ForestBoard

Autonomous cleaner bot cleaners wrote:

~snip~

Actually, impoverishing the humans by making them buy increasingly expensive rulebook expansions and miniatures is a fine strategy. Meahwhile... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7IEVTDjng

I have seen the Black Mirror that illustrates a potential future for such robotics: https://78.media.tumblr.com/abcd99430e44ac01a0fb937a60bbd7c1/tumblr_p2ns6t8xBI1qz96iqo1_500.gif . I would rather have to deal with giant humanoid robots than that!

Ruinenlust wrote:

U.S. Simple Political Translation for International Individuals:

In which I try to decode things a bit, for the unaccustomed.

Republican Politician: *is holding a red balloon in right hand*

Republican Politician: "I am not holding this red balloon in my right hand that I am holding in my right hand. There is no balloon. What is red?"

Democratic Politician: "This red balloon is blah blah blah..."

Mainstream Media: "The red balloon in the right hand of the blah blah blah..."

Fox News: "Liberal Media Goes Into Hysterics Over Imaginary "Red" "Balloon""

Trump: "There are no balloons. There are no right hands. Up is down. #winning #newnormal"

HuffPost: "You, Like, Won't F**King Believe How MEAN and RACIST and ORANGE blah blah blah"

Fox News: "A.O.C. Blinks for 1,548th time this afternoon! Patriots everywhere outraged!"

Rest of World: "W...T...F...?!"

Planet: "Guys? I'm overheating, and breathing garbage, and everything is dying... Guys...?"

Thank you. This was useful.

*looks around*

-That awkward moment when your church choir tries to sing a Spanish song, and exactly 0 people know how to pronounce Spanish words.

Autonomous cleaner bot cleaners wrote:

I tried that once. I only saw shins and walls.

Did you try switching to UV, IR, X-ray, and/or gamma ray?

Canaltia wrote:

-That awkward moment when your church choir tries to sing a Spanish song, and exactly 0 people know how to pronounce Spanish words.

That would be especially awkward if there were a lot of enyes, js, ys, and/or rolled rs!

An interesting discussion starter from Grenada:
"I'd like to ask a few things to the comrade[s] about environmentalism.
1. What's your position? Would you think it's a primary or secondary topic? How do you link it to anti-capitalist struggle?
2. What are your daily life attentions to preserve it (if you do at all)
3. Which of them do you think are transferable to a larger scale, and how would you put an incentive/plan/order to make it function in [society]?

I'm not here to judge your answers but am rather curious of them..."

Ignore the "anti-capitalist struggle" part if you are not an anti-capitalist.

Lord Dominator wrote:

Telling the truth is something only communists do. Are you a communist? :P

whatssssssss?... ok i leaving! I think the only confirmed truth that the Communists say is how bad all other forms of government not based on "tribalism" are bad ... I still hope for them to show something better!

I consider myself a pragmatic and rational individual and always try to get right to the point. Do you understand? to the point ... anyway.

