My talking points? What the devil are you talking about? Where the frick do I use "talking points"??? Do you always use criticisms blindly absorbed from cable news shows completely out of context?
You refuse to refrain from using strawman arguments that put words in my mouth. I used Google's announcement and the subsequent nationwide craze to demonstrate the pent-up demand for wideband. I've read so many examples of corruption at the regulatory and political levels that have prevented communities from setting up their own networks, or new competitors from entering. Whether it be predatory pricing from incumbents, incumbent-influenced laws passed that outright forbid local governments from setting up a bond funded local fiber ISP, or spurious lawsuits initiated by incumbents to delay new competitors in an attempt to starve them of capital, there is simply no end to the difficulties new ISPs face. Special access lines (the middle mile) alone presents a huge, huge problem. It's controlled almost entirely by AT&T and Verizon, who subsequently price at insanely high duopolistic prices. We're talking $100-$200/mbit, compared to $5-$15/mbit in the rest of the developed world. These ridiculous prices also prevent new wireless entrants from emerging, as they need to rent middle mile fiber to provide data to their poles.
There are a whole host of other issues, many of which have been discussed exhaustingly at a god awful number of workshop discussions held at the FCC over the last 9 months or so. You have no idea the kind of margins ISPs make on their internet services. Wireless especially is their cashcow, and it's just ridiculous how stupidly profitable these useless infrastructure companies are. They do absolutely nothing to innovate. They don't do much of their own research or develop their own technology. That's all done at the vendor and supplier level. Basically they stockpile money until they can buy content companies that vertically integrate the market, further consolidating and stifling competition.
Uh, I figured your question was completely asinine. The reality, as any economist can tell you, is that the production capabilities of any nation are inherently limited by their infrastructure and current technology. Whether a single person works 16 hours a day or 2 people work 8 hours a day the production will theoretically be the same, especially in a factory setting. Outside of a factory setting numerous sociology studies have demonstrated that an individual's ability to produce in the service industry is inherently limited by their human nature. The French work 7 hour work days, but are more productive per hour than Americans who work 8 hour days. The Koreans work far more hours than any other nation in the world, but manage only 42% of the US's productivity per hour.
Hence any government's ability to generate revenue is based off of its nation's level of production and wealth, and hopes for a surplus rely heavily on the continued growth of an economy and its production facilities. Whatever can increase a country's GDP will ultimately lead to greater tax revenue, assuming tax rates stay the same.
Thus we are left with 2 options. Find a way to cut costs and/or find a way to grow our economy. Not coincidentally our economy's GDP growth barely surpassed inflation over the last decade of Republican rule (12 years in Congress, 8 in the executive). It's been historically demonstrated over and friggin' over again that complex and massive infrastructure buildouts as well as strong and intelligent investment into R & D pay themselves many times over in the long-run. Whether it be phone lines, electricity, and water all the way to the boonies, or research into "useless contraptionsJ" like vacuum tube computers that can do a massive 8 calculations per second, or transistors that are too large to have any useful applications, government involvement is indepensable to the growth of a modern, developed nation's economy.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Free trade enables costs of goods to decrease for everyone, and encourages investment in research and innovation from developed and advanced countries. It also encourages specialization, which raises the overall production of every country. Just because under Reagen and the Bush family the US developed a dislike of spending money on R & D doesn't mean we can just isolate ourselves from reality.
You keep talking about the budget, but the vast majority of the deficits were accrued under Republican rule. A properly balanced budget can be achieved even if government funds long-term research and invests in infrastructure development. You just need to friggin' stop going to war over useless things and stop giving giant tax cuts to the rich.
And this idea that government-based spending is useless is just stupid. The amount of both material, fiscal, and intangible benefits we've received from NASA and its contributions to our technological development are simply incalculable. The same goes to Bell Labs, which was largely funded by and regulated by the government until it was brought to impotence by the Bush administration.
So why don't we have fiber in every major metropolis in the US? Besides we gave away $200+ billion as part of the 1996 Telecom Act. We've subsidized far more per capita than any other country besides maybe South Korea.
I'm hip deep in MARX? I never even mentioned the guy. Is that your natural defense mechanism? Label anyone who disagrees with you a Marxist and assume you know better than them? How humble of you.
Look in 1890 fewer than 10 industrial stocks were traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Industrial Average only began to be reported in 1895. So clearly you don't know what you're talking about.
