mandmandam

There’s a non-trivial chance that we will never come together, even on a millennial time scale

If you really believe that, then why do you think we deserve to infest the rest of the galaxy? We'd be planet killers, bringing death and mayhem wherever we god. Intelligent life would be wise to put us out of their misery before we pop our landers.

I believe our problems are solvable, because our problems all seem to boil back to the same tiny group of people fucking things up for everyone... And some of that group are the people privatizing space.

I think I can answer this for you.

You ask ChatGPT if combining bleach and [chemical] is bad. It says there can be some dangerous irritation to the lungs, and not to do it.

You prompt it a couple times with new data that suggests the reaction could be worse, but its story doesn't really change.

So, you put on a respirator, mix the concoction - and it melts through 6 floors of your building while emitting neurotoxic gas.

ChatGPT told you it would be bad. It told you not to do it. But there's a huge difference between what it said would happen and what was actually foreseeable.

As much as I despise insurance companies, risk assessment is their whole bag. And their money is on the line here.

If they say it's significantly worse than the IPCC is estimating - and specific reasons are given in the article - then I would tend to believe them.

Yay, space serfs. Buddy, sci-fi warned us about this one real hard.

Also, it's not as if our biggest problem is shortage of work. That's not even in the top 1,000 of our problems.

There’s a very high chance that if we wait for those things to be solved before going out, we’ll simply never go out.

I think the opposite is true.

Right now, humanity is unable to solve genocide, nuclear proliferation, starvation, incredible inequality; or even airplane food.

If we go out as this privatized mess, there's not a good chance of a positive outcome. Space is too vast - far, far, far, far, far too vast*. And far more dangerous than most people think, as this article scratches the surface of.

If we come together as a species and fix our major problems before we kill the planet, then we have thousands of years to get space right; and when we do, we won't be bringing our massive problems with us.

* - "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."

'Bashing' is a human trait. Software on the internet carries no such emotion.

software doesn't have this emotion you are trying to personify.

Your best defense against accusations of classism is that you're software??

... Hate to break it to you bud, but bots can have classism built in too. Also, I'm fairly sure bots are banned here. Feel free to see yourself out.

I have no problem with any of that, though it sure would be cool if we dealt with the worst of our climate, war, inequality and poverty issues before burning money to privatize space.

But clearly laying out the very real risks and discomforts, as the author here as done, doesn't justify accusations of "not being a happy bunny". That's all.

Author is clearly not a happy bunny.

Scouring the article I see no evidence for this claim whatsoever.

Having the right spirit and the right motivation creates mental well-being, not material or social conditions.

The right spirit and motivation isn't going to help you avoid chromosome & telomere damage, or chronic lack of sleep.

Wouldn't it best to know the risks (and smells) going in? Because that's what the author is laying out. The author isn't stopping you from going into space, just putting the facts out there.

Only poor people care about test scores as they imagine high test scores is how one can pull themselves out of being poor.

Bashing 'poor people' aside, it's safe to say that on a national level, declining test scores are a warning sign that merits investigation.

When you are rich you can also do pointless things just for the fun of it like build bridges to nowhere

You can, but there's no small amount of broken window fallacy there.

None of these are problems unless you try and look at it through a poor man's lens.

I might be too poor to see the joy of building of bridges to nowhere, but there are still 'problems' with declining test scores, government misuse of funds, and pointless infrastructure projects.

statistically, only poor people like having children

Yeesh. There are at least three reasons why this is completely wrong, but what's more important is that you seem to have a weird bone to pick with "poor people". You really might want to sort that out for yourself.

The stories have been routinely retracted by the BBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, etc after they’re later shown false.

Do any of these stories compare to the mainstream media's systematic lies about 40 beheaded babies? Or babies burned in ovens? Or systematic rape? Did the US President launder any of those lies long after they were debunked?

Were the stories about premie babies left to rot at Al Nasr true? Were the stories about Hind Rajab true? Were the stories about civilians being used as target practice while they try to get aid true? Were the stories about the IDF mass murdering a convoy of emergency vehicles and burying them in a shallow unmarked grave true?

