I think your "stunning reality" is very accurate. Eating has almost been removed from consciuosness in America. Fast food meals surrounded by strangeres, or even in the isolation of your own car. Welcome to America, and enjoy the Freedom Fries.;)
There are plenty of healthy active people, but it's very easy to be a "couch potato" as well.
I only know a few people who aren't overweight, and most of them are drinking at the bar several nights a week. Only one or two are truly "healthy." Or maybe beer is good for you! That's what I'm counting on.
For instance, this comment will probably get some negative mod points, and it really doesn't need any. But I'm using my +1 Karma Bonus (and I just realized how amazingly gay that sounds. DM can I get a +2 Karma Bonus? Shit where was I. Shit gotta close the parens. ) Shit. Well anyway, unless you can fathom a world in which this post might ever be read, YOU MUST MOD IT DOWN, ESP IF OTHERS HAVE ALREADY DONE SO. THOSE MOD POINTS ARE THE ONES THAT RE TRACKED IN THE SECRED SLASHDOT MODERATION DATABASE. I CAN'T SAY MORE UNLESS YOU MOD ME DOWN TO OBLIVION!!!!! -7 IS A GOOD START.
Hi, I've searched this thread but noone has posted the helpful guide on how to capture streams for later, uh, use. I remember reading this before on/. but I forgot to copy-paste it. I remember something about Real (?) locking the file but if you tell Real to use a Linux mount as its temp file location, you can then get at the stream from the linux side..
Anyway like I said I can't remember the details but it would be cool to know how to capture the various formats that are streamed in nowadays. There's plenty of programs out there I'd like to be able to "tape" and I'm too much of a noob to figure it out. And apparently I can't use google either.
Your "It's all Clinton's fault!" argument would carry a lot more weight if Ashcroft's top priority had been to change the intelligence gathering rules. Instead he ordered $30,000 drapes to cover Justice's boobie and told people in Oregon they can't smoke pot.
Of course, now that it's too late to do anything about it, it's trivial to find missteps by either administration. Will we learn from the mistakes of leaders past and current? I doubt it.
I've had this hope for a long time, that somewhere, sometime, something will be going down and we'll get a picture from one of those cellphones with a camera.
We're all going on about Iraq here, so here's an example. After a particularly nasty helicopter crash, the army came in, secured the area, and confiscated all the cameras. If they were digital cellphone cameras, those pics would be uploaded to a "secure location" instantly.
The current scandal is further proof that a picture is worth a thousand words. The comparison to Rodney King comes to mind -- without that video that would have been another routine traffic stop. I for one was not ready to believe just how bad the situation in Iraq is, but now that even Rumsfeld has admitted this is just the tip of the iceberg, it really casts things in a new light.
To sum up: As technology progresses, there will be more instances of people being "caught" on camera or perhaps covertly recorded in a tiny MP3 recorder, and so on. And this is a good thing. What's that old saw: You can tell a lot about a person by how they act when they think they won't get caught.
Q: If I steal a car, and some defect in that car leads to my injury, can I sue GM and win?
A: Definitely Yes.
Why is this different?
I know it's different because right now we can't sue MS for any damages even if we didn't steal Windows.
It seems to me that if they apply a double standard to products acquired legally vs. products that aren't legal, they are opening themselves up to some sort of implied warrantability for the legal product. Which of course they don't want to do.
It has gotten *really* bad with all the spyware, malware, and viruses these days. It's starting to look like the "death of a thousand cuts" we hear so much about. I wonder how many of these worms, etc. are put out there with the goal of bringing MS down?
Microsoft, nor does any other company, have a civic duty - their only duty is to make the shareholders money. it's this attitdue that explains why real r&d is dead, and now everyone just wants the "quick flip".
people are more than 'labor units' and corporations, and the people who run them, should embrace that fact.
Well, what do you propose we do? Spend billions to convince Joe Farmer that new-q-ler power plant over yonder isn't going to make his dick turn green and his sister grow an extra titty? I mean, hasn't nuclear power pretty much been tried, sentenced, and executed in the court of public opinion? There hasn't been a new nuclear plant brought on line in this country in what, 10 years? 20?
