The answer however is that we need to download MP3s.
Exactly!
Obviously, pirating music is best for the planet.
You only download the song once, and can make infinite local copies of it. No need to stream over and over, just local playback.
Your entire music collection can fit onto a single external hard drive, removing the need to purchase vast amounts of storage media like CDs which store about 20 songs each.
The sharing of pirated music is mostly peer-to-peer, removing the need for large expensive server rooms.
However, that is strictly an internal detail of the insurance business and not a factor in the definition of insurance. It's still insurance even if we're just talking about a contract between two parties with no risk pool.
No, it is not an "internal detail". It is fundamental. Without that, insurance at scale does not work. I don't know what you're using as the "definition" of insurance but what matters is what insurance is in practice, not how it is defined in a dictionary or textbook.
Insurance companies would not be in business if they sold insurance to only one person, or had a high expectation that they would have to pay out all of their clients. Again this is not a "detail" - it is absolutely, completely fundamental to their business model. Yes, we can have insurance contracts between two parties with no risk pool, but without a risk pool the insurance industry would not exist. This is proven by the fact the insurance companies go bankrupt when things happen that were not accounted for in their risk model, thus causing too many payouts of insurance contracts. Without a risk pool, insurance would be ridiculously expensive to the point that almost no one would purchase it.
Also, in modern insurance there is no such thing as a completely personalized risk assessment. Your risk is partly (sometimes greatly, sometimes almost entirely, depending on the situation) is assessed based on the observed/assessed risk of the group(s) you belong to. For car insurance for example, your age, years of driving experience, sex, make, model and colour of car you drive, and adress have an influence on your premium.
So indeed, mass insurance in practice is indeed a socialization of costs. If 5000 people buy insurance, but only 50 are likely to require a payout in a given period, as a group they can each pay less. This is a fundamental concept that cannot be dismissed as a "detail".
I've only ever seen one USB-C cable and the person who uses it finds it annoying (it's not even for an iphone but a raspberry-pi style device). I don't know why someone would have a "ton" of those cables, maybe two if they have a new iphone. Fast charge doesn't matter if you're able to actually let go of the phone and put it down, charging overnight should last all day.
I have now countered and balanced your data point, thus nullifying it.
My new phone came with a USB-C fast charger. I didn't shop particularly for it, but I guess that's what new phones are supposed to come with now (I paid about $350 for it, so it's a midrange device).
I absolutely LOVE the fast charging. I can charge the phone in under an hour. I'm now pissed off by my older devices that charge so slowly. This will become especially important as the phone ages and the battery capacity goes down - because at that point charging overnight is not enough to make it last all day. Fast charging matters and is by far the best and most important feature of my new phone. I consider all people willing to pay $1000 for a new phone without fast charging to be dumb, frankly.
Yeah, a "cost-saving" measure on a device selling for upwards of $1000 and with a huge profit margin. Sold by one of the richest corporations in the world.
"Profit-saving" measure is the proper word here.
As you said however, gullible Apple fans deserve it. "There's a sucker born every minute" - and at least every 5 minutes it's an Apple fanboy.
Another simple Rule
Fines do not change corporate behaviour, fines are just a cost of doing business, and the cost is simply put back onto consumers.
So STOP fining corporations.
INSTEAD, put senior management in prison for 5-10 years, perhaps more, bankrupt them, remove their right to run a business ever again. If some poor person getting caught with a joint 3 times can get 20 years, why should an executive who rips of millions of people not get the same. They claim they get paid so much because of the risk, well lets make that risk real.
WHEN and only WHEN this happens , will businesses change and become good citizens.
Currently they scam their customers, scam the tax payers and get away scot free.
Bingo. It's called skin in the game. Currently most executives have little to none.
Yes I understand the point of an LLC or a corporation is limited liability. However that should be limited business liability - i.e. if you make bad business decisions, and the company goes bankrupt, you don't lose all of your property, i.e. beyond what you have invested in the company. If you break the law, you should pay for it...it's not abstract "corporations" that break the law, it's people that break the law - and people that should be punised. With fines, jail, limitations on running businesses again - whatever it is, there must be a lot more personal responsibility than there is now.
Besides isn't like google to abandon a lot of their projects and leave users high and dry? Rely on google and good luck? The only mainstay is the search portal. Thankfully these are results we can could on. Fair and balanced.
Good ol' Google, keeping everything in "beta" and abandoning it on short notice after some period of time. Only, you, real physical services that people pay for - like Google Fiber - aren't free-to-use online apps. Is it gonna be like this with Waymo one day too? "Sorry, can't fix that bug that repeatedly crashes cars into lamp posts, your vehicle will become inoperative within 30 days."
