what's going on in Australia, Canada, and various countries in europe says otherwise.
What is more the chinese and indians whom are the ones you really need to convince are basically paying you lip service at best.
So I don't know what you think you're accomplishing. I suppose you might just be a political creature and only care about the political fortunes of the politicians. From their perpsective this is working out pretty well. They get people like you to vote for them and they don't really have to do anything to maintain that vote.
So there you go... things are working out great. Just not the way you probably think its working out.
At best you're making very marginal gains that tend to be undermined fundamentally. At worst, you're accomplishing nothing while supporting a political class that sees you basically the way most people see cheeseburgers.
If you make this a political struggle then your arguments are ultimately political ones.
What will matter is who supports you, how many of them there are, and how much political will and force you can bring on the issue.
You will also need to sustain that effort because you will have only attained your goal by overwhelming other factions that will likely come back for reprisals later if they feel you slighted them.
Which is what you have happening now. Look at all the reversals the AGW lobby has faced lately. Seriously. Look at the countries that have reversed course... that accepted your policy and then repudiated it.
You've gone in most cases one step forward and two steps back.
What is going on in Australia is a good example. We're also seeing rejection in Canada, most of Asia, France, and we're even seeing wobbling in Germany which is just about the strongest supporter the AGW has at this point.
Look... You have no more control over the wider battle taking place then I do. I'm just pointing out that these choices have consequences and that the results are predictable if you understand the rules.
By making this a political battle what you've done is make the environmental issue itself irrelevant. The politicians you rely upon to push your issue don't even really care about your issue. To them, its a weapon. They see it as a means to power. A talking point. Something they can say to embarrass rivals and increase poll numbers. Which means they don't care if you ever actually accomplish anything.
What they care about is if they look good from one moment to the next. Grasp that they can do this for another million years without accomplishing anything and so long as they keep getting elected they won't care.
That's politics.
If you want to actually accomplish something you have to take it away as a weapon and rather make it an issue that supersedes political rivalry. You have to make it clear it isn't sufficient to argue or try to do something. Rather you have to actually accomplish something. And if nothing is accomplished you can't reward them simply for trying.
This is one of the reasons the money in politics is so incidious because so often what is actually going on is that politicians will suggest they might do something just to get the campaign donations flowing. Its sort of like a protection racket. Would be terrible of taxes went up on your lobster fisheries... maybe you should lobby congress to make sure that doesn't happen. Imagine that but with every industry and every coalition. Then add the dollars up.
This is one of the reasons the tech issues are getting rattled right now. Washington sees all this money in Silicon valley and not enough of it is getting spent on lobbyists and campaign donations. So they fuck with the tech sector until the money starts flowing.
The various issues like AGW are no different in many cases.
They're revenue streams.
You go the political route... and its quite likely you'll pay and pay and pay... and never get anything. They'll bleed you white... of money... of will... they'll leave you disappointed, depressed, and without hope.
It takes awhile to see how it works. You watch the pattern... you see how they do things... and this is the result. Sorry to say.
Yeah but that's only an issue when you need something set up. Once you're set up how are they?
I don't mind dealing with some crap to get it working if once its working I am happy with the service.
I've gone through similar nonsense with many ISPs in the past and I just expect it at this point. What I find unacceptable is if I have to keep doing it because they keep breaking things. I've had that issue with Adelphia and then TWC where in they would "fix" our neighborhood's internet when it wasn't broken before... and cause everyone in the neighborhood to lose access for a week.
THAT I don't like.
Also other issues that bother me are signal quality issues. Sometimes you get a lot of dropped packets because rats are having sex in their switching station or something.
I had one location that would have dropped packets every summer during the hottest part of the day... every hot day... all year around... no exceptions. Obviously they had some bit of equipment that was not properly ventilated or cooled that was overheating and spitting out errors or something. happened every summer like clockwork.
That is the sort of thing I don't like. A late repair man when I'm getting it set up? Pifft... that's nothing.
As I made clear, your two options here are as follows:
1. Make this about science and abandon the politics. Discuss things with people. Be patient. Do not attempt to compel people to comply. Accept that there will be differences of opinions. Work for mutually agreeable solutions.
2. Make this about politics and render the science irrelevant. Try to force people with law. Do no argue. Do not negotiate. Test your political will against their political will. Shout them down. Shut them down. Take no prisoners and offer no mercy.
Those are your two options. And as much as you've said the science is settled, you've apparently chosen option 2 which means the science doesn't matter. Its all politics if you go down that road. The winner there will not be whomever has science on their side but whomever has a stronger political coalition.
And I should note... you're losing the political fight.
I strongly suggest that if you want to have a chance to win... you choose option 1. Option 2 is leading to a pathetic defeat.
Which means you're justifying not negociating but imposing your will. Which means you're going for the political option.
Which means the science under your policy will be irrelevant as to whether you succeed or fail to impose your will. It will come down literally to whether your faction is more politically powerful then your opposition.
The right or wrong of it will be irrelevant.
Do the logical math. Watch Variable1 interact with Variable2 through EquationX.
Check your premises and think the issue through.
What you are saying is "I think I'm right so everyone should do what I say"... that's great but you have to convince people not only that you're right but that your solutions to the problem are right.
