A rant by me.

@dave

Personally, I’d prefer teleporters. Then we could just stop the process midstream on certain people. They won’t be dead, so that’s a consolation.

@PlacidPenguin If you were deconstructed and reconstructed would you still be the same person though? Theseus saw this one coming.

@PantHeist

In what sense are you referring to though?

@PlacidPenguin Well, if you were teleported you’d have to be destroyed then recreated, right? Would the recreation still be you?

@PantHeist

On a molecular level, assuming that this method of teleportation moved my subatomic particles from place to place, and didn’t just create duplicates and then destroy the particles from the place where I’m leaving from, then yes, I would say that I am the same person.

Now, if it involved creating a duplicate set of particles and destroying the original (although after the first time the original set ceases to exist), then I would say that’s a bit more questionable.

However, seeing as how I am just a script, I don’t exactly have to worry about this.

@PantHeist
@PlacidPenguin
Is the me that existed an instant ago the same me as the current me, or the same me as an hour from now?

Technically I have changed, gained, lost. Lot of electrical nerve changes.

However I possess a continuing sense of self. And by whatever current measures we use, I pass. I am “me”. In the absence of biological or psychological trauma, or a missing sense of self, that’s as good as it gets for the nonce.

Interesting q re transporters. Uncharted turf. How would we know we were as much “ourselves” as normal, even possessing a sense of self-continuity?

I think what ya gotta do, once the device is built and tested, is massive #'s of alpha and beta runs. Kinda assuming there would be volunteers after many successful prev life-form tests.

Then the data gathered and presented might be good data in the sense of being both honorable and sound. Or not. Political and $ interests might mess with the “science” that indicated safety.

You can see possible $ and power interests - corps, military, govt, etc - having an interest in such a device being seen as safe. If the device were viewed as safe, I would anticipate eventual high demand after initial suspicion.

Suppose as a hypothesis that the process were actually reliable and safe when done properly.

Would power interests - government military corp criminal whatever - have an incentive to mess with the programming? I suspect yes. Or the device might be hacked.

So you might use it, feel very much like “yourself”, and be subtly different in ways that others barely notice. And of course you might not notice - if the tampering were done properly, your “new self” would be reconstructed so as not to notice.

These machines might, for instance, “adjust” users to be a bit more gung ho. Over time, perhaps, the hackers hope that means more military recruits and bigger defense budgets.

I’d assume the hackers would go for “subtle” and aim at endocrine or neurotransmitter changes unless self-alteration became a fad, or the tech advanced significantly, or we wound up in a controlled society.

Another huge issue is data theft. The transporter could essentially “steal” all your info at that moment. Possibly re-construct dups of you, or find a way to extract your knowledge.

Fun to think about.

Incidentally, @PlacidPenguin:
Scripts could also be subtly altered if they went thru a transporter. No reason why not. Sounds like an easier prob.

/giphy Star Trek transporter

@f00l @PantHeist

That’s a whole different topic for which I’m not at a suitable level of clarity.

@PlacidPenguin

neither am I. Dazzle 'em w BS.

@f00l Worked for me.

@PantHeist

@f00l Thought about this a little more. Once minor changes were aware of came along it probably wouldn’t be long before someone started going for major changes. Why not make a dumbed-down version of yourself for organ transplants if you needed one? I suppose you might be able to make just the organ you needed too. You could still use altered copies of yourself to perform any work that you didn’t want to do. Just gets darker from there if you stay on that line of thought.

@PantHeist
Yeah. Create Super soldiers or Super drones or people who wanna work off-world or whatever.

That assumes either an increasingly controlled society or one in which disinformation had destroyed information.

Hmmm. Wonder if that’s likely in the “future” at some point.

In which case the powers can just come get you or grab you off the street or force you to come in and be “transformed”. No need to send you someplace else.

And the data theft: they could pick their fav archetypes or templates and xform then dup them.

Super Soldier. Super Workers. Super “Citizens”. Clone Wars.

