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Story Friday, May 8, 2020

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On 5/28/2020 at 2:42 PM, Darth Fluffy said:
On 5/28/2020 at 7:39 AM, hkmaly said:

Also ... good point considering the fact that from evolution point of view, both the modern social state AND contraception didn't have that much influence yet. It's what, six generations?

You know the premise of Idiocracy? Thanks in part due to contraceptives, it's entirely plausible.

Wasn't almost everyone white there? :)

Civilization moves FAST. And not only it does, it MUST because it's pursued by problems its causing. The idea of Idiocracy was that everyone was stupid but somehow the world didn't collapsed. While the premise of people going more and more stupid due to evolution would be plausible by itself, in time required for that to happen and without clever people doing technological advances some problem would catch up and kill most of world population ... which would be extreme evolution pressure for solution. Also, the factories for contraceptives would stop working.

Also, while it's easy to see how Idiocracy could happen in US, it's less likely it would happen in whole world, or at least not at same speed. There would be nations taking advantage of US going stupid. (They already are, in fact.) Probably war. Again, evolution pressure.

And finally ... stupid people are easier to control. You only need ONE clever person to take over and decide it's time for some eugenics. It would be end of democracy, but it's quite likely it would be positive from evolution standpoint. (There are some signs of this happening as well, actually. So far it's about race, but as long as someone is thinking about eugenics, well, someone needs to be researching new weapons and people like this LIKE new weapons.)

So, together, three very good reason why something else would happen before Idiocracy. Each of them would be something which would be popular as movie but not good to live through. Not sure which of one would be first. Maybe all at once.

On 5/28/2020 at 8:08 PM, ChronosCat said:
On 5/28/2020 at 6:44 AM, hkmaly said:

Of course they are lumped with birds.

However, I didn't realized this made them no longer reptiles.

Generally it is assumed an animal cannot be both a bird and a reptile, or both a mammal and a reptile, or reptile and amphibian, etc.

On the other hand, I've also heard it argued that birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians are all really just varieties of fish...

We already have word for this: vertebrate.

On the other hand, the definition of fish might not be clear enough to survive, considering neither shark nor dolphin are fish.

On 5/28/2020 at 8:42 PM, Darth Fluffy said:

There's a bit of 'Pluto is not a planet'

Yeah, that was ugly as well.

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8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yeah, that was ugly as well.

It made sense per the criteria. There's a whole belt of Pluto-like objects.

This has happened before. Initially, individual asteroids were considered to be planets, until it was discovered how numerous they are. Today, we don't even question it. When's the last time you heard someone protesting that Vesta should be a planet? Neither have I.

 

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

We already have word for this: vertebrate.

True, and you are highlighting a point, the move to realign the 'tree of life' makes sense in many cases, but the adherents are often overzealous. I find it useful to be able to easily distinguish between modern birds and dinosaurs without having to explain myself. "I like birds.", "Yes, the T Rex skeleton at the museum of Natural History is most impressive. I quite agree."

 

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

On the other hand, the definition of fish might not be clear enough to survive, considering neither shark nor dolphin are fish.

I don't think most people, even older children are confused by 'whales are mammals not fish'. I could be wrong; I haven't lived outside the US.

Sharks are fish by any definition I've ever read. They have a skeleton, made of cartilage rather than bone. By descent, and in terms of structures and function, they are fish.

Lampreys and hagfish are weirder, apparently having had vertebrae in the distant past.

All that behind us, focusing on the biologic descent for classification is cultural. I wouldn't say it's 'wrong' for a culture, especially an ancient one, to have a more functional view, it's just odd from our point of view. But we still have hold overs; I believe we've already discussed 'seafood' is a pretty broad term that does not use a biologic structure.

 

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Wasn't almost everyone white there? :)

Yes. President Camacho was not, but few others. The three travelers from the past were split down the middle, as it were, if you go by the actors. Maya Rudolph is 50%/50%.

 

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Civilization moves FAST. And not only it does, it MUST because it's pursued by problems its causing. The idea of Idiocracy was that everyone was stupid but somehow the world didn't collapsed. While the premise of people going more and more stupid due to evolution would be plausible by itself, in time required for that to happen and without clever people doing technological advances some problem would catch up and kill most of world population ... which would be extreme evolution pressure for solution. Also, the factories for contraceptives would stop working.

True. It was a fictional spoof meant to highlight cultural deficiencies.

I think if you examine it, the basic premise is wrong; these people are not just acting stupid in a conventional sense, they are part of a culture that is intrinsically stupid in its point of view. As if high school culture had taken over society. Sort of like getting all of your information from Fox news, then believing all media is biased, except Fox, of course. The police used a dumbed down, politically correct vocabulary, but they used big words.

 

8 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, while it's easy to see how Idiocracy could happen in US, it's less likely it would happen in whole world, or at least not at same speed. There would be nations taking advantage of US going stupid. (They already are, in fact.) Probably war. Again, evolution pressure.

Whoa there, Trigger, the US has no monopoly on the commodity, 'stupidity'. If anything, we're a bit of a late comer to the game. I'll grant that we're highlighting ourselves in our attempt to make up for lost time, but have you noticed that things aren't exactly peachy everywhere else either?
 

Quote

 

"Want some more hay, Trigger?"  "No thanks, Roy, I'm stuffed."

 

 

9 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And finally ... stupid people are easier to control. You only need ONE clever person to take over and decide it's time for some eugenics. It would be end of democracy, but it's quite likely it would be positive from evolution standpoint. (There are some signs of this happening as well, actually. So far it's about race, but as long as someone is thinking about eugenics, well, someone needs to be researching new weapons and people like this LIKE new weapons.)

