For that matter, why do you assume they'll violate NDAs and IP? They could buy their cpus from China, which has it's own model. It's based around an old Intel design, but there've been significant mods, and as I understand things, no internationally recognized IP violations took place. Not of patents, not of copyrights, not of trademarks, and certainly not of trade secrets.
Now I don't know that China has a really low power model, but I'd be rather surprised if they didn't.
I have too! I play Alpha Centauri frequently. And CivilizationCTP...though it's annoying having to run them in a virtual system. (Still, it's better than setting up a separate partition and rebooting into it.)
Currently most economic modelers have given up on "rational" economic agents, except those computer driven. And they also don't act the way people predict rational agents would act, even though we know that they are, in a very deep sense, rational.
Networks of independent agents with known but conflicting goals tend to be unpredictable in their actions. I don't think chaotic is quite the correct word, though perhaps it is. And there are certainly large regions of predictability.
But they definitely don't act in the way that classic free market theory says they would act. And neither do people. (It appears that people, also, are in a deep sense rational...but not on the surface. People, e.g., will frequently take extra damage in order to inflict damage onto someone that they feel has wronged them. This contradicts the presumptions of free market theory, but it appears to be for the intention of preventing actions wronging people like them in the future...which is rational, if you adopt a wide enough view of what is being protected.)
Classical free market theory does not predict actions which match observed behavior either in real world conditions or in laboratory conditions. There are areas in which it, or something approximately similar, does work. This, however, is definitely not a global state.
P.S.: The same is true of all current economic theories. Don't believe any of them except in constrained circumstances. Some accurately cover broader areas than others. Free Market has a reasonably large area of coverage...and I'm not an expert into exactly what it's limits are. But there is no global theory, so it's certainly not global. (N.B.: global above is in the sense of a global variable, as opposed to geographic.)
Laws don't have much to do with morality or ethics, and it seems like they have less all the time.
Laws are to be obeyed for practical reasons. Moral and ethical actions are to be done because you decide that that's the right action. It seems like these are increasingly in conflict.
My reaction to this has been to withdraw from the marketplace and pretty much limit myself to GPL software...with occasional other software that's also OSI licensed. (Though I've never considered the MS license that got OSI approved. And doubt that I will. I may not see the trap there, but the source damns it.)
I don't think I've bought 5 CDs of music since the DMCA was passed, though I still have shelves from before then. Because I take licenses seriously, I am not willing to deal with those who shove abusive licenses on me. And the DMCA has made the default copyright into an abusive license.
I also haven't bought any games in the last several years. I think you can guess some of the reasons. (Actually, for games I don't really consider the default copyright to be an abusive license, if backups are permitted. The extensions, however, are. And requiring on-line access is abusive. One doesn't know WHAT information is being transmitted.)
In the studies that I've read reports on the bleaching was more closely correlated with sewage outlets and that kind of pollution, including agricultural runoff.
Yes, I'm certain that the CO2 stresses are very significant, and I known that they are shown to be so by other studies, but bleaching at the moment is usually caused by acute stress. I'm sure that there is a good argument that without the stress imposed by the CO2 levels, the coral would be more robust against, say, a heat wave, or a sudden flush of agricultural chemicals. But that's quite difficult to prove.
OTOH, yes, it has been shown that increasing CO2 levels (== acidification) has increased the effort required for many organisms to build their shells and skeletons. I'm not aware that it has been shown that current levels are such that coral would just bleach without additional acute external stresses. (That doesn't say anything about the levels 2 years from now.)
OK. But how many people does it require to equal a species of animal? Does it depend on which species? On which people?
Clearly the common judgment is dependent on the distance from the situation. People who can profit frequently say that an entire species is trivial, and of course it should be sacrificed for "human good", meaning by that, that they can make some money by so doing. People who have less immediate advantage are much more likely to quibble. And so a dam is held up so that the snail-darter can survive. Is this right or not?
There's no objective measure. Usually I'd side with the species, but not always. I'd have few qualms about wiping out the Anopheles mosquito, even though none of them have ever intended significant harm to any human being. Intent isn't everything.
