....or have a national emergency alert system to rapidly decouple the power grid from as much sensitive equipment as possible, let the "EMP Flash" pass, and plug back in.
You might not save everything, but you sure can speed up the recovery.
HVAC *already* has this: most oil and gas companies have installation and service techs that can sell you a heating/cooling system, maintain it, and sell you the fuel. Sure, it's not a fixed rate. But it is nearly a fully vertical business model, they just don't build the stuff they sell you.
Thing is, they have no incentive whatsoever to save you fuel. Knowing how much fuel you *should* be using is way beyond most people and fuzzy at best even to professionals without serious monitoring equipment. So who would know? And they sell fuel. If you tried to flip this so they just promised you X dollars a year for heating/cooling, then you're in a whole new game: they have to guess, and guess high in case you like to leave your bedroom windows open while you sleep. So everyone would have to pay more and no one would actually be penalized for consumption: exactly the opposite of what we really want to see happen.
The furnace company has lots of incentive to make more efficient units when energy is expensive, because that is what the homeowners demand. We've seen the rise of modulating/condensing equipment in the last ten years at a meteoric rate for gas users; conventional gas equipment is dying. However, the installing company has no reason to make sure that such equipment is installed well to actually perform as rated... and never would in a vertically integrated environment, unless it becomes much easier for people to determine what they *should* be using for fuel. That means realistic energy modelling (not title 24) for homes, or home inspection with specialized equipment/energy audits... and that's more expense and complexity in building (though one as a heating professional I would say is a good thing!).
This country is chock-full of furnaces and boilers running south of 50% efficiency, regardless of the rating on the energy star tag, assuming of course the boiler/furnace is new enough to have one. No one knows what they should be using, so they have no way of knowing how bad their current usage is.
Your need for increased revenue presumes, of course, that you *need* all the profit you were originally making. What is the margin on cell phone services? I have no idea.
Hmm. yeah, that invisible hand does a really great job eh? So I guess if a text tax were in place, they would *have* to raise their prices. of course!
I don't know what the margins are on the overall business model. But it's simply not ture that there is "no way" these costs will not be born by the consumer: that is, if those "costs" are already born by the consumer, and the company is simply profiteering on OUR wireless spectrum. If that is not happening, of course, then I fully agree with your point.
But what do you think is a fair price for using our wireless spectrum then? by your argument, it should be free, so the service can be given at minimal cost to the consumer, or it's a 'stealth tax'. Is that really what you advocate? How about logging national forests for free to get the price of lumber down?
that's an interesting premise. I look forward to your proof;) it's kind of like the mac virus argument. Until there actually is one, it's all just theory, man.
You very well might be right though, of course. Just like the mac virus "it's because of obscurity" nay sayers. But meanwhile, you're probably better off eating organic, even from a bacterial standpoint. You are CERTAINLY better off growing your own food, picking it and cleaning it, or buying from small scale local farms if you can. Does that mean you are perfectly safe? Of course not. But safer (well... depending on where you live). And healthier to boot.
Of course, watering down the word "organic" won't help us hippies in making a case either, and that's pretty inevitable too. but in end, using manure for fertilizer doesn't generally kill people. Leaving your meat in a root cellar, wiping off the mold and eating it won't usually either, but it is a bit more likely to;)
I didn't say it was dangerous. It's horrible for the environment, and results in bloated, less nutritionally dense vegetables, but dangerous, I have no idea whether it is or is not. But it IS different, and is an example of the things that vary in modern farming and more traditional organic farming. and the problems referenced, and that we have all heard about, have occurred in such factory farming settings, not in any kind of traditional agriculture in modern times. Maybe the rise of artificial fertilizers, their production system, component ingrediants, or source materials are to blame for some of the bad things we have seen in our food supply.... probably not, but I don't need to decide, frankly. Because the fertilizer itself is just one aspect that is different between the two, not "the one" I am trying to prove is causing or solving any problems.
But Pretending that organic farming and modern factory farming are "the same" isn't doing anyone a service, whether or not nitrogen fertilizer itself is the cause of any of the problems or not. They are undoutably not the same: and organic farming has, in modern times, not had any of the issues factory farming has had to deal with as far as I have seen or heard. But again, I'm open to any ACTUAL EXAMPLES to the contrary. and I will patiently await. If all you want to do is hand wave about manure and medieval peasantry though, don't bother.