<sigh> That is simply not true. I don't even get why you think it is true. Germany in the early part of the twentieth century was at the forefront of science. The Soviet Union led the space race. China is at the cutting edge of technology. Hell, I know some Fox viewers personally, and I wouldn't call them stupid. Quite the opposite. I don't know how they drank that Cool Aid, nor why it holds them, but many of them are otherwise bright people.

Unity behind some ideal seems to be the common thread to being controllable. Unified people are willing to make significant sacrifices toward their goals. Stupid people, on the other hand, do their own thing and won't unite, and are more difficult to control.

 

9 hours ago, hkmaly said:

So far it's about race, but as long as someone is thinking about eugenics, well, someone needs to be researching new weapons and people like this LIKE new weapons.

Yeah, that went so well the last time, huh?

 

9 hours ago, hkmaly said:

So, together, three very good reason why something else would happen before Idiocracy. Each of them would be something which would be popular as movie but not good to live through. Not sure which of one would be first. Maybe all at once.

I quite agree, I don't give us great odds to survive long enough for Idiocracy to happen.

 

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5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yeah, that was ugly as well.

It made sense per the criteria. There's a whole belt of Pluto-like objects.

This has happened before. Initially, individual asteroids were considered to be planets, until it was discovered how numerous they are. Today, we don't even question it. When's the last time you heard someone protesting that Vesta should be a planet? Neither have I.

Whole belt maybe, but not THAT many. Granted, students are likely glad they don't need to learn more planets.

Also, the criteria needs to be VERY specific to exclude Pluto. Earth co-orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and Jupiter has 100,000 trojans in its orbital path. "If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there", said Stern, current leader of NASA's New Horizons mission.

This whole thing is just religious discrimination. Hail Eris!

(Also, the people deciding that should be careful not to die. Pluto might take it personally.)

6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

We already have word for this: vertebrate.

True, and you are highlighting a point, the move to realign the 'tree of life' makes sense in many cases, but the adherents are often overzealous. I find it useful to be able to easily distinguish between modern birds and dinosaurs without having to explain myself. "I like birds.", "Yes, the T Rex skeleton at the museum of Natural History is most impressive. I quite agree."

Yes. It is useful to have categories of animals which don't really match the evolution tree.
On the other hand, the T Rex skeleton IS impressive.
 

6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

On the other hand, the definition of fish might not be clear enough to survive, considering neither shark nor dolphin are fish.

I don't think most people, even older children are confused by 'whales are mammals not fish'. I could be wrong; I haven't lived outside the US.

They are AWARE of that. I don't think that means they are not confused.

6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Sharks are fish by any definition I've ever read. They have a skeleton, made of cartilage rather than bone. By descent, and in terms of structures and function, they are fish.

Interesting. In my language, only Osteichthyes are considered "fish". This makes me wonder who made the distinction and how it happened that it was different decision than in English.

6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, while it's easy to see how Idiocracy could happen in US, it's less likely it would happen in whole world, or at least not at same speed. There would be nations taking advantage of US going stupid. (They already are, in fact.) Probably war. Again, evolution pressure.

Whoa there, Trigger, the US has no monopoly on the commodity, 'stupidity'. If anything, we're a bit of a late comer to the game. I'll grant that we're highlighting ourselves in our attempt to make up for lost time, but have you noticed that things aren't exactly peachy everywhere else either?

Hmmm ... you definitely don't have the monopoly but you seem to be the one making game from it ... and trying to win. But you also have the point that it seems to be relatively recent development.

There is definitely no shortage of stupid politicians everywhere ... and people voting for them ... hmmm ... ok, I'm not sure where exactly is that coming from. Must be something in media. Oh, wait, media ... there is no shortage of stupid celebrities elsewhere either, but you definitely have most celebrities, so maybe that's the reason?

Still, I'm keeping the point it's unlikely to happen everywhere at same speed.

6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And finally ... stupid people are easier to control. You only need ONE clever person to take over and decide it's time for some eugenics. It would be end of democracy, but it's quite likely it would be positive from evolution standpoint. (There are some signs of this happening as well, actually. So far it's about race, but as long as someone is thinking about eugenics, well, someone needs to be researching new weapons and people like this LIKE new weapons.)

<sigh> That is simply not true. I don't even get why you think it is true. Germany in the early part of the twentieth century was at the forefront of science. The Soviet Union led the space race. China is at the cutting edge of technology. Hell, I know some Fox viewers personally, and I wouldn't call them stupid. Quite the opposite. I don't know how they drank that Cool Aid, nor why it holds them, but many of them are otherwise bright people.

Unity behind some ideal seems to be the common thread to being controllable. Unified people are willing to make significant sacrifices toward their goals. Stupid people, on the other hand, do their own thing and won't unite, and are more difficult to control.

Your point that even clever people can do surprisingly stupid decisions if they catch some idea is definitely true, but it's still easier to infect stupid people. Intelligent people are more likely to resist. Universities were always places protesting against those leaders. Granted, they are also places protesting about other things, and can catch some stupid ideas themselves ... but still. That's why I think it's true, in any case.
During cold war, lot of clever people emigrated to west, often specifically US, because "communists" regime was not nice to them. Another reason.

Also, the Soviet Union led the race but didn't really had better technology. More ... determination I think would be the word. And possibly courage. Or desperation. But not technology, at least not technology in general, there likely were some specific technologies used in space race they had best until US took the lead. And China is not cutting edge of technology either, it is still stealing ideas from elsewhere (mainly the factories companies from rest of world are building there). It's Korea (the South one) who is cutting edge of technology now, after stealing that from Japan. And, I suppose, still US, considering both Intel and AMD are still operating from California.

