I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
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@johnzajac And now vaccine policy in the U.S.
The triple punch of water treatment, modern sanitation, pollution controls vaccines, and antibiotics - all either invented or implemented in the 20th century - led to a period of plague-free living that was, quite frankly, longer than at any other period in *human history*.
The world's half-assed non-addressing of the ongoing COVID pandemic betrays as much a failure of experience as it does a failure of imagination when it comes to "how bad" plagues can be.
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@whitequark @__Styx__ @johnzajac
You might be glossing over the seriousness of skin cancer.I literally came here to say that
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@__Styx__ @johnzajac while not detracting from your larger point: the research I was looking at was examining _existing_ African cultivars of rice and looking at what can be done to other ones to make them more UVB-resistant. so in this particular case the adaptations were already there
The ozone layer absorbs roughly 98% of incoming UVB light from both the sun and cosmological sources. Space is, not to put too fine a point on it, *anti-life*. The Earth's atmosphere (the ozone layer being a key part of this) and dynamo molten iron core (which creates our unique magnetic field) are literally the only reasons life exists *at all*.
One of the reasons "colonizing Mars" is nonsense is that it doesn't have either an ozone layer or a strong magnetic field.
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The ozone layer absorbs roughly 98% of incoming UVB light from both the sun and cosmological sources. Space is, not to put too fine a point on it, *anti-life*. The Earth's atmosphere (the ozone layer being a key part of this) and dynamo molten iron core (which creates our unique magnetic field) are literally the only reasons life exists *at all*.
One of the reasons "colonizing Mars" is nonsense is that it doesn't have either an ozone layer or a strong magnetic field.
@johnzajac @__Styx__ have you or anyone else you know done a study on what happens to terrestrial plants when they're hit with a 100% incoming UVB (as in pre-ozone-layer) level? I have not found an answer to that question and what I found for lower UVB exposure levels was inconclusive
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The ozone layer absorbs roughly 98% of incoming UVB light from both the sun and cosmological sources. Space is, not to put too fine a point on it, *anti-life*. The Earth's atmosphere (the ozone layer being a key part of this) and dynamo molten iron core (which creates our unique magnetic field) are literally the only reasons life exists *at all*.
One of the reasons "colonizing Mars" is nonsense is that it doesn't have either an ozone layer or a strong magnetic field.
When we're talking about UVB, we should note that while it doesn't ionize individual atoms like gamma radiation, it *can* cause serious damage to complex molecules (like basically all of life relies on - for example, DNA).
The fallacy you're working with here is that you believe you can predict the outcome of there being "no ozone layer". But that's not real; flooding the world with UVB radiation would be so catastrophic that we cannot imagine the outcome.
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I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
Because within that little perplexion - people thinking the problem was a hoax because it was fixed before it destroyed shit - is an encapsulation of the current era of Western politics, including COVID mitigation, lesser evil politics, fascism, and crime rate hyperbole
All quibbles aside, it certainly stoked the conspiracy mania.
Maintenance and repair is continually undervalued in our "efficiency"-obsessed economy.
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@johnzajac @__Styx__ have you or anyone else you know done a study on what happens to terrestrial plants when they're hit with a 100% incoming UVB (as in pre-ozone-layer) level? I have not found an answer to that question and what I found for lower UVB exposure levels was inconclusive
We don't really need to have a study that tells us what happens when life is hit by 100% UVB from the sun, because physics tells us what happens when complex molecules are hit by radiation at that level at that wavelength.
Ultimately, this isn't a biology question or even a climate or ecological question; it's a physics question.
And physics is not ambivalent about the impact of UVB on complex molecules, of which life is entirely composed.
Deep time tells us...
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We don't really need to have a study that tells us what happens when life is hit by 100% UVB from the sun, because physics tells us what happens when complex molecules are hit by radiation at that level at that wavelength.
Ultimately, this isn't a biology question or even a climate or ecological question; it's a physics question.
And physics is not ambivalent about the impact of UVB on complex molecules, of which life is entirely composed.
Deep time tells us...
...that btw 750 and 1500 million years ago the Earth had simple single-cell life, mostly at the bottom of the ocean. Around 750 million years ago, that life began producing huge amounts of oxygen as a byproduct of their metabolism. Over 250 million years, this "great Oxygenation event" led to the creation of the Ozone layer 500 million years ago - and, not coincidentally, what is known as the "Cambrian Explosion": a period of rapid development of multicellular life.
