Yes, let the Chinese, Russians and Europeans do all the stuff with satelites that look back down on Earth. And India, Iran, and by now just about any vountry on the planet that is able to send a rocket up in the air. Sounds like a brilliant strategy.
What's "pants on head" stupid is that the only time "fraud" is ever a serious concern is when Democrats lose.
I think that is a bit rich, when Trump was the one hinting very heavily that he would only accept the election result if he won. Yes, I know, he never stated this clearly and unambiguously, but you have to be more than a little disingenious to explain his words any other way. And the objective fact is that the popular vote (ie. what is what real people on the ground actually wanted) stands very, very close to 50-50. In that situation it is perfectly reasonable to scrutinise the result carefully, to make sure that it is not in doubt. I would say the same no matter which side had won, because the winner will otherwise be open to the accusation, that he/she doesn't have a true mandate from the voters, whatever the technicalities of the electoral system.
The fact is that China has lured manufacturing to itself by ignoring its own environmental and laws.
Funny way to put it - are the Chinese wrong for taking the opportunity to haul themselves out of the muck they were left in by, among others, the Western powers? Were they incidiously luring the innocent, European and American companies to get things manufactured where it was cheap? Or is this how Capitalism works, by exploiting the poor, snaking through loop-holes in legislations and generally setting aside all considerations of what is right or wrong, unless it is profitable? People in the West have been infatuated with the ideas of unregulated capitalism for as long as it looked like they were winning; now, perhaps, it doesn't seem so attractive any more.
For years up to a week ago: TPP is an abomination love child between Hitler and Satan and needs to die.
Now that Trump doesn't want it: This will ruin the nation and will only benefit China. TPP Must Go Forward!
My guess is, come the inauguration, Trump will either deny that he ever said that (as he has done routinely with several things already), or he will symbolically cancel the TPP and negotiate something "much better" that will, for all intents and purposes, be identical. Whatever he says, the current agreement has been worked out by some of the best people that can be found on all sides, and it is naive to think that he can just throw out how many years of negotiations and brew up something better in an instant. Just look at the brexit debacle: It sounded so obvious that "we'll just get a better deal", but the rest of the European leaders don't agree all that much and on top of that, being human, they are feeling rather resentful, because UK have chosen to cause a lot of stupid problems for the rest of them; so they are not going to make it very easy for UK. If Trump does something similar, are the other participants in the TPP going to just shrug their shoulders and say say "OK, no problem"? Of course not - they will say "He's in a hurry to save face now, so we will put the squeeze on".
Perhaps it is now time to stop saying "China does..." when it is actually not the Chinese state that does it? After all, when Oracle, Microsoft or IBM do something, we don't refer to them as "America...", or if a smallish company in Denmark does something, for that matter, the headline is something like "Danish company X...". Otherwise it comes across as poorly researched, in my view.
I know I am an extreme case, probably, but I reallly can't imagine why I would want to pay for a thing like Netflix in any form. I think it has been years since I watched any entertainment programme and enjoyed it - actually, that isn't true, there is something called "Have I got news for you" on BBC, which is occasionally intelligently witty, but it's been a while since I watched it. But if people around here really are interested in sciency/techy stuff, there are several good collections on youtube, such as:
Both are very entertaining, and the latter is the gentlest introduction to tensor calculus I have ever come across. Really nice, far better than "Batman - The Dark Tosser Returns" or whatever.
I don't understand the idea of making kids do chores.
Depends on how you go about it. It is certainly the duty of parents to give their children the best possible introduction to life in a society, and part of that unfortunately involves working for a living. And being gently "forced" to perform useful tasks also gives a child the opportunity to learn, that even a tedious chore isn't all bad - there may be a reward at the end, they may learn a useful skill, they may learn that making a few mistakes isn't the end of the world (and that there are ways to correct problems along the way), they may receive a boost in self-confidence from knowing they have done something that is appreciated and so on. This all depends on the parents - there are some, who can turn any experience into a nightmare for the child by always criticising and punishing.
