The difference between manufacturing in China over the US is only about 20 percent. China can't go any lower then they're already going and china has many problems they cannot or will not fix. We have many advantages. If we just removed some of the stupid and very affordable problems we could even our prices with China without sacrificing our standard of living.
It's little things like faster regulation. Not even less. Just faster. It can take upwards of eight months to several years to get approval for construction. Make it happen in two weeks... approval or denial... but case closed and everything will move faster and companies will save money because they won't have to wait.
Other things like more flexible labor policy. Many labor rules were written 70 years ago and they're not relevant anymore. Just reexamine them and don't be stubborn.
And yes... eliminating or radically lowering corporate taxes is a good idea. It's a loss leader. If you reduce corporate taxes but increase business activity then you get more revenue on balance.
What is more... 50 percent of nothing or 5 percent of a million dollars?
That's corrupt politicans you're complaining about... not corrupt corporations.
Remember the politicians exempted themselves from the national Do Not Call list? Same thing. They'll never pass a law that makes it harder for you to give them money. That has nothing to do with corrupt corporations.
Imagine if you're an honest corporation trying to make a living... then a politician passes a law that hurts your company. And your competitors all make big campaign contributions so that the law doesn't apply to them. They get special exemptions. And you get nothing because you didn't grease the right palms.
So now you're punished for not being corrupt.
Do you realize how common that is in this country? So when the politicians come asking for money, it's often something of a protection racket. You can pay or they'll f*ck you. Are you corrupt for paying them to leave you alone? Is the man that pays the mob off corrupt for not wanting his store burned down?
Technically, they broke no law. I could do the same thing and I would also have broken no law.
You're complaining about one law for some people and a different law for someone else.
Corporations are not people. I know I know... corporate personhood... that doesn't mean what you think it means. Corporations don't have birth certificates, they can't get married, they don't vote, they can't run for public office, they can't get medical licenses, they are not even technically people. The only respect in which they are people is that they can own property and liability for various actions is assumed by the corporation itself rather then the various officers that might have approved it. That said, even then these people can be held personally liable for actions especially if there was criminal misconduct. The only respect where they would be shielded is if there is CIVIL misconduct. Corporate person hood does not in any way shield individuals from CRIMINAL misconduct.
Well, first off, you're admitting that switzerland is socialist where you were initially claiming that no one would say that. So... did you lie or what? Because you seem to have known all along they were pretty socialist.
As to having democracy while the US doesn't... back that argument up please. What does that mean? Explain to me why they have democracy and we don't? I think you'll have a very hard time making that argument and not looking foolish.
As to corporate personhood, I don't think you know what that means. Corporate personhood refers to investors not taking responsibility for what the company did. So for example, if I'm an old person, and I put my pension into a an oil company... am I personally responsible if the oil company pollutes a wetland? No. What happens is that the value of my investment goes down. But personally, I'm not responsible for that.
That is what corporate personhood means. Whenever people attack the concept it merely displays ignorance. The economy would collapse without it. Where as the corporate taxes you seem to think are so important are almost irrelevant to national revenue. Many countries have no corporate taxes at all and benifit from that fact. Ireland for example has attracted a lot of business to their country that would otherwise skip it entirely simply by offering very reasonable taxes.
That's the difference between Ireland and Greece. Ireland is hurting but will be okay since they have a healthy tax base. But Greece doesn't. The regulation and taxes in greece drive business out of the country.
So let me ask you point blank. Do you want to be unemployed? And if you choose to be unemployed, why is it my responsibility to take care of you? You chose to live on the street and eat garbage. You had the option to do otherwise. Why are you making bad decisions and then demanding that other people bail you out for them?
Either be rational or man up and accept the consequences.... which may or may not include starving to death.
This infantile anti corporate attitude is beyond ignorant. Your values and ideas are the sort that make countries poor and keep them poor.
They're not defacto rulers. They just pay an internationally competitive tax rate.
Forget what you think the tax rate should be... what is the most you can charge before the companies leave the country.
Not only do companies need to offer competitive prices to make sales... countries need to offer competitive tax rates.
That doesn't make the companies the rulers. It merely forces you to be reasonable. If doing business in your country costs the company more money then other places then it isn't reasonable.
Companies will take a zero sum of the whole thing. So if you want higher wages, that's fine... it just gets added to the total cost of doing business. You want to offer healthcare to people? Again, it just get added.
