I am certain that you will volunteer today to be a test subject for a risky clinical trial, since all that suffering and death in the world means so much to you.
Not today. But there's a good chance I will at some point in the future. I'll die of something and there's a good chance it'll be something which we can develop an experimental treatment for. Might as well do something productive with that death, right?
All we do know is that global climate change is happening and our inaction is making it much worse.
We don't know that either. It's damning that advocates for mitigation of global warming can't even demonstrate that mitigation will reduce greenhouse gases emissions. The problem is twofold. First, there is already a history of remarkably myopic and counterproductive mitigation efforts. For example, we have the carbon markets and the energy policies of the Eurozone. For example, Germany and Denmark's energy policies have doubled the cost of electricity in those countries without producing a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. The carbon markets have hopped from problem to problem without once addressing the worst problem of all, the hard caps on emissions, which results in a shock transition from a ridiculously elastic carbon market to a ridiculously inelastic carbon market once the demand for carbon credits eclipses the supply.
And then there's the Kyoto Protocol which had substantial demands for reduction in CO2 emissions, but nowhere near enough to reach the targets that the advocates for the treaty wanted.
Finally, there are the repeated demands to hold global temperature rise to 2 C. They aren't going to happen (unless we get some technological and economic developments that obsolete fossil fuels), but no one seems interested in coming up with a more achievable backup plan.
Now couple this history of unrealistic plans and demands with the fundamental dynamic that wealth is correlated with population decline and decline in human fertility, control of pollution, ability to adapt to or mitigate climate changes, and concern for the environment. My view is that the climate change mitigation advocates seem to propose a lot of really bad actions in response to climate change which destroys wealth, which in turn destroys our ability to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels in several different ways.
In other words, even if we considered as our most important goal maintaining the global climate at some level close to 1850, I don't see the current or proposed plans as being better for that goal than inaction!
The models have predicted the warming (but being on the conservative side, not as strong as it has happened so far).
But then we have analysis like this which showed the vast majority of older "conservative" models consistently exaggerating the change in temperature.
Since 2014 has been warmer globally than 1998, and the numbers for 2015 are not in yet, but so far point to a new global warmth record even above 2014, there is no stasis at all.
Here, 2014 and 2015 may both turn out to be cooler than 1998. That doesn't invalidate your argument, but it doesn't help it either.
As for the GP, just because Southerners have learned to hide their hate from you doesn't mean it's not there.
It does mean at the bare minimum, that they're hiding it rather than bragging about it which is a big improvement. You have to wonder what's wrong upstairs with bigots who get in such a hateful and very public lather over hidden and possibly very imaginary racism. Hater gotta hate, I guess.
Are you intentionally only criticizing drinkypoo for being open and honest?
About what? He states he hates a whole region because of a racism which is remarkably subdued in that region. That indicates to me that he has not examined his arguments at all. In turn, that lack of self examination is a strong indicator for self-deception.
Is "Southerner" now a race to you?
Completely irrelevant to sumdumass's argument. Why should we be hating on a region just because it might have people who are hiding their racism?
Which is a series of fine reasons to curb the FDA's power with respect to human experimentation. They don't help with any of these problems or solutions (like malpractice or negligence lawsuits). Instead, it has devolved to risk minimization for the FDA. If they ban experimental medical practices, then they never have to explain in front of a grandstanding Congress why they allowed an experiment that killed a photogenic someone.
The problem with your breezy assertions about lawsuits, ethics, and Nazi experiments is that there are apparently millions of people in the world with some form of crippling paralysis or muscle weakness that prevents them from walking and/or using their arms. Brain implants are probably a core technology to getting them human-level mobility again. Instead, those people are allowed to suffer in miserable conditions indefinitely for the sake of a hypothetical few lives. It also means that people who are willing and have the power to completely ignore those ethical quandaries will have a considerable advantage.
We actually learned a lot of stuff from those high altitude evil experiments, which is a bit disturbing on many levels.
Your system of regulation and ethics has a worse outcome than human experimentation in a Nazi concentration camp. You are doing it wrong.
There is a vast amount of human suffering and death which can be mitigated and/or eliminated. But it requires human experimentation. - a small price for a great gain. A saner approach also reduces the advantages gained from "no holds barred" experimentation, that you seem concerned about.
How do you plan to get this sort of mass production-enabled experimentaiton and process refinement with Skylon?
