Stack Exchange
log in

John O

 Discussion on question by Robert Rapp…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Fri 17:13
Absent an atmosphere, nukes are flashbulbs going off. They very nearly have to make physical contact with the surface of the ship before detonating. Otherwise, much less is destroyed than expected (however, things can still be extraordinarily irradiated). How close? Somewhere years ago I remember reading that as far away as 100 meters from the hull, the effects were largely negligible (other than that the crew may start dying of radiation poisoning quite quickly, depending on how much shielding). It's simply impossible to melt the metal hull (let alone vaporize it) unless it detonates closer.
 

 Discussion on question by IMP9024: Wh…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
May 29 20:20
In Stephen Baxter's Evolution (title?) he speculates on a dinosaur he dubbed the "sky whale". It never had to launch itself and could not do so, living entirely in the air from birth/hatching. It was distantly related to pterodactyls, but much larger (I hesitate to use the word "massive"). I believe the wingspan was compared to a football field, but given that he's a Brit that measurement might not mean what I think it means. One can speculate that the offspring were able to fly immediately, or even that the eggs were carried, but mid-air mating must have been an ordeal.
 

 Discussion on question by Dmyt: Would…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Jun 19, 2024 10:04
@komodosp Genghis Khan decimated enough cities and villages that tree regrowth was responsible for the dip in carbon emissions. People weren't driving many SUVs or sailing ships with bunker oil at the time.
 

 Discussion on question by Dono: How l…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Dec 13, 2023 00:19
We can't see below the clouds, and we've only sent one probe to the surface. Imagine if a probe to Earth landed in Siberia, the Arctic, or almost anywhere on Antarctica... they'd think this planet empty too. We'd almost certainly notice radio transmissions right away though. So any post-radio civilization, we'd likely know if they just invented that within weeks.
 

 Discussion on question by BenRW: Can …

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Dec 9, 2023 03:26
@BenRW Every question mark is a question. Even between title and body. So if you post the exactly identical question in the title, and repeat it in the body, you're breaking the rules. This is a zero-nuance website. Please act accordingly.
 

 Discussion on answer by John O: How w…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Jun 23, 2023 09:23
@Yakk Reverted your vandalism. Everyone else is voting it up, they don't see much problem with it. Do I need to put spoiler tags around all my answers so you aren't triggered by facts you object to?
John O
Jun 23, 2023 09:23
@Arne "generally" as in "these problems are mostly or typically". "Social" as in "they're being shunned" or "people are treating them differently" instead of "they suffer horrific mental problems" or "they become incapable of walking for more than a few seconds without being out of breath".
 

 Discussion on question by Amruth A: W…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
May 19, 2023 10:29
This system creates perverse incentives. The economy suffers for it. There is no reason to strive economically, if the wealth I earn will be confiscated from me... and that's what you describe. I make a choice to earn to provide for my children and my unborn grandchildren. If that becomes impossible, why earn anything at all? Certainly I won't bother with anything that I won't be able to keep. Furthermore, if there exist legal instruments like trusts, this policy is just dead on arrival anyway... I end up giving it to my children before I die.
 

 Discussion on question by lollo259: H…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Apr 7, 2023 08:53
With love. The secret ingredient is love.
 

 Discussion on question by Conan Highw…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Mar 29, 2023 01:54
Are we assuming 1g of gravity here? It's perfectly plausible if you go higher, obviously. But I don't know the exact weight/mass limit for falls to cause trauma in 1g, most normal-sized insects will likely be well under it.
 

