Yeah that would explain the infant mortality rates and death in childbirth. All those 3 year olds were just driving to their playdates when they got blindsided. And those mothers? Giving birth in their cars when they got flattened by a hummer.
>> No. I will never agree that it is right to steal from one person in order to grant some kind of "right" to another person.
Cool, let's just let all the poor people die. Their lives aren't worth anything right? Screw them and their non-wealthy ways. God made this planet for wealthy people, not for some poor schlob that can't pay his insurance bills!
You go on and on about "compelling" others to do things for you. And yet that's exactly what is happening with so many government services. Right now you are compelling someone to build roads for you. Oh my god! Better privatize that because government services are like slavery! Or maybe you're just spouting bullshit you heard on Fox.
"Also, what do you intend to do about the large number of physicians who've said that they intend to leave the profession if socialized medicine passes?"
First of all, this is complete and total bullshit. Where is the list of physicians that will actually leave? And where are they going? Into magical fairy land? How is it that highly socialized countries like Denmark, Sweden, Norway don't have a problem getting physicians. By your braindamaged logic there shouldn't be a doctor in sight.
You completely miss the point. Manual gearboxes are all almost the same since the 1920s. A choke is a tiny detail (my bike still has one). Manual steering is a tiny detail (how much effort does it take), and ABS doesn't affect the interface at all.
>> It doesn't scale well or at all to netbooks
Market proves you wrong. The first netbooks had customized interfaces with icon launchers and whatever. People didn't like it. Now almost every single netbook uses bone-stock windows.
>> or smartphones
Completely different and we're not talking about that at all. The topic here is linux UI, not phone-UI.
>> It assumes and requires both keyboard and mouse
That's exactly what I said. The current desktop metaphor will remain until we move on to a different set of input devices. Touch screens will never be mainstream in a desktop computing environment, so that next generation is going to be more like direct muscle or brain input. That's decades away.
All the rest of your gripes are due to shitty software, not anything fundamentally wrong with the UI. There's lots to do, but nothing groundbreaking. Just tweaks.
The UI is more or less a solved problem, sort of like the controls of a car.
If you believe that, then by all means, enjoy what you can buy today. Heck, I know people who still live in EMACS.
-jcr
I do believe that. And the last 20 years of UI design is evidence for me being right. There is incremental evolution, but all the radical concepts fell by the wayside. Good luck with that.
>> What I'd love to see happen with the Linux desktop is some serious re-thinkng of how a UI should be done.
Why? The UI is more or less a solved problem, sort of like the controls of a car. Yes there are some minor innovations here and there. Someone adds some taskbar effects or a nicer way of moving through open windows, or someone adds a steering wheel control for the radio. These little tweaks will go on for a long time, but the basic idea of a desktop is a solved problem, and doesn't need re-inventing. Just like the car, where our standard design is almost perfect for most people, and all of the radical attempts at revamping it have failed because they offer no significant advantage.
The desktop UI isn't going anywhere until we move away from our current interfaces. The next major step will happen when we're no longer tied to a keyboard/mouse combo. Until then why whinge about the state of the UI? It fits the application just fine.
>> If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources
Uh, where do you think those leftovers come from? Those leftovers are food. If you routinely have enough leftovers to feed a dog you're cooking way too much food. We rarely have leftovers, and if we do, we eat them the next day.
So your logic is about as sound as me saying "Dog's aren't the problem, because I buy a bag of dog food every week and throw it in the garbage. If I had a dog I could just give it to the dog and it would be the same!!"
>>If you think I should be spending all my free time coding after putting in more than 40 hours of coding at work, then you have no understanding of work-life balance.
Well no one is saying that, but nice strawman. The point is not that someone should spend all their time coding after work, the point is they should, at some point have demonstrated that they do like programming/design/whatever enough to do something on their own time. That might be 10 years ago in college, that might be a couple hours every month on something trivial.. It doesn't matter, the point is when someone is openly hostile to the very concept of programming after work, they are likely not the best candidate when you're hiring.
>> The truth is I have a few outside projects every now and again
Haha. Funny, another person that tries to argue against programming outside work time, and then admits they do just that.
Just like the last guy that had been apparently programming since he was 3, and then claimed he had no interest in programming outside of work, and furthermore that it was a waste of time done only by those people with nothing better to do.
