7 ms·

O'Brien: I'm afraid to touch anything. It's all cross-circuited and patched together - I can't make head nor tails of it. Bashir: Sounds like one of your repair

O'Brien: I'm afraid to touch anything. It's all cross-circuited and patched together - I can't make head nor tails of it. Bashir: Sounds like one of your repair jobs. Seriously though, it seems like every form of infrastructure we rely on is held together in such a fragile manner. I hate hate to think of the chaos should there be a major Internet and physical infra failure in close proximity, time-wise.

hypertele-Xii 5y ago
We have a pretty good track record keeping it running though; The Internet has never gone down! I'd be far more concerned with agricultural logistics, though we've never starved to extinction, either. Perhaps we've reached a point of positive no return: We can no longer cease to exist!
- adventured 5y ago
  In this context it's a very important point that there isn't one Internet and there isn't one "we." Unless you strictly mean the human race has yet to go extinct due to starvation. A lot of starvation events have of course occurred across many different nations, peoples, civilizations. Europe, as one example, was numerous times ravaged by extreme starvation events that collectively killed millions of people across the 19th and 20th centuries. I think your agriculture concerns are well placed. The various Internets have gone down routinely for all sorts of reasons.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- setpatchaddress 5y ago
  We absolutely can. Imagine a US president outwardly Trump-like but who was also a True Believer instead of a cynical, mentally-ill real estate huckster. They would have the unilateral capability to start a global nuclear war. And they might actively desire to do this, on the basis of religious delusion (“it’s time for armageddon!”). We are frighteningly close to this scenario in 2025. It’s a bad idea to assume that the gop candidate will be a fascist-wannabe in on the joke (someone like desantis or cruz). We can survive run-of-the-mill fascism, although it won’t be fun. But it could instead be someone truly existentially dangerous.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    Since we're imagining things, imagine a befuddled geriatric sock puppet president installed via fraud and controlled by a globalist cabal with a stated desire to depopulate the planet. See how crazy that sounds?
    - bobthebuilders 5y ago
      Not really. You'd be surprised with what 3 letter agencies do.
  - lliamander 5y ago
    Breathe
- cgh 5y ago
  There’s a strong probabilistic argument that says otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument Note that the argument is not dependent on any sort of cause, such as climate change or whatever. It is entirely probabilistic.
zwkrt 5y ago
Unless you exist in a state of wild over abundance and are very conscientious, most working infrastructure is always at a state of almost-disrepair. If I operate a machine shop and I have 4 partially-stripped screwdrivers, I might get a new one, but inevitably I will use it until it is as stripped as all the rest, and I don’t dare throw away a tool that is currently even in partially working condition since I might need it later if another driver breaks. This is true of every single thing in my shop, and the end result is a system that is robust to absolute failure but prone to constantly needing to be patched up. As far as I can tell this is a truism across all fields: farming, skilled trades, build systems, transportation infrastructure, housing…
- 999900000999 5y ago
  You could also break something with your dull tools. This is why you can't just drive a car until it breaks, you get it checked out. Then again, cars are a private good. When it's your property vs our property you have more of an incentive to take care of it.
  - WJW 5y ago
    Machine shops are also private goods and their owners have a lot of incentive to keep them working, so I don't think this example is very accurate. In any case the chance of breaking anything with a partially stripped screwdriver is pretty minimal.
    - 999900000999 5y ago
      If you don't know what you're doing you can strip a screw. Getting it out won't be fun.
      - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
        if you're at home, with no other tools, it could be painful. but in a shop unless you can't take it out using other means (pliers for example or a nut split remover), you can simply weld a bolt on the screw's head and use a wrench to unscrew it. or drill a hole through it after removing the head and use another screw to take out the moncone from the other side. Bad screws are more common than bad screwdrivers and even a brand new screwdriver could lead to the same result. as the original post said "If it breaks all the time, everybody is highly experienced at patching together new workarounds"

hypertele-Xii 5y ago

We have a pretty good track record keeping it running though; The Internet has never gone down! I'd be far more concerned with agricultural logistics, though we've never starved to extinction, either. Perhaps we've reached a point of positive no return: We can no longer cease to exist!

adventured 5y ago
In this context it's a very important point that there isn't one Internet and there isn't one "we." Unless you strictly mean the human race has yet to go extinct due to starvation. A lot of starvation events have of course occurred across many different nations, peoples, civilizations. Europe, as one example, was numerous times ravaged by extreme starvation events that collectively killed millions of people across the 19th and 20th centuries. I think your agriculture concerns are well placed. The various Internets have gone down routinely for all sorts of reasons.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
setpatchaddress 5y ago
We absolutely can. Imagine a US president outwardly Trump-like but who was also a True Believer instead of a cynical, mentally-ill real estate huckster. They would have the unilateral capability to start a global nuclear war. And they might actively desire to do this, on the basis of religious delusion (“it’s time for armageddon!”). We are frighteningly close to this scenario in 2025. It’s a bad idea to assume that the gop candidate will be a fascist-wannabe in on the joke (someone like desantis or cruz). We can survive run-of-the-mill fascism, although it won’t be fun. But it could instead be someone truly existentially dangerous.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  Since we're imagining things, imagine a befuddled geriatric sock puppet president installed via fraud and controlled by a globalist cabal with a stated desire to depopulate the planet. See how crazy that sounds?
  - bobthebuilders 5y ago
    Not really. You'd be surprised with what 3 letter agencies do.
- lliamander 5y ago
  Breathe
cgh 5y ago
There’s a strong probabilistic argument that says otherwise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_argument Note that the argument is not dependent on any sort of cause, such as climate change or whatever. It is entirely probabilistic.

zwkrt 5y ago

Unless you exist in a state of wild over abundance and are very conscientious, most working infrastructure is always at a state of almost-disrepair. If I operate a machine shop and I have 4 partially-stripped screwdrivers, I might get a new one, but inevitably I will use it until it is as stripped as all the rest, and I don’t dare throw away a tool that is currently even in partially working condition since I might need it later if another driver breaks. This is true of every single thing in my shop, and the end result is a system that is robust to absolute failure but prone to constantly needing to be patched up. As far as I can tell this is a truism across all fields: farming, skilled trades, build systems, transportation infrastructure, housing…

999900000999 5y ago
You could also break something with your dull tools. This is why you can't just drive a car until it breaks, you get it checked out. Then again, cars are a private good. When it's your property vs our property you have more of an incentive to take care of it.
- WJW 5y ago
  Machine shops are also private goods and their owners have a lot of incentive to keep them working, so I don't think this example is very accurate. In any case the chance of breaking anything with a partially stripped screwdriver is pretty minimal.
  - 999900000999 5y ago
    If you don't know what you're doing you can strip a screw. Getting it out won't be fun.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      if you're at home, with no other tools, it could be painful. but in a shop unless you can't take it out using other means (pliers for example or a nut split remover), you can simply weld a bolt on the screw's head and use a wrench to unscrew it. or drill a hole through it after removing the head and use another screw to take out the moncone from the other side. Bad screws are more common than bad screwdrivers and even a brand new screwdriver could lead to the same result. as the original post said "If it breaks all the time, everybody is highly experienced at patching together new workarounds"