"OTOH, you could get a Honda or a Toyota for a lot less and end up with a BETTER and MORE reliable car."
Better in what way? Cheaper interior, less precise steering, lower quality materials, crappier suspension etc. etc. You actually do get something for the extra money BMW (or Audi) costs. Yes, Toyota is propably more reliable, but that's about it. There's more to the "goodness" of a car than reliability.
If you really think Toyota or Honda is a "better car" than BMW, then I can't help but feel that you are deluding yourself.
Like I said, we have docking-stations. Anyone who wants one, gets one. And no-one does. What the users keep asking for is external mice, but that's it. It was more or less same situation at my previous employer, altough they used mostly desktops.
"Does anybody want to play the "I took a mac and configured a dell to the same specs" game? Configure a mac to match the medions specs and see why for a lot of people macs are so overpriced it just doesnt make any sense."
There are more to computers than mere specs. To use a car-analogy: I could get a BMW for 40.000e (or more). Or I could get a Lada for 12.000e. They both have engine, four wheels, room for 4 adults, room for cargo, stereos, headlights anbd they can take you just fine from point A to point B. Does that mean that the BMW is overpriced, since you can get a Lada so cheaply? I mean, both of them do the exact same thing, right?
"If you don't think Docking Station are an important feature, you can't have spent much time with serious business laptop users."
I work at a management consulting firm, where each and every consultant is equipped with a laptop. During my five years of working here, I have heard maybe two requests for a docking-station. And even in those cases it was more of a "It would be a nice thing to have" than "I absolutely need it". We actually have docking-stations for those who want one. No-one does. They are just gathering dust in the storage. But hey, maybe those consultants are not "Serious business laptop users"?
"No, I've taken my experience in several corporate environments, extrapolated the needs that drove purchasing decisions there, and made comments based on that."
We have desktops here as well (many non-consultants have them). And we don't go around adding expansion-cards to those machines, so the "flexibility" is totally useless. Same thing with my previous employes which was basically 100% desktop-shop. Only reason to open the machine would be to take out the HD and move it to another machine in case of a hardware-failure. And you can do that on the Mini as well.
Pray tell: what expansion-cards should we be installing on our dekstop-machines? Obviously expandability and flexibility are a must-have features in business-environment according to you. Do tell me: what for? Those machines are used for PowerPoint, Word, Excel, email etc., what expansion-cards would we need? Seriously? Hi-end 3D-accelerators? additional soundcards? What?
"The fact is that Mac's are more expensive than comparable Windows/Linux machines"
OK, find me a "comparable" machine to the Mac Mini. The closest I could come up with is this. Prices start at $595. For that price you get 1.6Ghz Intel Celeron, 256MB of RAM, no Bluetooth, No WLAN, 40GB HD and DOS (no Windows). For comparison, you could get Mac Mini for $599 (4 bucks more) and get 1.66GHz Core Duo, 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth, WLAN, 60GB HD, OS X and iLife.
OK, you could get the Dell E521 for whopping 200 bucks less. But that machine is big and ugly. I literally would not have room for that machine, whereas Mini is small enough to be lost underneath a pile of papers. So is the Dell "comparable" at all? And looking at the specs, I can see that the Dell has crappier CPU, a bit more HD-space (+20GB), crappier OS (Vista Home Basic), crappier optical-drive (no burner of any kind), no WLAN, no Bluetooth.... So is it really any better?
"At full price sure. You can walk into a best buy, circuit city, or office depot and get a PC for $200-$300 after rebate."
But those ultra-cheap machines suck ass. They really do. And you have the hassle of mailing back those rebates. Yes, they are cheaper than the Mini, but in their case, you get what you pay for: not much. Everything in them has been designed to be as cheap as possible, and it shows. And do those ultra-cheap tower-PC have any better specs than the Mini do?
"Almost everybody who have more than one non-laptop computer in their house?"
I know ONE person who has pulled wired ethernet to his house. I know several people who have WLAN though. And those people do have desktops as well. And note: we are talking about networking the home, not just pulling a cable from the phone/cable-socket to the computer.
"Wired ethernet is cheaper"
It's not. I thought about wiring my apartment. Ethernet-jacks in ever room, cables out of sight etc. etc. The cables, jacks, switches and having an expert doing it all would have cost me around 1000e. I went with wireless, and it didn't really cost me one dime extra, since my ADSL-router had a built-in WLAN base-station. Had I not owned a base-station beforehand, I could have bought one for fraction of the cost wired Ethernet would have cost me.
"more reliable"
I haven't had any problems with reliability.
"more secure"
This one might be true, due to the defining characteristics of the two. One is fixed-point, to other is... well, wireless.