 Discussion on answer by John O: Max t…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Feb 24, 2023 15:46
You can't "get rid of a whole lot of occupations". You see this from your own personal, limited perspective. "When have I ever needed an underwater welder!?!" because it never occurs to you that without those, one of the things that someone else needs to provide you the things you need goes without. And then you'd never get whatever it is that you want. Quite frankly, it displays a level of ignorance that is disgusting.
John O
Feb 24, 2023 15:42
I don't think you even understand the question. Talking about this is pointless. I'm thinking about it, and the rest of you are merely reacting to it.
John O
Feb 23, 2023 19:24
@fredsbend Yep. All of them. 50% of their adult workforce were truckers hauling manufactured goods made in communist Babylonia and shipped over on container ships. The other 50% were day traders. You've got it all figured out.
John O
Feb 23, 2023 19:24
@KeithMorrison Your criticism has now devolved from merely incoherent to bizarrely unintelligent. The reason that they don't need 100% of adults is because of mechanized agriculture. When you say "even if you eliminate automation", what automation is it that you think you're eliminating? What happens when you don't have automation... everyone has to do everything manually. Guess what happens when people have to manually farm? That's right, 100% of the adult population needs to do it, or some percentage so close as to be negligible. You don't have a single clue how any of this works.
John O
Feb 23, 2023 19:24
@KeithMorrison Then you're the one talking non-sense. Without tractors, we need 100% of the adults in the fields constantly. They'll be lucky to last even 3 years before they're cannibalizing each other. I grew up listening to my grandpa gripe about the Ford (they made tractors briefly in the 1950s). I don't think he ever cultivated more than 20 or 30 acres, and even that wouldn't've be doable without mechanized ag.
John O
Feb 23, 2023 19:24
@wokopa How many able-bodied adults would they require just to have a steel industry? Hell, which is cheaper... trying to mine coal, or forestry and large scale charcoal, for that steel? How long can you recycle the scrap iron you brought with you to try to avoid having to mine iron ore... and if you do it too long do you lose the any expertise that you will need when recycling's no longer viable? God help them if they ever lose their petroleum extraction capability... without plastics, they'd have to use leather for the gaskets for the steam engine. This is doomsday stuff.
John O
Feb 23, 2023 19:24
@KeithMorrison The tools you used got a constant supply of new parts. Machined parts, sand-cast and die-cast and forged parts. Maybe I misunderstood the question and assumed he meant "tools to make the stuff we'll need", rather than "an eternity's worth of everything we'll need for everything along with eleventyteen spares for when those wear out". I've seen the work and parts that go into old tractors, you aren't getting any fucking freebies with this. You'd be lucky if this place can make wood plows within a century.
John O
Feb 23, 2023 19:24
@KeithMorrison You just lost the steel plant because you didn't think you needed the oncologist. How many tractors are you manufacturing now? And how many people will be out there with Caesar Chavez hoes doing it by hand when you no longer have the tractor? I know you have a pithy criticism for something I've spent years of my life thinking about intensely, but you've not thought this through at all. As for fertilizer, there was an Amish farmer in PA who was getting 65 bushels to the acre, and when asked his secret he pointed to his 6 sons who were all hauling cow shit by hand to the field.
 

 Discussion on question by user52445: …

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Feb 10, 2023 11:02
One must consider that slaves themselves would continue to be taxed on their economic productivity, if only through their owners. In this way, even the plow horse is taxed today.
 

 Discussion on question by wokopa: Wha…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Jan 28, 2023 20:37
All the current answers are wrong. The defensive invention that would have made the biggest difference in the 1400s is of course the fission-pumped X-ray laser with multiple independently targetable lasing rods. Even before its actual invention, just the mention that we were going to try to invent it spooked the soviets so badly that they ran their economy into shambles and we won the cold war. Vaporware saves lives.
 

 Discussion on question by Sixoca: Can…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Dec 16, 2022 04:31
@Sixoca Any K2+ civilization can probably protect the safe (or comparable items) as a proof of concept. But 1700's iron-working tech up against nuclear blasts is just asinine. At that distance, things aren't just vaporized, the atoms are turned to plasma (a few are even broken into pieces with weird side-reactions!). But if you don't have K3 magic-tech, then it's enough usually to just be far enough away from ground zero. Hell, it even keeps people alive. Tech can survive far closer (tends to be more radiation-hardy). At some point, we need to have a tutorial on how this ends the world.
John O
Dec 16, 2022 04:31
Many technological artifacts would survive even a full strike/counterstrike. Sure, anything without a quarter/half/full mile of ground zero is pretty thoroughly ganked, but a laptop 2 miles away? It's fine. It won't melt into a puddle and ICs are safe up to thousands of Gs. Humans and other living things aren't nearly so robust. But 9 yards? Unless it has Star Trek shields and Scotty's got his wrench right up against the emitter array, it's gone. It will rain down as iron precipitation somewhere far away.
 

 Discussion on question by icewar1908:…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Dec 2, 2022 04:18
@Jedediah Even if God were real, how does that change my life? I wouldn't worship him even then. Shown actual proof, I would intellectually accept that he exists, but there's likely a guy named Cletus in Montana who I know nothing about. I don't believe or disbelieve he exists, if you showed proof that he was real... what then? It's an ignoreable fact at that point. My life doesn't change. I doubt that my life not changing at the "revelation" would change God either. So it's a mutual phenomenon. I accept your explanation that this is a writer projecting things into fiction that don't belong.
John O
Dec 2, 2022 04:18
What is "belief"? And what good would it do to eradicate the belief in factual entities? These are as much questions for the real world as they are for your fictional one. "Believe" itself is a loaded, emotional word that hints at a different mental process than "think" or "suspect to be true", but people conflate it with those all the time. This question is flawed.
 