Of course, if you look at big projects, China leads because it has lot of space for them, lot of money and is playing catch up. And can afford to ignore people living around and ecology.

6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

So far it's about race, but as long as someone is thinking about eugenics, well, someone needs to be researching new weapons and people like this LIKE new weapons.

Yeah, that went so well the last time, huh?

Last time it wasn't long enough to really have effect on genes. It still caused gigantic technological progress. It also caused lot of suffering, of course, but evolution doesn't care about suffering. If it did, birth would be much more pleasurable experience for mothers.

Remember cold war again: both sides wanted better weapons. Both US and Soviet Union specifically worked hard on capturing german scientists. If regime which believes in eugenics would be doing steps like that, those scientists would DEFINITELY be forced to reproduce.

(Of course, Wernher von Braun specifically wouldn't need much help on that.)

7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

So, together, three very good reason why something else would happen before Idiocracy. Each of them would be something which would be popular as movie but not good to live through. Not sure which of one would be first. Maybe all at once.

I quite agree, I don't give us great odds to survive long enough for Idiocracy to happen.

Yeah.

I still believe we manage to have technological progress which will save us from all those problems. But I don't believe anything else can save us. Well, ok, personal intervention of major deity, but those usually tend to be SOURCES of catastrophes, not solution for them.

 

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

"If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there", said Stern, current leader of NASA's New Horizons mission.

Neptune and Pluto are in an orbital resonance such that they never get close to each other. In fact, Uranus and Pluto get closer than Neptune and Pluto do.

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Whole belt maybe, but not THAT many. Granted, students are likely glad they don't need to learn more planets.

Also, the criteria needs to be VERY specific to exclude Pluto. Earth co-orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and Jupiter has 100,000 trojans in its orbital path. "If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there", said Stern, current leader of NASA's New Horizons mission.

This whole thing is just religious discrimination. Hail Eris!

(Also, the people deciding that should be careful not to die. Pluto might take it personally.)

The Kuiper Belt is very big, very far, and dimly lit. Quoting Wiki - " It is similar to the asteroid belt, but is far larger—20 times as wide and 20 to 200 times as massive." It should not surprise you that we know more about the astroid belt, which we've known about for hundreds of years compared to the Kuiper belt, which was discovered in our lifetime. In spite of which, thousands of Kuiper Belt Object have been discovered. Only a few dwarf planets like Pluto, but in terms of resonance lock with Neptune Pluto is not unique, there's a class of similar objects, dubbed plutoids.

I am curious if that was a dual reference to Eris and Eris?

The man you want to sling mud at is Michael E. Brown. I read his book, he makes a good case.

 

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

On the other hand, the T Rex skeleton IS impressive.

If I put up a bird feeder and set out bird seed, I do not want T Rexes showing up. "Damn birds ate the neighbors kids again!"

 

 

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6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

They are AWARE of that. I don't think that means they are not confused.

Interesting. In my language, only Osteichthyes are considered "fish". This makes me wonder who made the distinction and how it happened that it was different decision than in English.

Convergent evolution, determined by the media they swam in. Ichthyosaurs (literally: fish lizard) had the same form.

The biological classification should be language independent, that's why they use Latin names. But there are controversies over traditional classifications vs newer classifications based on DNA analysis. Informal language is not so precise. In English, any small chitinous creature might be referred to as 'a bug', as in "Get that bug off of me!", even though bugs are a kind of insect.

What do you call sharks and rays? What about lampreys and hagfish?

 

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... you definitely don't have the monopoly but you seem to be the one making game from it ... and trying to win. But you also have the point that it seems to be relatively recent development.

There is definitely no shortage of stupid politicians everywhere ... and people voting for them ... hmmm ... ok, I'm not sure where exactly is that coming from. Must be something in media. Oh, wait, media ... there is no shortage of stupid celebrities elsewhere either, but you definitely have most celebrities, so maybe that's the reason?

Still, I'm keeping the point it's unlikely to happen everywhere at same speed.

Win?

The Interwebs has really made it clear how ubiquitous wrong headed notions are. It's a speed equalizer, too; not 100%, but it's difficult to be isolated today.

 

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Your point that even clever people can do surprisingly stupid decisions if they catch some idea is definitely true, but it's still easier to infect stupid people. Intelligent people are more likely to resist. Universities were always places protesting against those leaders. Granted, they are also places protesting about other things, and can catch some stupid ideas themselves ... but still. That's why I think it's true, in any case.

During cold war, lot of clever people emigrated to west, often specifically US, because "communists" regime was not nice to them. Another reason.

Also, the Soviet Union led the race but didn't really had better technology. More ... determination I think would be the word. And possibly courage. Or desperation. But not technology, at least not technology in general, there likely were some specific technologies used in space race they had best until US took the lead. And China is not cutting edge of technology either, it is still stealing ideas from elsewhere (mainly the factories companies from rest of world are building there). It's Korea (the South one) who is cutting edge of technology now, after stealing that from Japan. And, I suppose, still US, considering both Intel and AMD are still operating from California.

Of course, if you look at big projects, China leads because it has lot of space for them, lot of money and is playing catch up. And can afford to ignore people living around and ecology.

You make some good points. We could probably talk about this for days, but I don't feel like writing a book here.

I like how you have communists in quotes. I agree that many regimes, particularly the Soviets, were not exactly communist, more like autocratic totalitarian thugs with a communist paint job.

Russian technology is interesting. It is easy to downplay it and undersell it, and they've had issues, but they had many major successes. Their design philosophies are different than Americas; we took a page from Germany's book, and over-design overly complex systems. Well, sometimes that's great. The Russian approach is build it so a monkey can operate it. When Ivan show up to the party drunk, he can still fire his weapon.

