But, what do you do with the significant number of people that, rather than spend their UBI on food, shelter and other necessities of life....they BLOW it on drugs or other bad choices?
Firstly, the most fundamental freedom is the freedom of self-destructive behavior. Secondly, you can't stop this behavior, you can only create an inefficient black market. What the state can (and should) do is be very responsive and supportive when someone hits bottom and asks for help.
fixes benefit cliffs that make it better to not work
That is by far the strongest appeal of a system like this. It all removes the inefficient black markets that foodstamps create. If I could ever believe this would be done instead of all the existing welfare programs and EITC, I'd be all for it.
The Qin unification during the Warring States period was less than a million. Just the big ones:
* 40 M - Three Kingdoms War * 20 M - An Lushan Rebellion * 25 M - Qing Conquest of the Ming (1600s) * 25 M - Taiping Rebellion (mid 1800s) * 10 M - Dungan Rebellion (late 1800s) * 10 M - Chinese Civil War (1930s and 40s) * 20 M - Second Sino-Japanese War (WWII) - though Japan probably deserves all the blame
For comparison: * ~50 M - WWII excluding Sino-Japanese War * ~35 M - Mongol Conquests * ~15 M - WWI * ~1 M - US Civil war
Why are you so obsessed with "regime changes"? They're near the bottom of the scale of evil. Communism and civil wars are at the top, followed by wars of conquest.
The main attraction of methane is that you can make it on Mars, and only have to send up hydrogen. Secondarily, pumping fuel is a big part of rocket engine deign, and that's just easier with cryogenic fuels than fuels that are liquid at room temperature. It also has slightly better ISP, and you get less coking, than RP-1, but I'm not sure those differences are compelling.
Most casualties in war across all of human history have been in wars involving China (usually on both sides). The current (unified) borders of China were arrived at through more bloodshed than all other nations combined. Every square foot of what is now China is a place where China forced a regime change - generally several in the course of history.
Communists dictators have killed about 160 million people, BTW, even before the war death tolls.
Mach diamonds. It's what happens when the exhaust is at a slightly lower pressure than the atmosphere. (What happens when the exhaust is at a much lower pressure than the atmosphere is far more exciting, briefly.) Atmosphere-optimized engines are usually optimized for a higher altitude, since the engine will spend more time there.
When the exhaust is at higher pressure than the atmosphere you can still get Mach diamonds (assuming enough atmosphere to matter) but the flame will expand larger than the nozzle before coming back.
Nobody is going to the moon or Mars on a tourist trip in your lifetime, try to stop being an idiot before you die.
Blue Origin is all about tourism, and their recent product demo launch of New Shepard (first launch narration I've ever heard that was a blatant sales pitch) shows they'll be selling tickets soon for suborbital.
Their New Glenn heavy lift orbital rocket doesn't have an announced tourist business yet, as man-rating a re-entry capsule will take time, but it seems inevitable at this point.
Jeff Bezos thinks there will be a business here. He has a better track record than AC. Moon tourism is near-term at this point - real projects underway by real rocket makers. Mars is a much harder problem, and I'm skeptical of Mars tourism in my lifetime, but then I'm getting old. The lifetime of a 20-something? Definitely. It's just a question of scale and launch costs.
Getting men to Mars obit is already doable for a tiny fraction of the total cost of the ISS, it's the will that's lacking (and it does seem rather unambitious to merely orbit). The scale of landing, staying a while, and returning is much higher, of course, but it's not at all far-fetched to plan for launch costs 1/10th of today's (which is still far from practical tourism, but cheap as large government projects go).
Bill is already funding a lot of great charities. Of course, that includes charities focused on providing education for girls, which tends to have the opposite effect on population.
Nah, that happened eons ago. You're a simulation running in a low-entropy computer run in slow-time, power by a black hole farm. You're good for 10^100 years or so.
There are more factors than its just to expensive to raise a child. For example, life expectancy use to be below 40 years old. That meant that if you didn't have at least two children who lived to adult hood by then, chances are your family line died off.
Life expectancy doesn't mean what you think it does. It's an average that includes childhood mortality rates that would be unthinkable today. There was very little difference in life expectancy once you made it to your 20s between 1900 and 900, or 100 BC.
Now we can do something about heart attack, which does push things back a bit. If we ever start curing cancer we'll see a real shift.
It's all bullshit futurist conjecture and there is zero evidence to support it. So while it is a plausible possibility, it is not a cause for concern.
