The big hitters are Drug addiction and Chronic Pain.
I don't have a solution for drug addiction, but I can't blame our generation for not finding a solution. No generation has, and given caffeine addiction, it's extremely hard for others to help with.
Chronic Pain needs to end. Between Doctors of Physical Therapy and medications, there are little reason for people to be experiencing chronic pain. Take note that the author was very generic about their meaning on that.
The rest of the stuff are significantly smaller and usually involved a traumatic event.
Caffeine is not addictive. Physiological effect of constant coffee drinking go away without side effects after two weeks.
It has no (known) negative effects on health or sociological function as actual drugs have.
I can't figure out why you mentioned caffeine at all
I think I'm a caffeine addict. If I try to quit caffeine, I'll have flu-like symptoms and migraines for at least a week or two. I can see how that's less bad than a heroin addiction, but isn't addiction somewhat of a spectrum?
There is very little that doctors and physical therapists can do to treat certain types of chronic pain. Sometimes root causes are impossible to determine, or we just aren't capable of fixing the damage. Powerful analgesics come with serious risks and side effects.
Part of the problem is that we don't even fully understand how pain works.
Decriminalization of all drugs. Almost all evidence from history and practical implementation points to it massively reducing the many negative impacts of criminalized drug addiction. Sadly, the influence of the war on drugs continues to kill and cause suffering to many thousands.
Couple of years ago a significant news site here in .no had their ad network hacked. The result was that if you were browsing that site that morning, and was a customer of the largest bank in .no, you'd silently got served some software which would do a MITM attack against the online account page of said bank, redirecting any payments you did without your knowledge.
All you had to do was to visit that site with Java installed on that computer, which most users of said bank did because their 2-factor login relied on Java...
I use firefox which I've locked down pretty hard. No site gets to run active content of any kind by default. No java, not even javascript. That and all the ad-blocking really limits likelihood of my getting infected from just an initial click, but even that isn't foolproof. IE once managed to let attackers get you just by viewing an image (CVE-2005-2308)
0-days are not limited to javascript - the next one might well be in the canvas/image/svg renderer. When someone has targeted you with a 0-day and you load the site they compromised website, all bets are off.
This attitude is exactly what the spear-fisher is hoping for! Mac people, especially, think their OS is "secure by design" (as Apple says it is) and there's no way they can be attacked.
Take another look at the article! This took advantage of a Firefox 0day that really could run software outside the brower's sandbox just by clicking on a link.
If that link has browser 0day, it can. If that link takes you to a page you expect to demand login creds (google groups, youtube, google docs), it can.
Let us say that there was a nuclear war, and everyone left is near starvation, lacks resources and security. What holds value? Gold? I'd say useful or desired commodities: Food, fuel, guns, working machines, liquor, tobacco. Perhaps gold will be settled on as the most fungible (and transportable) material for trade, but if I were preparing for such times, I would be betting on the commodity, not an inert bit of metal.
It's a supersonic air superiority jet. The amount of energy needed and heat generated is a rounding error compared to the heat from supersonic flight and the powerplant's output (base fuel burn of thousands of lbs an hour).
In the case of war birds, newer technology does not mean faster development time. In order to qualify electronics for a weapon that needs to be stealthy and resistant to electronic warfare you need decades of operational data on all of the major electronics components. Any system that gets upgraded to newer technology has to go through risk assessments and that often requires tons of data collection before you even get started.
OK, but where are you going to find engineers with experience in those archaic technologies? And stuff breaks; where are you going to find equipment to replace it? The industry has moved on and is no longer making stuff like core memory, so you may not be able to acquire it even if you are willing to spend a lot.
We literally spend tens of billions of dollars a year keeping a significant fraction of the domestic agricultural industry afloat in the name of national security. We do the same with energy, oil, raw materials, and pretty much anything logistically critical in a war.
I think you vastly underestimate the lengths our military industrial complex goes to protect operational capabilities. The F22 is as much a beneficiary of those technologies as a platform for keeping them alive for future use.
If our military-industrial complex is so concerned with protecting operational capabilities, then why have they facilitated the offshoring of industries to China, especially industries concerned with the manufacture of some of the world’s highest technology? Shenzhen literally has skyscrapers of high electronics logistical heaven; in America we spend billions of dollars on fuck-all software and can’t repair broken consumer electronics circuitboards.
The military-industrial complex will throw money at things, but only in stupid ways. Are they creating jobs paying $500k for engineers to work in this sector and keep them interested in this kind of work and these ancient technologies? Of course not. So where do you think they're going to find the talent needed?
Feel free to apply for some jobs in the defense sector to find out how much they pay. You'll make more money working at FAANG companies, and you don't have to wait years for a security clearance to be approved. Jobs in aerospace, in particular, are pretty lousy paying compared to what engineers are getting elsewhere.
Right, we should all work for FAANG companies. Likewise, why wouldn't any person who loves sports work for the NBA instead of as a gym teacher?
