I'm implying that 90% of travel is by other methods and that trains are unprofitable unless they are subsidised to about half of their operating costs every year.
but once it's there, getting things into space will be insanely cheap (in comparison to current day prices) Really... What does the interest payment on a trillion dollars worth of debt look like? It looks something like 20 billion a year on a good day. Then there's the running, maintenance and insurance costs. Oh wait, I understand now... You thought that money was free and it would be built on a shoestring. Ah bless...
What does a launch cost? 20 million? 100 million for a biggie? Then if there's a market for launches, the costs will drop.
1: There is no current technology which could be used to build a space elevator. Even if there was, it would be decades before it was complete. 2: There is no engineering knowledge on how to build such a structure. 3: You know it's going to cost billions. Frankly, it's almost certainly going to cost trillions to build. That money isn't in place, but then a space elevator isn't going to be feasible for decades. If you think taxation should pay for it you can fuck right off, this elevator is something you want, I couldn't care less.
So. Today, the only thing you can even plan to do is to generate the cash which might just be used to finance the space elevator. That means an investment fund invested in relatively high risk/return securities, with enough return to allow grants to be skimmed off for promising materials and engineering research. In 20 or 30 years there may be enough cash to get something off the ground.
If you really want a space elevator, this is what you need to do. If you're not doing it... It can't really matter that much to you.
It's a rail system, or at least, the economics of it are almost the same. The specific technology may be a bit different. And yet, people choose air, road over rail to a truly massive degree all over the world, even in countries where the rail system is reputed to be superb.
It's the same problem that solar power faces. If you took the cash spent to build a space elevator and invested it in other areas of the economy, you could basically fund conventional private space launches from now to infinity.
Repetitive manual labour reduces in value to the cost of the capital and the electricity. With AI, so does the value of thought.
We've already see what would happen. It's happened already with outsourcing. In Bangladesh for example, labour is worth a few cents per hour. The cost of the goods produced using that labour also deflates massively. Everything becomes much cheaper, the value of any money you do earn goes much further.
Of course, brands will still try to get you to spend $300 on $3 worth of shoes and $10,000 on $250 worth of car.
We're assuming plentiful energy here, change that and the robots don't look so attractive.
This is an interesting question for property rights theorists. Many people adhere to some sort of Lockean view that by modifying this untouched land, the terraforming organization then owns all of Mars. If you can kill the people coming to take it away from you, then you own it. If not, then they own it. That's the nature of property.
In terms of who pays? Simply get rid of the outer space treaty and allow land ownership. The rest of the terraforming will follow automatically.
this has never happened to me, therefore your logic is silly for suggesting it could happen. Do you beleive in god? Do you believe in fairies? Do you believe in pink teapots floating round the sun?
I as an atheist have no reason to believe in any of them. Someone who believes in god has to explain why they don't also believe in fairies or pink teapots. It's a simple question of probability. The hysterics are, laughable, because the probabilities of this ever happening are infitesimally small.
The chances that every employer will require implantation, or even drug tests is minute, which means that any who don't will be able to demand lower salaries than those who do, for those employees who value freedom more than a larger paycheck. These employers will have greater productivity and higher profitability in the marketplace. The natural tendency of the marketplace will be to promote the liberal employer and penalise the paranoid one.
IMO: Anything but an outright ban will invariably result in indirect force to have it implanted. FFS, this is just utter bollocks.
If an employer can gain employees that 5% cheaper by not demanding implantation, they'll do it. If their cost base is 5% lower they'll be more competitive in the marketplace. Their paranoid competitors will find themselves losing both their market share and their best employees to their more enlightened and now cheaper competitors.
I'll say it again. If this kind of crap was going to happen, we'd all have barcodes by now.
Just like nobody wanted to take the drug tests and work for companies, which required them, the RFID implantations won't happen because no company would find employees who would accept them. My company doesn't demand drug tests because they are sane, they know fine well that a significant proportion of their employees would tell them to go and get fucked whether they are users or not. In particular, the ones with talent. You on the other hand seem to have a completely divorced relationship with reality.
Wages can't actually universally increase, they can only seem to. If everyone got paid more, proportionally, then we would simply experience inflation until real wages were the same as they previously were. Uhuh. And in a real market some things become more desirable than others and increase more than others. Inflation isn't uniform.
Now some employers might try to get an advantage by not requiring RFID in this situation, but it wouldn't be much of an advantage for employees: what they would do is offer lower salaries, compensated by no RFID implant. Thus employees get screwed either way. I think you need to ask yourself why we aren't already barcoded. Apparently the politicians have only just discovered that it's legal to demand this kind of marking.
