š§ Russell Coker (etbe) seems to have developed mental issues
A longtime Debian developer and major contributor to the abominable SELinux, Russell Coker (etbe) seems to have gone slightly insane. Mentally.
Two recent posts on his blog made me question his common sense and judgment.
October 20: Cixin Liu is a Bad Person
Why is Cixin Liu a bad person? (BTW, itās āThe Three-Body Problem and its sequels,ā not āThe Three Body Problem and itās sequels,ā you retard!)
One of the main plot elements in the book is that every species in the universe is cool with genocide and willing to commit genocide as a preemptive strike against any vstar system found to contain intelligent life.
Itās not unreasonable to think that some planets may be by run societies like that, if one star system in 10,000 had a technological society and one society in 10,000 is run by depraved autocratic governments that would make 1,000+ planets in our galaxy that are run by genocidal groups!
To think that every single society wants to commit genocide at every opportunity says a lot about every person who makes such claims. If you believe that everyone wants to do something then it must be something you really want to do. If thereās something you really donāt want to do then you will be able to imagine a system of government where the majority of citizens vote against doing it.
Even in the more horrible parts of human history there hasnāt been a genocide comparable to destroying and entire star system, genocide is usually based on slavery and large scale armed robbery. To just commit large scale genocide with a side effect of destroying valuable resources without any investigation or attempts at negotiation just based on fear of others is an extreme that I donāt think humans have reached in history.
... Cixin Liu is a very talented writer but his attitude towards genocide has caused him to write SciFi with a major plot point thatās not great by Dr Who standards.
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Iām not saying that people shouldnāt read his work as his short stories are definitely worth reading. But the Three Body Problem series really isnāt that good, he prevented many potentially interesting situations from happening by having every interaction between different species be based around genocide or the potential for it. Being a horrible person also made him a less capable SciFi author.
I wonāt explain why these opinions made Russell Coker look like a retard.
October 30: Fuel Should be More Expensive
Why, of course, to force us to go 100% electric!
Currently the petrol prices in Melbourne are around $2.30/L and Diesel prices around $2.70/L, not much more expensive than it was in March in spite of all the extra problems both militarily and diplomatically since then. Those prices have been steady for over a month.
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When supply canāt meet demand there are three options. Supply can be rationed, demand can be decreased by increasing the prices, or it can be used up and we run out. Running out of fuel is a really bad option as fuel is needed for producing and transporting food and for most things that are important to a society.
Governments of first world countries seem unable to deal with the situation properly. Dealing with it properly requires either rationing or increasing the prices. Instead governments have been more interested in artificially keeping the prices down.
Currently in Australia and most countries a significant portion of public transport depends on Diesel fuel. Diesel is needed for most buses and for long distance trains. Most taxis run on petrol. As far as I know all emergency service vehicles run on Diesel or petrol as well as most military vehicles. So things will get really bad quickly if fuel runs out entirely. Itās not just personal cars that are affected.
We arenāt going to get the majority of tractors converted to electric power any time soon. ...
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What We Need
As a long term solution we need to have more electric vehicles in every category. We need electricity for all train lines to replace Diesel locomotives. We need better trains between cities to reduce the need for aeroplanes, electric aeroplanes are being developed but we arenāt there yet. We need all essential services to be run with electric vehicles including farming, food transport, emergency services, and everything related to the medical system (including personal cars for healthcare workers). We also need mining vehicles powered by electricity so we can have the entire industrial system running without fuel. None of this is going to happen in time for this crisis.
Electric buses are being introduced in Australia and many taxis are electric. The recent significant increase in the use of electric cars probably includes a reasonable portion of healthcare workers and other essential workers. This gives us the potential to survive fairly severe reductions in the fuel supply without everything collapsing. But we have a significant lack in electric police cars and in electric trucks for food delivery.
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So the best viable option seems to be to reduce demand by increasing prices. $2.30/L as a common price with occasional spikes of $2.50/L isnāt sufficient to do that. If the price increased to $3.50/L, twice what it used to be (equivalent to $9.50/gallon for Americans) then it would provide a real incentive for people to reduce fuel use. That would have to be combined with the type of remote work allowances that were in place when Covid19 was first spreading. ...
We should have higher taxes on fuel that will continue past the resolution of the current crisis caused by the attacks on Iran to provide incentives for the purchase of electric cars and for manufacturers to make more fuel-efficient cars. ...
People always complain about poor people who canāt afford to drive if petrol is expensive but that could be addressed by increasing the minimum wage and social security payments. ...
If you thought Greta Thunberg was mentally deranged, hereās a more severe case.