You'll make more money working as an NBA player, and you don't have to wait years for a teaching certificate to be approved. Jobs in schools, in particular, are pretty lousy paying compared to what sports lovers are getting elsewhere.
The fact that FAANG companies employ about 0.1% of the software developers could have something to do with this. Practically speaking, nobody works for the NBA or for a FAANG company.
So it is a silly comparison. Defense contractors can and do beat plenty of normal companies. For example, Tesla pays software developers just $78k to $147k. Defense contractors can beat that before even adjusting for quality of life. You can work a 40-hour week, or you can have Elon Musk cracking the whip. The defense contractor positions are frequently in affordable locations, making the numbers a far better deal than they would appear.
>For example, Tesla pays software developers just $78k to $147k.
Citation needed. That seems suspiciously low for silicon valley.
>Likewise, why wouldn't any person who loves sports work for the NBA instead of as a gym teacher?
Your argument doesn't make much sense here. You trot out this line, but then you try to make the case that defense contractors pay well (which isn't really my experience; they pay OK (except for "cyber" positions which are paying really well currently), but nothing fantastic compared to non-defense companies in other non-silicon-valley areas), so it doesn't follow. Gym teacher jobs pay close to poverty-level wages, so accordingly, the people who take those jobs are usually people who aren't good athletes themselves, or maybe people who have a spouse with a good income and can afford to have a job for the fun of it.
It is improper to declare that any company outside the highest paying 0.1% is somehow not up to standard.
It is also improper to ignore working conditions. If you end up working 60-hour weeks for $180,000 the pay is no better than working 40-hour weeks for $120,000.
It is also improper to ignore cost of living. House prices can differ by a factor of 20, not even counting the collapsing locations. Just the difference between San Francisco and a medium-small non-coastal southern city is that much.
>It is also improper to ignore cost of living. House prices can differ by a factor of 20, not even counting the collapsing locations. Just the difference between San Francisco and a medium-small non-coastal southern city is that much.
This isn't correct at all; you're totally overstating the CoL differences. If a decent apartment in the Bay Area costs as much as $3k/month (I'm guessing here), there's no way in hell you're going to find a comparable place anywhere in the country for $150/month. In my experience, cost-of-living just doesn't differ as much between places as people like you claim it does. What does differ is price-per-square-foot, but no one realistically expects to live in a giant McMansion in the Bay Area or Manhattan as a middle-class person. The problem with "low cost" areas is that they typically don't have any actual inexpensive places for single people or childless couples, and your options are usually either a house that's much too large with huge utility costs, or a trailer park surrounded by opioid and meth addicts.
Actually no, I'm understating the CoL differences. I have relatives in both types of location, so I know. I'll pick some examples from their neighborhoods. (and yes, they do have jobs, including tech jobs) It's making excuses to say that "no one realistically expects to live in a giant McMansion in the Bay Area or Manhattan as a middle-class person", because that sucks. Real houses rent for more than double your guess. Don't expect me to believe that you won't be "surrounded by opioid and meth addicts" in the Bay Area. There are needles, tents, and poop on the streets.
In the middle of San Francisco, at 200 Amber Dr, a house sold in January for $2,450,000. It isn't anything special, at just 2020 square feet. It, frankly, looks ugly and unlivable. It's some old trash from 1962 on a lot that is measured in square feet! Converting that 3149 square feet gives just 0.07229 acres. It's a joke of a little house that should have been bulldozed by 1985. BTW, it would rent for about $7,500 per month.
In much of the country 1/20 of that ($122,500) would get you a similar house on a 0.14 to 0.30 acre lot. Let's see...
You can get 3021 square feet on 0.68 acres for $130,000 in Cocoa, FL. It's older. OTOH, you get more bathrooms. Note the 50% extra floor space and nearly 10x property size.
You can get 1652 square feet for $122,900 in Melbourne, FL. It's being built in a 55+ community by a developer. It'll come with all sorts of community extras, including a lake for fishing.
You can get 4992 square feet on 0.3 acres for $150,000 in Georgetown, KY. There are 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. It comes with beautiful wood floors, high ceilings, a partially spiral staircase, and a fireplace. It's right on Main Street.
You can get 1904 square feet on 5 acres for $89,900 in Georgetown, KY. It's a manufactured home. There is a brook (stream) on the property! You could go hunting with an AR-15 in your backyard. Again, it's 5 acres, and look at that price.
You can get 1987 square feet on 0.1436 acres for $134,900 in Fairborn, OH.
You can get 1976 square feet on 0.41 acres for $115,000 in Beavercreek, OH.
You can get 1920 square feet on 0.1015 acres for $48,900 in Dayton, OH. It does have that icky city feel, being 500 feet from a large park and 750 feet from a damn bus stop, but evidently you wouldn't object.
BTW, while looking for houses I stumbled across trash in Dayton, OH. One is a 4-unit place with the units renting for $300 to $390 per month. The whole thing can be owned for $99,900. A similar place going for $129,900 has 3 units renting for an average of $458 per month.
