You forgot that in America we don't have a free market. We have zoning laws. We have legal/illegal alien laws. We have laws about who can do what, based on this or that group's permission. We have private "for sale" laws. We have laws about who we can do business with, depending on who (or what) we are.
Here in America, "Free market" is very much about privilege.
Personally, though, I find free market to be as bankrupt as libertarianism, on a one-to-one basis: yes, it is very nice if you can do it, but if there is such a thing as wickedness in this world, it hands the key to the chicken coop to the foxes. Arguably in the end, if there is such a thing as wickedness, the foxes get the chicken coop no matter what system you have. But libertarianism and free markets hand it all over much more quickly. I don't know if it's better, or not, but I suspect it isn't.
As far as innovation drying up, I don't think it does. Innovation happens because people like to invent. It is capitalization that you are talking about drying up; but capitalization benefits the inventors very little, and the privileged very much.
I'm not against rich people, but let me give a bit of the other side.
First, if you are going to compare pay, don't compare wages -- even a slaveowner must feed his slaves; even a farmer must feed his cattle. Compare discretionary income. Now, considering discretionary income, I would argue that most US laborers without a college education work far harder for their dollar, than any of the manager's class and up. I say that, while working with them. Let's then toss into the mix, 2nd and 3rd world laborers, and the difference becomes extreme.
Don't believe me? Let's try a sanity check. Typical career wage earner makes about $12/hr or less where I work in Hampton Roads. So we're talking $12 x 2000 hr/yr = $24000. With overtime, that used to be about $30k, though right now it's typically undertime, at $20k or less. Now, in this area apartment rent takes a minimum of about $700/mo = $8400. Most wage earners never had a chance to buy into that housing bubble. Food for 2 (taking a typical family size of 4) is about $50/wk = $2500/yr. Childcare is another $8000. Electricity is $1000. Phone is $500, minimum. So we'll estimate that the wage earner makes 24k, and spends $20500. So his discretionary income (pre-recession/depression) is $3500. He works 2000 hrs, or makes $4.50 of discretionary income a day. He'll need to be careful with that $4.50, because it also has to cover his vehicle costs, though I'm assuming he lives locally. If he drives farther, he can reduce his rent, but those costs typically balance out. I think if you run a similar sanity check on the manager's discretionary income, it's a tad more.
But now, let's also get down to another issue: the rich say they've earned the right to it, because they've gone after it. Okay, I can get down with that argument, but only insofar as everyone chooses to go after something, and they'll eventually get what they're after (typically speaking). But that does not mean that they've earned the right to profits that were made by others. What I typically see is that the profits are made at the manufacturing level. Cuts are also made, there, but they shouldn't be.
What I mean, is that if they are not paying a living wage to their employees, or if they are not meeting OSHA standards, then they don't deserve those extra profits. But that is often where the profits come from. Even layoffs, to increase profits, is not acceptable, because much of the economic mass of the company is derived from those workers you are laying off, and you are separating those workers from the economic mass that they earned. In other words, you are stealing from them.
So I'm not saying that the rich are horrible, the rich don't deserve to be rich... but I do not agree with Limbaugh or other pseudo-conservative talkshow hosts who basically want the world to pander to their greed. Let the rich be rich, and let them enjoy a better standard of living -- but don't agree with them that they have the right to force others into a standard of death - which is much what has happened in this last century.
To paraphrase John Paul II, this last century has developed into a war by the powerful against the weak.
That includes the rich against the poor. Think about it.
It seems to me that there's this revolutionary new religion out there, called Judaism, that has a creation myth that better describes a soul. Then there's this offshoot cult of Judaism, that takes it a step farther... so let me try to explain.
When (in the creation myth) Adam eats the fruit, having been told "the day you eat the apple, you die", he begins to die. That is, his body starts to fall apart. But as his body falls apart, his soul -- tied to his body -- starts to fall apart, too.
So when Adam completely dies and his body disintegrates, his soul has also basically disintegrates. That's why, in Judaism, they have such things as the statement "The dead do not praise God" (Hezekiah, also the psalms, also ecclesiastes).
And Judaism basically leaves it at that. So when you saw your grandmother's body and soul disintegrating, that's basically what you were seeing.
But the Christian cult of Judaism takes it a bit farther, for through a good deal of evidence and analysis, they the creator-being who created Adam (and all of us) as being identical with the spirit of Love. But even Love cannot love what does not exist. So the death and disintegration are a denial of the power of that Love.
Yet this creator being is also identified as being all-powerful. So they understand that certain events about 2000 years ago, in which the entropy of death and disintegration are set reverse, are this creator being simply exerting His power as He would be expected to do.