Not "just on a larger scale". Using modern farming techniques; nitrogen fertilizer, for example. I will wager you any reasonable sum "manure" was not spread over the spinach patch, or peanut patches in question.
Organic is not perfect: it's just better than the alternative.
neither the spinach, nor the peanut butter issue are because of organic growing techniques. they were factory farming or mass production problems.
now, eating improperly stored food, improperly cooked meat, etc... all that makes a difference. antibiotics are necessary, refrigerators are good, learning to cook is good, having enough food in the first place is good. But you're barking up the wrong tree if you are trying to claim that natural plant growing techniques are dangerous to humans. At least, if you are trying to make the case that it is more dangerous that Melomine, Peanut processing factories, or factory farmed spinach.
But if you have any facts that show that these bacterial diseases were actually the result of natural food raising techniques... not large scale production problems... I'm all ears. Feel free to cite any relevant sources.
however digging up a carrot, cleaning it, and eating is a pretty safe way to go.
being able to fight off a few bacterial invaders probably is good for you anyway, i would say. our attempt to sanitize everything to the Nth degree just makes us weaker and bugs stronger.
You can play the heartstrings all you want: you are still doing exactly what you accused me of, and emotionalizing the issue rather than rationally evaluating it. Saying I am not concerned about my daughter's risk of chicken pox death is NOT saying I am "for" killing 145 kids a year or anything like that: it is simply acknowledging that the math is more complex. Some people die from vaccines: less than die from chicken pox, in the case of the chicken pox vaccine. Great. What about more insidious affects? What is the affect on developement, compared to just getting chicken pox? What about the increased risk of shingles?
I'm not looking to discuss particular points: I am simply illustrating the potential issues are far, far larger than any study can cover. As more studies are released, and more time passes, it is more likely to be truly "safe" to a defined level. But there is no substitute for time and study, and even those two things alone can never generate surety. At least not until you pinpoint the cause of all major diseases and health problems in the world. But we don't live in a world of "surety", as much as some like to think we do. What exactly is the effect of eating GM food compared to organic? GM food has been around for fifty years now. It's widely consumed. Gee, that should be an easy thing to answer, eh? But of course, it's not. It's not like everyone is an isolated trial for the chicken pox vaccine or GM food.
I am innately skeptical of any new medical "advance", and for that, there is a hell of a lot of evidence in my favor. new drugs, medicines and treatments routinely are found to have side affects we don't understand at the time of implementation. I'm a quite a bit more distrustful of exotic drug cocktails than I am of a vaccine, of course; it's a matter of degrees. And IN MANY CASES... be sure to read the words I'm writing here and not the words you think I'm saying... the potential threat addressed is far more immediate and dangerous than the possible side affects of the "cure" (though not always, for sure!).
As I said in my original post, it's about cost/benefit. Chicken pox is not a threat by any reasonable measure of what constitutes a "threat" in likelihood of serious complication occurring to my daughter. Therefor, it must pass a pretty freaking high bar for me to put it in my child. HPV is a massive scourge on women and results in far more deaths (via cervical cancer) and other serious issues such as removal of wombs; issues that have actually affected many people I know as opposed to chicken pox (which is zero); it, therefor, does not have to pass as high of a bar for me to put it in my child.
and using direct experience is not a horrible way to consider these things. Until you can isolate the variables in everyone's lives for them, one of the best ways to do so is by the self-selection we all undergo in our lives by our associations with our families and our friends in our socioeconomic brackets in our geographic locations. That sure isolates for a lot of variables "naturally".
Your viewpoint is eschewed by emotion: 145 IS NOT A LOT, unless you happen to be one of them or working with them. That's exactly the behaviour you were accusing me of: using my direct experience to evaluate something irrationally. Transference rears its ugly head again, nice job!
I"m not laughing, and I said nothing irrational (what exactly is IRRATIONAL about not trusting brand new medicines?) in that last post, and I don't support the war on terrorism either, I don't know what kind of weak justification that was supposed to be.
What i boils down to is this: are we going to FORCE everyone to make dubious health decisions for everything that kills more than 140 people/year?
1000 people die a year on bikes: don't let your kid ride at all. Hey, that would takes bicycle deaths down to zero! 100% improvement! Dogs kill about 30 people/year, should we outlaw them too? Coconuts kill 150. Cut them all down!! Terrorist attacks (which both you and I discount), about 650 worldwide/year. man, I guess bush had it right!