High launch frequency.
The Shuttle could likewise have been refined to reduce maintenance.... but the vehicle wasn't in the sort of production/design environment that jets are in that enables such refinement.
That's due to poor strategic direction and design decisions. For example, they could have gone with a two person RLV on the Saturn IB. Then they could have afforded the high launch frequency that one needs to enable and justify those things.
The Space Shuttle had to be substantially overhauled after *every single flight*. Airplanes don't.
You are only arguing a matter of degree.
typically we only have to take things apart twice a year
Indeed.
The Space Shuttle was not like this at all. It needed a full engine overhaul after every flight. The turbines on modern widebody twin engine aircraft will go thousands of cycles and tens of thousands of hours before requiring an overhaul - not a single cycle and single flight like the Shuttle.
A flight of the Shuttle is typically 250-400 hours which is a much more significant cycle. That's about two orders of magnitude shorter in duration.
Oh, and the Space Shuttle wasn't reusable, it was rebuildable.
By that sense, so is any airplane. They still need to be inspected after a flight, and parts repaired and replaced on a continuing basis. I would say instead that it is a vastly lower quality of reusability with much higher cost and turn around time between flights than a normal airplane.
As to Skylon, I hear that even with air breathing engines, it requires a very efficient mass fraction better than any current rocket stage (with the stage filled with low density LH2).
The pipeline seems to have been one great big scam from the start.
Scam for who?
claim huge value with a government subsidised pipeline
Approving it didn't require subsidizing it.
only to see it all collapse as it is forced to compete with other countries desperately trying to dump as much fossil fuel as quickly as possible before it all gets banned
Banned by who?
The only reason the pipe line project was canned because it is quite simply to close to the end of fossil fuels and it would end up looking really, really, corrupt.
Couldn't look any more corrupt than dragging out the process and denying only when a sop to the environmentalists was needed.
please explain the cause of the massive gun violence rate in America and your solution for solving it...
There isn't massive gun violence in the US (it is merely a moderately higher rate than other countries). As for "solving" it, I would continue to enforce laws against violence - with or without guns.
I would also legalize most recreational drugs and other victimless crimes like gambling and prostitution. And finish with a rational immigration policy that provides a clear, prompt, and rather easy path to permanent residency in the US.
The key words are "in two terms". Your list is weak for a single term, much less eight years. For example, FDR in his first term had a large number of legacy policies, many of which are still in place (bunch of farm subsidies and regulatory bodies, several significant departments like FCC or SEC, the beginning of a bout of public works construction, and a sea change in federal government power). And Clinton has a bigger legacy just with the 90s economic expansion - including perhaps the last decent financial year the US will ever have and unusual transparency in government.
the pipeline was rejected because it makes little to no economic or policy sense for the US, and provides us with almost no benefits.
Who is "us"? The US and Canada would both benefit from the extra economic activity. And why is it that we should ban activities which don't benefit "us" anyway? Should I favor banning bicycle riding because I don't get paid every time someone hops on one?
No, just because you refuse to acknowledge it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist...
Which is a meaningless observation since it doesn't support your arguments at all.
Nope... no it hasn't... it's been about the right to have a gun.. period (regardless of responsibility)... and there is a direct correlation between irresponsible gun ownership and violence.
Which simply isn't true. Else we wouldn't have laws against negligent use or storage of firearms, much less laws against assault and murder with firearms.
Use breeder reactors and/or extract short lived isotopes (and isotope poisons) from fuel in reprocessing. The solutions already exist. And I don't have a problem with unsubsidized nuclear plants as long as they're also shield from ridiculous levels of liability due to public hysteria.
It's pretty easy to blame "anti-nuclear activists". But the reality is that nuclear power isn't economically viable right now. Many perfectly working plants have been shut down because electric prices are low due to the low cost of natural gas in the US. They haven't closed due to protestors.
Complete bullshit. The US hasn't built a new reactor in something like 30 years (the only ones completed in that time were started earlier). Natural gas hasn't been low for that entire time. But we have had anti-nuclear activists shut down or delay nuclear plant construction, nuclear waste storage, and waste transportation during that time.
Also, the insurance inustry won't insure new plant construction. You think the insurance industry gives a rats ass about "anti-nuclear activists"? Of course not, they just care about the money.
