The off topic off topic thread

[Freegrass]

Two days ago I bought myself a new Dell Inspiron 27 7000 All-in-One computer which arrived today, and boy is this fun to work with. I was using a Samsung laptop I bought new before and that broke after only 5 years of use. After that I had an old laptop to work with for a while so the speed of this new Dell is incredible. Earth Nullschool is actually reacting immediately now. That'll save me some time... 

I had a Dell laptop before that Samsung piece of shit, and that just kept going, but the speed of this new desktop is just amazing. Best computer I ever bought! If you need a new computer, buy this Dell Inspiron 27 7000 All-in-One! You won't regret it. 

[nanning]

Congrats with your new and better tool Freegrass. You soon will get used to the speed.

If I want to buy a new computer (last time was 1994, after that only parts), I look for these things:
How much does it cost? Does it run an older Linux kernel? Is it a 16:10 or 3:2 display? ips LCD? USB3? Does it have a physical off-switch for power and webcam? Does it have a x86-64 or ARM architecture? Can you edit the BIOS settings? Noise volume? Power use?

Does it play nice music?

[blumenkraft]

What is an "All-in-One computer"? Is it vacuuming your house too?

[kassy]

Huge science breakthrough!!!

Consumers can distinguish between bitter tastes in beer -- doesn't alter liking

Summary:
Although most beer consumers can distinguish between different bitter tastes in beer, this does not appear to influence which beer they like. It seems they just like beer, regardless of the source of the bitterness.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200624172040.htm

[oren]

I strongly dislike beer, mostly because of the bitterness... But I don't consume alcohol except a rare glass of wine.

[blumenkraft]

...

Total extent loss from maximum is 3rd highest on record since 2007 --- 2010 and 2012 had monster Junes. (See Attachment 3).

...

If you are looking for a band name, 'The Monster Junes' sounds really cool. 

[nanning]

Where I live, the grasses growing in berms along the roads are cut by machines, several times a year.
I loathe that practice and this morning I found this photo of a road in a nature park.

The world around here would look so much better if roadside verges were unkempt:

[Alexander555]

Bunny ebola is spreading in the US. https://sputniknews.com/world/202007021079779394-bunny-ebola-deadly-rabbit-virus-spreads-in-southwestern-us-killing-thousands-of-animals/

[nanning]

I register all my animal products expenditures in spreadsheets  and count my consumption of meat, cheese and milk.
I've calculated this consumption for the first 6 months of 2020:

cow      :   2.99   Kg   (all organic, av. 500g a month)
pig       :   4.05   Kg   (all organic, av. 675g a month)
chicken :  0        Kg
milk       :  2.0       L   (all organic, av. 333ml a month)
cheese :   9.861 Kg  (all types, also fresh and raw, mostly organic, av. 1644g a month)

About my cheese consumption: I breakfast with a slab of organic fresh sheep cheese from raw milk, ca. 300g a week (except in January and February), which is the main part of my cheese consumption. The rest goes into my warm meals. I don't snack.

[kassy]

So my new band The Monster Junes has just been renamed to Bunny Ebola. Guess we´ll be pioneering a fusion between Eurobeat and Death Metal. 

[blumenkraft]

Wikipedia is junk. Anyone can post anything to that. 

With all due respect, Rod, but this is so immensely simplified it counts as being wrong. Behind entries there generally is moderation. Some scientist/expert is having an eye on it.

I understand und support your asking for a peer-reviewed paper, but Wikipedia is, in general, a reliable source.

[nanning]

Thank you blumenkraft. I was tempted to make the same kind of post when I read that ignorant remark.
Most wikipedia articles include a list of references at the bottom of the page with much more information.

They are a beautiful, and important(!), non-profit organisation without adverts and payed content or 'vested interests'.

It woud be great if people who use wikipedia or link to it, such as many people on this forum, would give a yearly donation. I have donated 20 euro's to the wikimedia organisation in Februari and would have given more if I were not financially poor.
I also want to donate to TheGuardian but they only accept payments from credit cards or Paypal but I don't have and don't want to use those.

