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Intel Sucks Up Water Amid Drought In China
An anonymous reader sends along a Bloomberg piece on Intel and the coming water wars. "Intel is going head-to-head with businesses like Coca-Cola to swallow up scarce water resources in the developing world. According a 2009 report ... 2.4 billion of the world's population lives in 'water-stressed' countries such as China and India. Chip fabrication plants in those countries, as well factories such as the soft drink giant's bottling plants, are swallowing up scarce resources needed by the 1.6 billion people who rely on water for farming. ... Li Haifeng, vice president of sewage treatment company Beijing Enterprises Water Group, told Bloomberg, 'Wars may start over the scarcity of water.' China's 1.33 billion citizens each have 2,117 cubic meters of water available to them per year.... In the US, consumers can count on as much as 9,943 cubic meters."
What's the big deal it's not like you need water to live...
You know you are truly fucked in terms of population density when technically renewable and basically unlimited resources like water start to be discussed as possible causes of war... Interesting times ahead, guys.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
I only care about seeing cheaper products on store shelves.
If my arithmetic doesn't fail me, that's over 1500 gallons a day. We live in a dry area, and last summer the two of us averaged well under 200 gallons a day and did just fine. Of course we don't water a lawn or maintain a swimming pool...
On one hand, the claim is made that industries (of various kind) are consuming this very precious resource called water. On the other hand, China is becoming one of the most industrialized countries in the world, and is very much infatuated with it's industrial growth, and you can pry it from their cold, dead fingers.
Well, you know the saying: you can't eat a pie and have it, too. You just fucking can't. It's not politically incorrect, it's a fact, it is what it is. If China has overextended herself - can't support 1.3 billion people AND a hypertrophic industry? Well, then it won't.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
"Water flows uphill towards money." -Unknown
Although I believe in captialism, this is just wrong. Intel has the money that they can afford to delsalinate water. Many of their employees are based in India and China, and this is incredibly unfair that they have to make their own employees and those who can't afford water, suffer. If they were efficient, they could probably incorporate a desalination plant and keep a server farm there cooled by water from a salt ocean and then desalinate it.
Capitalism has taken a lot of water in the largest aquifer in Peru. The Bush family actually own a large section of land on their aquifer and may consider selling it if oil doesn't work out. (Source: Blue Gold, documentary).
Holy false dichotomy, batman. I am getting fed up with people spouting crap along these lines. As if the only alternative to fucking the ecosystem we are part of in the ass with a razor-wire wrapped dildo was living in the stone age.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
You know what determines your worth in China? Capital.
One that hath name thou can not otter
and others have to do it for us...
Instead of becoming muscular, sexy hardworking people, look what we have done to ourselfs in the latest 50 years:
1. we forgot how food is made - have you ever seen a pigslaughter? I have...
2. we forgot how textiles are made, do we even make clothes in western europe? Except expensive ill-fitting italian shit?
3. we have new types of morons: celebrities, entrepreneurs, hairstylists, economists, socionomists
4. we have laboriously invented new psychical diseases - new types of "voluntary railroadworkers in siberia" never seem to end
5. education: 90 percent of us are just using complicated jargon... say, how many electrical engeneers (in sweden) know what actual mathematical field the FFT belongs to... Do you?
we are becoming morons; when the people educated in the 70-80ies die, there will be only educated psychopats and some health care left in the modern western world...
Muuuuuuaaaaaahaahhhaaahaaahaaahaaaaa....
and please do not bother me with your deep economic wisdom... entertain your hemorrhoids instead...
Intel has the money that they can afford to delsalinate water.
But their stockholders have heard that that would lower the profits. Guess what happens next.
Ezekiel 23:20
Isn't the point of governments to provide for their citizens according to Communism?
If you are going to establish a dictatorship with nearly unlimited power (like the Chinese system) shouldn't it be that government that provides from its citizens? Considering they don't allow for any civil freedoms, very limited economic freedoms, and a government who "owns" your children (via conscription) one would think the least they could do is provide enough water for its citizens.
If you have a limited government, the government should provide against force and fraud, nothing more. If you have a communist, socialist or unlimited government, the government should without a doubt provide for food, water and shelter for its citizens if they are unable to get it.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Although I believe in captialism, this is just wrong.
Expecting corporations (or, often, people) to do the 'right' or 'moral' thing, at a net loss to themselves, is a losing battle. The evidence is everywhere. Decry this as the harbinger of our society's doom if you must, but don't waste time trying to kid yourself that it's not the case.
Legislate in such a way that it's cheaper for Intel to desalinate ocean water on site and they'll start doing so (or possibly move to a different jurisdiction, if that turns out cheaper). Simple.
Oh yeah, desalination, it's like the world can't wait to see even more heavy industrial processes consuming lots of power.
What the humanity is now doing is essentially a slow, not readily apparent scorched earth strategy. Once the balance gets tipped sufficiently you'll see average life expectancy plummeting.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Explain this to me. Water is renewable. It's not getting gobbled up. It's not getting ruined. We're not "running" out of drinking water. It's not syphoning out of the planet. The whole fucking planet is water. It's stupid easy to desalinate water and purify toxic water for drinking. My wife is always telling me about the water crisis. I'm like what fucking crisis? Water isn't going anywhere. Desalination is expensive but it will become cheaper when we need it. Supply and demand. Fossil fuels--THERE is something you should be worried about.
It has electrolytes.
Water is not so scarce at all. It's just too expensive in some areas to waste in low-profit businesses like subsistence agriculture.
Meanwhile, the Amazon river is dumping 219000 tons of fresh water into the ocean per second.
When water really starts to become scarce, but long before the water wars start, Intel and Coca-Cola will have relocated their plants from China to Brazil.
This is going to get moded into karma hell, but you can't outbreed your resources. This is true for all life forms, including humans.
If you are going to establish a dictatorship with nearly unlimited power (like the Chinese system) shouldn't it be that government that provides from its citizens?
+1 idealism, -5 naivety.
Do you really think the party hacks give a damn about mud farmers in the distant provinces? All they care about is adding another 0 on the end of their bank balance.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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I just looked at my water usage for the past year, and it's about 32000 US gallons. Google tells me that this equals about 121 cubic meters. So if I lived in China, I'd only be able to use about 20 times as much water as I currently use? Oh no.
Isn't the point of governments to provide for their citizens according to Communism?
That's only the second half of, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Historically, communist governments have put plenty of emphasis on the first part, too.
Yep, this is exactly the kind of situation where you'd expect communism to work, and this is the situation where in real life it fails. In theory the government should reserve water for its citizens. In practice, the people who are actually in charge have more incentive to make tons of money from Intel and Coke than to protect the lives of nearly-worthless workers.
Nope. More like CPC connections, which then enable you to get capital. The PRC is possibly a hybrid system rather than Communism, but it sure as hell isn't capitalist.
increase the damn price of water. In fact use a tiered system in which farmers get a free quota as do drinking water supplies, which Coca Cola pays for their first drop.
"But they'll leave and take their production elsewhere", that solves the water problem too. Just find the right price point. If the jobs are more important that people having food and water, set it at 0...
... those who get the profits dont generally die ...
Be more optimistic about that — a good heuristic for more optimism is to consider this phase of the evolutionary process, mankind being the ultimate high end, a(n epic) failure (hints to that may be seen in the overall ecological and economical situation).
So there might be a good chance that evolution may recover from an earlier rerun point, without those (bastards) who have been responsible.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
" According a 2009 report..., 2.4 billion of the world's population lives in 'water-stressed' countries such as China and India"
The combined population of just China and India is about 2.36 billion... So only 40 million people outside of China and India live in water-stressed countries? I would have thought that the population of the countries of just the Sahara desert region would exceed 40 million.