The point isn't to laugh. It's to protest your willingness to make all of our kids guinea pigs because of some tiny risk you see as avoidable. Have an ounce of perspective: life is risky. It's the leading cause of death. You cant' make everyone perfectly safe and the "unknown" of chicken pox vaccines wouldn't have to be very dangerous to be more dangerous than the disease you are preventing.
I don't need "scientific proof" to be distrustful of new vaccines. Evolution bred me this way because it's a useful stance to take. We need "scientific proof" to prove that it IS safe. That takes more than a few studies. It takes time in the wild by people, like you, who are so irrationally risk-averse that they will leap at any chance to avoid a known risk, regardless of whether it is actually an effective step to reduce risk or not. The rest of us can let you guys, the willing pioneers, get the arrows in the back. and 145 of us a year can die while the stupendously huge majority of people don't.
Are you serious? 145 people a YEAR? That's the argument that is supposed to make me revisit my experiential observations vs the results of a medical study?
You just proved to me that it is, in fact, NOT a big deal, even smaller than i would have believed possible. Posting your numbers as percentages does not make them particularly useful. That's a ridiculously small number of people; and if it includes adult populations for whom chicken pox is actually dangerous it's a TRULY INCREDIBLY RIDICULOUS number.
then I would DEFINITELY conclude that I would not want to volunteer to test this vaccine out on my daughter. The chances of that choice being the wrong one are very, very small... that's infinitesimal. I can't even believe you would post that as a serious arguement. I'm not trying to attack you, I'm just mystified at your apparent idea of what a "serious problem" must be. If this is a serious issue in your book, don't ever let your child ride a bike, helmet or not.
While a 100% reduction in infant hospitalization is fine and dandy, that also doesn't say anything about long term side affects, even IF that were 100% of a real number. There is more to the story: you are not vaccinating in a vacuum, my friend. The question isn't whether you achieve your desired affect: it's what the unintended consequences are.
Hell, 195,000 a year die from medical error alone. I would be far safer not going to the doctor at all that day than getting the vaccine! The chances of my daughter being injected with the WRONG MEDICINE AND KILLED is likely higher than the possibility that she would die from chicken pox.
what If I just thinking that, say, a CHICKEN POX vaccine is new and relatively untested "in the wild"... I've had chicken pox, and decided it's not such a big deal that I care to vaccinate my child against it?
yet the government comes along and requires it. great. nice job, pediatricians!
I'm a huge fan of there being a cervical cancer vaccine, and luckily for me MY daughter will be old enough that she won't be the "guinea pig" for them. But if she were old enough now, I'd have to think twice. New is not always GOOD, in medicine... or haven't you noticed?
I'm not saying it's always bad either; just that the risks must be balanced against the rewards. To avoid chicken pox, I am not inclined to take on any risk. To avoid displasia, and possible cervical cancer (especially since I know lots of women who have had to go through treatment), I would take on a lot more risk.
Our system is set up with CHECKS AND BALANCES... that is, 3 arms of government, only 2 of which are even an indirect representation of the will of the people... who can override each other.
THAT is what protects the minority.
The electoral college exists ONLY because it enticed small states to join the union, as did representation in the senate and the minimum 2 rep rule. Perhaps there is a secondary concern by the elitists we call the 'founding fathers' that having the electoral college would prevent disaster if everyone got it in their heads to do a plebian prank like massively write in a joke candidate. That is all.
The electoral college serves NO other limiting factor on the "democracy" we have, except to make it less democratic. Not better, not protected, not "looking out for the minority"... just less democratic.
IF we are going to have elections, we should have them accurately reflect the will of the people. As a whole. Democratically. AFTER that, the elected officials can do what they have done, which is subject to the checks and balances of the other 2 branches of government they must work with, including the non-elected judicial branch.
ok: I get what I was missing in what you were saying. I'm not so sure it must hold true in all cases, but at least I get what you are saying now. Sorry to be so dense.
let me try again. what we are doing now is cheap, but not sustainable.
we will need to transition to sustainability. or collapse into ruin, eventually, by the definition of sustainability.
This may mean that energy will get more expensive. However, it is entirely possible to store some energy for some period of time and we are not talking about year long energy storage here: we're talking about time-shifting a load until, say, the next day. that's a big, pumped reservoir. a big task but not undoable.
while it is certainly not profitable or feasible with other, cheaper, unsustainable energy sources around, we will have to tackle this sort of technology at some point, like it or not. it is better not to wait until there is no other choice and it is too late.... such as, in the next worldwide boom cycle.
