[After citing some articles with statistics on low birth rates in most industrialized countries...]
Again, sick or dead young people can't pay for the health care of old people, nor can sick or dead young people be health care practitioners for old people. You would think old people could see it, but maybe it will take some leadership to help them see it?
Again, this is not to disagree with Michel's main point that people need to focus on commonality to solve problems. The last paragraph in the first item makes a related analogy to old wars and how the youngjust want the same thing the older generation got. I'd suggest my point just above is one such point of commonality -- the young can not take good care of the old if the young are sick or dead.
That point by David Willetts was actually the quote in my mind when I wrote my previous reply, but I could not find it.
As with the comment on Ireland, that is why the industrialized globe is facing a "Peak Population" crisis, not a "Peak Oil" crisis, even though people are confusing the two, which is odd given solar is now (or soon will be) cheaper than coal.:-)
But, think about it, how many of the industrialized world's current problems are better explained by "Peak Population" rather than "Peak Oil"?
And how much has the "Peak Energy" misrepresentation of the "Peak Oil" fact by people like Catton led to smaller families and made worse the "Peak Population" crisis? Gloomsters and Doomsters are in that sense creating the terrible problems we are facing right now. In Voyage from Yesteryear, James P. Hogan talks about despair versus optimist in a culture, in part based on appreciation of the potential abundance energy in the universe.
The less peers that are around, the less peers can help each other and contribute to a free commons. Maybe there are laws of diminishing returns, but are we anywhere near them? What would Wikipedia be like with only 100 contributors instead of 100 thousand? Especially in a digital age, it is easy for a peer to add more to the free commons than they take away. What do you take away from Wikipedia by reading a page? A little electricity power perhaps, but Wikipedia shows us how to get all the power we need from the sun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... So, even in a physical sense, Wikipedia is helping peers physically power it by giving away such knowledge.
We can support quadrillions of humans in the solar system (see my previous references to Dyson, Bernal, Savage, O'Neill, and there are many others), or about a million times our current population on Earth. We essentially had the specific technological ideas in the 1970s we needed to do that, even given refinements since then. So, a focus on zero or negative population growth for the human race as a whole right now, as opposed to just limiting the population currently on Earth (which might be sensible, even though I think we could easily grow 10X on Earth), has created a "Peak Population" crisis that we didn't need to have for 1000 years when we filled up the solar system (and by then, we would have better technology and better social ideology to deal with changing demographics of moving from a triangle to a square of population by age).
Sure, let's set a population target for some carrying capacity on Earth the same way the health and fire departments limit the maximum number of people in a restaurant. But, you don't limit the human population of a city (or the solar system) the same way you limit the number of people that can safely be in a restaurant (the Earth). That is ultimately the mistake that gloomsters like Catton make -- they confuse the two, mostly IMHO from lack of imagination, but also because some profit from artificial scarcity, as well, as
Me from 2009: https://groups.google.com/foru... "This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity...."
Also from that essay: "So, why don't we do this right now? I'd suggest it is mainly due to scarcity ideology creating artificial scarcity. For instance, the same computer technologies that can be used to design and operate safer cars are instead used to manage electronic credit or to produce fancy advertising and astroturfing related to promoting free market fundamentalism.
Essentially, it's all ideology (or ignorance, or corruption, or vested interests, which may all be essentially the same thing), because as I show above, it is even financially cheaper to be both financially-subsidized free-as-in-beer and open source free-as-in-freedom. There are also other various freedoms that safer free-to-the-user electric cars would give us (including freedom from seeing loved ones die in car accidents, by cancer caused by gasoline additives, or by hurricanes caused by global climate change).
So, I'd suggest, over the next ten to twenty years, this is a major change we will likely see in the USA's personal transportation system -- self-driving free-to-the-user safer electric cars (or plug-in hybrids) built using FOSS methodology. And, taxes will then go *down*, along with other direct to the user expenses for insurance, maintenance, and energy, because our transportation system will then, by adjusting for externalities (like national security, pollution, and health care costs), be cheaper overall to design, build, operate, and recycle."
While it is hard to wrap our minds around as creatures of our seemingly orderly cosmos, if there truly is nothing at all, then there are no laws at all (e.g. no conservation of matter and energy, no cause and effect), and so there is nothing to prevent anything from suddenly popping into existence (along with whatever new laws of physics).
Yes, we really need to think a lot more about how to design space habitats and try out a variety of ideas in simulation and reality. Below is an excerpt from something I posted in 2003 to an Slashdot article on "Jeff Bezos' Shot At Space": https://science.slashdot.org/c...
While it is excellent to see multiple billionaires pursuing cheap access to space (CATS), this seems like a problem that will be much easier to solve as new materials and processes come along (diamondoid jet nozzles, fusion, etc.) in the near future. Several of these entrepreneurs are of course already using newer materials and processes (composites, active dynamics, small ground crews augmented by fancy computers and software) relative to what NASA is stuck with in maintaining an aging Shuttle.
While I would never say such innovative effort is wasted, it would seem that launch technologies, while sexy, might really deserve somewhat lower priorities than the issue of what to do when we are in space. The fact is, we can launch people now, and relatively off-the-shelf technology (e.g. Ariane or Saturn V equivalent rockets) if manufactured in large quantities are probably Cheap-enough Access To Space for the next ten to twenty years (until nano-tech makes far better launch systems possible) especially if we are willing to accept 5% human casualties for launch (which is probably a far lower casualty rate than most human settlement travel activities historically).
There is also an issue of focus -- people focus on reusable vehicles, but the reality is that it is so costly to get things into space that there is not much point in returning either people or equipment after they have been launched. At best, Apollo era reentry capsules for people who want to come back to earth are good enough. For example, the space shuttle costs so much to launch relative to its production cost it should really be left in orbit as usable equipment (since anything in orbit is worth its weight in gold), and people returned in a small capsule if at all. Even if launch costs are greatly reduced, I think that a general outward trend of humanity will still reflect some of this economics (short of a space elevator). For example, in the USA, most people who went "West" during the 1800s probably never came back East.