Funny how the EU always levies fines on American tech companies, and never dares touch Chinese companies.
Maybe the Chinese companies aren't dodging taxes? Or they haven't been around in the EU market long enough for their dodginess to be uncovered? Non-tech Chinese products have been on the EU market for a long time...and the EU raised quite a big fuss over some of them.
It was created to continue to draw in and keep the worlds best and brightest. The H1-B was meant to keep college graduates in the US where they would step up into green cards and then citizenship after a decade or so. America had been a brain drain on the world for decades and that trend began to decline in the 80's and 90's with a number of fields being unable to hire enough people and not enough US citizens graduating in those programs to even replace retirees in the field so Congress created the H1-B program to give an opportunity for graduating foreigners in professions with tight labor markets an opportunity to stay in the US in high paid jobs and an eventual path to citizenship.
If that was the idea than the H-1B was implemented in a rather dumb way. Why not just give every foreign graduate of an American college a work permit for X years? This is what Canada does.
H-1Bs were created in response to a trend that research turned up. More and more U.S. college and university graduates were accepting jobs overseas, resulting in a net drain of skilled graduates out of the country. The idea behind the H-1B was to make it so that a well-educated foreigner could get a job in the U.S. more easily, countering that trend.
If that was the idea, then the H-1B was (and is) a bad solution to that problem. Look north of the border for a more sensible approach.
The reason that the H-1B screws local workers over is that it's tied to a particular employer. So if you want to stay in (or come to) the US, you have to accept whatever conditions are offerred...and while on an H-1B, you basically have no leverage. This allows employers to depress wages.
Canada has a more sensible approach: there is something called a post-graduate work permit which automatically (well, you have to apply but you're 99% certain to get it) grants all foreign students the right to live and work in Canada after the end of their educational program, for a length of time equal to the length of that program. If you paid for some funny 6-12 month course just trying to get your foot in the door, you will get a 6-12 month work permit after that. If you did an academic Masters degree which is typically 2 years, you will get a 2 year work permit. If you did a PhD which typically lasts 4-5 years, you will get a 4-5 year work permit. There are no limits on your employment during this time and you can work for whoever you want (that will hire you). You can change as many jobs as you like (and can). Employees don't have the type of leverage over you that they have with an H-1B in the US. You can also use this time to apply for a PR (permanent residence permit). The more highly educated you are and the better your job, the more likely you are to get one. If your postgraduate permit expires while your PR application is being processed, it is automatically extended until you get a response for your PR application (provided you do not leave the country in the meantime).
its well-known that many cultures encourage rote memorization and that passes for 'learning'.
Seems like you "rote memorized" the letters of the alphabet without really learning what they mean...or have not read the article or the summary.
Previously, the first lottery awarded 20,000 visas to people with graduate degrees earned in the US. Then came the general lottery awarding 65,000 visas for which people with just bachelor's degrees, and with any higher degree regardless of where it was earned, could apply.
Now this has been switched around. That means that those 20,000 applicants with American graduate degrees are going to be in the general pool of applicants and many (all?) of them are going to be among the 65,000 "general" H1B visas granted. This will reduce the amount of visas granted to people just holding undergraduate degrees and those educated outside of the US. That is, it is doing exactly what you would like it to do.
If I can't imagine the job then it's not going to exist on a time frame that matters to me or even my kids. The resulting technology unemployment, OTOH, will exist.
Are you asserting that you are the most imaginitive person on the planet? While this is possible of course, it's highly unlikely.
As I said, there are lots of jobs today that people couldn't imagine 30 years ago. I don't know how old you are, but I'm sure there are still more jobs that your parents could not imagine at some point in the past, so making that assertion about your kids seems kind of foolish to me.
As for resulting technology unemployment: there will be some, of course. As there has been in the past. Keep in mind that in developed countries, the working age population is set to shrink...
Some of the jobs which are widespread today (social media coordinator for example) were unimaginable by most people just 30 years ago.
You just don't get it, do you?
It doesn't matter what the jobs of the future are, or whether or not we can imagine them. That's immaterial to the problem.
The problem is that between AI and automation, robots will do them better, faster, and cheaper. It doesn't matter what jobs we come up with when it doesn't make any fiscal sense to hire humans to do them.
I'm afraid I get it a lot better than you do.
Of course it matters what the jobs of the future are - it's far from immaterial. If this is not clear to you, then you are the one who truly does not get it.
