Why am I not surprised that Elon Musk sleeps with his employees?
Elon Musk Secretly Fathered Twins With Neuralink Executive, Report Says
Elon Musk had twins in November with Shivon Zilis, an executive at Musk’s company Neuralink, according to court records obtained by Insider on Wednesday, bringing the number of known living children fathered by the world’s richest man to nine.
The twins were born a few weeks before his partner, Grimes, had a child through a surrogate.
Three kids within a month? I’m sure Elon was overwhelmed with his fatherly obligations at that time. Right?
Man, it must be exhausting having to run all these grifting companies AND assert your masculine dominance by fucking your executives, and then having to keep your offspring secret.
I notice the Forbes article has a photo of 4 of his sons, him and the current pope.
No daughters.
You always knew it was about spawning the mini-mes.
Ugh.
Isn’t Neuralink the company that keeps torturing lab animals to death in horrific brain implant experiments while failing to produce any useful knowledge about neurology?
Those are some quality humans there. /s
Not sure why he thinks increasing the population is so important. The strains of overpopulation are beginning to show and we aren’t far off, I think, from a genuine Malthusian situation. If population increase is anything close to an exponential rate, then even at the 11th hour things will still seem manageable (unless of course, you understand math).
It makes that bit on the Georgia Guidestones about keeping the population under 500 million seem like a pretty good idea. But of course some nutjobs decided to blow them up yesterday (ps please do a post on that PZ).
So I take it that you don’t agree with his contention that he’s just doing his part to help humanity survive the looming underpopulation crisis?
When you know your sperm is grrrrreat!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/business/jeffrey-epstein-eugenics.html
++++++++
Jeffrey Epstein Hoped to Seed Human Race With His DNA
By James B. Stewart, Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg
July 31, 2019
Jeffrey E. Epstein, the wealthy financier who is accused of sex trafficking,
had an unusual dream: He hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by
impregnating women at his vast New Mexico ranch.
Mr. Epstein over the years confided to scientists and others about his
scheme, according to four people familiar with his thinking, although there
is no evidence that it ever came to fruition.
Mr. Epstein’s vision reflected his longstanding fascination with what has
become known as transhumanism: the science of improving the human population
through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence.
Critics have likened transhumanism to a modern-day version of eugenics,
the discredited field of improving the human race through controlled breeding.
Mr. Epstein. . . was a serial illusionist: He lied about the identities of
his clients, his wealth, his financial prowess, his personal achievements.
But he managed to use connections and charisma to cultivate valuable relationships
with business and political leaders.
Interviews with more than a dozen of his acquaintances, as well as public
documents, show that he used the same tactics to insinuate himself into an
elite scientific community, thus allowing him to pursue his interests in
eugenics and other fringe fields like cryonics. . .
Mr. Epstein attracted a glittering array of prominent scientists. . .
The lure for some of the scientists was Mr. Epstein’s money. He dangled
financing for their pet projects. . .
On multiple occasions starting in the early 2000s, Mr. Epstein told scientists
and businessmen about his ambitions to use his New Mexico ranch as a base where
women would be inseminated with his sperm and would give birth to his babies. . .
It was not a secret. . .
Once, at a dinner at Mr. Epstein’s mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, [Jaron] Lanier
said he talked to a scientist who told him that Mr. Epstein’s goal was to have 20 women
at a time impregnated at his 33,000-square-foot Zorro Ranch in a tiny town outside
Santa Fe. . .
Mr. Epstein did not hide his interest in tinkering with genes — and in perpetuating
his own DNA.
One adherent of transhumanism said that he and Mr. Epstein discussed the financier’s
interest in cryonics, an unproven science in which people’s bodies are frozen to be brought
back to life in the future. Mr. Epstein told this person that he wanted his head and
penis to be frozen. . .
In 2011, a charity established by Mr. Epstein gave $20,000 to the Worldwide Transhumanist
Association, which now operates under the name Humanity Plus. The group’s website says that
its goal is “to deeply influence a new generation of thinkers who dare to envision humanity’s
next steps.”
Mr. Epstein’s foundation, which is now defunct, also gave $100,000 to pay the salary
of Ben Goertzel, vice chairman of Humanity Plus, according to Mr. Goertzel’s résumé.
“I have no desire to talk about Epstein right now,” Mr. Goertzel said in an email to
The New York Times. . .
