"...venture capitalism and surveillance capitalism — hell, capitalism, period — are not the only paths forward for the future of technology." A corollary of this statement is that capitalism is not the only way forward for civilization.

Funny that this is supposed to be a place where intelligent people can have a discussion.

Scientific research back in the 1980s and 1990s was still about discovery and basic science. Now it is all about IP, tweaked drugs and money, so of course some scientists will cheat under those circumstances. If you want real science back at US research institutes, then get the pharmaceutical companies out of the loop. Replace the top NIH people and return to basic science. Chasing IP is not science, it is business.

A "Russian hacker" operating out of Kiev.

When the goal is profit, fudging data seems to be par for the course. When I started in science in the 1980s, it wasn't about intellectual property or patents or profits; science was about discovery. Now, it is all abut drug development and drug patents. So don't expect lots of big breakthroughs when everyone is focused more on money than on discovery of how biology works.

Once misfolded proteins build up in the brain to harmful levels, it is too late to clear them using antibodies. Research is going to have to come up with a method for preventing the misfolded proteins from building up in the first place. How is it helpful to slightly slow progress in some people, only to then cause hemorrhages later on? This is just another money making effort that is doomed to fail.

Giving almost a trillion dollars to the MIC a year, what could go wrong?

You need to read more about Native American stewardship of the land, since you are obviously reading the wrong sources. And you missed my point. Native Americans revered the land and the flora and fauna in the various ecosystems. They did not leave nature alone, but they managed it wisely. They used localized burns to create more grazing area for bison, and they managed the fish populations well without overfishing. In a nutshell, they melded with the ecosystems in ways that often benefited both.

The point you missed was that Western culture has always been about exploitation of nature and other people. Western culture always considered nature to be alien and dangerous. It needed to be subjugated, just like other peoples. That is the mentality that has led to so many invasive species, to so many destroyed habitats, so many lost species.

But I do agree that the advent of capitalism, urbanization and technology has led to the current state of affairs with extreme habitat loss, invasive species and extinction. There isn't much time left to deal with the declining fisheries, and the consumptive instincts of Western couture don't bode well for future prospects.

Not all humans screwed things up. Native Americans managed the entire continent sustainably and very well for thousands of years before European "settlers" arrived. Those were the same "settlers" that wiped out many species of animals as they ate their way across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. The number of species lost is unknown because people mostly were interested in how they tasted, and if you read old ship logs, that becomes very apparent.

Trying to tix things with technology, including genetic technology, won't make anything better, at least in the short term. The only thing that will work right now is to expand and support the various efforts to save endangered species and their habitats. That needs to be done right now. You can't fix the wholesale habitat destruction with technology or genetics, you can only fix it with old fashioned work to repair and protect. This is especially true for fisheries, which are on their last legs. Huge sections of the oceans need to be put permanently off limits to fishing so that stocks can replenish and natural ecosystems can recover.

Western culture is what is killing the world, and you can't use that same mindset to fix things now. You need to stop the destruction and start the repair.

You know that the interglacials are about 20K years in length, and we are there now. It is not like interglacial periods go on forever. Recent ice ages have averaged about 100K years, and interglacials about 20K. To suggest that CO2 levels in the atmosphere have no bearing on where temperatures go is to deny all of the science. So you were modded down by people who are being more honest than you. The world temperature has been tracking the rise in CO2 rather nicely with a few deviations. Since we are supposed to be reasonably well informed here at /., the question is why are you so contrary to the science? What is your agenda? Are you shilling for big oil without getting any compensation? That would be funny.

I build all my own, and my oldest is still running, made in 2000. It had a motherboard and CPU upgrade about 5 years later, so that doesn't really count as a 23 year old computer. I made my main current work computer in 2010 and it is running strong (Intel i7 980X extreme). It is still on Windows 7 for compatibility with older scientific software that I use. My current gaming computer is only around a year and a half old (Ryzen 9 5900X). I haven't had a computer die on me since the 1990s. All built with retail parts, and I replace the thermal paste every 5 to 6 years.

Checking for accuracy and challenging their numbers can be done in an online form at the IRS and everyone knows it. There is absolutely no need for everyone to have to do all that paperwork since all of the documents come from corporations and the government. Obviously the situation for corporations and the wealthy is different, but for most Americans that use tax filing software, there is no need to this archaic, time consuming and costly system.

Another fake US industry invented to screw over working people while making money for corporations and their owners/investors. The US government knows more about the money I make than I do. They send me all the documents on it, then I have to put numbers they send me on a page and send it back to them. For crying out loud, they had the documents all along!! They don't need me to put them on another piece of paper and send it back.

Funny how everyone here is getting modded Troll for talking about obvious things, like the fact that the US even said it was going to end the pipeline before it got destroyed. The modders are having a bit of cognitive dissonance.