It's the way in which AGW has been used that leads one to that conclusion - the imposition of carbon taxes that impact both the householder and industry (while leaving international jet travel for the movers and shakers strangely unscathed), the subsidising of inefficient and costly wind power at the expense of clean, safe nuclear, the promotion (here in the UK) of the AGW agenda by the state broadcaster - the list goes on.
I'm as aware as the next man that we need to change our energy consumption patterns and move away from fossil fuels for the very good reason that they are a finite resource and unless we reduce our usage soon, we will have burnt everything in sight for little long tern benefit.
But I see the imposition of artificial measures by governments as a necessary evil to be used as a last resort, not as the default response to every percieved problem.
Yes - it is a political issue, and is being driven by statists of both the left and right, so those of us who distrust state action tend to look very critically at the evidence, and have a strong suspicion that what effect there is is being overplayed by politicians for their own purposes - the building of new bureaucracies, the introduction of new and ill thought out legislation, the setting and pursuit of unreasonable targets and so on.
I make no apologies for my position, and wish only that the hyperbole from both sides would die down so that a proper assessment and a general agreement on sensible measures could be made.
The philosophical problem with Cap and Trade is that it is an artificial creation of scarcity, and every such regulation is anathema to the libertarian mind (and I speak as a libertarian).
The practical problems are much greater - they begin with the fact that Cap and Trade is susceptible to "subsidy farming" by those who produce nothing, continue with the abuse of the system by arbitrageurs and other forms of rent seeker (Al Gore - I'm looking at you), and end with the fact that such provisions are not and are unlikely to ever be universal.
I'm a AGW doubter, but I come from a maths / physics backgrouhd, and distrust modelling based on short time series of data, while accepting that CO2 does have an effect (even I can see that the greenhouse effect is real - it's just not the whole story by any stretch).
Looking back just shy of 2,000 years to when the Romans grew grapes in Yorkshire, I can see that the climate in the part of the world that I inhabit has been much warmer than today, with no dramatic ill effects on other parts of the world, so doubt that a couple of degrees rise from current temperatures would result in the disasters that the doomsayers would have us believe.
I see no good reason to regulate for an effect that may or may not be real, based on the models made by a bunch of geography lecturers whose judgement I do not trust and the prejudices of a whole lot of statist politicians who I definitely do not trust.
Now, glass or plastic bottles are smashed up and melted down, using enormous amounts of energy, if anyone bothers recycling them at all (which there is very little incentive to do without the refund you used to be given).
It's still a lot less energy than would be used making the glass from scratch, and using recycled plastic to make garbage bags makes economic and energy use sense too.
Same with aluminium cans - making alunimium from bauxite is horribly energy intensive compared to melting aluminium that has already been refined.
I'm with you on the reuse of cases and power supplies, but how many people feel confident building a PC from scratch? You know it's easy, I know it's easy, but most folk would rather buy new than have to think and learn.
The "alloy" mentioned in TFA reminds me of the lacquered papier-mache that was used extensively in the 19th century for making jewellery boxes etc. - the world turns, and nothing is exactly new.
Add to that RIPA and the Digital Economy Act in the UK - battles we've already lost to the statist scum that inhabit all 3 of our major political parties.
The only thing our current coalition has done for freedom is to scrap the identity card scheme that Labour proposed, but considering the 3,000 new laws passed between 1997 and 2010 that effectively require identity checks for everything, that's small beer.
If you saw the damage that the Left have done in the UK to our rights and freedoms, you might not have such a jaded view.
All politicians distrust the people - it is, after all, the people who made them and the people who (theoretically) can break them. It is the State itself that is the greatest threat to our freedoms, and if you think that conservatives are worse in that respect than socialists then I suggest you read some history.
They are all as bad as each other - remember that no matter who you vote for the Government always wins. I'll take a small state libertarian over any of the statists any day.
Typical slimeball politician - he'll probably come out with "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" next.
