Very true. It unfortunately doesn’t include the delays from bureaucracies throwing excessive red tape at the project, with the goal of, if not killing it, kicking the decision down the road till it’s someone else’s problem. The UK government has been problematic on that front.

I might be an optimistic pessimist.

Fusion has been 10 years away, with proper funding. It never got that funding. It struggled to maintain the break even funding to keep skilled people employed, and the lights on.

The difference is that over unity has been achieved, in a normally sustainable manner. The funding is such that it’s 5-10 years at current funding. Most of that is building the actual test plants.

I fully agree that renewables are currently the best cost option. The catch is that they are not viable everywhere. They are also inherently low density, so can get expensive in certain areas.

Basically, we want a mix of options, to fit local requirements. Nuclear (and later fusion) should be part of the plan.

In practice, I’m of the take what we can get. We need to crash CO2 output, and we need to do it yesterday. Anything speeding that up is a win, as far as I’m concerned.

Fully agreed, though it’s also something you really don’t want done on too much of an accelerated timeline. Rushing the construction, when the fail-safes rely on it, and it will be an absolute bitch to fix later, is a poor plan.

Unfortunately the red tape has become far too risk adverse. E.g. the reactors china is now building were designed in the UK. The UK government killed 5 attempts to get them built through red tape and time killing. Eventually a Chinese scientist found out about the plans. (With permission) he contacted the Chinese government. Sufficient to say, those plans formed the basis for the newer Chinese reactors they are building out now. They are also exporting the expertise, since most western countries have had their skilled engineers reach retirement, before passing on their skills and knowledge.

In practice, you are looking at 5-10 years minimum, from site selection to power on.

It’s relative harm. New nuclear is far cleaner than coal, and can slot into it’s place in the grid. We should have done this decades ago, but the plans languished till china found out about them. (Much to the designers joy)

It’s also not an either/or situation. As china is demonstrating, there is a limit to how quickly you can roll out renewables. Doing other, pollution reduction in parallel makes sense.

Taking nuclear off the table was the biggest win the oil barrons pulled off.

On a plus side, we will finally find out if fusion is viable in the next 5-10 years. The first over-unity test reactors, designed for sustained operation are being built.

Coal plants put out more radioactive material than even the bomb factories they call nuclear power plants. Newer plant designs are FAR more fail safe too, and some can actually ‘eat’ the waste from older plants.

New nuclear is right up there with renewables, with the added bonus of being great for baseloads. The only problem is we needed to be building it 20 years ago, since it takes a long time to design, permit and build them properly. If we try to rely on them now, it will be too late.

If I’m going to the bar, and it’s busy, I’ll grab drinks for the people I’m explicitly with. I also keep a vague mental track of if I’m in a deficit with someone (I owe them a drink to balance out).

I don’t do it with the expectation that they will buy my next drink however.

Karma is generally associated with some form of personal scoreboard. E.g. if you have bad luck it’s either because you did something bad, or a “due” your share of good luck.

Karma is a lie, but it’s a useful lie (like truth or mercy) I explicitly know that my good deeds won’t get rewarded I do it because it can help make the world a better place. If I’m lucky, that will loop around to help me down the road, but I don’t expect it.

As I read it, it basically comes off as the author being grumpy that it’s harder to sponge off people who drink less, or slower.

I will do reciprocal drink buying, but hate formalising into “rounds”. My drinking rate can vary wildly. I don’t want to be forced to drink faster, to keep up with others.

Gen Z is the most financially squeezed age group in my memory. The fact they want to be more discerning in how much they drink and pay makes complete sense.

It’s also worth noting that contactless card machines also remove a major bottleneck in going to the bar.

It was more subtle and interesting than just a fad. It accidentally hijacked a number of our social instincts. In this case, it was disruptive and obvious. It’s likely the effect is happening to everyone, just more subtly.

It becomes the mechanism through which a very old human phenomenon — the tendency of a stressed group to adopt a shared physical response to that stress

Basically, our stress responses are subconscious, but learnt. Think swearing when you hurt yourself. It’s common, but it’s not universal.