Given that countries can be geographically large with distinctively different regions, and moving huge quantities of water around can be quite difficult, I'm not sure that the term "water-stressed" should even be applied to a country as a whole. There are areas of the USA that are water stressed (Southern California comes to mind) and other areas that are not.
So lets see here, your trying to prove a point against capitalism in China which is... Communist. Yeah, its not "true" communism but its sure not pure capitalism.
This particular case is pure capitalism: whoever pays more, gets a larger share of a particular resources, period.
When you start worrying about how some people will just die without it, it's not capitalism anymore. It's the beginning of a welfare state.
They have everything to do with socialism:
Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: socialism
1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
It's not a problem yet (at least, not any more than water always has been a problem). In India, the article mentions, they won't exhaust their water supply until 2050. The article mentions Intel, but it isn't their job to do water allocation; that's the job of the government. Intel should ask for the water they want, and the government should decide whether they have enough or not. The primary water fight, as in many places, is between farmers and city-dwellers, and it's been going on for centuries.
In the western US a decade or so ago, there was a drought, and they had to post armed guards on some of the dams to keep the farmers from taking the water. In the fight between crops dying of thirst and people dying of thirst, the people obviously win, but it really sucks if you just planted an orchard of trees and now they are going to die. Even farther back, as early as the 1800s, there were huge water fights in the western US. Control of water supply is serious. Incidentally, California is predicted to exhaust our water supply by the mid 2030s, so this isn't just in India.
The reason the article mentions that wars may be fought over water (other than they already have been fought over water) is because a number of rivers start in the Himalayas, and China is thinking of diverting water from a river that ends up in India. So who 'owns' the river? Eventually it will probably be settled that each side gets a certain percentage of the water coming from the river, but there is a reason India is interested in building up its army. Water is more important than oil.
Qxe4
on behalf of all residents who live in the pacific north-west I'd like to quote the immortal dave chappel " we're RICH Biatch!" :)
Those Intel factories are built with capital from capitalist investors. That's the most basic definition of capitalism.
Seriously, read Marx. It's worth the time.
There's two key themes of the article and both are inadequately covered by the OP.
1. Criticism of China's mismanagement of their water resource, principally with reference to the humanitarian results.
2. The impact on industry if:
a) China continues to mismanage, in which case industry in China is going to have a major problem.
b) China begins to manage, in which case there is going to be a huge opportunity for water supply industries.
Industry itself is given some of the blame but their focus is rightly on the government. It is their responsibility for telling Intel that they cannot build a factory there because there is insufficient water for everyone else. Sure, maybe Intel should install a desalination plant or whatever, but the government is supposed to be demanding that as a requirement for building the factory, not relying on Intel deciding it would be a nice thing to do. Even if Intel suddenly had a case of the guilts and built a plant, all that would happen is someone else builds a factory to utilise the water Intel are no longer using. It would be a totally pointless gesture unless part of a government plan.
You can have "connections" only if you (or your family, etc.) are worth anything for people in position to keep connections with you. Simply by membership in the Party you can, at best, be a lowly clerk.
One that hath name thou can not otter
No all these links have anything to do with communism or socialism, because all these dictatorships and regimes were simply not understanding and properly instituting communism and socialism.
All those communist parties, communist leaders, communist activists, communist revolutions, communist manifestos, all of them misunderstood Communism and misinterpreted it, no, abused it.
National Socialists were not socialists, the Communist Party of the Union of Socialistic Soviet Republic had nothing to do with either Communism and Socialism.
Just claim "If people die, it's not Communism." and then plug your ears and eyes.
Thousands of people who commit bombings after reading the Quran and praying to Allah day and night have nothing to do with Islam. Yeah. Just like re-education camps, forced labor, mass famine, totalitarian brainwashing and the prison formerly known as North Korea have nothing to do with Communism. It's all just a major misunderstanding. The next, the real Communism, will be so much better than the last one, really.
that means, welfare state is bad, and we should just let people die, because those with bigger money paid and bought the resources ?
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'Wars may start over the scarcity of water'
Yeah, Intel may form an army and fight for water within China.
All this is due to bad, greedy management and politics. We're barely using one percent of the known water supplies on the planet. Everybody should STFU and desalinate, or at least catch the fresh water falling on the oceans.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
what you linked are not socialist 'planning' they are COMMUNIST plans. idiot. first, learn the terms first. dont come up with average american ignorance on concepts.
let me give you some countries which had predominantly socialist governments in the last 60 years of their existence :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway
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India and China have the biggest populations on the planet. I'm pretty sure the officials there don't consider them nearly-worthless, just worthless.
yea. a single fucking dictionary entry, encompasses the entire spectrum of a political ideology. alright. after all, if we look at the definition of human, it will come out that we are just 'monkeys with advanced advanced tool usage'. since we are homo sapiens sapiens. that makes us, well, just the same.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
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Upon consulting my crystal ball...
1. Water becomes scarce
2. Gov't begins rationing
3. Megacorp Inc profits decline
4. Megacorp Inc lobbies government for increased share of water on threat of pulling out
5. Gov't caves. Thirsty people are better than unemployed people, right?
6. Scarcity worsens. People start falling ill and/or dying
7. Populace protests.
8a. Gov't tells Megacorp to pound sand, gives water to the people.
8b. Gov't attempts to placate people and fails. Protests turn into riots. More death. Megacorp comes under attack.
9. Megacorp pulls out, country enters recession. But the people have water!
10. Megacorp relocates to x, cycle begins anew.
11. Profit?
Just to clarify in case it is not obvious enough what I meant: in every case so far known where the government had assumed the ownership of the means of production and managed them centrally (i.e socialism - as per the definition above) it has failed to consistently feed the population, never mind provide them with any sort of life remotely comparable to that in the capitalist societies. Not to mention that in every such case the government has had to use force (not strong enough word, terror would be more appropriate) in order to stay in power.
That is what socialism is. It's in the first sentence of your wikipedia entry! "Socialism is a political philosophy that encompasses various theories of economic organization based on either public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources." If you want to talk about something completely different and call it "socialism" sorry but that's not ok, you need to find a new word. Those of you who think socialism is what they have in Sweden or whatever (amazingly many idiots out there) please read the dictionary definition above. What they have in some European countries is partly free market capitalism (VERY different thing from socialism) with a variety of the elements of welfare state thrown in (which only deals with the distribution of wealth not the production). Even that is failing, mainly because of the welfare part.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
So, let's lump all of China together, I mean, it's not like it's very big or anything.
Sure, some parts of China are short of water. Others have plenty. This sort of non-reporting is just ranting by some anti-tech journalist looking for a victim.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
That is a terribly childish view to believe that even in pure capitalism there would be no regard for self preservation.
Without a work force there are not likely to be future gains.
Even a pure capitalist regime would have some system (even if it is external to itself) to provide for at least a set number of individuals.
I believe you are confusing capitalism with the inability to perceive gains beyond the absolute moment.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
...but according to the summary, China has "citizens" whereas the US has "consumers" -- interesting word choice!
Radical Terrorists are to Islam, what Totalitarian Regimes have been to Communism, are what White supremacists are to caucasians, are what the Westboro Baptist church is to Christianity.
they are people and groups who use a basic idealogy, harnessed for radical, evil ends. They are no more the "true expression" of an ideology than "Small Government" Nazis would be Republicans. Just because they share something doesn't mean they are the same.
