Which to me sounds perfect -- if oil HAS to become prohibitively expensive to base an economy on, that means without any government programs whatsoever, alternative energy sources must take its place, if physically possible. The economic incentive exists and is going to become increasingly stronger. I think that's a good thing (TM).
With one caveat -- the oil companies, given how powerful they are, would probably want to use any method available to prevent economically sensible alternatives from becoming available on the market (in fact I think they already have). If true, this means that an agnostic government with a blind eye towards anti-competitive practices would mean that energy prices would keep increasing artificially because alternatives are being prevented from entering the market, thus hurting the entire economy. So having a strong government capable of tearing apart any Microsoft equivalents in the energy sector (or any other, for that matter) is important, I'm just not sure it is necessary to fund the development of alternative energy using money that could be used to build roads or fund social programs or whatever else.
Nobody says we can keep burning oil/increasing population indefinitely. They simply say that governments don't need to intervene because when too little oil is left, its cost will naturally increase and hence alternatives which are now prohibitively expensive will be viable, which will also mean that increase in demand will result in decreased cost, hence possibly returning to the same cost per Joule in the long term. This is just a policy question -- does government need to intervene and incentivize this transition or not, especially considering the fact that they need to use taxpayer money to do it. I haven't heard any terribly convincing, data-driven arguments on either side of the debate.
I disagree.
To elaborate, if you saw the village idiot eating horseshit, you wouldn't think that's the norm and start eating horseshit yourself. Colbert is a comedian, a satirist. He doesn't set norms for anyone, perhaps with the exception of other comedians.
'cause they're all already jaded. Stephen Colbert is trying to show how ridiculous the influence of money in politics is, but he's having a really hard time doing anything more ridiculous than what is already the norm that everyone is used to. It's hard to be outraged 20 times a day, which is about the frequency with which stories like this seem to be coming out.
Must... resist... 4chan.... impulses! But seriously, you're right -- some people become much more vulnerable with tech like this. What someone else suggested about a concealed carry permit could be a good idea in a similar situation.
Facepalm on the "CS is programming" comment. Programming is programming. CS is a field spanning a wide range between mathematics, engineering, and science.
All good scientists must be at least somewhat "close minded", that's why you set type 1 error to something very low when interpreting the results of an experiment. Otherwise you'd be coming up with a new theory every day, and never converging anywhere.
Oh man, thank you. It amazes me that there are people around who still fall for the whole us vs. them game. I've lived in this country for just 5 years, and even I already get it. How can someone miss something so glaringly obvious for an entire lifetime?
I stopped reading after "They're desire is to get back into space, so they are not complainers." OK not really, but still kind of a kick in the nuts to see that in a professionally written article...
Nice... And true. Of all the fiction I've read/watched, nothing gave me as strong a sense of despair as B5 regarding "people's" ability to overcome petty self-interest. That is, until the next scene where it suddenly managed to resurrect the hope that somehow, eventually, we'd move forward, even if only a little bit.
My kingdom for a mod point. The sad part? Most of US politics is played and won and lost on slogans. The country is being governed the same way Levi jeans are sold. Yeah.
Humans need energy too, you know. Yes, the chain of work from sun->plants->other stuff->humans->human labor is highly energy efficient, but do you really think it's impossible to approach that level of efficiency artificially?
Nope; legislators define, courts only test whether individual cases fall within the bounds of the definition. Courts don't define what 'hate speech' is, they only apply definitions. The former responsibility falls onto those wonderfully responsible people in Congress you see on the TV so much these days. Comforting, huh?
So, what happens to that system when nobody works?
What happens to capitalism when nobody works? Yeah, same thing happens to socialism. I don't understand what your point is here. Perhaps you're implying that in socialism there is no incentive to work since you can just be a welfare queen, driving around in your cadillac. This is a myth perpetuated by certain elements of the American political landscape, and has nothing to do with socialism. At least, that's my opinion. I'm sorry, but I can't be any more specific than that -- you may choose to disregard my opinion as having no merit because I am unable to provide more facts on the matter, or you could consider the possibility that there is at least some truth to what I'm saying, and go from there. That's all I can offer.
people who are willing to work for low wages, because they aren't willing to do what it takes to be able to demand higher wages.
