Okay - let's discuss. What game is China playing? Then what game is the US playing?

Chang'e, the Chinese Lunar program is moving along recently landing at the lunar South Pole. They have a pretty well thought out mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Present plans are to land people in 2030. Planned for 2035 is a moon base with nations China, Russia, South Africa, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Venezuela, Pakistan and Egypt as partners.

This isn't the same game as the 1960's race, this one might have sovereign property declaration involved. There are science implications as well - witness the brouhaha over China's recent landing at the South Pole. There are mineral rights as well - if the pole holds water, it would have an important role in water for drinking and fuel for further space exploration. Seems like a plausible reason for a race to me.

Your thoughts?

Since I'm required to be on that cesspit, and all jokes aside, there are plenty of under 60's there. Surprisingly seems to be as many thirst traps as say, instagram. There are even some proper uses for it.

But yes, social media for kids is terribly toxic. And I'm certain some will get around the ban. But we shouldn't make perfect the enemy of good.

As we fall off this bridge, we really need to attempt to do an assessment of how it affects older people as well. People might remember I'm an amateur researcher in the area of gender relations. Young adults are being harmed as well, especially in the area of relationships.

Things like the Toxic TikTok relationship tests are "testing" relationships by destroying them - loyalty tests, fake breakup tests. Illiterate boyfriend tests. Ignore your boyfriend tests.

And on the other side, since men have learned of these tests, the result is usually an immediate breakup. Because men have their own access to the internet and social media, and are sharing some of this.

A pity, because a lot of relationships that might have gone somewhere have ended over stupid tests.

China! There needs to be a prod to get the US moving. Just as the Apollo Program was in response to Russia's space program, we now have a fire lit under us by China's space effort.

The pieces are in place, so time to roll seriously. Artemis appears to have shaken down okay. Now it’s time to get the mating pieces put together and make certain they work.

I heard he was well hung....

Wink, wink! Just because there is a law, doesn't mean it won't happen. Just buried a few layers deeper.

I'm not denying anything about Republican stupidity. Trump is a grifter, a stupid man who does however understand the art of the grift, telling people what they want to hear. They FAFOd. The Democrats were being equally stupid, just in a different direction while feigning superiority and following a group of far left misandrysts. I present to you the DNC produced "Men for Kamala" ads, which used Feminist stereoypes of White males, including a morbidly obese white male, bragging about eating carburetors for breakfast. protip: Not much uses carburetors any more, other than lawnmowers and small engines

And they were feigning the that Republicans were anti science, while they were riding the back end of the Trans movement, which ended up in stark denial of biology and science, to the point of not being able to tell the difference between man and women. Rejection of DNA and biology at a level that would be approved by ideology driven Soviet Union scientists and their Lysenkoism.

They supported schools aiding students who were transitioning, and allowing the schools to keep that fact that the students were transitioning a secret from the students parents. Note - this is not Trump's idiotic claims that Bobby can go to school Monday and come home as Tina, or whatever claim he made. The matter has been going back and forth for a while.

They largely declared males irrelevant, believing a blue estrogen wave would suffice, and with an undercurrent of #metoo stirring the pot.

They declared that the working class was not needed in person and bluntly, when Harris told the head of the Teamsters, that she was going to win with or without Union support.

Finally, they came to understand what the years of feminist attacks on males brought forth, the concept of male toxicity when ended up morphing into it's final form - that being male was in itself toxic. You may to my not agree, but they lost the young male vote, once quite reliably a liberal vote. I guess when you are told almost from birth that you are evil, you might not end up voting for that accusing demographic.

And the Republicans could point to documented evidence of all this, didn't have to even make shit up. All of this has been diagnosed by smarter people than I. Fortunately, it appears the insanity has calmed down. I believe that the Dems have learned their lesson. We've seen the results of following a half-wit President and his rubber stamping minions in power. Ain't good

And remember there is power in tend idea that if you convince a lot of people to hold the idea that voting in the US is corrupt if you lose, and fair and free is your party wins, and never ever ever conceded, who cares if there is absolutely no fraud? The paradigm just shifts.

And don't even deny that this has happened, and my bet if there is a shift in the midterms, it will happen again.

I live in a very liberal area. I go into the polling place, pull out my wallet and my voter registration and drivers license, they mark that I was voting on paper, and I fill out a paper ballot. How is that corrupt? And I mean it is those corrupt Democrats running the system.

What would a completely non corrupt 100 percent verifiable Republican system involve? And I hope you do know that the never-ending accusations of corruption is a wedge issue that is more valuable as a wedge issue than actually corrupt voting. You obviously is a Republican implements plan that no Republican will ever complain about. It's like abortion, rallying the faithful base is more important than actually eliminating it.

Looking forward to the infallible system you present, and it is a lot more than what you have said so far.

What I see as an issue however, is the apparent paradigm that Data Centers, need all of the generated power - not just available, but all of it. And then need more. Here in teh states we're talking bout restarting old nuc plants to service the Data Centers. I don't see much introspection, just "Build more DCs, we need more power!" More nuc plants - they are green, so nothing can go wrong!" What I've heard and seen so far is there appears to be no limit, to the need.

Don't forget as Datacenters store more data, that there will be more data, which means more datacenter, to store more data - seems like infinity is in that equation,

And you might have just hit the nail directly on the head. I'm not particularly frightened of AI, but I can't be the only one that sees the current models as unsustainable. In another post, I compared the present Datacenter concept with the original tube based computers. We're acting as if current AI and its needs are already finished product. Just like I'm sure that the makers of those behemoth tube computers were.

This need for more power, more centers smacks of that. And it is a weird bubble, and as I noted, a lot of people much smarter than I probably are seeing that too.