This single task robot has nothing better to do. It is silly to spend money to make it faster just so it can have more idle time.
No, this falls firmsly into the category of silly gadgets, as it stands. There will be people who will buy it, but that is for the coolnes-value, not because it solves a tedious problem. A rfaster version with bigger capacity might be useful in a large laundry, though.
They benefit from warmer temps, longer growing seasons, more land in the cultivation zone, etc.
I wouldn't be so fast at calling that simply benefits - when the permafrost thaws, it causes a large number of issues, such as soil instability, ecological upheavals etc etc, not to mention the potentially huge release of methane from gas hydrates and other sources that are now kept frozen. Warmer climate may sound good, but there will be a transition period in which things are going to look grim, and it won't be over in a few years - it can probably go on for centuries.
i seem to recall from researching nuclear batteries that semiconductor junctions degrade quickly when exposed to high energy ionizing radiation.
I think perhaps in practice this may not be a big problem, since alpha and beta radiation don't travel far in air or through most materials. It would be more of a problem in a vacuum, like in space. Gamma radiation, being photons, could potentially be a problem, but I don't know how much there is in that area - presumably the engineers will have though about this problem - they are quite clever, is my impression.
I understand what you mean (I think), but I think we need to clarify this point: nerds are, possibly, asocial, but not generally anti-social. "Asocial" meaning "not social/sociable", which describes most of us who are more interested in technology and science than in socialising, and "anti-social" meaning "against (or even hostile to) social order and -connections", which I doubt many of us really are - it is something we normally associate with psychopaths.
When you say America will be great again, do you mean America will be great for everyone except nerds?
Hey, take a rough guess. When someone like Trump talks about "making America great again", it doesn't mean anything, really; they have this vague feeling that they are somehow not good enough, that everybody else looks down at them, and they want somehow to feel that they are great - Trump clearly imagines that he is a brilliant person who is unfairly being put upon, and he has decided that it is the fault of "them", where "them" happen to be Mexicans, the Chinese and other groups that have dared to criticise him. We have seen this happen over and over through history: intellectuals invariably end up being "the enemy of the state" because they tend to point out the obvious weak points in the plans of small-minded people, who have ended up in positions of power. And the don't come much smaller than Trump - as Ernest Rutherford would have said: he is an Euclidean point (that is, he has a position, but no magnitude).
... government official wants money owed to government...
I think it is worth pointing out that this is not "some government official" who wants something for himself; this is money owed to society - the government is doing what it should do, namely acting as the representative of society. There is this modern myth, that "government" is your enemy, some entity that is somehow separate from the rest of us, but it simply isn't true. If you have a government that doesn't serve the interests of the WHOLE of the people, then you, the voter, bear a large part of the blame for that. Yeah, the establishment has let you down - but you have the your government down too, by being wilfully uninformed and refusing to engage with real facts; it is as if a large proportion of you guys prefer to be spiteful rather than accepting that some politician, you happen to disagree with, might occasionally do the right thing. If our societies crumble from within and succumb to what are really minor threats, like Daesh, this sort of attitude is the reason.
In other words, you don't give a shit, because you don't feel it touches you personally, am I right? It is easy - or, probably the modern word is 'facile' - to pull the pocket-philosophy out; I can do that too: 3000 Americans were killed in the twin towers in New York? Well, that's just life. Your whole family was wiped out by MRSA? Well, that's just nature's way. How am I doing so far? I think it sounds stupid - it sounds like somebody who is too intellectually lazy to make an effort.
It is all too easy to dismiss inequality when you are yourself on the side that enjoys the benefits of that inequality - that is what he establishment has always done throughout history; the consequences are well documented, I think: revolutions, among other things. If you are one of those that voted for Trump, you should at least in principle have some sympathy - I say in principle, because I don't think his supporters have much understanding, in practice, for the inequality that women face.