"WAY faster than wireless"
But the thing is that wireless is still fast enough. My 8MB ADSL-connection is just as fast, regardless that do I used my G-spec WLAN or wired ethernet.
"a) want a mid-range, flexible machine at a reasonable price that isn't welded to someone else's choice of screen. b) want a business-oriented laptop line with docking station options."
Both of those are quite small niches. Most users never upgrade their machines, so those free PCI-slots are next to useless for them. Those people are served just fine by a Mac Mini. And docking-stations? Some people might want to have those, but it's not like we have huge number of people demanding for laptops with docking-stations.
It spounds to me that you have taken your personal wants and demands, and extrapolated those in to "huge number of people want these!". Yes, most computers sold these days are minitowers that fit your description of "mid-range flexible machine". But are people buying them because they want "flexible" machines? No. They are buying them because they are most common and cheapest machines around. Most of them never open the case and, so the "flexibility" is 100% irrelevant to them.
"And what do you think would have happened if these things had been bombs, disguised as creepy little advertisements, and the police ignored them?"
Was there any reason to believe that they were bombs? Oh there was, because they had some LEDs 'n stuff? Nevermind then.
Hey, what if someone wanted to detonate a car-bomb? There are thousands of cars in Boston all the time, maybe the police should stop and search them all, "just to be sure"? It could also be that someone might be planning to rive over pedestrians as a terrorist attack, so maybe they should just ban cars altogether? Of course someone might have strapped a bomb to his body, so everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) should be strip-searched as well. Do a body-cavity search while you are at it.
Of course someone might camouflage a bomb to look like a piece of trash, so police should inspect every piece of trash in the city as well. I mean, you can never be sure about these things.
Hey, why not simply ban people? That way no-one could do any of those oh so terrible terrorist attacks, because there would be no people to do them. That would solve all our problems, right?
While I know that there are loads of decent Americans out there, but as a nation you guys are definitely starting to lose it.
"Of course, its also possible that we'd merely displace one catastrophe with another."
Well, by that logic we should all just stay at home all the time, since you can never know when you will get by a car. But then again, most accidents take place at home, so we are not safe there either.
In short: the argument that "We should not do this, because then something else might happen" is not really an argument at all.
"If you are wrong and yet still we do something, there will be those that suffer, and since it will be for nothing, they will suffer needlessly. Thats a bad outcome and a vague outcome on one side and a bad outcome and a familiar outcome on the other."
Well, no. In one hand, we have a huge catastrophe and an averted catastrophe. On the other hand we have status quo and somewhat slower economic growth. You are basically making the claim that somewhat slower economic growth ("oh no, 3% instead of 5%!") is about as bad as an unmitigated ecological catastrophe.
"But if we do something about global warming, everybody will be fed, the environment will be clean, and there will be peace on earth or something?"
No, there will be war and suffering, with or without global warming. Those two have been part on humanity for as long as there has been humans. Even during times of peace and prosperity.
"Would these be the feudal ones or the earlier tribal ones? Either of which can, I believe, attribute their lack of "massive environmental issues" to their lack of massive populations. You know, less people needing less stuff thus requiring less pollution. Not to any special less-polluting attribute of an economy."
I made no such claims. Like I said, there are simply too many humans on this planet. And that number should be brought down. Either it's done in a controlled fashion, ot it will come crashing down some day. Fact is that our current lifestyles are simply too demanding to the environment. And it isn't just limited to global warming and related pollution.
"As I said, you are offering no useful suggestions"
And you are? No, I don't have a silver bullet for everything. But does that mean that since I don't have definite answers to everything, I should therefore think that we should just keep on doing whatever we have been doing so far? No, I'm not suggesting that we wildly rush around since we need to do "something". What I am saying is that we can't just pretend like there is no problem, just so we could keep on driving with our SUV's.
"Or do you just have ideas that we should without any about how actually go about it, which is a different beast."
So you are basically saying that if someone does not have all the answers to some problem, he should not care about that problem at all? Just because I don't have the answers, does not mean that the problem does not exist. Just because I don't have the answers does not mean that I should not recognize the seriousness of the problem. You apparently do think like that. But the first step in fixing a problem is actually identifying the problem. Your way of thinking would result in us just sitting on our asses and doing nothing. Oh, wait. That IS what you are advocating. Nevermind then.
I haven't heard no ideas from you. In fact, I don't even know what your thoughts are on this matter? DO you think there is a problem? If there is, what do you suggest we should do about it?
"Globalism means that there are gains from trade."
As said by businessmen. Who says it couldn't be something else as well?
