"something that is dying because of market forces" I'm not sure that's/precisely/ true? Market forces?
Coal is dying because of massive government investment and subsidies compared to the other industries.
As much as we'd like to simply 'declare' that coal is dead, the only reason we can afford the other technologies is... because we're staggeringly wealthy and can afford to blow money on them.
"U.S. Energy Information Administration data shows that: - solar energy was subsidized at $231.21 per megawatt hour - wind at $35.33 per megawatt hour - coal at $0.53 per mwh - natural gas/petroleum at $0.67 per mwh - hydroelectric power $1.47 per mwh - nuclear power $2.10 per mwh"
"but should you pay more simply because you're using an iphone connected to verizon's cellular data network vs someone using windows 7 on a slow-as-snails pacbell dsl line?"
Yes, you should. You're using a boutique phone on an expensive carrier vs a cheap shit phone on a crappy network. If you can afford those things, likely $8 to you is less important than $2 to that other person.
"pay more because third-party database links tell the site you're an affluent white male living in the bay area?" Oh my god yes, they should get fucked hard.
Me paying what I am willing to pay for something I want isn't making me a sucker.
It's really the most ideal, individualized capitalism possible.
If I pay more than Mary or Bill, it's because either I have more resources and prices matter less to me, or I want it more. You can't really get more essentially Adam Smith than that. Universalized consistent pricing is a relic of the industrial era.
No, the river course was changed by glacial melting and retreat.
The cause of that was clearly warming.
The cause of that is still open for debate. Was it exacerbated or caused by human activity - your answer, and the certainty with which you issue it depends on whether you're a member of the AGW secular religion.
...so you're suggesting that taking a person from roughly a 15th century existence and handing them a smartphone doesn't immediately make them a sophisticated, worldly Western-world consumer?
Maybe it's because I'm turning 50 this year, but I simply don't believe it.
At a certain point I suspect "fantastic claim" fatigue has to set in, where you've heard so many promising concepts but watched the huge majority founder on realities of cost, industrial scaling, or unforseen complications.
The fact that they say it might make it to the market in ten years means it's barely more than a tenuous idea right now, and frankly probably not even worth reporting on. The hyperbolic claims by the inventor make it even less credible, while the nonsensical reporting (implying that such devices would actually run only in light) is idiotic.
And I'm well aware that US antisub forces probably know precisely where each of these subs are every moment. That doesn't matter. Unless we somehow knew that Little Kim was planning a suicide attack, AS I SAID ALREADY it's exceedingly unlikely we would cold-bloodedly sink a sub even if it sailed straight into the harbor.
And yes, while a surface burst of such a weapon will impair it, the typical side blast expected from a DPRK nuke is about 20kt - the blast at Nagasaki. That would be easily enough to destroy the U.S.'s largest port completely, and cost probably tens of thousands of lives...assuming of course there's not already an anonymous container already sitting in an unused corner of a yard there with a bomb waiting for its owner to pull the trigger.
From the 'debunking' note, I wouldn't credit Mr Drollette as being as informed as he seems?
"âoeNorth Korea wants to demonstrate it has a deterrent. To do so, it needs to be able to credibly threaten the US mainland or our overseas assets. For that, you have to make the bomb (more correctly, the warhead) small enough to mount on a missile,â " No, they don't. Certainly, any of the 4 old Romeo-class subs that the DPRK has could accommodate a sizable warhead, and it's entirely unlikely that US antisub systems would be audacious enough to sink it if it was cruising in the Los Angeles littoral. Surfacing just outside or in the harbor, and suicidally popping that nuke would devastate Los Angeles even if it fizzled.
"North Korea has no reason to feel threatened? " Oh bullshit. The US ROK exercises have gone for what, 50 years? To assert 'they infuriate the north who believes them a practice for invasion' is about as credible as Little Kims score of 18 at golf, or the insistence that he simply doesn't poop. Let's say that they have no rational reason to feel threatened and leave it at that.
