Ultimately, renewables will have to cut it. Or what do you think we will do when the non-renewables run out? And they will run out, that's why they are called non-renewables.
We have reserves for thousands of years of economic nuclear power, and we haven't even explored all that much for it. The problem I have is that right now Natural Gas and even COAL is expanding faster in the USA than renewables are, as an absolute metric.
I'll happily accept nuclear power as a stopgap the moment someone figures a way to stop criminally reckless and irresponsible disregard of safety. Same goes for offshore oil drilling.
Oddly enough, the USA and France seem to be doing pretty good in this regard. I remember hearing reports that one of the critical safety updates(a hydrogen burn-off system), was declined by the Fukushima authorities, which would have prevented the explosions. It was uniformly installed in stateside plants over 30 years ago.
What I'd like to see is a new generation of nuclear plants here in the states - shut down the nastiest coal plants and the oldest, least safe nuclear plants.
One thing that I like to point out was that of the 3 nuclear plants to suffer a major disaster, Fukushima was actually the oldest.
It's too easy to turn power plants into bomb factories. How else can you explain the preference for uranium and plutonium reactors, over thorium? I'd rather see the nation awash in small arms easily obtained by mentally disturbed people, than see idiot politicians and gung ho generals with easy access to nuclear bombs.
Uh... Especially when you're looking at countries like the USA, we're already 'awash' in nuclear weapons, which makes the 'easy access to nuclear bombs' already a given. We ended up finding easier ways to make nuclear weapons than scavanging nuclear plants for the materials. Still, at that point the Uranium chain was better known and had fewer problems. I'd LOVE to see a serious attempt to build a power generating liquid thorium plant here in the states, even as I'd also like to see solar panels on all roofs in the south... We still need a variety of power sources.
So you bought some real-estate real cheap there for your retirement?
That would make a lot more sense if: 1. There was actually land available for sale 'cheap' - the Ukraine government has basically nationalized all of it and turned it into a state park. 2. It was somewhere I'd otherwise want to go. Not speaking Ukrainian or even Russian, the language barrier is a bigger obstacle than the price
My problem with the idea of colony ships is that the only sort of people who are prepared to go on a voyage in a cramped, windowless tin box until they die, and their children, and their grandchildren and...die are essentially insane and shouldn't be allowed anywhere outside of a padded cell.
You're assuming that they'll be cramped, windowless, and metallic. This is Bigelow Aerospace here - the biggest modern developer of inflatable space structures. Heck, you're assuming that 'windowless' will be a bad thing, and that 'cramped' can't be handled.
The idea of being on a ship where everyone knew they were never going home frankly terrifies me.
That's the thing though. What is 'home'? I've moved over 10 times. I've spent the better part of a continuous year sleeping in a tent. I'm probably closer to a cumulative 5 years. Our ancestors used to be wandering hunter-gatherers.
Who's to say that Morgauxo isn't right, that the ship would become their home? If it's going to be a true generational ship, it's going to have to be the size of a small town - at least 5k individuals, probably quite a bit larger. I'm sure we'd find it claustrophobic, but I'm sure those that grow up in it would be just fine. Humans are adaptable that way.
I think that neither Emissions per capita nor emissions per $ of production/GDP tells the whole story.
When you consider Emissions for China on a per capita basis it tends to end up being low due to the still enormous numbers of people still living essentially peasant lives. When you consider it on a GDP basis it become horrible because despite China having some of the best pollution laws in the world, enforcement and following of said laws is non-existent.
The USA has high per capita emissions due to our standard of living, but it becomes quite efficient, though certainly not world-leading, because while our emissions standards aren't as high as China's on the books, enforcement of said laws ensures that most companies pay far more than lip service to them.
Given that living as a peasant may be low pollution(though it can be surprisingly wasteful of resources), but certainly sucks lifestyle wise, but living as a an American isn't particularly nice either, I think that accepting SOME pollution increase from China as they raise the standard of living there is necessary, but should be balanced by the rest of the world shifting towards lifestyles that are still 'first world' in quality, even if we may end up dropping some of the most polluting portions.
The problem with this is that China is often not bothering with pollution control at all, with the result that the 'pollution share' of a Chinese worker making $5k/year, $20k equivalent lifestyle in the USA, is polluting more than what somebody making $250k in the USA.
It's an interesting topic when you dig into it. You get things like 1 hour of running a 4 stroke push gasoline lawn mower emits about as much pollution as 6-10 cars(4 if it's brand new).
I'd say that work is virtuous, well, to be more accurate production is. Sending your day digging and refilling the same trench with a shovel gets nothing done except exercise.
Still, there's a whole list of things out there can still stand improvement - people are still living in substandard housing, our roads are crumbling in places, our energy infrastructure is way too fragile, etc...
As such I support the government having a 'federal jobs program' that replaces the military as a entry level job/career that provides training. Our military has become too professional with standards that exclude a good chunk of the population. Lowering said standards would cost lives, so leave them. Have the FJP work on 'infrastructure', which I roughly describe as 'anything that can reasonably be expected to last 20 or more years that improves the quality of life or productivity of US residents'. Note: Education counts as infrastructure in this case - If you're under 40 you easily have more than 20 years of working left.
Keep the pay low enough that most would like a higher paying private job, but high enough that private industry actually has to pony up the cash if they want the workers. Meanwhile you concentrate on using the labor to make life better for everyone - good parks, clean safe roads, etc...
but rather mutated lab animals that turn out to be invasive species in the wild.
Lab animals tend towards being common out in the wild - mice and rats, for example. The 'mutated' ones are even less of a threat, they're generally rather sensitive due to intensive inbreeding to express the desired traits. Since said traits are generally equivalents to human disorders, they're rather uncompetitive.
