I study environmental science and I can believe it, every model I've used all the sources I've used that predict have been conservative in numbers compared to what's going on.
The problem is we are never going to do what needs to be done because capitalism is the literal cause and the world is addicted to capitalism because none of the companies are going to do what they need to do unless it's profitable.
It's greed or commercialism. Capitalism is synonymous to them in popular discussions, but even if you picked a non-capitalist stance like communism, they'd produce greenhouse gas anyway.
When did we fail going forward? As humanity, I mean.
There have always been people who opposed progress for various reasons, and sometimes their reasons were understandable and even forgivable. Nobody can care about everything at once in equal measure and sometimes the safest default is "let's not rock the boat when things seem to be going well."
There's one current obstacle to progress that I have a harder time forgiving, though. Every time there's discussion of the possibility of doing some research into geoengineering as a means to counteract climate change a whole pile of people come out with "but that will only encourage more burning of fossil fuels" and "haven't you seen Snowpiercer?" counterarguments. It's wearying. The same people usually love the "we've passed an irreversible tipping point" articles that go on about how doomed we all are and how futile any further attempts to reverse climate change are.
If they really think we're doomed and nothing more can be done, then get out of the way of the people who are still trying to come up with solutions. A generation ago the same problem prevented nuclear power from being a useful solution.
What’s sad is nuclear power is still a useful solution. It’s not a perfect solution. Not by a long shot. But as far as non-renewable power sources go, nuclear is by far the most efficient. Yet today the US has virtually no nuclear power development going on.
Well, I sort of push nuclear power back from the "useful solution" slot at this point in history because now the problem is no longer preventing global temperatures from rising - that's a done deal now. Drastically cutting our carbon dioxide emissions are still a good idea but no longer all that's necessary any more. Plus solar and wind power are really coming into their own, so nuclear's good but no longer the only game in town on that front either.
I fear that eventually geoengineering will have been put off for so long that we'll be in a situation where "yeah, reducing global temperatures would be nice, but vast regions of farmland already turned to desert so the real problem we're facing these days is how to rapidly spin up new farmland and that old problem of lowering global temperatures is no longer all that's necessary any more. Maybe if we'd seriously investigated doing it back in the 2020s it would have made a difference then."
Just don't believe this is anything new. Back in time, people used to seriously believe in faeries, trolls, deamons, angels and other supernatural phenomena.
That's how you could lead people to carry holy wars and consider serfdom and slavery as natural order of things.
Back in the 80's, I remember a report from an ethnologist going to Nepal and meeting people who seriously believed that Russians had goat feet.
If anything, the internet has revealed the credulity of the general population, and provides means to fight and contain superstitions of various kinds.
It's really so sad and frustrating for those under the age of 45. Millennials were raised during a time of prosperity and possibilities, only to find out it was all a sham by the selfish, stupid and mostly older generations. Now Millennials, Gen Z and Gen A will reap the outcomes of all that while those who caused it will die off before things get even worse. I harbor no resent towards Gen X, but their refusal to fight the tide certainly didn't help.
as a genXer we were promised and viewed all that could be done and was being done. then they voted in Reagan and was all stripped away. any glimpse of prosperity during the 90s was GenX optimism that was destroyed in 2000 when it was all stolen from everyone again. GenX doesn't do anything anymore because we were told to shut up as we grew up in the 80s and then had it stolen again in the 2000 election.
@thesebits Definitely. I remember as a kid in the 70s all of this innovation and research into getting us off of fossil fuels being taught to us and a real sense of optimism about the future and science. So much changed for the better or was moving in the right direction then fucking Reagan and the Bushes and greedy cronies like Gingrich come into power and ripped all of that away.
I feel like you’re doing Gen X a huge disservice here. Like there’s a chunk of history you’re not familiar with.
Gen X was the first generation to go to college only to come out saddled with debt and only “mcjobs” to show for it. We graduated into NAFTA and globalisation.
There were some hardcore protests, movements, and mobilisations around the issues that matter… Economy, environment, women’s rights, employee rights, animal welfare rights, etc.
It has very obviously continued to deteriorate, but I’ll admit there was optimism because we did see some gains and some promise… I can’t remember the last time I felt any optimism about this world.
I harbor no resent towards Gen X, but their refusal to fight the tide certainly didn't help.
@Ganondorf While growing up, GenX was vastly outnumbered by Greatest Generation, Silent Generation & Boomers. The stereotype is that they cynically opted out but I think a lot of that was because there were limited democratic options available and it was deeply frustrating to many.