"the best and most realistic approachâ"or rather, the âleast badâ(TM) approachâ"is to negotiate a freeze on Pyongyang's nuclear program. Such a deal would in some sense be a new version of the 1994 Agreed Framework, which succeeded in slowing the North's nuclear program." The 1994 Agreed Framework was a complete and TOTAL FAILURE. It was intended to halt the DPRKs nuke program, and the rationalization that it "slowed it down" is utterly without basis except to the pollyannas who believe sanction just might work the next time. How gullible are you? "âoeUnder an updated version of the agreement, North Korea would impose a moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile launches. It would give inspectors access to its nuclear facilities. In exchange, Pyongyang would receive food, humanitarian and development aid on a regular basis" This is EXACTLY what the 1994 Agreement tried to do, they took the food, the aid, and cheerfully violated their side of the agreement. I'm reminded the colloquial definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results".
I'm not a warmonger. I don't believe the US can "send in special ops" or nonsense like that. But to assert blithely that an agreement with DPRK can result in anything but rewarding them with more time and western goods to limp along in their goofy separate reality is ludicrous.
..the begged question is that gender or racial bias and stereotypes are intrinsically "wrong". They are to our 21st century sensibilities, but they served humanity pretty well for millions of years.
Maybe where you have a society where women ARE primarily concerned with raising children, there are better outcomes than when men raise children or women go off to pursue their careers. Maybe where you have a society where obvious strangers are marginalized and driven away, the remainder ends up more cohesive. I'd be curious how these AI biases would develop if 'fed' only native African literature and information.
I'm not making an 'appeal to nature' here, saying what "should" be or "shouldn't" be. One might suggest that, evolutionarily speaking, maintaining a bias is harder than not, assuming no reinforcement. That our language (pretty fundamental to being human, after all) is pervasive with such institutional biases would suggest that there is a value/benefit to such.
I figured someone would go there. That's when I touched on it. They're reviewing suspicious packages for DANGER and LEGAL COMPLIANCE, not for the value of the content.
How would you like it if the Post Office was moderating your letters, with the same powers mods have in forums - deleting communications from other people that they simply don't agree with, or whose ideas they find uncomfortable? What if you couldn't get Victoria's Secret catalogs because the USPS decided it was icky, and simply threw away anything they considered lascivious before it even got to your mailbox?
Of course nobody would accept that.
Or a phone company that blanks your calls and then blocks the other caller if you start talking about abortion?
Nobody who's ever played Kerbal Space Program has anything but utter respect for actual rocket scientists.
Yes, I get it, astronauts are highly trained and it takes a particular sort of bravery to strap yourself atop 100t of (basically) explosives....but in terms of the rocket going where it's supposed to, and coming back safe: it's not like the astronauts are anything but spectators to a programmed series of events.
I know the intent of the article is to make people enraged, and it certainly seems like something's going wrong here.
However, I have serious, fundamental reservations about government competing with the free market.
While certainly there are some circumstances, and this may well be one, where government can beneficially 'manage the commons' better than private or for-profit interests, there's something troubling about government agencies, on taxpayer funds, driving private firms out of business.
Yes, I see from the article that EPB runs a profit, and doesn't take tax money for operation. But do they bear the long-term capital costs that a private firm would for infrastructure? They certainly get use of city right-of-ways, no? In disputes over land use or zoning, I have to imagine they get a far more sympathetic hearing from city agencies?
In any case, it should be in the interest of any citizen to doubt the wisdom of establishing and protecting anti-competitive markets in the long run, not to mention the idea of a business having (essentially) the power of law enforcement on their side.
Your phone company doesn't sort your calls and filter out curse words. Hell, they don't even block calls we ASK them to. The US Post Office doesn't sift the mail and prevent you getting letters that make you sad. Fedex doesn't go through your packages and remove vibrators and sex lubes. Those are examples of safe-harbor carriers: they care nothing for what they're transporting, thus they bear/no/ direct responsibility if it turns out to be a prank call, porn, or a mailbomb.
Message boards and places like youtube are certainly entitled to filter out malformed or mechanically malicious content - ie to make sure videos posted aren't some sort of embedded virus, etc.
But the *moment* they evaluate something based on content, yeah, to some degree they DO take responsibility (at least shared with the content producer) for what's up there.
