You have a pretty unique setup. I've never heard of anyone heating their home using solar generated electricity at night.
It's the most common setup ever. I guess you haven't looked into how PV systems are constructed. It's called "grid-tied inverter." The PV sends the energy into the grid during daytime, at higher rate, and I consume the energy from the grid at night, at lower rate. I have a net meter, it is specially built to measure power consumed and generated, at different time of day. I pay only for the connection to the grid ($8/mo) and I would pay for any energy consumed over the year - or, in my case, I get paid by the utility for the energy that I overproduced (for others) over the same year. The rates for overproduction are lower, though, so you design your PV system just to meet your needs, with some margin.
I'm not sure what the problem is. I also use resistive electric heaters; my power comes from my own solar panels. I have enough of them to never purchase power from the utility. What is there not to like?
I also have an LP gas tank, and some gas heaters. I am rarely firing them up. Gas is expensive.
At the national average of 12c/kwh a typical LED bulb will pay for itself in 2.5 years and last well over 5 years.
You cannot claim that without knowing the duty cycle of the bulb. What if it is installed in a closet, and is powered for 5 minutes per month?
And here is the problem of the LED. It is a good source of light if you need that light 24/7 or somewhat close to that. But, if my experience is in any way common, the majority of light bulbs in the house are only used on demand - and that demand is not very high. But you have to have light in places like guest bathrooms, closets, some hallways, some unused rooms, patio, garage, etc. It would be very expensive to replace all these light bulbs that are hardly ever powered up, and you would never see any savings, even if you buy the $10 LED bulb instead of a $1-$2 incandescent bulb. Furthermore, you'd be spending the money up front, which is more expensive than paying as you go, and you would be carrying the risk that some of those super-long-life LED bulbs fail, robbing you of all expected savings.
If you're talking heat output, the lightbulb would be 90%, not 10%
The lightbulb would be nearly 100% effective as a heat source, except the light that escapes through the windows. All other light, regardless of the wavelength, is absorbed by the walls and the furniture and is converted into heat.
The only catch with using lightbulbs for heating is their location. They are convectively and conductively heating the ceiling, not the floor. In many houses this is not efficient at all.
The article says: Mr. Snowden has said he would return to the United States if he was offered amnesty, but it is unclear whether Mr. Obama â" who would most likely have to make such a decision â" would make such an offer.
Even if the offer is ever made, Snowden would have to be a complete fool to accept it. He may never be prosecuted for the data leak; however the government will be free to legally fry him for any other crime that he may be framed for. Or, if that is not desirable, he may become another victim of criminals, who would never be found.
What I mean to say: Have you submitted to the idea that you have no rights yourself ?
Having rights, and having those rights respected by others, logically are two different things. Technically, however, the only thing that matters is what men with guns tell you.
The GPS reading on your phone may not change even if the calculation uses triangulation. The fake tower only needs to transmit its correct position.
And how would you "question" "that" tower? A cell phone does not tell you much about anything, and it has no controls to select one tower or another. Perhaps a criminal could turn the phone off; this would make this whole scheme even worse: only honest people would be spied upon.
Cell phone bands are licensed to providers (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) They paid big bucks for the licenses. Nobody else is legally allowed to use those frequencies. A "tower in a suitcase" would be a major violation of the rights of license holders.
I do not know if FCC allows the law enforcement to violate FCC's own rules and regulations. (Those are not laws, as I understand - if you run a pirate radio station you will be fined, but not imprisoned.) But why the police should care? Nobody is going to arrest them. The police can raid your home at 3am, kick your door in, shoot your dog and perhaps you, and nobody (except you) will be in trouble.
Confidence crash. USD has value not so much because it can be spent as it does because of confidence in a group of inbred whackjobs most Americans consider little short of "enemies of the state".
I don't know why you associate stability of the USD with the US Government and Congress. The USD is stable for one simple reason: you can buy stuff with it. You can buy it today, and in any volume. You can buy the entire oil output of Saudi Arabia with it. In fact, that's exactly what is happening. The USD is stabilized by an enormous mass of vendors that are willing to trade their goods for USD.
The opposite is the problem of BTC. It is not used in economy, for many reasons. This means that the BTC value can go 50% up or down within an hour, and there is nothing to dampen the oscillation.
* Just one specific peeve - You can buy just about anything with BTC today
"about nothing" - FTFY. The only thing that you can reliably buy with BTC is other currencies.
