3 ms·

It's a bit of a cliche, but as I live in Brazil I'd say it's mostly true that people living happily at the beach aren't desperate for economical and technical d

It's a bit of a cliche, but as I live in Brazil I'd say it's mostly true that people living happily at the beach aren't desperate for economical and technical development, and mostly to enjoy daily life and nature. When you're under threats or crisis, technical development seems like a necessity for survival. (There are however, many technical poles in scenic locations in Brazil, like Florianopolis-SC and Ceara). That said, we should be somewhat worried about desperation-fueled endeavours.

treflop 2y ago
Most of my best work is from desperation, sometimes very indirectly. I think this is how humans and maybe most living things work. Motivation is not that easy to come by.
csomar 2y ago
Taiwan is more scenic and safer than probably most of Brazil. The quality of life is probably only matched by some European cities with extra safety everywhere. Most Taïwanaise I have talked to are not that concerned with the prospect of war. Maybe some capitalists out there but most people are unaware of the geopolitics.
- piva00 2y ago
  Safer I can totally agree with you but more scenic... I will absolutely completely disagree, just because Brazil is massive (larger than the continental US) and with a very varied geography. Taiwanese cities are more scenic but as a country I highly contest the comparison.
- gnramires 2y ago
  I'm glad that war is not really considered a large risk. I know some people from Taiwan, does seem like quite good quality of life! I didn't mention, but I think there are other important factors like the cultural importance given to (formal) education in those places (that might be broadly connected with strong will to develop economically?).
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  TSMC has absolutely positioned itself as a national security institution and convinced Taiwanese that working there is a patriotic act.
teleforce 2y ago
People do crank up a few gears when it's war time or generally threaten of their survivals. After all the original engineering was military engineering then after the rest of engineering or engineering for common causes like building a bridge for civilians are called civil engineering. For example, Fourier Transform was there but no one use it because it is too slow and there was no urgency to use it until the nuclear testings were common place. In order to detect underground nuclear testing there was an urgency to detect the events using Fourier Transform and voila Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was invented to speed up it up considerably without loosing the accuracy. Then we have Fast Inverse Fourier Transform and the rest is history. Another great example was the need for robust command and control (C & C) during the Cold War. US military was looking for C & C infrastructure that can survive nuclear catastrophe and voila the Internet was invented. People keep denying this fact but since it's initially and fully funded by DARPA, it's kind of giving away the main motivations. The basic tenet of the Internet design is essentially to have a highly reliable communication in the face of nearly total or 99% infrastructure destruction. If I can recall correctly someone actually simulated the 99% infrastructure down scenario and the results US Internet is still working fine, and if someone know this report or publication please let me know the original source.
- tonyhart7 2y ago
  well I doubt that if there a nuclear war the internet would safe because its run on electricity, power plant and grid require extensive maintenance and this is all hard even on normal day to day basis
  - teleforce 2y ago
    It's a well known fact that after original Internet becoming very popular US military has their very own separated, isolated and operated military network based on the similar design of packet switching of the Internet for their own use cases. Since it's operated by military they can make the networks infrastructure military grade and make the power supply to be fully redundant, but then Cold War was turned into just propaganda machine so perhaps there is no real motivation to make it really reliable. It's also a very common practices in many countries to have isolated and reliable nationwide network infrastructure for emergency usages for example disaster management purposes including military operations.

treflop 2y ago

Most of my best work is from desperation, sometimes very indirectly. I think this is how humans and maybe most living things work. Motivation is not that easy to come by.

csomar 2y ago

Taiwan is more scenic and safer than probably most of Brazil. The quality of life is probably only matched by some European cities with extra safety everywhere. Most Taïwanaise I have talked to are not that concerned with the prospect of war. Maybe some capitalists out there but most people are unaware of the geopolitics.

piva00 2y ago
Safer I can totally agree with you but more scenic... I will absolutely completely disagree, just because Brazil is massive (larger than the continental US) and with a very varied geography. Taiwanese cities are more scenic but as a country I highly contest the comparison.
gnramires 2y ago
I'm glad that war is not really considered a large risk. I know some people from Taiwan, does seem like quite good quality of life! I didn't mention, but I think there are other important factors like the cultural importance given to (formal) education in those places (that might be broadly connected with strong will to develop economically?).
HDThoreaun 2y ago
TSMC has absolutely positioned itself as a national security institution and convinced Taiwanese that working there is a patriotic act.

teleforce 2y ago

People do crank up a few gears when it's war time or generally threaten of their survivals. After all the original engineering was military engineering then after the rest of engineering or engineering for common causes like building a bridge for civilians are called civil engineering. For example, Fourier Transform was there but no one use it because it is too slow and there was no urgency to use it until the nuclear testings were common place. In order to detect underground nuclear testing there was an urgency to detect the events using Fourier Transform and voila Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was invented to speed up it up considerably without loosing the accuracy. Then we have Fast Inverse Fourier Transform and the rest is history. Another great example was the need for robust command and control (C & C) during the Cold War. US military was looking for C & C infrastructure that can survive nuclear catastrophe and voila the Internet was invented. People keep denying this fact but since it's initially and fully funded by DARPA, it's kind of giving away the main motivations. The basic tenet of the Internet design is essentially to have a highly reliable communication in the face of nearly total or 99% infrastructure destruction. If I can recall correctly someone actually simulated the 99% infrastructure down scenario and the results US Internet is still working fine, and if someone know this report or publication please let me know the original source.

tonyhart7 2y ago
well I doubt that if there a nuclear war the internet would safe because its run on electricity, power plant and grid require extensive maintenance and this is all hard even on normal day to day basis
- teleforce 2y ago
  It's a well known fact that after original Internet becoming very popular US military has their very own separated, isolated and operated military network based on the similar design of packet switching of the Internet for their own use cases. Since it's operated by military they can make the networks infrastructure military grade and make the power supply to be fully redundant, but then Cold War was turned into just propaganda machine so perhaps there is no real motivation to make it really reliable. It's also a very common practices in many countries to have isolated and reliable nationwide network infrastructure for emergency usages for example disaster management purposes including military operations.