America didn't even undergo industrialization until the middle of the 19th century, so how the devil could a nonexistent urbanite population "invest" in the first place?
There was a huge disconnect between the super-elite super-rich who had the money and luck to get in on the huge railroad boom and the rest of the populace. And it was no coincidence that the robber baron situation came to pass. Numerous economic studies have shown the benefit of governments building out infrastructure, which do not offer enough short-term profits for corporations to do a good enough job on and are simply far too expensive and wasteful to expect and even want overbuilding to occur.
so you are living in Japan and have become an expert on Japanese housing
Because it takes an expert to look the frick around and determine they don't live in shoeboxes, is that right?
still are an expert on what is happening in the USA also by anecdote
What anecdote are you referring to? I've been paying a great deal of attention to FCC policy and various clashes between telecom and local and federal governments. It doesn't take a friggin' genius to follow the news if one's interested.
your thesis is that there can't be any competition but Google will somehow compete and save the day.
Just like every neoconservative nutjob I waste my time arguing with, you create strawman after strawman, shoving words in my mouth like it was Thanksgiving and I was a starving pilgrim. Seeing as how I said none of those things, I'll just ignore this obvious nonsequitor.
Wow, you really like to make things up, don't you? What a screwed up freak you are. Why don't you get a life and stop being such a dogmatic conservative nutjob?
Ah, the number of lies and distortion here is amazing. The loveliest aspect of it is that you believe it all 100%.
If you want to get rid of gov't intervention, sure, you can, and what would we have, well, we would have what we had in the 1800s, when, GDP soared dramatically, and a lot of people got really stinking rich, the standards of living improved dramatically
Typical neoconservative distortion without a sliver of hope for a citation or factual standing. The idea of GDP is an anachronism prior to the 20th century century. The concept pre-supposes that the objective of the economic function is profit by corporations, partnerships, etc. (For example, you're spouse's work around the house doesn't go it) In prior centuries this wasn't the case. The objective was [something like] increasing family landholdings. Another way of looking at it is to understand that the Proprietary view of owner's equity didn't exist. However, it can be stated the development of the railroad and the obvious benefits of industrialization played a huge role in propelling the US economy in the 19th century. At the same time the "robber barons" became a huge impediment to economic growth that was only solved through government intervention.
Americans would rather spend their money on bigger and faster cars than Europeans, and tend to have much larger houses than Europeans and Japanese both.
So what you're saying is because your... items are bigger than theirs you're better. Ah why didn't I think of it like that before.
Indeed, I wouldn't live in Japan for a second - sure, you have a nice download speed, but the people are practically living in fricking shoeboxes and shacks. F--- that.
Considering I'm currently living in Japan, I can unequivocally dispute your baseless claims. The houses *are* relatively small compared to US standards, but that has everything to do with a lack of space and a strong historical culture of not being wasteful.
Quite frankly, the reason more Americans do not have bandwidth is that, they do not want it.
I have been paying attention to the US telecom industry for the last 2 years now. I can say without a doubt that your statement is completely false. All one has to do is take a look at the massive nationwide excitement over Google's 1 gbit broadband initiative to understand the pent-up demand for faster internet speeds. Beyond that, there are countless examples of attempts by local communities to build out their own FTTH networks. The problem with the internet is an infrastructure one. Overbuilding is prohibitively expensive, and coupled with the legal roadblocks presented by gigantic telecom corporations who have their hands in the pockets of almost every regulator at local, state, and federal levels, new entrants have zero chance to succeed.
Beyond that there have been numerous attempts by local communities to build out their own fiber networks where the incumbents refused to upgrade or even build out their networks, but were blocked by well-lobbied politicians. There are in fact states that now have laws prohibiting the buildout of networks by local governments. There is plenty of demand for higher bandwidth, but without competition or regulation the incumbent ISPs have no incentive to do anything but sit back and rake in the money.
You're right. Why bother being the first to the moon? Who cares about being the first to construct a coast-to-coast interstate system? Who cares about being the technological leader, or economic leader, or military leader, or any such things. Oh and we had better stop acting like we're the best and most important in all the various trade negotiations. And we had better be willing to give up our image of being the best for all those foreign geniuses who are fed up with their own countries and normally come to America to look for better lives.
