If you had a business where revenue was 20% lower than it could be, wouldn't you want to do something about that too? Wired probably isn't having trouble keeping the lights on, but some sites actually are. Offering a subscription model is fine - Patreon is really easy to use, and it means I can just pay content creators directly.
You're using *their* electricity by looking at their content too. I'll grant you the bit about computer integrity - not many places actually check ads to make sure they aren't bad. However, distracting your attention? Too bad - that's the price they're asking for in order to give you content, and it's not "abusing" your resources. If it's not something you're willing to give them, don't read the site.
Don't get me wrong - I use a general adblocker for security purposes. If ads were safe, I probably wouldn't - or I'd use a subscription service if it was content I liked a lot.
They may not know it unless you tell them. Their managers might just give them a list of numbers and not mention the DNC list. In addition, knowing that something you're doing is illegal, and not caring that it's illegal isn't necessarily sociopathic. Jaywalking safely is illegal, but you aren't a sociopath for doing it.
No, North America is a continent, and South America is a different continent. "America" is an accepted name for the U.S., and "the Americas" refers to both American continents.
I dunno, it seems like it should be easier to put panels on the roads themselves (as long as they're tough enough) than it would be to mount them on poles. You might also have better resilience to natural disasters - poles get knocked down all the time. Plus, you need fewer connections to the power grid with roads - might be easier to manage that way, and probably cost a bit less.
Any land we're already using that could be used for solar generation seems fine to me - rooftops are probably better, but there are a lot of roads around anyways. I think a small test project would be better than committing to 1 Mm of roads, but I guess we'll see where it goes.
About 80 years ago, sure, but that's still a pretty big gift, and one that would let them spend more a) initially on setting up the grid and b) spend more on upgrades over time, as they don't have to pay loans back. The original money isn't relevant to rates now, but it may be relevant in how it shaped the grid's formation.
Those are all pretty good points. I do think CA's infrastructure would be harder to maintain still - they certainly don't have ice storms, but as you said, there are earthquakes. It may also be more expensive to get permission to run lines in CA (whether that's through buying rights to put lines up or lobbying politicians to use eminent domain).
I think property taxes are more important than you're giving them credit for - they're often the largest tax people pay, as CA's rates (and property) are much higher than TN's - TN also only applies their tax rate to 25% of the property's assessed value.
There's also state regulatory costs to take into account - I don't know how I'd go about finding those, but I would have a hard time believing CA has less stringent regulations. How much that affects the price of electricity, I don't know.
Ultimately, I think the TVA does good work, but I'm not sure a TN/CA comparison is the best, since there are a lot of other differences between the two states. I'm certainly willing to admit that in some cases, non-profit power companies are better, but at this point I'm not going to say they're inherently better.
Couldn't you just make a new mold if you had an intact DeLorean? I don't know all that much about making molds, but it seems like something you could do.
So they're using old parts (which may not be very good any more) and not upgrading safety features? Do they have to comply with newer safety (and for that matter, emissions) standards?
I think another big difference you're overlooking is the fact that the TVA received a lot of initial funding to build facilities, whereas many other places did not. TN also has a much smaller and easier to manage grid than CA does. I think costs for labor would likely be at least double that of TN, especially in the Bay Area.
In addition, how heavily are the electricity providers taxed in each setting? I believe the TVA doesn't pay corporate taxes, as it's a non-profit. For-profit companies have incentives to keep the end price high, but not the cost to produce. They do still want to be efficient - no sense wasting money if you can avoid it.
Your argument seems plausible, but I'd prefer to see an actual study before I'd be convinced. Still, you did manage to make me think more about it, so this is already a good discussion.
The Earth is a flat, hollow disc, but nobody can live on the other side of it because of the mole-people. They're at war with the lizard-people who run our world, duh./s
You could say "the free market doesn't work in this case because x, y, z" but that's not what the GP did. Furthermore, a free market of energy sellers on those wires is still a free market. You could easily regulate the costs of grid upkeep into their taxes or fees, and that doesn't remove its "free market" designation.
The places with the lowest rates are usually places where the governments have started nonprofits like TVA to handle energy production.
Do you have a citation for that? I don't agree with nonprofits being *inherently* better. In some cases, they may be, but it really depends on the management.
Well, "finding a cure for cancer and suppressing it" and "not looking much for a cure for cancer" are two very different things. The second one is more plausible, although possibly not actually very profitable (since cancer cures could certainly cost a lot, and you don't make much if they die in a year anyways). If you don't do all that research, you'll never know if it's a cure for cancer anyway.