Sorry, wasn't entirely clear. I assumed that they would go to paying down debt till the debt is gone, was wondering about afterwards.
I'm not sure we'd ever entirely pay down the debt. The 'good times' don't ever really last long enough. My idea is that the government acts as a counterweight - dragging the economy down a bit to prevent it from overheating in the good times(when rampant inflation happens), attempting to pop economic bubbles early(like the housing market) to reduce harm, etc...
This was my big problem with the government running surpluses - pretty much anything they can do reduces to invest (which will distort the market when you make the investment, and again when you have to divest yourself to cover shortfalls in bad times), or just sit on the money (which will distort the economy as money is withdrawn from circulation, and distort it again when you put it back into circulation).
This would be where the federal reserve comes in; it can help counter any distortions, and besides that, as you say - they're distortions, which means that they can be good OR bad. The main point would be to recognize the possibility for distortion and account for it.
If you're not a Keynesian, then what economic theories do you prescribe to?
Libertarianism is about choice, competition, and the freedom to decide. Keynesianism is about centralized economic control.
You need to study more of both then... A better statement would be 'I consider myself a moderate Christian, I believe in Evolution'. Libertarianism is a philosophy, Keynesian economic theory is actually a theory, an economic model.
Also, Keynesian theory, at it's base, doesn't require much in the way of individualized control(where my libertarian tendencies lie). It's more about the idea that the government should act as a counter-balance to the private economy, not that you need extensive 'centralized economic control'. It's quite possible to run a keynesian economic policy that's libertarian compatible by simply messing with general tax rates and the amount and rate at which the fed loans money at.
Still, economic theory is on of many reasons why I stick 'moderate' in there for being a libertarian. I certainly don't agree with the platform 100%, but I'm still more in line with it than I am the republican or democrat parties. I've been called 'less a libertarian and more a practical minarchist'.
Basically, governments have an important role to play in economic prosperity, but they shouldn't be micromanaging.
After all, I'm for legalizing drugs and prostitution, really simplifying the tax code, eliminating whole branches of the federal government, etc...
Generally I picture most of the surpluses would go towards paying off the debt accumulated during the bad times, but if you actually manage to get a true surplus, I'd probably go with a investment fund that concentrates on items that tend to gain strength during economic downturns, so you can liquidate them for a profit when you need to.
Of course, at the scale the federal government works at, you can distort the market pretty easily, but on the other hand the fed has lots of options. It's entirely possible for the fed to 'park' the surplus within itself, creating deflationary pressure as less cash becomes available. This can be a GOOD thing to combat the rampant inflation of an overheated economy.
You're pledging to attend every vote, yet avoid "hot button" issues? Not really a great idea. Also, budgeting for only 1 year at a time is a fool's game. Sure, the goal posts can and will shift, but program managers need some stability to get things done. Though I agree with the eternal 'spend now, save after I'm gone' games.
Reducing US Military presence - that's a tough one. I happen to believe that the US Military is, at least on average, a stabilizing influence on the world, actually reducing conflict.
Okay, I consider myself a moderate libertarian. I'll try to keep my views to 'plank' level, as many topics can expand to book size for details/reasoning: 1. I believe in Keynesian economic theory: The budget should be balanced *ON AVERAGE* - IE over a 10-20 year period revenues should equal expenditures. This means that the budget should be balanced when the economy is worse than what most people would like, have major surpluses when the economy is 'hot', and deficits when the economy is bad. 2. Legalize, tax, and regulate recreational drugs: The harm caused by prohibition exceeds that of what legalization would have. It's harm mitigation, not prevention. It's not going to be perfect. Use the revenues to fund treatment options, empty the prisons out of drug offenders, treat addiction as a medical issue. 3. Fix our schools: Excessive testing isn't the answer, neither is 'more money' normally. A new method needs to be found to provide adequate funding and oversight to truly address the problems of troubled schools. 4. Fix our prisons: Reform, not warehousing. Most of Europe managed to have a recidivism rate 1/3rd ours and 1/3rd the prison sentence. We just can't afford to keep running our prisons this way as the cost of keeping a prisoner soars past $30k/year. 5. Fix our infrastructure: encourage a positive business climate. Oh, and an educated workforce is infrastructure as far as businesses are concerned. 6. Go through the government with a fine toothed comb to reduce duplication(we have how many 'green energy' subsidy programs?) and waste. 7. Reduce subsidies and regulatory overhead, not oversight(yeah, I know, easier said than done). 8. Encourage free speech and an open, fair internet. 9. Reduce copyright terms; as far as I'm concerned they should be limited to somewhat less than the expected lifespan of the media they're commonly printed on. IE people can legally copy it BEFORE the media would statistically have failed 10X over.
because the tensile strength of even the strongest materials would buckle under the weight of the pipes themselves.
Couldn't this be handled by ballasting the pipes along their length to maintain neutral buoyancy?
But yeah, there's lots and lots of problems to solve with this.
I'm reminded of a show involving an aquatic zoo that mostly works off of piped in seawater - they have an enormous crew that's devoted to simply cleaning and maintaining the involved piping, because of the bio accumulation. One method they use is an iron 'pig' that they send through using high pressure to scrape off the collected masses inside the pipes. The forces involved are so much that the 'pigs' don't last long.
If you're right, you simply gain verification. Great. If you're wrong, well, it's back to the drawing board because it means there's something off with your model, and sort of like the ancient mystery of how a bumblebee flies, it probably opens opportunities to do something amazing.