Robots and other machines and "AI" have been putting people out of work and automating away human jobs for about a century (at least) now. Yet, we do not have mass unemployment. The reason you think it will be vastly different in the future is beacause 1) you are believing the AI hype and overextrapolating present abilities of AI and robotics into the future (things will not improve as much and as fast as you obviously seem to think) and 2) you have a lack of imagination. So do I - but at least I admit it.
Now even if we assume you are correct - which I strongly believe you are not, but let's put that aside for the moment - and that some point in the medium term future, AI and robots are going to put something like 95% of people out of work. I say - great! That's a precondition for utopia...that kind of massive disassociation of wealth (and the ability to gain wealth) from labour will foster a social revolution. Remember, the industrial revolution was not only technological - it brought with it significant social change as people dealt with the consequences of technological advancement. This went hand in hand with radical economic change: remember, there was a time when most people didn't survive by earning a wage, when very little money circulated, and when most people - even most of the very rich - did not count their wealth primarily in how much currency they had in their possession. If 95% of the people cannot work for a living, the economy will collapse (who will spend the money and buy the automatically produced things and automatically produced services?). The means of production will then be in some way socialized (either nationalized or heavily taxed) leading to a radical social re-alignment. If we can produce almost everything we need for a high standard of living without the need for a large input of human labour, the economy becomes mostly about resource management. Now, after having had such a realignment or revolution, with all basic needs cheaply provided for by automation, imagine all the things we could get - indeed pay - people to do....things that today do not make "fiscal sense". Like we could pick up all the pieces of trash on this planet. Or do really cool sci-fi type experiements and projects under the sea or in outer space...raise the educational level of everyone...produce a lot more art...etc. Which gets us back to "there will be ne more jobs" fallacy. Welcome to Start Trek, Ensign Crusher.
This means we're not gonna have wars save us this time. The next industrial revolution is upon us in the form of computerized automation. I've never _once_ heard a credible explanation of exactly what jobs we're all gonna retrain for. That's because there isn't one. You say that it's just that I can't imagine those jobs? That's because by the time they're available I'll be dead and I'll have died dirt poor.
We were saved by two humongous wars a result of which about 100 million people died (directly during the war...so we can make this number bigger)? Guess who did the vast majority of dying? Rich folks? No. The poor and the middle classes...
Yes, I'm saying that you just can't imagine those jobs - and no, not because you'll be dead by the time they're available (unless you are already an octogenerian), but simply because you can't imagine them. Some of the jobs which are widespread today (social media coordinator for example) were unimaginable by most people just 30 years ago.
Or we could just use nuclear and take care of all the problems at once doing far less damage to the environment in the process. With nuclear you can cheaply make synthetic fuels to replace gas, diesel and natural gas that renewables can't really do anything about
How can we make synthetic fuel using nuclear plants? At scale to replace gas, diesel and natural gas?
Most of us reading this are probably thinking the same thing - how does someone who's broke pay for some new tech?
Greece isn't broke. That was 8-10 years ago. Greece recorded a budget surplus (0.6% and 0.8% of GDP respectively) in the past two years. That is with all the debt payments included. Without the debt, Greece's primary surplus last year was about 3.2% of GDP. In 2017, it was 4.2%. So yes, they can pay for new stuff, especially since solar panels and batteries on islands don't need to be necessarily paid for directly by the central government.
The change that needs to happen is to be able to charge a battery as fast as filling the gas tank.
Yes and no.
Sure, it would be great to be able to charge an EV to a comparable stored energy level in the same time it now takes to fill up $25 worth of gasoline. It is however not necessary.
The only place where I can get fuel for an ICE vehicle is at a station with a pump. An EV I can charge overnight in my garage (or whenever I am home). I can plug in away from home in a parking lot (at the office, the mall, the restaurant, a hotel, etc.). Personal cars are parked most of the day, and if you could charge everywhere where you park, slow charging is acceptable. At home this is already available basically for all house owners. Many apartment buildings now have chargers too. There are many public ones at or near office buildings, shopping and entertainment venues, etc. Since electricity is already routed basically everywhere, it's easier to eventually have a (slow) charger at every corner than to have a liquid fuel pump at every corner.
This reduces the need for quick charges for most people. Especially when coupled with the growth in battery capacity in the average EV. The only time one would need a quick charge is for some reason one forgot or was not able to charge at the home / office / wherever, or when on a long (intercity, cross-country) trip. In that case, doing a full charge (0 - 100%) in 15-30 minutes is acceptable. Yes it's longer than filling up with gas (which is 5-6 minutes tops, when you have a large empty tank) but it would happen a lot less often. In total, you'd spending a lot less time at a station - and when this is part of a long trip, you would take longer breaks anyway. If I'm doing Toronto - Montreal, I don't care if I spent 5 mins to fill up on gas and then 25 minutes having a snack and a coffee at the station's bar/store, or if the car is charging for 30 minutes while I have my break with snack & coffee. There would just have to be enough charging stations so you don't waste too much time waiting in line.
