Quite frankly, given that this is what actual scientists in the field were saying 45 years ago, it's remarkable they've made as much progress as they have.
The problem is not just primarily the money to build a big machine. It is instead how to build the big machine that is a huge open question. It is clear that given enough money in the 70s they would most likely have burned it building the wrong machine. So it is probably better that they didn't get that humongous shipload of money, because it would have ended in tears. The field would have been discredited.
So how does this compared to the health problems created by the mining and burning coal? You realize that coal pollution is very slightly radioactive itself?
No longer. I had always wondered about this argument involving coal. It turns out it is based on a failure of the US government to get its act together and regulate what has to be regulated until recently. You know, in civilized countries nobody has died from radioactive coal fumes for decades.
Fun trivai fact - if you extracted the uranium from 1 ton of coal and used it in a reactor, it would produce more energy than burning the coal itself.
Calling all religious believers "delusional" by definition, meets your criteria fully.
How should atheists call religious believers, then? People with special beliefs?
There is no way of saying that god does not exist without saying that all people who believe in god are delusional. But this is normal: anyone who claims that his god is the true god says that all the others are wrong and their believers are also delusional. If you want is us to keep completely mum about the issue? Of course we are not going to do that.
Most of these projections against religion, are, simply, an "Argument from the Never-existed" fallacy that doesn't even propose to offer hard metrics, such as statistics, for -relative- comparison on what is a -relative- normative question. Understandably so, since the atheist worldview would lose immediately and overwhelmingly if we introduced actual hard data, simply by reference to the 20'th Century alone.
I am always puzzled by arguments things like this. Are you saying that god exists because of all the advantages religion brings? That's quite a fallacy there.
thanks to your idiotic chancellor that german power companies are starting to build coal fired replacements for those shut down nuclear plants.
It is quite an irony that Merkel was the one to pull the plug. She and her party have been in favor of nuclear power for decades. The nuclear industry thanked them by causing lots of embarrassing scandals. As a consequence, the point was reached when Merkel decided it was better to part with them. The Fukushima incident presented an excellent opportunity to do so.
So, no. Merkel is not idiotic at all. It is the industry that yet again has shown that it cannot keep its act together, to the point that it alienated one if its most loyal allies.
So what is this great hope you germans have for renewables?
To never again have anything to do with the nuclear industry, it seems. That they have to resort to coal and gas is, in this way, also a failure of the nuclear industry. They fucked up.
ok, so who do I vote for at the next Federal Election that isn't going to bow down to the US and to big US corporations?
The big parties everywhere reflect what they can get away with. If you want to change something, you have to infiltrate them. Which means going to local party meetings, arguing, etc. Just hoping that someone with the right ideas comes along so you can vote for him/her does not work.
Much of what happens depends on someone doing it, and if there is nobody to do it, it just doesn't happen. If you want change - make it happen. Organize anti-extradition rallies, generate awareness, etc.
Everybody blames the politicians, but you must as well blame the people who expect someone else to fix it for them.
To be honest, I didn't want to believe in God. I hated him, and didn't want him to exist so I set out to prove to my self once and for all that he was the work of fiction. The difference between me and I'd say almost all other atheists is I refused to start with the premise that there is no God.
I call bullshit. If you didn't want to believe in god, then what forced you? EVIDENCE?:-)
Despite my bias, I wanted truth... not foolish desire.
Haha. You want someone important, the maker of the universe, to love you and look after you. If there is foolish desire, then that would be it.
These passages are shared by Christians, Jews, and Muslims, so it's none of these religions. What religion values ignorance?
Indirectly, they all do. They are based on the idea that you are supposed to believe in some things, and are not allowed to doubt them. Only then you are virtuous. But, well, that is ignorance.
Every time you hear a religious person complain that Darwin's theories are the work of the devil or somesuch, then they are saying that ignorance is good.
A lot of information is supposed to be kept away from certain groups of people (women, children) to keep them docile. This is considered a good thing, and yes, this *is* valuing ignorance.
The population pyramid is now a snake with a big fat area we like to call the "boomer", and that snake has swallowed all of the next few generations hope.
I am always amazed at the ability of some people to say absolutely breathtakingly ridiculously stupid things like this. The hope a few generations? WTF?
Please explain how you manage to maintain adequate levels of pension when the ratio of workers (ie those paying) to pensioners (those receiving) has shifted from around 10:1 in the 1960s to around 4:1 now and heading towards 2:1?
You pay less pension and increase the rates.