Nothing new: An axe age A sword age Shields shall be cloven A wind age A wolf age Ere the world totters
Of course, the Norse civilization lies so thoroughly in ruins that it seems impossible to reconstruct. All that appears left are the memories of those wealthy enough to own ships, and desperate enough to go raiding. And the memories are left largely in the lands of those "raided". (Often they established enclaves or colonies.)
The bleaching is due to heat and pollution stresses that aren't obviously related to CO2.
It's happening, but that's a separate problem. The other is *also* happening. (I don't think the acidity of the oceans has changed a whole pH#, so he probably did mean pH8 to pH8. He just didn't have the fractional digits [and neither do I].) Life is quite sensitive a numerous things. Humans, e.g., are (probably) moderately sensitive to various estrogen mimics that are currently circulating in our environment. Some of this only become observable in the sons of daughters who were conceived while the steroid was in the mother's bloodstream. For people that means a time delay between the environmental insult and the detection of around 30-40 years. Rats, with shorter generations, are what is currently used to detect this kind of problem, but their metabolism is different for that of people in various ways, so one can't be certain that the same results apply. Also, unfortunately, the EPA has standardized on a strain of rats specifically bred to be resistant to numerous environmental poisons. (This was to make them easier to raise in a stressful environment.) But this may mean that they are less sensitive to environmental insults that standard rats are. And often rats are hardier then people. Whoops!!
The system has lots of time-delay loops in it. Sometimes that's advantageous. Sometimes it's the opposite.
Nuclear could work, but it comes with some pretty scary problems. I'd prefer a combination of solar, wind, and other (geo-thermal, tide, whatever is locally appropriate), with nuclear only used to fill in the cracks and act as an emergency backup. Of course this implies that a LOT of work needs to be done on energy storage systems. (Compressed air works pretty well if you have a large cave that's tightly sealed. Like an old oil well. Water is good if you have an old dam that no longer has enough stream. But those are both pretty location specific. I understand that some places get good results from a water tower...but that sound's like a pretty small system.)
Nuclear could work. But if we can avoid the problems it would bring we'd be much happier. (And *PLEASE* no more reactors built on earthquake faults. We're still paying for the last one, and will be for at least another decade with NO payoff. But I'm glad it had been decommissioned before the last earthquake.)
Nuclear is expensive. And they won't build any unless the government guarantees that they aren't liable in case of massive systems failure...which means to me that the builders don't trust them even as much as I do.
You're talking about an evaluation of a complex system. And I dispute that it was working all that well before the increase to 40 to 1. But cutting it back to 10 to 1 might well be reasonable. Or even eleven.
The problem is, this is probably something whose optimal value is dependent on factors that we are considering, and can't consider because we don't even realize that they're important. Like the difference between the minimum wage and the average price of an apartment.
I believe (and hope) that these recommendations were written in the first realization that mercury was dangerous and applied to the large fluorescent tube lights, and were then just copied over without thought to "how to deal with a compact fluorescent".
This, however, isn't based on positive knowledge. It's mainly based on hope. But it's also based on a knowledge of how bureaucracies operate.
I'm not aware of any articles in a reviewed journal that support your stance. Could you please quote a few.
N.B.: Yes, as there are "Reviewed Journals" that are wholly owned by industry, I will be checking on the funding sources of the publication before I allow any such article to alter my beliefs. (It's not so much that they own the journal, as that they also tend to own the reviewers.) I admit that I've only become aware of such journals in the drug industry, but this doesn't mean that it's the only place where they exist.
In plainer words, If you aren't lying, then I believe that your sources are lying to you. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but it will take actual proof, not mere disputation.
It *IS* worth noting, however, that we aren't doing it *sustainably* for 7 billion, or even for 3. Not that we guaranteed couldn't, but we sure aren't. Current agricultural practices are heavily dependent on cheap power, often on cheap oil. Expect food prices to rise even more than the already have, and fairly quickly. This wasn't inevitable with reasonable forwards looking planning, but it WASN'T dealt with when we had time to. Now... well, now we need to get ready to live with the consequences of not having prepared while energy was cheap. I estimate that food price rises will be severe within two years. (The big culprit here is fertilizers and insecticides rather than transportation of food.)