Besides, why would you want to spend BTC on a cup of coffee if that same BTC will double in price within a year? You would be better off paying in local currency, which is inflating, and keeping the BTC. Spending the coin is unwise; only true fanatics of BTC would do that, against their own interests.
Even if the company owns all the EVs in the parking lot, it makes no sense to use light and expensive Lithium Ion batteries if you can just permanently install a large bank of lead-acid batteries that are *designed* for the duty and time-tested in many installations, from telephone switches to submarines. Those would be working automatically, without humans needing to plug and unplug them two or more times per day. They would also be a battery backup for all the computing equipment in the building.
Even in general it does not make much sense to do load smoothing at each and every business. This should be done at the power plant, using more efficient technologies.
It's a good idea, but you don't use batteries for this. They are horrible. The charging losses will be greater than your savings; the batteries wear out; they are ecologically harmful to produce and to recycle, and they are expensive. There are industrial setups that achieve the same goal. They often use reversible motor-generators that pump water uphill during the night and produce energy during the day. Water does not wear out, so the only replaceable part in this setup is the bearings of the propeller (or whatever they use to move the water.) Such a setup is often found in a solar power plant that has to deliver power 24/7.
"Why not just do this using batteries--never mind the cars?"
Batteries have a limited number of recharge cycles, and they are very expensive (1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of the vehicle.) It's much easier to stick those expenses to the employees.
Other than that, yes, it would make a lot of sense to use stationary batteries. They wouldn't have to be light and small, for one. However it remains to be seen if the saved 2% is enough to pay for all the equipment.
What's needed is a way to inculcate an ethos of desiring the constructive pursuits and reviling the destructive pursuits.
This reminds me of hopeless, failed attempts of USSR to inculcate an ethos of "the new man who would be fit for the new Communist society." This is not possible. Humans are not driven by collective benefit, as ants are. Humans are driven by personal benefit. Many attempts were made in USSR to change this, and all of them have failed. Why should this one succeed? There is no reason. Humans always seek advantage. Those who don't, happily live and work in a kibbutz. They are an insignificant minority.
Perhaps one day you could put some high power hypnoinductors onto satellites and reprogram all humans to be like ants. But then they wouldn't be humans anymore. All the history of humans, as well of many advanced animals, is the history of domination and obedience. Humans excel in forming tribes, and then in negotiating the highest position in that tribe that they can get. This is not something that will work well in a society that is free of need to work. You would have millions of petty dictators. Some would be legitimately judging you; other will be simply beating you up whenever they can. One doesn't need to be elected to be feared. A criminal in a liberal society would be like a fox in a chicken coop.
The need to work is, in fact, preventing many troubles in the society simply because tired workers have no time to form militia, or walk the streets and kick the $hit out of @victims. They think that their life has value; they think that they make sacrifice for some greater good. A kid raised in a "communist" society (where everything is available) will never learn the value of anything. He will burn your house just for fun, and will then suggest to order a new one. This is not just a theory - this pattern of behavior is known among rich and stupid kids, whose parents provided them with more money than brains. In the new society everyone will be infinitely rich; and once you have everything, what do you do then? Creative activities are not for everyone; otherwise every "disadvantaged" kid would get paint and canvas and start making one masterpiece after another. This is just not happening.
Life before technology was physically brutish indeed, but it was psychologically satisfying because the worker did good work and reaped its results. Life in a roboticized society may be easier physically, but psychologically it may result in suicides. That is, if the society manages to transition from the capitalist society to the communist society. People say that "there are ways from here to there," but nobody comes up with specifics. Especially with specifics that do not involve magic, such as 6+ billion humans changing their entire mindset overnight.
If you are a small business you simply cannot afford to NOT use a payroll company. Is it your core competence to study obscure and ever-changing tax laws in your city, county, state, and federal? Is it your core competence to deal with tables of withholding? Is it your core competence to even know about payroll tax, or risk impossible fines in case you, the owner, failed to note something that IRS clearly explains only to CPAs? Or, perhaps, your core competence is something else - programming, enginering, design?
You may want to publish some of those ways, or to link to them at least. Otherwise how can anyone discuss your assertion?
The plan should account for the following problems, among other:
* Who will invest money into a fully automated factory? What will be ROI of that factory?