If you refuse to go through that process then what you have to do is overwhelm/strong arm people into bending to your will. And that means whether you are right or wrong won't matter. You can strong arm people into saying the sun is made of puppies that way. Look at what is going on in the Islamic world for a good example of what I'm talking about. Do you think things work that way over there because someone convinced everyone that was the best way to run a society? No. They just threatened to kill anyone that disagreed with them. They've fought literally hundreds of wars over that over the last 400 years. You have no idea the bloodshed. But they got what they wanted.
And being right or wrong doesn't matter if you're forcing people. You're just forcing them. End of story.
I'd like to think my society is better then that. That we can arrive at common action through a less coercive policy. But that will require patience and flexibility on everyone's part to arrive at action that a plurality feels acceptable.
Any such policy is not going to make radicals on either side happy. The radicals on the right and radicals on the left will not like it because they both want the reciprocal extreme options.
What shall it be? Are you willing to try to go through a rational dialog on the issue or do you want to use power politics to compel people?
Because the choices you make there will have consequences as how things are run and maintained.
If you maintain your authority at gun point you can get people to comply. But the instant the gun wavers.. is dropped... things can shift very quickly and possibly violently.
This is an appeal for moderation, patience, and civility.
The environmental movement has damaged itself by allowing itself to be hijacked by political factions that seek to use it for their own selfish political gain. That said, if those same political forces dominate they will probably give you everything you want.
So that's a calculation you'll have to make. Of course, if you lose politically... you'll find no cooperation in the political organizations that struggled to shut it down. They'll oppose you reflexively.
The system I'm offering would be powered by systems that don't power the grid efficiently as it is or systems that generate so much power that no one cares if they're used efficiently.
That would be renewable energy which is all but useless because its unreliable. However, if you're using it to power a fuel generation plant then the unreliability doesn't matter so much. Grid power must meet demand at all times. No exceptions. Supply cannot go up or down randomly. It has to be meet demand period. Renewable energy is typically unable to do that because the output fluxuates constantly and often stops alltogether. If the wind stops... the power stops... if the sun goes down... the power stops. You can't use that in grid power without storage system and we don't have one.
So instead of wasting our time and money pouring that into the grid, you can instead use it to power a fuel generation plant which won't care so much if the power goes up and down. The power goes down... the plant shuts down and waits for the power to start again.
Alternatively you can use nuclear power which generates so much power that it renders the question of inefficiency irrelevant.
As to temporary carbon levels... no... the levels would be constant. You'd be taking out as much as you're putting into the system at any given time which would mean human industry would generate zero net carbon if it used this system for all fuel.
You can look at forests as an example. They suck up carbon when the trees grow and then release most of it when the trees die and decompose. Trees don't really sequester much or any carbon. They just hold on to it for a time and then release it. The a rotting tree and a tree on fire are ultimately the same thing in the end. The only difference really is that the fire releases the carbon faster but on a global scale and over time periods relevant to climate the difference is irrelevant.
Further, I'd like to point out that just because current processes for fuel conversion are not very efficient there is no chemical reason that they must be inefficient. That's more a matter of the technology not being very refined more then anything. Simply attempting it will likely improve efficiency in and of itself. And over time the efficiency will improve more.
As to your three solutions. I have no problem with any of them.
As to carbon credits, they're a great idea if you're willing to go to literal war over them.
No really. How badly to do you want to do that idea... because you're going to have to nuke cities to do it.
I know you think you can just sweet talk people into that idea... but you can't. Its a dead idea. Still born. Blue, gnarled, and strangled by its own umbilical cord.
You can clutch the corpse of that idea to yourself and pretend it lives still... but its dead. The price of bringing to life is subjugating a few billion people on the planet that won't accept it.
You don't have the military strength, moral will, or political support to do that. So at best you can delude your political allies as to the possibility and waste the opposition's time playing whack-o-mole with you.
But that's it.
I strongly suggest you come up with an idea that won't get people to come out with their pitch forks and torches.
You're right its totally reasonable to charge individuals for the right to access a network with specified bandwidth limitations and then set the router up to broadcast that connection to any fool walking down the street or other person in your apartment complex that now gets the benefit of your internet connection without paying anything for it.
Totally reasonable.
Here is what I'd need to be okay with this idea.
The my personal bandwidth and signal quality to the the network would have be totally distinct from the public portion of the router. If my signal quality, bandwidth, etc is totally unchanged and all this thing is doing is stealing some of my electricity... then I'm okay with that. I'm happy to donate the electricity to what I'd see as laudable public service. However, I am not willing to donate my bandwidth or signal quality. I'm paying 50-70 dollars a month for that and some jackass next door is not going to clog my internet up by downloading horse porn.
To each is own on that one... I just try to have fun with it.
If the discussion is populated almost entirely with jackasses then if so inclined I just wade into them worst case I've amused myself. The whole thing will be more about making myself laugh with creative insults or interesting myself by going off on wild rambling tangents that are more a stream of consciousness for my own thought process then anything to do with fools in the thread.
As they say, unhappy is the man that depends upon the pleasure of another. I don't depend on their pleasure. I will get something I want every single time. If they're not offering a stimulating rational discussion then I don't look for one. I create something that amuses and serves me.