"It does not mean that any given country needs to trade."
basically, they do. Maybe some country could isolate itself from the rest of the world. But there are no such countries in the world right now. No, North-Korea is not 100% isolated either. If they were, they would come crashing down very fast.
"But really I have a hard time believing any country would interpret the scale of disrupted shipping you'd need for a successful embargo as anything less than an act of war
"Well here is your first problem. You're asserting a belief as fact"
Overwheliming majority of scientists agree with me. But I guess you call it a "belief" since if I'm right, it would mean sacrifices to our lifestyles. Am I correct in assuming that you are unwilling to make any sacrifices, just as long there is at least one scientists who disputes the connection between CO2 and global warming? I guess it's a lot simpler to simply assume that humans have nothing to do with it, since then you can just keep on living like you have done in the past?
What happens if we do nothing and I'm right? It will end up in a massive catastrophe. What will happen if I'm right and we do something? We will take a hit in the short-term economic growth, but the long-term benefits are substantial. What will happen If you are right, and we still try to limit emissions? We take a hit in our short-term economic growth, but our future would still look bleak (or not). Your belief has the benefit that we can keep on living like we have done so far, and thing would be nice in the short-term, but in the long term things would be bad regardless. But if I'm right, we could avert the approaching disaster by acting now.
Do you have any reason for NOT acting now? It would harm your short-term comfort? Well boo-hoo. If you are right, and we act now, disaster can't be avoided (or maybe there is no disaster) and we would have somewhat slower economic growth. If I'm right, we would have somewhat slower economic growth, but the disaster would be avoided. Doesn't your scenario have a lot crappier odds? Why should we follow your scenario? Because it has more positive outlook in the near-term? Because it requires us to do nothing? Because it's the easy way out?
"And here's the second. You don't advocate that we kill people off directly. But indirectly? You're all for it."
No, I'm not saying that we should kill people, directly or indirectly. But people will die if things progress like they have done so so far. We will end up with millions of people starving to death, millions of people dying to pollution, millions of people dying because of wars over resources. If the ecosystem can't support the population, the ecosystem will crash at some point, and it will take lots of people with it.
So what should we do? Family-planning is one key, Catholic church be damned. Education is another key, since women with higher education have less babies.
"Well.. I know you said earlier that you weren't saying we should dismantle the economies, but if the limitation is that the ecosystem has to be able to cope with it, you're talking about dismantling economies."
We have had economies without the massive environmental issues in the past.
"You have largely left unstated anything useful to do in order to improve the situation."
Things like the Kyoto Protocol are one idea, although it doesn't go far enough.
"Yes, we all might be better off if we cooperated. However, a small number of defecting countries reap massive benefits."
Since we have had embargoes against countries who misbehave in the past, any idea why they wouldn't work this time? If some country "defect", it could be hit with an embargo. No country in the world is alone, that is what globalism is about.
"And, incidentally, we (as a global population) aren't "doing nothing." Unfortunately for you, it isn't as much as you'd like. Thus its beneficial for your argument to write it off as nothing."
There are lots of individuals doing something. Many companies are acting as well. Many countries are acting as well. But fact remains that those actions don't go far enough. And fact remains that the biggest polluter in the planet isn't really doing anything. Yes, there are many Americans who are doing something, but as far as the government goes, they are just dragging their feet.
"because for all the work we do it won't amount to a hill of beans if China doesn't play along."
they still pollute/consume resource a lot less per capita than we in the West do. And the problem is not China as such, the problem is us. China (and India) are merely trying to reach our level of living-standards, and that implies pollution and consumption of resources.
The real situation is that we in the West have been living beyond our means for a long long time. And now that China and others want to do the same, we go around thinking "The problem is China". No, the problem is not China, we are the problem. They are merely mimicking what we have been doing for decades.
"Thats an argument about pollution and nothing at all about global warming."
Semantics. Global Warming is caused by CO2-emissions. And that is a subset of pollution.
"I am sort of curious, though. If we dismantle all these economies and forbid the use of all these technologies with which we produce stuff (and also.. pollute) how then do you propose to support the human population of the planet?"
There are too many of us as we speak. No, I'm not saying that we should start killing people off. But fact is that the ecosystem can't support the current amount of people with high standard of living. It might cope with relatively few people living in luxury, while majority lives in poverty (like we have had in the past). But as things are right now, there are billions of people who are increasing their standards of living fast, while we, the established rich, are also increasing our standards of living. Add to that the fact that the world population is going up. That equation simply does not work. Something gotta give, and it seems that the thing that gives, is the ecosystem. And once that fails, we will follow. We are 100% dependant on the ecosystem.