China, on the other hand is hungry and has vision. India is there, too. Noteworthy, they've both developed space programs on their own.

 

6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Last time it wasn't long enough to really have effect on genes. It still caused gigantic technological progress. It also caused lot of suffering, of course, but evolution doesn't care about suffering. If it did, birth would be much more pleasurable experience for mothers.

Remember cold war again: both sides wanted better weapons. Both US and Soviet Union specifically worked hard on capturing german scientists. If regime which believes in eugenics would be doing steps like that, those scientists would DEFINITELY be forced to reproduce.

(Of course, Wernher von Braun specifically wouldn't need much help on that.)

Yep. I find it appalling that we are forgetting the horror and pain war brings, the sacrifice societies that conduct warfare endure. But it makes sense; the first generation experiences it, the next generation hears about it from their parents and the media, by the third generation its history lessons. I felt the same way about WW I, the so called 'War to end all Wars'. To far back to relate to, I did not know anyone who had participated. And that was closer to my childhood than WW II is to today.

 

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Yeah.

I still believe we manage to have technological progress which will save us from all those problems. But I don't believe anything else can save us. Well, ok, personal intervention of major deity, but those usually tend to be SOURCES of catastrophes, not solution for them.

A super volcano could change our albedo enough to stave off global warming. It's happened before.

We could nuke ourselves back to the stone age, which might cu down on greenhouse gases and give fish and whales a chance to repopulate.

Lots of peachy scenarios.

 

 

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Global warming is less "end of Mankind" than it is "our coastal cities will flood and we'll have ten billion people to feed but only enough crop production for eight billion". Nations may fall, technology may stagnate or even backslide, many would die, but human civilization as a whole would continue.

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7 hours ago, ijuin said:

Global warming is less "end of Mankind" than it is "our coastal cities will flood and we'll have ten billion people to feed but only enough crop production for eight billion". Nations may fall, technology may stagnate or even backslide, many would die, but human civilization as a whole would continue.

Ooo, another optimist. I do hope you're right. Venus does not look like a pleasant place to dwell.

The sad theory is that at a certain point the enhanced heating becomes self-sustaining, and you reach a new much hotter stable point. At some point, from our PoV, the climate runs away and can no longer recover. No chance for carbon sequestration, for instance. It is a bit of a long stretch from 40 degrees C to 100 degrees C. Up until then I suppose we have some chance. Or something does.

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Oh, things will suck for most people, with death and poverty on a scale not seen since the Black Death of the 14th Century, but there will be enough survivors that humanity will continue.

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17 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The biological classification should be language independent, that's why they use Latin names. But there are controversies over traditional classifications vs newer classifications based on DNA analysis. Informal language is not so precise. In English, any small chitinous creature might be referred to as 'a bug', as in "Get that bug off of me!", even though bugs are a kind of insect.

Not just over major groups like dinosaurs/birds or insects/bugs. The maned wolf is referred to in some languages as the "tall fox", and it's neither a wolf nor a fox - although it is a canid. The aardwolf, on the other hand, is not even caniformia - with "wolf" right there in its name, it's actually a species of hyena, which are more closely related to cats.

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21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Only a few dwarf planets like Pluto

What I meant by "not that many".

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

It should not surprise you that we know more about the astroid belt

... well, ok, maybe there are more hiding.

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I am curious if that was a dual reference to Eris and Eris?

It was a triple reference to Eris, Eris and Eris.

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The man you want to sling mud at is Michael E. Brown. I read his book, he makes a good case.

I think Pluto will find more fitting punishment. Remember Sisyphus? Oh, wait, that was Zeus thinking that up.

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
On 6/1/2020 at 1:40 AM, hkmaly said:

On the other hand, the T Rex skeleton IS impressive.

If I put up a bird feeder and set out bird seed, I do not want T Rexes showing up. "Damn birds ate the neighbors kids again!"

I don't think T Rex would care about bird feeder.

I think even the neighbor kids would be too small for him to consider, although he might eat them if they got into way.

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The biological classification should be language independent, that's why they use Latin names. But there are controversies over traditional classifications vs newer classifications based on DNA analysis. Informal language is not so precise. In English, any small chitinous creature might be referred to as 'a bug', as in "Get that bug off of me!", even though bugs are a kind of insect.

Yeah, spiders would be prime example of something often called bug despite being VERY different.

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

What do you call sharks and rays?

To "translate", we call Chondrichthyes false fish. Well, ok, mostly we call them fish, but it's supposed to be almost as big deal as calling Cetacea fish.

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

What about lampreys and hagfish?

We mostly don't call them. Like, sure, there is "local" name for Cystostomata, but unlike the issue with sharks this is not likely to appear in normal conversation.

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Win?

I fail to see what's there to win either. But I fail to see while celebrities boast about not being good at math in shool instead of being ashamed of it too.

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The Interwebs has really made it clear how ubiquitous wrong headed notions are. It's a speed equalizer, too; not 100%, but it's difficult to be isolated today.

It's not. Lot of people are watching it and makes fun of how stupid other people are. Like, unless it's something they mistaken for good idea :) but that's not that common unless they are already stupid.

(Not TOO rare either, but not that common.)

Oh, and yes, lot of those videos are from US. It's normal as US is relatively big and with lot of people having access to internet, but it DOES have some influence on subconscious internal image of US population.

...
... damn. Quote stopped working again, I'm going for another post, sorry.

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21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I like how you have communists in quotes. I agree that many regimes, particularly the Soviets, were not exactly communist, more like autocratic totalitarian thugs with a communist paint job.