I agree that seems to be the result of the paper, but I think that also ultimately means it's not very helpful. People who believe those conspiracy theories already think it's unraveled because they "found out about it". As such, I'm not sure it's a particularly useful result when trying to convince someone that a conspiracy theory is false (which admittedly is almost always impossible anyways).
Interference does not necessarily prevent a market from being free. It distorts the markets, but free market != totally unregulated market. Price controls would make a market not free, but incentives (based on changing the flow of money to/from government) are different.
I'm hugely in favor of free markets, but I feel compelled to point out that even with these rules, it's still a free market. Changing incentives doesn't make a market not free. The incentives distort the market, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Intervening in markets should not be done on a whim, but in some cases it is the best option.
That's fair. Employment participation rate is sometimes a better indicator of how the economy is doing, but I think it's going to become less good in the next few decades as population age demographics shift more towards the elderly.
Note that 6.5% of actors (based on best estimates from the BLS) are black. That's where the 1.3 came from. Blacks are certainly underrepresented in acting by population demographics, that's true.
It's possible that subtle racism is at work here (this year and last year); however, over the last 20 years, black actors and actresses have won 12.5% of Oscars, which actually does match pretty closely to demographics (~13% of the US is black). Since 2000, 80 actors have been nominated for best actor, and 10 have been black. Again, this matches demographics closely.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the field of "Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations", 6.5% of workers are black (unfortunately, "actors" isn't split off by itself, as there aren't enough of them for the BLS to keep track separately). Since there are 20 actors nominated each year, you'd expect them to have 1.3 people nominated. Two years in a row of not having anyone nominated isn't that far off, and historically they're pretty much exactly tracking population demographics (which means that blacks, who are underrepresented in acting by population demographics, are actually slightly overrepresented in awards). If it happens again next year, then that might be evidence of racism, but so far it's not necessarily racism, although I'm not ruling it out.
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If you had a business where revenue was 20% lower than it could be, wouldn't you want to do something about that too? Wired probably isn't having trouble keeping the lights on, but some sites actually are. Offering a subscription model is fine - Patreon is really easy to use, and it means I can just pay content creators directly.
You're using *their* electricity by looking at their content too. I'll grant you the bit about computer integrity - not many places actually check ads to make sure they aren't bad. However, distracting your attention? Too bad - that's the price they're asking for in order to give you content, and it's not "abusing" your resources. If it's not something you're willing to give them, don't read the site.
Don't get me wrong - I use a general adblocker for security purposes. If ads were safe, I probably wouldn't - or I'd use a subscription service if it was content I liked a lot.
They may not know it unless you tell them. Their managers might just give them a list of numbers and not mention the DNC list. In addition, knowing that something you're doing is illegal, and not caring that it's illegal isn't necessarily sociopathic. Jaywalking safely is illegal, but you aren't a sociopath for doing it.
And someone who says libertarians (you know, the small government people) are fascists.
No, North America is a continent, and South America is a different continent. "America" is an accepted name for the U.S., and "the Americas" refers to both American continents.
I dunno, it seems like it should be easier to put panels on the roads themselves (as long as they're tough enough) than it would be to mount them on poles. You might also have better resilience to natural disasters - poles get knocked down all the time. Plus, you need fewer connections to the power grid with roads - might be easier to manage that way, and probably cost a bit less.
Any land we're already using that could be used for solar generation seems fine to me - rooftops are probably better, but there are a lot of roads around anyways. I think a small test project would be better than committing to 1 Mm of roads, but I guess we'll see where it goes.
About 80 years ago, sure, but that's still a pretty big gift, and one that would let them spend more a) initially on setting up the grid and b) spend more on upgrades over time, as they don't have to pay loans back. The original money isn't relevant to rates now, but it may be relevant in how it shaped the grid's formation.
Those are all pretty good points. I do think CA's infrastructure would be harder to maintain still - they certainly don't have ice storms, but as you said, there are earthquakes. It may also be more expensive to get permission to run lines in CA (whether that's through buying rights to put lines up or lobbying politicians to use eminent domain).
I think property taxes are more important than you're giving them credit for - they're often the largest tax people pay, as CA's rates (and property) are much higher than TN's - TN also only applies their tax rate to 25% of the property's assessed value.
