The Buddhist path of right action is certainly to be respected, but I stand by the idea that there is a difference between
manners and ethics. Perhaps a rather blurry line, as you suggest; is it right to gossip? No, probably not. Is it wrong; I can't say that it is that, either. While there is certainly malevolent gossip, most gossip is not, in fact, meant in that manner. It's hard to say that ethics covers it; nor should the law.
Malicious action, such as defamation, though, is unethical - similarly, defamation is (in theory) covered by the law, and sometimes other codes of conduct.
I might also suggest, at the risk of getting way off topic, that your seeing my picking my nose and talking about it is not very much a reflection of me. The proximal effect might be to 'humiliate' or 'marginalize' me, but it is actually my actions that would cause that by engaging in the sillyness. The underlying effect is actually to reflect on you. I don't think this sort of human interaction - especially given the admittedly trivial, grade-school example - is something that ethics, per se, covers. Manners definitely does, though.
includes many elements that your personal definition excludes, including questions of self-harm
I'm sorry, I don't see where I said that...
Ah, but I do see where you may have arrived at that conclusion. It is, of course, a bad idea - and reasonably under the aegis of 'ethics' - to inflict self harm. It is, in fact, something we legislate. However, the 'act of drinking' is not inherently a self-harming action, any more than jumping in the water is. Both can, given the right context (an alcoholic or someone who cannot swim) cause harm, but neither is an unethical action.
...the kind of behavior covered by gossip, cruel jokes and the such.
I'm just baffled where this becomes an ethical question. Specifically, I am baffled how something like 'free speech' can be ethical, but 'gossip' can be unethical. I find that highly idiosyncratic.
My bad. We simply (in the US) legislate in such a way that it is illegal to defame or incite to riot. I would be curious to know if, in the cited event, they were given permission to say things like, "Jews suck", or if they had to stick to "Nazis rule"?
Counterexample: I am a moderate drinker. I drink two or three drinks a week. It is not unethical for me to have a beer. I have a friend who is a reformed alcoholic. He can't risk drinking a beer because he has found he slips off the wagon to easily. I have another ex problem drinker friend who does have an occasional beer; it doesn't seem to create problems for him.
Each of our ethical situations with regard to drinking is different. Same act, different implications.
It is possible we're dealing with very different ideas what 'ethics' are. It is not unethical for a recovering alcoholic to drink. It is, perhaps, a choice contrary to their goals - but drinking is not itself unethical. Nor would you find, I think, many alcoholics - recovering or otherwise - who believe that it is.
Implications are, of course, different. But the consequences of a thing does not always impact the ethics of it. I might, for instance, set up my own Morris Dancing studio. But perhaps simply because the Rhumba is 'in' right now, it would be a failure. It's not unethical for me to start a failing business - just not in accordance with my goals. That is why there are 'ethical considerations' and, say, 'aesthetic considerations'.
Perhaps, in your original post you were getting at the fact that in regarding the aesthetic considerations of porn, you find yourself considering avoidance in situations where the aesthetics are displeasing, or 'offensive to your aesthetic values'. I definitely took the question, though, in terms of an ethical consideration. The only ethical question remains, "Was it created ethically?" And therein only if the viewing of it supports the creation - which you can reasonably assume it does.
If I hear a rumor that a person is having an affair, it is usually unethical for me to repeat that rumor. However a law against gossip would not only fail, it would almost certainly be used harmfully.
It is not unethical to gossip, it's unmannered. Typically speaking I define manners as 'behaviors used to show respect'. Usually it's respectful to act ethically, and it's always disrespectful to act unethically. But there are some behaviors that you can engage in which are crude, but ethical. For instance, cracking someone's ribs in order to give CPR, or rudely telling someone to get out of the way in an emergency situation. (Note; I am separating the concern of 'effectiveness'.) So, while the two are linked, I don't know that they are so closely linked as you imply.
