Balero

The global population may be growing, but for developed countries where we get most of our news (I assume, at least I do), they're just starting to tip over into the shrinkage and dealing with the bulge of elderly people. The narrative is right for the political and economic interests that we hear from.

I imagine if we were consuming news from India, Egypt or Nigeria it would be a very different story.

Thanks for the update.

A quick look around I found this site: http://www.catchpenny.org/movebig.html that suggests ways it was moved.

Quick TLDR. They don't lift it, they dig under it. Either constructing a canal, and putting a weighted barge beneath it. Then remove the ballast so the barge lifts up the weight. For overland they do a similar thing, but with a sled, pour a lubricant under the sliders, and then pull. Apparently 2 people can pull 1 Ton this way. So 500 people pulling the sled. (They had approx 2000 people working on a similar project) Also they used shallow ramps over long distances to raise it up.

There was also a modern thing when they moved a lighthouse.

The 80 ton statue was difficult because they wanted to do it with minimal people, and with minimal disruption, and quickly. If you had 2000 people working 5 days a week, 3 years to do it in, and the legal ability to dig up the road/canal etc it can be done. The amazing thing to me is how much priority Ancient Egyptians gave building these monuments, seems like the most important thing they were doing. I guess it gets easier to deal with planning permission when your absolute ruler says "Do it".

Thanks for the additional info.

There are some granite blocks that weigh over 1000 tons. We’re told that these were transported from hundreds of miles away, across mountain and over a river. Historians are not engineers so they don’t understand what they’re saying.

I am still unsure which ancient blocks you're referencing though. Stonehenge? Could you link to them, or a picture, or where in the world they are so I can google it?

This is the closest I could find: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/largest-manmade-bl... but this one was not moved because it was too big (and is also limestone which i'm pretty sure is sedimentary)

What rocks are you referencing?

As far as I am aware, modern humanity is by far the most capable civilisation that has ever existed on earth as far as moving rocks is concerned. The only thing beating us right now is glaciers and tectonic activity.

I've seen a very good take that it is the ideal renewable fuel for large machinery such as farming or construction equipment. Batteries wouldn't work due to the cost and charging time (when you're using them you need them for long stretches), but weight (and therefore some of the complex/heavy containment). These places (at least in the UK) have their own diesel logistics infrastructure already.

You make some good points. But the Houthis have been being bombed by Saudi Arabia for years and haven't been crippled by it. Getting them to poke and prod some shipping could be and easy way to cause an outsized impact.

It could also be an internal thing for the Houthis that we (certainly I) don't know about. Being able to say "We're standing up to Israel and the US" could be big for their credibility in Yemen. That is pure speculation however.

The majority of global shipping benefits people Iran don't like. Disrupting this therefore is to their benefit. It adds extra headache for 'the west'.

Given that the Houthis have said they are holding up ships they consider linked to Israel

They're stopping ships that they can, and it is in their interest to stop. Iranian ships seem to be passing through no bother, but ships flagged as Liberian, coming from Europe to Asia with a Filipino and Indian crew are stopped. You can consider any ship linked to Israel if you don't care how tenuous the link is.

and that everyone in the UN bar the US and Israel are calling for a ceasefire.

Notably Hama's isn't calling for a ceasefire, and it takes two to tango, so even if Israel wanted a ceasefire there won't be one.

wouldn't it be more useful to get a ceasefire, so then the Houthis can stop?

Since when did "Don't give in to terrorists" stop being a thing? Just throw ourselves on the good graces of a violent terrorist group.

Why is the sibling comment to this flagged? It's very reasonable.

You have to admit that is an extremely niche requirement.

Compared to who? Modern day, of course they weren't. 1500's Britain was quite poor, but not more so than many other places.

If you look at the general populace for basically anywhere before modern times, they all had bad hygiene nutrition and medial aptitude by modern standards. Looking at what the 0.1% could manage doesn't tell you much about a society.

I do use drugs. I have never seen spirits in a plastic bottle, even own brand super market vodka.

Boxed wine exists, and is a bit under half the market (by volume). Wine in glasses is still the majority of sales. Beer/cider/larger is sold in cans or bottles, with cans being about 2/3rd by volume.

I agree in theory with you. But you can 'bank' labour for later on. Building infrastructure (that will last) when you have a population bulge, means that the generations after can take advantage of that infrastructure, and have to do the lower amount of work, of maintaining it. This can go for things like education, investing in businesses, and generally any capital.

Of course you can also over build this capital that will never be used, but will need to be paid back (for example a local government pays to build a town that there are no people to fill it with) and the maintenance is too much, but you still have to look after the people who did the building.

Yeah absolutely! A local service that works well alongside a high speed intercity one would be greta, though may be better to build after the main route (don't want some small stations slowing down the main route build).

For the East/West corridor slower speed trains at the same stations allowing transfers would be preferable (cheaper and quicker to build, with minimal speed impact) to high speed rail.

That route at the top would make any high speed rail pointless. You would never get up to a speed to make it worth while. All to stop at places like Castle Rock population 2500. Going down to Eugene and Salem would make sense, but with the intent that they places would aim to grow in size considerably.

Places like Gresham to Forest grove are better for the Portland tram network, they are just part of the one metro area, they are not different metro areas like Seattle and Portland.

I don’t see trains having a huge advantage over a clean grid and EV fleet. And the latter is much easier and faster to build.

The latter requires building millions of individual cars, each with large expensive lithium batteries, plus the road network and upkeep of that. Then building green energy, solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, plus storage!