When you look at the abject hysteria surrounding the Fukushima accident, there is huge future liability risk. Who knows what crazy shit a society will pull just because nuclear is scary. No insurance company is going to provide open-ended liability because of this risk, but they might provide capped liability.
Plus, the behavior the earlier poster wanted to exile, isn't actually psychopathy, but normal human behavior among those who have achieved wealth and power. We have plenty of sayings and stories about people who get power and become corrupted by it. Meanwhile the idea that only bad people get power is ludicrous and routinely disputed in any era of history where it surfaces.
Antibiotics are strictly a money loser due to the regulations about testing. The business spends tens of millions of dollars on a roll of the dice and all they'll get out of it is a rarely used, low revenue antibiotic. You can't even begin to understand the problem until you understand the disincentives.
This is what happens when you allow sociopaths to run corporations.
I'm not sure why the/. crowd gets up and rallies around in defense of sociopaths. It seems to pop up in nearly every political or social converstation that is a trigger for American libertarianism
Maybe because a lot of Slashdotters are tired of clueless idiots treating business and enterprise, core parts of modern society, like an incurable mental illness that needs to be scrubbed from the Earth.
So you do admit that there is a lack of connection between gun ownership and violence? Ok.
Oh so you admit it's about RESPONSIBLE gun ownership now... not JUST gun ownership? FYI, we don't have responsible gun ownership in the U.S... we have "gun nuts" and a God/Constitutional right to arm ourselves to the teeth pretty much regardless of training or credentials.... a recipe for.. drum roll... violence!
Gun ownership has always been about responsible gun ownership as you admit here. That doesn't have a thing to do with violence.
So? I was just making an observation about the lack of correlation between presence of guns and violence. For example, US society is more violent than Swiss society, but they have similar levels of gun ownership.
from what I'm reading he was 100% correct.
About what? What wolf are we feeding with responsible gun ownership and fun D&D? I bet it's not the rabid wolf Mr. AC was thinking of.
Slashdot Mirror
I am certain that you will volunteer today to be a test subject for a risky clinical trial, since all that suffering and death in the world means so much to you.
Not today. But there's a good chance I will at some point in the future. I'll die of something and there's a good chance it'll be something which we can develop an experimental treatment for. Might as well do something productive with that death, right?
All we do know is that global climate change is happening and our inaction is making it much worse.
We don't know that either. It's damning that advocates for mitigation of global warming can't even demonstrate that mitigation will reduce greenhouse gases emissions. The problem is twofold. First, there is already a history of remarkably myopic and counterproductive mitigation efforts. For example, we have the carbon markets and the energy policies of the Eurozone. For example, Germany and Denmark's energy policies have doubled the cost of electricity in those countries without producing a significant reduction in CO2 emissions. The carbon markets have hopped from problem to problem without once addressing the worst problem of all, the hard caps on emissions, which results in a shock transition from a ridiculously elastic carbon market to a ridiculously inelastic carbon market once the demand for carbon credits eclipses the supply.
And then there's the Kyoto Protocol which had substantial demands for reduction in CO2 emissions, but nowhere near enough to reach the targets that the advocates for the treaty wanted.
Finally, there are the repeated demands to hold global temperature rise to 2 C. They aren't going to happen (unless we get some technological and economic developments that obsolete fossil fuels), but no one seems interested in coming up with a more achievable backup plan.
Now couple this history of unrealistic plans and demands with the fundamental dynamic that wealth is correlated with population decline and decline in human fertility, control of pollution, ability to adapt to or mitigate climate changes, and concern for the environment. My view is that the climate change mitigation advocates seem to propose a lot of really bad actions in response to climate change which destroys wealth, which in turn destroys our ability to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels in several different ways.
In other words, even if we considered as our most important goal maintaining the global climate at some level close to 1850, I don't see the current or proposed plans as being better for that goal than inaction!
The models have predicted the warming (but being on the conservative side, not as strong as it has happened so far).
But then we have analysis like this which showed the vast majority of older "conservative" models consistently exaggerating the change in temperature.
Since 2014 has been warmer globally than 1998, and the numbers for 2015 are not in yet, but so far point to a new global warmth record even above 2014, there is no stasis at all.
Here, 2014 and 2015 may both turn out to be cooler than 1998. That doesn't invalidate your argument, but it doesn't help it either.
As for the GP, just because Southerners have learned to hide their hate from you doesn't mean it's not there.