I know a lot of people in Toronto with zero cars. Mostly those living downtown, or in the more traditional urban areas close to it. I think it's a generational thing. Younger folks are less likely to have a car (and be members of zipcar or some such car-sharing service) even if they grew up in the suburbs in families owning 2-3 vehicles. Their parents might still have two cars making it easy for them to ocassionally borrow one when needed for an out-of-town trip, which further reduces their incentive to buy their own vehicle.
sure, places have charging stations. get stuck behind a couple people behind one and there goes your schedule for the entire day.
I'm sure than in 1905 there were lots of people saying "sure places have gas stations. Get stuck behind a couple people behind one and there goes your schedule for the entire day. I can just zoom by on my horse and there's lots of places I can feed it quickly..."
Yes, we are in the early days of EV adoption. Yes, there is not enough infrastructure everywhere yet. This will change. It will change more quickly than most people think.
Is that last bit a joke? Like the Swiss Navy, or something?
Note: Canada has a summer. In places where people actually live (like southern Ontario and southern Quebec), it gets significantly hotter in the summer than in many other places with mild climates and mild winters (like the UK or Germany for example).
We actually can't afford to drive anything other than brand new electric cars in Oslo. Consider that a 5 year loan for an electric car is paid for completely by the money saved by getting rid of a diesel. In fact, when you add in the cost of EU control, the cost of gas, etc... buying a brand new BMW i3 is actually substantially cheaper than continuing to drive a gas vehicle.
But it won't work in someplace like the UK or the US. These are protectionist societies. We assume everyone is guilty until proven innocent.... actually... we assume everyone is guilty and if they're proven innocent we congratulate their lawyers for being so damn good. Unless you live in a society of trust, you can't make a change this big. You have to actually be willing to work together towards something better.
Norway's approach is to tax the hell out of ICE cars and then not tax the electric cars, thus making the electrics, as you explain, quite a bit cheaper (but still expensive in absolute terms). This approach makes sense in Norway as it is a small yet rich country that imports basically all of its cars. Since Norway does not have large scale auto manufacturers, it cannot make large enough investments/subsidies to make EVs cheaper than ICVs without resorting to taxation.
The US, the UK, France, Germany, China, and Japan for example on the other hand - they can, because they have large auto manufacturers whose production plans they can affect. You can give them tax breaks and research funds to develop EVs, and so on. Whereas Norway cannot really squeeze GM or Ford but has to resort to squeezing its own citizens (who, luckily, can afford being squeezed), the US can squeeze GM and force it to make EVs (if it wanted to). I've come in any case to the conclusion that if we really want to avoid completely wrecking the planet, we simply have to set a date after which the production of things using CO2-emitting technologies will simply be banned. For example, no new ICVs allowed to be made after 2030. You've got 10 years to figure out how to switch to a fully EV fleet, do it. Then repeat for other industries, wherever possible.
Many Canadians drive well into the wilderness to go to the cottage or go camping. A lot of times that is in the winter. There are a lot of road trips to national parks, etc.
You would have to define what you mean by "many", since as a Canadian I would dispute that "many drive well into the wilderness" (it's certainly very far from "most"). By my experience, most people in the GTA drive less than 2-3 hrs (around 300 km) when they go camping, to the cottage or wherever (Muskoka does not fit the description of "well into the wilderness", I'm sorry).
Norwegians are also very outdoorsy people, my impression is that the average Norwegian is actually outdoorsier than the average Canadian.
Norway is also sparsely populated. Also, the vast majority of Canadians do not spend a lot of time driving through empty spaces, most of them live in urban and suburban areas (more than 80% live in metropolitan areas, and more than a third live in the Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver areas), and they usually drive a few km to work, shop, go out, etc.
That, and the fact the country could fit into Texas twice, you have the perfect place for electric cars.
Norway is less densely populated than Texas, most of its cities are along the coast (and bit inland, with the Oslo area being the only big "intrusion" of relatively high-density population farther inland), and it's elongated shape and inhospitable terrain probably means (though I haven't checked) that it takes quite a bit longer to drive from one end of Norway to another then from one end of Texas to another.
In other words, Norway is not Denmark. Also, the climate in Texas is far more favourable for EVs than the climate in Norway.
Slashdot Mirror
The answer however is that we need to download MP3s.
Exactly!
Obviously, pirating music is best for the planet.
You only download the song once, and can make infinite local copies of it. No need to stream over and over, just local playback.
