Re:If you could b Neal,you'll probably his stuff d
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Quicksilver
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It doesn't boil down to "get off your high horse" at all. What it boils down to is that you think you have developed some sort of objective standard for literature. Go ahead and try to prove that Cryptonomicon is bad and your favorite novel is good. Once you are willing to admit that Stephenson is a competent writer, but one that is simply not to your taste, and that this is not a reflection of your superior intellect or education, then we can actually have a conversation. Until then, it's just name calling.
Your post amounted to stating that anyone who likes Cryptonomicon is both stupid and ignorant. Unless you can come up with some kind of standard by which literature can be judged, all you can really say is whether you liked it or not. You cannot say anything objective about it. The only validity you can claim is that of a subjective feeling.
Re:Enoch Root question (Spoiler for cryptonomicon)
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Quicksilver
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Actually, based on the text alone (and not Stephenson's later comments, which should be irrelevant anyway), Enoch may not have died. My interpretation of the text is that his death was quite open to question.
If you think it's so clear cut, then reread the alleged death scene again. I think you will see descriptions which really had no reason to exist if Stephenson had not wished to cast some doubt upon whether Enoch had actually died. That whole scene is really quite clever when you reread it for non-obvious possibilities.
Re:If you could b Neal,you'll probably his stuff d
on
Quicksilver
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
I seriously hope that you don't think you are the only one on Slashdot with a deep understanding of computer science. Would it surprise you to discover that there are people here who are more highly educated and more experienced than you in the fields of computer science, cryptology, and physics but who *do* greatly admire Cryptonomicon as a novel?
The fact is that Stephenson is a highly underrated and gifted writer, regardless of the topic. Do you seriously believe that any of us read Cryptonomicon for its educational value. Give me a break. If, as a CS major, you want to criticize his portrayal of Perl scripting that's fine, but isn't plot criticism a bit out of your area of expertise?
Your arrogance is appalling. I certainly hope you are under 30. At least then it is somewhat excusable. When you grow older you will realize how much less you knew than you thought you did. What is not excusable is the assumption that a technical geek crowd would not already understand the basic concepts you allude to.
It's ironic that that same kind of condescending attitude is one that "hard" science majors had towards CS majors for many years. I keenly remember the disapproval of the head of the EE department when I mentioned that I was considering switching to a CS major. His attitude was that it was for intellectual lightweights, and that if I were interested in serious AI research (which he knew I was) I shouldn't even consider it. After all, he knew, a real thinking machine of the future was not just going to be some kind of better written program on a traditional computer, it would need to be an entirely new architecture, perhaps even some kind of wetware. If you are going to criticize Cryptonomicon, at least base it on facts, not on some exaggerated ideas of your superior intellectual capacity.
Stephenson is not some kind of Carl Sagan. Nor does he pretend to be. He is a writer of fiction, of novels. If you don't like them, fine. But to claim that Cryptonomicon is objectively a very bad story and thin, ratty trash says nothing about the novel, and everything about you. You are obviously just some narrow-minded (everythin is about your field), recent CS graduate who thinks he knows everything about every field (including even literature) and everyone else knows nothing.
Travel much? Anti-Americanism isn't new. The US was already feared and hated. Also, this isn't the first Republican president. Or weren't you keeping track? Other countries have been getting away with the same stuff we pulled in Iraq for centuries. Crack a history book sometime.
Even if Gigantopithecus did make it to North America, what exactly does that prove? It's mainly of interest to paleontologists. I would like to see more convincing proof that Gigantopithy even existed and that he really was a biped and very very big. How about at least a femur or a even a skull?
We would all love to find evidence that such a creature was still around, but despite quite a few dedicated expeditions in Nepal and the US, there hasn't been even the slightest bit of real evidence.
The most convincing account I have ever read of these creatures was from Slavomir Rawicz's tale: The Long Walk. He recounts a somewhat close and extended meeting with two yetis who were just "shuffling around" for a while while high up in the Himalayas. The fact that it's recounted merely as a small piece of a much larger tale makes it more convincing than the normal eyewitness accounts. He was with a couple of other people at the time, but no one has ever been able to trace their whereabouts.