In this case, the girls, due to existing stress formed a pseudo social group. The group “leader” had an unusual ‘stress’ venting method (due to tourettes). The other girls synced to this without conscious involvement. It’s the same mechanism that makes us pick up a local accent, or adopt local habits, when we move somewhere new.

In short, fads include this mechanism, but generally have a far more conscious aspect. This was an interesting short circuit, exposing some of the underlying mechanics of the human mind.

I refer to it as “sowing karma”. I don’t believe actual karma exists. However, a small positive act can create an avalanche of other, small positive acts.

Whenever I do someone a favour, particularly random people. If they try or offer to pay me back, I tell them to pay it forward. I’ve no idea how many do, but even if it’s just 1 or 2, then the world is that bit better for all of us.

Keep being awesome!

He doesn’t even NEED to win. Just putting in a good showing will make a huge difference to Milkshake face’s reputation.

Agreed, but with a few provisos.

Turning a peaceful protest (march etc) violet is a big no no. If there is seen to be a risk of this, the popularist section will rapidly hemorrhage members. The radicals can use the events as cover/meeting new members, but not go hot on the march. The exception to this is if the government/police go violent. Defensive counter violence is then acceptable. The goal should be to get the “civilian” supporters (think families etc) clear. Then, it’s down to them whether they bolt too, or play whack a mole with the police.

The other proviso is that the radical groups actions should be proportional. The IRA walked this line. When they set major bombs, they gave the authorities enough warning to clear the area of civilians. They were mostly aiming for property damage and disruption, not mass casualties. The times the IRA went past that line did severe damage to their reputation. They need to act to reinforce the position of the other 2 groups, not undermine it.

My phone has an underwater photography mode. It also has a micro SD card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The battery is unfortunately sealed, but it’s 10,000mAh so should be able to handle some capacity loss.

It’s perfectly possible to do most of those at once.

For best results, you need a trifacta.

A popularist movement is core. This should be non-violent and as welcoming to new members as possible.

A political group then acts as a focus for the group. It translates the mob grievances into politically actionable demands.

A radical group acts as the teeth. It forces the government to take proper notice of the other 2 groups.

The Irish troubles would be a good example. The popular movement was ignored by the UK government. It bubbles over into riots etc at times, which actually hurt their message in many ways. The Sinn Féin party focused the discontent and gave the UK government someone to negotiate with. Finally the IRA provided the force on the UK government.

Take away any leg and the whole movement stutters. If the popularist wing gets violent, then it bleeds members fast. Without a political wing, the movement is unfocused and will achieve nothing. The violent wing can be dropped IF there is sufficient threat of its existence/creation to keep governments motivated. Unfortunately, most governments that let things escalate that far will just dig in their heels, rather than do the sensible thing.

I’ve got a personal theory on this. ADHD and autism don’t break the brain, but they do significantly change how it processes information. This, in turn, gives us a significant resistance to broad spectrum propaganda, via incompatibility. It’s akin to a windows virus not working on Linux.

It’s worth noting that it’s not a resistance to propaganda in general, just the type intended for “normal” people. We can still be caught out by targeted efforts. Normally, we aren’t worth that effort, but AI and its related work will likely change that.

Basically, we have awesome natural defenses, but don’t just rely on them, since they can be bypassed.

I just get an urge for a large, sticky milkshake when I see him. I’ve no idea why…

They’ve actually now achieved over unity. The main sticking point left is the wall material. It needs to contain a hard vacuum. Unfortunately, the neutron flux transmutes the elements used. This has interesting results on the material stability. It’s a solvable engineering problem however, though will likely be the limit on cycle times.

The current plan is building the first viable power station. Efficiency goes up with scale, so the current tech should make it viable. Multiple groups are building them right now, though it takes years to build one.

It’s unlikely, but I’m still hoping his encounter with count binface throws him in the trash.

I was playing with electronics projects a lot so … me?

I think it’s a case of deep Vs wide thinking. Aspies are a lot better at deep thinking than wide. It’s great for things like science or engineering, it’s a problem however for socialising.

The side point is, however, that deep thinking is often more intellectually driven, while wide is more semi-conscious (still a poor word but the best I can come up with). It’s also hard to remap from one to the other. It’s the reason aspies struggle to follow social implications, and NTs struggle to follow informational deep dives.