The problem with that sort "that's what amoral corporations do" reasoning is that corporations are permitted to exist because of the idea that they do contribute to the net public good. Once that idea is out the window, then there's no reason for society not to treat corporations as the hungry Lovecraftian nightmares they are and obliterate them with fire and steamship.
I have read (though I can't cite a source at the moment) that what is sometimes taken as limits on talent/skill/material limits on medieval art was more often a stylistic choice.
Or maybe giant corporations failing to perform due diligence internally ought not be a cost that they get to impose on their customers without legal consequence.
The saddest part for me is that the RoP could have done something very similar to what they did, while still staying true to the canon 2nd Age, and arguably telling a much better story. Instead we got sometinf that felt more like ham-handed generic 80s fantasy, coaplaying as Middle-earth.
From the moment it opened with elf-children acting like orcs, it was clear not only that she showrunners had missed the mark, but they lacked enough of Socrates "beginning of wisdom" that they couldn't even understand how they were missing it
Not just any elf-children, but children of the Noldor. And not just any Noldor, but the scene implies that many of them are from the House of Fëanor. Who are the biggest assholes in the history of Middle-earth. The Silmarillion is largely a story of that.
The series has many issues, but the showrunners not understanding the works of Tolkien is not one of them. Many of the issues arise from the main premise of the series. Like with many recent big-budget adaptations, the showrunners are retelling the story from the perspective of a subset of 21st century Americans. If you are not in the target audience, many things may feel off.
Also, it's good to remember that big-budget adaptations usually fail. Any story worth adapting is likely exceptional. Because you are retelling the story in a new format, you usually have to change many things. But the new things you create are unlikely to be exceptional, because exceptional things are rare.
Also, it's good to remember that big-budget adaptations usually fail. Any story worth adapting is likely exceptional. Because you are retelling the story in a new format, you usually have to change many things. But the new things you create are unlikely to be exceptional, because exceptional things are rare.
D&D has only a couple big screen adaptions, and as far as I know (although I certainly could be wrong), Warhammer Fantasy has none. These seem to a the bombastic tone that should work better for a big budget translation.
We (Americans) have normalized, often explicitly legalized, quite a lot of corrupt behavior in various positions of power.[1] We then look at how comparatively little illegal corruption there is, and the official line is that everything is fine, nothing to see here.
1. Officials failing to accurately provide financial disclosures result in a consequence of having to fill it out again. Members of Congress can legally practice insider trading, and often do. And even when there's no revolving door, post-facto bribes in the form of cushy sinecures are accepted. Money as protected speech. Etc.
No! *The "tech people" are not knights and never will be. The "knights" are upper management. The lords are the centimillionaires and up. The rest of us are slaves, peasants, maybe monks if we're "lucky".
That's the myth that tech people willingly participating in this exploitative behavior tell themselves; that they are going to be part of the elite - that's what they get told by upper management.
That way "upper management" has been turning workers against themselves for ages; just convince the more lucky of them that they are entitled and destined to be part of the elite. Someday.
While he's certainly careful to hedge (much like the scientists he's critizcizing), Mr. Silver's argument boils down to, "I think four scientists published a technically correct but politicially motivated paper, so from now on journalists should consider peer-reviewed publications by reputable PhD's as the equivalent of Johnnie RedHat posting on Twitter".
I am not an astrophysicist, but my understanding is that due to the expansion of the universe and the speed of light, the volume of space we will ever be able to access is finite, roughly that of the galactic supercluster we're in.
For all practical matters, I think it can be considered infinite. (And the theoretical limits might not be fixed either)
But the question is always, how much of that is within our reach.
Currently nothing out of earth on an economical base. So I also see the point we have to set priorities.
But currently there is a big focus on war, rather than climate change etc. and with more crisis, people tend to think even more short term. Space on the other hand can give that long term thinking effect, that can people make consider whether fighting for the limited ressources on earth is the only way. And maybe instead unite forces for benefit of all of mankind (and possibly life itself).
This isn't even close to true. In addition to what the other comment points out about eventually losing causal contact with all parts of the observable universe that aren't already gravitionally bound to the same supercluster as the Milky Way, even something like breadth-first search of the entire local supercluster at near the speed of light would take more time than the local supercluster will still exist. The universe will run out of hydrogen and stars won't exist any more long before you can cover all of even the tiniest portions of infinite space.
No. For all practical matters, accessible space is FINITE, and actually gets smaller all the time due to accelerating expansion of the universe. In about 150 billion years all galaxies outside the Local Supercluster will pass behind the cosmological horizon.
"For all practical matters, accessible space is FINITE"
I think, this is what I said:
"But the question is always, how much of that is within our reach."
Currently that is only earth. With some steps up, you can have all the other planets in this system plus the asteroid belt. Step further up and you have lots and lots of other star systems, the cosmological theoretical limits you are citing are not really an issue on the timeframe that matters to us - space tech is and the limits how fast we can make rockets, or find other ways to take a short path.