Even if we do move away from coal, which seems unimaginable considering how much we're sitting on, and that we already have the infrastructure in place, but let's say we do move away from it. We'll still have all those trucks and cars burning oil, unless we're gonna convert them to electric, which again would require a significant re-tooling of industry.
Not that these things can't/wont eventually happen, but money talks and bullshit walks. Right now, coal, despite its shortcomings, is the "terrorist-proof" way to power America. Again I don't agree with or believe in that, but as an avid opponent of the death penalty, I know some battles just aren't worth fighting right now.
I think nuclear power is effectively dead in the USA, based on the reactions I've gotten from anybody who's not on Slashdot. We'd be better off pouring money into those solar satellites you were talking about, or maybe fusion.
Beta was better than VHS, too, but lets just move on, at least while we've got Big Oil in the White House and terrorists hiding in every public library.
You know what I want? I want Ed Begley's electic powered car, which he powers by hopping on an exercycle which charges up the batteries. Something like that to power my computer would not only reduce my consumption, it would get me some damn exercise too!
I am truly worried when our Preisdent says "We cannot conserve our way to energy self sufficiency." Maybe we can't, but we should at least give it a try!
Re:Some classic Christian D&D FUD
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 1
Sounds like our President plays a lot of D&D.
What do you think he had to roll to find the WMD?
Re:The flagship...
on
D&D Is 30
·
· Score: 3, Funny
What about the "gold box" SSI games? Those were awesome!
"Bit 'o Moander" was one of the most fearsome beasts EVAR!!
Iraq is my counter-example. Iraq was brought into the first world by Saddam, before all this business started with Iran, and then Desert Storm, and of course now he's gone. But Saddam was basically the FDR of Iraq, bringing electricity and plumbing to millions who didn't have it before.
Have you heard the statistic that it would take six earths to provide the resources for the entire world to enjoy the average American's standard of living? Do you accept that? And what about the fact that, even though we can "afford" environmentalism, America still consumes more resources and pollutes more than anyone else?
There is one horrific fact you overlooked, earlier in this thread. You stated "It isn't optimism to say that our wealth is created by free markets; it's a fact." What you overlooked is that our enormous wealth stems from our natural resources, which were acquired at gunpoint over the course of two centuries. And let's not forget the contributions of slave labor, that brought us to industrial self-sufficiency. Free markets are not the same thing as free people.
There is no causal link between a higher standard of living and the emergence of things like democracy, liberty, and a progressive social order. Iraq did fine, with a decent standard of living, under a dictatorship, and Manifest Destiny got America where she is today. And let's not overlook the rise of the West in general. There's Commodore Perry firing on Japan to "open markets." Look, Africa has been divided into 1,000 constantly warring parts by a handful of colonial pillagers. Hey, it's the British Empire, look at them go, bringing freedom to India.
I think your philosophy was dreamed up by someone who's never had a gun in his face.
Though, I will grant you that Iraq's standard of living has dropped dramatically owing to the current "government intervention."
And I'm sure we both agree that a democratic government in a poor country is much more prone to collapse, as the desperation grows. They'd hang you for stealing bread a few hundred years ago in England, but a starving man will take that chance. Law and order, I guess I should say "ethics" are meaningless when everyone lives in a giant shithole.
Maybe I've misunderstood you completely. I can see the argument you make that environmentalism is something we Americans can afford, since we don't have to worry about starving to death this week. But are you saying that environmentalism actually *is* a luxury good? Only the super-rich (globally speaking) can afford it? Because if that's the case, I think we'll run out of environment before we reach critical mass of environmentalists, who even while "conserving" will use more resources than their "fair share." And that, of course, is the sky that I see falling in the next dozen decades or so.
Not trying to divert your point, but would you agree that the U.S. supports and bolsters non-free states (such as China, as the obvious example) in order that they will continue to be unable to develop free markets, and thus they will never really be able to compete with us economically?
Or does a rising tide float all boats equally?