* Some outside labor has to be paid for, such as iron ore that has to be mined by humans, by hand (for example.) Those humans will want to be paid. Normally this becomes a part of the product's cost. How will the product be able to sell for zero dollars? Who will pay the miners? Or, perhaps, the miners will work for free, whereas their city brethren will be getting the same goods for nothing?
* Or let's say that the cost is not zero; each car costs $100. These monies will be sent, in their entirety, to the iron ore miners. Everything else is done by robots. How will the people in cities, who are not employed anymore, be able to afford a $100 purchase if they earn exactly zero?
I'm curious how those plans deal with such transitional problems. (They wouldn't exist if all production is switched to robots overnight. But that's unpossible.) Note that similar problems[1] led to stagnation and destruction of Socialism in USSR; those are very real problems.
---
[1] Nobody was willing to work hard because hard work had not resulted in visible, positive change of person's status, wealth, or any other valuable aspects of life. Quite opposite was observed: the hard workers were carrying the workload of a large group of people, most of whom did nothing and just laughed at the workaholic. Good work became a fool's errand. In my example here, miners would be risking their lives in mines, but consumers in cities would be taking their product for free, and not even "thank you" will be said. What sane miner would want to work? What would you give to a miner to appreciate his efforts if money is worthless?
You don't need to go farther than California to find an example of the government blackmailing people for "back taxes". Fortunately, this time, the tax-hungry government was stopped in its tracks. However who in India will oppose taxing of a faraway, rich company?
Your employer has a right to risk that his checks are lost in the mail; and he has a right to pay for printing, signing, and mailing those pieces of paper.
Every sane payroll services company offers direct deposit. It is not difficult to set up, and it is better in every aspect.
The patent does mention "digital cash," and BTC is that. However the patent is not about creating new coins from thin air. The patent is simply about software that allows you to pay using your existing accounts with banks (they mention c/c.) The payment, however, is anonymous, and very cheap. That's all.
One problem is that there is no smooth transition from "here" to "there." More and more people are losing their service jobs. Manufacturing jobs, outside of restaurants, are gone already. Fast food restaurants will soon switch to robots to make sandwiches, and every customer will be happy about that. A sandwich place will be open 24/7, will be assembling sandwiches repeatably and accurately, with ingredients that you can infinitely specify, with prices that track what exactly, and how much, you consume, and with guarantee that your sandwich was never touched by dirty hands.
Another problem is that you cannot "free people up to not have to work." Humans cannot sit idly. They go crazy. Just see what's happening in ghettos, where inhabitants have too much free time and too little to do. Futurists assured us that in the future people will be working one hour per week, and the rest will be spent on art, books, travel, and other creative and pleasing activities. But nothing of the sort is happening in ghettos. People there could spend years learning the arts. Unfortunately, the only art they are interested in is the "knock-out game" violence. They don't read; they don't even speak the same language as the rest of the country does. In essence, they self-segregate. Perhaps a sociologist could say that this is a natural development, formation of tribes. But this is not a welcome development.
You could see this process in works of Vassily Golovachev (don't know if any are translated.) He started a couple decades ago with a vision of a bright future, Star Trek style, where people cooperate and achieve great heights together. But around the edge of the century he developed lots of pessimism in his futuristic vision. It became so bad that the dividing line is even visible within one trilogy (The Black Man.) What would people do, young and old, if they know that they do not matter, they are not needed, and nothing that they do has any importance? The escape into arts and culture is not for everyone. The younger people would band up together to disprove that theory - usually by forming gangs and assaulting other people for fun, just to show them who is the boss. The older people will gain control over the planet. None of that would be done to gain material wealth. It will be done only to enjoy strength and power over others, since this is not only the most powerful motive of all human activity, but also the one that no robot and no automated factory can deliver. (Unless, of course, that factory makes robot soldiers.) The social competition will continue, just on another game board, and with another figures. But the end result is always the same: domination over others. Not everyone is afflicted with this malady, but enough are.
No. But my level of responsibility may result in my own death by execution...or, perhaps worse, the rest of my life incarcerated instead of enjoying the liberty that I so proudly speak of.
I do not object to you doing anything that could cause your own demise. For example, you won't hear a word from me if you drive without a seat belt. Some say that it increases expenses of the society on your treatment, but honestly it's peanuts. Seat belts are life-saving... but a free man should be able to not use them if he wants so, and nobody else is in danger.
That said: Have you ever driven on a road where you are going 2 or 3 times faster than any normal traffic?