You're still sidestepping my argument altogether, jumping from renting prices to sale prices. I don't want to buy a house. How much does it cost to rent in the Bay Area, and elsewhere; is it a 20x difference? I don't think so.
I see this in the DC area where I live. It's perfectly possible to rent a very nice place for 1500-2000/month. It's totally impossible to rent anyplace decent in the country for $75-100/month (a 20x difference).
Well DC isn't "Bay Area or Manhattan", so you're sidestepping my argument by jumping from one location to another.
There I guess you'd want to be in Arlington or Alexandria, less than 1000 feet from a Metro stop. DC itself, at least the residential parts that don't need a car, is far from decent. In any case it clearly isn't "Bay Area or Manhattan".
Rent prices normally track house prices. Except during the steep parts of a bubble and crash, you can compute one from the other. One expense is thus a proxy for the other.
I'm pretty sure your "very nice place" isn't so nice. First of all, rentals are fundamentally inferior. Second of all, I doubt you are getting equivalent size. (indoor space, parking spots, land) Third of all, the cheap parts of cities are horribly violent.
I'm a tech guy, and a car guy. I love cars. Keep the "features" the hell away from my cars. I don't want to sit about in a mobile cinema. I want a car I can drive.
The big touch-screen is a reason why I would not buy a Tesla. The reasons to buy one are economy and performance. Hell, the Prius might have actually been a decent car if it didn't look like a shoe, sound like an overburdened vacuum cleaner, and handle like a beluga whale.
No, i hate large modern touch screens in cars and prefer proper buttons, and controls that I can memorize, like the controller in my BMW. I can do most things with minimal eyes off road.
I would argue its not a best in class feature, its a liability.
Competitive languages would hugely hinder the progress. Consider this: Mendel discovered the field of genetics but Darwin wasn't even aware of his work mostly because it was published in German, so we should be glad that the lingua franca of today is a relatively simple language as English, although I might had preferred Anglish if that was available - https://anglish.fandom.com/wiki/Main_leaf
Darwin could definitely read German -- there are quotations from German sources in his work that are left untranslated as he expected that any educated scientist would be able to read it. In the case of Mendel, the issue wasn't that it was in German, but it was in a very obscure journal of a local science society.
Whatever the problems of having a lingua franca for science are, the problems of not having one are much worse. Weird that Gordin is the only respondent to even mention this.
That is the obvious advantage that everyone knows, only tangentially related to the issue at hand: the challenges of being forced to work in a non-native language.
It's not at all tangential. It is the core of the problem. Any 'solution' or 'improvement' needs to understand and acknowledge the benefits of monolingualism. Look at Dharwadkar, who is calling for breaking up monolingualism without any consideration of the costs, or Sheridan, who advocates for more handholding by professors (because they have so much free time as it is?), or her example of an Indian professor: if the paper is so badly written that it cannot be understood despite many revisions, then how is it supposed to add to scientific knowledge? (It's not like scientific journals have very high standards for prose as it is, so that paper must have been gibberish at the start.) Consider this quote:
> English speakers have become the gatekeepers of science. By keeping those gates closed, we’re missing out on a lot of perspectives and a lot of good research.
OK, so let's say we switch to having everyone publish in their own native language because gosh we wouldn't want to be gatekeepers. Now instead of one 'gate', we have... hundreds, because everyone has to learn every language or else they are being 'gatekept'. Oops.
This pervasive error, this nirvana fallacy, of praising only the benefits of multi-lingualism, renders the entire discussion moot. It's a tissue of complaints and buzzwords.
We have the ability to learn multiple languages, and to work in them. In the history of science, working in multiple languages is the norm.
The idea that every piece of discourse should be in English is a modern phenomenon. It ironically has arrived just as the automated translation renders the interlinguistic literature gap irrelevant.
People should be talking about forcing English speakers to work in their non native language, not just about the woes of a single common language for science.
It is precisely at this moment that we have the ability to gain from cultural diversity without losing intelligibility. Will we go for this possibly? Probably not....
>People should be talking about forcing English speakers to work in their non native language, not just about the woes of a single common language for science.
There are thousands of languages in use worldwide. If English weren't the modern lingua franca, what would stop people from having these same complaints about any other "universal" language?
> It ironically has arrived just as the automated translation renders the interlinguistic literature gap irrelevant.
>It is precisely at this moment that we have the ability to gain from cultural diversity without losing intelligibility
Modern translators have come a long way, but they're far from able to translate scientific texts into intelligible English, especially without losing meaning, particularly from languages which have vastly different grammatical and conceptual styles, like Chinese, for example.
I think it's just en Vogue right now to complain about the Anglo-Saxon hegemony; these problems are not caused by English per se, and the rate of progress is substantially better with this current standard than the alternative you propose of keeping international research effectively siloed by language.
I still feel bad about taking a spot