Obviously the most damning argument of their non-existence is that, after all these years, a viable breeding population with animals of that size would certainly have been noticed. They would be at the top of the food chain anywhere in North America and, if anything, their numbers should be growing.
There is of course always the possibility that there really were a few of these giant apes left early in this century but that they have since become truly extinct due to a lack of numbers.
An analogy could be made to the Tasmanian wolf in Australia, but that animal was well known up until it was hunted to extinction.
There is very much credible evidence that the giant ape 'Gigantopithecus blacki', which once flourished in Asia, made its way to North America
You mean from that one tooth? It's amazing how much some people who consider themselves scientists believe can be inferred from a single large tooth. Not everyone even agrees that Gigantopithecus was a biped. The evidence for it is shaky at best.
There is not one shred of evidence that any giant apes ever lived in North America.
because the sun is NOT straight overhead all day (and night) long. And that makes all the difference.
You are aware that the reason the sun is not overhead all day is that the earth rotates? If you were to place your solar power plant in a fixed (non-rotating) position relative to the sun and transmit the power with microwaves (and please explain how you could do this with 100% efficiency) You would soon discover that your receiving plant on the planet surface was constantly at changing angles to that stream of microwaves you are so dependant on and that at "night" those microwaves would be transmitting to the other side of the planet.
Also space is a much harsher environment for solar cells. They tend to deteriorate much faster in space than in terrestrial applications. So you would be replacing them more often.
The whole idea is so ludicrous and silly that I find it hard to believe that you could actually take it seriously. Even if launch costs were somehow reduced to zero (and even a space elevator would not do that), the inefficiencies of power transfer via EM waves should be enough to nullify any advantage from the slight increase in solar radiation reaching the cells.
I'd like to get some of what you're smoking. If solar cells are not cost effective even on the ground, do you really believe that the slight increase in efficiency of space over a cloudless desert climate is going to make up for the gigantic cost of launching them into space and then keeping people up there to actually contruct this space power plant of yours. That's not even considering the inefficiencies involved in transmitting electrical power via microwave transmitters (which would again make the electricity production vulnerable to cloud cover).
As for "towing" asteroids or (even more farfetched) mining them for "rare minerals", the costs would be absolutely astronomical. Maybe an asteroid of solid gold would justify the cost.
I would hate to tow an asteroid into Earth's gravity well only to watch most of it burn up on re-entry just before the rest plunged into one of the deepest sections of the Pacific ocean.
Have you ever been here? You don't know what you're talking about. It's amazing how often non-Americans think they know everything about us because they watch some of our TV or movies. I hate to break it to you folks, but that stuff bears no resemblance to reality. You are displaying the same kind of gullibility and ignorance that is so often attributed to Americans.
Most of us don't cry about 9/11. But it does give a lot of us a warm fuzzy feeling when we take revenge on an Arab country. It's a nice deterrent. If everytime we get nailed by some cowardly terrorist hiding in shadows and sneaking around, we take possesion of one additional Arab country, it might make them think twice. After all, they could never beat us in any kind of traditional battle.
The fact is that Americans are no different from people in many other parts of the world, certainly including most of Europe and Asia. People are basically people. What usually causes our wars is idiots like you and people from many other countries who think that some imaginary line on a map makes human beings fundamentally different.
The EU is an interesting example. If any one country in the EU has lower prevailing wages, becoming an EU member should increase it's wages while at the same time lowering the wages of all the other countries by just enough to make up for it.
Basically labor scarcity is something of an illusion. In a truly fluid world economy, world unemployment (and poverty) should be reduced by about the same amount that the wages of the employed are reduced. It's just supply and demand. Again, the comparitively high wages in 1st world countries only exist because of the poverty in the 3rd world countries.
Protectionist labor policies do exactly that, they protect the employees of that country by artificially holding the price of labor above it's natural worldwide market price. It's no different from what the oil cartels do when they want to keep the price of oil higher than what the market price would be. To keep prices up, reduce the supply.
