The Political Thread

[JayzusB.Christ]

It's a long time ago now! Don't be jealous, I wasn't especially good 😁

[Professor Bear]

I don't know what a McSavage is, but searching that and... an abbreviation of Scunthorpe and the first result is a forum post about that time he threatened to rape an audience member for talking during a joke.  I guess not every Irish comedian can be Brendan O'Carroll.

[TordelBack]

Brendan O'Carroll is a sound lad, and talented as feck- it's not his fault British audiences fell arse over tit for the worst shite he ever produced.

[Professor Bear]

That's what I meant and I have no idea why you would assume otherwise.

I assumed Mrs Brown's Boys was revenge for Partition.

[TordelBack]

I assumed Mrs Brown's Boys was revenge for Partition.

Only the IDF would consider that a proportionate response.

[JOE SOAP]

I assumed Mrs Brown's Boys was revenge for Partition.

Has to be Give My Head Peace.

[Rately]

I assumed Mrs Brown's Boys was revenge for Partition.

Has to be Give My Head Peace.

Christ. I'd nearly excised that from my mind, and you had to go and mention it!

[Smith]

Social credit system,AI news anchor...China is going full Black Mirror,it seems.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I assumed Mrs Brown's Boys was revenge for Partition.

Has to be Give My Head Peace.

Christ. I'd nearly excised that from my mind, and you had to go and mention it!

If ever a show was aptly named.

Social credit system,AI news anchor...China is going full Black Mirror,it seems.

Jayzus wept.  That's rather terrifying. I lived and worked in Beijing for a few months; I lived near Tianenmen Square where nothing bad ever happened.[/i  There's a massive portrait of Mao there, staring down cheerily as if he'd never massacred intellectuals, engineered famines and separated families.  The idea that it's a Communist state is a myth - it's one of the most Capitalistic societies I've ever seen, and the social divisions are enormous.

There are some truly lovely people there, though, and they deserve better than this dystopia the government is forcing on them. 

[Smith]

Scary thing is- this is very likely to become a thing in other countries.

[Steve Green]

Been on the boil for a while - when I worked at an ad agency there was (I think it probably was a TED talk) doing the rounds about the gamification of everything - we've had the endless apps and loyalty cards, the micro-transactions, it's just taking it to the extreme end of things.

Pretty much everybody in Beijing pays by phone rather than cash or even card, which makes it even easier to develop this kind of system I guess.

I don't understand payment by phone at all - if someone introduced a card that regularly needed to be charged up, cost a fortune etc, easy to steal/drop and break - who would use that by default?

[The Legendary Shark]

Scary thing is- this is very likely to become a thing in other countries.

Yeah. I can't help thinking that the Powers That Shouldn't Be are using China as a test bed for the technologies and systems required to enslave the rest of the world.

[Smith]

At this point,enslaving is done,this is just control.

[The Legendary Shark]

Not quite - but nearly.

[TordelBack]

Trying to enjoy the Mars InSight coverage,  but can't seem to escape "we need to colonise Mars now Earth is fucked" garbage. Aside from the lovely image of a planet inhabited solely by Elon Musk clones, my particular bugbear is Mars as a pressure valve for overcrowded Earth. Assuming we could live on Mars, we would need to shift 10,000 times more people there per day than have ever left low earth orbit in order to stabilise current global population growth - or 400 times the total number of humans that have ever even made it to orbit. Per day, every day.

Current lowest cost of 1kg to orbit: $2000 (admittedly falling rapidly). Avg weight of human: 62kg. Global pop increase daily: 200,000. So just the physical weight of the necessary bodies, not even worrying about the stuff they need to survive the journey or live on Mars, is $25,000,000,000. To LEO alone, not Mars. Per day. Every day.

Or we could,  you know, think in terms of spending that cash on keeping everyone alive and happy down here, and embrace space exploration as the scientific joy and very-long-term project it is.