I'm not sure there are any real communists (it's idea which looks good on paper but not as good in real life in anything bigger than city) but Soviets especially were very far from the idea.
 

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Russian technology is interesting. It is easy to downplay it and undersell it, and they've had issues, but they had many major successes. Their design philosophies are different than Americas; we took a page from Germany's book, and over-design overly complex systems. Well, sometimes that's great. The Russian approach is build it so a monkey can operate it. When Ivan show up to the party drunk, he can still fire his weapon.

True. AK-47 is definitely technological accomplishment and in general, Russian technology was more robust (which is VERY important for weapons), but space race eventually showed that the complex systems are necessary.
Note: it's not just page. You took the scientists too, was already mentioned :)

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

China, on the other hand is hungry and has vision. India is there, too. Noteworthy, they've both developed space programs on their own.

Yes, but I would say they are still playing catch-up. But you are right they have vision. I don't think they can get better than South Korea in technology, but South Korea is too small to have enough money for things as space program ... and China and India CAN get better than US and Europe.

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Yep. I find it appalling that we are forgetting the horror and pain war brings, the sacrifice societies that conduct warfare endure. But it makes sense; the first generation experiences it, the next generation hears about it from their parents and the media, by the third generation its history lessons. I felt the same way about WW I, the so called 'War to end all Wars'. To far back to relate to, I did not know anyone who had participated. And that was closer to my childhood than WW II is to today.

It's appalling and dangerous, it can easily result in another war ... and THAT may get dangerously close to "war to end all wars" if nuclear weapons will be involved.

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
On 6/1/2020 at 1:40 AM, hkmaly said:

Yeah.

I still believe we manage to have technological progress which will save us from all those problems. But I don't believe anything else can save us. Well, ok, personal intervention of major deity, but those usually tend to be SOURCES of catastrophes, not solution for them.

A super volcano could change our albedo enough to stave off global warming. It's happened before.

We could nuke ourselves back to the stone age, which might cu down on greenhouse gases and give fish and whales a chance to repopulate.

Lots of peachy scenarios.

True, there ARE ways how the catastrophes may counteract each other.

However, I really hope we won't nuke ourselves to stone age, as there is not enough fossil fuels to get back to technology age from there without waiting hundred of millions of years for them to replenish.

10 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
18 hours ago, ijuin said:

Global warming is less "end of Mankind" than it is "our coastal cities will flood and we'll have ten billion people to feed but only enough crop production for eight billion". Nations may fall, technology may stagnate or even backslide, many would die, but human civilization as a whole would continue.

Ooo, another optimist. I do hope you're right. Venus does not look like a pleasant place to dwell.

The sad theory is that at a certain point the enhanced heating becomes self-sustaining, and you reach a new much hotter stable point. At some point, from our PoV, the climate runs away and can no longer recover. No chance for carbon sequestration, for instance. It is a bit of a long stretch from 40 degrees C to 100 degrees C. Up until then I suppose we have some chance. Or something does.

Venus doesn't look like a pleasant place, but is way closer to sun. There should be few stable points between current one and Venus for us.

But yes, if we stop hoping we will be able to stop it and start to actually adapt, we should be able to survive and even keep most of technology.

3 hours ago, Don Edwards said:
21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

The biological classification should be language independent, that's why they use Latin names. But there are controversies over traditional classifications vs newer classifications based on DNA analysis. Informal language is not so precise. In English, any small chitinous creature might be referred to as 'a bug', as in "Get that bug off of me!", even though bugs are a kind of insect.

Not just over major groups like dinosaurs/birds or insects/bugs. The maned wolf is referred to in some languages as the "tall fox", and it's neither a wolf nor a fox - although it is a canid. The aardwolf, on the other hand, is not even caniformia - with "wolf" right there in its name, it's actually a species of hyena, which are more closely related to cats.

And that's not talking about koala bears, who are about as close to bears as guinea pigs to pigs.

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4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

What I meant by "not that many".

OK, fair enough, I'm thinking, thousands of TNOs, you're thinking 'just a few round ball TNOs.

 

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm not sure there are any real communists.

Cuba

 

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(it's idea which looks good on paper but not as good in real life in anything bigger than city)

I think that's right, maybe even not as big as a city. A small tribal village or a communal enclave, yes, I can see that working. Blood ties help, to ease the social motivations and responses. Hunt large game, share it among the clan, this works.

 

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Note: it's not just page. You took the scientists too, was already mentioned :)

Both sides grabbed scientists, although quite a few fled to the Americans. We also got quite a few physicists before the war.

 

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And that's not talking about koala bears, who are about as close to bears as guinea pigs to pigs.

Oz has a whole native marsupial ecosystem that's largely analogs of placental mammals that exist elsewhere, and they tend to get named that way. Roos have no equivalent, they fill the niche of grazers, with a different form.

Koalas are quite un-bear-like, in every sense, but they do look like teddy bears.

Guinea pigs may be called that from being fed scraps to fatten them up to eat.

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I'm not sure there are any real communists.

Cuba

The country where US dollar is used in normal economy? I doubt it. Probably closer than Soviets, but that's not that hard.

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(it's idea which looks good on paper but not as good in real life in anything bigger than city)

I think that's right, maybe even not as big as a city. A small tribal village or a communal enclave, yes, I can see that working. Blood ties help, to ease the social motivations and responses. Hunt large game, share it among the clan, this works.

I think there are cities somewhere in Israel where it works - I'm pretty sure they claim so. Well, ok, maybe it's more like towns or villages, certainly not as big cities as New York.

Hmmm ... (googling ...) ... around thousand people top? Ok that's more like village. Still, I would believe if someone would said it can be extended to ten thousand. Hundred thousand, no. Millions? No way.