I do see your point but statements like "A wealthy country only comes from open markets" seem ridiculously oversimplified to me. I guess I'm not sure how a wealthy country is defined, is it per capita, or median income or what? I suppose what I'm asking is: is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a wealthy country? How about Spain under Franco? Singapore?
"Advanced state of economic activity?" What does that mean? They need to ship more stuff to the WAL*MART, people's homes, and then the landfill? Think of all the jobs that would create!!!
If you're telling me the only way we can "afford" to save the environment with nuclear power is if everybody consumes more, I think the cure is worse than the disease.
When I lived in Saudi, gas was 30 hilals a litre, or about 25 cents a gallon. If we can extrapolate that, oil prices are also an order of magnitude cheaper than in the US.
There will never be an economic incentive for the House of Saud to go nuclear. Not in the next fifty years.
"Libertarians are Republicans who smoke pot"
And I don't believe that Thomas Jefferson was one of those psychohistorians from Asimov's "Foundation" series. He is certainly worth paying attention to, but he's not freakin' Moses.
dude, I agree with you. My point is: The long rant about "tin-pot dictators" and an oppressive United States, continuing to go about things the wrong way, is THE WAY THE WORLD ACTUALLY WORKS.
You're not going to get nuclear to replace coal and oil, at least not in the next fifty years. There will always be the example of Israel blowing up Iran's nuclear program in the 80s for fear of getting nuked by crazy towel-heads. That fear is as strong now as ever.
Have we ever thought about just reducing our energy consumption? No. Because that, as well, is NOT how the world works. (And it's definitely not how America works.)
Sorry but you sound like one of those libertarians who knows the world would be great, if we could just roll back the past 150 years of history and get America back to what the Founders had in mind. Guess what. That option isn't available, sorry. We have to make do with what we've got, and the way things look right now, it's a "terrorist act" for North Korea and Iran to try to produce nuclear power. And changing the man behind the curtain in November isn't going to change that.
Fact is, Japan and France are already pretty amped up on nuclear power. So they've proven they can manage it responsibly, we hope.
The thing about the waste, it's the same sort of psychology that makes a plane crash news, but a car crash just an everyday event. People fixate on spectacular failures. When you just spew the junk into the air, slowly killing us all, that might be a spectacular public health failure but there's no "money shot" for the evening news. The details will be buried in some 500-page bueraucratic report. And that's a failure of management and politicians.
Again, I'm not saying fossil fuel is the answer. I'm saying it's the reality, and the seas are not changing soon.
China, the "carbon dragon." We were all hoping to dodge that bullet, but now that they have a taste for SUVs, we may have a problem.
India may be a worse polluter, but then they have quadruple our population. India is kind of a first world/third world country if you ask me. They remind me of America when FDR was president, and the overall standard of living (running water, electricity) was unbelievably low. There are still lots of people who call a sewer pipe home in India.
Nuclear energy might solve the US's energy problems, but are you ready for nuclear power in Teheran, Islamabad, and Pyongyang? The fear of the "other nuclear" pretty much means that most people don't get to have nuclear power, because they can't be trusted with it. (I'm not saying I feel that way, but policywise that's the world we live in.)
Cato, I feel like those guys are a bunch of priggish snobs. They probably clinked their glasses of Chardonnay together when we stormed Waco just because they could shit all over Clinton about it later. It's not so much what they have to say, it's their tone. They sound as self-righteous as your average PETA member. But that's just me.
True, I tend not to read much of what the Cato Institute has to say.
Clearly there are disruptive events which break all models of doom and gloom in due time.
I don't think there's really any proof of that. Let's take your horse-shit problem as an example. The horses were replaced by cars, which traded one set of problems for another. Are you telling me that it's a FACT that something will come along and rid us of the new problem? Might not we have somewhere along the way passed a "point of no return?"
Think of the environment as a buffered system. You can push it pretty hard one way or the other, and not see much change. But cross the line, and the whole house of cards comes down. We're pushing, without knowing how hard we can push. I'm not advocating a return to "simpler times" or anything, but to just say "well, technology will figure this out" seems like a cop-out to me.
