A fine read indeed. This quote in particular resonated:
"Many who have ''plied their book diligently," and know all about some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour, and prove dry,
stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter
parts of life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and pathetically stupid to the last."
Successful people are very often full of shit - since perception is hugely important in any human endeavor, the people who have attained success must have mastered bullshitting (incl. faking confidence) along the way. Then, like any other life skill, they pass it onto their children. I see this mechanism in my father and in myself.
> This is what happened with the United States hundreds of years ago.
United States started with a bloody revolution in order to secede from Britain.
To get some territory for your country, you'd either need a revolution in an existing country or perhaps create an artificial island somewhere in international waters (or a base in space). I don't see any other options.
> Staying for years around an area that gets "only a month" of excessive PM2.5 particles and smoke is unwise and you will soon become someone with an existing respiratory condition.
I live in a city which has a serious smog problem in the winter and colder autumn and spring months. Yet most people don't have respiratory conditions.
In general, all environmental problems that people create stem from using technology - i.e. without technology (starting with the most basic ones, e.g. mastering fire), we are harmless enough to not be able to do any damage. So far, the more technologies we've developed, the more damage we've done to the environment. I can't see this trend reversing.
> I can do as a CS engineer to help solve the big problems of our time, such as climate change
So far, technology has only created environmental problems. I don't think environmental problems created by technology can be solved with technology without creating another problems.
In Poland, the rule is that basically if you and sibilings can afford to pay for the nursing home of your parent, there is no state assistance. The state only kicks in if the family is too poor to cover the costs. The rationale behind it being probably that caring for parents is the responsibility of family, not state.
It's just someone's prediction. Could be true, could be false. Maybe the singularity will happen in 10 years, maybe in 10000 years, or maybe it's actually impossible for us humans to accomplish.
I wonder if it's possible to take a cheap Android phone and turn it into a desktop? I.e. connect keyboard, mouse, external monitor, install Linux with X?
> What I have done is transition to an area in which my skills can be used to make money for me and others.
Money is both good and bad. Thee bad part is that it attracts a ton of unsavory personalities, who will do anything to get ahead. In coding, it results in endless self-promoting, pushing unnecessary (or downright harmful) new tech and project ideas in order to gain a promotion, one-upmanship in code reviews etc. All that bullshit gets old fairly quickly.
The reality is that, in a complex environment, it's much easier to make money by doing some work and heavily manipulating people rather than doing good work and no manipulation. Hence, I want to exit complex environments as quickly as possible, which means distancing myself from society and modern economy as much as possible. It will probably mean living on $500-$700 a month, but hopefully the peace gained will be worth it. (Currently, it's still all in a fantasy stage, as I need to accumulate some more money via coding job to make the jump).
I suspect that all sufficiently complex fields are extremely susceptible to fads, egos and cliques. It's the worst in humanities, since they deal with hopelessly complex subjects (i.e. humans), but even science can commonly become like this. Heck, even coding is like this, as we've probably all experienced in our jobs. With this in mind, my plan to retain my integrity is to leave fields with an intellectual component and live simply on much less.
"Many who have ''plied their book diligently," and know all about some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl-like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter parts of life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and pathetically stupid to the last."