot down in many cases. Most commonly by ad hominem, nitpicking, strawmen, false dichotomies and similar things.
The most fruitful conversations I've had in these cases where, when people simply admitted that they they are mostly sceptic
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Oh you're right - they are very adamant about that, which is exactly why I refuse to go along with it. The sceptic movement cannot afford to be associated with these people who stand for exactly the opposite of what the sceptic movement does.
Getting them to admit it's really a political motivation for their opposition is, perhaps, a positive step (I've had that a few times) but unfortunately that it still an appeal-to-consequences fallacy, the truth of a theory is not dependent on whether you like what we h
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In contrast to the usually very social art of the Enlightenment, Romantics were distrustful of the human world, and tended to believe that a close connection with nature was mentally and morally healthy.
Sounds like a lot of people around here.
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I would write a story about a future taking place decades after science got hijacked and turned into a religion by liberals, who were determined to turn science into a religious/social instrument to promote their own anti-capitalist social agenda. The story would be set in a prison for the people who questioned this social agenda, and who were arrested and charged with social crimes. The protagonist is serving time for science denial and improper use of scientific data without government approval. He is ser
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Oh, and don't forget to include the part where once upon a time you were a sweet little boy who loved his new-age-vegan-yogini-single-mommy who would dress you up in girls clothes while listening to Enya. Then this all changed when the girl you had a crush on in 7th grade(and who turned out to become a highly regarded
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I would write a story about a future taking place decades after science got hijacked and turned into a religion by liberals, who were determined to turn science into a religious/social instrument to promote their own anti-capitalist social agenda. The story would be set in a prison for the people who questioned this social agenda, and who were arrested and charged with social crimes. The protagonist is serving time for science denial and improper use of scientific data without government approval. He is serving his time alongside other social criminals charged with racism, misogyny, hate-thinking, harassment of protected classes, and carnivorism.
I don't quite see where you'd get any sympathy for your protagonist in this utopia?
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If you want it to be halfway good, drop the politics as much as possible. Writing about the other political team engineering a thoroughly improbable and evil social manipulation may give you a warm feeling, but bladder incontinence will do that also and be less embarrassing.
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Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was basically a demake of the original Star Wars.
It's not a shot-for-shot remake, obviously, and it's not a reboot. But it is basically the same fucking story and it's got tons of scenes and settings that are found almost identically in the original. Just like Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys, the new Star Trek films, and to a lesser extent Rocky Balboa.
It's like a restaurant selling you a "deconstructed" burger. It's main selling point is that it's a burger, bu
Re:Analysis of Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Score:4, Informative)
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was basically a demake of the original Star Wars. It's not a shot-for-shot remake, obviously, and it's not a reboot. But it is basically the same fucking story and it's got tons of scenes and settings that are found almost identically in the original.
Hardly surprising. If you look closely enough, most stories are the same [wikipedia.org]. They used to teach the basic plots [ipl.org] in grade school English, because the formulas for "good" stories have not really changed since Euripides.
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Euripides
His name has always evoked in my mind the image of an Italian tailor saying (after mending a portly gentleman's pants for the nth time) "You rippa dees, I break-a your face!"
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Replace "Wars" with "Trek" and your comment works, I'll soon see if it applies to both, preferably on a day when the cinema airconditioning will make it worth it whether the movie is worth seeing or not.
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