I don't think there's enough data to say that the onward march of technology and industry will solve all the problems that same march has caused.
(Or to quote Homer Simpson: "Alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.")
I know it's geek chic to assume everyone against increased nuclear use is against it "just because they see the word nuclear", but it's just not true.
Thank you! I'm also on the fence when it comes to nuclear power; even though it may be "cleaner" it's not like we're going to allow Afghanistan and what not to start using it, so let's stick with coal/oil until the nuclear genie is fully out of the bottle, and mabye by then we can figure out, realistically, what to do with the waste. Just my 2 cents.
Amen. When I was in grade school I remember hearing about how they got Pepsi in Russia. They took a big bottle to the Pepsi plant and it got filled up there. I remember thinking: That sure would reduce waste.
It's because we are so rich, and manufacturing is so cheap, that we've moved into a disposable society. It makes economic sense, sure, but is it any surprise that a company like WAL*MART, "your source for cheap plastic crap" views its employees to be disposable goods as well?
You get what you pay for. What we've got is a society that's learned to cut corners and put a rush on everything if that will pad the bottom line next quarter.
Wow, what a dumb thing to say. True, there wouldn't be an environmental movement if it weren't for industry. That's about as stunning a revelation as saying you won't seen suntan lotion if you never go outsie.
You have faith that technology will always find the solution to the problems it creates. I'm not saying that it will or won't, but your adoption of that mantra is very Panglossian.
That is illegal, your best bet would be for you and some co-workers to split the cost of a lawyer. Make sure you have all your supporting documentation (i.e. time sheets and pay stubs and your offer letter/contract) and you can fight this.
Or you can just shrug it off, which is what 99% of people do. In this economy, nobody wants to rock the boat, if it means they might not have a job.
No thanks, the last good thing U.S. unions did was strike against UPS in the 90s.
I see unions as a waste of my money, unless the union is so corrupt like the Teamsters or the ILW that they are just an integral part of the machine now.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you get to stick it in her?
I think your "stunning reality" is very accurate. Eating has almost been removed from consciuosness in America. Fast food meals surrounded by strangeres, or even in the isolation of your own car. Welcome to America, and enjoy the Freedom Fries. ;)
There are plenty of healthy active people, but it's very easy to be a "couch potato" as well.
I only know a few people who aren't overweight, and most of them are drinking at the bar several nights a week. Only one or two are truly "healthy." Or maybe beer is good for you! That's what I'm counting on.
For instance, this comment will probably get some negative mod points, and it really doesn't need any. But I'm using my +1 Karma Bonus (and I just realized how amazingly gay that sounds. DM can I get a +2 Karma Bonus? Shit where was I. Shit gotta close the parens. ) Shit. Well anyway, unless you can fathom a world in which this post might ever be read, YOU MUST MOD IT DOWN, ESP IF OTHERS HAVE ALREADY DONE SO. THOSE MOD POINTS ARE THE ONES THAT RE TRACKED IN THE SECRED SLASHDOT MODERATION DATABASE. I CAN'T SAY MORE UNLESS YOU MOD ME DOWN TO OBLIVION!!!!! -7 IS A GOOD START.
That was {Black) Golden Erring's best album.
Hi, I've searched this thread but noone has posted the helpful guide on how to capture streams for later, uh, use. I remember reading this before on /. but I forgot to copy-paste it. I remember something about Real (?) locking the file but if you tell Real to use a Linux mount as its temp file location, you can then get at the stream from the linux side..
Anyway like I said I can't remember the details but it would be cool to know how to capture the various formats that are streamed in nowadays. There's plenty of programs out there I'd like to be able to "tape" and I'm too much of a noob to figure it out. And apparently I can't use google either.
That is all.
Your "It's all Clinton's fault!" argument would carry a lot more weight if Ashcroft's top priority had been to change the intelligence gathering rules. Instead he ordered $30,000 drapes to cover Justice's boobie and told people in Oregon they can't smoke pot.
