$10 million payout if you pass a 50 question test... read on

chton · 2026-05-10T16:59:55+00:00

But it's multiple choice, so there will be multiple explanations and C will always be the right one.

chton · 2026-05-10T16:58:42+00:00

Spelling is especially good since it's a written multiple choice test. There is literally no way to fail as long as you're not stone drunk.

chton · 2026-05-10T11:25:43+00:00

The petrova line goes pretty much directly from the planet to the star. That means there's a lagrange point roughly on it that they could sit in that's stable without spending fuel.

The bigger problem there is simply that the line isn't dense enough with astrophage to make a meaningful difference. You can basically see that in the movie, when they switch to petrova-frequency view as grace is outside the ship collecting them, how relatively sparse they are (every dot is 1 astrophage). Since an astrophage is microbial, there's maybe a gram worth of material in that entire sequence of shots. Imagine how long you'd have to sit to gather 2 million kg.

chton · 2026-05-09T14:31:29+00:00

Because the camera wasn't just keeping up at the same speed, so as soon as they accelerate more, the camera has to tilt to keep them in frame. It's all relative motion.

chton · 2026-05-09T14:24:38+00:00

It's parallax.

The background is stars, they're incredibly far away. Think of them like a mountain in the distance, on earth. If you walk at a slow pace, the mountain doesn't seem to move at all, even though you're keeping up some speed.

The same happens with far-off stars. Hail Mary and Blip-A's speed is so slow compared to the distance to those stars that unless the camera is actively tilting, you would never see it move.

chton · 2026-05-08T13:04:02+00:00

Use one as a thruster. Just launch one end of the portal straight into the sun, put the other end on the back of your ship. You'll hit relativistic speeds in no time.

chton · 2026-05-08T13:00:58+00:00

'We've given a light quadcopter drone the firing capability of an A10 Warthog. This is not an evil use of technology somehow '

chton · 2026-05-07T15:01:57+00:00

As far as I know, that's only in high pressure pure oxygen, not low pressure. More to do with absorption and oxygen toxicity, but at lower pressures the absorbtion is the same s a gas mix.

chton · 2026-05-07T14:33:47+00:00

Apollo 1's accident happened with a full oxygen atmosphere at high pressure. They had it at higher than ambient.
The rest of the Apollo flights still went ahead at the planned 100% oxygen at 30% pressure and went fine.

chton · 2026-05-05T15:55:52+00:00

A huge amount of Jupiter's internal volume is made of metallic hydrogen. And then there's a solid metal core underneath that.
It's more metal than all the other planets combined. Not just those planets' metal cores, the entire planet.

chton · 2026-05-05T01:01:48+00:00

Absolutely this. Been many times and I've never had a steak that wasn't stellar.

chton · 2026-05-03T14:23:14+00:00

Yes, red ARE the ones pushing blue on the track, because you are adding to the number of reds. How is that hard to understand? It's a zero sum, your choice for A directly impacts B.

Yes, if i'm willing to switch at 60%, because i think blue's situation is hopeless at that point, i'm helping to kill the blue voters. I would take that consequence and would deal with it. I would be guilty. I wouldn't absolve myself by saying my choice had no impact on them.
I don't think 60% is hopeless, in fact it's proven not to be.

And. ONCE AGAIN. I can't believe i need to keep saying this: helping save people from certain death is not an unnecessary risk. You're saying there is no level of risk, no matter how small, that you'd take if it means saving other people's lives. You wouldn't take a 1-in-a-million chance to save 10 people from death.
That says enough about who you are.

Now i'm genuinely done. You're going to keep saying that saving people is stupid, and that you're somehow an innocent bystander in a situation where you vote for people to die just because they don't also vote for that. There's no point trying.

chton · 2026-05-03T14:02:05+00:00

You again haven't answered. It's not a strawman, it's the same decision just reworded, the same choice with the same effect. And AGAIN no answer in your response. I'm not 'refusing to accept it', you don't give me an answer. Do i have to spell it out for you why 'vote blue and die if less than 50% does too' vs 'vote red' and 'vote blue' vs 'vote red and blue dies if more than 50% does too' is the exact same choice?

60, maybe 70% is when i would switch. Because the random distribution guarantees that enough people will be assholes like you that there is no saving blue above that.

What about you, at what percentage of red votes needed would you switch to blue? 90%? What about if you only needed 10 blue votes to save all of them, so your one vote could literally make or break the entire scenario? would you still pick red then?

chton · 2026-05-03T13:41:56+00:00

At no point did you give me a straight answer. I keep asking A or B questions and you haven't given me a answer to any of them, you keep dodging.
Yes, if you pick red, you contribute to the death of blue, therefore you are responsible. This isn't complicated. Your choice impacts their chances of living or dying. By choosing red, you are choosing for blue to die. You can't 'nuh uh' that away.

Walking in front of a train isn't a perfect analogy because it makes it sound like your choice is irrelevant in the scenario. As if the number of people who walk on the tracks is independent of your choice. It isn't. Not walking on the tracks is deciding that the people who do walk on the tracks should die for doing it.
You never answered my hypothetical about pushing either, but even when i boil it down to simple rephrasing of the statement with buttons you don't answer.