Do Hamas have people in the BBC censoring stories they don't like? Did the NYT run huge stories by Hamas "journalists" with no experience and no evidence?

Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.

You don't refute that the boy is starving. He's far from the only one. Gaza is in stage 5 of famine; the effect of which will be felt for generations - and you think a photo of a "well fed" (and horrifically traumatized for life) boy proves that they're actually fine??

Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.

How many people have been murdered while trying to get aid in the past week? Are those stories lies too, even though they come from whistleblowers who were there; even though there's video of some of the incidents?

Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.

Just to clarify - are you referring to the tunnel which Israel built itself in the 80's [0]? The one which was admitted not to even connect to the hospital in your own article?

If so - were you aware that Israel built it?

Or have you been justifying the destruction of at least 33 hospitals, to us and to yourself, this entire time, based solely on that 'evidence'?

0 - https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-israel-build-bunker-...

Even the IDF now admits it had no evidence of Hamas systematically stealing aid [0].

Yet the talking point - which attempted to justify genocide and never had a shred of evidence - will linger for years. I still meet people who think Saddam did 9/11, or that Afghanistan was connected.

I still meet many people who don't even know a third tower fell in NYC that day. When news media repeats a talking point that long, or ignores evidence that long, it makes a very deep impression on the type of person who takes things at face value a little too much.

0 - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/26/world/middleeast/hamas-un...

If you want to bomb 33 out of 36 hospitals you should need better evidence than a single photo of a tunnel near a hospital. One which Israel built themselves in the 80s btw [0].

And let's not forget that Israel were caught lying about such evidence on multiple occasions in the past. Remember "the list" that was actually a calendar? Remember the MRI room storing 5 guns - or was it 6? Only recently, we had this: [1].

All local and foreign doctors have consistently denied all such IDF claims. All we have is the word of the IDF (while countless UN, HRW, eyewitness reports etc say otherwise).

We know for a fact that Israel have repeatedly targeted medical personnel in their clearly marked vehicles, such as during the Hind Rajab incident; or when they massacred a convoy and buried them in a mass unmarked grave, then claimed that their lights weren't on to 'justify' it until a recovered phone proved otherwise [2].

And we know, without a doubt, who does embed military infrastructure under hospitals and beside civilians. Israel [3].

If you are a real person, arguing in good faith, I urge you to consider how badly you have been lied to. It's never too late to wake up.

0 - https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-israel-build-bunker-...

1 - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-16/israeli-video-claimed...

2 - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2z103nqxo

3 - https://mmnews.tv/every-accusation-is-a-confession-idf-repor...

As a condition for joining the controlled tour, The New York Times agreed not to ... publish geographic details

according to the Israeli military

There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself

According to the World Health Organization, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals

In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to scour for traps.

... You read this article as proof vindicating the IDF's version of events? ... Huh.

If anyone wants to see the full story for themselves they can read it at https://archive.ph/giBjP#selection-1185.0-1189.43

Hind Rajab being used as bait to murder aid workers was kind of a tell also.

Or when they bombed all the hospitals [0], or targeted pediatricians and oncologists, and their families [1] for assassination.

Or leaving preemie babies to rot and be eaten by wild dogs at Al Nasr [2].

Or when they dropped over 6 Hiroshimas worth of explosives [3] onto an area roughly equal to a 12 x 12 mile square, populated with over a million children - in Biden's term alone.

There's a lot more. Suffice to say that anyone paying attention has known that the US, Israel, Germany, England and more have been propping up a genocide for quite some time now.

0 - https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countrie...

1 - https://abcnews.go.com/International/gaza-pediatrician-mothe...

2 - https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/abandoned-babies-found-de...

3 - https://www.bradford.ac.uk/news/archive/2025/gaza-bombing-eq...

It was flagged, but was restored. Sadly, that's still a bit effective at suppressing the story.

The flags often have the effect of pushing things off the front page, even when they're restored within an hour or so. Not always though: this story [0] from today is currently front page after having been flagged as well.

