Post AzqbeHZJybLRWvT0L2 by jef@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by jef@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AzqbeEbL0eAwKJO4Z6 by jef@mastodon.social
2025-11-02T13:07:14Z
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Gun TownThere's a town near you where most of the residents spend much of their days running around with guns. The guns are real. They are loaded with real bullets. Their fingers are on the triggers. But they don't pull the triggers, they just yell "BANG, BANG, BANG!"
(DIR) Post #AzqbeFkEl2t7sCYh4i by jef@mastodon.social
2025-11-02T13:07:25Z
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Except occasionally something happens. Maybe they hit a bump. Or they are distracted by their cell phone. Or they had a little too much to drink before going out for a gun run. Or they see a non-gun person and want to teach them a lesson.The gun goes off.
(DIR) Post #AzqbeGs4ZOkZMnESvY by jef@mastodon.social
2025-11-02T13:07:38Z
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The gun people nod sadly to each other. "Such a tragic accident," they say. The police arrive, interview people, and make a report: "Accident." The dead are not interviewed. Then everyone runs off yelling "BANG, BANG, BANG!"
(DIR) Post #AzqbeHZJybLRWvT0L2 by jef@mastodon.social
2025-11-02T13:07:56Z
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Of course we don't live in Gun Town. That place is obviously absurd and could never exist in real life.We live in nice safe Car Town.
(DIR) Post #AzqbeINexRbw331Cng by cstross@wandering.shop
2025-11-02T13:13:26Z
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@jef By the 22nd century, people will look back on the automobile culture of the long 20th century (from about 1890 to some time not long hence) with the sort of horror we reserve for 18th century small-sword dueling culture (you weren't a gentleman if you didn't carry a sword and weren't willing to fight to the death to defend your honour if someone looked at you funny).
(DIR) Post #AzqbeJYKbFk1gR1F4a by jef@mastodon.social
2025-11-02T14:27:58Z
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@cstross I've read that in the early days of the industrial revolution, steam boiler explosions killed around 50,000 per year, comparable to the car slaughter we have now. But we don't look back on the boiler massacres with horror. They are just forgotten.
(DIR) Post #AzqbeKTPB3OYXRip28 by cstross@wandering.shop
2025-11-02T14:33:32Z
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@jef The car slaughter *globally* happens mostly outside the USA and EU—it's roughly the same level of carnage as the first world war, only ongoing and permanent.Boiler explosions were recognized as a big problem (bad for profits if nothing else) and metalurgists and engineers worked to eliminate it, hard.Also, the affected people were mostly operators: it was an industrial accident, and those get treated differently today, too.Nearest modern equivalent would be airliner crashes.
(DIR) Post #AzqbeL9EfWr6dBIEEa by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T14:47:07Z
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@cstross @jef are there any numbers on horse related deaths from the late 1800’s before the car started to become common?
(DIR) Post #AzqbeLzhWSp5Ftq80m by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-11-02T21:27:38Z
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@acsawdeyDo you include horses? Lol @cstross @jef
(DIR) Post #AzqbeQaiQmo9VrBkGG by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T14:57:10Z
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@cstross @jef ok this isn’t much of a reference but the claim is the horse related fatalities in 1916 were 7x the car related ones in 1997. The links to the paper are dead unfortunately. https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/29/the-horse-manure-problem/
(DIR) Post #AzqbeW8ZoJreiK4MEa by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T15:00:26Z
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@cstross @jef It seems that what we did was invent a horse with gaseous waste instead of solid.. while continuing to ignore the waste problem until it threatens to destroy the ecosphere 😕
(DIR) Post #Azqbebh99DUJwzHXJQ by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T16:28:50Z
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@cstross @jef We hit the problem from the opposite direction in the 1960’s when attempting to develop high energy boron-based jet fuel. Problem is, oxides of boron are solid at those temperatures… something that does not play well with the internals of a jet engine.
(DIR) Post #Azqbebm6qlSSCNbV32 by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T15:01:36Z
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@cstross @jef Horse manure is an externality you really can’t ignore.
(DIR) Post #AzqfmkaAO77JeD9hlg by acsawdey@fosstodon.org
2025-11-02T22:14:05Z
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@tomjennings @cstross @jef I would weep if I dwelled too much on that. In an early occurrence of “maximizing shareholder value” it was the practice to work a small number of city horses to death as it was cheaper than having a larger stable so they could get adequate rest.
(DIR) Post #Azr0SBKbq2sVZ3ucIy by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-11-03T02:05:42Z
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@acsawdey Yeah that part of the use of animals rarely gets talked about. I'm sure it was rampant,@cstross @jef