As for mass starvation... that's easily handled. Just declare that because of the war that ensues the area is too dangerous to allow reporters into. (It's happening in a few places right now, even though the famines that I'm aware of at the moment are intended to squelch political rivals that because they are impossible to deal with.)
But if you aren't aware that mass starvation is going on right now, then I don't see why changing the reasons should cause you to become informed.
P.S.: Did you notice that I haven't mentioned water? That's a separate problem with different answers in different regions, but in many areas it's going to be a BIG problem.
P.P.S.: The Hoover Dam is silting up. This needs to be dealt with NOW. If it is being dealt with, I haven't heard. (I've heard instead about "controlled flooding" to restore the Colorado River. This might be a disguise.) If the canyon behind the dam isn't dredged while we can, we will regret the expense of doing it on an emergency basis. This is something that should be dealt with on an on-going basis as a part of routine maintenance. Remember that this dam is the source of much of the water in southern California. Also, I believe, Arizona and New Mexico. Possibly another state is also involved.
The thing is, there's a very large number of things building up to emergency status that could be dealt with NOW via routine maintenance. But dealing with them when they become a blatant emergency is much more expensive.
This is probably the same thing with CO2 dissolved in the oceans. She's probably overstating her case, but it's a real problem, and we are extremely close to the edge of something that could be quite bad. I'm not certain which side of the edge we are on. I've suspected that we might have crossed the edge to where it was time to start emergency rather than routine repairs, but I don't really know. I have no reason to doubt her claims, but I don't know.
P.S.: I am not a climate scientist, just an observer. But I have been following reports. And I've also been observing reports of how it's becoming more difficult for various mollusks and corals to secrete their shells/skeletons. The reason has invariably been that the increasing CO2 level of the oceans has caused calcium carbonate to be more difficult to precipitate and more willing to dissolve.
OK, you answered sufficiently. Now, I suppose, I should.
But first: I question your use of the term "higher". I feel that it is undefined. (You may have a definition, I don't.)
The difference between the various life-forms is the effective power that they can project in any particular circumstance.
I have no trouble with meat eating, because I was both evolved to eat mean and raised to eat meat. (I mentioned chickens especially, as I once lived on a farm where I, personally, slew chickens. Not often except one period were we were intentionally raising a brood of chickens to be slain as pullets.)
I am aware of circumstances where chickens can more effectively project force into the world than people can. There aren't many, but they exist. In such circumstances chickens are merciless.
I have also raised dogs. I can more easily identify with a dog than with a chicken. The thoughts of chickens are alien. When a dog can more easily project force than a human who it acknowledges as a member of it's pack, it is merciful AND obedient to pack morality. If the human is not acknowledged as a member of it's pack, then it can be merciless or not, as the situation warrants (in it's mind).
Children are still easier to identify with. They may operate under a pack morality, in which case I do not rank them above dogs, but they can also operate, or be raised to operate, under a larger morality. The ones that survive into adulthood usually operate under a morality at least somewhat larger than a simple pack morality. But notice that many of the ones who become most powerful do not appear to have any wider morals that a pack animal.
So... I, more or less, evaluate the moral value of an entity by the breath of coverage that its morality provides. Also by its current potential to develop a wider morality than it currently possesses.
This could be taken to say that I believe that Vegans are the more moral, but this would be wrong. Vegans attempt to apply a morality suitable to developed humans to all animal creature. (Why do they except plants? Because they must? I've never investigated their logic.)
"Reverence for life" need not mean Ahimsa, though that is how Ghandi probably meant it. It can also be an acceptance of each life as a part of a larger web of being, with different strands appropriate to different places in the tapestry.
I regret that I still eat chicken, because of how chickens are now being raised, which I consider immoral, and regret the small part I take in it.
OTOH, I regret eating fish because we are overfishing the oceans, and the few fish farms are not operated sustainably. An exception is Tilapia, but it doesn't produce Omega-3 oils, which I desire in my diet.