Every time you add something it reduces the amount you can take in taxes before you cross the line and it becomes cheaper to do business elsewhere.
So be careful with it. If you want the tax money, you'll probably have to make doing business cheaper by skimping on something else. Maybe loosening regulations. Maybe making labor cheaper. Whatever. But if you make it too expensive to do business in the US, they'll leave.
Game over. Then you get ZERO in taxes. They are out of your jurisdiction so the regulation is irrelevant. And labor policies are also irrelevant because everyone is unemployed.
That's why we had tax rates in the 70s around 70 percent.
The tax rates came down when the exceptions went away.
Today we have people saying our tax rates should go back up to where they were in the 70s. And that's fine, that means we have to add the exceptions back in again.
See, it's a two way street. It's a chicken and egg situation. If you raise taxes, then more exceptions are going to be put into the tax code.
If you want exceptions removed, you're going to have to lower taxes.
So if you want to do a straight swap of a lower tax rate for fewer exceptions then you have a deal.
However, what we've seen is that deal is rarely offered. generally, the government wants to raise taxes and remove exceptions. Simply, No.
As to Switzerland, it is a socialist country. They have as much socialism in Switzerland as they do in Sweden.
As to everyone paying their taxes in full, half the country pays no taxes at all. If you force EVERYONE to pay a flat 20 percent with no exceptions then you'd actually make MORE money then what you're making now. The US government is currently pulling in about 17 percent of GDP.
This said, if you're taking our exceptions away which we use to protect ourselves from bad government policies, you would need to sign in blood that you aren't raising the rates and that you're not going to except anyone from the taxes for any reason.
If a guy has ten cents total... he owes two cents. That doesn't mean we can't give him assistance so he can be comfortable. It means he owes two cents.
If everyone pays their share the system is sustainable. But this includes EVERYONE including the poor which currently pay no taxes at all.
What I'm offering is a flat tax. People would agree to it. People will not agree to more games from money grubbing government officials that just want more money to waste. A flat tax would be fair. Everyone pays the same percentage of their income... no exceptions.
As to corporate taxes, here you might want to really consider not even having them. We'd make more money by taxing employee income then we'd make by taxing the corporations directly. A lot of corporations will just leave. It's just smarter to attract them to your country so they provide jobs.
Look at Ireland versus Greece as an example. Ireland has lots of major fortune 500 companies to say nothing of investment from Japan and china. Greece has none of that. Why? Basically no corporate taxes in Ireland.
Are these companies escaping their obligation to the Irish people? No. They're providing hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's more then compensation.
Look, corporate stock is already taxed... so corporate taxes are a double tax on the same profit. The system would make more sense if stocks weren't taxed or corporations weren't taxed. They're taxed twice. So playing some games to avoid taxes in that circumstance is reasonable.
So if you actually made Apple and Google pay US taxes... they'd leave the country. And then instead of getting whatever they were paying plus employing all those people at fairly good wages and taxes those wages... You'd get nothing.
Choose. Stop attacking companies for finding ways to do business in the US. Instead, try to find out why so many companies have left or are leaving and try to help them come back and stay.
We need employers. Companies provide the jobs. If you want a job... you want companies. Stop attacking the companies. It's just going to make unemployment go higher.
Everyone is obsessed about whether a politician is a republican or a democrat. The D or R is king. If the D is in office and you're a democrat or vice versa then most voters will never vote for the opposing party to get rid of him.
That's what you need to be willing to do on these matters.
Make it clear to the politicians that this is an issue that will cost you elections. And they'll respect it.
Look at the posts in this very thread... to you no less. There are millions of Luddites. Neo-medieval throwbacks pining for the days of kings, peasant labor, and "honest work"... look at most of their ideas and they boil down to neo feudalism. They want some all powerful central authority... no need for elections... he has the divine right of kings. Everything works through some sort of Eco-priesthood that will hand out indulgences for carbon use amongst other things. And of course all labor will be controlled by huge craft guilds not unlike the medieval labor guilds that dominated europe for a thousand years.
They fail to realize that in any such system the overwhelming majority of everyone including them will be right there shoveling sh*t in the fields. No hope. No future.
They keep attacking anything that allows systems to self organize. Anything that undermines central authority. Anything that allows the democratic process to actually work. They attack any system that undermines their eco-priesthood or any system that moves people farther away from the sh*t shoveling fields.
Why they're so attracted to this can only be boiled down to ignorance. I don't think they actually know what they're doing or what they're actually saying. But we can expect them to keep trying until they've experienced the consequences of their values first hand.