Don't forget - Canada doesn't have freedom of speech, so the police will be able to use this to harass thought criminals and other doubleplusungood types.
An enquiring mind should be willing to test hypotheses on itself - the hypothesis, for instance, that smoking weed or taking LSD makes the mind less able.
Having tested that hypothesis and found it to be less than useful (I can still function perfectly well after a smoke or a tab), I conclude that the law is an ass, and I shall continue to indulge this "deficiency" so long as I find it to be pleasurable.
I remember this being shown on "Tomorrow's World" on the BBC, back in the days before they dumbed down their science and technology output to kindergarten level.
I think, but can't be sure, that it was the Microwriter that was featured - early 80s sounds about right from my rapidly fading memory...
Bullshit. Here in the UK, smoking a bit of weed and dropping a tab or two was just part of growing up in the 70s. No big deal - just the result of an enquiring mind rather than being an obedient sheep.
Hacky networking? Like Windows and its unspeakable LanMangler implementation?
Trust me, Apple was way ahead of Microsoft in networking terms back then, with Novell a few steps ahead of Apple. VB at the time was primitive to say the least, and Microsoft didn't do TCP/IP properly until NT, which at the time was utterly crap unless you threw hardware at it.
Mind you, it's 20 years ago, so my memory might be tainted.
Makes me wonder if the market is failing here due to the issue of patents (which are a privilege granted by the government to create artificial scarcity) being so profligate that we have some sort of patent boom fuelled by lawyers?
If so, it's due to head for bust any time soon - I wouldn't want to be holding stock in any company with that business model.
I wouldn't suggest that eliminating foreign aid would get rid of current issues - my own country seems to think that spending billions in aid as a means of "soft power" is a better use of resources than keeping our Harrier jets, for instance. Not being an expert on foreign policy like our esteemed Prime Minister, I tend to differ, but then again I'm a cynic and see most aid money going into Swiss accounts of various third world leaders anyway.
On WWI, I think you're half right - but the threat of German attacks on Atlantic shipping was certainly a factor, and it was in America's interests to keep trade going even at the cost of war.
Unfortunately, I see the current Iran policy leading inevitably to a war - whether the economies of the West will be strong enough to survive the inevitable oil crisis is debatable, and I worry that the response of governments will be to impose totalitarian rule on what will be an increasingly angry citizenry.
I feel sure that the provision of foreign aid to at least one country is at the root of the perceived need for the TSA - if the US had been more isolationist and less in thrall to that particular country, they would not have been the target of the Islamists ire.
It's not particular religions that a consistent atheist has an issue with (and you are correct that various theologians have jumped through several hoops to justify attempts to believe in the unnecessary and the unlikely), but the whole idea of a God or Gods who exist and serve any purpose whatsoever other than as a poor explanation for natural phenomena.
I have yet to see any argument for religious belief that does not break down into either a need for meaning or a need for servitude - neither of which satisfy me in the least, and neither of which would persuade me that there exists something for which there is no evidence and no need.
However, when in Indonesia or Rome, one should at least respect the feelings of those who wield more force than you, and refrain from pointing out that their beliefs are stupid. We are lucky to live in places where such things are allowed, though even in Britain poking fun at religion was mooted by our previous government as something to be made illegal.
Slashdot Mirror
Whoosh!
That, sir, was the sound of your post going so far over most Slashdotter's heads that they'd need a good toke just to spot it.
I salute you.
It's the way in which AGW has been used that leads one to that conclusion - the imposition of carbon taxes that impact both the householder and industry (while leaving international jet travel for the movers and shakers strangely unscathed), the subsidising of inefficient and costly wind power at the expense of clean, safe nuclear, the promotion (here in the UK) of the AGW agenda by the state broadcaster - the list goes on.
I'm as aware as the next man that we need to change our energy consumption patterns and move away from fossil fuels for the very good reason that they are a finite resource and unless we reduce our usage soon, we will have burnt everything in sight for little long tern benefit.
