On the upside, according to SMART, I've only ever written 5TB to the SSD so it's got unlimited writes remaining more or less.
[Admin mode] Well that was annoying...
Somehow a behind the scenes proxmox configuration got messed up, and so all my containers on that instance stopped (and they stopped backing up days ago). I was concerned that it was because the ssd failed so I ran out and bought a local nvme ssd to replace it, but then it turns out I just needed to fix the broken local-lvm.
If I'd realized it was just a config issue I would have fixed it this morning. Sorry users. On the upside, I've got a backup SSD ready to slot in at any time now and the twice daily backups are operating as designed again. I think I need to make the same repair to the rest of my proxmox machines but I have no idea why they would have changed.
Somehow a behind the scenes proxmox configuration got messed up, and so all my containers on that instance stopped (and they stopped backing up days ago). I was concerned that it was because the ssd failed so I ran out and bought a local nvme ssd to replace it, but then it turns out I just needed to fix the broken local-lvm.
If I'd realized it was just a config issue I would have fixed it this morning. Sorry users. On the upside, I've got a backup SSD ready to slot in at any time now and the twice daily backups are operating as designed again. I think I need to make the same repair to the rest of my proxmox machines but I have no idea why they would have changed.
At this moment in time, It really seems sensible to assume that the western world balkanizes.
Why is there a Canada? Why is there a United States? And why would Montana allow itself to be dominated by LA and NYC? Why is there an EU? For that matter, why should East Germany which voted for the AfD want to stay with West Germany, which wants to jail the AfD?
Alberta is one step from leaving the federation right now, and I think you're right that it'll be one after another after that. The US might go "Hey, that's not a bad idea" after that -- let the far left states have the far left debts.
Canada in particular isn't even a country in the sense you might expect -- people might point to open borders and free trade in between interior borders, but while Canada does have open borders between provinces in term of movement between provinces, it does not have free trade or even many common standards between internal borders. An engineer in one province can't call themselves an engineer in another province for example, and many products sold on one side of a provincial border may not be allowed to be sold on the other side of the provincial border. In that sense, it is already moderately separated in ways that could be addressed with treaties.
One argument for keeping the unions intact is that the regions such as LA and NYC subsidize places like Montana -- and I'd argue that's an unsustainable model. Since 2000, the US federal debt has increased by 8 times, from a mere 4 trillion to a whopping 36 trillion, with no suggestion that things are going to change any time soon. In that sense, much like eventually the western Roman empire could no longer fund bread and circuses and fell apart, there's every reason to believe that these large states will face similar collapses as their means to pay to remain unified disappears in debt. Canada and the European Union are also facing debt crises in different way. Canada tripled its debt since 2007, despite being at a point where they literally could not sell Canadian bonds to anyone at one point relatively recently in Canadian history. The EU has already faced several sovereign debt crises such as Greece, Italy, and Spain that aren't likely over.
The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain -- there are big splits within these countries, they aren't a unified nation with a unified polis which will necessarily remain unified just because the modern period told them to.
Europe in the pre-modern period was dramatically fragmented. The Holy Roman Empire was in fact countless small entities, as was France pre-revolutionary war, and the Ottoman empire. There were kings, but the kings were much different than the central governments today. The world wasn't something we conceive of today. It consisted of relatively small local autonomous regions loosely affiliated with a certain crown.
Around the world, it's likely we'll see nations created in the modern age fall apart. India has only been unified a few times throughout its entire history -- the map has largely looked like TV static because of the constant rise and fall of small kingdoms. The idea of a unified India was imposed by England, and it's something that we're seeing cracks in as Muslim regions, Sikh regions, and Hindi regions, and more are stress points all across the subcontinent that have the capacity to balkanize if the global scenario changes. The Maurya and Mughal Empires did briefly unify large parts of the subcontinent, but those were exceptions to the norm, not the norm. India (even the parts that don't want to politically or religiously coexist) may consider itself part of a civilization and parts of Indian culture are some the most powerful cultural forces in world history, but that's a separate question from political unification -- The Germans, the Spanish, and the French may consider themselves Europeans, but if you created one country called Spadeuschrance they'd clash immediately.
