Well considering the vast majority of the population of Earth is literally dirt poor, and our democratic government is descending into "TAX THE RICH!", I'm not seeing very good prospects for a world democracy. Sounds like the poor can figure out to tax the shit out of everyone in a first world country to bring them down to third world levels. Might as well make the world communist...
Where exactly are these anti-war politicians that we can vote for? Ron Paul is the only candidate that will bring the troops home, and he is labeled "unelectable" for it. Obama may eventually end the wars (I'll believe the Iraq pullout when it happens), but it seems like more of a political talking point than action.
It's the same democratic republic. They call it a Constitutional Monarchy, but that's a bullshit term used for a democratic republic with a ceremonial figurehead. Unfortunately (and I think ironically), our president has more power than your queen. Apparently the power to kill American citizens without trial or due process. Maybe we don't live in a democratic republic. Maybe we just live in a totalitarian government with a ceremonial voting process...
You are right, what we have is a democratic republic... Isn't that what I said? We democratically elect representatives of our government. That still doesn't mean everyone's vote is equal... It is not. Far from it. What do you think the electoral college is? Heck, senators used to not even be directly elected by the people. If we voted on every law, then we would have a democracy where everyone has an equal vote.
The monetary problems the western world is facing is because we have organizations printing money furiously. Oil production is flat, but that's because there are a whole lot of known oil fields that are not allowed to be tapped or have not been tapped yet. There's still plenty of oil to tide us over until fusion comes around, don't you worry. And in the meantime, natural gas is about to explode (figuratively).
Oh, I thought this was a place to argue with nerds on the internet. Is there any news for nerds that doesn't revolve around phones and tablets anymore?
Do you realize what absurdity you are spouting? Democracy cannot be stolen from the majority. If the majority is not in control, you don't have democracy. If this statement confuses you because you think we used to have democracy, it's ok. Your lazy teachers didn't explain to you that our nation is NOT a democracy. We live in a republic. The majority DOES NOT RULE. We may democratically select our representatives, but we have no direct control over the laws of our country. If we did, our country would be a very different place.
That being said, what we have now is not a republic, nor a democracy. What we have now is defined as an oligarchy. You are upset at the rich, I am upset at the politicians. A lot of rich people have done horrible things and they deserve some blame. A lot of politicians are responsible as well. At the end of the day though, the rich would have no power over you if the politicians didn't give it to them. The government is responsible. Tell all the politicians to go home. Don't vote democrat. Don't vote republican. Vote 3rd party for EVERYTHING. If there is no 3rd party running, run for office yourself. If you don't succeed, tell your representative to support the CONSTITUTION, not some sort of bullshit called bi-partisan compromise. If the government follows the Constitution, all they can do is defend your rights... Nothing more. Of course realize that then they won't be able to violate anyone else's rights as well, so don't expect free stuff.
Yeah, they are probably eating as the massive number of Starbucks in Manhattan too. Must be so hard living the life of an unemployed college grad who can live comfortably in New York for a few weeks. Those fat cat bankers are really messing up their lives huh...
We don't have a broken democracy because we don't have a democracy. What we have is a broken republic, where the government is working outside of the rules of it's formation (the Constitution) to give special favors to corporations in return for campaign contributions. If the government was working within the powers of the Constitution, corporations would have no incentive to buy politicians because there would be no power to purchase. Hence why more government power won't solve this problem. Remember, government is what took our money to hand to these asshole bankers in the first place.
Yes, the European method of digging yourself into a huge debt hole is working out great... And we aren't far behind.
And as for serf making, who are the ones who make us serfs? I don't think it's businesses, I am pretty sure it is the government and the government control of businesses. Remember, corporations have no tools for force you to do anything. The government does.
All those idiots protesting against wall street don't see the cause, they only see the effect. Yes, a bunch of fat cats on wall street took a huge chunk of OUR money. The question is, who gave it to them? The government did. The government took our money by force and then handed it to the banks. Why are we angry at the bankers for taking a huge wad of cash that someone handed them?
