Hurricanes are natural disasters, but people make them worse
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Can we add the "Send the guy to the storm to show how bad it is" new coverage please?
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You joke but I'm absolutely convinced if the election had gone to Hillary we would have had Coulter, Limbaugh and all the other right wing ratbags shouting that Harvey, Irma et al were punishment from God.
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I got better. (If only because getting worse was a logical impossibility.)
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Eh, they are still kinda blaming it on Liberals anyway. <shrug>
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Here's how it works folks:
Humans are not a rational species.
Humans are a rationalizing species.
We never do things that are based on pragmatic logic and reason. We place too much delusion in the notion that with hard work and grit, we, as a whole, can get ahead. We rationalize that if folks like Jobs and Gates and Musk could go from almost nothing to be the richest people in the world, so can we!
No. It doesn't happen like that. It's the same moronic rationalization that says, "Buy a lotto ticket! I have the same chance as anyone!" It is DELUSION, but we buy into it, invest in it, and then wonder why we're broke, fucked over and all those people who once gave a shit when you had something they wanted can't give you the time of day.
People invest in their politics, and their religions, believing them to be reality with absolutely no basis in fact. Politics is economic philosophy. Religion IS THE SAME THING. Both are about control, but with slightly different mediums of exchange and only slightly different messages.
All of them are bullshit, but mankind apparently thrives on wallowing in that kind of bullshit. And no matter how hard we try, we persist in sitting in our own bullshit even when it's smothering us.
But the biggest delusion is to assume anyone else is a reasonable, rational human being about things. EVERYONE has objectively irrational biases. Microsoft fans, Apple fans, Leftists, Rightist, Vegetarians, Protestants, Muslims, Christians, Catholics, Jews, it doesn't matter. IT's ALL irrational bullshit around which the human species bends it biases so that they're basically happy with their situation.
No matter that the bullshit objectively stinks exactly the same in all respects, everyone's individual bullshit smells better to them than the other guys' bullshit does.
If you start with that premise, then MAYBE, we can find a way to figure out how to get along with one another. But I'm inclined to think we'll need a major, sudden, catastrophic population reduction in people who absolutely refuse to consider the possibility that they're biased for it to happen.
So, yeah, despair for the Human Race, but keep in mind, we are no different now than when we were bashing each other over the heads with sticks to be able to fuck someone. From that start, we have gone NOWHERE, despite our somewhat more refined methods of communication. It's just a little more allegorical these days.
Humans are not a rational species.
Humans are a rationalizing species.
We never do things that are based on pragmatic logic and reason. We place too much delusion in the notion that with hard work and grit, we, as a whole, can get ahead. We rationalize that if folks like Jobs and Gates and Musk could go from almost nothing to be the richest people in the world, so can we!
No. It doesn't happen like that. It's the same moronic rationalization that says, "Buy a lotto ticket! I have the same chance as anyone!" It is DELUSION, but we buy into it, invest in it, and then wonder why we're broke, fucked over and all those people who once gave a shit when you had something they wanted can't give you the time of day.
People invest in their politics, and their religions, believing them to be reality with absolutely no basis in fact. Politics is economic philosophy. Religion IS THE SAME THING. Both are about control, but with slightly different mediums of exchange and only slightly different messages.
All of them are bullshit, but mankind apparently thrives on wallowing in that kind of bullshit. And no matter how hard we try, we persist in sitting in our own bullshit even when it's smothering us.
But the biggest delusion is to assume anyone else is a reasonable, rational human being about things. EVERYONE has objectively irrational biases. Microsoft fans, Apple fans, Leftists, Rightist, Vegetarians, Protestants, Muslims, Christians, Catholics, Jews, it doesn't matter. IT's ALL irrational bullshit around which the human species bends it biases so that they're basically happy with their situation.
No matter that the bullshit objectively stinks exactly the same in all respects, everyone's individual bullshit smells better to them than the other guys' bullshit does.
If you start with that premise, then MAYBE, we can find a way to figure out how to get along with one another. But I'm inclined to think we'll need a major, sudden, catastrophic population reduction in people who absolutely refuse to consider the possibility that they're biased for it to happen.
So, yeah, despair for the Human Race, but keep in mind, we are no different now than when we were bashing each other over the heads with sticks to be able to fuck someone. From that start, we have gone NOWHERE, despite our somewhat more refined methods of communication. It's just a little more allegorical these days.
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Can we send both of them, along with Martin Shkreli, out to sea on a raft while Irma's still around?
Gift to appease the gods, and all that, you know.
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Pretty sure the punishment for putting Trump in office is having Trump in office.
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"By the way, after mocking the severity of Irma, Limbaugh evacuated from West Palm Beach, Florida this weekend."
FYI, Rush lives in an ocean front home in Palm Beach not West Palm Beach. His evacuation was mandatory.
FYI, Rush lives in an ocean front home in Palm Beach not West Palm Beach. His evacuation was mandatory.
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chaos215bar2
Ars Praefectus
Assuming this is done responsibly, this may actually be some of the better reporting to dispel the idea that the whole thing just isn't that big of a deal. Watching debris ripped from trees, building, etc. flying into flooded roadways while the reporter struggles just to stand in one place is a pretty powerful image.
