And you don't think the rich get appropriately rewarded for that? Haven't you noticed that schools in wealthy neighborhoods get more money? That the police are fastest to respond to their calls? That the potholes get filled in and the snow get cleared from roads sooner and more often?
In that sense, you are already living in a zoo. If you're like most people, you perform one specialized task and all your other needs are provided by other people. Nothing substantial changes if those people are replaced by robots or if that specialized task is replace by some busy work to keep you occupied.
If those are your examples, I don't think you've thought this problem through. Service (particularly retail), legal and accounting are fields where workers are becoming more efficient because of technology. And more efficient workers means fewer workers. Education is a field that is almost entirely dependent on the public sector. As unemployment grows and the tax base shrinks, education is one of the first areas on the chopping block. The medical industry is still experiencing growth, but it's unrealistic for one industry to absorb job losses from every other sector.
Let's just do some back of the envelope math for the energy required for the lights. Like you suggest, solar panels are about your only option for power. Solar panels are still stuck at about 15% efficiency. Insolation on Mars is about 44% of Earth. Plus inefficiencies from power transmission and the LED bulbs. Altogether, for every square meter of productivity, your going to need about 30 square meters of solar panels. So to get 10,000 square meters worth of productivity, you're going to need at least 300,000 square meters of solar panels. That's 75 acres of solar panels for a little over 2 acres worth of food. We haven't even factored in the the power to run the hydroponics, provide heating, capture CO2, etc. Since solar panels only have a operational lifetime of a couple decades, you're going to need to constantly ship replacements, at least until the colonists can build some factories. It would be less weight to just ship dehydrated food.
It's one of the ideas that might be technically possible, but the answer and information on the website suggests they haven't even begun to put sufficient thought into it.
Unlikely. The human race is violent to the point of constantly being on the brink of destroying ourselves. Any species that was even the slightest bit more violent than humans would certainly destroy itself before reaching off-planet spaceflight.
The press release says it's a DNA sequencer, not a protein sequencer. I'm sure they're working on a way to sequence proteins using a similar principle, but that's not what they're claiming to come out with in the next 6-9 months.
You should try travelling south of your border sometime. Pretty much everyone else in the western hemisphere would consider it at least slightly offensive to imply that 'America' refers exclusively to los Estados Unidos
Answer: an obsessive personality that borders on insanity. Howard Hughes and Steve Jobs fell into the same category. They just have obsessive personalities that see everything and everyone as an opportunity to advance their wealth. The downside is that, despite their wealth and success, they never seem to be happy, well-adjusted people.
That quote is disgusting elitism. You really think the poor and the middle class don't have thoughts and dreams? That we're not worthy of any respect or esteem? The most interesting, creative people in the world are ones who aren't rich or famous because they're doing things with their lives beyond maximizing numbers in a bank account.
Science is about what we can detect and measure.
It doesn't matter if you change the definition of life unless you can build an instrument that detects life with the new criteria.
The last time I tried to donate items to charity, Goodwill and Salvation Army refused my donation. They were already full. I felt bad about the waste, but I ended up putting them on the curb. Maybe your neighbor had the same issue?
That's a false equivication between small business and small towns. If it posssibly can, a small business is going to setup shop in a major city for the same reason that big businesses do: access to a greater pool of potential customers and employees.
I'm not arguing with your numbers, but how can you characterize mid-six figures a year as "upper middle class"? Being in the top one percent of earners is clearly wealthy, upper class. Nothing "middle" about it.
If your career stays in pure CompSci, maybe you'll never need calculus. But business, finance, and the physical sciences are all about calculus. So if you ever want to actually apply CompSci to a real problem, you're going to need to know at least a bit of calc.
You actually run the machines, but you have the gall to call other people sheep? How much radiation do you think you've been exposed to sitting next to one all day?
According calculations done by Freeman Dyson, the radiation from an Orion-style vehicle would cause about 1 death from cancer per launch. Which sucks if you happen to be that one person, but its far less than the cancer rate from other sources of pollution.
Seatbelts and helmets are not mandatory because cars and motorcycles are not mandatory. Healthcare is first case of being forced to buy a product just for being alive.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Re:For a revolutionary workers party!
on
Debt Deal Reached
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If you don't have a formal government, who are the "grown-ups" to mediated property disputes? If you don't have a government, the only way to dispute property disagreements is through violence. That's not a basis for an economic system.
Re:For a revolutionary workers party!
on
Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 1
Free trade is a component of capitalism, but the two are not interchangeable concepts. You really should read at least some of the classic texts on economics to get your terms right.
Re:For a revolutionary workers party!
on
Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 1
One or two historical examples does not prove that a system is unworkable. The French Revolution had some pretty nasty consequences, too, but that doesn't mean that all democratic revolutions are doomed to fail. And your idea that capitalism occurs in the absence of formal government is laughable. Without a formal government, the concept of property doesn't even exist, except in the most direct sense. Without a formulation of the rules of property, you certainly can't have concepts like "capital".
