Dawn_Coyote

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TROPHY CASE

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Why is it *not* time to talk about the Great Filter? by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Intuitively, what I think is that while the middle class is going to be squeezed out - lower incomes, fewer assets, higher debt, lower birth-rate - the emerging poverty class is going to find a way to squeeze in. Like, while the Ys and the Oughts are struggling to put it together the way their parents did, immigrants and other marginalized population sectors are going to be pulling themselves up into new avenues of affluence and prosperity.

I'm just making that up, really, but it feels right to me.

Also, now I understand why the big push back against abortion and contraception. It's all in the numbers.

Why is it *not* time to talk about the Great Filter? by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Of course we can use some of that logic to say what is the likelihood that we just happen to be around to experience the exact point in which our planet's progress arc hits its apex, never to reach it again?

What I pictured when I read this: The planet's entire sentient population over time as one giant planetary eye; it opens very slowly - there's a flicker of understanding - and then it closes again.

I agree with you, though - maybe it blinks once or twice.

Edit: Hey, I just looked up the original article that a-b linked, and that was Bostrum, too.

On the cancer thing - which I'm preoccupied with since finishing that excellent book - if mutation is life, then cancer is life in a mega-mutation death spiral.

To your earlier points - I don't see how fluctuations in the present education/earning arc would naturally lead to a Great Filter, but perhaps your argument is too subtle for me (wouldn't be the first time). The Europe-never-discovers-America Great Filter would be made irrelevant by the fact that there were fishing boats drifting over from Asia all the time. I think of the Max Weber theory of the Industrial Revolution emerging from Puritan towns - driven by the doctrine that affluence is evidence of God's grace working in one's life, and an indication that you might be going to heaven instead of hell (which started out as the great unknowable eventuality). The nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic fostered by that superstition has caught on all over the world. I guess I'm making the social contagion argument that change emerges from rapidly mutating social groups (back to the cancer thing again), and doesn't rely on social homogeneity, which seems to be where we're heading with the equalization thing.

Why is it *not* time to talk about the Great Filter? by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Ah. I forgot the context of the Great Filter, and was thinking more of this: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/were-underestimating-the-risk-of-human-extinction/253821/

I find the idea that we might be merely historical simulations comforting.

Thoughts on sequencing cancer genomes: if cancer can be "cured" by drugs that switch it off at a molecular level, certainly cancer can be caused by drugs that switch it on. Just thinking of new forms of biological warfare.

Edit: Doesn't the Great Filter have to be something more over-arching - like environmental collapse due to overpopulation?

Edit 2: Sorry. Incoherent thinking. I just saw your last point (again). My Great Filter: "Time for a nap!"

Mandatory Viewing by schad500in bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Yeah. Infinite something has romantic appeal, but I don't see it.

Why is it *not* time to talk about the Great Filter? by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

You're not saying 1 + 2 = human extinction, are you? Because the species could die off back to a few scattered groups and still stick around for another 100,000 years. Economic collapse won't do it. Even environmental collapse won't do it. At this point, it would have to be something cataclysmic, like a big biotech "accident", or some other universally fatal event.

Am I missing something here?

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Walter and (particularly) Jesse are very well-drawn characters, but the psychological subtlety in the Sopranos characters remains unmatched.

I totally get Skyler.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

You can get just dvds and skip the streaming. I prefer to watch shows that way, even if I have to wait a year for them. We turned off the premium channels last year, when we couldn't find anything worth watching on them for a couple of months. I think we have AMC now, for Breaking Bad, but I'd just as soon get rid of cable completely. Of course there's the "What about the children???" argument, which is winning so far.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Just get Netflix. I'm lobbying for getting rid of cable altogether.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Dennis Farina is adorable. Anna Gunn may be typecast as a wet blanket. Reddit hates Skyler. I find that kind of funny. I didn't like Firefly as much as I wanted to. We're on the 5th season of the Sopranos now. Breaking Bad owes its entire existence to that show.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

By the Wachowski brothers, I see. The book looks quite interesting. Ordered. Thanks.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Thanks. I'll give them another try.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

I have a crush on Mike Holmes.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Have you read the books? I started the first one, but the fantasy schlock - well, perhaps I'm just too old to enjoy it anymore.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

I agree on Season 3 of Deadwood, but it was still really interesting. True Blood is fun, but more for women and gay men, I think. Did you see any of Luck? I caught the first episode. It's been cancelled after the first season because of the number of horses that died during filming. Looked promising.

