With occupational safety, just like anything else, you can hire professionals and set whatever objectives and deadlines your budget allows. Companies that embrace it get much better and faster results than companies that resist it.
Maybe it will lead to treating the oceans as more of an actively managed resource. So that's one possibly positive thing that could partially offset the inevitable negatives.
Personally, I'm also really interested in learning more about human prehistory because much of it was coastal and now submerged.
So there's no benefit to collaborating because of distances and time scales. A system of machines is plausible, so there's a non-zero risk of encountering something like that. Civilizations decide to hide because only bad things could happen if they don't. And now you have a dark forest. The hunter doesn't have to exist. The prey just has to be fearful.
Is that really an old story? There's usually no memory allocation after initial startup in safety- and mission-critical systems. Rolling over past the max value of an integer data type is a thing though, and they do reboot for that.
Still a strawman because I didn't say sci fi replicators. You could make an automated system that travels, mines, and manufactures. Like a 3D printer that prints copies of itself. That's not unbelievable.
Replicator machines could outlive their creators. Then maybe most civilizations think it's safer not to risk being discovered by one, just in case it exists. That seems reasonable and doable.
The DFH doesn't claim that the aliens would be "god-like" per your definition. They just have a first-strike capability and motive to use it. Could be a low risk-tolerance for coexisting with other aliens. Or something else. Either way, you don't have to suspend disbelief because you're arguing with a strawman you created.
By keeping up with capabilities, features, and compatibility. The algorithm doesn't become wrong, but it and the implementation do get surpassed in utility.
> The Mercury-4 is the culmination of years of research
I'm imagining some researcher after years of investment and experimentation eventually accidentally discovering the solution: "you mean it just shuts _itself_ off?!?!".
That's already how the world works. The bridge design company takes out insurance reflecting their liability. If something happens, they pay. If their supplier messed up a component, they can turn around and sue the supplier. Licensed professional engineers are already personally responsible for their projects to some extent, which can be very big and complicated. They're covered by professional liability insurance. All of this has been around for a long time.
I have a copy. I wouldn't say it's "too light" because there's nowhere else to easily get this type of information, especially not all in one place. There's no "heavier" alternative. Most documentation doesn't include pictures, much less cross sections.
You're conflating drag with drag coefficient. The plot you linked doesn't say anything about drag. Drag is more strongly proportional to speed than drag coefficient. That type of proportionality analysis is what's usually in the first chapter of aero textbooks.
Computers are great for marginal gains and saving labor costs, but they can't give a 10x improvement unless there's already a 9x improvement in materials and techniques. Small nit, but CAE is simulations, while CAD is just drafting.
That ambiguity is where a judge has to use their judgement. So it's interesting that they started with the assumption that they had to make a mutually exclusive choice, but didn't defend that assumption.
The majority shares your layman's understanding, but the dissent does not. Last paragraph of page 111 basically says that the whole point of 230, as confirmed by the person who wrote it, is to avoid the either-or mutually exclusive choice.
The last paragraph of page 111 is interesting because I don't think the majority opinion tries to rebut that criticism, and it destroys the premise of most of their arguments.
It's also interesting to compare the tone of the two opinions. The majority is theatrical. That's not what I want to see from a court. Unfortunately, it's hardly unique to this court.
Is it really no digital records, or just fewer/obfuscated digital records? I would think that the ATM keeps tracks of the serial numbers of the notes it gave you?