Meh, they used to be ok in the 90s. I had a subscription for a time. Then they did the "Conventional Wisdom" nonsense. That was a sign to me to drop them.
In any case, the definitions OUGHT to be consistent. What criteria other than inertia of publications would you prefer that keeps Pluto IN yet leaves Ceres OUT?
The whole argument is retarded because it can't be extended to other star systems (many which don't have the nice structure of our Solar System). Currently, we have a naming scheme with "planets", "dwarf planets", and "exoplanets", yet only one of these three groups actually are planets. Please continue to lecture us on "consistency".
1) Employers don't want to pay you anything, but they do. Rather than spending your salary on "expenses", save your money either by investing or by putting it into a business. It's a novel concept. Now, I know there's some people out there who don't think they can pare their expenses. But they're usually wrong.
2) I've never worked at such a place. I'm sure they exist, but so what? Even if you work at such a place, you can still save for a future business after you leave.
3) You basically say that yes, you can run a business on a "very limited milk money" budget.
I keep getting told that if I don't like being poor I should just stop being poor. Gee, that'd be nice, but I don't see anyone lining up to give me capital....
Your employer is giving you capital for starters. Maybe you ought to look at what you're doing with that.
What are we going to do in 20 years when robots drive cars, make food, deliver packages and pick our fruit?
Other stuff obviously. Jobs change and maybe you should be changing with that. We're not all chipping flint and hunting rabbits any more. Somehow we adapted to greater changes than the ones that have you so concerned.
We do have the resources to feed, clothe and shelter everyone on this planet.
So what do you have to offer for that food, clothes, shelter, etc? Especially, if you're the sort that makes more problems that require food, clothes, shelter, etc. Labor for the stuff you want is a system that works. It gives the providers of stuff incentive to give you stuff.
Hoping that someone provides you with the resources you need depends on a morality or ethics system that might not always be there.
Apparently, the HKEx regulators still cling to the quaint notion that small investors are important. I guess those HK guys have a thing or two left to learn about how real capitalism works.
Here, the Alibaba Group would be dirtying the pool for everyone. HKEx has better things to do than expedite one company's con.
When someone says something is impossible now, they mean impossible because of the established and settled laws of physics.
Even though extreme longevity is not notably restricted by physics? The human body is not a closed system thermodynamically. And the Sun provides more than enough energy to ensure everyone lives at least as long as the Sun is an energy source (which incidentally is long past when it'll go nova).
So your touchie feelie opinion beats shrinking populations throughout the developed world?
If the average woman is allowed to have only 0.0000000001 children per year you can't allow women them to make that choice for themselves, the birth rate will be far, far too high.
For when? Even if absolute no one dies ever, that would be a population doubling time of 7 billion years. The Sun will go nova first long before humans reach carrying capacity on Earth.
Oil subsidies are the largest welfare payout granted by the Federal government, dwarfing the amount paid out to ALL human recipients.
Given that you use the term welfare in two different senses. If we consider welfare to be generic entitlement spending as it is with corporate welfare, then Social Security would be the obvious counterexample to your assertion. It uses roughly 20% of the budget.
The problem is we don't actually know what is and isn't a waste.
[...]
The problem is you don't know what will or won't be useful ex-ante.
But we aren't operating from a position of complete ignorance. We have a fairly good idea what things have near future value. I'm tired of the people who push this myth that science has incredible future value conveniently off the horizon which we can't even begin to determine.
If that were true, then there would be no distinction between funding thousands of US colleges and funding me the same amount of money. It's all Science and my parties (I'd bring a whole new meaning to the term "state-wide party") would be better. So why fund all those people when you can just fund one source?
The argument is just a shifty dodge of responsibility and accountability.
However, perhaps some microbiologist who just wanted to see what he could grow if he tried culturing a geyser will discover something revolutionary.
It actually was a hot spring, Mushroom Spring in Yellowstone National Park, not a geyser - though it is close to a large geyser.
The idea is that *people* are more powerful and altruistic than individuals or institutions.
Even if "people" actually were more powerful and altruistic, which I disagree with, then there's still the matter that actual public funding doesn't have much to do with the "people" or their desires. There's millennia of history indicating that even in democracies a substantial deviation between the workings of a government and the people it supposedly represents.
If a government is contrary to its people's values, then they should fix the government, not discard it altogether in favor of private enterprise.
Discarding government for tasks for which private enterprise is superior is a fix. Instead, you're proposing the following destructive cycle:
1) Implement a costly, poorly thought out, terrible government intervention in some area.
2) It fails hard.
3) Blame "the people" for screwing up.
4) Go to step 1).
I think a simpler approach is to simply don't do that. It's worth noting that there are now more effective ways to collectively and privately fund "people" research, such as Kickstarter or starting a non profit.