[oren]

I was also bothered by the Wikipedia = junk statement. Totally not true, From my long experience with Wikipedia the information is highly accurate and usually well edited, at least in non-esoteric subjects in English.
I have personally made quite a few edits to Wikipedia over the years, mostly in very small matters that I cared about and had some knowledge about. If anyone feels the information provided is inaccurate or incomplete, I encourage them to do the same.

[KiwiGriff]

Wikipedia usually includes links to the source.
If you are concerned about accuracy it would be advised to follow the links and do your own deeper research
In this time of alternative facts wiki still remains a good starting point for research or as a reference  for basic well supported knowledge .

[Freegrass]

Or am I "teaching my grandmother to suck eggs" (I wonder where that saying comes from).

That was too funny Gerontocrat. First time I hear that phrase, and so I used my Google machine to look it up.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about it.

The origins of the phrase are not clear. The OED and others suggest that it comes from a translation in 1707, by J. Stevens, of Francisco de Quevedo (Spanish author): "You would have me teach my Grandame to suck Eggs". Most likely the meaning of the idiom derives from the fact that before the advent of modern dentistry (and modern dental prostheses) many elderly people (grandparents) had very bad teeth, or no teeth, so that the simplest way for them to eat protein was to poke a pinhole in the shell of a raw egg and suck out the contents; therefore, a grandmother was usually already a practiced expert on sucking eggs and didn't need anyone to show her how to do it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_grandmother_to_suck_eggs

https://www.bloomsbury-international.com/student-ezone/idiom-of-the-week/1937-teaching-grandmother-to-suck-eggs/

The idiom sounds very strange nowadays because people no longer suck eggs; however, in the past it was normal to eat eggs by making a hole at each end and sucking the contents out! It was a clean and easy way to eat them without cracking them and spilling egg everywhere! Naturally, as soon as we learning about the potential of getting food poisoning from raw eggs (salmonella), this method was quickly dropped!

[SteveMDFP]

Brilliant satire:

Honest Government Ad | A message from the White House

[Human Habitat Index]

Trump is part of the Deep State that he is supposedly fighting against.

<removed link to conspiracy site - BK>

Conserved and host-specific features of influenza virion architecture
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5816

<removed link to conspiracy video - BK>

[sidd]

Wikipedia is usually ok on non politically charged topics. For interesting take on politically charge topics look up "Philip Cross"

Craig Murray has some input here .

Wikipedia should never be mistaken for a primary source. At best, an indicator.

sidd

[kassy]

If there is ever a place to post anything (barring the illegal) it should be here on the OTOT thread.

What was the actual conspiracy site? Was the content so bad we needed to be protected? The paper is pretty interesting but i have no idea how any conspiracy site would spin that and i am sort of curious. I think i would survive reading some conspiracy take on it and if there was some clear BS in it i would comment on that but now i can´t.

This annoys me more then whatever the conspiracy site can come up with.

People are responsible for what they post. I think it is ok to add reminders that the quoted site is 100% Koch funded if that is the case or whatever applies but i prefer to make my own judgements.

[blumenkraft]

Anti-vaxxer stuff, Kassy.

If you are interested in this, you'll find it using google. I don't think this is content we should allow here.

[igs]

Anti-vaxxer stuff, Kassy.

If you are interested in this, you'll find it using google. I don't think this is content we should allow here.

Are you saying that people who opt for not being vaccined are conspiracy theorists or did i get this wrong?

Do you know that most young >40 men who died form spanish flue were multiple times vaccined by their army during the war. Just one example.

I for one find it ok if people want a vaccine but i find it also ok to trust mother nature more and considering overpopulation it's not that certain whether protecting all 8 billion from illness and death is a really undisputable and sustainable goal. At least the discussion should be allowed.

Of course I'm for decent discussion and not the outright stupid stuff one can find as well in the world wide web but like kassy I think censorship is never recommendable, at the end the downsides outweigh the advantages.

[blumenkraft]

No, Igs, that's not what this is about.

This is about the conspiracy that vaccines serve the purpose to reprogram the genetics of humans to enslave us all.

If you want to read about this, go to Facebook and follow the most lunatic fringe accounts. The whole internet is riddled with this. This is a scientifically oriented forum. Lunatic fringe is not the scope of this forum.

