The mock up is a fixed cost... its a bit land the army has set aside for such things... all you're paying for is the depreciation on dummies which I can assure you less then the depreciation on VR helmets.
We run into this sort of thing all the time in the US. Some new wizbang technology comes out and everyone in government wants to use it never mind that they don't need it and that using it is actually less efficient then what they were doing before. They don't care... they want their toy.
Well, that's great... I don't mind them having toys. I just mind them playing with them when they're supposed to be working. By all means buy a couple of these things for research purposes and play with them in your spare time. You can even use public money for it and we'll call it "research"... But don't buy hundreds or thousands of the things and subject a likely experienced training staff to technology that is not actually useful to them.
How do they normally deal with this?... same way fire fighters do... they have little mock up training areas with dummies and the fire fighters play pretend.
how is this VR thing any better then that? and frankly... how can it help but be worse?
I understand dynamic networking... what you don't understand is that those systems often don't work or develop bugs.
A static route bypasses the lookup routines. I can't tell you how many systems were set up to use dynamic lookups... worked just fine for a couple months... and then either became unreliable or stopped functioning altogether. The only thing that seems to work long term is a static route. When we do that... there are no problems basically ever again.
part of my sentiment is based on a long experience with automatic systems failing to find network assets unless they're set to static IPs. To that end, every time I run into this problem I just set the machine to static and then have every system that needs to find it link directly to that IP bypassing lookup.
I appreciate that the lookup works in many situations but often it does not.
The most consistent culprits are network printers. On initial installation they always work just fine. But give them a few months or years and they start developing character especially with their networking hardware. And that causes all sorts of machines to not be able to find them. The machines that can and can't tends to be random from what little I can see. But a static route fixes the issue and makes the machines reliable until mechanical failure takes them.
Having to deal with IP6 static routes would be annoying. That is largely where I'm coming from here.
They're only really memorable to computers. Which is fine as far as it goes but IP4 addresses were something you could sorta remember if you dealt with the same number over and over again.
Obviously for internal networks there's no need for IP6. But even beyond that... I wonder if we couldn't improve on the DNS system so that we could assign names to IP addresses differently.
I don't know... something so we never have to work with the IP6 numbers which are so large and random that a human being really has no chance at remembering any of them short of the old copy paste.
I've actually look at where this fallacy came from because you appear to be quite convinced of this notion despite clearly not thinking about it at all yourself.
So I looked at who mislead you and I figured it out.
There were a bunch of studies that were done that looked that per household energy bill of people in cities versus people in rural areas.
They showed that people in apartments and condos spend less on heating their homes etc then do rural households on average.
Quite true. However, that rather excludes a good deal of the city. The shops, the office buildings, the various public spaces.
I mean, the street lights alone would have a big impact. Do you know how many rural streets are lit all year round? Try just about none ever. You're running on sun and star light in those areas.
Anyway, it took me a bit to figure out why you were so confused and now I got it.
Its too bad you're incapable of thinking for yourself and instead will just glom onto the first report you see and take it as holy scripture. But that's clearly what you did.
I'm sorry that we have nothing more to share at this point. You're not thinking this issue through at all and you can't hold a debate with a non-interactive entity. You're basically a tape recorder when you do this... You probably won't believe me or understand that for some time. But I hold out hope that one day you'll have the introspection to see that is exactly what you've allowed to happen.
As to corruption not mattering to efficiency... then every third world country would be an economic giant. A large portion of the wealth of such nations flows directly into corruption. Which leads to systemic poverty. Not only does corruption matter. Everything matters. Its this cherry picking of data is getting you into trouble.
So... if I sell a digital copy of a movie to someone... they can watch the movie then return it for a full refund within 14 days?
Why ever rent a movie again? Buying is now cheaper...
I think the only reasonable response to this is to stop selling digital content to europe entirely absent some kind of mechanism for ensuring people pay.
What that mechanism is can be debated. But you can't have people buying content and then returning it when they're bored with it.14 days is more then enough time to get bored with a lot of content.
Imagine the latest movie that you're really excited to see... would you want your money back or to keep that movie after owning it for 14 days? Obviously your money.
You've provided no evidence or even a rational to support your claim that its more energy intensive.
What I've found in rural communities is that they tend to heat their homes either with natural gas which is how most homes in big cities are heated by the way.
Or they tend to rely on some off grid method of heating.
Currently, wood pellets (made from saw dust and field dross) and natural gas are the cheapest form heating in the United States.
You used to get a lot of people in the north east using "heating oil" which was a waste petroleum product. However, the price of heating oil has gone up so much that it's not very practical. Most of those households have shifted over to wood pellets.
Furthermore, there are rural homes that don't need to be heated because they exist in moderate climates.
Does your claim of more energy base itself entirely on heating a rural home with fossil fuels? Because if that's what you're basing it on you're making two mistakes. One, most of those homes are no more fueled by fossil fuels then the urban homes. Which would make their environmental impact about equal. Or they're actually using carbon neutral fuels thus making them superior.
And before you talk to me about how much less fuel a tiny appartment is going to use versus a house... consider that there is a lot of communial space in a city that must be counted on a per capita basis.
All those office buildings. All those malls. All those shops. Every thing in a city that uses energy must be calculated on a per capita basis. And then compare that to everything that uses power in a rural environment on a per capita basis.
Cities use FAR more energy. What is more, much of the energy in a rural environment is to produce export products which cannot count against the local carbon debt of that area but rather must be applied to the carbon debt of which ever place is importing the products... mostly cities.
If you'd like to put the rural environment on the spot... you'd have to show them as importing more then they export.