But I see the imposition of artificial measures by governments as a necessary evil to be used as a last resort, not as the default response to every percieved problem.
Yes - it is a political issue, and is being driven by statists of both the left and right, so those of us who distrust state action tend to look very critically at the evidence, and have a strong suspicion that what effect there is is being overplayed by politicians for their own purposes - the building of new bureaucracies, the introduction of new and ill thought out legislation, the setting and pursuit of unreasonable targets and so on.
I make no apologies for my position, and wish only that the hyperbole from both sides would die down so that a proper assessment and a general agreement on sensible measures could be made.
The philosophical problem with Cap and Trade is that it is an artificial creation of scarcity, and every such regulation is anathema to the libertarian mind (and I speak as a libertarian).
The practical problems are much greater - they begin with the fact that Cap and Trade is susceptible to "subsidy farming" by those who produce nothing, continue with the abuse of the system by arbitrageurs and other forms of rent seeker (Al Gore - I'm looking at you), and end with the fact that such provisions are not and are unlikely to ever be universal.
I'm a AGW doubter, but I come from a maths / physics backgrouhd, and distrust modelling based on short time series of data, while accepting that CO2 does have an effect (even I can see that the greenhouse effect is real - it's just not the whole story by any stretch).
Looking back just shy of 2,000 years to when the Romans grew grapes in Yorkshire, I can see that the climate in the part of the world that I inhabit has been much warmer than today, with no dramatic ill effects on other parts of the world, so doubt that a couple of degrees rise from current temperatures would result in the disasters that the doomsayers would have us believe.
I see no good reason to regulate for an effect that may or may not be real, based on the models made by a bunch of geography lecturers whose judgement I do not trust and the prejudices of a whole lot of statist politicians who I definitely do not trust.
Now, glass or plastic bottles are smashed up and melted down, using enormous amounts of energy, if anyone bothers recycling them at all (which there is very little incentive to do without the refund you used to be given).
It's still a lot less energy than would be used making the glass from scratch, and using recycled plastic to make garbage bags makes economic and energy use sense too.
Same with aluminium cans - making alunimium from bauxite is horribly energy intensive compared to melting aluminium that has already been refined.
I'm with you on the reuse of cases and power supplies, but how many people feel confident building a PC from scratch? You know it's easy, I know it's easy, but most folk would rather buy new than have to think and learn.
The "alloy" mentioned in TFA reminds me of the lacquered papier-mache that was used extensively in the 19th century for making jewellery boxes etc. - the world turns, and nothing is exactly new.
What, they have freedom? Sod the risks - I'll take freedom over safety any day. My safety is my own responsibility, my freedom should be too.
I can only suggest that they watch out for those wired connections in case the cards are in promiscuous mode ;-)
Add to that RIPA and the Digital Economy Act in the UK - battles we've already lost to the statist scum that inhabit all 3 of our major political parties.
The only thing our current coalition has done for freedom is to scrap the identity card scheme that Labour proposed, but considering the 3,000 new laws passed between 1997 and 2010 that effectively require identity checks for everything, that's small beer.
Er... no you don't.
Another victory for the forces of evil dressed up as protecting the vulnerable / minority / whatever.
It was the "hate speech" to which I was indirectly referring.
If you saw the damage that the Left have done in the UK to our rights and freedoms, you might not have such a jaded view.
All politicians distrust the people - it is, after all, the people who made them and the people who (theoretically) can break them. It is the State itself that is the greatest threat to our freedoms, and if you think that conservatives are worse in that respect than socialists then I suggest you read some history.
They are all as bad as each other - remember that no matter who you vote for the Government always wins. I'll take a small state libertarian over any of the statists any day.
Won't somebody think of the children?
Typical slimeball politician - he'll probably come out with "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" next.
Don't forget - Canada doesn't have freedom of speech, so the police will be able to use this to harass thought criminals and other doubleplusungood types.