Note that I do not object to the way that fish are raised for the sake of the fish. I'm not aware that the fish feel they are being mistreated. If they did, then that would be an additional reason to object. Chickens, however, are acutely aware that the current approaches to raising them are vile mistreatment. So I object to that.
And what about scientific research? Frequently the "studies" done are done without good reason, and cause senseless suffering. I am opposed to such studies. OTOH, many studies are necessary to obtain knowledge. In such cases the animals used should be of minimal moral width and should be treated as kindly as possible. These rules should be legally required and carefully enforced. They aren't. Some of the reason is, or was when last I investigated, antiquated laws. In such cases the laws need to be changed. Sometimes it's lack of proper instruments. Such lack should be remedied. Sometimes it's lack of training on the part of one or another of the people (scientists, caretakers, etc.). Such lack should be remedied. Sometimes its laziness. Such action should be legally punished.
A problem here is judging both the "moral width" and the "physiological appropriateness" of the animal proposed for the study. I don't have any answers here, except "BE CAREFUL"! I don't know any objective way to measure moral width.
If a revolution does happen, then you will regret it. Possibly your grandchildren or great-grandchildren won't.
Centralization of authority is a structural problem of the system. A design flaw, if you will. Efficiency should not be over valued. Authority should be dispersed and localized, even at the cost of some efficiency (and it might not cost extra!).s
In the US the current Federal system is a mistake. It should be decentralized, with more power reverting to the cities and counties. Also to the states, but only secondarily. The question is HOW??? Not how to get the power to implement it, that's the wrong question. But rather how to properly design such a system. Clearly no simple hierarchical system would work. Possibly something could be devised based around a neural net. I haven't come up with a design that I find convincing, and I haven't ever seen one.
However, one thing that would help would be an absolute limit on the number of laws at any one level of government and a limit on the length of any one law. Say 5 pages (specify paper size) of 12 point type (specify font). And then specify that the meaning will be based on the interpretations of a class of 12th grade students. (Specify the means of averaging the interpretations). The purpose here is that people should be *ABLE* to know the laws that they are supposed to obey. If graduating students can't understand a law, then that law should not govern the actions of the citizenry.
While I agree with you, basically... you are missing the point.
How does one decide that a human life is more important than the life of n chickens? Is there a number n such that the statement becomes false? If so, either how do you prove it, or how do you select and justify any particular value of n.
Is there a difference between chickens and puppies? Justify your answer!
Is there a difference between puppies and children? Justify your answer!
I've got opinions, but I sure can't prove that they are correct.
Do recall that some houses the USAF bombed with fire-raising materials contained children. They may or my not try to avoid this. Sometimes they do. Usually they can't tell...and, effectively, don't care. They do care that the houses are occupied. In civilian life that would make it an "atrocious felony", i.e., one that a citizen is required to use deadly force to prevent. (Just don't make a mistake, as that's also a crime.)
Terrorists are armies that aren't powerful enough to control the real estate that they lay claim to. (Claim to here in the sense of "Take that hill and hold it!")
The actions of terrorists are no more vile than the actions of other armies. I don't want terrorists here because they would threaten me, but I don't need to deceive myself about the relative virtue of differing ways of projecting abusive force.
It's enough to put them out of action just when you choose to put them out of action. Not because of anything they did, but because of something you did that they had scant control over.
If you don't see that, then there's no reasoning with you. If you don't see why that would be valuable, then you need some experience with how the world operates.
This is why I think that police officers who contravene the law should face personal suits for all damages they cause, and that they should be required to pay for their own defense. (OTOH, I'll agree that this would also be subject to "social engineering". Sigh. I'm open to a reasonable alternative.)
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For that matter, why do you assume they'll violate NDAs and IP? They could buy their cpus from China, which has it's own model. It's based around an old Intel design, but there've been significant mods, and as I understand things, no internationally recognized IP violations took place. Not of patents, not of copyrights, not of trademarks, and certainly not of trade secrets.
Now I don't know that China has a really low power model, but I'd be rather surprised if they didn't.