The legacy of this is still contained for example in the German national anthem. The song was written in the early Modern period, calling for one "Deutschland uber alles" -- not a call for expansionism as it was considered in the Nazi Germany period (which is the reason the first verse was removed), but a call for all the separate things that were part of the Holy Roman Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be unified under one nation-state called Deutschland -- Deutschland Uber Alles.
Nationalism isn't a truly conservative idea. It's a modernist idea inspired by the French revolution that was against the multi-ethnic empires of the pre-modern era such as the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, or even the Roman empire in its eastern and western iterations.
Nationalism was "invented" by the Jacobins -- the original left wingers, and the group that essentially brought about the modern era through the French revolution.
It's easy to say "but conservatives took over nationalism!", but that's an example of "conservatives are leftists driving the speed limit" -- revolutionary ideas seep into unprincipled conservatism, so all the left needs to do is keep pushing. Eventually their revolution becomes the lay of the land for everyone and they move onto the next revolution.
European continental conservatism would be a return to religion, nobility, monarchy, Perhaps backing off of capitalism and a return to feudalism, at least for most of the modernist period. The only reason conservatism might call for a return to nationalism today is that just as conservatism in the modern period hoped to return to the premodern period, conservatism in the postmodern period hopes to return to the modern period -- but make no mistake, the modern period was a revolutionary period and conservatives didn't like what came out of it (including the Napoleonic wars, fascism, national socialism, and socialism).
In reality, a lot of the standardization of nationalization wiped out local traditions rather than sustaining them. The standardization of units of measure, while arguably and extremely positive thing nonetheless meant that local traditions of measurement were eliminated. Local dialects or local languages that weren't aligned with the central government were effectively limited by Fiat, and so in that way it was an institutionalized anti-conservatism.
English conservatism would look a little bit different, it would still likely be a return to feudalism, but the English have been a nation of traders for a long time, and the existed under some form of common law since before the modern age began. America by contrast came about in the very short period of time after the enlightenment but before the French revolution, and so it represents another way of being, and because it is such a young culture it's conservatism is similarly Young. No American conservative is calling for a restoration of the monarchy.
I'm not necessarily saying that things will return to pre-modern ways because they were better, but instead that versions of similar structures may form past the end of the postmodern period because the same forces that ended the Roman empire and resulted in a highly divided Europe may end up replaying as the global American-European empire collapses.
I'm not necessarily saying I'd like to see this happen -- the end of the modern era proper will not be sunshine and rainbows.
Why is there a Canada? Why is there a United States? And why would Montana allow itself to be dominated by LA and NYC? Why is there an EU? For that matter, why should East Germany which voted for the AfD want to stay with West Germany, which wants to jail the AfD?
Alberta is one step from leaving the federation right now, and I think you're right that it'll be one after another after that. The US might go "Hey, that's not a bad idea" after that -- let the far left states have the far left debts.
Canada in particular isn't even a country in the sense you might expect -- people might point to open borders and free trade in between interior borders, but while Canada does have open borders between provinces in term of movement between provinces, it does not have free trade or even many common standards between internal borders. An engineer in one province can't call themselves an engineer in another province for example, and many products sold on one side of a provincial border may not be allowed to be sold on the other side of the provincial border. In that sense, it is already moderately separated in ways that could be addressed with treaties.
One argument for keeping the unions intact is that the regions such as LA and NYC subsidize places like Montana -- and I'd argue that's an unsustainable model. Since 2000, the US federal debt has increased by 8 times, from a mere 4 trillion to a whopping 36 trillion, with no suggestion that things are going to change any time soon. In that sense, much like eventually the western Roman empire could no longer fund bread and circuses and fell apart, there's every reason to believe that these large states will face similar collapses as their means to pay to remain unified disappears in debt. Canada and the European Union are also facing debt crises in different way. Canada tripled its debt since 2007, despite being at a point where they literally could not sell Canadian bonds to anyone at one point relatively recently in Canadian history. The EU has already faced several sovereign debt crises such as Greece, Italy, and Spain that aren't likely over.
The UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain -- there are big splits within these countries, they aren't a unified nation with a unified polis which will necessarily remain unified just because the modern period told them to.
Europe in the pre-modern period was dramatically fragmented. The Holy Roman Empire was in fact countless small entities, as was France pre-revolutionary war, and the Ottoman empire. There were kings, but the kings were much different than the central governments today. The world wasn't something we conceive of today. It consisted of relatively small local autonomous regions loosely affiliated with a certain crown.
Around the world, it's likely we'll see nations created in the modern age fall apart. India has only been unified a few times throughout its entire history -- the map has largely looked like TV static because of the constant rise and fall of small kingdoms. The idea of a unified India was imposed by England, and it's something that we're seeing cracks in as Muslim regions, Sikh regions, and Hindi regions, and more are stress points all across the subcontinent that have the capacity to balkanize if the global scenario changes. The Maurya and Mughal Empires did briefly unify large parts of the subcontinent, but those were exceptions to the norm, not the norm. India (even the parts that don't want to politically or religiously coexist) may consider itself part of a civilization and parts of Indian culture are some the most powerful cultural forces in world history, but that's a separate question from political unification -- The Germans, the Spanish, and the French may consider themselves Europeans, but if you created one country called Spadeuschrance they'd clash immediately.
The legacy of this is still contained for example in the German national anthem. The song was written in the early Modern period, calling for one "Deutschland uber alles" -- not a call for expansionism as it was considered in the Nazi Germany period (which is the reason the first verse was removed), but a call for all the separate things that were part of the Holy Roman Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire could be unified under one nation-state called Deutschland -- Deutschland Uber Alles.
Nationalism isn't a truly conservative idea. It's a modernist idea inspired by the French revolution that was against the multi-ethnic empires of the pre-modern era such as the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire, or even the Roman empire in its eastern and western iterations.
Nationalism was "invented" by the Jacobins -- the original left wingers, and the group that essentially brought about the modern era through the French revolution.
It's easy to say "but conservatives took over nationalism!", but that's an example of "conservatives are leftists driving the speed limit" -- revolutionary ideas seep into unprincipled conservatism, so all the left needs to do is keep pushing. Eventually their revolution becomes the lay of the land for everyone and they move onto the next revolution.
European continental conservatism would be a return to religion, nobility, monarchy, Perhaps backing off of capitalism and a return to feudalism, at least for most of the modernist period. The only reason conservatism might call for a return to nationalism today is that just as conservatism in the modern period hoped to return to the premodern period, conservatism in the postmodern period hopes to return to the modern period -- but make no mistake, the modern period was a revolutionary period and conservatives didn't like what came out of it (including the Napoleonic wars, fascism, national socialism, and socialism).
In reality, a lot of the standardization of nationalization wiped out local traditions rather than sustaining them. The standardization of units of measure, while arguably and extremely positive thing nonetheless meant that local traditions of measurement were eliminated. Local dialects or local languages that weren't aligned with the central government were effectively limited by Fiat, and so in that way it was an institutionalized anti-conservatism.
English conservatism would look a little bit different, it would still likely be a return to feudalism, but the English have been a nation of traders for a long time, and the existed under some form of common law since before the modern age began. America by contrast came about in the very short period of time after the enlightenment but before the French revolution, and so it represents another way of being, and because it is such a young culture it's conservatism is similarly Young. No American conservative is calling for a restoration of the monarchy.
I'm not necessarily saying that things will return to pre-modern ways because they were better, but instead that versions of similar structures may form past the end of the postmodern period because the same forces that ended the Roman empire and resulted in a highly divided Europe may end up replaying as the global American-European empire collapses.
I'm not necessarily saying I'd like to see this happen -- the end of the modern era proper will not be sunshine and rainbows.
There is a possibly apocryphal statement from Plato where he complains about the youth of his day. This is often used as evidence that the elders will always complain about the children, and that nothing ever changes.