The TLAs will also recognise that allowing Twitter via satphone might, just might be useful when fomenting unrest in various countries.
moving an explorer window is SUCH A HASSLE compared to typing out long commands? I think you linux geeks just suck at using the mouse.
It took me 6 months to get used to a bloody mouse back in 1988, you insensitive clod!
Some of us used computers before GUIs were widespread...
The use of deception in primates of many kinds is well documented: see
here or here.
It's a useful adaptation for social mammals, and far from unique to humans, let alone post-Babel humans.
The bicameral hypothesis is crap, by the way.
An enquiring mind should be willing to test hypotheses on itself - the hypothesis, for instance, that smoking weed or taking LSD makes the mind less able.
Having tested that hypothesis and found it to be less than useful (I can still function perfectly well after a smoke or a tab), I conclude that the law is an ass, and I shall continue to indulge this "deficiency" so long as I find it to be pleasurable.
YMMV.
I remember this being shown on "Tomorrow's World" on the BBC, back in the days before they dumbed down their science and technology output to kindergarten level.
I think, but can't be sure, that it was the Microwriter that was featured - early 80s sounds about right from my rapidly fading memory...
Bullshit. Here in the UK, smoking a bit of weed and dropping a tab or two was just part of growing up in the 70s. No big deal - just the result of an enquiring mind rather than being an obedient sheep.
Hacky networking? Like Windows and its unspeakable LanMangler implementation?
Trust me, Apple was way ahead of Microsoft in networking terms back then, with Novell a few steps ahead of Apple. VB at the time was primitive to say the least, and Microsoft didn't do TCP/IP properly until NT, which at the time was utterly crap unless you threw hardware at it.
Mind you, it's 20 years ago, so my memory might be tainted.
Bombastic, banal bunkum, betraying bourgeois brutality beliefwise.
Nice view of the process.
Makes me wonder if the market is failing here due to the issue of patents (which are a privilege granted by the government to create artificial scarcity) being so profligate that we have some sort of patent boom fuelled by lawyers?
If so, it's due to head for bust any time soon - I wouldn't want to be holding stock in any company with that business model.
I'll only start worrying if this gyre starts to gimble in the wabe.
I wouldn't suggest that eliminating foreign aid would get rid of current issues - my own country seems to think that spending billions in aid as a means of "soft power" is a better use of resources than keeping our Harrier jets, for instance. Not being an expert on foreign policy like our esteemed Prime Minister, I tend to differ, but then again I'm a cynic and see most aid money going into Swiss accounts of various third world leaders anyway.
On WWI, I think you're half right - but the threat of German attacks on Atlantic shipping was certainly a factor, and it was in America's interests to keep trade going even at the cost of war.
Unfortunately, I see the current Iran policy leading inevitably to a war - whether the economies of the West will be strong enough to survive the inevitable oil crisis is debatable, and I worry that the response of governments will be to impose totalitarian rule on what will be an increasingly angry citizenry.
I feel sure that the provision of foreign aid to at least one country is at the root of the perceived need for the TSA - if the US had been more isolationist and less in thrall to that particular country, they would not have been the target of the Islamists ire.
All Iranian claims must be sent to the MEMRI hole forthwith.
It's not particular religions that a consistent atheist has an issue with (and you are correct that various theologians have jumped through several hoops to justify attempts to believe in the unnecessary and the unlikely), but the whole idea of a God or Gods who exist and serve any purpose whatsoever other than as a poor explanation for natural phenomena.
I have yet to see any argument for religious belief that does not break down into either a need for meaning or a need for servitude - neither of which satisfy me in the least, and neither of which would persuade me that there exists something for which there is no evidence and no need.
However, when in Indonesia or Rome, one should at least respect the feelings of those who wield more force than you, and refrain from pointing out that their beliefs are stupid. We are lucky to live in places where such things are allowed, though even in Britain poking fun at religion was mooted by our previous government as something to be made illegal.