Science fiction is in it’s essence the exploration of a situation when all the confounding factors have been magicked/scienced away.

Not uncommonly it explores the requirements of the technical solution, what would the machine need to do for this to work out? And/or What happens if it doesn’t?

Take for example “Do androids dream of electric sheep” by Philip K Dick, it’s about finding androids advanced enough not to know they’re artificial and how to identify and relate to them when the only diagnostic is slow, clumsy, and suspect. It’s more an exploration of what makes a person than it’s around the marvels of The Machine™.

During the 1900s the vehicle for science to magick with had been machines, computers and AI. Remember that space travel, fission power, psychology, modern medicine were all new, hope inducing breakthroughs just this same period.

There’s also the issue that the definition of the genre came after it becoming large enough to matter. The edges between scifi, punk/cyberpunk, speculative fiction, isekai and even to fantasy are all made after the fact, meaning modern machines go into scifi, old machines go into steam-/diesel-/etc-punk. The main difference between Science, Magick, and Eldritch horror is how detailed the mechanics of the solution are described, and speak to different people.

But on the topic of the story not being centered around a machine: try the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons.

Or go the entirely other way with Ring World by Larry Niven. There’s plenty of machines-did-it in the fringes, but the central theme is to figure out what would be needed for a Ring World to exist, what would happen on it, and how would it be managed. It’s an exploration of physics more than anything - more “what is the machine” than “machines-did-it”.

And the Foundation series (Asimov) famously explore the premise “what if sociology works”, and the other details solved by throwing machines at them.

You also have The Culture (Iain Banks) series that center on/around post-scarcity society and explore that.

Apparently privileged (cis, white, educated middle class or equivalent) men apply when fulfilling 60% of the requirements. Women and minorities 100%.

Maybe that’s why they have the ridiculous reqs?

A conceivable way could be to disrupt the nuclear force of the target atoms, maybe like an anti-Pion/Gluon ray that self-propagates the reaction through the released energy.

(As we might remember, splitting the atom yields a bunch of energy, and uncontrolled such reactions go Hiroshima)

It might be controlled by sub-particle lensing, probably some kind of magnetic field, to be active at a specific distance.

For the reaction to be contained, either there’s a radially limiting component (air is not particle dense enough to propagate the reaction, or atoms not energy dense enough) or it’s a cascade triggered by the beam which stops when the beam stops (or the reaction gets too far away from it)

As I believe Pions and Gluons are their own anti-particles, I don’t know how we would go about doing this, but hey, that’s for Science!™ to solve.

At least once you can

Alternate plan (as it would be a shame to waste a dam): Keep the dam, flood the Baltic sea until Kaliningrad is under water?

It already has?

But price increases of cereals ( bread, pasta, grains, etc.) increased by about 7,5 % last year alone, which is more than the inflation, and more than the increase after inflation.

That’s where people might complain. They still can’t afford food, as food prices increase faster than overall inflation

I appreciate a data supported argument, and love that you actually linked sources.

One thing that I feel is missing in most of the linked analyses is that inflation has also hit unevenly, and the price of basic goods has increased significantly more than overall inflation. Which would explain why households still have less disposable income, also the mean debt burden is much higher leading to loan costs being more common.

Or brought up by a neurodivergent parent, or sibling, or have an ND partner

What a well reasoned and well described set of posts. You are a credit to our community!

Have you seen the numbers? Could you link them?

The only thing I’ve been able to find is 2,2 million “encounters” in a high year, over the whole country.

Germany takes in a million immigrants per year by itself, and has at least a handful of encounters per immigrant to process them. Also has a bunch of encounters with illegal immigrants.

Germany is smaller than Texas.

Yeah, it’s quite interesting, but it measures encounters without defining them, and it’s very hard to get anything specifically useful for Texas.

The data does more to show that Texas are being whiny about it, than what their criterion for invasion is. I fully expect a ComiCon or similar to drive as much tourists as the whole illegal immigration thing, and that Texans travel in similar sized crowds for any holiday. But there aren’t any clear data on either, pointing to dangerous ineptitude, and emotionally motivated (or “hysterical” as it was called in the olden days) governance.

Texas is about the size of Ukraine or France, not the whole continent.

True, but it might get you far enough that you aren’t “home”, and might be “invading” a neighbouring city.

But I agree, it’s a weakly relevant datapoint, but the only other travel data I could find was that 250k texans fly for Thanksgiving, which was even less useful.

I’m honestly baffled, how do you set policy, have informed debate or even identify business opportunities with so little reliable data?

I can’t find direct data on how many illegal immigrations are happening in Texas every year, but the undocumented population is estimated to be about 1,5 million, and stable. [source]

Between 2022 and 2023, the legal migrant population increased by 10k, and eligible migrants decreased by 50k. If we assume that the whole difference is only due to illegal immigrants naturalizing, that would mean that the Texas yearly influx of immigrants is 60k. [source]

That would mean that the “invasion” requiring armed self defence/martial law is for 60k civilians.

About 10 million Texans yearly travel over 50 miles, [source], does that mean Texas is invading most of the US annually?

(also, it’s ridiculous that you don’t have clear data and statistics on this exact question. Sometimes I love living in the EU)

Wasn’t the story that the light gun set off the explosive armor attachments to blind it?

Which essentially means that either Putin is bluffing, or believes that he could get away with it.

With Ukraine, even with operational disaster, it would seem he’s quite apt at getting away with stuff, and has prepared both political discord and the flexibility to capitalise on the shifting world stage.

Gearing the informational landscape is a commitment of resources, much more than the random blusters and threats they’ve been throwing around. Russia traditionally has had the capacity for large scale feints and diversions, so I guess we’ll have to see what more they’re doing and where.

To be fair, those $46 million will buy quite a few avocodo toasts and lattes

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Ah, but you’re just saying that as a professional troll.

Now compare that to: I think you’re mistaken, intent matters, and I believe extending trust that both parties want to convey something, rather than just dismiss others, is necessary for a discussion, and also for a communal discourse. If we’re just shouting into the void, no trust is needed, but for interactions and building a sense of community, we will need both trust and norms of collaboration.