Which is a very revolutionary idea, that entropy can be reversed, especially considering that all our physics and even mathematics does not imply that it can be. On the other hand, our physicists and scientists have not been able to observe a creation event, which explains why they are trying to get CERN going (not realizing that if they did trigger a creation event, they still would not be able to observe it). But it should be observed that arguably a creation event is itself a reversal of complete entropy. So our 2nd law of thermodynamics, while completely valid in the frame of reference of our universe, probably is not universally valid.
Money is also an alternative power structure that fundamentally subverts governance.
But money subverts towards evil. The church -- look at mother Theresa, if you will -- subverts towards compassion and goodness.
Which do you prefer?
Now, add to that, the following point: the way to eliminate subversion is to incorporate the subverting influence into the government. My brother suggests an additional "auctioned house", whereby seats are auctioned to the highest bidder, the winner getting to name the US citizen who will hold the seat for one year (replacements in case of death are immediately auctioned again), one for each day of the year. That house would have the power to block any legislation. He advocates this, intending to stop the subverting influence of money on the rest of the government, and also reduce the need for direct taxation.
However, by the same point, if you *want* the subversion of the church on the rest of the government, then *keep it out of the government*.
I don't know if he is correct, but I am inclined to think he is.
I read one item in the Catholic digest about a mother who had an anacephalic baby, and decided to go through with the birth. She said that she held the child in her arms for 20 minutes, and loved her, and when she died was able to rejoice that the baby had 20 minutes of being loved.
Of course, that is not from a death-fearing perspective. That is from a Christian perspective.
Christ said, he who believes in me shall never see death.
If you are seeing death, then perhaps it is because you are not believing in Christ enough.
I too will vote. I, too, consider the two kingdoms separate.
However, my vote is impelled because of obedience. Our government wants us to vote, if we can. So I will. My church (Roman Catholic) says that I basically must make pro-life a most-important issue, as a "disqualifying" issue. But that includes both fetal cell research (McCain) and abortion (Obama).
I won't vote on economic issues this election, because I think we've worshipped our economy as a god, and our economy is struck by God, and no president will be able to do any good. If my worst fears (of a Revelations type event) are founded, they might bring the economy "back from a mortal blow", but I don't intend to vote based upon that.
In the end, my vote is going to be against the way the Republican leadership have abused and used both the religious conservatives and the libertarians, and done so corruptly. My presidential vote will be a write in "Palin", and my VP vote will be a write in "Ron Paul".
If Obama should barely win Virginia, the Republicans will surely look at the write-ins, and that will give ammo for eliminating leadership like that of John Warner (whose voice called my phone, expressing both support for McCain, and in my opinion, a warm bucket of spit.)
I don't think you could do it with the existing railway setup. First of all, the existing railway setup is at ground level, and at high risk for object accidents. Second, at least in the US (and many European countries) the rails are badly degraded.
Rather, you would have to build an elevated rail setup, and you'd have to have a much better tolerance than the existing railway setup. Indeed, the tolerances would probably have to be basically the same as what you'd have for maglev. On the other hand, you don't need all the magnetics, and your energy expenditures would be far less (approximately 25%, point to point).
Aside from that... when I say you dock basically at speed, please note that there is no serious time delay for dropping from 150 mph to 30 mph for the docking, and then accelerating back up to speed. If you do this once every 20 miles or so, you're talking about 19 mi/150 mph (7.6 min) + 1 mi/30 mph (2 min) = 9.6 min = 125 mph avg speed. So NY-DC would be a 2-hr trip; NY-Boca Raton would be a 10 hr trip; NY-Chicago would be a 7-hr trip, and the docking all done at 30 mph.
For those in Europe, Berlin-London would be a 6-hr trip; Paris-Rome would be 7.5 hrs.
Not that docking has to be done at 30 mph -- but it can be done at whatever speed is found to be consistently safe.
But you could start as soon as you were ready (within 20 minutes, or so). Compare that to airfare, which might get you there in 1/2 to 1/4 of the time, but is far more expensive, and you still have to wait 3-4 hours to start.
The thing to remember here, is that key is not how fast a person can get to the destination, but how soon. This method increases the frequency of traveling units 10 or 20-fold, without increasing the energy expenditures at all.
... would be only 250 kph with zero wait, nonstop direct. The huge expense (and questionable success... see what happened at ODU) of maglev would not be necessary.
To do that, you have a main line, and then side branches with stations. On the side branches, people get on, and an engineer takes them out onto the main line in front of the train. The trains dock (basically at full speed), and lock together.
Meanwhile, the back unit drops off the back, to proceed to the next station. Trains could go through, basically every half hour, and all rides would be one way, nonstop, direct at 250 kph (150 mph).
When you get on the train, you slide your ticket through a reader, and are instructed which car to proceed to. Additional color coding can also help.