And no, I'm not saying that we should dismantle the economies and go back to the stoneage. What I am saying is that we should really think about the current trend of "economic growth". Is it really "economic" growth? Are we having a short-term growth, at the expense of long-term growth? Does the growth we have bring us more bad thing than good things? Is it worth it?
"Why are those preferences supposedly better than the way we do them now?"
Well, the "way we do them now" is not working. We are ruining the planet as we speak. It would take five Earths to support the human population if everyone lived like Americans do. No, I'm not blaming this on the Americans, it just happens that the Americans have the highest standard of living.
What is an "acceptable amount of pollution"? If the ecosystem can cope with it, then it's acceptable. No, we can't reach that level overnight, but that does not mean that we shouldn't start working on it. And this bullshit about "Well, we are not 100% sure yet what will happen, so we should do nothing" simply does not cut it anymore. Anyone who says that is simply concerned about their personal short-term comfort, and nothing more.
Maybe we should "wreck them"? If "Economic growth" implies more pollution in the air, more waste in the landfills, more chemicals everywhere, more species being extinct, more water getting polluted etc. etc, maybe we should ask ourselves: Is it worth it? Quite a few people seem to think that "I'm all for saving the environment. Just as long as I don't have to do anything". But we need to do something. All of us. And the thing is that we in the west need to do more than others, since we are wasting a lot more resources with our lifestyles than people elsewhere are wasting. So it's going to hurt.
"The primary reason it has sold so many units is because they managed to make it a fashion statement and people love to feed their Egos & have status amongst their peer groups."
Back when I was shopping for mp3-players, I did look around. Creative and other felt flimsy and cheap. iPod Mini felt like a hi-quality piece of equipment. I had no special interest to buy an Apple-product, I wanted the best possible product. And the iPod simply felt better than the competition did. The iPod was the only one that seemed like it was actually Designed, as opposed to being "designed".
"Did you know that ipods only support 2 video formats (both of them MAC formats) and that you have to shove every video you want to load on a 80 GB hard drive into a single folder without the ability to create sub-folders?"
Oh the humanity! Those sub-folders really are a must-thing to have! Apple is DOOMED!
"I've never had a problem with what you are describing."
I'm not describing it, others are. My Linux-box has died due to hardware-failure, so this issue does not affect me sinse I don't have a working Linux-installation at all. But the point is that no-one should tell other how "easy" it is to fix a problem, when all you have to do is to edit few text-files and install few apps. First of all, the problem should not exist at all. Second: Editing text-files and installing apps is not "easy" for regural users. It's easy for powerusers, but for that soccer-mom down the street it's too much.
I take it you've never had to fix anything with regedit either then? Unfrotunately, I have. But I don't have to go poke around Registry just so I could do something as simple as getting sound working in a web-browser. Things like that should "just work"
Changing one line in a text file, then typing "apt-get install alsa-oss" is at least as simple as operating a coffee machine. I don't have to anything like that with any other OS I have used. I don't have to go around installing weird stuff and editing text-files just so I could get frigging sound working in a web-browser.
And yes, I use Linux (among other OS'es). Have been using it since 1999, and I'm a card-carrying member of a national LUG. But anyone who says that "It's easy, just edit this text file and install these apps and you are all set" is totally, 100% missing the point. Tasks like that are way beyond the capabilities of most users. They just want their systems to work. And if it's so easy to fix the problem, why isn't it fixed by default? Why are tasks like that left to the user to figure out?
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"OTOH, you could get a Honda or a Toyota for a lot less and end up with a BETTER and MORE reliable car."
Better in what way? Cheaper interior, less precise steering, lower quality materials, crappier suspension etc. etc. You actually do get something for the extra money BMW (or Audi) costs. Yes, Toyota is propably more reliable, but that's about it. There's more to the "goodness" of a car than reliability.
If you really think Toyota or Honda is a "better car" than BMW, then I can't help but feel that you are deluding yourself.
Like I said, we have docking-stations. Anyone who wants one, gets one. And no-one does. What the users keep asking for is external mice, but that's it. It was more or less same situation at my previous employer, altough they used mostly desktops.
"Does anybody want to play the "I took a mac and configured a dell to the same specs" game? Configure a mac to match the medions specs and see why for a lot of people macs are so overpriced it just doesnt make any sense."
There are more to computers than mere specs. To use a car-analogy: I could get a BMW for 40.000e (or more). Or I could get a Lada for 12.000e. They both have engine, four wheels, room for 4 adults, room for cargo, stereos, headlights anbd they can take you just fine from point A to point B. Does that mean that the BMW is overpriced, since you can get a Lada so cheaply? I mean, both of them do the exact same thing, right?
"If you don't think Docking Station are an important feature, you can't have spent much time with serious business laptop users."