Also, while you champion capitalism, consider the proper capitalist response to the utter destruction of the gulf of mexico would be.... simply... to ignore it and drill through the oil.
Finally, communism is not socialism. which you should understand before trying to critique either one.
So lets see here, your trying to prove a point against capitalism in China which is... Communist. Yeah, its not "true" communism but its sure not pure capitalism.
No, it's not "communism" at all in any meaningful of the word, unless one is of the persuasion that kneejerk-labels any undemocratic and unfree system as "communist". (*) They may have started out as that- supposedly- but they sure as hell aren't now.
One description I've heard of China is as the world's first example of a truly mature fascist state- that's as in Mussolini's original sense of the word where the interests of business and the government are one and the same, and it blatantly *isn't* democratic.
(*) Not that I'm defending communism, but China isn't communist nowadays, regardless of what some- including themselves- might assert. I mean the German Democratic Republic blatantly wasn't democratic, regardless of their self-appointed name.
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Who cares how much energy is used. I only care about the sustainability of the energy we are using. Currently, reverse osmosis consumes 2-3 kWh/m^3. Americans use 387000 thousand acre-feet of fresh water per year. Which translates to 1.29 acre-feet per capita per year. Everyone always says we are the biggest consumers, so that's why I'm using American water consumption for this math. 1.29 acre feet per year per capita = 0.013 gallons per second per capita, or 200-400 watts of desalination energy per capita with current technology. 6 billion people = 2 terawatts. Sounds like a lot doesn't it? Well, lets see. With Esolar technology we are looking at 8410.3439 square miles of desert. That's about 0.2 percent of the Sahara desert. And e-solar technology uses only iron, aluminium, and a small amount of water that it recycles over and over again. They can't count how much iron and aluminium there is left on the earth, so those resources aren't limited. Please let me know if there are any other resources I failed to account for by listing them below.
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Does Intel *consume* the water like coke does, or do they just use it then eject it out of the building? I bet their 'dirty water' is cleaner then what coke puts in their process and could be reclaimed for human use.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
You're not quoting anything near the whole amount of water that US consumes. All the mass consumer goods you import mean, essentially, huge imports of water.
And there must be some externalities, otherwise...why those genius inventors are not implementing it and getting rich?!
It's like people who say for few decades "we can put an automated factory on the Moon in a decade, it will be self sufficient and..." - well then why they haven't done so on Earth?!
One that hath name thou can not otter
Oh, sure, A successful capitalist would keep just enough water to preserve his another important resource - workforce. But just enough.
We've seen how it works out in practice in late 19th century, with 14-hour work days, and pay that was just enough to feed oneself without fancy.
Ahh the difference between popular socialism and corporate socialism
There should be some mistake or missing information in the article. E.g. cubic meter is not the same as cubic kilometer, and cubic meter does not mean cubic meter per capita...
It's like people who say for few decades "we can put an automated factory on the Moon in a decade, it will be self sufficient and..." - well then why they haven't done so on Earth?!
Except it's not. To put an automated factory on the moon, we need new technology. To do this, we need to mass-produce existing technology. The reason we don't have fully automated factories on the Earth is because people are cheaper than machines in places like China, somewhat sadly.
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Wars WILL start over the "scarcity" of water. But wait! There suddenly isn't less water on the planet than there used to be. If anything thanks to global warming (man made or not) and glacial/arctic melting, there is MORE water on the planet. The problem is there are TOO MANY PEOPLE. So everyone gets less water. The amount of water available PER CAPITA per unit time is shrinking fast.
When people start breeding responsibly and limiting themselves to replacement, instead of keeping their women in a state of perpetual pregnancy, this sort of problem will only get worse. Yes there will be a fight to find out who gets to be king of the sewers. But what a shame, I actually thought we were supposed to be the "intelligent" species. But hey, the pope says condom/birth control is "bad". Somehow raping small children isn't. No I'm not being fair, it's not just the Catholics that breed like rabbits - but it's part of the problem.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
oooooooooook. then lets kill capitalism too. for, nazi party was actually supported by a certain circle of industrialists, and has maintained a capitalist system instead of fully mobilizing the nation up until the bitter end, still doing bids and awarding contracts to private contractors for design and manufacture of the fighting vehicles.
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But you can't just consume the whole amount of fresh water in given place..."it needs to flow", mostly normally, to remain in usable state.
If it's so cheap and vialble (hey, if so nice in what's essentially energy convertion, why we care about semiconductor solar cells or, heck, even wind turbines?) - then where and why is it hiding our of sight?
And I see you also think mass production beyond certain limits also doesn't require fantasy technology... (at least while not destroying the place further in the process)
One that hath name thou can not otter
AMD IS building plants in the usa and Intel china?
Not only does amd have lower prices and better video then build stuff in better places as well. Works in germany and the usa get pay alot more then ones in china.
so, then, swedish, norwegians, finns, and danish are dying out of famine for the last 60 years ?
or, are they on top of the world :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
?
some european countries you speak of, are SOCIAL DEMOCRAT, which is a subset of SOCIALISM. in which, the government closely follows and regulates any activity in the country, and ensures minimum standards in all respects. also, they tax the upper part of the society, to fund and keep the lower rung of the society in good order. it is not 'variety of the elements of welfare state', its a SUBSET OF SOCIALISM.
and, no, they are not failing in any respect. everything was going dandy, until the fucked up ayn randists in america, wall street, SCAMMED entire world by peddling poisonous investement tools, and breaking the world economy for decades to come. the global crisis affected each and every single individual bar the tribes in amazon, it was impossible for any country that does business with the outside world to escape it.
read the human development index i linked above.
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Although I believe in captialism
Why ? Capitalism doesn't believe in you.
Unless I missed it I'm not seeing that Intel is "sucking up" water and is only mentioned in passing. The drought in Southwest China affects 24 million of the 1.6 billion people in China/India that rely on farming and Intel's location isn't mentioned. And from TFA: China ... has contaminated 70 percent of its rivers and lakes. Those numbers indicate there are steps that can be taken that will provide more benefit than targeting Intel.
I'm not saying there's not a concern, but to paint Intel as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is a stretch.
Well coca-cola has been a leader in pretty sophisticated and very very large scale water purification systems. The water they put in put in their soft drinks is clean, clear, odorless and tasteless. They use the same water in their Dasani bottled water and charge 2x more than a coke, too bad their bottled water is so tasteless that you can pick up the smells of the plastic bottle before you get anything interesting from the water.
But you do bring up a good point, coca-cola uses water and then ships it out on trucks and boats never to be seen again locally because it is part of their product. While Intel would be using the water for an industrial process and would need to dispose of it. Let us hope that their waste water doesn't contain arsenic or antimony, two common silicon doping agents. I wouldn't want to drink Intel's waste water even through a simplistic purifier unless it was carefully tested.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
On the contrary.... this is normally where communism fails.
Whenever you have a scarce resource, the socialist response is to invoke price controls and try to ration.
The capitalist response is that high prices force people to conserve, and the extra money gets poured into new ways to gather that resource.
The easiest example is oil. As supply gets low... prices go high... this spurs investment into harder to reach reserves (oil sands...
In the case of water... if China is short and it spurs higher water prices... it will also spur more desalination plants...
It's out of site because it's a large corporate venture. Many people are looking at the flashy nanasolar panels made of unobtainium sheets because you could have them at your house. You really can't put 10000 RPM steam turbine in your house nor would you want a mirror array capable of reaching 1000 C in a few seconds on your roof. We also have this wonderful thing call the electricity grid to send all that energy around (it's surprisingly efficient). I don't think mass production beyond limits requires fantasy technology. I just think those limits in this case are so high that we won't hit them. I mean really, Iron mining, aluminium casting and smelting. Do you want me to drag you through all the carbon and energy intensity calculations of aluminium smelting that I did for aluminium fuel cell vehicles a while back? Here's the tech site. Of course nuclear could also do this, but desal is a good app for solar and wind.