Why use VMWare instead of, say, Qemu? Or even Xen?
Possibly bad phrasing? Presumably he meant he never opened the CD case, rather than the box that it came in.
I have too! I play Alpha Centauri frequently. And CivilizationCTP...though it's annoying having to run them in a virtual system. (Still, it's better than setting up a separate partition and rebooting into it.)
In a valley, when you have a wired connection.
Doesn't matter. It's still a bad idea.
I'd like to know your definition of "rational".
Currently most economic modelers have given up on "rational" economic agents, except those computer driven. And they also don't act the way people predict rational agents would act, even though we know that they are, in a very deep sense, rational.
Networks of independent agents with known but conflicting goals tend to be unpredictable in their actions. I don't think chaotic is quite the correct word, though perhaps it is. And there are certainly large regions of predictability.
But they definitely don't act in the way that classic free market theory says they would act. And neither do people. (It appears that people, also, are in a deep sense rational...but not on the surface. People, e.g., will frequently take extra damage in order to inflict damage onto someone that they feel has wronged them. This contradicts the presumptions of free market theory, but it appears to be for the intention of preventing actions wronging people like them in the future...which is rational, if you adopt a wide enough view of what is being protected.)
Classical free market theory does not predict actions which match observed behavior either in real world conditions or in laboratory conditions. There are areas in which it, or something approximately similar, does work. This, however, is definitely not a global state.
P.S.: The same is true of all current economic theories. Don't believe any of them except in constrained circumstances. Some accurately cover broader areas than others. Free Market has a reasonably large area of coverage...and I'm not an expert into exactly what it's limits are. But there is no global theory, so it's certainly not global.
(N.B.: global above is in the sense of a global variable, as opposed to geographic.)
Laws don't have much to do with morality or ethics, and it seems like they have less all the time.
Laws are to be obeyed for practical reasons. Moral and ethical actions are to be done because you decide that that's the right action. It seems like these are increasingly in conflict.
My reaction to this has been to withdraw from the marketplace and pretty much limit myself to GPL software...with occasional other software that's also OSI licensed. (Though I've never considered the MS license that got OSI approved. And doubt that I will. I may not see the trap there, but the source damns it.)
I don't think I've bought 5 CDs of music since the DMCA was passed, though I still have shelves from before then. Because I take licenses seriously, I am not willing to deal with those who shove abusive licenses on me. And the DMCA has made the default copyright into an abusive license.
I also haven't bought any games in the last several years. I think you can guess some of the reasons. (Actually, for games I don't really consider the default copyright to be an abusive license, if backups are permitted. The extensions, however, are. And requiring on-line access is abusive. One doesn't know WHAT information is being transmitted.)
In the studies that I've read reports on the bleaching was more closely correlated with sewage outlets and that kind of pollution, including agricultural runoff.
Yes, I'm certain that the CO2 stresses are very significant, and I known that they are shown to be so by other studies, but bleaching at the moment is usually caused by acute stress. I'm sure that there is a good argument that without the stress imposed by the CO2 levels, the coral would be more robust against, say, a heat wave, or a sudden flush of agricultural chemicals. But that's quite difficult to prove.
OTOH, yes, it has been shown that increasing CO2 levels (== acidification) has increased the effort required for many organisms to build their shells and skeletons. I'm not aware that it has been shown that current levels are such that coral would just bleach without additional acute external stresses. (That doesn't say anything about the levels 2 years from now.)
I'm not interested in who the authors are, but rather who the reviewers are.
OK. But how many people does it require to equal a species of animal? Does it depend on which species? On which people?
Clearly the common judgment is dependent on the distance from the situation. People who can profit frequently say that an entire species is trivial, and of course it should be sacrificed for "human good", meaning by that, that they can make some money by so doing. People who have less immediate advantage are much more likely to quibble. And so a dam is held up so that the snail-darter can survive. Is this right or not?
There's no objective measure. Usually I'd side with the species, but not always. I'd have few qualms about wiping out the Anopheles mosquito, even though none of them have ever intended significant harm to any human being. Intent isn't everything.