The 4 employees didn't "want" to fly, they NEEDED to fly to crew a plane in Louisville the next day (plus the obligatory rest hours).
Which is more important: not bumping the dude, or inconveniencing an ENTIRE PLANE full the next day?
Personally, I'd be pissed but ultimately the captain of the plane is the captain. If he/she says 'get off my plane' then you get your ass off the plane and argue it out with the company elsewhere.
I think most of the reaction to this is special snowflakes who hate the idea that ultimately, someone else has authority over them that they can't avoid.
You entirely miss the point, repeatedly. 1) you made it guns vs butter. It's not. It's butter vs butter. 2) regardless of the quantity of care, the point is the spending massive piles of $ on a few people to extend their lives a small amount, vs small amounts that would materially improve the lives of many. That's not "SJW" that's an actual question we as a society fail to face. 3) regarding alternatives to wealth being the determining factor: so you really HAVE no answer. Check. Can't comprehend capitalism: check.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for your cogent and rational contribution to the conversation.
If you can't attack the facts, attack the messenger, amirite?
"something that is dying because of market forces" /precisely/ true? Market forces?
I'm not sure that's
Coal is dying because of massive government investment and subsidies compared to the other industries.
As much as we'd like to simply 'declare' that coal is dead, the only reason we can afford the other technologies is ... because we're staggeringly wealthy and can afford to blow money on them.
"U.S. Energy Information Administration data shows that:
- solar energy was subsidized at $231.21 per megawatt hour
- wind at $35.33 per megawatt hour
- coal at $0.53 per mwh
- natural gas/petroleum at $0.67 per mwh
- hydroelectric power $1.47 per mwh
- nuclear power $2.10 per mwh"
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20...
" Amazon is pitching it as an easy way to snap pictures of your outfits to send to your friends when you're not sure if your outfit is cute "
What the serious fuck?
People can't even make decisions about their own clothes any more without consulting the groupmind?
"but should you pay more simply because you're using an iphone connected to verizon's cellular data network vs someone using windows 7 on a slow-as-snails pacbell dsl line?"
Yes, you should. You're using a boutique phone on an expensive carrier vs a cheap shit phone on a crappy network. If you can afford those things, likely $8 to you is less important than $2 to that other person.
"pay more because third-party database links tell the site you're an affluent white male living in the bay area?"
Oh my god yes, they should get fucked hard.
Genuine question: so why do you stay at such a job? You're not in the army, you're not going to be imprisoned for desertion if you quit, are you?
Answer that question, and that's pretty much the same reason why the company enjoys you working 60-80 hours a week.
Me paying what I am willing to pay for something I want isn't making me a sucker.
It's really the most ideal, individualized capitalism possible.
If I pay more than Mary or Bill, it's because either I have more resources and prices matter less to me, or I want it more. You can't really get more essentially Adam Smith than that. Universalized consistent pricing is a relic of the industrial era.
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/...
Cooked chicken is about 60% water.
So no, it isn't more than about 40% "chicken" by weight.
But it still very well could be what we call "chicken" - ie the agglomeration of the muscle fiber, water, fats, etc.
...note to thieves: now you need to remember to bring a sharp knife to your muggings. A gun alone simply won't do.
You can dump nitrous oxide into an engine and sure, it will run like hell.
That doesn't mean it's beneficial.
No, the river course was changed by glacial melting and retreat.
The cause of that was clearly warming.
The cause of that is still open for debate. Was it exacerbated or caused by human activity - your answer, and the certainty with which you issue it depends on whether you're a member of the AGW secular religion.
...so you're suggesting that taking a person from roughly a 15th century existence and handing them a smartphone doesn't immediately make them a sophisticated, worldly Western-world consumer?
Well hell, why didn't someone say that before?
Maybe it's because I'm turning 50 this year, but I simply don't believe it.
At a certain point I suspect "fantastic claim" fatigue has to set in, where you've heard so many promising concepts but watched the huge majority founder on realities of cost, industrial scaling, or unforseen complications.