American workers pay taxes too, and buy things, neither of which they can do when they are unemployed. I don't see how you can argue that Americans were better off due to your labor. People need to face the fact that, unless a foreign citizen is coming here (or to your country) to open a new business, he is taking away a job that could have gone to a local.
Taking a job does not create more jobs. If a company earns more money, they can just use that additional money to hire more workers. The fact is that wages in any first world country are inflated far beyond what they would be if all of the inhabitants of 3rd world countries were free to move to or work in the 1st world countries.
Really the whole point of this is that equalizing the wage discrepancies in the world will make every country a 3rd world country. All first worlders are basically enjoying a kind of cartel. Labor prices are kept artificially high by reducing the competition. In a truly free worldwide marketplace for labor, even skilled labor, it would be exceedingly difficult for anyone to earn more than a few dollars an hour. In some countries even doctors earn less then $50/month.
If you knew anything about economics, you would know that that is impossible for an increase in supply to increase prices. It's like a study discovering the existence of a square circle. All it proves is that the study is either flawed, or designed to discover exactly what it did. The laws of economics are not "innuendo" as you put it.
Just make sure that you are willing to accept the consequences. Are you willing to work for $1/hour? There are no skills that you have that an immigrant cannot also learn. Just know what you are accepting. Wages will drop. Thats how it works. Supply and demand is quite real.
Also, this is not about "hate". This is not about racism or being superior. It's about self preservation. We don't owe it to these people to increase their standard of living by reducing our own. Especially when they won't even let us work in their country.
It's really simple: India Per Capita Income (Per year): ~$2,500US America Per Capita Income (Per year): ~$37,600US Jobs in India: Scarce Jobs in America: Plentiful.
Fast forward 10 years to a world economy. Average American income: $10,000. Average Indian Income: $7500. Is that what you want? Without a truly equalized world economy there will always be inequalities between countries.
I suppose you can argue that fair is fair. Fine, then let's let the corporate profits share in just as much of this "fairness". Why should the employees be the only ones to subsidize the bettering of the world population.
I don't know what makes you think that everyone's standard of living is better than their parents.
Anyway, I think you're missing the point. Wages are determined by supply and demend. When you increase the supply by allowing foreign workers, the price of labor goes down.
The American standard of living is artificially inflated by our immigration barriers (and to some extent by the cost of traveling here). That's what barriers to entry always do. Just like professional licensing and unions. It reduces wage competition.
I have a Cuban friend who thinks $1.00 a day is an excellent salary. For that he would work very hard, and probably 10 hours a day, seven days a week. And he's smart, very smart. How many of those guys are you willing to compete against? Are you willing to live on $1 a day?
Having said that, does it seem fair that we should earn so much and they should earn so little based merely on an accident of birth? I don't know. I know that I don't want to live like I have seen people living in 3rd world countries. I would quite literally rather be dead.
We can raise their standard of living while reducing our own. You may argue that it is not a zero sum game, but in this context (for the employees), that's exactly what it is. Obviously the companies and stockholders are better off.
The Indians on H1B visas can buy the stuff I guess. And, anyway, the low end service jobs are still around for us. We can serve them McSamosas and McDosas. There's nothing wrong with porn, or prostitution for that matter.
The Orion design has actually never been demonstrated to be practical for an interstellar mission. The amount of nuclear "fuel" that could be stored practically would likely mean at least a 5,000 to 10,000 year trip to Proxima Centauri.
However it certainly has the potential to be the fastest spacecraft design to date based on current technology. Obviously, chemical rockets are a complete waste of time when it comes to interstellar travel. I was already familiar with the link you posted. It is an intriguing idea, although I don't have the technical knowledge to verify its practicality.
Do you realize how many thermonuclear detonations have been conducted as tests on this planet? Obviously not because you are clearly an idiot.
While I don't think an earth-launched Orion would have made sense, 5 more detonations would not make our planet significantly more uninhabitable. The design itself was brilliant, far beyond anything you will ever achieve in your life.
For the uninitiated, if I recall correctly, Project Orion
Don't post about something that you obviously know nothing about. Orion was actually tested with traditional explosives and was demonstrated to work. So you most definitely are not a rocket scientist. Launching it from earth would obviously be a bad idea, but it is one of the more practical designs for an interstellar drive (although it wasn't designed for that and would need to be scaled up immensely for such a mission). It was not a stupid or "insane" idea by any means.