Your entire music collection can fit onto a single external hard drive, removing the need to purchase vast amounts of storage media like CDs which store about 20 songs each.
The sharing of pirated music is mostly peer-to-peer, removing the need for large expensive server rooms.
However, that is strictly an internal detail of the insurance business and not a factor in the definition of insurance. It's still insurance even if we're just talking about a contract between two parties with no risk pool.
No, it is not an "internal detail". It is fundamental. Without that, insurance at scale does not work. I don't know what you're using as the "definition" of insurance but what matters is what insurance is in practice, not how it is defined in a dictionary or textbook.
Insurance companies would not be in business if they sold insurance to only one person, or had a high expectation that they would have to pay out all of their clients. Again this is not a "detail" - it is absolutely, completely fundamental to their business model. Yes, we can have insurance contracts between two parties with no risk pool, but without a risk pool the insurance industry would not exist. This is proven by the fact the insurance companies go bankrupt when things happen that were not accounted for in their risk model, thus causing too many payouts of insurance contracts. Without a risk pool, insurance would be ridiculously expensive to the point that almost no one would purchase it.
Also, in modern insurance there is no such thing as a completely personalized risk assessment. Your risk is partly (sometimes greatly, sometimes almost entirely, depending on the situation) is assessed based on the observed/assessed risk of the group(s) you belong to. For car insurance for example, your age, years of driving experience, sex, make, model and colour of car you drive, and adress have an influence on your premium.
So indeed, mass insurance in practice is indeed a socialization of costs. If 5000 people buy insurance, but only 50 are likely to require a payout in a given period, as a group they can each pay less. This is a fundamental concept that cannot be dismissed as a "detail".
So why are they shipping it with a slow charger?
I've only ever seen one USB-C cable and the person who uses it finds it annoying (it's not even for an iphone but a raspberry-pi style device). I don't know why someone would have a "ton" of those cables, maybe two if they have a new iphone. Fast charge doesn't matter if you're able to actually let go of the phone and put it down, charging overnight should last all day.
I have now countered and balanced your data point, thus nullifying it.
My new phone came with a USB-C fast charger. I didn't shop particularly for it, but I guess that's what new phones are supposed to come with now (I paid about $350 for it, so it's a midrange device).
I absolutely LOVE the fast charging. I can charge the phone in under an hour. I'm now pissed off by my older devices that charge so slowly. This will become especially important as the phone ages and the battery capacity goes down - because at that point charging overnight is not enough to make it last all day. Fast charging matters and is by far the best and most important feature of my new phone. I consider all people willing to pay $1000 for a new phone without fast charging to be dumb, frankly.
Yeah, a "cost-saving" measure on a device selling for upwards of $1000 and with a huge profit margin. Sold by one of the richest corporations in the world.
"Profit-saving" measure is the proper word here.
As you said however, gullible Apple fans deserve it. "There's a sucker born every minute" - and at least every 5 minutes it's an Apple fanboy.
Another simple Rule Fines do not change corporate behaviour, fines are just a cost of doing business, and the cost is simply put back onto consumers.
So STOP fining corporations.
INSTEAD, put senior management in prison for 5-10 years, perhaps more, bankrupt them, remove their right to run a business ever again. If some poor person getting caught with a joint 3 times can get 20 years, why should an executive who rips of millions of people not get the same. They claim they get paid so much because of the risk, well lets make that risk real.
WHEN and only WHEN this happens , will businesses change and become good citizens. Currently they scam their customers, scam the tax payers and get away scot free.
Bingo. It's called skin in the game. Currently most executives have little to none.
Yes I understand the point of an LLC or a corporation is limited liability. However that should be limited business liability - i.e. if you make bad business decisions, and the company goes bankrupt, you don't lose all of your property, i.e. beyond what you have invested in the company. If you break the law, you should pay for it...it's not abstract "corporations" that break the law, it's people that break the law - and people that should be punised. With fines, jail, limitations on running businesses again - whatever it is, there must be a lot more personal responsibility than there is now.
Besides isn't like google to abandon a lot of their projects and leave users high and dry? Rely on google and good luck? The only mainstay is the search portal. Thankfully these are results we can could on. Fair and balanced.
Good ol' Google, keeping everything in "beta" and abandoning it on short notice after some period of time. Only, you, real physical services that people pay for - like Google Fiber - aren't free-to-use online apps. Is it gonna be like this with Waymo one day too? "Sorry, can't fix that bug that repeatedly crashes cars into lamp posts, your vehicle will become inoperative within 30 days."
Funny how the EU always levies fines on American tech companies, and never dares touch Chinese companies.