So where is a key area of research that should be a priority among NASA and Billionaires, but is not heavily pursued? The issue is what to do in space once you have gotten there. Because if there is a reason to be in space, then people and collectives will work to get there. And the reality is, that right now, if we could get there, there is nothing to do there short of look around and come back. And if that were the case, Space would not deserve much more investment than say tourism to Mt. Everest. The reality is that we don't know how to support human life in space -- in large part because we have only spent a pittance on thinking about that issue systematically compared to the issues of CATS and Planetary Exploration. Frankly, while we support human life on earth, we have very little meta-knowledge formally about how to do even that. And, most of figuring out how to support human life in space at a nuts and bolts level requires non-sexy activities like sitting around and staring out the window, talking, sending emails, building databases, building software tools, building some small physical protypes on tabletops and outdoors, and just plain thinking (the hard stuff). This is all the preparation needed for the spiritual voyage into the (physical) heavens. Biosphere II was an excellent start in some ways, although the science mission was a bit dodgy at first and it seems Columbia (the recipient) seems about to abandon that effort for cost reasons --- and in any case, Biosphere II focuses on the wrong question -- we know biospheres can work and replicate (although scale is an issue) -- what we don't know is how to replicate the mechanical infrastructure (e.g. glas
To start with: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... "Thirty years of official health advice urging people to adopt low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having "disastrous health consequences," a leading obesity charity warned yesterday. "Eating fat does not make you fat," argues a new report by the National Obesity Forum (NOF) and the Public Health Collaboration, as they demanded a major overhaul of official dietary guidelines.... Promoting low-fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history... The report says the low-fat and low-cholesterol message, which has been official policy in the UK since 1983, was based on "flawed science" and had resulted in an increased consumption of junk food and carbohydrates. The document also accuses major public health bodies of colluding with the food industry, said the misplaced focus meant Britain was failing to address an obesity crisis which is costing the NHS £6 billion a year."
The history is even more complex. A more diverse "basic seven" was replaced by a "basic four" food groups including through industry industry lobbying, especially by the dairy industry, where "milk" and "meat" became half of the groups and the dairy industry supplying printed materials for schools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Note that most people on the planet are lactose intolerant and pushing milk on many children even in the USA via school lunch programs and dairy industry advertising is causing them health issues. Dairy may have been a better food decades ago before so much recent alteration like the widespread use of growth hormones and antibiotics. Animal fats tend to have other risks associated with them, like too much protein and a concentration of carcinogens moving up the food chain. That said, dairy products can make sense in moderation for some people and dairy farming can be a good use of some grazing land.
They key point is that the idea of a diverse diet including a lot of fresh vegetables was being narrowed to what could be most profitably sold by big agribusiness, which for decades was mostly about dairy, meat, and processed grains.
And: https://www.alternet.org/story... "In December 1999, the PCRM filed suit against the USDA, claiming the department unfairly promotes the special interests of the meat and dairy industries through its official dietary guidelines and the Food Pyramid. Six of the eleven members assigned to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee were demonstrated to have financial ties to meat, dairy, and egg interests. Prior to the suit, which the PCRM won in December 2000, the USDA had refused to disclose such conflicts of interest to the general public."
From lobbying, food subsidies in the USA are completely inverted compared to the (not that great) food pyramid which explains why a salad costs more than a big mac: https://web.archive.org/web/20... "The Farm Bill, a massive piece of federal legislation making its way through Congress, governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients. The bill provides billions of dollars in subsi
From the blurb on his site: "In this New York Times bestseller, The End of Diabetes, Dr. Fuhrman, offers a scientifically proven, practical program to reverse type 2 diabetes without drugs as well as how to prevent it. Having type 1 or type 2 diabetes does not have to doom you to a shorter life span or its complications like high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney failure or blindness. Most type 2 diabetics get off their medications and become 100 percent free of diabetes by following guidelines clearly outlined in the books. By following these same steps, most type 1 diabetics can cut their insulin in half and maintain excellent health and quality of life into old age."
For so many things, as with this good yet limited study, mainstream medicine inches glacially slowly towards reversing bad ideas (e.g. fat makes you fat -- where it is really more that sugar makes you fat) that quickly took hold decades ago with next-to-no evidence (usually to some manufacturing company's profit). Even this latest study put people on a liquid diet instead of just asking them to eat more vegetables.
The big medical problem in a capitalist society is that staying healthy or becoming well is usually not very profitable to third parties. For example, insurance companies make a profit as a percent of revenue, so the sicker the general public is, the bigger the pie they are taking their cut from. The big profits are in treatment and palliation, not prevention and cure.
That said, it does take time, knowledge, and some careful shopping to eat well -- and that is continually undermined by others around you eating poorly and creating situations where poor food choices are on offer (including within families). And people under stress tend to gain weight as their body prepares for expected lean times ahead -- so there are multiple factors (like discussed in "Blue Zones"),
Dr. Mark Hyman has a lot of good stuff in this area too, like his book "The Blood Sugar Solution". http://drhyman.com/blog/2014/1...
Also related: "The Pleasure Trap" by Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C. http://web.archive.org/web/201... "Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure -- thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new book, The Pleasure Trap, we explain this extraordinarily deceptive and problematic situation -- and how to master this hidden force that undermines health and happiness."
From the first one, discussing the US defense-related costs as just one aspect: "Put all these numbers in perspective: The price of a barrel of oil consumed in the United States would have to increase by $23.40 to offset military resources expended to secure oil. That translates to an additional 56 cents for a gallon of gas, or three times the federal gas tax that funds road construction. If $166 billion were spent on other priorities, the Boston public transportation system, the âoeT,â could have its operating expenses covered, with commuters riding for free. And there would still be money left over for another 100 public transport systems across the United States. Or, we could build and install nearly 50,000 wind turbines. Take your pick."