Most industrialized nations have a reproduction rate below sustaining, and rely on immigration to keep populations up (or, in the case of Japan, don't, and population implodes). Unless some women have 3 (or more) kids, humanity will become extinct.
Right now we look a lot like those mouse utopia experiments that inevitably led to a "social inability to reproduce, even in a fresh environment". But the thing about human social tends is that they always seem to swing the other way, eventually. Eventually we'll find a new frontier (or the same frontier all over again), and be reinvigorated.
At least 3 co's featured robots or androids (lower-case) in their ads. The child-bot was featured twice, and creepy both times. Hawking insurance I think.
Another bot ad was a big cellphone telecom, I forgot which; and a 3rd was somebody worried about a robot taking his job during a bad dream. I think it was hawking a home security system.
Sounds like it's time for a return of Old Glory Robot Insurance.
You mean American hand egg? Football is played with feet and without a bunch of gear on.
Hundreds of games with different rules have been played with feet and balls over the centuries. The particular rules set that's popular today was called "soccer" at the English school where it was invented. Of all the kinds of football, the kind called "soccer" is the most popular.
The most recent ST movie was actually OK. Felt like a long episode of a real ST TV show, which made it head and shoulders above the last 6 or so movies.
But yeah, ST, like SW, is dead until the culture wars are behind us. And maybe forever - nothing stopping a new franchise from being good. The Expanse shows there's still some creativity left in the world.
Yup, you've never been poor. Amazon is a dystopian nightmare, but $30k is solid for unskilled labor.
Roomate. Apartment not in the good part of town. 5-year-old Honda Fit or Civic for under $10k, lasts forever. $300 is plenty for food. That's doing OK.
Roomates. Apartment where you hear gunshots every night. 15-year-old shitbox. $150 is plenty for food if you cook. That's gettin by.
Good times. Any time you make a payment. Good times. Any time you meet a friend. Not getting hassled. Not gettin hustled. Keepin your head above water. Makin a wave when you can.
Yup, there's a huge gap between where we are no an anarchy. We could do with 1/3rd fewer government employees. Woudn't have much effect on taxes, as most of the budget is checks mailed to the old and the poor, not the salaries of current government workers, but hey every little bit helps.
Amazon takes responsibility for items that they're the seller of.
I still don't see any problem with a company being both a retailer an a marketplace - as long as it's clear which you're interacting with when you buy! Amazon has not been good about that, to be sure.
I see it from a different direction: the last mile needs to be a public utility. I have no problem with ISPs with content; I have a problem with monopoly.
Fun fact: profanity comes from a different part of the brain from normal speech. That's why Tourettes can even exist. That part of the brain is, as much as we can reason between species, the part of the brain that other apes and monkeys use for warning vocalizations. Literally "oh shit it's a snake!"
So, Amazon makes two stores. amazon1.com has only stuff where Amazon is the seller. amazon2.com has only third-party sellers. Everything is golden? Sounds somewhat inconvenient, but given Amazon's failure to clearly indicate what they're the sellers for (to the rising frustration of customers hit by fraud), maybe it's better.
Online killing B&M because customers like it better is a good thing. Businesses have no inherent right to exist beyond the value they bring customers. Clearly the issue is a US company putting Indian businesses under survival stress. This is clearly protectionism, not that that's inherently a bad thing.
normally investors would be putting massive pressure on Amazon to increase profits
Normally? Always, The difference with most of the huge corporations of the 21st century is executives willing to say "you'll get your profits in the distant future, and you'll like it". Focus beyond the next quarter is very rare, no doubt, but is it a bad thing?
Amazon has been free of that pressure.
Why would you believe that? The pressure has always been there. Corps still run by their founders can get away with saying "nope", as long as credibility remains in future profits.
The reason it's worse for Amazon to mix their stuff is that they have a disproportionate amount of power and can and will leverage that power.
They have less leverage, not more, by allowing third-party sellers. For many years fo course Amazon only sold stuff they procured, just like every retailer. That gave them 100% leverage.
Then they changed to also allow third party sellers, not just on Amazon marketplace but on the main store. Please explain why that change made them (more) evil?
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But, what do you do with the significant number of people that, rather than spend their UBI on food, shelter and other necessities of life....they BLOW it on drugs or other bad choices?
