If NASA was as good as doing things in space as they are at the propaganda, then we'd be doing great. Sure, they do a number of things in space that are remarkable, but the logistics and infrastructure for serious space activities just aren't there.
For example, they're kicking around the idea of a Europa ice drill. Why only one such mission? There are plenty of other icy Moon and asteroids out there. The same drill could be used on Saturn's moon Enceladus (which has similar liquid water activities). It could be used on Ceres, the largest asteroid which also happens to have a ice layer. It could be used on all of the other major Jovian moons. It could with modification be used on Phobos (a moon of Mars) or some Trojan asteroids of Jupiter.
Same issue with Mars spacecraft. All the rovers are one-off. They never sent another wave of MERs (Mars Exploration Rover) or MSLs (Mars Science Laboratory).
They never say, "Oh, this is a really cool tool. Let's use it more than one time."
Manned space is even worse off with ridiculously priced space stations and terrible launch vehicle development efforts. It's all about securing government funding for all the special interests in the right congressional districts.
This is the lack of ambition and economic awareness that will cripple NASA until they (and the US in general) change how they do things.
Please explain how anything in my suggestion was throwing them to the wolves.
Here's what you wrote and what I quoted:
I have no doubt that if they were offered a complete disarmament of the Korean peninsula, in exchange for providing defense, as the US does for Japan, China would be willing to invade NK to put an end to their insanity.
That's throwing both Koreas to the wolves. First, the US would be dismantling the only counterweight to Chinese military power in the region and simultaneously allowing that power to be extended throughout the Korea peninsula. Second, it'd be explicit approval of Chinese annexation of North Korea.
I'd also wager that the US would lose in short order both Japan and Taiwan to China's sphere of influence after such an action. Not because China would do anything special to court or coerce them, but merely because the US could no longer be relied on to protect them against Chinese power.
Further, the precedent of allowing China to take over North Korea militarily would probably encourage them in further such military adventures say with Indochina as well as implicit approval of similar past Chinese military actions, particularly the annexation of Tibet.
Finally, the current state of affairs strengthens the Chinese factions that favors economic power over military power. Allowing the Chinese military such a victory shifts power to them, especially when coupled with the above defections and military opportunities. More Chinese decisions will then be made on a military basis than on an economic one. I think that will result in a lot of trouble and a far more warlike empire down the road.
Yes, and your post above includes "It just happens so that this involves computers."
It's remarkable how the narrow-minded can trivialize the most remarkable inventions and discoveries. Let's suppose a carton of cigarettes weights 200 grams and costs $40. A billion dollars of cigarettes then is 5,000 metric tons. A memory stick might be oh, 10 grams. Do you see where I'm going with this? An eight order magnitude improvement in mass (over your example) for something that is in use today and it's just an "idea".
Cost and price are not subjective, they are the demonstrable items exchanged.
Not at all. As the other replier noted, it depends whether you are seller or buyer as to whether something is a price or a cost. Especially if no transaction actually occurs because the potential buyer chooses not to buy at the offered price!
I have no doubt that if they were offered a complete disarmament of the Korean peninsula, in exchange for providing defense, as the US does for Japan, China would be willing to invade NK to put an end to their insanity. But the US believes China to be an enemy so much that I don't think anyone with the power to do it would consider it seriously enough to get an answer.
I would have to side with the US government viewpoint here. It would be a hideous injustice to throw South Korea to the wolves. Let us keep in mind who supported North Korea for all these decades and how that turned out.
It may end up, with weakening US power that China ends up dominating the Korea peninsula anyway. But even in that case, I don't see them supporting unification. Presently, they have weak, militarily insignificant neighbors. A unified Korea could become a problem down the road, say a seed for anti-Chinese dissatisfaction among China's neighbors.
A standard empire building tactic is divide and conquer. I don't think it's wise to hope that they don't develop a habit for empire.
I agree. It's somewhat possible some of the people you mention have relevant business experience, but it's more likely that they're puppets for some institutional managers somewhere. And in such cases, as long as they vote the way the institutional managers want, why would they ever be replaced?
A Bitcoin is nothing more than a rivalrous good (or an attempt at one), and other rivalrous goods have already been shown to be acceptable mediums of exhange (like cigarettes or sea shells). It just happens so that this involves computers.
