merc

A bunch of paper tossed into a corner could get wet, mouldy, get munched on by rats, etc. But, I know what you mean. Spinning plates full of magnetized bits with a connector technology that only lasts a decade at most is hardly going to be reliable, even if stored under ideal conditions.

I don't understand the point they're trying to make. "The United States is the only modern civilization in the world left alone"? What does that even mean? Does he/she think that in the past all these countries were powerful civilizations all at the same time? When Rome (Italy) was powerful, Greece was already past its prime (a.k.a. it was a "shithole"). Rome was so much better than Greece that some prominent Greek people arranged to have themselves sold into temporary bondage / slavery to Romans because once they became freed from that bondage they gained Roman citizenship.

The New Kingdom of Egypt existed between the 16th century BC and the 11th century BC. It overlapped a little bit with the Greek empire, which started around 1200 BC. That powerful Egyptian empire was long gone by the time of the Romans, which is how we ended up with Mark Antony, a Roman, in charge of the "shithole" eastern provinces, which included Egypt under its queen Cleopatra, a Macedonian / Greek descended from a companion of Alexander the Great. Egypt gave way to Greece which gave way to Rome.

In more recent times, Before WWI Great Britain was the world's largest empire, and by the end of WWII the reins had been handed by the new upstart, the USA. When the US empire crumbles, someone else will be the next major world power. That's just how things go. Of course the past empires look like "shitholes" whereas the current empire looks powerful. Once the US is replaced as a world power, it will look like a shithole too.

To me, this is just another story of the music industry's technical incompetence.

Even in the 1990s, everyone would have known that hard drives were not a long-term archival storage solution. This is like crumpling up a piece of paper, tossing it in the corner, then being upset decades later when your "archival solution" had issues.

Yeah, I was going to say that we know that Ea-nasir's copper was shitty.

Obviously not everything from 1750 BC survived, but we do know that certain mediums are more likely to stand the test of time than others. Something physical with the writing carved in? That will probably last. Something with pigment on vellum, that won't be quite as good, but you can store a lot more information per kg. Something involving bits? That won't last even a quarter century. Something involving bits stored using magnetism and retrieved using mechanical motion? Good luck keeping that for even a decade.

But, the thing we've shown will 100% stand the test of time is keeping the information flowing, though at the cost of some degradation. In the past, this was one generation telling stories to the next. When that happens, not only does the information get passed on, the language used is subtly updated in time with the evolution of the language. You don't need to learn Akkadian cuneiform to read it, it's available in whatever the modern language is. Similarly, if digital files keep getting passed around, it doesn't matter if the original came on a floppy disk, and floppy disk readers are now gone. The file exists, stored in whatever medium is current. But, you get degradation with this process too. Music might be turned into mp3s with some data getting lost. Photos might be resized, cropped, recompressed, etc.

If I wanted something to be preserved exactly as-is for centuries, I'd carve it into a non-precious metal (so nobody melted it down). If I wanted something to be easily accessible for centuries, I'd try to share it as widely as possible to keep it "in motion" and in a format that was constantly up to date.

Thank you for proving that the left lives in a bubble just like the right.

It's propaganda. But, it's not just propaganda, it's effective propaganda.

The fact that it's so effective is somewhat new and very concerning. We have to understand why it's effective if there's any hope of eventually stopping it. And, it's effective not just because the propaganda is well crafted, it's effective because there's a whole system that immerses the audience in it and never lets them see an alternative point of view.

In North Korea the only information you get is information specifically selected by the state. The US free market and first amendment was supposed to be a shield against that sort of propaganda. Unfortunately, while people have the right to find other forms of media, a lot of people want the comfort of living inside their own media bubble. Then the propaganda channel tells them that every other source of media is full of lies, and controlled by the jews, and who knows what else, and those people get even more locked in to their propaganda source. Then they're told that scientists are getting rich (ha!) by selling out, so you can't trust scientific papers. So, you can't trust the government, the media, scientists, doctors, schools... you can only trust them.

Then they're told that if they ever do try to do their own research, they're not going to get results because of censorship. Some censorship exists. Sometimes it's formal, sometimes it's informal, like YouTube taking down videos that hurt their bottom line, or cause them headaches. But, the convenient thing about claiming that information is being censored is that it's unprovable or "unfalsifiable". You can't prove that something that doesn't exist was censored because you can't prove it ever existed in the first place. And, of course, when an idiot is told that information on "turbo cancer" is being censored, they search for it and get no results, that just reinforces their belief that the news is being censored.

Add to that that the same group that wants to lock people into a pipeline of disinformation also wants to defund schools and universities. You can't hope that someone can learn the truth from a teacher or a professor if the school no longer exists. You can't hope that the next generation learns critical thinking in high school if the high school is defunded and shut down.

Big tech companies making their platforms extremely engaging is yet another element in this shitty soup. Most of these companies actually employ mostly liberal people, and the culture is at least somewhat left of center. But, they get their money by keeping people engaged, which means feeding them things that are shocking, angering, etc. That keeps people in their bubbles, and keeps them from engaging their critical thinking abilities.

The end result is you get people living in bubbles, listening to, watching and reading news that makes them feel good because it reinforces their existing biases. They cut off people in their lives who have dissenting views because either they're angry about that person's views, or it's just too much of a headache to constantly fight with them. Social media keeps them in a bubble that keeps them engaged, and keeps them seeing the same point of view over and over. And so-on.

Because the whole situation is so complicated, it's not going to be easy to reverse. It's not just a matter of shutting down Fox News, or Newsmax or MSNBC or any other propaganda fountain. It's also going to have to involve breaking up tech monopolies, or at least removing their Section 230 protection for their editorial decisions. It's also going to require major educational system reforms, ensuring that all kids go to schools that teach critical thinking skills, and because this is the US that will involve major fights over property taxes and religious freedom. I honestly don't know if it's going to be possible.

gave the odds 65-35 or so, in Clinton’s favor

I don't think people realize how close that means the race was. 50/50 is like a coin flip. 35% is like rolling a six-sided die and getting either a 1 or a 2. It's not the most likely outcome, but it's not a surprising result either.

It doesn't matter what he could have done, what matters is what he did. What he did was illegal, he should be charged with that. He shouldn't be charged for his friend getting killed by a cop. Those were actions taken by other people.

Yeah, I've heard of that guy. He's one of the many reasons why the US police suck so much. But, he can only influence cops in a world where cops can't be held legally responsible for their actions. If cops could be charged with murder / manslaughter people would avoid his course because they'd get sent to prison for following his advice.

Yes, I can say the charges are bullshit because they're bullshit. Felony murder in general is bullshit. Felony murder for a murder not committed by a member of the group is extra bullshit. Felony murder charges for a member of the group getting killed by the cops is ridiculous bullshit.

They're not really equivalent. With RICO if you've committed multiple times of crimes from a certain list, and those crimes are related to an "enterprise" you can be charged with racketeering.

You're not being charged with crimes someone else did. You're being charged with masterminding a bunch of crimes. RICO charges are used against people at the head of an organization. Felony Murder is used against people who have the bad luck to be part of a group when someone else in the group pulls the trigger.

RICO goes after the organization in organized crime. It fills in a gap in the laws that maybe wasn't there already, because none of the other laws went after the planning and organizing of the crimes. Felony murder seems to just exist to pile additional charges on someone who had already committed crimes that were already on the books, and make that person additionally responsible for the actions of a different person.

The day before this burglary, Smith and others were involved in the murder of another man. The stolen car used in the burglary came from yet another murder.

Gee, it's almost as if there were real crimes he could have been charged with, instead of the bullshit crime of his friend getting killed by the cops.