Same here, buddy. I feel your pain... really. And its not like I'm the same every single time. I have moments where I'm a dick and I have moments where I'm an "at one with the universe" "peace with everyone" monk of utter humility and brotherly love.
It depends on how I feel at the moment and the topic being discussed matters. You bring baggage from past discussions into new ones especially if its the same topic that keeps coming up again and again.
If you were buried in assholes the last time you entered a discussion, then the next time you enter the same discussion on the same topic you are pretty much convinced those same assholes are baring down on you almost immediately. So you react a little more aggressively then you might otherwise if only to create an area of denial around yourself so that you can have a chance to fight the bastards back.
Likewise, if a give topic tends to be full of harp music and angelic singing then you're likely going to be a lot less aggressive because there's less perceived threat.
You're also going to react to given sorts of perceived personalities. If some guy comes at you in a topic foaming at the mouth and drooling all over himself you're going to put a rhetorical fire axe through his head. Act like a zombie get treated like a zombie.
I never said anything about carbon credits. Kindly don't put words in my mouth or assume you know all my positions simply because I said we should do something about it.
Something is an extremely vague statement. Something could be just talking about it. Something could be a great deal more. You can't assume what I would do simply because I said "something".
As to my preferred means of dealing with the issue. I'd like to move more to closed loop fuel systems. That is, rather then taking oil out of the earth, I'd like to grow the fuel or create it using atmospheric carbon which can safety be reemitted without altering the background level of CO2 because all the CO2 used to create it came from that source.
Obviously such systems are more expensive so I wouldn't suggest we throw a huge amount of money at them. But we can do things like us solar, geothermal, nuclear (I am a big fan of nuclear power), wind etc to power chemical plants that produce fuel FROM atmospheric carbon. These plants could ramp up their production and ramp it down with the supply of power from the renewable source. This would allow us to store solar energy in a way that we cannot do right now because batteries are frankly terrible places to store energy.
I do not believe in carbon credits. I do not believe in big taxes on CO2 emitters. And I do not believe in anything that significantly increases the price of anything.
Furthermore, the sort of technology I'm talking about can be miniaturized. That means you could have a fuel refinery in your garage that makes enough fuel to keep your car filled and is supplied entirely by solar power on your roof or maybe just electricity from the grid turned into fuel.
I am not an enemy of the modern world and I'm very happy to be reasonable on everything. Don't assume I'm a fanatic please... I'm a nice guy and my ideal solution is one where EVERYONE is happy.
You're just trying to justify the ongoing politicization of the issue.
Which is fine. The price of that is that the science is irrelevant and that the issue becomes one purely of politics.
That is the price. And that is not a decision I can make for you. You must make that decision yourself for yourself. But I do think its important that you understand that this choice has a cost.
You are calculating that it is more expedient to attain your goals by applying political pressure rather then go through the tedious process of actually gathering consent.
However, in doing that you force opposing forces to likewise employ political pressure. And when political pressure meets political pressure - logic is irrelevant.
I find it to be rather puzzling that people that think they have the stronger scientific argument have done more then any other to make the science irrelevant to the discussion. You've dramatically undermined your position by doing this and none of the science will be relevant in the discussion until the nature of the discussion changes.
You're going to bring up poor little villagers in the pacific that have lost their village or something due to encroaching tides due to AGW... and the opposition is going to talk about rust belt cities turned into urban wastelands due to punitive ecological controls.
You are not winning the political argument. The international coalition is toothless and if anything more against you then for you. And that is made all the stronger by the poor economy.
In short you have two options.
1. You can have the humility to have the discussion the way you should have in the first place without dismissing people or calling the science settled.
2. You can make this political, render the science irrelevant, and lose to entrenched economic forces.
Choose. You can moderate your position and actually get somewhere while enlightening everyone to the risks and problems of the issue. Or get downed out in a political screaming match and lose.
I know you don't like your choices but those are your choices. Pick one.
As to name calling, I have a very low expectation of anyone admitting fault on the internet since everyone seems to have a lot more ego then integrity. As such, I make my point to "MY" satisfaction and discharge whatever final comments need to be made to equalize the rhetorical crossfire. If people are being rude or absurd then I'm going to respond appropriately.
And queue the alarmists that will take every little thing and blow so moronically out of proportion that it bears no resemblance to the data or science.
Both sides are enemies of reason and science. If you have a vested emotional interest in a given conclusion and are inclined to ignore evidence that contradicts that position or inclined to exaggerate/fabricate evidence that supports your position then you're an enemy of reason and science.
And BOTH sides of this issue have lots of those people.
There is a moderate middle that just wants to hear the science and deal with this in a reasonable fashion. But they're shouted down by the fanatics on either side that scream "YOU"RE WITH US OR AGAINST US" while foaming at the mouth like diseased animals.
That is what needs to stop. This issue have been hijacked by political interests... left and right when really it should supersede the factional struggles in our political system.
Global warming is not an issue to be used to profit the political ambitions of democrats or republicans. Socialists or capitalists... or any other label you'd prefer.
Global warming must be an issue that is dealt with in a respectful, bipartisan, and transparent fashion.
Anything short of that and any claim to scientific purity is GONE. Utterly irrelevant. It becomes nothing more then a political struggle with the issue of truth being irrelevant to the process. Power politics against power politics. One screaming stupid face against another screaming stupid face... the winner being decided by who can shout louder and longer.