You can see the pattern pretty clearly there. Look at the top 6 major cities in the country and look at their gas prices.
As to various service providers and food providers... you've apparently never lived in New York City or Los Angeles or Chicago. I don't know where you live but it isn't one of America's major cities or you'd know better.
As to taxes and corruption... it doesn't matter what your excuses for it is... its inefficiency.
As to what mode of living is more efficient. You really quite stubborn. Lets look at poorer countries to give you another example. These are societies that do not have resources to waste. How do they mostly live... in big cities where you say they'll save money and resources through centralization... or mostly in rural communities which you say is wasteful?
Obviously in rural communities. Why? Its more efficient and always has been.
Wait wait... if you don't blame the farmer then what are we talking about here?
What do you think the person on the rural property is doing that is making their energy usage so much higher?
Is it because they own and drive a car/truck? Is that it?
Because if that is it... that's pretty thin... and extremely in error.
What else? They get their water from onsite wells usually so that's going to be more efficient then whatever you're doing.
What else? Home heating? Many of these homes are heated with wood or wood pellets... which means they're carbon neutral. Wood is effectively nature's biofuel. The wood was produced by absorbing atmospheric carbon and burning it just releases the same back to the atmosphere to be reabsorbed by another plant. Its the original renewable fuel.
So what other thing are they doing that is causing so much carbon?
Nothing. Your whole argument is based on NOTHING. You're just repeating the same position over and over again mindlessly without substantiating it.
I answered your point directly... its not my fault if you're incapable of forming an original thought on your own. I run into this a lot... twits on the internet repeating arguments they've memorized with no ability to form concepts or arguments if people go off their memorized script.
Oh well... thought I was talking to a person and not a chat bot... You've just failed the Turning test.
Gasoline... cross reference the price of it in any major city versus the suburban and rural periphery.
Food... both in grocery stores and restaurants.
Clothing... from underwear to pants to shirts to socks to whatever.
Pretty much any service is going to be more expensive as well... from a hair cut to a night at the movies.
Generally everything is more expensive.
The exception might be ipads or something else imported from asia. But if its producable locally you're going to be closer to the source in a rural area and the costs are going to be lower. What's more you go through less regulatory and tax bullshit in a rural area. A big part of the cost of things in cities is the taxes.
A city sales tax all by itself is going to make things more expensive. And most cities have sales taxes. Guess what rural areas do not have? A localized sale tax. You'll pay the state sales tax of course but there is no city sales tax.
And why does the city charge a sales tax? To pay for the higher overhead of the increased density.
You can agree I assume that cities have higher taxes right? Alright... given that the cities have higher taxes and don't seem to be functional unless they do... why do they need the money if they're more efficient?
Because they're not.
Here's another way to prove you're wrong. Lets say the US suddenly became extremely poor. By your logic, we'd save money by concetrating more of our population in the cities. But that wouldn't happen. You'd get an outflow of people out of the cities because they wouldn't afford the rent and the higher cost of living in the cities. They'd move out to the country where its cheaper.
I know you don't like associating Money with Resources... but they are associated... its earned by producing and buys through spending goods and services. Both of those concepts relate to all sorts of inputs that relate to CO2 production.
Is the match up 1 to 1? No... because its more about scarcity then anything. But as a general rule if something costs a lot more it took more energy to produce it... either in raw materials or in labor.
I see... so the farmer living on a rural plot of land that grows the food you eat is the problem... and the solution is packing more people like sardins into concrete hives?
I tried... I really did... but you're not using your brain so its impossible to reason with you. You're not thinking anything through.
There's no economic theory required. The cost is a reflection of labor and resources required to deliver a good or service plus a profit to reward the people that actually provide it.
If the prices are higher then there are two things that can cause the price to be higher.
1. The costs are actually higher which would mean less efficient because it would require more labor or more resources.
2. More profit taking or profit margin. There are theories regarding this point but I'll refrain from doing that because you're apparently allergic to economic theory... which I would point out renders you incapable of having this discussion. But I'll try to humor you anyway.
Point is... if its variable 1... aka resources... you're not more efficient. And even if its variable 2 you're still not more efficient because your system is leaking resources to middle men or facilitators.
So no. Even with that absurd attempt to dismiss all economic theory as a last ditch attempt to save a utterly doomed argument... you still lose.
As to the rent argument. While it is true you're being more efficient with space that does not mean you're being more efficient with resources.
Your argument about efficiency is ultimately reliant on circular logic.
You're saying that you're more efficient because you're denser and you've defined efficiency as density.
That's invalid logic.
As to packing people together generating less CO2, again you've provided no reason for that to be true.
Just because you're using mass transit doesn't mean you're using less energy per capita. The trains and subways and buses were not designed for energy efficiency and that is not their point. They were designed for space efficiency and cargo capacity. NOT energy efficiency.
When you add up all the maintenance costs that go into maintaining those systems, including the subsidies that come from taxes... its not nearly as efficient as you'd think.
As to things being more efficiently delivered into cities... then they'd be cheaper in cities. They're not. You're wrong on this one by simple economics. I'm not arguing this one with you because its basically 1+1=2. You either agree or you're wrong. I'm sorry.
As to rural communities having a larger carbon footprint then cities... you've offered no reason to conclude that. Its just something you keep repeating without justification.
and why doesn't the green line go the airport directly?
you run into this all over the country.
Do you know that the first New York Subway system was initially only built because the people building it lied to the city and said they were building a gas line?
Its true. Had they known they were building a subway the government of the city at that time would have shut it down as a threat to the "livery" services of the day which were just what they had for taxis at that time.
They opened a very short demo line of the subway to the general public as a curiosity and a proof of concept.