++++
++++++++
Peter Watts: “Attack of the Hope Police: Delusional Optimism at the End of the World?”
Apr 30, 2019
Institute of Advanced Studies Koszeg (iASK) – Felsobbfokú Tanulmányok Intézete
8:38 (/58:31)
Now the other assumption on the part of the “give us solutions” brigade
is that we don’t already have solutions, that solutions have not been
staring us in the face for decades. . .
(9:22)
And above all, stop breeding. I could fly back and forth across
the Atlantic every week for a solid year and my carbon footprint would
still not be anywhere close to the Godzilla-size bootprint that
people stamp onto the planet every time they have a kid.
But oddly, these do not seem to be the kind of solutions that the
optimism brigade are in the market for. . .
(23:14)
My fear isn’t just that people will see it and deny the facts, my
fear is that even if people accept the facts, they just won’t act on
them. The current US administration’s position on climate change
is a classic case in point. Now a lot has been made of Donald Trump’s
personal repudiation of climate change as a “climate hoax” and so on.
The fact is, the Trump administration does not deny climate change
at all. The Trump administration is on record as admitting that they
expect the world’s temperature to increase by 4 degrees Centigrade
before the end of the century. And they continue to dismantle
environment protections not despite that insight, but because of it.
We’re already screwed, you see — it’s already too late. It’s too
late to save the planet, so why bother hobbling short-term economic
profits with a bunch of pointless environmental regulations that won’t
even really change anything?
I said before that we weren’t scared enough. Why is that? Why are
we so blind to such an existential threat? Why is it that when a
friend of mine, a university professor — not a stupid man by any
stretch of the imagination — why is it that when he inseminates his
wife with twins, an act which is exactly as remarkable as two dogs
fucking in the street and far, far more destructive ecologically —
he not only doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that, he
actually goes onto social media and brags about it? And why is it
that when he does that, everybody piles on with “Oh my God, you’re
gonna be a dad!” and “Oh, daddy times two!” and “Oh, you must be
so proud!”? Why is it that nobody ever says “Wow, 7.6 billion
isn’t enough for you?”? Why is it that nobody ever says “Well done,
dipshit! By the time your precious twins are in their 20s, they
will be fighting over the last government rations down at the armory,
if they haven’t already been wiped out by some mutant strain of
monkeypox, or starved to death because wheat rust took out the
world’s grain supply.”? And why is it that if anybody did do
any of that they would be immediately set upon as an asshole and
a jerk? Not because what they said was necessarily wrong, but
because even facing an imminent environmental apocalypse, due entirely
to the weight of our own numbers and our own first-world consumption,
producing more of us is somehow not only still considered an inalienable
right, but somehow morally praiseworthy? Why is it that columnists
in progressive, climate-change-recognizing papers write snippy editorials
in which they insist that “Not only will climate change not stop me
from having kids”, but shitting on people who have decided not to
reproduce, calling them “shamers” and “virtue signallers”? How
can Emma Teitel
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2019/03/13/climate-change-will-not-stop-me-from-having-kids.html
be so goddamn stupid? How can all of us as a species be so
goddamn stupid?
Well, as it turns out, because nature kind of built us that way.
Up until quite recently, delusional stupidity was a survival trait. . .
[Steven Pinker sez] “Brains are not truth detectors.
They are survival engines.” They were shaped by natural selection.
They are wired to promote immediate fitness. If believing a lie
has helped you spread your genes throughout our evolutionary history,
then your brain will probably continue to believe that lie with
all its furry little heart. And the obvious biggie here is
“My genes are more special. My child is the center of the universe.
My family is the most important thing.” And it’s trivially easy
to see how natural selection would make us, shape us, to believe
that kind of stuff, even though we now have evidence that statistically
parents are more miserable with their lives than non-parents are.
But that’s only one example out of a bunch of ’em. Here’s another
one. Give somebody a choice between five bucks today and twenty
buck in two weeks, and most of the time they will choose the smaller,
more immediate payoff. Now the technical term for this is
hyperbolic discounting. . . You give somebody a choice between
a reduced standard of living today and environmental apocalypse in
20 years, and you don’t even have to guess what they’re gonna do.
‘Cause the numbers are already in. Because it’s 20 years away.