So how hard is it to carry a few billion dollars worth of cigarettes or sea shells? For bit coins, it's as hard as carrying a memory stick.
Sorry, "Tamerlane" which is itself some sort of European nickname for Timur. I see "Timur-i lang" as a Persian nickname, so I guess my correction above wasn't needed.
On the other hand 1 example is enough to disprove such ridiculous claims:
Einstein
What about him? How does one example somehow disprove other anecdotal evidence?
p.s. i can point an equally number of unethical people with really low education: Attila the hun anyone ? timur lang ?
Timurlame was well educated for his time. And there was a lot of pond scum on the Roman sides (both East and West) about this time which was both well educated and morally bankrupt.
If SK agreed to open borders with the north, and the US/UN/SK agreed to not put any weapons in NK, I would expect China to officially ally with the US/UN against NK.
China would run the risk of a unified Korea, making a potential rival considerably stronger. I think they've already demonstrated over sixty years, that they don't want that happening.
The thing that this story misses is that directors are elected by large shareholders not the business management. For example, almost a quarter of HP stock is owned by the ten largest institutional or mutual fund holders and almost 80% is held by institutional investors in general.
It stretches credulity to claim that these powerful investors can't get the directors and the control over the company that they want. Instead, I believe what we're seeing is exactly what they want. It's worth remembering that virtually all of these institutional investors are holding other peoples' money.
So in HP's case, we have a considerable supermajority of the shares of the business controlled by people who don't own those shares. I believe this leads to a massive conflict of interest between the institutions (who control the voting for HP directors) and the actual shareholders.
You are not factoring in time and are assuming the money is disposable.
No way. You aren't factoring in time. I already explained how I factor in (and you should as well) time via the "opportunity cost" investment. There's also the closely related concept of time value of money, where it is better to have money now than later, all else being equal.
And of course, money is fungible. That's one of the prime features of money. We don't need the hugely expensive engine now and we can find an investment that pays off in the near future rather than some distant future.
Never mind factors like, will the moderate priced engine have higher operation and consequential costs?
Why of course you can come up with a straw man edge case. It doesn't affect my argument at all.
For example carbon based power plants have tons/tonnes of environmental impact that are never factored in that make the actual cost in the long run far higher.
Let's keep in mind that most of that "carbon based" impact is purely imaginary. Seriously.
In the real world, your argument is too simplistic.
Give a real argument for a real world and then you'll have room to talk. But when your rebuttal boils down to "I'll only consider extraordinary edge cases that trivially confirm my original simple-minded (and wrong) argument", you don't have any grounds to whine about my argument being too "simplistic".
But if you had accepted the deal then his asking price would have been exactly equal to your cost.
Cost and price are inherently subjective. By changing the point of view, from him to me, you change the meaning. There are also transaction costs which need to be added in.
It is my understanding that during various major oil spills the companies involved did not have to pay the total costs of the damages incurred and most of the tab was picked up by taxpayers.
So what? That's not an actual externality since it's a cost voluntarily created by the respective government agency. Those tend to be wildly inflated costs. It's like blaming the entire cost of the US military-industrial complex on oil companies.
It should also not be possible to just declare bankruptcy instead of being able to pay the cost of the damage done.
Bankruptcy happens when the money's just not there. Unless you're going to give them the money to pay for damages, they're not going to pay for damages either way.
I wonder what technologies we would most likely be using right now and how quickly they would progress and how much effort would be put into making them better without so many businesses able to keep using their current business models and passing the costs onto the public.
No, I have to agree with the grandparent here. A lot of people here will see the high tech industry - past, present, or future. They should be more aware of how much basic office infrastructure costs.
Slashdot Mirror
Those refugee "escapees" were almost 10% of Cuba's population. That's an awful lot of criminals per capita.
If NASA was as good as doing things in space as they are at the propaganda, then we'd be doing great. Sure, they do a number of things in space that are remarkable, but the logistics and infrastructure for serious space activities just aren't there.
For example, they're kicking around the idea of a Europa ice drill. Why only one such mission? There are plenty of other icy Moon and asteroids out there. The same drill could be used on Saturn's moon Enceladus (which has similar liquid water activities). It could be used on Ceres, the largest asteroid which also happens to have a ice layer. It could be used on all of the other major Jovian moons. It could with modification be used on Phobos (a moon of Mars) or some Trojan asteroids of Jupiter.
