Could be. It is a wee bit convenient. Well, at least someone will probably get a nice jacuzzi out of this. That's one of the nice things about capitalism. It provides efficient mechanisms for turning hubris into stuff people can actually use.
Crop rotation is better than nothing, but will give you no where near the benefits described in the summary.
The benefits described in the summary may not actually be achievable. I find it hard to believe that no one has tried this before given how important nitrogen fixing is to agriculture.
This thread started with this AC. He used phrases such as "Yes, I get it, space is like Heaven for atheists.", which to me indicates he's heard such rhetoric many times before (as in fatigue).
That's an act. The original AC is "Quantum Apostrophe" who has a thing against both space flight and 3-D printing. This story has both. Of course, he has heard and ignored a whole lot of similar arguments yet he still keeps trawling with the same arguments. You can tell he's in a thread when he's belittling people for advocating space development, especially when the term "space nutter" gets bandied.
Oh dear, you realised you made a stupid comment and are one of those folks that would rather talk nonsense than back down? starting to declare species with colonies as racist? what kind of crack are you smoking? it must royally mess you up as it's apparently obliterated your ability to partake in a sensible adult conversation.
Let's recap what really happened. You claimed without justification that living on currently unoccupied land was going to be zero sum. You claimed, with apparently a complete ignorance of the entirety of nature, that humanity was a "selfish species". Finally, you blamed the rich, even though it is the poorest countries which have the continued population growth.
And now you're declaring victory despite having yet to defend the above arguments.
Well allow me to criticize your arguments a bit more. First, there is nothing magical about living in Antarctica that will melt enough ice to displace millions of people. Further, we don't even have to expand to exotic places like the Sahara, deep ocean, or Antarctica.
It's worth noting here that the vast majority of heating (to several orders of magnitude) of the Earth caused by humans is estimated to be due to greenhouse gas emissions not the immediate heat release from human activities. So for example, less melting of Antarctic ice would happen from a bunch of nuclear plants (or other non-fossil fuel-based system) powering a city of a few million than from a corresponding city far away which uses coal power.
A big part of that reason is that heat from the former is not cumulative (or perhaps that it has a very short half life in the environment) while CO2 is thought to be rather persistent. So days in the environment as opposed to decades. And in the former case, when the heat goes away, any water formed from melting would refreeze.
Then we get to humanity's alleged unusual selfishness. Point to any other species which routinely takes it upon itself to help completely different species for reasons other than survival. Humanity is unique in that regard. Who else keeps pets? Zoos? Wilderness preserves? Instead, we see that humanity is unusually altruistic not unusually selfish.
This extends to other people. The developed world takes in lots of people from elsewhere in the world. They can't keep up with the population growth of Africa and parts of Asia, but then again, why should they have to? Ultimately, the responsibility for curbing population growth rests with the people doing the reproduction.
What you consider "selfish" behavior is simply inadequate resources in the face of a huge problem. The developing world would have to take in tens of millions of people each year just to keep the population of the rest of the world in balance. I believe the population of what is currently the developed world would double in a few decades, meaning that at least half of the developed world's population would be first generation immigrants from the developing world. I don't think that the existing societies and societal structures (like governments) could survive that.
My view is that the poorest parts of the developing world have to change or there will be hundreds of millions to billions of deaths from overpopulation-driven die-offs at some point. But that is doable via the capitalist system that a lot of people here like to hate. Everyone in the world are already considerably better off than they were in 1950. It depends on whether the societies in these poor parts of the world rebuild themselves as societies with freedom and the rule or law, or not.
Finally, concerning your rich-bashing, it's worth noting that there isn't any cause and effect between having a lot of rich people and having a lot of poor, high reproduction people. Societies will always have the more powerful, the more capable or productive, and the greedier. But what sort of wealth-accumulating behavior gets rewarded differs from society to society.
Then there's no such thing as "fair value" in this context since anyone who had enough money to offer the so-called "fair value" had enough to create their own competitor.
One doesn't need to go Bruce Willis in order to have a risk diversification argument. Even in terms of mundane human endeavors, the more diverse humanity's economy and extent is, the less risk there is from economic downturns, the more routine disasters, and the like. That's not enough in itself to justify space development, but it is an advantage even in the complete absence of existential threats.
Further, the argument I noted is terrible. I think it comes about fundamentally because the arguer has a deeply flawed and cynical view of humanity rather than any fatigue concerning pro-space development rhetoric.
What's the point of restarting the human race? Like GP said, the universe will get along just fine without humans.
So let me get this right, the universe will get along fine with humans and without humans. So therefore without humans is the obvious right choice?
I suppose that it doesn't matter to me whether or not you're surgically attached to a toilet bowl or not, so clearly that's an argument for the toilet bowl.
Here's a serious question. What is the point of launching a few people off into deep space if the Earth has been destroyed? It won't help the people left behind., and the Universe will get along just fine without humans.