Never. I'd hate doing that even if it were legal. (I can imagine that you could do it on a road that has limit of 60 mph but the traffic consists exclusively of Amish buggies.) Or you could do that in Germany. The problem for me would be *at least* that I'd have to pass every single vehicle on the road. (If there are none, then you cannot say that you are 3x faster than them.) I'm lazy; I don't want to pass anyone.
Drama? None. Special skills required by other drivers encountered? None: In the pavement-colored car I had at that time, chances were good that they never even saw me coming...before I "passed them like they were standing still."
It only means that they could at any time swerve into your path if they had a piece of debris in the lane. They didn't see you, and they didn't expect you to show up if 5 seconds before they looked in the mirror and saw just asphalt behind. It was incredibly dangerous.
In case of a collision at 100 mph you'd be dead, of course. And so would be the occupants of the car that you just exploded into fine dust, simply because you wanted to save 12 minutes of time.
But was that time really saved? I would listen to the radio, or music, or use a hands-free cell phone. I would look at the nature. I would think. I do all that on my road trips. I don't exceed the posted speed - there is no reason to do so. It may save me 30 minutes or 1 hour... but that time would be immediately wasted on reading Slashdot, for example... and I wouldn't be better or worse off if I do that or don't.
That actually connects with the question of speed. If you are flying by everyone else, you have to focus on your driving. There is no room for mistakes. You cannot afford time to relax. Perhaps you love to live your life in the lane #1, and you enjoy to be always stressed out. I don't. When I drive in the middle or right lane I have plenty of space to other vehicles, and the relative speed on freeways is nearly zero (everyone is on cruise control.) I can eat something, drink coffee, select a CD... all that without any danger whatsoever. I really relax on my road trips, and I like them that way. Time is immaterial.
If they put up a statue of Satan, how will we distinguish it from the statues of politicians?
The statue of Satan would be the cleanest of them all. Satan never hurt anyone. Politicians are hurting the people all the time, just by existing - not even mentioning the laws that they foist on the people.
It's the product of rantings of the deranges carried forward through centuries of ignorance.
It would be unwise to declare the Bible a "rantings of the deranges." The religion was intentionally shaped into a tool to keep slaves and serfs content, and to keep the priests wealthy. Even the current Pope is not willing to give his palace to sick and poor. What stops him from providing his sermons from a cave? Jesus did not speak from temple's windows, and he did not reside in palaces.
The religion was doomed to become such a tool since it had no oversight from the deity (likely because there isn't one up there.) Humans quickly realized the value of religion; job of a priest (shaman) was respected in all primitive tribes, even though, outside of traditional healing techniques, a shaman couldn't offer much to anyone. It's not by chance that the Bible calls for nonresistance and tells you to love your oppressor. It's by design - and that design was done by smartest minds of the era.
Generally, this is true. However there are two things that play a role here. The first one is called "lawful order" - it means that a LEO is allowed to demand that people do or not do certain things, and the people are required to comply. For example, you may be instructed to drive around an accident scene. The second one is called "common sense." If a cop approaches you and tells you that your car is parked at a private property, and the owner of the property is requesting that you remove it, there is nothing really that you should be arguing about. The proper way to react here - regardless of who told you the news - is to apologize for inconvenience and leave. Outside of general human rights, you have not that many rights on someone else's private property. It's obvious that you can't park your car (even without charging!) and play tennis unless the owner is OK with that.
If you do not want to comply with that request, yes, you can be forced to obey (by the way of being arrested.) Then the judge will review the situation. This would be a very impractical solution. By making a scene you are just adding charges. The original request could be to move your car; but the final one would be battery against a law enforcement officer. A far better method is to comply immediately, but record everything and then file a lawsuit against those who violated your rights.
Once again, the lack of stability control should be a moot point when someone is driving legally. If there is a circumstance where someone has lost control, it is likely that broken equipment or broken laws were involved.
One could be driving legally, and still have to brake aggressively, or steer, around a child in the road, or a deer, or a stone that just fell onto the roadway from high above. You can drive at a reasonable speed on a dry road, and then encounter a blind turn that is icy, wet, or covered in oil. Not only your own car may fail (as if it's your fault,) - someone else's car may fail too. In those circumstances the safety equipment may save your behind. Safety equipment is a good idea on all cars on public roads. Not all cars may be equipped with everything that a human genius can invent, but you should use what you paid for.