Same issue with Mars spacecraft. All the rovers are one-off. They never sent another wave of MERs (Mars Exploration Rover) or MSLs (Mars Science Laboratory).
They never say, "Oh, this is a really cool tool. Let's use it more than one time." Manned space is even worse off with ridiculously priced space stations and terrible launch vehicle development efforts. It's all about securing government funding for all the special interests in the right congressional districts.
This is the lack of ambition and economic awareness that will cripple NASA until they (and the US in general) change how they do things.
Please explain how anything in my suggestion was throwing them to the wolves.
Here's what you wrote and what I quoted:
I have no doubt that if they were offered a complete disarmament of the Korean peninsula, in exchange for providing defense, as the US does for Japan, China would be willing to invade NK to put an end to their insanity.
That's throwing both Koreas to the wolves. First, the US would be dismantling the only counterweight to Chinese military power in the region and simultaneously allowing that power to be extended throughout the Korea peninsula. Second, it'd be explicit approval of Chinese annexation of North Korea.
I'd also wager that the US would lose in short order both Japan and Taiwan to China's sphere of influence after such an action. Not because China would do anything special to court or coerce them, but merely because the US could no longer be relied on to protect them against Chinese power.
Further, the precedent of allowing China to take over North Korea militarily would probably encourage them in further such military adventures say with Indochina as well as implicit approval of similar past Chinese military actions, particularly the annexation of Tibet.
Finally, the current state of affairs strengthens the Chinese factions that favors economic power over military power. Allowing the Chinese military such a victory shifts power to them, especially when coupled with the above defections and military opportunities. More Chinese decisions will then be made on a military basis than on an economic one. I think that will result in a lot of trouble and a far more warlike empire down the road.
Yes, and your post above includes "It just happens so that this involves computers."
It's remarkable how the narrow-minded can trivialize the most remarkable inventions and discoveries. Let's suppose a carton of cigarettes weights 200 grams and costs $40. A billion dollars of cigarettes then is 5,000 metric tons. A memory stick might be oh, 10 grams. Do you see where I'm going with this? An eight order magnitude improvement in mass (over your example) for something that is in use today and it's just an "idea".
Cost and price are not subjective, they are the demonstrable items exchanged.
Not at all. As the other replier noted, it depends whether you are seller or buyer as to whether something is a price or a cost. Especially if no transaction actually occurs because the potential buyer chooses not to buy at the offered price!
In certain contexts, they are not.
[...]
from the producer perspective
[...]
from the accounting perspective of the purchaser
The contexts are subjective.
I have no doubt that if they were offered a complete disarmament of the Korean peninsula, in exchange for providing defense, as the US does for Japan, China would be willing to invade NK to put an end to their insanity. But the US believes China to be an enemy so much that I don't think anyone with the power to do it would consider it seriously enough to get an answer.
I would have to side with the US government viewpoint here. It would be a hideous injustice to throw South Korea to the wolves. Let us keep in mind who supported North Korea for all these decades and how that turned out.
It may end up, with weakening US power that China ends up dominating the Korea peninsula anyway. But even in that case, I don't see them supporting unification. Presently, they have weak, militarily insignificant neighbors. A unified Korea could become a problem down the road, say a seed for anti-Chinese dissatisfaction among China's neighbors.
A standard empire building tactic is divide and conquer. I don't think it's wise to hope that they don't develop a habit for empire.
I agree. It's somewhat possible some of the people you mention have relevant business experience, but it's more likely that they're puppets for some institutional managers somewhere. And in such cases, as long as they vote the way the institutional managers want, why would they ever be replaced?
A Bitcoin is nothing more than a rivalrous good (or an attempt at one), and other rivalrous goods have already been shown to be acceptable mediums of exhange (like cigarettes or sea shells). It just happens so that this involves computers.
So how hard is it to carry a few billion dollars worth of cigarettes or sea shells? For bit coins, it's as hard as carrying a memory stick.
How many Linden dollars is a bitcoin worth?
The ship never should have been allowed to skirt maritime law the way it did.
Why? Even if everyone had died, it wouldn't have been a big deal. People die all the time no matter how much regulation is out there.