 Discussion on question by Demigan: Wh…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Nov 22, 2022 04:32
Are we talking about a tort or a criminal prosecution here? And god help us if your fantasy world uses something based off the French civil code...
 

 Discussion on question by Duncan Drak…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Nov 18, 2022 22:27
Twist: 4chan hacks the communications channel, and the world receives 250 cubic miles of horse semen. Bring an umbrella.
 

 Discussion on question by trotzt: Wha…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Nov 15, 2022 15:57
I can see the psych department advertisements in the university newspaper just asking for study volunteers. "Participants may be waterboarded daily for 6 weeks. Will have a chance to win a $50 gift card to Outback Steakhouse". It's not difficult to conduct this study, just difficult to "acquire participants".
 

 Discussion on question by Omar Morale…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Oct 25, 2022 19:35
Sovereign governments have nukes... and they have attitude. The Soviet Union or the US would never have put up with such an organization unless it could go toe-to-toe. SCP Foundation can do this because it really can go toe-to-toe and even further. The US government would not survive a war against SCP, after all. Even if they grudgingly accept that there's another player in the game that they can't shove out of the way, it's unclear what would make them keep their own agents out of the hair of the men from G.R.U.N.K.L.E. or to keep their secrets for them from the public.
 

 Discussion on question by Jefferey Da…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Oct 19, 2022 02:55
You are insane and wrong beyond any normal human capacity for mistakes. I love it, and you are my hero @JeffereyDawson. Never stop being your style of lunatic. The men from DARPA or the DOD should show up sometime later today, just listen to them politely and take their money.
 

 Discussion on answer by sondre99v: Ho…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Sep 24, 2022 17:08
@NotThatGuy Your comment completes his answer, I think. This isn't an ideal situation, but even in the real world casinos have a similar ability to cheat now, if they aren't regulated and heavily scrutinized.
John O
Sep 24, 2022 17:08
This runs the risk of the the result of the lottery being known (by the casino) early. Thus, they can check if someone's already won, but before announcement. There is the opportunity for them to add a bet or two so that no one wins. Though whether this is really a problem in a scenario where future information is already knowable to some degree, I can't say.
 

 Discussion on question by Colonizerof…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Aug 19, 2022 11:25
Those sacrifices wouldn't even make anyone blink. The US has thrown away more lives for less within my own lifetime in a single conflict. And nukes? "Multiple Hiroshimas"? Let's see the things eat a few Ivy Mikes. This will be over by supper.
 

 Discussion on question by Crafter: Ho…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Aug 6, 2022 12:54
In the (late?) 1980s, Phil Donahue had a guest who claimed to have been born physically neuter. I do no remember if this was medically documented or not (doubtful). The person claimed to be legally male (driver's license), had no external genitalia (just a urethral opening), and had no libido or interest in sex. Biologically, it's not entirely implausible, but I couldn't even speculate on what developmental issue might cause that. If I remembered the details, it might be something that could be tracked down, but I think it's a dead end for that and several other reasons.
 

 Discussion on question by CatsInSpace…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Jun 22, 2022 20:12
There is no need for a coverup. This can just be insta-classified, and all those who already have signed papers are duty-bound to keep the secret. Others will be coerced into signing NDAs and taking payoffs. This happens often enough anyway. You only need coverups when keeping secrets can't be accomplished within the law.
 

 Discussion on question by Chorofloroc…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
May 17, 2022 08:22
On Earth, in the real world, religions are known for being highly rational, consistent, and with a well-noted disdain for hypocrisy. Thus I deem your proposal deficient.
 

 Discussion on question by RYAN LANDEL…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
May 6, 2022 09:57
Stephen Baxter wrote this book already, named it (rather obviously) Flood. They live on ships for awhile (several years), but eventually even those break down without land-based maintenance. 10,000 years later humans have become (unintelligent) mermen. Most depressing book I've read in a long while.
 

 Discussion on question by Cyrus Drake…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Apr 23, 2022 03:38
Relax the 12 inch constraint to 6 inches, and it's a smartphone. Or just wait for iPhone 15 what with Apple hellbent on making devices that can't even fit in a pocket anymore.
 