Choose.
Do you want this to be about science or do you want this to be about who can yell louder? Because if you want it to be about science, the politics need to be put away.
And for that, you're going to have to stop trying to twist people's arms and ACTUALLY convince them. Which will mean compromises and respect for contradiction. It will mean going through a long drawn out process where there is no roughshodding, steamrolling, or other terms for the attempt to push things through without going through due process.
Will this take awhile? How fast is the currently process going? What we have no is sort of like stop and go traffic. Everything rushes forward for a moment and the alarmists think they've suddenly broken through. Only to have the whole thing either stop or outright reverse itself taking away most of those gains. Graph the progress over time and its not going fast if its going at all.
So why not try something else? It can't be slower then what you already have and you might find it more pleasant to actually talk respectfully with people rather then try to undermine their very right to participate in the process at all.
If dell had no investment in the product line there would be nothing to repurpose or remarket.
Because there is that means there was... what is more, this is unlikely to be a long term product line since it is redundent with other products they're already selling.
Which means this product line will die out eventually. The only utility to Dell is in sustaining the product line in a fashion that can be repurposed again back into a Steam Machine or to exhaust sunk resources from the build up to what is likely a busted product line.
Use your brain. Think it through. Do the math.
You did none of these things. You came to a snap decision, threw out a preprocessed idea that you never achieved on your own but simply adopted without properly understanding, and then presumed to insult me simply because I rightly judged another person to be a fool.
What are you? Four years old? Small children have this reaction. They see people that are "mean" and they react against that instantly indifferent to context. A more mature posture would be to grasp that there are justifications for being harsh with people. And that it is not mean. It is just.
Act like a fool and be treated like a fool. That is reasonable.
Now because I'm sure you've got more ego then integrity, please hit me with another one of your sad attempts to brow beat me with your banal shallow grasp of wisdom.
Silly. The company must sell those units or take a loss. If Valve can't give them what they need to sell the units they MUST re-purpose them to sell.
What other OS could they use that would have as good a chance of actually selling? As is, Dell will likely take a loss on this project which means it was a financial and business mistake to do this much with Valve until they were ready.
Dell as you probably are aware is not flush with cash. They've had some very bad financial problems and they are in a very tough business. They cannot afford this crap.
To then blame them for not going down with the ship and taking an even bigger loss simply to spite microsoft is moronnic. It is an opinion morons have... you are therefore a moron.
This is about making some congressman or senator happy. They must have agreed somewhere to offer free wifi or something for cities in return for maintaining their monopolies. And this is how they're delivering.
On the backs of their stupid customers.
Seriously... if you have comcast... cancel them now.
Bingo. The test will be closer to valid if they convince a majority of people that they're talking to a human being that actually has a reasonable grasp of the language being used.
We already curbing CO2 emissions and have been for many years. If the US kept all its coal power plants going we'd still be curbing emissions.
As to what various groups want... again, most people agree with the moderate policy. Only the radicals on either side propose otherwise.
As to the cost on future generations, so far as I can see most of that is junk science. There is no way to know what that impact will be and most of the extreme damage predictions involve the seas rising to levels that are not supported by evidence.
Here true to form is where you'll label me a member of your rival faction indifferent to the fact that I agree with you about most things but not about everything.
As I said... the radicals label everyone that doesn't agree with everything they want their enemies and refuse to listen to anyone.
So I have stolen your opportunity to label me your rival here... Rather, I have preempted that by forcing you to prove you are not a radical yourself.
I've gone through variations of this argument a thousand times and frankly I find the pattern to be annoying. Be different.
Your idea about using green energy to make portable chemical fuel at the source is very reasonable. But the Soylent won't accept it.
They shut down the programs to burn garbage even though it's carbon neutral since the garbage will release CO2 as it decomposes either way. And the burning of garbage at 6000 degrees removes all toxic chemicals, kills all germs, radically reduces the volume of the trash, and leaves you with inert ash.
They're doing it in northern Europe... The Germans tried to sell us some of the machines. It would solve the garbage and landfill problem. The ash is compostable. And you can even remove the heavy metals from the ash pretty easily.
But the Soylent won't allow it because burning things is bad.
I live in Los Angeles... they recently put a tax on grocery bags. Even though those bags are biodegradable.
Its a pathetic ploy to get tax money... but the morons in my city think its for the environment.
See, sound environmental policy was making the bags biodegratable in the first place. Mission accomplished. Stupid fanatic policy was banning them or taxing them. They break down about as easily as banana peels if you give them air and water... and even faster if they're exposed to UV light.
The only reason they don't break down often is because they're packed into the earth in airless, water tight land fills that they pour clay over the top of so that no seepage can get into it. And guess what... it doesn't break down in a lightless, airless, and utterly dry environment. Shocking. Guess what also doesn't break down in that environment? Basically anything.
But do the Soylent know anything about that? No. They don't trouble themselves with facts.
Slashdot Mirror
what's going on in Australia, Canada, and various countries in europe says otherwise.
What is more the chinese and indians whom are the ones you really need to convince are basically paying you lip service at best.
So I don't know what you think you're accomplishing. I suppose you might just be a political creature and only care about the political fortunes of the politicians. From their perpsective this is working out pretty well. They get people like you to vote for them and they don't really have to do anything to maintain that vote.