Because, you know, somebody will come up with something in the
meantime. Because it’s all probably a Chinese hoax anyway. . .
++++
On the other hand (from the Alt-Right, “Intellectual Dark Web”
point of view):
++++++++
Jordan Peterson – Population Collapse Is Coming
Feb 18, 2022
Chris Williamson
Jordan Peterson responds to Elon Musk’s population collapse prediction.
What is the global population doing? Does Jordan Peterson think there are
too many people on the earth? Are Elon Musk’s population collapse and
population decline predictions going to happen?
Williamson: Rolling the clock forward, you and Elon [Musk]
tweeted recently about population collapse. You think it’s
gonna happen, then?
Peterson: Oh, well, I’ve thought for at least ten years that
the biggest problem in 50 years is that there’s just not enough
people.
Williamson: I remember hearing you say a few years ago that you
though we’d peak about 9 billion. . .
Peterson: Yeah, we probably won’t hit 9. Yeah. And I
don’t have stats, because. . .
Williamson: Think about how crazy it is to think that we might
be living on Earth, right now, at the time with the most number of
humans that are ever going to exist at one time, ever.
Peterson: Yeah, that’s highly probable. And you know, and the
population. . .
Williamson: That blows my mind.
Peterson: . . .the population collapse in developed countries is
precipitous.
Williamson: Right.
Peterson: It’s like we fall off a cliff, because there’s no kids. . .
Williamson: Everyone knows this from the pandemic, the r-nought number.
If fewer people are reproducing, next generation you have fewer people
to reproduce as fewer people are reproducing, and they oof .
Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I. . .
Williamson: And you think. . .
Peterson: Well, I… I worked on a UN committee, about — it’s gotta be
10 years ago now — to help draft the UN Secretary General’s report on
sustainable economic development, and so I looked at all sorts of things,
like that. I was very curious, for example, about. . . Because,
people have been beating the overpopulation drum since. . . well, it
really kicked in in the 1960s, you know, because there were dire
predictions — by the year 2000 the Club of Rome came out and said
well, there’ll be riots and mass starvation and mass movement of
migrants, and all the things you hear about climate change — because
there’s too many people on the planet, and that just didn’t happen
at all. That was just — it wasn’t just wrong, it was anti-true.
It was absolutely wrong. What happened instead was that everyone got
way richer. And the bottom section of the population in terms of
economic distribution got lifted out of poverty. Inequality still
exists, but that’s that power-law phenomenon we already talked about.
Not that that’s trivial, it’s just unbelievably difficult to determine
what to do with. There are solutions but, certainly getting rid of
capitalism isn’t the solution. And so, I looked at population trends,
and first of all found — not that this is an act of genius or anything —
that, as soon as you educate women, the size of the family shrinks
precipitously. Like below replacement. And that’s partly because
women have other options, that’s a huge part of it. . .
Williamson: We’re seeing this play out, hm?
Peterson: Oh yes. I mean, all the countries in the West are
way below replacement. Korea’s way below replacement — South Korea.
Japan, way below replacement. Yeah, yeah.
Williamson: I think the number one, number one on the planet is —
might be Chad? Chad? Chad, the country? Uh. . .
Peterson: In terms of growth?
Williamson: Uh, eight children on average.
Peterson: Yeah, I think Nigeria will have more people in it than
China by the end of the century. So, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Musk —
you know, he’s a far-looking man, and so he’s looking around the
apocalyptic corner, let’s say: “Oh, oh! We’re running out of
people!” And what that means, of course, is that you run out of
young people, right? You don’t run out of old people first,
’cause everyone who is here now is gonna be 30 years older in
30 years, and it’ll be young people we don’t have enough of,
and of course young people are the ones who do the innovation,
and are going to do most of the heavy lifting, etc. And so, there’s
gonna be a terrible shortage of young people.
Williamson: Well, you see this with some of the things that I
posted with that O[ffice for][National][Statistics] data —
50.1 percent of women childless by 30 — and both men and women
are replying to that tweet saying “Well good! There’s too many
people on the planet in any case.”
Peterson: Yeah. I know, I know.
Williamson: …thinking how? . . this NPC [“Non-Player Character”, i.e. “mindless”]
midwittery [“someone who is around average intelligence but is so opinionated
and full of themselves that they think they’re some kind of genius:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Midwit ]
is so dangerous because it makes people believe that they actually
have something grounded backing up their claims.
Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, well, and this idea that the planet has too
many people on it, this is — there is no sentiment more implicitly
genocidal than that statement.
Williamson: [laughs]
Peterson: So what do you mean “too many people”, exactly? And what do
you mean “the planet”? And what do you propose to do about that, exactly?
Mass abortion, is that your answer? Or should we do something a little
more dramatic? Maybe we’ll just shame people out of having children.
And I’ve seen people do that. Literally — I saw a professor, when I was
at a TED — I think it was at. . . doesn’t matter. There was a number
of professors talking to a couple hundred students. And one of the
professors, who was an environmentalist activist type, and he got up
on stage and shook his finger to the whole young crowd saying that
him and his wife had only decided to have one child — which was
in my opinion one child too many for him. . .
Williamson: [chuckles]
Peterson: . . .and told all the young people there that if they had
a shred of ethical decency that they would lim. . . severely limit
their reproductive potential, and. . . I stood up and said that
I thought that that was the most. . . one of the most appalling
things I’d ever heard anyone in academia say to young people —
which is really something, ’cause they say plenty of appalling
things, and it was a very uncomfortable moment, and he huffed off
the stage. But, you know, in a frenzy, talking about how you couldn’t
talk about such things without being pilloried on ethical grounds,
and yeah — that’s for sure. You come out as a, what — emissary of
the academic establishment, you tell young people that humanity is
so corrupt that they should seriously consider not propagating because
that violates the deepest of ethical norms, and you think that’s a
good thing and that that’s your right and. . . It was just beyond
comprehension. It’s beyond comprehension. But it’s associated with,
like a deeply-rooted existential self-hatred. And I mean hatred
at the level of: humanity is like a virus on the planet, that we’re
a cancerous growth on. . .
Williamson: Alex Epstein calls this “human racism”.
Peterson: Hm. Hm. Right. Right.
Williamson: And it’s that.
Peterson: Yeah. Well, we’re a cancer on the planet, you know?
Unchecked growth, just like a cancer. It’s like — that’s us,
eh, a cancer. It’s — OK, we know where your heart is located.
‘Cause, what’s the implications for a doctrine like that?
What do you do with a cancer?
Williamson: Cut it out.
Peterson: Yeah, that’s for sure. Poison it, or whatever, whatever.
There’s nothing you don’t do to a cancer. So are you gonna use a
metaphor like that? There’s too many people on the planet?
You gonna use a metaphor like that? You know. . . And then you’re
gonna also decide that you’re virtuous while you’re using. . .
Because you’re on the side of the “planet”, whatever the hell
that means? So. . . yeah, it’s, it’s unbelievable, and a huge
part of it’s rooted in this existential shame and, and. . .
horror at the condition of being human, and the fact that life
is rife with suffering, and a lot of it’s unjustified, and. . .
You know, it’s a Mephistophelian position, so. . . Mephistopheles
was laid out — portrayed — in Goethe’s Faust, um. . .
that’s the story of a man who sold his soul to the devil for
knowledge. It’s a story of intellectual pride, and Goethe stands
in relationship to German literature in the same manner that
Shakespeare stands in relationship to English literature.
Goethe’s Mephistopheles says straight out, twice, in the play —
once in the first — there’s two books — once in the first book
and once in the second — Goethe has him restate it twice —
existence is such a foul thing because of all its suffering,
essentially, that it would be better if it was merely annihilated.
And that’s the Mephistophelian stance — this whole show should just
come to a halt, look at how corrupt people are, evil reigns everywhere,
it’s nothing but will to power, we’re destroying the planet
with our unchecked ambition all rooted in greed and Machiavellianism
and jockeying for position, and we’re so contemptible that we
should just roll up and die. And we should shame women into not
having children, and we should shame men so they never
manifest any planet-destroying ambition. And it’s unbelievably
appalling. It goes all the way down to the bottom. The bottom
of things. That’s what’s tearin’ our culture apart, this
dispute about the nature of existence at the most fundamental
level. So — and the universities have come out on the
wrong side.
++++
Well, you pays your money and. . .
I could almost imagine that Peter Watts was on stage when Jordan Peterson
got up and objected. They’re both Canadian. But Peter Watts isn’t
a professor, he’s a sci-fi author.