[igs]

No, Igs, that's not what this is about.

This is about the conspiracy that vaccines serve the purpose to reprogram the genetics of humans to enslave us all.

If you want to read about this, go to Facebook and follow the most lunatic fringe accounts. The whole internet is riddled with this. This is a scientifically oriented forum. Lunatic fringe is not the scope of this forum.

OK, that's one of the bullshit conspiracy theories, thanks for info.

I think that most would come to the same conclusion and the rest is helplessly lost so why not let it stand. Deleting stuff only fuels the wrong and doesn't damage mature thinkers at all, simply makes us laugh.

However that may be, you have to discuss this with your fellow mods, not my call, just my two cents.

 

[be cause]

If there is ever a place to post anything (barring the illegal) it should be here on the OTOT thread.

What was the actual conspiracy site? Was the content so bad we needed to be protected? The paper is pretty interesting but i have no idea how any conspiracy site would spin that and i am sort of curious. I think i would survive reading some conspiracy take on it and if there was some clear BS in it i would comment on that but now i can´t.

This annoys me more then whatever the conspiracy site can come up with.

People are responsible for what they post. I think it is ok to add reminders that the quoted site is 100% Koch funded if that is the case or whatever applies but i prefer to make my own judgements.

nanning should find this funny ! b.c.

[oren]

Neven's policy has always been to avoid links to denier sites from the ASIF, both so as not to lead the readers astray, and more importantly to avoid giving the deniers financial gain by increasing clicks and search engine placements.

[Human Habitat Index]

andrewkaufmanmd.com

Andy Kaufman, M.D. is a natural healing consultant, inventor, public speaker, forensic psychiatrist, and expert witness. He completed his psychiatric training at Duke University Medical Center after graduating from the Medical University of South Carolina, and has a B.S. from M.I.T. in Molecular Biology. He has conducted and published original research and lectured, supervised, and mentored medical students, residents, and fellows in all psychiatric specialties. He has been qualified as an expert witness in local, state, and federal courts. He has held leadership positions in academic medicine and professional organizations. He ran a start-up company to develop a medical device he invented and patented.

Faculty Positions
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, SUNY Upstate Medical University
Vice President, Psychiatry Faculty Practice Corporation, SUNY Upstate Medical University
Medical Director of Faculty Practice, SUNY Upstate Medical University
Assistant Director, Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship, SUNY Upstate Medical University
Consulting Expert Witness, Syracuse University Law School
Education
Medical University of South Carolina, Doctor of Medicine
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, BS in Biology
Training
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Board Certification in Psychiatry and Forensic Psychiatry (2011)
SUNY Upstate Medical University, Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry
Duke University School of Medicine, Resident in Psychiatry
 
Publications
Knoll JL and Kaufman AR. Suicide in Correctional Settings: Epidemiology, Risk Assessment, and Prevention. Principles and Practice of Forensic Psychiatry edited by Richard Rosner, 3rd edition, 2017.
Way BB, Kaufman AR, Knoll JL, Chlebowski, S: Suicidal Ideation among Inmate-Patients in State Prison: Prevalence, Reluctance to Report, and Treatment Preferences. Behavioral Science and the Law, 31(2): 230-8, 2013.
Kaufman AR, Way BB, Suardi E: Forty Years after Jackson v. Indiana. States’ Compliance with “Reasonable Period of Time” Ruling. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 40:261-5, 2012.
Kaufman AR, Knoll JL, Way BB, Leonard C, Widroff J: Survey of Forensic Mental Health Experts on Pro Se Competence After Indiana v. Edwards: Towards an Evidence-Based Pro Se Competency Standard. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 39:565-70, 2011.
Knoll JL, Leonard C, Kaufman AR, Way BB: A Pilot Survey of Trial Court Judges’ Opinions on Pro Se Competence after Indiana v. Edwards. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38:536-9, 2010.
Kaufman AR, Way B: North Carolina Resident Psychiatrists Knowledge of the Commitment Statutes: Do They Stray from the Legal Standard in the Hypothetical Application of Involuntary Commitment Criteria? Psychiatric Quarterly, 2010; 81(4): p.363.
Kaufman, AR: More on DSM-5: Will “Cross-Cutting” Butcher Clinical Psychiatry. Correctional Mental Health Report, 2010; 12(2): p. 21.
Kaufman AR: Are Psychiatrists Lexa-Professionals? Correctional Mental Health Report, 2010; 11(5): p. 71
Kaufman AR: Should We Use Law Enforcement for Emergency Transportation of People With Mental Illness? American Journal of Psychiatry 2007; 164(3): Residents’ Journal p. 3