Have the customer break it up into two $100 orders?
Have it tattooed onto your shoulder? That should work, of course, you'd need a mirror to read it.
Nothing new:
An axe age A sword age
Shields shall be cloven
A wind age A wolf age
Ere the world totters
Of course, the Norse civilization lies so thoroughly in ruins that it seems impossible to reconstruct. All that appears left are the memories of those wealthy enough to own ships, and desperate enough to go raiding. And the memories are left largely in the lands of those "raided". (Often they established enclaves or colonies.)
I thought it must have been like that, but I didn't have any facts. Do you?
(I'd seen an ad for the opening of the New York subway, but couldn't remember who it said funded it.)
The bleaching is due to heat and pollution stresses that aren't obviously related to CO2.
It's happening, but that's a separate problem. The other is *also* happening. (I don't think the acidity of the oceans has changed a whole pH#, so he probably did mean pH8 to pH8. He just didn't have the fractional digits [and neither do I].) Life is quite sensitive a numerous things. Humans, e.g., are (probably) moderately sensitive to various estrogen mimics that are currently circulating in our environment. Some of this only become observable in the sons of daughters who were conceived while the steroid was in the mother's bloodstream. For people that means a time delay between the environmental insult and the detection of around 30-40 years. Rats, with shorter generations, are what is currently used to detect this kind of problem, but their metabolism is different for that of people in various ways, so one can't be certain that the same results apply. Also, unfortunately, the EPA has standardized on a strain of rats specifically bred to be resistant to numerous environmental poisons. (This was to make them easier to raise in a stressful environment.) But this may mean that they are less sensitive to environmental insults that standard rats are. And often rats are hardier then people. Whoops!!
The system has lots of time-delay loops in it. Sometimes that's advantageous. Sometimes it's the opposite.
Nuclear could work, but it comes with some pretty scary problems. I'd prefer a combination of solar, wind, and other (geo-thermal, tide, whatever is locally appropriate), with nuclear only used to fill in the cracks and act as an emergency backup. Of course this implies that a LOT of work needs to be done on energy storage systems. (Compressed air works pretty well if you have a large cave that's tightly sealed. Like an old oil well. Water is good if you have an old dam that no longer has enough stream. But those are both pretty location specific. I understand that some places get good results from a water tower...but that sound's like a pretty small system.)
Nuclear could work. But if we can avoid the problems it would bring we'd be much happier. (And *PLEASE* no more reactors built on earthquake faults. We're still paying for the last one, and will be for at least another decade with NO payoff. But I'm glad it had been decommissioned before the last earthquake.)
Nuclear is expensive. And they won't build any unless the government guarantees that they aren't liable in case of massive systems failure...which means to me that the builders don't trust them even as much as I do.
I don't think there are enough data points.
You're talking about an evaluation of a complex system. And I dispute that it was working all that well before the increase to 40 to 1. But cutting it back to 10 to 1 might well be reasonable. Or even eleven.
The problem is, this is probably something whose optimal value is dependent on factors that we are considering, and can't consider because we don't even realize that they're important. Like the difference between the minimum wage and the average price of an apartment.
I believe (and hope) that these recommendations were written in the first realization that mercury was dangerous and applied to the large fluorescent tube lights, and were then just copied over without thought to "how to deal with a compact fluorescent".
This, however, isn't based on positive knowledge. It's mainly based on hope. But it's also based on a knowledge of how bureaucracies operate.
I'm not aware of any articles in a reviewed journal that support your stance. Could you please quote a few.
N.B.: Yes, as there are "Reviewed Journals" that are wholly owned by industry, I will be checking on the funding sources of the publication before I allow any such article to alter my beliefs. (It's not so much that they own the journal, as that they also tend to own the reviewers.) I admit that I've only become aware of such journals in the drug industry, but this doesn't mean that it's the only place where they exist.
In plainer words, If you aren't lying, then I believe that your sources are lying to you. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but it will take actual proof, not mere disputation.
