Notices by mike805 (mike805@fosstodon.org), page 3

@thatguyoverthere Yes, autonomy is worth seeking. I see some people saying "oh we're all slaves of the banksters" and think "speak for yourself." If you can GTFO of wherever you are, you are not a slave. If you have people who will help you in an emergency, you are not a slave.

If you feel like the state of the world is your personal problem, you will be miserable. It's not my world, and I have little in common with most of the creatures in it.

@thatguyoverthere I've found it feels a lot better to just be detached from the state of this world. Not my circus, not my monkeys. There are very few things in the world that are actually worth caring about, and power seeking is not one of them.

@matrix The slope turns upward just as smartphones became available. The data here says that Internet on a PC at home, and engaging video games, are good for mental health (with the possible exception of Columbine, but they were already nuts.).

Social media on smartphones is bad for mental health. There is a pile of data to support that conclusion.

@thatguyoverthere The sort at the top does most of the killing, mostly in the hands of gangbangers. But it is the one at the bottom they want to ban, and this infographic explains why very well.

@thatguyoverthere Some people have discovered the one big weakness of Western culture: guilt, and the desire to be good. So they created a multitude of social movements, all calling Western culture unjust and bad for various things. This turns everyone against each other and allows them to gain power.

@thatguyoverthere @rood @CheRosach Great, but we need the new system working before the old one is removed, otherwise people are going to starve. "Let's just change everything right now!" is how the big famine in China happened during the "Great Leap Forward" which turned into a leap off a cliff.

That means emissions will increase before they decrease, because you have to build the new stuff while continuing to run the old stuff.

Solar panels and wind turbines are built out of fossil fuels too

@CheRosach If you want to replace fire you will need something better to replace it with.

Stopping is not an option, because most of our food comes from fossil fuels.

@rood @CheRosach The problem is the Haber process removed all limits from both farming and warfare. The population is now several times what it was before the Haber process. Not sure you could feed everyone without it. And Haber process uses natural gas as its input.

Also, warfare. You cannot win a war without the Haber process and the unlimited supply of explosives it provides.

The one thing that might work is nuclear power. Hopefully the greens will get over their fear of it.

@ringo @CheRosach @thatguyoverthere "97% of climate scientists agree" he says. Now here is the key point.

97% of climate scientists ONLY HAVE A JOB because of people's fear of global warming. The field was small and obscure before this thing.

Now these weather nerds have become rock stars. People look up to them as heroes saving the world.

Having become a rock star, you DO NOT want to go back to being a weather nerd! So you are not going to question the consensus that got you that status.

@CheRosach Just remember that your food comes from fossil fuels. If you don't want to starve, you had better figure that problem out before you "just get rid of fossil fuels" as some are arguing for. We cannot feed the world without them.

If things are as bad as the doomers say they are, all we can do is adapt. The Chinese and others may well decide to just grab as much arable land as possible for themselves, if they think it will be in short supply. And war has a hell of a carbon footprint.

@MarkRuffalo Carbon offsets are basically the modern day medieval indulgences. The financial industry smells money there. And anyone who can patent a process to generate "negative carbon" such as sequestration or blocking sunlight can print money.

@thatguyoverthere It would not be so easy to steal that much from a railcar. Unless you can cut the railcar out of the train and get it somewhere you can put a truck under it, you'd need a lot of people with shovels and wheelbarrows. Or some type of large vacuum, that would be the fastest way.

It probably did just leak out.

@thatguyoverthere some people still believe in "radiation hormesis" and pay to sit in underground mines and get dosed.

@thatguyoverthere Well in the 19th century people were drinking atomic water, some of it actually dangerously potent.

Some people tried to ship water from springs known for their healing powers. The water quickly lost potency. Such water often had radon which decayed quickly, and so it was decided the radiation must be responsible for the healing.

@thatguyoverthere No man-eating plants or giant fruits the size of cars? Oh well.

It is funny how "atomic" was attached to everything. Kind of like AI is now, and electric was in the late 19th century. There is always some technology seen as a miracle.

@thatguyoverthere So, what's atomic about it?

@jeffcliff @sj_zero When you try to research politically hot topics (COVID vaccine health effects, transgender medical treatment health effects, and global warming are big ones) you will find there is no reliable source of truth.

There are two sets of sources with wildly different data, divergent analysis of the same studies, and a tendency to kick out anyone who is not on side.

And both sides of each debate are willing to fudge data to prove their points.

Maybe AI will resolve this someday?

@thatguyoverthere @aogieglo @jeffcliff And the more broken the culture becomes, the more people are going to feel like they need a gun in case crazy comes for them.

When that picture was taken, most cities did not permit concealed carry, with a few exceptions for people who could show 'good cause." Often that meant "friend of the police chief."

Most people didn't feel the need to carry, so there was no big push to legalize it.

@thatguyoverthere @aogieglo @jeffcliff I like this picture to show what the world was once like. Two kids clowning around with a toy gun in front of a cop. The cop is making a funny face, obviously amused. Nobody is worried that the gun might be real, the kid might be crazy, and they might be about to get shot.

What changed? Seriously, WHAT CHANGED? There were gangs and criminals and crazy people then too. But something fundamentally changed.

@thatguyoverthere @aogieglo @jeffcliff There was a time, not that long ago, when quite a few schools had rifle clubs, and people did bring long guns to school to participate in shooting sports. Nobody was worried about them shooting each other.