You're right, I didn't think this through properly. I'd still bank on the microbe side pulling though easily since this is a substantial, ever-present selection pressure (and they've had almost three decades to evolve), not just happening when humans happen to bring UV around. Microbes would have plenty of time (at least tens of thousands of generations IMHO) to pull through and evolve solutions.
Fungi might not though. If it is a radiation-induced impairment of soil organisms, I'd look first at the organisms that have the longest reproduction times.
But having said that, it still remains that the same factors which concentrate radioactive contaminants may also sufficiently often inhibit decay processes.
The problem here is that microbes are among the most resistant things on Earth to radiation damage. And even larger organisms like earthworms or nematodes tend to be pretty resistant as well (though the study alleged to control for that). That's because they are small and have short life-cycles.
What I think is more likely here is that there is a common environmental condition that both inhibits decay and doesn't move radiation away as readily. For example, if the soil is dry, then that will inhibit decay and it might also result in less movement of radioactive chemicals out of the area.
But having said that, such things could be indirectly a product of radioactivity, if say, trees died off in high radiation areas and that in turn creates a more open, drier environment.
They don't currently, but they can. This whole story fails because it ignores that we are bathed in plentiful energy. As petroleum grows more expensive, it becomes economical to use solar energy either directly or in production of petroleum substitutes, to keep things moving along.
Now we're in the start of the era of Moderate Oil, just past the era of Cheap Oil. It's not an opinion, dude... IT'S MATH.
With no real economic distinction between cheap and moderately cheap oil.
It wasn't anything to do with freedom that gave the Nazis their power. It was the economic devastation (and huge damage to the national pride) caused by the outcome of the first world war that gave Hitler his foothold.
So instead of banning unpopular speech we should just not screw up economically? That sound right?
"Collapse" means suddenly crumble, cease to exist.
Well, it means the former not the latter. A collapsed building is still a building.
Can you really imagine the ecological / economical limits described here to eliminate every sort of organized production on Earth?
It doesn't have to eliminate every bit of production. We had a pretty substantial mess just from a recent real estate crisis.
And if you look at the historical examples given in the story, they didn't actually collapse suddenly. The scenario given is that things got progressively worse with the people in charge not doing enough or often making things worse.
For example, the Roman empire was in deep trouble in the third century. One of its effects was to severely damage various bits of infrastructure both physical and legal. For example, the trade network that the Romans had set up never became as safe as it had been. Also, the mess had created considerable inflation and the previously mentioned shift to concentration of wealth to large land owners.
They also overlook the adaptability of demand when the supply shortens, and the number of disruptive technologies appearing every day, rendering moot any such "if the trend continues" analysis.
The problem here is that the markets and other infrastructure which enables transactions between demand and supply is what can fail.
For example, I've heard it predicted that once Obamacare gets fully implemented it'll stop future drug development over our lifetimes. I guess the idea is that somehow all drug development throughout the world only happens in the US due to companies or something. Obviously, the prediction is a bit overwrought, but that sort of thing is what leads to long term disruptions between supply and demand.
Even in the most catastrophic scenarios like a nuclear war or a dinosaur-scale meteor hit, enough people should survive to gradually rebuild it to the current level.
That's pretty much what they're talking about. Some hit that breaks down society and then requires a rebuild.
Not if they raise other tax rates to make up for lost revenue... One might think that some how paying tax is kind of like a multi-way prisoner's dilemma between other tax payers, but in reality, the government will get their money some other way, and on that other game (a different tax revenue source), you may be the loser...
"May be the loser" is a lot better than "will be the loser".
This is always how the human race has been right to the myopic malcontents whining about materialism. I would suggest improving yourself rather than improving humanity. It's something you can actually do.
That's quite true. I didn't see San Francisco till around 2000. But I have to say that all the talk about starving artists and such is really off base. Without Silicon Valley, San Francisco would just be another urban place with character like say, Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon. It has a decently developed culture for a US city. But it's nearness to Silicon Valley (and to a lesser extent Hollywood to the south) is what gives it notability beyond that.
From my point of view, what is special about Florence and Silicon Valley is the trade/industry. The Renaissance followed from that in Florence. It'll be interesting to see what follows from that in Silicon Valley. Already, we seem to have some significant stuff in space flight, for example.
Finally, I imagine that artists in Florence probably were complaining about the merchants, cloth finishers, and bankers too.
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Meh, they used to be ok in the 90s. I had a subscription for a time. Then they did the "Conventional Wisdom" nonsense. That was a sign to me to drop them.
In any case, the definitions OUGHT to be consistent. What criteria other than inertia of publications would you prefer that keeps Pluto IN yet leaves Ceres OUT?