What party did you not consider? The people who got off of Earth. It helps them quite a bit to not be dead.
Further, I think it would be of great comfort to the people about to die, that someone would survive and remember them. So I think a scheme to save some people by moving them off of Earth would help the ones who didn't get that chance.
Alibaba is probably as good as any stock. If things go wrong, things go wrong.
Only if you ignore risk. One could say the same of getting out of bed and sky-diving. Things could go very wrong in either case, but getting out of bed is far less likely to leave you a pancake.
I agree. Asking the question indicates ignorance of this arrangement. My view is that owning a share of this would indicate poor investment judgment and be a strong signal to me to stay clear of the entity in question.
It's not Microsoft's job to meet the inflated expectations of these businesses. And I find it interesting how so many people complain that Microsoft was stingy rather than acknowledge that Microsoft was there to pay in the first place.
They didn't buy you at fair value. They said that you could either sell to them at a severe loss, or they would make their own version of your product and put you out of business
Then you weren't worth "fair value". I find it interesting how Microsoft dumped all this money into software firms and all of the replies to my post are complaints that they could have dumped more. Well, it's not their job to do that.
after someone with a monopoly engaged in predatory practices
A monopoly in buying start ups? This has nothing to do with Microsoft's market dominance in OS or Office, and everything to do with ridiculously high internal expectations and valuations for software companies of the time.
I said a good price not an ideal price. If your product can easily be embraced and extended by Microsoft and yet you think you'll made vast sums of money on it, then your expectations don't match what's actually going on.
I disagree. As I said of the corresponding Russian scheme, putting tourists on the ISS adds considerable value to the station both by demonstrating space tourism works and by providing a service that someone is actually willing to pay their own money for.
The Chinese government is not a monolith. It's not unusual to see different parts of it pursue conflicting aims. As the saying goes, "the only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency."
Which is fine if you don't mind selling. If you believed in your product and wanted to take it large scale, it could mean selling for a fraction of what the product was actually worth so that MS wouldn't find a way of stealing the market.
So what? That indicates your product was worth less than you thought.
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully, they'll use this power for good. Else increasing the sun's radiation by 2000 times is going to mess up the finish on my car.
"convicted murderer". It's like Al Capone is on death row for the Valentine's Day massacre, and then they throw a trumped up tax evasion case on him.
Could be. It is a wee bit convenient. Well, at least someone will probably get a nice jacuzzi out of this. That's one of the nice things about capitalism. It provides efficient mechanisms for turning hubris into stuff people can actually use.
Crop rotation is better than nothing, but will give you no where near the benefits described in the summary.
The benefits described in the summary may not actually be achievable. I find it hard to believe that no one has tried this before given how important nitrogen fixing is to agriculture.
That's an act. The original AC is "Quantum Apostrophe" who has a thing against both space flight and 3-D printing. This story has both. Of course, he has heard and ignored a whole lot of similar arguments yet he still keeps trawling with the same arguments. You can tell he's in a thread when he's belittling people for advocating space development, especially when the term "space nutter" gets bandied.
Oh dear, you realised you made a stupid comment and are one of those folks that would rather talk nonsense than back down? starting to declare species with colonies as racist? what kind of crack are you smoking? it must royally mess you up as it's apparently obliterated your ability to partake in a sensible adult conversation.
Let's recap what really happened. You claimed without justification that living on currently unoccupied land was going to be zero sum. You claimed, with apparently a complete ignorance of the entirety of nature, that humanity was a "selfish species". Finally, you blamed the rich, even though it is the poorest countries which have the continued population growth.
And now you're declaring victory despite having yet to defend the above arguments.
Well allow me to criticize your arguments a bit more. First, there is nothing magical about living in Antarctica that will melt enough ice to displace millions of people. Further, we don't even have to expand to exotic places like the Sahara, deep ocean, or Antarctica.
It's worth noting here that the vast majority of heating (to several orders of magnitude) of the Earth caused by humans is estimated to be due to greenhouse gas emissions not the immediate heat release from human activities. So for example, less melting of Antarctic ice would happen from a bunch of nuclear plants (or other non-fossil fuel-based system) powering a city of a few million than from a corresponding city far away which uses coal power.
A big part of that reason is that heat from the former is not cumulative (or perhaps that it has a very short half life in the environment) while CO2 is thought to be rather persistent. So days in the environment as opposed to decades. And in the former case, when the heat goes away, any water formed from melting would refreeze.
Then we get to humanity's alleged unusual selfishness. Point to any other species which routinely takes it upon itself to help completely different species for reasons other than survival. Humanity is unique in that regard. Who else keeps pets? Zoos? Wilderness preserves? Instead, we see that humanity is unusually altruistic not unusually selfish.
