Fun With Millennials!

[bluecoconuts]

I take that back. There ARE no merits to gender studies.

Sure there are, they're great GPA boosters for those of us who majored in STEM. I took like 5 sociology/gender studies classes because the hippie teacher would spend half the class talking about burning man and how great her "eats" were, and then we had to give a short PP at the end of the course for our final. Easiest A's I've ever gotten.

 

[fearsomefour]

This generation is the first generation whose entering the work force with a worse situation with fewer opportunities than the generation that raised them. The millennial generation will be more useful when they're given a chance to actually enter the real work force (i.e. getting real careers and not just jobs).

Also it helps when those of us who do work hard and get a career don't have their career taken away from them because the previous generation can't accept basic freaking science and tries to argue even though they don't know what the freak they're talking about. I don't give a freak about your life experience, Harold, I'm a freaking scientist, I know what I'm talking about because I've seen and worked with the data.


I'm a little salty about it, so I'll just dip away from this thread now.

Offer some solutions then.....oh right, a vast vacuum of silence will always follow.

 

[-X-]

Well like I said before, fields change. When old work styles change, humans have adapted, and new types of work emerges. That's where us millennials will come in, and we'll be fine.

Counting on you to take care of me when I'm elderly, so don't fuck this up. And please, no dudes when I need a sponge bath. Hot chicks only.

 

[fearsomefour]

WEll if what you said above will be true, #teammillenial will have to adapt to the market. It's been done before. If your kids have realistic visions and goals they'll be fine.

Now will the older gens give them a chance??? Or will the stupid stereotypes be a major hurdle...that's the real problem.

Shifting interests and market places is the norm really.
Giving people a chance?
I don't know what that means.
Qualified people or good old fashioned hard workers often win out regardless of age.
My group of friends and associates range in age from 17/18 to mid 80's. Quality of person has little to do with age. Life experience etc of course affect everything. But, I know many younger people who are hard workers and will be fine no matter what they choose to do. I also know old people who are still hoping for some sort of bail out.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Offer some solutions then.....oh right, a vast vacuum of silence will always follow.

Solutions to what? The solution is to allow the generation to actually take the reigns. Unless you mean solutions to getting my research started again, and that solution is to vote. I'm already working with another scientist to unseat my congressman and replace him with a legitimate scientist, so we can get some scientific literacy into our government. She's a long shot though.

 

[Mackeyser]

Solutions to what? The solution is to allow the generation to actually take the reigns. Unless you mean solutions to getting my research started again, and that solution is to vote. I'm already working with another scientist to unseat my congressman and replace him with a legitimate scientist, so we can get some scientific literacy into our government. She's a long shot though.

The problem is systemic. Those who benefit and seek to reap even greater benefits have built up so much political infrastructure that creating system change will be nearly impossible.

We haven't had a major systemic change in this country since the Labor movement of the '30s and too many people on both sides of the political spectrum are not about to engage the political process the way it was needed in the '20s and '30s.

There are solutions (trying to keep this interesting thread going), but there simply is no way to implement systemic change now short of implementing radical solutions. It's too far gone.

Let's just put it this way. If I were to write down the math and the conservative timeline, it would be unbelievable... and at the same time, I'd be wrong only in that the timeline would, in reality, be accelerated.

This isn't a Left/Right issue. It's a systemic issue that has existed under both parties for a long time. The analogy is a tightrope walker. In the US, let's just be judicious and say that there are various arguments about whether we should have any safety nets or if so, who should pay for them.

With what's coming, not only will safety nets not be available to most people (much like blue tarps to those in Puerto Rico), but the very tightrope will be removed.

It's not about the safety net. It's about expecting someone to walk a tightrope from one end to another...without a tightrope.

Moreover, almost no one will be spared.

I'm seriously thinking about putting my knowledge of Econ to work and writing something this year about this.

Seems I'll be really throwing myself into Japanese and some econ research. I'll probably try to find a tenured professor once I start because I could have not only the perfect analysis AND a fantastic set of solutions...and... I couldn't get it self-published. Is what it is.

 

[fearsomefour]

Solutions to what? The solution is to allow the generation to actually take the reigns. Unless you mean solutions to getting my research started again, and that solution is to vote. I'm already working with another scientist to unseat my congressman and replace him with a legitimate scientist, so we can get some scientific literacy into our government. She's a long shot though.

The scary part (speaking in big generalizations of course) is the lack of literacy regarding rights, the constitution etc. But, that is just speaking in general terms.
In terms of the climate change stuff I was trolling a bit. Tired of what we (the general pop) get which wildly inaccurate projections and scare tactics with nothing offered in terms of realistic solutions.
It would be nice to have research funded. Although I wouldn't think any one group is any more obligated to receive funding than another. Is it political? Yeah. Everything is political if it is publicly funded.
Free breakfast at school, midnight basketball, scientific research, public education, jails, security.....the endless list goes on and on.
Having scientists take up political positions because they are scientists......ehh. Like having economic professors write papers on business and investment....what does it gaurentee? Nothing.

 

[Farr Be It]

Counting on you to take care of me when I'm elderly, so don't freak this up. And please, no dudes when I need a sponge bath. Hot chicks only.

View attachment 23443

"Won't do it again. That old pervert grabbed my ass last time."