Pay-as-you-go pensions work when your population pyramid is a pyramid, just like a ponzi scheme apparently works when it is growing -- it's when the growth stops and more and more people want their money that the shit hits the fan.
What your rates buy you in a good scheme of this type is the promise that you will be looked after. Note, not a fixed ammount of money, but a guarantee that what comes in will be split proportionally and you will get your share, unless it is too little to live, in which case you get more. Unlike a ponzi scheme, this kind of thing is sound and can go on for ever.
I have no idea why a system with a nonzero probability of leaving people homeless and poor when they get old is considered to be better.
Guys, think of it. Our stock exchange, i.e. your pension or if you are unlucky also your mortgage is depending on this kind of software these days... And this is not the first time this year that stock trading software is in the news. This has nothing to do anymore with owning a share of an organization in the hope the organization will make a profit and pay you dividend. This is total craziness.
Two things. One, it has always been like this. The stock market has never been predictable to the extend the players would have liked. Luck is and remains a major factor.
The second thing is - it was never a good idea to run pension funds by investing in the stock market. That "ponzi scheme" whereby the pensions of today are paid by those paying into the pension plan is the only good, cheap, and stable way such a thing can be run. Especially if there is only one plan and it is run by a decent governement. The current system leaves to luck stuff that nobody wants to gamble with (retirement). Banks and fund managers love the current scheme, but not normal people.
But that implies that they believe that God doesn't exist. See? It's just a belief. A useless belief. Exactly as useless as the one that says it exists.
It seems to me that you are an atheist.
What other use can you make of such a belief (either the belief that it does exist or the one that it doesn't) than to feel good about thinking that you're right and lots of other people are wrong?
You are most definitively an atheist, as you do not see a point in "faith". As it were, you are not a very sophisticated atheist, but the fact is that you clearly don't give a shit about god. So far, so good. Congratulations!:-)
It't impossible for one to make use of his own beliefs. It's possible however to make use of other people's beliefs: to sell "religious people are stupid" stories to atheists and religious stories to religious people.
People make use of their religious beliefs to feel safe when they are not, or to feel loved by the universe, etc.
I am not going to comment on the rest of your comment because it's way too stupid.
There's a difference between not believing that P is true and believing that P is false. As far as I know, atheism refers to the second one, so it is a non-proven belief, falling into the same category as religions.
You have been misinformed.
To an atheist, god simply does not exist, and there is nothing of the sort to believe in. There is nothing in atheism comparable to the notions of faith and devotion present in all religions.
- by definition you just built a strawman argument, where did you see anything of the kind in my comment? You just put words into my mouth, let's see if you are going to argue against this very notion that you just ascribed to me.
Well, you wrote that anyone who called businessowners 'robbers' had not understood capitalism, which I found an interesting claim indeed.
Foxconn and the others are abusing their position to impose inhuman working conditions on their employees. That type of behavior fits very well what was originally meant by 'robber baron'.
- an ad-hominem, the last refuge of the incompetent and the irrelevant.
I am still wondering about the dash. Where does that come from?
I know, it's a euphemism for the people who actually run the businesses, anybody who creates a product or a service that people end up buying because they like the product. This word is an acknowledgement of the fact that people do not understand why running a business as opposed to being an employee often provides somebody with a better life style.
So you are saying that a business owner by definition never does wrong or acts immorally? I mean, you are saying that calling a business owner a robber is always wrong. How about knowingly let workers handle poisonous substances for years, and then firing them when they get sick? Is that capitalist genious?
Insisting that everybody has to live his life as a businessowner is totalitatian.
It was fine 150 years ago, because capitalism was a fairly knew concept and few people understood it, but what is the excuse today?
People understand it quite well. By insisting that it is perfect, you show your ignorance and lack of understanding.
I have a question on your dash mania. I've seen that in other people of your same persuation so I wonder: is that a bug in the randroid BIOS?
Couldn't disagree more. The first option is ridiculous; moving backwards in transportation capability is the very, very last solution humans will (and should) try.
Perhaps I should have stated that I do not consider it desirable, just think that this is what will happen.
the convenience of personal transportation should be cheap & universal
You mean - like health care? Haha.
Trying to put the cat back in the bag is silly and unnecessary
I see a high chance that the cat will crawl back into that bag no matter what, in a process that is likely to be very painful.
Less moving parts - I think you are onto something here.
I believe that he future of mobility is people moving less from one place to another, or more of them moving at once in one vehicle. That is, a drastic reduction of mobility, and whatever mobility there is must come from public transportation.