[Human Habitat Index]

Australian Government

Department of Health

Therapeutic Goods Administration :-

COVID-19 testing in Australia - information for health professionals

"The reliability of COVID-19 tests is uncertain due to the limited evidence base"

" The extent to which a positive PCR result correlates with the infectious state of an individual is still being determined"

https://www.tga.gov.au/covid-19-testing-australia-information-health-professionals

[blumenkraft]

andrewkaufmanmd.com

First, those are the wrong credentials to be an expert on epidemiology or virology or genetics for that matter.

Second, there are bat-shit-crazy people with credentials. This is one of them.

[blumenkraft]

"The reliability of COVID-19 tests is uncertain due to the limited evidence base"

" The extent to which a positive PCR result correlates with the infectious state of an individual is still being determined"

That is correct. A PCR test being positive doesn't mean the patient is infectious. There are also false negatives. Has nothing to do with the message of this so-called doctor though.

[blumenkraft]

Neven's policy has always been to avoid links to denier sites from the ASIF, both so as not to lead the readers astray, and more importantly to avoid giving the deniers financial gain by increasing clicks and search engine placements.

And i 100% agree with this. Those people are malicious and platforming them makes us complicitous. Nothing i can live with, to be honest.

[Human Habitat Index]

"The reliability of COVID-19 tests is uncertain due to the limited evidence base"

" The extent to which a positive PCR result correlates with the infectious state of an individual is still being determined"

That is correct. A PCR test being positive doesn't mean the patient is infectious. There are also false negatives. Has nothing to do with the message of this so-called doctor though.

So the tests used to determine the extent of restrictions and lockdowns that are affecting billions of people around the world are inaccurate and that doesn't bother you ?

Kary Mullis, who received the Nobel Prize for inventing the PCR test, said that the test was not suitable as a diagnostic tool because it does not quantify a virus load.

Kary Mullis died 7 August 2019.

Event 201
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hosted Event 201, a high-level pandemic exercise on October 18, 2019, in New York, NY. The exercise illustrated areas where public/private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a severe pandemic in order to diminish large-scale economic and societal consequences.
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/

Also on October 18 2019 the opening ceremony of the World Military Games in Wuhan China


In July 2019, the citizens of Wuhan protested about the toxic air pollution that was making them sick

https://www.google.com/search?q=wuhan+protests+july+2019&rlz=1C1CAFB_enAU882AU882&oq=wuhan+protests&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j35i39j0l6.10184j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

China tops WHO list for deadly outdoor air pollution
 
More than 1 million people died from dirty air in one year, according to World Health Organisation
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/27/more-than-million-died-due-air-pollution-china-one-year

[Human Habitat Index]

Neven's policy has always been to avoid links to denier sites from the ASIF, both so as not to lead the readers astray, and more importantly to avoid giving the deniers financial gain by increasing clicks and search engine placements.

And i 100% agree with this. Those people are malicious and platforming them makes us complicitous. Nothing i can live with, to be honest.

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. - Herbert Spencer

[Human Habitat Index]

COVID19 PCR Tests are Scientifically Meaningless

Though the whole world relies on RT-PCR to “diagnose” Sars-Cov-2 infection, the science is clear: they are not fit for purpose

LACK OF A VALID GOLD STANDARD

NO PROOF FOR THE RNA BEING OF VIRAL ORIGIN

https://bpa-pathology.com/covid19-pcr-tests-are-scientifically-meaningless/

<Mod notice:
Torsten Engelbrecht and Konstantin Demeter, the authors of this 'paper' are known German conspiracy theorists. They also write for the German website Rubikon, a known conspiracy site.