I never said that ultracaps and fusion were a certainty. But I would posit that they are far more likely than an alien visit. Fusion reactions already exist, it's just a matter of harnessing the energy. Ultracapacitors already exist, it's just a matter of making them larger. Aliens might exist, but we've had no evidence, no communication, and indeed if light speed is the galactic speed limit, it is likely that they wouldn't even bother visiting.
My point is that I am not banking on technological miracles in the future, but rather technological advancement. As technology improves, it will use less power, be more useful, and use less materials than current technology. That is not some pipe dream, that is based on development since the industrial revolution.
And as far as your claims about the negatives and positives about global warming, I have admitted there will be problems (which you kind of ignored since you said that I made a claim of only positives). Yet you dismissed any possibility of an upside at all. I say there will likely be more livable land area, which seems pretty reasonable considering the amount of land that is currently frozen, and you dismiss it with "they could just as likely be "boiling deserts". There will still be snow with global warming, there will still be glaciers. I'd guess that most climate scientists would agree with that. They would probably also agree that large landmasses would get warm enough to live in with significant warming. However, despite your insistence that I produce facts instead of guess, there don't appear to be any major studies of the net gain (or loss) of arable land given a certain temperature change. Hmm, maybe climate scientists should start working on that rather than continue to tweak their computer models. But that might produce a positive effect of global warming, and we can't have that now can we? Your whole world view would be shattered!
Well, change is rarely a good thing in the short term.
Well it's a good thing that climate change occurs in the long term then isn't it? You just walked right into that one... You are right, short term changes hurt, which is why most mitigation plans suck. They want things to change tomorrow expecting what may happen next year. All the mitigation we can do is meaningless if a volcano erupts in 10 years that causes mass cooling and then oh shit, we've gotta make it warmer.
At the end of the day, we have climate change. We have climate change because climate is NOT EVER CONSTANT. Whether or not we have anything to do with it, the climate will change. Colder, hotter, we need to prepare. Mitigation is not the answer, migration is. Human beings excel at several things. One of them as you pointed out is using fuel like it's going out of style. Another thing is adapting. We need to use the adaptation to our advantage. Migrate away from the coasts if they are disappearing. Migrate to higher latitudes if it is practical. Migrate to different fuels if it is economical.
I'm an engineer too, and I have faith that despite scientists telling us the sky is falling, we engineers are always a step ahead, finding solutions to tomorrow's problems today. I believe that humans can thrive in many climates, and I think that warmer is probably better in the long term. Looking at the history of life on this planet, the dinosaurs would tend to agree, warm is better. Ice ages suck.
And you complain about other people's projections. You might as well suggest that aliens will come and wisk us off to heaven instead.
Really? Suggesting we can migrate away from fossil fuels in 100 years is equivalent to aliens visiting earth? Think in 1911, when the Model T was the shiznit of cars. Did they know that there would be an explosion in vehicle traffic over the next century? Two breakthroughs could eliminate the vast majority of fossil fuel use extremely quickly. 1) Viable fusion power and 2) large capacity ultracapacitors. With both of those, electric would be plentiful and not produce any CO2 and pretty much every vehicle would be better off electric. In 100 years, I would hope we've made huge progress on both.
If you're going to posit that, then it'll be up to you to research it. You'd certainly be disrupting the lives of billions of people, so you're going to have to look for a really good upside.
I don't think you realize where we were 100 years ago. In 1911, there were approximately 1.6 billion people on the planet. Today there are close to 6.8. Billions of people are going to have their lives disrupted one way or another. Yes, we may lose some coastal territory, yes we may have more severe weather, yes the polar bears might die as the ice caps melt. On the upside, vast, truly vast, areas of land will be habitable that are today barren deserts. Think of Canada, think of Russia. Look at a globe and compare the land area near the equator with the land area near the poles. Ok, so we lost New Orleans, but we gained literally tens of millions of square miles. In addition to gaining land, there will be more fresh water, more farmland, and less death (cold kills far more than heat). All of which are better for people in general. I'd call that a decent upside. It's sure not all downsides, to suggest such is ludicrous.
