Evolution and natural selection never stops, we’ve only changed what the selective pressures are.

I’d argue a housecat and a bobcat share a similar ecological niche. Haven’t the housecats simply replaced the bobcats that were largely removed by humans?

Wild Cats Of North America:

Bobcat

Canada Lynx

Puma / Mountain Lion / Cougar

Ocelot

Jaguarundi

Jaguar

Margay

It’s like we’re going back to the pre-internet era but it’s obviously a little different. Before the internet, there were just a few major media providers on TV plus lots of local newspapers. I would say that, for the most part in the USA, the public trusted TV news sources even though their material interests weren’t aligned (regular people vs big media corporations). It felt like there wasn’t a reason not to trust them, since they always told an acceptable version of the truth and there wasn’t an easy way to find a different narrative (no internet or crazy cable news). Local newspapers were usually very trusted, since they were often locally owned and part of the community.

The internet broke all of those business models. Local newspapers died because why do you need a paper when there are news websites? Major media companies were big enough to weather the storm and could buy up struggling competitors. They consolidated and one in particular started aggressively spinning the news to fit a narrative for ratings and political gain of the ownership class. Other companies followed suit.

This, paired with the thousands of available narratives online, weakened the credibility of the major media companies. Anyone could find the other side of the story or fact check whatever was on TV.

Now what is happening? The internet is being polluted with garbage and lies. It hasn’t been good for some time now. Obviously anyone could type up bullshit, but for a minute photos were considered reliable proof (usually). Then photoshopping something became easier and easier, which made videos the new standard of reliable proof (in most cases).

But if anything can be fake now and difficult to identify as fake, then how can you fact check anything? Only those with the means will be able to produce undeniably real news with great difficulty, which I think will return power to major news companies or something equivalent.

I’m probably wrong about what the future holds, so what do you think is going to happen?

Yeah what happened to that one out of South Korea?

How is a microchip edible? Big as a sand grain? How does it work? How long has this tech existed? How many microchips have I eaten? Do they stop working if I eat them?

It’s just a ship dropping out of warp a safe distance from our system. While inconvenient, it’s considered best practice to drop out well away from the system’s center to shed the particles you’ve accumulated in your warp bubble during transit. They are extremely energetic and can cause immense damage if released irresponsibly close to an inhabited planet. This is especially true when visiting a primitive world that hasn’t set up any sensible warp safety systems.

I really think you should stop arguing and start listening.

I think your worries are misplaced. I work for an employee owned cooperative with about 60 employees. I think half of the employees are also owners. There’s still a CEO, chosen by the board of directors, who are elected by the employee-owners. Day to day operational decisions are made by whoever is in charge of the relevant department, just like a shareholder-owned corporation. Bigger decisions, like long term strategy or how to distribute profits among employees, are voted on by all of the employee owners instead of shareholders. It’s been in business for about 20 years and makes enough money to share profits with all employees regardless of their ownership status. So essentially this business operates like any other, but the profits are shared with the employee-owners and employees instead of going to shareholders or insane CEO salaries (compressed pay structure).

“So they told me that, according to the most advanced theories and techniques in every field, based on extensive theoretical research and experimentation, through analysis and comparison of multiple proposals, they did find a way to preserve information for about one hundred million years. And they emphasized that this was the only method known to be practicable: carving words into stone”

I think one of the best ways to unite people is a common threat or enemy. Since an alien invasion is unlikely, we’re left with a couple less clear scenarios that I can think of:

1. A crazy rogue nation hell bent on plantary destruction would probably get a unified response. Best candidate is a Republican controlled United States or perhaps another petro state ignoring carbon emissions with climate change really getting bad.

2. Climate change just gets really bad and demands a coordinated response.

3. An international revolution that removes power from the currently ruling classes. My thinking here is that international conflict is started by oligarchs and other elites across the world. For example, I doubt the average Russian would even consider invading Ukraine if it weren’t for those at the top running a shit economy and using the media to spread lies. Similar for the Chinese and Taiwan, Americans and the whole world, etc. I just have a hard time believing large human populations would fight over something in this age without being encouraged to do so by those who would benefit.

Huh, I guess I’m a neo-Brandeisian:

The New Brandeis movement opposes the school of thought in modern antitrust law that antitrust should center on customer welfare (as generally advocated by the Chicago school of economics). Instead, the New Brandeis movement advocates a broader antimonopoly approach that is concerned with the structure of the economy and market conditions necessary to promote vigorous competition.

Capitalists hate capitalism. They don’t want to compete with other firms, they want a monopoly. So it’s like you’re saying to the monopolists, fine, you want to do capitalism? Well then we’re going to jam so much capitalism down your throat you’ll shit free market competition.

They’ll probably get here eventually, if they’re not here already. Granted it’ll be harder for them to control a narrative, but they’ll probably try with bots/paid commentors and complicit moderators.

That can still happen, right? Is there something special about the fediverse that prevents those methods from being used to manipulate the user base’s opinions?

Yo better check your fuel prices: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/09/21/why-uranium-prices-are-soaring

Plus imagine how expensive uranium will get once we start relying on nuclear. It’ll be the new oil.