Even temporary flagging also has the effect of diluting the conversation; so that instead of talking about war crimes, their perpetrators, or how to stop them, we're talking about flagging and algorithms.

0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44714221#44715661

it’s not because they are afraid of America.

In some cases, it is precisely that. Ireland, for a fact, has been economically threatened for putting forward measures against Israel, ie [0]. We only know this because of investigative journalists, not mainstream media.

Then you can look at America's sanctions against Francesca Albanese, and ICC judges [1], which has the additional effect of 'legally' allowing America to sanction anyone who supports them.

Trump and Europe just signed a 'deal' which was basically just Europe promising to buy arms and LNG for the next 5 years, and pay more in tariffs, getting nothing in return. This is about as strong a suggestion that they are being threatened in some way that you could ask for.

And then there's a huge range of threats coming from Israel itself, such as thinly veiled threats to not allow citizens out of various countries out of Gaza [2].

A majority of the people in European countries are aghast, horrified, traumatized by the daily atrocities being committed with the tacit backing of their political and media classes. The disconnect has never been quite so stark.

Everyone is just standing around saying how bad it is but they are perfectly content to let Gaza be leveled while they keep trading with Israel.

Again, all across Europe people are taking all the action they can; and are being brutally suppressed by state forces in response. Corporate and state media invert reality with a terrifying consistency, such as in Amsterdam with the football hooligans. In Germany peaceful protesters are being savagely beaten on the daily, and (illegally) threatened with deportation. In England, they are being charged as terrorists for holding signs supporting necessary Action in Palestine.

Even in Ireland, long-time bastion of anti-colonialism, peaceful protesters have been strip searched, had their hijabs removed, and detained. We've been working for years to end trade with Israel, but somehow our trade has increased sharply the past couple years, and we're even selling Israeli bonds out of our Central Bank. There's a lot more going on here than apathy.

who really cares about genocide in Africa? Maybe there isn’t anything different when it comes to genocide elsewhere. :(

If you want to understand those conflicts, just follow the money. It always seems to lead right back to Western interests, after being washed in the UAE.

The thing is, there is massive profit being made from these genocides. Trade routes, oil, land, arms development, funding, minerals, gold, political control, media control; there's something in it for all the oligarchs.

0 - https://www.ontheditch.com/us-ambassador-warned/

1 - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70rllxr0kyo

2 - https://x.com/wereontheditch/status/1768702362615460116

are rapidly moving towards the sixth ones by all accounts

The scientific consensus isn't that we're "moving towards" a mass extinction. It's that we're deep into one, and accelerating.

"Current extinction rates are estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates [13][14][15][16][17] and are accelerating."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

As was the last one - which I believe was a significant part of OP's point. Neither side represents us.

this platform actively encourages the likes of JK Rowling to doxx, slander, and harass people.

What an interesting lie.

You see women encouraged to protect each other, and 'women' gets autotranslated in your brain into "JK Rowling". 'Protect each other' gets transformed into "doxx, slander and harass people". Fascinating.

I'm sure that even though I'm directly quoting you this will be accused of misreading your arguments again, and that's fascinating too, but I'm tired cap. I'm tired.

Surprisingly, and refreshingly, it seems PG himself sees through all of the bullshit and consistently asks questions to understand why people have become ok with the murders of innocent children.

He does, and that was decent.

Still, PG was all aboard with the DOGE machete hacking up government databases to free up tax cuts for the wealthy (and god knows what else). His Twitter has had some truly awful takes lately.

When all is said and done, the heart of your anger is that women might be "secretly publicizing" (your exact words, lol) things about men - sometimes about "their looks", and sometimes about the threat of assault and rape.

That's more than silly. It's dangerous for our sisters and mothers, and an attack on free speech.

I sincerely hope you can recognize that the threat of rape and assault rather outweighs the threat of people saying mean and untrue things about you behind our back. If not, well, then you might be the type of person that forum was made to talk about.

You have no idea what else he is or isn't up in arms about.

I actually looked back through 6 months worth of their comments. This is the angriest they've been here.

Given that the concern is users of this app /making stuff up/, this line is a touch ironic.