It's sort of like how you tell the difference between a bad scientist as a good one. Expose the former to 'real magic', something physics breaking, and they'll be pissed(and ignore it, degenerate it, etc...). A good scientist will be elated even as they try to disprove it, and in the process develop rules about the phenomenon.
Yea, just like the F22 Raptor, [airforcetimes.com] right?
Not really: let's see how many differences there are: 1. The problem with the F-22 is with an oxygen system, not a computer system 2. The F-22 is still currently in it's testing phase. There will be extensive testing of autodrive systems before release. 3. Google probably has more self-driving cars than there are F-22s(IE there's already a larger base of self driving cars for testing purposes)
No, but it does blame any potential failure on the concept of improper road signage, not equipment malfunctions.
The SPECIFIC problem in question was 'driving into a busy farmer's market', a very specific potential failure, not a generic one. My response was that it would be a 'real possibility', IE high probability event, if they mismarked the street. It was more a statement of the sort of incidents I see auto-drive cars getting into. You could hang a white and black banner across a street above car level with 'STREET CLOSED' written on it and most humans would get the point, but unless an autodrive system is rather more AI than I'd expect, it'd miss it completely, resulting in a stream of cars going down the road. This decreases if it's marked per NTSB standards, because then in order to get onto the road you're going to have to maneuver around barriers at the least.
This is an example of an incident caused by 'failure to recognize strategic problems', as opposed to 'fast twitch' problems like somebody running into the road. It'd be dangerous even with 'fast twitch' accident avoidance responses to try to keep the car from hitting anybody/thing. Road closed improperly - Strategic problem. Somebody running into the road - fast twitch problem. Computers driven vehicles will likely be better at the latter than they are at the former.
What sorts of equipment malfunction could happen? Failure to recognize obstacle, unexpected acceleration, unexpected deceleration, veering into an obstacle as opposed to avoiding it, over-estimation of road surface resulting in loss of control, overcorrecting resulting in loss of control/rollover, etc...
What I have a problem with is all the Google-dick-sucking that goes on anytime someone (like me) posits any sort of doubt or question as to the infallible nature of such a system.
But that's not a good excuse when I lead off with proposals where the government specifically limits liability on the part of autodrive manufacturers in order to keep them from being financially slaughtered in liability lawsuits, indicating that I am neither sucking Google's cock or assuming that the system is infallible. Heck, I only posit cutting the accident rate [i]in half[/i]! Rain is #5, design defects is #10. Distracted driving is #1, Speeding is #2, and Drunk Driving is #3. Don't see percentages for #1&2, but #3 is around 30%. That's 90% of accidents right there that an autodrive system should readily solve almost completely.
Well, thank goodness that these will be engineered to critical standards, not that of your average PC.
Indeed, my earlier post never posits that the auto-drive system will never fail-dangerous, indeed, it figures that accidents and failures WILL happen, and how the government could address said failures in a fashion that still promotes the welfare of everybody, at least on average.
If autodrive cars cut the fatality and accident rates in half, that's roughly 15k people a year saved, in the United States alone. Something like $82-115B/year saved.
What's a criminal library have to do with it? Wouldn't that be a 'law library'? Books aren't cars.;)
Think you meant 'criminal liability'.
1. Criminal liability is generally only if you *deliberately* cause the harm or damage. If you somehow managed to reprogram the car so it hit things rather than avoiding them, for example, you could be held liable for all damages. I don't see automobile manufacturers being hit up for criminal liability if their systems fail, I see criminal negligence at most, and even that would be incredibly hard to prove. 2. Like I said, I see the government stepping in and mandating liability limits once auto-drive systems reach a sufficient level of competence and sufficient autonomy that they can drive themselves from start to end on a reasonable basis even without being occupied at all. I see that as 'better than average human' with a good buffer - sort of like how a 'HP' is rather more than most horses can actually deliver, so it might end up being 'better than 70% of drivers when they're actually paying attention(better than 90% in practice)'. 4. Killed by an autodrive car. Right now we're looking at ~30k deaths a year. Going by the above, autodrive cars should, at the least, reduce that down to 15k deaths. 5. Liability: In my vision, what's likely to happen is that the investigation will try to figure out what happened - was it the autodrive system, the operator of the system(might be held liable for the accident anyways per statute), the deceased, a third party, or an unforeseen act of nature? In any case, that's what the limitation is for - if the autodrive is at fault, the producer of said autodrive pays the estate of the deceased some statutory amount*($250k-$1M) and calls it a day. Remember that in many cases an insured party today might only have $100k of insurance, and be broke before another $10k is paid(after lawyer bills), so it's not like people are extra screwed in this case.
*Remember, the idea here is that approved autodrive systems would increase safety enough to save ~15k people a year, and at $1M/person, that's $15 Billion saved each year. We're going to want to be careful not to set the liability limits too high and strangle the industry, though we could start at $250k limits and increase by something like +1% over inflation until we get to the true average value of a human life, whatever it be at the time.
Indeed, all proposed autodrive systems have obstacle detection. Avoiding hitting pedestrians is pretty much an ideal 'fast twitch' accident avoidance that said AI should be ideal at, even if Joe's example of missing signs marking the street as closed is a real possibility if they didn't follow NTSB guidelines in marking it.
Did you miss the part where I pointed out there's about 68 billion in subsidies every year going to fossil fuel producers, and renewable energy gets about a sixth of that?
Just want to chime in here - as a total, subsidies(1) for fossil fuels does exceed subsidies for green energy. However, if you look at it from a total generation angle, the proportion not only flips, but is even more distorted, with fossil fuels getting a fraction of a percent of the subsidy per BTU/MWh.
It gets even more complicated when you realize that there are also a lot of extra taxes on fossil fuel producers - they have to lease the right to mine/drill from the government, pay per barrel of oil/ton of coal extracted, for example.