So you're saying that 300 million people should continue to follow the path of least resistance, regardless of the cost or detriment to the rest of the world and indeed to ourselves, rather than, perhaps, force a few people to deal with a few more headaches?
I mean really: if a few issues like this came up, it would not be the end of the world to ask for or appeal for an exception.
I still haven't heard what your alternative is, if it is not "just let people do whatever" in light (ahem, pun intended) of the fact that "people do whatever" means they do whatever they are used to more often than not.
Law is a blunt instrument and maybe there are better ones to apply here. Maybe just incentives CFLs beyond their normal amount to a very large degree (say, subsidized to near free) instead of outlawing incandescent bulbs, though I think that's already happened and didn't really do the trick. There are options. But oddly you aren't mentioning any of them. So I conclude all you care about is "the gubmint" not telling you what to do.. but sorry guy, you are on fish in a rapidly shrinking pond that has a whole lot of fish to worry about. So your solution needs to address reality.
that's a fair and interesting point, but in the absence of perfection, I hope you don't mind that I am less worried about your exceptional circumstance than I am by the greater good?
In other words, your experience would not outweigh the overall benefit in that case, unless of course your experience were particularly widespread.
No, the OP believes that perhaps sometimes it is important to decide what is good for everyone is more important that was is good for some. Such as the CFL situation.
Most people will do whatever is cheapest. but that is not always appropriate. For instance, removing all environmental controls on a power plant would certainly be the power plant owner's choice, but that wouldn't be very good for everyone else. the power plant owner is made "poorer" than he could have been by exploiting everyone else, but really, that's a good thing.
The irony is, the more people exploit their resources and live high energy western lifestyles, the less they breed. Birthrates in industrialized nations are very low.. hell, Japan's in a pickle over that right now.
should we then encourage everyone to "get gluttonous"? would it be a net gain in the end? doubtful, but an interesting idea:D
well, perhaps not. people elsewhere in this discussion are all concerned about what you do with peak energy generation that is not at peak energy use periods. How to use/store that energy will be a big issue.
If you can use that leftover wind energy to power your oil pumps, for example, it is still a net energy gain of sorts as the energy would otherwise be wasted.
as long as getting the oil is cheaper than any other energy STORAGE medium we have.. especially transportable storage like batteries... it will be beneficial to extract and use.
of course I'd rather see other storage media take the forefront...
If it is cheaper for them to waste the energy rather than store it, then perhaps energy hasn't gotten expensive enough yet.
But as other resources for energy production such as coal become more expensive, whether by legislation enforcing "externalities" on the players for whom they belong (for instance, banning cheaper mountaintop removal mining techniques or requiring large amounts of environmental cleanup be borne by the mining company), or pure market forces, there is a tipping point where it is cheaper to store energy rather than waste it.
I think you are missing the point that the other, non-sustainable measures must and will get more expensive, and so what is profitable will change. by the very definition, if it's not sustainable... it's not sustainable. right? so we need something else, that is sustainable, so we can.. you know... sustain it. long term.
the current model of allowing non-sustainable industries to simply ignore the costs they are inflicting on the rest of us has got to stop. We don't build wind power in a vacuum; this is about a long term shift to get us to a sustainable energy model.
It's possible that it may take a government mandate, but I don't think it will be simply to require storage. It will be in the form of finally making unsustainable energy cost something more like it "should". of course that's a pretty subjective word. But if an industry is spewing mercury into the environment, I don't think it's too much to ask that they be required to clean it up. and yes, there is always the "but what abouts CHIANA??" but you can't do anything without first leading by example. Then we can put tariffs on their imports until they play ball, since their mercury is poisoning us too.
There are scads of very talented vocal musicians out there who can't sing very well. I was just listening to some old Rolling Stones the other day and musing about how poor of a singer mick jagger was.
You don't have to sing to be a good vocalist or good artist or a good performer, luckily.. it just gives you another set of tools to use when creating your art vocally.
Personally, I hate the sound of "trained" voices and I would much rather listen to someone belting something out in their natural range with some real emotion, in tune or out.
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....or have a national emergency alert system to rapidly decouple the power grid from as much sensitive equipment as possible, let the "EMP Flash" pass, and plug back in.
You might not save everything, but you sure can speed up the recovery.