That's for Japan, which would use a basically linear system.
It's slightly more complicated for continental countries, requiring the main trains to travel in circuits -- but basically the same.
With electric propulsion, and today's computers, GPS, and measurement, the system shouldn't be all that difficult.
You end up with less wait than a nonstop flight, much cheaper transport, a lower carbon footprint, and comfortable travel.
Add into that the possibilities for ordering meals and having them delivered piping hot, and it would replace most of your short-hop air travel. Now use the meals to make the tickets significantly cheaper the way Vanderbilt did on his NJ-NYC ferry, and you'd have a huge commercial success.
That's not to say that one wouldn't need to design in certain protections, and that there wouldn't be hurdles to overcome, but the design would far outperform a 500 mph train that travels twice a day, at costs close to that of airfare.
"Fermi Paradox, which basically states that since technological advancement is so rapid compared to evolution, the first technological civilization in a galaxy will almost inevitably colonize the galaxy before any other civilization has had time to evolve.
Unless, of course, the first technological civilization self-destructs on a surfeit of pride.
Or unless, of course, the first technological civilization does not deem it worthwhile to conquer the galaxy.
Which covers both extremes of the spectrum. Whether there is anything left in the middle is open to discussion.
So I guess it did bother you when Rush Limbough started excusing the Republicans for everything he had been lambasting the Democrats for? And Paulson probably bothers you a lot?
On the other hand, it shouldn't bother you when non-political churches (that is, the church is not politically oriented) takes a political stance, for the reason that church is about religion, which is supposed to reshape every part of a person's life: privte, professional, political, and more.
Your reason #3, "Genocide based on genetic properties is evil. But this does not make the above things untrue." is exactly why -- although I see Darwin's basic theory as sound (as far as a theory goes), I much prefer an religious evolutionist in government to a religious Darwinist.
Religious Darwinists are responsible for some of the worst tragedies in modern history.
They're likely to work like crazy to amass assets, and if they lose, do whatever it takes to replenish them. Umm... today's financial fiasco might well be part of that kind of behavior.
Yes, my wife's grandmother got one of the converter boxes in Norfolk.
I hooked it up, and got nothing but Max Headroom. It was worse than useless. So I showed it to her, and she unhooked it.
Far better a fuzzy signal which you can understand, at something like 20 fps, than a nice crisp image in pieces that average.25 fps.
I honestly don't know about Johnson. I was under the impression that Clinton also had not submitted a balanced budget. His so-called balanced budget only balanced out long after his term would be over, theoretically, so long as nothing would happen, unexpected or expected. In light of that, George W. also submitted a balanced budget in his first two years.
As far as I can tell, therefore, the balanced budget was bull.
But Microsoft is, in a way, just symbolic for the software developers in general. We've had growing SSDs for quite some time, now (let's think thumbdrive, CF, Ramdisk, and others).
The problem with this is that as RAM becomes cheaper, the software developers deliberately bloat their software, and thus make SSDs again impractical for the latest software. Since government purchases and requirements drive everyone to the new level, SSDs have remained impractical.
So now people are coming out, saying "Well, the SSDs are getting better, so NOW they'll be practical."
Well, can someone explain to me what changed in the market forces, to make software developers want their products small enough to fit on a SSD? To a software company president, SSD = Piracy = Lost Profits.
Wigglesworth was very old when he died. That said, in his life he was healed through faith of a near-fatal appendicitis, and the kidney stones were supposed to have required surgery to not be extremely serious. (In other words, it sounds to me like staghorn kidney stones).
I'm not saying engineering (or medicine) doesn't work. I'm saying that it keeps going bad on us, because all it does is increase our power. But if you give more horsepower to a drunk on the road, he just hits a tree all the harder.
The engineering and medicine don't increase our wisdom, and that is what is needed to improve our quality of life and lifestyle.
The bad thing about the engineering and medicine is that they take away from the faith focus, which in turn *can* increase our wisdom.
That's just it. George Washington was leeched to death. The cure of his pneumonia killed him.
Yet I don't deny that medicine does in many cases work, or that engineering does in many cases work, for specific tasks.
I just find that it doesn't significantly improve our lives. Indeed, when you balance out the cost of medicine against the benefits, it seems to me that it has only limited value.
Look up Smith Wigglesworth, a pentecostal preacher who also healed many people through faith healings -- he charged nothing for this. Although not healed by him, I do know of a woman who was healed of one leg shorter than the other, in this way.
Yet even if we didn't have faith healings, I find that an openness to life as it is seems to improve one's life far more than the continual death-fearing focus on maintaining one's health.
Actually, no joke, I donated my engineering books to a thrift store, where they will be thrown away if they aren't bought by someone else.