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In COMMUNISM it would work, but China has been communist in name only for a long time now much in the way the USSR was a democracy.
For social insects.
Humans, OTOH, are aggressive social animals. Put into a system where all are ostensibly "equal", a few will always attempt to become "more equal than others". With appropriately gameable systems in place, this just gives them a framework to work from (rather than constructing one themselves).
This is why communism always fails, eventually.
It's just going to do a lot of damage on it's way down.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Because I have no one pet tech. We have to work on all the techs at once, so that the techs can compete against each other and drag each others costs down. However, you are simply making ad-hominem attacks because you don't have any evidence for your argument. There is no ultimate savior technology - human creativity is the ultimate savior.
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i didnt get the memo.
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We used to make our own distilled water for topping off the lead acid batteries for the solar PV arrays. Just a watertight box with a clear sheet of glass on top and a place to pour water in and a place to get the distilled out basically. The glass is at a slight slope so the water droplets run down into the gutter-collector, then out to the collection jug. You can get at least two gallons a day in georgia during the summer from a 3x6 foot collector box. (that was a commercial unit, they can be built easily enough though)
We have the tech to do solar fusion power distilled, it's pretty low tech really, just takes a lot of space for mass quantities, but it *is* quite doable. You can get enough to at least cover minimum drinking and cooking requirements as long as you have a source of not suitable water to start with.
So why do you even bring some more or less pet tech in each discussion (in last one nukes, here "smelter products") if, when it comes down to it, you now claim you supposedly don't even really stand behind any of it? "Let us just try everything and see what works" approach doesn't give us anything beyond what we have.
One that hath name thou can not otter
I didn't say it would be an extremely happy work force and it does enforce the validity that even true capitalism wouldn't take a few dollars in exchange for it's own life.
The joys of 19th century living. That was a time when you could really get your hands dirty with textiles and other more to the ground industry.
Why had it not been encumbered with safety regulations, forced wage increases and other unsavory additions just think of the beast it could have grown into.
I'm afraid we've slayed the dragon that could have been and replaced him with a characture of himself.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
That's probably a pretty high figure most likely from some estimates using 100% artificially irrigated land and pure corn fed in a feedlot. I know I have put some larger feeder calves in a barn (just temporarily, under a week) where they were only getting some richer/better quality hay with just a small scoop each of corn, mostly hay fed in other words, and during their growth stage where they were slapping on a pound a day, and no way in heck were they drinking a hundred gallons apiece a day, not even close to that, more like around 5-7 gallons a day (IIRC didn't exactly measure it, but didn't need to fill the hundred gallon tank except every third day for around five calves). How much water for the hay..sorta immaterial, it falls from the sky anyway. We don't irrigate here, and a lot of places don't need to irrigate.
If it is grass fed, and locally/self processed, you can knock those water requirements way way down from that high figure in order to get a steak to the plate.
And seeing as how we have a lot of slopes, it makes way more sense to grow turf, that feeds the cattle, than to open it up to massive erosion and try to grow row crops there. It's a conversion principle and economics plus looking at the terrain that dictates the type of farming. Yes, gallon for gallon, you can get more generic food feeding straight veggies to the humans, but it also won't ever be as nutrient dense a food either, no matter which veggie you are talking about. In other words you can't compare a bite of lean beef to a bite of cabbage. Both are good, both take water, but bite for bite the beef just has a lot more nutrients, so is that water really all that wasted? The humans just cannot eat that grass, it must be converted. You can go all the way to nutrient light veggies like spuds, a grown man living entirely on spuds like back during the Irish potato famine was eating 10-14 lbs a day to get enough energy and nutrient requirements to stay barely functional and working (working as in outside hard physical labor working, not diddly bopping around from city apartment to ultra light duty office or retail work, etc).
There are a lot of tradeoffs and considerations when doing resource analysis.
I'm a fan of both of those guys, but they don't write serious economic texts like Capital. That book is about far more than a bunch of problems of English factory workers; he describes the meaning of value itself and its relationship to money. It's a real worldview changer for people like myself who had only been exposed to Chicago-style econ in school.
For leftist reading in general, I consider folks like Chomsky to be more of a starting point than a conclusion, you know? They've got great and worthwhile perspectives, but don't perform the same abstract analysis as Marx. He'll never be outdated as long as capital investment controls production.
Socialism is defined by the state ownership of industry. What part of that you don't understand? If the dictionary definition is not enough for you then I don't know how else to define it for you. The words have meaning you know, that's how we understand what people are saying, you can't arbitrarily redefine them to mean whatever you want them to mean. There is most definitely NO STATE OWNERSHIP OF INDUSTRY in any the countries you mention, on the contrary the entire industry is privately owned and exists in the system of free market competition. The productive part of those economies is entirely capitalistic, i.e. the opposite of socialist. So you can't take success of capitalist countries and attribute their success to socialism. The fact that they decide to tax the productive part of their population heavily to subsidies the unproductive is something they can AFFORD to do due to the prosperity that capitalism provides. There is no possibility of taxing the rich to subsidize the poor in truly socialist countries because everybody is poor.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Where's the blame on Apple? Shouldn't that read: "iPhone maker Apple's CPU supplier causes drought in China".
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
I stand behind all of it. I support a mixed solution. If I show that each individual component of my system works on its own, that makes the whole thing a lot better. My guess is that if I only stated one tech, you'd accuse me of putting all my eggs in one basket. You have all your eggs in one basket. Conserve, conserve, conserve. Why don't you do that by moving to Africa or Cuba.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Legislate in such a way that its mandatory for Intel to desalinate ocean water on site, and they will make a token effort at doing so, then pay bribes to the right politicians so they can get away without doing so. Capitalism works on the principle that whatever makes the most money for the corporate owners - regardless of how many people die or are forced to suffer - is the preferred choice. Rationalization to make the corporate lackey's feel like they are acting morally comes afterwords. Capitalism isn't exactly evil, but its sure as hell not a good thing from the point of someone who doesn't own any shares. I would like to see a change to reign in Corporations and make them morally responsible, but I don't expect it to ever happen.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
P.S. In general, I take three positions on tech: good, too much resources, does not work. Some of the techs I stand behind are: Solar thermal. Nuclear. Wind. Solar thermochemical. Hydrocarbon synthesis. Nickel-iron batteries. Desal. Metal-air fuel cells. Waste biomass and trash gasification. You can convince me not to stand behind any of these techs by showing, explicitly, with a link to known reserves, that they use too much resources, or by proving that they don't work.
The resource limited techs I don't stand behind are for example standard Solar PV (indium) and standard Hydrogen Fuel Cells (platinum).
Finally, there's techs I'd love but I don't think they work. Like cold fusion. If that worked, that would be good.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
My guess is that much of the farming in China currently is low-tech, and thus very inefficient on a bushels per acre-foot of water basis. There are probably upgrades to China's agriculture that would save a lot of water much cheaper than desalinating more fresh water.
Of course, that leaves the question of who will pay. If we just leave it to supply and demand, pretty soon the rich will be shooting the poor for drinking out of their swimming pools.
If you stand for everything, letting the market decide, you don't stand for much at all...you don't show anything by rooting for every non-utilised tech you can find.
Previously you do supported one tech explicitly, as a cure to everything.
