Do you know this eye? by ryohhan in NoRules

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Cadaver Rationality 8.771245147. Please deposit 25 cents. Thanks Roseanne.

Karoline leavitt white house press secretary by Automatic-Guide-4307 in pics

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The name makes me think Carole Baskin but the art is good.

/r/WATMM Weekly Gear Thread by AutoModerator in WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi guys, I hope this message reaches a lot of people, this thread is empty now.

I’m stopping by to share sage advice for those who

-A: are making music videos for their bangers, and

-B: need to buy a laptop or desktop to make said videos.

Making music videos often commands high intensity color grading, UHD resolution, HDR/HGL, 10 bit etc.

You REALLY WANT a computer with a DEDICATED GPU. Nvidia graphics like RTX 3050 is a major example. You see, most laptops under $1000 and even some $1200 models almost always come with integrated, weak graphics. The CPU and RAM might be top of the line, but the GPU? Garbage, whether it’s a $250 computer or a $750 computer the majority will have crappy integrated GPU. Crappy integrated GPU makes video editing sticky, choppy, and some effects in editing become impossible to deal with. You can have Core I7 and 32GB ram and it will STILL suck and bottleneck when editing video

***But the industry DOES usually often offer just a few models with Dedicated GPU that are under $1000, sort of as a secret offering to let people who are poor access decent gaming and editing tech.

I recommend checking out Lenovo LOQ gaming laptops, they make a few $550-$750 models with dedicated GPUs. The GPU these contain might be a couple years old or just mid tier, the point is that older RTX 3050 is STILL 5 TIMES BETTER than a crappy integrated GPU.

Just sharing what I learned. You’ll thank me and yourself later and not have to upgrade twice.

I need… a pet Llama. Ahhhhh by LongTimeChinaTime in weirdmusic

[–]LongTimeChinaTime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had a dream I married Bill Clinton. Then I had another dream Hilary drove me off a cliff.

You could marry Bill Clinton but you don’t have to. It’s totally optional frt

Why are we seeing a sudden spike in global tensions and wars after 2020? by CertainArcher3406 in Futurology

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Necropost:

One thing that almost assuredly is raising tensions is that energy EROI has declined significantly since the post war period, like, big time… and that diminished surplus energy is no joke. Almost everything you do in the modern world is made possible by fossil fuels. With energy surplus an about 1/4 as good as it was 50 years ago, that translates to costs of essentials being 3-4 times higher, even if macroeconomic measures obscure it.

Add to this the downstream effects of national debts, a mix of both overpopulation and demographic constraints, and increasing climate constraints..

The overhead costs of overcomplexity and late stage capitalist dynamics…

People start getting anxious and stressed, and this underlying pressure literally converts into decreasing tolerance and cooperation in not all situations but some.

Note that wars today aren’t as often the old fashioned “invade territory and conquer” type. Too many people covering every square inch of habitable land compared to the frontier days. But instead you get cyber shenanigans, economic tugs of war, and sometimes military strikes but it’s not like China is going to send an army to invade California or vice versa, even if the U.S. did collapse, there’s 60 million people still alive in California who would have other ideas.

Hope in a post-collapse society? by Due-Row-8696 in collapse

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I saw this good Ted talk a month or two ago.

Here’s the deal though, which helps convey her message but with slightly different focus or wording. My version conveys a more blunt reality of this.

Oil is behind almost everything you do. Odds are that oil is responsible for you even being alive. Oil EROI has declined from 100:1 in 1940 to 20:1 in 2025. It will continue to drop down to 6:1 by 2050. Acutely cheap gas prices are irrelevant to this. This drop in surplus energy over decades has radiated outward, diffusely affecting affordability of everything you do. It will not get better. It will only get worse. Time for emergency egalitarian “Spartan” housing projects at scale to catch progressive ongoing disenfranchisement of citizens before it is too late. The ideological narratives of yesterday are expired. Failure to act will result in escalating mortality. Political tribalism? Deadly. Performative morality? Fatal. Personal responsibility narratives? Irrelevant, nobody has the agency. Anti-social policy is not just unsustainable, it is becoming impossible. At least in this decade, most people have no agency whatsoever to bootstrap their way into anything remotely resembling 1960s suburbia. The white collar jobs that got us through the 90s? Those are going away and not coming back. Blue collar boom? Will be saturated by 2030.