I have come to be convinced of a general faulty premise in most of our learning and machinations (economics, engineering, medicine, etc.) that was founded in the crucible of a faulty premise in education: "if you work hard and get a good specialization, you will get a career that will provide you with the things you want." Said statement ignores the fact that when you are in a society of theft, hard work simply gives more to more thieves.
In re-evaluation of our engineering, I conclude that the false premise is that our engineering can improve our lives. I doesn't: it just increases the power of the powerful. The difference between a household with a broom and a household with a vac is not a difference in how much time cleanup takes (just as an example). With all our engineering, our environment is much worse, not better. Or for another example, our petroleum-intensive farming is not superior to bio-intensive farming, but it just means that the farmer can keep much more of his profits, producing fewer jobs, less food, and more pollution.
Likewise, I find that the basic premises of medicine seem to be faulty. Again, our lives don't improve greatly with our medical knowledge -- more and more, it is inaccessible. But the faith healings of the pentecostal movement defies medical explanation (or those of Lourdes). Howbeit if faith in medicine interferes with a much better, free, graced alternative, much as artificial birth control interferes with a much better, graced alternative (NFP... you'd have to go through it to understand)?
So in the end, I'm losing my confidence in technology, and the promises that it seems to give.
So will I buy a new, updated nuke eng. book? Nope. I've gotten rid of the ones I have, and don't expect to use them again. I'm getting off the bus.
It seems to me that carbon dating needs to be updated by dating tree rings, to test the level "n" years back. But it is entirely within possibility to do that, and we may well have the data to do it already.
Of course, that'll only handle us doing things as far back as we can find carbon dating. And it probably won't take into account variations in C-14 due to things like nearby volcanic explosions (if that affects it at all).
Older stuff will still be quite approximate. But only within variation limits that correspond to variations in the Earth's orbit. Minimal, at best, I think.
I seem to remember that there is an alternative, that was carried out by a copper mine in the US. They basically sold out to a foreign company, which moved all the physical assets (equipment and such) down to Mexico, then declared bankruptcy. The pension plans just stopped.
Point being, when a country's government allows such things in the name of Free Trade, then the government's people have a real problem on their hands.
No, you don't get paid what you are worth. You get paid what you are worth IFF (if and only if) there is free movement of labor whereever there is free trade, and if labor and trade are equally restricted where there isn't free trade.
If, on the other hand, you have free trade without free movement of labor, then...
(1) The products produced by the labor will still be traded, but... (2) Only certain players [the corporations] will have permission to trade, so... (3) they will buy the labor, mark up the price, sell, resulting in... (4) An effective transfer of wealth from laborer to corporation for... (5) the privilege of being able to trade in the needed product (labor, and its results).
Aside from that, there are also those who say that an increase in power also results in getting more than you're worth, while a decrease in power results in getting less than you're worth. In general then, a laborer would not get what he's worth.
Aside from that, there are always other elements that come into play, so that people don't get what otherwise they'd be worth, but get more or less.
Hopefully, that little reality check here may be helpful in reducing unwarranted growth of toxic pride among those who can least afford it.
It seems to me to be a real question of what is humane.
In your original post, you said -- and it is current political thought -- "The answer to such problems is fantastically unimaginable. How do you fix the discards and keep population withing the realms of what the planet can support? China has taken a step in that direction and it has caused unimaginable hardships for their population; selling babies, hiding from the government, fear of things that are only natural. So, what are we to do with things like this? What are we to do with people like this? Fix them, or abort them?".
Now, in even defining such a question, you are defining some to be in your community, and some to be outside of your community. Arguably, I would say that insofar as we have a duty to mankind in general, we have a duty to all men within mankind. To set boundaries and say "for the benefit of mankind, I exclude you", is to make the mistake that China, Russia, Nazi Germany, the Hutus, the Virginia Colinists (after Bacon's Rebellion), the Serbians, the WWII Croatians, (and so on) all have made. As you noted, it creates horrible suffering. Further, as we have seen it doesn't benefit anyone.
I'd contend that the wars that resulted also did not benefit anyone.
I'd further contend that we don't have the capability of answering the macroscopic questions. All we have the capability of doing is responding to the local needs with a concern for all, and trusting God's divine providence to come up with the macroscopic answers.
Or to put it in techie terms, when you go to war, you don't colonize the moon. Even abortion is going to war. It's when you do things right at the lower (nontech) level that you have an opportunity to develop at a higher (tech) level. There's a reason computers were developed in the US and not in Rwanda. Rwanda under Mobutu did not provide a good business development environment.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot that in America we don't have a free market. We have zoning laws. We have legal/illegal alien laws. We have laws about who can do what, based on this or that group's permission. We have private "for sale" laws. We have laws about who we can do business with, depending on who (or what) we are.