Maybe the Chinese companies aren't dodging taxes? Or they haven't been around in the EU market long enough for their dodginess to be uncovered? Non-tech Chinese products have been on the EU market for a long time...and the EU raised quite a big fuss over some of them.
Also you will be glad to know that besides dishing out fines for American companies, the EU happily does that for it's own companies and those from other countries (like Japan) as well when they break the rules.
It was created to continue to draw in and keep the worlds best and brightest. The H1-B was meant to keep college graduates in the US where they would step up into green cards and then citizenship after a decade or so. America had been a brain drain on the world for decades and that trend began to decline in the 80's and 90's with a number of fields being unable to hire enough people and not enough US citizens graduating in those programs to even replace retirees in the field so Congress created the H1-B program to give an opportunity for graduating foreigners in professions with tight labor markets an opportunity to stay in the US in high paid jobs and an eventual path to citizenship.
If that was the idea than the H-1B was implemented in a rather dumb way. Why not just give every foreign graduate of an American college a work permit for X years? This is what Canada does.
H-1Bs were created in response to a trend that research turned up. More and more U.S. college and university graduates were accepting jobs overseas, resulting in a net drain of skilled graduates out of the country. The idea behind the H-1B was to make it so that a well-educated foreigner could get a job in the U.S. more easily, countering that trend.
If that was the idea, then the H-1B was (and is) a bad solution to that problem. Look north of the border for a more sensible approach.
The reason that the H-1B screws local workers over is that it's tied to a particular employer. So if you want to stay in (or come to) the US, you have to accept whatever conditions are offerred...and while on an H-1B, you basically have no leverage. This allows employers to depress wages.
Canada has a more sensible approach: there is something called a post-graduate work permit which automatically (well, you have to apply but you're 99% certain to get it) grants all foreign students the right to live and work in Canada after the end of their educational program, for a length of time equal to the length of that program. If you paid for some funny 6-12 month course just trying to get your foot in the door, you will get a 6-12 month work permit after that. If you did an academic Masters degree which is typically 2 years, you will get a 2 year work permit. If you did a PhD which typically lasts 4-5 years, you will get a 4-5 year work permit. There are no limits on your employment during this time and you can work for whoever you want (that will hire you). You can change as many jobs as you like (and can). Employees don't have the type of leverage over you that they have with an H-1B in the US. You can also use this time to apply for a PR (permanent residence permit). The more highly educated you are and the better your job, the more likely you are to get one. If your postgraduate permit expires while your PR application is being processed, it is automatically extended until you get a response for your PR application (provided you do not leave the country in the meantime).
if its from various overseas countries.
its well-known that many cultures encourage rote memorization and that passes for 'learning'.
Seems like you "rote memorized" the letters of the alphabet without really learning what they mean...or have not read the article or the summary.
Previously, the first lottery awarded 20,000 visas to people with graduate degrees earned in the US. Then came the general lottery awarding 65,000 visas for which people with just bachelor's degrees, and with any higher degree regardless of where it was earned, could apply.
Now this has been switched around. That means that those 20,000 applicants with American graduate degrees are going to be in the general pool of applicants and many (all?) of them are going to be among the 65,000 "general" H1B visas granted. This will reduce the amount of visas granted to people just holding undergraduate degrees and those educated outside of the US. That is, it is doing exactly what you would like it to do.
If I can't imagine the job then it's not going to exist on a time frame that matters to me or even my kids. The resulting technology unemployment, OTOH, will exist.
Are you asserting that you are the most imaginitive person on the planet? While this is possible of course, it's highly unlikely.
As I said, there are lots of jobs today that people couldn't imagine 30 years ago. I don't know how old you are, but I'm sure there are still more jobs that your parents could not imagine at some point in the past, so making that assertion about your kids seems kind of foolish to me.
As for resulting technology unemployment: there will be some, of course. As there has been in the past. Keep in mind that in developed countries, the working age population is set to shrink...
Some of the jobs which are widespread today (social media coordinator for example) were unimaginable by most people just 30 years ago.
You just don't get it, do you?
It doesn't matter what the jobs of the future are, or whether or not we can imagine them. That's immaterial to the problem.
The problem is that between AI and automation, robots will do them better, faster, and cheaper. It doesn't matter what jobs we come up with when it doesn't make any fiscal sense to hire humans to do them.
I'm afraid I get it a lot better than you do.
Of course it matters what the jobs of the future are - it's far from immaterial. If this is not clear to you, then you are the one who truly does not get it.