Link >> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubikon_(Website)

BK>

[Human Habitat Index]

If there is ever a place to post anything (barring the illegal) it should be here on the OTOT thread.

What was the actual conspiracy site? Was the content so bad we needed to be protected? The paper is pretty interesting but i have no idea how any conspiracy site would spin that and i am sort of curious. I think i would survive reading some conspiracy take on it and if there was some clear BS in it i would comment on that but now i can´t.

This annoys me more then whatever the conspiracy site can come up with.

People are responsible for what they post. I think it is ok to add reminders that the quoted site is 100% Koch funded if that is the case or whatever applies but i prefer to make my own judgements.

This is a recent comprehensive article that asserts the current medical paradigm is incorrect

"Why Everything You Learned About Viruses is WRONG"
Published by GreenMedInfo by founder Sayer Ji
https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/why-only-thing-influenza-may-kill-germ-theory

< Mod notice:
This is a faith healer/quack site:

Ji wants to vindicate ancient healing traditions by showing people that there are recent scientific studies that confirm this ancestral knowledge. He says that food is information that we put in our body and it interacts with our genes. When we alter this information, we’re introducing “bad information” into our body, which means our proteins get misfolded and we get ill, he claims. He thinks “heroic doses” of medication and nutraceuticals is the wrong approach; we need daily “culinary doses”. And he thinks that his god made things in nature look like what they are meant to heal, so that a walnut looks like the brain because it’s meant to help our brain function.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/pseudoscience/popular-health-guru-sayer-ji-curates-scientific-literature-his-bachelors-degree-philosophy

BK>

[Human Habitat Index]

No, Igs, that's not what this is about.

This is about the conspiracy that vaccines serve the purpose to reprogram the genetics of humans to enslave us all.

If you want to read about this, go to Facebook and follow the most lunatic fringe accounts. The whole internet is riddled with this. This is a scientifically oriented forum. Lunatic fringe is not the scope of this forum.

OK, that's one of the bullshit conspiracy theories, thanks for info.

I think that most would come to the same conclusion and the rest is helplessly lost so why not let it stand. Deleting stuff only fuels the wrong and doesn't damage mature thinkers at all, simply makes us laugh.

However that may be, you have to discuss this with your fellow mods, not my call, just my two cents.

 

I love humiliating CC deniers when I get the chance - so much fun, like asking them why Venus is hotter than Mercury.

[Human Habitat Index]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2862332/
See under EPIDEMIOLOCICAL STUDIES: “Perhaps the most interesting epidemiological studies conducted during the 1918–1919 pandemic were the human experiments conducted by the Public Health Service and the U.S. Navy under the supervision of Milton Rosenau on Gallops Island, the quarantine station in Boston Harbor, and on Angel Island, its counterpart in San Francisco. The experiment began with 100 volunteers from the Navy who had no history of influenza. Rosenau was the first to report on the experiments conducted at Gallops Island in November and December 1918.69 His first volunteers received first one strain and then several strains of Pfeiffer’s bacillus by spray and swab into their noses and throats and then into their eyes. When that procedure failed to produce disease, others were inoculated with mixtures of other organisms isolated from the throats and noses of influenza patients. Next, some volunteers received injections of blood from influenza patients. Finally, 13 of the volunteers were taken into an influenza ward and exposed to 10 influenza patients each. Each volunteer was to shake hands with each patient, to talk with him at close range, and to permit him to cough directly into his face. None of the volunteers in these experiments developed influenza. Rosenau was clearly puzzled, and he cautioned against drawing conclusions from negative results. He ended his article in JAMA with a telling acknowledgement: “We entered the outbreak with a notion that we knew the cause of the disease, and were quite sure we knew how it was transmitted from person to person. Perhaps, if we have learned anything, it is that we are not quite sure what we know about the disease.”69 (p. 313)”

The Germ Theory of Disease remains unproven.

[JMP]

Anyone near Fairbanks, AK, (USA) know of a good deal on a snowmobile?   (Asking for a friend)
 
(Now... the question is serious - the concept that it actually belongs on the greater forum is not (of course?) still....  You never know what you're gonna find out unless you ask...?)