Here in America, "Free market" is very much about privilege.
Personally, though, I find free market to be as bankrupt as libertarianism, on a one-to-one basis: yes, it is very nice if you can do it, but if there is such a thing as wickedness in this world, it hands the key to the chicken coop to the foxes. Arguably in the end, if there is such a thing as wickedness, the foxes get the chicken coop no matter what system you have. But libertarianism and free markets hand it all over much more quickly. I don't know if it's better, or not, but I suspect it isn't.
As far as innovation drying up, I don't think it does. Innovation happens because people like to invent. It is capitalization that you are talking about drying up; but capitalization benefits the inventors very little, and the privileged very much.
I'm not against rich people, but let me give a bit of the other side.
First, if you are going to compare pay, don't compare wages -- even a slaveowner must feed his slaves; even a farmer must feed his cattle. Compare discretionary income. Now, considering discretionary income, I would argue that most US laborers without a college education work far harder for their dollar, than any of the manager's class and up. I say that, while working with them. Let's then toss into the mix, 2nd and 3rd world laborers, and the difference becomes extreme.
Don't believe me? Let's try a sanity check. Typical career wage earner makes about $12/hr or less where I work in Hampton Roads. So we're talking $12 x 2000 hr/yr = $24000. With overtime, that used to be about $30k, though right now it's typically undertime, at $20k or less. Now, in this area apartment rent takes a minimum of about $700/mo = $8400. Most wage earners never had a chance to buy into that housing bubble. Food for 2 (taking a typical family size of 4) is about $50/wk = $2500/yr. Childcare is another $8000. Electricity is $1000. Phone is $500, minimum. So we'll estimate that the wage earner makes 24k, and spends $20500. So his discretionary income (pre-recession/depression) is $3500. He works 2000 hrs, or makes $4.50 of discretionary income a day. He'll need to be careful with that $4.50, because it also has to cover his vehicle costs, though I'm assuming he lives locally. If he drives farther, he can reduce his rent, but those costs typically balance out. I think if you run a similar sanity check on the manager's discretionary income, it's a tad more.
But now, let's also get down to another issue: the rich say they've earned the right to it, because they've gone after it. Okay, I can get down with that argument, but only insofar as everyone chooses to go after something, and they'll eventually get what they're after (typically speaking). But that does not mean that they've earned the right to profits that were made by others. What I typically see is that the profits are made at the manufacturing level. Cuts are also made, there, but they shouldn't be.
What I mean, is that if they are not paying a living wage to their employees, or if they are not meeting OSHA standards, then they don't deserve those extra profits. But that is often where the profits come from. Even layoffs, to increase profits, is not acceptable, because much of the economic mass of the company is derived from those workers you are laying off, and you are separating those workers from the economic mass that they earned. In other words, you are stealing from them.
So I'm not saying that the rich are horrible, the rich don't deserve to be rich ... but I do not agree with Limbaugh or other pseudo-conservative talkshow hosts who basically want the world to pander to their greed. Let the rich be rich, and let them enjoy a better standard of living -- but don't agree with them that they have the right to force others into a standard of death - which is much what has happened in this last century.
To paraphrase John Paul II, this last century has developed into a war by the powerful against the weak.
That includes the rich against the poor. Think about it.
It seems to me that there's this revolutionary new religion out there, called Judaism, that has a creation myth that better describes a soul. Then there's this offshoot cult of Judaism, that takes it a step farther... so let me try to explain.
When (in the creation myth) Adam eats the fruit, having been told "the day you eat the apple, you die", he begins to die. That is, his body starts to fall apart. But as his body falls apart, his soul -- tied to his body -- starts to fall apart, too.
So when Adam completely dies and his body disintegrates, his soul has also basically disintegrates. That's why, in Judaism, they have such things as the statement "The dead do not praise God" (Hezekiah, also the psalms, also ecclesiastes).
And Judaism basically leaves it at that. So when you saw your grandmother's body and soul disintegrating, that's basically what you were seeing.
But the Christian cult of Judaism takes it a bit farther, for through a good deal of evidence and analysis, they the creator-being who created Adam (and all of us) as being identical with the spirit of Love. But even Love cannot love what does not exist. So the death and disintegration are a denial of the power of that Love.
Yet this creator being is also identified as being all-powerful. So they understand that certain events about 2000 years ago, in which the entropy of death and disintegration are set reverse, are this creator being simply exerting His power as He would be expected to do.
Which is a very revolutionary idea, that entropy can be reversed, especially considering that all our physics and even mathematics does not imply that it can be. On the other hand, our physicists and scientists have not been able to observe a creation event, which explains why they are trying to get CERN going (not realizing that if they did trigger a creation event, they still would not be able to observe it). But it should be observed that arguably a creation event is itself a reversal of complete entropy. So our 2nd law of thermodynamics, while completely valid in the frame of reference of our universe, probably is not universally valid.