The fact that they say it might make it to the market in ten years means it's barely more than a tenuous idea right now, and frankly probably not even worth reporting on. The hyperbolic claims by the inventor make it even less credible, while the nonsensical reporting (implying that such devices would actually run only in light) is idiotic.
Check your facts.
That is why I specifically referenced their old Romeo' s, and not the 50-some other subs they have.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Range: 9000 miles.
And I'm well aware that US antisub forces probably know precisely where each of these subs are every moment. That doesn't matter. Unless we somehow knew that Little Kim was planning a suicide attack, AS I SAID ALREADY it's exceedingly unlikely we would cold-bloodedly sink a sub even if it sailed straight into the harbor.
And yes, while a surface burst of such a weapon will impair it, the typical side blast expected from a DPRK nuke is about 20kt - the blast at Nagasaki. That would be easily enough to destroy the U.S.'s largest port completely, and cost probably tens of thousands of lives...assuming of course there's not already an anonymous container already sitting in an unused corner of a yard there with a bomb waiting for its owner to pull the trigger.
From the 'debunking' note, I wouldn't credit Mr Drollette as being as informed as he seems?
"âoeNorth Korea wants to demonstrate it has a deterrent. To do so, it needs to be able to credibly threaten the US mainland or our overseas assets. For that, you have to make the bomb (more correctly, the warhead) small enough to mount on a missile,â "
No, they don't.
Certainly, any of the 4 old Romeo-class subs that the DPRK has could accommodate a sizable warhead, and it's entirely unlikely that US antisub systems would be audacious enough to sink it if it was cruising in the Los Angeles littoral. Surfacing just outside or in the harbor, and suicidally popping that nuke would devastate Los Angeles even if it fizzled.
"North Korea has no reason to feel threatened? "
Oh bullshit. The US ROK exercises have gone for what, 50 years? To assert 'they infuriate the north who believes them a practice for invasion' is about as credible as Little Kims score of 18 at golf, or the insistence that he simply doesn't poop. Let's say that they have no rational reason to feel threatened and leave it at that.
"the best and most realistic approachâ"or rather, the âleast badâ(TM) approachâ"is to negotiate a freeze on Pyongyang's nuclear program. Such a deal would in some sense be a new version of the 1994 Agreed Framework, which succeeded in slowing the North's nuclear program."
The 1994 Agreed Framework was a complete and TOTAL FAILURE. It was intended to halt the DPRKs nuke program, and the rationalization that it "slowed it down" is utterly without basis except to the pollyannas who believe sanction just might work the next time.
How gullible are you?
"âoeUnder an updated version of the agreement, North Korea would impose a moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile launches. It would give inspectors access to its nuclear facilities. In exchange, Pyongyang would receive food, humanitarian and development aid on a regular basis"
This is EXACTLY what the 1994 Agreement tried to do, they took the food, the aid, and cheerfully violated their side of the agreement. I'm reminded the colloquial definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results".
I'm not a warmonger. I don't believe the US can "send in special ops" or nonsense like that. But to assert blithely that an agreement with DPRK can result in anything but rewarding them with more time and western goods to limp along in their goofy separate reality is ludicrous.
I'm pretty certain that the "leading edge consumers" aren't the ones who have the most to fear from/fear of robots.
..the begged question is that gender or racial bias and stereotypes are intrinsically "wrong". They are to our 21st century sensibilities, but they served humanity pretty well for millions of years.
Maybe where you have a society where women ARE primarily concerned with raising children, there are better outcomes than when men raise children or women go off to pursue their careers. Maybe where you have a society where obvious strangers are marginalized and driven away, the remainder ends up more cohesive.
I'd be curious how these AI biases would develop if 'fed' only native African literature and information.
I'm not making an 'appeal to nature' here, saying what "should" be or "shouldn't" be.
One might suggest that, evolutionarily speaking, maintaining a bias is harder than not, assuming no reinforcement. That our language (pretty fundamental to being human, after all) is pervasive with such institutional biases would suggest that there is a value/benefit to such.
I figured someone would go there. That's when I touched on it.