The thing is, a bunch of stuff did change. Within Plato's lifetime, Athenian democracy ended. Ultimately the most important Greeks are the ones who were taken as slaves by the romans, and eventually Greece was entirely subsumed into the Roman empire.
We have to be very careful about our post-modernist desire to pretend that actions and trends don't have consequences that can be negative and can be outcomes we don't want. How you behave matters a lot, at the sociologically atomic level, and eventually if you have people follow you at the civilizational level.
The thing is, a bunch of stuff did change. Within Plato's lifetime, Athenian democracy ended. Ultimately the most important Greeks are the ones who were taken as slaves by the romans, and eventually Greece was entirely subsumed into the Roman empire.
We have to be very careful about our post-modernist desire to pretend that actions and trends don't have consequences that can be negative and can be outcomes we don't want. How you behave matters a lot, at the sociologically atomic level, and eventually if you have people follow you at the civilizational level.
You're not just reading a parody post — you're rewriting every neuron of your mind to become the overmann.
You're reading a post with:
* Unnecessary lists: right in the middle of the post it just starts listing things off with formatting
* Painfully overbroad reframing: eating a cheese sandwich becomes a Christ-like act of transformation.
* Ending with the same cliched question and answer: because too many writers apparently think it's clever. *Chef's kiss*🤌
And that? That's the most important thing.
(In spite of being a parody of chatGPT and it's specific stylistic quirks, I don't think it could intentionally write this post)
You're reading a post with:
* Unnecessary lists: right in the middle of the post it just starts listing things off with formatting
* Painfully overbroad reframing: eating a cheese sandwich becomes a Christ-like act of transformation.
* Ending with the same cliched question and answer: because too many writers apparently think it's clever. *Chef's kiss*🤌
And that? That's the most important thing.
(In spite of being a parody of chatGPT and it's specific stylistic quirks, I don't think it could intentionally write this post)
I like Jeff, but I'm pretty sure he muted me because he doesn't like my views on a lot of things.
Thankfully, my block list and mute list are still empty.
Thankfully, my block list and mute list are still empty.
Man, considering the next 100 years is exciting, but considering the next trillion years is depressing. The solution to the Fermi paradox is probably that solar systems where life survives the death of its planet and particularly the death of its sun is the inevitable evolution away from intelligence.
I honestly don't know how geologists and astronomers can make this shit their day job. It's a bleak view of things, looking at geological or astronomical timescales.
If we send some extremophiles to the moons of Jupiter life will thrive for a trillion years, but sentient life really requires an energetic universe to work -- partially because sentience requires energy, but partially because sentience only makes sense in a complicated world. You don't need a big brain to float around in an ocean collecting energy from osmotic gradients or next to rocks picking up stray hydrogen molecules.
So for now I'll focus on the next 100 years where human thriving and partial extinction will coexist -- because I can't do anything about a trillion years from now, but I can definitely help with the next 100 years by focusing on the next 18.
I honestly don't know how geologists and astronomers can make this shit their day job. It's a bleak view of things, looking at geological or astronomical timescales.
If we send some extremophiles to the moons of Jupiter life will thrive for a trillion years, but sentient life really requires an energetic universe to work -- partially because sentience requires energy, but partially because sentience only makes sense in a complicated world. You don't need a big brain to float around in an ocean collecting energy from osmotic gradients or next to rocks picking up stray hydrogen molecules.
So for now I'll focus on the next 100 years where human thriving and partial extinction will coexist -- because I can't do anything about a trillion years from now, but I can definitely help with the next 100 years by focusing on the next 18.
I think one of the most important keys would be getting it spinning. It would take energy on an order of magnitude that the human race is incapable of imagining, but so is moving a whole planet into the habitable zone -- if you can do one, maybe you could do the other.
There's evidence that the core of Venus is still molten since one reason for all the SO2 seems to be volcanic eruptions, but there's only a very weak magnetic field that doesn't seem to be caused by the core. This seems to be because Venus has an insanely long day -- over 200 earth-days.