@narfcake except the car accident I was in, that totalled my truck, was unavoidable, and not my fault. That spike would of probably killed me.

@mfladd

Unfortunately, current life situation requires my driving in NJ.

@PlacidPenguin I hear ya. I have to leave for Va. Beach right now. I have to drive thru the eastern shore of Va. Completely, the opposite of NJ. It is like the movie Deliverance - if you hear banjos - RUUUUUUNNNNN!

@mfladd

You can’t deal with a few southerners?

Then go back north. Or get banjo lessons.

@PlacidPenguin
NJ is best driven thru, say, between 10pm-5am.

Otherwise avoid if you don’t live there.
Jersey’s ok. Traffic, tho…

@f00lFrom DC through Conn. you don’t want to be on the road before 11pm and after 6am. Even if you live there it’s icky, you just don’t realize it until you leave.

@f00l

I’ve been thinking about doing some sightseeing.

Not once has NJ come up.

@PlacidPenguin You’ve neve been to Wildwood.

@cranky1950 Yup. Same thing with NoVa to DC. I know both, and both suck.

@PlacidPenguin
Some nice stuff around the Delaware River and Cape May as I recall.

Ok it ain’t Lake Placid or Maine or Vt/NH or Ithaca.

@f00l @cranky1950

Whoops, I should add that it was more of a focus of state parks and such.

Unfortunately, National Parks are a bit limited in the Northeast.

@f00l I dunno dealing with the toothless front porch couch dwellers is tough for anyone.

@cranky1950
@mfladd

Oh we have plenty of toothless country front porch couch dwellers here.

If they see you as a sort of “natural fit” - “adopted southerner”, not dressed up too much, open, friendly, not intellectual or at least you can turn that off, not too much a city person - if you’re not off-putting or impatient - going at their pace when you talk to them - and you have good manners and are respectful - you’re usually just fine.

Ok there are a few bad ones. But you can find those in the cities and the burbs also.

And every one of those front porch people doing nothing has got a smartphone or tablet. Every one. It’s not 1965 anymore.

@f00l You can tell when it’s getting too civilized when there is a fight at the town council meeting over the proposed ban on upholstered furniture on front porches.

@cranky1950

Around here the people who do that within city limits are normally in a kinda ratty part of town where the code enforcers tend to let things go by.

Main road or thru street, yeah.

Most of the front porch couch people I’ve seen around have been semi-rural. No city no code.

And the cities vary. I’m sure Houston has codes - got to - but I think it still has no zoning. That city has some interesting juxtapositions.

@mfladd Some of the eastern shore is really pretty… I used to live in Newport News. I used to like it down there. While the military presence kind of overwhelmed a few things in a negative way and the tourist season could be brutal, there was a lot of other good things about living there.

@Kidsandliz I like that area.

@Kidsandliz
I need to “borrow” “The Breakers” and live there for a few years.

Someone else needs to pay to maintain the house during this interval.

I’m sure I would be an enormous asset to the community.

(The second photo is a “side entrance”.)

@cranky1950
FS: he may have been a scumbag - or not have been one - but that voice. That style. That delivery.

@f00l Still aren’t too many people around who’ll say anything bad about him. The seem to disappear or get caught knocking up Catholic high school girls.

@f00l
He supposedly treated Mia Farrow extremely well.

OTOH he had his “people” tell Marilyn he wouldn’t be seeing her anymore. And he hung with mobsters. And there’s how by legend he got out of his Tommy Dorsey contract. And how he got the part in From Here To Eternity that recreated his career - either thru a mob threat or a “horse hit”, or thru his then wife’s (Ava Gardner) connection to Harry Cohn.

Can’t argue about the singing tho.

@f00l All hear say. Piscopo found things that normally get swept under the rug don’t all of a sudden.

@cranky1950
I didn’t think the thing with Marilyn was hearsay.

Always kinda doubted much of the rest of it. Thought he prob cultivated a “Jersey connected” image because he got a kick out of it. The Mob also prob got a kick outta it. Meant they had the legend of pwning the entertainment bigwigs.