That was the only way the subways were even built in the first place.
To get anything done in a major city these days you have to go rogue and subvert, trick, confuse, and outright ignore the system because its largely only there to sustain the status quo.
If you want to run around like chicken little that's your own business.
I'd prefer to work towards attainable ends.
I didn't cause world industry to emit this CO2. That's not my fault. And it isn't my fault that you're not going to get your various ideas accepted wholesale.
All I can do is offer you ideas that might actually accomplish something. Will it be perfect? What planet and species do you think you're on and working with here?
This is earth and we're humans. Your ideas need to be less idealistic and realistic.
Getting 8 billion people to fall into line with your plan at gun point is a pipe dream... and even if you could do it which you can't... I really don't think you appreciate the human cost of getting what you want that way.
If we accept the most extreme alarmist projections on the climate that we've been fucked for years because apparently the oceans started to boil about 10 years ago and we're already dead.
Since that clearly didn't happen we can assume that the valid projections are somewhere between the least pessimistic and the most pessimistic.
Where that falls is debatable. A lot of it seems to come down to poorly understood forcing variables that have had their weightings adjusted so much that its clear they're just guessing.
So fine... that's a problem... now what can we do? Well, there are a lot of things we can do to improve our industry. But all of that starts at being rational about the whole thing and appreciating that it is a global problem and therefore local environmental regulations absent import tariffs are meaningless because you'll just export your pollution to china which at best will mean more CO2 is emitted then if it had been kept in the US with no environmental regulations.
There are a lot of technologies and processes we could use that would reduce our CO2 emissions dramatically. A lot of it involves biofuel which really should be producible on an individual basis to be really efficient. Keep in mind, that the biofuel is turning sunlight or some kind of organic energy into oil or alcohol. That means its going to take up a lot of space. What if rather then taking up a lot of space in a centralized refinery it instead takes up a few hundred square feet in the backyards of millions of homes?
The machinery for this sort of thing can be miniaturized and simplified to be operated by a normal person. Will the machine cost thousands of dollars? Sure. But then what does gasoline cost over several years for a family of 4?
Labor costs would also be largely nominal for the same reason we find cooking at home to be cheaper then eating out even though it takes more labor. The difference is that the extra labor is our own. We pay no one... its our own labor for our own production.
Look at the whole maker revolution. Its all part of the same thing. Can 3d printing ever compete with the efficiency of a conventional factory? Never. But it can be much cheaper because the cost of YOUR labor in the whole thing is effectively free. You've donated it to yourself.
There are all sorts of biofuel crops that we could employ for this sort of thing. Crops that produce oil. Crops that can be fermented and distilled. How many gallons of fuel do you need to produce in a month? You really don't need that much. Get a fast growing crop and intensively farm it on your property. This is entirely possible with current technology.
Will it take the average person some attention to make it happen? Sure. But the rising gas prices are a big motivator.
Let me give you an example of sort of economies we're talking about here.
If I go to the store to buy beer... the cheapest beer I can find... I am going to be paying about 10-11 dollars for 4 liters of beer.
If I brew it myself using whole grain brewing I can get closer to 10 liters of beer for that price... and the quality can be the equal of anything depending on my skill.
And that is assuming I buy the grain and hops AND mail order it paying shipping.
If I actually grew the stuff myself it would be even cheaper.
There are too many middle men in our supply chain and they're making an already tight logistical chain less competitive.
As to rent being more expensive, that alone is showing you the inefficiency. You're packing people too tightly in to an unreasonably limited space.
And for what? The logistical problems involved with keeping a city of high density functional are absurd.
Consider the cost of mass transit as amertized over the whole population including all the subsidies. Its not cheap. Most people think its cheap because they don't pay the full price at the toll booth or the ticket machine. Most of it is taken in taxes which are also a lot higher in cities.
Then look at how many service workers you have per capita. Garbage men. Police men. Fire fighters. Other various flavors of public employee... per capita you have more overhead in a city then you do in a rural community.
You have to count that overhead against the cities if we're talking about efficiency. In rural areas you don't need it. In cities you do. That MUST count against cities.
When you factor the rent which is a consequence of population density. Factor the taxes which are a consequence of population density leading to logistical problems that are absorbed by the city government. And then factor in the cost of goods and services what you can see very clearly is that it is dramatically less efficient.
Do not get me wrong. There are pluses to the city. But those pluses are all about people being closer together and therefore being able to collaborate, work, interact more quickly because they don't need to travel great distances.
THAT is the virtue of cities.
But that virtue is in many ways obsolete now. Outmoded. We have the internet and airplanes. The big PRO cities have offered to justify their expense has been greatly diminished while their CONs are if anything getting worse.
Per capita murder rate... cities are much worse then rural communities. Per capita rape... per capita assault... per capita robbery... Cities lose the crime stat across the board.
They also tend to lose when comparing k-12 education stats and most of the health, safety, and education stats.
There is a reason people like to move to the suburbs when they have a family rather then staying in the city. Its not just getting more space. Its a totally different environment and culture.
The most reasonable thing for most of our population to do is to decentralize away from the cities. Either going to a huge urban sprawl or just peppering the vast empty places in the US with a home every mile or so. Every one of those homes could have its own green house sufficient to provide leafy greens to a family of four all year round. Every house could provide a significant amount of the fuel needed to keep the home heated and powered. Water could come from well water in most cases. Sewage treatment etc could be handled on site with no net emissions of CO2.
