Sure, and I do believe it is significantly worse than the IPCC is "estimating". There are many reasons why the IPCC is very optimistic.
But the result is the same: the IPCC says that we are pretty much screwed, and climate scientists say that this is an optimistic view. How does that hurt the credibility of the IPCC? The IPCC is still saying what the scientists want: we have to change, and quick.
It could lose its credibility if it said "climate change is not that big of a deal", but that's not - and by a long shot - what the IPCC is saying.
You ask ChatGPT if combining bleach and [chemical] is bad. It says there can be some dangerous irritation to the lungs, and not to do it.
You prompt it a couple times with new data that suggests the reaction could be worse, but its story doesn't really change.
So, you put on a respirator, mix the concoction - and it melts through 6 floors of your building while emitting neurotoxic gas.
ChatGPT told you it would be bad. It told you not to do it. But there's a huge difference between what it said would happen and what was actually foreseeable.
Also, the IPCC is not saying that there can be "some dangerous irritation to the lungs". The IPCC is describing catastrophic outcomes. And climate scientists are saying that it is most likely optimistic.
Back to your weird example, it's more akin to ChatGPT saying "don't do it because you will probably die", and you complain because you want ChatGPT to tell you that you will most likely die and that on top of that it will be painful.
The point is that if you don't wanna die and still do it, then you are the problem here, not ChatGPT.
Scouring the article I see no evidence for this claim whatsoever.
> Having the right spirit and the right motivation creates mental well-being, not material or social conditions.
The right spirit and motivation isn't going to help you avoid chromosome & telomere damage, or chronic lack of sleep.
Wouldn't it best to know the risks (and smells) going in? Because that's what the author is laying out. The author isn't stopping you from going into space, just putting the facts out there.
I don’t think anybody who’s serious about off-planet habitation is shirking the risks. They’re just confident that the problems can be solved one way or another and are trying to get the ball rolling so that all the required systems are in place to enable iterating on solutions. That way, when the technology is ready we can just go instead of twiddling our thumbs waiting for tech and systems to arrive.
I have no problem with any of that, though it sure would be cool if we dealt with the worst of our climate, war, inequality and poverty issues before burning money to privatize space.
But clearly laying out the very real risks and discomforts, as the author here as done, doesn't justify accusations of "not being a happy bunny". That's all.
> I have no problem with any of that, though it sure would be cool if we dealt with the worst of our climate, war, inequality and poverty issues before burning money to privatize space.
Sadly, I’m not sure that’s possible. There’s a very high chance that if we wait for those things to be solved before going out, we’ll simply never go out.
That’s why I think it should all be done in parallel.
> There’s a very high chance that if we wait for those things to be solved before going out, we’ll simply never go out.
I think the opposite is true.
Right now, humanity is unable to solve genocide, nuclear proliferation, starvation, incredible inequality; or even airplane food.
If we go out as this privatized mess, there's not a good chance of a positive outcome. Space is too vast - far, far, far, far, far too vast*. And far more dangerous than most people think, as this article scratches the surface of.
If we come together as a species and fix our major problems before we kill the planet, then we have thousands of years to get space right; and when we do, we won't be bringing our massive problems with us.
* - "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is."
> If we come together as a species and fix our major problems before we kill the planet, then we have thousands of years to get space right; and when we do, we won't be bringing our massive problems with us.
That’s the sticking point. I don’t have any faith that this can or will happen. When considering all of the different parties vying for power at any given point, it seems impossible. There’s just too much self-interest from too many powerful forces involved.
There’s a non-trivial chance that we will never come together, even on a millennial time scale. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we either drive ourselves to extinction or go out along with the inner solar system when the sun becomes a red giant without it having ever occurred.
> There’s a non-trivial chance that we will never come together, even on a millennial time scale
If you really believe that, then why do you think we deserve to infest the rest of the galaxy? We'd be planet killers, bringing death and mayhem wherever we god. Intelligent life would be wise to put us out of their misery before we pop our landers.
I believe our problems are solvable, because our problems all seem to boil back to the same tiny group of people fucking things up for everyone... And some of that group are the people privatizing space.
Because the scale of space means that by necessity, humanity will cease to be a monolith. There’s simply no way for a culture that’s scattered across the Sol system and eventually multiple star systems to move as a single piece.