When it comes to fossil fuels, most of the subsidies are either regions trying to get production to move into their neighborhood(Alaska, for example), or run a cleaner operation(EPA development grants).
1: One thing that's important to remember is that there is no one subsidy, there's thousands of them, and not all of them offered by the federal government. Heck, there's subsidies offered by the USAF specifically to help secure availability of jet fuel in case of war, EPA subsidies for the development of pollution control methods, etc...
To distort the market. One thing to realize is that there isn't any single subsidy for fossil fuels. There are quite literally hundreds.
My grandparents up in NY receive assistance buying heating oil. I'm not sure if it counts in the common calcs as a subsidy for oil or not, but it's there. The state of Alaska offers rebates and subsidies for oil exploration, with the intent that they'll gain more revenue back from the resulting oil sales Right now my town/county is spending something like $100M to arrange to bring in natural gas, with the intent to displace current oil burning heat & electric generation systems. The math is once the system is in place the cost per BTU will be half that of oil, and less pollution as well. Coal power receives subsidies to install pollution control equipment, from what I remember, something like 70% of subsidies for coal power are tied to 'clean coal' initiatives.
Oh yeah, forgot part of #1: As part of making the manufacturer liable for accidents caused by the AD system, even limited, the manufacturer would build the liability into the price of the system, enabling dirt-cheap insurance if you can afford the auto-drive.
Uncle Sam already allows driverless cars, it's just that they're all test platforms 'insured' by the company doing the developing. It's for liability purposes that somebody is behind the wheel of the google cars currently.
Still, there are a number of possibilities I can see. Much like how the federal government set down specific rules on how nuclear power liability will be addressed, the same can be done with cars. I see several possibilities(but I'm writing this on the fly, so I'll probably miss stuff): 1. Manufacturer limited liability: Insurance is currently only required to be $100k per person, $300k per incident in many states. Maybe limit that to $250k per person, $500k per incident per vehicle(my insurance). Relatively speaking, this screws with anybody harmed by a auto-driving car no worse than they currently are with a person driving 2. No-fault insurance: Some states already require that you get insurance more for yourself, treating other people that hit you as random factors to be insured. Has the problem that it doesn't fully charge bad drivers for the cost of their bad driving, but in this case 3. Make the 'operator'/owner be at fault no matter what, basically the current situation, 'my autodrive did it!' doesn't make you not responsible as the owner of the vehicle. Insurance rates *should* drop for well performing auto-drive cars.
The way I see it going: 1. The manufacturer of the autodrive system proves that it is more capable than the *average* driver. It's accidents will probably be different than for human drivers, favoring avoiding 'fast twitch' accidents where faster reactions can prevent the accident, but more in the way of 'dumbass' accidents where a competent human would have spotted the danger from miles away. 2. Said systems are mandated for the most at risk - people with DUIs on record(replacing breath test systems), too many points, or just plain history of extreme bad driving. 3. Insurance companies figure out that autodrive cars are better - so especially if you have strikes against your record, shifting to an auto-drive vehicle saves you a lot of money on your car insurance. 4. It spreads as people who don't like driving but have to travel invest in the systems.
I've calculated the value of an autodrive system as being worth $5-15k, between fewer accidents(I plotted on half as many), reclaimed time, and higher fuel efficiency.
Let's round up to 10 years, just to make it easy. I currently work for less than $100k, but my quality of life is better than it would be in prison. Let's consider Prison in terms of something like working in a deployed/remote/somewhat hostile or dangerous location for extreme pay.
If I could steal, say, $5M, successfully hide 2.5M, 'returning' the rest that I didn't 'gamble away' as a sign of regret, whatever, so I only get 10 years.
$2.5M is $250k per year in prison, and assuming a 'moderate' 4% return while it's hiding in a Swiss or Caymen Islands account, it'll be $3.5M when I get out, giving me $140k/year to live off of, or almost double what I make now.
In other words if you're going to steal, go large. It's not worth it for anything less than 'millions' for middle class and up types.
I think you wall off some capacity for emergency users (911, police, first responders) and do your best with the rest.
I agree, though there's some interesting ideas with having the phones themselves act as a mesh network to get information in/out of the affected area, but I'll point out that the military has been trying to institute something like that for decades with limited success. The idea is that a soldier's short range device hooks up with a nearby truck's, which relays it to another truck or plane that can relay it to the most appropriate ground station or satellite link. All dynamically.
There has been some progress on using relaying to extend the range of emergency radio networks - truck to truck to network, basically.
The new battery might be using the improved technology as well, but you'd probably save even more life if you can set the charger to recharge at 60% and stop at 80%.
After that it's a fight against heat. Keep the battery under 70F and you'll slow it's degradation even more.
Then again, 30% in 4 years might be slow enough for your purposes.
Okay, first up let's define memory effect: Memory effect is NOT a battery dying. Memory effect is the tendency for a battery to stop charging/discharging at a set level if you regularly fail to completely charge/discharge it. It develops a 'memory', and thus falsely acts as though it's fully charged or discharged before it actually is.
While this can ruin a battery, a number of techniques have been developed to rehabilitate such batteries to restore full function.
However, batteries don't just wear from charge/discharge cycles. They age over time as well. Alkaline and Lithium primary cells are especially resistant to this, but until very recently LiIon rechargeable cells were very, very vulnerable to this, losing 10% or more of total capacity just sitting on a shelf in a cool warehouse at 70% charge(the ideal situation for them).
Sitting in a hot laptop being kept at 100% is much worse than ideal, you could be losing 30% or more per year in that scenario.