Of course, now that it's too late to do anything about it, it's trivial to find missteps by either administration. Will we learn from the mistakes of leaders past and current? I doubt it.
I agree, but also realize that you were lied to in school about what America actually is.
I've had this hope for a long time, that somewhere, sometime, something will be going down and we'll get a picture from one of those cellphones with a camera.
We're all going on about Iraq here, so here's an example. After a particularly nasty helicopter crash, the army came in, secured the area, and confiscated all the cameras. If they were digital cellphone cameras, those pics would be uploaded to a "secure location" instantly.
The current scandal is further proof that a picture is worth a thousand words. The comparison to Rodney King comes to mind -- without that video that would have been another routine traffic stop. I for one was not ready to believe just how bad the situation in Iraq is, but now that even Rumsfeld has admitted this is just the tip of the iceberg, it really casts things in a new light.
To sum up: As technology progresses, there will be more instances of people being "caught" on camera or perhaps covertly recorded in a tiny MP3 recorder, and so on. And this is a good thing. What's that old saw: You can tell a lot about a person by how they act when they think they won't get caught.
Q: If I steal a car, and some defect in that car leads to my injury, can I sue GM and win?
A: Definitely Yes.
Why is this different?
I know it's different because right now we can't sue MS for any damages even if we didn't steal Windows.
It seems to me that if they apply a double standard to products acquired legally vs. products that aren't legal, they are opening themselves up to some sort of implied warrantability for the legal product. Which of course they don't want to do.
It has gotten *really* bad with all the spyware, malware, and viruses these days. It's starting to look like the "death of a thousand cuts" we hear so much about. I wonder how many of these worms, etc. are put out there with the goal of bringing MS down?
Microsoft, nor does any other company, have a civic duty - their only duty is to make the shareholders money.
it's this attitdue that explains why real r&d is dead, and now everyone just wants the "quick flip".
people are more than 'labor units' and corporations, and the people who run them, should embrace that fact.
Well, what do you propose we do? Spend billions to convince Joe Farmer that new-q-ler power plant over yonder isn't going to make his dick turn green and his sister grow an extra titty? I mean, hasn't nuclear power pretty much been tried, sentenced, and executed in the court of public opinion? There hasn't been a new nuclear plant brought on line in this country in what, 10 years? 20?
Even if we do move away from coal, which seems unimaginable considering how much we're sitting on, and that we already have the infrastructure in place, but let's say we do move away from it. We'll still have all those trucks and cars burning oil, unless we're gonna convert them to electric, which again would require a significant re-tooling of industry.
Not that these things can't/wont eventually happen, but money talks and bullshit walks. Right now, coal, despite its shortcomings, is the "terrorist-proof" way to power America. Again I don't agree with or believe in that, but as an avid opponent of the death penalty, I know some battles just aren't worth fighting right now.
I think nuclear power is effectively dead in the USA, based on the reactions I've gotten from anybody who's not on Slashdot. We'd be better off pouring money into those solar satellites you were talking about, or maybe fusion.
Beta was better than VHS, too, but lets just move on, at least while we've got Big Oil in the White House and terrorists hiding in every public library.
You know what I want? I want Ed Begley's electic powered car, which he powers by hopping on an exercycle which charges up the batteries. Something like that to power my computer would not only reduce my consumption, it would get me some damn exercise too!
I am truly worried when our Preisdent says "We cannot conserve our way to energy self sufficiency." Maybe we can't, but we should at least give it a try!
Sounds like our President plays a lot of D&D.
What do you think he had to roll to find the WMD?
What about the "gold box" SSI games? Those were awesome!
"Bit 'o Moander" was one of the most fearsome beasts EVAR!!
Bonus points for whoever knows what the E. in E. Gary Gygax stands for!
Iraq is my counter-example. Iraq was brought into the first world by Saddam, before all this business started with Iran, and then Desert Storm, and of course now he's gone. But Saddam was basically the FDR of Iraq, bringing electricity and plumbing to millions who didn't have it before.
Have you heard the statistic that it would take six earths to provide the resources for the entire world to enjoy the average American's standard of living? Do you accept that? And what about the fact that, even though we can "afford" environmentalism, America still consumes more resources and pollutes more than anyone else?