When I look for evidence that an applicant has done something in his spare time, I check if there was any initiative, not that they're spending 20 hours a week doing that. A few projects here and there is _exactly_ the kind of thing that gets people noticed when I'm trying to fill a position.
>> And thus, the asshole you all know and love is born.
Yeah.. Calling yourself an asshole isn't funny when it's true. So in addition to not actually enjoying what he does, he's also a complete idiot that would rather wage some childish noise war than walk over to ask if she could please turn it down.
You're trying to argue that coding outside work is not necessary, but in fact have proven the opposite point.
You've been coding since you were 3 (sure, whatever), and now you claim to be a good coder. Well if that is true, it means you are now good because you spent about 12-15 years coding outside work! If I saw your resume, I would count that as showing true initiative and passion for the art/science/activity of software development, and give huge priority to that resume over someone who first learned to code in college.
The fact that you don't code outside work now is mostly irrelevant in my book. Like you said, the best part about coding is learning, and eventually you get to a level where you've learned most of everything that excites you about programming, and the rest (design, large systems, whatever) is covered at work.
Yeah but I bet they did program outside work when they were younger. Of course once you have a family there really isn't enough time to do any serious programming outside of work (unless that's your only hobby). However when a programmer is younger and has few commitments, I expect them to have done some programming in their spare time. The good ones generally did, and when it comes down to hiring, someone with a hobby project on the side (even if it was years ago) will be very likely picked over someone that doesn't have anything.
Yeah that line of reasoning is also somewhat faulty when people argue about whether to buy something to save time. "Well I make $50/hour so if I take a helicopter instead of driving I pay $200 but save 5 hours so it's cheaper to fly" Sure it's perhaps more cost-efficient, but in the end you're still out more money.
When the time they're arguing about is not work time, the whole thing becomes even more dubious. "It's cheaper to go out for food every day, because if you factor in the time it takes to cook your own meal then cooking is more expensive". Then they spend their saved time doing nothing productive and wonder why they don't have any money.
Yes I should have checked that, no it doesn't really make a difference to my point, which is that the likelyhood of alcor surviving for several hundred years is vanishingly small.
Also, a company like Kong Gumi, where the only requirement for survival is to have some dude with a toolbelt willing to own the business isn't exactly the same as being organized enough to run a big facility that needs constant maintenance, security, taxes paid, etc.
>> The rest of your points are equally specious and collapse with any kind of scrutiny.
Awesome argument. "Your points suck therefore they're wrong." Let me guess, debate team champion?
I suspect you're grossly overestimating the cost of cryonic suspension and the cost of an insurance policy for a healthy non-smoker in his early 30's.
Alcor state the minimum payout for complete suspension is $150,000. The insurance companies are not stupid, and they're making money, so you're paying at least that much over the life of the policy (and likely more) to cover their risk and eventual expenditure. Up to you what you use your money for of course, but don't pretend it's not a lot.
Eric Drexler estimates that it'll happen within our lifetimes (or at least my lifetime), and the trends in nanotech development point to him being not too far off.
Sure, and we're all in flying cars too. Huge difference between some nanotech procedures being possible to bringing someone back and then reversing their aging fast enough so that they don't immediately die again. You're vastly oversimplifying the problem.
I suspect that nothing short of a global cataclysm will keep us from reaching that goal in this century, and I'm willing to bet my life on that.
You're basing your predictions on technological advancement on recent (50 year) trends that have been safe and prosperous for the world. The challenges of overpopulation, climate change and environmental degradation will pretty much guarantee increased volatility in the future. History shows that good times don't go on forever.
Why would they bother to revive us? Again, I covered this in the FAQ.
Not convincingly.
The PCT is under contractual obligation,
A contract where one of the parties has been dead for generations. I'm sure that will be hard to break.
and one of the requirements to be on the board of directors is that you have to have a family member already in the tank, so they have a vested interest in their well-being.
As if those board members will still be alive. In the best case a board member might have some very distant ancestor in there.
Why does anyone help anyone in a critical medical situation?
Because they are paid to do so (doctors, medical professionals). This is not like dragging some stranger one out of a burning car at all.
You can call the question naive if you like, but the fact is that people do help each other.
Sure, that's why there's no suffering in the world that could be prevented. It's because everyone is so nice and wants to help. In the future there will certainly still be suffering. Why would a moral person in the future help you (who experiences nothing, and thus is not suffering) over helping a real living suffering person? That makes no sense. Altruistic people will always have more worthy causes than bringing back icicles.
