charonn0

charonn0, 10 months ago

Every time I see this it’s a small group within a larger capitalist society. So of course the results are beneficial to the recipients; it’s not really proving anything in that respect.

The problem as I see it is how to make it work as its own self-sustaining economic system.

charonn0, 10 months ago

But programs such as the one in the OP are supposed to be prototypes for a universal basic income. I’ve seen a number of these experiments crop up in the news, and it’s always just proving that the recipients thrived more. Which, ok, is good in and of itself.

But wasn’t it obvious? Was it ever even really the question for UBI? Or is the real question about whether and how it can scale up and become self-sustaining?

charonn0, 9 months ago

It’s not for your personal privacy, or to spare you personal embarrassment. But rather because large-scale demographic data collection is dangerous.

The Nazis used such collections to locate Jews. America used such collections to locate Japanese-Americans. The Rwanda genocide was facilitated by tribal affiliation being printed on ID cards. In none of these cases were the data collected for the nefarious purposes it was eventually used for.

Information is a form of knowledge, knowledge is power, and power in the wrong hands is dangerous.

charonn0, 9 months ago

This is why I appreciate the scene in Undiscovered Country where Kronos One glides into view, seeming to align itself to the Enterprise’s orientation.

youtu.be/AkqZja1IBfk?t=129

charonn0, 10 months ago

Robot Monster is the epitome of a 50’s low budget B-class horror movie.

https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/5fc787d1-0818-4aa9-90ea-87c164846865.jpeg

charonn0, 9 months ago

I have a friend who’s an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say “look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree.

Then he says “I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing,” and I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is … I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.

At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes.

The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.

-Richard Feynman

charonn0, 9 months ago

“No offense, Lieutenant. You’re different, of course.”

charonn0, 10 months ago

I have zero sympathy. In fact, I hope it gets even worse.

charonn0, 9 months ago

https://startrek.website/pictrs/image/6f84d05c-c505-472d-a03b-3b462afed9ff.jpeg

charonn0, 9 months ago

Be honest, would you prefer an android slave that was programmed by a paragon of virtue, or one that was programmed by that unprincipled, evil-minded, lecherous kulak Harry Mudd?

charonn0, 9 months ago

Where she’ll be no tribble at all

charonn0, 9 months ago

For the unfamiliar: As the head of Desilu Productions, she was the one responsible for giving TOS a second pilot.

charonn0, 9 months ago

…only one?

charonn0, 11 months ago

J’gowat: a unit of power named for the Klingon siege engineer who invented the steam catapult.

charonn0, 10 months ago

OK, fine. You can be crummy quadrant alpha; we’ll be quadrant one.