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[JDigital]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/9852067/Flying-Transylvanian-dinosaur-unearthed-by-scientists.html

<Kazz> Hey, did anybody hear about how the dinosaurs became extinct?
<Kazz> I found out the true story.
<Daidoji> eloh ate some beans
<terra> They smoked weed until their brains turned into shriveled into peas.
<Kazz> There were dinosaurs, and then there were vampire dinosaurs.
<kashan> Masturbation?
<Kazz> The vampire dinosaurs sucked the other dinosaurs blood.
<Daidoji> vamposaurus
<MightyQuinn> Lesbian space vampire dinosaurs who shat pterodactyls?
<Zaratustra> where did they find coffins their size?
<Rico> And then there was Denver! ~The Last dinosaur... he's our friend and a whole lot more!
<Siarin> Kazz: Then the vampires turned on each other?
<Kazz> The vampire dinosaurs reproduced like mad, and eventually all the other dinosaurs became extinct.
<Kazz> The vampire dinosaurs had no more dinosaurs to suck the blood of.
<Siarin> I mean, vampires are theoretically immortal, so that means..
<Siarin> ..DAMN IT KAZZ
<Zaratustra> where did they find coffins their size?
<Kazz> Driven mad by starvation, they stayed out until sunrise.
<Kazz> Then, the sunlight caused them all to turn to dust.
<Kazz> Because there were so many, the dust covered the entire Earth, causing the ice age.
* Kazz bows.

[Mongrel]

http://momentummachines.com/

Oh shit. This could just as easily go in the "it's the economy" thread too.

[Büge]

http://momentummachines.com/

Oh shit. This could just as easily go in the "it's the economy" thread too.

I love this line from the page:

We are looking for individuals with the best restaurant experience to join us.

"Let's work together to put you out of a job!"

[Mongrel]

I mean, I realize that "THE 3D PRINTER REVOLUTION IS COMING!!~" has been a thing for years now too, but that's actually a legitimate thing (perhaps not in the OMG PRINT EVRYTHING sense, but the impact will grow much more significant over time).

In the same sense "Make all fast food cooks obsolete!!!" is pretty hyperbolic, but if this is legitimate then that's still a hell of a lot of jobs going out the window. Not that they're great jobs, and not that the average fast food place doesn't already look and operate like a factory, but still.

It's funny how close to bad cyberpunk/automats reinvented/retro-future dytopia this is though.

[Brentai]

It's not worth trying to fight automation; it's just a fact of life, now.  That's a major driver of the Rewards-based Economy model, but the major impediment there is the simple fact that the rich actually enjoy screwing people.

[Royal☭]

Automation is great! The real issue comes down to whether we should consider having a rich upper-crust when everyone would benefit just by using the wealth of society to have these things everywhere.

[Mongrel]

Yeah, I don't think that automation is itself a problem and that fighting it is both stupid and counterproductive. I am 100% in favour of automating things that can be automated.

I just tend to worry now and again that the old argument about "Given a long enough time scale, new jobs in new industries will always be created to replace the lost obsolescent jobs of the past." may finally be breaking down. Not catastrophically and not entirely (new jobs WILL always be created), but enough for things to start sliding out of whack.

[NexAdruin]

Just wait until they make a CEO AI and rich people are no longer required for society to run.

[Mongrel]

That's uh, not really the angle I'm looking at.

[Mongrel]

Come to think of it, this (obliquely) reminds me of another thing I discovered.

http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0120-hance_mongols.html#

One of history's greatest (unintentional) environmentalists was Genghis Khan. The 40 million people killed by the Mongol Empire (inadvertently) led to large-scale reforestation and a significant reduction in the carbon in the atmosphere.

Uh, this is not to be taken as a suggestion for further such activities though.

[Brentai]

Somehow I don't think World War II was twice as good for the environment.

[Mongrel]

Not that I disagree, but WWII was only 1.5 times as many people (Gotta give ole Ghengis his, er, uh... due).

[Cait]

I don't think body count is the right metric there, at least not without factoring in population density.

[Mongrel]

Well, obviously. There's also proportion to consider. The 60 million people killed in WWII represented 2.5% of the world's population in 1935, whereas 40 million would have been roughly 10% of the (very roughly) estimated world population around 1200.

[Büge]

So Genghis Khan had the deadliest empire in history, adjusted for inflation.

[Mongrel]

Only on a global scale. Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler and others managed higher than 10% within a region (in Pol Pot's case it was a staggering 35%, possibly more). There have also been even higher death rates for smaller local conflicts (Rwanda, etc.)

[Brentai]

The conquistadors would probably win this race, but only on accident.

[Joxam]

Dem blankets.

[Sharkey]

Well, the raw numbers of people here probably isn't as important as the amount of trees being chopped per person, which I'd imagine was quite a bit different in 1200 vs 1935.

The most striking example would be the American pandemic after 1492, which wiped out something like 90% of the population of the continent, and, fucking surprise, coincided with the largest CO2 drop, between 1550 and 1800, along with a corresponding drop in global temperature.

[Mongrel]

You know, The Little Ice Age has traditionally been blamed on natural climate fluctuations, but imagine if it really was due to a decline in human population (this is already posited as a serious scientific theory, though with less credence than small-scale natural fluctuations).