I think a great way to deal with this would be to give them everything they want. Set up little communes or whatever... provision them how they intend society to work. Let them be communist or whatever. And then let their members experience the full pathetic horror of it all... first hand. And when they rejoin the modern world we can smugly tell them... "I told you so"...
I'm not sure if the FDA should set computer security policies. That seems well outside their wheelhouse. That said, security policy on devices should be too dumb to fail.
I can see the virtue of a wireless programmable pacemaker. But the security system should be something that can't be tampered with... not because the security is good but because it LITERALLY cannot be tampered with... at all.
For example, instead of using bluetooth (just an example) or something that is a radio signal, maybe use a different sort of signal that requires body contact but not partially close contact. I'm sure you could send a very weak electrical signal into someone through a finger or hand that a device could pick up. And it would be very hard for a hacker to touch someone, send a signal to their pacer through that contact, and potentially kill them. Especially when compared to a more remote signal that someone might be able to send from across the room.
So I guess I'd suggest they avoid certain types of technology for transmitting commands. And even then I'd strongly suggest some decent encryption but I wouldn't have the FDA regulating it. I'd sooner put the NSA in charge of setting those standards. They'd at least know what they were talking about.
All you'd have to do is find a con that's worth dog vomit and you might be able to stop it. So far, the anti fracking people haven't found a con that measures up.
So long as you don't stop the fracking, that should be fine.
Understand. Stopping it is off the table as an ultimatum. The economics will pile drive any opposition into the ground that interferes with the process now. There is too much money and REAL interest in the technology now.
You can't stop it. You can SUGGEST how to improve it. But its going to happen.
Get used to it. This is one of those technologies we can't afford not to exploit.
The people most enthusiastic about it are the eastern Europeans... it means freedom from Russian energy supplies. And I suspect the Israelis are looking into it rather deeply now that the Egyptians are interfering with their natural gas supply.
This technology is going to mean liberation and stability for nations... against those pros you're going to need some substantive cons.
We have plenty of resources on earth as it is... where we lack them is in high earth orbit. Move the asteroid to high earth orbit and keep it there. Mine it there to build things in orbit for orbital use. That way they don't need to be launched.
We need a source of resources off planet that are closer then the moon. A stepping stone. If we start moving asteroids into high earth orbit, cracking them for their resources, and turning them into the fuel for our space industry we can eliminate a lot of problems we're having with our gravity well. For one thing, we can use the waste material that we have no particular use for to insulate a better space station... one that doesn't allow so much radiation into the habitat.
Which scientific theory has been in the media for over a decade... and has been the subject of dozens of high level and consistent retractions?
And yet retains unwavering support despite no disclosure of methodology, no disclosure of raw data, and no ability to predict future or even past conditions using the model...
It's a problem. This happens when the science isn't put first. When anything else involves itself... be it money or power or sex or ideology or religion it all goes to hell. The science has to come first. Scientists have to be detached and disinterested in what results they get so long as they're accurate.
Personally, I think the biggest thing they could do is make data collection a more prestigious position within the scientific community. Currently, it seems like all the status goes to the people that theorize on the data. But without the data there can be no theory. And without really accurate data even a good theorist will come to wrong conclusions.
Possibly divide up the scientific community much as a hospital is divided. Diagnosticians are divided from surgeons. Some of them are really good at working things out and some are really good at literally fixing people. By the same token, accurate data collection is not easy. It often requires a lot of leg work or exposure to uncomfortable conditions. Maybe you're playing with really nasty chemicals. Maybe you're crawling around in deep caves. Whatever. Make data collection an end unto itself. Possibly even subdivide the scientists further by tasking a third branch with sorting, storing, and providing the information for the theorists. In this way, the data should be collected without any bias as to what it should prove. People will just be collecting it to collect it rather then collecting it specifically to prove their pet theory. And then the librarians will offer that data to all the theorists on request. It will be very hard for scientists to bias results given that the raw data is freely available.
This would sort of be like a blind survey. If theorists want a given type of data, they put in an official request for someone to collect it... Scientists elsewhere collect that data and upload it to the librarians. The librarians then make it available to all the theorists. This separation between A B and C would make fraud more difficult.
Access to the librarians data might be conditional on your university providing data to the librarians. So, if someone at your university collects data on the mating habits of butterflies you would be download data on the concentrations of dark matter in the milkyway. Some sort of quid pro quo systems that makes data collection a requirement so you don't get a whole university of theorists that never collect any data and just analyze other people's data.
