The speaker's previous presentation at a different year of the same conference, about using online records to fabricate your own death or the birth of a made-up baby, is also worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs.
Just as a heads up, the adjustment of putting your heels on a 5lb plate is actually used to train depth in the squat. "Ass-to-grass" is the squat standard for weightlifting (i.e., like in a 3rd world squat, you should want to be able to sit down on your heels comfortably), and the idea is that squatting a bit higher weights than you can do without the heels elevated with the heels elevated trains that depth in the movement. Point being, eventually you might be able to get to just under parallel if you keep working on the heel-elevated squats!
Also, re toes slightly out, this is how you should squat, you shouldn't square up with the rack or keep your feet parallel, because (again, referencing the 3rd world squat) if you were to sit down on your heels, mobility permitting, you would basically have to have your toes slightly outward.
I read an NYT article a while ago that made the argument that the effect of people who did not support the Vietnam War evading the draft was a military that was, twenty or so years later, when the people who did join became senior, very conservative or willing to wage war. Along the lines of the critical theory idea that some of the Left have become ineffective by not involving themselves in actual politics, I think it's important to not be deterred by this idea of war, as the only way the military-industrial complex will change is if people with better values come to make up more of the military. Maybe this will come to be the case as younger people see decreasing future job prospects and turn to the military as a career.
This reminds me of the Fleming Bond novel Moonraker, in which a whole chapter is devoted to the idiosyncrasies of the villain who is being challenged by Bond via bridge.
At first glance there seems to be pieces that could be simplified. E.g., in this image http://community.wolfram.com//c/portal/getImageAttachment?fi..., there are 2 1x1 bricks in multiple places (on the top level at the "nearest" corner, for instance) that could be replaced with a 2x1 brick. I wonder what part of the program results in this.
Clapper came to my school to talk and I asked him "to speak about the allegations of perjury". He was not amused, and repeated the line about having forgotten about the PATRIOT Act.
An interesting problem that came up during development of the Navy version, which has to land on carriers: when the landing gear and hooks were first tested, the placement of the back wheels was such that they created a sine wave in the arresting cable which just happened to be "down" when the hook moved over the cable, meaning the hook wouldn't catch and the plane could never land this way. They then had to go back and redesign the arrangement of the landing gear and hook.
I actually don't think it's much of an ode to war or anything. I go to the Naval Academy like Heinlein did, and when I read the small details of military life and the grandiose calls to serve, I read them as criticisms or as satire.
I read Starship Troopers and The Forever War back-to-back in like three days, and I wasn't so much of a fan of Haldeman's book, the writing just didn't seem as good to me as Heinlein's and in any case they're nearly identical -- though obviously the relativity thing and time making the "forever" part true was a very good point.
The plants dying point is somewhat irrelevant in this context as 80,000 Hours's philosophy stems from Peter Singer's brand of utilitarian ethics that interpret suffering as it relates to experience, or consciousness.
One of their counter-arguments to your second sentence is that if you, the ethically-minded person who will donate a significant portion of your income, aren't in that position at the potentially exploitative job, odds are someone else will be who isn't ethically-minded. On the other hand, if you were to go work aid on the ground in Africa, it's likely that you, who maybe has a valuable skill-set capable of earning more, could be replaced by another person who wants to work in aid.