This extends to other people. The developed world takes in lots of people from elsewhere in the world. They can't keep up with the population growth of Africa and parts of Asia, but then again, why should they have to? Ultimately, the responsibility for curbing population growth rests with the people doing the reproduction.
What you consider "selfish" behavior is simply inadequate resources in the face of a huge problem. The developing world would have to take in tens of millions of people each year just to keep the population of the rest of the world in balance. I believe the population of what is currently the developed world would double in a few decades, meaning that at least half of the developed world's population would be first generation immigrants from the developing world. I don't think that the existing societies and societal structures (like governments) could survive that.
My view is that the poorest parts of the developing world have to change or there will be hundreds of millions to billions of deaths from overpopulation-driven die-offs at some point. But that is doable via the capitalist system that a lot of people here like to hate. Everyone in the world are already considerably better off than they were in 1950. It depends on whether the societies in these poor parts of the world rebuild themselves as societies with freedom and the rule or law, or not.
Finally, concerning your rich-bashing, it's worth noting that there isn't any cause and effect between having a lot of rich people and having a lot of poor, high reproduction people. Societies will always have the more powerful, the more capable or productive, and the greedier. But what sort of wealth-accumulating behavior gets rewarded differs from society to society.
Then there's no such thing as "fair value" in this context since anyone who had enough money to offer the so-called "fair value" had enough to create their own competitor.
One doesn't need to go Bruce Willis in order to have a risk diversification argument. Even in terms of mundane human endeavors, the more diverse humanity's economy and extent is, the less risk there is from economic downturns, the more routine disasters, and the like. That's not enough in itself to justify space development, but it is an advantage even in the complete absence of existential threats.
Further, the argument I noted is terrible. I think it comes about fundamentally because the arguer has a deeply flawed and cynical view of humanity rather than any fatigue concerning pro-space development rhetoric.
What's the point of restarting the human race? Like GP said, the universe will get along just fine without humans.
So let me get this right, the universe will get along fine with humans and without humans. So therefore without humans is the obvious right choice?
I suppose that it doesn't matter to me whether or not you're surgically attached to a toilet bowl or not, so clearly that's an argument for the toilet bowl.
This is like getting a 68% and calling it a C grade average.
That's not much of a curve. I've seen 18% considered the low end of C grade.
A roller coaster ride to 100 km. They aren't selling a destination here, but rather an experience. So it's not a problem for them.
Here's a serious question. What is the point of launching a few people off into deep space if the Earth has been destroyed? It won't help the people left behind., and the Universe will get along just fine without humans.
What party did you not consider? The people who got off of Earth. It helps them quite a bit to not be dead.
Further, I think it would be of great comfort to the people about to die, that someone would survive and remember them. So I think a scheme to save some people by moving them off of Earth would help the ones who didn't get that chance.
Even in those cases, I'd rather take my chances in Camden or Newark today than thirty years ago.
Alibaba isn't a boring mutual fund. Instead, it's more exciting. Just make sure you count your fingers and toes when it's over.
Alibaba is probably as good as any stock. If things go wrong, things go wrong.
Only if you ignore risk. One could say the same of getting out of bed and sky-diving. Things could go very wrong in either case, but getting out of bed is far less likely to leave you a pancake.
A single payer system like Medicare/Medicaid?
I agree. Asking the question indicates ignorance of this arrangement. My view is that owning a share of this would indicate poor investment judgment and be a strong signal to me to stay clear of the entity in question.
It's not Microsoft's job to meet the inflated expectations of these businesses. And I find it interesting how so many people complain that Microsoft was stingy rather than acknowledge that Microsoft was there to pay in the first place.
They didn't buy you at fair value. They said that you could either sell to them at a severe loss, or they would make their own version of your product and put you out of business
Then you weren't worth "fair value". I find it interesting how Microsoft dumped all this money into software firms and all of the replies to my post are complaints that they could have dumped more. Well, it's not their job to do that.
after someone with a monopoly engaged in predatory practices
A monopoly in buying start ups? This has nothing to do with Microsoft's market dominance in OS or Office, and everything to do with ridiculously high internal expectations and valuations for software companies of the time.
I said a good price not an ideal price. If your product can easily be embraced and extended by Microsoft and yet you think you'll made vast sums of money on it, then your expectations don't match what's actually going on.
Then you made a bad choice.
I disagree. As I said of the corresponding Russian scheme, putting tourists on the ISS adds considerable value to the station both by demonstrating space tourism works and by providing a service that someone is actually willing to pay their own money for.
The Chinese government is not a monolith. It's not unusual to see different parts of it pursue conflicting aims. As the saying goes, "the only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency."
Which is fine if you don't mind selling. If you believed in your product and wanted to take it large scale, it could mean selling for a fraction of what the product was actually worth so that MS wouldn't find a way of stealing the market.
So what? That indicates your product was worth less than you thought.