Depleted Uranium is incredibly safe. Just don't eat it or breathe it in and you'll be fine. (You know, like lead.) The UN, and WHO have given DU ammo a clean bill of health.
If you still believe DU is dangerous, you don't know anything about it. That's called ignorance. In the information age, it's intentional ignorance.
So, first problem, it costs a lot of money. Interestingly enough, your projected cost is at the high end of projected costs.
So it costs a lot of money, so what? This is an infrastructure investment. Historically, port cities became rich and prosperous do to all the goods and materials flowing though it. A space elevator would make a country the port from the entire universe to the whole damn planet!
But there's radition, meteors, very bad things, whine whine whine. Yes, and those things will always be there no matter what we use to get into, and travel through space. Point?
We don't have the abilty to make one? Well no shit sherlock. I'm glad you pointed this out. Here's an idea, lets work on the problem and see if it's possible to do this. We're in the infancy of working with carbon nanotubes, and I have confidence that we're nowhere near our potential in manipulating it.
So you don't believe in dismantling the governmental regemes that cause misery and death? I'm sure your friends in North Korea are very happy that you're sticking to your principles.
Facist countries, they don't go away without a fight.
The question wasn't about civilization. It was a statement that land ownership was just an illusion. It is not, it's like everything else. As real as you wish to make it.
If you want civilization, you might want to actually talk to the civilians instead of finding the quickest way to socialism.
Eh? Last I heard the 1929 stock market crash happened because of people throwing their money into stock which was only valuable becuase some other sucker would come along and buy it at a higher price. It was a stock market bubble, just like we had in the 90s. Could you find a better example to support your theory? (And by that, I hope you're not going to use the bubble of 90 either.)
"Supply goes up due to more production, and demand goes down, as people lose their jobs and start saving money. "
Huh? If people lost their jobs, they won't be saving money, they'll be spending money. I believe you're talking about luxuries.
Supply will go up to MEET demand. It costs a factory money to produce product, and even more money to store the product when they overestimate demand. Price goes down in a competitive economy because they are trying to get their competitors customers. NOT because demand has gone down. If anything, as the price goes down, more people can afford their product and forces the factory to either produce more to keep up with demand, or raise their prices to reduce demand.
"So what we are left with is an economic system that can produce more than enough (abundance) for everyone to have a high standard of living (due to high production, with little labor required to produce it), but no way to actually distribute that abundance to the people. Doesn't that seem wrong to anyone?"
Excuse me, but it looks like you're blaming the reality that we live in a 3-d world, and that distributing products to people is a non-trivial problem.
"Today, we maintain our scarcity by limiting production, guaranteeing poverty, and making many useless jobs that could easily be done by machines far cheaper and better than people can, just so they can have an income!"
Er, no. Ok, lets try something simple. Like lemonade. You own a lemonade factory (Completely automated!), and with your arguement behind you, just crank up the ol lemonade machines full blast. After all, you don't want to limit scarcity! So you order your suppliers to bring you raw supplies. Lemons, sugar, clean water.
Why should they bring these things to you? If you suck up the entire inventory of lemons, what is the lemon orchard going to do? They have other factories which will want lemons for other reasons, and there is a limited area in the world where you can grow them.
A technocracy may be considered sometime in the future, but it needs a lot more thought. Currently, it looks like a Star Trek wish fufillment fantasy society.
Collective control? How does that work? Does everyone get to vote on how things will be run?
Like a democracy?:-)
Anyway, this won't work. People will get tired of being bugged about every little decision. They will appoint others to be in charge of certain aspects of society. All of a sudden, we have a priviliged class again.
I can see communism working for a primitive society, not for a complex modern one.
Yeah, but the flip side of that is when your parents die you don't go into extreme debt trying to pay off the taxes on their house. Which was 30k when they bought it, and is now worth 500k.
What the hell are you talking about? People aren't living in the streets because the lack of money is making them stupid. They're living in the streets because the tend to have mental problems.
We have MANY social programs, and anyone who has their act together can pull themselves up and off the streets.
I see people disagreeing with your post. They shouldn't be, because your point is "Why would some of the best programmers work for you for free?"
That may work in an educational setting, where people already have income, but in this case you should just offer the guy cash. Or a position where they can get cash. Or SOME kind of promise for cash in the future. Geez.
For those of us who aren't up on the personalities of governments around the world, would you mind describing the character of the Japanese government?
Slashdot Mirror
I was 1 at the time! I think you're being a little harsh considering I was still trying to figure out "Shapes" and "Sounds".
Depleted Uranium is incredibly safe. Just don't eat it or breathe it in and you'll be fine. (You know, like lead.) The UN, and WHO have given DU ammo a clean bill of health.
If you still believe DU is dangerous, you don't know anything about it. That's called ignorance. In the information age, it's intentional ignorance.
15 years? The panels might last 20.
Er, I can't remember the last time I mind-boggled. Isn't that a bit high of an expectation for a comic book?
Did you just say that .net will require more programmers than JAVA?
.net.
Well then, I support
So, first problem, it costs a lot of money. Interestingly enough, your projected cost is at the high end of projected costs.
