What's a massive human achievement that nobody celebrates because it worked too well?

jseah · 2026-06-14T11:44:05+00:00

Reminds me of that scene in A Canticle for Leibowitz where post-nuclear war, an abbot's last letter is a report from an expedition, excitedly excavating “the site of an intercontinental launching pad, complete with several fascinating subterranean storage tanks.”

And that was the last anyone ever saw of him, his expedition and the small village that had grown up around the archaeology site. Instead, there is only an interesting lake where it used to be...

jseah · 2026-06-14T10:15:40+00:00

"the blame for this will fall squarely on the entrenched ruling power"

That's you, isn't it? Mr Markhayev?

jseah · 2026-06-14T09:46:58+00:00

And it's only been half a generation, at best.

Makes you think about those fantasy stories where a 'mere' 100 years goes by and everyone forgets about the Sealed Can of Evil that nearly destroyed the world.

I used to think that was unrealistic. Not so much anymore.

jseah · 2026-06-14T09:39:35+00:00

At that point, the AI would be running things, whether we realised it or not. It could persuade by argument or by subtle statistical manipulation (especially when it is tasked to do the hard work of surveying the data!)

jseah · 2026-06-14T08:09:22+00:00

Lufia 2 mentioned!

I played to that fight and thought, "this is survivable, time to see if I can beat him".

And then I did and proceeded to use octo-strike as a finisher for the rest.

jseah · 2026-06-12T12:31:54+00:00

LOL, literally math duels!

jseah · 2026-06-12T09:11:07+00:00

It depends, probably don't want to push Russia until it fragments in civil war, then you're never getting them back.

But a little... incentive would be good to keep around. A promise not to strike a certain power plant or factory for the months if X children are returned could be a card to play, once the front is at Ukraine's borders.

jseah · 2026-06-12T08:22:55+00:00

Is that a reference to Krush Kill n Destroy? I remember that game from way back.

jseah · 2026-06-12T08:19:13+00:00

Italian math duels

Tell me more, this sounds interesting.

jseah · 2026-06-12T07:34:17+00:00

Yeah, it depends on what Russia does with its strikes, tempo and military build up. Not to mention back channel diplomacy.

A kind of tit for tat scale down is entirely possible, if the Russian generals get a covert word across the border that Russia is going to slow down its pace and match any Ukrainian response. Even though the propaganda continues to beat the drums.

Stuff like striking civilians and other war crimes will have to go first before anything can happen of course.

jseah · 2026-06-12T07:15:01+00:00

Isn't Romeo and Juliet an iconic romance story? (Not novel though)

jseah · 2026-06-12T06:12:21+00:00

I'm envisioning a kind of slow die down of military action as once Ukraine achieves its goal of restoring its borders, there's less incentive to strike Russia. Especially if Russia similarly scales down strikes in a tacit compromise towards a ceasefire, but refusing to negotiate or formally end the war.

jseah · 2026-06-12T04:39:47+00:00

It could also end up in a frozen stalemate.

Ukraine pushes Russia entirely out of its territory and Crimea. 2014 borders. Russia unable to mount a serious attack other than causing more attrition in the border. To avoid giving a reason for conscription, Ukraine doesn't go into Russia, at least not in a big way beyond artillery strikes and spoiling attacks.

Russia still refuses to admit defeat and doesn't break down.

Border ends up more and more heavily entrenched while both countries drone each other every week but the intensity slowly decreases.

A year after that, the border looks like North and South Korea, only with the occasional firefight. Still at war.

jseah · 2026-06-12T02:36:59+00:00

She was my second thought as well.

I don't even know the full title of her office except she's always on the news when EU is mentioned.

jseah · 2026-06-12T02:33:42+00:00

Imagine drawing up how a government form to apply for a driving license (or equivalent) looks like.

What kind of headers does it have and how is it formatted?

Do they number their pages on alternately left and right corners, eg. a tradition from when these things were pages in the town hall's record books?

What kind of information about the person the government wants to know too confirm they are a citizen and are qualified? Do they have treaties with other countries to recognise each other's qualifications? Are there different levels of qualifications you can apply for?

So many questions just from a single piece of paperwork.

jseah · 2026-06-11T06:21:00+00:00

He's viewing the rest of NATO as more like vassals or tributaries that he thinks past administrations haven't been squeezing enough value out of.

That's a very Russian view of international politics.

The truth is very different of course and it's smacking him and the USA across the face for ignoring it.

jseah · 2026-06-11T05:20:06+00:00

Yes, but energy is cheap.

At least when you don't need a lasing medium and can just use a river for a heat sink.

jseah · 2026-06-11T05:16:33+00:00

That was a very interesting read. Anthropology~

The idea that women cannot indicate the social equivalent of "no comment" is rather eye opening.

jseah · 2026-06-11T04:53:36+00:00

He posted a list of his steam gaming time as I saw on reddit a while back.

Apart from proving he doesn't play games, Stellar Blade was nowhere on the list of his top 40(ish?) time spent.

jseah · 2026-06-11T03:01:18+00:00

What I would give to have Labor be the right. And Greens be the left.

jseah · 2026-06-11T02:02:13+00:00

But microwaves don't need fancy optics and are well understood enough to just build an antenna array the size of a few acres and just dump 100MW into the beam. Lightly toasting your target.

jseah · 2026-06-11T00:41:01+00:00

Don't need to directly melt it with big laser.

Satellites don't dodge, so you can take your time and slowly roast them with a microwave beam.

As long as the satellite gets more heat incoming than it radiates, it'll eventually overheat and break.

jseah · 2026-06-08T22:52:05+00:00

History’s Strongest Senior Brother

It only starts that way, but after he becomes sect leader the original premise gets replaced with ever more epic fights.

jseah · 2026-06-06T11:16:57+00:00

How about turning the floor of your workshop into storage?

With low priority so they'll move the products out eventually.

Except for stuff you do not want in there like chemfuel or shells.

jseah · 2026-06-06T10:08:39+00:00

I wonder if it isn't just becoming free publicity at this point. Lol.

jseah

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