It's really so sad and frustrating for those under the age of 45. Millennials were raised during a time of prosperity and possibilities, only to find out it was all a sham by the selfish, stupid and mostly older generations.
I share your frustration. The US is still the wealthiest country on earth by a large margin, with many possibilities if we can convince ourselves to share it equitably. We could make our systemic incentives virtuous rather than destructive. We don't need to squeeze everyone and reward bad actors to have abundance.
I harbor no resent towards Gen X, but their refusal to fight the tide certainly didn't help.
Not all of us were apathetic; there were many who tried to fight for what was considered really progressive ideas at the time, like fighting for equal rights and against climate change, but there weren't enough of us. We're a smaller generation anyway, didn't have a good way to make our voices heard since the internet was still in its infancy, and were turned into a punchline by the media. And everybody believed it. Slacker, freeloader, tree-hugger, JFC it's no wonder why nobody took us seriously. I mean, frick, in the 90s everyone got their news from four network channels and a few cable channels on tv, so America believed the hype and largely wrote us off.
We tried, man. We did the absolute best we could with a shitty situation, and it stings to think about how we weren't able to accomplish more in our youth. Please don't write us off as a useless apathetic generation, we've already been through that before. Besides, you're probably thinking of our parents, the Boomer generation (born 1945-1965). They aren't entirely to blame for the country's problems, but they held (still do in many ways) most of the power and chose to throw their support behind rich wealthy conservative assholes, and we're still feeling the affects of their decisions. Again, they don't deserve all the blame, but the sheer amount of Boomer shit contributions to society dwarfs what the worst of Gen X ever did.
People are selfish and stupid no matter the age. My city is full of people driving gas guzzlers, traveling all the time, and ordering UberEats for every meal. They are all under 45. Then gen Z are particular bad and refuse to use public transit.
It's not about age. It's about class/wealthy. The poor use far fewer resources than the wealthy do. Rich young people are living in 5000sq ft homes by themselves and burning through natural gas and oil. They aren't living in 500sq ft apartment like ordinary folks.
Agree with everything you’re saying, but one slight problem with public transit is just how ridiculously unsafe it feels. People might be much more likely to get injured in a car crash, but the fear of being attacked or otherwise molested on public transport is simply bigger.
In my neck of the woods,if I have to choose between getting stuck in traffic for 10 minutes or wait for a bus to be late (if it shows) for a 2 hour roundtrip, I'll just get in my car.
That's not even the real issue imo, just the symptom. Public transit needs to be an actually viable alternative to driving which is hard to do when it's underfunded and we bulldozed our cities to build low-density car-dependent hellscapes we now call cities. If I get out of the states at some point I want to go somewhere walkable with nice transit so badly. Not Just Bikes has me wanting to go to Amsterdam, that looks heavenly
Your comment makes me feel self conscious as a mid 30s bachelor lol. After I got divorced…and kept the house I bought for us and our future family, I now live alone in a 3500sqft house.
It’s a god damn burden more than anything. There’s so much wasted space, and everything is more. More expensive to maintain, more expensive to heat and cool, and so much more to clean. Otherwise, I live a pretty modest life; cook, clean, and maintain everything solo.
I really just like my location and workshop. I’d be more than happy to have 800sqft living… the thing is that this house was cheap relatively speaking ($245k in 2017).
At this point, it would cost substantially more for me to downsize and move… I kinda feel trapped but more in an analysis paralysis way. So many variables and too many decisions.
My mom is in a similar situation. We all grew up and moved out of the 5 bedroom house, then Dad died and now she lives in it alone. She doesn't want all the space, but selling and buying a small home would actually not net her any profit and it's a huge hassle.
Which is what the app on my phone is based on already. I manage it most days easily by walking from the bus station to work and back, which is ~1 mile. And that doesn't include the time I'm actually at work, because I can't wear my smart watch actually in the office.
Or 7,000, or 6,000-8,000. If we’re going to nitpick there’s a lot of numbers tossed out in the article, but then somebody who reads it doesn’t really need to be saved a click.
the optimal number is probably closer to 6,000 steps per day, depending on your age.
In 2021, Paluch and her team published research based on a cohort of more than 2,000 middle-aged individuals living across the US. They found taking at least 7,000 steps a day reduced chances of premature death by 50 to 70 percent.
For adults aged 60 and older, this reduced risk topped out at around 6,000 to 8,000 steps a day. Pushing further might have other benefits, but a reduced chance of death isn’t one.