The lack of spin also could be the reason why Venus appears to lack plate tectonics, since the lack of spin results in a much more stagnant core.
Venus famously has quite a lot of Sulphuric Acid (H2SO4) in its upper atmosphere which does in fact deteriorate into SO3 and H2O, but the H2O is broken up into H and O by UV, and then whatever H and O arrive are basically stripped away by solar wind, keeping the planet super dry. Get a magnetic field, and you could start seeing water in the atmosphere again, which would also help reduce the greenhouse effect.
In the end, it might make more sense on a geographical timeframes scale to look at Europa instead. Mine through 40km of ice, and you find yourself in an endless ocean heated by orbital forces to just above 0C, leaving you with a temperature gradient you can use for energy generation, as well as a moon worth of water. As the sun expands into a red giant that region would even become part of the habitable zone for a few hundred million years before freezing once again and potentially remaining basically as it was until orbits go wonky. Having 40km of ice above you sounds claustrophobic, but given that you'll need to survive the radioactivity of space, it might not be such a bad deal.
I assume our form of underwater mining might be like a baleen whale, just purifying water and keeping whatever we find.
And since the crust is deep but also just water, you'd just need to send over something that makes heat consistently -- An RTG is one option, but also a small scale nuclear reactor, just melt melt melt and eventually you're underground.
It's not a very nice life, mind you. It's basically living in low gravity high pressure enclaves for a trillion years that are likely to be essentially pitch black. There's CO2 on that moon, however, and it's possible that there's ammonia, and if that's the case then you can have a hard life that can nonetheless exist without requiring solar system class levels of energy such as would be required for moving planets or kicking Venus into a spin (and unlike Venus, the Europa plan would survive the end of the Sun)
Over a trillion years of surviving on Europa, you could also have humans evolve or evolve themselves into something more suited to the environment -- After far less than a million years I'd suspect we'd have figured out far length IR vision, probably pressure proofed our bodies, maybe even given up on breathing gasses and just oxygenated water within our habitats. At that point, it's just a matter of conserving elemental carbon and nitrogen and producing oxygen and maintain the energy collection via the gradients between the surface and underground -- You might not even need to hit surface, presumably you could find a way to utilize temperature, pressure, or salinity gradients under the oceans to produce energy.
One thing is that the 40km ice wall means evolution would be slow down there I bet -- Even gamma rays don't like 40km of ice. It's probably radioactively dead as a doornail.
Crazy to think though, if life exists somewhere out there, is there another species that took this path?
There's evidence that the core of Venus is still molten since one reason for all the SO2 seems to be volcanic eruptions, but there's only a very weak magnetic field that doesn't seem to be caused by the core. This seems to be because Venus has an insanely long day -- over 200 earth-days.
The lack of spin also could be the reason why Venus appears to lack plate tectonics, since the lack of spin results in a much more stagnant core.
Venus famously has quite a lot of Sulphuric Acid (H2SO4) in its upper atmosphere which does in fact deteriorate into SO3 and H2O, but the H2O is broken up into H and O by UV, and then whatever H and O arrive are basically stripped away by solar wind, keeping the planet super dry. Get a magnetic field, and you could start seeing water in the atmosphere again, which would also help reduce the greenhouse effect.
In the end, it might make more sense on a geographical timeframes scale to look at Europa instead. Mine through 40km of ice, and you find yourself in an endless ocean heated by orbital forces to just above 0C, leaving you with a temperature gradient you can use for energy generation, as well as a moon worth of water. As the sun expands into a red giant that region would even become part of the habitable zone for a few hundred million years before freezing once again and potentially remaining basically as it was until orbits go wonky. Having 40km of ice above you sounds claustrophobic, but given that you'll need to survive the radioactivity of space, it might not be such a bad deal.
I assume our form of underwater mining might be like a baleen whale, just purifying water and keeping whatever we find.
And since the crust is deep but also just water, you'd just need to send over something that makes heat consistently -- An RTG is one option, but also a small scale nuclear reactor, just melt melt melt and eventually you're underground.