Just substituting our current cars with electric ones will neither work from a technical point of view, nor will it solve the pollution and energy consumption problems.
Presumably those of us who still have jobs (or are comfortably retired) will solve the problem by calling the others lazy and entitled and cutting jobs programs while passing laws that say they must get jobs. Then to address the rising costs of government support for the unemployed we will cut taxes. Problem solved!
Nah, that will never work. The people are way to smart to let you get away with that </sarcasm>.
While you clearly have a handle on economic concepts, essentially your argument is that we can borrow without consequences. Dick Cheney got laughed at when he suggested this, and I laugh when I hear it today... or at least I would if it weren't my kids that will pay for it.
Well, Dick was right, and your kids have a lot less to fear than you think. The people that were laughing were the idiots.
The question I have is how do we change our US system to restrict this kind of spending. Clearly leaving the power in the hands of President/Congress hasn't worked. Balanced budget proposals have failed. How do we change the system to control ourselves better? I can't beleive we are doomed to an endess boom/bust cycle like we've seen around the world for centuries.
Spending more would not a problem at the moment, for example, as borrowing costs for the US are so ridiculously low.
Most of the money that the government borrows and spends makes its way through the system and ends up buying... bonds. And in this way, all this debt is someone elses assets A state without debt is simply not as desirable a thing as it may seem. Nor is debt as deadly for a state as for a person.
One of the biggest problems with the political discussion arround issues of debt is that a vanishingly small number of people understand that money at the level of a nation state follows a completely different dynamics that money at the family household level.
With respect to booms and busts - the problem is that we are relearning the lessons from the great depression. For a long time after that, the cycles were rather mild.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is not just primarily the money to build a big machine. It is instead how to build the big machine that is a huge open question. It is clear that given enough money in the 70s they would most likely have burned it building the wrong machine. So it is probably better that they didn't get that humongous shipload of money, because it would have ended in tears. The field would have been discredited.
No longer. I had always wondered about this argument involving coal. It turns out it is based on a failure of the US government to get its act together and regulate what has to be regulated until recently. You know, in civilized countries nobody has died from radioactive coal fumes for decades.
Irrelevant.
How should atheists call religious believers, then? People with special beliefs?
There is no way of saying that god does not exist without saying that all people who believe in god are delusional. But this is normal: anyone who claims that his god is the true god says that all the others are wrong and their believers are also delusional. If you want is us to keep completely mum about the issue? Of course we are not going to do that.
I am always puzzled by arguments things like this. Are you saying that god exists because of all the advantages religion brings? That's quite a fallacy there.
It is quite an irony that Merkel was the one to pull the plug. She and her party have been in favor of nuclear power for decades. The nuclear industry thanked them by causing lots of embarrassing scandals. As a consequence, the point was reached when Merkel decided it was better to part with them. The Fukushima incident presented an excellent opportunity to do so.
So, no. Merkel is not idiotic at all. It is the industry that yet again has shown that it cannot keep its act together, to the point that it alienated one if its most loyal allies.
To never again have anything to do with the nuclear industry, it seems. That they have to resort to coal and gas is, in this way, also a failure of the nuclear industry. They fucked up.
The big parties everywhere reflect what they can get away with. If you want to change something, you have to infiltrate them. Which means going to local party meetings, arguing, etc. Just hoping that someone with the right ideas comes along so you can vote for him/her does not work.
Much of what happens depends on someone doing it, and if there is nobody to do it, it just doesn't happen. If you want change - make it happen. Organize anti-extradition rallies, generate awareness, etc.
Everybody blames the politicians, but you must as well blame the people who expect someone else to fix it for them.
By definition, I guess. In the civilized world such things are called lobbying and capitalist genious.
I call bullshit. If you didn't want to believe in god, then what forced you? EVIDENCE? :-)
Haha. You want someone important, the maker of the universe, to love you and look after you. If there is foolish desire, then that would be it.
Indirectly, they all do. They are based on the idea that you are supposed to believe in some things, and are not allowed to doubt them. Only then you are virtuous. But, well, that is ignorance.
Every time you hear a religious person complain that Darwin's theories are the work of the devil or somesuch, then they are saying that ignorance is good.
A lot of information is supposed to be kept away from certain groups of people (women, children) to keep them docile. This is considered a good thing, and yes, this *is* valuing ignorance.
Seriously. If you search for 'titanic' and don't type fast enough you may see adult content.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/18/ubuntu_12_10_review/
Or see the bug "No obvious way to restrict shopping suggestions from displaying adult products".
