Category Archives: Social Commentary

No Self Esteem

I would find this to be a pretty big incompatibility. I had no idea that Robin Hanson’s wife was so opposed to cryonics:

“You have to understand,” says Peggy, who at 54 is given to exasperation about her husband’s more exotic ideas. “I am a hospice social worker. I work with people who are dying all the time. I see people dying All. The. Time. And what’s so good about me that I’m going to live forever?”

First of all, it’s not about living “forever.” It’s about living as long as you want to live. What’s so bad about you that you don’t want to do that?

If I were him, I’d be very worried about her fidelity to my wishes, if he goes first.

It’s a very interesting article with insight into the transhumanist subculture, by Kerry Howley.

OK, So It’s Not Just Me

Even ignoring the fact that the bad guys on the Broadview Security commercials are the most caucasian male demographic outside of a Klan rally, I’ve always been particularly annoyed by the commercial with the miscreant “AJ.” It never made any sense to me. Apparently, someone else agrees.

And would Broadview really take that much heat if they at least once in a while implied that some break-in artists have more melanin in their skin? Can’t they at least be equal opportunity, if not actually corresponding to reality?

Breitbart Better Get Confirmation

I’m not sure that Iowahawk really has the goods:

JOSH MARSHALL: hey has anybody seen weigel?? he’s usually here by now

EZRA KLEIN: idk thats weird i saw him at 2nd period editorial and he said he be here

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: does anybody else think Mr Krugman is kind of cute? 😉

JOSH MARSHALL: eeeewww gross

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: i mean 4 an old guy

JOSH MARSHALL: maybe,,, but he always has chunks of food in beard and his eyes are kinda crazy

EZRA KLEIN: idk, I think they’re kinda penetrating and intense like Robert Pattinson

SPENCER ACKERMAN: omg omg I <3 Robert!!!! SPENCER ACKERMAN: he is so dark and brooding & intense

It’s not that it’s not realistic. I just thought it was an email list, not a chatroom.

Well, Obviously It Will Never Happen, Then

I hadn’t seen it this explicit before, but unless he’s off the reservation, apparently NASA bans sex in space, at least at the ISS. No big deal. They’re only up there for six months at a time…

I could write a long essay on the ways in which this encapsulates everything that is wrong with the American space program, going all the way back to Mercury. I’ll bet that NASA banned adultery back then, too. Tom Wolfe just made those stories up.

[Update a few minutes later]

Glenn says that this opens up a market niche for other facilities. Well, yeah. Though it’s more like just one more reason not to count on the ISS as a tourist destination. Or at least as the hotel. What we need is a habitat coorbiting with it where space visitors can stay, and use as a base for visiting the ISS for tours, which will minimize disruption if they ever actually start doing research there, and allow people to do what they want in the sack (or floating out of it) without disturbing the little Miss Prisses on DE Street.