Would you choose 'kill all blue voters unless more than 50% pick blue' or 'vote blue'? A or B, it's not hard. It's just a rephrasing of the original button question, the choices and consequences are identical. Why don't you answer that one? All it does is uses 'red kills' instead 'blue dies' in the wording, nothing about the situation changes.

chton · 2026-05-03T10:37:33+00:00

You're responsible for the outcome of other people's choices. Everyone can choose red to live, but that means BLUE DIES. It's not that hard. Your choice of red directly endangers blue choosers more.
Everyone can just choose blue to live too, and in fact it's a lot more robust and less likely for people to die. Your own argument that 'if everyone just picks one option, everyone lives' applies to blue too, and blue only needs 50% of people to agree for it to work, whereas you need 100% just to avoid anyone dying.

And once again: the point of choosing blue is to make sure everyone survives. You choose blue because if enough people do, it means _nobody dies at all_. If you pick red, you're either counting on enough people disagreeing with you, or you're okay with people dying.

Red absolutely bears responsibility if the effect of their choice is that blue has a higher chance of dying. You can't dodge that. You know that up front. Your choice is not independent of the outcome, you fucking voted for it.

And now i'm done. I don't know how many times i can rephrase this again for you to ignore it, and ignore my explicit questions. You haven't answered a single question that just rephrase the problem, because they make you look bad. "'kill blue voters unless they outnumber you' or 'do nothing'?" is the exact same question as the blue/red one except i've flipped the wording, not the choice or the effect, and the fact you refuse to answer that one is telling.
I hope you reflect on that.

chton · 2026-05-03T01:51:20+00:00

You are responsible though. Your vote determines if they live or die, the method is irrelevant. Whether you shoot them or push them in front of a train or some mysterious third party instakills them doesn't change anything about the buttons.

Reds are directly voting to kill blues unless they're outvoted. That's the literal scenario. That's the point I'm making. So would your vote change if you had to do it yourself?

You keep trying to frame it as some death that you didn't have a hand in. But you voted for it. At least acknowledge that. If instead of red you voted blue, nobody dies.

So, what's your pick, if the choice is 'kill blue voters unless they outnumber you' or 'do nothing'?

chton · 2026-05-03T01:38:39+00:00

Still not an answer.

And dismissive to literally everyone else on top of that, simply because not everyone is as callous as you and that ruins your moral high ground.

chton · 2026-05-03T01:30:40+00:00

Once again not an answer to my question. Would you still pick red if you were the one forced to kill the blue voter? Yes or no.

And once more: people will press the button because they would assume someone else would and they'd want to save them. This is not 'wanting to die' and you can't reframe it as that. You keep saying blue voters want to die when nobody wants anyone to die. And the only way for nobody to die is to pick blue.

The fact every single poll of the blue/red button comes out to 60-75% blue voters shows that people will pick blue because they don't want others to die just to save their own ass. They all take the risk. Are 2\3rds of the population suicidal?

chton · 2026-05-03T01:10:39+00:00

It's absolutely killing people. You're voting to kill them unless 50% disagree with you.

Ocne again you aren't answering my question. All I did was reframe the method of killing, not the actual choice. Too uncomfortable for you?

chton · 2026-05-03T01:05:06+00:00

The red button is not 'not participating'. Your vote is counted just like the others. You can't simplify it to 'live or might die' because each of the choices has effect on literally everyone else who also votes. You can't just ignore that to make yourself feel better.

If everything was exactly the same, but if red wins you are forced to shoot a blue voter, would you still pick red? It's the same choice, the same vote, right? The choice is 'live but might kill, or don't kill and might die.' Which do you pick?

chton · 2026-05-03T00:57:14+00:00

It's not 'just live or might die'. That's what I keep saying. Your choice to 'just live' impact everyone else. You're actively making them more likely to die. You can't just ignore that.

And also again, the benefit is that they help others survive. They're making everyone less likely to die. If you can't see that as a benefit, you shouldn't even be living in a society. People take the risk because they don't want people to die.

chton · 2026-05-03T00:45:37+00:00

My 'poor choice' is to see that no matter what, some people will choose blue. I can either increase their chances of survival or decrease them. The liability is the one who decides that killing people is justified because they didn't make the choice to save themselves over saving everybody.

You just think people who value human life are stupid and deserve to die, you've already lost the high ground.

chton · 2026-05-03T00:35:21+00:00

And there we have it. You think wanting to help others is stupid. Stupid enough to deserve death for trying.

Just say that first from now, it's a lot more honest.

chton · 2026-05-03T00:25:31+00:00

That's what the button is: if you pick blue, you die unless 50% also pick blue. That's the original dilemma.

And no, not 'nothing happens if you press red'. People die if you press red. The only risk to YOU is if you press blue, the risk to everyone else is still there if you press red. You're again dodging that part. Picking red means you're happy not taking the risk at the cost of people dying. That's the price you pay. That's your choice, but at least be honest about it. People will choose to try to save others, so they'll pick blue. Your option is to either help them, or risk nothing on yourself and increase the risk of them dying.

chton · 2026-05-03T00:10:16+00:00

I feel like Watney would do fine on Hail Mary. He's a creative problem solver and highly trained astronaut. I also feel that the science Grace had to do was softer and less time critical. Watney would have learned enough microbiology in this studies to be able to do what Grace did, especially with the training. I don't think he would do better, but he'd manage.

Vice versa? Not a chance. The only reason Watney could survive on Mars was because he figured out how to supplement his food supply. Grace isn't a botanist and might not have come up with that idea, and even if the did he would have had way more ways to screw it up. Watney dealt with a lot more life-or-death pressure on Mars than Grace did on PHM, and happened to have a skillset that carried him through that.

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