You may have missed that Idiocracy is a pro-eugenics film, in which the populace got stupider by way of being fecund. It's not about this problem, really.

> You may have missed that Idiocracy is a pro-eugenics film

I kinda see how you got there, but man.

This is the same guy behind Office Space and Bevis and Butthead. He's poking fun at out of touch intellectuals and consumption. Calling it pro-eugenics though...

The whole premise hinges on "dumb" people outbreeding "high IQ" people. The movie isn't about the failure of the education system, consumer compliance, or anything like that. The movie feels pro-eugenics, even if that wasn't the intention, and it's just trying to poke fun at stereotypes.

Idiocracy is only pro eugenics in the same way that any piece of comedy that criticizes anything or takes something to the extreme can be construed as being for the opposite thing.

You're right that last time there were "adults in the room" trying to keep him in check.

This time, however, he's often doing whatever Heritage/Project 2025 tell him to do. Russell Vought, Stephen Miller, John McEntee, etc.

"he's often doing whatever Heritage/Project 2025 tell him to do."

I think Trump has only very vague opinions on most things. He is ok as long as people flatter his ego.

Curtis Yarvin, Roger Stone, etc

Surely, since "silent disco" only really works if everyone is dancing to the same music (which is the only thing that would make sense for a post about synchronizing audio), they're using "source" to mean "device"

They don't have a functional physical product

His overall point, that it happened later, after different technological innovations, and required government regulation is correct though

I think government regulation probably only advanced the inevitable. Synthetic substitutes were developed for performance (temperature tolerance and service life). It was likely only a matter of time until said substitutes made their way back into older specifications for oil due to natural economic incentives.

Perhaps there would still be some niche whaling if not for the ban, but it would be for a niche use, not because literally every automatic transmission in the country needs a cup of the stuff.

Often when there is government regulations it is because those regulated approve. Not always, but often. Oil refineries are attacked in the press by government, but when they want a permit to do something it is always quietly granted.

There is no "only" in advancing the inevitable. A century may be a blip on the geological timescale but it makes an enourmous difference for civilization.

A century from now, global warming will be "solved", one way or another. The open question is what civilization looks like.

There is stil some niche whaling. It's all done for meat, but if there was any industrial value for some parts of the whale, I imagine that would be extracted and sold. I don't think there's anything like that.

> Perhaps there would still be some niche whaling if not for the ban

There is still whaling. Iceland, Japan, Norway, North American indigenous peoples and the Danish dependencies of the Faroe Islands and Greenland continue to hunt in the 21st century. Worse, Iceland, Japan and Norway still engage in and supporting commercial hunting.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling

The main thing it required was the Soviet Union to stop whaling.

https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-senseless-environment-c...

This isn't a story about the free market run amok.

> Of course, this image is only possible because of our vantage point. Astronomers in other galaxies wouldn't catch such a wondrous image.

Well no, but they probably would catch other wondrous images we can't catch due to our vantage point.

Would you believe that humans turn on traditional web-crawlers as well?

Yeah, this plus the apparent lack-of-planning regarding lenses & field of view make me wonder if OP had any of the background they should have had in stop-motion animation?

This is the sort of project that, no matter how much you know, or think you know, and no matter how much experience you had, it'll still bring you right back down to Earth and humble you somehow. There is no curriculum for preparing for this. There is only "jump in and figure it out as you go".

So let's not criticize anyone for jumping in and figuring it out as they go, as it is the only way to produce a project like this.

Are there any prior examples for AI interpolation in stop-motion animation?

Were we ever doing that though?

This interpretation is covered in the essay.