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Ultimately, renewables will have to cut it. Or what do you think we will do when the non-renewables run out? And they will run out, that's why they are called non-renewables.
We have reserves for thousands of years of economic nuclear power, and we haven't even explored all that much for it. The problem I have is that right now Natural Gas and even COAL is expanding faster in the USA than renewables are, as an absolute metric.
I'll happily accept nuclear power as a stopgap the moment someone figures a way to stop criminally reckless and irresponsible disregard of safety. Same goes for offshore oil drilling.
Oddly enough, the USA and France seem to be doing pretty good in this regard. I remember hearing reports that one of the critical safety updates(a hydrogen burn-off system), was declined by the Fukushima authorities, which would have prevented the explosions. It was uniformly installed in stateside plants over 30 years ago.
What I'd like to see is a new generation of nuclear plants here in the states - shut down the nastiest coal plants and the oldest, least safe nuclear plants.
One thing that I like to point out was that of the 3 nuclear plants to suffer a major disaster, Fukushima was actually the oldest.
It's too easy to turn power plants into bomb factories. How else can you explain the preference for uranium and plutonium reactors, over thorium? I'd rather see the nation awash in small arms easily obtained by mentally disturbed people, than see idiot politicians and gung ho generals with easy access to nuclear bombs.
Uh... Especially when you're looking at countries like the USA, we're already 'awash' in nuclear weapons, which makes the 'easy access to nuclear bombs' already a given. We ended up finding easier ways to make nuclear weapons than scavanging nuclear plants for the materials. Still, at that point the Uranium chain was better known and had fewer problems. I'd LOVE to see a serious attempt to build a power generating liquid thorium plant here in the states, even as I'd also like to see solar panels on all roofs in the south... We still need a variety of power sources.
So you bought some real-estate real cheap there for your retirement?
That would make a lot more sense if:
1. There was actually land available for sale 'cheap' - the Ukraine government has basically nationalized all of it and turned it into a state park.
2. It was somewhere I'd otherwise want to go. Not speaking Ukrainian or even Russian, the language barrier is a bigger obstacle than the price
Same holds true for Japan, really.
My problem with the idea of colony ships is that the only sort of people who are prepared to go on a voyage in a cramped, windowless tin box until they die, and their children, and their grandchildren and...die are essentially insane and shouldn't be allowed anywhere outside of a padded cell.
You're assuming that they'll be cramped, windowless, and metallic. This is Bigelow Aerospace here - the biggest modern developer of inflatable space structures. Heck, you're assuming that 'windowless' will be a bad thing, and that 'cramped' can't be handled.
The idea of being on a ship where everyone knew they were never going home frankly terrifies me.
That's the thing though. What is 'home'? I've moved over 10 times. I've spent the better part of a continuous year sleeping in a tent. I'm probably closer to a cumulative 5 years. Our ancestors used to be wandering hunter-gatherers.
Who's to say that Morgauxo isn't right, that the ship would become their home? If it's going to be a true generational ship, it's going to have to be the size of a small town - at least 5k individuals, probably quite a bit larger. I'm sure we'd find it claustrophobic, but I'm sure those that grow up in it would be just fine. Humans are adaptable that way.
I think that neither Emissions per capita nor emissions per $ of production/GDP tells the whole story.
When you consider Emissions for China on a per capita basis it tends to end up being low due to the still enormous numbers of people still living essentially peasant lives. When you consider it on a GDP basis it become horrible because despite China having some of the best pollution laws in the world, enforcement and following of said laws is non-existent.
The USA has high per capita emissions due to our standard of living, but it becomes quite efficient, though certainly not world-leading, because while our emissions standards aren't as high as China's on the books, enforcement of said laws ensures that most companies pay far more than lip service to them.
Given that living as a peasant may be low pollution(though it can be surprisingly wasteful of resources), but certainly sucks lifestyle wise, but living as a an American isn't particularly nice either, I think that accepting SOME pollution increase from China as they raise the standard of living there is necessary, but should be balanced by the rest of the world shifting towards lifestyles that are still 'first world' in quality, even if we may end up dropping some of the most polluting portions.
The problem with this is that China is often not bothering with pollution control at all, with the result that the 'pollution share' of a Chinese worker making $5k/year, $20k equivalent lifestyle in the USA, is polluting more than what somebody making $250k in the USA.
It's an interesting topic when you dig into it. You get things like 1 hour of running a 4 stroke push gasoline lawn mower emits about as much pollution as 6-10 cars(4 if it's brand new).
I'd say that work is virtuous, well, to be more accurate production is. Sending your day digging and refilling the same trench with a shovel gets nothing done except exercise.
Still, there's a whole list of things out there can still stand improvement - people are still living in substandard housing, our roads are crumbling in places, our energy infrastructure is way too fragile, etc...
As such I support the government having a 'federal jobs program' that replaces the military as a entry level job/career that provides training. Our military has become too professional with standards that exclude a good chunk of the population. Lowering said standards would cost lives, so leave them. Have the FJP work on 'infrastructure', which I roughly describe as 'anything that can reasonably be expected to last 20 or more years that improves the quality of life or productivity of US residents'. Note: Education counts as infrastructure in this case - If you're under 40 you easily have more than 20 years of working left.
Keep the pay low enough that most would like a higher paying private job, but high enough that private industry actually has to pony up the cash if they want the workers. Meanwhile you concentrate on using the labor to make life better for everyone - good parks, clean safe roads, etc...
but rather mutated lab animals that turn out to be invasive species in the wild.
Lab animals tend towards being common out in the wild - mice and rats, for example. The 'mutated' ones are even less of a threat, they're generally rather sensitive due to intensive inbreeding to express the desired traits. Since said traits are generally equivalents to human disorders, they're rather uncompetitive.