Yes, I have all my eggs in one basket, sure. That's the only basket we are sure to have - conservation which is demonstrably possible and happening (graph...however you will want to dismiss its methodology, the differences in resource usage, while having comparable standards of living, stand) coupled with utilising first and foremost the tech we already have (which is also demonstrably more or less beneficient) while cautiously shifting towards new ones - to awoid costly mistakes.
You know, at various points in human history coal, whale oil, or "ground" oil were seen as saviours, too...
You really want to ambarass yourself by using arguments with moving to Africa or Cuba? Hey, maybe you can create a ghetto for people like me? Disconnect me from internet and decision process, will be much more smooth!
One that hath name thou can not otter
That wasn't nearly how you presented it so far. In face of a problem, you gave wundersolution which might work...but is barely utilised for some reason
Trash gasification is outside of context, it's simply a better in some ways and worse in other method dealing with byproducts... Plus part of what you would like takes too big industrial backbone to be even possible; that not only brings its own problems, most of the world simply can't do it in forseable future (as we can see today).
At least finally you mention also many sensible ones...
Though...
Finally, there's techs I'd love but I don't think they work. Like cold fusion.
^telling it like that reveals your faults. It should be "As a sidenote, there's ideas which would be nice but, with frustratingly high degree of certainity, aren't possible"
One that hath name thou can not otter
"China's 1.33 billion citizens each have 2,117 cubic meters of water available to them per year... In the US, consumers can count on as much as 9,943 cubic meters."
There's something missing here. I don't know what it is. It says "citizens...water available to them." Sounds personal. A cubic meter is 264.2 gallons (US) My last water bill averaged 125 gallons per day (for $26.00, in minimum charge territory.) That works out to 165 cubic meters a year. Now, if they REALLY mean water 'consumed on my behalf' with farming of crops I wind up eating, or cleaning the chips in the computer I just bought, or commercial water use in my area I have nothing personally to do with, that's one thing, but water consumption by individuals is surely much less even if many people are far more extravagent than I am. And "counting on 9,943 cubic meters" per person isn't the same as using it. I did RTFA and this issue isn't addressed. They are more interested in water fights between India and China. Any enlightenment thanked in advance.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
You are correct that China is more of a fascist state than a communist one. Of course the difference between a fascist state and a capitalist one is much greater than the difference between a fascist state and a communist one. Of course, when it comes to governments, the important distinction is whether the government is "rule of law" or "rule of edict".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
the situation in the aforementioned social democrat (socialism is their greater set) countries with regulations and taxes are so that, companies are taxed heavily of their profits, and channelized to whatever is needed by society and their success by the regulations, which causes them to become, in practice, semi-autonomous, self-budgeting, revenue-sharing government branches. it is an intended, planned effect.
social democracy, was precisely something that was devised to reach ultimate goal of socialism, through this mild method, giving both the society an adaptation and transition period. so far, it has been wildly successful.
read the below :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the centre-left on the classic political spectrum. It is by tradition a form of evolutionary reformist socialism.[1] The Frankfurt Declaration of the Socialist International, attended by many social democratic parties from across the world, committed the adherents to the replacement of capitalism with socialism and committed adherents to oppose Bolshevik communism.[2]
Social democracy supports gradualism, in the belief that a gradual process of reforming existing capitalist economies in a democratic manner will succeed in creating socialism.[3] It rejects revolutionary forcible imposition of socialism.[3] Its gradualism has resulted in communists and the far left accusing social democracy of not being true socialism and accuse it of accepting the values of capitalist society.[3] Social democracy promotes the creation of economic democracy as a means to secure workers' rights.[1] Social democracy rejects the Marxian principle of dictatorship of the proletariat, claiming that gradualist democratic reforms will improve the rights of the working class.[4]
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Please give an example of where Communism actually worked according to theory.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
In California, we have similar stupidity. Rice is grown in the Sacramento Delta every year, and it's a water-hungry crop. If not for artificial irrigation, most of Calif would be a desert. There are many other water-friendly crops that could be grown instead.
Table-ized A.I.
TFA fails on basic mathematics. Let's take as given that there's 2117 cubic meters of water per capita per annum for each Chinese citizen.
The average person needs about 2 liters of water a day. Let's suppose they get all of that by drinking bottled water and soda from Coke's bottling plants. That amounts to less than 1 of those cubic meters per year.
Let's suppose the average person buys one new computer chip per week. Probably most people go weeks or months between purchases, but each device has many chips, so 1/week is about right. From this press release, it takes 10 gallons of water to make 1 computer chip. Oh gosh! That's two cubic meters per year!
To a rough approximation, all fresh water is used for farming. Water use for all other purposes is quite literally a drop in the bucket. Yes, wars have been fought over water, and they may be fought again in the future. But we're talking about agricultural irrigation here: everything else is negligible.
Now, in certain areas, water availability can be orders of magnitude less than the 2000 m^3/year average in the article, so water conservation there is a serious issue. But you don't grow crops in those areas ... and you don't build a chip fab plant there either.
Sounds like you feel a bit raw about that. Let me try to help: What you describe would be conservative communism at least for most europians. Of course, there should be no state but a happy commune / commons. Socialism is a mixed bag. We, represented by the state , own / control essential Industries , like transport, communication, some banks, health system, education , legal system, military and energy.... Add the privat sector, who is regulated more or less as grandparent described. That of course is the theory reality is a bit more complex. feel free to verify that, but please read the hole article.
China's a fascist oligarchy, not a communist country. And it has a rather capitalistic economy as well.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
2.4 billion - 2.36 billion = 40 million.
There, fixed that for ya.
Math and stuff.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Wow, so we are dealing with a real old school firebrand socialist here. How cute, I thought you guys went extinct back in the 80s. Your fantasy has only one problem, it does not correspond in any way to reality. Corporate taxes in those countries are not very high, in fact they are lower than in the USA:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/22917.html
http://alhambrainvestments.com/blog/2009/01/29/corporate-tax-rates-by-country-oecd/
The problem with heavy taxes on corporate profits is that pretty soon there will be no more profits to raid, no more investment in new business, no more innovation. Where do you think corporate profits go exactly? To pay for shareholders yachts? Tiny portion perhaps, but vast majority gets reinvested. You know, the "capital" in capitalism. Your ideological leaders actually know better than you, they know not to kill the golden goose of capitalism because there would be no more money for your precious welfare programs. That's why it is the individual income that is heavily taxed in those countries not corporate profits:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg/800px-Income_Taxes_By_Country.svg.png
But keep dreaming, comrade.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Plus part of what you would like takes too big industrial backbone to be even possible; that not only brings its own problems, most of the world simply can't do it in forseable future
This argument in essence reveals your faults, simply ignoring everything that requires and industrial process because it is an industrial process. This is a form of circular reasoning. And I'm not going to waste anymore of my time with the argument.
^telling it like that reveals your faults. It should be "As a sidenote, there's ideas which would be nice but, with frustratingly high degree of certainity, aren't possible"
As far as I can see, the first is simply the second stated more plainly.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Ruminants are fairly good at converting grass/forage to meat, and they also produce a food that suits the palate to billions of people. Does not much good to produce some superfood if it tastes rank and no one likes it.
As to the water needs for processing, I addressed that in my post, saying locally grown/consumed or self processed directly on the farm, along with being grass fed, can result in much lower water consumption.