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:
6 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Note: it's not just page. You took the scientists too, was already mentioned :)

Both sides grabbed scientists, although quite a few fled to the Americans. We also got quite a few physicists before the war.

You also got quite a lot of scientist from Germany during cold war ... and possibly in other times as well.
In Soviet union, they forced the scientists to work in their way. You left the scientist work in their way, resulting in mentioned similarities between design philosophies.

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Oz

Oz have a muse, wicked witches, yellow road, smaragd city and no aging except for Dorothies. No marsupials. :)

1 hour ago, Darth Fluffy said:

has a whole native marsupial ecosystem that's largely analogs of placental mammals that exist elsewhere, and they tend to get named that way. Roos have no equivalent, they fill the niche of grazers, with a different form.

Koalas are quite un-bear-like, in every sense, but they do look like teddy bears.

Guinea pigs may be called that from being fed scraps to fatten them up to eat.

There are some explanations. Doesn't change the fact it's informal language not aligned with biological classification.

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1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

The country where US dollar is used in normal economy? I doubt it. Probably closer than Soviets, but that's not that hard.

Ill founded confidence in paper that represents the value of the economy of the nation that treats them like an adversary, but so what, how does that make Cuba not communist?

 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

I think there are cities somewhere in Israel where it works - I'm pretty sure they claim so. Well, ok, maybe it's more like towns or villages, certainly not as big cities as New York.

Monasteries as well.

 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... (googling ...) ... around thousand people top? Ok that's more like village. Still, I would believe if someone would said it can be extended to ten thousand. Hundred thousand, no. Millions? No way.

I think it's a question of human nature; we are geared to think locally. It's hard to get cooperation across a map. But with ideology, you can accomplish something. China makes use of this, and whatever place you'd assign it to in your vocabulary, you can't argue that China isn't successful, nor 'small, so the model should apply'. It helps, also, that they are culturally acclimated to cooperation more so than, for instance, the US is.

I do think China is communist, but not purely so.

 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Oz have a muse, wicked witches, yellow road, smaragd city and no aging except for Dorothies. No marsupials. :)

... and they walk around upside down. What's up with that? But they don't fall off, which proves the world sucks.

 

 

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20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
23 hours ago, hkmaly said:

The country where US dollar is used in normal economy? I doubt it. Probably closer than Soviets, but that's not that hard.

Ill founded confidence in paper that represents the value of the economy of the nation that treats them like an adversary, but so what, how does that make Cuba not communist?

Shouldn't communism work without ANY money?

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
23 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I think there are cities somewhere in Israel where it works - I'm pretty sure they claim so. Well, ok, maybe it's more like towns or villages, certainly not as big cities as New York.

Monasteries as well.

Well, I wouldn't expect monasteries to be bigger than village. I couldn't rule out I'm mistaken, though ...

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I think it's a question of human nature; we are geared to think locally. It's hard to get cooperation across a map. But with ideology, you can accomplish something. China makes use of this, and whatever place you'd assign it to in your vocabulary, you can't argue that China isn't successful, nor 'small, so the model should apply'. It helps, also, that they are culturally acclimated to cooperation more so than, for instance, the US is.

I do think China is communist, but not purely so.

China is VERY capitalist. They are saying something about socialist market economy, but come on, how socialist - or communist - can be country where financial markets exist which permit private share ownership? (Also, rest of article.)

20 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

... and they walk around upside down. What's up with that? But they don't fall off, which proves the world sucks.

Nah, it proves that mother Earth is very attractive.

 

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Shouldn't communism work without ANY money?

No, at some point you have private ownership, it is a question of where you draw that line. Even tribal or family. Your dwelling, where you sleep, your toothbrush. You could be in a situation, perhaps a cult, where there was no ownership of anything, but disease would spread, and life would be horrific. Even your own body might not be your, and that would not be fun.

 

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well, I wouldn't expect monasteries to be bigger than village. I couldn't rule out I'm mistaken, though ...

That sounds right. I don't know that much about them, but many of them seem to be rather prosperous. But not overly large.

 

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

China is VERY capitalist. They are saying something about socialist market economy, but come on, how socialist - or communist - can be country where financial markets exist which permit private share ownership? (Also, rest of article.)

Yes, that has occurred to me; while adhering strongly to the notions of central control and planning, China also has limited private ownership, but enough so that it's a real incentive, and a thriving economy. My take on this is you can have an economy that is both communist and capitalist. Without China to demonstrate, i would not have thought it was possible. On reflection, it seems obvious.

Another point of view would be, 'they're not communist, they're socialist'. They would be the first to disagree, and there is that strong central control to account for, so unless you want to break it down into aspects of what they do, I'd say the communist label fits better.

That strong central control bites them in the ass from time to time. Plays to the same kind of thinking as the pointy haired boss in Dilbert. Think the beginning of COVID-19 and the ill-founded attempt to cover up. It's endemic, what else would they have done? Look what happened to the doctor that thought the facts mattered.

 

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Nah, it proves that mother Earth is very attractive.

It could be both. You're on a date with a really hot woman ....

 

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11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Shouldn't communism work without ANY money?

No, at some point you have private ownership, it is a question of where you draw that line. Even tribal or family. Your dwelling, where you sleep, your toothbrush. You could be in a situation, perhaps a cult, where there was no ownership of anything, but disease would spread, and life would be horrific. Even your own body might not be your, and that would not be fun.

