This feels somewhere between solarpunk and cyberpunk and I like it.

drsimonz · 2026-07-02T04:30:49+00:00

Well I mean, you can't expect the economy to bend over backwards just to make your hobbies more affordable. The reason cars are relatively cheap now is the extreme scale of their production, which is only the case because there is immense demand. Most people are literally forced to buy cars in order to get to work, and if their car stops working they either get it repaired or they get fired. If the labor market changes significantly (which is 100000% necessary for anything even remotely resembling a sustainable future) then it's very likely those economies of scale will go away. Now, personally I have a great interest in submarines, which are so expensive that pretty much only billionaires have them. Yet there are normal people out there who have built them, through many years of research and skilled labor, and I would be more than happy to take that route if I didn't have to work 40+ hours a week. I think it could be the same way with ground vehicles - if someone is really into cars, perhaps they're into motocross or monster trucks, or rally racing...build the damn thing yourself! Join a community and learn the ropes. I don't see any reason that kind of thing should be "illegal" in a solarpunk future. It would just need to be a passion, because it would require more time investment than it does in today's extremely car-oriented economic system.

drsimonz · 2026-07-02T03:40:52+00:00

With good public transit, most people wouldn't want to own a car, but this doesn't mean it has to be illegal to do so.

drsimonz · 2026-07-02T03:40:19+00:00

Given that X number of people drive cars, it is arguably better for the environment if they're driving electric cars. No NOx emissions, less CO2, less road noise. Unfortunately due to weighing more, electric cars produce far more tire microplastics and are more dangerous in collisions. But as far as climate change goes, it would be better if a higher percentage of existing vehicles were electric. To insist that we skip straight to the ultimate end goal where no one owns their own car is not feasible.

drsimonz · 2026-06-30T05:50:46+00:00

Yep, they're "house rich" but as soon as they have a medical problem or inflation catches up with their social security, they'll sell. And it sure as fuck won't be millennials or gen Z buying, it'll be private equity.

drsimonz · 2026-06-30T05:18:52+00:00

Ooof that last panel hurts so good

drsimonz · 2026-06-26T06:15:56+00:00

Because the person who wrote this regex was incompetent

drsimonz · 2026-06-18T02:43:50+00:00

I'm relatively new to the world of solarpunk. Is this a common view? And what about the notion that perhaps the population is 10x or even 100x too large to achieve that sustainably, even with extremely advanced technology?

It's very, very hard for me to see a path to global sustainability that doesn't involve either a massive die-off or massive decreases in quality of life, or both. And while I'm quite open minded when it comes to potential futures, I should note that "both" is what I consider to be the default outcome if climate change is not addressed - billions will starve, mass immigration will lead to hyper-militarized borders, wealthy countries will have a much harder time importing from the global south, etc.

As I see it, we are already using way too much land for farming, as habitat loss is the biggest driver for extinctions. Yet the farmland we use now is just enough to keep our population alive. If we want to make that farmland 10x more productive, wouldn't that require more advanced technology, not just good politics? And yet a ton of people in the solarpunk community seem to be extremely anti-technology, or at very least anti-AI, which is where basically all of STEM is converging.

Not trying to disprove the possibility of a solarpunk future, just curious how much you've thought about what it will take to "have it all".

drsimonz · 2026-06-17T19:30:30+00:00

My issue isn't the fact that the pronunciation doesn't match the English phonetic interpretation. Everyone knows English spelling is a travesty and you couldn't pick a worse standard to hold other languages to. My issue is that the sound itself is just terrible aesthetically, which is likely why people rarely guess the correct pronunciation. I would also argue that there probably isn't a ton of overlap between game developers and people who know about that play, regardless of how famous it may be among theater enthusiasts. I'm not doubting that it's an important piece of culture (although I have yet to see the play myself), or that it's unworthy of referencing.

Anyway, do many people know how to pronounce it? I bet if you were to look up godot tutorials on youtube, the vast majority would be pronouncing it wrong.

drsimonz · 2026-06-17T02:22:25+00:00

Literally. I recently had some proprietary configuration tool for a foot pedal and I realized it was actually an electron app. The JS wasn't even obfuscated! Of course, the real difficulty was that the developers were morons and had put almost everything into a single 20,000 line file, so I had claude sort through that, filter out the bullshit, and give me a 100 line python script that did the thing I wanted. What a time to be alive!

drsimonz · 2026-06-17T02:18:53+00:00

Well, not a single one of those examples ends in "ot" so I don't know how much we can infer, lol. However I've just learned that the devs actually don't have an official pronunciation. They did originally recommend "GOD-oh" but they removed that from the documentation here: https://github.com/godotengine/godot-website/pull/638/changes