[Freegrass]

How awesome is this? 

https://www.dezeen.com/2019/10/08/big-copenhill-power-plant-ski-slope-copenhagen/

BIG has completed the "cleanest waste-to-energy power plant in the world" in Copenhagen, Denmark, which is topped by an artificial ski slope that is open all year round.

CopenHill, also known as Amager Bakke, is a power plant located on an industrial waterfront that is capable of converting 440,000 tons of waste into clean energy annually.

It was designed by BIG to double as public infrastructure, and is complete with tree-lined hiking trails and ski slopes on its roof along with the "tallest artificial climbing wall in the world" on its facade.

[kassy]

So skiing is going into the summer Olympics?

[Tor Bejnar]

I just read about cherry picking (data).  I'm sure I have picked cherries (the fruit), but I cannot remember actually doing so.  (We had a cherry tree when I was young - there are family stories about the year following a bumper crop about my dad always getting the first cherry stone when pie was served.)  I've picked lots of other fruit, though.  Has anybody on these threads done enough cherry picking to be able to say how easy it is to do?

[interstitial]

I have cherry trees. As long as the cherry trees are pruned to accessible height it is easy enough. It does require a fair bit of up and down on a ladder. Some people do not like working from a ladder. It also depends on how much cherries you want. If you decide you want to can or freeze them it can take much longer.

[HapHazard]

It's not very hard, other than using/moving a ladder constantly. But it's a bit of an art form to be quick enough to make decent money. Some farms require the picker to do the quality sorting as well. I've never picked cherries, though. My experience is mostly with pears, apples, and apricots. (not peaches, those come from a can in a factory downtown)

[Tor Bejnar]

So, to continue the analogy, cherry picking (data) isn't hard to do, but to be good, you have to sort through what's available to get the very best.  I haven't figured out how 'ladder handling' comes in though.  maybe... The best cherries are up high and you have to dare go out on a limb to get them? 

Back to real fruit:  I believe it was Franklin apples on a huge tree, and the only ones with some red skin were near the outer edge (blush from direct sunlight).  (The pale-green-skinned majority were good for cider, basically, and being a summer apple, not very good for that.)  The very best (because they were red and large) apples grew off of water shoots at the very top of the tree.  For them I had my 23' (7 m) ladder going straight up in the middle of the tree (somewhat held by branches going this way and that).  I stood on the very top rung, holding onto water shoots.  After I picked the apples within reach, I held onto one shoot with one hand while bending another shoot with the other, then somehow picking an apple and putting it into my bucket.  Repeat.  I got a bucketful of premium apples this way!  (I was paid minimum hourly wages to do the less productive apple variety picking.)

[Human Habitat Index]

There is no Matrix B

[kassy]

Yes, as humans left their original homelands in Africa, we probably wiped out a number of large species, being basically an invasive species ourselves. There is still some debate about which ones were wiped out by us and which failed to adapt to changing climates.

But those extinctions pale compared to the global mass extinctions and destruction of ecosystems going on today.

And once humans did settle in any particular area, they tended to fairly quickly develop a set of taboos to avoid wiping out crucial local and fauna. If they didn't they would generally not last very long.

I think that is wrong.

Basically they usually did not have the resources to go all in like we had last century.

There is tremedous deforestation in Europe from roman times on. We could use the wood and we could use the land. No taboos there.

We would already mine but not to the scale we would do later.

When transport got faster the world shrunk and so more and more places could be used.

Long ago i walked the Camino de Santiago. I took about a month walking from the french border to Santiago and then you get into the train. In an 2 hours you were where you were a week ago and at the end of the day you were near the start.

So i don´t think they did taboos that much.

[wdmn]

To anyone who would like to think with more complexity than, "one culture and one time period are to blame for everything, and that culture is unnatural," I suggest the book "A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Short_History_of_Progress

"A Short History of Progress is a non-fiction book and lecture series by Ronald Wright about societal collapse. The lectures were delivered as a series of five speeches, each taking place in different cities across Canada as part of the 2004 Massey Lectures which were broadcast on the CBC Radio program, Ideas...