So what are the error bars on climate change? 1% every 1000 years? 100 years? 10 years? Because if a hurricane has 10% error bars 2 days in the future, I'd hate to see how accurate our predictions are for 100 years in the future. Especially since we are predicting human changes, which not only are not constant, but we have no idea where the human race is going in terms of technology. Hell in 100 years, we may not use any fossil fuels at all with or without government intervention.
I'm still not sold on the global warming bandwagon. I'm not dismissing it, but call me a denier if you must. What I'm even less sold on is if global warming will be a catastrophe. In fact, what are the error bars on that? Is it possible that global warming will be a good thing for mankind?
I don't think RIM is in the same boat as Microsoft. Both have to appeal to users, but remember who the customers for each company is. It's not the end user, it's businesses. RIM is listening to businesses who want a locked down phone for calling and handling emails. Apps are nice, but businesses could care less about them, and in fact probably want to discourage time wasters and games. They aren't really trying to compete with the iPhone and various Android headsets which are primarily leisure devices.
Microsoft on the other hand is totally ignoring the fact that most businesses don't like change because it requires retraining. I know a lot of businesses are still not upgrading past XP because they don't want all the 40+ employees saying, "where did the start button go". Heck people at my workplace can't figure out how to do half the stuff in Office 2007. Not saying anything about the benefits of the ribbon, but even if it is more efficient or better, it may not get adopted (see Dvorak vs QWERTY). Microsoft is competing with Apple even though OSX is not even coming close to beating Windows in the business sphere.
Say whaaaaaaaaaaa? RIM is getting complaints because the Blackberry OS hasn't changed it's interface much at all (to compete with Android and iOS). And you are comparing them with Microsoft who is forcing a change that nobody wants (to compete with Apple)?
Slashdot Mirror
An old military saying goes "quantity has a quality all its own"
Ahh yes, the Zerg vs Protoss debate.
Umm, in a century, the die off rate is nearly 100%. Regardless of the sources of power and the accessibility of good batteries.
Well considering the vast majority of the population of Earth is literally dirt poor, and our democratic government is descending into "TAX THE RICH!", I'm not seeing very good prospects for a world democracy. Sounds like the poor can figure out to tax the shit out of everyone in a first world country to bring them down to third world levels. Might as well make the world communist...
Where exactly are these anti-war politicians that we can vote for? Ron Paul is the only candidate that will bring the troops home, and he is labeled "unelectable" for it. Obama may eventually end the wars (I'll believe the Iraq pullout when it happens), but it seems like more of a political talking point than action.
Nevermind the fact that they usually ask for your birth certificate, drivers license, and/or passport to verify your identity and citizenship...
It's the same democratic republic. They call it a Constitutional Monarchy, but that's a bullshit term used for a democratic republic with a ceremonial figurehead. Unfortunately (and I think ironically), our president has more power than your queen. Apparently the power to kill American citizens without trial or due process. Maybe we don't live in a democratic republic. Maybe we just live in a totalitarian government with a ceremonial voting process...
You are right, what we have is a democratic republic... Isn't that what I said? We democratically elect representatives of our government. That still doesn't mean everyone's vote is equal... It is not. Far from it. What do you think the electoral college is? Heck, senators used to not even be directly elected by the people. If we voted on every law, then we would have a democracy where everyone has an equal vote.
The monetary problems the western world is facing is because we have organizations printing money furiously. Oil production is flat, but that's because there are a whole lot of known oil fields that are not allowed to be tapped or have not been tapped yet. There's still plenty of oil to tide us over until fusion comes around, don't you worry. And in the meantime, natural gas is about to explode (figuratively).
Oh, I thought this was a place to argue with nerds on the internet. Is there any news for nerds that doesn't revolve around phones and tablets anymore?
Wait are you saying that corporations are actually just a group of people, and that corporations don't screw you, actual people screw you? Amazing.
Bullshit. What we have is too much fake money. There are plenty of resources to go around with our current population, we just need to use it.
Do you realize what absurdity you are spouting? Democracy cannot be stolen from the majority. If the majority is not in control, you don't have democracy. If this statement confuses you because you think we used to have democracy, it's ok. Your lazy teachers didn't explain to you that our nation is NOT a democracy. We live in a republic. The majority DOES NOT RULE. We may democratically select our representatives, but we have no direct control over the laws of our country. If we did, our country would be a very different place.