Once you are on a racing track you are free to disconnect each and every safety device that you think you don't want. The racer will be at home only among other drivers with similar intent. Naturally, if some of them collide and kill each other... it's just too bad. But they will not take a family of five with them. Everyone who risks his life on a racetrack is doing it willingly, and it's certainly their right to do so.
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You have a pretty unique setup. I've never heard of anyone heating their home using solar generated electricity at night.
It's the most common setup ever. I guess you haven't looked into how PV systems are constructed. It's called "grid-tied inverter." The PV sends the energy into the grid during daytime, at higher rate, and I consume the energy from the grid at night, at lower rate. I have a net meter, it is specially built to measure power consumed and generated, at different time of day. I pay only for the connection to the grid ($8/mo) and I would pay for any energy consumed over the year - or, in my case, I get paid by the utility for the energy that I overproduced (for others) over the same year. The rates for overproduction are lower, though, so you design your PV system just to meet your needs, with some margin.
I'm not sure what the problem is. I also use resistive electric heaters; my power comes from my own solar panels. I have enough of them to never purchase power from the utility. What is there not to like?
I also have an LP gas tank, and some gas heaters. I am rarely firing them up. Gas is expensive.
At the national average of 12c/kwh a typical LED bulb will pay for itself in 2.5 years and last well over 5 years.
You cannot claim that without knowing the duty cycle of the bulb. What if it is installed in a closet, and is powered for 5 minutes per month?
And here is the problem of the LED. It is a good source of light if you need that light 24/7 or somewhat close to that. But, if my experience is in any way common, the majority of light bulbs in the house are only used on demand - and that demand is not very high. But you have to have light in places like guest bathrooms, closets, some hallways, some unused rooms, patio, garage, etc. It would be very expensive to replace all these light bulbs that are hardly ever powered up, and you would never see any savings, even if you buy the $10 LED bulb instead of a $1-$2 incandescent bulb. Furthermore, you'd be spending the money up front, which is more expensive than paying as you go, and you would be carrying the risk that some of those super-long-life LED bulbs fail, robbing you of all expected savings.
If you're talking heat output, the lightbulb would be 90%, not 10%
The lightbulb would be nearly 100% effective as a heat source, except the light that escapes through the windows. All other light, regardless of the wavelength, is absorbed by the walls and the furniture and is converted into heat.
The only catch with using lightbulbs for heating is their location. They are convectively and conductively heating the ceiling, not the floor. In many houses this is not efficient at all.
The article says: Mr. Snowden has said he would return to the United States if he was offered amnesty, but it is unclear whether Mr. Obama â" who would most likely have to make such a decision â" would make such an offer.
Even if the offer is ever made, Snowden would have to be a complete fool to accept it. He may never be prosecuted for the data leak; however the government will be free to legally fry him for any other crime that he may be framed for. Or, if that is not desirable, he may become another victim of criminals, who would never be found.
What I mean to say: Have you submitted to the idea that you have no rights yourself ?
Having rights, and having those rights respected by others, logically are two different things. Technically, however, the only thing that matters is what men with guns tell you.
The GPS reading on your phone may not change even if the calculation uses triangulation. The fake tower only needs to transmit its correct position.
And how would you "question" "that" tower? A cell phone does not tell you much about anything, and it has no controls to select one tower or another. Perhaps a criminal could turn the phone off; this would make this whole scheme even worse: only honest people would be spied upon.
Cell phone bands are licensed to providers (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) They paid big bucks for the licenses. Nobody else is legally allowed to use those frequencies. A "tower in a suitcase" would be a major violation of the rights of license holders.
I do not know if FCC allows the law enforcement to violate FCC's own rules and regulations. (Those are not laws, as I understand - if you run a pirate radio station you will be fined, but not imprisoned.) But why the police should care? Nobody is going to arrest them. The police can raid your home at 3am, kick your door in, shoot your dog and perhaps you, and nobody (except you) will be in trouble.
Confidence crash. USD has value not so much because it can be spent as it does because of confidence in a group of inbred whackjobs most Americans consider little short of "enemies of the state".
I don't know why you associate stability of the USD with the US Government and Congress. The USD is stable for one simple reason: you can buy stuff with it. You can buy it today, and in any volume. You can buy the entire oil output of Saudi Arabia with it. In fact, that's exactly what is happening. The USD is stabilized by an enormous mass of vendors that are willing to trade their goods for USD.