Wow. She has a pretty big set for a 12 year old. She looks more like she's in her early twenties. Not all that cute either. We need a prettier pre-teen anti-RIAA poster girl who's so poor she doesn't have the money to settle. And one who actually looks 12 would help to.
but don't rationalize your petty criminal behavior.
You mean civil behavior don't you? After all, none of these people are being accused of even as much as shoplifting. It's more along the lines of making unauthorized copies of a library book and leaving them on your front steps on a busy city street where anyone can pick up a copy. It's just copyright infringement. The point is, illegal or not, the punishments are absurdly out of proportion to the acts (at least to anyone not on the RIAA payroll).
I agree with your premise. That is precisely the problem with NASA. Although I'm sure there are individuals there with every bit as much vision as any of us. I'm impressed with some of their small research projects including ion propulsion. Unfortunately the most ambitious of all NASA research projects, the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project is now completely out of funding.
What we need is the return of exciting space exploration that actually is exploration. After all, exploration is the whole justification for a space program in the first place. If you're not going to do that why even bother?. All these LEO missions are a joke. I guess NASA is too worried about being completely canceled to really plan ambitious projects to mars and the Jovian moons or even to Proxima Centauri, but that's exactly the kind of exciting, ambitious space program that we need. I'd rather see us have a manned mission to a Jovian moon every 10 years than a shuttle launch to LEO every few months.
And you're right about projects like Iraq. Bombing Arab countries may be fun, but it's not nearly as exciting as space exploration. Either project is simple entertainment, but I would argue that in the long run seeing video shots of great martian canyons and spouting Io volcanos is more exciting than a few mushroom clouds.
As a Libertarian, I'm all for privatization as a rule, but in this case I think you are mistaken. There is no market for space exploration. It is not commercially viable at this time, and it won't be for many many decades if ever. For the moment, it is simply far too expensive for realistic tourism.
Launching communication satellites is one thing, but actual space exploration is another. Traveling back and forth from LEO (which arguably isn't even really "space") is not exploration.
Now maybe there are enough space enthusiasts who would be willing to voluntarily donate to this great cause, but I doubt there would be enough of us. I suppose, if this is the case, a good argument could be made that we have no right to take other people's tax money to do it, and so it shouldn't be done. Except for the fact that we pay tax money for their favorite government projects that we would never voluntarily donate to. It's kind of a we steal from them and they steal from us situation I guess.
Space exploration is just not necessary for our basic survival. I can imagine some company trying to sell live video footage of exciting space missions to fans, but I don't think there would be enough paying viewers to justify the huge expense. I could be wrong of course. But we are talking about a lot of money.
At this point in time, we're stuck with the government. They are the only ones who can force people to pay for it. I would like to think that I am wrong and that enough people would donate to a private company with a great vision of planetary and interstellar exploration.
I'm not too happy with my HMO, and it's not cheap, but if you think socialized medicine is a good idea you are off your rocker. All I need to get an MRI or any of the most sophisticated, high tech, diagnostic tests is the approval of my doctor. Even in non-emergency situations, I've had MRIs the same day that they were ordered.
I have spent time in most European countries and I have lived in Canada for an extended period of time. The hospital system and waiting times there for operations was pathetic. People died while waiting months for critical operations. Although you'll never hear it mentioned in an international setting, the local press is not shy about complaining.
Frankly the health care and hospitals in most countries with "universal" healthcare is abysmal. Even Japan, which is so well known for it's research and expertise in electronics, manufacturing and many other areas has hopelessly backward medical care.
I've also been to hospitals in Sweden and Holland and it was almost as bad as the hospitals I've seen in Costa Rica and Cuba. There may not be that many things that the US is the best at, but one of them is the level of medical care for the average citizen.
This is one particular kind of senseless US bashing that really annoys me because it's not only baseless, but harmful to the state of health care all over the world. Our system is far from perfect, but it's far, far better (if you are seriously ill) than any other system in the world.
