Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Based on an exchange in the main thread, I've been reminded by how different some of the views I hold on technological progress are from the rest of this forum (and I suppose society in general). I don't think we will ever colonize space (and have started to view people who take space colonization seriously in a negative light), AI will be an expensive nothinburger, and we will spend our lives in an environment of declining energy availability and increasing ecological catastrophe. I'm not full doomer by any means, but I find the vague nature that many on the forum treat the material basis of our reality to be baffling. One of the best and most palatable speakers I find on this topic is Nate Hagens and his Great Simplification podcast. Every week he has a variety of guests on the show that deal with various aspects of our predicament, many of whom strongly disagree with him. I would really recommend that almost everyone here check him out.
What views do you hold that you feel are orthogonal to most people on this forum (or society at large)? Who is the best speaker/writer that you feel like captures your point of view?
We've had the answer to this since the discovery of nuclear fission, we just gaslight ourselves into pretending we don't by regulating it off the board and saying "it just isn't profitable 🤷♂️"
Amusingly, the West may finally come to its senses on this matter as it's under threat of losing the entire game board to China. Civilisational suicide would be totally cool in a vacuum, but when there's a rival, it looks like you're just coping for losing, rather than virtuously killing yourself, which is totally not cool.
Tangentially, this is why I view fusion as basically irrelevant: if we get fusion, we'll just make that illegal, too.
Yeah.
Unless something is very wrong about my understanding of physics, we have beautiful technological solutions for almost every civilizational problem just sitting there, if only we can solve the coordination problems necessary to use them.
Although I do start to worry that we don't have a sufficient supply of competent people to coordinate around even if we could. The main disconnect from optimistic/utopic Sci-Fi from the past, including Older Star Trek, and the current reality is a ready supply of smart, driven people can work together to solve any pressing issues in front of them.
This is what makes Atlas Shrugged evergreen. Its depiction of a society that regresses technologically not because of loss of knowledge or expertise but simple loss of will will always be terrifyingly plausible.
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