Exactly. People will cite the fact that gangs smuggle guns all the time. And that is true, organized crime outfits absolutely can smuggle guns. And yes, it is also possible to make a gun from a 3D printed gun frame and parts anyone can buy on the net. And you can make your ammunition. But that really doesn't translate to 16 year olds being able to get their hands on semi-automatic rifles and large quantities of ammunition. Just think for a second, actually think mechanically how that would work. Imagine we're in a country with widespread gun control, (but still with illegal weapons to be found/made), and we have some 16 year old white suburban kid looking to get a hold of a gun.
So we have our would-be school shooter, trying to get his hands on a gun. What are his options? Maybe he tries to buy one. He asks the guy he buys weed from if he knows how to get a gun. Do you think any dealer slinging weed to high school kids is going to want to help him with that? They're probably a student at that school. And criminals aren't complete idiots. What gang of hardened criminals wants to sell a rifle and ammunition to a random white kid from the suburbs? You know exactly what it's going to be used for. Gangs may be willing to take the risk of trafficking weapons to arm themselves, but they don't just sell guns to any random person looking to buy, let alone to someone that is clearly planning to do something horrible with it. In reality, if our would-be shooter actually manages to meet the kinds of people that traffic weapons, it wouldn't work well for him. At best, they turn him into the cops themselves. At worst, a 16 year old from the suburbs disappears never to be heard from again.
Ok, so if he can't buy one, can he make one? Maybe. But they would have to have an extremely a home life unmonitored to the point of violating child neglect laws. People can make quite functional 3D-printed gun frames, but it's a skill you develop. You have to go through multiple cycles of printing, fitting, reprinting, reprinting, etc. If you actually want to have a weapon that works, you essentially need a workshop. And specifically a workshop that no one but he ever accesses. Maybe some kid out on a farm could manage that if given a high degree of independence...maybe? But if you look at the home life of the typical school shooter, it is simply not the kind of environment that would be conducive to running an elicit weapons workshop. In all but the most extremely neglectful homes, a parent is going to see them working on firearms and immediately freak the fuck out. It's just really hard to hide the kind of setup needed to make a 3D printed gun. This setup is not beyond what can be done in a domestic hobby workshop, but it is not the kind of thing that you can easily hide or disguise. In the case of our hypothetical 16 year old, they would try to setup the equipment necessary. But they would be quickly caught. Oh, and then we need to include the whole elaborate mini forge setup needed to actually make your own rounds...
TL:DR: consider the mechanics of a hypothetical 16-year old shooter actually trying to obtain a semi-automatic rifle in a world with strict gun control. Considering either the "buy it" or "build it" scenario, it would be extremely rare for any 16 year old to be able to obtain a gun. And this is true even assuming that gun running and 3D-printed guns continue to exist.
Not all, but some sci fi universes make a central component of their setting the existence of a myriad of alien species (Star Trek, Star Wars, any setting with interacting with countless other species.) When we see species that humans are regularly interacting with, we are only seeing a small subset of the species that exist in that setting. It's just an unfortunate fact of biology that species find it easier to interact with beings that are most like themselves. The Federation mostly consists of humanoid aliens. We do occasionally see really exotic life forms find their way into Star Fleet, but they're the exception, not the rule. In my canon, they try to make contact, diplomacy, and exchange with every species they can. But they are inevitably more successful with humanoid aliens than non-humanoid ones. It's just a lot easier to make meaningful communication with beings more similar to yourself.
Maybe it was a false flag attack, one planned and executed by Musk himself! He contacts one of his most ardent fanboys on X. He tells him that he's arranging a get together for some of his greatest fans in Las Vegas. He says to load your cybertruck up with as many fireworks and gas cans as you can. From there everyone will drive out to the desert, hold a huge bonfire, and set off fireworks. And they will all meet up at the front door of Trump Hotel in Las Vegas. Musk waits til the mark does this. Once the car's GPS indicates it is in position, Musk simply activates the secret remote self destruct he's built into every cybertruck. It turns out, every one of those is a bomb that Musk can set off at any time through a simple web interface. He just clicks a button, an overload is triggered in the batteries, and the whole thing goes up in flames. The fireworks and gasoline just serve to multiply the blast, provide an explanation for the explosion, and to kill the only witness to Musk's plot.
It turns out he wasn't a terrorist! He was an innocent fool who thought Musk invited to a party. Musk is basically Lex Luthor at this point. Would you really put something like this past him? It's not like he hasn't integrated secret features into cars before. Why not a remote self destruct that can only be activated at the sole discretion of Musk himself?
No no. We need to better recreate the climate of Palestine if we're going to ask millions of Israelis to relocate. You need a warm, coastal and arid Mediterranean climate. And we need an area that's currently largely underpopulated.
Thus, we must....REUNIFY CALIFORNIA! For too long have Baja and Alta been disunited. It is time to annex Baja California, to reunify it with its Northern neighbor! Then we will offer large stretches of land in Baja California for Israeli Jews to settle in. That way they can have a homeland without oppressing the native Muslim population.
The past, present, and future do not exist as separate states.