This is something we could do. Now if you're poor and have nothing then obviously you're going to be on some sort of subsidy. But even then why pack the poor and jobless into cities with high costs of living and out of control crime? Better to ship these people off to rural communities where their total lack of skills can be put towards fetch and carry labor until they've developed some skills. Furthermore, that sort of community is far more wholesome for many of these people. Rather then being surrounded by gangs and trash covered streets, they'd be out in a more natural environment where they'd be hugely out numbered by people that actually work for a living. There would be no gangs... and if they tried anything cute gun ownership in such communities is about 100 percent... so it would be a very quick education.
The US is about as big as europe. So which part of Europe are you comparing to which part of the US? Because looking at either as a singular entity is naive and simplistic.
There are parts of the US that are terrible. There are parts of it that are great. There are lots of parts of it that are anything you can imagine.
We've got it all. The US is an extremely diverse place with varied climates, subcultures, legal codes, and demographics.
We're more like 50 countries in the EU then we are like one country. You can't take something like Alaska and Rhode Island just average the two. They're too different and need to be analyzed separately. They both belong to the union but besides that they have very little in common.
I'm talking about a very nominal registration. Similar to car registration. It would cost something like 80 dollars per year which is what annual car registration costs in the state of California.
The ride sharing companies could even subsidize the licenses by paying you a little less your first couple rides to pay for the cost of the license or charging a registration fee with the ride sharing program which goes to the cost of the registration.
The point is that the government can make an argument that people doing this should be licensed and records kept.
I know the argument you're making... but honestly lets be realistic... that line of reasoning isn't going to get very far so lets not waste or time with it.
The government is going to require some sort of registration. What you should try to do is make that registration as cheap and accessible as possible.
The science isn't the issue though. Its a distraction from the real problem here and a misrepresentation of the issue to suggest that this is a scientific discussion.
What you have are serious political, economic, logistical, engineering, and social issues.
And you have to decide how you're going to solve that.
Now you have a pretty good idea of what your end point is for the whole thing.
So lets call that point Z and then we have where ever we are right now which we can call point A.
The general idea so many people have is to draw a straight line between point A and point Z and then use the power of all the global governments together to compel billions of people to follow that line. Failing to do so means those governments use their power to punish people. A government can't make you throw things away in the trash. What they can do is fine you, put you in prison, or shoot you. They can punish you.
So basically this idea you're pushing is that we go from point A to point Z by using the collective force of these governing bodies which are more conventionally employed to stop murders or wars.
Those same governments are not however even remotely unified. There is great diversity of opinion even within the governments themselves leading to at least thousands of political organizations to say nothing of the billions of people that are ultimately represented by these governments in one fashion or another.
Suggesting that you can compel those billions to go from point A to point Z by using the force of governments that you don't control and can't compel is irrational.
You're basically trying to get to the moon by flapping your arms. And so far, ever time I've pointed this out, the people pursuing this foolish waste of time just say they're not flapping their arms hard enough.
The entire policy is overly simplistic and frankly childish and lazy.
It is very typical for politicians to get confused by issues they don't understand and attempt to over simplify things. They look at something complicated and often being 70 year old lawyers that have lived in a capital city for most of their lives they tend to have a very limited understanding of the world. They understand laws usually but the world is a great deal more complex then that.
What I am instead suggesting is that we solve our problem in much the same way we created it.
Governments did not create the coal industry.
Governments did not create the automobile.
I don't really think governments will solve the problem either. Its too big for them.
If you want to solve this issue you need to think like a 21st century man. Not like a 20th century man.
All these political solutions are very 20th century. Think viral solutions. Think of about self sustaining propagating grass roots change. Think about ways you can change the system by getting the system to change itself. To evolve. To adapt. Not because you've gotten 10,000 G-Men to show up with M16s and tactical armor to compel compliance... but because they want to do it on their own.
Forget trying to draw a straight line. Instead focus on the process itself. Put down the sword of Alexander... The Gordian Knot sometimes needs to just be patiently unraveled by hand.
I can think of dozens of ways to do this and there's no reason to not do all of them at the same time. The expenses would be voluntary and so not something anyone could claim as hardship. You do it or you don't. But you work to make sure the costs are bearable and you try to build in as many side benefits as possible so people choose to do it.
You can make doing it cool. You can make doing it increase someone's social status in society. You can make doing offer increased control for those people that do it because the technology might be more sustainable or offer the ability to supply its needs with local industry instead of imported industry.
Just go through a list of things.
I think it goes without saying that any business or commu
The US is a big place... obviously there are a lot of places in Canada that are better then some places in the US. That said... the US is a big place and if you avoid our urban blight that is largely a product of failed socialism experiments then you'll find the US to be one of the better places to live on the planet.
Obviously its just protectionism for the taxi companies. Nothing more or less.
They do the same thing with mass transit. The subway they're building in Los Angeles will not go to the airport.
A lot of this comes down to the taxi medallions which the cities charge taxi companies to run their fleets.
Those medallions can be very expensive. And so the cities have a very strong financial interest to protect the taxi companies.
Really the taxi companies are quite justified in asking for protection. They've paid for it. The issue however is that the protection shouldn't have been for sale in the first place. Drop the cost of new medallions to something reasonable. A price similar to what the DMV charges for car registration. Then require uber etc to get the same license for all its drivers. The cost in this case would be nominal.
Then everyone is on an equal footing. The cities won't get the same revenue from medallion sales. But then neither will they have to subvert city policy to protect taxi companies. So it should balance out in the end.
Slashdot Mirror
The mock up is a fixed cost... its a bit land the army has set aside for such things... all you're paying for is the depreciation on dummies which I can assure you less then the depreciation on VR helmets.