Maybe I'm full of crap... I think that would helpl
I put a very simple challenge to you. You have yet to respond to it. You claimed to offer two things it did that were new but both of them were obviously not new.
As you're avoiding the challenge, I'm going to assume I win that point by default.
As to less waste and fewer natural resources, that isn't new or in any way innovative or in anyway helpful in designing or researching a sustainable space colony.
As to economy of scale, you're ignoring the fact that your project consumed more resources then a standard building. Money is a resource.
If your ideas ignore money then we can colonize space using 1970s technology. Just throw money at it. If we launched 200 apollo rockets at the moon we could probably get a good little moon base going. And follow that up with a few a week there after and we can supply it.
Your idea isn't useful if it isn't sustainable. And the building doesn't do anything that many other buildings didn't accomplish DECADES ago. Nothing in that building is new.
I asked you to show me ONE thing it did that was new and you completely failed on that point. That you claimed two while delivering ZERO leads me to believe you're either dishonest and think I'm stupid... or you're stupid yourself.
Hmmm... I assume any meaningful colonization will require a remote industry that can build what is required at the far side.
When we sent people out to colonize the new world we didn't send them with enough lumber to build a settlement. We instead send them with enough tools to make the lumber at the far side. And we provided them with skilled craftspeople to turn the lumber into pretty much anything the settlement would need. THIS is what we need to do in space... obviously with robots.
We need to develop micro industry. Micro refineries, chemical plants, smelters, etc. If we had access to earth industrial capacity we could turn the foreign resources into usable products. We don't have access to earth industry though once we go to these places. So we must bring it with us.
Nothing but human hands were required to build everything we have on earth. We built the tools with those hands that build the tools that built the tools that made everything else. So that's what we have to send to other worlds. Something that can in time build anything we want. And the whole thing has to be light enough to be practically launched at our target.
When we arrive, the area should be largely explored and we should find comfortable accommodations waiting.
Show me one thing they did with this building that was both new and applicable to building a colony on another world.
ONE thing.
And then tell me why they couldn't have done that in small scale to prove the science rather then building it into their swanky new crib at 10000 times the cost of an experiment.
You want to talk about concervation and sustainability? How about conserving your budget and sustainably managing your programs so that you can do decent science and discovery?
If you can't manage these programs on this budget on planet earth how the hell are you going to manage radically more scarce resources on other worlds?
If the environmentally conscious stuff were EVER inexpensive then it would have some validity. But it always seems to cost 10 times what the alternatives cost... which isn't very conservative or sustainable.
Something environmentalists need to start taking very seriously is that money is a resource in and of itself. A sustainable program that is more expensive is not sustainable. It has to have at least a comparable price tag.
They're not scarce... they're non-existent. You'd need to manufacture breathable air from poison.
If this building made it's own air in a way that was useful to a space colony then I'd be fine with it. But it doesn't. They put some solar panels on the roof and recycled their water and did something fancy with the insulation and heating... yippy...
I'd be much happier if NASA build a very cheap building that saved them money so they could spend the savings on something that actually contributed something to space exploration. This building looks like a boondoggle so lazy government bureaucrats can be comfortable while not doing much.
The first bio dome failed because the concrete consumed more oxygen then was previously believed. The facility never produced enough oxygen even to cure the concrete and thus couldn't be sealed.
NASA should build a bio dome that can be sealed. People don't need to live in it all the time. Use airlocks so people can go home at the end of the day. The point is that the facility should produce enough air, clean water, power, and food to keep five or more people alive indefinitely.
Once we can build such a facility we can theoretically set up bases on the moon or other planets. We might even consider keeping the plants alive entirely with artificial light since regular light cycles won't be useful on other worlds. We might have to turn geothermal energy into light or even use a fission reactor.
I don't care if nasa built an environmentally friendly building. That has nothing to do with space exploration. Want to impress me? Build something that produces more oxygen then the occupants consume.
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Its not a race to the bottom.
The difference between manufacturing in China over the US is only about 20 percent. China can't go any lower then they're already going and china has many problems they cannot or will not fix. We have many advantages. If we just removed some of the stupid and very affordable problems we could even our prices with China without sacrificing our standard of living.
It's little things like faster regulation. Not even less. Just faster. It can take upwards of eight months to several years to get approval for construction. Make it happen in two weeks... approval or denial... but case closed and everything will move faster and companies will save money because they won't have to wait.