Imagine a vast array of all possible states of matter in the universe. Imagine reality has a finite spacial resolution. With a series of numbers, or even a single very large number, you could provide a unique identifier for every possible arrangement of matter in the universe. The positions of every star and galaxy. The detailed interactions of every quark. Imagine a list or array that would have a number of entries equal to some indecent multiple of "ten to the ten to the ten...." Imagine all these possible states, every possible configuration the matter of the universe could occupy.
Then realize...All of these possible states exist at once. They are all as real as any other. There is no preferred state. They all exist in some vast "10 to the ten to the ten" dimensional spacetime. What we perceive as the flow of time is simply us moving from one of these states to another. But our consciousness cannot move arbitrarily between states. There are elaborate rules on which states you will be able to observe dependent upon the states you previously observed. We call these rules the laws of physics.
So when you travel through time, you are simply altering your path on this vast multiverse of possible realities. There is no "real" reality. They are all real. Every possible configuration of the matter and energies of the universe physically exist concurrently.
There are no timelines to split or erase, because there are no timelines. There are just conscious minds moving through a near-infinite array of possible "nows." And all of the nows exist simultaneously. There is no real one. From the perspective of a "time traveler," it will seem like they changed "the future." But the truth is the very idea of a past, present, and future as distinct entities is madness. We're just consciousness drifting through the continuum, from one of the near-infinite nows to another.
We should make being a billionaire like trying to run the wrong way up a downward escalator, or like trying to swim up a waterfall. A wealth tax on wealth over $10 million. Starts at zero and exponentially rises to the point where at $1 billion of wealth, you need to be making a 50% rate of return on your investments to stay above $1 billion. Getting richer and richer should be like trying to swim against the current of a river, as that river flows faster and faster.
One cool feature of doing this would mean that if you saw someone who managed to stay a billionaire, it means they actually do have some pretty good business acumen. I'm not impressed by a capitalist who was born rich and simply grew their hoard. I would be impressed by someone who managed to stay a billionaire even with the state taxing 50% of their wealth on an annual basis.
I'm going to laugh if it turns out that those aren't actual IEDs planted by a terrorist, but just fireworks hid on the scene earlier by revelers. They were hoping to sneak them past the guards before the event even started.
They would do far less damage to the roads than the normal traffic rolling over them would over the same period. Damage to the road occurs primarily through point loads. These are distributed area loads that only exert a modest pressure on the ground.
We can propagate effects through time? Perfect. I'm going send a snap forward into the future. From now on, anyone that attempts to gather up the infinity stones gets instantly dusted.
Exactly. People will cite the fact that gangs smuggle guns all the time. And that is true, organized crime outfits absolutely can smuggle guns. And yes, it is also possible to make a gun from a 3D printed gun frame and parts anyone can buy on the net. And you can make your ammunition. But that really doesn't translate to 16 year olds being able to get their hands on semi-automatic rifles and large quantities of ammunition. Just think for a second, actually think mechanically how that would work. Imagine we're in a country with widespread gun control, (but still with illegal weapons to be found/made), and we have some 16 year old white suburban kid looking to get a hold of a gun.
So we have our would-be school shooter, trying to get his hands on a gun. What are his options? Maybe he tries to buy one. He asks the guy he buys weed from if he knows how to get a gun. Do you think any dealer slinging weed to high school kids is going to want to help him with that? They're probably a student at that school. And criminals aren't complete idiots. What gang of hardened criminals wants to sell a rifle and ammunition to a random white kid from the suburbs? You know exactly what it's going to be used for. Gangs may be willing to take the risk of trafficking weapons to arm themselves, but they don't just sell guns to any random person looking to buy, let alone to someone that is clearly planning to do something horrible with it. In reality, if our would-be shooter actually manages to meet the kinds of people that traffic weapons, it wouldn't work well for him. At best, they turn him into the cops themselves. At worst, a 16 year old from the suburbs disappears never to be heard from again.
Ok, so if he can't buy one, can he make one? Maybe. But they would have to have an extremely a home life unmonitored to the point of violating child neglect laws. People can make quite functional 3D-printed gun frames, but it's a skill you develop. You have to go through multiple cycles of printing, fitting, reprinting, reprinting, etc. If you actually want to have a weapon that works, you essentially need a workshop. And specifically a workshop that no one but he ever accesses. Maybe some kid out on a farm could manage that if given a high degree of independence...maybe? But if you look at the home life of the typical school shooter, it is simply not the kind of environment that would be conducive to running an elicit weapons workshop. In all but the most extremely neglectful homes, a parent is going to see them working on firearms and immediately freak the fuck out. It's just really hard to hide the kind of setup needed to make a 3D printed gun. This setup is not beyond what can be done in a domestic hobby workshop, but it is not the kind of thing that you can easily hide or disguise. In the case of our hypothetical 16 year old, they would try to setup the equipment necessary. But they would be quickly caught. Oh, and then we need to include the whole elaborate mini forge setup needed to actually make your own rounds...
TL:DR: consider the mechanics of a hypothetical 16-year old shooter actually trying to obtain a semi-automatic rifle in a world with strict gun control. Considering either the "buy it" or "build it" scenario, it would be extremely rare for any 16 year old to be able to obtain a gun. And this is true even assuming that gun running and 3D-printed guns continue to exist.