If nothing else, it's likely that anyone who does get revived will be highly motivated to rescue their fellow cryonauts. (I base this statement on my personal interactions with over 2 dozen Alcor members, every one of whom would take that position.)
Motivated yes, but they certainly won't have the knowledge, resources, or training to do so, so that motivation is pretty much pointless.
If you prefer to disregard basic human empathy entirely, and are looking for a completely economic/rational reason, as technology continues to improve and spread eventually the cost of reviving patients will be less than the cost of maintaining their stasis.
And that wild conjecture is based on what? The cost of reviving them (if ever possible) will come down, but there's nothing to say that preservation techniques won't improve as well to the point where they are essentially free. Now they keep you in liquid nitrogen. In the future they will blast you with the freezie laser and forget about you.
And even if we were to accept your argument of losing money over long-term (which history has shown to be false, even during turbulent times such as these), the value of gold has stayed fairly same for most of the human existence.
Not everyone loses money during turbulent times, but lots of people certainly do. There's no indication that the cryogenics companies will be one of the lucky few to survive major upheaval.
Same goes for the investment in gold. While you are right, Alcor themselves don't seem to have built up any gold reserve to ensure their survival (maybe I'm wrong, I didn't spend too much time checking). On the topic of their finances, their FAQ states: "The rest of the Trust investments are held at the investment firm of Morgan Stanley." Sounds like plain jane investments, not a storehouse of gold bars.
Damn, as I was writing that part I was thinking I should probably check that:) Neat to read about.
I retract my original statement then and modify it to "That's incredibly unlikely, since only a handful of companies of the millions/billions that have ever existed have survived that long"
Re:Geek funeral?
on
A Geek Funeral
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Sorry, your FAQ isn't very convincing. Firstly, you're screwing over any possible dependents by making Alcor your insurance beneficiary. Unless you want to pay for two life insurance policies, you're screwing over your kids/family/whomever on some hare-brained scheme for some infinitely small chance that you might "live" again in the future. Selfish at best, unless you are wealthy.
Then there's your certainty that the company will survive for the hundreds or thousands of years it will take for technology to be at the point where they can revive you. That's incredibly unlikely, since no company in history has survived for that long (your arguments about financial stability are laughable, since there will almost certainly be several currency devaluations and government, society, and world upheavals in that period). I put the chances of you actually staying frozen for 1000 years at basically zero.
And then you think that they would bother to revive you. That too is staggeringly unlikely. Sure, they would revive a few people just to prove that it can be done. But after that, why would they bother? There'll be tens or hundreds of billions of humans around, do you really think they'll need more? They got a couple hundred thousand dollars 1000 years ago to keep you frozen, do you really think they would go to the significant expense and effort to revive you, and then reverse your aging as well? Why would they bother? There's no more incentive for them to do that at all (altruism, don't make me laugh). Even if they've conquered aging by then, that's not at all the same as reversing the aging process, and will most likely not be trivial.
Finally, what I don't understand is this certainty that being frozen and revived beats the pants off being dead. How could you possibly know that? No one knows. Maybe if you were properly dead you'd be in heaven (not that I believe in that). Instead you get to spend the next thousand years being really freaking cold. Or maybe death would be oblivion (more likely) and you couldn't form any opinion of it since you can't think, so it's not bad, or good, or anything really.
Silly comparison. QNX is not slow, but it also has about 1/100th or the features that Linux has. If it had all those features it would most likely be comparably huge/slow/bloated.
Regen braking systems are about 30% efficient right now. So yes, if each mountain is about a third of the size of the previous one you'll be fine. But don't kid yourself into thinking you're recovering the vast majority of the energy it took to get up.
The big picture is that the age of oil is coming to an end. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's happening. Before the recession hit you could see where the price of oil was going. As soon as the recession is over it will go back there and beyond. We've been given a temporary reprieve, and I think it's fantastic that electric cars and other solutions are being taken seriously by most major companies. The fact of global warming is an entirely unrelated but also large component of the big picture.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah that would explain the infant mortality rates and death in childbirth. All those 3 year olds were just driving to their playdates when they got blindsided. And those mothers? Giving birth in their cars when they got flattened by a hummer.
>> No. I will never agree that it is right to steal from one person in order to grant some kind of "right" to another person.
Cool, let's just let all the poor people die. Their lives aren't worth anything right? Screw them and their non-wealthy ways. God made this planet for wealthy people, not for some poor schlob that can't pay his insurance bills!
