Sure we could, it would be pretty straightforward to use a combination of Nuclear weapons and Chemical agents to depopulate the entire area and then follow up with drones to catch any remnants. It wouldn't be ethical and we wouldn't do something like that, but don't mistake won't for can't.
In the USA, if you are moderately ambitious and/or moderately intelligent then you can be moderately successful.
So basically, it's not worth rocking the boat because you're doing "ok".
Polititians aren't stupid. They know that as long as they mostly appease the people with ambition or intelligence
then those people aren't likely to start a rebellion because the risk/reward ratio is not in their favor.
Congratulations, you've rediscovered the basics behind any stable society. Co-opting potential revolutionaries into being members of the system is a key feature of all successful civilizations. Locking these people out is generally the first prelude to anarchy, unrest and civil war, which by the way we seem to be working on right now.
Flights into the hot zone are fine, it's the flights out that are worrisome. The number one rule with nasty infectious diseases is to maintain quarantine.
A national initiative petition and a national recall would both be welcome additions to our current system. Oh and term limits for house and senate would be nice. While we're at it lets switch to a ranked voting system so that third party candidates actually have a chance.
The best solution would be to give everyone vouchers but then require that any school that takes vouchers must provide a voucher only option that satisfies all minimum criteria. Bingo, competition and universal education.
The dream of some fancy tool that builds a complex app for you (since you're an "ideas person", not a programmer) is always going to be a fantasy.
Always is a long time. Try these statements on for size as a comparison:
"I also lay aside all ideas of any new works or engines of war, the invention of which long-ago reached its limit, and in which I see no hope for further improvement..." - Sextus Julius Frontinus 84 C.E.
"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?" - The Quarterly Review 1825
"The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it... Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient." - Dr. Alfred Velpeau 1839
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -Lord Kelvin 1895
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." - Albert Einstein, 1932.
Consider if you will:
An assembler is a way of automatically creating machine code
A compiler is a way of automatically creating assembly code
A ______ is a way of automatically creating program code
Is there some reason we shouldn't expect the blank to be filled in and efforts to move up the stack yet again? As computers become more powerful we can afford ever more complex layers of abstraction.
In reality, all of these claims are only supported by the "research" of S.A. Marshall, and there's no evidence that the guy ever actually did the research that he claims he did.
Yes, his data is questionable and it's unlikely you'd see large percentages of the men not firing at all after their first engagement. Non-veterans, those who have never actually killed or attempted to kill someone, are another matter entirely.
This is like saying that the reason professional basketball teams are so good is because they actually try to score points.
Shooting baskets is not analogous to killing people.
They're a (literal) example of the survivor bias; most of their crappy soldiers die off, shifting the bell-curve to the right.
Over the course of a war most units experience less than 10% casualties which makes this explanation untenable for the general case. There are of course exceptions, in fact some shock units have experienced as high as 300% casualty rates since the replacements keep dying so fast. Total US combat deaths in WWII however was only 291,557 out of 16 million in the military. (even adjusting for fighting vs. support of only 40% this number still doesn't back up your argument)
The idea that soldiers on the battlefield are reluctant to shoot at each other is complete nonsense.
Actually it's pretty well supported by data. In fact, it's one of the reasons veteran units are so dangerous. Most of the members are actually trying to kill you instead of just shooting in your general direction.
I'm registered Libertarian but I think one of the weaknesses of the philosophy the failure to acknowledge the existence of social goods. Also externalized costs, unequal bargaining power, market failures and a variety of other issues which make the world a more complicated place than the party line often seems to promote.
A part of it goes up the stack and is dispersed by the winds, but even if that weren't a big issue fly ash tailings are rarely well contained and often contaminate surrounding areas and groundwater.
A Pigovian tax is a subset of taxes claiming it will modify a specific behavior.
True but misleading. It refers to a specific kind of behavior, not just any behavior. The kind of behavior Pigovian taxes are intended to modify is the externalization of costs based on a rational economic decisions and self optimization. Why do coal power plants emit CO2, because it's cheaper than doing something about it. Make it cheaper to do something about it than emit it and I guarantee you that behavior will change. Why, because it's in their rational self-interest to minimize their own costs.
The real challenge would be to ensure that paying the tax is cheaper than buying off enough politicians to change the law. Of course, this constraint applies equally to regulation. I'm not anti-regulation it just has to be applied to the correct sort of problems. As always, use the right tool for the right job.