This strikes me as quibbling. Depiction itself is an act undertaken for some end or another.
Perhaps you see it as 'quibbling' because you're taking 'depiction' as an act rather than a physical object. Acts can clearly be ethical or unethical; that is not the point. Acts should clearly be judged based on that. But the product should be judged on somewhat separate terms (causing, quite often, a mess of "do the ends justify the means"?). I'm saying that physical objects are not inherently ethical or unethical, be they pictures of loved ones, videos of BDSM sex acts, or bombs. But if you portray any of those in certain lights - contexts, if you will - then you can have an ethical or unethical situation. Which, I would note, is very nearly what you said.
""Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle." -Thomas Jefferson
Just because something offends me doesn't mean that it is unethical -- although it may be. Just because something is unethical doesn't mean it should be illegal.
Um, I think that something that is unethical *should* be illegal. It should not be accepted by the society.
I think Aristotelean virtue ethics are a bit dated to work off of. There is a reason they came first; they're rather unsophisticated. Is there a link between taste and ethics? I think there is a link between ethics and tolerance, and certainly things I wouldn't tolerate I find distasteful, so I expect there is a link - but perhaps that is not what you meant?
Suffice to say, I think that depiction of, well, anything, can hardly be considered unethical. In some contexts it certainly can be used to an unethical end, but the depiction itself is not the unethical part. Certainly consenting adults should be free to examine what depictions they choose, as presumably they have agency to examine the depictions with a modicum of power - such as that given to you by a healthy social life.
And, of course, you are certainly free to dislike someone for whatever reason you wish. But there is no guarantee that reason is an ethical reason.
See, people who seem to be 'suffering' in pornography is not particularly offensive to me. People who are suffering, however, is. The problem with pornography and, more importantly, the porn industry is not that some of the depictions are dark, but that there are a lot of people (mostly young, uneducated women) who are driven to it out of a maladjustment of some sort; so called exploitative pornography. And that's not something you can sniff out just by looking at the people involved.
I don't think the point is to find "The One True Solution". There is no such thing. There are many, many ways to do things, and if you can find some use for a thing chances are you can build on it. Personally - though I may be a bit OCD about such things - I find the 'slowing' distortion of noises to be grating, like nails on a chalkboard. And, contrariwise, I love tactile feedback. But I could see how others would want it other ways.
The framers recognized that free speech is so fundamental to the democratic process that even that process should not be able to abridge it -- at least, not without a great deal of debate.
I think, in fact, the framers were against any change being made to be easy. Easy changes mean inconsistency and more importantly allow temporary situations to be leveraged into longer-term tyranny. Arguably this has occurred of late.
But note that they did not disallow change; the need to change is a recognized and valid part of a democracy, to be flexible and cope with long term, emergent issues.
I'd argue that the free market decides, which means we collectively decide -- very democratic, you'll notice -- but the system does have its flaws. Most of those flaws come from excessive government interference in the market. I could get cheaper health care, for example, if my doctor didn't need the government's authorization to practice medicine, because there would be more doctors to choose among, and thus more competition. As long as I trust his credentials, and I (or my insurance provider) am willing to pay what he asks, why should either of us need to ask permission?
You are arguing that there is too much interference in the market, when I think it's as likely to be the opposite in most issues related to the public good. Health care is a great example of this; insurance companies have little to no incentive to pay out for medical treatment because it negatively affects their bottom line. You gloss over the fact that health care is very expensive, and a great deal of that cost comes from the fact that providers have to offset the industry-controlled 'bulk rates' that insurance companies get - making insurance a necessity. I'm sure, in theory, that a free-market solution might do better, in the long run. But the fact is that the US is behind many other first world countries in terms of life expectancy.
So would a free market health system work better? I suggest no: most people are not equipped to have a good idea whether a doctor is good, or a total quack. This is the problem with any expert. If you don't know as much as you need to, it's unlikely you're going to have a good handle on how good they are. And thus, we need a third-party non-invested source to give us the skinny. Should it cost a lot for doctors to get licensed? Yes, because they're important, and it's important that we make sure they're good.