That being said, what we have now is not a republic, nor a democracy. What we have now is defined as an oligarchy. You are upset at the rich, I am upset at the politicians. A lot of rich people have done horrible things and they deserve some blame. A lot of politicians are responsible as well. At the end of the day though, the rich would have no power over you if the politicians didn't give it to them. The government is responsible. Tell all the politicians to go home. Don't vote democrat. Don't vote republican. Vote 3rd party for EVERYTHING. If there is no 3rd party running, run for office yourself. If you don't succeed, tell your representative to support the CONSTITUTION, not some sort of bullshit called bi-partisan compromise. If the government follows the Constitution, all they can do is defend your rights... Nothing more. Of course realize that then they won't be able to violate anyone else's rights as well, so don't expect free stuff.
Yeah, they are probably eating as the massive number of Starbucks in Manhattan too. Must be so hard living the life of an unemployed college grad who can live comfortably in New York for a few weeks. Those fat cat bankers are really messing up their lives huh...
We don't have a broken democracy because we don't have a democracy. What we have is a broken republic, where the government is working outside of the rules of it's formation (the Constitution) to give special favors to corporations in return for campaign contributions. If the government was working within the powers of the Constitution, corporations would have no incentive to buy politicians because there would be no power to purchase. Hence why more government power won't solve this problem. Remember, government is what took our money to hand to these asshole bankers in the first place.
I think the idea of making everyone equal, making money worthless, and weaken corporate influence is called communism. I could be wrong though.
Smoke pot
Live together in harmony
Sex, love, and rock 'n roll
They are hippies. Modern hippies, but hippies nonetheless.
Yes, the European method of digging yourself into a huge debt hole is working out great... And we aren't far behind.
And as for serf making, who are the ones who make us serfs? I don't think it's businesses, I am pretty sure it is the government and the government control of businesses. Remember, corporations have no tools for force you to do anything. The government does.
All those idiots protesting against wall street don't see the cause, they only see the effect. Yes, a bunch of fat cats on wall street took a huge chunk of OUR money. The question is, who gave it to them? The government did. The government took our money by force and then handed it to the banks. Why are we angry at the bankers for taking a huge wad of cash that someone handed them?
Yeah, and we do such a great job predicting the markets, I have so much confidence in global warming predictions...
No, this is science. You never get to pick your poison. One of them is true, the other is not. Choice does not factor in.
I never said that ultracaps and fusion were a certainty. But I would posit that they are far more likely than an alien visit. Fusion reactions already exist, it's just a matter of harnessing the energy. Ultracapacitors already exist, it's just a matter of making them larger. Aliens might exist, but we've had no evidence, no communication, and indeed if light speed is the galactic speed limit, it is likely that they wouldn't even bother visiting.
My point is that I am not banking on technological miracles in the future, but rather technological advancement. As technology improves, it will use less power, be more useful, and use less materials than current technology. That is not some pipe dream, that is based on development since the industrial revolution.
And as far as your claims about the negatives and positives about global warming, I have admitted there will be problems (which you kind of ignored since you said that I made a claim of only positives). Yet you dismissed any possibility of an upside at all. I say there will likely be more livable land area, which seems pretty reasonable considering the amount of land that is currently frozen, and you dismiss it with "they could just as likely be "boiling deserts". There will still be snow with global warming, there will still be glaciers. I'd guess that most climate scientists would agree with that. They would probably also agree that large landmasses would get warm enough to live in with significant warming. However, despite your insistence that I produce facts instead of guess, there don't appear to be any major studies of the net gain (or loss) of arable land given a certain temperature change. Hmm, maybe climate scientists should start working on that rather than continue to tweak their computer models. But that might produce a positive effect of global warming, and we can't have that now can we? Your whole world view would be shattered!
Well, change is rarely a good thing in the short term.
Well it's a good thing that climate change occurs in the long term then isn't it? You just walked right into that one... You are right, short term changes hurt, which is why most mitigation plans suck. They want things to change tomorrow expecting what may happen next year. All the mitigation we can do is meaningless if a volcano erupts in 10 years that causes mass cooling and then oh shit, we've gotta make it warmer.