I reference an old slashdot article:
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/05/1353249
"ESA proposes reentry module."
I guess EA is trying to do reentry x 36, to prove they're better at it.
Money is also an alternative power structure that fundamentally subverts governance.
But money subverts towards evil. The church -- look at mother Theresa, if you will -- subverts towards compassion and goodness.
Which do you prefer?
Now, add to that, the following point: the way to eliminate subversion is to incorporate the subverting influence into the government. My brother suggests an additional "auctioned house", whereby seats are auctioned to the highest bidder, the winner getting to name the US citizen who will hold the seat for one year (replacements in case of death are immediately auctioned again), one for each day of the year. That house would have the power to block any legislation. He advocates this, intending to stop the subverting influence of money on the rest of the government, and also reduce the need for direct taxation.
However, by the same point, if you *want* the subversion of the church on the rest of the government, then *keep it out of the government*.
I don't know if he is correct, but I am inclined to think he is.
If so, he'd agree with the OP in its principles.
I read one item in the Catholic digest about a mother who had an anacephalic baby, and decided to go through with the birth. She said that she held the child in her arms for 20 minutes, and loved her, and when she died was able to rejoice that the baby had 20 minutes of being loved.
Of course, that is not from a death-fearing perspective. That is from a Christian perspective.
Christ said, he who believes in me shall never see death.
If you are seeing death, then perhaps it is because you are not believing in Christ enough.
I too will vote. I, too, consider the two kingdoms separate.
However, my vote is impelled because of obedience. Our government wants us to vote, if we can. So I will. My church (Roman Catholic) says that I basically must make pro-life a most-important issue, as a "disqualifying" issue. But that includes both fetal cell research (McCain) and abortion (Obama).
I won't vote on economic issues this election, because I think we've worshipped our economy as a god, and our economy is struck by God, and no president will be able to do any good. If my worst fears (of a Revelations type event) are founded, they might bring the economy "back from a mortal blow", but I don't intend to vote based upon that.
In the end, my vote is going to be against the way the Republican leadership have abused and used both the religious conservatives and the libertarians, and done so corruptly. My presidential vote will be a write in "Palin", and my VP vote will be a write in "Ron Paul".
If Obama should barely win Virginia, the Republicans will surely look at the write-ins, and that will give ammo for eliminating leadership like that of John Warner (whose voice called my phone, expressing both support for McCain, and in my opinion, a warm bucket of spit.)
I don't think you could do it with the existing railway setup. First of all, the existing railway setup is at ground level, and at high risk for object accidents. Second, at least in the US (and many European countries) the rails are badly degraded.
Rather, you would have to build an elevated rail setup, and you'd have to have a much better tolerance than the existing railway setup. Indeed, the tolerances would probably have to be basically the same as what you'd have for maglev. On the other hand, you don't need all the magnetics, and your energy expenditures would be far less (approximately 25%, point to point).
Aside from that... when I say you dock basically at speed, please note that there is no serious time delay for dropping from 150 mph to 30 mph for the docking, and then accelerating back up to speed. If you do this once every 20 miles or so, you're talking about 19 mi/150 mph (7.6 min) + 1 mi/30 mph (2 min) = 9.6 min = 125 mph avg speed. So NY-DC would be a 2-hr trip; NY-Boca Raton would be a 10 hr trip; NY-Chicago would be a 7-hr trip, and the docking all done at 30 mph.
For those in Europe, Berlin-London would be a 6-hr trip; Paris-Rome would be 7.5 hrs.
Not that docking has to be done at 30 mph -- but it can be done at whatever speed is found to be consistently safe.
But you could start as soon as you were ready (within 20 minutes, or so). Compare that to airfare, which might get you there in 1/2 to 1/4 of the time, but is far more expensive, and you still have to wait 3-4 hours to start.
The thing to remember here, is that key is not how fast a person can get to the destination, but how soon. This method increases the frequency of traveling units 10 or 20-fold, without increasing the energy expenditures at all.
... would be only 250 kph with zero wait, nonstop direct. The huge expense (and questionable success... see what happened at ODU) of maglev would not be necessary.
To do that, you have a main line, and then side branches with stations. On the side branches, people get on, and an engineer takes them out onto the main line in front of the train. The trains dock (basically at full speed), and lock together.
Meanwhile, the back unit drops off the back, to proceed to the next station. Trains could go through, basically every half hour, and all rides would be one way, nonstop, direct at 250 kph (150 mph).
When you get on the train, you slide your ticket through a reader, and are instructed which car to proceed to. Additional color coding can also help.