But there are many other external costs to fossil fuels like health care costs (the legacy of leaded gas is still taking a tremendous toll on our society, but air pollution in general is a killer). For example: https://thinkprogress.org/here... "The average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. right now is $2.47. If that cost took into account the environmental and human health costs of burning the gasoline, however, it would more than double, according to a new study. The study, published this week in the journal Climatic Change, created models for the âoesocial cost of atmospheric release,â a method of determining the costs of emissions beyond their market value. According to the study, accounting for the social costs of burning gasoline would add an average of $3.80 per gallon to the pump price, raising the price to $6.27. Diesel has an even higher social cost of $4.80 per gallon. The study also measured the social costs of other fossil fuels not used at the pump. Coal, for example, would jump from 10 cents per kilowatt hour to 42 cents per kilowatt hour, the study found. And natural gas, which has emerged in recent years as a cheap source of fuel, would see its price rise from 7 cents per kWh to 17 cents per kWh."
And on the legacy of leaded gas (and how it has contributed to the USA's huge prison populations): http://www.motherjones.com/env...
A related essay I wrote in 2009 on "Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user": https://groups.google.com/foru... "This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
But the real answer (if maybe not politically acceptable) is not to subsidize electric cars. It is to tax *all* the externalizes of fossil fuel use at the point of purchase, bringing the cost of gas to, perhaps, US$10 a gallon or more. The tax could be redistributed as a basic income to everyone.
Perhaps the deepest irony about all this (mentioned in the above essay) is mentioned here by B
* "Reset Your Child's Brain: A Four-Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades, and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen-Tim" by Victoria L. Dunckley MD"
* "Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids - and How to Break the Trance" by Nicholas Kardaras (Author)
http://www.shirky.com/writings... "This strategy [of micropayments] doesn't work, because the act of buying anything, even if the price is very small, creates what Nick Szabo calls mental transaction costs, the energy required to decide whether something is worth buying or not, regardless of price.... Like the salami slicing exploit in computer crime, micropayment believers imagine that such tiny amounts of money can be extracted from the user that they will not notice, while the overall volume will cause these payments to add up to something significant for the recipient. But of course the users do notice, because they are being asked to buy something. Mental transaction costs create a minimum level of inconvenience that cannot be removed simply by lowering the dollar cost of goods. Worse, beneath a certain threshold, mental transaction costs actually rise, a phenomenon is especially significant for information goods. It's easy to think a newspaper is worth a dollar, but is each article worth half a penny? Is each word worth a thousandth of a penny? A newspaper, exposed to the logic of micropayments, becomes impossible to value...."
My alternative solution is a *mix* of four types of economic activities: * people producing their own personal content through better personal tools (subsistence production) * a basic income (to soften the rough edges and rich-get-richer exchange economy) * people giving away high-quality content (gift economy) * more government funding of free information providers (an improved democratically-planned command economy)
The promotion of artificial scarcity (e.g. paywalls for digital content) as a way to fund content is one of the biggest problems we are facing as we transition to post-scarcity. There are several reason artificial scarcity is a problem -- but one of the biggest is that ensuring artificial scarcity in an age of technological abundance ultimately requires the equivalent of a police state monitoring everything everyone does 24X7.
There's room for hundreds of billions of people on Earth given better designs. Even if there weren't there is room for quadrillions of humans and associated biosphere in self-replicating space habitats around the solar system. http://pdfernhout.net/princeto...
Further, the big problem industrialized nations face now is actually falling populations. For an extreme example, Italy may be the future for us all (if we survive the slaughterbots and engineered plagues and nukes etc made by people with scarcity worldviews): https://www.theguardian.com/wo... ""We are very close to the threshold of non-renewal where the people dying are not replaced by new-borns. That means we are a dying country," Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said. "This situation has enormous implications for every sector: the economy, society, health, pensions, just to give a few examples," Lorenzin said. "We need a wake-up call and a real change of culture to turn the trend around in the coming years," added the minister.""
Even the USA is below replacement without immigration. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... "As of 2010, about 48% (3.3 billion people) of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility.[3] Nonetheless most of these countries still have growing populations due to immigration, population momentum and increase of the life expectancy. This includes most nations of Europe, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Tunisia, China, the United States and many others. In 2015, all European Union countries had a sub-replacement fertility rate, ranging from a low of 1.31 in Portugal to a high of 1.96 in France.[4]"
Let's say people do need an "arsenal" to keep the peace. How big should it be? The USA, for example, spends essentially all its surplus and then some on an arsenal. Which is part of why we in the USA can't have nice things like pothole-free roads without tolls, longer vacations, high speed broadband, first-rate medical care for everyone, community makerspaces everywhere, tuition-free college, and so on... https://www.nationalpriorities...
People are a lot less likely to support autocrats and so on if they aren't desperate. "The Desperate Middle-Class Voters Who Made Trump the Republican Nominee" http://time.com/money/4318531/...
Strangely, the USA has the most guns and now also is getting increasingly autocratic -- how does that fit into your model of why we need an arsenal?
Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious....
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing....
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.
They are essentially the same vision system technology, just embodied in different ways for different purposes by engineering teams with different geo-eco-political concerns and world views.
While we have 5000+ books in the house between my wife and me and a kid. But I had pretty much stopped reading entire books due to the dust in them increasingly bothering my eyes -- until I took over my wife's abandoned Kindle about two years ago. She prefers paper books and says she remembers them better.
We had also essentially run out of shelf space too, another reason I tried really hard not to buy any more books.
Since starting to use the Kindle, I've been reading books again -- maybe a couple a month on average, roughly 75% sci-fi, 20% business&personal development, and 5% history/misc. I don't like the Kindle as a concept because of its continual spying and DRM, but I like the ease of use and lack of paper dust and dust mites. I'm on book two of all of Theodore Sturgeon's collected short writings at the moment ("a Microcosmic God").
I had kind of felt books were obsolete with the web -- but I am finding I still like a well-organized reading experience without continual side link distractions (especially for entertainment novels). And psychologically, I prefer having a different device for reading books that trying to do that on a laptop I use for web surfing, video watching, or programming.