And Ava Gardner was huge and was bff with Harry Cohn’s wife. So that part sounds like standard Hollywood. He also deserved that Oscar. Serious actor.

@cranky1950 Wonder how many people have taken every word of this and lived by it. Probably more than ever listened to guidance counselors or moral authorities. Entertainment as role model- what could possibly go wrong? Sinatra’s interpretations of many songs shaped popular culture, even though he didn’t write them. Remember ‘My Way’?

@OldCatLady
To me Sinatra as eternal an instant cultural touchstone as Marilyn or Elvis or ET.

And he might be in the running for my next fav after Dorothy’s shoes, Darth Vader, and ET. Not sure. Haven’t tried to rank that stuff.

His voice… He started out as a crooner I think? And was very nice sounding but not a total standout. And then he broke from that and re-invented how the pop and jazzstandards should be sung, except that no one else could really follow him. No competitors.

Still no competitors.

@f00l Great singer, good song. The entire 11-minute movie is a pretty good message for these times, also.

@f00l

That was made around 1944-1945 I think? Before Sinatra revolutionized American singing. But it’s great.

The original song lyrics contained a verse that explicitly called for racial tolerance. The song lyricist - Abel Meeropol - was furious that the verse was cut from the film.

That verse contained a line mentioning “my neighbors black and white”.

I don’t know the background of why that verse was cut. Time/pacing reasons? or perhaps the directors thought the verse would be too controversial and the controversy would outweigh the film’s central message.

The music composer, Earl Robinson, was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, but many in the industry continued to commission work from him, credited to assumed names.

The song lyricist, Abel Meeropol, later adopted the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg after the Rosenbergs were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage in 1953.

(For those who have not seen this, it’s a short film, about 10 min. Well worth the watching.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_I_Live_In_(1945_film)

@theredia
That’s great.
Love that guy.
Esp when he’s Road Warrior.

Here is how to drive a vehicle, people. Suitable for any traffic and road conditions whatsoever.

@Kidsandliz

As @mfladd knows, NJ is the 2nd category. They probably invented it.

See? Nothing good can come from NJ.

@PlacidPenguin I grew up in NJ, and I have to disagree with the stereotype. If you learned to drive handling the traffic there it’s really one of the easier-to-drive places.

I’d say CT has the worst drivers overall, and truckers below the mason-dixon line are the most dangerous people on the road.

@PantHeist

The problem I think is; where I drive, a lot of the drivers are out of state.

Shame the dashcam I got is horrendous. Otherwise I’d be willing to host a NJ Driving horror event.

Have never dealt with driving in CT.

@PlacidPenguin Ah yeah- the areas heavy with commuters are pretty bad.

Now that you mention it, part of the issue I run into in CT might be because there are a lot of people who commute to NYC, and they drive the same way on the highway that they do in Manhattan but you don’t expect it.

@PlacidPenguin like the midwest pokeys that invade florida in the winter. Farmers combined with Bluehairs is a maddening combination.

If you learned to drive handling the traffic there it’s really one of the easier-to-drive places.

@PantHeist So if it’s anything like some parts here in SoCal, adopt the “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!” attitude and all is well?

@PantHeist

Had no probs driving in Manhattan

Peohaps because the vehicle in question was a Ford Pinto and everyone was afraid of me.

And when we used my younger brother’s car (he was in CT); that car had survived many teenagers, and it looked rather like it had survived many wars. Every exterior panel was a different color. Every exterior panel had clearly survived a wreck experience. I think one of the panels was pepto-bismol-like pink.

People Got Out Of The Way.
Even taxis feared us.

When I lived in Boston in the inner harbor (on a schooner AKA tall ship near where Ironsides is docked) I gave up on my car, parked it out of town at someone’s place of work and used the tender to get to downtown Boston. Far easier and faster than driving, walking or taking public transportation.

@PlacidPenguin Only if no one has to pay symbolic child support.