Just who the hell is "we", and how do you presume to represent "we", and by what right do you claim to have power over others who aren't "we"?
"we" is all of us, and I don't represent us, nor do I claim to have power. I'm just stating a (rather obvious) point that the historical need for population growth stems from the fact that older people need younger people to take of them. If this work can be done by robots instead, the need for continuous population growth disappears.
You have failed to understand the entire argument as presented. Running a business with no employees inevitably results in a business with no customers (because people without incomes won't be customers)
No, it is you that have failed to understand my argument. The guy can run a business just fine serving food to people who work at other businesses. Now, you'll probably start yelling that "but, but, but, if every other business did the same thing, then there would be no customers left", to which I will respond that Mr Puzder has no responsibility for those other businesses, and his choices don't affect them. We can be sure that somebody will move to robots, and they'll gain a competitive advantage, either driving Mr Puzder to quit or to do the same thing.
It says things balance out so there's no net advantage or disadvantage. Therefore your CEO, if honest, would have had no beef with higher taxes.
Except that in the case of corporate taxes, you need a bunch of people making tax laws, lawyers to find loopholes, other experts to close loopholes, and accountants and tax inspectors to make sure everybody is following the rules. It would a lot more efficient to get rid of corporate taxes, and only tax people. The redistributive effect is a valid argument, but I don't think the impact is big for regular corporate taxes that are pretty much equal for all companies. The poor pay for these taxes through products they buy just as much as the rich, so they could be replaced by sales taxes without much bad side effects.
I've seen several sales tax increases, and usually vendors see it as an opportunity to jack the prices up by more than needed. Because all the prices are changing, it makes it hard for customers to see exactly how much the price went up, so they might as well round it up a bit. On the other hand, when prices of raw materials go up, they are far more likely to absorb the price themselves, because they don't want to be caught increasing the prices.
But of course, when we're talking about corporate taxes that stay the same for a long time, and that are the same for competing companies, then it doesn't really matter. Everybody adds the taxes to the end product, and they'll compete on what's left.
You misunderstand the point. Mr Puzder's choices only affect the dozen or so people that would work in his restaurant, not "large masses of people". If he decides to hire minimum wage workers instead of robots, he'll still end up facing the "large masses of people minus a dozen or so", but he wouldn't be able to hire a merc army to protect himself.
No, we don't, and we won't. We're all going to die, and our unique DNA patterns will fade away.
but if Western technological civilization collapses (as Mayan, Roman, Hindu, Byzantine, Persian civilizations did) for whatever reason, like being overrun by a Caliphate, humanity may not retain this technical ability.
The Martian civilization would collapse even quicker, and being in such a inhospitable environment, would be immediately sentenced to death. At least, if our Western civilization collapses here on Earth, there will be survivors to start another one.
Sure, but Apollo used 3 stages to get in Earth orbit, and then used a second burn of the 3rd stage for trans lunar injection. You could still switch to a low acceleration stage, of course, but then you'd have to redesign the rocket to switch stages at the right time, reducing efficiency. Also, when you're in LEO, you're still deep in Earth's gravity well, and a 0.01 g rocket won't be very efficient in taking you out, forcing you to take really long trajectories.
You are confusing two different applications - escaping Earth gravitation and traveling in the space.
No, I'm fully aware these are two different applications. I'm just saying that rockets already carry fuel and a rocket engine to escape Earth gravity, so if you can use these for space travel, it will be more efficient. Unless, of course, if you come up with a much superior propulsion system.
No, we shouldn't. I'll be really sad when my car videos are gone, but I won't care being dead.
But jokes aside, it's about the odds. There's a good chance my harddisk will fail in the next decade, and a very cheap and easy way to prevent much grief by installing a $100 backup system. There's only a very tiny chance our species will go extinct, and an extremely high cost of installing a backup with any kind of reliability. Keep in mind that a restore operation from a small colony on Mars, without any help from Earth, will be a huge task, with a high chance of total failure.
Better propulsion I'm all for, but it's hard to beat a constant drive for long distances with a burst of acceleration. Every day the constant-g ship with a measly 1/100g is adding the equivalent of 8.6g for about 100 seconds. Or 1g for 864 seconds. The delta-v just keeps adding up.
No, it won't, because your constant-g ship will run out of fuel after a short time. Unless, of course, you come up with much better propulsion, which was my point.