Firstly, the most fundamental freedom is the freedom of self-destructive behavior. Secondly, you can't stop this behavior, you can only create an inefficient black market. What the state can (and should) do is be very responsive and supportive when someone hits bottom and asks for help.
fixes benefit cliffs that make it better to not work
That is by far the strongest appeal of a system like this. It all removes the inefficient black markets that foodstamps create. If I could ever believe this would be done instead of all the existing welfare programs and EITC, I'd be all for it.
Anything with supersonic exhaust in an atmosphere, unless the exhaust pressure exactly matches atmospheric pressure (which never stays true for long).
So a heart surgeon shouldn't expect pay? It's just an hour of him time to save a life, after all.
What are you talking about?
I assume you mean the 'waring states' period?
The Qin unification during the Warring States period was less than a million. Just the big ones:
* 40 M - Three Kingdoms War
* 20 M - An Lushan Rebellion
* 25 M - Qing Conquest of the Ming (1600s)
* 25 M - Taiping Rebellion (mid 1800s)
* 10 M - Dungan Rebellion (late 1800s)
* 10 M - Chinese Civil War (1930s and 40s)
* 20 M - Second Sino-Japanese War (WWII) - though Japan probably deserves all the blame
For comparison:
* ~50 M - WWII excluding Sino-Japanese War
* ~35 M - Mongol Conquests
* ~15 M - WWI
* ~1 M - US Civil war
Why are you so obsessed with "regime changes"? They're near the bottom of the scale of evil. Communism and civil wars are at the top, followed by wars of conquest.
The main attraction of methane is that you can make it on Mars, and only have to send up hydrogen. Secondarily, pumping fuel is a big part of rocket engine deign, and that's just easier with cryogenic fuels than fuels that are liquid at room temperature. It also has slightly better ISP, and you get less coking, than RP-1, but I'm not sure those differences are compelling.
Most casualties in war across all of human history have been in wars involving China (usually on both sides). The current (unified) borders of China were arrived at through more bloodshed than all other nations combined. Every square foot of what is now China is a place where China forced a regime change - generally several in the course of history.
Communists dictators have killed about 160 million people, BTW, even before the war death tolls.
the shape of the flame is really interesting.
Mach diamonds. It's what happens when the exhaust is at a slightly lower pressure than the atmosphere. (What happens when the exhaust is at a much lower pressure than the atmosphere is far more exciting, briefly.) Atmosphere-optimized engines are usually optimized for a higher altitude, since the engine will spend more time there.
When the exhaust is at higher pressure than the atmosphere you can still get Mach diamonds (assuming enough atmosphere to matter) but the flame will expand larger than the nozzle before coming back.
Nobody is going to the moon or Mars on a tourist trip in your lifetime, try to stop being an idiot before you die.
Blue Origin is all about tourism, and their recent product demo launch of New Shepard (first launch narration I've ever heard that was a blatant sales pitch) shows they'll be selling tickets soon for suborbital.
Their New Glenn heavy lift orbital rocket doesn't have an announced tourist business yet, as man-rating a re-entry capsule will take time, but it seems inevitable at this point.
Jeff Bezos thinks there will be a business here. He has a better track record than AC. Moon tourism is near-term at this point - real projects underway by real rocket makers. Mars is a much harder problem, and I'm skeptical of Mars tourism in my lifetime, but then I'm getting old. The lifetime of a 20-something? Definitely. It's just a question of scale and launch costs.
Getting men to Mars obit is already doable for a tiny fraction of the total cost of the ISS, it's the will that's lacking (and it does seem rather unambitious to merely orbit). The scale of landing, staying a while, and returning is much higher, of course, but it's not at all far-fetched to plan for launch costs 1/10th of today's (which is still far from practical tourism, but cheap as large government projects go).
If some women don't have more than 2 children (technically, more than 1 daughter), humanity will become extinct. Simple math.
You don't think people will adjust?
Did you finish reading the post you responded to?
Bill is already funding a lot of great charities. Of course, that includes charities focused on providing education for girls, which tends to have the opposite effect on population.
Nah, that happened eons ago. You're a simulation running in a low-entropy computer run in slow-time, power by a black hole farm. You're good for 10^100 years or so.
There are more factors than its just to expensive to raise a child. For example, life expectancy use to be below 40 years old. That meant that if you didn't have at least two children who lived to adult hood by then, chances are your family line died off.
Life expectancy doesn't mean what you think it does. It's an average that includes childhood mortality rates that would be unthinkable today. There was very little difference in life expectancy once you made it to your 20s between 1900 and 900, or 100 BC.
