The future of dying:

"If we have a freedom, we can choose how to exercise it. That choice necessarily includes the right not to exercise it. Freedom of speech implies the freedom to remain silent. Freedom of religion implies the freedom to be an atheist.

Just the same way, freedom to choose what we do with our lives implies the freedom to stop living. It's the ultimate declaration of self-ownership and autonomy."

https://onlys.ky/the-future-of-dying/

#onlysky #maid

How can we get a warning to the distant future?

"The civilizations that come after us may not remember where the repository is or the reason it was constructed. If they dig into it, how can we warn them so they don't accidentally irradiate themselves?

A language like Linear A, which is 'only' thirty-five centuries old, is indecipherable. It's likely that no written warning would still be comprehensible in ten thousand years—much less a hundred thousand. Even our basic symbology, like the red circle-and-slash or the yellow-and-black radiation trefoil, might mutate over time to the point of unrecognizability or be forgotten entirely."

https://onlys.ky/a-warning-to-the-distant-future/

#onlysky #finland #nuclear

Democracies can fall, but so can dictatorships:

"That democracy depends on the consent of the governed is both its weakness and its strength. When it works well, democracy is the best form of government. It creates stability, peace, freedom and opportunity. But every generation has to choose whether to renew the democratic compact, and there's no guarantee that they'll choose well.

But autocracy can also fail. It happens all the time."

https://onlys.ky/democracies-can-fall-but-so-can-dictatorships/

#onlysky #syria #southkorea

The United Cities and Ruralities of America: A modest proposal for a two-state solution to our own intractable conflict.

https://onlys.ky/the-united-cities-and-ruralities-of-america/

#onlysky

I still want to go to Mars, but not if Elon Musk punches the ticket:

"It's not just Musk. The same goes for all the self-declared rationalists and tech-bro billionaires who think they're head and shoulders above the common herd. Far too many of them prove to be con artists, like Sam Bankman-Fried, or swollen with lethal hubris, like Stockton Rush, or wannabe mad scientists who believe that rules are for little people, like Marc Andreessen.

None of them are trustworthy. None of them have wisdom to match their wealth or their lofty rhetoric. If we're going to go to Mars—and, for the record, I do hope we eventually go to Mars—it shouldn't be the private vanity project of a billionaire. It should be a shared commitment on behalf of all humanity, with only our best representatives selected for the mission."

https://onlys.ky/i-still-want-to-go-to-mars-but-not-if-elon-musk-punches-the-ticket/

#onlysky #future #space

Be an average citizen of the future, now:

"Whatever you think the future will be like, this is a beneficial stretching exercise for the imagination. Just as an average person of today would seem radical if transported into the past, an average person of the future could seem radical to us—but only because they've outgrown the fallacies and faulty assumptions that limit our moral sight.

All the more reason, then, for us who are alive now to get rid of those prejudiced blinders and not wait for the future to come along and do it for us."

https://onlys.ky/be-an-average-citizen-of-the-future-now/

#onlysky #future

The #Pleasure of #Walking in #Rain | #Media - #OnlySky

https://onlysky.media/alee/the-pleasure-of-walking-in-rain/