(Hint: short bursts are done because of fuel supply limitations)
No. We could very easily design a rocket engine that can sustain a slow burn for a long time, but it wouldn't be able to lift itself off the ground. For that, you need high acceleration. And once you have a rocket that can sustain that, you might as well burn it at a high rate until the fuel is gone.
It provides artificial gravity for the ship's occupants.
because if you system is too fragile to survive, what are the odds that your backup will survive?
That's a stupid comparison. A regular backup disk provides excellent odds, for very small cost. A functional, self sufficient Mars colony, would be expensive beyond comprehension, and extremely fragile, even without unexpected events. If you want a backup for unexpected events, I suggest we build several shelters underground, or inside mountains where people can hide until the worst is over. That's a lot cheaper than building something on Mars.
If you assume our civilization is too fragile to survive, planting a colony on Mars won't improve the odds, as that colony will be even more fragile and dependent on technology, for even the most basic human needs such as air, water, radiation shielding, and food.
Other planet-wide extinction risks are sufficiently small that we don't have to rush right now. We could easily wait another century without significant change in odds.
So now that the optimum situation is to have no employees
It's the optimum for the business that Puzder is responsible for. Your questions are good questions, but they are questions for society as a whole, not questions for Mr. Puzder to answer. If society allows people to run businesses with no employees, and it makes sense from a business perspective to do so, you can't blame individual business owners for making that choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Just who the hell is "we", and how do you presume to represent "we", and by what right do you claim to have power over others who aren't "we"?
"we" is all of us, and I don't represent us, nor do I claim to have power. I'm just stating a (rather obvious) point that the historical need for population growth stems from the fact that older people need younger people to take of them. If this work can be done by robots instead, the need for continuous population growth disappears.
You have failed to understand the entire argument as presented. Running a business with no employees inevitably results in a business with no customers (because people without incomes won't be customers)
No, it is you that have failed to understand my argument. The guy can run a business just fine serving food to people who work at other businesses. Now, you'll probably start yelling that "but, but, but, if every other business did the same thing, then there would be no customers left", to which I will respond that Mr Puzder has no responsibility for those other businesses, and his choices don't affect them. We can be sure that somebody will move to robots, and they'll gain a competitive advantage, either driving Mr Puzder to quit or to do the same thing.
It says things balance out so there's no net advantage or disadvantage. Therefore your CEO, if honest, would have had no beef with higher taxes.
Except that in the case of corporate taxes, you need a bunch of people making tax laws, lawyers to find loopholes, other experts to close loopholes, and accountants and tax inspectors to make sure everybody is following the rules. It would a lot more efficient to get rid of corporate taxes, and only tax people. The redistributive effect is a valid argument, but I don't think the impact is big for regular corporate taxes that are pretty much equal for all companies. The poor pay for these taxes through products they buy just as much as the rich, so they could be replaced by sales taxes without much bad side effects.
I've seen several sales tax increases, and usually vendors see it as an opportunity to jack the prices up by more than needed. Because all the prices are changing, it makes it hard for customers to see exactly how much the price went up, so they might as well round it up a bit. On the other hand, when prices of raw materials go up, they are far more likely to absorb the price themselves, because they don't want to be caught increasing the prices. But of course, when we're talking about corporate taxes that stay the same for a long time, and that are the same for competing companies, then it doesn't really matter. Everybody adds the taxes to the end product, and they'll compete on what's left.
You misunderstand the point. Mr Puzder's choices only affect the dozen or so people that would work in his restaurant, not "large masses of people". If he decides to hire minimum wage workers instead of robots, he'll still end up facing the "large masses of people minus a dozen or so", but he wouldn't be able to hire a merc army to protect himself.
Do you mean - We need better propulsion technology for boosters to get all this nuclear stuff to LEO?
What I mean is that we need better propulsion tech in general. There's no advantage to limit our search to low acceleration only.
with humanity we need to reach 100% uptime
No, we don't, and we won't. We're all going to die, and our unique DNA patterns will fade away.
but if Western technological civilization collapses (as Mayan, Roman, Hindu, Byzantine, Persian civilizations did) for whatever reason, like being overrun by a Caliphate, humanity may not retain this technical ability.
The Martian civilization would collapse even quicker, and being in such a inhospitable environment, would be immediately sentenced to death. At least, if our Western civilization collapses here on Earth, there will be survivors to start another one.
Do you consider this kid your slave?
No, I'm his slave, as I have to provide my tax money to help support his lifestyle, or to pay his hospitable bills when he gets sick.