So there you go... things are working out great. Just not the way you probably think its working out.
At best you're making very marginal gains that tend to be undermined fundamentally. At worst, you're accomplishing nothing while supporting a political class that sees you basically the way most people see cheeseburgers.
If you make this a political struggle then your arguments are ultimately political ones.
What will matter is who supports you, how many of them there are, and how much political will and force you can bring on the issue.
You will also need to sustain that effort because you will have only attained your goal by overwhelming other factions that will likely come back for reprisals later if they feel you slighted them.
Which is what you have happening now. Look at all the reversals the AGW lobby has faced lately. Seriously. Look at the countries that have reversed course... that accepted your policy and then repudiated it.
You've gone in most cases one step forward and two steps back.
What is going on in Australia is a good example. We're also seeing rejection in Canada, most of Asia, France, and we're even seeing wobbling in Germany which is just about the strongest supporter the AGW has at this point.
Look... You have no more control over the wider battle taking place then I do. I'm just pointing out that these choices have consequences and that the results are predictable if you understand the rules.
By making this a political battle what you've done is make the environmental issue itself irrelevant. The politicians you rely upon to push your issue don't even really care about your issue. To them, its a weapon. They see it as a means to power. A talking point. Something they can say to embarrass rivals and increase poll numbers. Which means they don't care if you ever actually accomplish anything.
What they care about is if they look good from one moment to the next. Grasp that they can do this for another million years without accomplishing anything and so long as they keep getting elected they won't care.
That's politics.
If you want to actually accomplish something you have to take it away as a weapon and rather make it an issue that supersedes political rivalry. You have to make it clear it isn't sufficient to argue or try to do something. Rather you have to actually accomplish something. And if nothing is accomplished you can't reward them simply for trying.
This is one of the reasons the money in politics is so incidious because so often what is actually going on is that politicians will suggest they might do something just to get the campaign donations flowing. Its sort of like a protection racket. Would be terrible of taxes went up on your lobster fisheries... maybe you should lobby congress to make sure that doesn't happen. Imagine that but with every industry and every coalition. Then add the dollars up.
This is one of the reasons the tech issues are getting rattled right now. Washington sees all this money in Silicon valley and not enough of it is getting spent on lobbyists and campaign donations. So they fuck with the tech sector until the money starts flowing.
The various issues like AGW are no different in many cases.
They're revenue streams.
You go the political route... and its quite likely you'll pay and pay and pay... and never get anything. They'll bleed you white... of money... of will... they'll leave you disappointed, depressed, and without hope.
It takes awhile to see how it works. You watch the pattern... you see how they do things... and this is the result. Sorry to say.
Yeah but that's only an issue when you need something set up. Once you're set up how are they?
I don't mind dealing with some crap to get it working if once its working I am happy with the service.
I've gone through similar nonsense with many ISPs in the past and I just expect it at this point. What I find unacceptable is if I have to keep doing it because they keep breaking things. I've had that issue with Adelphia and then TWC where in they would "fix" our neighborhood's internet when it wasn't broken before... and cause everyone in the neighborhood to lose access for a week.
THAT I don't like.
Also other issues that bother me are signal quality issues. Sometimes you get a lot of dropped packets because rats are having sex in their switching station or something.
I had one location that would have dropped packets every summer during the hottest part of the day... every hot day... all year around... no exceptions. Obviously they had some bit of equipment that was not properly ventilated or cooled that was overheating and spitting out errors or something. happened every summer like clockwork.
That is the sort of thing I don't like. A late repair man when I'm getting it set up? Pifft... that's nothing.
As I made clear, your two options here are as follows:
1. Make this about science and abandon the politics. Discuss things with people. Be patient. Do not attempt to compel people to comply. Accept that there will be differences of opinions. Work for mutually agreeable solutions.
2. Make this about politics and render the science irrelevant. Try to force people with law. Do no argue. Do not negotiate. Test your political will against their political will. Shout them down. Shut them down. Take no prisoners and offer no mercy.
Those are your two options. And as much as you've said the science is settled, you've apparently chosen option 2 which means the science doesn't matter. Its all politics if you go down that road. The winner there will not be whomever has science on their side but whomever has a stronger political coalition.
And I should note... you're losing the political fight.
I strongly suggest that if you want to have a chance to win... you choose option 1. Option 2 is leading to a pathetic defeat.
Which means you're justifying not negociating but imposing your will. Which means you're going for the political option.
Which means the science under your policy will be irrelevant as to whether you succeed or fail to impose your will. It will come down literally to whether your faction is more politically powerful then your opposition.
The right or wrong of it will be irrelevant.
Do the logical math. Watch Variable1 interact with Variable2 through EquationX.
Check your premises and think the issue through.
What you are saying is "I think I'm right so everyone should do what I say"... that's great but you have to convince people not only that you're right but that your solutions to the problem are right.
If you refuse to go through that process then what you have to do is overwhelm/strong arm people into bending to your will. And that means whether you are right or wrong won't matter. You can strong arm people into saying the sun is made of puppies that way. Look at what is going on in the Islamic world for a good example of what I'm talking about. Do you think things work that way over there because someone convinced everyone that was the best way to run a society? No. They just threatened to kill anyone that disagreed with them. They've fought literally hundreds of wars over that over the last 400 years. You have no idea the bloodshed. But they got what they wanted.