 

[bluecoconuts]

The scary part (speaking in big generalizations of course) is the lack of literacy regarding rights, the constitution etc. But, that is just speaking in general terms.
In terms of the climate change stuff I was trolling a bit. Tired of what we (the general pop) get which wildly inaccurate projections and scare tactics with nothing offered in terms of realistic solutions.
It would be nice to have research funded. Although I wouldn't think any one group is any more obligated to receive funding than another. Is it political? Yeah. Everything is political if it is publicly funded.
Free breakfast at school, midnight basketball, scientific research, public education, jails, security.....the endless list goes on and on.
Having scientists take up political positions because they are scientists......ehh. Like having economic professors write papers on business and investment....what does it gaurentee? Nothing.

Most of our climate data projections are pretty conservative, in fact most of the time when we get new, better data, it shows that we're actually worse off than predicted. Frankly people who don't look at the data, don't understand the data, and wouldn't even have any idea how to even read the data shouldn't be commenting on it. The problem I have is we have people ignoring real data, real information, for their own selfish gains. We do have real solutions, which the majority of the rest of the modern world is beginning the implement, the debate is only within the United States and that's only because the United States has a lot of people that would rather support their own schisms of "This political party is good, and this political party is bad, which allows the parties to take up specific causes for their own selfish reasons and have a large chunk of the population automatically get behind them, regardless of how little the people know.

But that's besides the point, because my research wasn't about that, my research was about the advancement of the human species, for the survival of the human race. To have that shut down over purely political motivations is 100% bullshit. The funding was mostly from private donors (because the government doesn't fund science enough), but as we are still a government agency, they had the ability to shut it down (also mandate that all TV played FOX news 24/7 which was equally ridiculous). The problem is that ignoring these things is terrible for our country, and it's one of the quickest ways to guarantee that we slip in world standing and give up our power to another state. Other countries are going to want to follow a leader, and if the U.S. doesn't want to be that leader they will follow another one, which is already beginning to happen. Furthermore, funding of sciences by the government has shown to have an amazing ROI as the advancements are often converted for private use and hit the market, which is often a huge boom to the economy. The internet is a great example of that, so are computers, air conditioners, etc. The Government spends the same amount (well now more) on farm subsidies and agricultural research (.5% of the GDP) as they do on NASA, however for every dollar we spend on NASA we get 7-14 dollars back straight into the U.S. treasury, plus all the added benefits to our every day lives. The ROI alone is worth it.

As the brain drain hits the United States (and it's already happening in very scary numbers) we're suddenly going to wake up with a very stupid country that has no ideas or solutions on how to catch up with everyone else.

So if you're wondering if the research is worth it, it is.

For example, if we were to discover what Dark Matter is (and we are getting close) that would open up an entirely new understanding of physics and our universe, which would lead to things like warp drives. By shutting down funding, it's just holding us back from that discovery.

 

[fearsomefour]

Most of our climate data projections are pretty conservative, in fact most of the time when we get new, better data, it shows that we're actually worse off than predicted. Frankly people who don't look at the data, don't understand the data, and wouldn't even have any idea how to even read the data shouldn't be commenting on it. The problem I have is we have people ignoring real data, real information, for their own selfish gains. We do have real solutions, which the majority of the rest of the modern world is beginning the implement, the debate is only within the United States and that's only because the United States has a lot of people that would rather support their own schisms of "This political party is good, and this political party is bad, which allows the parties to take up specific causes for their own selfish reasons and have a large chunk of the population automatically get behind them, regardless of how little the people know.

But that's besides the point, because my research wasn't about that, my research was about the advancement of the human species, for the survival of the human race. To have that shut down over purely political motivations is 100% bullcrap. The funding was mostly from private donors (because the government doesn't fund science enough), but as we are still a government agency, they had the ability to shut it down (also mandate that all TV played FOX news 24/7 which was equally ridiculous). The problem is that ignoring these things is terrible for our country, and it's one of the quickest ways to guarantee that we slip in world standing and give up our power to another state. Other countries are going to want to follow a leader, and if the U.S. doesn't want to be that leader they will follow another one, which is already beginning to happen. Furthermore, funding of sciences by the government has shown to have an amazing ROI as the advancements are often converted for private use and hit the market, which is often a huge boom to the economy. The internet is a great example of that, so are computers, air conditioners, etc. The Government spends the same amount (well now more) on farm subsidies and agricultural research (.5% of the GDP) as they do on NASA, however for every dollar we spend on NASA we get 7-14 dollars back straight into the U.S. treasury, plus all the added benefits to our every day lives. The ROI alone is worth it.

As the brain drain hits the United States (and it's already happening in very scary numbers) we're suddenly going to wake up with a very stupid country that has no ideas or solutions on how to catch up with everyone else.

So if you're wondering if the research is worth it, it is.

For example, if we were to discover what Dark Matter is (and we are getting close) that would open up an entirely new understanding of physics and our universe, which would lead to things like warp drives. By shutting down funding, it's just holding us back from that discovery.