Ah I see, you subscribe to the "it's your fault if you're poor" philosophy. Well, certainly enough people seem to hold that view that I can't dismiss it as absurd, at least not without some very strong arguments, which I don't have. But this is kind of besides my point -- I was merely pointing out that "pure capitalism", in the sense that that the concept seems to be understood in American politics, would dictate that any and all means of collecting wealth should be legal, short of some minimal baseline (e.g. use of violence). For example, I don't see any reason why a contract where one person agrees to give away all rights for the rest of his or her life should be illegal, and yet it is. I don't see any reason why it should be illegal to buy a strip of land encircling an entire town, paying off whatever governing bodies one needs to do so, and threaten everyone inside with starvation unless they sign the contract described above. Do you think that should be legal? After all, once it is your private property, you should not be obligated to allow those people to cross it to get food.
Or, if that seems too outlandish to you, consider this scenario -- I gather up a huge amount of capital, do to some isolated county in, I don't know, Utah, and buy out/"outcompete" (i.e. bankrupt) all local industry. Now the stores are mine and the jobs are mine. Now, regardless of whether any contract is signed or not, those people are mine. I own them, because I own their livelihoods and their means of sustenance. Wait, this is starting to sound very familiar... You know what, I don't think I'm describing some hypothetical caricature of capitalism... I think I'm describing America. How the hell did that happen? I set out to argue just how absurd it would be to want to live in an "overly-capitalistic" country, and ended up using the US of A as an example. What do you make of that? (At this point, if you're thinking "they could just move somewhere else", please stop. We both know that's not how the real world works.)
Your use of the term "slavery" in that context is simply absurd.
1) Nobody is forced to work in socialism. 2) In a capitalistic utopia, selling yourself should be completely legal. In fact, it is -- it's known as wage slavery.
We could argue whether being born into slavery, or being coerced into slavery through force (and not accepting it "willingly" in return for money) should be legal or not, but that's kinda moot.
Weren't most of those Siberian towns built for military strategic reasons? As I recall, the largest [factory] building boom in Siberia was during WWII, to keep weapons production away from the reach of Nazi bombers. Not that I disagree with your general point -- just a detail.
Well, that's pretty much what the communists in Russia set out to do. But somewhere along the way, like in the first month or so after they came to power, the oppression that was supposed to shape people into denizens capable of living in the communist utopia started being used by megalomaniacs for their own selfish needs. OOPS.
Slashdot Mirror
Which to me sounds perfect -- if oil HAS to become prohibitively expensive to base an economy on, that means without any government programs whatsoever, alternative energy sources must take its place, if physically possible. The economic incentive exists and is going to become increasingly stronger. I think that's a good thing (TM).
With one caveat -- the oil companies, given how powerful they are, would probably want to use any method available to prevent economically sensible alternatives from becoming available on the market (in fact I think they already have). If true, this means that an agnostic government with a blind eye towards anti-competitive practices would mean that energy prices would keep increasing artificially because alternatives are being prevented from entering the market, thus hurting the entire economy. So having a strong government capable of tearing apart any Microsoft equivalents in the energy sector (or any other, for that matter) is important, I'm just not sure it is necessary to fund the development of alternative energy using money that could be used to build roads or fund social programs or whatever else.
Nobody says we can keep burning oil/increasing population indefinitely. They simply say that governments don't need to intervene because when too little oil is left, its cost will naturally increase and hence alternatives which are now prohibitively expensive will be viable, which will also mean that increase in demand will result in decreased cost, hence possibly returning to the same cost per Joule in the long term. This is just a policy question -- does government need to intervene and incentivize this transition or not, especially considering the fact that they need to use taxpayer money to do it. I haven't heard any terribly convincing, data-driven arguments on either side of the debate.
I disagree. To elaborate, if you saw the village idiot eating horseshit, you wouldn't think that's the norm and start eating horseshit yourself. Colbert is a comedian, a satirist. He doesn't set norms for anyone, perhaps with the exception of other comedians.
'cause they're all already jaded. Stephen Colbert is trying to show how ridiculous the influence of money in politics is, but he's having a really hard time doing anything more ridiculous than what is already the norm that everyone is used to. It's hard to be outraged 20 times a day, which is about the frequency with which stories like this seem to be coming out.
Must... resist... 4chan.... impulses! But seriously, you're right -- some people become much more vulnerable with tech like this. What someone else suggested about a concealed carry permit could be a good idea in a similar situation.
Facepalm on the "CS is programming" comment. Programming is programming. CS is a field spanning a wide range between mathematics, engineering, and science.
All good scientists must be at least somewhat "close minded", that's why you set type 1 error to something very low when interpreting the results of an experiment. Otherwise you'd be coming up with a new theory every day, and never converging anywhere.
Oh man, thank you. It amazes me that there are people around who still fall for the whole us vs. them game. I've lived in this country for just 5 years, and even I already get it. How can someone miss something so glaringly obvious for an entire lifetime?