Why don't you tell those people with difficult medical conditions who fly here from all over the world how bad our medical care is?
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't boil down to "get off your high horse" at all. What it boils down to is that you think you have developed some sort of objective standard for literature. Go ahead and try to prove that Cryptonomicon is bad and your favorite novel is good. Once you are willing to admit that Stephenson is a competent writer, but one that is simply not to your taste, and that this is not a reflection of your superior intellect or education, then we can actually have a conversation. Until then, it's just name calling.
Your post amounted to stating that anyone who likes Cryptonomicon is both stupid and ignorant. Unless you can come up with some kind of standard by which literature can be judged, all you can really say is whether you liked it or not. You cannot say anything objective about it. The only validity you can claim is that of a subjective feeling.
Actually, based on the text alone (and not Stephenson's later comments, which should be irrelevant anyway), Enoch may not have died. My interpretation of the text is that his death was quite open to question.
If you think it's so clear cut, then reread the alleged death scene again. I think you will see descriptions which really had no reason to exist if Stephenson had not wished to cast some doubt upon whether Enoch had actually died. That whole scene is really quite clever when you reread it for non-obvious possibilities.
I seriously hope that you don't think you are the only one on Slashdot with a deep understanding of computer science. Would it surprise you to discover that there are people here who are more highly educated and more experienced than you in the fields of computer science, cryptology, and physics but who *do* greatly admire Cryptonomicon as a novel?
The fact is that Stephenson is a highly underrated and gifted writer, regardless of the topic. Do you seriously believe that any of us read Cryptonomicon for its educational value. Give me a break. If, as a CS major, you want to criticize his portrayal of Perl scripting that's fine, but isn't plot criticism a bit out of your area of expertise?
Your arrogance is appalling. I certainly hope you are under 30. At least then it is somewhat excusable. When you grow older you will realize how much less you knew than you thought you did. What is not excusable is the assumption that a technical geek crowd would not already understand the basic concepts you allude to.
It's ironic that that same kind of condescending attitude is one that "hard" science majors had towards CS majors for many years. I keenly remember the disapproval of the head of the EE department when I mentioned that I was considering switching to a CS major. His attitude was that it was for intellectual lightweights, and that if I were interested in serious AI research (which he knew I was) I shouldn't even consider it. After all, he knew, a real thinking machine of the future was not just going to be some kind of better written program on a traditional computer, it would need to be an entirely new architecture, perhaps even some kind of wetware. If you are going to criticize Cryptonomicon, at least base it on facts, not on some exaggerated ideas of your superior intellectual capacity.
Stephenson is not some kind of Carl Sagan. Nor does he pretend to be. He is a writer of fiction, of novels. If you don't like them, fine. But to claim that Cryptonomicon is objectively a very bad story and thin, ratty trash says nothing about the novel, and everything about you. You are obviously just some narrow-minded (everythin is about your field), recent CS graduate who thinks he knows everything about every field (including even literature) and everyone else knows nothing.
near-universal sympathy for the United States
Travel much? Anti-Americanism isn't new. The US was already feared and hated. Also, this isn't the first Republican president. Or weren't you keeping track? Other countries have been getting away with the same stuff we pulled in Iraq for centuries. Crack a history book sometime.
Even if Gigantopithecus did make it to North America, what exactly does that prove? It's mainly of interest to paleontologists. I would like to see more convincing proof that Gigantopithy even existed and that he really was a biped and very very big. How about at least a femur or a even a skull?
We would all love to find evidence that such a creature was still around, but despite quite a few dedicated expeditions in Nepal and the US, there hasn't been even the slightest bit of real evidence.
The most convincing account I have ever read of these creatures was from Slavomir Rawicz's tale: The Long Walk. He recounts a somewhat close and extended meeting with two yetis who were just "shuffling around" for a while while high up in the Himalayas. The fact that it's recounted merely as a small piece of a much larger tale makes it more convincing than the normal eyewitness accounts. He was with a couple of other people at the time, but no one has ever been able to trace their whereabouts.
Obviously the most damning argument of their non-existence is that, after all these years, a viable breeding population with animals of that size would certainly have been noticed. They would be at the top of the food chain anywhere in North America and, if anything, their numbers should be growing.