You are throwing out theoretical highest possible figures,(pure corn fed, corn grown on pure irrigated land in a near desert situation, then processed through the most water wasteful plant out there, etc, plus physical transport of everything involved back and forth numerous times and over long distances, all of that thing)). I am just countering by saying there are modalities in place that can result in a huge variable in outcome. "Thousands of liters of water per kg weight delivered" is by far the highest possible outcome there, makes for a short PR soundbite, but isn't exactly always accurate either. That's a worst most extreme case, not a norm or even a median most likely. I am guessing there but it's just too much of a variable to accept a one size fits all situation.
As to how much meat people eat, etc, again too much of a variable. I would agree a lot of folks just eat way too much, meat included, I see the roly poly waddlers same as you do. And a lot of people sure don't get enough, of anything, meat or veggies. That's why I like farming, to feed people, even though I could "make more money", a lot more, doing something else. Most people just want to "make more money" no matter what, so that's my personal tradeoff. I just don't give much of a crap about "making money", I never have either, as opposed to doing what I like and what I think is at least half way righteous. People who fixate on "making more money", which is probably most people here I would guess, wind up spending it as well, and their total resource use, water included, goes straight into the stratosphere compared to a simpler life.
Example, people who fly all over the planet on vacation or those ridiculous business trips when we have the internet now, but then are vegans and will say they don't use as much resources. Well that's nonsense. People who "need" to use ten times the electricity I use, just by choosing to live in the megatropolises with their huge advertising signs running 24/7 and every room lit up, etc, constantly artificially climate controlled, etc. but because they walk to the subway claim they use less resources, water included. Nuts, just ain't so. They use them, it is just removed from direct use, but they still use them. What they might save on being vegan is more than offset on just the transportation and infrastructure needed to keep them living where there are *no* resources locally and everything about their lives has to be shipped in to them. They live in concrete and steel buildings that used tons of resources, I live in an old cabin that was made from locally cut timber a hundred years ago. No comparison on resource use square foot to square foot for living area, mine is significantly lower. I don't own or use a big screen Tv or a "gaming rig" right there my total water resource requirement drops severely compared to some vegan who has a large TV and wastes electricity to own such a computer and runit just for games. I mean, that's the point of the article, computer chip fabs suck it down, bigtime. If you avoid the constant upgrade cycle, especially with "having" to have the latest triple throw down cross fired mega blaster 4-d rig...you save the use of thousands of gallons of water that was used in that manufacture, not to mention how much other water was contaminated from the factory outflow..and we can agree I hope that in most lands, there is shall we say not as much oversight on sewage and waste disposal. Another reason these corporations love to outsource, no pesky enviro regs..
Anyway, you can blame evil cows for wasting too much water, I'll blame people who insi
Basic fairness and human compassion == welfare state.
Yes, yes it is. That's why capitalism without it is such a horrible thing.
Why do so many posters - not just you alone - seem to believe that I was somehow critical of welfare state, when it was the other way around, and there is nothing in my post to even hint at it? I was pointing out that, yes, in this particular case China is unabashedly capitalist, and that is the problem.
It's as if the words "welfare state" on their own are taken to imply negative meaning, regardless of the context. Which would be a sad thing if true. Wake up, guys! Have the Randians gotten to your brain already?
I see, so you're of the popular position that growth can go on in a finite world... (hey, I don't blame you, was quite popular at your place)
Of course there are limits (but how nice you try now to present it as dismissing it outright) to industrialisation.
Or at the least try to consider that you're looking from the perspective of a place which demostrably is most wasteful...but that doesn't bring it the top standard of living. Which makes it clear the processes are not optimal and there are first and foremost huge gains hidden there (hey, with freed resources from existing infrastructure being perfect to use for improving that infrastructure, not merely expanding without end in sight...untill next recession)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Wow, so we are dealing with a real old school firebrand socialist here. How cute, I thought you guys went extinct back in the 80s.
hahahahahaha. save your zeal. you cant cope up with me. im actually not socialist, or social democrat. im actually center view, and have been raised and educated and have been a capitalist a loooong time.
i am supporting social democracy since a while and towards eternity, because despite all the machinations and attempts of the capitalist machine in various countries of the world, they succeeded in delivering what the capitalist ones couldnt deliver to their own people, even at their peak of exploitation of natural resources of other countries en large. it doubles up the success of those countries. if social democracy worked in northern europe, it can work everywhere.
Your fantasy has only one problem, it does not correspond in any way to reality. Corporate taxes in those countries are not very high, in fact they are lower than in the USA:
did you check the income taxes of individuals ? do so.
The problem with heavy taxes on corporate profits is that pretty soon there will be no more profits to raid, no more investment in new business, no more innovation. Where do you think corporate profits go exactly? To pay for shareholders yachts? Tiny portion perhaps, but vast majority gets reinvested. You know, the "capital" in capitalism.
if the situation in united states of america, which has been an ayn rand laissez faire capitalist with a greenspan tint for the last 30 years shows anything, you are wrong.
capital does not get invested. capital seeks to gain even more money even less effortlessly, and this has been the reason for the financial sector to become overblown, and then plop. that is, of course, totally leaving out the global scam that wall street has pulled off. i wont comment on that, and what 'deregulation' does to society, leave aside business. but, i will set the logic straight with that outdated, 19th century delusion of investment by capital :
backin in 19th century and earlier, when communication and collaboration tools available to society was low, the volume and value and complexity of the goods and services provided were low, coordination was harder, it was necessary and natural to have a capitalist system. because, financial power concentrated in centralized hands of the invidiuals would allow better coordination of investment. the capital wasnt so big, and the will and need to reinvest and make even more wealth was there.
fast forward to 20th century. there are already 12 corporations that are in the list of top 20 economic entities of the world, outclassing more than 180 countries. corporations have become as big as countries, employing millions of people globally.
and with all things in life, inefficiencies started. you may want to invest when you have X amount of wealth, you may still want more wealth when you have Y amount of wealth, but, after a point, when you have Z amount of wealth and more, investing it becomes inefficient. you already have garnered huge amounts of wealth that can be used to acquire other economic entities. from this point on, either acquisitions of other economic entities by financial muscle begins, or, the lust for making easy gains by increasingly investing and inflating the value of finance sector begins.
therefore, investments get stalled as the wealth gets bigger and bigger.
managing becomes inefficient too. a corporation that is as large as a country, is basically a country. because of the size, and difficulties in managing it, the corporation increasingly invests less, and tries to improve its existing investments through any means possible. which ends up in a lot of damaging effects to society, and business.
therefore, it has gone out of hand since mid 20th century - investment of capital is a delusion, and in the past. the capital has already inve
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Australia has an excellent welfare system. In fact, it is so excellent that being a member of the working poor is stupid when you can have an only slightly less salubrious standard of living while lazing about all day with no obligation to provide anything of value to the rest of the community.
Yes, the words welfare state taken on their own have a negative meaning and yes, it's true that it's a sad thing. It means that I do not get to keep what I earn. That's negative. And it's a sad thing.
I'm sure the Chinese laborers working for intel would rather starve and freeze to death rather than have less water than the average American and be able to earn enough money to pay for food and a roof over their heads. If nothing else, they could use all that extra water to drown themselves out of the sheer joy of their utter destitution.
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
No. I realize that there are limits to growth. I think the limits are higher than you think they are and I have numbers to back it up. Everyone likes to talk about us not having the highest standard of living here. That's a matter of personal preference. I understand that in some people's view it is wasteful. But in others my decision not to have children is wasteful (I'd much rather have an SUV than a kid). And keep in mind that I'm not saying expand expand expand. We'll reach an equilibrium. I'm trying to increase efficiency, to push back the equilibrium so that everyone can have a higher standard of living. Our process for cleaning water is very inefficient at land use. So what we need to do is use some iron and aluminium to catalysis that process and speed it up, reducing space to produce water.