I work at a management consulting firm, where each and every consultant is equipped with a laptop. During my five years of working here, I have heard maybe two requests for a docking-station. And even in those cases it was more of a "It would be a nice thing to have" than "I absolutely need it". We actually have docking-stations for those who want one. No-one does. They are just gathering dust in the storage. But hey, maybe those consultants are not "Serious business laptop users"?
"No, I've taken my experience in several corporate environments, extrapolated the needs that drove purchasing decisions there, and made comments based on that."
We have desktops here as well (many non-consultants have them). And we don't go around adding expansion-cards to those machines, so the "flexibility" is totally useless. Same thing with my previous employes which was basically 100% desktop-shop. Only reason to open the machine would be to take out the HD and move it to another machine in case of a hardware-failure. And you can do that on the Mini as well.
Pray tell: what expansion-cards should we be installing on our dekstop-machines? Obviously expandability and flexibility are a must-have features in business-environment according to you. Do tell me: what for? Those machines are used for PowerPoint, Word, Excel, email etc., what expansion-cards would we need? Seriously? Hi-end 3D-accelerators? additional soundcards? What?
"The fact is that Mac's are more expensive than comparable Windows/Linux machines"
OK, find me a "comparable" machine to the Mac Mini. The closest I could come up with is this. Prices start at $595. For that price you get 1.6Ghz Intel Celeron, 256MB of RAM, no Bluetooth, No WLAN, 40GB HD and DOS (no Windows). For comparison, you could get Mac Mini for $599 (4 bucks more) and get 1.66GHz Core Duo, 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth, WLAN, 60GB HD, OS X and iLife.
OK, you could get the Dell E521 for whopping 200 bucks less. But that machine is big and ugly. I literally would not have room for that machine, whereas Mini is small enough to be lost underneath a pile of papers. So is the Dell "comparable" at all? And looking at the specs, I can see that the Dell has crappier CPU, a bit more HD-space (+20GB), crappier OS (Vista Home Basic), crappier optical-drive (no burner of any kind), no WLAN, no Bluetooth.... So is it really any better?
"At full price sure. You can walk into a best buy, circuit city, or office depot and get a PC for $200-$300 after rebate."
But those ultra-cheap machines suck ass. They really do. And you have the hassle of mailing back those rebates. Yes, they are cheaper than the Mini, but in their case, you get what you pay for: not much. Everything in them has been designed to be as cheap as possible, and it shows. And do those ultra-cheap tower-PC have any better specs than the Mini do?
"Almost everybody who have more than one non-laptop computer in their house?"
I know ONE person who has pulled wired ethernet to his house. I know several people who have WLAN though. And those people do have desktops as well. And note: we are talking about networking the home, not just pulling a cable from the phone/cable-socket to the computer.
"Wired ethernet is cheaper"
It's not. I thought about wiring my apartment. Ethernet-jacks in ever room, cables out of sight etc. etc. The cables, jacks, switches and having an expert doing it all would have cost me around 1000e. I went with wireless, and it didn't really cost me one dime extra, since my ADSL-router had a built-in WLAN base-station. Had I not owned a base-station beforehand, I could have bought one for fraction of the cost wired Ethernet would have cost me.
"more reliable"
I haven't had any problems with reliability.
"more secure"
This one might be true, due to the defining characteristics of the two. One is fixed-point, to other is... well, wireless.
"WAY faster than wireless"
But the thing is that wireless is still fast enough. My 8MB ADSL-connection is just as fast, regardless that do I used my G-spec WLAN or wired ethernet.
"a) want a mid-range, flexible machine at a reasonable price that isn't welded to someone else's choice of screen.
b) want a business-oriented laptop line with docking station options."
Both of those are quite small niches. Most users never upgrade their machines, so those free PCI-slots are next to useless for them. Those people are served just fine by a Mac Mini. And docking-stations? Some people might want to have those, but it's not like we have huge number of people demanding for laptops with docking-stations.
It spounds to me that you have taken your personal wants and demands, and extrapolated those in to "huge number of people want these!". Yes, most computers sold these days are minitowers that fit your description of "mid-range flexible machine". But are people buying them because they want "flexible" machines? No. They are buying them because they are most common and cheapest machines around. Most of them never open the case and, so the "flexibility" is 100% irrelevant to them.
"You will hear loss of dynamic transience."
But that can be fixed with some magnetic phase-inducers and cable-elevators. And wooden knobs. Can't go wrong with those knobs....
"And what do you think would have happened if these things had been bombs, disguised as creepy little advertisements, and the police ignored them?"
Was there any reason to believe that they were bombs? Oh there was, because they had some LEDs 'n stuff? Nevermind then.