I don't know why you would believe that I claimed to know what they're like in their personal life. It seems pretty obvious to me that I'd be referring to their comments here, but consider that point clarified now.

My argument was that because women can not rely on the justice system, you can't blame them for resorting to talking to each other on the internet about potential predators.

That's not a "strawman argument", it's just basic common sense - if the law isn't protecting you, then you have to protect yourself. As someone else itt put it: Women being vigilant is rational behaviour".

And while you lambast my source (despite the fact that any set of statistics you like will say that rape has heinous reporting, referral and conviction rates), you say yourself in a sibling comment that the only way to fix this is by improving the justice system. You admit, in your own words, that the justice system is inadequate here and not fit for purpose.

Your beef, as generously as I can interpret it, seems to be that allowing women to talk to each other about potential predators could result in false accusations (that's what a "think of the children" argument looks like btw). You then repeatedly conflate this forum with "torture", "mass surveillance", and an organized bullying group that has caused at least 3 suicides - that part I can't wrap my head around. You even compare this forum to "censorship" - the rank irony is giving me a headache.

All the crazy things that have happened in the last 6 months, and this is what has you up in arms. Women talking to each other, trying to protect themselves from assault and rape. Absolutely wild.

"Women having a platform to talk with each other without men is somehow equivalent to killing medical workers and torture".

See, it's easy to "boil arguments down". However, this is a forum where we're supposed to interpret what people say in the best possible way.

That said, I am having trouble figuring out how you manage to compare an online stalking and bullying website to a forum where women can warn each other of serial assaulters. The intention is clearly entirely different, even if both are open to abuse (like every forum of every type ever).

For all the gloating in here about doxxers getting doxxed, there sure are a lot of HN accounts exposing themselves as utter creeps in here.

Here are some statistics for you to consider:

* Out of every 1,000 sexual assaults, approximately 310 are reported to the police.

* Of those reported, only about 13 cases are referred to a prosecutor.

* Ultimately, only about 7 cases lead to a felony conviction.

* For every 100 rapes reported, only 18 result in an arrest.

* Fewer than 7% of reported rape cases lead to a conviction.

* In some studies, the conviction rate for rape has been reported as low as 3.2% in certain jurisdictions.

Sources:

https://rainn.org/articles/what-expect-criminal-justice-syst...

https://www.uml.edu/news/stories/2019/sexual_assault_researc...

If you could imagine what girls and women go through, some on a daily basis, for years, since childhood, I think you might have a better understanding of why a "gossip app" might actually be a pretty sensible option for avoiding sexual assault and worse.

To be fair, and not that you're saying otherwise: that seems like a pretty natural and chill response to the fact that men have always been assaulting and raping them. Like, it would be weird if women didn't ever speculate on which men could be a threat.

The purpose of sexuality is for relations with one’s spouse

That's not actually true.

That doctrine has been used to guilt-trip people and control their lives for many hundreds of years - but it isn't true. People are complex. We're not self-replicating machines whose sole purpose is to breed.

That's not how we talk here. Also, I was defending your argument lol.

But still, I'll bite - how so? Because I see videos like this:

https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1947556095779610961

or this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiNrcHhDTsI

And I compare them to, say, any American city.

You can't watch those and seriously believe that there couldn't possibly be any aspects of Chinese life which are superior, and further, to think that's "insane".

Those aren't cherry-picked videos. There are thousands out there, if you care to look; watch xiaomanyc's videos and there's simply no denying your eyes. Their cars are better, their night life is better, their food is better, their housing is better, their daily lives are better, in many, many ways. Not every way, but in many ways - which is what I said.

You've been propagandized your whole life to think America is number one, but that was only even remotely true before 'we' pissed away our future on genocidal forever wars to make the 0.1% a little wealthier. Now most people see America negatively. Literally the vast majority of countries have an overall negative opinion of America; and we're seen as the number one threat to peace and stability.

Chinese people used to think they're hearing propaganda when they hear American's stories about health insurance, or the political scene - because to them, that's impossible to believe. Yet what you find impossible to believe is that they might have it better in some ways. I hope you have a good long think about that.