HVAC *already* has this: most oil and gas companies have installation and service techs that can sell you a heating/cooling system, maintain it, and sell you the fuel. Sure, it's not a fixed rate. But it is nearly a fully vertical business model, they just don't build the stuff they sell you.
Thing is, they have no incentive whatsoever to save you fuel. Knowing how much fuel you *should* be using is way beyond most people and fuzzy at best even to professionals without serious monitoring equipment. So who would know? And they sell fuel. If you tried to flip this so they just promised you X dollars a year for heating/cooling, then you're in a whole new game: they have to guess, and guess high in case you like to leave your bedroom windows open while you sleep. So everyone would have to pay more and no one would actually be penalized for consumption: exactly the opposite of what we really want to see happen.
The furnace company has lots of incentive to make more efficient units when energy is expensive, because that is what the homeowners demand. We've seen the rise of modulating/condensing equipment in the last ten years at a meteoric rate for gas users; conventional gas equipment is dying. However, the installing company has no reason to make sure that such equipment is installed well to actually perform as rated... and never would in a vertically integrated environment, unless it becomes much easier for people to determine what they *should* be using for fuel. That means realistic energy modelling (not title 24) for homes, or home inspection with specialized equipment/energy audits... and that's more expense and complexity in building (though one as a heating professional I would say is a good thing!).
This country is chock-full of furnaces and boilers running south of 50% efficiency, regardless of the rating on the energy star tag, assuming of course the boiler/furnace is new enough to have one. No one knows what they should be using, so they have no way of knowing how bad their current usage is.
Your need for increased revenue presumes, of course, that you *need* all the profit you were originally making. What is the margin on cell phone services? I have no idea.
How about, specifically, the margin on texting? http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/28/business/28digi.html
Hmm. yeah, that invisible hand does a really great job eh? So I guess if a text tax were in place, they would *have* to raise their prices. of course!
I don't know what the margins are on the overall business model. But it's simply not ture that there is "no way" these costs will not be born by the consumer: that is, if those "costs" are already born by the consumer, and the company is simply profiteering on OUR wireless spectrum. If that is not happening, of course, then I fully agree with your point.
But what do you think is a fair price for using our wireless spectrum then? by your argument, it should be free, so the service can be given at minimal cost to the consumer, or it's a 'stealth tax'. Is that really what you advocate? How about logging national forests for free to get the price of lumber down?
that's an interesting premise. I look forward to your proof ;) it's kind of like the mac virus argument. Until there actually is one, it's all just theory, man.
You very well might be right though, of course. Just like the mac virus "it's because of obscurity" nay sayers. But meanwhile, you're probably better off eating organic, even from a bacterial standpoint. You are CERTAINLY better off growing your own food, picking it and cleaning it, or buying from small scale local farms if you can. Does that mean you are perfectly safe? Of course not. But safer (well... depending on where you live). And healthier to boot.
Of course, watering down the word "organic" won't help us hippies in making a case either, and that's pretty inevitable too. but in end, using manure for fertilizer doesn't generally kill people. Leaving your meat in a root cellar, wiping off the mold and eating it won't usually either, but it is a bit more likely to ;)
I didn't say it was dangerous. It's horrible for the environment, and results in bloated, less nutritionally dense vegetables, but dangerous, I have no idea whether it is or is not. But it IS different, and is an example of the things that vary in modern farming and more traditional organic farming. and the problems referenced, and that we have all heard about, have occurred in such factory farming settings, not in any kind of traditional agriculture in modern times. Maybe the rise of artificial fertilizers, their production system, component ingrediants, or source materials are to blame for some of the bad things we have seen in our food supply.... probably not, but I don't need to decide, frankly. Because the fertilizer itself is just one aspect that is different between the two, not "the one" I am trying to prove is causing or solving any problems.
But Pretending that organic farming and modern factory farming are "the same" isn't doing anyone a service, whether or not nitrogen fertilizer itself is the cause of any of the problems or not. They are undoutably not the same: and organic farming has, in modern times, not had any of the issues factory farming has had to deal with as far as I have seen or heard. But again, I'm open to any ACTUAL EXAMPLES to the contrary. and I will patiently await. If all you want to do is hand wave about manure and medieval peasantry though, don't bother.
Not "just on a larger scale". Using modern farming techniques; nitrogen fertilizer, for example. I will wager you any reasonable sum "manure" was not spread over the spinach patch, or peanut patches in question.