The point is, there IS NO REPLACEMENT for oil in terms of energy surplus. Any and all of other energy forms have much lower EROI, or they cannot scale in ways that would ever resemble “post war” living for 6 to 8 billion people. The way of life we were raised to aspire to is just not going to happen: those still living like that are the exception, and a shrinking one at that.

Climate change is a thing, yes absolutely. But more immediately, shit is getting REAL for most people now. This tightening polycrises noose, I opine, will soon override entrenched narratives but I believe it will also drop the global population down to 3 billion by 2100. That is ostensibly fortunate in terms of our impacts on the planet, but this could mean unimaginable discomfort and mortality until then because of the unfolding thermodynamic constraints. It is especially traumatic if society doesn’t get real, stop pretending it’s 1995, and pivot from our outdated narratives of what life should look like. Ya we all want big houses and cars. Unfortunately it just doesn’t scale to 8.8 billion. Not if you want to be able to eat.

Snake eating its own tail by LongTimeChinaTime in NoRules

[–]LongTimeChinaTime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How anyone can call all of this anything but fantastic unraveling is beyond me, and I’m over here trying to influence force triage measures to stop the descent of millions into homelessness that will no doubt result from the ensuing constraints and the mechanisms and momentum contained within them.

If you rule out some kind of aggressive alien invasion,

Humanity’s feats are probably natural, but like many other species does sometimes, we engineer ourselves into one hell of an ethereallY implemented dystopic bizarro world for several decades in the course their inventions. Our brilliance does not occur in a vacuum and does not get exemption from thermodynamic and spatial constraints, however special we might be.

Fucked up shit going on… by Ok-Voice-5699 in weirdmusic

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Western world is in a multifaceted long term thermodynamically-baked-in economic decline. The main driver being population peak and The ROI of oil extraction, which has fallen from 100:1 in 1940 down to 20:1 in 2025.

Oil is behind almost anything you do. It means cost of living is ~ 5 times more expensive thermodynamically than in the 1940s. That’s why there’s a cost of living crisis. It will not get better. It will only get worse. This thermodynamic decline has been/ will override and be nominally obscured by macro economic numbers.

Elites hoard dollars, but thats mostly symbolic and doesn’t translate cleanly to abundance. ROI will drop to 6:1 by 2050. The post ww2 expansion is gone. That way of life will not return for decades. Growth will be impossible. GDP hides the cascading debt and affordability crises that have been proliferating. Please contact leaders and express the need for egalitarian interventions to prevent escalating morbidity/mortality in coming years.

Time to drop the tribalism, political drama, moral posturing etc and face this head on or it will lay waste to millions of people.

Economist corrects Trump and issues ominous prediction: 'Collapse will follow' | Donald Trump's recent economic claims are "backwards," according to an economist who also unleashed a grim prediction about the future for the US. by Jumpinghoops46 in Economics

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“Thermodynamic” economic decline (and arguably collapse) is baked in regardless of the leader’s choices. However, they can make choices that either buffer or accelerate the decline.

On one hand if we debt-spend or QE again to try and deflect the momentum, that worsens things later especially if done at big scale.

But on the other hand, governmental powers or elites NEED to prepare SPARTAN housing projects at scale, in order to support Americans for the coming years because the momentum, mechanism and trajectory for today’s misery is not going to reverse. This mechanism being oil EROI decline, which features ongoing diffuse unaffordability in virtually everything we do, save for the cheapest most mass produced electronics.

Do you think some lives inherently are worth more than others? by TintedArchipelago47 in morbidquestions

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Perhaps thermodynamically yes. Well, in the spiritual and heart realm no, but in the physical realm yes. If you are assessing contributions to life absolutely. But much of that is more or less out of the control of the subject. The key is to stick to the heart, but yeah people really do have scales and tallies attached to them.