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity-lens-shopping/+bug/1054282
I think the devs and the people responsible are underestimating the degree to which this is a major fuckup.
Uhuh. So... what?
16 times Full HD sounds like 16 channels on TV.
Perhaps the submitter should have spent a word or two explaining why this was interesting/important/whatever.
I am always amazed at the ability of some people to say absolutely breathtakingly ridiculously stupid things like this. The hope a few generations? WTF?
You pay less pension and increase the rates.
What your rates buy you in a good scheme of this type is the promise that you will be looked after. Note, not a fixed ammount of money, but a guarantee that what comes in will be split proportionally and you will get your share, unless it is too little to live, in which case you get more. Unlike a ponzi scheme, this kind of thing is sound and can go on for ever.
I have no idea why a system with a nonzero probability of leaving people homeless and poor when they get old is considered to be better.
Two things. One, it has always been like this. The stock market has never been predictable to the extend the players would have liked. Luck is and remains a major factor.
The second thing is - it was never a good idea to run pension funds by investing in the stock market. That "ponzi scheme" whereby the pensions of today are paid by those paying into the pension plan is the only good, cheap, and stable way such a thing can be run. Especially if there is only one plan and it is run by a decent governement. The current system leaves to luck stuff that nobody wants to gamble with (retirement). Banks and fund managers love the current scheme, but not normal people.
What it also knows is that it can count on people like you to propagate cynicism and defeatism, so that nothing ever changes.
It seems to me that you are an atheist.
You are most definitively an atheist, as you do not see a point in "faith". As it were, you are not a very sophisticated atheist, but the fact is that you clearly don't give a shit about god. So far, so good. Congratulations! :-)
People make use of their religious beliefs to feel safe when they are not, or to feel loved by the universe, etc.
I am not going to comment on the rest of your comment because it's way too stupid.
You have been misinformed.
To an atheist, god simply does not exist, and there is nothing of the sort to believe in. There is nothing in atheism comparable to the notions of faith and devotion present in all religions.
Well, you wrote that anyone who called businessowners 'robbers' had not understood capitalism, which I found an interesting claim indeed.
Foxconn and the others are abusing their position to impose inhuman working conditions on their employees. That type of behavior fits very well what was originally meant by 'robber baron'.
I am still wondering about the dash. Where does that come from?
So you are saying that a business owner by definition never does wrong or acts immorally? I mean, you are saying that calling a business owner a robber is always wrong. How about knowingly let workers handle poisonous substances for years, and then firing them when they get sick? Is that capitalist genious?
Insisting that everybody has to live his life as a businessowner is totalitatian.
People understand it quite well. By insisting that it is perfect, you show your ignorance and lack of understanding.
I have a question on your dash mania. I've seen that in other people of your same persuation so I wonder: is that a bug in the randroid BIOS?
Perhaps I should have stated that I do not consider it desirable, just think that this is what will happen.
You mean - like health care? Haha.
I see a high chance that the cat will crawl back into that bag no matter what, in a process that is likely to be very painful.
Less moving parts - I think you are onto something here.
I believe that he future of mobility is people moving less from one place to another, or more of them moving at once in one vehicle. That is, a drastic reduction of mobility, and whatever mobility there is must come from public transportation.
Just substituting our current cars with electric ones will neither work from a technical point of view, nor will it solve the pollution and energy consumption problems.
Nah, that will never work. The people are way to smart to let you get away with that </sarcasm>.
In the same way most americans have one (sorry, couldn't resist).
Well, Dick was right, and your kids have a lot less to fear than you think. The people that were laughing were the idiots.
This money will never be repaid. The key word is 'refinanced'. The people buying the new debt are the same that held the old.
Bonds get auctioned, and the the rates are fixed for the lifetime of the bond.
You will have to explain to me why Japan can borrow basically for free with a lot more debt than GDP, and a bad rating by the agencies.
Spending more would not a problem at the moment, for example, as borrowing costs for the US are so ridiculously low.
Most of the money that the government borrows and spends makes its way through the system and ends up buying... bonds. And in this way, all this debt is someone elses assets A state without debt is simply not as desirable a thing as it may seem. Nor is debt as deadly for a state as for a person.
One of the biggest problems with the political discussion arround issues of debt is that a vanishingly small number of people understand that money at the level of a nation state follows a completely different dynamics that money at the family household level.
With respect to booms and busts - the problem is that we are relearning the lessons from the great depression. For a long time after that, the cycles were rather mild.