Robots and other machines and "AI" have been putting people out of work and automating away human jobs for about a century (at least) now. Yet, we do not have mass unemployment. The reason you think it will be vastly different in the future is beacause 1) you are believing the AI hype and overextrapolating present abilities of AI and robotics into the future (things will not improve as much and as fast as you obviously seem to think) and 2) you have a lack of imagination. So do I - but at least I admit it.
Now even if we assume you are correct - which I strongly believe you are not, but let's put that aside for the moment - and that some point in the medium term future, AI and robots are going to put something like 95% of people out of work. I say - great! That's a precondition for utopia...that kind of massive disassociation of wealth (and the ability to gain wealth) from labour will foster a social revolution. Remember, the industrial revolution was not only technological - it brought with it significant social change as people dealt with the consequences of technological advancement. This went hand in hand with radical economic change: remember, there was a time when most people didn't survive by earning a wage, when very little money circulated, and when most people - even most of the very rich - did not count their wealth primarily in how much currency they had in their possession. If 95% of the people cannot work for a living, the economy will collapse (who will spend the money and buy the automatically produced things and automatically produced services?). The means of production will then be in some way socialized (either nationalized or heavily taxed) leading to a radical social re-alignment. If we can produce almost everything we need for a high standard of living without the need for a large input of human labour, the economy becomes mostly about resource management. Now, after having had such a realignment or revolution, with all basic needs cheaply provided for by automation, imagine all the things we could get - indeed pay - people to do....things that today do not make "fiscal sense". Like we could pick up all the pieces of trash on this planet. Or do really cool sci-fi type experiements and projects under the sea or in outer space...raise the educational level of everyone...produce a lot more art...etc. Which gets us back to "there will be ne more jobs" fallacy. Welcome to Start Trek, Ensign Crusher.
This means we're not gonna have wars save us this time. The next industrial revolution is upon us in the form of computerized automation. I've never _once_ heard a credible explanation of exactly what jobs we're all gonna retrain for. That's because there isn't one. You say that it's just that I can't imagine those jobs? That's because by the time they're available I'll be dead and I'll have died dirt poor.
We were saved by two humongous wars a result of which about 100 million people died (directly during the war...so we can make this number bigger)? Guess who did the vast majority of dying? Rich folks? No. The poor and the middle classes...
Yes, I'm saying that you just can't imagine those jobs - and no, not because you'll be dead by the time they're available (unless you are already an octogenerian), but simply because you can't imagine them. Some of the jobs which are widespread today (social media coordinator for example) were unimaginable by most people just 30 years ago.
Or we could just use nuclear and take care of all the problems at once doing far less damage to the environment in the process. With nuclear you can cheaply make synthetic fuels to replace gas, diesel and natural gas that renewables can't really do anything about
How can we make synthetic fuel using nuclear plants? At scale to replace gas, diesel and natural gas?
Most of the Greek islands already use renewables, and they could work fine on candlelight and wood, as they allegedly have since the times of Homer.
Mod parent Funny!
(emphasis mine)
Most of us reading this are probably thinking the same thing - how does someone who's broke pay for some new tech?
Greece isn't broke. That was 8-10 years ago. Greece recorded a budget surplus (0.6% and 0.8% of GDP respectively) in the past two years. That is with all the debt payments included. Without the debt, Greece's primary surplus last year was about 3.2% of GDP. In 2017, it was 4.2%. So yes, they can pay for new stuff, especially since solar panels and batteries on islands don't need to be necessarily paid for directly by the central government.
The change that needs to happen is to be able to charge a battery as fast as filling the gas tank.
Yes and no.
Sure, it would be great to be able to charge an EV to a comparable stored energy level in the same time it now takes to fill up $25 worth of gasoline. It is however not necessary.
The only place where I can get fuel for an ICE vehicle is at a station with a pump. An EV I can charge overnight in my garage (or whenever I am home). I can plug in away from home in a parking lot (at the office, the mall, the restaurant, a hotel, etc.). Personal cars are parked most of the day, and if you could charge everywhere where you park, slow charging is acceptable. At home this is already available basically for all house owners. Many apartment buildings now have chargers too. There are many public ones at or near office buildings, shopping and entertainment venues, etc. Since electricity is already routed basically everywhere, it's easier to eventually have a (slow) charger at every corner than to have a liquid fuel pump at every corner.
This reduces the need for quick charges for most people. Especially when coupled with the growth in battery capacity in the average EV. The only time one would need a quick charge is for some reason one forgot or was not able to charge at the home / office / wherever, or when on a long (intercity, cross-country) trip. In that case, doing a full charge (0 - 100%) in 15-30 minutes is acceptable. Yes it's longer than filling up with gas (which is 5-6 minutes tops, when you have a large empty tank) but it would happen a lot less often. In total, you'd spending a lot less time at a station - and when this is part of a long trip, you would take longer breaks anyway. If I'm doing Toronto - Montreal, I don't care if I spent 5 mins to fill up on gas and then 25 minutes having a snack and a coffee at the station's bar/store, or if the car is charging for 30 minutes while I have my break with snack & coffee. There would just have to be enough charging stations so you don't waste too much time waiting in line.