Hey, what if someone wanted to detonate a car-bomb? There are thousands of cars in Boston all the time, maybe the police should stop and search them all, "just to be sure"? It could also be that someone might be planning to rive over pedestrians as a terrorist attack, so maybe they should just ban cars altogether? Of course someone might have strapped a bomb to his body, so everyone (and I mean EVERYONE) should be strip-searched as well. Do a body-cavity search while you are at it.
Of course someone might camouflage a bomb to look like a piece of trash, so police should inspect every piece of trash in the city as well. I mean, you can never be sure about these things.
Hey, why not simply ban people? That way no-one could do any of those oh so terrible terrorist attacks, because there would be no people to do them. That would solve all our problems, right?
While I know that there are loads of decent Americans out there, but as a nation you guys are definitely starting to lose it.
"Of course, its also possible that we'd merely displace one catastrophe with another."
Well, by that logic we should all just stay at home all the time, since you can never know when you will get by a car. But then again, most accidents take place at home, so we are not safe there either.
In short: the argument that "We should not do this, because then something else might happen" is not really an argument at all.
"If you are wrong and yet still we do something, there will be those that suffer, and since it will be for nothing, they will suffer needlessly. Thats a bad outcome and a vague outcome on one side and a bad outcome and a familiar outcome on the other."
Well, no. In one hand, we have a huge catastrophe and an averted catastrophe. On the other hand we have status quo and somewhat slower economic growth. You are basically making the claim that somewhat slower economic growth ("oh no, 3% instead of 5%!") is about as bad as an unmitigated ecological catastrophe.
"But if we do something about global warming, everybody will be fed, the environment will be clean, and there will be peace on earth or something?"
No, there will be war and suffering, with or without global warming. Those two have been part on humanity for as long as there has been humans. Even during times of peace and prosperity.
"Would these be the feudal ones or the earlier tribal ones? Either of which can, I believe, attribute their lack of "massive environmental issues" to their lack of massive populations. You know, less people needing less stuff thus requiring less pollution. Not to any special less-polluting attribute of an economy."
I made no such claims. Like I said, there are simply too many humans on this planet. And that number should be brought down. Either it's done in a controlled fashion, ot it will come crashing down some day. Fact is that our current lifestyles are simply too demanding to the environment. And it isn't just limited to global warming and related pollution.
"As I said, you are offering no useful suggestions"
And you are? No, I don't have a silver bullet for everything. But does that mean that since I don't have definite answers to everything, I should therefore think that we should just keep on doing whatever we have been doing so far? No, I'm not suggesting that we wildly rush around since we need to do "something". What I am saying is that we can't just pretend like there is no problem, just so we could keep on driving with our SUV's.
"Or do you just have ideas that we should without any about how actually go about it, which is a different beast."
So you are basically saying that if someone does not have all the answers to some problem, he should not care about that problem at all? Just because I don't have the answers, does not mean that the problem does not exist. Just because I don't have the answers does not mean that I should not recognize the seriousness of the problem. You apparently do think like that. But the first step in fixing a problem is actually identifying the problem. Your way of thinking would result in us just sitting on our asses and doing nothing. Oh, wait. That IS what you are advocating. Nevermind then.
I haven't heard no ideas from you. In fact, I don't even know what your thoughts are on this matter? DO you think there is a problem? If there is, what do you suggest we should do about it?
"Globalism means that there are gains from trade."
As said by businessmen. Who says it couldn't be something else as well?
"It does not mean that any given country needs to trade."
basically, they do. Maybe some country could isolate itself from the rest of the world. But there are no such countries in the world right now. No, North-Korea is not 100% isolated either. If they were, they would come crashing down very fast.
"But really I have a hard time believing any country would interpret the scale of disrupted shipping you'd need for a successful embargo as anything less than an act of war
"Well here is your first problem. You're asserting a belief as fact"
Overwheliming majority of scientists agree with me. But I guess you call it a "belief" since if I'm right, it would mean sacrifices to our lifestyles. Am I correct in assuming that you are unwilling to make any sacrifices, just as long there is at least one scientists who disputes the connection between CO2 and global warming? I guess it's a lot simpler to simply assume that humans have nothing to do with it, since then you can just keep on living like you have done in the past?
What happens if we do nothing and I'm right? It will end up in a massive catastrophe. What will happen if I'm right and we do something? We will take a hit in the short-term economic growth, but the long-term benefits are substantial. What will happen If you are right, and we still try to limit emissions? We take a hit in our short-term economic growth, but our future would still look bleak (or not). Your belief has the benefit that we can keep on living like we have done so far, and thing would be nice in the short-term, but in the long term things would be bad regardless. But if I'm right, we could avert the approaching disaster by acting now.