;->
Herschel Walker Lied About His Secret Kids to His Own Campaign
@3 spinynorman8
Please tell me that is NOT a thing? Last I checked population was still climbing. Is that some “great replacement” BS? Is Musk worried that the WHITE population is decreasing? Because that isn’t happening either. That’s why that movie, “Children of Men” pissed me off so much. I’ve watched a lot of bad sci-fi over the years, but that movie left me feeling insulted. So much pathetic hand waving.
Kind of like Musk. Lots and lots of hand waving. The man is a charlatan. A glorified carnival barker. He wanted to own a car company so he hired people who know how to build cars. He wanted to go to space so he hired people who know how to build rockets. He’s just a giant pile of stolen valor. The real talent works in the dark and is never acknowledged.
I’m really starting to hate these “playboy billionaires”. They’re parasites. Their fortunes are based on the backs of people who will never be known. Pathetic useless parasites.
@7 Ray Ceeya
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1545046146548019201
In his own words. If you search his twitter feed you’ll find more comments like this…which have helped to dispel the notion that he’s anything but a charlatan. He is woefully ignorant on topics that even a casual reader of the news should know.
Not altogether. E.g.:
++++++++
Solitude: Why Are We So Lonely, Alone? (with Benny Hendel)
Jun 25, 2022
Prof. Sam Vaknin
7:32 (/37:34)
Vaknin: There’s a difference between overcrowding and overpopulation.
People confuse the two. Overpopulation is a global phenomenon.
It’s when we have too many people on the planet, and therefore they
consume resources of the planet to the point of ruining the planet.
That’s overpopulation.
Overpopulation used to be — used to be — a problem. Today
we have a problem of underpopulation. I know it sounds
bizarre.
Hendel: On the globe?
Vaknin: Yes. On the level of the globe. I know it sounds
bizarre.
Hendel: It does.
Vaknin: Because we have grown from — when I was born there were
3 billion; now there’s 8 billion.
Hendel: Right.
Vaknin: So, how come there’s an underpopulation? The reason I’m
saying this is that, um, a sizable chunk of the global population is
over the age of 65.
Hendel: Mm hm.
Vaknin: So we have a shortage of 200 million children. We don’t
have. . . we have an overpopulation of old people. . .
Hendel: Right.
Vaknin: . . .and an underpopulation of young people. Consequently, in
the majority of industrialized and developing nations, we are
under the replacement rate. In other words, more people are dying
than being born.
Hendel: OK.
Vaknin: The population is declining. That is true even in Russia, even
in China, even in uh South Korea, etc.
Hendel: Which is good new for the globe!
Vaknin: No, it’s not good news for the globe. Because. . .
Hendel: Why?
Vaknin: Because the — for example, we’re gonna have a major
economic crisis. There. . . pension schemes depend crucially on
contributions by young people.
Hendel: Oh! The young generation. . . on the shoulders of the
young generation. . .
Vaknin: Yeah.
Hendel: . . .will lie a — like a yoke —
Vaknin: Yeah, yeah.
Hendel: . . .the, the pension sums of all. . .
Vaknin: We’re gonna have an inverted pyramid! Where, you know,
there’s a very big layer of old people who require health care,
require pensions, require. . . And a very thin base of young people
who will be slaves! Will actually work all their. . . all the time
to support the old people. That is unsustainable. It creates social
unrest, we are — it will be a huge mess. I’m convinced it will
cause revolutions and so on.
You saw this conflict between generations in Covid. During the time
of Covid, young people were blaming old people for all the restrictions
and so on.
Hendel: Exactly.
Vaknin: They say, “Why do we have to protect the old people?”
I mean. . .
Hendel: Yes, although of course on the family level they. . . they
honor their elders, but uh. . . But you’re right.
++++
On the other hand, there’s a solution to that too, though few people
would dare to speak it aloud:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/world/asia/japan-plan75-hayakawa-chie.html
++++++++
A Filmmaker Imagines a Japan Where the Elderly Volunteer to Die
The premise for Chie Hayakawa’s film, “Plan 75,” is shocking:
a government push to euthanize the elderly. In a rapidly aging society,
some also wonder: Is the movie prescient?