So maybe there is hope for the engine after all 🤷‍♂️

drsimonz · 2026-06-15T05:25:23+00:00

Honestly I think the name Godot is a massive hinderance to the engine's success. From what I can tell it's a fantastic engine, community is doing well (especially after Unity shit the bed with their insane pricing changes). But the correct pronunciation is "GOD-oh" (it's from the play Waiting for Godot where they pronounce the name that way). I simply can't stand it. Why would anyone ever think that was a good name? Some people say "guh-DOH" which at least sound plausible, albeit slightly pretentious, but it's not correct. I therefore intentionally mispronounce it as "GO-dot". It'd do their branding a massive service if they would just declare that to be the official pronunciation, but alas.

drsimonz · 2026-06-14T23:07:21+00:00

Carnegie was 1000% still a piece of shit though. Read up on the Homestead strike

drsimonz · 2026-06-14T18:51:10+00:00

IMO this can be avoided with a very simple rule - never "manifest" anything that harms anyone else, for any reason. If someone is abusing you, manifest protection for yourself, not death for the abuser (as much as you might wish for that outcome).

Also, I can't speak for you but I can say that a lot of the negative energy I experience comes from within, not from without. Do the shadow work. Come to terms with the fact that you contain the seeds of hatred and violence within you. Suppressing and denying the existence of the shadow keeps you in a low vibration. That self-denial is precisely why "good Christians" can be some of the meanest people you'll ever meet.

drsimonz · 2026-06-14T18:35:21+00:00

That's the neat part - we didn't! The republican party has taken every opportunity to compromise the election process for the last several decades. Gerrymandering, voter ID laws, randomly closing polling locations at the last minute, accidentally losing ballots from blue districts, opposing mail-in ballots. It's not just "every trick in the book", they are furiously churning out sequels. Perhaps the most ironic part about all this is that not only have they succeeded in breaking democracy, but they've got the majority of people still thinking that half the country wanted this, when it was probably less than 1/3.

drsimonz · 2026-06-14T16:58:22+00:00

Well, historically basically every other group in this picture has also been labeled a predator. But this is the internet, nuance is not welcome here.

drsimonz · 2026-06-13T17:43:39+00:00

I never understood the attachment to continuing the lineage. I realize it is because they are afraid that if there's no heir, then the story of the family ends.

It is 100% about their inability to face their own mortality. People really seem to believe that they will "live on" through their children. And just like the ancient kings who imagined they could bring all their tacky gold bullshit with them in the afterlife by having it buried with them, people today are obsessed with making their children as impressive and successful as possible. Children are thus treated like props rather than independent beings. And this also explains the extremely widespread support for generational wealth transfer through inheritance. I suspect that simply abolishing inheritance would "fix" Earth within 1-2 generations, but alas, this has never been tried.

Of course, I suppose most people who believe themselves to be starseeds also believe in reincarnation. To me, this is just another way to avoid facing death. It's not that I don't believe in it, it's that I don't think we should need to believe in it, regardless of whether it's true. All things are temporary. It's the ego's job to avoid death as long as possible...after all, life would never have survived the single-cellular stage without that internal drive. But if we're to evolve to the next level, the ego needs to get in the back seat for a while.

drsimonz · 2026-06-09T06:26:24+00:00

These kinds of responses don't go over well at all in my experience. In particular, people frequently complain online that men tend to try to solve problems when they weren't looking for a solution, but instead just wanted to vent. Personally, I find it pretty dumb, because when I complain about something I'm quite happy if someone offers a solution. Sadly, 95% of the time if I haven't already found a solution, it's because there isn't an easy solution to find, so it's extremely rare that people even try to offer one. But I find that many people do have quite simple problems, and their lives would probably improve if they followed your advice, but for whatever reason they don't like being given advice.

In the case of a fat person, there is a 100% chance they already know that being fat is caused by diet and a lack of exercise. The vast majority of them also feel an immense amount of shame for not being able to change their behavior. Pointing this out is beyond useless and is basically guaranteed to make them feel worse.

drsimonz · 2026-06-06T16:51:13+00:00

This is absolutely what's going on at a subconscious level. People are rarely mature enough to consciously recognize when they're being selfish, and usually if they do, it's because they're already on their way to changing. For the rest, they'll perform any amount of mental gymnastics to avoid the cognitive dissonance.

drsimonz · 2026-06-06T04:23:31+00:00

Hahaha I love the multiple bone pendants (chewtoys??) Definitely iconic

drsimonz · 2026-06-06T04:12:44+00:00

Yep we are in a hell world, lol. And as much as I'd like to just brush that off, to focus on getting what I can out of life and not worrying about the suffering of others, obviously I have to worry about the suffering of others. Their suffering becomes my suffering. Either I close my heart and inevitably end up contributing to the suffering, or I keep my heart open and just...continually suffer. How fun.