Instead, it’ll splinter into many groups that all undergo independent cultural evolution, each going in its own direction, many of which will be unimpeded by the others. Just by sheer numbers, eventually one (probably multiple) will find a better way forward that leaves the baggage of humanity’s past behind and allows it to become incredibly prosperous.
The chances of something like that happening on Earth seem much lower. We’re too stuck within our local maxima and too beholden to self-preserving power structures for substantial change to occur.
> Only poor people care about test scores as they imagine high test scores is how one can pull themselves out of being poor.
Bashing 'poor people' aside, it's safe to say that on a national level, declining test scores are a warning sign that merits investigation.
> When you are rich you can also do pointless things just for the fun of it like build bridges to nowhere
You can, but there's no small amount of broken window fallacy there.
> None of these are problems unless you try and look at it through a poor man's lens.
I might be too poor to see the joy of building of bridges to nowhere, but there are still 'problems' with declining test scores, government misuse of funds, and pointless infrastructure projects.
> statistically, only poor people like having children
Yeesh. There are at least three reasons why this is completely wrong, but what's more important is that you seem to have a weird bone to pick with "poor people". You really might want to sort that out for yourself.
You've continued to make a habit of attacking other users in comments here, as well as posting an enormous quantity of flamewar comments. Since we've asked you many times not to do this and even unbanned you on condition that you'd stop do, I think enough is enough and have re-banned your account. This is not what HN is for, and badly destroys what it is for.
'Bashing' is a human trait. Software on the internet carries no such emotion.
> declining test scores are a warning sign that merits investigation.
Just as increasing test scores is a warning sign that merits investigation. But that doesn't suggest a problem, only change. What good is wealth if it is not used to user in change?
> there's no small amount of broken window fallacy there.
Not really. The broken window fallacy is based on the idea of breaking windows for the good of the economy. There is nothing to suggest that bridges are being built to nowhere for the good of the economy. Maybe when you are poor the economy is front and centre in your thoughts, but not everything has to be about the economy.
> government misuse of funds, and pointless infrastructure projects.
This can be a problem if you aren't wealthy enough to support it, but, again, this cannot be observed through a poor lens. If the people of Norway (which is a democracy — the people direct the government) want to spend their extensive wealth in a way a poor person would consider foolish, they can. That is benefit of being wealthy.
> There are at least three reasons why this is completely wrong
Looks more like zero reasons. Assuming three wasn't a number randomly pulled out of hat, perhaps something got truncated during preparation of this message?
> but what's more important is that you seem to have a weird bone to pick with "poor people".
Again, software doesn't have this emotion you are trying to personify.
> Your best defense against accusations of classism is that you're software??
"Defending accusations" is a human trait. You again have mistaken the context in which you write.
> Also, I'm fairly sure bots are banned here.
Hacker News is not what is normally considered a bot, but it is decidedly software. What feature of text on orange and beige left you to recognize it as humanity instead of the software that it is?
> The stories have been routinely retracted by the BBC, NYTimes, Washington Post, NPR, etc after they’re later shown false.
Do any of these stories compare to the mainstream media's systematic lies about 40 beheaded babies? Or babies burned in ovens? Or systematic rape? Did the US President launder any of those lies long after they were debunked?
Were the stories about premie babies left to rot at Al Nasr true? Were the stories about Hind Rajab true? Were the stories about civilians being used as target practice while they try to get aid true? Were the stories about the IDF mass murdering a convoy of emergency vehicles and burying them in a shallow unmarked grave true?
Do Hamas have people in the BBC censoring stories they don't like? Did the NYT run huge stories by Hamas "journalists" with no experience and no evidence?
> Yesterday I saw the story that’s been in almost every major news publication showing an emaciated boy starving while his mother holds him with headlines of “Gazan children starving”.
You don't refute that the boy is starving. He's far from the only one. Gaza is in stage 5 of famine; the effect of which will be felt for generations - and you think a photo of a "well fed" (and horrifically traumatized for life) boy proves that they're actually fine??
Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
How many people have been murdered while trying to get aid in the past week? Are those stories lies too, even though they come from whistleblowers who were there; even though there's video of some of the incidents?
Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
My refutation was implicit in the fact that the boy's condition appears to be genetic and that his brother appears healthy and well fed. His mother also appears not to be starving either.