I cannot find the references to that graph. You'll have to point em' out.
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Virtue is a temptation
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In the fight between crops dying of thirst and people dying of thirst, the people obviously win,
Except it's often the fight between crops dying of thirst or suburban show lawns turning brown. And, frankly, fuck the show lawns.
As soon as someone actually implements it, I will.
Intel has the money that they can afford to delsalinate water.
But their stockholders have heard that that would lower the profits. Guess what happens next.
What happens next is that labor in some other, wealthier, nation (which has plenty of water) is suddenly competitive with chinese labor and the advantage to Intel of doing its manufacturing in China goes away. So does the work that Chinese laborers were doing for intel. But hey, at least the unemployed laborers will have plenty of water, eh?
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
P.S. population growth will stop when the world is developed.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
The capitalist response is that high prices force people to conserve, and the extra money gets poured into new ways to gather that resource.
That's also rather idealistic. In most cases, the scarce resource goes to the people with the most money, who pay other people that have lots of money for that resource, then they get together for an expensive lunch and talk about other ways to fuck the poor.
Show me the numbers, please. Show me a reasonably lean living society with your wished for (much higher than what you have now, I guess) level of consumption; that's the only valid approach with complex societal factors.
(seriously? SUV?...)
You're not introducing efficiency per se, just new processes. That in itself might or might not prove more efficient.
And I don't really know what to think about your inability to find references... oh well, for now - maybe start with the keywords in description of the file, also open the article using the file and find section where it's used? (but other sections are decent, too)
One that hath name thou can not otter
But how much the so called "developed world" outsources to "undeveloped" places?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Intel has started buying stock in water companies across the world. When asked, spokesperson for Intel said:
"After we drain all the water from China, we'll make a profit selling then water from other countries. It's a win win for us and the countries with lots of water."
A chinese spokesperson said this about the quote:
"As expected from you Capitalistic pigs! We get revenge though, we put PeePee in your Coke!"
Be seeing you...
Here's one of my favorite essays on the subject.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
So, in other words, it wouldn't work in Communism either, because Communism doesn't work in real life.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Show me the math! You can see my water math in this thread. How much do we import? What do we import? Plastic, water, etc.
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Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Let's see, you are in favor of transforming private companies (private property) by force into "in practice, semi-autonomous, self-budgeting, revenue-sharing government branches" as a "transition period" to "reach ultimate goal of socialism" (all quotes from your previous post). Doesn't sound very centrist to me.
I don't have time to fully reply (Lakers game is about to start) but let me just state briefly that whether you realize it or not what you are describing above is called fascism (which unlike socialism does not involve state ownership of industry, but it can be defined as system where all powerful state controls the privately owned industry directly).
There is no way in the world that the economic policies of USA can be called laissez faire but lets say they are slightly closer to that than economies in many other countries. Please provide some reference for your claim that capital gets invested until certain point and then stops getting invested. I have never heard any such thing before and it doesn't sound plausible. How is it that the USA had become the engine of worlds innovation in just about any field you can imagine (take computer technology, medicine, biotech etc etc) during the last 20-30 years, far outpacing Europe in new inventions and especially entrepreneurship (just take growth of various computer companies from nothing to multi-billion dollar corporations). Take progress of medical science. All that happened with huge amounts of capital investment.
If you think that the recent financial crisis proves anything take a look at this chart
It is but a blip that will correct itself in no time. While you are looking at it, also notice the stagnation in the 60s and 70s when socialist craze was at it's peak and vastly increased rate of the growth of the economy since return to capitalism occurred from Reagan years and on. I'd also recommend youtube clips of one of the architects of that growth Milton Friedman, he's been educating and converting socialists far better than I can: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Milton+Friedman
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Very well, I'll go through it (not now, it's getting quite late here - not sure when I get back to it; but I will do it most certainly, decently soon). But one thing stick out just by glancing - the author is a professor of mathematics and CS, and quite fabulous one at that (specialised?). Interested in formalisation of common sense knowledge and reasoning (hence possibly holding "common..." dear? How could that influence him?)
And this is somebody who should have quite easy access to colleagues versed in the matter; ease of pushing if if there's merit (plus I guess there might no shortage of support from political world)
Natureally I'm not saying this makes those essays invalid, no. I'm asking why should I get rid of the suspicion that he might be approaching the issues in a bit too simplistic manner, not quite the right approach? (at the minimum as far as trusting too much in rationality of involved agents goes)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Look at the graph again...
If you exceed virtually everybody else in resource consumption (and those others themselves are in large part above the threshold...), while accidentally being also primarilly the importer of raw resources and mass produced stuff (don't look merely at monetary value of import/export; yes, you have large export, but of a different kind, much more expensive stuff) at the least - then you have to claim more than your share. And you can't avoid water being part of that.
One that hath name thou can not otter
But even if we pretend that if everyone lived like americans and we used 10 times as much water around the world as we did in our borders, we'd use up some iron, some aluminum, and a small fraction of a desert.
I've typed many, many comments about EVs, fuels, nukes, solar, synthetics, etc. Over the coming weeks/months I'm going to write journals here called the Sustainable States of America about all the issues.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
National Socialists were not socialists
Actually, they were about as socialist as the German Democratic Republic and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea were/are democratic.
They were a command economy, though. Not all command economies are socialist, and not all socialism is a command economy.
Intel thanks you, people of China, for the gift of your body's water....
9943 m^3/year is 7192 gallons/day.
That's a lot of water in both cases. Looking at my water bill, my family of five (in the US -- Texas) used 2900 gallons last month. That's 19 gallons per person per day. I realize that it's not quite summer yet, where our water usage will double or so -- so let's say the average is 30 gallons/day -- but even so, does industry really use 240 times as much water as individuals?
So far, no it doesn't. Neither do the other isms. You come off a bit defensive about it, as if you NEED for communism to not work.
The best we've done so far is when socialism battles with capitalism on more or less equal terms. That battle in the '30s lead to the greatest improvements in wellbeing the U.S. has made to date. Unfortunately, when everything to the left was rather shrilly shouted down in the '50s, we started declining.
Really though, what's killing America is authoritarianism. The left and the right keep screeching about how the other would take away our freedoms when in reality, both do.
That's not to say I'm a Libertarian, they are way too far to the right to work in practice.
Mad Max!
Plenty of fuel to drive sand buggies, but water is scarce.
Ahhh, the strange thing about communism and fascism. They're both opposite in philosophy, yet in practice almost indistinguishable from one another.
In order for communism to survive, it must take on the tenets of fascism. It's the history of the world all over. But to the average citizen, it's all bullshit anyways. In their view, they live under a Statist regime which employ tenets of communism and fascism anyways. Basically either you live in freedom, live under totalitarianism, or a variation in between
Life is not for the lazy.
How are communism and fascism opposite in philosophy? They both hold that the good of the individual should be sacrificed for the good of the group. In practice, both end up being "rule by edict" rather than "rule of law".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The problem is that we have allowed the left to define the political continuum. The left declared that fascism was the opposite of communism. When in fact, they are right next to each other on the continuum. The real political continuum is from those who say that the good of the individual must be sacrificed for the good of the group (fascism and communism) to those who say that the right of the individual to make their own decisions takes precedence over the good of the group (although most of them hold that the best good of the group results from individual sovereignty).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Umm, it's simply not true that there is "no state ownership of industry" in Scandinavia. Many of the strategic industries, like power and energy, are state-owned; for example, Norway's state oil company owns almost all the oil facilities.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Well, drilling for pressurized oil in record depths with cheap, faulty equipment in a sensitive maritime environment is not a sign for failures of Capitalism, it's simply Capitalism wrongly understood.
