First, I agree with all of the above: within existing lore it seems obvious that the transporter wouldn’t be able to transport the one ring for several reasons having to do with magic.

But also, this is just a reminder that I think the transporters in Star Trek are so narratively uninteresting. I like Trek, but pretty much in spite of the tech writing. The degree of magic in their technology just does nothing for me. I wish we had more fiction that was like a cross between Star Trek and The Expanse.

Carbon tariffs is an interesting idea. It would be a fascinating but positive silver lining.

YIIIIIIKES

Big oof

Am I crazy for assuming that they’re in “go for broke” mode, and everyone else assumes this too?

Yeah, that was my thought.

I think it’s clear that Biden and the west is banking on collapsing the country economically, which I totally understand as a reasonable idea. But I think that it fails to account for the incredibly unpredictable and negative consequences of collapsing a state. And that’s before considering that it’s a nuclear state.

It looks pretty cool, although the thing I’m most curious about is whether it has any underlying message or just feigns at it.

I don’t expect something controversial, but is it going to say anything about America in 2025? Or is it just an artful presentation of superhero fights? We’ll see.

I’ve heard of at least one: believe it or not, Hapoel Tel Aviv F.C..

They’re a socialist Israeli football club popular among leftist Israeli Jews and Arab Israelis. Famously, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the American-Israeli hostage who was killed in Gaza in August was among their fans.

As you can imagine, they face a pretty hostile environment throughout Israel these days.

I think people should also be aware that Israeli football culture is notoriously violent and nationalist. Even by Israeli standards.

It should come as no surprise at this point that Israelis have come to believe in an entitlement to act aggressively anywhere in the world and treat any response as illegitimate and unjustifiable. This has become an inherent part of Israeli nationalist culture from top to bottom at this point.

It was genuinely my pleasure.

That is factually untrue.

Brig Gen Itzik Cohen declared last week that the hundreds of thousands of people remaining in northern Gaza have been reclassified as combatants and no further food will reach them.

They are going to be eliminated, and the land annexed and resettled.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/07/idf-israel-military-no-return-remarks-north-gaza

Awesome! This is an exciting surprise!

I read a preprint of this, and I really loved it. Everyone should check this book out!

Maybe one day we can get there, but right now it might be better for a lot of folks if the default was “I’m not horny”.

But I’m with you on the dream.

I’ve heard this called “soft climate denial”, and unforntuately it’s widespread.

People like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi say that they believe in climate change. But let’s imagine that we’re roommates and you told me that there’s an out of control wildfire a few miles away and the governor has told us all to evacuate. One roommate says that they don’t belive it and they’re staying. And I say ‘Shame on you for denying this! I firmly believe in the wildfire. It’s urgent that we act now, which is why I’ve ordered travel maps on Amazon so we can begin plotting our evacuation route as soon as they arrive.’

Would you characterize this is accepting the crisis, or being in a state of soft denial?

I don’t know if this is a hot take, but I think allowing straight and cis people to identify as such is appropriate, because the alternative assumes that we live in a state of default heteronormativity.

If anything, I want to live in a world where homophobes get mad that if they want to be assumed to be straight online they have to identify like anyone else. No one gets assumed to be straight any more. That’s better imo.

What broad coalition?

There was no coalition. It was a campaign by and for white college educated professional women in the suburbs.

That’s not a coalition, that’s a book club.

Do you know what I’d like to see?

Instead of banning them, ban the extraction of profit on producing and selling them. Turn them into an entirely recreational market. I’d love to see the outcome of trying that.

I’m not sure what the point of this is.

I didn’t know who this specific woman is, but it doesn’t sound like any of this is a secret. For instance, it is public knowledge that Qatar has provided financial aid to Hamas, and serves as a go-between for Israel and the US. Netanyanu famously defended his practice of facilitating these cash transfers.

Also, this all seems sort of secondary when Israel – the US’s close ally – is beginning an extermination campaign in northern Gaza. It’s hard to really discuss any other issue in the midst of what has become a macabre genocide in full view of the international community.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, because over the last year I was writing the world guide for a solarpunk setting to be used with a tabletop RPG or as a writing guide. And while I was working on this, OpenAI came along and put the Turing test out to pasture.

Several existential crises later, the result looked remarkably like I hadn’t thought about it at all: in the game setting, there are robots and they are treated like people. Like Bender on Futurama.

I think @[email protected] (love the username, btw!) is absolutely right that our concerns are all largely shaped by the presumption that today, everything someone builds is built to benefit the creator and manipulate the end user. If that isn’t the case, than a convincing android could just be… your neighbor Hassan.

Most machines probably wouldn’t have a reason to pretend to be human. But if one wanted to, that’s basically transorganicism. No disrespect to OP, but if a machine is sentient, trying to restrict it from presenting as organic seems pretty similar to restrictions on trans people using the restroom that matches their presentation.

And if they are trying to deceive you maliciously, well… I currently know everyone I meet is organic, and I already know not to trust all of them.