There is of course always the possibility that there really were a few of these giant apes left early in this century but that they have since become truly extinct due to a lack of numbers.
An analogy could be made to the Tasmanian wolf in Australia, but that animal was well known up until it was hunted to extinction.
There is very much credible evidence that the giant ape 'Gigantopithecus blacki', which once flourished in Asia, made its way to North America
You mean from that one tooth? It's amazing how much some people who consider themselves scientists believe can be inferred from a single large tooth. Not everyone even agrees that Gigantopithecus was a biped. The evidence for it is shaky at best.
There is not one shred of evidence that any giant apes ever lived in North America.
because the sun is NOT straight overhead all day (and night) long. And that makes all the difference.
You are aware that the reason the sun is not overhead all day is that the earth rotates? If you were to place your solar power plant in a fixed (non-rotating) position relative to the sun and transmit the power with microwaves (and please explain how you could do this with 100% efficiency) You would soon discover that your receiving plant on the planet surface was constantly at changing angles to that stream of microwaves you are so dependant on and that at "night" those microwaves would be transmitting to the other side of the planet.
Also space is a much harsher environment for solar cells. They tend to deteriorate much faster in space than in terrestrial applications. So you would be replacing them more often.
The whole idea is so ludicrous and silly that I find it hard to believe that you could actually take it seriously. Even if launch costs were somehow reduced to zero (and even a space elevator would not do that), the inefficiencies of power transfer via EM waves should be enough to nullify any advantage from the slight increase in solar radiation reaching the cells.
I'd like to get some of what you're smoking. If solar cells are not cost effective even on the ground, do you really believe that the slight increase in efficiency of space over a cloudless desert climate is going to make up for the gigantic cost of launching them into space and then keeping people up there to actually contruct this space power plant of yours. That's not even considering the inefficiencies involved in transmitting electrical power via microwave transmitters (which would again make the electricity production vulnerable to cloud cover).
As for "towing" asteroids or (even more farfetched) mining them for "rare minerals", the costs would be absolutely astronomical. Maybe an asteroid of solid gold would justify the cost.
I would hate to tow an asteroid into Earth's gravity well only to watch most of it burn up on re-entry just before the rest plunged into one of the deepest sections of the Pacific ocean.
Alien compounds?
Why do you want the robots to have all the fun?
Have you ever been here? You don't know what you're talking about. It's amazing how often non-Americans think they know everything about us because they watch some of our TV or movies. I hate to break it to you folks, but that stuff bears no resemblance to reality. You are displaying the same kind of gullibility and ignorance that is so often attributed to Americans.
Most of us don't cry about 9/11. But it does give a lot of us a warm fuzzy feeling when we take revenge on an Arab country. It's a nice deterrent. If everytime we get nailed by some cowardly terrorist hiding in shadows and sneaking around, we take possesion of one additional Arab country, it might make them think twice. After all, they could never beat us in any kind of traditional battle.
The fact is that Americans are no different from people in many other parts of the world, certainly including most of Europe and Asia. People are basically people. What usually causes our wars is idiots like you and people from many other countries who think that some imaginary line on a map makes human beings fundamentally different.
The EU is an interesting example. If any one country in the EU has lower prevailing wages, becoming an EU member should increase it's wages while at the same time lowering the wages of all the other countries by just enough to make up for it.
Basically labor scarcity is something of an illusion. In a truly fluid world economy, world unemployment (and poverty) should be reduced by about the same amount that the wages of the employed are reduced. It's just supply and demand. Again, the comparitively high wages in 1st world countries only exist because of the poverty in the 3rd world countries.
Protectionist labor policies do exactly that, they protect the employees of that country by artificially holding the price of labor above it's natural worldwide market price. It's no different from what the oil cartels do when they want to keep the price of oil higher than what the market price would be. To keep prices up, reduce the supply.
American workers pay taxes too, and buy things, neither of which they can do when they are unemployed. I don't see how you can argue that Americans were better off due to your labor. People need to face the fact that, unless a foreign citizen is coming here (or to your country) to open a new business, he is taking away a job that could have gone to a local.
