Racism - Always and Forever

Pinker:
Stay the course! We’re doing great. The world is in good hands.

 

Yes, I'm serious. The externalities are mounting and competent, collaborative stewardship is on the wane. I have no faith in the longevity of these lifestyle improvements over the next century.

 

He can come across as a bit of a snob for sure.

But his message is good IMO, just look at the response I got before yours, too many people are invested in the idea that the world is going to shit that they ignore the positive developments.

 

No doubt. But there's always room for improvement. We have one party with tens of millions of followers who thought the 50s was the height of human achievement

 

It’s definitely an impressive physical feat, but these days you can buy your way into having a whole lot of assistance.

 

Most of those improvements were tied to the harnessing of cheap fossil fuel energy, and so are the mounting consequences.

 

The industrial revolution was thanks to burning massive amounts of wood and then coal for steam power.

We improved our lives by cooking our planet.

Let's not talk about the nature destruction we had to do to feed 9 billion people.

 

Well, from the pov of people getting killed in wars, the number of wars fought it's a fact, but it's very selective.

 

Yes and labor / regulation arbitrage.

 

You know who one of my favorite comic book artists is? Jack Kirby. Aside from being a major innovator in comics, he was also a badass. He drew recon maps when he was in WW2. But my favorite, was he once got a call from American Nazis saying they were after him (He was Jewish, like a lot of comics artists in that period). Kirby told them that he'd be right there and walked down. They were nowhere to be found.

 

He’s also the guy who drew this, probably didn’t endear him to them.

 

I’d go with colossal, but ymmv.

I agree “a bit” here. However, the takeaway should be:
“We’ve done great stuff, so let’s keep on making it better.”
NOT
“We’ve done great stuff, so let’s pat ourselves on the back and have some margaritas.”

Pinker handwaves away today’s bad actors, because he believes that they are just part of preordained march towards progress. For example, he’d probably say that pardoning Nixon was no big deal.

He comes across like the kind of guy who would tell a rape victim that they are lucky to have been raped since the Me Too movement.

 

Dammit. I meant inexorable, but for some reason I typed exonerable, and I knew that wasn't right.

 

That actually might be the reason why Nazis were after him. That's the story I remember reading about him. Another I once read was he was willing to take on a local mob.

Of course, Kirby was also an old school tough guy. He was two years younger than my great-grandmother and even she was tough in that old school way. Although in Kirby's case, he also grew up being a small time criminal until he discovered comics.

 

Haha, at least you don't blame autocorrect but take full responsibility

 

There was a video that just came out of a guy all wrapped-up in an insulated bag being carried down from Mt Everest on someone's back .

The whole thing has gotten a bit silly of late. If you're not able to do a climb on your own, then what's the point? Its, certainly not fun. Not inexpensive. Is it just for the bragging?

 

That's my guess.

 

It is. Bucket list crap. I saw there was a mountaineering ban in Bhutan out of respect for the mountains. Tourism has made Everest a high altitude dump.

Disheartening to see the accumulation of garbage at Camp IV on Mt #Everest (8848.86 m). It's high time we address this issue with urgency and commitment. Let's demand stricter regulations, enforcement of clean climbing practices, and effective waste management strategies. Video… pic.twitter.com/KGMlRmUuZk

— Everest Today (@EverestToday) May 28, 2023

 

^ I reckon a lot of the blame for that is on Nepal. Even though there are way more people on Everest than there should be, it can't be all that impossible to clean up a place visited by 35k people per year.

 

A roadless, snow covered area over 12K feet. That's probably as close to impossible an area to clean up especially for a poor country.

 

A lot of climbers who likely feel half dead aren't gonna worry about humping down all their gear. So let those brokeass sherpas do it for $50

 

35k people a year visit Camp IV, or just the Everest Base Camp? Camp IV is way up in the “death zone,” even getting to it is extremely challenging, and so is getting back.