That women aren't represented equally in science, technology and engineering is well known and has been discussed even on slashdot - I think, even if don't think there is a problem or disagree with what others are trying to do to address it, scoffing at them only serves to set you apart as an ignorant contrarian. In my view, women only elections are not really going to address the problem, which is that parenting is allowed to get in the way of women's careers - this is a problem that can be addressed, though, for example by making high-profile careers more flexible in terms of work time or other conditions. Women are no less able than men when it comes to academia, but if you take out several years to care for the family, then you get too far behind; a little bit of flexibility and willingness to find a solution, on the part of universities, would help immensely.
Stephen Hawking is a brilliant man and solid scientist. His abilities as a futurist leave something to be desired.
Well, only time will tell. And as you say, he is well known to be very clever, so perhaps it is worth paying attention to his opinions? After all, as a scientist, he nows that ideas must, by necessity, be debated - that is how science works - but if you don't state your ideas, how can we debate them? Personally, if the choice is between Hawking, stating a clear opinion backed up with arguments, and someone called Spazmania, whose contribution so far is "he isn't all that clever", then the clear favourite is Hawking. I mean, at least tell us what you disagree with in his thoughts, and why.
You may or may not be right in what you are saying about this particular issue, but I think you are speaking from a background of a particular interest: you think freedom of speech is more important than other considerations in society. I am not here expressing any personal opinion about this, only pointing out the context. It is important to keep in mind that government and state are there to serve the whole of their people - ie. ideally all participants in society - not just certain interest groups, and if the overwhelming majority feels that freedom of speech isn't as important as, say, the safety of the weaker members of society, then it is right of the state and the government to try to address the issue. It is of course perfectly valid to argue that the way to address it is to try to educate people, but that takes a long time, and perhaps the issue needs handling now? Also, many - even most, I suspect - will agree that freedom of any sort comes with responsibility: if your use of your personal freedom harms others, then you are responsible for that damage and should potentially be punished for it.
It's like driving your car: you have the right to drive on any public highway, but if you drive recklessly and kill somebody, or if your actions cause an accident that kills somebody, then you have a responsibility for what happened. Of course, reckless driving is in itself an offence for which you can be punished, but you could argue that it shouldn't be - that it isn't necessary, because other laws already make it possible to punish a reckless driver for killing people etc, but I think most will agree that it is better to make the shortcut, since reckless driving is very often the cause of serious accidents. Stopping reckless drivers prevents accidents, and it may also prevent many from getting to the point where they have killed somebody and face a long, custodial sentence. Hate speech is the same thing: it is very often the trigger for racially aggravated crime, terrorism etc. Making hate speech an offence punishable by a fine may make some think a bit before just spouting some nonsense because they are drunk and angry; the first step down any path is always the hardest - once you get used to targeting a group with words, it becomes easier to think that beating up somebody isn't that bad and so on.
I'm not saying that I am necessarily right - but it would be deeply wrong not to have the debate simply because of "Freedom of Speech". I mean, freedom of speech aplies here as well, am I right?
Here's the funny thing - alpha is stopped by almost anything - tissue paper, a few centimeters of air, moisture in the air, etc. Unless you press the uranium against your skin, the alpha can't get to you.
When calling for honesty, it is always weise to try to be honest yourself. Nobody claims alpha radiation our in the environment is going to harm you - it is after all just Helium kernels buzzing around, and because they are big and heavy, they don't go very far. The problem arises when you ingest the radioactive material, in which case it becomes extremly dangerous, for that very same reason: it doesn't penetrate very far - so it deposits all of it energy in he tissue and causes huge, localised damage. The same goes for beta radiation - the only radiation that is likely to escape at least partially from your body, if you have ingested the material emitting it, is gamma radiation.
By all means, do go ahead and swallow radioactive isotopes, if you feel they are harmless, but don't force others to follow your lead.
That skips over quite a bit of history where the people of the Italian peninsula went through a considerably nasty period as the Western Empire fell.
Well, that's something for you guys to ponder, I guess;-)
Actually, it's going to hit us in Europe too, but seeing it coming, we can begin to do something about it. Who knows, maybe there's even something we can learn from China, such as investing heavily in education and high-technology. The days when China's only strength was cheap labour are beginning to be history.
