Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale

Tech Company: At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus from classic sci-fi novel Don’t Create The Torment Nexus

Alex Blechman

So, serious question, how do you think dismantling the fossil fuel industry would work? As of the last available data world energy consumption is still about 80% from fossil fuels. It is not possible to replace those energy inputs with renewables. “There is simply just not enough time, nor resources to do this by the current target set by the World’s most influential nations. What may be required, therefore, is a significant reduction of societal demand for all resources, of all kinds. This implies a very different social contract and a radically different system of governance to what is in place today.”

So, since they can’t be substituted with other energy sources, to eliminate fossil fuels voluntarily would mean everyone, everywhere agreeing to give up a large part of the comfort we have become accustomed to. Setting aside for the moment the inequity of the global energy usage distribution, how would you go about convincing people that we all need to stop using the majority of the gas and electricity we currently do? What would that look like? We have built entire societies dependent on on endless low cost energy. What happens in places that can’t function without it?

It’s going to happen eventually. Fossil fuels are non-renewable. Once we use them up they’re gone. I just don’t see any way we will agree to an organized, cooperative, managed decline in usage. I think we instead we will fight for what’s left and pretend everything is fine until it all just collapses. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to imagine what that will look like.

like this example for Imma be there.

The USB drive has wallet keys to every lost or forgotten bitcoin wallet since bitcoin was new.

“According to Fortune, around 2.9 million Bitcoins have been lost”

I don’t see how that is a before/after photo set. Nothing lines up in those two photos. The evenly spaced grove of trees in the right photo can’t be found in the left one. The road in the left photo isn’t in the right one. Am I missing something? Not arguing it didn’t happen, but I can’t make sense of the pictures.

Maybe a relationship will just come to you and maybe it won’t. A lot of the advice you get in these kind of threads is like ‘just be yourself’ or ‘don’t be desperate’ or ‘be comfortable on your own’ or whatever. None of that ever worked for me. I was never able to just be myself or be on my own without feeling lonely and desperate and that made me seem weird and off-putting to potential partners. Honestly it took recognizing my mental issues, getting serious about finding a solution to them, and working on them for a while before I was able to act like a normal human around someone I was attracted to. In the end what worked for me was a combination of Buddhist meditation and some kind of therapy. But everyone is different. YMMV.

On the other hand maybe you are perfectly comfortable in yourself, are handsome and charming, and have no trouble talking with women, but you just met some women with issues of their own. If so, just try to get out more and meet more people. In that case it’s a numbers game and eventually you’ll find the right one.

Ok, I’ll be that guy. Yes, the kid actually did win all these matches. Though it’s not clear whether the old guys were masters, grandmasters, or just old.

I think that would actually be really cool. You’re walking through Whiterun and you hear some NPC saying “Did you hear, some guy just ate the soul of that dragon that attacked us.” “What? That’s ridiculous. Where are you hearing these dumb rumours?” “No, really, he killed the dragon then just sucked its soul right out.” etc. etc. An LLM could at least make a conversation like that sound semi-plausible, and it could go on as long as you are listening. Then as the game goes on the rumours just get more and more wild. “I heard he can transform himself into a dragon and breathe fire.” “Yeah, well I heard that he’s the god of all the dragons sent to Tamriel to help them kill us all.” Not that they couldn’t have added that kind of thing with voice actors, but it would just be ‘arrow to the knee’ repetitive and get stale really fast.