WoodScientist

joined 11 months ago
[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Or the real dark horse candidate...the Nigerian naira!

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

That really would be the bomb!

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 9 points 2 hours ago

What makes you think I don't do that on my current computer?

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

And that's what the proles told each other about telescreens.

"It's just a telescreen dood, just chill."

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

I mean, we used to put animals on trial for crimes. I suppose we could do so again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWLELLlv6E

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

You're teaching your children to accept highly invasive surveillance. And for what? Just so you can surrender to a moral panic about stranger danger, when actual rates of childhood abduction and abuse are at historic lows. You're failing to properly raise citizens of a healthy democratic society. Instead, you're raising children to accept living in an authoritarian society. If kids grow up with their own parents spying on them, why would they ever think the government and corporations spying on them is wrong? You surrendered the freedom of your own children, just to give in to your own irrational insecurities. But you tell yourself that your case is different, that you're violating their privacy for their own good. This is exactly what every authoritarian government tells their citizens. It's for your own good; that's what they always say. You are failing to teach your children to have the values necessary to be citizens in a healthy democracy.

The road to Hell is paved with "for the children."

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Unfortunately this isn't saving us from climate-induced civilizational suicide. We are not capable of saving ourselves. Conservative governments are science-denying fascists, and liberal governments can't see any solution that doesn't involve the free market. They're both slaves to capitalism, and capitalism is destroying our world. Every societal collapse is driven primarily by a delusional elite powered by high levels of wealth inequality, and our story will be no different than countless societies that have collapsed before us, crushed under the weight of their own dysfunctional political systems.

Renewables are not replacing fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use hasn't declined at all. Emissions have never been higher. Rather, what should have been obvious is happening. Capitalism is very good at exploiting any available and useful resource, and there is no more useful resource than energy. The market is more than happy to gobble up the output of any number of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. A use for all that energy can be found. No matter how many solar panels we produce, their output is used to increase the total amount of energy consumed, rather than using them to replace fossil fuels. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are still very useful energy, and the market continues to find a use for them as well. To a capitalist system, the answer to the question "how much energy should we produce?" Is always "yes."

Solving this problem will require actions that no liberal government is capable of. If you worship the free market as a religion, then you won't be capable of making the changes that are needed to save our species from extinction. Conservatives know only delusions, and liberals know only subsidies. Both are equally useless at solving the problems we face.

What do we need to do? We need to be using non-market solutions. We need to be phasing out fossil fuels entirely. We need to be limiting the total amount extracted, and we need to lower that cap rapidly over time. Then we need to make it illegal to extract fossil fuels. We need to make it a capital offense to dig an oil well. Anyone caught drilling a well should be buried alive inside that well. Then we need to go to war against any nation that refuses to do the same. Eventually we need to waging outright military campaigns against fossil fuel infrastructure, regardless of what country the infrastructure belongs to. We need to be willing to risk nuclear war, as that is the level of crisis we are facing.

Note, your skin probably crawled when you read those last few sentences. If it did, you're likely not psychologically capable of truly addressing the crisis we find ourselves in. You're so conditioned to capitalist realism that those actions seem violent and absurd, rather than acts of rational self-defense of a species against its own annihilation.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Individually targeted and psychologically-optimized content.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (4 children)

I think you're one of those crazy people. Honestly, no one with that level of control obsession should be allowed to have children.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 17 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (3 children)

Your home can look like this. No HOA needed!

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 36 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

AI is good at creating work that looks correct to someone that doesn't understand the work.

 

There is much speculation on whether President Trump will simply refuse to comply with judicial orders. There's the famous line of Andrew Jackson, "The court has made their ruling, let them enforce it." JD Vance recently tweeted that he does not believe Musk's rogue DOGE agency should be subject to judicial review. The writer behind a lot of the philosophy of Trump and Vance, Curtis Yarvin, advocates that the president should simply ignore court orders and do what he wills. Many have lamented that if this were the case, that there is nothing the Supreme Court could do. That they would simply be powerless, and that the only hope would be that the military would step in.

But I can think of an option for such a scenario that I haven't heard discussed anywhere. If a president openly defies a direct order by a Supreme Court, could the court then call upon the ancient common law tradition of a Writ of Outlawry?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw

In common parlance, we use the term "outlaw" to refer to someone that is simply a criminal or on the run from the law. But traditionally it was something a lot more specific. Back in ancient days where it was much more difficult to track down fugitives, courts would declare those who refused to subject themselves to the court's process as "outlaws." They literally were declared as outside the protection from the law. It was then legal for literally anyone to do whatever they wanted to that person, and they would face no legal penalties whatsoever. An outlaw could literally be killed, and their killer would face no penalties. The philosophy was that if someone was going to refuse to subject themselves to the law, then they did not deserve the protection of the law.