I've been watching a helluva lot of tv. Help me with this list .. by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 1 point2 points ago

I'd swap Breaking Bad with Deadwood, but that's just me. To tier 2, I'd add Six Feet Under. Tier 3b - True Blood. Sons of Anarchy should go in 3a.

Edit: Downton Abbey? That's a solid 3a, if not a 2. Tremé is one of those, too.

You really should see the Sopranos. I'm watching it for the second time with TK, who's never seen it. It's still the best of them, because it was first.

Ho Hum Redux by schad500in bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 2 points3 points ago

Henri the ennui cat.

"But even looking at nature itself, procreation is impossible without a man and a woman. And because of those things, I think it is important that the state of North Carolina's laws are compatible with the laws of nature but, more importantly, with the laws of God." by alexa-bluein bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote -1 points0 points ago

Now I'm anticipating every statement and proposal issued by Republicans will somehow become another volley of bullets fired at women, casting the whole claim of a War on Women in absurdity. Goddammit.

"But even looking at nature itself, procreation is impossible without a man and a woman. And because of those things, I think it is important that the state of North Carolina's laws are compatible with the laws of nature but, more importantly, with the laws of God." by alexa-bluein bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 2 points3 points ago

"Also, that amendment is against women, I believe, because also underneath the amendment, other laws are saying that people who aren't married at all, they can't file for domestic abuse cases, if they're living with their significant other. Which is wrong," Toanone said.

What? I mean, I'm down with the whole War on Women thing, but this seems like a stretch.

I am in the midst of a vertigo attack, ask by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

Reading The Emperor of All Maladies, a biography of cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee, and thinking about a story where the protagonist develops a mutation that makes her immortal. As the doctors and scientists are studying her, the implications slowly dawn on her, and she disappears into hiding - too late.

Immortality would make a good Great Filter.

Also - congrats, alexa-blue.

I am in the midst of a vertigo attack, ask by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

I've been wondering - do you think all this is a Great Filter thing? I mean, the swirlies - maybe it's like a drain, right?

I am in the midst of a vertigo attack, ask by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

It's disconcerting to be messed up that way for any length of time at all, but three/four days? Fuck. Hang in there.

I am in the midst of a vertigo attack, ask by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

I had visual aura while I was driving once. Not the usual stuff people get, but it was like my brain was taking stills of the visual environment and giving them to me in the wrong sequence. Scary.

My migraines are well-controlled these days, too.

I am in the midst of a vertigo attack, ask by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

The interesting thing in that article - book, actually - is that equilibrium can be re-learned. Through the tongue!

Metoclopramide doesn't make you drowsy, whereas gravol really does, which in your case is probably a blessing. Imitrex, the migraine med I take, can make me sleep for 4 hours, which is often a good thing.

The vertigo I get is more neurological than inner ear, I'm guessing, since it's migraine related.

I am in the midst of a vertigo attack, ask by davetoin bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 0 points1 point ago

I get mild vertigo with a migraine, with the bonus nausea and sensitivity to light. Lying in bed with my eyes closed is the only thing to do. One woman I worked with had it for around six weeks. She'd make her way through the office hugging the walls.

http://www.apadivisions.org/division-39/publications/reviews/brain.aspx - skip down to paragraph 5.

RIP MCA by Capercailliein bestofthefray

[–]Dawn_Coyote 1 point2 points ago

I listened to a lot of Beastie Boys while pulling all-nighters in the office during proposal writing season. My fave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07Y0cy-nvAg

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