I don't think people realize how much threat there is to worldwide food security just from new pests/diseases coming along.
1) Commercial bananas are going extinct due to a fungus. Last I heard, there was no replacement crop that is resistant. This has happened several times in this industry, but this time there's no good replacement banana. 2) Citrus (all commercial citrus) are going extinct due to a bacterium spread by sap-sucking insects. No resistant replacement crops that I know of. 3) Chocolate, same deal, I forget the disease/vector. 4) Wheat is under threat, too.
Breeding new plant varieties is something everyone can try. One of them may be both resistant and commercially viable.
Yes, I guess you can blame the parents. Some of them are indeed negligent. But how about the single parent who just doesn't have to time to support the family AND get involved? Or the two-parent, 4-job household where the parents are working like dogs all the time and so can't "become involved"?
And what if you live in a community with a lot of parents in that unfortunate situation, but YOU can home-school your own kid?
Oh, and as to "if you don't have the time..." a lot of these people were in better situations previously. It's a tough economy, you realize?
In reality, there's plenty of blame to go around, parents, kids, teachers, and yes, society too.
What smart people should realize is that a great deal of the reason they're "smart" is because they're lucky. 1) They were born with a good brain. (luck) 2) Their parents probably trained them well. (luck) 3) They had access to education. (luck, and possibly following from 1,2)
SOME of your "smarts" you won by your own efforts, via study and working hard. But lots of people work hard.
Find someone really intelligent? It's mostly luck that sets them apart.
Now, if someone is smart, wouldn't they realize this and realize how ridiculous it is to be arrogant about how smart they are?
"Uh, I won the lottery, so I'm better than you!"
It's amazing to me how few "smart" people realize this and act decently to those less fortunate. It goes back to your point, humility. One break of a blood vessel and you could be dumb as a rock.
Too bad I have no mod points, I'd mod you up. Nice post, but we also need the "non-straight" community to be willing to accept a separation between religious/civil union (marriage) and be content with being equal under the law. Maybe we could get some actual good government with dumb issues like this not setting the agenda.
That said, to avoid distracting the grammar nazis from the merits of your post, it's "bear with me" not "bare with me".
You don't think wind moves through trees frictionlessly, do you?
So whatever wind energy gets turned to heat is "harvested" right? (In addition to photosynthesis).
And trees do NOT "turn wind energy into strutural integrity", they become stronger as a by-product of being stressed by wind. They actually are turning CO2, sunlight, water, and soil nutrients into structural integrity.
And I bet the fundamental point is correct, a bunch of trees probably absorb more wind energy via friction than windmills would generating energy.
You're setting up a tragedy of the commons situation. The responsible get punished for the actions of the irresonsible and are in fact incentivized to be irresponsible themselves.
EVERYONE should be made to bear the risk equally. Why should SOME benefit from the risks EVERYONE ELSE takes for the benefit of all?
SCREW the vaccine refusers. Either force them to get vaccinated or show them the door of the country. "Don't want to get vaccinated? OK, when will you be exiting the USA?"
Remember, the IRS is the collection arm of the US Gov't. With the deficits WE have, don't you think it's a good idea for us to have as many agents going after rich tax evaders as we can?
Hold the technician liable? How completely unfair.
What if your OS is insecure and leads to you getting hacked? Did the Technician write the OS? Did the technician get dictatorial control of what OS was used?
No. In this case, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
What if your network hardware had a backdoor installed in it by a 'counterfeit' or malicious 'legitimate' manufacturer? Can one reasonably expect a security technician to audit every piece of hardware and software?
No. In this case, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
Can the technician dictate exactly how systems are to be used and who can use them?
No, in the case of an insider hack, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
Can the technician dictate the physical security of all his hardware?
No, in the case of a physical compromise, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
About the only thing the technician can control are some weak-ish security policies and how quickly patches get installed.
Security is a tough problem, and I'm telling you, the fix for it is NOT scapegoating the technician.
Namely, fruit trees. Pick the right varieties and you don't even need to spray them.
My yearly maintenance burden for them is, I'd say, below 8 hours including harvest--though part of that 8 hours is late-summer pruning to keep the trees SMALL.
They also require far less water than grass, maybe by as much as a factor of 10.
Don't forget the cost of capital. The metal, land, desalination plant, pipes, and fusion plant all cost LOTS of money. Would the income on that investment even cover the interest on the money?
That's highly questionable in my opinion, when maybe what you could do is install solar cells to charge electric batteries for cars.
The capital investment into a working fusion plant may prove so horribly high that it never, ever makes sense to build them in the face of alternatives such as solar + batteries.
Yes, they cost that much, or so it seems now, and so it may always be.
Yes, I support using more fission reactors of whatever flavor.
My particular dream with practically unlimited energy is desalinization on a massive scale, followed by transport of desalinated water to arid zones.