And being right or wrong doesn't matter if you're forcing people. You're just forcing them. End of story.
I'd like to think my society is better then that. That we can arrive at common action through a less coercive policy. But that will require patience and flexibility on everyone's part to arrive at action that a plurality feels acceptable.
Any such policy is not going to make radicals on either side happy. The radicals on the right and radicals on the left will not like it because they both want the reciprocal extreme options.
What shall it be? Are you willing to try to go through a rational dialog on the issue or do you want to use power politics to compel people?
Because the choices you make there will have consequences as how things are run and maintained.
If you maintain your authority at gun point you can get people to comply. But the instant the gun wavers.. is dropped... things can shift very quickly and possibly violently.
This is an appeal for moderation, patience, and civility.
The environmental movement has damaged itself by allowing itself to be hijacked by political factions that seek to use it for their own selfish political gain. That said, if those same political forces dominate they will probably give you everything you want.
So that's a calculation you'll have to make. Of course, if you lose politically... you'll find no cooperation in the political organizations that struggled to shut it down. They'll oppose you reflexively.
The system I'm offering would be powered by systems that don't power the grid efficiently as it is or systems that generate so much power that no one cares if they're used efficiently.
That would be renewable energy which is all but useless because its unreliable. However, if you're using it to power a fuel generation plant then the unreliability doesn't matter so much. Grid power must meet demand at all times. No exceptions. Supply cannot go up or down randomly. It has to be meet demand period. Renewable energy is typically unable to do that because the output fluxuates constantly and often stops alltogether. If the wind stops... the power stops... if the sun goes down... the power stops. You can't use that in grid power without storage system and we don't have one.
So instead of wasting our time and money pouring that into the grid, you can instead use it to power a fuel generation plant which won't care so much if the power goes up and down. The power goes down... the plant shuts down and waits for the power to start again.
Alternatively you can use nuclear power which generates so much power that it renders the question of inefficiency irrelevant.
As to temporary carbon levels... no... the levels would be constant. You'd be taking out as much as you're putting into the system at any given time which would mean human industry would generate zero net carbon if it used this system for all fuel.
You can look at forests as an example. They suck up carbon when the trees grow and then release most of it when the trees die and decompose. Trees don't really sequester much or any carbon. They just hold on to it for a time and then release it. The a rotting tree and a tree on fire are ultimately the same thing in the end. The only difference really is that the fire releases the carbon faster but on a global scale and over time periods relevant to climate the difference is irrelevant.
Further, I'd like to point out that just because current processes for fuel conversion are not very efficient there is no chemical reason that they must be inefficient. That's more a matter of the technology not being very refined more then anything. Simply attempting it will likely improve efficiency in and of itself. And over time the efficiency will improve more.
As to your three solutions. I have no problem with any of them.
As to carbon credits, they're a great idea if you're willing to go to literal war over them.
No really. How badly to do you want to do that idea... because you're going to have to nuke cities to do it.
I know you think you can just sweet talk people into that idea... but you can't. Its a dead idea. Still born. Blue, gnarled, and strangled by its own umbilical cord.
You can clutch the corpse of that idea to yourself and pretend it lives still... but its dead. The price of bringing to life is subjugating a few billion people on the planet that won't accept it.
You don't have the military strength, moral will, or political support to do that. So at best you can delude your political allies as to the possibility and waste the opposition's time playing whack-o-mole with you.
But that's it.
I strongly suggest you come up with an idea that won't get people to come out with their pitch forks and torches.
You're right its totally reasonable to charge individuals for the right to access a network with specified bandwidth limitations and then set the router up to broadcast that connection to any fool walking down the street or other person in your apartment complex that now gets the benefit of your internet connection without paying anything for it.
Totally reasonable.
Here is what I'd need to be okay with this idea.
The my personal bandwidth and signal quality to the the network would have be totally distinct from the public portion of the router. If my signal quality, bandwidth, etc is totally unchanged and all this thing is doing is stealing some of my electricity... then I'm okay with that. I'm happy to donate the electricity to what I'd see as laudable public service. However, I am not willing to donate my bandwidth or signal quality. I'm paying 50-70 dollars a month for that and some jackass next door is not going to clog my internet up by downloading horse porn.
To each is own on that one... I just try to have fun with it.
If the discussion is populated almost entirely with jackasses then if so inclined I just wade into them worst case I've amused myself. The whole thing will be more about making myself laugh with creative insults or interesting myself by going off on wild rambling tangents that are more a stream of consciousness for my own thought process then anything to do with fools in the thread.
As they say, unhappy is the man that depends upon the pleasure of another. I don't depend on their pleasure. I will get something I want every single time. If they're not offering a stimulating rational discussion then I don't look for one. I create something that amuses and serves me.
Same here, buddy. I feel your pain... really. And its not like I'm the same every single time. I have moments where I'm a dick and I have moments where I'm an "at one with the universe" "peace with everyone" monk of utter humility and brotherly love.
It depends on how I feel at the moment and the topic being discussed matters. You bring baggage from past discussions into new ones especially if its the same topic that keeps coming up again and again.