So it costs a lot of money, so what? This is an infrastructure investment. Historically, port cities became rich and prosperous do to all the goods and materials flowing though it. A space elevator would make a country the port from the entire universe to the whole damn planet!
But there's radition, meteors, very bad things, whine whine whine. Yes, and those things will always be there no matter what we use to get into, and travel through space. Point?
We don't have the abilty to make one? Well no shit sherlock. I'm glad you pointed this out. Here's an idea, lets work on the problem and see if it's possible to do this. We're in the infancy of working with carbon nanotubes, and I have confidence that we're nowhere near our potential in manipulating it.
Go take your defeatism somewhere else.
If subscribers to slashdot get to see the story before anyone else, why aren't there any posts?
Here's 50$ kid, go get yourself 512MB of RAM.
So you don't believe in dismantling the governmental regemes that cause misery and death? I'm sure your friends in North Korea are very happy that you're sticking to your principles.
Facist countries, they don't go away without a fight.
Wow! Nice reply! Thanks!
The question wasn't about civilization. It was a statement that land ownership was just an illusion. It is not, it's like everything else. As real as you wish to make it.
If you want civilization, you might want to actually talk to the civilians instead of finding the quickest way to socialism.
Eh? Last I heard the 1929 stock market crash happened because of people throwing their money into stock which was only valuable becuase some other sucker would come along and buy it at a higher price. It was a stock market bubble, just like we had in the 90s. Could you find a better example to support your theory? (And by that, I hope you're not going to use the bubble of 90 either.)
"Supply goes up due to more production, and demand goes down, as people lose their jobs and start saving money. "
Huh? If people lost their jobs, they won't be saving money, they'll be spending money. I believe you're talking about luxuries.
Supply will go up to MEET demand. It costs a factory money to produce product, and even more money to store the product when they overestimate demand. Price goes down in a competitive economy because they are trying to get their competitors customers. NOT because demand has gone down. If anything, as the price goes down, more people can afford their product and forces the factory to either produce more to keep up with demand, or raise their prices to reduce demand.
"So what we are left with is an economic system that can produce more than enough (abundance) for everyone to have a high standard of living (due to high production, with little labor required to produce it), but no way to actually distribute that abundance to the people. Doesn't that seem wrong to anyone?"
Excuse me, but it looks like you're blaming the reality that we live in a 3-d world, and that distributing products to people is a non-trivial problem.
"Today, we maintain our scarcity by limiting production, guaranteeing poverty, and making many useless jobs that could easily be done by machines far cheaper and better than people can, just so they can have an income!"
Er, no. Ok, lets try something simple. Like lemonade. You own a lemonade factory (Completely automated!), and with your arguement behind you, just crank up the ol lemonade machines full blast. After all, you don't want to limit scarcity! So you order your suppliers to bring you raw supplies. Lemons, sugar, clean water.
Why should they bring these things to you? If you suck up the entire inventory of lemons, what is the lemon orchard going to do? They have other factories which will want lemons for other reasons, and there is a limited area in the world where you can grow them.
A technocracy may be considered sometime in the future, but it needs a lot more thought. Currently, it looks like a Star Trek wish fufillment fantasy society.
Collective control? How does that work? Does everyone get to vote on how things will be run?
:-)
Like a democracy?
Anyway, this won't work. People will get tired of being bugged about every little decision. They will appoint others to be in charge of certain aspects of society. All of a sudden, we have a priviliged class again.
I can see communism working for a primitive society, not for a complex modern one.
Incorrect. Land ownership exists when people are willing to die, and kill others for it.
Wow, your post shows so much ignorance on Economics, the Military and Politics...I don't know where to begin.
If you're brave, you might start up a web page with a discussion dediated to this.
Advertising has been collasping. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Too bad you don't have a web page on this. I would be interested in seeing your thoughts on this.
Yeah, but the flip side of that is when your parents die you don't go into extreme debt trying to pay off the taxes on their house. Which was 30k when they bought it, and is now worth 500k.
Sorry, communism does not aim for a good and secure life for all it's citizens. You must be thinkiing of some other form of government.
How do you figure? If you chop up that 25k into a check they recieve every two weeks, it's just like a paycheck.
The only way you're going to get that kind of inflation is if you just print out the money without any thought of devaluing the dollar.
What the hell are you talking about? People aren't living in the streets because the lack of money is making them stupid. They're living in the streets because the tend to have mental problems.
We have MANY social programs, and anyone who has their act together can pull themselves up and off the streets.
Relics of scarcity? Well, considering this discounts that whole "Supply and demand" thing, I proclaim you with the official title of "Crackpot".
I see people disagreeing with your post. They shouldn't be, because your point is "Why would some of the best programmers work for you for free?"
That may work in an educational setting, where people already have income, but in this case you should just offer the guy cash. Or a position where they can get cash. Or SOME kind of promise for cash in the future. Geez.
For those of us who aren't up on the personalities of governments around the world, would you mind describing the character of the Japanese government?
"You can't put a pricetag on everything."
Is that a bet? I'd like to see you come up with something that you can't put a price on.