They're reviewing suspicious packages for DANGER and LEGAL COMPLIANCE, not for the value of the content.
How would you like it if the Post Office was moderating your letters, with the same powers mods have in forums - deleting communications from other people that they simply don't agree with, or whose ideas they find uncomfortable? What if you couldn't get Victoria's Secret catalogs because the USPS decided it was icky, and simply threw away anything they considered lascivious before it even got to your mailbox?
Of course nobody would accept that.
Or a phone company that blanks your calls and then blocks the other caller if you start talking about abortion?
Nobody who's ever played Kerbal Space Program has anything but utter respect for actual rocket scientists.
Yes, I get it, astronauts are highly trained and it takes a particular sort of bravery to strap yourself atop 100t of (basically) explosives....but in terms of the rocket going where it's supposed to, and coming back safe: it's not like the astronauts are anything but spectators to a programmed series of events.
I know the intent of the article is to make people enraged, and it certainly seems like something's going wrong here.
However, I have serious, fundamental reservations about government competing with the free market.
While certainly there are some circumstances, and this may well be one, where government can beneficially 'manage the commons' better than private or for-profit interests, there's something troubling about government agencies, on taxpayer funds, driving private firms out of business.
Yes, I see from the article that EPB runs a profit, and doesn't take tax money for operation. But do they bear the long-term capital costs that a private firm would for infrastructure? They certainly get use of city right-of-ways, no? In disputes over land use or zoning, I have to imagine they get a far more sympathetic hearing from city agencies?
In any case, it should be in the interest of any citizen to doubt the wisdom of establishing and protecting anti-competitive markets in the long run, not to mention the idea of a business having (essentially) the power of law enforcement on their side.
http://reason.com/archives/201...
Yes, when you're $19 trillion in debt, you have to forego some luxury items.
IMO yes.
Your phone company doesn't sort your calls and filter out curse words. Hell, they don't even block calls we ASK them to. /no/ direct responsibility if it turns out to be a prank call, porn, or a mailbomb.
The US Post Office doesn't sift the mail and prevent you getting letters that make you sad.
Fedex doesn't go through your packages and remove vibrators and sex lubes.
Those are examples of safe-harbor carriers: they care nothing for what they're transporting, thus they bear
Message boards and places like youtube are certainly entitled to filter out malformed or mechanically malicious content - ie to make sure videos posted aren't some sort of embedded virus, etc.
But the *moment* they evaluate something based on content, yeah, to some degree they DO take responsibility (at least shared with the content producer) for what's up there.
The 4 employees didn't "want" to fly, they NEEDED to fly to crew a plane in Louisville the next day (plus the obligatory rest hours).
Which is more important: not bumping the dude, or inconveniencing an ENTIRE PLANE full the next day?
Personally, I'd be pissed but ultimately the captain of the plane is the captain. If he/she says 'get off my plane' then you get your ass off the plane and argue it out with the company elsewhere.
I think most of the reaction to this is special snowflakes who hate the idea that ultimately, someone else has authority over them that they can't avoid.
Where do you get your 'typically's?
My property tax (suburban MN) is around 4%.
My sales tax is 7.775%.
Gas taxes (federal) 18.6 cents/gal PLUS 28.60 cents/gal.
That said, no, US personal taxes aren't that high compared to Ro(developed)W.
Out of the 34 countries in the OECD, America ranks first with a 39.1 percent corporate tax rate, compared to an OECD average of 24.1 percent.
Unlike liberals, who were going to filibuster Gorsich for what, altruistic reasons?
Claiming the Dems use of the nuclear option was for "good reasons" and the Republicans for "pure politics simply makes you a hypocrite.
You entirely miss the point, repeatedly.
1) you made it guns vs butter. It's not. It's butter vs butter.
2) regardless of the quantity of care, the point is the spending massive piles of $ on a few people to extend their lives a small amount, vs small amounts that would materially improve the lives of many. That's not "SJW" that's an actual question we as a society fail to face.
3) regarding alternatives to wealth being the determining factor: so you really HAVE no answer. Check. Can't comprehend capitalism: check.
Crabby, whingy bitch: check.