The opposite is the problem of BTC. It is not used in economy, for many reasons. This means that the BTC value can go 50% up or down within an hour, and there is nothing to dampen the oscillation.
* Just one specific peeve - You can buy just about anything with BTC today
"about nothing" - FTFY. The only thing that you can reliably buy with BTC is other currencies.
Besides, why would you want to spend BTC on a cup of coffee if that same BTC will double in price within a year? You would be better off paying in local currency, which is inflating, and keeping the BTC. Spending the coin is unwise; only true fanatics of BTC would do that, against their own interests.
You have succeeded in proving that Karmashock is correct.
Even if the company owns all the EVs in the parking lot, it makes no sense to use light and expensive Lithium Ion batteries if you can just permanently install a large bank of lead-acid batteries that are *designed* for the duty and time-tested in many installations, from telephone switches to submarines. Those would be working automatically, without humans needing to plug and unplug them two or more times per day. They would also be a battery backup for all the computing equipment in the building.
Even in general it does not make much sense to do load smoothing at each and every business. This should be done at the power plant, using more efficient technologies.
It's a good idea, but you don't use batteries for this. They are horrible. The charging losses will be greater than your savings; the batteries wear out; they are ecologically harmful to produce and to recycle, and they are expensive. There are industrial setups that achieve the same goal. They often use reversible motor-generators that pump water uphill during the night and produce energy during the day. Water does not wear out, so the only replaceable part in this setup is the bearings of the propeller (or whatever they use to move the water.) Such a setup is often found in a solar power plant that has to deliver power 24/7.
"Why not just do this using batteries--never mind the cars?"
Batteries have a limited number of recharge cycles, and they are very expensive (1/3 to 1/2 of the cost of the vehicle.) It's much easier to stick those expenses to the employees.
Other than that, yes, it would make a lot of sense to use stationary batteries. They wouldn't have to be light and small, for one. However it remains to be seen if the saved 2% is enough to pay for all the equipment.
What's needed is a way to inculcate an ethos of desiring the constructive pursuits and reviling the destructive pursuits.
This reminds me of hopeless, failed attempts of USSR to inculcate an ethos of "the new man who would be fit for the new Communist society." This is not possible. Humans are not driven by collective benefit, as ants are. Humans are driven by personal benefit. Many attempts were made in USSR to change this, and all of them have failed. Why should this one succeed? There is no reason. Humans always seek advantage. Those who don't, happily live and work in a kibbutz. They are an insignificant minority.
Perhaps one day you could put some high power hypnoinductors onto satellites and reprogram all humans to be like ants. But then they wouldn't be humans anymore. All the history of humans, as well of many advanced animals, is the history of domination and obedience. Humans excel in forming tribes, and then in negotiating the highest position in that tribe that they can get. This is not something that will work well in a society that is free of need to work. You would have millions of petty dictators. Some would be legitimately judging you; other will be simply beating you up whenever they can. One doesn't need to be elected to be feared. A criminal in a liberal society would be like a fox in a chicken coop.
The need to work is, in fact, preventing many troubles in the society simply because tired workers have no time to form militia, or walk the streets and kick the $hit out of @victims. They think that their life has value; they think that they make sacrifice for some greater good. A kid raised in a "communist" society (where everything is available) will never learn the value of anything. He will burn your house just for fun, and will then suggest to order a new one. This is not just a theory - this pattern of behavior is known among rich and stupid kids, whose parents provided them with more money than brains. In the new society everyone will be infinitely rich; and once you have everything, what do you do then? Creative activities are not for everyone; otherwise every "disadvantaged" kid would get paint and canvas and start making one masterpiece after another. This is just not happening.
Life before technology was physically brutish indeed, but it was psychologically satisfying because the worker did good work and reaped its results. Life in a roboticized society may be easier physically, but psychologically it may result in suicides. That is, if the society manages to transition from the capitalist society to the communist society. People say that "there are ways from here to there," but nobody comes up with specifics. Especially with specifics that do not involve magic, such as 6+ billion humans changing their entire mindset overnight.
If you are a small business you simply cannot afford to NOT use a payroll company. Is it your core competence to study obscure and ever-changing tax laws in your city, county, state, and federal? Is it your core competence to deal with tables of withholding? Is it your core competence to even know about payroll tax, or risk impossible fines in case you, the owner, failed to note something that IRS clearly explains only to CPAs? Or, perhaps, your core competence is something else - programming, enginering, design?