It *IS* worth noting, however, that we aren't doing it *sustainably* for 7 billion, or even for 3. Not that we guaranteed couldn't, but we sure aren't. Current agricultural practices are heavily dependent on cheap power, often on cheap oil. Expect food prices to rise even more than the already have, and fairly quickly. This wasn't inevitable with reasonable forwards looking planning, but it WASN'T dealt with when we had time to. Now... well, now we need to get ready to live with the consequences of not having prepared while energy was cheap. I estimate that food price rises will be severe within two years. (The big culprit here is fertilizers and insecticides rather than transportation of food.)
As for mass starvation... that's easily handled. Just declare that because of the war that ensues the area is too dangerous to allow reporters into. (It's happening in a few places right now, even though the famines that I'm aware of at the moment are intended to squelch political rivals that because they are impossible to deal with.)
But if you aren't aware that mass starvation is going on right now, then I don't see why changing the reasons should cause you to become informed.
P.S.: Did you notice that I haven't mentioned water? That's a separate problem with different answers in different regions, but in many areas it's going to be a BIG problem.
P.P.S.: The Hoover Dam is silting up. This needs to be dealt with NOW. If it is being dealt with, I haven't heard. (I've heard instead about "controlled flooding" to restore the Colorado River. This might be a disguise.) If the canyon behind the dam isn't dredged while we can, we will regret the expense of doing it on an emergency basis. This is something that should be dealt with on an on-going basis as a part of routine maintenance. Remember that this dam is the source of much of the water in southern California. Also, I believe, Arizona and New Mexico. Possibly another state is also involved.
The thing is, there's a very large number of things building up to emergency status that could be dealt with NOW via routine maintenance. But dealing with them when they become a blatant emergency is much more expensive.
This is probably the same thing with CO2 dissolved in the oceans. She's probably overstating her case, but it's a real problem, and we are extremely close to the edge of something that could be quite bad. I'm not certain which side of the edge we are on. I've suspected that we might have crossed the edge to where it was time to start emergency rather than routine repairs, but I don't really know. I have no reason to doubt her claims, but I don't know.
P.S.: I am not a climate scientist, just an observer. But I have been following reports. And I've also been observing reports of how it's becoming more difficult for various mollusks and corals to secrete their shells/skeletons. The reason has invariably been that the increasing CO2 level of the oceans has caused calcium carbonate to be more difficult to precipitate and more willing to dissolve.
OK, you answered sufficiently. Now, I suppose, I should.
But first: I question your use of the term "higher". I feel that it is undefined. (You may have a definition, I don't.)
The difference between the various life-forms is the effective power that they can project in any particular circumstance.
I have no trouble with meat eating, because I was both evolved to eat mean and raised to eat meat. (I mentioned chickens especially, as I once lived on a farm where I, personally, slew chickens. Not often except one period were we were intentionally raising a brood of chickens to be slain as pullets.)
I am aware of circumstances where chickens can more effectively project force into the world than people can. There aren't many, but they exist. In such circumstances chickens are merciless.
I have also raised dogs. I can more easily identify with a dog than with a chicken. The thoughts of chickens are alien. When a dog can more easily project force than a human who it acknowledges as a member of it's pack, it is merciful AND obedient to pack morality. If the human is not acknowledged as a member of it's pack, then it can be merciless or not, as the situation warrants (in it's mind).
Children are still easier to identify with. They may operate under a pack morality, in which case I do not rank them above dogs, but they can also operate, or be raised to operate, under a larger morality. The ones that survive into adulthood usually operate under a morality at least somewhat larger than a simple pack morality. But notice that many of the ones who become most powerful do not appear to have any wider morals that a pack animal.
So ... I, more or less, evaluate the moral value of an entity by the breath of coverage that its morality provides. Also by its current potential to develop a wider morality than it currently possesses.
This could be taken to say that I believe that Vegans are the more moral, but this would be wrong. Vegans attempt to apply a morality suitable to developed humans to all animal creature. (Why do they except plants? Because they must? I've never investigated their logic.)
"Reverence for life" need not mean Ahimsa, though that is how Ghandi probably meant it. It can also be an acceptance of each life as a part of a larger web of being, with different strands appropriate to different places in the tapestry.