I probably am breaking the Kindle system of top highlights in books I read because I am tending to pause and highlight most of the books I read in small conceptual sections -- which I think may help me remember it and reflect on it more perhaps. I would almost never highlight anything in a physical book.
Try the EarthCent Ambassador Series E.M Foner. It has no gore, and is generally positive and funny with friendly AI.
There is also the Old Guy Cybertank adventures by Timothy Gawne which I enjoyed as hard sci fi with an AI theme but it is not as positive (even if the main character is likable). It stars a sentient WMD and involves lots of military conflicts and other challenges. There is some incidental gore and craziness, but it generally relates specifically to the plot and so is rarely pointless in that sense and is not especially dwelled on. Well, OK, now that I think about it, about a billion humans get turned into slime by space aliens in one story, but it did not seem gory at the time as it happens so quickly (even as it was tragic). In one story two cybertanks do have a cybertank child together but the description is handled tastefully. And there are vampires. Oh well, as much as I personally really want there to be one more Old Guy novel, try the other series first if you want something fluffier without any sex and violence...:-)
"The whole point of getting rich is to be able to stop working and enjoy your life properly. "
For some, the issue of obtaining wealth is about *control* and not leisure. It can be about control of others (e.g. ordering around paid servant or perhaps influencing others in society via media or such). Or it can be about having control over what you can work on yourself (e.g. open source volunteerism).
There are probably other reasons people pursue wealth or status -- including fear of poverty (e.g. perhaps someone being motivated to become US President after growing up in a broken home).
Me quoting a movie review a decade ago of "Deep Blue Sea" (spoiler) as reasons colleges need to be careful about how they educate humans (including about morals): http://www.pdfernhout.net/read... "Some scientists are out in the middle of the ocean, trying to reproduce proteins in shark's brains. These proteins are the cure for Alzheimer's, and one character even gives a half-assed speech about how she's driven by memories of her father's mental illness. Well, to harvest more protein, that scientist makes the shark's brains four times bigger than normal and now the shark's are super-smart and eat all the scientists. Hooray."
Thanks for the interesting story, AC! Glad you had an Aunt like that. We had a family fried we called "Aunt" who broadened our world too. And good point about the importance of the Twilight Zone asking questions more than providing answers.
Rod Serling had to smoke on camera as product placement because the Twilight Zone -- like many other popular TV shows -- was sponsored by the Chesterfeld cigarette company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... "Liggett & Myers [who produced Chesterfeld cigarettes] sponsored Dragnet, both on radio and on TV, during the 1950s. The 1954 theatrical version of Dragnet also had Chesterfield product placements, such as advertisements in scenes taking place at drug stores and news counters, or cigarette vending machines. Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday was seen smoking Chesterfields in the movie and TV series. Also in the 1950s, Gunsmoke on both radio and TV was similarly sponsored primarily by Chesterfields and L&Ms. At the end of The Twilight Zone, for several seasons Rod Serling frequently smoked and promoted Chesterfields. In the 1940s and 1950s Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Arthur Godfrey were among Chesterfield's official spokesmen; Chesterfield being one of the primary sponsors of the radio and TV programs of these stars during that time."
Smoking may have contributed to Sterling's tragic early death of heart attack at age 50. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... "On May 3, 1975, Serling had a minor heart attack and was hospitalized. He spent two weeks at Tompkins County Community Hospital before being released.[66] A second heart attack two weeks later forced doctors to agree that open-heart surgery, though considered risky at the time, was in order.[67][68] The ten-hour-long procedure was carried out on June 26, but Serling had a third heart attack on the operating table and died two days later at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York.[69] He was 50 years old.[63] His funeral took place on July 2."
Was promoting smoking in order to make the Twilight Zone was in a way Serling's own deal with the devil? Was it a good deal? I enjoyed the show and learned some important thought-provoking moral lessons from it. I admire Stirling for making it. But the deal perhaps took decades away from his life and the lives of many viewers. It's perhaps yet another cautionary tale from... the Twilight Zone.
Let's see how far you get in your own musical career when *you* have to pay royalties on every three word sequence or three note combination that some other musician has used before... Long expansive copyright harms almost all creative people even if it benefits a very few lottery winners.
"We have an economy that cannot function without more immigrant labor than our immigration laws allow. In the agricultural sector alone, the number of undocumented workers needed to bring in harvests is over three times the legal limit for total immigration to the US. Does that make any sense? If you could wave a magic wand and deport them all, one of the first effects the average American would feel is a dramatic increase in food prices."
That agricultural robots have taken so long to develop is due in part to not enforcing immigration laws.
I was very interested in making agricultural robots in the 1980s (having liked the movie Silent Running) -- but there was not a lot of funding for it, likely due to cheap illegal labor.
Slashdot Mirror
From my post in 2009, echoing your points: https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net...
[After citing some articles with statistics on low birth rates in most industrialized countries...]
Again, sick or dead young people can't pay for the health care of old people, nor can sick or dead young people be health care practitioners for old people. You would think old people could see it, but maybe it will take some leadership to help them see it?
Again, this is not to disagree with Michel's main point that people need to
focus on commonality to solve problems. The last paragraph in the first item makes a related analogy to old wars and how the youngjust want the same thing the older generation got. I'd suggest my point just above is one such point of commonality -- the young can not take good care of the old if the young are sick or dead.
That point by David Willetts was actually the quote in my mind when I wrote my previous reply, but I could not find it.
As with the comment on Ireland, that is why the industrialized globe is facing a "Peak Population" crisis, not a "Peak Oil" crisis, even though people are confusing the two, which is odd given solar is now (or soon will be) cheaper than coal. :-)
But, think about it, how many of the industrialized world's current problems are better explained by "Peak Population" rather than "Peak Oil"?