Other things like more flexible labor policy. Many labor rules were written 70 years ago and they're not relevant anymore. Just reexamine them and don't be stubborn.
And yes... eliminating or radically lowering corporate taxes is a good idea. It's a loss leader. If you reduce corporate taxes but increase business activity then you get more revenue on balance.
What is more... 50 percent of nothing or 5 percent of a million dollars?
Do the math.
That's corrupt politicans you're complaining about... not corrupt corporations.
Remember the politicians exempted themselves from the national Do Not Call list? Same thing. They'll never pass a law that makes it harder for you to give them money. That has nothing to do with corrupt corporations.
Imagine if you're an honest corporation trying to make a living... then a politician passes a law that hurts your company. And your competitors all make big campaign contributions so that the law doesn't apply to them. They get special exemptions. And you get nothing because you didn't grease the right palms.
So now you're punished for not being corrupt.
Do you realize how common that is in this country? So when the politicians come asking for money, it's often something of a protection racket. You can pay or they'll f*ck you. Are you corrupt for paying them to leave you alone? Is the man that pays the mob off corrupt for not wanting his store burned down?
It is the same thing.
you're not making any sense. None.
Technically, they broke no law. I could do the same thing and I would also have broken no law.
You're complaining about one law for some people and a different law for someone else.
Corporations are not people. I know I know... corporate personhood... that doesn't mean what you think it means. Corporations don't have birth certificates, they can't get married, they don't vote, they can't run for public office, they can't get medical licenses, they are not even technically people. The only respect in which they are people is that they can own property and liability for various actions is assumed by the corporation itself rather then the various officers that might have approved it. That said, even then these people can be held personally liable for actions especially if there was criminal misconduct. The only respect where they would be shielded is if there is CIVIL misconduct. Corporate person hood does not in any way shield individuals from CRIMINAL misconduct.
So your anti capitalist rant is simply ignorant.
Well, first off, you're admitting that switzerland is socialist where you were initially claiming that no one would say that. So... did you lie or what? Because you seem to have known all along they were pretty socialist.
As to having democracy while the US doesn't... back that argument up please. What does that mean? Explain to me why they have democracy and we don't? I think you'll have a very hard time making that argument and not looking foolish.
As to corporate personhood, I don't think you know what that means. Corporate personhood refers to investors not taking responsibility for what the company did. So for example, if I'm an old person, and I put my pension into a an oil company... am I personally responsible if the oil company pollutes a wetland? No. What happens is that the value of my investment goes down. But personally, I'm not responsible for that.
That is what corporate personhood means. Whenever people attack the concept it merely displays ignorance. The economy would collapse without it. Where as the corporate taxes you seem to think are so important are almost irrelevant to national revenue. Many countries have no corporate taxes at all and benifit from that fact. Ireland for example has attracted a lot of business to their country that would otherwise skip it entirely simply by offering very reasonable taxes.
That's the difference between Ireland and Greece. Ireland is hurting but will be okay since they have a healthy tax base. But Greece doesn't. The regulation and taxes in greece drive business out of the country.
So let me ask you point blank. Do you want to be unemployed? And if you choose to be unemployed, why is it my responsibility to take care of you? You chose to live on the street and eat garbage. You had the option to do otherwise. Why are you making bad decisions and then demanding that other people bail you out for them?
Either be rational or man up and accept the consequences.... which may or may not include starving to death.
This infantile anti corporate attitude is beyond ignorant. Your values and ideas are the sort that make countries poor and keep them poor.
They're not defacto rulers. They just pay an internationally competitive tax rate.
Forget what you think the tax rate should be... what is the most you can charge before the companies leave the country.
Not only do companies need to offer competitive prices to make sales... countries need to offer competitive tax rates.
That doesn't make the companies the rulers. It merely forces you to be reasonable. If doing business in your country costs the company more money then other places then it isn't reasonable.
Companies will take a zero sum of the whole thing. So if you want higher wages, that's fine... it just gets added to the total cost of doing business. You want to offer healthcare to people? Again, it just get added.
Every time you add something it reduces the amount you can take in taxes before you cross the line and it becomes cheaper to do business elsewhere.
So be careful with it. If you want the tax money, you'll probably have to make doing business cheaper by skimping on something else. Maybe loosening regulations. Maybe making labor cheaper. Whatever. But if you make it too expensive to do business in the US, they'll leave.