Sorry, wasn't entirely clear. I assumed that they would go to paying down debt till the debt is gone, was wondering about afterwards.
I'm not sure we'd ever entirely pay down the debt. The 'good times' don't ever really last long enough. My idea is that the government acts as a counterweight - dragging the economy down a bit to prevent it from overheating in the good times(when rampant inflation happens), attempting to pop economic bubbles early(like the housing market) to reduce harm, etc...
This was my big problem with the government running surpluses - pretty much anything they can do reduces to invest (which will distort the market when you make the investment, and again when you have to divest yourself to cover shortfalls in bad times), or just sit on the money (which will distort the economy as money is withdrawn from circulation, and distort it again when you put it back into circulation).
This would be where the federal reserve comes in; it can help counter any distortions, and besides that, as you say - they're distortions, which means that they can be good OR bad. The main point would be to recognize the possibility for distortion and account for it.
If you're not a Keynesian, then what economic theories do you prescribe to?
Libertarianism is about choice, competition, and the freedom to decide. Keynesianism is about centralized economic control.
You need to study more of both then... A better statement would be 'I consider myself a moderate Christian, I believe in Evolution'. Libertarianism is a philosophy, Keynesian economic theory is actually a theory, an economic model.
Also, Keynesian theory, at it's base, doesn't require much in the way of individualized control(where my libertarian tendencies lie). It's more about the idea that the government should act as a counter-balance to the private economy, not that you need extensive 'centralized economic control'. It's quite possible to run a keynesian economic policy that's libertarian compatible by simply messing with general tax rates and the amount and rate at which the fed loans money at.
Still, economic theory is on of many reasons why I stick 'moderate' in there for being a libertarian. I certainly don't agree with the platform 100%, but I'm still more in line with it than I am the republican or democrat parties. I've been called 'less a libertarian and more a practical minarchist'.
Basically, governments have an important role to play in economic prosperity, but they shouldn't be micromanaging.
After all, I'm for legalizing drugs and prostitution, really simplifying the tax code, eliminating whole branches of the federal government, etc...
Generally I picture most of the surpluses would go towards paying off the debt accumulated during the bad times, but if you actually manage to get a true surplus, I'd probably go with a investment fund that concentrates on items that tend to gain strength during economic downturns, so you can liquidate them for a profit when you need to.
Of course, at the scale the federal government works at, you can distort the market pretty easily, but on the other hand the fed has lots of options. It's entirely possible for the fed to 'park' the surplus within itself, creating deflationary pressure as less cash becomes available. This can be a GOOD thing to combat the rampant inflation of an overheated economy.
Hmmm...
You're pledging to attend every vote, yet avoid "hot button" issues? Not really a great idea.
Also, budgeting for only 1 year at a time is a fool's game. Sure, the goal posts can and will shift, but program managers need some stability to get things done. Though I agree with the eternal 'spend now, save after I'm gone' games.
Reducing US Military presence - that's a tough one. I happen to believe that the US Military is, at least on average, a stabilizing influence on the world, actually reducing conflict.
Otherwise I pretty much agree.
Okay, I consider myself a moderate libertarian. I'll try to keep my views to 'plank' level, as many topics can expand to book size for details/reasoning:
1. I believe in Keynesian economic theory: The budget should be balanced *ON AVERAGE* - IE over a 10-20 year period revenues should equal expenditures. This means that the budget should be balanced when the economy is worse than what most people would like, have major surpluses when the economy is 'hot', and deficits when the economy is bad.
2. Legalize, tax, and regulate recreational drugs: The harm caused by prohibition exceeds that of what legalization would have. It's harm mitigation, not prevention. It's not going to be perfect. Use the revenues to fund treatment options, empty the prisons out of drug offenders, treat addiction as a medical issue.
3. Fix our schools: Excessive testing isn't the answer, neither is 'more money' normally. A new method needs to be found to provide adequate funding and oversight to truly address the problems of troubled schools.
4. Fix our prisons: Reform, not warehousing. Most of Europe managed to have a recidivism rate 1/3rd ours and 1/3rd the prison sentence. We just can't afford to keep running our prisons this way as the cost of keeping a prisoner soars past $30k/year.
5. Fix our infrastructure: encourage a positive business climate. Oh, and an educated workforce is infrastructure as far as businesses are concerned.
6. Go through the government with a fine toothed comb to reduce duplication(we have how many 'green energy' subsidy programs?) and waste.
7. Reduce subsidies and regulatory overhead, not oversight(yeah, I know, easier said than done).
8. Encourage free speech and an open, fair internet.
9. Reduce copyright terms; as far as I'm concerned they should be limited to somewhat less than the expected lifespan of the media they're commonly printed on. IE people can legally copy it BEFORE the media would statistically have failed 10X over.
because the tensile strength of even the strongest materials would buckle under the weight of the pipes themselves.
Couldn't this be handled by ballasting the pipes along their length to maintain neutral buoyancy?
But yeah, there's lots and lots of problems to solve with this.
I'm reminded of a show involving an aquatic zoo that mostly works off of piped in seawater - they have an enormous crew that's devoted to simply cleaning and maintaining the involved piping, because of the bio accumulation. One method they use is an iron 'pig' that they send through using high pressure to scrape off the collected masses inside the pipes. The forces involved are so much that the 'pigs' don't last long.
If you're right, you simply gain verification. Great. If you're wrong, well, it's back to the drawing board because it means there's something off with your model, and sort of like the ancient mystery of how a bumblebee flies, it probably opens opportunities to do something amazing.