And how much has the "Peak Energy" misrepresentation of the "Peak Oil" fact by people like Catton led to smaller families and made worse the "Peak Population" crisis? Gloomsters and Doomsters are in that sense creating the terrible problems we are facing right now. In Voyage from Yesteryear, James P. Hogan talks about despair versus optimist in a culture, in part based on appreciation of the potential abundance energy in the universe.
The less peers that are around, the less peers can help each other and contribute to a free commons. Maybe there are laws of diminishing returns, but are we anywhere near them? What would Wikipedia be like with only 100 contributors instead of 100 thousand? Especially in a digital age, it is easy for a peer to add more to the free commons than they take away. What do you take away from Wikipedia by reading a page? A little electricity power perhaps, but Wikipedia shows us how to get all the power we need from the sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
So, even in a physical sense, Wikipedia is helping peers physically power it by giving away such knowledge.
We can support quadrillions of humans in the solar system (see my previous references to Dyson, Bernal, Savage, O'Neill, and there are many others), or about a million times our current population on Earth. We essentially had the specific technological ideas in the 1970s we needed to do that, even given refinements since then. So, a focus on zero or negative population growth for the human race as a whole right now, as opposed to just limiting the population currently on Earth (which might be sensible, even though I think we could easily grow 10X on Earth), has created a "Peak Population" crisis that we didn't need to have for 1000 years when we filled up the solar system (and by then, we would have better technology and better social ideology to deal with changing demographics of moving from a triangle to a square of population by age).
Sure, let's set a population target for some carrying capacity on Earth the same way the health and fire departments limit the maximum number of people in a restaurant. But, you don't limit the human population of a city (or the solar system) the same way you limit the number of people that can safely be in a restaurant (the Earth). That is ultimately the mistake that gloomsters like Catton make -- they confuse the two, mostly IMHO from lack of imagination, but also because some profit from artificial scarcity, as well, as
Me from 2009: https://groups.google.com/foru... ..."
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity.
Also from that essay:
"So, why don't we do this right now? I'd suggest it is mainly due to scarcity ideology creating artificial scarcity. For instance, the same computer technologies that can be used to design and operate safer cars are instead used to manage electronic credit or to produce fancy advertising and astroturfing related to promoting free market fundamentalism.
Essentially, it's all ideology (or ignorance, or corruption, or vested interests, which may all be essentially the same thing), because as I show above, it is even financially cheaper to be both financially-subsidized free-as-in-beer and open source free-as-in-freedom. There are also other various freedoms that safer free-to-the-user electric cars would give us (including freedom from seeing loved ones die in car accidents, by cancer caused by gasoline additives, or by hurricanes caused by global climate change).
So, I'd suggest, over the next ten to twenty years, this is a major change we will likely see in the USA's personal transportation system -- self-driving free-to-the-user safer electric cars (or plug-in hybrids) built using FOSS methodology. And, taxes will then go *down*, along with other direct to the user expenses for insurance, maintenance, and energy, because our transportation system will then, by adjusting for externalities (like national security, pollution, and health care costs), be cheaper overall to design, build, operate, and recycle."
While it is hard to wrap our minds around as creatures of our seemingly orderly cosmos, if there truly is nothing at all, then there are no laws at all (e.g. no conservation of matter and energy, no cause and effect), and so there is nothing to prevent anything from suddenly popping into existence (along with whatever new laws of physics).
Yes, we really need to think a lot more about how to design space habitats and try out a variety of ideas in simulation and reality. Below is an excerpt from something I posted in 2003 to an Slashdot article on "Jeff Bezos' Shot At Space":
https://science.slashdot.org/c...
While it is excellent to see multiple billionaires pursuing cheap access to space (CATS), this seems like a problem that will be much easier to solve as new materials and processes come along (diamondoid jet nozzles, fusion, etc.) in the near future. Several of these entrepreneurs are of course already using newer materials and processes (composites, active dynamics, small ground crews augmented by fancy computers and software) relative to what NASA is stuck with in maintaining an aging Shuttle.
While I would never say such innovative effort is wasted, it would seem that launch technologies, while sexy, might really deserve somewhat lower priorities than the issue of what to do when we are in space. The fact is, we can launch people now, and relatively off-the-shelf technology (e.g. Ariane or Saturn V equivalent rockets) if manufactured in large quantities are probably Cheap-enough Access To Space for the next ten to twenty years (until nano-tech makes far better launch systems possible) especially if we are willing to accept 5% human casualties for launch (which is probably a far lower casualty rate than most human settlement travel activities historically).
There is also an issue of focus -- people focus on reusable vehicles, but the reality is that it is so costly to get things into space that there is not much point in returning either people or equipment after they have been launched. At best, Apollo era reentry capsules for people who want to come back to earth are good enough. For example, the space shuttle costs so much to launch relative to its production cost it should really be left in orbit as usable equipment (since anything in orbit is worth its weight in gold), and people returned in a small capsule if at all. Even if launch costs are greatly reduced, I think that a general outward trend of humanity will still reflect some of this economics (short of a space elevator). For example, in the USA, most people who went "West" during the 1800s probably never came back East.
So where is a key area of research that should be a priority among NASA and Billionaires, but is not heavily pursued? The issue is what to do in space once you have gotten there. Because if there is a reason to be in space, then people and collectives will work to get there. And the reality is, that right now, if we could get there, there is nothing to do there short of look around and come back. And if that were the case, Space would not deserve much more investment than say tourism to Mt. Everest. The reality is that we don't know how to support human life in space -- in large part because we have only spent a pittance on thinking about that issue systematically compared to the issues of CATS and Planetary Exploration. Frankly, while we support human life on earth, we have very little meta-knowledge formally about how to do even that. And, most of figuring out how to support human life in space at a nuts and bolts level requires non-sexy activities like sitting around and staring out the window, talking, sending emails, building databases, building software tools, building some small physical protypes on tabletops and outdoors, and just plain thinking (the hard stuff). This is all the preparation needed for the spiritual voyage into the (physical) heavens. Biosphere II was an excellent start in some ways, although the science mission was a bit dodgy at first and it seems Columbia (the recipient) seems about to abandon that effort for cost reasons --- and in any case, Biosphere II focuses on the wrong question -- we know biospheres can work and replicate (although scale is an issue) -- what we don't know is how to replicate the mechanical infrastructure (e.g. glas
To start with: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... ... Promoting low-fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history... The report says the low-fat and low-cholesterol message, which has been official policy in the UK since 1983, was based on "flawed science" and had resulted in an increased consumption of junk food and carbohydrates. The document also accuses major public health bodies of colluding with the food industry, said the misplaced focus meant Britain was failing to address an obesity crisis which is costing the NHS £6 billion a year."
