- tax reform, including finally fixing the highest business tax rate in the world - 2 Supreme Court justices and dozens of lower court judges - defeat ISIS - Obamacare individual mandate gone - Peace on the Korean Peninsula - new North American Trade Deal - unemployment less than 4%, best since 1960s - US becomes world's leading oil producer
Yeah, I know. It's impossible for anyone to ever do anything different in response to any changes in climate or weather. Too bad. If only people could adapt in some way, then we wouldn't all be doooooomed.
Next you'll be telling me that celebrities doing product endorsements aren't genuinely enthusiastic about the products and are just doing it for money.
My faith in the purity of ad content is shaken to the core.
Also, there can never be more rain where they need more and less rain where they need less. Droughts and floods can only change one way. You'd think it would be possible for something to change for the better in at least one place, but no, it apparently isn't.
And it will be too warm for corn in corn areas, and too warm for soybeans farther south, but no way can the corn farmers switch and grow soybeans as it gets warmer. You'd think people might adapt, but no, apparently they can't.
Trains only go where they go. Perhaps a straight route from northern Utah to Boulder would exist. Perhaps not. Maybe a route exists through some 3rd location, requiring the rider to change trains and go significantly out of his way.
The point is that trains you wish existed (because, wow, that would be so convenient) always go from your home to your destination exactly when you want. That's how wishes work. Real trains go on real train routes on a set schedule. There's no general reason to believe real schedules or routes will happen to be convenient for you.
FWIW, most of what people do on their smartphones is social media, and most social media is consumed on smartphones, so conflating information about them might be a perfectly valid thing to do.
Games and texting and listening to music and web browsing aren't social media. That's most of what people do on their smartphones.
Just to make it worse, when the first commercial flight of ionic engines happens, we'll go "meh, old tech, this professor showed it in 2018 already. Why is there no innovation anymore?"
They'll complain that it pollutes their air with ions and that the batteries are made with materials that need to be mined. And it still uses energy, which should be saved for future generations (who also won't be allowed to use it because they'll also have to save it). Stay on the ground, huddled under blankets in the dark. For the Earth. That's what they'll say.
In a functioning one-party republic, citizens can still primary out an underperforming governor or state representative.
But none of that does any good if the underperformance is built into the party power structure. If the party is beholden to the union, and if the infrastructure problems are related to money being used for union pensions and to overpay union labor and union operators instead of being used for repairs or new construction, then primaries do nothing. You swap one person beholden to union interests for another person beholden to the same interests. The public interest becomes irrelevant.
NY State is also essentially one-party. NYC isn't going to elect Republican representatives to the statehouse or vote for a Republican governor. How can anyone be incentivized to solve any problems in NY state or NYC?
NYC doesn’t have a military budget. And the US Federal government isn't responsible for basic services in individual cities.
New York has to fix New York problems. Parachuting in random money doesn't work. The money finds it's way into various pockets and the original problem remains.
...what you say about 200 worker is nothing (it is probably a rounding error for a billion dollar project)
So who cares about a 25% obvious waste on infrastructure projects. That stuff gets a pass, because [partisan complaint about something else].
New Yorkers: You wanted your tax money spent wisely, building needed projects? Fuck you. You wanted infrastructure built for you to use? Fuck you. We're going to waste the money instead and use partisan complaints as our justifications.
Why are you falsely telling people jobs in NYC pay $10/hour? Why lie? Doesn't it completely invalidate your point when it's based on such an obvious falsehood?
It's easy to type "minimum wage in nyc" into Google, and yet here you are, pushing an obviously false number, apparently intending to mislead people. For what?
> What if we wanted to live our wasteful, polluting, convenience-at-any-cost lives rather than "reduce" them
There, FTFY.
You forgot sinful, which is really the jist of your point. Someone who was actually like you describe would feel guilty for committing such sins, if he was a believer in your religious philosophy. I'm not either of those things, so I can make my choices rationally, guilt-free. The Earth will be ok.