It's sort of like how you tell the difference between a bad scientist as a good one. Expose the former to 'real magic', something physics breaking, and they'll be pissed(and ignore it, degenerate it, etc...). A good scientist will be elated even as they try to disprove it, and in the process develop rules about the phenomenon.
Yea, just like the F22 Raptor, [airforcetimes.com] right?
Not really: let's see how many differences there are:
1. The problem with the F-22 is with an oxygen system, not a computer system
2. The F-22 is still currently in it's testing phase. There will be extensive testing of autodrive systems before release.
3. Google probably has more self-driving cars than there are F-22s(IE there's already a larger base of self driving cars for testing purposes)
No, but it does blame any potential failure on the concept of improper road signage, not equipment malfunctions.
The SPECIFIC problem in question was 'driving into a busy farmer's market', a very specific potential failure, not a generic one. My response was that it would be a 'real possibility', IE high probability event, if they mismarked the street. It was more a statement of the sort of incidents I see auto-drive cars getting into. You could hang a white and black banner across a street above car level with 'STREET CLOSED' written on it and most humans would get the point, but unless an autodrive system is rather more AI than I'd expect, it'd miss it completely, resulting in a stream of cars going down the road. This decreases if it's marked per NTSB standards, because then in order to get onto the road you're going to have to maneuver around barriers at the least.
This is an example of an incident caused by 'failure to recognize strategic problems', as opposed to 'fast twitch' problems like somebody running into the road. It'd be dangerous even with 'fast twitch' accident avoidance responses to try to keep the car from hitting anybody/thing. Road closed improperly - Strategic problem. Somebody running into the road - fast twitch problem. Computers driven vehicles will likely be better at the latter than they are at the former.
What sorts of equipment malfunction could happen? Failure to recognize obstacle, unexpected acceleration, unexpected deceleration, veering into an obstacle as opposed to avoiding it, over-estimation of road surface resulting in loss of control, overcorrecting resulting in loss of control/rollover, etc...
What I have a problem with is all the Google-dick-sucking that goes on anytime someone (like me) posits any sort of doubt or question as to the infallible nature of such a system.
But that's not a good excuse when I lead off with proposals where the government specifically limits liability on the part of autodrive manufacturers in order to keep them from being financially slaughtered in liability lawsuits, indicating that I am neither sucking Google's cock or assuming that the system is infallible. Heck, I only posit cutting the accident rate [i]in half[/i]! Rain is #5, design defects is #10. Distracted driving is #1, Speeding is #2, and Drunk Driving is #3. Don't see percentages for #1&2, but #3 is around 30%. That's 90% of accidents right there that an autodrive system should readily solve almost completely.
Well, thank goodness that these will be engineered to critical standards, not that of your average PC.
Indeed, my earlier post never posits that the auto-drive system will never fail-dangerous, indeed, it figures that accidents and failures WILL happen, and how the government could address said failures in a fashion that still promotes the welfare of everybody, at least on average.
If autodrive cars cut the fatality and accident rates in half, that's roughly 15k people a year saved, in the United States alone. Something like $82-115B/year saved.
What's a criminal library have to do with it? Wouldn't that be a 'law library'? Books aren't cars. ;)
Think you meant 'criminal liability'.
1. Criminal liability is generally only if you *deliberately* cause the harm or damage. If you somehow managed to reprogram the car so it hit things rather than avoiding them, for example, you could be held liable for all damages. I don't see automobile manufacturers being hit up for criminal liability if their systems fail, I see criminal negligence at most, and even that would be incredibly hard to prove.
2. Like I said, I see the government stepping in and mandating liability limits once auto-drive systems reach a sufficient level of competence and sufficient autonomy that they can drive themselves from start to end on a reasonable basis even without being occupied at all. I see that as 'better than average human' with a good buffer - sort of like how a 'HP' is rather more than most horses can actually deliver, so it might end up being 'better than 70% of drivers when they're actually paying attention(better than 90% in practice)'.
4. Killed by an autodrive car. Right now we're looking at ~30k deaths a year. Going by the above, autodrive cars should, at the least, reduce that down to 15k deaths.
5. Liability: In my vision, what's likely to happen is that the investigation will try to figure out what happened - was it the autodrive system, the operator of the system(might be held liable for the accident anyways per statute), the deceased, a third party, or an unforeseen act of nature? In any case, that's what the limitation is for - if the autodrive is at fault, the producer of said autodrive pays the estate of the deceased some statutory amount*($250k-$1M) and calls it a day. Remember that in many cases an insured party today might only have $100k of insurance, and be broke before another $10k is paid(after lawyer bills), so it's not like people are extra screwed in this case.
*Remember, the idea here is that approved autodrive systems would increase safety enough to save ~15k people a year, and at $1M/person, that's $15 Billion saved each year. We're going to want to be careful not to set the liability limits too high and strangle the industry, though we could start at $250k limits and increase by something like +1% over inflation until we get to the true average value of a human life, whatever it be at the time.
Indeed, all proposed autodrive systems have obstacle detection. Avoiding hitting pedestrians is pretty much an ideal 'fast twitch' accident avoidance that said AI should be ideal at, even if Joe's example of missing signs marking the street as closed is a real possibility if they didn't follow NTSB guidelines in marking it.
Did you miss the part where I pointed out there's about 68 billion in subsidies every year going to fossil fuel producers, and renewable energy gets about a sixth of that?
Just want to chime in here - as a total, subsidies(1) for fossil fuels does exceed subsidies for green energy. However, if you look at it from a total generation angle, the proportion not only flips, but is even more distorted, with fossil fuels getting a fraction of a percent of the subsidy per BTU/MWh.
It gets even more complicated when you realize that there are also a lot of extra taxes on fossil fuel producers - they have to lease the right to mine/drill from the government, pay per barrel of oil/ton of coal extracted, for example.