I think if you're an immigrant from "whereverstan" and land ashore on one of these boats you've mentioned, learn the local language, get selected to attend the top schools, get hired by the best companies and end up running the companies, you've assimilated pretty f*cking well.
Absolutely. When your country attracts immigrants, especially economic immigrants, it benefits the whole of society. Not least because those are the ones that have the ambition, foresight and energy to go for the better opportunities rather than just being satisfied that tomorrow is going to be not much worse than today. Of course, the country that receives immigrants will also have a proportion of people, who are unambitious - and they may well feel that all the new, ambitious people are too "uppity". But is that the fault of the immigrants?
"Discrete" means something like "in separate parts", so "indiscrete" means "not in separate parts". I can only remember coming across the word in mathematics a long time ago.
...significant but necessary lifestyle compromises.
Actually, not all that significant in terms of living standards and comfort levels. It's like obesity - or other addictive behaviours - you consume far too much, and it actually makes your life worse, ruins your health, but you imagine you can't live without it. But when you have to, it turns out that you start feeling better, your health improves, and so on. How much does any person actually need to live a life that they would feel good about? Hard to answer, of course, but certainly a lot less than what we in the West actually consume - a point that is starkly illustrated by how much food we throw out untouched.
...even though we don;t have absolute proof,...
True, strictly speaking, but this is a matter of communication and cultural difference between the scientific community and the general public. When a scientist answers a question like "Is climate change real and caused by human activity?" with somethig like "It is 99% certain that this is the case", what they mean in layman's terms, is "Yes, definitely". Think about it - people in general are willing to bet their lives on far worse odds, like when they go out in traffic, and they feel certain they are going to survive.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, let the Chinese, Russians and Europeans do all the stuff with satelites that look back down on Earth. And India, Iran, and by now just about any vountry on the planet that is able to send a rocket up in the air. Sounds like a brilliant strategy.
What's "pants on head" stupid is that the only time "fraud" is ever a serious concern is when Democrats lose.
I think that is a bit rich, when Trump was the one hinting very heavily that he would only accept the election result if he won. Yes, I know, he never stated this clearly and unambiguously, but you have to be more than a little disingenious to explain his words any other way. And the objective fact is that the popular vote (ie. what is what real people on the ground actually wanted) stands very, very close to 50-50. In that situation it is perfectly reasonable to scrutinise the result carefully, to make sure that it is not in doubt. I would say the same no matter which side had won, because the winner will otherwise be open to the accusation, that he/she doesn't have a true mandate from the voters, whatever the technicalities of the electoral system.
Indeed - just look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The fact is that China has lured manufacturing to itself by ignoring its own environmental and laws.
Funny way to put it - are the Chinese wrong for taking the opportunity to haul themselves out of the muck they were left in by, among others, the Western powers? Were they incidiously luring the innocent, European and American companies to get things manufactured where it was cheap? Or is this how Capitalism works, by exploiting the poor, snaking through loop-holes in legislations and generally setting aside all considerations of what is right or wrong, unless it is profitable? People in the West have been infatuated with the ideas of unregulated capitalism for as long as it looked like they were winning; now, perhaps, it doesn't seem so attractive any more.
But I'm not gonna complain if he flip-flops away from stupidity and toward sanity.
Yeah, you never know, we may end up with a better Obama than Obama.
For years up to a week ago: TPP is an abomination love child between Hitler and Satan and needs to die.
Now that Trump doesn't want it: This will ruin the nation and will only benefit China. TPP Must Go Forward!