By Motoko Rich
June 17, 2022
TOKYO — The Japanese film director Chie Hayakawa was germinating the idea for
a screenplay when she decided to test out her premise on elderly friends of her
mother and other acquaintances. Her question: If the government sponsored
a euthanasia program for people 75 and over, would you consent to it?
“Most people were very positive about it,” Ms. Hayakawa said. “They didn’t want
to be a burden on other people or their children.”
To Ms. Hayakawa, the seemingly shocking response was a powerful reflection
of Japan’s culture and demographics. . .
Close to one-third of the country’s population is 65 or older, and Japan
has more centenarians per capita than any other nation. One out of five people
over 65 in Japan live alone, and the country has the highest proportion of
people suffering from dementia. With a rapidly declining population, the
government faces potential pension shortfalls and questions about how the
nation will care for its longest-living citizens. . .
[F]or Ms. Hayakawa, it was not a stretch to imagine a world in which the
oldest citizens would be cast aside in a bureaucratic process — a strain
of thought she said could already be found in Japan. . .
++++
Shudder. Well hey — there was something similar going on in Soylent Green.
Anybody remember that one?
++++++++
Simpsons soylent green
Sep 22, 2012
HypnozArts
++++
Kooks should never be allowed near population demographic statistics.
@9 Vaknin: We’re gonna have an inverted pyramid! Where, you know,
there’s a very big layer of old people who require health care
Not here in the USA. We are happy to let our elderly die of exposure in the streets.
Elon Musk now has 10 children by four different women (one died of SIDS).
I copied this because I’m not entirely sure Musk even knows this. He is involved with Tesla, Space X, Twitter, and several other companies. With his day jobs and his kids spread around among 4 different women, I doubt Musk spends a whole lot of time with his children. (It might be close to zero time.)
I’d give him the lecture about responsible adults and responsible reproduction but it wouldn’t do any good.
Instead, he might be going for 20 or so.
This is a mindlessly stupid argument that gets repeated too often.
The inverted age pyramid is a temporary problem due to rapid population growth transitioning to steady state population levels.
It will fix itself in a short period of time if we do nothing, which is how we solve a lot of problems (or not, but we are good at doing nothing.)
Using continuous population growth leading to overpopulation is fixing a temporary problem by creating permanent even larger problems in the future. It is foolish and possibly suicidal.
While it’s certainly possible that Elon Musk shares
the late Jeffrey Epstein’s (alleged) enthusiasm for spreading
his seed far and wide, one might also wonder if there aren’t women
in his orbit who would like nothing better than to be impregnated
by the Great Man. (Not hybristophilia per se, but something related.)
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/p/prime-of-miss-jean-brodie-script.html
++++++++
Miss Brodie: I hear I must congratulate you on the birth of another child.
Mr. Lloyd: Yes, another daughter.
Miss Brodie: Have you never heard of Marie Stopes, architect for
Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress?
Mr. Lloyd: Ah, yes. An estimable woman. But my church enjoins me to
go forth and be fruitful.
Miss Brodie: I’m aware of your unfortunate affiliation with the Church of Rome.
I doubt, however, whether that body gives the same interpretation to
“go forth” that you do.
++++
It’s not clear when he started sleeping with her — whether it was before or after he hired her.
Good on Grimes for ditching this loser though.
Back in the 80’s there was a bumper sticker “Honk If You’re Carrying Steve Garvey’s Baby”.
Elon is putting Steve in the shade.
@r Vaknin
Also if your comment on the post is longer than the post, literally nobody is going to read it. Please try to make your comments concise instead of simply copy and pasting things you agree with.
Well, if I only included links to newspaper articles or
YouTube videos, then for sure nobody would bother
to read (or watch) them. ;->
However, as I remarked here recently in response to another
(somewhat less mild) flame, I’m under no illusions
that the commentariat here hangs on my every contribution.
I suspect it might be a slight exaggeration to say that literally nobody
reads my comments, but I wouldn’t be surprised if almost nobody
(including you, presumably) reads them. That is not a life-altering
fact, for me or anybody else.
Oh I never just “copy and paste”. I make heavy use of ellipses,
and I flatter myself that I’m pretty good at it.
And the transcripts I make of YouTube video segments (never
the entire video — only a few relevant segments) are there for your
convenience.
I certainly don’t personally agree with everything I exhibit.
The Vaknin thing was an illustration of an economic
argument currently being made about the birth rate (in contradistinction
to your wondering if it was all about “replacement theory”).