"Thirty years of official health advice urging people to adopt low-fat diets and to lower their cholesterol is having "disastrous health consequences," a leading obesity charity warned yesterday. "Eating fat does not make you fat," argues a new report by the National Obesity Forum (NOF) and the Public Health Collaboration, as they demanded a major overhaul of official dietary guidelines.
See also, for more details: http://drhyman.com/blog/2016/0...
The history is even more complex. A more diverse "basic seven" was replaced by a "basic four" food groups including through industry industry lobbying, especially by the dairy industry, where "milk" and "meat" became half of the groups and the dairy industry supplying printed materials for schools:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Note that most people on the planet are lactose intolerant and pushing milk on many children even in the USA via school lunch programs and dairy industry advertising is causing them health issues. Dairy may have been a better food decades ago before so much recent alteration like the widespread use of growth hormones and antibiotics. Animal fats tend to have other risks associated with them, like too much protein and a concentration of carcinogens moving up the food chain. That said, dairy products can make sense in moderation for some people and dairy farming can be a good use of some grazing land.
They key point is that the idea of a diverse diet including a lot of fresh vegetables was being narrowed to what could be most profitably sold by big agribusiness, which for decades was mostly about dairy, meat, and processed grains.
Related: http://www.macleans.ca/society...
Also related: http://ezinearticles.com/?What...
And:
https://www.alternet.org/story...
"In December 1999, the PCRM filed suit against the USDA, claiming the department unfairly promotes the special interests of the meat and dairy industries through its official dietary guidelines and the Food Pyramid. Six of the eleven members assigned to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee were demonstrated to have financial ties to meat, dairy, and egg interests. Prior to the suit, which the PCRM won in December 2000, the USDA had refused to disclose such conflicts of interest to the general public."
From lobbying, food subsidies in the USA are completely inverted compared to the (not that great) food pyramid which explains why a salad costs more than a big mac:
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
"The Farm Bill, a massive piece of federal legislation making its way through Congress, governs what children are fed in schools and what food assistance programs can distribute to recipients. The bill provides billions of dollars in subsi
From the blurb on his site: "In this New York Times bestseller, The End of Diabetes, Dr. Fuhrman, offers a scientifically proven, practical program to reverse type 2 diabetes without drugs as well as how to prevent it. Having type 1 or type 2 diabetes does not have to doom you to a shorter life span or its complications like high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney failure or blindness. Most type 2 diabetics get off their medications and become 100 percent free of diabetes by following guidelines clearly outlined in the books. By following these same steps, most type 1 diabetics can cut their insulin in half and maintain excellent health and quality of life into old age."
For so many things, as with this good yet limited study, mainstream medicine inches glacially slowly towards reversing bad ideas (e.g. fat makes you fat -- where it is really more that sugar makes you fat) that quickly took hold decades ago with next-to-no evidence (usually to some manufacturing company's profit). Even this latest study put people on a liquid diet instead of just asking them to eat more vegetables.
The big medical problem in a capitalist society is that staying healthy or becoming well is usually not very profitable to third parties. For example, insurance companies make a profit as a percent of revenue, so the sicker the general public is, the bigger the pie they are taking their cut from. The big profits are in treatment and palliation, not prevention and cure.
That said, it does take time, knowledge, and some careful shopping to eat well -- and that is continually undermined by others around you eating poorly and creating situations where poor food choices are on offer (including within families). And people under stress tend to gain weight as their body prepares for expected lean times ahead -- so there are multiple factors (like discussed in "Blue Zones"),
Dr. Mark Hyman has a lot of good stuff in this area too, like his book "The Blood Sugar Solution".
http://drhyman.com/blog/2014/1...
Also related: "The Pleasure Trap" by Douglas Lisle, Ph.D. and Alan Goldhamer , D.C.
http://web.archive.org/web/201...
"Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure -- thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new book, The Pleasure Trap, we explain this extraordinarily deceptive and problematic situation -- and how to master this hidden force that undermines health and happiness."
Some ideas by me on making software to help with health sensemaking:
https://web.archive.org/web/20...
Sad but true...
To support AC's point:
http://www.dollarsandsense.org...
https://www.energyandcapital.c...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com...
From the first one, discussing the US defense-related costs as just one aspect: "Put all these numbers in perspective: The price of a barrel of oil consumed in the United States would have to increase by $23.40 to offset military resources expended to secure oil. That translates to an additional 56 cents for a gallon of gas, or three times the federal gas tax that funds road construction. If $166 billion were spent on other priorities, the Boston public transportation system, the âoeT,â could have its operating expenses covered, with commuters riding for free. And there would still be money left over for another 100 public transport systems across the United States. Or, we could build and install nearly 50,000 wind turbines. Take your pick."
But there are many other external costs to fossil fuels like health care costs (the legacy of leaded gas is still taking a tremendous toll on our society, but air pollution in general is a killer). For example:
https://thinkprogress.org/here...
"The average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. right now is $2.47. If that cost took into account the environmental and human health costs of burning the gasoline, however, it would more than double, according to a new study. The study, published this week in the journal Climatic Change, created models for the âoesocial cost of atmospheric release,â a method of determining the costs of emissions beyond their market value. According to the study, accounting for the social costs of burning gasoline would add an average of $3.80 per gallon to the pump price, raising the price to $6.27. Diesel has an even higher social cost of $4.80 per gallon. The study also measured the social costs of other fossil fuels not used at the pump. Coal, for example, would jump from 10 cents per kilowatt hour to 42 cents per kilowatt hour, the study found. And natural gas, which has emerged in recent years as a cheap source of fuel, would see its price rise from 7 cents per kWh to 17 cents per kWh."