In other words, what radical terrorists are to Islam and White Supremacists are to people of caucasian descent, BP Oil is to Capitalism.
Thank you for opening that convenient avenue of excuse: if horrible effects occur after an ideology is driven too far, simply claim it's not that ideology anymore.
See? If people died, they "misunderstood" Communism. If spilled oil pollutes half a continent, they "misunderstood" Capitalism.
That is a terribly childish view to believe that even in pure capitalism there would be no regard for self preservation.
Without a work force there are not likely to be future gains.
All you have to do is seek another developing country to screw.
Let's see, you are in favor of transforming private companies (private property) by force into "in practice, semi-autonomous, self-budgeting, revenue-sharing government branches" as a "transition period" to "reach ultimate goal of socialism" (all quotes from your previous post). Doesn't sound very centrist to me.
i didnt say i was supporting centrist policies. i said i was supporting social democracy since a while ago.
and yeah, that is exactly what i want. since, it worked to perfect result in those countries which practiced that. the life standard and education of average scandinavian would put upper middle class american to shame.
There is no way in the world that the economic policies of USA can be called laissez faire but lets say they are slightly closer to that than economies in many other countries.
it is as pro-business, pro-market as it can be, without allowing a total wild west environment in which businesses rule everything.
Please provide some reference for your claim that capital gets invested until certain point and then stops getting invested. I have never heard any such thing before and it doesn't sound plausible.
you cant provide any references for this, except a few underdog research papers here and there. because it challenges the very core, and the defensive arguments of capitalist economy and the economic dominant mindset. just like how they still use GDP and GNP to determine life standards of citizens of a country, despite there being no assurances that gdp and gnp will distribute to anyone at all. (currently in usa 7% top of country gets 72% of wealth). to understand that, you need to have been educated as a capitalist, and then worked in the sector or, researched the sector for considerable duration of time. but i very much think, that these abominations will eventually come up in agendas.
How is it that the USA had become the engine of worlds innovation in just about any field you can imagine (take computer technology, medicine, biotech etc etc) during the last 20-30 years, far outpacing Europe in new inventions and especially entrepreneurship (just take growth of various computer companies from nothing to multi-billion dollar corporations).
aaaaah. it isnt.
innovation is in eastern asia, and europe. as a few examples, norway just opened world's first osmosis power plant. sweden opened 4th plant that uses woodchips to generate power. the internet connection capabilities and quotas per individual citizen is beyond anywhere else in the world, finland even recognized internet access a basic human right by law. there is innumerable contributors to open source projects ranging from linux to others from scandinavian countries. fastest world trains are in europe, and japan. usa cant even start to experimenting with one of these, even thought there are long standing huge rail companies for centuries.
all that us has been doing in the last 20 years had been patenting anything they found, including things that were invented or innovated by others in other countries. your country, has become a patent troll, and is exactly putting other countries in the position they were against britain when patent system was first set up in britain in 19th century. poisonous.
If you think that the recent financial crisis proves anything take a look at this chart [yahoo.com]It is but a blip that will correct itself in no time.
that is why i told you not to make grand statements about things you dont know about. you dont know what the cause of financial crisis is. therefore you dont know that it will never fix itself. its a technical matter.
wall street was deregulated, and they created investment tools indexed over mortgages. then, they proceeded to trade these tools over 60 times their value. then, they went to government, and said that they had 61x wealth. despite, they had at most 2x we
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The left defined it, then the right distorted the meaning until it bears no connection to reality.
If you understand that left vs. right is a measure of how well ownership of the means of production is distributed, it all makes sense. In a Communist state (were one actually implemented) they are all owned in common by everyone. In a Fascist state, they are all owned by corporations.
If your definition holds, then the Republican party might be considered the leftists. They sure don't seem to support individual decisions on drug use, abortion, sexual orientation or marriage.
In a sane world, the only reasonable is response "you've got to be kidding". If you look at Marx's personal life, you'll understand that his goal was universal malice.
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Most agriculture is very wasteful of water. It's not uncommon to just flood an area and ignore the runoff. Even if watering is cut down to a level such that there's no runoff, most of the water is still lost to evaporation off the soil rather than through the plant. It takes a greenhouse to even make true water control possible, and that's capital intensive.
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In cold countries, the obvious idea that if you don't work very hard to prepare for winter, you'll die, is deeply ingrained into the minds of the general populace. In Scandinavia, this work ethic lingered for a long time until after 2 generations it finally became evident to a large segment of society that it wasn't necessary to work in order to live reasonably well. Furthermore, rapish levels of taxation make it fruitless to work hard. Thus, it seemed for 30 or more years that northern European socialism was successful, but it's failing now. Reality has caught up with the kleptocracy.
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A red Yugo is not a blue Yugo, it's an unimportant difference. For both, goal and the result is power and destruction.
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Maybe he had poor social skills; this is true of anyone who will sit down and write an 800 page book on economics.
"Capitalism" has taken water?
Oh dear, bad, bad capitalism.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
The part of the "meaning of value" in Marx isn't Marx, it's Ricardo. And it has been debunked thoroughly.
By all means, Marx's view of conflict as the motor of history is good, his theory of exploitation is quite convincing.
But surplus value is just a fraud.
Oh, and capital investment may control production. But consumers control capital investment. Sorry, its just the way it is.
Ask Lehman Brothers.
Send your spendthrift head of state this
The steady state economic model of Herman E. Daly is the only economic theory that appears to make sense in the long haul. China and India and everyone else will just become more and more water stressed, and "everything stressed", until an SSE approach is adopted. I highly recommend checking out steadystate.org , they explain this very well.
there is no understanding of capitalism that would make an owner of an oil well clean up their own mess unless forced to by law.
eventually they would want to cap the well to save the oil, of course. no doubt. but there is no capitalistic force on the planet other than marketing that would make them clean up their own mess.
and in fact, capitalism would hurt them for doing that if it increased the cost of their product. competitors would get the sales.
but nice try!
wow, that is one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever read. If anything you could say that same thing about capitalism, where the goal is nothing but amassing wealth, which is power, and is generally most easily achieved through destruction.
but you drink that kool aid (tm). It's got electrolytes!!!
Every religion has its wacko violent side. the question is entirely, is the religion in a place that has conditions that promote violent and extreme behaviour. Even here in the US, when we go into recession hate group activity rises. Imagine if the US were a near perpetual war zone because of both local and foreign competing interests. Things would be different. They would be like the middle east, except instead of the Taliban it would be WBC and Stormfront battling for supremacy.
AMD does not manufacture anything any more, they are entirely development. They do not have any fabs, it's all outsourced to Global Foundries (IIRC) and GF have fabs in Germany, Singapore and the US. Every AMD chip I've bought in the last 5 years has been fabbed in Germany and assembled in Malaysia. Note that AMD is not Global Foundries only customer.
/sarcasm) and 1 in Ireland. They have manufacturing plants in China, Costa Rica, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. Chip fabrication is something that the third world really cannot do due to the requirement for highly skilled labour. So all the fabs are in the first world (yes, Singapore counts as the first world).
Intel on the other hand has 6 foundries in the US, 2 in Israel (surely undeniable evidence of Intel's nefarious evil
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
As opposed to the Democrats who don't support individual decision on anything.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
its failing now ? please prove citations to that end.
EVERYONE is failing these days, tanks to how wall street poisoned world's financial system.
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