Self-driving cars are safer, in general, overall

Self driving cars in general, maybe. Teslas in particular, probably not so much, especially with Musk refusing to use LIDAR…

Source?

I mean… [ gestures broadly at everything ]

They see the world as a zero sum game. They can’t imagine being happy unless someone else is unhappy.

Regardless of how many sides there are, it is an undeniable fact that plenty of people (in the USA in particular, apparently, a majority of the voters) choose to be in (a) side(s) that want(s) to enslave, murder, and rape.

And many others choose to be in (a) side(s) that enable(s) the previous one(s).

No civilised society should accept any of those sides, or those that choose them.

Most people seem to want others not to have a good life, ignoring or disregarding the effects that might have on themselves.

Many if not most would sacrifice their own wellbeing if that guarantees that “the right people” will also suffer. They see the world as a zero sum game, and can’t conceive the possibility of having a good life if others aren’t having a bad one.

Most people suck, often to the point of being monstrous by any decent definition.

COVID showed us that when we close the borders it’s already too late.

American avian flu will be global long before enough other governments take it seriously enough to react, because the people who should have raised the alarm (in the USA) will be too busy looking for a job, in jail, dead, or ignoring it and drinking raw milk.

Streaming is bringing unskippable ads and surveillance.

Torrents bring neither and are higher quality and more user friendly.

The internet is making things worse, not better.

No, it’s not. Before the Internet you could only watch what was on, when it was on.

Now you can torrent anything you want to watch, whenever you want to watch it, and in much higher quality than TV used to be. And, again, without ads, which TV has always been riddled with.

That’s infinitely better, on multiple metrics.

Or use NewPipe if you don’t need to sync with your Google account.

Not as much as going from coax to RJ45, or from PATA to SATA, or from PC/AT to PS/2 to USB or Bluetooth, or from D-SUB to DVI to HDMI or Display port, or from the old serial and parallel ports to USB or Bluetooth (I mainly skipped SCSI), and I sort of miss having to turn the connector 360° around for it to fit…

Futurama calls the current era the Stupid Ages.

As for the period between the fall of the western Roman empire and the renaissance, it’s often referred to as the Middle Ages.

Look at the bright side: today’s the best day of the rest of your life! And so will every day from now on!

Who the fuck would be in the favour of fascists…?

Franco did not sire the entire Spanish population.

No, but he did kill, or drive into exile or poverty and political irrelevance anyone who didn’t share his views.

Most of the surviving population, especially the ones with economic and political power, were fascists. Their children were fascists. Their grandchildren were fascists wearing progressive masks. And their great grandchildren are fascists who’ve taken off their masks.

When the bastard said he left everything “tied up and well tied up” he wasn’t kidding.

Germany was forced to clean up house, though.

Franco died in bed (in extreme agony, apparently; the only good thing the bastard ever did; but still), naming his successor, whose son is the current unelected parasite on the throne. The dictator’s children and grandchildren are public figures, celebrated and followed by embarrassingly large portions of the population.

The murderers and torturers who worked for him kept their jobs, were forgiven all their crimes, and their children and grandchildren succeed them (old money and contacts in high places go a long way towards winning elections).

The supposed “transition” merely put some new wallpaper on top of the existing structures, with a watered down constitution voted under military threats: vote for it, or else, even going as far as staging a coup attempt so that Franco’s successor could “save the day”, become a hero, and water the new supposed democracy down even further.

Do not compare Spain to Germany. It’s extremely insulting to Germany.

Most other states tend not to celebrate their raping, murdering, and pillaging as a national holiday, though.

And there’s also the fact that most Spanish politicians are descendants of those that served under the coupist dictator Franco (who nominated the current parasite in chief’s father as his successor), and share the same political views, as does a nauseatingly high portion of the population.

Move on

No.

Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper:

I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

(…)

[through his cigar] Mandrake,

Group Captain Lionel Mandrake:

Yes, Jack?