Your assumption that there must be some private ownership is based on assumption that communism must work. Of course, women do have experience with cases where their body is are not theirs ...
However, money have no own value ; there are just a tool to ease trading. There really should be no point of single person having any money in communism. That doesn't mean you can't own bed or toothbrush. And if you are worried that some sort of trade with using toothbrushes instead of money would appear, then you are worried that communism won't work.

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

China is VERY capitalist. They are saying something about socialist market economy, but come on, how socialist - or communist - can be country where financial markets exist which permit private share ownership? (Also, rest of article.)

Yes, that has occurred to me; while adhering strongly to the notions of central control and planning, China also has limited private ownership, but enough so that it's a real incentive, and a thriving economy. My take on this is you can have an economy that is both communist and capitalist. Without China to demonstrate, i would not have thought it was possible. On reflection, it seems obvious.

Another point of view would be, 'they're not communist, they're socialist'. They would be the first to disagree, and there is that strong central control to account for, so unless you want to break it down into aspects of what they do, I'd say the communist label fits better.

They have quite lot of central control, but actually less than they used to. They keep strong central POLITICAL control, but give lot of freedom in the economy sense.

Also, well, just because they are saying something doesn't mean it's true. They keep strong control over what is allowed to be said as well, after all.

11 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
14 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Nah, it proves that mother Earth is very attractive.

It could be both. You're on a date with a really hot woman ....

Oh yeah, she's definitely hot as well. Look at any volcano.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Your assumption that there must be some private ownership is based on assumption that communism must work. Of course, women do have experience with cases where their body is are not theirs ...
However, money have no own value ; there are just a tool to ease trading. There really should be no point of single person having any money in communism. That doesn't mean you can't own bed or toothbrush. And if you are worried that some sort of trade with using toothbrushes instead of money would appear, then you are worried that communism won't work.

There are cultures like that, and they tend to be very small. money has it's uses, in any system, to track value; makes barter and even leveling easier. And negatives, like hoarding.

Re: Money has no value, that's a newish thing. For most of history, money had the value of the metal it was made of. Even so, debasing currency is also very old. Paper started as promises to surrender metal, but now it's just faith in the economy.

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Basing your money on a commodity (such as a metal) always brings the problem that you can not consistently grow your money supply to match your economy. If the economy grows more than the money supply, then you get deflation, which is economically equivalent to everybody receiving interest on all held money--i.e. it encourages people to hoard money and not invest it in creating/adding value.

Let's compare some prices: In 1908, the US dollar was worth 1/20 of a troy ounce of gold ($20/oz.). The Ford Model T debuted that year at a price of $850, equivalent to about $24,000 today. That puts the price of the car at about 42 ounces of gold--3 1/2 troy pounds. Today (03 June 2020), the price of Gold on the New York commodity exchange closed at $1,700.80/oz. 42 ounces at that price would be worth $71,400. Thus, the value of gold has increased by a factor of three relative to general price levels over the past 112 years.

Let's say that you want to grow your economy at 2.0% per year (an slightly-below-average amount for industrial nations over the past three centuries). In order for gold-backed currency to keep up, you would have to mine as much gold over the next forty years as the entire history of mankind. And then you would have to double that amount over the NEXT forty years after that, and so on. Eventually you will need more gold than could be recovered even if you diverted all non-essential activity towards gold extraction.

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On 6/4/2020 at 5:17 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

There are cultures like that, and they tend to be very small. money has it's uses, in any system, to track value; makes barter and even leveling easier. And negatives, like hoarding.

I agree ... I'm just saying that communism disagree.

On 6/4/2020 at 5:17 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

Re: Money has no value, that's a newish thing. For most of history, money had the value of the metal it was made of. Even so, debasing currency is also very old. Paper started as promises to surrender metal, but now it's just faith in the economy.

For most of history, money was supposed to have the value of the metal but it only worked because everyone believed that. If the metal was not used for money, it's price would react much quicker on how much it's mined at that moment.
Granted, the metal the money were made of had SOME value. Currently, not counting the faith in economy of specific country (and, seriously, how much faith you have in say Greek economy? Oh, right, they are paying with Euro so it's Germany economy holding the faith up), the money have less value than the electrons used to store them in bank's electronic systems.

On 6/4/2020 at 8:05 AM, ijuin said:

Basing your money on a commodity (such as a metal) always brings the problem that you can not consistently grow your money supply to match your economy. If the economy grows more than the money supply, then you get deflation, which is economically equivalent to everybody receiving interest on all held money--i.e. it encourages people to hoard money and not invest it in creating/adding value.

Not that anyone ever wanted to grow money supply just to match the economy. Banks always grows the money supply more, creating inflation, which is sort of tax on holding money. Which means that people who were working honestly all their live saving for retirement were ALWAYS robbed by their governments.
Also, if economy really grows, you can get even MORE rich by investing in right way.

However, it's true that inflation encourages you to invest even if you don't know into what, which is, again, a good mechanism to steal from people who spend too much time working to have time to play the economy.

Based on success of capitalism in last few centuries, it seems that the system is better than all tried alternatives, but it's definitely not fair. Well ... maybe that's it: maybe unfair systems have better results than fair ones. Maybe it's good to have system of moving money from people who would only spend them on comfortable retirement to people who have ideas how to make world better. On the other hand, this kind of thinking is dangerously close to deciding to just kill those unproductive old people. After all, if they believed the promise they will enjoy their retirement, maybe they will believe the promise they will enjoy their afterlife ... oh, wait, THAT motivation system was also tried many times through history.

On 6/4/2020 at 8:05 AM, ijuin said:

Let's compare some prices: In 1908, the US dollar was worth 1/20 of a troy ounce of gold ($20/oz.). The Ford Model T debuted that year at a price of $850, equivalent to about $24,000 today. That puts the price of the car at about 42 ounces of gold--3 1/2 troy pounds. Today (03 June 2020), the price of Gold on the New York commodity exchange closed at $1,700.80/oz. 42 ounces at that price would be worth $71,400. Thus, the value of gold has increased by a factor of three relative to general price levels over the past 112 years.