Uh...it wasn't until after the companies reformed that things started to deteriorate. In fact even as late as before SBC merged with AT&T, AT&T was starting to provide some competition for special access pricing as it laid down its own middle mile lines. Then SBC bought it, changed its name to AT&T, and we're stuck with what we have now. I don't know if you remember but the early days of the internet, the late '90s and very early 2000s, were quite good. That was before the 1996 Telecom Act was gutted by Republican members of Congress and a Republican FCC.
Holy moly. $3000-$5000? Are you nuts? Do you even bother to fact-check before spouting nonsense? Verizon has reportedly stated that it costs them less than $1000 per home passed. And another $600/700 to install the wire. Jeez you're off.
Dude I'm in Japan right now. The speeds are tremendous to anyplace within Japan. We're talking true 100mbit/100mbit symmetrical here. Yes outside of Japan the speeds are slower and more like 5-10Mb/s, but that's often advertised to begin with. Besides it doesn't matter since the Japanese don't understand any language besides their own. They don't need to torrent games with people from America or watch Youtube from servers located in Europe.
There will never be a reason until enough people have the connection that entrepreneurs can make a profit out of providing such super high-bandwidth services. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, and one that won't be solved until we build out the network.
Oh is that so? So why is Google's 1gbit fiber project drawing so much attention all across the country from various cities begging for the fiber to be built in their cities? In fact there was an Ars article about this just the other day.
The demand for higher speeds is huge, especially considering that DSL providers have been hemhorhaging customers to Cable for years. The problem is the providers simply don't want to spend any of their profits to upgrade the last mile. And because there's no competition they don't have to.
The telecoms horde their money and use it to buy large content companiesor merge with each other. Take the rebirth of AT&T and Ma Bell, or Comcast trying to buy NBC. The dividend shareholders get is a miniscule portion of the overall profit.
That's a lie. The backhaul is extensive in America, and has received a great deal of investment from the telecoms. Of course they price it out at monoplistic levels, but that's besides the point.
You have no idea what you're talking about with regards to why Canada became such a poor broadband marketplace. It has nothing to do with "new entrants leapfrogging the first-comers" That is a ridiculous logical fallacy pulled out of thin air to justify what you see. And if you think 5/5 for $75 a month is sane, you have some real problems.
Take a look at free.fr in France. They charge all their customers $40/month for a *Triple PLay* service of internet, phone, and TV. The owner has regularly stated that he makes %50 profit margins on the service, and as long as he gets his $10/month/customer, he uses the rest of the revenue to improve service for his customers. Thus although the company started out with simple ADSL service, they've been laying down fiber in major cities in France, providing all sorts of "cloud" services for free, constantly upgrading speeds by rolling out new semi-new techs like line-bonding and ADSL+, and so on and so forth.
The development of internet infrastructure requires ongoing investment into laying down fiber and buying new routers. Old technology constantly depreciates and has to be replaced. So your excuse for Canada doesn't hold water.
Uh, citation please? Everything I've ever heard about gun laws is that they actually increase the rate of crime, especially in more densely populated urban areas.
Holy frack this is one of the most insightful comments about US politics and culture that I've read in a very, very long time. I really wish I had mod points. Especially that last paragraph, you freaking win the internet.
An individual demonstrating the false compromise fallacy implies that the positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground is always correct [1] . This is not always the case. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy allows any position to be invalidated, even those that have been reached by previous applications of the same method; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. In politics, this is part of the basis behind Overton Window Theory.
I suppose you believe we should "consider" the anti-AGW nutjobs` ranting as legitimate, regardless of how unfounded and stupid it is?
Um, that's because Europe's gas prices approached $11/gallon. That was far too crippling of a price. But it certainly was a boon for awareness of alternative energy technologies. So were the rising gas prices in America.
Don't you mean the wealthy live in expensive places far away from work?
Anyway your estimation of gasoline costs on our lives is ridiculous. The idea that we can't adapt our lifestyle is just stupid and arrogant.
More than that, once alternative energy technology becomes more advanced, there's no reason to believe it will not *continue its advancement*. Who's to say in 20 years we won't have super low-cost 60% efficient solar panels? In another 20 maybe 80%?
Who's to say we won't be able to build batteries with 100 times the density of those today, enabling an even more mobile society than what we currently have? Who's to say we'll never bring the next-generation of rocket propulsion technology to the consumer market, thus increasing international mobility?
Slashdot Mirror
My talking points? What the devil are you talking about? Where the frick do I use "talking points"??? Do you always use criticisms blindly absorbed from cable news shows completely out of context?