Because a non-trivial amount of the stuff that you "recycle" ends up in landfills (or the great pacific garbage patch). You may want to read up on the realities of recycling. And besides, anyone with even a passing knowledge of conservation knows that in the "reduce, recycle, reuse" manta, reduce is the best, reuse is next and the far worst is recycle. It's better than throwing it away outright, but it's still not very good compared to reduce and reuse.
What if we wanted to live our lives rather than "reduce" them to satisfy a (totally not religious) mantra?
If I’m going to choose to believe something, why wouldn't I choose to believe that the engineers who design and build landfills and the officials who regulate them are competent?
If history teaches us anything, it should teach us that people solve problems and, despite 1000 dire predictions, things turn out ok.
Protip: That lithium, that indium, that gallium, ALL ENVIRONMENTALLY TOXIC. It leaches into groundwater. Many landfills are now becoming superfund cleanup sites (which means dumped stuff started breaking down and leaking toxic substances into the environment, and it began affecting people.) Even the bismuth used in solder is toxic in a large enough dose, and lo and behold we've got a bismuth waste cleanup site just twenty miles north of the big-ass borax mine we have.
A moral panic is a feeling of fear spread among a large number of people that some evil threatens the well-being of society.
I prefer facts and reason over panic and hysteria.
Just because one or three landfills had problems a long time ago, that doesn't mean modern landfill will have those problems. Engineering gets better. We solve technical problems like that.
We don't have to give up on having a bright future because people like you can only look backward.
Slashdot Mirror
Advertising?
- tax reform, including finally fixing the highest business tax rate in the world
- 2 Supreme Court justices and dozens of lower court judges
- defeat ISIS
- Obamacare individual mandate gone
- Peace on the Korean Peninsula
- new North American Trade Deal
- unemployment less than 4%, best since 1960s
- US becomes world's leading oil producer
Success is its own advertisement
Yeah, I know. It's impossible for anyone to ever do anything different in response to any changes in climate or weather. Too bad. If only people could adapt in some way, then we wouldn't all be doooooomed.
Next you'll be telling me that celebrities doing product endorsements aren't genuinely enthusiastic about the products and are just doing it for money.
My faith in the purity of ad content is shaken to the core.
Also, there can never be more rain where they need more and less rain where they need less. Droughts and floods can only change one way. You'd think it would be possible for something to change for the better in at least one place, but no, it apparently isn't.
And it will be too warm for corn in corn areas, and too warm for soybeans farther south, but no way can the corn farmers switch and grow soybeans as it gets warmer. You'd think people might adapt, but no, apparently they can't.
Sad.
Trains only go where they go. Perhaps a straight route from northern Utah to Boulder would exist. Perhaps not. Maybe a route exists through some 3rd location, requiring the rider to change trains and go significantly out of his way.
The point is that trains you wish existed (because, wow, that would be so convenient) always go from your home to your destination exactly when you want. That's how wishes work. Real trains go on real train routes on a set schedule. There's no general reason to believe real schedules or routes will happen to be convenient for you.
YouTube isn’t social media. If "Messenger" isn't Facebook's, that’s not social media either.
Games don’t crack the top 10 because they are many.
Read the other answers. Summary: people in developing countries have more immediate things to worry about.
Also they don't have the same kind of news media trying to troll them 24/7.
FWIW, most of what people do on their smartphones is social media, and most social media is consumed on smartphones, so conflating information about them might be a perfectly valid thing to do.
Games and texting and listening to music and web browsing aren't social media. That's most of what people do on their smartphones.
Social media is also accessed over WiFi service. Would it make sense to ask people if they like WiFi service in connection with social media?
Obviously this could also be done via rail service, if functional long-distance passenger rail existed in the US.
And just coincidentally started at a terminal near your home and ended at a terminal near your destination.
Just to make it worse, when the first commercial flight of ionic engines happens, we'll go "meh, old tech, this professor showed it in 2018 already. Why is there no innovation anymore?"
They'll complain that it pollutes their air with ions and that the batteries are made with materials that need to be mined. And it still uses energy, which should be saved for future generations (who also won't be allowed to use it because they'll also have to save it). Stay on the ground, huddled under blankets in the dark. For the Earth. That's what they'll say.