Game over. Then you get ZERO in taxes. They are out of your jurisdiction so the regulation is irrelevant. And labor policies are also irrelevant because everyone is unemployed.
It's a balancing act. Don't cross the line.
We have the highest corporate taxes in the world. Without the loopholes most US companies would leave the country or go broke.
Who wants skyrocketing unemployment and a further collapse in the US tax base?
Don't be stupid. Don't drive these companies away.
That's fine, Tom.
That's why we had tax rates in the 70s around 70 percent.
The tax rates came down when the exceptions went away.
Today we have people saying our tax rates should go back up to where they were in the 70s. And that's fine, that means we have to add the exceptions back in again.
See, it's a two way street. It's a chicken and egg situation. If you raise taxes, then more exceptions are going to be put into the tax code.
If you want exceptions removed, you're going to have to lower taxes.
So if you want to do a straight swap of a lower tax rate for fewer exceptions then you have a deal.
However, what we've seen is that deal is rarely offered. generally, the government wants to raise taxes and remove exceptions. Simply, No.
As to Switzerland, it is a socialist country. They have as much socialism in Switzerland as they do in Sweden.
As to everyone paying their taxes in full, half the country pays no taxes at all. If you force EVERYONE to pay a flat 20 percent with no exceptions then you'd actually make MORE money then what you're making now. The US government is currently pulling in about 17 percent of GDP.
This said, if you're taking our exceptions away which we use to protect ourselves from bad government policies, you would need to sign in blood that you aren't raising the rates and that you're not going to except anyone from the taxes for any reason.
If a guy has ten cents total... he owes two cents. That doesn't mean we can't give him assistance so he can be comfortable. It means he owes two cents.
If everyone pays their share the system is sustainable. But this includes EVERYONE including the poor which currently pay no taxes at all.
What I'm offering is a flat tax. People would agree to it. People will not agree to more games from money grubbing government officials that just want more money to waste. A flat tax would be fair. Everyone pays the same percentage of their income... no exceptions.
As to corporate taxes, here you might want to really consider not even having them. We'd make more money by taxing employee income then we'd make by taxing the corporations directly. A lot of corporations will just leave. It's just smarter to attract them to your country so they provide jobs.
Look at Ireland versus Greece as an example. Ireland has lots of major fortune 500 companies to say nothing of investment from Japan and china. Greece has none of that. Why? Basically no corporate taxes in Ireland.
Are these companies escaping their obligation to the Irish people? No. They're providing hundreds of thousands of jobs. That's more then compensation.
Look, corporate stock is already taxed... so corporate taxes are a double tax on the same profit. The system would make more sense if stocks weren't taxed or corporations weren't taxed. They're taxed twice. So playing some games to avoid taxes in that circumstance is reasonable.
Higher then Japan.
So if you actually made Apple and Google pay US taxes... they'd leave the country. And then instead of getting whatever they were paying plus employing all those people at fairly good wages and taxes those wages... You'd get nothing.
Choose. Stop attacking companies for finding ways to do business in the US. Instead, try to find out why so many companies have left or are leaving and try to help them come back and stay.
We need employers. Companies provide the jobs. If you want a job... you want companies. Stop attacking the companies. It's just going to make unemployment go higher.
Period.
Everyone is obsessed about whether a politician is a republican or a democrat. The D or R is king. If the D is in office and you're a democrat or vice versa then most voters will never vote for the opposing party to get rid of him.
That's what you need to be willing to do on these matters.
Make it clear to the politicians that this is an issue that will cost you elections. And they'll respect it.
Short of that. They don't care.
Exactly.
Look at the posts in this very thread... to you no less. There are millions of Luddites. Neo-medieval throwbacks pining for the days of kings, peasant labor, and "honest work"... look at most of their ideas and they boil down to neo feudalism. They want some all powerful central authority... no need for elections... he has the divine right of kings. Everything works through some sort of Eco-priesthood that will hand out indulgences for carbon use amongst other things. And of course all labor will be controlled by huge craft guilds not unlike the medieval labor guilds that dominated europe for a thousand years.
They fail to realize that in any such system the overwhelming majority of everyone including them will be right there shoveling sh*t in the fields. No hope. No future.
They keep attacking anything that allows systems to self organize. Anything that undermines central authority. Anything that allows the democratic process to actually work. They attack any system that undermines their eco-priesthood or any system that moves people farther away from the sh*t shoveling fields.