Wright... uses the fallen civilisations of Easter Island, Sumer, Rome, and Maya, as well as examples from the Stone Age, to see what conditions led to the downfall of those societies. He examines the meaning of progress and its implications for civilizations—past and present—arguing that the twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology that has now placed an unsustainable burden on all natural systems."

[wili]

Kassy, yeah, it's more complex than I laid out.

I was thinking of most of the cases in the Pacific and the New World, as well as a number of other places. Clearly, the Polynesians and the rats and coconuts they brought with them did a great deal of damage on arrival. But then in most cases a complex set of taboos were generally put in place, many about what not to hunt/fish and in what season. Taboo itself is after all a Polynesian word.

Europeans in many cases did have a tendency to 'shit in their own nests,' but then they would just go and shit in somebody else's nest! Ultimately turning the entire world into their shitting grounds.

wdmn--good book. I have taught out of it. Lots of overlap with some other ideas, but generally a good, basic, fairly easy to read, short intro to these topics.

[kassy]

This sparked my interest but there is no good thread so this will have to do for now.

Unusual climate conditions influenced WWI mortality and subsequent influenza pandemic

Scientists have spotted a once-in-a-century climate anomaly during World War I that likely increased mortality during the war and the influenza pandemic in the years that followed.

Well-documented torrential rains and unusually cold temperatures affected the outcomes of many major battles on the Western Front during the war years of 1914 to 1918. Most notably, the poor conditions played a role in the battles of Verdun and the Somme, during which more than one million soldiers were killed or wounded.

The bad weather may also have exacerbated the influenza pandemic that claimed 50 to 100 million lives between 1917 and 1919, according to the new study. Scientists have long studied the spread of the H1N1 influenza strain that caused the pandemic, but little research has focused on whether environmental conditions played a role.

In a new study in AGU's journal GeoHealth, scientists analyzed an ice core taken from a glacier in the European Alps to reconstruct climate conditions during the war years. They found an extremely unusual influx of air from the North Atlantic Ocean affected weather on the European continent from 1914 to 1919. The incessant rain and cold caused by this influx of ocean air hung over major battlefields on the Western Front but also affected the migratory patterns of mallard ducks, the main animal host for H1N1 flu virus strains.

Mallard ducks likely stayed put in western Europe in the autumns of 1917 and 1918 because of the bad weather, rather than migrating northeast to Russia as they normally do, according to the new study. This kept them close to military and civilian populations and may have allowed the birds to transfer a particularly virulent strain of H1N1 influenza to humans through bodies of water. Listen to the latest episode of AGU's podcast Third Pod from the Sun to learn more about climate and pandemics.

...


In the new study, More and his colleagues reconstructed the environmental conditions over Europe during the war using data from an ice core taken from the Alps. They then compared the environmental conditions to historical records of deaths during the war years.

They found mortality in Europe peaked three times during the war, and these peaks occurred during or soon after periods of cold temperatures and heavy rain caused by extremely unusual influxes of ocean air in the winters of 1915, 1916 and 1918.

"Atmospheric circulation changed and there was much more rain, much colder weather all over Europe for six years," More said. "In this particular case, it was a once in a 100-year anomaly."

...

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200924135323.htm

The Impact of a Six‐Year Climate Anomaly on the “Spanish Flu” Pandemic and WWI
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GH000277

[nanning]

I frequently use the word "supremacy". Here I explain:

One can be superior in certain skills, tasks and other capacities, but it is insane to think of oneself as superior, i.e. that one as a person is superior. That is how I use "supremacy"; thinking that you are superior as a person.

Basic supremacy of civilisation: Supremacy over all other lifeforms.
(almost?) All rich people feel supreme over poor people. Aristocracy very much so. This is one of the major reasons for our insane world today.
Supremacy can manifest itself in many different layers, groups and forms of society.

Every supremacy adds another 'layer' of insanity.
Insanity is always destructive.


From https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/supremacy:

supremacy (usually uncountable, plural supremacies)

    1. The quality of being supreme.
    2. Power over all others.
    3. (in combination) The ideology that a specified group is superior to others or should have supreme power over them.

    white supremacy

[nanning]

I have discovered a fundamental rule of living nature:

           If you kill a lifeform on purpose, you have to eat it.