We run into this sort of thing all the time in the US. Some new wizbang technology comes out and everyone in government wants to use it never mind that they don't need it and that using it is actually less efficient then what they were doing before. They don't care... they want their toy.
Well, that's great... I don't mind them having toys. I just mind them playing with them when they're supposed to be working. By all means buy a couple of these things for research purposes and play with them in your spare time. You can even use public money for it and we'll call it "research"... But don't buy hundreds or thousands of the things and subject a likely experienced training staff to technology that is not actually useful to them.
rather then a purpose looking for technology.
How do they normally deal with this?... same way fire fighters do... they have little mock up training areas with dummies and the fire fighters play pretend.
how is this VR thing any better then that? and frankly... how can it help but be worse?
I understand dynamic networking... what you don't understand is that those systems often don't work or develop bugs.
A static route bypasses the lookup routines. I can't tell you how many systems were set up to use dynamic lookups... worked just fine for a couple months... and then either became unreliable or stopped functioning altogether. The only thing that seems to work long term is a static route. When we do that... there are no problems basically ever again.
part of my sentiment is based on a long experience with automatic systems failing to find network assets unless they're set to static IPs. To that end, every time I run into this problem I just set the machine to static and then have every system that needs to find it link directly to that IP bypassing lookup.
I appreciate that the lookup works in many situations but often it does not.
The most consistent culprits are network printers. On initial installation they always work just fine. But give them a few months or years and they start developing character especially with their networking hardware. And that causes all sorts of machines to not be able to find them. The machines that can and can't tends to be random from what little I can see. But a static route fixes the issue and makes the machines reliable until mechanical failure takes them.
Having to deal with IP6 static routes would be annoying. That is largely where I'm coming from here.
They're only really memorable to computers. Which is fine as far as it goes but IP4 addresses were something you could sorta remember if you dealt with the same number over and over again.
Obviously for internal networks there's no need for IP6. But even beyond that... I wonder if we couldn't improve on the DNS system so that we could assign names to IP addresses differently.
I don't know... something so we never have to work with the IP6 numbers which are so large and random that a human being really has no chance at remembering any of them short of the old copy paste.
And you're not thinking it through.
I've actually look at where this fallacy came from because you appear to be quite convinced of this notion despite clearly not thinking about it at all yourself.
So I looked at who mislead you and I figured it out.
There were a bunch of studies that were done that looked that per household energy bill of people in cities versus people in rural areas.
They showed that people in apartments and condos spend less on heating their homes etc then do rural households on average.
Quite true. However, that rather excludes a good deal of the city. The shops, the office buildings, the various public spaces.
I mean, the street lights alone would have a big impact. Do you know how many rural streets are lit all year round? Try just about none ever. You're running on sun and star light in those areas.
Anyway, it took me a bit to figure out why you were so confused and now I got it.
Its too bad you're incapable of thinking for yourself and instead will just glom onto the first report you see and take it as holy scripture. But that's clearly what you did.
I'm sorry that we have nothing more to share at this point. You're not thinking this issue through at all and you can't hold a debate with a non-interactive entity. You're basically a tape recorder when you do this... You probably won't believe me or understand that for some time. But I hold out hope that one day you'll have the introspection to see that is exactly what you've allowed to happen.
As to corruption not mattering to efficiency... then every third world country would be an economic giant. A large portion of the wealth of such nations flows directly into corruption. Which leads to systemic poverty. Not only does corruption matter. Everything matters. Its this cherry picking of data is getting you into trouble.
Everything is relevant.
So... if I sell a digital copy of a movie to someone... they can watch the movie then return it for a full refund within 14 days?
Why ever rent a movie again? Buying is now cheaper...
I think the only reasonable response to this is to stop selling digital content to europe entirely absent some kind of mechanism for ensuring people pay.
What that mechanism is can be debated. But you can't have people buying content and then returning it when they're bored with it.14 days is more then enough time to get bored with a lot of content.
Imagine the latest movie that you're really excited to see... would you want your money back or to keep that movie after owning it for 14 days? Obviously your money.
Exactly.
You've provided no evidence or even a rational to support your claim that its more energy intensive.
What I've found in rural communities is that they tend to heat their homes either with natural gas which is how most homes in big cities are heated by the way.
Or they tend to rely on some off grid method of heating.
Currently, wood pellets (made from saw dust and field dross) and natural gas are the cheapest form heating in the United States.
You used to get a lot of people in the north east using "heating oil" which was a waste petroleum product. However, the price of heating oil has gone up so much that it's not very practical. Most of those households have shifted over to wood pellets.
Furthermore, there are rural homes that don't need to be heated because they exist in moderate climates.
Does your claim of more energy base itself entirely on heating a rural home with fossil fuels? Because if that's what you're basing it on you're making two mistakes. One, most of those homes are no more fueled by fossil fuels then the urban homes. Which would make their environmental impact about equal. Or they're actually using carbon neutral fuels thus making them superior.
And before you talk to me about how much less fuel a tiny appartment is going to use versus a house... consider that there is a lot of communial space in a city that must be counted on a per capita basis.
All those office buildings. All those malls. All those shops. Every thing in a city that uses energy must be calculated on a per capita basis. And then compare that to everything that uses power in a rural environment on a per capita basis.
Cities use FAR more energy. What is more, much of the energy in a rural environment is to produce export products which cannot count against the local carbon debt of that area but rather must be applied to the carbon debt of which ever place is importing the products... mostly cities.
If you'd like to put the rural environment on the spot... you'd have to show them as importing more then they export.
They don't... this is over.
You are officially the black knight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As to gasoline, that's statistically unsupportable... here you go:
http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gas...
You can see the pattern pretty clearly there. Look at the top 6 major cities in the country and look at their gas prices.