The "market" will migrate towards all the companies requiring it, and then you don't get to choose anymore. Bollocks. If that were true, we would all be tattoo'd with barcodes by now. This is a bullshit story and the "representative" is just doing it to gain publicity.
FFS. The market is made up of human beings making at least semi rational decisions.
I did and you're wrong. It depends on electricity, and on air conditioning, the ability to move heat. On power stations and natural resources.
In the real world, nothing increases exponentially forever. While there are potentially huge gains to be made from computing in the future, it isn't going to continue exponentially indefinitely. It will hit a limit and slow down, then eventually level off in a plateau.
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I'm implying that 90% of travel is by other methods and that trains are unprofitable unless they are subsidised to about half of their operating costs every year.
http://www.truecrypt.org/
People should be fired/prosecuted for negligence these days.
What does a launch cost? 20 million? 100 million for a biggie? Then if there's a market for launches, the costs will drop.
1: There is no current technology which could be used to build a space elevator. Even if there was, it would be decades before it was complete.
2: There is no engineering knowledge on how to build such a structure.
3: You know it's going to cost billions. Frankly, it's almost certainly going to cost trillions to build. That money isn't in place, but then a space elevator isn't going to be feasible for decades. If you think taxation should pay for it you can fuck right off, this elevator is something you want, I couldn't care less.
So. Today, the only thing you can even plan to do is to generate the cash which might just be used to finance the space elevator. That means an investment fund invested in relatively high risk/return securities, with enough return to allow grants to be skimmed off for promising materials and engineering research. In 20 or 30 years there may be enough cash to get something off the ground.
If you really want a space elevator, this is what you need to do. If you're not doing it... It can't really matter that much to you.
And a space elevator will make it all free... A space elevator is anything but cheap.
Why would I want to waste my time reading the article when I have you to do that for me.
TYVM.
It's a rail system, or at least, the economics of it are almost the same. The specific technology may be a bit different. And yet, people choose air, road over rail to a truly massive degree all over the world, even in countries where the rail system is reputed to be superb.
It's the same problem that solar power faces. If you took the cash spent to build a space elevator and invested it in other areas of the economy, you could basically fund conventional private space launches from now to infinity.
So what're they heating the water with? Electricity? In which case it's an electrically powered car.
Well then. I guess the solution is to sit on your arse and do nothing but whine about the situation.
Since they are only making it illegal for employers to demand implantation. It must be legal for the government.
You go smite those god damned literal bible types.
AAAAHHHHHMEN!
The economy just ups a gear and the jobs change. People do something else instead.
Repetitive manual labour reduces in value to the cost of the capital and the electricity. With AI, so does the value of thought.
We've already see what would happen. It's happened already with outsourcing. In Bangladesh for example, labour is worth a few cents per hour. The cost of the goods produced using that labour also deflates massively. Everything becomes much cheaper, the value of any money you do earn goes much further.
Of course, brands will still try to get you to spend $300 on $3 worth of shoes and $10,000 on $250 worth of car.
We're assuming plentiful energy here, change that and the robots don't look so attractive.
Formalise "The old boy network". The purpose is to use contacts to improve employment and earning prospects.
In terms of who pays? Simply get rid of the outer space treaty and allow land ownership. The rest of the terraforming will follow automatically.
Do you believe in fairies?
Do you believe in pink teapots floating round the sun?
I as an atheist have no reason to believe in any of them. Someone who believes in god has to explain why they don't also believe in fairies or pink teapots. It's a simple question of probability. The hysterics are, laughable, because the probabilities of this ever happening are infitesimally small.
The chances that every employer will require implantation, or even drug tests is minute, which means that any who don't will be able to demand lower salaries than those who do, for those employees who value freedom more than a larger paycheck. These employers will have greater productivity and higher profitability in the marketplace. The natural tendency of the marketplace will be to promote the liberal employer and penalise the paranoid one.
It's a non issue. Literally hyperbole.
If an employer can gain employees that 5% cheaper by not demanding implantation, they'll do it. If their cost base is 5% lower they'll be more competitive in the marketplace. Their paranoid competitors will find themselves losing both their market share and their best employees to their more enlightened and now cheaper competitors.
I'll say it again. If this kind of crap was going to happen, we'd all have barcodes by now.
FFS. The market is made up of human beings making at least semi rational decisions.
Does this really need to be legislated? Eh, no I don't think so.
I did and you're wrong. It depends on electricity, and on air conditioning, the ability to move heat. On power stations and natural resources.
In the real world, nothing increases exponentially forever. While there are potentially huge gains to be made from computing in the future, it isn't going to continue exponentially indefinitely. It will hit a limit and slow down, then eventually level off in a plateau.
No singularity. It isn't going to happen.
That's how you tighten the cuffs.
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