My guess is, come the inauguration, Trump will either deny that he ever said that (as he has done routinely with several things already), or he will symbolically cancel the TPP and negotiate something "much better" that will, for all intents and purposes, be identical. Whatever he says, the current agreement has been worked out by some of the best people that can be found on all sides, and it is naive to think that he can just throw out how many years of negotiations and brew up something better in an instant. Just look at the brexit debacle: It sounded so obvious that "we'll just get a better deal", but the rest of the European leaders don't agree all that much and on top of that, being human, they are feeling rather resentful, because UK have chosen to cause a lot of stupid problems for the rest of them; so they are not going to make it very easy for UK. If Trump does something similar, are the other participants in the TPP going to just shrug their shoulders and say say "OK, no problem"? Of course not - they will say "He's in a hurry to save face now, so we will put the squeeze on".
Perhaps it is now time to stop saying "China does ..." when it is actually not the Chinese state that does it? After all, when Oracle, Microsoft or IBM do something, we don't refer to them as "America ...", or if a smallish company in Denmark does something, for that matter, the headline is something like "Danish company X ...". Otherwise it comes across as poorly researched, in my view.
Using NoScript, I only allow javascript when the benefits to me outweigh the cost by some, considerable margin.
I know I am an extreme case, probably, but I reallly can't imagine why I would want to pay for a thing like Netflix in any form. I think it has been years since I watched any entertainment programme and enjoyed it - actually, that isn't true, there is something called "Have I got news for you" on BBC, which is occasionally intelligently witty, but it's been a while since I watched it. But if people around here really are interested in sciency/techy stuff, there are several good collections on youtube, such as:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
and:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Both are very entertaining, and the latter is the gentlest introduction to tensor calculus I have ever come across. Really nice, far better than "Batman - The Dark Tosser Returns" or whatever.
I don't understand the idea of making kids do chores.
Depends on how you go about it. It is certainly the duty of parents to give their children the best possible introduction to life in a society, and part of that unfortunately involves working for a living. And being gently "forced" to perform useful tasks also gives a child the opportunity to learn, that even a tedious chore isn't all bad - there may be a reward at the end, they may learn a useful skill, they may learn that making a few mistakes isn't the end of the world (and that there are ways to correct problems along the way), they may receive a boost in self-confidence from knowing they have done something that is appreciated and so on. This all depends on the parents - there are some, who can turn any experience into a nightmare for the child by always criticising and punishing.
This single task robot has nothing better to do. It is silly to spend money to make it faster just so it can have more idle time.
No, this falls firmsly into the category of silly gadgets, as it stands. There will be people who will buy it, but that is for the coolnes-value, not because it solves a tedious problem. A rfaster version with bigger capacity might be useful in a large laundry, though.
They benefit from warmer temps, longer growing seasons, more land in the cultivation zone, etc.
I wouldn't be so fast at calling that simply benefits - when the permafrost thaws, it causes a large number of issues, such as soil instability, ecological upheavals etc etc, not to mention the potentially huge release of methane from gas hydrates and other sources that are now kept frozen. Warmer climate may sound good, but there will be a transition period in which things are going to look grim, and it won't be over in a few years - it can probably go on for centuries.
i seem to recall from researching nuclear batteries that semiconductor junctions degrade quickly when exposed to high energy ionizing radiation.
I think perhaps in practice this may not be a big problem, since alpha and beta radiation don't travel far in air or through most materials. It would be more of a problem in a vacuum, like in space. Gamma radiation, being photons, could potentially be a problem, but I don't know how much there is in that area - presumably the engineers will have though about this problem - they are quite clever, is my impression.
...antisocial nerds.
I understand what you mean (I think), but I think we need to clarify this point: nerds are, possibly, asocial, but not generally anti-social. "Asocial" meaning "not social/sociable", which describes most of us who are more interested in technology and science than in socialising, and "anti-social" meaning "against (or even hostile to) social order and -connections", which I doubt many of us really are - it is something we normally associate with psychopaths.
When you say America will be great again, do you mean America will be great for everyone except nerds?