You are, of course, free to get your health care from an unlicensed quack. But the government can't allow such people to mix in with doctors they are signing off on; the harm there is obvious and great.
I fully agree that a valid role for government is to protect the commons. But I don't agree that children are part of the commons -- parents, and parents alone, bear that responsibility.
Children aren't part of the commons, of course. But we're not utilizing them as a resource, so much as they need to be protected from disadvantages in their environment. Arguing the public airwaves aren't a commons issue is different, though. I expect that 20 years this will be a moot point, but as it stands now, yes, you can totally turn off the TV. But allowing a free-for-all in terms of content would mean that a child looking for a particular program would be faced with a challenge (nearly) equivalent to finding a book appropriate to them in a library overrun with pornography. I may not have a problem with this. You may not have a problem with this. But surely we can see how the general consensus is that it's not exactly alright? And be it the V chip, or limiting what can be aired when, the public does have some right to say that certain things aren't acceptable.
And realize that this is entirely separate from whether a thing can be said at all. Only a few, truly maladjusted people think that pornography, say, should be banished. But there is a difference between allowing speech and allowing it anywhere, anytime. The difficult question is how to draw the bright line between what is a reasonable restriction and what is tyrannical restriction.
But compare that to the 'instant' response you get by looking at the readout. I think that wiggling it would be faster, and does not require you to take it out of your pocket.
"Fuck" in most situations is a term that is considered, at the extreme, 'filth', because it is generally used to demarcate a degree of disrespect. Indeed, disrespect being the opposite of respect, not just the lack of it. It should not be common unless you feel a particular need to live in a culture of disrespect.
It is hard to have a word that carries such a strong connotation in common usage if you do not want that connotation to affect the behavior of people. This is not to say that there aren't a host of other things that might also negatively impact behavior, but most 'sane' parents disallow the use of words like that because they want their children to learn to respect other people. And it's not an unreasonable stance to take; most of the great people of the world in did not use such language. If they had, people would have on some level not seen them worthy of respect - simply because they clearly did not have much themselves.
There is absolutely no reason to be puritanical about language, but in channels of media wherein we can expect many consumers, it is not necessarily a bad idea to refrain from things that carry a connotation we do not necessarily want to propagate in behavior. This is why even if these restrictions were lifted I bet that even in three or more generations you would fail to see most 'respected' media take up the use of such words on a regular basis.
First of all, you attribute to me a stance I don't hold. But you should see the logic behind the current reasoning before you get so up in arms about it.
The harm to democracy that arises from outlawing ANY speech far outweighs whatever harm that speech could cause by being heard.
So you say. But the thing about democracy is that it does not have to do with what one person holds to be true, or even what the objective truth is, but rather what the society as a whole holds to be true. If the society holds that hate speech is a form of speech that should not be tolerated, because its harm outweighs the harm done by a degree of censorship - then that is the case. That is, in fact, the meaning of democracy, that these values are decided not by a single authoritative voice, but by a consensus.
Before you argue, though, that we don't have a true consensus; that is a problem with the process and not the result. If your actual issue is that we do a poor job of achieving a true consensus, then wage that battle instead.
The only difference between the government and corporations is that government gets to use force.
You're implying here that physical force is some sort of trump card. You go on to suggest that corporations cannot inflict bodily harm. The truth of the matter is that people's freedom is constrained a great many ways, and that corporations have access to a large number of those ways, just as the government does. Nevermind pollutants, corporations decide who has the right to health care in this country and who does not.
Would I want the freedom to change channels and watch what I want to watch? Hell yes! And Comcox could even provide that service to me; except that they won't. They give you prescribed channels and their selection of TV shows. Why is iTunes doing so well except that it offers the option of watching what it is you want to watch? You cannot claim cable companies are providing that same degree of freedom; and there is mounting evidence they collude to keep you from actual freedom on these counts.