A "Carbon Tax" is not the way to solve the problems
Pigovian taxes are the best way to deal with externalized costs within a free market system. The real question is what price should the tax be set at? Choosing an appropriate discount rate makes a large difference in the price to be set. A logical rate would be one that mimics the growth of the economy, so the real GDP growth rate seems suitable, perhaps a trailing 20year average. Given that information at the chart provided by the EPA http://www.epa.gov/climatechan... we're probably looking at a reasonable price of around $61 per ton.
Coal deposits naturally contain small amounts of uranium and thorium, but for the most part that doesn't affect anyone much since it's spread out and underground. After the Coal has burned for power the radioactive elements have been significantly concentrated and are then released into the environment. Is it the same as standing next to a pile of spent fuel rods, of course not, but the amount of radiation released into the surrounding environment by a Coal plant is nearly ten times higher than that of a nuclear plant of similar size.
Annual exposures can be as high as 54 millirems per year. Cancer rates from radiation are estimated at 5.5% per sievert which when converted to 54 milirems gives a 0.00297% chance per person per year. That doesn't sound like much, but the effects add up. Studies of populations living near coal plants have shown effective cancer rates as being 17 times higher than normal.
*shrug* The point is that all power plants are dangerous, but some are more dangerous than others and nuclear is not the worst by a long shot. When we look at health effects on the total population combined with effects on the environment we should be building nuclear plants as fast as possible in order to replace Coal plants.
So still safer than Hydro, Natural Gas, Biofuel, Oil or Coal then?
Fly Ash from coal power releases nearly a hundred times as much radiation per kWhr than nuclear power even when you include nuclear disasters like Chernobyl.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't kill them all.
Sure we could, it would be pretty straightforward to use a combination of Nuclear weapons and Chemical agents to depopulate the entire area and then follow up with drones to catch any remnants. It wouldn't be ethical and we wouldn't do something like that, but don't mistake won't for can't.
To be fair, I think even he was embarrassed by that.
In the USA, if you are moderately ambitious and/or moderately intelligent then you can be moderately successful. So basically, it's not worth rocking the boat because you're doing "ok". Polititians aren't stupid. They know that as long as they mostly appease the people with ambition or intelligence then those people aren't likely to start a rebellion because the risk/reward ratio is not in their favor.
Congratulations, you've rediscovered the basics behind any stable society. Co-opting potential revolutionaries into being members of the system is a key feature of all successful civilizations. Locking these people out is generally the first prelude to anarchy, unrest and civil war, which by the way we seem to be working on right now.
I know, could we at least get a standardized form for all of the non-company specific information?
Flights into the hot zone are fine, it's the flights out that are worrisome. The number one rule with nasty infectious diseases is to maintain quarantine.
You're talking the virus evolving (mutating) into a new variant. This is Texas, evolution doesn't happen there.
That's ok, they can just call it intelligent design and claim it's God's wrath upon the wicked.
A national initiative petition and a national recall would both be welcome additions to our current system. Oh and term limits for house and senate would be nice. While we're at it lets switch to a ranked voting system so that third party candidates actually have a chance.
Capitalist solution: Deploy VMs for non-priority traffic, charge extra for "fast lane" hardware routers.
The best solution would be to give everyone vouchers but then require that any school that takes vouchers must provide a voucher only option that satisfies all minimum criteria. Bingo, competition and universal education.
The dream of some fancy tool that builds a complex app for you (since you're an "ideas person", not a programmer) is always going to be a fantasy.
Always is a long time. Try these statements on for size as a comparison:
"I also lay aside all ideas of any new works or engines of war, the invention of which long-ago reached its limit, and in which I see no hope for further improvement..." - Sextus Julius Frontinus 84 C.E.
"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?" - The Quarterly Review 1825
"The abolishment of pain in surgery is a chimera. It is absurd to go on seeking it... Knife and pain are two words in surgery that must forever be associated in the consciousness of the patient." - Dr. Alfred Velpeau 1839
"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -Lord Kelvin 1895
"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." - Albert Einstein, 1932.
Consider if you will:
An assembler is a way of automatically creating machine code
A compiler is a way of automatically creating assembly code
A ______ is a way of automatically creating program code
Is there some reason we shouldn't expect the blank to be filled in and efforts to move up the stack yet again? As computers become more powerful we can afford ever more complex layers of abstraction.
In reality, all of these claims are only supported by the "research" of S.A. Marshall, and there's no evidence that the guy ever actually did the research that he claims he did.
Yes, his data is questionable and it's unlikely you'd see large percentages of the men not firing at all after their first engagement. Non-veterans, those who have never actually killed or attempted to kill someone, are another matter entirely.
This is like saying that the reason professional basketball teams are so good is because they actually try to score points.
Shooting baskets is not analogous to killing people.
