James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe
James Webb telescope confirms there is something seriously wrong with our understanding of the universe
Depending on where we look, the universe is expanding at different rates. Now, scientists using the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes have confirmed that the observation is not down to a measurement error.
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Urgh it doesn't work đ I've tried searching for it and it doesn't come up, just random playlists named Authoritarianism that don't actually contain the video. I'll have to pirate it. Sorry John :(
That's odd - I wonder if it is actually blocked there. Take consolation that John Oliver would very much want you to, under those circumstances:-). Also, how much more of an impact is that video going to have on you as you see it enacted before your very eyes, if your nation did block it.
I think it's HBO who blocks it đŠ. Lots of American TV networks block their content from being viewed outside the US.
That is weird. Does HBO block it even from their direct website? And then this video is 5 years old so it may not even be on there - so with little profits to gain from it, they still would block it regardless, b/c they are just that petty:-(. Yay "freedom"!:-P
Well, one last link in case it helps:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ximgPmJ9A5s
Or the Piped version is:
https://piped.video/watch?v=ximgPmJ9A5s
but I think that still streams from the YouTube so would not expect it to work, unless like YouTube itself a proxy could bypass it.
Urgh, I thought for a second that maybe the piped link was gonna work but no :(
I could get it to work with a proxy or vpn but fuck it. I pirated it đ´ââ ď¸
John Oliver would be so proud:-). You will support him in other ways - e.g. by spreading the message in your own country. He makes a TON of money, so truly I believe that he will be fine, and would rather the message be not so artificially limited as that corporation has made it.
Now the real question: what did you think of it? And it's okay if you'd rather not answer right away, but if you wanted to, then I would enjoy hearing about it from you:-). After all, I cannot ever travel back in time to re-watch that video for the first time, but I can enjoy that feeling vicariously through you perhaps!?:-P
Hahah I will be back with some comments on it once I've had a chance to actually watch it. Gimme a couple hours, I haven't been up for long enough my brain is still a foggy maze :3
I might've also already seen it, but my memory is ummm... Well it's something.
Anyway I'm sure John would be happy that I've pirated his show, especially as a last resort. With the offer he's made to Clarence Thomas, I also don't think he really needs the pennies. I would rather support him but it is what it is.
I've also added it to my media server so all my friends will see it in their feed. They all also love John.
Edit: Also, I made the mistake of watching Noah Samsen's video on the starvation of the Palestinian people first thing after I woke up. I need a break đ
Yeah this stuff is so tangled and difficult. I watched one of John Olivier's recent videos on chocolate production in places like Africa and it likewise messed me up a little - like, should I buy less chocolate, or more, which is doing less harm vs. good? Btw the answer, as you may have guessed it, is "yes". Yes buying chocolates helps the poor farmers, while also yes it supports their near-slave-labor conditions, both. And fair-trade seems to mean little if anything at all. :-(
Ultimately I came down on the side that since they are doing this to themselves, the alternatives to cacao farming must be even worse? e.g. hunting in the wilds, or farming something to sell locally. And while the corpo execs seem to me to be greedy MFers just doing hunting of their own, for profits, they nonetheless are doing some amount of service, if they are offering this option to the farmers that they would not otherwise have.
The sticking point is the price: regardless of intention, does lowering that cause more chocolate to be sold, thus help the farmers more than raising it would? (I have no idea btw, that's just what pops up in my mind) Also, I am so very far away from the situation that it is impossible to accurately judge anything - like John's video shows another video showing children walking through the fields harvesting cacao and "not wearing safety gear", but what is that gear, who actually needs it, is it always needed or only during certain seasons, so really how bad is it that these children, who importantly do this for fun, should have been wearing it?
It is good to ask these questions, but yes, dayum it is exhausting. Especially for every tiny little matter.
Though the authoritarianism video is a fairly central one in my mind, fwiw. Even your country, which we want to "escape" to when things go bad in the States, may turn to it, as seems to be the global trend.:-( Anyway, enjoy!:-)
Oh for sure. These things are complicated and it's really hard to come up with a simple conclusion.
Authoritarianism definitely seems to be on the rise everywhere, although I still believe that most people are against it. You can't really trust online sentiment and personally I haven't encountered that many people IRL that would support something like that. My fear is that some people might not realize what they're voting for and what it really means but I still believe that most people are good and that we can get out of this mess before it is too late.
We are definitely not safe from it here in Canada so yeah, your escape plan might not work out. Things that happen down south often end up happening up here as well, with a little bit of delay. Canadians aren't really that different from Americans and we consume the same type of media. Hopefully if shit does hit the fan, even the dumbest of voters will be smart enough to see that it is not something that they want and we can stop it before it runs rampant here.
I am curious: after having watched that video, do you still think most people are against it?
I think the opposite - people in cities tend to be, but a good 40-49% of this nation supported Trump in the last Presidential election, despite Biden ultimately winning and despite Trump having been impeached twice before that.
Countering that, the younger generations are more liberal, but we tend to eat our own, and e.g. the Gaza situation may generate a lot of "protest voting", the same as when Hillary Clinton was running and therefore while Trump did not "win" so much as she lost, it could all end up happening again.
Americans are fat and lazy - that's just our brand:-) - and to some extent the entire Western world is that way, but we do it to excess. By that same virtue, we are likely to convert into authoritarianism, possibly not even with a bang but with a whimper - not b/c of what we believe, but b/c we just don't fight back against those who do have firmer convictions (right or wrong).