Taking a job does not create more jobs. If a company earns more money, they can just use that additional money to hire more workers. The fact is that wages in any first world country are inflated far beyond what they would be if all of the inhabitants of 3rd world countries were free to move to or work in the 1st world countries.
Really the whole point of this is that equalizing the wage discrepancies in the world will make every country a 3rd world country. All first worlders are basically enjoying a kind of cartel. Labor prices are kept artificially high by reducing the competition. In a truly free worldwide marketplace for labor, even skilled labor, it would be exceedingly difficult for anyone to earn more than a few dollars an hour. In some countries even doctors earn less then $50/month.
If you knew anything about economics, you would know that that is impossible for an increase in supply to increase prices. It's like a study discovering the existence of a square circle. All it proves is that the study is either flawed, or designed to discover exactly what it did. The laws of economics are not "innuendo" as you put it.
Just make sure that you are willing to accept the consequences. Are you willing to work for $1/hour? There are no skills that you have that an immigrant cannot also learn. Just know what you are accepting. Wages will drop. Thats how it works. Supply and demand is quite real.
Also, this is not about "hate". This is not about racism or being superior. It's about self preservation. We don't owe it to these people to increase their standard of living by reducing our own. Especially when they won't even let us work in their country.
It's really simple:
India Per Capita Income (Per year): ~$2,500US
America Per Capita Income (Per year): ~$37,600US
Jobs in India: Scarce
Jobs in America: Plentiful.
Fast forward 10 years to a world economy. Average American income: $10,000. Average Indian Income: $7500. Is that what you want? Without a truly equalized world economy there will always be inequalities between countries.
I suppose you can argue that fair is fair. Fine, then let's let the corporate profits share in just as much of this "fairness". Why should the employees be the only ones to subsidize the bettering of the world population.
I don't know what makes you think that everyone's standard of living is better than their parents.
Anyway, I think you're missing the point. Wages are determined by supply and demend. When you increase the supply by allowing foreign workers, the price of labor goes down.
The American standard of living is artificially inflated by our immigration barriers (and to some extent by the cost of traveling here). That's what barriers to entry always do. Just like professional licensing and unions. It reduces wage competition.
I have a Cuban friend who thinks $1.00 a day is an excellent salary. For that he would work very hard, and probably 10 hours a day, seven days a week. And he's smart, very smart. How many of those guys are you willing to compete against? Are you willing to live on $1 a day?
Having said that, does it seem fair that we should earn so much and they should earn so little based merely on an accident of birth? I don't know. I know that I don't want to live like I have seen people living in 3rd world countries. I would quite literally rather be dead.
We can raise their standard of living while reducing our own. You may argue that it is not a zero sum game, but in this context (for the employees), that's exactly what it is. Obviously the companies and stockholders are better off.
The Indians on H1B visas can buy the stuff I guess. And, anyway, the low end service jobs are still around for us. We can serve them McSamosas and McDosas. There's nothing wrong with porn, or prostitution for that matter.
The Orion design has actually never been demonstrated to be practical for an interstellar mission. The amount of nuclear "fuel" that could be stored practically would likely mean at least a 5,000 to 10,000 year trip to Proxima Centauri.
However it certainly has the potential to be the fastest spacecraft design to date based on current technology. Obviously, chemical rockets are a complete waste of time when it comes to interstellar travel. I was already familiar with the link you posted. It is an intriguing idea, although I don't have the technical knowledge to verify its practicality.
Do you realize how many thermonuclear detonations have been conducted as tests on this planet? Obviously not because you are clearly an idiot.
While I don't think an earth-launched Orion would have made sense, 5 more detonations would not make our planet significantly more uninhabitable. The design itself was brilliant, far beyond anything you will ever achieve in your life.
For the uninitiated, if I recall correctly, Project Orion
Don't post about something that you obviously know nothing about. Orion was actually tested with traditional explosives and was demonstrated to work. So you most definitely are not a rocket scientist. Launching it from earth would obviously be a bad idea, but it is one of the more practical designs for an interstellar drive (although it wasn't designed for that and would need to be scaled up immensely for such a mission). It was not a stupid or "insane" idea by any means.