The study found that those who are younger could do well to walk a little more, but there wasn’t evidence that they’d necessarily live longer by walking more than 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day.
But if nothing else, setting our sights on at least 6,000 to 8,000 paces before bedtime could be a far easier step towards a longer life.
Scientists are bearing the brunt of this, but it is very much everyone’s problem. The people being harassed are doing things we urgently need them to do. That includes things like warning us about about immediate dangers, telling us what precautions we need to take, and doing research that could lead to workarounds and solutions to the problems themselves.
We need to speak against this. We need to act against this. And we need to change the system to provide protections and remedies. Otherwise we are all going to suffer.
Speaking does not stop those who are willing to harass and intimidate those who are working to improve our world. They cannot be reasoned with because they are categorically unreasonable.
I will leave what actually DOES work to your imagination. Cowards are cowardly.
I think you underestimate the degree to which they are cowardly. They gain confidence from superior numbers, but one-on-one, or crowd vs crowd, a lot of them can be put off by speech or other non-violent means. I think that deep down a lot of them know what they are doing is wrong, even though they tell themselves otherwise.
Non-violent resistance has a long history and has often been effective. As an example, the fight for civil rights was not won because the progressives usually managed to beat up the racists. The progressives were largely non-violent. The racists were routinely violent, but they still lost.
It takes a lot of bravery to oppose someone who may try to hurt you. Some of us will get hurt. It shouldn’t be necessary, but if we want this to stop we will have to take some risks. (There’s nothing wrong with avoiding high-risk situations, but some risk is necessary.)
Personally, I am also okay with defending yourself if you are attacked. Non-violence is always better, but I doubt I could remain passive if faced with physical violence.
All of your points are absolutely valid because it's definitely difficult to find the gumption to stand in the way of raucous bastard.
Once you find it, it just becomes a righteous way to become the raucous bastard.
Dont get me wrong, I'm no billy badass that goes looking for trouble, but SOMEBODY has to do it - and after the first guy does it, you'd be surprised how many somebodies will help.
I love chaos, and will gladly spend the night in jail, or a couple weeks in a cast to cause the people who inflict fear to become fearful. It's the only way they learn.
"The world has grown old, does not enjoy that strength which it formerly enjoyed, and does not flourish with the same vigor and strength with which it formerly prevailed ... The farmer is vanishing and disappearing in the fields, the sailor on the sea, the soldier in the camp, innocence in the marketplace, justice in the courts, harmony among friendships, skill among the arts, discipline in morals."
This will probably be the outcome but it’s way too early to be making this claim as fact. The article references one lab in China that found no SC. Meanwhile there’s a different lab in China claiming that there is SC.
The material is non-uniform and different crystal structures within the material are expected to have vastly different properties. The original paper was (suspiciously) vague about exactly how to create the material and different labs are following different steps to synthesize it. So it’s expected that they may get different results.
The original samples that inspired the paper have been sent to other labs for testing, those results should give us the final answer.
Arstechnica has a great writeup here. Seems like the process is just so variable that recreating the exact substance will be very difficult, even if the original sample is confirmed - akin to Flash's speed force experiment, or Steve Roger's super serum.
Indeed, this kind of reaction has driven me to unsubscribe from the specifically LK-99-related subreddits and forums that have cropped up. "These guys tried reproing it, and they failed, so that's it, game over. We can forget all about this stuff now." Or even worse, "this one guy made a deliberately fraudulent video, so all of the news about LK-99 can be dismissed as fake now."
This is exactly the inverse of what skeptics keep cautioning against. There are plenty of ways to fail to make superconductors, finding a new one of those doesn't tell us much. All it takes is for one lab to figure out a reliable way to make them and all the failures in the world can't overcome that.
Ooh, fun fact! Did you know the It Ain't Much But It's Honest Work meme guy was a proponent of no till farming and was a leader in the movement advocating for and utilizing the farming practices suggested in this article?
Dave Brandt passed away in May this year, but his honest work? It meant so much.
I filled it out, but let's discuss in the comments because filling out a one sided form isn't as fun as being able to have a multi sided discussion.
I personally find biological immortality super appealing. Despite the word "immortality" in it, it actually just means you can live as long as you want, which takes away many of the downsides to immortality that often get discussed. Since I'm not religious, I don't believe in any kind of afterlife, so scientific advancement letting me live longer is the only way I can avoid death (which I'm afraid of). And more than just avoiding death, I want to avoid being a frail senior whose quality of life is severely diminished.