Could this be the answer to Jackson's quip? Ultimately the Supreme Court determines the working of the justice system. If a court rules that no lower court can hold someone accountable for crimes against someone, then anyone could harm that person with impunity.

Could this be a final and ultimate option for the Supreme Court to hold a rogue president accountable? Give the president plenty of chances and fair warning. But if the president simply refuses to abide by the court's rulings, then the court could activate this ancient tradition and declare them an outlaw. It would then be completely legal for anyone to do whatever they wanted to the president, including the Secret Service agents that surround him at all times. Could the Supreme Court rein in a lawless president by simply declaring that president outside of the law's protection?

 

With all the chaos in Washington right now, I'm low key worried about Musk and his goons managing to fuck up the FDIC. If that happens, we're looking at simultaneous bank runs on every bank in the country.

Is it possible for a US citizen, without actually traveling to a foreign country, to open up a bank account in Canada or Europe somewhere and transfer some funds there? I'm not quite at the point of "liquidate everything and get it out of the country." But having a hedge in the form of an emergency fund in a Canadian or European bank account is very tempting right now.

Is this sort of thing possible? Can you open up a foreign bank account remotely? Or is this the kind of thing you can only do by physically traveling to a foreign country, walking into a bank branch, and opening an account there? And can you open up a bank account in a country without having any citizenship or residency there?

Basically, is it possible for a US citizen, whose only nationality or immigration status is American, to open up an account in Canada or Europe without physically leaving the borders of the US?

Sorry if this is a silly or stupid question. I don't have a lot of experience with international banking.

 

Let's change the law to bring back the old Germanic tradition of judicial trial by combat. But make it specific to consumer and labor rights disputes. Got a beef with a company? Forget binding arbitration. You can now challenge the CEO to a one-on-one sword fight. The battle will be decided....by the blade! Legally speaking, we'll just assume the fight is in God's hands, and whatever the consumer rights or labor dispute in question, the side that survives is the automatic winner.

 
 

And yes, I realize that by proposing this, I'll probably be the first one voted into the Sea. That's fine. I'm willing to take one for the team.

 

Why are we'all in such a rush, anyway? If you need to talk to someone right away, we got video conferencing. If you, in an emergency, really need to move somewhere fast, there's helicopters. I say we just consign the whole 'car' idea to the dustbin of history, and just convert everything over to canals. If some insist on speed, we can consider adding a train system. But the only means of private mechanized transport must be by watercraft! That should be enough.

 

Let's make elections TRULY interesting. Our current system strictly prevents any vote totals from being released until the last polls have closed at the end of election day. I say we do the exact opposite. Let's publish vote totals for every election LIVE!

When you vote early or send in an absentee ballot, it may be counted early, but currently those results are held secret until the last polls close on election day. Instead, let's have states and counties publish online live running totals of votes as they come in! Also we can invest in more rapid ballot-counting equipment so that election day results can be published minute-by-minute. Election day will be a mad dash with both sides competing live against each other, against a ticking clock with live vote totals that anyone can see. In close races, both sides will be running around with their hair on fire trying to find a few more votes. You might even see elaborate vote strategies; for example one side might deliberately reserve a chunk of voters until the 11th hour, just to make their opponents overconfident.

Elections are far too boring. Let's publish live running vote totals and turn them into a spectator sport! Embrace the madness. Embrace the beautiful chaos. Turn election day into something people can watch like a sporting event. Let's publish election results as they come in!

 

The Planet of the Apes film franchise has single-handedly shaped entire fields of biological research. As long as it remains in the public consciousness, no biologist or geneticist will ever experiment with trying to engineer chimps and other apes to be more intelligent. Any research proposal remotely related to the topic will be immediately shot down by someone simply stating, "do you want Planet of the Apes? Because this is how you get Planet of the Apes!"

 

Forget grand corruption. I want to see some small-time thievery from our presidents. If we're going to have a criminal president, I want them to be less "mobster," and more "meth addict."

Become president. Procede to start a four-year personal petty crime wave. Break into people's homes to just to steal their televisions. Break into construction sites to steal copper wiring. Habitually steal catalytic converters from cars parked in the Pentagon parking lot. Offer the proceeds of your crimes to a local charity, in cash, just to break into their office at night and steal it back.

Oh, and after each crime, issue a formal pardon to yourself, completely absolving yourself of criminal liability. Also, don't forget the best part. As you embark on this wave of petty crime, you'll have Secret Service protection! So even if someone does catch you, in broad daylight, laying on a dolly under their truck, stealing their cat with a sawzall, they won't be able to even get near you! The Secret Service will prevent anyone from being able to physically stop you! Hell, you can break into people's houses at night, just to rough up the place!

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