As to various service providers and food providers... you've apparently never lived in New York City or Los Angeles or Chicago. I don't know where you live but it isn't one of America's major cities or you'd know better.
As to taxes and corruption... it doesn't matter what your excuses for it is... its inefficiency.
As to what mode of living is more efficient. You really quite stubborn. Lets look at poorer countries to give you another example. These are societies that do not have resources to waste. How do they mostly live... in big cities where you say they'll save money and resources through centralization... or mostly in rural communities which you say is wasteful?
Obviously in rural communities. Why? Its more efficient and always has been.
Good day.
Wait wait... if you don't blame the farmer then what are we talking about here?
What do you think the person on the rural property is doing that is making their energy usage so much higher?
Is it because they own and drive a car/truck? Is that it?
Because if that is it... that's pretty thin... and extremely in error.
What else? They get their water from onsite wells usually so that's going to be more efficient then whatever you're doing.
What else? Home heating? Many of these homes are heated with wood or wood pellets... which means they're carbon neutral. Wood is effectively nature's biofuel. The wood was produced by absorbing atmospheric carbon and burning it just releases the same back to the atmosphere to be reabsorbed by another plant. Its the original renewable fuel.
So what other thing are they doing that is causing so much carbon?
Nothing. Your whole argument is based on NOTHING. You're just repeating the same position over and over again mindlessly without substantiating it.
I answered your point directly... its not my fault if you're incapable of forming an original thought on your own. I run into this a lot... twits on the internet repeating arguments they've memorized with no ability to form concepts or arguments if people go off their memorized script.
Oh well... thought I was talking to a person and not a chat bot... You've just failed the Turning test.
Gasoline... cross reference the price of it in any major city versus the suburban and rural periphery.
Food... both in grocery stores and restaurants.
Clothing... from underwear to pants to shirts to socks to whatever.
Pretty much any service is going to be more expensive as well... from a hair cut to a night at the movies.
Generally everything is more expensive.
The exception might be ipads or something else imported from asia. But if its producable locally you're going to be closer to the source in a rural area and the costs are going to be lower. What's more you go through less regulatory and tax bullshit in a rural area. A big part of the cost of things in cities is the taxes.
A city sales tax all by itself is going to make things more expensive. And most cities have sales taxes. Guess what rural areas do not have? A localized sale tax. You'll pay the state sales tax of course but there is no city sales tax.
And why does the city charge a sales tax? To pay for the higher overhead of the increased density.
You can agree I assume that cities have higher taxes right? Alright... given that the cities have higher taxes and don't seem to be functional unless they do... why do they need the money if they're more efficient?
Because they're not.
Here's another way to prove you're wrong. Lets say the US suddenly became extremely poor. By your logic, we'd save money by concetrating more of our population in the cities. But that wouldn't happen. You'd get an outflow of people out of the cities because they wouldn't afford the rent and the higher cost of living in the cities. They'd move out to the country where its cheaper.
I know you don't like associating Money with Resources... but they are associated... its earned by producing and buys through spending goods and services. Both of those concepts relate to all sorts of inputs that relate to CO2 production.
Is the match up 1 to 1? No... because its more about scarcity then anything. But as a general rule if something costs a lot more it took more energy to produce it... either in raw materials or in labor.
I see... so the farmer living on a rural plot of land that grows the food you eat is the problem... and the solution is packing more people like sardins into concrete hives?
I tried... I really did... but you're not using your brain so its impossible to reason with you. You're not thinking anything through.
There's no economic theory required. The cost is a reflection of labor and resources required to deliver a good or service plus a profit to reward the people that actually provide it.
If the prices are higher then there are two things that can cause the price to be higher.
1. The costs are actually higher which would mean less efficient because it would require more labor or more resources.
2. More profit taking or profit margin. There are theories regarding this point but I'll refrain from doing that because you're apparently allergic to economic theory... which I would point out renders you incapable of having this discussion. But I'll try to humor you anyway.
Point is... if its variable 1... aka resources... you're not more efficient. And even if its variable 2 you're still not more efficient because your system is leaking resources to middle men or facilitators.
So no. Even with that absurd attempt to dismiss all economic theory as a last ditch attempt to save a utterly doomed argument... you still lose.
Checkmate.
*takes the opponent's king*
Good day, sir.
I'll let Wonka break it down... because its awesome. :)
http://heeereswilly.ytmnd.com/
As to the rent argument. While it is true you're being more efficient with space that does not mean you're being more efficient with resources.
Your argument about efficiency is ultimately reliant on circular logic.
You're saying that you're more efficient because you're denser and you've defined efficiency as density.
That's invalid logic.
As to packing people together generating less CO2, again you've provided no reason for that to be true.
Just because you're using mass transit doesn't mean you're using less energy per capita. The trains and subways and buses were not designed for energy efficiency and that is not their point. They were designed for space efficiency and cargo capacity. NOT energy efficiency.
When you add up all the maintenance costs that go into maintaining those systems, including the subsidies that come from taxes... its not nearly as efficient as you'd think.
As to things being more efficiently delivered into cities... then they'd be cheaper in cities. They're not. You're wrong on this one by simple economics. I'm not arguing this one with you because its basically 1+1=2. You either agree or you're wrong. I'm sorry.
As to rural communities having a larger carbon footprint then cities... you've offered no reason to conclude that. Its just something you keep repeating without justification.
and why doesn't the green line go the airport directly?
you run into this all over the country.
Do you know that the first New York Subway system was initially only built because the people building it lied to the city and said they were building a gas line?
