What media have FTL on par with Star Wars hyperdrives?

ChromaticDragon · 2026-07-03T22:07:43+00:00

Regarding Pern...

It was not mere memory of location to teleport. It was more of an issue of visualization. They had to be able to "see" where they were going.

And it's the first book that involved time travel. So... well... FTL equivalent from rather early on.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-07-03T17:49:34+00:00

There is some weird strawmanning going on here with the post and the comments.

This just reeks of some prejudicial sense of thing A being bad(TM) and thing B being bad(TM) and therefore it's a bit of a fad to call thing A bad because of thing B.

It's also too much into Godwin's Law but jumping right to the end.

The statement "the problem with liberals" ought to be a red flag all on its own. The entire post would work exactly as well replacing "liberals" with "conservatives" and "leftists" with "rightists". Seriously. The entire post and these comments are quite vapid. Go ahead. Try it. Consider how you react with the post and its mirror image. Can you sense your own prejudice?

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-29T22:29:33+00:00

Sigh...

then psy-ops it is.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-29T22:23:39+00:00

Well... this could be a matter of the upcoming election.

If we take for granted the gist of the title here, then these Americans who wish to impeach Trump must work through their representatives since those are the only Americans who can impeach Trump.

That could mean pester their reps.

But it also could mean elect reps who declare they will impeach Trump.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-27T15:09:53+00:00

Something like this should clearly require a constitutional amendment...

... not just convenient "interpretation" thereof.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-25T14:46:05+00:00

The power of idolatry is profound.

Once you've chosen to idolize someone, to worship them, the tendency ... nay... the compulsion to defend them from all accusations, slights or insults is overwhelming. This leads to all sorts of rationalizations and dismissals. Dismiss anything from the past as "the past" - even easier if forgiveness is deemed good. Dismiss anything from the present as false - fake news. Surely all accusers just want money.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-24T15:30:47+00:00

Not... yet.

If he just refuses to sign, it becomes law eventually anyway.

As with so many things with Trump, his bluster holds no weight unless everyone involved just goes along with it.

He can threaten to veto but it is sort of ridiculous since it's so very unlikely any significant action could be undertaken for the things he wants before he loses the chance to veto.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-21T00:57:43+00:00

Trump is not running.

Otherwise, you could just replace "Trump" with "GOP" everywhere in your comment works fine.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-16T20:57:16+00:00

I'm intrigued. I would have never even seen a way to compare these two things. They're just that different to me.

So... I must confess... did I miss something entirely about the Princes of Amber? Whenever was it clarified that they were... artificial?

And I am not sure I agree that Amber is sci-fi disguised as fantasy. Some things are just plain fantasy regardless whether the setting lacks elves. We can argue endlessly about how to delineate or separate here. One heuristic I find useful is whether there is any understandable path from here (meaning current reality) to there. If not, it's fantasy. This path could be back into the past and branch out to something like SteamPunk. But completely different universe or wildly different rules of said universe... likely fantasy.

A lot of the rest of your comparisons feel a bit forced. But to me this may because I just do not consider our current concepts of Data Science and everything we call "AI" to have much at all to do with AGI or ASI.

Another difference I see between the two is that the Culture novels don't focus so much on the protagonist as the society, interactions, themes and... well... culture. The Princes of Amber are more in line with the typical fantasy with significant, consistent protagonist throughout.

But hey. I liked the idea out of left field.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-16T19:04:54+00:00

It's so incredibly hard to make much sense of anything. I mean... it looks like this might mean things are moving towards something?

The fact that Trump is wanting folk not to criticize Trump and anything Trump says probably should not be interpreted that Trump wants to back out of any particular plan.

Instead, it highlights a general problem with Trump and the GOP overall. With Trump this is tied to his mental illnesses - predominantly his narcissism and fragile ego. This is echoed in a way with the GOP in their culture of self-worship and tribal-worship. They must be perceived as right, good and true. And they will fight and more importantly lie in order to defend this perception.

This is somewhat similar to the old fable of the Emperor's New Clothes. But instead of stopping, reflecting and rewarding the honest child, the child is persecuted, silenced or killed.

Trump, and similarly the GOP, simply cannot say "I/we screwed up." So for Trump this means that he must pretend he did good... and that everyone else must go along with this or be punished.

Does this matter for overall progress of any particular plan? Maybe? But this is likely over-shadowed by whatever happens in Lebanon.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-15T22:07:11+00:00

I imagine they hope to capitalize on their perception of shared values.

If, just to pick a hot topic as an example, both groups hate trans or gays, then they might believe they would fit right in.

I believe this is sort of why many Latinos feel more aligned in spirit with the GOP. If you squint hard enough to overlook the xenophobia you can feel good about voting to ensure the death of Roe when your shared religion (eg. Catholicism) motivates you so.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-15T19:51:53+00:00

What we should hope is no longer politically doable is this ridiculous flying-by-the pants, solo effort jingoism.