Ripper:

Have you ever seen a commie drink a glass of water?

Mandrake:

Well, no I… I can’t say I have, Jack.

Ripper:

Vodka. That’s what they drink, isn’t it? Never water?

Mandrake:

Well I… I believe that’s what they drink, Jack. Yes.

Ripper:

On no account will a commie ever drink water, and not without good reason.

Mandrake:

Oh, ah, yes. I don’t quite… see what you’re getting at, Jack.

Ripper:

Water. That’s what I’m getting at. Water. Mandrake, water is the source of all life. Seven tenths of this earth’s surface is water. Why, you realize that… seventy percent of you is water.

Mandrake:

Uhhh God…

Ripper:

And as human beings, you and I need fresh, pure water to replenish our precious bodily fluids.

Mandrake:

Yes. [chuckles nervously]

Ripper:

You beginning to understand?

Mandrake:

Yes. [chuckles, begins laughing/crying quietly]

Ripper:

Mandrake. Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rain water, and only pure grain alcohol?

Mandrake:

Well it did occur to me, Jack, yes.

Ripper:

Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation? Fluoridation of water?

Mandrake:

Ah, yes, I have heard of that, Jack. Yes.

Ripper:

Well do you now what it is?

Mandrake:

No. No, I don’t know what it is. No.

Ripper:

Do you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face?

(…)

Mandrake, do you realize that in addition to fluoridated water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake. Children’s ice cream?

Mandrake:

Good Lord.

Ripper:

You know when fluoridation first began?

Mandrake:

No. No, I don’t, Jack. No.

Ripper:

Nineteen hundred and forty six. Nineteen fortysix, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your postwar commie conspiracy, huh? It’s incredibly obvious, isn’t it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That’s the way your hard core commie works.

Mandrake:

Jack… Jack, listen, tell me, ah… when did you first become, well, develop this theory.

Ripper:

Well, I ah, I I first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.

Mandrake:

[sighs fearfully]

Ripper:

Yes a profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly: loss of essence.

Mandrake:

Yes…

Ripper:

I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women… women sense my power, and they seek the life essence. I do not avoid women, Mandrake, but I do deny them my essence.

There’s plenty of science fiction without technology playing a significant role.

Robert Silverberg’s Dying Inside was the first that came to mind; Asimov’s The Gods Themselves or Nightfall might be other examples; Olaf Stapledon’s Sirius; Clarke’s Childhood’s End has (alien) tech, but it mostly focuses on the psychological and societal effects of the contact with aliens, as does Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life (and some of the other stories collected in the same volume, Stories of Your Life and Others); Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five… lots of great science fiction works focus on aspects other than technology.

We’re talking about Donald Trump here… you could replace him with an animatronic muppet and the only thing people would notice is that he looked healthier and didn’t smell as bad.

2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick gave them fucking iPads. In 1968.

Blade Runner was very much a product of its time (though Syd Mead’s visuals were outstanding).

There was something floating in the late seventies / early eighties zeitgeist that would become the cyberpunk genre, and it sort of condensed in several spots simultaneously.

William Gibson had just published Burning Chrome, and was finishing writing Neuromancer (which would be published in '84 and be considered a foundation of the genre).

Ridley Scott and Syd Mead independently adapted a (very different from the film) book by Philip K. Dick into a film that looked and felt like it was set in Gibson’s Sprawl.

In Japan, Kasuhiro Otomo had just begun publishing Akira.

Frank Miller was probably in the process of writing and conceptualising Rōnin, which DC would start publishing in '83.

Bruce Bethke had come up with the term cyberpunk in 1980, but that short story wouldn’t be published until '83.

Over the next few years many other authors would create other works clearly set in the same genre, though at this point they probably had some influence from Gibson and Blade Runner and each other.

Mike Pondsmith was drinking it all up and coming up with a role playing game with that title, to be published in '88.

And, all over the eighties and nineties, the genre exploded, and was everywhere.