You go on and on about "compelling" others to do things for you. And yet that's exactly what is happening with so many government services. Right now you are compelling someone to build roads for you. Oh my god! Better privatize that because government services are like slavery! Or maybe you're just spouting bullshit you heard on Fox.
"Also, what do you intend to do about the large number of physicians who've said that they intend to leave the profession if socialized medicine passes?"
First of all, this is complete and total bullshit. Where is the list of physicians that will actually leave? And where are they going? Into magical fairy land? How is it that highly socialized countries like Denmark, Sweden, Norway don't have a problem getting physicians. By your braindamaged logic there shouldn't be a doctor in sight.
You completely miss the point. Manual gearboxes are all almost the same since the 1920s. A choke is a tiny detail (my bike still has one). Manual steering is a tiny detail (how much effort does it take), and ABS doesn't affect the interface at all.
>> It doesn't scale well or at all to netbooks
Market proves you wrong. The first netbooks had customized interfaces with icon launchers and whatever. People didn't like it. Now almost every single netbook uses bone-stock windows.
>> or smartphones
Completely different and we're not talking about that at all. The topic here is linux UI, not phone-UI.
>> It assumes and requires both keyboard and mouse
That's exactly what I said. The current desktop metaphor will remain until we move on to a different set of input devices. Touch screens will never be mainstream in a desktop computing environment, so that next generation is going to be more like direct muscle or brain input. That's decades away.
All the rest of your gripes are due to shitty software, not anything fundamentally wrong with the UI. There's lots to do, but nothing groundbreaking. Just tweaks.
The UI is more or less a solved problem, sort of like the controls of a car.
If you believe that, then by all means, enjoy what you can buy today. Heck, I know people who still live in EMACS.
-jcr
I do believe that. And the last 20 years of UI design is evidence for me being right. There is incremental evolution, but all the radical concepts fell by the wayside. Good luck with that.
>> What I'd love to see happen with the Linux desktop is some serious re-thinkng of how a UI should be done.
Why? The UI is more or less a solved problem, sort of like the controls of a car. Yes there are some minor innovations here and there. Someone adds some taskbar effects or a nicer way of moving through open windows, or someone adds a steering wheel control for the radio. These little tweaks will go on for a long time, but the basic idea of a desktop is a solved problem, and doesn't need re-inventing. Just like the car, where our standard design is almost perfect for most people, and all of the radical attempts at revamping it have failed because they offer no significant advantage.
The desktop UI isn't going anywhere until we move away from our current interfaces. The next major step will happen when we're no longer tied to a keyboard/mouse combo. Until then why whinge about the state of the UI? It fits the application just fine.
>> If you give your dog the left overs from the table , instead of throwing it in the garbage can , i can't see it consume any natural resources
Uh, where do you think those leftovers come from? Those leftovers are food. If you routinely have enough leftovers to feed a dog you're cooking way too much food. We rarely have leftovers, and if we do, we eat them the next day.
So your logic is about as sound as me saying "Dog's aren't the problem, because I buy a bag of dog food every week and throw it in the garbage. If I had a dog I could just give it to the dog and it would be the same!!"
Wow, ok mr spaz. Did you miss the part in my post where I said I didn't expect people to spend all their spare time programming?
Perhaps it would help to take a reading comprehension course in your spare time.
>>If you think I should be spending all my free time coding after putting in more than 40 hours of coding at work, then you have no understanding of work-life balance.
Well no one is saying that, but nice strawman. The point is not that someone should spend all their time coding after work, the point is they should, at some point have demonstrated that they do like programming/design/whatever enough to do something on their own time. That might be 10 years ago in college, that might be a couple hours every month on something trivial.. It doesn't matter, the point is when someone is openly hostile to the very concept of programming after work, they are likely not the best candidate when you're hiring.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_szIZo6tf98
>> The truth is I have a few outside projects every now and again
Haha. Funny, another person that tries to argue against programming outside work time, and then admits they do just that.
Just like the last guy that had been apparently programming since he was 3, and then claimed he had no interest in programming outside of work, and furthermore that it was a waste of time done only by those people with nothing better to do.
When I look for evidence that an applicant has done something in his spare time, I check if there was any initiative, not that they're spending 20 hours a week doing that. A few projects here and there is _exactly_ the kind of thing that gets people noticed when I'm trying to fill a position.
