That's anti-social. They're anti-social media.

You might be on to something there... That the effort itself raises quality? Perhaps.

More like 25-30 years, innit?

> Usenet before the Eternal September?

Even well after it, in many places. The effect wasn't universally immediate.

> It's pure logic that Tesla has to pursue bets that would justify billion dollar valuations and being a car company isn't that.

Isn't this in reply to a post (or was that another reply just below it?) about how other, "traditional", car companies are valued at 55, 60, 80, and 280 billion dollars...? Seems being a car company and having a billion dollar valuation isn't all that incompatible.

So you're "fully aware" that you're supposed to pay attention, but you still think "making driving more chill" is somehow desirable (or at least supposed to be desirable, for marketing purposes)...

I think you -- and everyone else -- should not only be "distrustful" of these purported "autopilots" or "copilots" or WETF the marketeers call the contraptions, but actively avoid ever buyin any vehicle equipped with them. Just refuse, and do your own damn driving. For everyone's sake, including your own.

Yes it is: If those civilisations could "develop the long and hard way", why couldn't we?

One take on this - those rare few who did the "long and hard way" were not as lazy / stupid / warlike / etc. as us mere humans. And maybe they took 750k years, or some other really long https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HardWorkMontage stuff.

But a related take - if you just move the "seems inexplicable" stuff further away in space and time, then most people magically see it as being less inexplicable.

Even if that were true, it wouldn't disprove the link to racism: Eratosthenes was Hellene, not native Egyptian. He "counts as white"; ancient Egyptians may or may not.

Feels to me that the current popularity of "What if...?"-scenarios of Alternative History may be a substitute. Though those are at least explicitly acknowledged as speculation, not some "Hidden Truth". (In contrast to "Flat Earth", "QAnon", and other recent conspiracy theories.)

"People in his time"?!? He only died the other day. Until last week was "his time"! And new weird religions / cults / sects like the "Ancient Aliens" one he founded are being born all the time. The world hasn't changed fundamentally since last week, so it's still "his time".

The only place he has earned is as a successful nutjob / scam artist (about on a par with L. Ron Hubbard or Eric Dubay?), as opposed to all the less successful ones.