Alistair Young @cerebrate@schelling.pt

The Day We Were Raided By The Feds -

https://noiseinmysignal.substack.com/p/what-the-hell-happened?sd=pf

(I wrote this up to attach to the yard sign mentioned in previous toots with a QR code, and have something to pin to avoid telling the story over again.)

Before following me, you should be aware that if you have a political ideology, I probably despise it, even if it's mine.

🤔​

No, actually - especially if it's mine.

Vault-Tec did nothing wrong.

Change my mind.

Since it has crossed my eyes once more, let me just take a moment out of my day to reassure you that if there is a stupider and more patently disingenuous meme out there, I have not yet seen it this morning.

Farewell, my old friend.

https://www.techspot.com/news/102684-zilog-discontinuing-z80-microprocessor-after-almost-50-years.html

Pax prompter vim.

Peace through text editing.

(This is also a commentary on why the #eldraeverse is unfilmable.)

Of course, it's necessary that it be that way, from the writers' perspective. Largely because if the Doctor ever *did* decide that he was done with people dying on him all the time and therefore, well, _fuck death in the general case_, there is a very good chance that he might actually be able to pull it off.

Which leads to the universe becoming very weird, and not in a cute portrayable way for companions and bystanders to boggle at, in rather short order.

So I've been catching up on my Doctor Who ( #drwho ; currently in revival series 9), and while I do enjoy the show, as a transhumanist, I am frequently irritated by the pro-death-and-mortality position that the show and the Doctor takes, well, almost every time the subject comes up.

(Death is necessary to give life meaning/make people appreciate life, and anyone who attempts to not die/finds themselves immortal goes horribly, horribly wrong.)

So it's not like I have to worry about operationalizing the plan involving wearing a leather posing-pouch as I round people up at rebar-sword-point and force them to walk the treadmill powering my k8s cluster.

But those of you who have children and would prefer them not being slaves or slavers - both being _real_ shitty lifestyles - might consider taking a moment to be appropriately terrified, m'kay?

(Also, build fission plants.)

This message brought to you by the Campaign for an Erg Day.

Now, myself, I don't really have to care all that much about this issue. I and my loved ones will be safely dead, and if there's an afterlife, I'll be looking up from some netherworld delivering sarcastic commentary.

(I'm gonna be a big hit down there, 'cause dead people are mostly old, and old people do love bitching about how their descendants fucked everything up by the numbers.)

....well, then, we should expect certain other alternative energy sources to come back in a big way.

Yes, I'm talking about the return of slavery. Because the thing about slavery, you see, is that while it's nowhere near as efficient as industrial energy, it requires little complex infrastructure or technical knowledge, and can be practiced effectively on the small scale. All it actually *requires* is ethically-challenged human beings, a resource that has never been in short supply.

The conclusion which is fairly easy to reach is that if (a) we fail to adequately manage the energy transition away from fossil fuels in a way that preserves per-capita energy usage and preferably also preserves the ongoing secular increase in per-capita energy usage; or (b) are big enough fools to succumb to degrowth ideology and assume that people will, in fact, be satisfied to replace it with a secular settling for less...

Namely, I am going to take a moment to observe that the decline of slavery and the rise of the energy-powered machine roughly coincide in history, and that this is no coincidence.

And we should take this as a very pointed warning for the future.

Because humans do not, by and large, enjoy going gentle into that good night, and because one of the most blatant correlations in all history is that between per-capita energy usage and quality of life.

So, today on here I have read a thread concerning the high density of slaves (relative to population) in certain older societies, and contrasting that to, as Buckminster Fuller called it, the "energy slaves" we have today in the form of our per-capita energy usage, having replaced human labor with energy-powered machine labor.

(Primarily fossil-fuel energy, which is a problem.)

Now I don't want to derail that thread in the service of my own point, so I'm going to start my own here.

Speaking of which, consider this a reminder that "tax wealth not income" is an idea of the same shape as "burn fossil fuels, don't catch sunlight", and if you can recognize the obvious failure mode of one you should also be able to recognize the obvious failure mode of the other.

Among the first rules of tax policy should be "If the French tried it and backed off because it failed and/or backfired spectacularly, abandon the whole goddamn concept."

In which I have no interest for unfortunate-association reasons. But, y'know, if flying the wartime flags of our former - and sometimes current - enemies is to be considered _chic_, which empirically it *is*, my trollish heart can do better than that.

tl;dr anyone know where I can get hold of a reproduction Imperial Japanese Navy battle ensign?

So, I've been looking to replace my flag recently, thanks to the inevitable tattering effects of Kansas wind, and after ordering a duplicate, went looking for other flags that reflect my values. Thought I might mix it up a little.

Searching for interesting flags on the Internet is always an experience, given the number of dire sins against vexillology and good taste out there, but I'm quite irritated by the crowding out of other interesting possibilities by the old Confederate battle flag.

I see people whine “But why must I always be better than them?”

Because the controller of the simulation is running an evolutionary algorithm, bro. Only the single best one of us will get out of the universe alive.

Among the joys of designing financial systems for SF universes of varying tech/dev level is the moment when you realize that the ultratech galactic transaction clearing system requires an error handler for “payment delayed due to sick bullock”.

#eldraeverse #scienceFiction #writing #worldbuilding