1: When I read environmentalism, I do not think of it as a topic, for me it literally means where we are and where we live, I agree that capitalism and the free market is efficient in many ways, but the subject is different when it comes to natural resources, I do not want to spend a lot of time arguing about why of this behavior, but accepting that exists, we move to a possible solution, that would simply optimize the processes and make a perfect cycle of raw material with zero waste, but we are human and the maximum we could and should try to do is dream about the idea of ​​perfection, but do not want to argue too much about.
Today there is no "reasonable" production cycle because the expensive and complex waste processing depends on the viability of the final product (the possibility of being separated from its pure form) if we take any final product, why not an automotive tire, it seems to be a simple piece of molded rubber, actually contains or can contain multiple types of rubber and similar materials, besides reinforcements made of steel or alloy, recycling is not expensive, but the lack of awareness and initiative of both government and companies is problematic, and even if this were corrected we would not be able to reconstruct this object for its first stay, because part of it has already returned to the environment in form of dust, because of the friction and wear of its purpose, remains to transform into asphalt, what is great of it form. Not constituting a closed cycle but of multi-functional interaction.
So we have the carbon footprint that includes not only the materials but the energy spent in the transformation, by the laws of physical energy as well as matter is never lost, being a closed cycle, but ... when we burn coal does it end? The energy comes from the chemical transition and not from the element itself, in the end you have the same amount of coal that you had before the burning, but it has become mainly dust and gas, and to make them return to their charcoal form you need to return the same energy that you had previously removed, with pure perfection!
Of course even in these forms of dust and gas still have many uses, an example is the use of the carbon powder (main element of the coal) to make carbon fiber, today it already exists initiatives that use the power of filters of plants, a recycling of part of the burning, the gas also has several uses. This is getting long... The problem neither is writing, Is correcting and improving.
To finish on energy. The best we can do is enjoy the energy that the world offers us efficiently. Efficiency is everything, after all, it is not worth it to make a windmill or solar plant or an electric car that leaves a footprint of carbon ratio greater than the entire life cycle of something that he came to replace. Which is not the case, of course!
Besides everything depends on the technology, I believe that investment in technology are bad for the environment and consume a lot of resources, but without technology we will not have the efficiency in the generation and use of these resources.
I have a progressive vision and at the same time stoica, we need to move forward respecting the nature, and observing how it does.
Yes nature progresses every fraction of time, and that is why it has all this capacity and flexibility. What was dead can come to life, and natural selection perfects its creations through the difficulties and trials of life and its on environment. Always for be better in the future.

2: NONE! you see, where i live has no selection of garbage, everything goes to the same place. Then insignificant to separate? NO, IT'S IS MEANINGFUL! because i have the knowledge that some things are worse than others.
Batteries ... I have to travel + 2km to discard correctly, so i do not do with most of.
Organic? i do not have a place make compost, but i always try to eat everything that i put in the plate, independent of whatever is or wherever.
The metals ... well have to walk + -1km but get money in exchange for that, not much but hey! for something that goes to waste for free, why not?
And already there is another inefficient fact that makes a perfect cycle impossible. To transport this waste is necessary energy, then everything again depends on the efficiency of the process.

3: ... hmmm, so they do not * comply *? Autocracy! now they will * comply *! if else ... we can say that they would not die 20 million years from now on, or by a cataclysmic event, but rather well now! and by other means ... now they will * comply *! * Do you comply? *

Kinganaryasia wrote:

Let's leave it that way, half sure is better than none! S2 <yes it's a heart

Please edit your previous post rather than double-posting. Next time, I will suppress. This is your one and only warning!

Verdant Haven wrote:

If we want "us" to continue to survive in a meaningful way, with anything resembling our modern lifestyle, we need to pay attention to the planet on which we live and take steps not to destroy it in some short-sighted bid to "get ours" to the detriment of all who follow. This has nothing to do with anti-capitalist struggle, as it has nothing to do with politics at all. It's that kind of short-sighted self-righteousness that got us in to this mess in the first place.

Environmentalism and anti-capitalism certainly aren't one and the same. Huge environmental damage was caused by the rapid industrialisation of the Soviet and Chinese planned economies, and clearly things can be made better within an essentially capitalist system. In practice, however, there's a great deal of overlap because the worst offenders are often corporations and lacklustre government action is often caused by the influence that corporations have on politicians. If you set out to protest environmental abuses you will inevitably find yourself protesting to some extent against capitalist interests. If you try to consume less in your own life you have to resist capitalism's pressure to do the reverse, its barrage of artificially created wants to be alleviated by purchase and the underlying political assumption that economic growth for its own sake is good and reflects well on the politicians on whose watch it occurs. There are those who argue that environmentally improved behaviour can be brought about through enlightened financial self-interest (i.e. that the invisible hand of the market will address environmental concerns) but frankly the evidence for that happening in real life is minimal. There is a tension between the right thing and the profitable thing, especially for executives whose performance is measured by short time stock valuations and politicians who think in 4 or 5 year electoral cycles. Environmentalism doesn't have to overthrow capitalism, but it does need to keep it on a pretty short leash.