You refuse to refrain from using strawman arguments that put words in my mouth. I used Google's announcement and the subsequent nationwide craze to demonstrate the pent-up demand for wideband. I've read so many examples of corruption at the regulatory and political levels that have prevented communities from setting up their own networks, or new competitors from entering. Whether it be predatory pricing from incumbents, incumbent-influenced laws passed that outright forbid local governments from setting up a bond funded local fiber ISP, or spurious lawsuits initiated by incumbents to delay new competitors in an attempt to starve them of capital, there is simply no end to the difficulties new ISPs face. Special access lines (the middle mile) alone presents a huge, huge problem. It's controlled almost entirely by AT&T and Verizon, who subsequently price at insanely high duopolistic prices. We're talking $100-$200/mbit, compared to $5-$15/mbit in the rest of the developed world. These ridiculous prices also prevent new wireless entrants from emerging, as they need to rent middle mile fiber to provide data to their poles.
There are a whole host of other issues, many of which have been discussed exhaustingly at a god awful number of workshop discussions held at the FCC over the last 9 months or so. You have no idea the kind of margins ISPs make on their internet services. Wireless especially is their cashcow, and it's just ridiculous how stupidly profitable these useless infrastructure companies are. They do absolutely nothing to innovate. They don't do much of their own research or develop their own technology. That's all done at the vendor and supplier level. Basically they stockpile money until they can buy content companies that vertically integrate the market, further consolidating and stifling competition.
Uh, I figured your question was completely asinine. The reality, as any economist can tell you, is that the production capabilities of any nation are inherently limited by their infrastructure and current technology. Whether a single person works 16 hours a day or 2 people work 8 hours a day the production will theoretically be the same, especially in a factory setting. Outside of a factory setting numerous sociology studies have demonstrated that an individual's ability to produce in the service industry is inherently limited by their human nature. The French work 7 hour work days, but are more productive per hour than Americans who work 8 hour days. The Koreans work far more hours than any other nation in the world, but manage only 42% of the US's productivity per hour.
Hence any government's ability to generate revenue is based off of its nation's level of production and wealth, and hopes for a surplus rely heavily on the continued growth of an economy and its production facilities. Whatever can increase a country's GDP will ultimately lead to greater tax revenue, assuming tax rates stay the same.
Thus we are left with 2 options. Find a way to cut costs and/or find a way to grow our economy. Not coincidentally our economy's GDP growth barely surpassed inflation over the last decade of Republican rule (12 years in Congress, 8 in the executive). It's been historically demonstrated over and friggin' over again that complex and massive infrastructure buildouts as well as strong and intelligent investment into R & D pay themselves many times over in the long-run. Whether it be phone lines, electricity, and water all the way to the boonies, or research into "useless contraptionsJ" like vacuum tube computers that can do a massive 8 calculations per second, or transistors that are too large to have any useful applications, government involvement is indepensable to the growth of a modern, developed nation's economy.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Free trade enables costs of goods to decrease for everyone, and encourages investment in research and innovation from developed and advanced countries. It also encourages specialization, which raises the overall production of every country. Just because under Reagen and the Bush family the US developed a dislike of spending money on R & D doesn't mean we can just isolate ourselves from reality.
You keep talking about the budget, but the vast majority of the deficits were accrued under Republican rule. A properly balanced budget can be achieved even if government funds long-term research and invests in infrastructure development. You just need to friggin' stop going to war over useless things and stop giving giant tax cuts to the rich.
And this idea that government-based spending is useless is just stupid. The amount of both material, fiscal, and intangible benefits we've received from NASA and its contributions to our technological development are simply incalculable. The same goes to Bell Labs, which was largely funded by and regulated by the government until it was brought to impotence by the Bush administration.
So why don't we have fiber in every major metropolis in the US? Besides we gave away $200+ billion as part of the 1996 Telecom Act. We've subsidized far more per capita than any other country besides maybe South Korea.
I'm hip deep in MARX? I never even mentioned the guy. Is that your natural defense mechanism? Label anyone who disagrees with you a Marxist and assume you know better than them? How humble of you. Look in 1890 fewer than 10 industrial stocks were traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Industrial Average only began to be reported in 1895. So clearly you don't know what you're talking about.
America didn't even undergo industrialization until the middle of the 19th century, so how the devil could a nonexistent urbanite population "invest" in the first place?