That said, for me, I ranked the positive advancements with the disease prevention, medical advancement, and QoL above simply extending human life. I think these all do of course go hand in hand. But fewer people dying young is better than fewer people dying old. Dying young is really tragic, because there's so much of life you won't have experienced. Similarly, the big issue with growing old is age related diseases, which impact your quality of life. At a certain point, Alzheimer's and dementia seem worse than death. I feel conflicted because I don't want to die but if I had a disease like one of those, it seems like I'd no longer be myself and it's unlikely there's any hope for recovery before the disease eventually kills me. There's also the fear that perhaps I would be myself, but feel trapped inside a body, constantly confused and afraid by what's going on, which sounds horrible.
On the negative impact side, by far my biggest concern is imbalance in access to this immortality. My fear is that regular folks (including myself) won't have access but billionaires will. That's worse than not having immortality, since billionaires are generally terrible people and not who we want living longer. Overpopulation is a bit of a concern, but one that I think we can eventually solve. e.g., with social changes to expectations about having kids, automation improvements to reduce our need for people to work, and eventually moving beyond just living on the surface of earth. Wealthy nations already have a declining birth rate, anyway. As well, I'm a bit skeptical about true biological immortality, as opposed to, say, extending life on earth for a good chunk of time, but eventually moving to a digital afterlife, where overpopulation is less of a concern.
I didn't know how to answer the regulation question. I think most things need some level of regulation, but the options were "strict regulation" vs "unrestricted", neither which sound right to me. As well, regulation would likely be completely situational. e.g., obviously safety is a vital part of any form of medical treatment. We shouldn't be reducing any existing regulation there. But I certainly don't want research into the area to be unnecessarily held back. For a large part, I see this as no different from researching a cure for any other disease. Aging can be viewed as a disease.
The medical side to things is definitely a huge step up. On a personal side, I think it would be cool to be able to actually witness history as it's being made. Sure, we already are, but there's going to be so much more. I'm a big fan of horror, and one discussion I've has more than once with people is "Would you become a vampire if given the chance?" And while the whole drinking blood thing is a turn off, there is the idea of getting to see humanity evolve. If anything, I almost would rather have had that option earlier. Getting to see everything from the mid 1800s to now would be perfect. But they say there's no better time than the present, so I guess if given the chance, I would actually consider going the immortal route to see everything.
But the whole financial factor is also the big thing that makes me really question if I could support it. We are already seeing how fucked capitalism can be. And since it would likely only be for the rich for awhile, it would mean they can just take even longer to set up a world for them even more than it already is. Eventually they might start to offer it to us, but it would be more so for working purposes. Line Bezos will provide it to people for free... as long as they work for him. But once they quit, they no longer have it available. So either work 60 hours a week minimum for Amazon, or you don't get to be immortal.
A negative impact I think you lightly touched upon but want to further expand upon is how will this affect social change in this country. Like lets imagine we go back and say somehow we as humanity discovery this biological immortality around 1886ish (this is going to be very Americancentric) and again lets abstract this and say its given to everyone even though that is unrealistic. I don't think we as a society would have made much progress in terms of rights for women and minorities if we had the lead weight of these god damn fossils outdated view points (their children sort of prove that with the whole bullshit of the daughters of the confederacy and the impact they had in the last 100 years). Hell that is a problem even in the modern world, where our politicians are ancient people in their bloody 50-70s, like congress' median age is 58, some of the most active voters are also the elderly. So we see this problem in the current world and it will only get worse if people had immortality. This doesn't even talk about the idea of the impact this will have on the economy, the idea of retiring is already a foreign concept to many people in this modern world and once again this problem gets worse with immortality since you are literally going to be forced to work till you die.
Like immortality is cool as a concept when its only given to you and a few people you want to select but it gets bloody messy once its a thing that can be handed out willy nilly. It can apply to many concepts like the idea that humans no longer have to sleep, bloody awesome when its only a select few people but once its the norm and seen as the standard it will affect so many different aspects of life. "Well you don't have to sleep Johnson so work for 16 hours or you will get shitcanned because I will find someone who will!".
The change has already begun. Today in conversations about how it will impact us and tomorrow how we'll actually deal with it but I believe it's arrival is imminent.
We have to see beyond our current problems. Look further down the road.
Social upheaval and massive changes, absolutely. Something comes after that though. An immortal being would seem to be far more concerned about the world we live in than a recent news station saying something like "why take care of the earth when we have heaven?"