Its true. Had they known they were building a subway the government of the city at that time would have shut it down as a threat to the "livery" services of the day which were just what they had for taxis at that time.
They opened a very short demo line of the subway to the general public as a curiosity and a proof of concept.
That was the only way the subways were even built in the first place.
To get anything done in a major city these days you have to go rogue and subvert, trick, confuse, and outright ignore the system because its largely only there to sustain the status quo.
If you want to run around like chicken little that's your own business.
I'd prefer to work towards attainable ends.
I didn't cause world industry to emit this CO2. That's not my fault. And it isn't my fault that you're not going to get your various ideas accepted wholesale.
All I can do is offer you ideas that might actually accomplish something. Will it be perfect? What planet and species do you think you're on and working with here?
This is earth and we're humans. Your ideas need to be less idealistic and realistic.
Getting 8 billion people to fall into line with your plan at gun point is a pipe dream... and even if you could do it which you can't... I really don't think you appreciate the human cost of getting what you want that way.
If we accept the most extreme alarmist projections on the climate that we've been fucked for years because apparently the oceans started to boil about 10 years ago and we're already dead.
Since that clearly didn't happen we can assume that the valid projections are somewhere between the least pessimistic and the most pessimistic.
Where that falls is debatable. A lot of it seems to come down to poorly understood forcing variables that have had their weightings adjusted so much that its clear they're just guessing.
So fine... that's a problem... now what can we do? Well, there are a lot of things we can do to improve our industry. But all of that starts at being rational about the whole thing and appreciating that it is a global problem and therefore local environmental regulations absent import tariffs are meaningless because you'll just export your pollution to china which at best will mean more CO2 is emitted then if it had been kept in the US with no environmental regulations.
There are a lot of technologies and processes we could use that would reduce our CO2 emissions dramatically. A lot of it involves biofuel which really should be producible on an individual basis to be really efficient. Keep in mind, that the biofuel is turning sunlight or some kind of organic energy into oil or alcohol. That means its going to take up a lot of space. What if rather then taking up a lot of space in a centralized refinery it instead takes up a few hundred square feet in the backyards of millions of homes?
The machinery for this sort of thing can be miniaturized and simplified to be operated by a normal person. Will the machine cost thousands of dollars? Sure. But then what does gasoline cost over several years for a family of 4?
Labor costs would also be largely nominal for the same reason we find cooking at home to be cheaper then eating out even though it takes more labor. The difference is that the extra labor is our own. We pay no one... its our own labor for our own production.
Look at the whole maker revolution. Its all part of the same thing. Can 3d printing ever compete with the efficiency of a conventional factory? Never. But it can be much cheaper because the cost of YOUR labor in the whole thing is effectively free. You've donated it to yourself.
There are all sorts of biofuel crops that we could employ for this sort of thing. Crops that produce oil. Crops that can be fermented and distilled. How many gallons of fuel do you need to produce in a month? You really don't need that much. Get a fast growing crop and intensively farm it on your property. This is entirely possible with current technology.
Will it take the average person some attention to make it happen? Sure. But the rising gas prices are a big motivator.
Let me give you an example of sort of economies we're talking about here.
If I go to the store to buy beer... the cheapest beer I can find... I am going to be paying about 10-11 dollars for 4 liters of beer.
If I brew it myself using whole grain brewing I can get closer to 10 liters of beer for that price... and the quality can be the equal of anything depending on my skill.
And that is assuming I buy the grain and hops AND mail order it paying shipping.
If I actually grew the stuff myself it would be even cheaper.
There are too many middle men in our supply chain and they're making an already tight logistical chain less competitive.
As to rent being more expensive, that alone is showing you the inefficiency. You're packing people too tightly in to an unreasonably limited space.
And for what? The logistical problems involved with keeping a city of high density functional are absurd.
Consider the cost of mass transit as amertized over the whole population including all the subsidies. Its not cheap. Most people think its cheap because they don't pay the full price at the toll booth or the ticket machine. Most of it is taken in taxes which are also a lot higher in cities.
Then look at how many service workers you have per capita. Garbage men. Police men. Fire fighters. Other various flavors of public employee... per capita you have more overhead in a city then you do in a rural community.
You have to count that overhead against the cities if we're talking about efficiency. In rural areas you don't need it. In cities you do. That MUST count against cities.
When you factor the rent which is a consequence of population density. Factor the taxes which are a consequence of population density leading to logistical problems that are absorbed by the city government. And then factor in the cost of goods and services what you can see very clearly is that it is dramatically less efficient.
Do not get me wrong. There are pluses to the city. But those pluses are all about people being closer together and therefore being able to collaborate, work, interact more quickly because they don't need to travel great distances.
THAT is the virtue of cities.
But that virtue is in many ways obsolete now. Outmoded. We have the internet and airplanes. The big PRO cities have offered to justify their expense has been greatly diminished while their CONs are if anything getting worse.
Per capita murder rate... cities are much worse then rural communities. Per capita rape... per capita assault... per capita robbery... Cities lose the crime stat across the board.
They also tend to lose when comparing k-12 education stats and most of the health, safety, and education stats.
There is a reason people like to move to the suburbs when they have a family rather then staying in the city. Its not just getting more space. Its a totally different environment and culture.
The most reasonable thing for most of our population to do is to decentralize away from the cities. Either going to a huge urban sprawl or just peppering the vast empty places in the US with a home every mile or so. Every one of those homes could have its own green house sufficient to provide leafy greens to a family of four all year round. Every house could provide a significant amount of the fuel needed to keep the home heated and powered. Water could come from well water in most cases. Sewage treatment etc could be handled on site with no net emissions of CO2.