The whole argument is retarded because it can't be extended to other star systems (many which don't have the nice structure of our Solar System). Currently, we have a naming scheme with "planets", "dwarf planets", and "exoplanets", yet only one of these three groups actually are planets. Please continue to lecture us on "consistency".
As rebuttals:
1) Employers don't want to pay you anything, but they do. Rather than spending your salary on "expenses", save your money either by investing or by putting it into a business. It's a novel concept. Now, I know there's some people out there who don't think they can pare their expenses. But they're usually wrong.
2) I've never worked at such a place. I'm sure they exist, but so what? Even if you work at such a place, you can still save for a future business after you leave.
3) You basically say that yes, you can run a business on a "very limited milk money" budget.
I guess then you'll have to find a way to adapt. Employers will have to as well.
Unless you move water there. That's not particularly hard.
I keep getting told that if I don't like being poor I should just stop being poor. Gee, that'd be nice, but I don't see anyone lining up to give me capital....
Your employer is giving you capital for starters. Maybe you ought to look at what you're doing with that.
What are we going to do in 20 years when robots drive cars, make food, deliver packages and pick our fruit?
Other stuff obviously. Jobs change and maybe you should be changing with that. We're not all chipping flint and hunting rabbits any more. Somehow we adapted to greater changes than the ones that have you so concerned.
We do have the resources to feed, clothe and shelter everyone on this planet.
So what do you have to offer for that food, clothes, shelter, etc? Especially, if you're the sort that makes more problems that require food, clothes, shelter, etc. Labor for the stuff you want is a system that works. It gives the providers of stuff incentive to give you stuff.
Hoping that someone provides you with the resources you need depends on a morality or ethics system that might not always be there.
FUNDING is the reason to skip college and hit votech.
Or because you want to go into one of the fields supported by a vocational college.
Apparently, the HKEx regulators still cling to the quaint notion that small investors are important. I guess those HK guys have a thing or two left to learn about how real capitalism works.
Here, the Alibaba Group would be dirtying the pool for everyone. HKEx has better things to do than expedite one company's con.
When someone says something is impossible now, they mean impossible because of the established and settled laws of physics.
Even though extreme longevity is not notably restricted by physics? The human body is not a closed system thermodynamically. And the Sun provides more than enough energy to ensure everyone lives at least as long as the Sun is an energy source (which incidentally is long past when it'll go nova).
Seems to me people like children.
So your touchie feelie opinion beats shrinking populations throughout the developed world?
If the average woman is allowed to have only 0.0000000001 children per year you can't allow women them to make that choice for themselves, the birth rate will be far, far too high.
For when? Even if absolute no one dies ever, that would be a population doubling time of 7 billion years. The Sun will go nova first long before humans reach carrying capacity on Earth.
Oil subsidies are the largest welfare payout granted by the Federal government, dwarfing the amount paid out to ALL human recipients.
Given that you use the term welfare in two different senses. If we consider welfare to be generic entitlement spending as it is with corporate welfare, then Social Security would be the obvious counterexample to your assertion. It uses roughly 20% of the budget.
The problem is we don't actually know what is and isn't a waste.
[...]
The problem is you don't know what will or won't be useful ex-ante.
But we aren't operating from a position of complete ignorance. We have a fairly good idea what things have near future value. I'm tired of the people who push this myth that science has incredible future value conveniently off the horizon which we can't even begin to determine.
If that were true, then there would be no distinction between funding thousands of US colleges and funding me the same amount of money. It's all Science and my parties (I'd bring a whole new meaning to the term "state-wide party") would be better. So why fund all those people when you can just fund one source?
The argument is just a shifty dodge of responsibility and accountability.
However, perhaps some microbiologist who just wanted to see what he could grow if he tried culturing a geyser will discover something revolutionary.
It actually was a hot spring, Mushroom Spring in Yellowstone National Park, not a geyser - though it is close to a large geyser.
The idea is that *people* are more powerful and altruistic than individuals or institutions.
Even if "people" actually were more powerful and altruistic, which I disagree with, then there's still the matter that actual public funding doesn't have much to do with the "people" or their desires. There's millennia of history indicating that even in democracies a substantial deviation between the workings of a government and the people it supposedly represents.
If a government is contrary to its people's values, then they should fix the government, not discard it altogether in favor of private enterprise.
Discarding government for tasks for which private enterprise is superior is a fix. Instead, you're proposing the following destructive cycle:
1) Implement a costly, poorly thought out, terrible government intervention in some area.
2) It fails hard.
3) Blame "the people" for screwing up.
4) Go to step 1).
I think a simpler approach is to simply don't do that. It's worth noting that there are now more effective ways to collectively and privately fund "people" research, such as Kickstarter or starting a non profit.