Thus, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I hope that you lose your hope that "if shit does hit the fan, even the dumbest of voters will be smart enough to see that it is not something that they want and we can stop it before it runs rampant here", and start learning from our mistakes, by shoring up protections against it getting as far along with you. Which I guess you are doing, so I will hope that it works!:-)
Well that's where we differ, Americans and Canadians. Canadians are on average much more liberal than Americans. We also have a very different political system. We actually have more than two options to chose from! Crazy, I know! The political system doesn't control general sentiment of the population so things can still get hairy but nobody has started dismantling our checks and balances yet so at least we've got that?
Our conservative party isn't usually as bad as the American conservatives either. Although Bitcoin Milhouse and a couple other Conservative leaders are starting to spew some of the same ignorant bullshit, trying to get reactionary votes, I am way less scared about my future here than I would be in the US. We do have a part of the population that are getting sucked into it but it's really nowhere near as bad (yet, hopefully never). We've got Alberta that's very conservative and very loud, they're basically Little Texas but whatever, they've always been that way. They've never changed and they never will. Business as usual. Ontario is a bit scary with what Doug Ford is doing and even in my little province we have our own little conservative pissbaby, who is absolutely wrecking havoc but even other conservatives hate his ass so there's a decent chance he gets booted out next provincial election.
I'm from French Canada, not Quebec but still French. I'm probably sheltered from it a bit as we are super liberal, much more than English Canada. I don't really see that much insanity here, even in my tiny little fisherman village. Not to say everybody is cool. I have noticed a change in the way some people look at me in the past couple years, being a transwoman in such a small place where people have never really left their backyards and seen anything. Before it was mostly curiosity, surprise, whatever. Now I see people look at me in disgust and anger. I've seen a mother grab her kid and scuttle away to the other side of a store as if I could give them the trans. I've had someone spit in my sandwich at a fast food restaurant, although that happened in a neighbouring English city (Risky to do something like that here, I probably know your dad đ).
Nothing anywhere near that kind of shit happened to me even just 2 years ago and I've been loudly trans here for over 7 years now. I 100% attribute that to the hateful and ignorant shit that's being spewed out by the right and the crazy religious folk being picked up here by people who don't know any better.
Shit, that was a rant. I don't even remember what we were talking about. Sorry hahah.
Well. I just finished watching the episode on authoritarianism. It was pretty scary and frustrating to hear some of the people who support these things, as it usually is. I think John Oliver summed it up pretty well at the end. Saying how he understands that democracy can be frustrating with all the checks and balances but that removing those opens up the door for things that are much worse. These people really need to understand exactly what they are toying with.
Unfortunately people have a hard time seeing much further than the tip of their own noses and don't see the harm that they are causing as long as it doesn't directly affect them, which it won't until it is too late and the damage has been done.
I think the the problem we are having these days is an empathy problem. People have a really hard time feeling empathy for "others" and who can really blame them? There is so much wrong everywhere you look and everybody is struggling. Everybody is trying to survive and look out for their loved ones just like everybody else but they've been sold lies, given scapegoats and promised solutions to fictional problems.
Whatever happens next, it'll be interesting that's for sure.
really need to understand exactly what they are toying with
They do not. They will not. They refuse to contemplate doing so - they want a fix NOW and that is all that they will entertain.
And actually, very often they DO have empathy - their hearts are quite often in the right place, it is their set of FACTS that they believe in that are incorrect. e.g. people who take the vaccine b/c they do not want it? Fine, I mean it is not ideal but it is your choice... but then they send their kids to school and that affects immuno-compromised children, and far more than that, they vote sometimes against allowing you to take the vaccine too!!
Or abortion: if you do not want one then do not get one, but to stop others from receiving proper medical care? That is the sickening part. They do it "for the children", except ofc refuse to lift a finger to actually adopt a child themselves.
So often those lies are sold using empathy as the very vehicle by which they enter the brain. Except ofc it is not "true empathy", in the sense of actions and especially for those actions to match the words used.
The people choosing those lies are quite good at what they do, actually. And if they fail, they focus-test their messages and try again, and again, and they've been doing this for decades now so... they got good at it. And since I don't really see anyone at all standing up against it - I mean, is Biden? did Obama? is Trudeau, or Sunak? - I think they have a good chance of winning. It is just a matter of time.
Either way, outside of Europe and especially Germany, I do not see people standing up to climate change. More than nuclear weapons, THAT has the potential to end all life on earth - or at least human and possibly most of the animal life as well. The true "Pro-Life" agenda would be to do whatever it takes to stop that... but instead, Trump spitefully withdrew from the Paris Climate Accord, just b/c Obama supported it. Biden put us back in it, on his very first day in office actually, but that's a lot of time lost, and there's a goodly chance at Trump winning again.
All this bipolar disorder, coupled with the lackluster performance even when conservatives do not win, has made me lose all faith in the democratic processes. Just like George Carlin in the past, except now it REALLY matters which side wins!! :-|
So yeah, I expect a bumpy and quite... "interesting" ride. Even in Canada, most likely, though as you say on a delayed basis.
Therefore I watch videos on how chocolate is made, and I recycle even though I know it will not make one tiniest difference, etc. It is something that I can do, therefore I offer that, at least.