When it comes to fossil fuels, most of the subsidies are either regions trying to get production to move into their neighborhood(Alaska, for example), or run a cleaner operation(EPA development grants).
1: One thing that's important to remember is that there is no one subsidy, there's thousands of them, and not all of them offered by the federal government. Heck, there's subsidies offered by the USAF specifically to help secure availability of jet fuel in case of war, EPA subsidies for the development of pollution control methods, etc...
What is the point of subsidy?
To distort the market. One thing to realize is that there isn't any single subsidy for fossil fuels. There are quite literally hundreds.
My grandparents up in NY receive assistance buying heating oil. I'm not sure if it counts in the common calcs as a subsidy for oil or not, but it's there.
The state of Alaska offers rebates and subsidies for oil exploration, with the intent that they'll gain more revenue back from the resulting oil sales
Right now my town/county is spending something like $100M to arrange to bring in natural gas, with the intent to displace current oil burning heat & electric generation systems. The math is once the system is in place the cost per BTU will be half that of oil, and less pollution as well.
Coal power receives subsidies to install pollution control equipment, from what I remember, something like 70% of subsidies for coal power are tied to 'clean coal' initiatives.
Oh yeah, forgot part of #1: As part of making the manufacturer liable for accidents caused by the AD system, even limited, the manufacturer would build the liability into the price of the system, enabling dirt-cheap insurance if you can afford the auto-drive.
Uncle Sam already allows driverless cars, it's just that they're all test platforms 'insured' by the company doing the developing. It's for liability purposes that somebody is behind the wheel of the google cars currently.
Still, there are a number of possibilities I can see. Much like how the federal government set down specific rules on how nuclear power liability will be addressed, the same can be done with cars. I see several possibilities(but I'm writing this on the fly, so I'll probably miss stuff):
1. Manufacturer limited liability: Insurance is currently only required to be $100k per person, $300k per incident in many states. Maybe limit that to $250k per person, $500k per incident per vehicle(my insurance). Relatively speaking, this screws with anybody harmed by a auto-driving car no worse than they currently are with a person driving
2. No-fault insurance: Some states already require that you get insurance more for yourself, treating other people that hit you as random factors to be insured. Has the problem that it doesn't fully charge bad drivers for the cost of their bad driving, but in this case
3. Make the 'operator'/owner be at fault no matter what, basically the current situation, 'my autodrive did it!' doesn't make you not responsible as the owner of the vehicle. Insurance rates *should* drop for well performing auto-drive cars.
The way I see it going:
1. The manufacturer of the autodrive system proves that it is more capable than the *average* driver. It's accidents will probably be different than for human drivers, favoring avoiding 'fast twitch' accidents where faster reactions can prevent the accident, but more in the way of 'dumbass' accidents where a competent human would have spotted the danger from miles away.
2. Said systems are mandated for the most at risk - people with DUIs on record(replacing breath test systems), too many points, or just plain history of extreme bad driving.
3. Insurance companies figure out that autodrive cars are better - so especially if you have strikes against your record, shifting to an auto-drive vehicle saves you a lot of money on your car insurance.
4. It spreads as people who don't like driving but have to travel invest in the systems.
I've calculated the value of an autodrive system as being worth $5-15k, between fewer accidents(I plotted on half as many), reclaimed time, and higher fuel efficiency.
Let's round up to 10 years, just to make it easy. I currently work for less than $100k, but my quality of life is better than it would be in prison. Let's consider Prison in terms of something like working in a deployed/remote/somewhat hostile or dangerous location for extreme pay.
If I could steal, say, $5M, successfully hide 2.5M, 'returning' the rest that I didn't 'gamble away' as a sign of regret, whatever, so I only get 10 years.
$2.5M is $250k per year in prison, and assuming a 'moderate' 4% return while it's hiding in a Swiss or Caymen Islands account, it'll be $3.5M when I get out, giving me $140k/year to live off of, or almost double what I make now.
In other words if you're going to steal, go large. It's not worth it for anything less than 'millions' for middle class and up types.
I think you wall off some capacity for emergency users (911, police, first responders) and do your best with the rest.
I agree, though there's some interesting ideas with having the phones themselves act as a mesh network to get information in/out of the affected area, but I'll point out that the military has been trying to institute something like that for decades with limited success. The idea is that a soldier's short range device hooks up with a nearby truck's, which relays it to another truck or plane that can relay it to the most appropriate ground station or satellite link. All dynamically.
There has been some progress on using relaying to extend the range of emergency radio networks - truck to truck to network, basically.
The new battery might be using the improved technology as well, but you'd probably save even more life if you can set the charger to recharge at 60% and stop at 80%.
After that it's a fight against heat. Keep the battery under 70F and you'll slow it's degradation even more.
Then again, 30% in 4 years might be slow enough for your purposes.
Okay, first up let's define memory effect: Memory effect is NOT a battery dying. Memory effect is the tendency for a battery to stop charging/discharging at a set level if you regularly fail to completely charge/discharge it. It develops a 'memory', and thus falsely acts as though it's fully charged or discharged before it actually is.
While this can ruin a battery, a number of techniques have been developed to rehabilitate such batteries to restore full function.
However, batteries don't just wear from charge/discharge cycles. They age over time as well. Alkaline and Lithium primary cells are especially resistant to this, but until very recently LiIon rechargeable cells were very, very vulnerable to this, losing 10% or more of total capacity just sitting on a shelf in a cool warehouse at 70% charge(the ideal situation for them).
Sitting in a hot laptop being kept at 100% is much worse than ideal, you could be losing 30% or more per year in that scenario.