So, if 100% of all income were spread equally among the population
As soon as you do that, the income will drop, as people will lose motivation to work their asses off.
It may be obvious, but you missed it in your analysis where the investor's funds go. They'll go overseas too.
Sure, but Apollo used 3 stages to get in Earth orbit, and then used a second burn of the 3rd stage for trans lunar injection. You could still switch to a low acceleration stage, of course, but then you'd have to redesign the rocket to switch stages at the right time, reducing efficiency. Also, when you're in LEO, you're still deep in Earth's gravity well, and a 0.01 g rocket won't be very efficient in taking you out, forcing you to take really long trajectories.
In this case, there are already several big businesses on the same street, so the fiber should already be there.
You are confusing two different applications - escaping Earth gravitation and traveling in the space.
No, I'm fully aware these are two different applications. I'm just saying that rockets already carry fuel and a rocket engine to escape Earth gravity, so if you can use these for space travel, it will be more efficient. Unless, of course, if you come up with a much superior propulsion system.
No, we shouldn't. I'll be really sad when my car videos are gone, but I won't care being dead. But jokes aside, it's about the odds. There's a good chance my harddisk will fail in the next decade, and a very cheap and easy way to prevent much grief by installing a $100 backup system. There's only a very tiny chance our species will go extinct, and an extremely high cost of installing a backup with any kind of reliability. Keep in mind that a restore operation from a small colony on Mars, without any help from Earth, will be a huge task, with a high chance of total failure.
Better propulsion I'm all for, but it's hard to beat a constant drive for long distances with a burst of acceleration. Every day the constant-g ship with a measly 1/100g is adding the equivalent of 8.6g for about 100 seconds. Or 1g for 864 seconds. The delta-v just keeps adding up.
No, it won't, because your constant-g ship will run out of fuel after a short time. Unless, of course, you come up with much better propulsion, which was my point.
(Hint: short bursts are done because of fuel supply limitations)
No. We could very easily design a rocket engine that can sustain a slow burn for a long time, but it wouldn't be able to lift itself off the ground. For that, you need high acceleration. And once you have a rocket that can sustain that, you might as well burn it at a high rate until the fuel is gone.
It provides artificial gravity for the ship's occupants.
At 0.01 g that will be next to useless.
because if you system is too fragile to survive, what are the odds that your backup will survive?
That's a stupid comparison. A regular backup disk provides excellent odds, for very small cost. A functional, self sufficient Mars colony, would be expensive beyond comprehension, and extremely fragile, even without unexpected events. If you want a backup for unexpected events, I suggest we build several shelters underground, or inside mountains where people can hide until the worst is over. That's a lot cheaper than building something on Mars.
We can learn a lot from inhospitable places and even more from figuring out how to get there and stay alive.
That's circular reasoning. We don't have a need to learn to stay alive if we're not going. What are those other "plenty of good reasons" ?
Nobody is asking you to go
That doesn't mean I like to see already small public funds wasted on missions with low return on investment.
What we need is better propulsion, period. High acceleration for short bursts is just as good.
If you assume our civilization is too fragile to survive, planting a colony on Mars won't improve the odds, as that colony will be even more fragile and dependent on technology, for even the most basic human needs such as air, water, radiation shielding, and food. Other planet-wide extinction risks are sufficiently small that we don't have to rush right now. We could easily wait another century without significant change in odds.
Mars is barren, extremely inhospitable, wasteland. Why are they in such a hurry to send meatbags there ?
Canada tested it in a single town, and found that people still went to work by and large
That's an anecdote, not data.
Well, right now many advanced countries are facing massive shortfalls of population growth.
You mean, massive shortfalls of production. If we don't need people for jobs, we don't need population growth either.
Provide contraceptives and such, and population control will be the least of your problems.
Plenty of people want children, not just sex.
increasing minimum wages impacts the profit for the capitalist but, since it's something that goes through all industries
Except the ones abroad. That's why China has such a big manufacturing industry compared to other countries.
If everybody owns stock, the dividends are going to be too diluted. Your stock plan only works because so few people are doing it.
So now that the optimum situation is to have no employees
It's the optimum for the business that Puzder is responsible for. Your questions are good questions, but they are questions for society as a whole, not questions for Mr. Puzder to answer. If society allows people to run businesses with no employees, and it makes sense from a business perspective to do so, you can't blame individual business owners for making that choice.