I know a lot of people in Toronto with zero cars. Mostly those living downtown, or in the more traditional urban areas close to it. I think it's a generational thing. Younger folks are less likely to have a car (and be members of zipcar or some such car-sharing service) even if they grew up in the suburbs in families owning 2-3 vehicles. Their parents might still have two cars making it easy for them to ocassionally borrow one when needed for an out-of-town trip, which further reduces their incentive to buy their own vehicle.
sure, places have charging stations. get stuck behind a couple people behind one and there goes your schedule for the entire day.
I'm sure than in 1905 there were lots of people saying "sure places have gas stations. Get stuck behind a couple people behind one and there goes your schedule for the entire day. I can just zoom by on my horse and there's lots of places I can feed it quickly..."
Yes, we are in the early days of EV adoption. Yes, there is not enough infrastructure everywhere yet. This will change. It will change more quickly than most people think.
Is that last bit a joke? Like the Swiss Navy, or something?
Note: Canada has a summer. In places where people actually live (like southern Ontario and southern Quebec), it gets significantly hotter in the summer than in many other places with mild climates and mild winters (like the UK or Germany for example).
We actually can't afford to drive anything other than brand new electric cars in Oslo. Consider that a 5 year loan for an electric car is paid for completely by the money saved by getting rid of a diesel. In fact, when you add in the cost of EU control, the cost of gas, etc... buying a brand new BMW i3 is actually substantially cheaper than continuing to drive a gas vehicle. But it won't work in someplace like the UK or the US. These are protectionist societies. We assume everyone is guilty until proven innocent.... actually... we assume everyone is guilty and if they're proven innocent we congratulate their lawyers for being so damn good. Unless you live in a society of trust, you can't make a change this big. You have to actually be willing to work together towards something better.
Norway's approach is to tax the hell out of ICE cars and then not tax the electric cars, thus making the electrics, as you explain, quite a bit cheaper (but still expensive in absolute terms). This approach makes sense in Norway as it is a small yet rich country that imports basically all of its cars. Since Norway does not have large scale auto manufacturers, it cannot make large enough investments/subsidies to make EVs cheaper than ICVs without resorting to taxation.
The US, the UK, France, Germany, China, and Japan for example on the other hand - they can, because they have large auto manufacturers whose production plans they can affect. You can give them tax breaks and research funds to develop EVs, and so on. Whereas Norway cannot really squeeze GM or Ford but has to resort to squeezing its own citizens (who, luckily, can afford being squeezed), the US can squeeze GM and force it to make EVs (if it wanted to). I've come in any case to the conclusion that if we really want to avoid completely wrecking the planet, we simply have to set a date after which the production of things using CO2-emitting technologies will simply be banned. For example, no new ICVs allowed to be made after 2030. You've got 10 years to figure out how to switch to a fully EV fleet, do it. Then repeat for other industries, wherever possible.
Many Canadians drive well into the wilderness to go to the cottage or go camping. A lot of times that is in the winter. There are a lot of road trips to national parks, etc.
You would have to define what you mean by "many", since as a Canadian I would dispute that "many drive well into the wilderness" (it's certainly very far from "most"). By my experience, most people in the GTA drive less than 2-3 hrs (around 300 km) when they go camping, to the cottage or wherever (Muskoka does not fit the description of "well into the wilderness", I'm sorry).
Norwegians are also very outdoorsy people, my impression is that the average Norwegian is actually outdoorsier than the average Canadian.
Norway is also sparsely populated. Also, the vast majority of Canadians do not spend a lot of time driving through empty spaces, most of them live in urban and suburban areas (more than 80% live in metropolitan areas, and more than a third live in the Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver areas), and they usually drive a few km to work, shop, go out, etc.
That, and the fact the country could fit into Texas twice, you have the perfect place for electric cars.
Norway is less densely populated than Texas, most of its cities are along the coast (and bit inland, with the Oslo area being the only big "intrusion" of relatively high-density population farther inland), and it's elongated shape and inhospitable terrain probably means (though I haven't checked) that it takes quite a bit longer to drive from one end of Norway to another then from one end of Texas to another.
In other words, Norway is not Denmark. Also, the climate in Texas is far more favourable for EVs than the climate in Norway.