high rise farms

rpm: Harbinger of the Doomed Rat: I'd say the breeders are contributing a f*ck of a lot more to society and our species than the child-free are.

Malthus is going to be right eventually. How soon do you want that to be?

Why?
Broken clock is right twice a day logic?

1) checks and balances on populations in wild are obvious. too many critters for the existing food supply = population crash.

2) while humans are critters, humans also have the ability to do a couple of things that critters can not do:

   a) restrict pregnancy

   b) increase food supply

   c) increase technology of food production

   d) decrease the population (war, exterminations, carousel )

Strangely enough, we have seen no evidence that Malthus will ever be correct.

Every time that pressure has increased, people have risen to the challenge.
And population pressure has been decreasing long after Malthus predictions.
His predictions basically excluded the industrial revolution.

Paul Erhlich was wrong, not even close and should be ignored, not worshiped.

Better yet, we havent even come close to tapping out the theoretical maximum of food production.

1) High-rise farms

2) fission power plants for grow lights

3) fertilizer directly from the N₂ in the air. 

While greenies dont like fission, it is a trivial solution to the problem of needing more food.

Initially costly to build the power plants and factories, but not so much that it couldnt be done if needed.

This doesnt even required new technology.  Existing technology could be used.

/yes, there are costs. but you could refine the uranium responsibly with regulation. you can clean the water from the factories and recycle it. etc etc etc

/the idea that the sky is falling has been around since 800,000BC.  Why do these people assume that we have to use yesterdays technology to solve tomorrows problems? 

addiction

yes no sort of
before I learned what I learned, I was just as ignorant as the average person.

"JUST STOP"

As with all mental illness, unless you have one, it is a COMPLETELY foreign concept.  It is close to impossible to empathize with something that you have ZERO experience with.  And the more mental something is, with no physical aspects, makes them the idea even harder to comprehend.

PANIC ATTACKS are a perfect example.
You can have them without being addicted, etc etc etc.
But unless you have had a full blown panic attack, they seem like a crazy person JUST OVER REACTING. GROW UP.

But once you have had ONE PANIC ATTACK!! WOHOOOOOOOOOOOOO
You instantly have empathy and sympathy for everyone who ever has and ever will.

I have an asshole sister who thinks that all psychology is complete bullshit.  Strangely enough, she really needs a couple decades of DEEP therapy before she could even come close to empathizing with another person.

knock on wood, my family does not have the addiction gene. everyone has pretty much been able to quit whatever they were on, whenever they wanted. cigs, crack, bottle, meth, crack.  When they were done, it was done.

I really feel for people how cant.
I dont understand it. But I get it.

But that is the minority.

bad medicine

so drugs are being used to treat symptoms, rather than tests being done to determine if there is some sort of underlying condition and then treating that condition?

COLOR ME SHOCKED
Especially given the terrible health care in the US.


CSB
I had undiagnosed hashimoto's (hypothyroidism) for probably 10 years.
ooo depression? lets put you on meds
ooo sleep problems? lets put you on meds
ooo weight gain? well you are just lazy
ooo hypertension? lets put you on meds
ooo sleep apnea? lets put you on a machine or something

Even after being put on hormone replacement, the doctor was under dosing me, because they are TERRIFIED of going over. LOL

FFS, once I FINALLY was properly treated, oh LOOK, my sleep problems went away, my depression went away, my weight improved, my hypertension improved.

All at the cost of a generic pill and proper testing.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

TL;DR - be in charge of your own medical health, because no one else is
/csb

The Ultimate Resource

PLUS
If you read pretty much all of history from 1000AD to now, you will mind billions of people repeating this same story, over and over and over again.

Chicken Littles. The end is near.
We are running out of wood!!!   YAY COAL!!
We are running our of coal (only in england)!!!   YAY OIL!!!
We are running out of clean air and water!!! YAY EPA!
We are running out of oil! YAY fracking, photo, wind, nuclear.
We are getting hot and melting!!! YAY tbd

Seriously. Solutions are TBD.
The world tends to solve problems once they are BIG, even catastrophic.

Look at Haiti earthquake (and every earthquake in a poor country). We have ALWAYS KNOWN that the buildings in Haiti were POS that would fall down in a strong wind. We did nothing. We reacted after the event.

If the global ocean actually rises, we will build dikes and move and poor will suffer. Like always. But globally, we will do NOTHING to stop the increase in CO2. It would require us to NUKE China and India to remove all of their fossil power plants. Anything else will barely slow the change.

For an AWESOME READ on the topic from my only personal hero,
try The Ultimate Resource, Julian Simon.

THis book converted me from an ignorant cynic and pessimist to an informed optimist. WTF!!

10 first kiss video

FFS - watch this
3 minutes of your life
107% chance that you will thank me

memories of all those first kisses
the awkward body language of some of them
some pulling away
some diving in

WHICH LEADS TO
who would you be?
would you be able to do this?
would you let someone else lead or enter your personal space?
are you so sure?

quite well done

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/tatia-pileva-first-kiss-strangers_n_4940669.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpbDHxCV29A

Secrecy vs Privacy

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/03/03/285334820/if-theres-privacy-in-the-digital-age-it-has-a-new-definition

Strangely enough, a lot of those SECRET things that people want to keep SECRET is illegal. That illegal income, that money they are hiding from their spouse, etc etc etc etc.

Or stranger, things that they are ashamed of, ashamed that their "friends" and community will find out the truth about them.

I am not sure that we can keep ANYTHING secret anymore.
(Not saying that we shouldn't try. Not saying that we should let the government spy on us.)
But, so much of what we do is just out there in the public. And the tech to track ALL of it is now trivial and dirt cheap.

Time to start thinking about what that data means, how we should use it and not use it.

Tracking Boston Marathon bombers down??
AWESOME use of the data.

Tracking down the never-ending lies of politicians?
AWESOME use of the data.

Worried that Target might target market me stuff that I might want to buy??
LOL - I refuse to lose any sleep over this.

Worried that your company might fire you because they find out that you are gay, or had an abortion?
WELL, NOW I have a problem. And, strangely enough, we have been moving to make those kind of things illegal for companies to do for a while.

Arizona tried to pass a law that would legalize this. It was shot down.
More and more BIG companies are fighting back against people using their "morals" as tools of HATE.

meh
not losing any sleep over this



----

another AWESOME point of the death of secrecy ....
With no more secrets, it is MUCH harder for governments to commit the heinous that they have in the past.

And easier for us to find out when they did and trace who did what and when.