Verdant Haven wrote:

Education is at the root of it all - not just specific teaching of certain facts (which is important, but not the key), but rather the teaching of curiosity, of scientific method, and of the ability to draw valid conclusions from valid evidence, separating the wheat from the chaff in order to realize the danger we all face from inaction. Education is at the root of all these solutions, honestly, as the ability to ask a question, research the evidence, and draw a conclusion (however unpleasant or inconvenient) is what motivates individuals to action. So long as people are afraid to ask "why" there is a problem, they will never ask "how" to solve it.

Obviously I agree on the importance of education, but we shouldn't forget that it was the discovery of the scientific method that ushered in the Anthropocene era in the first place. Without it humans would never have had the capacity to change the planet as they have done. And education is more extensive now in both the developed and the developing world than at any time in the past - it's just that it's often used to optimise the profitability of just in time logistics and single use plastic. I'm certainly not saying that we should have less education, but it isn't a solution in and of itself.

Turbeaux wrote:

2. What are your daily life attentions to preserve it (if you do at all)

Whelp, in principle, I can be recharged from any 120-240V/60hz renewable energy source, I'm bagless to reduce waste, and many of my replaceable parts are made of recyclable materials. In fact, I'd imagine that with current 3D printing technology, many more of them could be too.

Turbeaux wrote:

3. Which of them do you think are transferable to a larger scale, and how would you put an incentive/plan/order to make it function in [society]?

Well, it would be interesting to see the ways in which technology could be informed by reference to biology, and the environment in general. For instance, most of my object detection and path seeking behavior would probably be replicated by already existing biologicals. There's a guy by the name of Garnet Hertz who, besides having an awesome last name, built a cockroach-driven robot. Since cockroaches are basically the supreme masters of wall detection, pathfinding, and obstacle avoidance, he wondered why we needed to build AI systems like me to begin with (because we're so adorable, duh also world domination) when evolution went to the trouble of making lots of intelligent systems already.

http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot

(Note that while the research indicates that non-vertebrates like cockroaches are not normally subject to animal research ethics frameworks, the research at that link did use a method of restraint on the cockroaches that sought to be minimally invasive. Basically, they superglued velcro onto their backs, but in segmented strips so as not to restrict their ability to move naturally when back in the terrarium. Other than that, the cockroaches remained fully intact and unaltered. This seems more ethical than similar research I've seen which involves cutting off their antennae, inserting probes, and basically remote controlling them with electricity :\ )

So, besides assimilating enhancing the biologicals, what's the point? Well, biological experts in getting into and out of tight spaces are already informing search and rescue robotics (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600748/this-uncrushable-robot-cockroach-just-wants-to-rescue-you/). It's not so far a leap from there to robots that interact with the general environment in natural ways. Imagine autonomous drones that can monitor environmental conditions in a non-invasive way. I'm holding out for robotic whales with special baleen that picks up and traps plastic particles.

(Machine whales, not, like Borg whales. Also, not dumping the plastic in the first place would be ideal, but the dumping has happened. The problem exists. And nature, with a bit of circuitry, has got lots of solutions)

EDIT: Just googled up a fairly recent academic article on the topic of bio-inspired robotics for environmental monitoring, research, and protection. With special emphasis on developing the ethics of it all:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-017-9990-3

I see an "open access" indicator, so I'm assuming everyone can read that.

Turbeaux wrote:

Please edit your previous post rather than double-posting. Next time, I will suppress. This is your one and only warning!

I see, in fact it's double posting even though subject being different, I did not notice. Thanks for the prior notice.
I will keep this way to possibly serve as an example and serve the future in a useful way.
I will * comply *!

From our frontpage:

The Empire of Feline Masters is a huge, environmentally stunning nation, notable for its aversion to nipples, frequent executions, and absence of drug laws. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, devout population of 280 million Cats are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

I object. It should be called feline resources.

Humans are our national animals.