It does mean at the bare minimum, that they're hiding it rather than bragging about it which is a big improvement. You have to wonder what's wrong upstairs with bigots who get in such a hateful and very public lather over hidden and possibly very imaginary racism. Hater gotta hate, I guess.
Are you intentionally only criticizing drinkypoo for being open and honest?
About what? He states he hates a whole region because of a racism which is remarkably subdued in that region. That indicates to me that he has not examined his arguments at all. In turn, that lack of self examination is a strong indicator for self-deception.
Is "Southerner" now a race to you?
Completely irrelevant to sumdumass's argument. Why should we be hating on a region just because it might have people who are hiding their racism?
The problem with your breezy assertions about lawsuits, ethics, and Nazi experiments is that there are apparently millions of people in the world with some form of crippling paralysis or muscle weakness that prevents them from walking and/or using their arms. Brain implants are probably a core technology to getting them human-level mobility again. Instead, those people are allowed to suffer in miserable conditions indefinitely for the sake of a hypothetical few lives. It also means that people who are willing and have the power to completely ignore those ethical quandaries will have a considerable advantage.
We actually learned a lot of stuff from those high altitude evil experiments, which is a bit disturbing on many levels.
Your system of regulation and ethics has a worse outcome than human experimentation in a Nazi concentration camp. You are doing it wrong.
There is a vast amount of human suffering and death which can be mitigated and/or eliminated. But it requires human experimentation. - a small price for a great gain. A saner approach also reduces the advantages gained from "no holds barred" experimentation, that you seem concerned about.
and why the fda would stop people from doing it voluntarily if to doesn't harm anyone else?
If people are banned from doing brain implants, then they can't do anything that risks an FDA bureaucrat's job.
How do you plan to get this sort of mass production-enabled experimentaiton and process refinement with Skylon?
High launch frequency.
The Shuttle could likewise have been refined to reduce maintenance.... but the vehicle wasn't in the sort of production/design environment that jets are in that enables such refinement.
That's due to poor strategic direction and design decisions. For example, they could have gone with a two person RLV on the Saturn IB. Then they could have afforded the high launch frequency that one needs to enable and justify those things.
The Space Shuttle had to be substantially overhauled after *every single flight*. Airplanes don't.
You are only arguing a matter of degree.
typically we only have to take things apart twice a year
Indeed.
The Space Shuttle was not like this at all. It needed a full engine overhaul after every flight. The turbines on modern widebody twin engine aircraft will go thousands of cycles and tens of thousands of hours before requiring an overhaul - not a single cycle and single flight like the Shuttle.
A flight of the Shuttle is typically 250-400 hours which is a much more significant cycle. That's about two orders of magnitude shorter in duration.
Oh, and the Space Shuttle wasn't reusable, it was rebuildable.
By that sense, so is any airplane. They still need to be inspected after a flight, and parts repaired and replaced on a continuing basis. I would say instead that it is a vastly lower quality of reusability with much higher cost and turn around time between flights than a normal airplane.
As to Skylon, I hear that even with air breathing engines, it requires a very efficient mass fraction better than any current rocket stage (with the stage filled with low density LH2).
The pipeline seems to have been one great big scam from the start.
Scam for who?
claim huge value with a government subsidised pipeline
Approving it didn't require subsidizing it.
only to see it all collapse as it is forced to compete with other countries desperately trying to dump as much fossil fuel as quickly as possible before it all gets banned
Banned by who?
The only reason the pipe line project was canned because it is quite simply to close to the end of fossil fuels and it would end up looking really, really, corrupt.
Couldn't look any more corrupt than dragging out the process and denying only when a sop to the environmentalists was needed.
I think the moral here is how cheap the failure/lesson was.
please explain the cause of the massive gun violence rate in America and your solution for solving it...
There isn't massive gun violence in the US (it is merely a moderately higher rate than other countries). As for "solving" it, I would continue to enforce laws against violence - with or without guns.
I would also legalize most recreational drugs and other victimless crimes like gambling and prostitution. And finish with a rational immigration policy that provides a clear, prompt, and rather easy path to permanent residency in the US.