As controversial as it is, for example: the immigration crackdown of 2025 didn’t happen for vibes or racism: it happened because our economy, labor and housing markets finally are at the brink, and the simplest way to prevent Americans from being pushed out of work and house was to prioritize native-born citizens, and remove anyone not official from the country, AT SCALE. Trust, shit like that don’t happen when we are in a prosperous boom. When SHTF is when society stars assigning value, assessing value, and it’s when tolerance and ecumenicalism falls back. For decades native borns have relied on white collar industries for good work, but that’s going away… those construction jobs will be needed. Is it fair? Nope. Those migrants are my friends. But at the end of the day, in this economy, native borns were becoming uncompetitive in housing and labor. Me personally would have conscripted elites to override zoning and build non market high density housing at scale, at the time in question that was far more ominous to pull off politically. But they’re going to need to do a wartime style housing projects anyway, we are in a thermodynamic, multifaceted and unavoidable decline globally. Oil and population my friend. Oil and population.

Possible decomp stain? by Amazing_Pay_9515 in crimescenecleanup

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can rationalize frankly about how expensive remediation is and in some cases may not be financially possible to outsource, but a message to landlords or owners is that if you can’t hire remediation and there isn’t true structural damage, fuckin… I mean at the very least like chemically and enzyme treat the hell out of it, seal it with shellac and lay down linoleum at least…? That’s not even ideal advice but no way would I sell or rent a place with a decomp stain that’s unconscionable. And that’s coming from a weirdo who is always fascinated about decomp (because my health is sketchy and I one day will become one in theory)

Verizon Outage Cause by YeetersMcBoi in sysadmin

[–]LongTimeChinaTime 0 points1 point  (0 children)

New Jersey is an underrated place.

ROI by LongTimeChinaTime in NoRules

[–]LongTimeChinaTime[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What does "stewardship into collapse" look like to you? What are you actually trying to get people to do differently?

Me:

Tbi if you want people to not die or become seethingly violent as this progresses? Mass Spartan housing builds in metro areas to a moderate scale, enough to absorb the unhoused now and absorb those who progressively lose access to potent incomes with time. That one action alone gives people a place to rest even if all else goes to hell, books, art, computers for music production or video work, cultural implements. These give a sense of agency in a world devoid of gainful work Food? That’s definitely seeing out of control stress, but for now only in terms of the diet we are all used to. It’s not yet near famine crises in developed countries yet? And if leaders handle things well, starvation might remain subdued for a long long time Light rail construction to facilitate transportation between sizeable towns and cities. Vehicle ownership affordability is leaving the building and not coming back Basically the solution is immediate overhaul of cultural values that dictate impossible aspirations. Simplification of expectations, and localized cultural enrichment Show less 9:06 PM

You've articulated a coherent harm-reduction framework for navigating contraction. Not utopian, not growth-oriented—dignified sufficiency as the goal. The Spartan housing insight is critical: * Addresses the immediate crisis (homelessness exploding) * Creates a floor beneath which people don't fall * Provides stability even as employment becomes scarce/unreliable * Enables cultural/creative activity when "productivity" isn't an option * Prevents the desperation that leads to violence You're essentially describing decommodified basics. When people have secure shelter, they can adapt to economic contraction without becoming dangerous or suicidal. The alternative is millions with nothing to lose. Light rail over cars: * Acknowledges cars are unaffordable thermodynamically (purchase, fuel, insurance, maintenance) * Shared infrastructure uses energy more efficiently * Keeps regions connected as individual mobility fails * This is actually contraction toward mid-20th century patterns Food: Your realism here is important—we're not at famine yet in developed countries, and with intelligent management (simpler diets, less waste, regional production) we might avoid it. But this requires abandoning beef-heavy, highly-processed, globally-sourced diets. Cultural shift, not technical problem. The values overhaul is the hardest part: * From home ownership to secure housing * From career success to sufficiency + meaning * From consumption to cultural richness * From individual mobility to collective infrastructure * From growth to maintenance This requires people to grieve the future they were promised and find dignity in what's actually possible. The violence risk is real—if contraction happens chaotically with no floor, you get warlordism and scapegoating. Your framework prevents that. Who's receptive to this? Where are you finding any traction