There's also state regulatory costs to take into account - I don't know how I'd go about finding those, but I would have a hard time believing CA has less stringent regulations. How much that affects the price of electricity, I don't know.
Ultimately, I think the TVA does good work, but I'm not sure a TN/CA comparison is the best, since there are a lot of other differences between the two states. I'm certainly willing to admit that in some cases, non-profit power companies are better, but at this point I'm not going to say they're inherently better.
Yep, him or Morgan Freeman.
Huh, that's interesting, thanks!
Couldn't you just make a new mold if you had an intact DeLorean? I don't know all that much about making molds, but it seems like something you could do.
So they're using old parts (which may not be very good any more) and not upgrading safety features? Do they have to comply with newer safety (and for that matter, emissions) standards?
I think another big difference you're overlooking is the fact that the TVA received a lot of initial funding to build facilities, whereas many other places did not. TN also has a much smaller and easier to manage grid than CA does. I think costs for labor would likely be at least double that of TN, especially in the Bay Area.
In addition, how heavily are the electricity providers taxed in each setting? I believe the TVA doesn't pay corporate taxes, as it's a non-profit. For-profit companies have incentives to keep the end price high, but not the cost to produce. They do still want to be efficient - no sense wasting money if you can avoid it.
Your argument seems plausible, but I'd prefer to see an actual study before I'd be convinced. Still, you did manage to make me think more about it, so this is already a good discussion.
Of course - do you really think squid and porcupines are natural creatures? They're alien observers, man.
The Earth is a flat, hollow disc, but nobody can live on the other side of it because of the mole-people. They're at war with the lizard-people who run our world, duh. /s
The places with the lowest rates are usually places where the governments have started nonprofits like TVA to handle energy production.
Do you have a citation for that? I don't agree with nonprofits being *inherently* better. In some cases, they may be, but it really depends on the management.
Well, "finding a cure for cancer and suppressing it" and "not looking much for a cure for cancer" are two very different things. The second one is more plausible, although possibly not actually very profitable (since cancer cures could certainly cost a lot, and you don't make much if they die in a year anyways). If you don't do all that research, you'll never know if it's a cure for cancer anyway.
I agree that seems to be the result of the paper, but I think that also ultimately means it's not very helpful. People who believe those conspiracy theories already think it's unraveled because they "found out about it". As such, I'm not sure it's a particularly useful result when trying to convince someone that a conspiracy theory is false (which admittedly is almost always impossible anyways).
You say
Because the free market does not work. You are a captive buyer of energy utilities
but that's not a free market. You can't say "free market doesn't work" and use an example that's not a free market to support your argument.
Interference does not necessarily prevent a market from being free. It distorts the markets, but free market != totally unregulated market. Price controls would make a market not free, but incentives (based on changing the flow of money to/from government) are different.
I'm hugely in favor of free markets, but I feel compelled to point out that even with these rules, it's still a free market. Changing incentives doesn't make a market not free. The incentives distort the market, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Intervening in markets should not be done on a whim, but in some cases it is the best option.
But since Asians and Hispanics need Oscars too, does that mean they can only go to mixed-race people? Otherwise they can't all get 50%.
Whoops, there I go with math facts again, sorry. That's ableism, I think.
That's fair. Employment participation rate is sometimes a better indicator of how the economy is doing, but I think it's going to become less good in the next few decades as population age demographics shift more towards the elderly.
Note that 6.5% of actors (based on best estimates from the BLS) are black. That's where the 1.3 came from. Blacks are certainly underrepresented in acting by population demographics, that's true.
You could always run it at 1/10 speed.
It's possible that subtle racism is at work here (this year and last year); however, over the last 20 years, black actors and actresses have won 12.5% of Oscars, which actually does match pretty closely to demographics (~13% of the US is black). Since 2000, 80 actors have been nominated for best actor, and 10 have been black. Again, this matches demographics closely.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the field of "Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations", 6.5% of workers are black (unfortunately, "actors" isn't split off by itself, as there aren't enough of them for the BLS to keep track separately). Since there are 20 actors nominated each year, you'd expect them to have 1.3 people nominated. Two years in a row of not having anyone nominated isn't that far off, and historically they're pretty much exactly tracking population demographics (which means that blacks, who are underrepresented in acting by population demographics, are actually slightly overrepresented in awards). If it happens again next year, then that might be evidence of racism, but so far it's not necessarily racism, although I'm not ruling it out.