Do you have any reason for NOT acting now? It would harm your short-term comfort? Well boo-hoo. If you are right, and we act now, disaster can't be avoided (or maybe there is no disaster) and we would have somewhat slower economic growth. If I'm right, we would have somewhat slower economic growth, but the disaster would be avoided. Doesn't your scenario have a lot crappier odds? Why should we follow your scenario? Because it has more positive outlook in the near-term? Because it requires us to do nothing? Because it's the easy way out?
"And here's the second. You don't advocate that we kill people off directly. But indirectly? You're all for it."
No, I'm not saying that we should kill people, directly or indirectly. But people will die if things progress like they have done so so far. We will end up with millions of people starving to death, millions of people dying to pollution, millions of people dying because of wars over resources. If the ecosystem can't support the population, the ecosystem will crash at some point, and it will take lots of people with it.
So what should we do? Family-planning is one key, Catholic church be damned. Education is another key, since women with higher education have less babies.
"Well.. I know you said earlier that you weren't saying we should dismantle the economies, but if the limitation is that the ecosystem has to be able to cope with it, you're talking about dismantling economies."
We have had economies without the massive environmental issues in the past.
"You have largely left unstated anything useful to do in order to improve the situation."
Things like the Kyoto Protocol are one idea, although it doesn't go far enough.
"Yes, we all might be better off if we cooperated. However, a small number of defecting countries reap massive benefits."
Since we have had embargoes against countries who misbehave in the past, any idea why they wouldn't work this time? If some country "defect", it could be hit with an embargo. No country in the world is alone, that is what globalism is about.
"And, incidentally, we (as a global population) aren't "doing nothing." Unfortunately for you, it isn't as much as you'd like. Thus its beneficial for your argument to write it off as nothing."
There are lots of individuals doing something. Many companies are acting as well. Many countries are acting as well. But fact remains that those actions don't go far enough. And fact remains that the biggest polluter in the planet isn't really doing anything. Yes, there are many Americans who are doing something, but as far as the government goes, they are just dragging their feet.
Why do you keep on pushing people to your blog? Just about every single comment of your includes links to your blog.
"because for all the work we do it won't amount to a hill of beans if China doesn't play along."
they still pollute/consume resource a lot less per capita than we in the West do. And the problem is not China as such, the problem is us. China (and India) are merely trying to reach our level of living-standards, and that implies pollution and consumption of resources.
The real situation is that we in the West have been living beyond our means for a long long time. And now that China and others want to do the same, we go around thinking "The problem is China". No, the problem is not China, we are the problem. They are merely mimicking what we have been doing for decades.
"Thats an argument about pollution and nothing at all about global warming."
Semantics. Global Warming is caused by CO2-emissions. And that is a subset of pollution.
"I am sort of curious, though. If we dismantle all these economies and forbid the use of all these technologies with which we produce stuff (and also.. pollute) how then do you propose to support the human population of the planet?"
There are too many of us as we speak. No, I'm not saying that we should start killing people off. But fact is that the ecosystem can't support the current amount of people with high standard of living. It might cope with relatively few people living in luxury, while majority lives in poverty (like we have had in the past). But as things are right now, there are billions of people who are increasing their standards of living fast, while we, the established rich, are also increasing our standards of living. Add to that the fact that the world population is going up. That equation simply does not work. Something gotta give, and it seems that the thing that gives, is the ecosystem. And once that fails, we will follow. We are 100% dependant on the ecosystem.
And no, I'm not saying that we should dismantle the economies and go back to the stoneage. What I am saying is that we should really think about the current trend of "economic growth". Is it really "economic" growth? Are we having a short-term growth, at the expense of long-term growth? Does the growth we have bring us more bad thing than good things? Is it worth it?
"Why are those preferences supposedly better than the way we do them now?"
Well, the "way we do them now" is not working. We are ruining the planet as we speak. It would take five Earths to support the human population if everyone lived like Americans do. No, I'm not blaming this on the Americans, it just happens that the Americans have the highest standard of living.
What is an "acceptable amount of pollution"? If the ecosystem can cope with it, then it's acceptable. No, we can't reach that level overnight, but that does not mean that we shouldn't start working on it. And this bullshit about "Well, we are not 100% sure yet what will happen, so we should do nothing" simply does not cut it anymore. Anyone who says that is simply concerned about their personal short-term comfort, and nothing more.
"Without wrecking every economy in the world..."