This reminds me of David Brin's "refrigerator laser" concept from his book "Sundiver". The idea was that the laser was many times hotter than the sun, so you could shoot a laser out from your ship to take net heat out, while cooling the ship as it explored into the surface of the sun. Obviously heat would have to have been converted into light in this fictional concept.
Is this another case where a science fiction author proves prophetic?
North Korea is practically untouchable not only because of its nukes, but because of a massive number of artillery emplacements just across the border from Seoul, S. Korea's major population center and capitol.
The artillery alone is enough to prevent anyone invading, unless of course, they don't mind if Seoul gets gutted.
1) how do you prevent people from shirking their duty when elected? And, arguably, isn't "shirking the duty" beneficial overall, in that a minimal amount of lawmaking will get done, keeping the system stable which is good for business?
1a) Congress is famous for voting themselves raises anyway? And make it a rule that raises and other perks don't take effect until the NEXT Congress?
1b) They'll only have 4 years to become corrupt, and they won't start out beholden to whomever funded their election campaign? Seems they'd start out better off? And they won't be so conversant with all the loopholes that allow current congresspeople to be corrupt without being prosecuted?
2) this is a technical problem, how do we prevent current lotteries from being "gamed"? Much less elections?
What I'm REALLY afraid of is that this will disempower the Legislature compared to the Executive. All congresspeople would be "junior" and would probably look to the executive for leadership, a de-facto transfer of power.
You can't stop it from becoming a power trip, because any way you slice it, it IS a power trip. Suddenly, you're legislating for the whole US. But *all* of them are out in 4 years, no "re-election".
You also can't prevent them from being corrupted while in office.
I'd think, though, that the average joe is less corrupt than the professional politician, and less "polished" about getting away with corruption--I think we'd get cleaner politics out if it. Not CLEAN, but cleaner.
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I don't think people realize how much threat there is to worldwide food security just from new pests/diseases coming along.
1) Commercial bananas are going extinct due to a fungus. Last I heard, there was no replacement crop that is resistant. This has happened several times in this industry, but this time there's no good replacement banana.
2) Citrus (all commercial citrus) are going extinct due to a bacterium spread by sap-sucking insects. No resistant replacement crops that I know of.
3) Chocolate, same deal, I forget the disease/vector.
4) Wheat is under threat, too.
Breeding new plant varieties is something everyone can try. One of them may be both resistant and commercially viable.
--PM
Yes, I guess you can blame the parents. Some of them are indeed negligent. But how about the single parent who just doesn't have to time to support the family AND get involved? Or the two-parent, 4-job household where the parents are working like dogs all the time and so can't "become involved"?
And what if you live in a community with a lot of parents in that unfortunate situation, but YOU can home-school your own kid?
Oh, and as to "if you don't have the time..." a lot of these people were in better situations previously. It's a tough economy, you realize?
In reality, there's plenty of blame to go around, parents, kids, teachers, and yes, society too.
-PM
What smart people should realize is that a great deal of the reason they're "smart" is because they're lucky.
1) They were born with a good brain. (luck)
2) Their parents probably trained them well. (luck)
3) They had access to education. (luck, and possibly following from 1,2)
SOME of your "smarts" you won by your own efforts, via study and working hard. But lots of people work hard.
Find someone really intelligent? It's mostly luck that sets them apart.
Now, if someone is smart, wouldn't they realize this and realize how ridiculous it is to be arrogant about how smart they are?
"Uh, I won the lottery, so I'm better than you!"
It's amazing to me how few "smart" people realize this and act decently to those less fortunate. It goes back to your point, humility. One break of a blood vessel and you could be dumb as a rock.
--PM
Too bad I have no mod points, I'd mod you up.
Nice post, but we also need the "non-straight" community to be willing to accept a separation between religious/civil union (marriage) and be content with being equal under the law. Maybe we could get some actual good government with dumb issues like this not setting the agenda.
That said, to avoid distracting the grammar nazis from the merits of your post, it's "bear with me" not "bare with me".
--PM
You sure? What if an engineer in a US company was bribed to do it by the Chinese? (or otherwise suborned).
--PM
You don't think wind moves through trees frictionlessly, do you?
So whatever wind energy gets turned to heat is "harvested" right? (In addition to photosynthesis).
And trees do NOT "turn wind energy into strutural integrity", they become stronger as a by-product of being stressed by wind. They actually are turning CO2, sunlight, water, and soil nutrients into structural integrity.
And I bet the fundamental point is correct, a bunch of trees probably absorb more wind energy via friction than windmills would generating energy.
--PM
Why should a server EVER be seized as "evidence"?
Why not just have an FBI team come in, temporarily shut down the server, clone all the data, and then leave, and the server comes back up?
--PM
Well, people in the USA behave like we have our own planet.
--PM
So, how well will this drone system work against countermeasures? Like, for example, simply shipping the nuke to the target location?
--PM
You're setting up a tragedy of the commons situation. The responsible get punished for the actions of the irresonsible and are in fact incentivized to be irresponsible themselves.
