If humanity exists in 10,000 years, it’s likely the only event remembered and honored from our era is that we sent humanity to the Moon for the first time. It’s possible that Neil Armstrong’s name is the only one that will be recalled from this time. Perhaps Hitler’s.
Month: July 2019
Narrowness
3. I heard an interview with Hans Zimmer where he described Apollo as an epic art project. I like that framing a lot.
IMO the project didn’t justify itself _scientifically_. But it was an unparalleled _aesthetic_ achievement.
— Kevin Simler (@KevinSimler) July 19, 2019
I quibble with the lack of scientific value, but the framing of Apollo as an epic art project is one that I also like and agree with. Getting away from the technocrat progressive worship of narrow utilitarianism is an extremely good goal, because just as people cannot live under conditions of absolute realism, they also cannot abide the abridged technocrat conditions of life.
Humans need far more than that, on a far larger scale. The prog technocrat utopia of everyone subsisting in gray concrete boxes eating reprocessed maggots and licking algae out of recycled glass bottles is utterly uninspiring and no future can be created from that, nor will it be. It’s a dead end, just as is unrestrained capitalism.
Rationality, extreme utilitarianism and absolute realism are in fact all dead ends. Let’s not waste time heading in those directions.
Served
This is what it’d be like for men to try to even return a serve against Serena Williams:
To all the non-tennis-playing men who think they can win a point against Serena, watch this… 🙃👸🏾🎾 pic.twitter.com/GEDQb76KHt
— EBC (@ItsBlackCulture) July 19, 2019
Most people have absolutely no idea how much better professional athletes are than even “good” amateur athletes. I’ve had a couple of chances in my life to play a few sports with people who were or had been pros and even in sports I am decent at they were so superior to me I might as well have been a drunk slug. People just have no idea. None at all.
People are saying, “Oh, she could double fault.” Sure, but how often is she going to double fault when she only needs to hit the ball 50% as hard as normal to absolutely smoke every man facing her? (Hint: Never. She would never double fault.)
Idiots, pure idiots. Well, most men mostly are.
From Vega
Some plant-based burgers may not be as healthy as they seem, say nutritionists.
Nutritionally, they are absolute garbage. If you want to eat vegetables, eat fucking vegetables. Don’t eat this crap. You’d be better off eating beef and vegetables, especially if you exercise.
Remember, this is all a scam to push very cheap food marked up to extremely high prices to help a corporation’s bottom line. Don’t let the “progressives” convince you this has anything to do with the environment or your health because it absolutely does not.
DZign
It really is a tragedy that we’ve collectively decided that design should cater to (and only to) the biggest morons and incompetents that anyone can find.
How To Instill Fear
How to make sure your child is a fearful wimp forever.
That kid’ll grow up to be an adult who is afraid of absolutely everything and will also be resentful of his/her parents. Utter loons.
I wasn’t taught to swim perhaps by the kindest teachers but I was taught well. I was told that water was indeed dangerous, but being terrified of it would just lead to panic and death if something went wrong. I was taught how to handle rip currents (very easy to deal with, by the way), what to do if I got too tired to swim (float on back until recovered), how to tread water for a long time, and how to rescue someone drowning without also getting myself killed in the process.
As as result, I am a very confident and very good swimmer who you might be able to drown if you hit me over the head repeatedly with a baseball bat while I was in the water. Even then, I might take the bat from you and drown you instead.
That kid on the other hand, the first time they have a hint of a problem in the water or get into water by accident is going to be just dead. Good work.
Solving
STEM absolutists are funny. Many of them think they are going to find an equation to solve the universe when they can’t even find an equation to solve the general three-body problem.
Religions develop everywhere; humans can’t seem to help it.
Ares
The fact that it is 50 years since the moon landing should be cause, not for celebration, for self-criticism. We should have gone far further than we did, instead we de-funded.
Doing this properly publicly would have been far more effective than waiting to generate billionaires
— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) July 21, 2019
Exactly. We should have at least one permanent orbital habitat (subsidized by earth, for research) and a large-ish permanent base on Mars. Not colony, as with current tech Mars is impossible to colonize. But humanity does have no backup plan. That would be at least the shell of one, as well as all the science we could and should do on Mars given the time and funding. And no, it can’t all be done by robots.
Benchers
I got 195 pounds on the bench press tonight! 200 soon, I can feel it.
Sadism and the Climate
After the Green New Deal resolution was released Fox started ranting about how AOC wants to take away your hamburgers and cars and air travel. GND supporters pushed back, but the thing is that to save the planet the government *does* need to take away those things.
— Rabi Abonour (@rabonour) July 19, 2019
This is the left’s failure mode and it’s how they will fall on their face here in a big way. These people don’t want to make life better for anyone. They are flagellant Antonian ascetics at heart, who want to punish others for their sins, who use the pretense of caring about the fate of humanity so they can see others suffer — those who of course “deserve” it like the deplorables and hicks.
I agree of course that consumption patterns will have to change. Instead of this asinine approach, though, we could be exploring better land use patterns, different technologies, putting in high-speed rail and so many other initiatives. But people like this on the left don’t actually want any of that or care about it in any way. For them (and this is much of the left) that is not the point. They deeply want to take away your AC, your ability to visit distant cities, any quality food, because to them it’ll be your righteous comeuppance for your sins against the planet, you deplorable.
This of course is terrible from the perspective of converting anyone to your cause and will only harm the movement. It achieves exactly the opposite effect. Tell me, except in rare cases of other masochists or the extremely religious, how has telling people about all the things you are committed to ripping away from them helped a cause to prosper? This strategy is exactly like nominating Hillary Clinton despite knowing she’s a bad candidate just to show those damn flyover fuckers who is boss! And how’d that work out for ya?
This approach to combating climate change will be that, but worse.
How to Lose
How Democrats Defeat Donald Trump.
So says the always-wrong NYT. This is the establishment, Kevin Drum-like line and it’s being pushed far and wide now. There was a Friedman column nearly identical to this the other day and many other outlets are promulgating similar “wisdom.” My prediction is that if the Democrats take this tack, they will be utterly trounced. Biden will lose. Harris will probably lose. As long as the economy is reasonably ok, choosing a safe centrist is a path to defeat. It’s what happened in 2016 and it’ll happen again. (Conversely, if the economy tanks, any Democrat nominated will win.)
The Dem establishment and its sycophants like Bruni would much rather lose than have anyone elected who might actually change something and shake up their power and organization a bit. Remember that when you read pieces like his.
I know most of you reading this don’t want to believe it, but I’ll be sure to link to this when in 2020 Trump trounces your centrist “safe” choice and I will say “I told you so.”
Rupture
This clip is crazy. The journalists literally laugh at Bernie for saying he wouldn't take bribes. They can't imagine someone who isn't corrupt. https://t.co/3nx35WdYMV
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) July 20, 2019
This goes along with Lance Mannion et al. asserting that Sanders would be a bad leader because he’s not unethical enough to really understand how to govern. This is a mainstream centrist view, in other words.
What kind of mental gymnastics it takes to convince yourself that it’s preferable to have a leader who is corrupt, I have no idea.
Bad Ideas Done Dirt Cheap
Western world does not understand ethnic conflict. The assumption is that ethnic conflict is reducible to scapegoating and irrational hatred, as opposed to groups with fundamentally contradictory values and interests constantly fucking with each other until someone pulls a gun.
— Jonah Bennett (@BennettJonah) April 25, 2019
This is pari passu with the Western liberal idea that diversity is people who think and dress alike, but just have different skin colors. This is not diversity, of course, and the world simply is not that way.