Also, it's not $18/year like a subscription, it's $165 upfront -- money that could be spent on gas, food, medical bills, desperately saved up for emergencies, etc. and won't provide any benefit whatsoever to their lives unless they're taking a vacation they probably don't feel they can afford financially or in their <2 weeks of vacation time.

Rather, it's a nihilistic dream from that place, free and limitless cyberspace; a heaven.

A timeless place at the end of history.

Perhaps read the companion piece (A Casino Odyssey in Cyberspace), which illustrates how one doesn't need to spend centuries to become aware of the Meaninglessness of life, and yet simultaneously how Meaning can be created for individuals even at the end of history.

I think a more interesting avenue to explore is the author's particular leaning toward sadism, as I find it a little unclear if his view is one in which sadism and domination is merely more interesting to explore for the stories, or if his particular view is that the most undiluted pleasure left in cyberspace is sadism or domination.

Something which, for as terrible as it may sound, I think we can actually find possible signs of -- moreso Domination (or far less ominously: Mastery) than Sadism.

I'll cut my comment short-er about here, but those intrigued by the idea can also explore the fact that in MoPI a character like Caroline isn't actually sadistic like many of those she meets, but absolutely spent centuries mastering skills and keeping busy with simple competition against others.

Likewise she ties into my earlier points about Nihilism and Meaning, where it's pretty clear the ending is likely just the moment Prime Intellect's definitions of death blurred just as it also realized it could never make people like Caroline satisfied as long as she thinks she's in cyberspace. Notice she's engaged in many of the exact same activities she spent her time on in cyberspace and would have gladly been happy continuing on that way for countless centuries more while guiding her tribe lamenting her old age at the conclusion.

(Aside: wow I'm so happy to see MoPI mentioned somewhere! It always feels so little-known.)

>The reason these jobs are terrible is because immigrants are doing it for wages that would be intolerably low to anyone else.

>This is also why it's hard to find a decent job in general, our competition is basically cheating!

>But if we remove the immigrants, the employers will surely have to increase wages like they were supposed to

>Now americans will have high paying factory jobs, and if some goods increase in price that's ok, their wages will let them afford it.

>we got to have our cake and eat it too!

Obviously they're missing some key steps and consciousness here in the reasoning, but I feel it's interesting to reflect on in context of how it's almost right -- and surprisingly close to a marxist view of things until it starts assuming things like that individuals have more bargaining power than their employers or that economic agents will always try to set the lowest price they can afford for goods rather than the highest.

So for example they'd believe prices would only go up a little and manufacturing companies would just live with stagnant or reduced profits since they'd have no other choice.

Notice how they have a habit of assuming totally Good behavior from Companies but totally Bad behavior from Immigrants!

I think in context of all that, it becomes more visible both how we could actually resolve this problem other than by just accepting the loss of domestic industry, and what in specific the people falling for this narrative are being hooked on.

At the same time, do consider how you already count on conventionally supported structures like bridges, buildings, tunnels, etc. not to have any defects or design flaws. Or once-in-100-years storms or earthquakes.

This magnifies further if you've ever flown on a plane or sailed on a ship. It only takes the right series of failures to be plummeting to the bottom. Now imagine people who spend months or years counting on technology and redundancy to keep them alive in space, and might expect to do so indefinitely.

Exposure therapy, baby!

Rather my meaning was that it's (a little shockingly) the best suited planet for humans in terms of most closely and reliably resembling conditions humans could survive in, which relates to the terraforming notions I was replying to.

It'd be overwhelmingly harder to make all of Venus Earthlike than to just use the existing relatively Earthlike regions of the upper atmosphere to our advantage along with their unique properties. Cool off Venus and you just get a big ocean of liquid or frozen co2 to have to deal with after a loooong time and a lot of construction. Keep it like it is and a fraction of the resources/effort will yield far more utility while we can still enjoy a segment of the atmosphere.

Scifi? Of course!

Cool? Without a doubt!

See, the atmosphere at ~50 altitude... happens to be about 1 bar (which happens to be Earth's atmospheric pressure ASL)... and happens to have temperatures that can support human and plant life!

And better still, the atmosphere being mostly co2 with a little nitrogen actually means normal Earth air is a lifting gas! Starting to see where this is going?

It's not too hard to imagine the skies of Venus full of floating habitats that move to stay in the sunlight, or occasionally dock with tethers or balloons carrying cargo from extremely reinforced mining facilities deep underground (where they could be much more protected most of the time from the pressure/temperature/corrosion) -- a future where people (or machines!) might scoff at the idea of cooling off Venus and losing out on such an excellent habitation zone, one which could also fairly easily support elevated runways or launch platforms to more cheaply reach space from.