Organic is not perfect: it's just better than the alternative.
neither the spinach, nor the peanut butter issue are because of organic growing techniques. they were factory farming or mass production problems.
now, eating improperly stored food, improperly cooked meat, etc... all that makes a difference. antibiotics are necessary, refrigerators are good, learning to cook is good, having enough food in the first place is good. But you're barking up the wrong tree if you are trying to claim that natural plant growing techniques are dangerous to humans. At least, if you are trying to make the case that it is more dangerous that Melomine, Peanut processing factories, or factory farmed spinach.
But if you have any facts that show that these bacterial diseases were actually the result of natural food raising techniques... not large scale production problems... I'm all ears. Feel free to cite any relevant sources.
yeah, they didn't have refridgerators.
however digging up a carrot, cleaning it, and eating is a pretty safe way to go.
being able to fight off a few bacterial invaders probably is good for you anyway, i would say. our attempt to sanitize everything to the Nth degree just makes us weaker and bugs stronger.
You can play the heartstrings all you want: you are still doing exactly what you accused me of, and emotionalizing the issue rather than rationally evaluating it. Saying I am not concerned about my daughter's risk of chicken pox death is NOT saying I am "for" killing 145 kids a year or anything like that: it is simply acknowledging that the math is more complex. Some people die from vaccines: less than die from chicken pox, in the case of the chicken pox vaccine. Great. What about more insidious affects? What is the affect on developement, compared to just getting chicken pox? What about the increased risk of shingles?
I'm not looking to discuss particular points: I am simply illustrating the potential issues are far, far larger than any study can cover. As more studies are released, and more time passes, it is more likely to be truly "safe" to a defined level. But there is no substitute for time and study, and even those two things alone can never generate surety. At least not until you pinpoint the cause of all major diseases and health problems in the world. But we don't live in a world of "surety", as much as some like to think we do. What exactly is the effect of eating GM food compared to organic? GM food has been around for fifty years now. It's widely consumed. Gee, that should be an easy thing to answer, eh? But of course, it's not. It's not like everyone is an isolated trial for the chicken pox vaccine or GM food.
I am innately skeptical of any new medical "advance", and for that, there is a hell of a lot of evidence in my favor. new drugs, medicines and treatments routinely are found to have side affects we don't understand at the time of implementation. I'm a quite a bit more distrustful of exotic drug cocktails than I am of a vaccine, of course; it's a matter of degrees. And IN MANY CASES... be sure to read the words I'm writing here and not the words you think I'm saying... the potential threat addressed is far more immediate and dangerous than the possible side affects of the "cure" (though not always, for sure!).
As I said in my original post, it's about cost/benefit. Chicken pox is not a threat by any reasonable measure of what constitutes a "threat" in likelihood of serious complication occurring to my daughter. Therefor, it must pass a pretty freaking high bar for me to put it in my child. HPV is a massive scourge on women and results in far more deaths (via cervical cancer) and other serious issues such as removal of wombs; issues that have actually affected many people I know as opposed to chicken pox (which is zero); it, therefor, does not have to pass as high of a bar for me to put it in my child.
and using direct experience is not a horrible way to consider these things. Until you can isolate the variables in everyone's lives for them, one of the best ways to do so is by the self-selection we all undergo in our lives by our associations with our families and our friends in our socioeconomic brackets in our geographic locations. That sure isolates for a lot of variables "naturally".
Your viewpoint is eschewed by emotion: 145 IS NOT A LOT, unless you happen to be one of them or working with them. That's exactly the behaviour you were accusing me of: using my direct experience to evaluate something irrationally. Transference rears its ugly head again, nice job!
I"m not laughing, and I said nothing irrational (what exactly is IRRATIONAL about not trusting brand new medicines?) in that last post, and I don't support the war on terrorism either, I don't know what kind of weak justification that was supposed to be.
What i boils down to is this: are we going to FORCE everyone to make dubious health decisions for everything that kills more than 140 people/year?
1000 people die a year on bikes: don't let your kid ride at all. Hey, that would takes bicycle deaths down to zero! 100% improvement!
Dogs kill about 30 people/year, should we outlaw them too?
Coconuts kill 150. Cut them all down!!
Terrorist attacks (which both you and I discount), about 650 worldwide/year. man, I guess bush had it right!
The point isn't to laugh. It's to protest your willingness to make all of our kids guinea pigs because of some tiny risk you see as avoidable. Have an ounce of perspective: life is risky. It's the leading cause of death. You cant' make everyone perfectly safe and the "unknown" of chicken pox vaccines wouldn't have to be very dangerous to be more dangerous than the disease you are preventing.