That's for Japan, which would use a basically linear system.
It's slightly more complicated for continental countries, requiring the main trains to travel in circuits -- but basically the same.
With electric propulsion, and today's computers, GPS, and measurement, the system shouldn't be all that difficult.
You end up with less wait than a nonstop flight, much cheaper transport, a lower carbon footprint, and comfortable travel.
Add into that the possibilities for ordering meals and having them delivered piping hot, and it would replace most of your short-hop air travel. Now use the meals to make the tickets significantly cheaper the way Vanderbilt did on his NJ-NYC ferry, and you'd have a huge commercial success.
That's not to say that one wouldn't need to design in certain protections, and that there wouldn't be hurdles to overcome, but the design would far outperform a 500 mph train that travels twice a day, at costs close to that of airfare.
"Fermi Paradox, which basically states that since technological advancement is so rapid compared to evolution, the first technological civilization in a galaxy will almost inevitably colonize the galaxy before any other civilization has had time to evolve.
Unless, of course, the first technological civilization self-destructs on a surfeit of pride.
Or unless, of course, the first technological civilization does not deem it worthwhile to conquer the galaxy.
Which covers both extremes of the spectrum. Whether there is anything left in the middle is open to discussion.
So I guess it did bother you when Rush Limbough started excusing the Republicans for everything he had been lambasting the Democrats for? And Paulson probably bothers you a lot?
On the other hand, it shouldn't bother you when non-political churches (that is, the church is not politically oriented) takes a political stance, for the reason that church is about religion, which is supposed to reshape every part of a person's life: privte, professional, political, and more.
http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/ease-on-down-the-road/article55921.html There are a lot of tips on how to save mileage there... some of which are discussed in the comments of this slashdot story.
Your reason #3, "Genocide based on genetic properties is evil. But this does not make the above things untrue." is exactly why -- although I see Darwin's basic theory as sound (as far as a theory goes), I much prefer an religious evolutionist in government to a religious Darwinist.
Religious Darwinists are responsible for some of the worst tragedies in modern history.
They're likely to work like crazy to amass assets, and if they lose, do whatever it takes to replenish them. Umm... today's financial fiasco might well be part of that kind of behavior.
Yes, my wife's grandmother got one of the converter boxes in Norfolk. I hooked it up, and got nothing but Max Headroom. It was worse than useless. So I showed it to her, and she unhooked it. Far better a fuzzy signal which you can understand, at something like 20 fps, than a nice crisp image in pieces that average .25 fps.
I honestly don't know about Johnson. I was under the impression that Clinton also had not submitted a balanced budget. His so-called balanced budget only balanced out long after his term would be over, theoretically, so long as nothing would happen, unexpected or expected. In light of that, George W. also submitted a balanced budget in his first two years. As far as I can tell, therefore, the balanced budget was bull.
But Microsoft is, in a way, just symbolic for the software developers in general. We've had growing SSDs for quite some time, now (let's think thumbdrive, CF, Ramdisk, and others).
The problem with this is that as RAM becomes cheaper, the software developers deliberately bloat their software, and thus make SSDs again impractical for the latest software. Since government purchases and requirements drive everyone to the new level, SSDs have remained impractical.
So now people are coming out, saying "Well, the SSDs are getting better, so NOW they'll be practical."
Well, can someone explain to me what changed in the market forces, to make software developers want their products small enough to fit on a SSD? To a software company president, SSD = Piracy = Lost Profits.
I'm not saying engineering (or medicine) doesn't work. I'm saying that it keeps going bad on us, because all it does is increase our power. But if you give more horsepower to a drunk on the road, he just hits a tree all the harder.
The engineering and medicine don't increase our wisdom, and that is what is needed to improve our quality of life and lifestyle.
The bad thing about the engineering and medicine is that they take away from the faith focus, which in turn *can* increase our wisdom.
You can see the sea ice as it is right now at the above website (or link here).
That said, it was last year that my brother sent me an email showing this, and showing that the NW passage was open at that time.
So how long before the fabled NW passage is open? Last year. Not the ultimate in slashdot old news, but yes... old.
That's what taxes are for. I expect that they are making the Thai government's job much easier. Over there, I suspect that corruption also helps.
That's just it. George Washington was leeched to death. The cure of his pneumonia killed him. Yet I don't deny that medicine does in many cases work, or that engineering does in many cases work, for specific tasks. I just find that it doesn't significantly improve our lives. Indeed, when you balance out the cost of medicine against the benefits, it seems to me that it has only limited value. Look up Smith Wigglesworth, a pentecostal preacher who also healed many people through faith healings -- he charged nothing for this. Although not healed by him, I do know of a woman who was healed of one leg shorter than the other, in this way. Yet even if we didn't have faith healings, I find that an openness to life as it is seems to improve one's life far more than the continual death-fearing focus on maintaining one's health.