Comparing price of car is useless, it's technology and is changing too much. Even basic stuff like bread could be unreliable as people eat differently now. "General price levels" are supposed to get the correct comparison, but I wouldn't be too sure they got it correctly ... the reasoning is probably still correct, but it's funny when you use exact figures taken from today commodity exchange and then process them with equation based on guesses.

On 6/4/2020 at 8:05 AM, ijuin said:

Let's say that you want to grow your economy at 2.0% per year (an slightly-below-average amount for industrial nations over the past three centuries). In order for gold-backed currency to keep up, you would have to mine as much gold over the next forty years as the entire history of mankind. And then you would have to double that amount over the NEXT forty years after that, and so on. Eventually you will need more gold than could be recovered even if you diverted all non-essential activity towards gold extraction.

There are LOT of people who wants to grow their economy at some value. For some reason, they are very surprised that the economy doesn't care what they want. But, yes, mining all that gold likely wouldn't make it better.

 

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9 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Comparing price of car is useless, it's technology and is changing too much. Even basic stuff like bread could be unreliable as people eat differently now. "General price levels" are supposed to get the correct comparison, but I wouldn't be too sure they got it correctly ... the reasoning is probably still correct, but it's funny when you use exact figures taken from today commodity exchange and then process them with equation based on guesses.

The traditional object cited is a good quality men's suit; an ounce of gold buys you a good quality suit. I think it's been a fairly good illustration historically, but gold is rather high right now relative to suits.

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My point was, gold at present is at a significantly higher price relative to most goods and cheap services than it was in the days when the value of currency was pegged to the price of gold, and this is because there is less gold available in comparison to the overall amount of goods and services. If we had maintained the backing of currency by gold (i.e. had not abandoned the Breton-Woods system of convertibility of currency to gold at rates fixed by governments), then there would necessarily have been massive deflation over the past several decades.

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3 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Comparing price of car is useless, it's technology and is changing too much. Even basic stuff like bread could be unreliable as people eat differently now. "General price levels" are supposed to get the correct comparison, but I wouldn't be too sure they got it correctly ... the reasoning is probably still correct, but it's funny when you use exact figures taken from today commodity exchange and then process them with equation based on guesses.

The traditional object cited is a good quality men's suit; an ounce of gold buys you a good quality suit. I think it's been a fairly good illustration historically, but gold is rather high right now relative to suits.

You mean, fashion is too sane for current prices of gold.
Although, maybe if you include the smartphone, which definitely needs to be part of that suit nowadays ...

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

My point was, gold at present is at a significantly higher price relative to most goods and cheap services than it was in the days when the value of currency was pegged to the price of gold, and this is because there is less gold available in comparison to the overall amount of goods and services. If we had maintained the backing of currency by gold (i.e. had not abandoned the Breton-Woods system of convertibility of currency to gold at rates fixed by governments), then there would necessarily have been massive deflation over the past several decades.

More likely, the amount of gods and services would be lower. Which might not necessarily be bad, if it would mean less shitty low-quality products with short durability and instead something which lasts ...
... obviously, there might be some problem with having less gold available per person (there were just about 1.6 billion people in 1900) but on the other hand, it is debatable if the wealth is really spread in way which makes common people having more wealth that would be possible in gold-based economy.


"What if" scenarios like this may seem simple on first look, but in reality are no more reliable than the "what if Newton have as much success in alchemy as he had in optics".
Only two things are certain: the world will be different ... and rich people wouldn't be as much rich as they are now. After all, allowing rich people to be more rich was the main reason why the change was done, no matter what anybody is claiming.

Oh, and, obviously ... it would be very unlikely to happen. Because the abandoning of gold standard was not decision made randomly. Governments were having increasingly bigger problems with getting enough tax revenue even before world war I, and afterwards it was obvious there is not enough gold to pay for the war ... then, few governments tried to abandon it and start printing money and found that they can get rich by it. Of course rest of the world followed. (Oh, and then second world war happened.)

Since the abandonment of gold standard, we (whole world) are basically living on debt. We can't really return to gold standard without paying that debt - which is impossible. Only if in future we somehow manage to transition to different system (possibly post-scarcity economy) without major crisis the Great Depression would be fun when compared to, we could say it was good idea.

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

"What if" scenarios like this may seem simple on first look, but in reality are no more reliable than the "what if Newton have as much success in alchemy as he had in optics".

Then your precious metal standard would have the value of the lesser of it's current value and the value of producing it from other materials. We can actually do that now. We can synthesis gold from other elements. The cost to do so is prohibitive. The gold may well be an unstable isotope as well.

 

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

 ... then, few governments tried to abandon it and start printing money and found that they can get rich by it.

That didn't really work out for them. No one has ever printed an excess of currency without damaging their economy; in the extreme cases devaluing their currency to such an extent that is became essentially worthless; no one remains rich, the regime changes, and the perpetrators are no longer in control.

Hitler came to power in the wake of one of these events, it was likely a factor.

 

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Since the abandonment of gold standard, we (whole world) are basically living on debt. We can't really return to gold standard without paying that debt - which is impossible. Only if in future we somehow manage to transition to different system (possibly post-scarcity economy) without major crisis the Great Depression would be fun when compared to, we could say it was good idea.

An alternate point of view is that we've expanded the economic standard to include a variety of goods and services, not just one scarce metal. It makes more sense if you think about it that way.

 

 

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