I think that china got their priorities changed during the last sixty/fifty years(or at least changed the battleground).
So what? They are still standing in the way of a Korean unification and I think they do so precisely because they still want a divided Korea.
Sorry, "Tamerlane" which is itself some sort of European nickname for Timur. I see "Timur-i lang" as a Persian nickname, so I guess my correction above wasn't needed.
On the other hand 1 example is enough to disprove such ridiculous claims:
Einstein
What about him? How does one example somehow disprove other anecdotal evidence?
p.s. i can point an equally number of unethical people with really low education: Attila the hun anyone ? timur lang ?
Timurlame was well educated for his time. And there was a lot of pond scum on the Roman sides (both East and West) about this time which was both well educated and morally bankrupt.
If SK agreed to open borders with the north, and the US/UN/SK agreed to not put any weapons in NK, I would expect China to officially ally with the US/UN against NK.
China would run the risk of a unified Korea, making a potential rival considerably stronger. I think they've already demonstrated over sixty years, that they don't want that happening.
Ed Wood's stuff had soul. Uwe Boll's stuff had tax write off.
The thing that this story misses is that directors are elected by large shareholders not the business management. For example, almost a quarter of HP stock is owned by the ten largest institutional or mutual fund holders and almost 80% is held by institutional investors in general.
It stretches credulity to claim that these powerful investors can't get the directors and the control over the company that they want. Instead, I believe what we're seeing is exactly what they want. It's worth remembering that virtually all of these institutional investors are holding other peoples' money.
So in HP's case, we have a considerable supermajority of the shares of the business controlled by people who don't own those shares. I believe this leads to a massive conflict of interest between the institutions (who control the voting for HP directors) and the actual shareholders.
Well, they just did it. So I guess that's how you do it.
You are not factoring in time and are assuming the money is disposable.
No way. You aren't factoring in time. I already explained how I factor in (and you should as well) time via the "opportunity cost" investment. There's also the closely related concept of time value of money, where it is better to have money now than later, all else being equal.
And of course, money is fungible. That's one of the prime features of money. We don't need the hugely expensive engine now and we can find an investment that pays off in the near future rather than some distant future.
Never mind factors like, will the moderate priced engine have higher operation and consequential costs?
Why of course you can come up with a straw man edge case. It doesn't affect my argument at all.
For example carbon based power plants have tons/tonnes of environmental impact that are never factored in that make the actual cost in the long run far higher.
Let's keep in mind that most of that "carbon based" impact is purely imaginary. Seriously.
In the real world, your argument is too simplistic.
Give a real argument for a real world and then you'll have room to talk. But when your rebuttal boils down to "I'll only consider extraordinary edge cases that trivially confirm my original simple-minded (and wrong) argument", you don't have any grounds to whine about my argument being too "simplistic".
Interesting how some people still have to blame things on Bush. I guess the brain lesions don't fix themselves in five years, huh?
And now we see North Korea "declaring war". Again. What's the point of continuing to make excuses for their bad behavior?
But if you had accepted the deal then his asking price would have been exactly equal to your cost.
Cost and price are inherently subjective. By changing the point of view, from him to me, you change the meaning. There are also transaction costs which need to be added in.
sually in places where there is no one
[...]
you'd likly have a pretty hole in the ground for tourists
Not everywhere has no one. If that pretty hole ends up in Paris or Mexico City, then you have a lot of dead people in addition to the pretty hole.
It is my understanding that during various major oil spills the companies involved did not have to pay the total costs of the damages incurred and most of the tab was picked up by taxpayers.
So what? That's not an actual externality since it's a cost voluntarily created by the respective government agency. Those tend to be wildly inflated costs. It's like blaming the entire cost of the US military-industrial complex on oil companies.
It should also not be possible to just declare bankruptcy instead of being able to pay the cost of the damage done.
Bankruptcy happens when the money's just not there. Unless you're going to give them the money to pay for damages, they're not going to pay for damages either way.
I wonder what technologies we would most likely be using right now and how quickly they would progress and how much effort would be put into making them better without so many businesses able to keep using their current business models and passing the costs onto the public.
You're probably looking at them right now.
No, I have to agree with the grandparent here. A lot of people here will see the high tech industry - past, present, or future. They should be more aware of how much basic office infrastructure costs.