I just hope this kind of reporting is done from immediately outside a safe location, with at least a couple extra people around to spot potential dangers and help the reporter and camera operator, should they need it.
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As somebody who has lived in Alaska most of his life and been through several blizzards, I'd ask you to please keep your terrible logic to yourself.
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Really LOL'ed at that photo of those 2 guys doing a not so smart thing when it came across twitter but this one is just as bad...
BTW, when you see it....
BTW, when you see it....
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I'll be honest, the comments section on Ars is pretty far ahead of almost anywhere on the Internet. Happy to work here, and with this group of readers.
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Toss her into the hurricane and then nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
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I had a random guy in Orlando (I got out Saturday) tell me that "we should drop dry ice into [hurricanes] to knock them out". I decided not to engage.
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There's actually a real basis for that, although the results are all but impossible to track:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding#History
Kurt Vonnegut's brother, Bernard, was instrumental in that research at GE in the 40s and 50s. One of their intentions was to alter the course of hurricanes (not 'knock them out') but obviously you can only test that during an actual hurricane and there's no 'control' to compare against.
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This doesn't scratch the surface of what I read on Twitter over the weekend. It was spectacular what some people will legitimately believe in, or not in some cases.
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I'm phrasal-verb-challenged. What's "evacuated from"? Is it as in "West Palm Beach took a dump"?The Article":i5nyp1l7 said:
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Oh, it's about to get annoyinger.No but thanks for a great laugh at the end of an annoying day
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Well, per this site:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/enviro ... quake1.htm
The average hurricane puts out as much energy in wind alone as half the electrical generating capacity of the entire planet. So, assuming we could transmit half of the world's electricity to Florida with 100% efficiency, the answer would be: a shit ton of fans.
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I'm not, they have a reputation to live up to.
If you get your groceries from Ann Coulter you shouldn't be surprised when someone ate them and threw them back up before delivering them.
Castle Doctrine: If a hurricane enters your house you are allowed to shoot it.
Now can we get back to building that wall on the Florida border that Florida is going to pay for?
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Weather Channel reporters were repeatedly emphasizing that their camera crews were under cover (helps keep the rain off the electronics anyway), and that their designated shelter was just off-camera. One kept pointing out that there were no debris hazards in the immediate vicinity (an empty parking lot, with a few palm trees).
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Well there was the sheriff who decided to tweet that if you had a warrant for your arrest, you'd be arrested if you showed up to a shelter. Yes, government officials should really threaten people, so they stay away from shelters, and waste their officers' time having to run checks on every person trying to seek safety. There's no way that could boomerang back at them, when hundreds of people with outstanding traffic tickets decide to stick it out at home, and then need rescue, putting those officers' lives at risk. :eyeroll:
I did also like reading an article on people ignoring the mandatory evacuation notices for various reasons. One lady said they needed to stay behind to replant any produce trees that might uproot, and to pray for them. A) I don't believe in the power of prayer, but B) if I did, I certainly wouldn't waste my time praying for the people staying behind for some orange trees. Staying behind as the last government official "keeping the lights on" person? Sure. The person staying at the Hemingway House on Key West to try to keep the cats safe? Deserves a medal. Staying behind so you can immediately replant your orange trees? I do believe God should smite you for that.
I did also like reading an article on people ignoring the mandatory evacuation notices for various reasons. One lady said they needed to stay behind to replant any produce trees that might uproot, and to pray for them. A) I don't believe in the power of prayer, but B) if I did, I certainly wouldn't waste my time praying for the people staying behind for some orange trees. Staying behind as the last government official "keeping the lights on" person? Sure. The person staying at the Hemingway House on Key West to try to keep the cats safe? Deserves a medal. Staying behind so you can immediately replant your orange trees? I do believe God should smite you for that.
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Pfft, safe. Just get them some body armor and lash them to a pole on the waterfront.
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Nukes are obviously a bad idea but there is nothing besides landfall that can weaken a storm more quickly than high altitude wind shear, which is one of the things that weakened Irma before it hit Florida.
There are legitimate plans to just chain-link a large number of big ass conventional bombs together to attempt to disrupt storms, but nobody is willing to take on the risk of a backfire.
And an entire disaster movie is coming out soon about Geoengineering used to stop natural disasters (which of course gets taken over and is to used to create "Geostorms", the titular name of the movie). So I'm sure we'll see even more focus on this.
There are legitimate plans to just chain-link a large number of big ass conventional bombs together to attempt to disrupt storms, but nobody is willing to take on the risk of a backfire.
And an entire disaster movie is coming out soon about Geoengineering used to stop natural disasters (which of course gets taken over and is to used to create "Geostorms", the titular name of the movie). So I'm sure we'll see even more focus on this.
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Great run of comments, Ars Commenters.
Thanks for sharing. I gave out lots of up votes with only a few down.
Thanks for sharing. I gave out lots of up votes with only a few down.
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It would work if a vast quantity of dry ice was used. There are all sorts of ways to stop or weaken a hurricane which are theoretically possible but entirely impractical. Other options include sliding an enormous iceberg under it, or pumping cold water from the arctic in front of it.
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