They're a (literal) example of the survivor bias; most of their crappy soldiers die off, shifting the bell-curve to the right.
Over the course of a war most units experience less than 10% casualties which makes this explanation untenable for the general case. There are of course exceptions, in fact some shock units have experienced as high as 300% casualty rates since the replacements keep dying so fast. Total US combat deaths in WWII however was only 291,557 out of 16 million in the military. (even adjusting for fighting vs. support of only 40% this number still doesn't back up your argument)
The idea that soldiers on the battlefield are reluctant to shoot at each other is complete nonsense.
Actually it's pretty well supported by data. In fact, it's one of the reasons veteran units are so dangerous. Most of the members are actually trying to kill you instead of just shooting in your general direction.
Gitmo closed yet?
Like him or hate him, I hardly think you can blame Gitmo staying open on him. Congress basically refused to allow him to close it.
I'm registered Libertarian but I think one of the weaknesses of the philosophy the failure to acknowledge the existence of social goods. Also externalized costs, unequal bargaining power, market failures and a variety of other issues which make the world a more complicated place than the party line often seems to promote.
Except for areas which conflict with your religious beliefs, which tend to be many.
A part of it goes up the stack and is dispersed by the winds, but even if that weren't a big issue fly ash tailings are rarely well contained and often contaminate surrounding areas and groundwater.
Taxes do not work, and have never worked in any history or economics system as an attempt to modify behavior.
Patently false. The tax code has a wide variety of incentives and disincentives now that already modify behavior.
A Pigovian tax is a subset of taxes claiming it will modify a specific behavior.
True but misleading. It refers to a specific kind of behavior, not just any behavior. The kind of behavior Pigovian taxes are intended to modify is the externalization of costs based on a rational economic decisions and self optimization. Why do coal power plants emit CO2, because it's cheaper than doing something about it. Make it cheaper to do something about it than emit it and I guarantee you that behavior will change. Why, because it's in their rational self-interest to minimize their own costs. The real challenge would be to ensure that paying the tax is cheaper than buying off enough politicians to change the law. Of course, this constraint applies equally to regulation. I'm not anti-regulation it just has to be applied to the correct sort of problems. As always, use the right tool for the right job.
Neither slavery nor biased voting systems are examples of externalized costs so obviously pigovian taxes would not be appropriate remedies.
A "Carbon Tax" is not the way to solve the problems
Pigovian taxes are the best way to deal with externalized costs within a free market system. The real question is what price should the tax be set at? Choosing an appropriate discount rate makes a large difference in the price to be set. A logical rate would be one that mimics the growth of the economy, so the real GDP growth rate seems suitable, perhaps a trailing 20year average. Given that information at the chart provided by the EPA http://www.epa.gov/climatechan... we're probably looking at a reasonable price of around $61 per ton.
Fly Ash does not "release" any radiation.
Coal deposits naturally contain small amounts of uranium and thorium, but for the most part that doesn't affect anyone much since it's spread out and underground. After the Coal has burned for power the radioactive elements have been significantly concentrated and are then released into the environment. Is it the same as standing next to a pile of spent fuel rods, of course not, but the amount of radiation released into the surrounding environment by a Coal plant is nearly ten times higher than that of a nuclear plant of similar size.
Annual exposures can be as high as 54 millirems per year. Cancer rates from radiation are estimated at 5.5% per sievert which when converted to 54 milirems gives a 0.00297% chance per person per year. That doesn't sound like much, but the effects add up. Studies of populations living near coal plants have shown effective cancer rates as being 17 times higher than normal.
*shrug* The point is that all power plants are dangerous, but some are more dangerous than others and nuclear is not the worst by a long shot. When we look at health effects on the total population combined with effects on the environment we should be building nuclear plants as fast as possible in order to replace Coal plants.
So still safer than Hydro, Natural Gas, Biofuel, Oil or Coal then?
Fly Ash from coal power releases nearly a hundred times as much radiation per kWhr than nuclear power even when you include nuclear disasters like Chernobyl.
Here's a list from Forbes on deaths per trillion kWhr:
Coal 170,000
Oil 36,000
Biofuel 24,000
Natural Gas 4,000
Hydro 1,400
Solar 440
Wind 150
Nuclear 90
Tell me again how Nuclear is the most dangerous choice?
but then youre one of those idiots who think the point of environmentalism is to kill freedom and impose tyranny on the world.
As implemented it's often true. What's worse is that the solutions implemented are often worse for the environment than the original problem.
Conservationists tend to be rational, environmentalists are for the most part off their rocker.
We don't have time for rational solutions!