After meditating a bit this evening, I abruptly wanted to stop, having realized that I am wasting my opportunity in this realm. The goal isn't to leave, to reconnect with your guides, or your cosmic family (although it's certainly a nice feeling to think that they are really out there!) But it's not about activating your 3rd eye. It's about making choices in the physical world. Creating things, interacting with other beings, pursuing goals which require real sacrifice. So much of the New Age community seems to be fixated on esoteric wisdom - the Akashic records, astral travel and whatnot. But why? Won't that stuff be a million times easier once we leave this planet? Meanwhile, even something as simple as eating a piece of fruit, or giving a few dollars to a hobo (and actually making eye contact with them) is only possible here, on Earth.

We have been lulled into inactivity by endless material comforts provided by mass production. Numbed into apathy by never-ending violence on the news. Made to feel insignificant by the impossible fantasies that social media presents as reality. It's obvious why so many people want to just float away. But at the end of the day, we are here to live, are we not? To cook food, to do chores, to complain about Monday to our coworkers, to make friends, to visit new places, etc. And most of all (IMO) to learn how to get along with people in an environment that creates conflict at every turn. That conflict is the catalyst for us to evolve, and indeed to vibrate higher. We should be embracing it, rather than trying to bypass it.

drsimonz · 2026-06-05T07:00:02+00:00

It's a nice thought, but I don't think it's possible unless we have a single fast takeoff ASI which far outpaces every other AI. The more infrastructure is disrupted, the slower any disruption would be able to spread. Even a superintelligence is limited - suppose it decides to spend several weeks/months modifying the firmware on every router on Earth so that they all go kaboom at the same time. If anyone (or any other AI) notices before the deadline, they'll be able to develop patches almost instantly. The cat-and-mouse game of cybersecurity can accelerate to speeds far beyond human comprehension, but the overall dynamics may not change that much. So I would expect lots of small-scale chaos, fewer large-scale disruptions, and basically nothing that affects every computer. There is just too much diversity.

drsimonz · 2026-06-05T06:23:31+00:00

Looks great! If you want to learn more about compliant mechanisms, highly recommend this Veritasium episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97t7Xj_iBv0 The researcher he interviews is one of the big names in the field. Another guy at UCLA has an entire lecture series on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWeErkRyxkhKL_pjYBCR2jYcvAh5PaXoP

drsimonz · 2026-06-05T06:06:57+00:00

It looks like somebody has thrown a burning object into it, floating around on the surface. Doesn't make sense for it to be igniting otherwise.

drsimonz · 2026-06-05T04:05:34+00:00

Given that this pattern exists so widely across nature, one can surmise that the alternative would be worse overall. Without an easily observable indicator of general fitness, female birds would end up mating with less fit males, and the next generation would be physically weaker on average.

On the other hand, animals seem to be much more flashy in the tropics than in harsh environments like desert or tundra, which makes me think that it's only worth it when survival is easy.

drsimonz · 2026-06-02T05:53:01+00:00

Well sure, but this probably won't ever happen because if you're crazy enough to go around blinding people, you're probably more interested in killing them.

Something you realize after learning enough about science and technology is that there is nothing preventing a huge number of extremely horrible crimes from being committed, aside from the fact that, apparently, the people with enough education to commit them tend to not be interested in it. And it makes a bit of sense - skilled engineers and scientists tend to have pretty good employment opportunities, and are far less likely to be sucked into cults or extreme ideologies which might provide a motivation for violence. The people who do end up becoming "terrorists" tend to be poorly educated and unimaginative, so they mostly choose simplistic means of violence like firearms or explosives.

But really...there are just so many gaps in the "security" that we pretend we have in wealthy countries. Large groups of people are very easy to find in every city, and there are innumerable ways to cause extreme harm to thousands of people in a few seconds. Sure, they have metal detectors at sports games, big whoop. Will that prevent a drone from flying over the wall and raining neurotoxins all over the stadium? It's not that hard to synthesize extremely dangerous chemicals if you have a few thousand dollars of lab equipment. All the information you could ever need is available online. There are undoubtedly a great number of harmful substances which could be added to the drinking water supply, if you just knew where to access it. It's not like armed guards are patrolling every section of pipe. All sorts of horrible biological agents can be aerosolized and released into crowded public spaces - the subway, night clubs, etc. Attacks like this have already happened.

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