Talk about unnecessary censorship, for a moment there I was wondering what ownership of African slave labor has anything to do with lactation...
I stopped reading after "They're desire is to get back into space, so they are not complainers." OK not really, but still kind of a kick in the nuts to see that in a professionally written article...
Nice... And true. Of all the fiction I've read/watched, nothing gave me as strong a sense of despair as B5 regarding "people's" ability to overcome petty self-interest. That is, until the next scene where it suddenly managed to resurrect the hope that somehow, eventually, we'd move forward, even if only a little bit.
My kingdom for a mod point. The sad part? Most of US politics is played and won and lost on slogans. The country is being governed the same way Levi jeans are sold. Yeah.
remove prostitution and drugs from that list, and I'm with ya.
Good point. Though of course there's other stuff to consider with robots, such as manufacturing and maintenance.
Humans need energy too, you know. Yes, the chain of work from sun->plants->other stuff->humans->human labor is highly energy efficient, but do you really think it's impossible to approach that level of efficiency artificially?
Nope; legislators define, courts only test whether individual cases fall within the bounds of the definition. Courts don't define what 'hate speech' is, they only apply definitions. The former responsibility falls onto those wonderfully responsible people in Congress you see on the TV so much these days. Comforting, huh?
If there was that much money to be made in "VCs with very low standards", don't you think private capital would've done it already?
who else would we self-diagnose? /semantic nazi
out of sheer curiosity, could you disclose more about what kind of painting it is that you do? climate?
So, what happens to that system when nobody works?
What happens to capitalism when nobody works? Yeah, same thing happens to socialism. I don't understand what your point is here. Perhaps you're implying that in socialism there is no incentive to work since you can just be a welfare queen, driving around in your cadillac. This is a myth perpetuated by certain elements of the American political landscape, and has nothing to do with socialism. At least, that's my opinion. I'm sorry, but I can't be any more specific than that -- you may choose to disregard my opinion as having no merit because I am unable to provide more facts on the matter, or you could consider the possibility that there is at least some truth to what I'm saying, and go from there. That's all I can offer.
people who are willing to work for low wages, because they aren't willing to do what it takes to be able to demand higher wages.
Ah I see, you subscribe to the "it's your fault if you're poor" philosophy. Well, certainly enough people seem to hold that view that I can't dismiss it as absurd, at least not without some very strong arguments, which I don't have. But this is kind of besides my point -- I was merely pointing out that "pure capitalism", in the sense that that the concept seems to be understood in American politics, would dictate that any and all means of collecting wealth should be legal, short of some minimal baseline (e.g. use of violence). For example, I don't see any reason why a contract where one person agrees to give away all rights for the rest of his or her life should be illegal, and yet it is. I don't see any reason why it should be illegal to buy a strip of land encircling an entire town, paying off whatever governing bodies one needs to do so, and threaten everyone inside with starvation unless they sign the contract described above. Do you think that should be legal? After all, once it is your private property, you should not be obligated to allow those people to cross it to get food.
Or, if that seems too outlandish to you, consider this scenario -- I gather up a huge amount of capital, do to some isolated county in, I don't know, Utah, and buy out/"outcompete" (i.e. bankrupt) all local industry. Now the stores are mine and the jobs are mine. Now, regardless of whether any contract is signed or not, those people are mine. I own them, because I own their livelihoods and their means of sustenance. Wait, this is starting to sound very familiar... You know what, I don't think I'm describing some hypothetical caricature of capitalism... I think I'm describing America. How the hell did that happen? I set out to argue just how absurd it would be to want to live in an "overly-capitalistic" country, and ended up using the US of A as an example. What do you make of that? (At this point, if you're thinking "they could just move somewhere else", please stop. We both know that's not how the real world works.)
Your use of the term "slavery" in that context is simply absurd.
Need I say more?
1) Nobody is forced to work in socialism. 2) In a capitalistic utopia, selling yourself should be completely legal. In fact, it is -- it's known as wage slavery.
We could argue whether being born into slavery, or being coerced into slavery through force (and not accepting it "willingly" in return for money) should be legal or not, but that's kinda moot.
Weren't most of those Siberian towns built for military strategic reasons? As I recall, the largest [factory] building boom in Siberia was during WWII, to keep weapons production away from the reach of Nazi bombers. Not that I disagree with your general point -- just a detail.
Well, that's pretty much what the communists in Russia set out to do. But somewhere along the way, like in the first month or so after they came to power, the oppression that was supposed to shape people into denizens capable of living in the communist utopia started being used by megalomaniacs for their own selfish needs. OOPS.
Yeah, about those rights...
http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/original/000/131/399/fry.PNG?1307468855