> Read the comments on your own link - they're absolutely vile and I won't repeat them here, but that you think this is making a good case for you is absolutely wild.
I didn't link to those comments nor do I condone them. There's plenty of vile pro-Palestinian comments on X and elsewhere as well.
You also don't deny the veracity of the photo or the full story.
There is real starvation occurring in Gaza, but the IDF has also started scaling up aid and food including announcing safe corridors for UN aid delivery which I believe the IDF should've done sooner.
> Sometimes I almost feel pity for the type of mind that can defend the perpetrators of these acts. But this is going on for 21 months (and 80 years) now. At some point - long past - you become fully complicit by defending this holocaust.
You've convinced yourself it's a holocaust, despite the scales being 2 orders of magnitudes different in number and completely different in actions and intentions. Note it wasn't just 6 million Jews killed in the holocaust, but also 5-6 million Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, disabled people, and more. That's 2 out of every 3 Jewish people in Europe at the time.
Your distortions and semi-irrational accusations don't change the actual realities which are hard enough to estimate.
Estimates place the ratio of combatant to civilian death near to that of other urban wars. Most sources estimate a civilian to combatant death rate of 4:1 in Gaza, while Mosul was 4.7-6.1:1. That's despite Hamas leadership actively using civilians as shields.
There's worse confirmed famine occurring just hundreds of miles some estimates of 522,000 infant deaths due to starvation in Sudan in the last two years alone. Despite 10 times the numbers of people dying in Sudan, much less Yemen and Somolia, they're receiving only a fraction of the international aid or attention that Gazans receive.
Yet it's not sensational or in the headlines everyday, so who cares right?
Even the IDF now admits it had no evidence of Hamas systematically stealing aid [0].
Yet the talking point - which attempted to justify genocide and never had a shred of evidence - will linger for years. I still meet people who think Saddam did 9/11, or that Afghanistan was connected.
I still meet many people who don't even know a third tower fell in NYC that day. When news media repeats a talking point that long, or ignores evidence that long, it makes a very deep impression on the type of person who takes things at face value a little too much.
> As a condition for joining the controlled tour, The New York Times agreed not to ... publish geographic details
> according to the Israeli military
> There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself
> According to the World Health Organization, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals
> In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to scour for traps.
... You read this article as proof vindicating the IDF's version of events? ... Huh.
To echo the parent; it doesn't matter. It didn't matter 2 weeks ago when Israel killed 3 Catholics bombing a church.
The IDF's doctrinal destruction of civilian infrastructure and attacks on hostages are illegal under international law. If the target was entrenched personnel, then leveling a hospital reflects absolutely miserable trigger discipline on the IDF and their officer's behalf. It's not WWI anymore, if we can't agree on international accountability then we learn nothing from the horrors of our mistakes.
It literally does matter. International law literally makes this exact distinction. And the very article we're commenting on states as much.
>Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in very rare cases. If one side uses the site for military purposes, that may make it a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack.
If you want to argue it's illegal, you have to make an argument that it's not proportional vis-a-vis the colocated military infrastructure, because otherwise international law says it's fair play in both letter and spirit. If they were completely off-limits then everybody would co-locate their military and humanitarian infrastructure without much thought - and the end result of that game would be worse for everyone. That's why international law is the way it is. Civilian infrastructure cannot be allowed to be used as a shield for military infrastructure.
On that point - you would have a difficult time making a legal argument that hitting the edge of the parking lot (deliberately avoiding a strike to the hospital itself, and without doing significant structural damage to the hospital) to kill the Hamas #1 (at that time) was not proportional. If you want to make that argument with some other strike (like the church one) then go ahead - I'm extremely open to the idea that the IDF is crossing the line with many of their strikes - but that's a different argument than falsely saying that any strike next to civilian infrastructure is a war crime by default.
If you want to bomb 33 out of 36 hospitals you should need better evidence than a single photo of a tunnel near a hospital. One which Israel built themselves in the 80s btw [0].
And let's not forget that Israel were caught lying about such evidence on multiple occasions in the past. Remember "the list" that was actually a calendar? Remember the MRI room storing 5 guns - or was it 6? Only recently, we had this: [1].
