Forums > Living in Kunming > Too much communication @alienew
You're right. We're far from a finished product. But enough to thrive, albeit inflicting heavy collateral damages to our habitat. Yet the most egregious turmoil reserved for our fellow human species, particularly ourselves.
We embody a mind that does not cease its mental chattering. From day to night, we're our own judge, jury, and torturers. Executioner if you count suicide. The side-effect for evolving higher brain functions in the cortex hub network. The culprit complicit in triggering in neural tandem with aforementioned primal brain lobes in the manifestation of the self.
"They" don't try to evolve us, but attempt to recondition our behaviors. Evolution is a gradual, millennia climb up mount improbable, not a quick fix like comic book superheroes. Profit-seeking businesses merely piggyback off what evolution has already manifested. Like skilled salesmen or politicians hijacking our amygdala to elicit our emotional responses. The game has changed, but the players remain relatively the same. Our incessant mind, literally and figuratively jacked up on steroids.
When we share photos of our forced pouty lips, our pretend Michelin dinner, or our Venetian holiday (in Macau)... we addictively showcase the best versions of us, to the envy or annoyance of our social clique. Some with digitally enhanced alterations. There's an app for that. Disingenuous representation ensues.
It's our instinctive nature to broadcast to the tribe our perceived individuality. To make ourselves the more appealing catch relative to competing damsels or suitors. Our ancestors have always successfully vied for potential mates. You wouldn't be here had they failed. No different today than it was 200,000 years ago.
This hardwired proclivity echos past our primes. Moms and grandmas are now jumping off tour buses with their selfie sticks. Predisposed to promote their family wealth and attributes. Hoping to impress upon friends who may offer their daughters to hitch their 36-year old bachelor son who plays Xbox all day.
In some cases, app makers and users could mutually benefit in the sharing of personal information in cyberspace. Matchmaking platforms for instance. There may be 5,000 misses, but all you need is one hit. The opportunity to hook-up with that elusive life-long partner. Some call it fate, or soulmate. Others may call it increasing probability with perseverance, assisted by the connectivity of technology. Personal cost-benefit analysis may determine the ultimate worth of compromising privacy.
Getting Away: Xishan
发布者Linked from Best of Kunming Awards 2018, this post is in need of an update. The convenience of KRT XiShan Park Station at end of Line 3 with the blossoming of traditional Yunnan eateries along the mouth of the entrance.
Bread-wrapped man devoured by gulls in Kunming
发布者Reading and reading... waiting for the Stephen-King-esque horror to unfold. Thanks Pat for click-baiting your followers. No entrails spillin' out this time. lol
For regular seagull feeders, bring your empty bags to 100 meters up South Gate of Green Lake to fill up on free gull food pellets (鸥粮) provided by the city government. Monday - Friday around 9am. The avian "man-eaters" will be waiting.
NGO sues Yunnan dam developer over environmental degradation
发布者What's your interpretation of progress & development?
66 million 农民 Chinese were lifted out of poverty within the last five years. 500 million within the last three decades.
Some would argue that is progress. The benefits of development.
Granted President Xi would be the first to admit mission is far from accomplished.
NGO sues Yunnan dam developer over environmental degradation
发布者A bit of devil advocacy in the second half of my post.
Firstly, @mike's geological history is fascinating. It explains the eastward bending of the river system.
Yunnan only receives the tributaries, while the actual Yangtze River cuts through our northern provincial neighbors like Sichuan (e.g. Jiuzhaigou National Park) and snaking through Chongqing's central district.
The breadth of Yangtze is remarkable. Flowing down from Tanggula Mountain of Tibet at peak elevation of over 5,000 meters. This river not only has erected cities & civilizations like the flow of collective "tired and poor" hands of ruralites... but cultivated the ecology for forests and wild life prior to the dawn of humans.
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That said, it's promising that China is reducing coal-fired power plants with renewable hydropower energy in an effort to curb climate change. Yet when hydropower plants are excessively built to overcapacity for profit-driven energy exports at the expense of local ecology, the amount of oversight from Beijing comes to question.
Below is a simple chart showing "Share of global hydropower capacity, by country:"
www.theatlas.com/charts/Hka8gcGeQ
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Yes, China leads in hydropower capacity by a huge margin. A surplus over consumption for the time being. However, the bigger picture of greater precedence over peafowls is untold by above piece.
Neighboring nations facing power outages like Pakistan, Laos, Myanmar, and even Russia are in need of electricity imports from China.
China's State Grid adopts the UHV (ultra high-voltage) cable technology to transfer said electricity to energy deprived regions in not only Asia, but to Africa, and as far as Germany.
The State Grid's long-game is to deploy world's first "global electricity grid" standard. Potentially expanding regional power grids of clean energy to more remote corners, such as in South America and Africa. In an effort of consolidation, China has already invested heavily in numerous power utilities overseas. From Portugal to the Philippines.
This grand ambition is not only a win-win in tackling global warming while vying for industry dominance as offshore hydroelectric projects are built by the Chinese. But expanding access of clean energy to remote regions lacking in infrastructures also serves a global humanitarian purpose: the betterment of societies and lives.
The balancing acts between global warming & local environmental protection, and between profit and diplomacy. Unfortunately, peafowls won't have a say in all of this.
Alliance Française opens in Yunnan's capital city
发布者Not sure if Germany or UK subsidiaries of Airbus would embrace the idea their proprietary know-hows could potentially be reversed engineered by China's ambitious homegrown COMAC.