Yep silly.
Privately funded stuff.....government should leave ya alone, I agree.
I agree with the NASA funding as well.
As far as the old line....well, we have the REAL data that none of you simpletons would understand therefore you shant comment on it....tired of that as well. Im sure there is data that is real and some that is twisted in knots to support various predisposed positions, on both sides of the fence. And that was my point. Nearly all of what the general public gets is simulations that show massive disasters (because that is easy to understand and manipulate people with)....this is over the last 30 years. So, if there is real legit data, it needs to get out there. The ol "trust the experts" line only goes so far for any reasonable person given the history of politics, science and nearly everything else. Mostly because of human nature.
As for workable solutions that either don't destroy economies or threaten to starve (figuratively and literally) swaths of population, I haven't read any. That certainly doesn't carry much weight as I don't sit around wringing my simpleton hands about it all. I can drive out into the desert and dig up the bones of ocean fish.....so it goes.

 

[VegasRam]

Wow - killer thread. View from a boomer (69), with a smile, (and maybe a smirk or two).

Of everything that's been written, the "You nailed it" award goes to @bluecoconuts; Politicians should not be able to run after age 60 period, (making the "oldest" senator max 66: (aside - a lot younger than you think blue)). Then, under "You said it, not me", you prove the point/gripes about millenials by saying, in effect, (paraphrasing) "it's not their fault cuz they learned it from their (boomer) parents". :boxing:

@macksayer - love reading your stuff, you are a gifted writer, and I mean that. What you're projecting probably will happen in some form or another, but it's impact depends largely on when - if it's a year from now, we're all fucked; if it's 30 years from now other naturally evolving events will have significantlt mitigated it's impact. To you and blu, I wholeheartedly agree that everything is changing, and quickly.

I am old enough to have drafted on actual linen in ink for the first architect I worked for in 1967, and now work alone with a 3D program called Revit - point being that were it not for this program, I would not be working, but since I evolved, technology is (and has been) my friend.

My dad bought me Tarzan of the Apes for my seventh birthday, (been a voracious reader ever since), and switched to Edgar Rice Burroughs' science fiction books, which in turn led me to Asimov, Heinlein etc, again, point being (I get there eventually, just not as fast as you young whippersnappers), every science "fiction" became science "fact" in my lifetime, just not in the author's projected timeline, and, most importantly, not in a vacuum.

Btw @ macksayer, hardest class I ever took was statistics, (not physics, calculus, math analysis, statics or dynamics) - but statistics. I realized then how difficult rigorous analytics is, and went back to my drawing board.:rolllaughCouldn't help myself).

But this Terminator/Blade Runner scenario just ain't happening anytime soon, paradoxically because everyone who will be in power soon, is aware of it.

Also, btw, @bluecoconuts, it's always totally pissed me off hearing the argument against funding NASA with the inane argument that "we should take care of the problems here at home first", which a), if we tried, nothing would ever happen, and b) refer to a).
I hope that "$1 returns $7-14 back in to the economy" statement is true - where'd that come from?

Cheers y'all - and good on ya for sticking with the current NFC West Champs - after all, that's all that REALLY matters.:cheers:

 

[bluecoconuts]

Im sure there is data that is real and some that is twisted in knots to support various predisposed positions, on both sides of the fence.

It's really not, because the data can be peer reviewed, and if it doesn't match up it gets redacted and careers can end. While there are problems of fudging data in the sciences sometimes, it's extremely rare for such high profile studies because there are so many various groups doing the same thing. Additionally both "sides" have commissioned studies and they came to the same conclusion, even though one side wanted different results. Most of the data is publicly available, people just have to look for it. The point is when there's overwhelming scientific consensus the idea that people should listen to a bunch of politicians that have no idea what they're talking about is really... Well dumb to be blunt. If you want to look at the data and read the data you're free to do so, but if you don't understand the data (and the overwhelming majority will not) then you should listen to the experts who do know how to read and understand the data. Why wouldn't you? And at any rate what happens if they're wrong? We advance to better, technology that creates tons of jobs for no reason? BFD.. What happens if they're right? The world becomes uninhabitable and we all die.

It kind of seems like a no brainer to me to be honest. The technology we develop could have massive implications, that would save us tons of money. For example, there are teams developing glass that are solar collectors with the goals to make them efficient enough you can put them on skyscrapers and they'd pay for their own energy consumption, same thing with homes and even cars. Imagine a life where you don't have to pay electricity bills, and then you get into your car, which you don't have to pay for gas, and you're driven to work by an automatic car which allows you to catch up on e-mails or what most of us will do, just browse ROD for your commute to your job that offers a higher salary because their overhead has been reduced because they no longer need to pay for electricity in the building (hey, it's not a big raise, but a raise is a raise). That stuff is attainable in our lifetime, we just have to fund it rather than actively suppress it as we're doing now.

While the planet will go through natural hot and snowball phases, the problem is when you look at the data we're not in a natural phase, we're quickly racing towards the upper limits to trigger runaway greenhouse gasses, and that's very very dangerous (it's why Venus went from a paradise to an uninhabitable hell). There could have been life on Venus at one point, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest if we were to learn that (same with life on Mars), but if there was, before it got a chance to evolve and leave the planet it became uninhabitable. As the Sun burns through it's fuel and begins dying, it'll slowly make our planet uninhabitable... Or rather not so slowly on the scale of the universe, as we're talking less than a billion years (and we're still about 5 billion from the sun becoming a shell burning star). Pretty soon life will need to occupy under ground and around the poles, resources will be very scares. That means we don't have a lot of time to find another rock to live on, and instead of trying to buy is more time, and develop the technology needed to find and get us to that new rock, we have people trying to hit the afterburner. It's just bad ju-ju.