Hey, take a rough guess. When someone like Trump talks about "making America great again", it doesn't mean anything, really; they have this vague feeling that they are somehow not good enough, that everybody else looks down at them, and they want somehow to feel that they are great - Trump clearly imagines that he is a brilliant person who is unfairly being put upon, and he has decided that it is the fault of "them", where "them" happen to be Mexicans, the Chinese and other groups that have dared to criticise him. We have seen this happen over and over through history: intellectuals invariably end up being "the enemy of the state" because they tend to point out the obvious weak points in the plans of small-minded people, who have ended up in positions of power. And the don't come much smaller than Trump - as Ernest Rutherford would have said: he is an Euclidean point (that is, he has a position, but no magnitude).
... government official wants money owed to government...
I think it is worth pointing out that this is not "some government official" who wants something for himself; this is money owed to society - the government is doing what it should do, namely acting as the representative of society. There is this modern myth, that "government" is your enemy, some entity that is somehow separate from the rest of us, but it simply isn't true. If you have a government that doesn't serve the interests of the WHOLE of the people, then you, the voter, bear a large part of the blame for that. Yeah, the establishment has let you down - but you have the your government down too, by being wilfully uninformed and refusing to engage with real facts; it is as if a large proportion of you guys prefer to be spiteful rather than accepting that some politician, you happen to disagree with, might occasionally do the right thing. If our societies crumble from within and succumb to what are really minor threats, like Daesh, this sort of attitude is the reason.
In other words, you don't give a shit, because you don't feel it touches you personally, am I right? It is easy - or, probably the modern word is 'facile' - to pull the pocket-philosophy out; I can do that too: 3000 Americans were killed in the twin towers in New York? Well, that's just life. Your whole family was wiped out by MRSA? Well, that's just nature's way. How am I doing so far? I think it sounds stupid - it sounds like somebody who is too intellectually lazy to make an effort.
It is all too easy to dismiss inequality when you are yourself on the side that enjoys the benefits of that inequality - that is what he establishment has always done throughout history; the consequences are well documented, I think: revolutions, among other things. If you are one of those that voted for Trump, you should at least in principle have some sympathy - I say in principle, because I don't think his supporters have much understanding, in practice, for the inequality that women face.
That women aren't represented equally in science, technology and engineering is well known and has been discussed even on slashdot - I think, even if don't think there is a problem or disagree with what others are trying to do to address it, scoffing at them only serves to set you apart as an ignorant contrarian. In my view, women only elections are not really going to address the problem, which is that parenting is allowed to get in the way of women's careers - this is a problem that can be addressed, though, for example by making high-profile careers more flexible in terms of work time or other conditions. Women are no less able than men when it comes to academia, but if you take out several years to care for the family, then you get too far behind; a little bit of flexibility and willingness to find a solution, on the part of universities, would help immensely.
Stephen Hawking is a brilliant man and solid scientist. His abilities as a futurist leave something to be desired.
Well, only time will tell. And as you say, he is well known to be very clever, so perhaps it is worth paying attention to his opinions? After all, as a scientist, he nows that ideas must, by necessity, be debated - that is how science works - but if you don't state your ideas, how can we debate them? Personally, if the choice is between Hawking, stating a clear opinion backed up with arguments, and someone called Spazmania, whose contribution so far is "he isn't all that clever", then the clear favourite is Hawking. I mean, at least tell us what you disagree with in his thoughts, and why.
You may or may not be right in what you are saying about this particular issue, but I think you are speaking from a background of a particular interest: you think freedom of speech is more important than other considerations in society. I am not here expressing any personal opinion about this, only pointing out the context. It is important to keep in mind that government and state are there to serve the whole of their people - ie. ideally all participants in society - not just certain interest groups, and if the overwhelming majority feels that freedom of speech isn't as important as, say, the safety of the weaker members of society, then it is right of the state and the government to try to address the issue. It is of course perfectly valid to argue that the way to address it is to try to educate people, but that takes a long time, and perhaps the issue needs handling now? Also, many - even most, I suspect - will agree that freedom of any sort comes with responsibility: if your use of your personal freedom harms others, then you are responsible for that damage and should potentially be punished for it.