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...that btw 750 and 1500 million years ago the Earth had simple single-cell life, mostly at the bottom of the ocean. Around 750 million years ago, that life began producing huge amounts of oxygen as a byproduct of their metabolism. Over 250 million years, this "great Oxygenation event" led to the creation of the Ozone layer 500 million years ago - and, not coincidentally, what is known as the "Cambrian Explosion": a period of rapid development of multicellular life.
Incidentally, "the bottom of the ocean" is also protected by a barrier that absorbs UVB light.
While I can't guarantee that the development of the ozone layer was key to the evolution of multicellular life, I can say that it's one hell of a coincidence if it didn't.
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All quibbles aside, it certainly stoked the conspiracy mania.
Maintenance and repair is continually undervalued in our "efficiency"-obsessed economy.
Most of the people arguing with the premise of my OP are like "but it was inefficient! Fraud!" and I'm like "friend, let's talk about how neoliberals have broken your brain, and also how you're proving my point".
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@geos @__Styx__ @johnzajac no, i just see civilizations as pretty resilient (especially if the countermeasures are well understood and easy to manufacture)
@whitequark @geos @__Styx__ @johnzajac The countermeasures will be neither of those.
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I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
Because within that little perplexion - people thinking the problem was a hoax because it was fixed before it destroyed shit - is an encapsulation of the current era of Western politics, including COVID mitigation, lesser evil politics, fascism, and crime rate hyperbole
@johnzajac Yes yes yes yes yes. SO MUCH YES.
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@johnzajac and the fucking ozone layer with the Freon and fluor based home and industry gases that had a swift global ban and recycle ! !
This is world civilization ending event that we tackled "well" , and because it doesn't have a 10 episodes docu series in Netflix, it never happened or either is a hoax by big "science"
@__Styx__ @johnzajac I only found out recently that the hole in the ozone layer was something we actually fixed.
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@mpdg @johnzajac Ignore it. Let the stupid fascists pay for it.
@Extra_Special_Carbon @mpdg @johnzajac lets focus all OSS efforts on ensuring that a company like MNT research and their products are impervious to the 2038 bug so they can rise like a Pheonix out of the ashes and usher in a kinder world
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@glent @johnzajac websites were not the concern. it was largely financial systems using COBOL, like taxes and payroll, where not fixing the problem would have caused more serious problems. like maybe nobody gets their paycheque cause the dates are wrong.
@burnitdown @glent @johnzajac very few websites were mission critical at that time.
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@burnitdown @glent @johnzajac very few websites were mission critical at that time.
@Colman @glent @johnzajac they were also not going to cause time sensitive things to get really fucked up. you still get paid if Yahoo thinks it's 1975. you might not get paid if your boss' payroll system thinks it's 1975.
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I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
Because within that little perplexion - people thinking the problem was a hoax because it was fixed before it destroyed shit - is an encapsulation of the current era of Western politics, including COVID mitigation, lesser evil politics, fascism, and crime rate hyperbole
@johnzajac
I've been telling people that for 26 years. Then they pivot to all the money the consultants made. -
I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
Because within that little perplexion - people thinking the problem was a hoax because it was fixed before it destroyed shit - is an encapsulation of the current era of Western politics, including COVID mitigation, lesser evil politics, fascism, and crime rate hyperbole
@johnzajac Ah, well, I never had any hope for that after our team getting lectured by a boss about wasting all those company resources on year 2000 research, compliance and issue fixing because it was obvious that nothing had happened.
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I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
Because within that little perplexion - people thinking the problem was a hoax because it was fixed before it destroyed shit - is an encapsulation of the current era of Western politics, including COVID mitigation, lesser evil politics, fascism, and crime rate hyperbole
@johnzajac @cstross I was there. We IT guys should be called heroes and her monuments dedicated to us.
By the way, most people doesn’t know the problem wasn’t ‘fixed’. It was patched. We (a bank) still have plenty of data with two digit years. We used a moving window to tackle the problem. And once ‘fixed’, nothing more has been done to finally get rid of it.
Fortunately new developments don’t have ‘the problem’ but I’m not sure about the UNIX timestamp roll out thing in 2038…
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I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
Because within that little perplexion - people thinking the problem was a hoax because it was fixed before it destroyed shit - is an encapsulation of the current era of Western politics, including COVID mitigation, lesser evil politics, fascism, and crime rate hyperbole
It seems like people aren't going to understand what civilization does for them until they lose everything.