Smart phones are not social media. Why does the summary conflate the two?
In a functioning one-party republic, citizens can still primary out an underperforming governor or state representative.
But none of that does any good if the underperformance is built into the party power structure. If the party is beholden to the union, and if the infrastructure problems are related to money being used for union pensions and to overpay union labor and union operators instead of being used for repairs or new construction, then primaries do nothing. You swap one person beholden to union interests for another person beholden to the same interests. The public interest becomes irrelevant.
NY State is also essentially one-party. NYC isn't going to elect Republican representatives to the statehouse or vote for a Republican governor. How can anyone be incentivized to solve any problems in NY state or NYC?
NYC doesn’t have a military budget. And the US Federal government isn't responsible for basic services in individual cities.
New York has to fix New York problems. Parachuting in random money doesn't work. The money finds it's way into various pockets and the original problem remains.
...what you say about 200 worker is nothing (it is probably a rounding error for a billion dollar project)
So who cares about a 25% obvious waste on infrastructure projects. That stuff gets a pass, because [partisan complaint about something else].
New Yorkers: You wanted your tax money spent wisely, building needed projects? Fuck you. You wanted infrastructure built for you to use? Fuck you. We're going to waste the money instead and use partisan complaints as our justifications.
It's identifying (and rectifying) why services have become unreliable to the point people don't want to use them.
Identifying the problem is easy. What if it can't be fixed without dramatic changes that will negatively affect powerful political interests?
NYC has one-party government. How is anyone involved incentivised to do anything beyond the absolute minimum to keep a paycheck?
New Yorkers are upset. So what? What are they going to do, vote Republican?
Why are you falsely telling people jobs in NYC pay $10/hour? Why lie? Doesn't it completely invalidate your point when it's based on such an obvious falsehood?
It's easy to type "minimum wage in nyc" into Google, and yet here you are, pushing an obviously false number, apparently intending to mislead people. For what?
Slashdot continues its downward slide.
All caps guy wonders why others don't take him seriously.
Well, if you put words in people's mouths, you can wend your way to any conclusion you like.
The FTFY guy complains about putting words in mouths. Funny.
> What if we wanted to live our wasteful, polluting, convenience-at-any-cost lives rather than "reduce" them
There, FTFY.
You forgot sinful, which is really the jist of your point. Someone who was actually like you describe would feel guilty for committing such sins, if he was a believer in your religious philosophy. I'm not either of those things, so I can make my choices rationally, guilt-free. The Earth will be ok.
Because a non-trivial amount of the stuff that you "recycle" ends up in landfills (or the great pacific garbage patch). You may want to read up on the realities of recycling. And besides, anyone with even a passing knowledge of conservation knows that in the "reduce, recycle, reuse" manta, reduce is the best, reuse is next and the far worst is recycle. It's better than throwing it away outright, but it's still not very good compared to reduce and reuse.
What if we wanted to live our lives rather than "reduce" them to satisfy a (totally not religious) mantra?
If I’m going to choose to believe something, why wouldn't I choose to believe that the engineers who design and build landfills and the officials who regulate them are competent?
If history teaches us anything, it should teach us that people solve problems and, despite 1000 dire predictions, things turn out ok.
Protip: That lithium, that indium, that gallium, ALL ENVIRONMENTALLY TOXIC. It leaches into groundwater. Many landfills are now becoming superfund cleanup sites (which means dumped stuff started breaking down and leaking toxic substances into the environment, and it began affecting people.) Even the bismuth used in solder is toxic in a large enough dose, and lo and behold we've got a bismuth waste cleanup site just twenty miles north of the big-ass borax mine we have.
From Wikipedia:
I prefer facts and reason over panic and hysteria.
Just because one or three landfills had problems a long time ago, that doesn't mean modern landfill will have those problems. Engineering gets better. We solve technical problems like that.
We don't have to give up on having a bright future because people like you can only look backward.
You can't post a funny video of any animal without some hysterical nutcases freaking out.