I regret that I still eat chicken, because of how chickens are now being raised, which I consider immoral, and regret the small part I take in it.
OTOH, I regret eating fish because we are overfishing the oceans, and the few fish farms are not operated sustainably. An exception is Tilapia, but it doesn't produce Omega-3 oils, which I desire in my diet.
Note that I do not object to the way that fish are raised for the sake of the fish. I'm not aware that the fish feel they are being mistreated. If they did, then that would be an additional reason to object. Chickens, however, are acutely aware that the current approaches to raising them are vile mistreatment. So I object to that.
And what about scientific research? Frequently the "studies" done are done without good reason, and cause senseless suffering. I am opposed to such studies. OTOH, many studies are necessary to obtain knowledge. In such cases the animals used should be of minimal moral width and should be treated as kindly as possible. These rules should be legally required and carefully enforced. They aren't. Some of the reason is, or was when last I investigated, antiquated laws. In such cases the laws need to be changed. Sometimes it's lack of proper instruments. Such lack should be remedied. Sometimes it's lack of training on the part of one or another of the people (scientists, caretakers, etc.). Such lack should be remedied. Sometimes its laziness. Such action should be legally punished.
A problem here is judging both the "moral width" and the "physiological appropriateness" of the animal proposed for the study. I don't have any answers here, except "BE CAREFUL"! I don't know any objective way to measure moral width.
If a revolution does happen, then you will regret it. Possibly your grandchildren or great-grandchildren won't.
Centralization of authority is a structural problem of the system. A design flaw, if you will. Efficiency should not be over valued. Authority should be dispersed and localized, even at the cost of some efficiency (and it might not cost extra!).s
In the US the current Federal system is a mistake. It should be decentralized, with more power reverting to the cities and counties. Also to the states, but only secondarily. The question is HOW??? Not how to get the power to implement it, that's the wrong question. But rather how to properly design such a system. Clearly no simple hierarchical system would work. Possibly something could be devised based around a neural net. I haven't come up with a design that I find convincing, and I haven't ever seen one.
However, one thing that would help would be an absolute limit on the number of laws at any one level of government and a limit on the length of any one law. Say 5 pages (specify paper size) of 12 point type (specify font). And then specify that the meaning will be based on the interpretations of a class of 12th grade students. (Specify the means of averaging the interpretations). The purpose here is that people should be *ABLE* to know the laws that they are supposed to obey. If graduating students can't understand a law, then that law should not govern the actions of the citizenry.
While I agree with you, basically ... you are missing the point.
How does one decide that a human life is more important than the life of n chickens? Is there a number n such that the statement becomes false? If so, either how do you prove it, or how do you select and justify any particular value of n.
Is there a difference between chickens and puppies? Justify your answer!
Is there a difference between puppies and children? Justify your answer!
I've got opinions, but I sure can't prove that they are correct.
Do recall that some houses the USAF bombed with fire-raising materials contained children. They may or my not try to avoid this. Sometimes they do. Usually they can't tell...and, effectively, don't care. They do care that the houses are occupied. In civilian life that would make it an "atrocious felony", i.e., one that a citizen is required to use deadly force to prevent. (Just don't make a mistake, as that's also a crime.)
Terrorists are armies that aren't powerful enough to control the real estate that they lay claim to. (Claim to here in the sense of "Take that hill and hold it!")
The actions of terrorists are no more vile than the actions of other armies. I don't want terrorists here because they would threaten me, but I don't need to deceive myself about the relative virtue of differing ways of projecting abusive force.
It's enough to put them out of action just when you choose to put them out of action. Not because of anything they did, but because of something you did that they had scant control over.
If you don't see that, then there's no reasoning with you. If you don't see why that would be valuable, then you need some experience with how the world operates.
This is why I think that police officers who contravene the law should face personal suits for all damages they cause, and that they should be required to pay for their own defense. (OTOH, I'll agree that this would also be subject to "social engineering". Sigh. I'm open to a reasonable alternative.)