There is one horrific fact you overlooked, earlier in this thread. You stated "It isn't optimism to say that our wealth is created by free markets; it's a fact." What you overlooked is that our enormous wealth stems from our natural resources, which were acquired at gunpoint over the course of two centuries. And let's not forget the contributions of slave labor, that brought us to industrial self-sufficiency. Free markets are not the same thing as free people.
There is no causal link between a higher standard of living and the emergence of things like democracy, liberty, and a progressive social order. Iraq did fine, with a decent standard of living, under a dictatorship, and Manifest Destiny got America where she is today. And let's not overlook the rise of the West in general. There's Commodore Perry firing on Japan to "open markets." Look, Africa has been divided into 1,000 constantly warring parts by a handful of colonial pillagers. Hey, it's the British Empire, look at them go, bringing freedom to India.
I think your philosophy was dreamed up by someone who's never had a gun in his face.
Though, I will grant you that Iraq's standard of living has dropped dramatically owing to the current "government intervention."
And I'm sure we both agree that a democratic government in a poor country is much more prone to collapse, as the desperation grows. They'd hang you for stealing bread a few hundred years ago in England, but a starving man will take that chance. Law and order, I guess I should say "ethics" are meaningless when everyone lives in a giant shithole.
Maybe I've misunderstood you completely. I can see the argument you make that environmentalism is something we Americans can afford, since we don't have to worry about starving to death this week. But are you saying that environmentalism actually *is* a luxury good? Only the super-rich (globally speaking) can afford it? Because if that's the case, I think we'll run out of environment before we reach critical mass of environmentalists, who even while "conserving" will use more resources than their "fair share." And that, of course, is the sky that I see falling in the next dozen decades or so.
Not trying to divert your point, but would you agree that the U.S. supports and bolsters non-free states (such as China, as the obvious example) in order that they will continue to be unable to develop free markets, and thus they will never really be able to compete with us economically?
Or does a rising tide float all boats equally?
I do see your point but statements like "A wealthy country only comes from open markets" seem ridiculously oversimplified to me. I guess I'm not sure how a wealthy country is defined, is it per capita, or median income or what? I suppose what I'm asking is: is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia a wealthy country? How about Spain under Franco? Singapore?
"Advanced state of economic activity?" What does that mean? They need to ship more stuff to the WAL*MART, people's homes, and then the landfill? Think of all the jobs that would create!!!
If you're telling me the only way we can "afford" to save the environment with nuclear power is if everybody consumes more, I think the cure is worse than the disease.
When I lived in Saudi, gas was 30 hilals a litre, or about 25 cents a gallon. If we can extrapolate that, oil prices are also an order of magnitude cheaper than in the US.
There will never be an economic incentive for the House of Saud to go nuclear. Not in the next fifty years.
"Libertarians are Republicans who smoke pot"
And I don't believe that Thomas Jefferson was one of those psychohistorians from Asimov's "Foundation" series. He is certainly worth paying attention to, but he's not freakin' Moses.
dude, I agree with you. My point is: The long rant about "tin-pot dictators" and an oppressive United States, continuing to go about things the wrong way, is THE WAY THE WORLD ACTUALLY WORKS.
You're not going to get nuclear to replace coal and oil, at least not in the next fifty years. There will always be the example of Israel blowing up Iran's nuclear program in the 80s for fear of getting nuked by crazy towel-heads. That fear is as strong now as ever.
Have we ever thought about just reducing our energy consumption? No. Because that, as well, is NOT how the world works. (And it's definitely not how America works.)
Sorry but you sound like one of those libertarians who knows the world would be great, if we could just roll back the past 150 years of history and get America back to what the Founders had in mind. Guess what. That option isn't available, sorry. We have to make do with what we've got, and the way things look right now, it's a "terrorist act" for North Korea and Iran to try to produce nuclear power. And changing the man behind the curtain in November isn't going to change that.