And on the legacy of leaded gas (and how it has contributed to the USA's huge prison populations): http://www.motherjones.com/env...
A related essay I wrote in 2009 on "Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user":
https://groups.google.com/foru...
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."
But the real answer (if maybe not politically acceptable) is not to subsidize electric cars. It is to tax *all* the externalizes of fossil fuel use at the point of purchase, bringing the cost of gas to, perhaps, US$10 a gallon or more. The tax could be redistributed as a basic income to everyone.
Perhaps the deepest irony about all this (mentioned in the above essay) is mentioned here by B
(using food as an example): http://web.archive.org/web/201...
And for screen time, books like:
* "Reset Your Child's Brain: A Four-Week Plan to End Meltdowns, Raise Grades, and Boost Social Skills by Reversing the Effects of Electronic Screen-Tim" by Victoria L. Dunckley MD"
* "Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids - and How to Break the Trance" by Nicholas Kardaras (Author)
See also for the big picture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.paulgraham.com/addi...
What do we have a material shortage of?
http://www.shirky.com/writings... ... Like the salami slicing exploit in computer crime, micropayment believers imagine that such tiny amounts of money can be extracted from the user that they will not notice, while the overall volume will cause these payments to add up to something significant for the recipient. But of course the users do notice, because they are being asked to buy something. Mental transaction costs create a minimum level of inconvenience that cannot be removed simply by lowering the dollar cost of goods. Worse, beneath a certain threshold, mental transaction costs actually rise, a phenomenon is especially significant for information goods. It's easy to think a newspaper is worth a dollar, but is each article worth half a penny? Is each word worth a thousandth of a penny? A newspaper, exposed to the logic of micropayments, becomes impossible to value. ..."
"This strategy [of micropayments] doesn't work, because the act of buying anything, even if the price is very small, creates what Nick Szabo calls mental transaction costs, the energy required to decide whether something is worth buying or not, regardless of price.
My alternative solution is a *mix* of four types of economic activities:
* people producing their own personal content through better personal tools (subsistence production)
* a basic income (to soften the rough edges and rich-get-richer exchange economy)
* people giving away high-quality content (gift economy)
* more government funding of free information providers (an improved democratically-planned command economy)
The promotion of artificial scarcity (e.g. paywalls for digital content) as a way to fund content is one of the biggest problems we are facing as we transition to post-scarcity. There are several reason artificial scarcity is a problem -- but one of the biggest is that ensuring artificial scarcity in an age of technological abundance ultimately requires the equivalent of a police state monitoring everything everyone does 24X7.
See also Alfie Kohn: http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic... and Dan Pink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There's room for hundreds of billions of people on Earth given better designs. Even if there weren't there is room for quadrillions of humans and associated biosphere in self-replicating space habitats around the solar system.
http://pdfernhout.net/princeto...
Further, the big problem industrialized nations face now is actually falling populations. For an extreme example, Italy may be the future for us all (if we survive the slaughterbots and engineered plagues and nukes etc made by people with scarcity worldviews):
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
""We are very close to the threshold of non-renewal where the people dying are not replaced by new-borns. That means we are a dying country," Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said. "This situation has enormous implications for every sector: the economy, society, health, pensions, just to give a few examples," Lorenzin said. "We need a wake-up call and a real change of culture to turn the trend around in the coming years," added the minister.""
Even the USA is below replacement without immigration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"As of 2010, about 48% (3.3 billion people) of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility.[3] Nonetheless most of these countries still have growing populations due to immigration, population momentum and increase of the life expectancy. This includes most nations of Europe, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Tunisia, China, the United States and many others. In 2015, all European Union countries had a sub-replacement fertility rate, ranging from a low of 1.31 in Portugal to a high of 1.96 in France.[4]"
Let's say people do need an "arsenal" to keep the peace. How big should it be? The USA, for example, spends essentially all its surplus and then some on an arsenal. Which is part of why we in the USA can't have nice things like pothole-free roads without tolls, longer vacations, high speed broadband, first-rate medical care for everyone, community makerspaces everywhere, tuition-free college, and so on...
https://www.nationalpriorities...
Needless competition, artificial scarcity, and huge for-profit prison populations are other reasons we can't have nice things:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
People are a lot less likely to support autocrats and so on if they aren't desperate.
"The Desperate Middle-Class Voters Who Made Trump the Republican Nominee"
http://time.com/money/4318531/...
Strangely, the USA has the most guns and now also is getting increasingly autocratic -- how does that fit into your model of why we need an arsenal?
Me being a broken record: http://www.pdfernhout.net/reco...
Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead?
Nuclear weapons are ironic because they are about using space age systems to fight over oil and land. Why not just use advanced materials as found in nuclear missiles to make renewable energy sources (like windmills or solar panels) to replace oil, or why not use rocketry to move into space by building space habitats for more land?
Biological weapons like genetically-engineered plagues are ironic because they are about using advanced life-altering biotechnology to fight over which old-fashioned humans get to occupy the planet. Why not just use advanced biotech to let people pick their skin color, or to create living arkologies and agricultural abundance for everyone everywhere?
These militaristic socio-economic ironies would be hilarious if they were not so deadly serious. ...
Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing. ...
There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all.
Contrast Samsung's Automated Machine Gun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
With Volvo's City Safety system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They are essentially the same vision system technology, just embodied in different ways for different purposes by engineering teams with different geo-eco-political concerns and world views.
While we have 5000+ books in the house between my wife and me and a kid. But I had pretty much stopped reading entire books due to the dust in them increasingly bothering my eyes -- until I took over my wife's abandoned Kindle about two years ago. She prefers paper books and says she remembers them better.
We had also essentially run out of shelf space too, another reason I tried really hard not to buy any more books.