Turns out my job is my passion, and thus a part of my life. Funny how that works.
>> A man with a life, apparently.
Oh, zing! Like any other hobby is more valid than programming. Hobbies are all equally worthless and valuable at the same time.
>> Read some of the posts below mine if you're not sure.
Magical future seer, what do these future replies say?
>> And thus, the asshole you all know and love is born.
Yeah.. Calling yourself an asshole isn't funny when it's true.
So in addition to not actually enjoying what he does, he's also a complete idiot that would rather wage some childish noise war than walk over to ask if she could please turn it down.
You're trying to argue that coding outside work is not necessary, but in fact have proven the opposite point.
You've been coding since you were 3 (sure, whatever), and now you claim to be a good coder. Well if that is true, it means you are now good because you spent about 12-15 years coding outside work! If I saw your resume, I would count that as showing true initiative and passion for the art/science/activity of software development, and give huge priority to that resume over someone who first learned to code in college.
The fact that you don't code outside work now is mostly irrelevant in my book. Like you said, the best part about coding is learning, and eventually you get to a level where you've learned most of everything that excites you about programming, and the rest (design, large systems, whatever) is covered at work.
Yeah but I bet they did program outside work when they were younger. Of course once you have a family there really isn't enough time to do any serious programming outside of work (unless that's your only hobby).
However when a programmer is younger and has few commitments, I expect them to have done some programming in their spare time. The good ones generally did, and when it comes down to hiring, someone with a hobby project on the side (even if it was years ago) will be very likely picked over someone that doesn't have anything.
Yeah that line of reasoning is also somewhat faulty when people argue about whether to buy something to save time. "Well I make $50/hour so if I take a helicopter instead of driving I pay $200 but save 5 hours so it's cheaper to fly" Sure it's perhaps more cost-efficient, but in the end you're still out more money.
When the time they're arguing about is not work time, the whole thing becomes even more dubious. "It's cheaper to go out for food every day, because if you factor in the time it takes to cook your own meal then cooking is more expensive". Then they spend their saved time doing nothing productive and wonder why they don't have any money.
Yes I should have checked that, no it doesn't really make a difference to my point, which is that the likelyhood of alcor surviving for several hundred years is vanishingly small.
Also, a company like Kong Gumi, where the only requirement for survival is to have some dude with a toolbelt willing to own the business isn't exactly the same as being organized enough to run a big facility that needs constant maintenance, security, taxes paid, etc.
>> The rest of your points are equally specious and collapse with any kind of scrutiny.
Awesome argument. "Your points suck therefore they're wrong." Let me guess, debate team champion?
I suspect you're grossly overestimating the cost of cryonic suspension and the cost of an insurance policy for a healthy non-smoker in his early 30's.
Alcor state the minimum payout for complete suspension is $150,000. The insurance companies are not stupid, and they're making money, so you're paying at least that much over the life of the policy (and likely more) to cover their risk and eventual expenditure. Up to you what you use your money for of course, but don't pretend it's not a lot.
Eric Drexler estimates that it'll happen within our lifetimes (or at least my lifetime), and the trends in nanotech development point to him being not too far off.
Sure, and we're all in flying cars too. Huge difference between some nanotech procedures being possible to bringing someone back and then reversing their aging fast enough so that they don't immediately die again. You're vastly oversimplifying the problem.
I suspect that nothing short of a global cataclysm will keep us from reaching that goal in this century, and I'm willing to bet my life on that.
You're basing your predictions on technological advancement on recent (50 year) trends that have been safe and prosperous for the world. The challenges of overpopulation, climate change and environmental degradation will pretty much guarantee increased volatility in the future. History shows that good times don't go on forever.
Why would they bother to revive us? Again, I covered this in the FAQ.
Not convincingly.
The PCT is under contractual obligation,
A contract where one of the parties has been dead for generations. I'm sure that will be hard to break.
and one of the requirements to be on the board of directors is that you have to have a family member already in the tank, so they have a vested interest in their well-being.
As if those board members will still be alive. In the best case a board member might have some very distant ancestor in there.
Why does anyone help anyone in a critical medical situation?
Because they are paid to do so (doctors, medical professionals).
This is not like dragging some stranger one out of a burning car at all.
You can call the question naive if you like, but the fact is that people do help each other.
Sure, that's why there's no suffering in the world that could be prevented. It's because everyone is so nice and wants to help.