This is something we could do. Now if you're poor and have nothing then obviously you're going to be on some sort of subsidy. But even then why pack the poor and jobless into cities with high costs of living and out of control crime? Better to ship these people off to rural communities where their total lack of skills can be put towards fetch and carry labor until they've developed some skills. Furthermore, that sort of community is far more wholesome for many of these people. Rather then being surrounded by gangs and trash covered streets, they'd be out in a more natural environment where they'd be hugely out numbered by people that actually work for a living. There would be no gangs... and if they tried anything cute gun ownership in such communities is about 100 percent... so it would be a very quick education.
The US is about as big as europe. So which part of Europe are you comparing to which part of the US? Because looking at either as a singular entity is naive and simplistic.
There are parts of the US that are terrible. There are parts of it that are great. There are lots of parts of it that are anything you can imagine.
We've got it all. The US is an extremely diverse place with varied climates, subcultures, legal codes, and demographics.
We're more like 50 countries in the EU then we are like one country. You can't take something like Alaska and Rhode Island just average the two. They're too different and need to be analyzed separately. They both belong to the union but besides that they have very little in common.
I'm talking about a very nominal registration. Similar to car registration. It would cost something like 80 dollars per year which is what annual car registration costs in the state of California.
The ride sharing companies could even subsidize the licenses by paying you a little less your first couple rides to pay for the cost of the license or charging a registration fee with the ride sharing program which goes to the cost of the registration.
The point is that the government can make an argument that people doing this should be licensed and records kept.
I know the argument you're making... but honestly lets be realistic... that line of reasoning isn't going to get very far so lets not waste or time with it.
The government is going to require some sort of registration. What you should try to do is make that registration as cheap and accessible as possible.
You've clearly never been anywhere in south america or the part of the US you live in is an exceptional shit hole.
Flip a coin... pick one.
The science isn't the issue though. Its a distraction from the real problem here and a misrepresentation of the issue to suggest that this is a scientific discussion.
What you have are serious political, economic, logistical, engineering, and social issues.
And you have to decide how you're going to solve that.
Now you have a pretty good idea of what your end point is for the whole thing.
So lets call that point Z and then we have where ever we are right now which we can call point A.
The general idea so many people have is to draw a straight line between point A and point Z and then use the power of all the global governments together to compel billions of people to follow that line. Failing to do so means those governments use their power to punish people. A government can't make you throw things away in the trash. What they can do is fine you, put you in prison, or shoot you. They can punish you.
So basically this idea you're pushing is that we go from point A to point Z by using the collective force of these governing bodies which are more conventionally employed to stop murders or wars.
Those same governments are not however even remotely unified. There is great diversity of opinion even within the governments themselves leading to at least thousands of political organizations to say nothing of the billions of people that are ultimately represented by these governments in one fashion or another.
Suggesting that you can compel those billions to go from point A to point Z by using the force of governments that you don't control and can't compel is irrational.
You're basically trying to get to the moon by flapping your arms. And so far, ever time I've pointed this out, the people pursuing this foolish waste of time just say they're not flapping their arms hard enough.
The entire policy is overly simplistic and frankly childish and lazy.
It is very typical for politicians to get confused by issues they don't understand and attempt to over simplify things. They look at something complicated and often being 70 year old lawyers that have lived in a capital city for most of their lives they tend to have a very limited understanding of the world. They understand laws usually but the world is a great deal more complex then that.
What I am instead suggesting is that we solve our problem in much the same way we created it.
Governments did not create the coal industry.
Governments did not create the automobile.
I don't really think governments will solve the problem either. Its too big for them.
If you want to solve this issue you need to think like a 21st century man. Not like a 20th century man.
All these political solutions are very 20th century. Think viral solutions. Think of about self sustaining propagating grass roots change. Think about ways you can change the system by getting the system to change itself. To evolve. To adapt. Not because you've gotten 10,000 G-Men to show up with M16s and tactical armor to compel compliance... but because they want to do it on their own.
Forget trying to draw a straight line. Instead focus on the process itself. Put down the sword of Alexander... The Gordian Knot sometimes needs to just be patiently unraveled by hand.
I can think of dozens of ways to do this and there's no reason to not do all of them at the same time. The expenses would be voluntary and so not something anyone could claim as hardship. You do it or you don't. But you work to make sure the costs are bearable and you try to build in as many side benefits as possible so people choose to do it.
You can make doing it cool.
You can make doing it increase someone's social status in society.
You can make doing offer increased control for those people that do it because the technology might be more sustainable or offer the ability to supply its needs with local industry instead of imported industry.
Just go through a list of things.
I think it goes without saying that any business or commu
The US is a big place... obviously there are a lot of places in Canada that are better then some places in the US. That said... the US is a big place and if you avoid our urban blight that is largely a product of failed socialism experiments then you'll find the US to be one of the better places to live on the planet.
Obviously its just protectionism for the taxi companies. Nothing more or less.
They do the same thing with mass transit. The subway they're building in Los Angeles will not go to the airport.
A lot of this comes down to the taxi medallions which the cities charge taxi companies to run their fleets.
Those medallions can be very expensive. And so the cities have a very strong financial interest to protect the taxi companies.
Really the taxi companies are quite justified in asking for protection. They've paid for it. The issue however is that the protection shouldn't have been for sale in the first place. Drop the cost of new medallions to something reasonable. A price similar to what the DMV charges for car registration. Then require uber etc to get the same license for all its drivers. The cost in this case would be nominal.
Then everyone is on an equal footing. The cities won't get the same revenue from medallion sales. But then neither will they have to subvert city policy to protect taxi companies. So it should balance out in the end.