You may want to publish some of those ways, or to link to them at least. Otherwise how can anyone discuss your assertion?
The plan should account for the following problems, among other:
I'm curious how those plans deal with such transitional problems. (They wouldn't exist if all production is switched to robots overnight. But that's unpossible.) Note that similar problems[1] led to stagnation and destruction of Socialism in USSR; those are very real problems. --- [1] Nobody was willing to work hard because hard work had not resulted in visible, positive change of person's status, wealth, or any other valuable aspects of life. Quite opposite was observed: the hard workers were carrying the workload of a large group of people, most of whom did nothing and just laughed at the workaholic. Good work became a fool's errand. In my example here, miners would be risking their lives in mines, but consumers in cities would be taking their product for free, and not even "thank you" will be said. What sane miner would want to work? What would you give to a miner to appreciate his efforts if money is worthless?
You don't need to go farther than California to find an example of the government blackmailing people for "back taxes". Fortunately, this time, the tax-hungry government was stopped in its tracks. However who in India will oppose taxing of a faraway, rich company?
Your employer has a right to risk that his checks are lost in the mail; and he has a right to pay for printing, signing, and mailing those pieces of paper.
Every sane payroll services company offers direct deposit. It is not difficult to set up, and it is better in every aspect.
The patent does mention "digital cash," and BTC is that. However the patent is not about creating new coins from thin air. The patent is simply about software that allows you to pay using your existing accounts with banks (they mention c/c.) The payment, however, is anonymous, and very cheap. That's all.
One problem is that there is no smooth transition from "here" to "there." More and more people are losing their service jobs. Manufacturing jobs, outside of restaurants, are gone already. Fast food restaurants will soon switch to robots to make sandwiches, and every customer will be happy about that. A sandwich place will be open 24/7, will be assembling sandwiches repeatably and accurately, with ingredients that you can infinitely specify, with prices that track what exactly, and how much, you consume, and with guarantee that your sandwich was never touched by dirty hands.
Another problem is that you cannot "free people up to not have to work." Humans cannot sit idly. They go crazy. Just see what's happening in ghettos, where inhabitants have too much free time and too little to do. Futurists assured us that in the future people will be working one hour per week, and the rest will be spent on art, books, travel, and other creative and pleasing activities. But nothing of the sort is happening in ghettos. People there could spend years learning the arts. Unfortunately, the only art they are interested in is the "knock-out game" violence. They don't read; they don't even speak the same language as the rest of the country does. In essence, they self-segregate. Perhaps a sociologist could say that this is a natural development, formation of tribes. But this is not a welcome development.
You could see this process in works of Vassily Golovachev (don't know if any are translated.) He started a couple decades ago with a vision of a bright future, Star Trek style, where people cooperate and achieve great heights together. But around the edge of the century he developed lots of pessimism in his futuristic vision. It became so bad that the dividing line is even visible within one trilogy (The Black Man.) What would people do, young and old, if they know that they do not matter, they are not needed, and nothing that they do has any importance? The escape into arts and culture is not for everyone. The younger people would band up together to disprove that theory - usually by forming gangs and assaulting other people for fun, just to show them who is the boss. The older people will gain control over the planet. None of that would be done to gain material wealth. It will be done only to enjoy strength and power over others, since this is not only the most powerful motive of all human activity, but also the one that no robot and no automated factory can deliver. (Unless, of course, that factory makes robot soldiers.) The social competition will continue, just on another game board, and with another figures. But the end result is always the same: domination over others. Not everyone is afflicted with this malady, but enough are.
No. But my level of responsibility may result in my own death by execution...or, perhaps worse, the rest of my life incarcerated instead of enjoying the liberty that I so proudly speak of.
I do not object to you doing anything that could cause your own demise. For example, you won't hear a word from me if you drive without a seat belt. Some say that it increases expenses of the society on your treatment, but honestly it's peanuts. Seat belts are life-saving... but a free man should be able to not use them if he wants so, and nobody else is in danger.
That said: Have you ever driven on a road where you are going 2 or 3 times faster than any normal traffic?
Never. I'd hate doing that even if it were legal. (I can imagine that you could do it on a road that has limit of 60 mph but the traffic consists exclusively of Amish buggies.) Or you could do that in Germany. The problem for me would be *at least* that I'd have to pass every single vehicle on the road. (If there are none, then you cannot say that you are 3x faster than them.) I'm lazy; I don't want to pass anyone.
