I'm sorry my responses are limited. You must ask the right questions....

This will probably get buried, but could someone explain or link an explanation as to why the hyperloop is a 'scam'?

I never claimed that it would stop it. I claimed that it would reduce it, which it does. Something like induced demand on street just brings more people to take the car and does nothing against congestion etc. Giving a good rail system encourages people to take the train.

Also, in regard to your experience in China I did some digging and found this:

-2,1 billion rail passengers passengers (2013), growth of 5.5% per year between 2000 and 2013

-Bejing-Tianjin HSR: 16 million in first year (2008)

-Fares vary between 0.045$/passenger km for 200-250km/h and 0.77$/per passenger km for 300-350km/h (which actually is more expensive than Germany (0.34$/p.km) and France (0.24-0.31$/p.km) so the argument "it is only used by the poor kinda falls short)

-Rail passenger amount grew by 7.6% annually between 2008 & 2013

• The two busiest lines carried 100 million each in 2014 -rail trips are almost double the amount than air trips in 2013

-for short trips (<300km) cars or busses are competitive because HSR stations are a decent way away from the town centre

• Rail traffic grew by 39% between 2008 and 2014 while conventional traffic grew by 1.5%

-According to a survey from May 2013 the income range on the Changchun-Jilin line was at about 4,300$/m (70% reported an income of below 5,000$/m), Tianjin-Jinan between 6,700$ and 4,500$/m (50%reported an income of less than 5000$/m) so again.

• The most profitable route (Shanghai-Beijing) brought in 1 billion$ in revenue in 2015

-Most people are actually not able to afford HSR in China (at least were in 2015)

-for trips of 500km or less air companies were forced to lower Fares or cancel flights because of the HSR

• total income in 2021 was about 705 million USD (56.5% lower than 2019)

-Due to Covid 19 and strict lock downs profits plummeted 159% to a loss of 4.4 billion USD

-The HSR system has a total of 1.9 billion passengers annually.

For the sake of the argument I only focused myself on HSR and passenger travel in comparison.

References https://www.statista.com/topics/7534/high-speed-rail-in-china/#topicOverview

https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-high-speed-rail-development-worldwide

http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/EAP/China/high_speed-rail-%20in-china-en.pdf

Edit: When you said only poorer people use the HSR you were probably referring to the conventional rail (200-250km/h) and not 300-350km/h

And in many cases, soundly reject them.

The typical American standard of ‘degeneracy’ would shock a Victorian (British) era person, while a Roman citizen would wonder why we were so uptight about exposing our bodies. And that’s just one example of a cultural more; in response, both Roman and Victorian would wonder where our slaves went, and the typical American would (hopefully) be shocked at their callous treatment of another human being.

I agree with your sentiment of careful thought with the extent and implementation of new tech, but the term “degeneracy” places a moral scale on the situation that invites conflict and abuse. I would suggest something more like ‘just’ or ‘equitable’ as a better phrase for discussion.

(…and while it seems like being picky about the language is silly or petty, I believe it is vital to clear communication and eliminating grey areas that invite “word over spirit” loopholes and ‘rule’ bending.) Just my two bits.

Society doesn’t have rights. Society isn’t a person. People have rights.

Yes, until I’ve had a few shots of rum.

Can it sit on your shoulder and talk for you?

The author laid it out and justified it a lot better than I did, which is why I'm trying to find it.

It won't happen either. Management will just shift and we'll have teams of 2-25xthe siE we already do. I have 25 direct reports right now... and likely once automation hits fulll-swing in about 10 years we'll just have standard manager low-level is managing 50- 500 people etc.

That's the thing though, that is the fundamental limit of these kind of natural language AIs. They learn by volume.

Chat GPT writes really good cover letters for Job applicants for example. Because there are tons of cover letter examples out there for it to ingest and learn exactly what it is that makes a good one.

And that means two important things.

1. They cant teach themselves anything.
2. For anything obscure enough that sufficient volume and variety of material doesn't exist they aren't that great.

I thought it was just me

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This is a story element to the 2004 Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica. I embrace this in my twitch https://twitch.tv/master_hurashi

They'll think my whole personality is telling people to say jokes and then saying they suck

Not far fetched at all. Read Surveillance Capitalism by Soshana Zuboff.

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I've never thought of an arcology as a fully self-sufficient system in a biosphere vein. Rather, as a single building that has everything its occupants need to live (eg, shops and restaurants and grocery stores) available inside. They source the things they need from outside so external farms and manufacturing are still quite necessary.

Of hunger. The same overproduction of co2 that was seen in BS2 is occurring from the global overuse of N as fertilizer. Increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere lead to heating and increasingly reactive temperatures and precipitation. There will be some bad heat wave days and drought seasons sufficient to create crop failures leading to famine starting among the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy. You see this happening in Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Afghanistan, and Pakistan currently while in more economically privileged countries it is only manifesting as higher prices at every level of the food chain.

You're talking about a consumer "digital twin." Create a virtual stand-in for you based on your data, experiment against it to find the tactics that yield the optimal response (whatever that is) and then deploy it into the world to directly manipulate you. Personalized advertising to its most extreme end. What do you think the metaverse is? That's a data vacuum that creates your digital twin to commercialize every fucking second of your life.

Could it exist? Fuck yeah, that's where we're going.

Does it exist? No, not yet. Computations cost too much. But that will be fixed with more efficient software for specialized stacks.

I agree. Hopefully, future technologies will allow us to be more compassionate and ethical. But it is important to remember, that the ideals we have now will in fact influence the honor of future societies just like how the ideals of our ancestors have influenced the honor of our current society.

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Yeah but can Elon get another couple billion out of taxpayers while killing the competition through corruption, favoritism, etc?

Yes, an arcology is conceivably possible with modern technology. It is possible to create a self-contained, self-sufficient ecosystem using various sustainable technologies such as solar power, hydroponics, and waste recycling systems. However, it would require significant technological advancements and engineering expertise to create a functional and sustainable arcology. As for a space colony on the moon or orbiting the earth, there are ongoing efforts to develop and implement such technologies, but it may take many years to achieve a fully functional and sustainable arcology.

I think there needs to be a healthy balance between these things. Being hyper-judgmental and controlling is also obviously not good. History has shown us that civilizations that lean towards extremes inevitably do not end well.