 Discussion on question by 4.12.22.4.1…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Apr 21, 2022 15:22
I was under the impression that 90km is basically a daytrip for any 1500s sailing vessel. For anything other than "the aliens are invading, launch all your 1500s-era V2 rockets with crude nukes at them!", it's cheaper to send sealed letters. They don't have any information that can only wait minutes/hours, instead of days.
 

 Discussion on question by Mark Price:…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Feb 25, 2022 00:52
I suspect that Wolverine-like regeneration is so absurd it only belongs in fiction. However, if it were real, this weapon does seem to deal with most of the issues... it might not kill such a creature, but it could certainly cripple it so thoroughly, it can be safely captured and incinerated. That said, if you want a different opinion, you should go read SCP-682. Also, what's with the de-comment-ification worldbuilding's been experiencing lately? Did the mods get into the meth stash again?
 

 Discussion on question by Anoplexian:…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Dec 16, 2021 08:55
I think the answer comes from Ronnie Coleman, who once wisely said: “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights.” It's even worse if you suspect that wizards, like most people, might enjoy food (or god help them, beer). Your wizards are in no danger of being shredded.
 

 Discussion on question by FluidCode: …

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Nov 30, 2021 15:29
I think the true answer will always be some variation of "I already explained it in my manifesto".
 

 Discussion on question by KEY_ABRADE:…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Nov 2, 2021 19:52
My understanding is that Martin has clearly stated that the winters/seasons are due to magic. He posits no astronomical phenomena capable of these conditions. No one else has either. 100ft of snow is equivalent to 240 inches of rainfall, something like x4 or x5 that record monsoons produce.
 

 Discussion on answer by Join JBH on C…

Imported from a comment discussion on worldbuilding.stackexcha...
John O
Oct 27, 2021 12:19
Dairy bulls come to mind. To breed for greater productivity, they also bring in traits that make the bulls much more aggressive... the two traits are linked and (at least as of now) can't be separated. Similar linkages can exist for nearly any trait that people might value. One might even call dairy bulls feral. This is a big issue for all domestication, only the modern world's obsession with pets is the exception (since the only trait desired is friendliness, it can't be mutually exclusive with friendliness).
John O
Oct 27, 2021 12:19
I would add only one criteria to this answer: for those animals that are desired as something other than pets their desireable traits must at minimum not decrease and ideally increase. Meat animals should not become scrawnier, work animals should not become weaker, etc. This isn't likely to be the case anyway, but selecting for tameness and the desired trait both just makes it more difficult, and some traits could hypothetically be mutually exclusive with tameness.
 

 Discussion on question by John O: Cor…

Imported from a comment discussion on scifi.stackexchange.com/...
John O
Aug 18, 2021 19:24
Haha, no. Ok, no, that's not the correct character. That would only be the correct character if it were an actual apostrophe for contractions and possessive forms of nouns. Since I am discussing neither, it can't by definition be the correct form. It's possible unicode has no correct character, historically many have been missing (and still are). It's possible that there's some other obscure rule that does make it the correct character, but you can't state that without also presenting that rule.
John O
Aug 18, 2021 19:21
Am I blocked here too?
John O
Aug 18, 2021 19:13
@Harabeck The advent of the typewriter meant that many different characters all got replaced by the straight apostrophe... there weren't enough keys to do the rest. The symbol you see in a height (6'3") isn't an apostrophe. The symbol in Hawaiian isn't an apostrophe. Etc. And since these alien names aren't contractions and they aren't possessive forms of nouns, they most certainly aren't apostrophes. Some author chucked those in because whatever the correct symbol is, he did not have the correct one to use.
John O
Aug 18, 2021 19:13
@Harabeck I am not asking about convention. The convention is to just use the straight apostrophe, which is clearly wrong. I'm not writing anything. Nothing new is being written. If I were to type in the name of some character or place, which keys on the keyboard are the correct ones to tap to be able to type that name out? No writer would even bother with such a thing, it'd fall to some copyeditor or typesetter to deal with that. The other guy things my question is wrong because it's "unfocused", and you think I'm asking some creative writing question. WTF.
John O
Aug 18, 2021 19:13
@AncientSwordRage This forum has always allowed questions about science fiction in general, as long as they could be answerable in theory. You've closed my question without good cause. It is a focused question, in that it asks one specific thing. I am interested in no particular work, but rather how to typeset for this problem in general.
John O
Aug 18, 2021 19:13
@AncientSwordRage I am asking about no particular universe. There are other examples on TV Tropes, and in some of those the authors go to great pains to explain what the characters mean and design their own orthography (and thus they don't use apostrophes, and aren't the focus of this question).