You're right, I didn't think this through properly. I'd still bank on the microbe side pulling though easily since this is a substantial, ever-present selection pressure (and they've had almost three decades to evolve), not just happening when humans happen to bring UV around. Microbes would have plenty of time (at least tens of thousands of generations IMHO) to pull through and evolve solutions.
Fungi might not though. If it is a radiation-induced impairment of soil organisms, I'd look first at the organisms that have the longest reproduction times.
But having said that, it still remains that the same factors which concentrate radioactive contaminants may also sufficiently often inhibit decay processes.
The problem here is that microbes are among the most resistant things on Earth to radiation damage. And even larger organisms like earthworms or nematodes tend to be pretty resistant as well (though the study alleged to control for that). That's because they are small and have short life-cycles.
What I think is more likely here is that there is a common environmental condition that both inhibits decay and doesn't move radiation away as readily. For example, if the soil is dry, then that will inhibit decay and it might also result in less movement of radioactive chemicals out of the area.
But having said that, such things could be indirectly a product of radioactivity, if say, trees died off in high radiation areas and that in turn creates a more open, drier environment.
Trucks and trains don't run on sunlight.
They don't currently, but they can. This whole story fails because it ignores that we are bathed in plentiful energy. As petroleum grows more expensive, it becomes economical to use solar energy either directly or in production of petroleum substitutes, to keep things moving along.
Now we're in the start of the era of Moderate Oil, just past the era of Cheap Oil. It's not an opinion, dude... IT'S MATH.
With no real economic distinction between cheap and moderately cheap oil.
It wasn't anything to do with freedom that gave the Nazis their power. It was the economic devastation (and huge damage to the national pride) caused by the outcome of the first world war that gave Hitler his foothold.
So instead of banning unpopular speech we should just not screw up economically? That sound right?
"Collapse" means suddenly crumble, cease to exist.
Well, it means the former not the latter. A collapsed building is still a building.
Can you really imagine the ecological / economical limits described here to eliminate every sort of organized production on Earth?
It doesn't have to eliminate every bit of production. We had a pretty substantial mess just from a recent real estate crisis.
And if you look at the historical examples given in the story, they didn't actually collapse suddenly. The scenario given is that things got progressively worse with the people in charge not doing enough or often making things worse.
For example, the Roman empire was in deep trouble in the third century. One of its effects was to severely damage various bits of infrastructure both physical and legal. For example, the trade network that the Romans had set up never became as safe as it had been. Also, the mess had created considerable inflation and the previously mentioned shift to concentration of wealth to large land owners.
They also overlook the adaptability of demand when the supply shortens, and the number of disruptive technologies appearing every day, rendering moot any such "if the trend continues" analysis.
The problem here is that the markets and other infrastructure which enables transactions between demand and supply is what can fail.
For example, I've heard it predicted that once Obamacare gets fully implemented it'll stop future drug development over our lifetimes. I guess the idea is that somehow all drug development throughout the world only happens in the US due to companies or something. Obviously, the prediction is a bit overwrought, but that sort of thing is what leads to long term disruptions between supply and demand.
I gather China doesn't care what it does as long as it doesn't become embarrassingly public.
Even in the most catastrophic scenarios like a nuclear war or a dinosaur-scale meteor hit, enough people should survive to gradually rebuild it to the current level.
That's pretty much what they're talking about. Some hit that breaks down society and then requires a rebuild.
Not if they raise other tax rates to make up for lost revenue... One might think that some how paying tax is kind of like a multi-way prisoner's dilemma between other tax payers, but in reality, the government will get their money some other way, and on that other game (a different tax revenue source), you may be the loser...
"May be the loser" is a lot better than "will be the loser".
We are becoming more like animals.
This is always how the human race has been right to the myopic malcontents whining about materialism. I would suggest improving yourself rather than improving humanity. It's something you can actually do.
The energy input to produce each calorie of food, must either stop or rise to reflect the scarcity price.
You do realize that the primary energy input for agriculture is the Sun, right?
And cheap petroleum has arguably already run out.
Anything is arguable even when it's simply not true.
That's quite true. I didn't see San Francisco till around 2000. But I have to say that all the talk about starving artists and such is really off base. Without Silicon Valley, San Francisco would just be another urban place with character like say, Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon. It has a decently developed culture for a US city. But it's nearness to Silicon Valley (and to a lesser extent Hollywood to the south) is what gives it notability beyond that.
From my point of view, what is special about Florence and Silicon Valley is the trade/industry. The Renaissance followed from that in Florence. It'll be interesting to see what follows from that in Silicon Valley. Already, we seem to have some significant stuff in space flight, for example.
Finally, I imagine that artists in Florence probably were complaining about the merchants, cloth finishers, and bankers too.