There was a huge disconnect between the super-elite super-rich who had the money and luck to get in on the huge railroad boom and the rest of the populace. And it was no coincidence that the robber baron situation came to pass. Numerous economic studies have shown the benefit of governments building out infrastructure, which do not offer enough short-term profits for corporations to do a good enough job on and are simply far too expensive and wasteful to expect and even want overbuilding to occur.
so you are living in Japan and have become an expert on Japanese housing
Because it takes an expert to look the frick around and determine they don't live in shoeboxes, is that right?
still are an expert on what is happening in the USA also by anecdote
What anecdote are you referring to? I've been paying a great deal of attention to FCC policy and various clashes between telecom and local and federal governments. It doesn't take a friggin' genius to follow the news if one's interested.
your thesis is that there can't be any competition but Google will somehow compete and save the day.
Just like every neoconservative nutjob I waste my time arguing with, you create strawman after strawman, shoving words in my mouth like it was Thanksgiving and I was a starving pilgrim. Seeing as how I said none of those things, I'll just ignore this obvious nonsequitor.
I understand completely.
I seriously, seriously doubt it.
Wow, you really like to make things up, don't you? What a screwed up freak you are. Why don't you get a life and stop being such a dogmatic conservative nutjob?
I know the quote has been debunked, but I lolled anyways. Bill Gates deserves to have even a fake quote falsely attributed to him forever.
If you want to get rid of gov't intervention, sure, you can, and what would we have, well, we would have what we had in the 1800s, when, GDP soared dramatically, and a lot of people got really stinking rich, the standards of living improved dramatically
Typical neoconservative distortion without a sliver of hope for a citation or factual standing. The idea of GDP is an anachronism prior to the 20th century century. The concept pre-supposes that the objective of the economic function is profit by corporations, partnerships, etc. (For example, you're spouse's work around the house doesn't go it) In prior centuries this wasn't the case. The objective was [something like] increasing family landholdings. Another way of looking at it is to understand that the Proprietary view of owner's equity didn't exist. However, it can be stated the development of the railroad and the obvious benefits of industrialization played a huge role in propelling the US economy in the 19th century. At the same time the "robber barons" became a huge impediment to economic growth that was only solved through government intervention.
Americans would rather spend their money on bigger and faster cars than Europeans, and tend to have much larger houses than Europeans and Japanese both.
So what you're saying is because your... items are bigger than theirs you're better. Ah why didn't I think of it like that before.
Indeed, I wouldn't live in Japan for a second - sure, you have a nice download speed, but the people are practically living in fricking shoeboxes and shacks. F--- that.
Considering I'm currently living in Japan, I can unequivocally dispute your baseless claims. The houses *are* relatively small compared to US standards, but that has everything to do with a lack of space and a strong historical culture of not being wasteful.
Quite frankly, the reason more Americans do not have bandwidth is that, they do not want it.
I have been paying attention to the US telecom industry for the last 2 years now. I can say without a doubt that your statement is completely false. All one has to do is take a look at the massive nationwide excitement over Google's 1 gbit broadband initiative to understand the pent-up demand for faster internet speeds. Beyond that, there are countless examples of attempts by local communities to build out their own FTTH networks. The problem with the internet is an infrastructure one. Overbuilding is prohibitively expensive, and coupled with the legal roadblocks presented by gigantic telecom corporations who have their hands in the pockets of almost every regulator at local, state, and federal levels, new entrants have zero chance to succeed.
Beyond that there have been numerous attempts by local communities to build out their own fiber networks where the incumbents refused to upgrade or even build out their networks, but were blocked by well-lobbied politicians. There are in fact states that now have laws prohibiting the buildout of networks by local governments. There is plenty of demand for higher bandwidth, but without competition or regulation the incumbent ISPs have no incentive to do anything but sit back and rake in the money.
You're right. Why bother being the first to the moon? Who cares about being the first to construct a coast-to-coast interstate system? Who cares about being the technological leader, or economic leader, or military leader, or any such things. Oh and we had better stop acting like we're the best and most important in all the various trade negotiations. And we had better be willing to give up our image of being the best for all those foreign geniuses who are fed up with their own countries and normally come to America to look for better lives.
Bandwidth means very little in the face of caps, especially ones as draconian as those in Canada.