Fact is, Japan and France are already pretty amped up on nuclear power. So they've proven they can manage it responsibly, we hope.
The thing about the waste, it's the same sort of psychology that makes a plane crash news, but a car crash just an everyday event. People fixate on spectacular failures. When you just spew the junk into the air, slowly killing us all, that might be a spectacular public health failure but there's no "money shot" for the evening news. The details will be buried in some 500-page bueraucratic report. And that's a failure of management and politicians.
Again, I'm not saying fossil fuel is the answer. I'm saying it's the reality, and the seas are not changing soon.
China, the "carbon dragon." We were all hoping to dodge that bullet, but now that they have a taste for SUVs, we may have a problem.
India may be a worse polluter, but then they have quadruple our population. India is kind of a first world/third world country if you ask me. They remind me of America when FDR was president, and the overall standard of living (running water, electricity) was unbelievably low. There are still lots of people who call a sewer pipe home in India.
Nuclear energy might solve the US's energy problems, but are you ready for nuclear power in Teheran, Islamabad, and Pyongyang? The fear of the "other nuclear" pretty much means that most people don't get to have nuclear power, because they can't be trusted with it. (I'm not saying I feel that way, but policywise that's the world we live in.)
Cato, I feel like those guys are a bunch of priggish snobs. They probably clinked their glasses of Chardonnay together when we stormed Waco just because they could shit all over Clinton about it later. It's not so much what they have to say, it's their tone. They sound as self-righteous as your average PETA member. But that's just me.
True, I tend not to read much of what the Cato Institute has to say.
Clearly there are disruptive events which break all models of doom and gloom in due time.
I don't think there's really any proof of that. Let's take your horse-shit problem as an example. The horses were replaced by cars, which traded one set of problems for another. Are you telling me that it's a FACT that something will come along and rid us of the new problem? Might not we have somewhere along the way passed a "point of no return?"
Think of the environment as a buffered system. You can push it pretty hard one way or the other, and not see much change. But cross the line, and the whole house of cards comes down. We're pushing, without knowing how hard we can push. I'm not advocating a return to "simpler times" or anything, but to just say "well, technology will figure this out" seems like a cop-out to me.
I don't think there's enough data to say that the onward march of technology and industry will solve all the problems that same march has caused.
(Or to quote Homer Simpson: "Alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.")
I know it's geek chic to assume everyone against increased nuclear use is against it "just because they see the word nuclear", but it's just not true.
Thank you! I'm also on the fence when it comes to nuclear power; even though it may be "cleaner" it's not like we're going to allow Afghanistan and what not to start using it, so let's stick with coal/oil until the nuclear genie is fully out of the bottle, and mabye by then we can figure out, realistically, what to do with the waste. Just my 2 cents.
Amen. When I was in grade school I remember hearing about how they got Pepsi in Russia. They took a big bottle to the Pepsi plant and it got filled up there. I remember thinking: That sure would reduce waste.
It's because we are so rich, and manufacturing is so cheap, that we've moved into a disposable society. It makes economic sense, sure, but is it any surprise that a company like WAL*MART, "your source for cheap plastic crap" views its employees to be disposable goods as well?
You get what you pay for. What we've got is a society that's learned to cut corners and put a rush on everything if that will pad the bottom line next quarter.
Wow, what a dumb thing to say. True, there wouldn't be an environmental movement if it weren't for industry. That's about as stunning a revelation as saying you won't seen suntan lotion if you never go outsie.
You have faith that technology will always find the solution to the problems it creates. I'm not saying that it will or won't, but your adoption of that mantra is very Panglossian.
That is illegal, your best bet would be for you and some co-workers to split the cost of a lawyer. Make sure you have all your supporting documentation (i.e. time sheets and pay stubs and your offer letter/contract) and you can fight this.
Or you can just shrug it off, which is what 99% of people do. In this economy, nobody wants to rock the boat, if it means they might not have a job.
No thanks, the last good thing U.S. unions did was strike against UPS in the 90s.
I see unions as a waste of my money, unless the union is so corrupt like the Teamsters or the ILW that they are just an integral part of the machine now.