In the future there will certainly still be suffering. Why would a moral person in the future help you (who experiences nothing, and thus is not suffering) over helping a real living suffering person? That makes no sense. Altruistic people will always have more worthy causes than bringing back icicles.
If nothing else, it's likely that anyone who does get revived will be highly motivated to rescue their fellow cryonauts. (I base this statement on my personal interactions with over 2 dozen Alcor members, every one of whom would take that position.)
Motivated yes, but they certainly won't have the knowledge, resources, or training to do so, so that motivation is pretty much pointless.
If you prefer to disregard basic human empathy entirely, and are looking for a completely economic/rational reason, as technology continues to improve and spread eventually the cost of reviving patients will be less than the cost of maintaining their stasis.
And that wild conjecture is based on what? The cost of reviving them (if ever possible) will come down, but there's nothing to say that preservation techniques won't improve as well to the point where they are essentially free. Now they keep you in liquid nitrogen. In the future they will blast you with the freezie laser and forget about you.
In any ca
And even if we were to accept your argument of losing money over long-term (which history has shown to be false, even during turbulent times such as these), the value of gold has stayed fairly same for most of the human existence.
Not everyone loses money during turbulent times, but lots of people certainly do. There's no indication that the cryogenics companies will be one of the lucky few to survive major upheaval.
Same goes for the investment in gold. While you are right, Alcor themselves don't seem to have built up any gold reserve to ensure their survival (maybe I'm wrong, I didn't spend too much time checking). On the topic of their finances, their FAQ states: "The rest of the Trust investments are held at the investment firm of Morgan Stanley."
Sounds like plain jane investments, not a storehouse of gold bars.
Damn, as I was writing that part I was thinking I should probably check that :) Neat to read about.
I retract my original statement then and modify it to "That's incredibly unlikely, since only a handful of companies of the millions/billions that have ever existed have survived that long"
Sorry, your FAQ isn't very convincing. Firstly, you're screwing over any possible dependents by making Alcor your insurance beneficiary. Unless you want to pay for two life insurance policies, you're screwing over your kids/family/whomever on some hare-brained scheme for some infinitely small chance that you might "live" again in the future. Selfish at best, unless you are wealthy.
Then there's your certainty that the company will survive for the hundreds or thousands of years it will take for technology to be at the point where they can revive you. That's incredibly unlikely, since no company in history has survived for that long (your arguments about financial stability are laughable, since there will almost certainly be several currency devaluations and government, society, and world upheavals in that period). I put the chances of you actually staying frozen for 1000 years at basically zero.
And then you think that they would bother to revive you. That too is staggeringly unlikely. Sure, they would revive a few people just to prove that it can be done. But after that, why would they bother? There'll be tens or hundreds of billions of humans around, do you really think they'll need more? They got a couple hundred thousand dollars 1000 years ago to keep you frozen, do you really think they would go to the significant expense and effort to revive you, and then reverse your aging as well? Why would they bother? There's no more incentive for them to do that at all (altruism, don't make me laugh). Even if they've conquered aging by then, that's not at all the same as reversing the aging process, and will most likely not be trivial.
Finally, what I don't understand is this certainty that being frozen and revived beats the pants off being dead. How could you possibly know that? No one knows. Maybe if you were properly dead you'd be in heaven (not that I believe in that). Instead you get to spend the next thousand years being really freaking cold. Or maybe death would be oblivion (more likely) and you couldn't form any opinion of it since you can't think, so it's not bad, or good, or anything really.
Silly comparison. QNX is not slow, but it also has about 1/100th or the features that Linux has. If it had all those features it would most likely be comparably huge/slow/bloated.
Regen braking systems are about 30% efficient right now. So yes, if each mountain is about a third of the size of the previous one you'll be fine. But don't kid yourself into thinking you're recovering the vast majority of the energy it took to get up.
>> Global Warming?
Partially.
>> Don't kill the fishes?
In a very indirect sort of way.
>> Organic Foods for all?
Unrelated.
>> Should I be wearing hemp underwear?
If you wish.
The rest of your post makes no sense whatsoever.
The big picture is that the age of oil is coming to an end. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's happening. Before the recession hit you could see where the price of oil was going. As soon as the recession is over it will go back there and beyond. We've been given a temporary reprieve, and I think it's fantastic that electric cars and other solutions are being taken seriously by most major companies. The fact of global warming is an entirely unrelated but also large component of the big picture.