I don't need "scientific proof" to be distrustful of new vaccines. Evolution bred me this way because it's a useful stance to take. We need "scientific proof" to prove that it IS safe. That takes more than a few studies. It takes time in the wild by people, like you, who are so irrationally risk-averse that they will leap at any chance to avoid a known risk, regardless of whether it is actually an effective step to reduce risk or not. The rest of us can let you guys, the willing pioneers, get the arrows in the back. and 145 of us a year can die while the stupendously huge majority of people don't.
Are you serious? 145 people a YEAR? That's the argument that is supposed to make me revisit my experiential observations vs the results of a medical study?
You just proved to me that it is, in fact, NOT a big deal, even smaller than i would have believed possible. Posting your numbers as percentages does not make them particularly useful. That's a ridiculously small number of people; and if it includes adult populations for whom chicken pox is actually dangerous it's a TRULY INCREDIBLY RIDICULOUS number.
then I would DEFINITELY conclude that I would not want to volunteer to test this vaccine out on my daughter. The chances of that choice being the wrong one are very, very small... that's infinitesimal. I can't even believe you would post that as a serious arguement. I'm not trying to attack you, I'm just mystified at your apparent idea of what a "serious problem" must be. If this is a serious issue in your book, don't ever let your child ride a bike, helmet or not.
While a 100% reduction in infant hospitalization is fine and dandy, that also doesn't say anything about long term side affects, even IF that were 100% of a real number. There is more to the story: you are not vaccinating in a vacuum, my friend. The question isn't whether you achieve your desired affect: it's what the unintended consequences are.
Hell, 195,000 a year die from medical error alone. I would be far safer not going to the doctor at all that day than getting the vaccine! The chances of my daughter being injected with the WRONG MEDICINE AND KILLED is likely higher than the possibility that she would die from chicken pox.
really?
what If I just thinking that, say, a CHICKEN POX vaccine is new and relatively untested "in the wild"... I've had chicken pox, and decided it's not such a big deal that I care to vaccinate my child against it?
yet the government comes along and requires it. great. nice job, pediatricians!
I'm a huge fan of there being a cervical cancer vaccine, and luckily for me MY daughter will be old enough that she won't be the "guinea pig" for them. But if she were old enough now, I'd have to think twice. New is not always GOOD, in medicine... or haven't you noticed?
I'm not saying it's always bad either; just that the risks must be balanced against the rewards. To avoid chicken pox, I am not inclined to take on any risk. To avoid displasia, and possible cervical cancer (especially since I know lots of women who have had to go through treatment), I would take on a lot more risk.
You're not even close to a valid point here.
Our system is set up with CHECKS AND BALANCES... that is, 3 arms of government, only 2 of which are even an indirect representation of the will of the people... who can override each other.
THAT is what protects the minority.
The electoral college exists ONLY because it enticed small states to join the union, as did representation in the senate and the minimum 2 rep rule. Perhaps there is a secondary concern by the elitists we call the 'founding fathers' that having the electoral college would prevent disaster if everyone got it in their heads to do a plebian prank like massively write in a joke candidate. That is all.
The electoral college serves NO other limiting factor on the "democracy" we have, except to make it less democratic. Not better, not protected, not "looking out for the minority"... just less democratic.
IF we are going to have elections, we should have them accurately reflect the will of the people. As a whole. Democratically. AFTER that, the elected officials can do what they have done, which is subject to the checks and balances of the other 2 branches of government they must work with, including the non-elected judicial branch.
ok: I get what I was missing in what you were saying. I'm not so sure it must hold true in all cases, but at least I get what you are saying now. Sorry to be so dense.
let me try again. what we are doing now is cheap, but not sustainable.
we will need to transition to sustainability. or collapse into ruin, eventually, by the definition of sustainability.
This may mean that energy will get more expensive. However, it is entirely possible to store some energy for some period of time and we are not talking about year long energy storage here: we're talking about time-shifting a load until, say, the next day. that's a big, pumped reservoir. a big task but not undoable.
while it is certainly not profitable or feasible with other, cheaper, unsustainable energy sources around, we will have to tackle this sort of technology at some point, like it or not. it is better not to wait until there is no other choice and it is too late.... such as, in the next worldwide boom cycle.