You know how in every disaster movie there's a scientist trying to warn the president that it's all about to go to shit, and then he gets ignored and it all goes to shit? And everyone goes "It was so obvious, why didn't they just listen?" Well it's that opening scene and the scientists are raising the alarm. If it scares the hell out of those of us who work with the data it should scare everyone else.

It's no different from when I was doing a HVT op in Afghanistan and my team leader got the order to follow the HVT across into Pakistan into the mountains, despite all the locals telling us there were several hundred fighters about two miles in waiting for us to arrive so they could ambush us. The look my TL had on his face was one of "Well, we're going to die" and it scared the living hell out of every single one of us. Especially because he had been there before, he was an old school Ranger, who fought in the battle of Takur Ghar (I highly suggest reading into it if you don't know the story), and knew what it was like to be up shits creek without even a boat let alone a paddle. If not for our First Sergeant going into the TOC and pulling wires to shut down all the video feeds and comms, we would have gone in there, and after looking at the FLIR images I know why he shut down those feeds (and subsequently lost his position as he was moved to train West Point students, a career ending move that he said he'd make again and again without second thought).. There were a lot of enemies in those hills and I would not be here today had we taken that walk.

In fact, they shot down our evac helicopter (helicopter crashes are not fun FYI lol) and if not a Spooky overhead, some amazing A-10 pilots and a ballsy Blackhawk pilot who gave himself about 2 inches worth of rotor clearance to allow us to get on and bail, we would have gotten overran, and that air support wasn't available over the boarder.

But before I digress too much, when someone who knows what's going to happen has that "Oh shit" look, it's typically a good idea to listen to them. Because if they're wrong it's not a big deal, but if they're right then we're not in for a good time.

That's mostly my point on that. Again though, my research is, was, all about us finding a new rock to move to.

"it's not their fault cuz they learned it from their (boomer) parents". :boxing:

That's mostly just a little joke from the "I learned it from watching you!" PSA's.. I actually hate a lot of the laziness and general "gimme gimme gimme" of my generation. My brother is a prime example of that and it drives me nuts, but that's for another thread!

I hope that "$1 returns $7-14 back in to the economy" statement is true - where'd that come from?

I believe it comes from reviews done on NASA, as well as the National Review (which you need an account for). NASA releases a bi-monthly ROI report on what they've accomplished/progress, but it doesn't go into numbers.

Here's a cool little infographic that will talk about it slightly, and they have a bunch of sources cited.

https://www.greatbusinessschools.org/nasa/

 

[SierraRam]

@SierraRam - what happened to your Curly Howard avatar?
That thing was hilarious.

I tried to change it to the classic blue and white and f'd the whole thing up! My technical adviser (millennial daughter)
promised to help me, so stand by..

 

[fearsomefour]

It's really not, because the data can be peer reviewed, and if it doesn't match up it gets redacted and careers can end. While there are problems of fudging data in the sciences sometimes, it's extremely rare for such high profile studies because there are so many various groups doing the same thing. Additionally both "sides" have commissioned studies and they came to the same conclusion, even though one side wanted different results. Most of the data is publicly available, people just have to look for it. The point is when there's overwhelming scientific consensus the idea that people should listen to a bunch of politicians that have no idea what they're talking about is really... Well dumb to be blunt. If you want to look at the data and read the data you're free to do so, but if you don't understand the data (and the overwhelming majority will not) then you should listen to the experts who do know how to read and understand the data. Why wouldn't you? And at any rate what happens if they're wrong? We advance to better, technology that creates tons of jobs for no reason? BFD.. What happens if they're right? The world becomes uninhabitable and we all die.

It kind of seems like a no brainer to me to be honest. The technology we develop could have massive implications, that would save us tons of money. For example, there are teams developing glass that are solar collectors with the goals to make them efficient enough you can put them on skyscrapers and they'd pay for their own energy consumption, same thing with homes and even cars. Imagine a life where you don't have to pay electricity bills, and then you get into your car, which you don't have to pay for gas, and you're driven to work by an automatic car which allows you to catch up on e-mails or what most of us will do, just browse ROD for your commute to your job that offers a higher salary because their overhead has been reduced because they no longer need to pay for electricity in the building (hey, it's not a big raise, but a raise is a raise). That stuff is attainable in our lifetime, we just have to fund it rather than actively suppress it as we're doing now.

While the planet will go through natural hot and snowball phases, the problem is when you look at the data we're not in a natural phase, we're quickly racing towards the upper limits to trigger runaway greenhouse gasses, and that's very very dangerous (it's why Venus went from a paradise to an uninhabitable hell). There could have been life on Venus at one point, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest if we were to learn that (same with life on Mars), but if there was, before it got a chance to evolve and leave the planet it became uninhabitable. As the Sun burns through it's fuel and begins dying, it'll slowly make our planet uninhabitable... Or rather not so slowly on the scale of the universe, as we're talking less than a billion years (and we're still about 5 billion from the sun becoming a shell burning star). Pretty soon life will need to occupy under ground and around the poles, resources will be very scares. That means we don't have a lot of time to find another rock to live on, and instead of trying to buy is more time, and develop the technology needed to find and get us to that new rock, we have people trying to hit the afterburner. It's just bad ju-ju.