Why they're so attracted to this can only be boiled down to ignorance. I don't think they actually know what they're doing or what they're actually saying. But we can expect them to keep trying until they've experienced the consequences of their values first hand.
I think a great way to deal with this would be to give them everything they want. Set up little communes or whatever... provision them how they intend society to work. Let them be communist or whatever. And then let their members experience the full pathetic horror of it all... first hand. And when they rejoin the modern world we can smugly tell them... "I told you so"...
I'm not sure if the FDA should set computer security policies. That seems well outside their wheelhouse. That said, security policy on devices should be too dumb to fail.
I can see the virtue of a wireless programmable pacemaker. But the security system should be something that can't be tampered with... not because the security is good but because it LITERALLY cannot be tampered with... at all.
For example, instead of using bluetooth (just an example) or something that is a radio signal, maybe use a different sort of signal that requires body contact but not partially close contact. I'm sure you could send a very weak electrical signal into someone through a finger or hand that a device could pick up. And it would be very hard for a hacker to touch someone, send a signal to their pacer through that contact, and potentially kill them. Especially when compared to a more remote signal that someone might be able to send from across the room.
So I guess I'd suggest they avoid certain types of technology for transmitting commands. And even then I'd strongly suggest some decent encryption but I wouldn't have the FDA regulating it. I'd sooner put the NSA in charge of setting those standards. They'd at least know what they were talking about.
Those cons aren't substantive. They're speculative.
If you want to stop something providing REAL benefits you need to show REAL cons. Actually really real.
You mean sweatshop labor... not the same thing as slave labor.
All you'd have to do is find a con that's worth dog vomit and you might be able to stop it. So far, the anti fracking people haven't found a con that measures up.
So long as you don't stop the fracking, that should be fine.
Understand. Stopping it is off the table as an ultimatum. The economics will pile drive any opposition into the ground that interferes with the process now. There is too much money and REAL interest in the technology now.
You can't stop it. You can SUGGEST how to improve it. But its going to happen.
Get used to it. This is one of those technologies we can't afford not to exploit.
The people most enthusiastic about it are the eastern Europeans... it means freedom from Russian energy supplies. And I suspect the Israelis are looking into it rather deeply now that the Egyptians are interfering with their natural gas supply.
This technology is going to mean liberation and stability for nations... against those pros you're going to need some substantive cons.
We have plenty of resources on earth as it is... where we lack them is in high earth orbit. Move the asteroid to high earth orbit and keep it there. Mine it there to build things in orbit for orbital use. That way they don't need to be launched.
We need a source of resources off planet that are closer then the moon. A stepping stone. If we start moving asteroids into high earth orbit, cracking them for their resources, and turning them into the fuel for our space industry we can eliminate a lot of problems we're having with our gravity well. For one thing, we can use the waste material that we have no particular use for to insulate a better space station... one that doesn't allow so much radiation into the habitat.
Which scientific theory has been in the media for over a decade... and has been the subject of dozens of high level and consistent retractions?
And yet retains unwavering support despite no disclosure of methodology, no disclosure of raw data, and no ability to predict future or even past conditions using the model...
It's a problem. This happens when the science isn't put first. When anything else involves itself... be it money or power or sex or ideology or religion it all goes to hell. The science has to come first. Scientists have to be detached and disinterested in what results they get so long as they're accurate.
Personally, I think the biggest thing they could do is make data collection a more prestigious position within the scientific community. Currently, it seems like all the status goes to the people that theorize on the data. But without the data there can be no theory. And without really accurate data even a good theorist will come to wrong conclusions.
Possibly divide up the scientific community much as a hospital is divided. Diagnosticians are divided from surgeons. Some of them are really good at working things out and some are really good at literally fixing people. By the same token, accurate data collection is not easy. It often requires a lot of leg work or exposure to uncomfortable conditions. Maybe you're playing with really nasty chemicals. Maybe you're crawling around in deep caves. Whatever. Make data collection an end unto itself. Possibly even subdivide the scientists further by tasking a third branch with sorting, storing, and providing the information for the theorists. In this way, the data should be collected without any bias as to what it should prove. People will just be collecting it to collect it rather then collecting it specifically to prove their pet theory. And then the librarians will offer that data to all the theorists on request. It will be very hard for scientists to bias results given that the raw data is freely available.
This would sort of be like a blind survey. If theorists want a given type of data, they put in an official request for someone to collect it... Scientists elsewhere collect that data and upload it to the librarians. The librarians then make it available to all the theorists. This separation between A B and C would make fraud more difficult.