Uh...it wasn't until after the companies reformed that things started to deteriorate. In fact even as late as before SBC merged with AT&T, AT&T was starting to provide some competition for special access pricing as it laid down its own middle mile lines. Then SBC bought it, changed its name to AT&T, and we're stuck with what we have now. I don't know if you remember but the early days of the internet, the late '90s and very early 2000s, were quite good. That was before the 1996 Telecom Act was gutted by Republican members of Congress and a Republican FCC.
Holy moly. $3000-$5000? Are you nuts? Do you even bother to fact-check before spouting nonsense? Verizon has reportedly stated that it costs them less than $1000 per home passed. And another $600/700 to install the wire. Jeez you're off.
Dude I'm in Japan right now. The speeds are tremendous to anyplace within Japan. We're talking true 100mbit/100mbit symmetrical here. Yes outside of Japan the speeds are slower and more like 5-10Mb/s, but that's often advertised to begin with. Besides it doesn't matter since the Japanese don't understand any language besides their own. They don't need to torrent games with people from America or watch Youtube from servers located in Europe.
There will never be a reason until enough people have the connection that entrepreneurs can make a profit out of providing such super high-bandwidth services. It's a chicken-and-egg problem, and one that won't be solved until we build out the network.
Oh is that so? So why is Google's 1gbit fiber project drawing so much attention all across the country from various cities begging for the fiber to be built in their cities? In fact there was an Ars article about this just the other day. The demand for higher speeds is huge, especially considering that DSL providers have been hemhorhaging customers to Cable for years. The problem is the providers simply don't want to spend any of their profits to upgrade the last mile. And because there's no competition they don't have to.
The telecoms horde their money and use it to buy large content companiesor merge with each other. Take the rebirth of AT&T and Ma Bell, or Comcast trying to buy NBC. The dividend shareholders get is a miniscule portion of the overall profit.
That's a lie. The backhaul is extensive in America, and has received a great deal of investment from the telecoms. Of course they price it out at monoplistic levels, but that's besides the point.
You have no idea what you're talking about with regards to why Canada became such a poor broadband marketplace. It has nothing to do with "new entrants leapfrogging the first-comers" That is a ridiculous logical fallacy pulled out of thin air to justify what you see. And if you think 5/5 for $75 a month is sane, you have some real problems.
Take a look at free.fr in France. They charge all their customers $40/month for a *Triple PLay* service of internet, phone, and TV. The owner has regularly stated that he makes %50 profit margins on the service, and as long as he gets his $10/month/customer, he uses the rest of the revenue to improve service for his customers. Thus although the company started out with simple ADSL service, they've been laying down fiber in major cities in France, providing all sorts of "cloud" services for free, constantly upgrading speeds by rolling out new semi-new techs like line-bonding and ADSL+, and so on and so forth.
The development of internet infrastructure requires ongoing investment into laying down fiber and buying new routers. Old technology constantly depreciates and has to be replaced. So your excuse for Canada doesn't hold water.
This is why we need Laser Guns!
Uh, citation please? Everything I've ever heard about gun laws is that they actually increase the rate of crime, especially in more densely populated urban areas.
Holy frack this is one of the most insightful comments about US politics and culture that I've read in a very, very long time. I really wish I had mod points. Especially that last paragraph, you freaking win the internet.
Good false compromise there buddy:
An individual demonstrating the false compromise fallacy implies that the positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground is always correct [1] . This is not always the case. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy allows any position to be invalidated, even those that have been reached by previous applications of the same method; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. In politics, this is part of the basis behind Overton Window Theory.
I suppose you believe we should "consider" the anti-AGW nutjobs` ranting as legitimate, regardless of how unfounded and stupid it is?
Um, that's because Europe's gas prices approached $11/gallon. That was far too crippling of a price. But it certainly was a boon for awareness of alternative energy technologies. So were the rising gas prices in America.
Don't you mean the wealthy live in expensive places far away from work?
Anyway your estimation of gasoline costs on our lives is ridiculous. The idea that we can't adapt our lifestyle is just stupid and arrogant.
More than that, once alternative energy technology becomes more advanced, there's no reason to believe it will not *continue its advancement*. Who's to say in 20 years we won't have super low-cost 60% efficient solar panels? In another 20 maybe 80%?
Who's to say we won't be able to build batteries with 100 times the density of those today, enabling an even more mobile society than what we currently have? Who's to say we'll never bring the next-generation of rocket propulsion technology to the consumer market, thus increasing international mobility?