You know how in every disaster movie there's a scientist trying to warn the president that it's all about to go to crap, and then he gets ignored and it all goes to crap? And everyone goes "It was so obvious, why didn't they just listen?" Well it's that opening scene and the scientists are raising the alarm. If it scares the hell out of those of us who work with the data it should scare everyone else.

It's no different from when I was doing a HVT op in Afghanistan and my team leader got the order to follow the HVT across into Pakistan into the mountains, despite all the locals telling us there were several hundred fighters about two miles in waiting for us to arrive so they could ambush us. The look my TL had on his face was one of "Well, we're going to die" and it scared the living hell out of every single one of us. Especially because he had been there before, he was an old school Ranger, who fought in the battle of Takur Ghar (I highly suggest reading into it if you don't know the story), and knew what it was like to be up shits creek without even a boat let alone a paddle. If not for our First Sergeant going into the TOC and pulling wires to shut down all the video feeds and comms, we would have gone in there, and after looking at the FLIR images I know why he shut down those feeds (and subsequently lost his position as he was moved to train West Point students, a career ending move that he said he'd make again and again without second thought).. There were a lot of enemies in those hills and I would not be here today had we taken that walk.

In fact, they shot down our evac helicopter (helicopter crashes are not fun FYI lol) and if not a Spooky overhead, some amazing A-10 pilots and a ballsy Blackhawk pilot who gave himself about 2 inches worth of rotor clearance to allow us to get on and bail, we would have gotten overran, and that air support wasn't available over the boarder.

But before I digress too much, when someone who knows what's going to happen has that "Oh crap" look, it's typically a good idea to listen to them. Because if they're wrong it's not a big deal, but if they're right then we're not in for a good time.

That's mostly my point on that. Again though, my research is, was, all about us finding a new rock to move to.



That's mostly just a little joke from the "I learned it from watching you!" PSA's.. I actually hate a lot of the laziness and general "gimme gimme gimme" of my generation. My brother is a prime example of that and it drives me nuts, but that's for another thread!



I believe it comes from reviews done on NASA, as well as the National Review (which you need an account for). NASA releases a bi-monthly ROI report on what they've accomplished/progress, but it doesn't go into numbers.

Here's a cool little infographic that will talk about it slightly, and they have a bunch of sources cited.

https://www.greatbusinessschools.org/nasa/

Thank you for that detailed and thought provoking response.
Seems like fascinating work.
The concept of moving on another rock is interesting indeed. Makes the mind ache a bit.
In terms of technology that revolutionizes everything I have no doubt this will happen. What's the time frame?
The shift would have to be titanic because fossil fuel and the polluting agents that have become the common sources are only going to expand in the developing work and the East.
I am opened minded about these things and I agree that research, science and developing tech related to "pie in the sky" projects like NASA develops products and tech that improves quality of life across the board.
For a Joe Schmo like myself the wildly inaccurate and doomsday scenarios that have proven to be folly do a lot of damage.
So, time frame is the key to the whole thing.

 

[Angry Ram]

Counting on you to take care of me when I'm elderly, so don't freak this up. And please, no dudes when I need a sponge bath. Hot chicks only.

I get to choose the chicks.

Shifting interests and market places is the norm really.
Giving people a chance?
I don't know what that means.
Qualified people or good old fashioned hard workers often win out regardless of age.
My group of friends and associates range in age from 17/18 to mid 80's. Quality of person has little to do with age. Life experience etc of course affect everything. But, I know many younger people who are hard workers and will be fine no matter what they choose to do. I also know old people who are still hoping for some sort of bail out.

I speak from personal experience....it took me forever to get my first job. Because I didn't have experience, even though I had grad school and an internship under my belt. I worked hard for my degrees and through that internship. I worked through grad school, too. Didn't even get as much as a damn email.

The stereotype of my gen being entitled has to be a factor in that.

 

[1maGoh]

It's really not, because the data can be peer reviewed, and if it doesn't match up it gets redacted and careers can end. While there are problems of fudging data in the sciences sometimes, it's extremely rare for such high profile studies because there are so many various groups doing the same thing. Additionally both "sides" have commissioned studies and they came to the same conclusion, even though one side wanted different results. Most of the data is publicly available, people just have to look for it. The point is when there's overwhelming scientific consensus the idea that people should listen to a bunch of politicians that have no idea what they're talking about is really... Well dumb to be blunt. If you want to look at the data and read the data you're free to do so, but if you don't understand the data (and the overwhelming majority will not) then you should listen to the experts who do know how to read and understand the data. Why wouldn't you? And at any rate what happens if they're wrong? We advance to better, technology that creates tons of jobs for no reason? BFD.. What happens if they're right? The world becomes uninhabitable and we all die.