The key words are "in two terms". Your list is weak for a single term, much less eight years. For example, FDR in his first term had a large number of legacy policies, many of which are still in place (bunch of farm subsidies and regulatory bodies, several significant departments like FCC or SEC, the beginning of a bout of public works construction, and a sea change in federal government power). And Clinton has a bigger legacy just with the 90s economic expansion - including perhaps the last decent financial year the US will ever have and unusual transparency in government.
the pipeline was rejected because it makes little to no economic or policy sense for the US, and provides us with almost no benefits.
Who is "us"? The US and Canada would both benefit from the extra economic activity. And why is it that we should ban activities which don't benefit "us" anyway? Should I favor banning bicycle riding because I don't get paid every time someone hops on one?
What is the scenario in which this is good for the US, if in fact this oil is just to be exported?
Refineries don't refine oil for free. And the higher the volume of oil they process, the better the economies of scale.
No, just because you refuse to acknowledge it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist...
Which is a meaningless observation since it doesn't support your arguments at all.
Nope... no it hasn't... it's been about the right to have a gun.. period (regardless of responsibility)... and there is a direct correlation between irresponsible gun ownership and violence.
Which simply isn't true. Else we wouldn't have laws against negligent use or storage of firearms, much less laws against assault and murder with firearms.
Use breeder reactors and/or extract short lived isotopes (and isotope poisons) from fuel in reprocessing. The solutions already exist. And I don't have a problem with unsubsidized nuclear plants as long as they're also shield from ridiculous levels of liability due to public hysteria.
It's pretty easy to blame "anti-nuclear activists". But the reality is that nuclear power isn't economically viable right now. Many perfectly working plants have been shut down because electric prices are low due to the low cost of natural gas in the US. They haven't closed due to protestors.
Complete bullshit. The US hasn't built a new reactor in something like 30 years (the only ones completed in that time were started earlier). Natural gas hasn't been low for that entire time. But we have had anti-nuclear activists shut down or delay nuclear plant construction, nuclear waste storage, and waste transportation during that time.
Also, the insurance inustry won't insure new plant construction. You think the insurance industry gives a rats ass about "anti-nuclear activists"? Of course not, they just care about the money.
When you look at the abject hysteria surrounding the Fukushima accident, there is huge future liability risk. Who knows what crazy shit a society will pull just because nuclear is scary. No insurance company is going to provide open-ended liability because of this risk, but they might provide capped liability.
What is different about the extension approval process that it see more success than the creation of newer, safer reactors?
It's vastly easier. They're already built, so you can't block construction (which is the most common way new power plants have been obstructed).
Plus, the behavior the earlier poster wanted to exile, isn't actually psychopathy, but normal human behavior among those who have achieved wealth and power. We have plenty of sayings and stories about people who get power and become corrupted by it. Meanwhile the idea that only bad people get power is ludicrous and routinely disputed in any era of history where it surfaces.
Antibiotics are strictly a money loser due to the regulations about testing. The business spends tens of millions of dollars on a roll of the dice and all they'll get out of it is a rarely used, low revenue antibiotic. You can't even begin to understand the problem until you understand the disincentives.
This is what happens when you allow sociopaths to run corporations.
I'm not sure why the /. crowd gets up and rallies around in defense of sociopaths. It seems to pop up in nearly every political or social converstation that is a trigger for American libertarianism
Maybe because a lot of Slashdotters are tired of clueless idiots treating business and enterprise, core parts of modern society, like an incurable mental illness that needs to be scrubbed from the Earth.
Take your two minute hate somewhere else.
Let me add to your information...
So you do admit that there is a lack of connection between gun ownership and violence? Ok.
Oh so you admit it's about RESPONSIBLE gun ownership now... not JUST gun ownership? FYI, we don't have responsible gun ownership in the U.S... we have "gun nuts" and a God/Constitutional right to arm ourselves to the teeth pretty much regardless of training or credentials.... a recipe for .. drum roll... violence!
Gun ownership has always been about responsible gun ownership as you admit here. That doesn't have a thing to do with violence.
moral decision [...] more morally meaningful
When there is no harm, there is no morality. If it doesn't matter what you choose, then it's not more moral or less moral.
(that is subject to SERIOUS debate)...
So? I was just making an observation about the lack of correlation between presence of guns and violence. For example, US society is more violent than Swiss society, but they have similar levels of gun ownership.
from what I'm reading he was 100% correct.
About what? What wolf are we feeding with responsible gun ownership and fun D&D? I bet it's not the rabid wolf Mr. AC was thinking of.