But no, I don’t think that keeping global population increasing
just so pension funds can stay solvent is a long-term solution
to anything, although Vaknin (and Musk, and Peterson for that
matter) may well be right about coming social unrest due to
the increasing economic burdens of aging populations. As if there
wasn’t enough to worry about!
Thanks for the free advice on blog etiquette, but no.
Now if the blog’s owner (PZ, presumably) shares your
annoyance, he is of course free to ban me from commenting here
altogether, which would relieve your (and his, if it
exists; and anybody else’s who’s currently suffering in
silence) annoyance permanently.
Again, I would not count that as a world shattering
event. Ça serait la vie. Ça serait la morte.
Cheers.
[James @18 — perhaps consider the utility of pullquotes.
I for one scroll past such multi screen copypastas, ellipses or no.]
I really appreciate the
numerous awkward
line breaks that make it
even more of a pain to
read. Preview is for
suckers. And I’m sure
everyone loves it that
you don’t bother
communicating with
them in your own
words, large heaping
piles of words that
never seem to end
but also end too often.
Let me fix that up for you:
++++++++
I really appreciate the numerous awkward line breaks that
make it even more of a pain to read. Preview is for suckers.
And I’m sure everyone loves it that you don’t bother
communicating with them in your own words, large heaping
piles of words that never seem to end but also end too
often.
++++
Oh, I always use the preview function.
Hey, this is turning out great! Anybody else want
to chime in? (Am I accumulating an “offical”
enemies list?)
;->
The only reason these women have sex with him in the first place is his money and the reflected celebrity. I find the child purchased via surrogate because Grimes discovered that the last month of pregnancy involves real discomfort and some hemorrhaging (duh) quite horrifying. Not quite to handmaids tale level of filthy rich breeding dystopia, but just as revolting.
You didn’t fix shit, since you’re still using line breaks mid-sentence for no apparent reason. Why do that?
You know, there’s a historical typographical reason why
line-lengths are typically limited — on typed pages, in
books and printed documents.
It’s because extremely long lines are harder for (a lot?
most?) people to read. Hard for the eyes to scan.
That goes for text that’s allowed to extend to the full
width of a lot of text-editing boxes on Web pages, like the
ones here.
I do not generally type text directly into a text box on
a Web page, here or anywhere else. I use a text editor (Notepad,
if I’m on a Windows machine) — if for no other reason than
that it minimizes the possibility of losing a lot of typing,
if something goes wrong with the browser. I then copy
from the editor and paste to the Web page when I’m done
(together with the line breaks I’ve inserted manually).
I’ve done it that way for decades, and it certainly makes
it easier for me to read. YMMV.
I should also admit here that I have no experience whatsoever
with smart phones, and I tend to forget that people use them
these days at least for reading e-mail, and maybe even for
Ye Olde-Style Blogs such as this one (Twitter is a different
matter altogether — I don’t do that either).
So mea culpa if you’re using a smart phone, but I’m probably
not going to change my text-editing style either.
If that’s another reason why my comments might be Unacceptable here —
well, I guess that’s too bad. But y’know — is scrolling that
difficult these days, either on a phone or tablet, or on a PC?
Also, to add a bit of perspective — I don’t comment on the vast
majority of posts on this blog. I pick the ones that resonate with
me, and that’s not most of them. Yes, when I’m “triggered”
(or engaged, or whatever) I sometimes comment more than once on
a given post (and its comments), and sometimes volubly. But
I’ve never been a frequent commenter.
Maybe that’s still too much for some folks (like you, apparently).
¯_(ツ)_/¯
@ James Fehlinger
Nobody is claiming that your comments aren’t relevant, or unappreciated.
You aren’t making “enemies”. You are just posting comments that are so long that they are not particularly readable.
We do have some persnickety members of the horde, but they are merely asking you to format for improved readability so they can understand your point!
Is it really so very important to create drama over such minor things as line breaks? It’s not that difficult to read them, but it does look odd.
James Fehlinger:
“Everybody’s telling me my comments are annoying, but I haven’t been banned, so I will ignore feedback and double down because fuck other people.”
This is the guy who puts his feet all over the furniture and stubs his cigarette out on the carpet until you physically throw him out.
jimmy boy what you wrote regardless of the formatting is fine but it is waaaay longer then PZ posted and it might be more appropriate as a blog post on its own instead of a comment on a blog post.