You do have a great point about those fossils and outdated viewpoints but it's a massive generational social construct built off of generations of life existing in the way it has for millions of years. It is changing in more ways than just immortality though. We're already on the bleeding edge of replacing people with AI (wendys drive through) and it will grow.
Put it all together and you have robot/ai workers to fill most of the slots people currently work along with immortality, advances in every field of science... So much is changing so fast. Faster than it's ever changed.
Ok, I apologize for my jumbled not very connected or well thought out response but my imagination is over caffeinated.
Agree. I added something like that in the "other negatives" box. There's that saying, society advances one funeral at a time.
I like to think that myself, I'm very good at being open minded and adapting to the times (though honestly only time will tell). But I know many people don't do that. This is clearly evident in electoral polling as well as polls for social issues (eg, US 2023 support for same sex marriage is 89% among 18-29 but only 60% among 65 and older).
Perhaps social changes could help with this problem. Clearly older folks can still change because the stat I just quoted was far worse in the not too distant past. Maybe our problems are with how we run news media or how we basically write off old folks as unlikely to change. Maybe it's because our society focuses on education being something you only do when young and you're never really expected to go back to school after that. Maybe we need to better teach empathy from a young age? Maybe us losing religion will make the biggest difference.
Maybe we don't deserve this kinda advancement yet. To quote one of my favourite parts from the show The Orville:
Technology and societal ethics have to progress hand in hand, each one supporting the other incrementally. Anything else is begging for disaster.
a member of an advanced, "space communism" version of humanity, talking to someone whose species has not yet advanced to the same point and wondering why they don't share their advanced tech with less advanced people.
Also super appealing. Achieving this advancement will be our first step in exploring the universe. Seeing as we've as yet found no others, it falls on us to become the "precursors"
The prospect of getting older - now that I'm older - and running out of time, ability or mental sharpness has had a negative impact on me in the last couple years.
There are so many things I still want to do, try, and create. Some of which I have a lot of regrets that I haven't done yet. Some of which I fear I've grown too old to accomplish.
I'd really like to live a lot longer. Now, fear of death, running out of time and my body and mind degrading have established a firm purchase on part of my mind.
What I'd love to be able to do is survive the trip to another planet and spend a couple decades researching and exploring the local flora/fauna.
I agree that billionaires will own it but... advanced tools like the crispr are available to almost anyone today and as science progress is posted and talked about, I think there will be a lot of people that can duplicate the work.
I agree there's a lot of interesting things to discuss about this topic. It can hardly be contained in a short survey like this.
For the additional thoughts I put: Positive: Selfish human thinking restricts most people to considering only how their actions will impact the world within their lifetime. The potential for living hundreds or thousands of years could allow people to think more long term about their actions. Very few things are persued in the 50-year time span, let alone planning for something that could take 200 years. Negative: People may be much less willing to take risks. If the only things that can kill you are possible to avoid entirely, wouldn't you?
I hadn't considered how bad the unequal access could be in the way that you talked about. I was thinking it would be one of those things like advanced cancer treatments, for example, that the mega-rich get access to when it is first developed and then within a few years to decades it becomes the standard of care. What I didn't consider is that whatever the breakthrough is that allows immortality may need to be near-constantly applied for it to work. Almost like a potion of immortality that lasts only weeks. Even if the cost of the treatment is lowered very quickly it's not likely it will be something as simple as insulin for treating diabetes or aspirin for treating blood pressure. It could take decades for it to become affordable for the upper class and may never become economical to give to everyone. Having a class of people who die of old age and a class who doesn't is some super dystopian cyberpunk type shit.
The fact that they have 100% satisfaction makes me think other gender-affirming surgeries and procedures which have less than 100% satisfaction are actually suffering from inadequate development of the technology, rather than some kind of fundamental regret.
Advance the technology further and we’ll likely see all rates of regret drop to 0
I’m not so sure, I think we need to ensure our therapy is 100% as well. This will help gender fluid individuals to better identify their fluidity when they may think they are strictly trans due to their mind spending a long period of time as one gender without changing back. Rare problem but not unheard of.
(Distant Binaries orbit many astronomical units from each other, Alpha Centauri A+B, are a distant binary system)
The orbital data for these systems shows a lot of variance that should not be there. One issue is there could be a third (or even forth) smaller star (brown dwarf) also present but undetectable that is causing the errors.
The research team tried to eliminate the possibility of these bodies causing the observed errors in the two body data.
They have found there is still something else happening even when this is done.
This has been published in a very respected journal so it will be interesting to see where this leads.
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