Now we can do something about heart attack, which does push things back a bit. If we ever start curing cancer we'll see a real shift.
It's all bullshit futurist conjecture and there is zero evidence to support it. So while it is a plausible possibility, it is not a cause for concern.
Most industrialized nations have a reproduction rate below sustaining, and rely on immigration to keep populations up (or, in the case of Japan, don't, and population implodes). Unless some women have 3 (or more) kids, humanity will become extinct.
Right now we look a lot like those mouse utopia experiments that inevitably led to a "social inability to reproduce, even in a fresh environment". But the thing about human social tends is that they always seem to swing the other way, eventually. Eventually we'll find a new frontier (or the same frontier all over again), and be reinvigorated.
At least 3 co's featured robots or androids (lower-case) in their ads. The child-bot was featured twice, and creepy both times. Hawking insurance I think.
Another bot ad was a big cellphone telecom, I forgot which; and a 3rd was somebody worried about a robot taking his job during a bad dream. I think it was hawking a home security system.
Sounds like it's time for a return of Old Glory Robot Insurance.
You mean American hand egg? Football is played with feet and without a bunch of gear on.
Hundreds of games with different rules have been played with feet and balls over the centuries. The particular rules set that's popular today was called "soccer" at the English school where it was invented. Of all the kinds of football, the kind called "soccer" is the most popular.
The most recent ST movie was actually OK. Felt like a long episode of a real ST TV show, which made it head and shoulders above the last 6 or so movies.
But yeah, ST, like SW, is dead until the culture wars are behind us. And maybe forever - nothing stopping a new franchise from being good. The Expanse shows there's still some creativity left in the world.
Yup, you've never been poor. Amazon is a dystopian nightmare, but $30k is solid for unskilled labor.
Roomate. Apartment not in the good part of town. 5-year-old Honda Fit or Civic for under $10k, lasts forever. $300 is plenty for food. That's doing OK.
Roomates. Apartment where you hear gunshots every night. 15-year-old shitbox. $150 is plenty for food if you cook. That's gettin by.
Good times. Any time you make a payment. Good times. Any time you meet a friend. Not getting hassled. Not gettin hustled. Keepin your head above water. Makin a wave when you can.
Yup, there's a huge gap between where we are no an anarchy. We could do with 1/3rd fewer government employees. Woudn't have much effect on taxes, as most of the budget is checks mailed to the old and the poor, not the salaries of current government workers, but hey every little bit helps.
Amazon takes responsibility for items that they're the seller of.
I still don't see any problem with a company being both a retailer an a marketplace - as long as it's clear which you're interacting with when you buy! Amazon has not been good about that, to be sure.
I see it from a different direction: the last mile needs to be a public utility. I have no problem with ISPs with content; I have a problem with monopoly.
What if you have Tourettes syndrome
Fun fact: profanity comes from a different part of the brain from normal speech. That's why Tourettes can even exist. That part of the brain is, as much as we can reason between species, the part of the brain that other apes and monkeys use for warning vocalizations. Literally "oh shit it's a snake!"
So, Amazon makes two stores. amazon1.com has only stuff where Amazon is the seller. amazon2.com has only third-party sellers. Everything is golden? Sounds somewhat inconvenient, but given Amazon's failure to clearly indicate what they're the sellers for (to the rising frustration of customers hit by fraud), maybe it's better.
Online killing B&M because customers like it better is a good thing. Businesses have no inherent right to exist beyond the value they bring customers. Clearly the issue is a US company putting Indian businesses under survival stress. This is clearly protectionism, not that that's inherently a bad thing.
normally investors would be putting massive pressure on Amazon to increase profits
Normally? Always, The difference with most of the huge corporations of the 21st century is executives willing to say "you'll get your profits in the distant future, and you'll like it". Focus beyond the next quarter is very rare, no doubt, but is it a bad thing?
Amazon has been free of that pressure.
Why would you believe that? The pressure has always been there. Corps still run by their founders can get away with saying "nope", as long as credibility remains in future profits.
The reason it's worse for Amazon to mix their stuff is that they have a disproportionate amount of power and can and will leverage that power.
They have less leverage, not more, by allowing third-party sellers. For many years fo course Amazon only sold stuff they procured, just like every retailer. That gave them 100% leverage.
Then they changed to also allow third party sellers, not just on Amazon marketplace but on the main store. Please explain why that change made them (more) evil?