EVERYONE should be made to bear the risk equally. Why should SOME benefit from the risks EVERYONE ELSE takes for the benefit of all?
SCREW the vaccine refusers. Either force them to get vaccinated or show them the door of the country. "Don't want to get vaccinated? OK, when will you be exiting the USA?"
--PM
Remember, the IRS is the collection arm of the US Gov't. With the deficits WE have, don't you think it's a good idea for us to have as many agents going after rich tax evaders as we can?
Expand the IRS!
--PM
Yup, a lot more motorcycle ridership would likely fix our organ shortage. Lots more organ donors!
It's about 20x more risk of death per mile on a motorcycle.
--PM
Only 4 or 6 hours? 10 years ago when I broke my arm and was underinsured, it took 12 hours.
Oh, and it came with a bill at the end. This is in the US, of course.
And it was 10 years ago. I understand things are now worse.
--PM
Hold the technician liable? How completely unfair.
What if your OS is insecure and leads to you getting hacked? Did the Technician write the OS? Did the technician get dictatorial control of what OS was used?
No. In this case, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
What if your network hardware had a backdoor installed in it by a 'counterfeit' or malicious 'legitimate' manufacturer? Can one reasonably expect a security technician to audit every piece of hardware and software?
No. In this case, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
Can the technician dictate exactly how systems are to be used and who can use them?
No, in the case of an insider hack, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
Can the technician dictate the physical security of all his hardware?
No, in the case of a physical compromise, the technician is a mere scapegoat.
About the only thing the technician can control are some weak-ish security policies and how quickly patches get installed.
Security is a tough problem, and I'm telling you, the fix for it is NOT scapegoating the technician.
--PM
i wonder if it's infected with bacteria or fungi.
If they don't tax SS checks, then there's no progressive tax system. See?
The same goes for Gov't employees. Shouldn't you tax their paychecks higher if they get lots of income from, say, rental properties?
If you don't tax it at all, it's not a progressive tax system anymore.
--PM
And that are low-maintenance....
Namely, fruit trees. Pick the right varieties and you don't even need to spray them.
My yearly maintenance burden for them is, I'd say, below 8 hours including harvest--though part of that 8 hours is late-summer pruning to keep the trees SMALL.
They also require far less water than grass, maybe by as much as a factor of 10.
Best,
--PM
Don't forget the cost of capital.
The metal, land, desalination plant, pipes, and fusion plant all cost LOTS of money. Would the income on that investment even cover the interest on the money?
That's highly questionable in my opinion, when maybe what you could do is install solar cells to charge electric batteries for cars.
--PM
The capital investment into a working fusion plant may prove so horribly high that it never, ever makes sense to build them in the face of alternatives such as solar + batteries.
Yes, they cost that much, or so it seems now, and so it may always be.
Yes, I support using more fission reactors of whatever flavor.
My particular dream with practically unlimited energy is desalinization on a massive scale, followed by transport of desalinated water to arid zones.
--PM
I'm sorry, this post was so terribly written that I stopped reading after the first paragraph.....
David Brin wrote that book, not Robert L. Forward. Correct that entry in your neural net.
--PM
This reminds me of David Brin's "refrigerator laser" concept from his book "Sundiver". The idea was that the laser was many times hotter than the sun, so you could shoot a laser out from your ship to take net heat out, while cooling the ship as it explored into the surface of the sun. Obviously heat would have to have been converted into light in this fictional concept.
Is this another case where a science fiction author proves prophetic?
--PeterM
North Korea is practically untouchable not only because of its nukes, but because of a massive number of artillery emplacements just across the border from Seoul, S. Korea's major population center and capitol.
The artillery alone is enough to prevent anyone invading, unless of course, they don't mind if Seoul gets gutted.
--PM
1) how do you prevent people from shirking their duty when elected? And, arguably, isn't "shirking the duty" beneficial overall, in that a minimal amount of lawmaking will get done, keeping the system stable which is good for business?
1a) Congress is famous for voting themselves raises anyway? And make it a rule that raises and other perks don't take effect until the NEXT Congress?
1b) They'll only have 4 years to become corrupt, and they won't start out beholden to whomever funded their election campaign? Seems they'd start out better off? And they won't be so conversant with all the loopholes that allow current congresspeople to be corrupt without being prosecuted?
2) this is a technical problem, how do we prevent current lotteries from being "gamed"? Much less elections?
What I'm REALLY afraid of is that this will disempower the Legislature compared to the Executive. All congresspeople would be "junior" and would probably look to the executive for leadership, a de-facto transfer of power.
--PM
You can't stop it from becoming a power trip, because any way you slice it, it IS a power trip. Suddenly, you're legislating for the whole US. But *all* of them are out in 4 years, no "re-election".
You also can't prevent them from being corrupted while in office.
I'd think, though, that the average joe is less corrupt than the professional politician, and less "polished" about getting away with corruption--I think we'd get cleaner politics out if it. Not CLEAN, but cleaner.
--PM