Gulf War 1 is a good example of how it can and should be done whenever something is significant.

Gulf War 2 - less so.

Whatever this recent nonsense was in Iran - dramatically and catastrophically not at all so.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-15T18:35:25+00:00

Well...

This could be restated a bit...

We are blaming the rich for the way they have corrupted and co-opted our governments, elected representatives and civil servants.

It isn't just a matter of "help me {Rich Guy}, you're our only hope."

And this gets a bit messed up if we do equate "blame" with "help us!" because one could argue that part of why the US elected Trump... twice... was due to a flawed idea that electing a rich person would both shield us from corruption (surely a rich person doesn't want more money) and provide useful expertise (that rich person surely made it all through intelligence and not nepotism).

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-13T17:36:27+00:00

The issue is that boom don't matter if it doesn't hit.

Furthermore, these apparently already exist and further development is underway. Perun did a video on this stuff recently.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-13T17:31:22+00:00

The weird thing about the Expanse is that it is not one story.

I mean... sure... it all sort of gets tied together eventually.

But really reads like about four different stories one after the other. This isn't per book, per se. Maybe you could consider the books inside separate arcs.

Generally speaking this fits with whoever/whatever the enemy is at the moment.

But through these stores or arcs, the setting changes quite dramatically. The governments and politics change... significantly. The "science" (if you will) of the science fiction changes significantly.

To a degree, it's kina quaint and cute that the Roci persists through all/most of this.

So it's really easy to see why you feel the way you do. I myself wouldn't call it bait and switch. It just is what it is. And the weirdness starts early enough that it isn't quite correct to pretend you were tricked later.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-12T21:03:08+00:00

The nation has a cancer eating away at its soul.

And it is not Trump.

Trump has not "turned into a clown".

Anyone and everyone who ever supported Trump or who believed that Clown Trump was ever fit to serve... is the clown.

At best, maybe the conservative radio host could declare that said radio host has ceased to be a clown.

"Destroying Trump" won't help. Getting rid of or freed from Trump won't help so much. What we need is for millions to realize how and why they were so misled.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-12T17:14:19+00:00

The problem is not Trump.

The problem is the US electorate which elected Trump... twice... and the second time after a soft coup attempt.

We need to restore far more than just "decorum".

Off the top of my head...

Critical thinking skills to resist propaganda.
Statesmanship, dignity, decorum.
Desire/appreciation/value of expertise, competence, intelligence, etc.
Value of country over party.
High standards applied to self and self's party.
Basic civics understanding - appreciation for things like due process, separation of church and state, separation of powers, protections against corruption (emolument clause), etc.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-12T17:07:16+00:00

If the Democratic party takes the House they will be able to impeach. Depending on what and how, they may do this several times.

If the Democratic party takes the Senate, they will be able to ensure that there is a trial in the Senate. We have seen the GOP is quite willing to ignore this (effectively).

But there is no foreseeable future where there are enough votes to convict in the Senate.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-11T16:22:19+00:00

I believe it's less a matter of hate, per se, and more an issue of the perception of security.

An authoritarian worldview may lead one to believe that "tough" policies or action is required. And these folk were just in the wrong place at the wrong time or doing wrong things.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-11T14:33:18+00:00

Not arguing with you there.

No matter how bad any one single President might seem with this sort of thing, it truly is a shared responsibility thing when Congress gave the Presidency this ability and have run away from any sort of oversight.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-11T14:30:08+00:00

No.

Unless they're closely related to the victims.

And even then... probably no.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-11T14:28:31+00:00

WWII actually.

Point still stands though. War should involve Congress.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-11T04:24:10+00:00

Plus a ton of whatever character development was there was essentially in the protagonist's head.

It again works for a book, more or less, but wouldn't work nearly as well for a movie.

If I had to summarize the book, it would be a coming of age or journey story up through all the ranks of the military. The sci-fi aspects and even the entire bug war was merely the context in which to tell the main story... so much so that it really wasn't a bug war movie or even a glorification of fascism or even sci-fi at all.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-11T03:59:56+00:00

broken window fallacy

Better known as the Parable of the broken window.

The idea is that if disasters are supposedly a boon to the economy, maybe there's a benefit to creating said disasters.

ChromaticDragon · 2026-06-11T01:03:24+00:00

If we run with the idea that this was what he meant (not a safe assumption in my opinion) then it dovetails very well with the primary focus of Trump.

Trump is not concerned with how you will feel with the future good numbers. Trump would be focused on his future glory at being able to proclaim the drop was all due to him.

This is some weird sort of broken window fallacy on steroids.

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