With Venus also having 91% of Earth's gravity, and those atmospheric conditions at high altitudes that add some radiation shielding and would probably let a human worker only need a very limited suit more akin to a hazmat or firefighting suit with SCBA to work outside habitats... Venus is actually easily the single best planet for humans to live on after Earth!

(Can you tell I'm writing a story set there? Hehehe)

You're quick to lie about what I say or do. Just as quick to call me disgusting. Says a lot.

>public safety is the number one priority for any government

You blanket-declared that any/all governments have it as their number one priority, with no nuance I might add.

Additionally, are you somehow completely unaware that the American government is sending people to that country's worst prison, and that the current president has said he wishes to send American citizens there? This is why American values are at all being referenced here.

Nobody thus far in this conversation has been defending gitmo, the patriot act, or the illegal and unjust invasion of Iraq -- and personally I'm against all three. Yet you're creating false equivalencies, ascribing strawman views to others, and mostly avoiding any nuance to such matters as if the country's underlying corruption and dysfunction which enabled such lawless conditions is any better (which it might genuinely be, but such points ought be evidenced and argued, not declared).

Instead you've transformed it into something approximating: "now el salvador is safe and everyone is happy, there was no need for liberty or human dignity to be respected then or now."

Therein you make yourself out to argue in poor faith.

It could make a lot of sense even if they have better means of access, and even with this attention risking the compromise of said access, simply because of how valuable even slight furthering of any division and political incoherence is right now both mid and long term.

Still wouldn't seem the more likely Plan A, as success would obviously be even better than such an apparently close failure, but I can see it being used to justify acting. Succeed at the intended plan and you win -- fail and you still win, just a little less so.

2. We wouldn't even be talking about that industrial scale genocide this early on Hitler's term, which I don't say to suggest he's going to be Hitler 2 but rather to point out how it can be quite valid to be concerned before someone's getting into full swing with atrocities.

By the way, the ending of what you wrote is beautiful.

They even called a "tactical terrorism response team".

Oh, and check out how you can find them being used in already opaque and sinister ways back in 2021 under Biden, and earlier.

You do the math.

In their world, any "evidence" to the contrary must be manipulated or misinterpreted, because as we all know the sky is green, the ocean is -- oh, he said it's yellow now? And the sky is red? Hah, of course! We knew it all along, it was the plan, stupid!

And meanwhile...

Most of the democrats' tiny minds struggle to operate outside of a context of rigid rules and procedures. A context of arguing a point and getting at least some degree of fair debate in return.

But this is another age of populism. It doesn't matter what you argue, on either side. Debate transforms, serving only to transmit your message to your side, ideally while inspiring them and demoralizing the enemy. It matters that you seem confident and powerful while you say whatever you're saying. It matters that you seem invincible and indefatigable.

Their world won't be back for quite some time, assuming something at all like it sticks around. They'll keep operating like robots, not understanding why an excellent diss or crude mockery matters more than 1000 additional volumes of "proof" about something in contention.

Especially wrt how you suggested "polarizing" legislation will just get filibustered, as polarizing doesn't cut it, and the democrats in congress somehow have this magical ability to mostly do nothing and yet be terrified of doing nothing. Besides, if they do nothing, the republicans still essentially act with impunity. They're already dipping their toes in dark waters by ignoring some court orders and rulings. All while following the playbook of accusing others of what they do far more/worse, but never allowing even a drop of guilt to weigh on them.

Perhaps this is all to say that congressional gridlock hardly fixes any of the damage, can be exploited politically, and won't undo the sort of damage that be done even just in the remaining ~2 years before midterms. And at this point people are getting seriously afraid about what'll happen if they don't like the outcome of those midterms, let alone the next presidential election.

I agree greatly though about what you note with states' separation of powers meaning particularly bold governors+legislature can resist a lot of federal authority.

It's the one solid fallback, but even then it's got some limitations. Look at a state like California that subsidizes conservative states by paying more in taxes to the federal government than it receives in funding.

How long until people from outside the Trump bloc start questioning why they're stuck saddled with their baggage, which produces next to no value for them but is impairing their political freedom, and which extracts tax money to be spent against their political and popular interests?

How long until federal interests might simply decide to retaliate against those states' attempts to bypass and ignore them? Especially if they start making accusations of rebellion, secessionism, "radical leftism" or some other senile babble.