The other includes building some train tracks and trains.

The planning system must be utterly dysfunctional, and the government incompetent when it comes to large projects, or tender for them, for the first to be anywhere near easier than the latter.

Not OP, but there are not enough resources for all of North America, Europe, China and India to live the lifestyle of the average US person. So I guess they are hopeful that India won't reach that level of consumption.

To each their own.

They were giving another perspective, not forcing anyone to do anything.

So people can fill in 5 mins, whilst the others work to do this.

Elephants can't digest enough calorie rich food to be able to do this. They individually have to spend longer eating.

The replacements for some of those poisons (large amounts of artificial fertilisers) are animal products. In a world without artificial fertiliser you need to have animals to produce fertiliser.

The optimal for this would still be much less animal farming, and a massive shift in how and where it is done. But removing all animal products would be counter productive. (Perhaps this is what you meant by plant based though).

How much of this "less raw brainpower" is due to age, and how much is due to potentially having a less focused mind? I have massively noticed issues with my concentration, and I don't think it's due to age, so much as to watching Youtube and reddit.

I guess what I'm getting at is it's sometimes hard to untangle what changes are due to getting older, and which ones are due to the world changing. For me it's boredom, I used to have long boring summers, and get bored on weekends in the 90's and early 2000's. I haven't been bored in years. Is this because of the internet? But I'm not bored when I don't have access to the internet now, so maybe I just enjoy some peace and quiet now I'm older.

You can bet your life I was in my car and speeding down the street to get him out ASAP within 60 seconds of receiving the text.

"Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people ages 1–54"[0]

I wonder if you speeding in your car increased the likely hood of death for someone more than collecting your son from a rumored school shooting. Not saying you were wrong to do that, obviously this is something that comes to the front of your mind when something is wrong at a school. The disconnect between risks we find acceptable, and those we don't is interesting though.

[0]https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index....

The structure wouldn't be able to passively stay together. If it was to be destroyed then it would burn up in the atmosphere like anything else. It is not made of a magic non-existent material that is infinitely strong. Of course if you had a massive dense asteroid attached that would not, so it makes sense to be careful with what is around it. But the orbital ring itself would break up and be no more dangerous than a bunch of satellites of similar mass.

Also it would not be an "Ultimate target" for "terrorists". Terrorists are violent political activists, not super villains that want to destroy the world. I doubt, for example, that the new-IRA would get a united Ireland by destroying orbital infrastructure.

Not everywhere has the space the the US has. Many places in Europe, especially Germany, the UK and the low countries simply have no space to grow into, the urban areas are basically touching as is.

It is politically unfeasible to turn swathes of these countries into an endless urban/suburban sprawl. Many have a strong agricultural lobby (The Netherlands in particular) and/or have an eye on food security.

UK engineers are earning much over £20k a year, even outside of London. Amazons site says: SDE1 is on a low of £45,653 which is $56,344.02 SDE2 is on £70,703 which is $87,257.47

So somewhere between you both.

Ok, so whilst I have some experience with US cities, this post is about the British regulation on autonomous driving. I can assure you that any substantial increase in local public transport (substantial being 25% or more, this is not a huge amount due to how much has been cut in the past decade.

Intercity transport really needs HS2 pushing through and increase electrification of other routes. This will speed up commuter routes and increase freight capacity.

Many of these people would be better served by having better funded public transit, especially in densely populated areas.

This would 1. help the elderly have more freedom. 3. help people who already use public transport. 4,5. It would make roads safer and allow for less space being used for private vehicles which makes the remaining spaces safer.

Improving intercity and freight rail can also help many people in category 6 who can now do something productive or fun on the train rather than risk driving long distance, and can take some long distance freight off of roads.

The only people who need to have private vehicles are those would live in rural locations, who would still benefit from traveling to a more distant urban area, and people who's jobs demand it such as tradies (trades people). These would all be served by having less people on the roads when they don't need to be.

I think there is use in looking much further back. If we are looking only 30 years (or even 300) we are not looking back to where the decline started, only at that recent point of the decline. The issue with this to me is setting a bad 'target' to aim for for conservation.

Say 30 years ago the fishery was at 80% depleted, and today it is 95% depleted, then conservation looking only 30 years back could decide to stop (or more likely lose political will) at that 80% mark.

E.g. in Ancient Greece almost any free citizen could afford to buy the top weapon of the time (an iron or bronze sword)

You have an historical mistake that supports your argument here.

Bronze weapons were very expensive, due to needing tin which could not be mined locally and needed to be traded for from as far away, such as the balkans, Germany or even Britain [0]. Because of this it was only available for the rich, ie the rulers and their supporters. Bronze age Greece[1] was not democratic, and was based around kingdoms, ruled by those who had access to the bronze weapons.

The later more 'equal' (but by no means equal at all, simply more so than ruled by tyrants, they still had slaves and oppressed lower classes. It's just there was a more numerous upper/middle class) greek states were in the Iron Age. Iron was much easier and cheaper to make as it was available in large quantities locally. This lead to to the iron age weapons and armour being much more widely spread [2] and therefore they had less powerful dictators.

Not all Iron age Greek states were democracies, and those that were would not seem like fair democracies today. But partially because of the more easily accessible weapons, the power in these states was less centralised than it was when the weapons were predominantly bronze.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_sources_and_trade_in_ancie.... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenaean_Greece [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Dark_Ages

Well, they couldn't afford/acquire a musket, which if they could on a wide scale, would probably have effected their freedom.