If you were buried in assholes the last time you entered a discussion, then the next time you enter the same discussion on the same topic you are pretty much convinced those same assholes are baring down on you almost immediately. So you react a little more aggressively then you might otherwise if only to create an area of denial around yourself so that you can have a chance to fight the bastards back.
Likewise, if a give topic tends to be full of harp music and angelic singing then you're likely going to be a lot less aggressive because there's less perceived threat.
You're also going to react to given sorts of perceived personalities. If some guy comes at you in a topic foaming at the mouth and drooling all over himself you're going to put a rhetorical fire axe through his head. Act like a zombie get treated like a zombie.
I never said anything about carbon credits. Kindly don't put words in my mouth or assume you know all my positions simply because I said we should do something about it.
Something is an extremely vague statement. Something could be just talking about it. Something could be a great deal more. You can't assume what I would do simply because I said "something".
As to my preferred means of dealing with the issue. I'd like to move more to closed loop fuel systems. That is, rather then taking oil out of the earth, I'd like to grow the fuel or create it using atmospheric carbon which can safety be reemitted without altering the background level of CO2 because all the CO2 used to create it came from that source.
Obviously such systems are more expensive so I wouldn't suggest we throw a huge amount of money at them. But we can do things like us solar, geothermal, nuclear (I am a big fan of nuclear power), wind etc to power chemical plants that produce fuel FROM atmospheric carbon. These plants could ramp up their production and ramp it down with the supply of power from the renewable source. This would allow us to store solar energy in a way that we cannot do right now because batteries are frankly terrible places to store energy.
I do not believe in carbon credits. I do not believe in big taxes on CO2 emitters. And I do not believe in anything that significantly increases the price of anything.
Furthermore, the sort of technology I'm talking about can be miniaturized. That means you could have a fuel refinery in your garage that makes enough fuel to keep your car filled and is supplied entirely by solar power on your roof or maybe just electricity from the grid turned into fuel.
I am not an enemy of the modern world and I'm very happy to be reasonable on everything. Don't assume I'm a fanatic please... I'm a nice guy and my ideal solution is one where EVERYONE is happy.
You're just trying to justify the ongoing politicization of the issue.
Which is fine. The price of that is that the science is irrelevant and that the issue becomes one purely of politics.
That is the price. And that is not a decision I can make for you. You must make that decision yourself for yourself. But I do think its important that you understand that this choice has a cost.
You are calculating that it is more expedient to attain your goals by applying political pressure rather then go through the tedious process of actually gathering consent.
However, in doing that you force opposing forces to likewise employ political pressure. And when political pressure meets political pressure - logic is irrelevant.
I find it to be rather puzzling that people that think they have the stronger scientific argument have done more then any other to make the science irrelevant to the discussion. You've dramatically undermined your position by doing this and none of the science will be relevant in the discussion until the nature of the discussion changes.
You're going to bring up poor little villagers in the pacific that have lost their village or something due to encroaching tides due to AGW... and the opposition is going to talk about rust belt cities turned into urban wastelands due to punitive ecological controls.
You are not winning the political argument. The international coalition is toothless and if anything more against you then for you. And that is made all the stronger by the poor economy.
In short you have two options.
1. You can have the humility to have the discussion the way you should have in the first place without dismissing people or calling the science settled.
2. You can make this political, render the science irrelevant, and lose to entrenched economic forces.
Choose. You can moderate your position and actually get somewhere while enlightening everyone to the risks and problems of the issue. Or get downed out in a political screaming match and lose.
I know you don't like your choices but those are your choices. Pick one.
As to name calling, I have a very low expectation of anyone admitting fault on the internet since everyone seems to have a lot more ego then integrity. As such, I make my point to "MY" satisfaction and discharge whatever final comments need to be made to equalize the rhetorical crossfire. If people are being rude or absurd then I'm going to respond appropriately.
And queue the alarmists that will take every little thing and blow so moronically out of proportion that it bears no resemblance to the data or science.
Both sides are enemies of reason and science. If you have a vested emotional interest in a given conclusion and are inclined to ignore evidence that contradicts that position or inclined to exaggerate/fabricate evidence that supports your position then you're an enemy of reason and science.
And BOTH sides of this issue have lots of those people.
There is a moderate middle that just wants to hear the science and deal with this in a reasonable fashion. But they're shouted down by the fanatics on either side that scream "YOU"RE WITH US OR AGAINST US" while foaming at the mouth like diseased animals.
That is what needs to stop. This issue have been hijacked by political interests... left and right when really it should supersede the factional struggles in our political system.
Global warming is not an issue to be used to profit the political ambitions of democrats or republicans. Socialists or capitalists... or any other label you'd prefer.
Global warming must be an issue that is dealt with in a respectful, bipartisan, and transparent fashion.
Anything short of that and any claim to scientific purity is GONE. Utterly irrelevant. It becomes nothing more then a political struggle with the issue of truth being irrelevant to the process. Power politics against power politics. One screaming stupid face against another screaming stupid face... the winner being decided by who can shout louder and longer.
Choose.
Do you want this to be about science or do you want this to be about who can yell louder? Because if you want it to be about science, the politics need to be put away.