Access to the librarians data might be conditional on your university providing data to the librarians. So, if someone at your university collects data on the mating habits of butterflies you would be download data on the concentrations of dark matter in the milkyway. Some sort of quid pro quo systems that makes data collection a requirement so you don't get a whole university of theorists that never collect any data and just analyze other people's data.
Maybe I'm full of crap... I think that would helpl
I put a very simple challenge to you. You have yet to respond to it. You claimed to offer two things it did that were new but both of them were obviously not new.
As you're avoiding the challenge, I'm going to assume I win that point by default.
As to less waste and fewer natural resources, that isn't new or in any way innovative or in anyway helpful in designing or researching a sustainable space colony.
As to economy of scale, you're ignoring the fact that your project consumed more resources then a standard building. Money is a resource.
If your ideas ignore money then we can colonize space using 1970s technology. Just throw money at it. If we launched 200 apollo rockets at the moon we could probably get a good little moon base going. And follow that up with a few a week there after and we can supply it.
Your idea isn't useful if it isn't sustainable. And the building doesn't do anything that many other buildings didn't accomplish DECADES ago. Nothing in that building is new.
I asked you to show me ONE thing it did that was new and you completely failed on that point. That you claimed two while delivering ZERO leads me to believe you're either dishonest and think I'm stupid... or you're stupid yourself.
I am not anti environmentalist. I'm anti idiot.
Hmmm... I assume any meaningful colonization will require a remote industry that can build what is required at the far side.
When we sent people out to colonize the new world we didn't send them with enough lumber to build a settlement. We instead send them with enough tools to make the lumber at the far side. And we provided them with skilled craftspeople to turn the lumber into pretty much anything the settlement would need. THIS is what we need to do in space... obviously with robots.
We need to develop micro industry. Micro refineries, chemical plants, smelters, etc. If we had access to earth industrial capacity we could turn the foreign resources into usable products. We don't have access to earth industry though once we go to these places. So we must bring it with us.
Nothing but human hands were required to build everything we have on earth. We built the tools with those hands that build the tools that built the tools that made everything else. So that's what we have to send to other worlds. Something that can in time build anything we want. And the whole thing has to be light enough to be practically launched at our target.
When we arrive, the area should be largely explored and we should find comfortable accommodations waiting.
Show me one thing they did with this building that was both new and applicable to building a colony on another world.
ONE thing.
And then tell me why they couldn't have done that in small scale to prove the science rather then building it into their swanky new crib at 10000 times the cost of an experiment.
You want to talk about concervation and sustainability? How about conserving your budget and sustainably managing your programs so that you can do decent science and discovery?
If you can't manage these programs on this budget on planet earth how the hell are you going to manage radically more scarce resources on other worlds?
If the environmentally conscious stuff were EVER inexpensive then it would have some validity. But it always seems to cost 10 times what the alternatives cost... which isn't very conservative or sustainable.
Something environmentalists need to start taking very seriously is that money is a resource in and of itself. A sustainable program that is more expensive is not sustainable. It has to have at least a comparable price tag.
They're not scarce... they're non-existent. You'd need to manufacture breathable air from poison.
If this building made it's own air in a way that was useful to a space colony then I'd be fine with it. But it doesn't. They put some solar panels on the roof and recycled their water and did something fancy with the insulation and heating... yippy...
I'd be much happier if NASA build a very cheap building that saved them money so they could spend the savings on something that actually contributed something to space exploration. This building looks like a boondoggle so lazy government bureaucrats can be comfortable while not doing much.
The first bio dome failed because the concrete consumed more oxygen then was previously believed. The facility never produced enough oxygen even to cure the concrete and thus couldn't be sealed.
NASA should build a bio dome that can be sealed. People don't need to live in it all the time. Use airlocks so people can go home at the end of the day. The point is that the facility should produce enough air, clean water, power, and food to keep five or more people alive indefinitely.
Once we can build such a facility we can theoretically set up bases on the moon or other planets. We might even consider keeping the plants alive entirely with artificial light since regular light cycles won't be useful on other worlds. We might have to turn geothermal energy into light or even use a fission reactor.
I don't care if nasa built an environmentally friendly building. That has nothing to do with space exploration. Want to impress me? Build something that produces more oxygen then the occupants consume.
their point of sales machines constitute 78 percent of US staff? Really?