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[Raphael]

Hwatting's impending induction into the Illuminati actually brought to mind the fact that my grandfather was associated with the Masons (and my father was involved with a Masonic organization or two, apparently; we never knew until we found an old Masonic ritual guide in our stuff with his name signed in it!).

One of my grandfathers was a Mason, though that was the one who died before I was born, so I never got to know him.

[Man in Space]

I think one of the jars in my kitchen is a Mason.

[Ares Land]

I would like to congratulate our new shadowy puppet master!

I know two Freemasons; both are incredibly open about being Masons, which somehow suprised me at first -- I thought it was supposed to be secret.

The Guardian had a good article about this could drive up the demand for lithium to disastrous levels. (...)

I believe electric cars manufacturers in China concentrate on compact car, so it's actually good news on that front. In any case, they're sure to be better than Teslas.

I'd say that's a matter of environmental costs and benefits. Climate change is probably the most urgent environmental issue in the world. It affects all of us (though some more than others). That makes it, IMO, a good deal more important than local damage to the environment in this or that place where people mine something.

I entirely agree with everything the Guardian article says, but I'm bothered about the angle. I believe electric cars are still going to be a net positive.
Damage to ecosystems is worrying -- and probably just as serious an issue, if not more, than global warming. But such articles (it's not the only one I read) tend to forget that the electric car industry is hardly the only worrying one (how about comparing it to traditional car manufacturing and the car industry.)

That said, I do entirely agree on the need for better public transit and alternatives to cars. It's going to be long and difficult though. We made huge progress in France on that front -- but that took 30 years, and it still is far from over.

[Kuchigakatai]

I also know a Freemason and he's very open about it. I have no idea what they could possibly do in their meetings nowadays, but he really enjoys the symbols and symbolism it seems.

[bradrn]

I know two Freemasons; both are incredibly open about being Masons, which somehow suprised me at first -- I thought it was supposed to be secret.

What I’ve heard is that it’s a society with secrets, not a secret society.

[WeepingElf]

I know two Freemasons; both are incredibly open about being Masons, which somehow suprised me at first -- I thought it was supposed to be secret.

What I’ve heard is that it’s a society with secrets, not a secret society.

Yes, Freemasons are a discrete society - members are expected not to reveal what is discussed within the lodge sessions. They are not a secret society where members are expected not to reveal their membership. Also, Freemason lodges are found in the phone book, and have signs at their doors like ordinary businesses.

[Linguoboy]

I'd say that's a matter of environmental costs and benefits. Climate change is probably the most urgent environmental issue in the world. It affects all of us (though some more than others). That makes it, IMO, a good deal more important than local damage to the environment in this or that place where people mine something.

This is an odd take. Why is climate change an urgent issue? Because of its impacts--and prominent among those impacts in many areas of the world is water scarcity. If people somewhere don't have enough water to live, it hardly matters whether this is due primarily to shifting weather patterns or to the fact that all the locally available water is going into lithium mining so people thousands of miles away can drive huge cars. This is just one more way in which current structures shift the burden of climate change from the most privileged to the most vulnerable and that's not something which should be shrugged off.

[Raphael]

(Content warning: death)









Completely unrelated question:

I've recently read some pieces talking about or mentioning rising or falling mortality rates. This confuses me a lot. Isn't the mortality rate, always, everywhere, in all groups, constant at 100 percent?

https://www.theonion.com/world-death-ra ... 1819564171

So, what exactly do people even mean when they talk about a rising or falling mortality rate? I honestly don't get it.

[keenir]

(Content warning: death)









Completely unrelated question:

I've recently read some pieces talking about or mentioning rising or falling mortality rates. This confuses me a lot. Isn't the mortality rate, always, everywhere, in all groups, constant at 100 percent?

https://www.theonion.com/world-death-ra ... 1819564171

So, what exactly do people even mean when they talk about a rising or falling mortality rate? I honestly don't get it.

I think its referring to what % of a given population or subpopulation is dying...ie, if one city has childhood mortality of 15% and another has childhood mortality of 07%...its probably safer to raise a kid in that second town.

[Raphael]

I think its referring to what % of a given population or subpopulation is dying...

But wait long enough, and they'll all die!

ie, if one city has childhood mortality of 15% and another has childhood mortality of 07%...its probably safer to raise a kid in that second town.

Ah, so it's mortality in a specific age group? That I can understand.

[zompist]

Ah, so it's mortality in a specific age group? That I can understand.

More generally, it's just deaths per year— often normalized to deaths per 100,000 people so you can compare regions, classes, genders, etc.

[Raphael]

Ah, so it's mortality in a specific age group? That I can understand.