It's not a very nice life, mind you. It's basically living in low gravity high pressure enclaves for a trillion years that are likely to be essentially pitch black. There's CO2 on that moon, however, and it's possible that there's ammonia, and if that's the case then you can have a hard life that can nonetheless exist without requiring solar system class levels of energy such as would be required for moving planets or kicking Venus into a spin (and unlike Venus, the Europa plan would survive the end of the Sun)
Over a trillion years of surviving on Europa, you could also have humans evolve or evolve themselves into something more suited to the environment -- After far less than a million years I'd suspect we'd have figured out far length IR vision, probably pressure proofed our bodies, maybe even given up on breathing gasses and just oxygenated water within our habitats. At that point, it's just a matter of conserving elemental carbon and nitrogen and producing oxygen and maintain the energy collection via the gradients between the surface and underground -- You might not even need to hit surface, presumably you could find a way to utilize temperature, pressure, or salinity gradients under the oceans to produce energy.
One thing is that the 40km ice wall means evolution would be slow down there I bet -- Even gamma rays don't like 40km of ice. It's probably radioactively dead as a doornail.
Crazy to think though, if life exists somewhere out there, is there another species that took this path?
It's clearly still got a functioning core, but the atmosphere of sulphuric acid isn't really my jam.
Seems like if we have enough energy to move a planet into a habitable zone then having a sun might not be that big of a deal. I'm thinking that to move Mars into an orbit in the habitable zone for example might take so much energy you'd spend billions of years trying to break even.
Besides energy constraints, we would also have a big problem that suns give off a bunch of energy that is essentially destructive to all forms of life we know of.
The Earth is uniquely situated because we have a magnetic field due to the molten core, but that same core is also a taking time bomb -- the continent of Australia it's mostly desert, completely unlivable, and in about 250 million years a new supercontinent will form which will be a mass extinction event that could include humans -- supercontinents end up dry and hot like Australia, at least that's what the models tell us will happen. So you have the power of the sun on one hand which will toast our DNA without the ionosphere, and you have the power of seismic drift on the other which will toast us due to most of the surface of the Earth becoming a giant unlivable rock -- and that seismic activity is a necessity because you need the molten core to protect life on Earth. On the other hand, it's not the only thing that we have to worry about including core cooling, and solar brightening. A cosmic fist will eventually close around the planet Earth.
Really helps you understand how fragile life is, and how lucky we are to live in this particular moment in the history of our planet.
Within what I'm talking about, Mars will eventually enter the habitable zone, but it will remain impossible to live on because it has no core. I guess if we had enough time and unspeakable amounts of energy to reactivate Mars's core, but again you're probably talking about so much energy if you had it you might not need the Sun.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry in the corner for the rest of my life.
Besides energy constraints, we would also have a big problem that suns give off a bunch of energy that is essentially destructive to all forms of life we know of.
The Earth is uniquely situated because we have a magnetic field due to the molten core, but that same core is also a taking time bomb -- the continent of Australia it's mostly desert, completely unlivable, and in about 250 million years a new supercontinent will form which will be a mass extinction event that could include humans -- supercontinents end up dry and hot like Australia, at least that's what the models tell us will happen. So you have the power of the sun on one hand which will toast our DNA without the ionosphere, and you have the power of seismic drift on the other which will toast us due to most of the surface of the Earth becoming a giant unlivable rock -- and that seismic activity is a necessity because you need the molten core to protect life on Earth. On the other hand, it's not the only thing that we have to worry about including core cooling, and solar brightening. A cosmic fist will eventually close around the planet Earth.
Really helps you understand how fragile life is, and how lucky we are to live in this particular moment in the history of our planet.
Within what I'm talking about, Mars will eventually enter the habitable zone, but it will remain impossible to live on because it has no core. I guess if we had enough time and unspeakable amounts of energy to reactivate Mars's core, but again you're probably talking about so much energy if you had it you might not need the Sun.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry in the corner for the rest of my life.
Not to mention, most of the big orgs or NGOs that would want to use AI slop the most don't want to touch the cool parts of the fediverse because their AIs will start being too cool for school.