I'd like to see a response to Anspen's rebuttal on that (other thread fork). if anyone has one?
So you're saying that 300 million people should continue to follow the path of least resistance, regardless of the cost or detriment to the rest of the world and indeed to ourselves, rather than, perhaps, force a few people to deal with a few more headaches?
I mean really: if a few issues like this came up, it would not be the end of the world to ask for or appeal for an exception.
I still haven't heard what your alternative is, if it is not "just let people do whatever" in light (ahem, pun intended) of the fact that "people do whatever" means they do whatever they are used to more often than not.
Law is a blunt instrument and maybe there are better ones to apply here. Maybe just incentives CFLs beyond their normal amount to a very large degree (say, subsidized to near free) instead of outlawing incandescent bulbs, though I think that's already happened and didn't really do the trick. There are options. But oddly you aren't mentioning any of them. So I conclude all you care about is "the gubmint" not telling you what to do.. but sorry guy, you are on fish in a rapidly shrinking pond that has a whole lot of fish to worry about. So your solution needs to address reality.
So do you have one, or not?
that's a fair and interesting point, but in the absence of perfection, I hope you don't mind that I am less worried about your exceptional circumstance than I am by the greater good?
In other words, your experience would not outweigh the overall benefit in that case, unless of course your experience were particularly widespread.
what alternative would you suggest?
No, the OP believes that perhaps sometimes it is important to decide what is good for everyone is more important that was is good for some. Such as the CFL situation.
Most people will do whatever is cheapest. but that is not always appropriate. For instance, removing all environmental controls on a power plant would certainly be the power plant owner's choice, but that wouldn't be very good for everyone else. the power plant owner is made "poorer" than he could have been by exploiting everyone else, but really, that's a good thing.
The irony is, the more people exploit their resources and live high energy western lifestyles, the less they breed. Birthrates in industrialized nations are very low.. hell, Japan's in a pickle over that right now.
should we then encourage everyone to "get gluttonous"? would it be a net gain in the end? doubtful, but an interesting idea :D
I keep seeing posts about how nuclear doesn't have a waste problem.
Yet I don't know of any countries running nuclear to point to and say see? like those guys.
Is this idea that nuclear has no waste problem, perhaps, still theoretical?
well, perhaps not. people elsewhere in this discussion are all concerned about what you do with peak energy generation that is not at peak energy use periods. How to use/store that energy will be a big issue.
If you can use that leftover wind energy to power your oil pumps, for example, it is still a net energy gain of sorts as the energy would otherwise be wasted.
as long as getting the oil is cheaper than any other energy STORAGE medium we have.. especially transportable storage like batteries... it will be beneficial to extract and use.
of course I'd rather see other storage media take the forefront...
If it is cheaper for them to waste the energy rather than store it, then perhaps energy hasn't gotten expensive enough yet.
But as other resources for energy production such as coal become more expensive, whether by legislation enforcing "externalities" on the players for whom they belong (for instance, banning cheaper mountaintop removal mining techniques or requiring large amounts of environmental cleanup be borne by the mining company), or pure market forces, there is a tipping point where it is cheaper to store energy rather than waste it.
I think you are missing the point that the other, non-sustainable measures must and will get more expensive, and so what is profitable will change. by the very definition, if it's not sustainable... it's not sustainable. right? so we need something else, that is sustainable, so we can.. you know... sustain it. long term.
the current model of allowing non-sustainable industries to simply ignore the costs they are inflicting on the rest of us has got to stop. We don't build wind power in a vacuum; this is about a long term shift to get us to a sustainable energy model.
It's possible that it may take a government mandate, but I don't think it will be simply to require storage. It will be in the form of finally making unsustainable energy cost something more like it "should". of course that's a pretty subjective word. But if an industry is spewing mercury into the environment, I don't think it's too much to ask that they be required to clean it up. and yes, there is always the "but what abouts CHIANA??" but you can't do anything without first leading by example. Then we can put tariffs on their imports until they play ball, since their mercury is poisoning us too.
There are scads of very talented vocal musicians out there who can't sing very well. I was just listening to some old Rolling Stones the other day and musing about how poor of a singer mick jagger was.
You don't have to sing to be a good vocalist or good artist or a good performer, luckily.. it just gives you another set of tools to use when creating your art vocally.
Personally, I hate the sound of "trained" voices and I would much rather listen to someone belting something out in their natural range with some real emotion, in tune or out.
My Question exactly.