All local and foreign doctors have consistently denied all such IDF claims. All we have is the word of the IDF (while countless UN, HRW, eyewitness reports etc say otherwise).
We know for a fact that Israel have repeatedly targeted medical personnel in their clearly marked vehicles, such as during the Hind Rajab incident; or when they massacred a convoy and buried them in a mass unmarked grave, then claimed that their lights weren't on to 'justify' it until a recovered phone proved otherwise [2].
And we know, without a doubt, who does embed military infrastructure under hospitals and beside civilians. Israel [3].
If you are a real person, arguing in good faith, I urge you to consider how badly you have been lied to. It's never too late to wake up.
Just to clarify - are you referring to the tunnel which Israel built itself in the 80's [0]? The one which was admitted not to even connect to the hospital in your own article?
If so - were you aware that Israel built it?
Or have you been justifying the destruction of at least 33 hospitals, to us and to yourself, this entire time, based solely on that 'evidence'?
Hind Rajab being used as bait to murder aid workers was kind of a tell also.
Or when they bombed all the hospitals [0], or targeted pediatricians and oncologists, and their families [1] for assassination.
Or leaving preemie babies to rot and be eaten by wild dogs at Al Nasr [2].
Or when they dropped over 6 Hiroshimas worth of explosives [3] onto an area roughly equal to a 12 x 12 mile square, populated with over a million children - in Biden's term alone.
There's a lot more. Suffice to say that anyone paying attention has known that the US, Israel, Germany, England and more have been propping up a genocide for quite some time now.
It was flagged, but was restored. Sadly, that's still a bit effective at suppressing the story.
The flags often have the effect of pushing things off the front page, even when they're restored within an hour or so. Not always though: this story [0] from today is currently front page after having been flagged as well.
Even temporary flagging also has the effect of diluting the conversation; so that instead of talking about war crimes, their perpetrators, or how to stop them, we're talking about flagging and algorithms.
In some cases, it is precisely that. Ireland, for a fact, has been economically threatened for putting forward measures against Israel, ie [0]. We only know this because of investigative journalists, not mainstream media.
Then you can look at America's sanctions against Francesca Albanese, and ICC judges [1], which has the additional effect of 'legally' allowing America to sanction anyone who supports them.
Trump and Europe just signed a 'deal' which was basically just Europe promising to buy arms and LNG for the next 5 years, and pay more in tariffs, getting nothing in return. This is about as strong a suggestion that they are being threatened in some way that you could ask for.
And then there's a huge range of threats coming from Israel itself, such as thinly veiled threats to not allow citizens out of various countries out of Gaza [2].
A majority of the people in European countries are aghast, horrified, traumatized by the daily atrocities being committed with the tacit backing of their political and media classes. The disconnect has never been quite so stark.
> Everyone is just standing around saying how bad it is but they are perfectly content to let Gaza be leveled while they keep trading with Israel.
Again, all across Europe people are taking all the action they can; and are being brutally suppressed by state forces in response. Corporate and state media invert reality with a terrifying consistency, such as in Amsterdam with the football hooligans. In Germany peaceful protesters are being savagely beaten on the daily, and (illegally) threatened with deportation. In England, they are being charged as terrorists for holding signs supporting necessary Action in Palestine.
Even in Ireland, long-time bastion of anti-colonialism, peaceful protesters have been strip searched, had their hijabs removed, and detained. We've been working for years to end trade with Israel, but somehow our trade has increased sharply the past couple years, and we're even selling Israeli bonds out of our Central Bank. There's a lot more going on here than apathy.
> who really cares about genocide in Africa? Maybe there isn’t anything different when it comes to genocide elsewhere. :(
If you want to understand those conflicts, just follow the money. It always seems to lead right back to Western interests, after being washed in the UAE.
The thing is, there is massive profit being made from these genocides. Trade routes, oil, land, arms development, funding, minerals, gold, political control, media control; there's something in it for all the oligarchs.
> are rapidly moving towards the sixth ones by all accounts
The scientific consensus isn't that we're "moving towards" a mass extinction. It's that we're deep into one, and accelerating.
"Current extinction rates are estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates [13][14][15][16][17] and are accelerating."
If they say it's significantly worse than the IPCC is estimating - and specific reasons are given in the article - then I would tend to believe them.