Much of the cheating has already been shown to be Republican. If we look at the Arizona recount process years ago, they simply refused to accept that it wasn't cheating even after shown there wasn't enough to mean anything. Took the Vice Governor (IIRC) to say, the madness stops now. And Republican standard bearer Mike Lindell, the man who represents Republican ethics, ended up showing lines of code to prove the corruption that meant absolutely nothing, and even their hand selected expert refuted it. But Lindell still refused to accept it. In present day Republican Party, Lindell tried running for Governor, lost and still reused to accept the voter results in the primaries - this shows the Republican paradigm was to never accept the results if you lose, but embrace them when you win.

One of the first things for you to know is I am an independent. I also believed there was a reason the Democrats lost in teh previous general election. I also believe that part of that was their own spinelessness. Here's where we are:

Republicans hold a majority in the House. Republicanshold a majority in the senate, Republicans hold the White House. Facts. Would you care to dispute those facts?

But okay - I'll accept your notions that elections in the USA are corrupt, and must be changed. Let's roll...

Illogical - I must then accept that the party that is the beneficiary of corrupt elections are in the majority, because otherwise, they would not be in the majority. They would be the plucky underdogs, making a valiant attempt to wrestle power away from the corrupt who are taking advantage of the process they implemented to keep them in power. The majority in power - and that tells us exactly who the corrupt are.Those in power. The people in power in a corrupt system are the prima facie evidence and hard to disprove the exact people that who use that corruption for their political power.

Unless you wish to argue that the corruption riddled US election system favors those not in power? That'd be pretty odd.

Do it - let's hear how the corruption is the Democrats, and it results in Republicans in power.

Schrödinger's Republican - Whenever a Republican candidate loses, it is prima facie proof that the elections are rigged and corrupt. When a Republican candidate wins, it is free and fair, and proof of the people's voice being heard through the democratic process.

FTFY

It's just like the corrupt spineless Republicans always bitching about voter registration. I still have the fully identifiable registration from when I first registered in the medieval ages. I do have a new one they sent me this year. I guess the one on parchment was wearing out a bit.

And yes - we do paper here as well.

1960's Nuclear reactors, Neutron impinge pipes. What could go wrong?

There is a real problem with the Data Center model. It will always be "How much energy do we need? How much energy is available? Twice that amount." Then twice more, then to infinity, and beyond.

Have the Tech bros considered RBMK reactors? Maybe creating a star for direct fusion power? And what happens when the present data centers need new data centers for centering datasets data?

I'm not even fundamentally against AI. I do however feel that there is a real lack of vision. going on Remember early electronic computers? Behemoths of vacuum tubes, sucking up power, some needing constant tube replacement because with that many tubes, some will go bad in normal use.

That is where AI, and even the Data Centers are now. And the Data Center Bros are in a mindset that people who thought ENIAC and Goliath were going to be forever computers. Maybe some time should be taken to move from the infinity based model, to getting control over it.

Now, I could be wrong, but some idea of history and technology, and bubbles, tells me that at least my opinion is thought out, and the present paradigm is not sustainable.

Yup. I think the biggest thing will be seeing how this plays out with freezing the new Pycrete in the field. They had pretty controlled (understandably) in the lab. I'm pretty sure it will work though.

I think, for construction in the antarctic, the whole process can be performed onsite,

It was interesting days, for myself, I started out using punchcards on an IBM360, fixing a program that if there was any error anywhere, the computer would dump everything to the printer. We knew it was happening because "The printer's singing again!" as the dot matrix printer sounded different.

Can't say I miss that all that much.

The real fun started later, when I started working with personal computers. I really got into it at that point. It was an exciting digital cowboy experience.

Now the second thing you mention. The theme of a couple oligarchs controlling everything while the rest of us have nothing, based on the theme of a person's worth and principles being inversely proportional to their wealth is a common enough one, but it is a meme. I deal regularly with both wealthy and non-wealthy. Some of the wealthiest people are some of the nicest, and some of the least wealthy are some of the worst. And vice versa. There's plenty of examples of good and bad in each social-economic groups.

There are people who hate me for no other reason than I have been successful and have a certain level of money. But enough of that.

The problem with the concept of everyone but a few being destitute is this. The wealthy have to get their money from somewhere. Oligarchies fail eventually.

People without money do not buy things or pay taxes. And if the economic strategy gets tilted too far to certain groups, they revolt, or sometimes just stop participating.

And some of this might be happening in a different manner these days, perhaps unforeseen by most. Young men are opting out of the game. After many years of men being derided as the cause of all problems, and the "strong and independent woman" yet still always a victim narrative, where a male can lose his career over a false accusation, and a never-ending shaming process, a large percentage of young men have checked out. No relationships no marriage, no children. 60 some percent, no relationship, and no sexual activity. And that number is increasing

This is causing problems on several levels. Lack of children. Finding out that IVF is not some magic thing guaranteeing a nice healthy baby because the failure rate is not often discussed. Women used to doing 70 percent of the spending doesn't work out now that they have to do their spending from their salary alone. Men finding out that they can live comfortably on a third of what they needed when dealing with a wife and children.

There are more issues. I won't belabor everyone.

There is a lot of money not being spent. And really, that 60 percent of unattached males is going to be a huge problem.

Now to give my bona fides, I've worked years in the effort to get women involved in STEM careers. I'm definitely not what I'm going to be called after people read this post. I've had an ongoing interest in female/male interactions from way back. I'm a researcher by profession, and a bit of a polymath, so researchers are gonna research

Point in all this is that perhaps the pendulum has swung too far, and perhaps the revolt will simply be passive avoidance.