It kind of seems like a no brainer to me to be honest. The technology we develop could have massive implications, that would save us tons of money. For example, there are teams developing glass that are solar collectors with the goals to make them efficient enough you can put them on skyscrapers and they'd pay for their own energy consumption, same thing with homes and even cars. Imagine a life where you don't have to pay electricity bills, and then you get into your car, which you don't have to pay for gas, and you're driven to work by an automatic car which allows you to catch up on e-mails or what most of us will do, just browse ROD for your commute to your job that offers a higher salary because their overhead has been reduced because they no longer need to pay for electricity in the building (hey, it's not a big raise, but a raise is a raise). That stuff is attainable in our lifetime, we just have to fund it rather than actively suppress it as we're doing now.

While the planet will go through natural hot and snowball phases, the problem is when you look at the data we're not in a natural phase, we're quickly racing towards the upper limits to trigger runaway greenhouse gasses, and that's very very dangerous (it's why Venus went from a paradise to an uninhabitable hell). There could have been life on Venus at one point, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest if we were to learn that (same with life on Mars), but if there was, before it got a chance to evolve and leave the planet it became uninhabitable. As the Sun burns through it's fuel and begins dying, it'll slowly make our planet uninhabitable... Or rather not so slowly on the scale of the universe, as we're talking less than a billion years (and we're still about 5 billion from the sun becoming a shell burning star). Pretty soon life will need to occupy under ground and around the poles, resources will be very scares. That means we don't have a lot of time to find another rock to live on, and instead of trying to buy is more time, and develop the technology needed to find and get us to that new rock, we have people trying to hit the afterburner. It's just bad ju-ju.

You know how in every disaster movie there's a scientist trying to warn the president that it's all about to go to crap, and then he gets ignored and it all goes to crap? And everyone goes "It was so obvious, why didn't they just listen?" Well it's that opening scene and the scientists are raising the alarm. If it scares the hell out of those of us who work with the data it should scare everyone else.

It's no different from when I was doing a HVT op in Afghanistan and my team leader got the order to follow the HVT across into Pakistan into the mountains, despite all the locals telling us there were several hundred fighters about two miles in waiting for us to arrive so they could ambush us. The look my TL had on his face was one of "Well, we're going to die" and it scared the living hell out of every single one of us. Especially because he had been there before, he was an old school Ranger, who fought in the battle of Takur Ghar (I highly suggest reading into it if you don't know the story), and knew what it was like to be up shits creek without even a boat let alone a paddle. If not for our First Sergeant going into the TOC and pulling wires to shut down all the video feeds and comms, we would have gone in there, and after looking at the FLIR images I know why he shut down those feeds (and subsequently lost his position as he was moved to train West Point students, a career ending move that he said he'd make again and again without second thought).. There were a lot of enemies in those hills and I would not be here today had we taken that walk.

In fact, they shot down our evac helicopter (helicopter crashes are not fun FYI lol) and if not a Spooky overhead, some amazing A-10 pilots and a ballsy Blackhawk pilot who gave himself about 2 inches worth of rotor clearance to allow us to get on and bail, we would have gotten overran, and that air support wasn't available over the boarder.

But before I digress too much, when someone who knows what's going to happen has that "Oh crap" look, it's typically a good idea to listen to them. Because if they're wrong it's not a big deal, but if they're right then we're not in for a good time.

That's mostly my point on that. Again though, my research is, was, all about us finding a new rock to move to.



That's mostly just a little joke from the "I learned it from watching you!" PSA's.. I actually hate a lot of the laziness and general "gimme gimme gimme" of my generation. My brother is a prime example of that and it drives me nuts, but that's for another thread!



I believe it comes from reviews done on NASA, as well as the National Review (which you need an account for). NASA releases a bi-monthly ROI report on what they've accomplished/progress, but it doesn't go into numbers.

Here's a cool little infographic that will talk about it slightly, and they have a bunch of sources cited.

https://www.greatbusinessschools.org/nasa/

I don't want to argue with you too hard here because you seem like a decent cat, you're smart, and Rangers are bad ass (tons of respect).

Peer review can be just as bad as it is good if done improperly. If everybody is getting a certain result and interpreting it a certain way, wouldn't any results to the contrary be dismissed? You can say that scientists would interpret the data fairly and draw conclusions based on the facts, but scientists are people. People are inherently self serving, egoistical, and untrustworthy. At least 70% of the people I know I wouldn't trust to come to a conclusion that damaged their own standing.

To support that conclusion I offer two things.

First, I heard (but haven't seen so take it with a grain of salt) about the documentary Expelled by Ben Stein. It's about people getting kicked out of research positions and schools for engaging in research that contradicted popular opinion, even if it was on their own time, or having an open different from the intended conclusion of the research. If there was data that refuted popular scientific opinion, I don't think we'd hear about it.

Second, I read a book about optimal decision making that included an technique used by some group of researchers that operated in a kind of collaborative community. One of the quotes from a researcher was that this was great because if they performed an experiment that didn't give them the results they were looking for they could go to someone who had done it to get to on how to tweak the experiment to get the results they want. That's not what I was told science and the scientific method is about. You come up with a hypothesis and you test it and accept those results. Maybe I just don't understand what the guy meant, but it definitely sounded like he was saying they modify experiments to get the results that confirm prior research, not rigorously test prior research for accuracy.