Wow. She has a pretty big set for a 12 year old. She looks more like she's in her early twenties. Not all that cute either. We need a prettier pre-teen anti-RIAA poster girl who's so poor she doesn't have the money to settle. And one who actually looks 12 would help to.
but don't rationalize your petty criminal behavior.
You mean civil behavior don't you? After all, none of these people are being accused of even as much as shoplifting. It's more along the lines of making unauthorized copies of a library book and leaving them on your front steps on a busy city street where anyone can pick up a copy. It's just copyright infringement. The point is, illegal or not, the punishments are absurdly out of proportion to the acts (at least to anyone not on the RIAA payroll).
I agree with your premise. That is precisely the problem with NASA. Although I'm sure there are individuals there with every bit as much vision as any of us. I'm impressed with some of their small research projects including ion propulsion. Unfortunately the most ambitious of all NASA research projects, the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project is now completely out of funding.
What we need is the return of exciting space exploration that actually is exploration. After all, exploration is the whole justification for a space program in the first place. If you're not going to do that why even bother?. All these LEO missions are a joke. I guess NASA is too worried about being completely canceled to really plan ambitious projects to mars and the Jovian moons or even to Proxima Centauri, but that's exactly the kind of exciting, ambitious space program that we need. I'd rather see us have a manned mission to a Jovian moon every 10 years than a shuttle launch to LEO every few months.
And you're right about projects like Iraq. Bombing Arab countries may be fun, but it's not nearly as exciting as space exploration. Either project is simple entertainment, but I would argue that in the long run seeing video shots of great martian canyons and spouting Io volcanos is more exciting than a few mushroom clouds.
As a Libertarian, I'm all for privatization as a rule, but in this case I think you are mistaken. There is no market for space exploration. It is not commercially viable at this time, and it won't be for many many decades if ever. For the moment, it is simply far too expensive for realistic tourism.
Launching communication satellites is one thing, but actual space exploration is another. Traveling back and forth from LEO (which arguably isn't even really "space") is not exploration.
Now maybe there are enough space enthusiasts who would be willing to voluntarily donate to this great cause, but I doubt there would be enough of us. I suppose, if this is the case, a good argument could be made that we have no right to take other people's tax money to do it, and so it shouldn't be done. Except for the fact that we pay tax money for their favorite government projects that we would never voluntarily donate to. It's kind of a we steal from them and they steal from us situation I guess.
Space exploration is just not necessary for our basic survival. I can imagine some company trying to sell live video footage of exciting space missions to fans, but I don't think there would be enough paying viewers to justify the huge expense. I could be wrong of course. But we are talking about a lot of money.
At this point in time, we're stuck with the government. They are the only ones who can force people to pay for it. I would like to think that I am wrong and that enough people would donate to a private company with a great vision of planetary and interstellar exploration.
I'm not too happy with my HMO, and it's not cheap, but if you think socialized medicine is a good idea you are off your rocker. All I need to get an MRI or any of the most sophisticated, high tech, diagnostic tests is the approval of my doctor. Even in non-emergency situations, I've had MRIs the same day that they were ordered.
I have spent time in most European countries and I have lived in Canada for an extended period of time. The hospital system and waiting times there for operations was pathetic. People died while waiting months for critical operations. Although you'll never hear it mentioned in an international setting, the local press is not shy about complaining.
Frankly the health care and hospitals in most countries with "universal" healthcare is abysmal. Even Japan, which is so well known for it's research and expertise in electronics, manufacturing and many other areas has hopelessly backward medical care.
I've also been to hospitals in Sweden and Holland and it was almost as bad as the hospitals I've seen in Costa Rica and Cuba. There may not be that many things that the US is the best at, but one of them is the level of medical care for the average citizen.
This is one particular kind of senseless US bashing that really annoys me because it's not only baseless, but harmful to the state of health care all over the world. Our system is far from perfect, but it's far, far better (if you are seriously ill) than any other system in the world.
Why don't you tell those people with difficult medical conditions who fly here from all over the world how bad our medical care is?