I have come to be convinced of a general faulty premise in most of our learning and machinations (economics, engineering, medicine, etc.) that was founded in the crucible of a faulty premise in education: "if you work hard and get a good specialization, you will get a career that will provide you with the things you want." Said statement ignores the fact that when you are in a society of theft, hard work simply gives more to more thieves.
In re-evaluation of our engineering, I conclude that the false premise is that our engineering can improve our lives. I doesn't: it just increases the power of the powerful. The difference between a household with a broom and a household with a vac is not a difference in how much time cleanup takes (just as an example). With all our engineering, our environment is much worse, not better. Or for another example, our petroleum-intensive farming is not superior to bio-intensive farming, but it just means that the farmer can keep much more of his profits, producing fewer jobs, less food, and more pollution.
Likewise, I find that the basic premises of medicine seem to be faulty. Again, our lives don't improve greatly with our medical knowledge -- more and more, it is inaccessible. But the faith healings of the pentecostal movement defies medical explanation (or those of Lourdes). Howbeit if faith in medicine interferes with a much better, free, graced alternative, much as artificial birth control interferes with a much better, graced alternative (NFP... you'd have to go through it to understand)?
So in the end, I'm losing my confidence in technology, and the promises that it seems to give.
So will I buy a new, updated nuke eng. book? Nope. I've gotten rid of the ones I have, and don't expect to use them again. I'm getting off the bus.
It seems to me that carbon dating needs to be updated by dating tree rings, to test the level "n" years back. But it is entirely within possibility to do that, and we may well have the data to do it already. Of course, that'll only handle us doing things as far back as we can find carbon dating. And it probably won't take into account variations in C-14 due to things like nearby volcanic explosions (if that affects it at all). Older stuff will still be quite approximate. But only within variation limits that correspond to variations in the Earth's orbit. Minimal, at best, I think.
I seem to remember that there is an alternative, that was carried out by a copper mine in the US. They basically sold out to a foreign company, which moved all the physical assets (equipment and such) down to Mexico, then declared bankruptcy. The pension plans just stopped. Point being, when a country's government allows such things in the name of Free Trade, then the government's people have a real problem on their hands.
No, you don't get paid what you are worth. You get paid what you are worth IFF (if and only if) there is free movement of labor whereever there is free trade, and if labor and trade are equally restricted where there isn't free trade.
If, on the other hand, you have free trade without free movement of labor, then...
(1) The products produced by the labor will still be traded, but...
(2) Only certain players [the corporations] will have permission to trade, so...
(3) they will buy the labor, mark up the price, sell, resulting in...
(4) An effective transfer of wealth from laborer to corporation for...
(5) the privilege of being able to trade in the needed product (labor, and its results).
Aside from that, there are also those who say that an increase in power also results in getting more than you're worth, while a decrease in power results in getting less than you're worth. In general then, a laborer would not get what he's worth.
Aside from that, there are always other elements that come into play, so that people don't get what otherwise they'd be worth, but get more or less.
Hopefully, that little reality check here may be helpful in reducing unwarranted growth of toxic pride among those who can least afford it.
It seems to me to be a real question of what is humane.
In your original post, you said -- and it is current political thought -- "The answer to such problems is fantastically unimaginable. How do you fix the discards and keep population withing the realms of what the planet can support? China has taken a step in that direction and it has caused unimaginable hardships for their population; selling babies, hiding from the government, fear of things that are only natural. So, what are we to do with things like this? What are we to do with people like this? Fix them, or abort them?".
Now, in even defining such a question, you are defining some to be in your community, and some to be outside of your community. Arguably, I would say that insofar as we have a duty to mankind in general, we have a duty to all men within mankind. To set boundaries and say "for the benefit of mankind, I exclude you", is to make the mistake that China, Russia, Nazi Germany, the Hutus, the Virginia Colinists (after Bacon's Rebellion), the Serbians, the WWII Croatians, (and so on) all have made. As you noted, it creates horrible suffering. Further, as we have seen it doesn't benefit anyone.
I'd contend that the wars that resulted also did not benefit anyone.
I'd further contend that we don't have the capability of answering the macroscopic questions. All we have the capability of doing is responding to the local needs with a concern for all, and trusting God's divine providence to come up with the macroscopic answers.
Or to put it in techie terms, when you go to war, you don't colonize the moon. Even abortion is going to war. It's when you do things right at the lower (nontech) level that you have an opportunity to develop at a higher (tech) level. There's a reason computers were developed in the US and not in Rwanda. Rwanda under Mobutu did not provide a good business development environment.