But that's all from the outside looking in, so who knows? What I do know, is that is that it behoves a research professional to come up with conclusions that will encourage further funding, not come out saying everything is ok. And that's regardless of which political side they're on. Not attacking you or saying you would do that, but that's the reality that the common person had to vote all this through.

It's the same position we're in with lawyers, politicians, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, and any other advanced profession. As an IT person I have to deal with it when I talk to business people. The easy, cheap "solution" will cause more heartache for them and put me out of business (having to fix a crappy solution for free because it never worked out because it's covered and I installed it, not because it's cheap and I need more money), so I recommend a more expensive solution that will work better for everyone, but they think I'm trying to screw them because it would make sense for me to make that same expensive recommendation even if it wasn't necessary.

 

[1maGoh]

The problem is systemic. Those who benefit and seek to reap even greater benefits have built up so much political infrastructure that creating system change will be nearly impossible.

We haven't had a major systemic change in this country since the Labor movement of the '30s and too many people on both sides of the political spectrum are not about to engage the political process the way it was needed in the '20s and '30s.

There are solutions (trying to keep this interesting thread going), but there simply is no way to implement systemic change now short of implementing radical solutions. It's too far gone.

Let's just put it this way. If I were to write down the math and the conservative timeline, it would be unbelievable... and at the same time, I'd be wrong only in that the timeline would, in reality, be accelerated.

This isn't a Left/Right issue. It's a systemic issue that has existed under both parties for a long time. The analogy is a tightrope walker. In the US, let's just be judicious and say that there are various arguments about whether we should have any safety nets or if so, who should pay for them.

With what's coming, not only will safety nets not be available to most people (much like blue tarps to those in Puerto Rico), but the very tightrope will be removed.

It's not about the safety net. It's about expecting someone to walk a tightrope from one end to another...without a tightrope.

Moreover, almost no one will be spared.

I'm seriously thinking about putting my knowledge of Econ to work and writing something this year about this.

Seems I'll be really throwing myself into Japanese and some econ research. I'll probably try to find a tenured professor once I start because I could have not only the perfect analysis AND a fantastic set of solutions...and... I couldn't get it self-published. Is what it is.

I struggle to believe that the timeline will be that fast for everything because all this automation is going to be expensive. It will be especially expensive when it becomes trendy. And when that happens, automation will be the new thing and it will get cheap enough for regular businesses to engage in, leading to smaller business having it as well.

Mostly I just can't see Domino's replacing every driver with a wicked expensive self driving car in the next 5 years. And if they do, not having service for disabled people will either end that really quick, or create a very competitive market for professional driver's/delivery people.

Self driving cars won't self repair and they won't self tow when they break down. All these darn robots will need network techs and repair techs and other jobs that will open up. I'd also be willing to bet that with all those super rich people about to happen, personal servants will make a huge comeback and the arts will take off. But that's a guess. I don't do analytics professionally so I probably ought to defer to your research.

I just have a hard time believing in a new crisis after all the ones that have come before and not panned out. Not from you, but other people predicting the future.

 

[fearsomefour]

I get to choose the chicks.



I speak from personal experience....it took me forever to get my first job. Because I didn't have experience, even though I had grad school and an internship under my belt. I worked hard for my degrees and through that internship. I worked through grad school, too. Didn't even get as much as a damn email.

The stereotype of my gen being entitled has to be a factor in that.

Hard to tell what a person or a group of people doing hiring are thinking.
Many older folks I know what have struggled to find work think it is because of their age.
There are stereotypes about every generations, some basis in truth probably. But anyone doing hiring basing their decision on anything but the individual is kind of a jerk.
That said, when I was kid (19) and was in a position to do some hiring I would not hire anyone who was a Whiner fan.

 

[bluecoconuts]

What's the time frame?

A few decades to be honest, we already have the technology, we're working on making it cheaper and more efficient.

The shift would have to be titanic because fossil fuel and the polluting agents that have become the common sources are only going to expand in the developing work and the East.

It's actually not as hard as you might think, it takes work but there are already countries that are expecting to be free from fossils fuels within a decade or so. Scotland is on target to run only on green energy by 2020 for example. There's also robots that can clean oceans, and we discovered a species of fungi that will eat plastic, so research could held reduce landfills. We can also have algae street lights, things like that. Not only do they look cool as shit, but they are cheaper and better for the environment.

For a Joe Schmo like myself the wildly inaccurate and doomsday scenarios that have proven to be folly do a lot of damage.
So, time frame is the key to the whole thing.

Keep in mind a lot of that is media sensationalism. That's why it's better to listen to the actual scientists, and read the science websites who are citing the actual journals. Or find real scientists and ask them, I'm always happy to try and explain sciences to the best of my ability. Granted, my focus is astrophysics, but I'm happy to try.

Peer review can be just as bad as it is good if done improperly. If everybody is getting a certain result and interpreting it a certain way, wouldn't any results to the contrary be dismissed?

Not always, as long as the tests are repeatable, that's what science is about. We're always learning and trying to improve our understanding of the universe. Now that doesn't mean that data can't be fudged and mistakes made, but typically that happens with lesser research, as it's not as likely to be reviewed. When it comes to high profile stuff it's extremely rare, and with such a large consensus for things like climate change, there would be a huge conspiracy with millions of people around the world in on it for it to be false. It's occam's razor here, the simplest answer, that the data is true, is likely the right one, but the others rely on tons of very unlikely and wild things to all happen perfectly.