Maybe we should "wreck them"? If "Economic growth" implies more pollution in the air, more waste in the landfills, more chemicals everywhere, more species being extinct, more water getting polluted etc. etc, maybe we should ask ourselves: Is it worth it? Quite a few people seem to think that "I'm all for saving the environment. Just as long as I don't have to do anything". But we need to do something. All of us. And the thing is that we in the west need to do more than others, since we are wasting a lot more resources with our lifestyles than people elsewhere are wasting. So it's going to hurt.
"The primary reason it has sold so many units is because they managed to make it a fashion statement and people love to feed their Egos & have status amongst their peer groups."
Back when I was shopping for mp3-players, I did look around. Creative and other felt flimsy and cheap. iPod Mini felt like a hi-quality piece of equipment. I had no special interest to buy an Apple-product, I wanted the best possible product. And the iPod simply felt better than the competition did. The iPod was the only one that seemed like it was actually Designed, as opposed to being "designed".
"Did you know that ipods only support 2 video formats (both of them MAC formats) and that you have to shove every video you want to load on a 80 GB hard drive into a single folder without the ability to create sub-folders?"
Oh the humanity! Those sub-folders really are a must-thing to have! Apple is DOOMED!
"Lots of people seem to love it, but I have admit that I didn't find it funny."
Please hand over your Geek-card at the door. You too eldepeche.
"He started out in the past tense but conjugated the verb to be in the present tense."
CENTURION: What's this, then? 'Romanes Eunt Domus'? 'People called Romanes they go the house'?
BRIAN: It-- it says, 'Romans, go home'.
CENTURION: No, it doesn't. What's Latin for 'Roman'? Come on!
BRIAN: Aah!
CENTURION: Come on!
BRIAN: 'R-- Romanus'?
CENTURION: Goes like...?
BRIAN: 'Annus'?
CENTURION: Vocative plural of 'annus' is...?
BRIAN: Eh. 'Anni'?
CENTURION: 'Romani'. 'Eunt'? What is 'eunt'?
BRIAN: 'Go'. Let--
CENTURION: Conjugate the verb 'to go'.
BRIAN: Uh. 'Ire'. Uh, 'eo'. 'Is'. 'It'. 'Imus'. 'Itis'. 'Eunt'.
CENTURION: So 'eunt' is...?
BRIAN: Ah, huh, third person plural, uh, present indicative. Uh, 'they go'.
CENTURION: But 'Romans, go home' is an order, so you must use the...?
BRIAN: The... imperative!
CENTURION: Which is...?
BRIAN: Umm! Oh. Oh. Um, 'i'. 'I'!
CENTURION: How many Romans?
BRIAN: Ah! 'I'-- Plural. Plural. 'Ite'. 'Ite'.
CENTURION: 'Ite'.
BRIAN: Ah. Eh.
CENTURION: 'Domus'?
BRIAN: Eh.
CENTURION: Nominative?
BRIAN: Oh.
CENTURION: 'Go home'? This is motion towards. Isn't it, boy?
BRIAN: Ah. Ah, dative, sir! Ahh! No, not dative! Not the dative, sir! No! Ah! Oh, the... accusative! Accusative! Ah! 'Domum', sir! 'Ad domum'! Ah! Oooh! Ah!
CENTURION: Except that 'domus' takes the...?
BRIAN: The locative, sir!
CENTURION: Which is...?!
BRIAN: 'Domum'.
CENTURION: 'Domum'.
BRIAN: Aaah! Ah.
CENTURION: 'Um'. Understand?
BRIAN: Yes, sir.
CENTURION: Now, write it out a hundred times.
BRIAN: Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
CENTURION: Hail Caesar. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
BRIAN: Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar and everything, sir!
The Eternal Blue Screen of Death... "It just wont go away!"
"If you duel boot XP with boot camp...."
:)?
Two OS'es boot, one OS runs! two OS'es boot, one OS runs!
Or do you mean "duAl boot" by any chance
So why don't we just forget this crap about "year of the Linux-desktop" then?
"I've never had a problem with what you are describing."
I'm not describing it, others are. My Linux-box has died due to hardware-failure, so this issue does not affect me sinse I don't have a working Linux-installation at all. But the point is that no-one should tell other how "easy" it is to fix a problem, when all you have to do is to edit few text-files and install few apps. First of all, the problem should not exist at all. Second: Editing text-files and installing apps is not "easy" for regural users. It's easy for powerusers, but for that soccer-mom down the street it's too much.
And yes, I use Linux (among other OS'es). Have been using it since 1999, and I'm a card-carrying member of a national LUG. But anyone who says that "It's easy, just edit this text file and install these apps and you are all set" is totally, 100% missing the point. Tasks like that are way beyond the capabilities of most users. They just want their systems to work. And if it's so easy to fix the problem, why isn't it fixed by default? Why are tasks like that left to the user to figure out?