Since starting to use the Kindle, I've been reading books again -- maybe a couple a month on average, roughly 75% sci-fi, 20% business&personal development, and 5% history/misc. I don't like the Kindle as a concept because of its continual spying and DRM, but I like the ease of use and lack of paper dust and dust mites. I'm on book two of all of Theodore Sturgeon's collected short writings at the moment ("a Microcosmic God").
I had kind of felt books were obsolete with the web -- but I am finding I still like a well-organized reading experience without continual side link distractions (especially for entertainment novels). And psychologically, I prefer having a different device for reading books that trying to do that on a laptop I use for web surfing, video watching, or programming.
I probably am breaking the Kindle system of top highlights in books I read because I am tending to pause and highlight most of the books I read in small conceptual sections -- which I think may help me remember it and reflect on it more perhaps. I would almost never highlight anything in a physical book.
Try the EarthCent Ambassador Series E.M Foner. It has no gore, and is generally positive and funny with friendly AI.
There is also the Old Guy Cybertank adventures by Timothy Gawne which I enjoyed as hard sci fi with an AI theme but it is not as positive (even if the main character is likable). It stars a sentient WMD and involves lots of military conflicts and other challenges. There is some incidental gore and craziness, but it generally relates specifically to the plot and so is rarely pointless in that sense and is not especially dwelled on. Well, OK, now that I think about it, about a billion humans get turned into slime by space aliens in one story, but it did not seem gory at the time as it happens so quickly (even as it was tragic). In one story two cybertanks do have a cybertank child together but the description is handled tastefully. And there are vampires. Oh well, as much as I personally really want there to be one more Old Guy novel, try the other series first if you want something fluffier without any sex and violence... :-)
"The whole point of getting rich is to be able to stop working and enjoy your life properly. "
For some, the issue of obtaining wealth is about *control* and not leisure. It can be about control of others (e.g. ordering around paid servant or perhaps influencing others in society via media or such). Or it can be about having control over what you can work on yourself (e.g. open source volunteerism).
There are probably other reasons people pursue wealth or status -- including fear of poverty (e.g. perhaps someone being motivated to become US President after growing up in a broken home).
Me quoting a movie review a decade ago of "Deep Blue Sea" (spoiler) as reasons colleges need to be careful about how they educate humans (including about morals): http://www.pdfernhout.net/read...
"Some scientists are out in the middle of the ocean, trying to reproduce proteins in shark's brains. These proteins are the cure for Alzheimer's, and one character even gives a half-assed speech about how she's driven by memories of her father's mental illness. Well, to harvest more protein, that scientist makes the shark's brains four times bigger than normal and now the shark's are super-smart and eat all the scientists. Hooray."
And ants are far smarter than people? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Thanks for the interesting story, AC! Glad you had an Aunt like that. We had a family fried we called "Aunt" who broadened our world too. And good point about the importance of the Twilight Zone asking questions more than providing answers.
Rod Serling had to smoke on camera as product placement because the Twilight Zone -- like many other popular TV shows -- was sponsored by the Chesterfeld cigarette company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Liggett & Myers [who produced Chesterfeld cigarettes] sponsored Dragnet, both on radio and on TV, during the 1950s. The 1954 theatrical version of Dragnet also had Chesterfield product placements, such as advertisements in scenes taking place at drug stores and news counters, or cigarette vending machines. Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday was seen smoking Chesterfields in the movie and TV series. Also in the 1950s, Gunsmoke on both radio and TV was similarly sponsored primarily by Chesterfields and L&Ms. At the end of The Twilight Zone, for several seasons Rod Serling frequently smoked and promoted Chesterfields. In the 1940s and 1950s Ronald Reagan, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Arthur Godfrey were among Chesterfield's official spokesmen; Chesterfield being one of the primary sponsors of the radio and TV programs of these stars during that time."
Sad how then and now so much evil addiction is foisted on the world in order to make a buck.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.paulgraham.com/addi...
http://web.archive.org/web/201...
Smoking may have contributed to Sterling's tragic early death of heart attack at age 50.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"On May 3, 1975, Serling had a minor heart attack and was hospitalized. He spent two weeks at Tompkins County Community Hospital before being released.[66] A second heart attack two weeks later forced doctors to agree that open-heart surgery, though considered risky at the time, was in order.[67][68] The ten-hour-long procedure was carried out on June 26, but Serling had a third heart attack on the operating table and died two days later at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York.[69] He was 50 years old.[63] His funeral took place on July 2."
https://www.webmd.com/heart-di...
"About 20% of deaths from heart disease in the U.S. are directly related to smoking."
Was promoting smoking in order to make the Twilight Zone was in a way Serling's own deal with the devil? Was it a good deal? I enjoyed the show and learned some important thought-provoking moral lessons from it. I admire Stirling for making it. But the deal perhaps took decades away from his life and the lives of many viewers. It's perhaps yet another cautionary tale from ... the Twilight Zone.
https://biblipole.com/Funny-St...
That's a humorous image, but when you think about it, it shows how the psychology and rewards for testers are different than for developers.
Let's see how far you get in your own musical career when *you* have to pay royalties on every three word sequence or three note combination that some other musician has used before... Long expansive copyright harms almost all creative people even if it benefits a very few lottery winners.
Networks of aerostat micro drones that shift electric charge to each other as needed (a bit like ants sharing food): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"We have an economy that cannot function without more immigrant labor than our immigration laws allow. In the agricultural sector alone, the number of undocumented workers needed to bring in harvests is over three times the legal limit for total immigration to the US. Does that make any sense? If you could wave a magic wand and deport them all, one of the first effects the average American would feel is a dramatic increase in food prices."
There are many people who would be happy to make robots to do agricultural labor. Examples:
https://www.intorobotics.com/3...
That agricultural robots have taken so long to develop is due in part to not enforcing immigration laws.
I was very interested in making agricultural robots in the 1980s (having liked the movie Silent Running) -- but there was not a lot of funding for it, likely due to cheap illegal labor.