At the end of the day, we have climate change. We have climate change because climate is NOT EVER CONSTANT. Whether or not we have anything to do with it, the climate will change. Colder, hotter, we need to prepare. Mitigation is not the answer, migration is. Human beings excel at several things. One of them as you pointed out is using fuel like it's going out of style. Another thing is adapting. We need to use the adaptation to our advantage. Migrate away from the coasts if they are disappearing. Migrate to higher latitudes if it is practical. Migrate to different fuels if it is economical.
I'm an engineer too, and I have faith that despite scientists telling us the sky is falling, we engineers are always a step ahead, finding solutions to tomorrow's problems today. I believe that humans can thrive in many climates, and I think that warmer is probably better in the long term. Looking at the history of life on this planet, the dinosaurs would tend to agree, warm is better. Ice ages suck.
And you complain about other people's projections. You might as well suggest that aliens will come and wisk us off to heaven instead.
Really? Suggesting we can migrate away from fossil fuels in 100 years is equivalent to aliens visiting earth? Think in 1911, when the Model T was the shiznit of cars. Did they know that there would be an explosion in vehicle traffic over the next century? Two breakthroughs could eliminate the vast majority of fossil fuel use extremely quickly. 1) Viable fusion power and 2) large capacity ultracapacitors. With both of those, electric would be plentiful and not produce any CO2 and pretty much every vehicle would be better off electric. In 100 years, I would hope we've made huge progress on both.
If you're going to posit that, then it'll be up to you to research it. You'd certainly be disrupting the lives of billions of people, so you're going to have to look for a really good upside.
I don't think you realize where we were 100 years ago. In 1911, there were approximately 1.6 billion people on the planet. Today there are close to 6.8. Billions of people are going to have their lives disrupted one way or another. Yes, we may lose some coastal territory, yes we may have more severe weather, yes the polar bears might die as the ice caps melt. On the upside, vast, truly vast, areas of land will be habitable that are today barren deserts. Think of Canada, think of Russia. Look at a globe and compare the land area near the equator with the land area near the poles. Ok, so we lost New Orleans, but we gained literally tens of millions of square miles. In addition to gaining land, there will be more fresh water, more farmland, and less death (cold kills far more than heat). All of which are better for people in general. I'd call that a decent upside. It's sure not all downsides, to suggest such is ludicrous.
So what are the error bars on climate change? 1% every 1000 years? 100 years? 10 years? Because if a hurricane has 10% error bars 2 days in the future, I'd hate to see how accurate our predictions are for 100 years in the future. Especially since we are predicting human changes, which not only are not constant, but we have no idea where the human race is going in terms of technology. Hell in 100 years, we may not use any fossil fuels at all with or without government intervention.
I'm still not sold on the global warming bandwagon. I'm not dismissing it, but call me a denier if you must. What I'm even less sold on is if global warming will be a catastrophe. In fact, what are the error bars on that? Is it possible that global warming will be a good thing for mankind?
I don't think RIM is in the same boat as Microsoft. Both have to appeal to users, but remember who the customers for each company is. It's not the end user, it's businesses. RIM is listening to businesses who want a locked down phone for calling and handling emails. Apps are nice, but businesses could care less about them, and in fact probably want to discourage time wasters and games. They aren't really trying to compete with the iPhone and various Android headsets which are primarily leisure devices.
Microsoft on the other hand is totally ignoring the fact that most businesses don't like change because it requires retraining. I know a lot of businesses are still not upgrading past XP because they don't want all the 40+ employees saying, "where did the start button go". Heck people at my workplace can't figure out how to do half the stuff in Office 2007. Not saying anything about the benefits of the ribbon, but even if it is more efficient or better, it may not get adopted (see Dvorak vs QWERTY). Microsoft is competing with Apple even though OSX is not even coming close to beating Windows in the business sphere.
Say whaaaaaaaaaaa? RIM is getting complaints because the Blackberry OS hasn't changed it's interface much at all (to compete with Android and iOS). And you are comparing them with Microsoft who is forcing a change that nobody wants (to compete with Apple)?