Slashdot Mirror
And you don't think the rich get appropriately rewarded for that? Haven't you noticed that schools in wealthy neighborhoods get more money? That the police are fastest to respond to their calls? That the potholes get filled in and the snow get cleared from roads sooner and more often?
Not all manufactured goods are cheap consumer goods.
In that sense, you are already living in a zoo. If you're like most people, you perform one specialized task and all your other needs are provided by other people. Nothing substantial changes if those people are replaced by robots or if that specialized task is replace by some busy work to keep you occupied.
If those are your examples, I don't think you've thought this problem through. Service (particularly retail), legal and accounting are fields where workers are becoming more efficient because of technology. And more efficient workers means fewer workers. Education is a field that is almost entirely dependent on the public sector. As unemployment grows and the tax base shrinks, education is one of the first areas on the chopping block. The medical industry is still experiencing growth, but it's unrealistic for one industry to absorb job losses from every other sector.
Let's just do some back of the envelope math for the energy required for the lights. Like you suggest, solar panels are about your only option for power. Solar panels are still stuck at about 15% efficiency. Insolation on Mars is about 44% of Earth. Plus inefficiencies from power transmission and the LED bulbs. Altogether, for every square meter of productivity, your going to need about 30 square meters of solar panels. So to get 10,000 square meters worth of productivity, you're going to need at least 300,000 square meters of solar panels. That's 75 acres of solar panels for a little over 2 acres worth of food. We haven't even factored in the the power to run the hydroponics, provide heating, capture CO2, etc. Since solar panels only have a operational lifetime of a couple decades, you're going to need to constantly ship replacements, at least until the colonists can build some factories. It would be less weight to just ship dehydrated food. It's one of the ideas that might be technically possible, but the answer and information on the website suggests they haven't even begun to put sufficient thought into it.
Which is still silly. Why would you spend the energy to rotate the entire spacecraft just to aim the weapons or change the view of the pilot?
Unlikely. The human race is violent to the point of constantly being on the brink of destroying ourselves. Any species that was even the slightest bit more violent than humans would certainly destroy itself before reaching off-planet spaceflight.
The press release says it's a DNA sequencer, not a protein sequencer. I'm sure they're working on a way to sequence proteins using a similar principle, but that's not what they're claiming to come out with in the next 6-9 months.
You should try travelling south of your border sometime. Pretty much everyone else in the western hemisphere would consider it at least slightly offensive to imply that 'America' refers exclusively to los Estados Unidos
Answer: an obsessive personality that borders on insanity. Howard Hughes and Steve Jobs fell into the same category. They just have obsessive personalities that see everything and everyone as an opportunity to advance their wealth. The downside is that, despite their wealth and success, they never seem to be happy, well-adjusted people.
That quote is disgusting elitism. You really think the poor and the middle class don't have thoughts and dreams? That we're not worthy of any respect or esteem? The most interesting, creative people in the world are ones who aren't rich or famous because they're doing things with their lives beyond maximizing numbers in a bank account.
Science is about what we can detect and measure. It doesn't matter if you change the definition of life unless you can build an instrument that detects life with the new criteria.
Only one of the Clay Millennium prize has been solved and that was by a reclusive Russian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Prize_Problems
The last time I tried to donate items to charity, Goodwill and Salvation Army refused my donation. They were already full. I felt bad about the waste, but I ended up putting them on the curb. Maybe your neighbor had the same issue?
That's a false equivication between small business and small towns. If it posssibly can, a small business is going to setup shop in a major city for the same reason that big businesses do: access to a greater pool of potential customers and employees.
I'm not arguing with your numbers, but how can you characterize mid-six figures a year as "upper middle class"? Being in the top one percent of earners is clearly wealthy, upper class. Nothing "middle" about it.
If your career stays in pure CompSci, maybe you'll never need calculus. But business, finance, and the physical sciences are all about calculus. So if you ever want to actually apply CompSci to a real problem, you're going to need to know at least a bit of calc.
You actually run the machines, but you have the gall to call other people sheep? How much radiation do you think you've been exposed to sitting next to one all day?
According calculations done by Freeman Dyson, the radiation from an Orion-style vehicle would cause about 1 death from cancer per launch. Which sucks if you happen to be that one person, but its far less than the cancer rate from other sources of pollution.
In that sense, every law is optional.
Seatbelts and helmets are not mandatory because cars and motorcycles are not mandatory. Healthcare is first case of being forced to buy a product just for being alive.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
If you don't have a formal government, who are the "grown-ups" to mediated property disputes? If you don't have a government, the only way to dispute property disagreements is through violence. That's not a basis for an economic system.
Free trade is a component of capitalism, but the two are not interchangeable concepts. You really should read at least some of the classic texts on economics to get your terms right.
One or two historical examples does not prove that a system is unworkable. The French Revolution had some pretty nasty consequences, too, but that doesn't mean that all democratic revolutions are doomed to fail. And your idea that capitalism occurs in the absence of formal government is laughable. Without a formal government, the concept of property doesn't even exist, except in the most direct sense. Without a formulation of the rules of property, you certainly can't have concepts like "capital".