More generally, it's just deaths per year— often normalized to deaths per 100,000 people so you can compare regions, classes, genders, etc.

Ah, thank you!

[alice]

And now for something completely different, which originally went into the wrong thread for some reason:

It reminds you, for example, of the Revolutionary Workers Party, the group that every other Trotskyist ridicules. Tiring, perhaps, of industrial disputes that were pre-destined to betrayal by right-wing union bureaucrats, the RWP (or Posadists, as we knew them, after their founder Juan Posadas) turned their attention to UFOs and possible Chariots of the Gods-type visitors to Earth. They theorised that:

• only an advanced civilization could master inter-planetary travel;

• an advanced civilization is, by definition, a socialist civilization;

• ergo, we should embrace any visiting extra-terrestrials as the saviours of the working class.

[keenir]

And now for something completely different, which originally went into the wrong thread for some reason:

It reminds you, for example, of the Revolutionary Workers Party, the group that every other Trotskyist ridicules. Tiring, perhaps, of industrial disputes that were pre-destined to betrayal by right-wing union bureaucrats, the RWP (or Posadists, as we knew them, after their founder Juan Posadas) turned their attention to UFOs and possible Chariots of the Gods-type visitors to Earth. They theorised that:

• only an advanced civilization could master inter-planetary travel;

• an advanced civilization is, by definition, a socialist civilization;

• ergo, we should embrace any visiting extra-terrestrials as the saviours of the working class.

I forget what book I read it in, but the chapter on the similarities & differences between the USA & USSR approaches to SETI, did touch on that...in that it mentioned the USSR was looking for the bigger entities in terms of where on the Kardashev(sp) Scale they sat. Your post just now, explains WHY they were doing that.
Thank you for clarifying that.

[Raphael]

That reminds me, one minor nitpick I've long had with the "US government is hiding aliens" idea is that a coverup of that scale would probably have required the Soviet government to go along with it (if the coverup started in 1947, the decision to do that would probably have been made by Stalin himself), and, well, why would they have done that? Uncovering the aliens would have been a great way to embarrass their bourgeois capitalist Western arch-enemies, and since the Soviet Union was officially atheist, they wouldn't have to worry about shaking anyone's religious faith, either.

But then again, what if it had turned out that the aliens were extremely technologically advanced, travelling through interstellar space, doing things we couldn't even dream of... but despite all that, they were still some kind of capitalists? That would have been extremely embarrassing for the Marxist Theory of History, so it might have motivated the Soviet leadership to cooperate with the US Government on a coverup...

[Moose-tache]

I'm imagining two colonies of ants, arguing over whether the human shoe is red or black.

[keenir]

But then again, what if it had turned out that the aliens were extremely technologically advanced, travelling through interstellar space, doing things we couldn't even dream of... but despite all that, they were still some kind of capitalists? That would have been extremely embarrassing for the Marxist Theory of History, so it might have motivated the Soviet leadership to cooperate with the US Government on a coverup...

well that just means one of two things:

a. the aliens haven't become socially advanced enough to reach the level of socialism (much less reaching communism) that even the humans have achieved.

b. the higher points on the Marxist Theory Of History turns out to not be something that everyone everywhere can reach on their own, and the aliens need human help to become good communists.
(theres a version of this asking whether all alien civs experience The Fall and a Redemption/Ressurection on their own, or if humans are key to the latter)

[Ares Land]

I think this was a time where most everyone assumed or secretly feared that communism was the superior arrangement.
Were there any capitalist aliens in SF in the 50s or the 60s?

Conspiracy theories about alien contact are fascinating. One surprising thing is that they start out reasonable, and then they add layer upon layer of unnecessary details until the complete picture is completely preposterous: "Aliens are visiting Earth" > "The governement is covering it up" > "The government is conspiring with the aliens" > "The aliens are running the government" > "They have underground bases 20 levels deep" > "They're creating human-alien hybrids" > "Actually the aliens have always been there" > "They're also in league with the reptilians that live at the center of the earth" > "Aliens have no digestive system and they can only feed by bathing in human offal"

[Raphael]

What I also like is when the same people believe that alien visitors are being covered up, and that the moon landings were fake. That is, of course aliens can travel here from other solar systems, but the idea that we might have managed it to visit our own moon is just not believable.

[bradrn]

What I also like is when the same people believe that alien visitors are being covered up, and that the moon landings were fake. That is, of course aliens can travel here from other solar systems, but the idea that we might have managed it to visit our own moon is just not believable.

Ah, but you forget that the government is but a front for the aliens, who don’t want us to know they’re keeping all their super-advanced technology for themselves! So they needed to fake the moon landing, you see, because they didn’t want us to know how far behind our technology really is!