Is there no way to add links and put in the essence of the point you are using the quotes to make. there just so much anyone can handle to read all of that just to get to the point of they are completely full of shit in every way. use your f’n head
raven #13
This. Obviously, young people will eventually turn into old people, which will necessitate more young people and the positive feedback loop is off… right until it runs into reality and we have a massive crash. It’s boom-bust economics, but covering all aspects of society.
OK, I get the point.
My f’n head tells me I’d best leave the conversation here, such as it
is, to my betters: Ray Ceeya, John Morales, “consciousness razor”,
et al. No doubt they will continue to labor to make the world, or
at least this corner of the internet, a Better Place.
Yes, and there’s also a distinctly spectrum-y (I was going to say
“Aspergerish”, but term has been dropped by the professionals, so
some may find it offensive ;-> ) vibe here. Quite possibly in
most on-line forums. But I should talk, eh?
However, I will spare PZ the trouble of wielding the ban-hammer,
and take my leave voluntarily.
Ceeya ’round!
It isn’t. The proportional rate of increase has been declining almost continuously since it peaked around 1967 at just over 2% p.a. – it is now just over 1% p.a. The absolute annual increase (population at end of year x minus that at end of year x-1) peaked around 1989 at about 90 million, since when it has declined, increased slightly (a “reflection” of the earlier peak), and then resumed its decline – but is still around 80 million p.a. Why the fuck (pun intended) don’t people who are going to pontificate about population growth take the simple step of looking up the facts?
Chill out, I threw in an if. At any rate just looking at a bar graph of population over time tells the story.
Any one want to take odds on how long Fehlinger sticks the flounce?
I’m still trying to figure out, more older people need more younger people…
OK, so my wife and I had children, who are grown and are approaching middle age, so we need more replacements or something?
And continue onward and onward in a positive feedback loop until the planet collapses into a singularity with that much accumulation of assdom?
Or do we stop breeding when we can no longer provide new people with gunz?
Tethys @ 22:
Wow, that’s an incredibly misogynistic comment. Did you really intend to call these women gold diggers?
Are you going to just ignore the incredible power imbalance of a CEO sleeping with his staff? What are the consequences of her turning him down? Does Musk seem like the kind of guy who would take that well?
(Also, his first wife married him before he was quite so famous, although he was already rich.)
Are you somehow privy to Grime’s medical information to know that she could have in fact carried a second pregnancy to term safely? Yes, surrogacy is much more available to the rich than to everyone else, but that doesn’t mean people just do it for funsies.
I did not call the women who are having children with Musk, gold diggers. Status conscious people are very impressed with wealth and celebrity. The vapidity of all the involved parties is the relevant trait. I maintain neither Grimes nor this executive who had twins would consider dating or having sex with Musk if he was not an extremely wealthy, famous man with extensive hair transplants. He looks like Dr Evil in the photo above.
This could be proof that the gods exist.
Musk would have wrecked twitter.
I find that twitter fills a need and can be quite useful.
It is widely used and widely read.
Facebook OTOH is a strong net negative for the world.
The idea was OK but the Zuckerberg version is a toxic swamp.
It would have taken you a minute at most to discover that global population growth is nothing like exponential, and hasn’t been for decades, despite lazy slobs like you still trotting out the “exponential” tosh pretty much whenever population is a topic on blog threads. And what story a bar graph of global population over time tells (or rather, appears to tell) depends on the period it covers.
@17. Ray Ceeya :
FWIW. I don’t just wriet them – I also read long posts. I do sometimes skim them but depending how much time & energy I’ve got, I do read them sometimes.
Long comments vs multiple comments, sometimes feels like you can’t win whatever you do..
All things in moderation including moderation? (Socrates apparently.)
Of course different people all have different ideas and preferences in this regard.
As for population https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E Hans Rosling has a good if hour long talk / video here.
@KG, while it’s true that population hasn’t grown exponentially, during my lifetime it has more than doubled. Fortunately, crop harvests have increased accordingly, but we’re now at a point of ever diminishing returns on further increasing said harvests and experiencing harm in some food output due to monoculture leaving entire products vulnerable to diseases, such as Panama Disease and citrus greening.