Drama? None. Special skills required by other drivers encountered? None: In the pavement-colored car I had at that time, chances were good that they never even saw me coming...before I "passed them like they were standing still."
It only means that they could at any time swerve into your path if they had a piece of debris in the lane. They didn't see you, and they didn't expect you to show up if 5 seconds before they looked in the mirror and saw just asphalt behind. It was incredibly dangerous.
In case of a collision at 100 mph you'd be dead, of course. And so would be the occupants of the car that you just exploded into fine dust, simply because you wanted to save 12 minutes of time.
But was that time really saved? I would listen to the radio, or music, or use a hands-free cell phone. I would look at the nature. I would think. I do all that on my road trips. I don't exceed the posted speed - there is no reason to do so. It may save me 30 minutes or 1 hour... but that time would be immediately wasted on reading Slashdot, for example... and I wouldn't be better or worse off if I do that or don't.
That actually connects with the question of speed. If you are flying by everyone else, you have to focus on your driving. There is no room for mistakes. You cannot afford time to relax. Perhaps you love to live your life in the lane #1, and you enjoy to be always stressed out. I don't. When I drive in the middle or right lane I have plenty of space to other vehicles, and the relative speed on freeways is nearly zero (everyone is on cruise control.) I can eat something, drink coffee, select a CD... all that without any danger whatsoever. I really relax on my road trips, and I like them that way. Time is immaterial.
If they put up a statue of Satan, how will we distinguish it from the statues of politicians?
The statue of Satan would be the cleanest of them all. Satan never hurt anyone. Politicians are hurting the people all the time, just by existing - not even mentioning the laws that they foist on the people.
It's the product of rantings of the deranges carried forward through centuries of ignorance.
It would be unwise to declare the Bible a "rantings of the deranges." The religion was intentionally shaped into a tool to keep slaves and serfs content, and to keep the priests wealthy. Even the current Pope is not willing to give his palace to sick and poor. What stops him from providing his sermons from a cave? Jesus did not speak from temple's windows, and he did not reside in palaces.
The religion was doomed to become such a tool since it had no oversight from the deity (likely because there isn't one up there.) Humans quickly realized the value of religion; job of a priest (shaman) was respected in all primitive tribes, even though, outside of traditional healing techniques, a shaman couldn't offer much to anyone. It's not by chance that the Bible calls for nonresistance and tells you to love your oppressor. It's by design - and that design was done by smartest minds of the era.
Generally, this is true. However there are two things that play a role here. The first one is called "lawful order" - it means that a LEO is allowed to demand that people do or not do certain things, and the people are required to comply. For example, you may be instructed to drive around an accident scene. The second one is called "common sense." If a cop approaches you and tells you that your car is parked at a private property, and the owner of the property is requesting that you remove it, there is nothing really that you should be arguing about. The proper way to react here - regardless of who told you the news - is to apologize for inconvenience and leave. Outside of general human rights, you have not that many rights on someone else's private property. It's obvious that you can't park your car (even without charging!) and play tennis unless the owner is OK with that.
If you do not want to comply with that request, yes, you can be forced to obey (by the way of being arrested.) Then the judge will review the situation. This would be a very impractical solution. By making a scene you are just adding charges. The original request could be to move your car; but the final one would be battery against a law enforcement officer. A far better method is to comply immediately, but record everything and then file a lawsuit against those who violated your rights.
Once again, the lack of stability control should be a moot point when someone is driving legally. If there is a circumstance where someone has lost control, it is likely that broken equipment or broken laws were involved.
One could be driving legally, and still have to brake aggressively, or steer, around a child in the road, or a deer, or a stone that just fell onto the roadway from high above. You can drive at a reasonable speed on a dry road, and then encounter a blind turn that is icy, wet, or covered in oil. Not only your own car may fail (as if it's your fault,) - someone else's car may fail too. In those circumstances the safety equipment may save your behind. Safety equipment is a good idea on all cars on public roads. Not all cars may be equipped with everything that a human genius can invent, but you should use what you paid for.
Once you are on a racing track you are free to disconnect each and every safety device that you think you don't want. The racer will be at home only among other drivers with similar intent. Naturally, if some of them collide and kill each other... it's just too bad. But they will not take a family of five with them. Everyone who risks his life on a racetrack is doing it willingly, and it's certainly their right to do so.