And for that, you're going to have to stop trying to twist people's arms and ACTUALLY convince them. Which will mean compromises and respect for contradiction. It will mean going through a long drawn out process where there is no roughshodding, steamrolling, or other terms for the attempt to push things through without going through due process.
Will this take awhile? How fast is the currently process going? What we have no is sort of like stop and go traffic. Everything rushes forward for a moment and the alarmists think they've suddenly broken through. Only to have the whole thing either stop or outright reverse itself taking away most of those gains. Graph the progress over time and its not going fast if its going at all.
So why not try something else? It can't be slower then what you already have and you might find it more pleasant to actually talk respectfully with people rather then try to undermine their very right to participate in the process at all.
If dell had no investment in the product line there would be nothing to repurpose or remarket.
Because there is that means there was... what is more, this is unlikely to be a long term product line since it is redundent with other products they're already selling.
Which means this product line will die out eventually. The only utility to Dell is in sustaining the product line in a fashion that can be repurposed again back into a Steam Machine or to exhaust sunk resources from the build up to what is likely a busted product line.
Use your brain. Think it through. Do the math.
You did none of these things. You came to a snap decision, threw out a preprocessed idea that you never achieved on your own but simply adopted without properly understanding, and then presumed to insult me simply because I rightly judged another person to be a fool.
What are you? Four years old? Small children have this reaction. They see people that are "mean" and they react against that instantly indifferent to context. A more mature posture would be to grasp that there are justifications for being harsh with people. And that it is not mean. It is just.
Act like a fool and be treated like a fool. That is reasonable.
Now because I'm sure you've got more ego then integrity, please hit me with another one of your sad attempts to brow beat me with your banal shallow grasp of wisdom.
Silly. The company must sell those units or take a loss. If Valve can't give them what they need to sell the units they MUST re-purpose them to sell.
What other OS could they use that would have as good a chance of actually selling? As is, Dell will likely take a loss on this project which means it was a financial and business mistake to do this much with Valve until they were ready.
Dell as you probably are aware is not flush with cash. They've had some very bad financial problems and they are in a very tough business. They cannot afford this crap.
To then blame them for not going down with the ship and taking an even bigger loss simply to spite microsoft is moronnic. It is an opinion morons have... you are therefore a moron.
Good day.
Explain. I was considering them as an alternative to comcast. Why is century link worse?
I hear you.
There is usually at least one alternative... and anything is better then comcast.
This is about making some congressman or senator happy. They must have agreed somewhere to offer free wifi or something for cities in return for maintaining their monopolies. And this is how they're delivering.
On the backs of their stupid customers.
Seriously... if you have comcast... cancel them now.
Bingo. The test will be closer to valid if they convince a majority of people that they're talking to a human being that actually has a reasonable grasp of the language being used.
I don't know if I'd feel comfortable buying them at this point.
A few corrupt police departments with apparently too much money in their budgets does not mean the US is a war zone.
We already curbing CO2 emissions and have been for many years. If the US kept all its coal power plants going we'd still be curbing emissions.
As to what various groups want... again, most people agree with the moderate policy. Only the radicals on either side propose otherwise.
As to the cost on future generations, so far as I can see most of that is junk science. There is no way to know what that impact will be and most of the extreme damage predictions involve the seas rising to levels that are not supported by evidence.
Here true to form is where you'll label me a member of your rival faction indifferent to the fact that I agree with you about most things but not about everything.
As I said... the radicals label everyone that doesn't agree with everything they want their enemies and refuse to listen to anyone.
So I have stolen your opportunity to label me your rival here... Rather, I have preempted that by forcing you to prove you are not a radical yourself.
I've gone through variations of this argument a thousand times and frankly I find the pattern to be annoying. Be different.
the point would be clean energy that doesn't polute.
But as everyone can see... someone will find a reason to cause problems.
And as to scarcity... you'd have to build the damned thing, maintain it, and deal with the doubtless nuclear waste it produces.
All of that is going to cost something. But if you want to cut the energy companies out... fine... Self generate your own power. I don't really care.
Your idea about using green energy to make portable chemical fuel at the source is very reasonable. But the Soylent won't accept it.
They shut down the programs to burn garbage even though it's carbon neutral since the garbage will release CO2 as it decomposes either way. And the burning of garbage at 6000 degrees removes all toxic chemicals, kills all germs, radically reduces the volume of the trash, and leaves you with inert ash.
They're doing it in northern Europe... The Germans tried to sell us some of the machines. It would solve the garbage and landfill problem. The ash is compostable. And you can even remove the heavy metals from the ash pretty easily.
But the Soylent won't allow it because burning things is bad.
I live in Los Angeles... they recently put a tax on grocery bags. Even though those bags are biodegradable.
Its a pathetic ploy to get tax money... but the morons in my city think its for the environment.
See, sound environmental policy was making the bags biodegratable in the first place. Mission accomplished. Stupid fanatic policy was banning them or taxing them. They break down about as easily as banana peels if you give them air and water... and even faster if they're exposed to UV light.
The only reason they don't break down often is because they're packed into the earth in airless, water tight land fills that they pour clay over the top of so that no seepage can get into it. And guess what... it doesn't break down in a lightless, airless, and utterly dry environment. Shocking. Guess what also doesn't break down in that environment? Basically anything.
But do the Soylent know anything about that? No. They don't trouble themselves with facts.