You can say that scientists would interpret the data fairly and draw conclusions based on the facts, but scientists are people. People are inherently self serving, egoistical, and untrustworthy. At least 70% of the people I know I wouldn't trust to come to a conclusion that damaged their own standing.

It's more damaging to a career to be forced to retract something they've published. For example, the guy who published the bogus article saying that vaccines cause autism lost his medical license and his career ended. That's why scientists who were paid by climate change denier groups (and some funded by the Koch brothers) came to the same conclusion, that it's real, man is making it far worse, and it's very dangerous. If anyone had reason to go against the grain it was them, but they didn't.

First, I heard (but haven't seen so take it with a grain of salt) about the documentary Expelled by Ben Stein. It's about people getting kicked out of research positions and schools for engaging in research that contradicted popular opinion, even if it was on their own time, or having an open different from the intended conclusion of the research. If there was data that refuted popular scientific opinion, I don't think we'd hear about it.

That "documentary" was made by creationists groups to try and suggest that intelligent design was legitimate science. Now I'm not going to get into that debate, because this isn't the place (that is better served for PMs) but that's why those students weren't able to complete their research. It'd be like me trying to earn my PhD by writing a thesis that the sun is made from ice cream. Or that the Earth is flat. The makers of it didn't give any advanced screenings before release because they knew it would be ripped to shreds, and upon release it was. You need hard, real data in research.

Second, I read a book about optimal decision making that included an technique used by some group of researchers that operated in a kind of collaborative community. One of the quotes from a researcher was that this was great because if they performed an experiment that didn't give them the results they were looking for they could go to someone who had done it to get to on how to tweak the experiment to get the results they want. That's not what I was told science and the scientific method is about. You come up with a hypothesis and you test it and accept those results. Maybe I just don't understand what the guy meant, but it definitely sounded like he was saying they modify experiments to get the results that confirm prior research, not rigorously test prior research for accuracy.

It would depend heavily on what was being researched. You can tweak experiments to try and get the results you want, that's what you're supposed to do really. Try different ways to prove your hypothesis. Sometimes there can be other variables that help out. That's not dishonest at all, as long as the results follow what the experiment did and it was done correctly.

A good example of bad research is from the show The Big Bang Theory. In one episode they go to the North Pole to run tests, and one of the characters is annoying, so they use a microwave to get false data, which ends up working for the experiment. That's bad, because the results don't reflect the real data at all (and the character has to retract his findings). That data wouldn't be repeatable though, and it would have been found out.

Data is made available (even to non-scientists) so tests can be ran. It's okay to tweak an experiment to try and get the results you want (for example, when trying to figure out what Dark Matter is, we tweak things a lot to see if we can get a different result. How that works is, typically a theoretical physicist will say "hey, I think this particle may be the answer." And other scientists will try and discover it. For Dark Matter, we think Axion may be the answer, however it has a mass of 10^−5 to 10^−3eV/c2, so it's not easy to detect. We tweak things trying to find that particle. And we don't even know if that particle, if it exists, would actually be a component of Dark Matter. There's a lot of different things that will go into finding these things. Same with the Higgs Boson, we found the particle, now we're trying to see if it disintegrates into Dark Matter, which requires a lot of different tests.

As soon as we get a positive result though, everyone is going to want to repeat those tests, so you couldn't fudge those numbers if you wanted to. Most "known" (popular) science is the same.

But that's all from the outside looking in, so who knows? What I do know, is that is that it behoves a research professional to come up with conclusions that will encourage further funding, not come out saying everything is ok. And that's regardless of which political side they're on. Not attacking you or saying you would do that, but that's the reality that the common person had to vote all this through.

It's the same position we're in with lawyers, politicians, mechanics, plumbers, electricians, and any other advanced profession. As an IT person I have to deal with it when I talk to business people. The easy, cheap "solution" will cause more heartache for them and put me out of business (having to fix a crappy solution for free because it never worked out because it's covered and I installed it, not because it's cheap and I need more money), so I recommend a more expensive solution that will work better for everyone, but they think I'm trying to screw them because it would make sense for me to make that same expensive recommendation even if it wasn't necessary.

Yes and no. It helps to have positive results, but it can be a career ender to have false results. And if it comes out that you intentionally falsified said data, your career is definitely over. So it's better to be correct. There's always a push for donors for quick results (after all, they want to know what their money is going towards) which is why independent government funded research is very important, typically there's less (or supposed to be) less pressure for quick results. It's one of the reasons why our European scientists are pulling ahead of us.

If you have any questions about how research is typically done, I'm happy to help shed the light. I've given reports to both the House and Senate science committees (which made me want to bang my head against the wall to be honest), and I've had experiments and models be a bust. It happens, part of science.

 

[fearsomefour]

We shall see.
The least of the worry for a modern society would be transitioning from a fossil fuel based economy to one that is not. The old example
of the buggy whip maker pops to mind. The issue is fossil fuel and modernization has lifted many out of abject poverty.
Will things be applied with any sense of equality? No. Should it be? Probably not.
Interesting ideas certainly and tech advanced do not advance on a smooth trajectory in most things.