It's like driving your car: you have the right to drive on any public highway, but if you drive recklessly and kill somebody, or if your actions cause an accident that kills somebody, then you have a responsibility for what happened. Of course, reckless driving is in itself an offence for which you can be punished, but you could argue that it shouldn't be - that it isn't necessary, because other laws already make it possible to punish a reckless driver for killing people etc, but I think most will agree that it is better to make the shortcut, since reckless driving is very often the cause of serious accidents. Stopping reckless drivers prevents accidents, and it may also prevent many from getting to the point where they have killed somebody and face a long, custodial sentence. Hate speech is the same thing: it is very often the trigger for racially aggravated crime, terrorism etc. Making hate speech an offence punishable by a fine may make some think a bit before just spouting some nonsense because they are drunk and angry; the first step down any path is always the hardest - once you get used to targeting a group with words, it becomes easier to think that beating up somebody isn't that bad and so on.
I'm not saying that I am necessarily right - but it would be deeply wrong not to have the debate simply because of "Freedom of Speech". I mean, freedom of speech aplies here as well, am I right?
Here's the funny thing - alpha is stopped by almost anything - tissue paper, a few centimeters of air, moisture in the air, etc. Unless you press the uranium against your skin, the alpha can't get to you.
When calling for honesty, it is always weise to try to be honest yourself. Nobody claims alpha radiation our in the environment is going to harm you - it is after all just Helium kernels buzzing around, and because they are big and heavy, they don't go very far. The problem arises when you ingest the radioactive material, in which case it becomes extremly dangerous, for that very same reason: it doesn't penetrate very far - so it deposits all of it energy in he tissue and causes huge, localised damage. The same goes for beta radiation - the only radiation that is likely to escape at least partially from your body, if you have ingested the material emitting it, is gamma radiation.
By all means, do go ahead and swallow radioactive isotopes, if you feel they are harmless, but don't force others to follow your lead.
That skips over quite a bit of history where the people of the Italian peninsula went through a considerably nasty period as the Western Empire fell.
Well, that's something for you guys to ponder, I guess ;-)
Actually, it's going to hit us in Europe too, but seeing it coming, we can begin to do something about it. Who knows, maybe there's even something we can learn from China, such as investing heavily in education and high-technology. The days when China's only strength was cheap labour are beginning to be history.
Steven Bannon: "No, no, I'm not a racist, I just can't stand people of colour"
I think if you're an immigrant from "whereverstan" and land ashore on one of these boats you've mentioned, learn the local language, get selected to attend the top schools, get hired by the best companies and end up running the companies, you've assimilated pretty f*cking well.
Absolutely. When your country attracts immigrants, especially economic immigrants, it benefits the whole of society. Not least because those are the ones that have the ambition, foresight and energy to go for the better opportunities rather than just being satisfied that tomorrow is going to be not much worse than today. Of course, the country that receives immigrants will also have a proportion of people, who are unambitious - and they may well feel that all the new, ambitious people are too "uppity". But is that the fault of the immigrants?
Possibly: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
"Discrete" means something like "in separate parts", so "indiscrete" means "not in separate parts". I can only remember coming across the word in mathematics a long time ago.
Well said.
...significant but necessary lifestyle compromises.
Actually, not all that significant in terms of living standards and comfort levels. It's like obesity - or other addictive behaviours - you consume far too much, and it actually makes your life worse, ruins your health, but you imagine you can't live without it. But when you have to, it turns out that you start feeling better, your health improves, and so on. How much does any person actually need to live a life that they would feel good about? Hard to answer, of course, but certainly a lot less than what we in the West actually consume - a point that is starkly illustrated by how much food we throw out untouched.
...even though we don;t have absolute proof,...
True, strictly speaking, but this is a matter of communication and cultural difference between the scientific community and the general public. When a scientist answers a question like "Is climate change real and caused by human activity?" with somethig like "It is 99% certain that this is the case", what they mean in layman's terms, is "Yes, definitely". Think about it - people in general are willing to bet their lives on far worse odds, like when they go out in traffic, and they feel certain they are going to survive.