You really think this is better than allowing consenting adults to make decisions for themselves? This is the world you want to live in?
The world I want to live in allows consenting adults whatever freedoms do not infringe on others'. But it also looks out for people whom are not consenting. Children are the easiest example of this; we disallow children being exposed to all sorts of things because, as a society, we have deemed those things harmful. I might draw the line differently, but mine is one voice. And it's a voice that upholds the society's right to exclude things from public broadcast if that is what the society chooses. Living with other people, in a house, in a neighborhood, in a city, state or country by necessity requires you to subject yourself to a communal will. Communal choice, if you will, that should be every bit as protected as individual choice and will. This is difficult, I will grant. Protection of individual rights plays an important part. But I will be buggered before I let a few maladjusted jerks pollute the communal environment on the basis of their 'individual right to do so'. Just like I disagree that corporations should be allowed to dump chemicals willy nilly into our water supply, simply because it happens to run through 'their' land, I disagree that anyone, any entity, should have the right to force upon me or mine a constant stream of stuff I don't agree with.
And for that reason, I think some control on public airwaves is not an inherently bad idea. I think it's in the public good.
The grandparent makes an interesting point; the FCC is actually part of the executive branch. But all the branches have traditionally been granted the right to do things 'for the public good'. It falls, at some point, to a decision about whether your shouting 'fuck' does more harm than good. Not just to you. Not just to the 'average, hypothetical listener', but to all of society.
I would note that any protest you staged that is considered to do harm to the public interest can be stopped. This is why we forbid hate speech; it generates a toxic environment. Similarly, with airwaves, the reasoning is that because there is a limited number, and everyone has access to them and regularly utilizes it, we should be aware of how what we put there affects them. In the interest of children, for instance, we forbid certain categories of behavior being portrayed during certain periods of the day.
You can argue all you want about the categories, but it's pretty accepted that environments that affect everyone should have some publicly motivated controls on them. The regulator of those controls, ultimately, is the government. And thank goodness! Because we have no inherent protection from corporations or even just other individuals otherwise.
But before I go, let me just say that the protection of private speech is every bit as important as the protection of public speech. Indeed, every horror tale of mind control and thought police centers around the loss of your right to say things privately. Read 1984 - it is an excellent illustration of the varying types of speech and how they might be impinged upon.
I have to imagine that any blind user of a cell phone would think this is awesome. No longer do you have to wade through some exchange with a computer to figure out if you have messages; you just shake your cell phone. And figuring out your charge without any need for visual interaction must be useful, too.
Additionally, though, I don't think there is all that much problem with shaking solid-state electronics. The 'Wiimote syndrome' isn't at issue, because you're not trying to control cartoon characters on the screen - and shaking a rattle, say, is a far more sedate activity than swinging a hammer. Unless you're way, way hyper-aggressive.
In interest of full disclosure, I have, in fact, taken first year physics at an Ivy institution. I pulled Bs - it's a complicated subject. I don't claim to be an expert, but I do claim to not be ignorant of physics.
Let us take your example of pushing a boulder. You are, in fact, "pushing the earth". You apply some force to the boulder and must similarly apply the *same* force to the earth. What does this do to the earth? Well, it's easy to say, "nothing" - because the infinitesimal amount of work being done on the Earth in comparison to the Boulder means you're unlikely to have precise enough an instrument to measure it.
Let us suppose a rock magically appears in the air and falls to the ground. Does it move the earth? Yes; just like a huge, planet-sized asteroid would. It just does it a great deal less.
There are some complicating factors. (Of course!) Specifically, the earth is rotating, is round and you're not applying the force squarely. Take that asteroid you're dropping on the earth; it would not be odd to see the earth warble off, off-kilter after hitting it. The earth isn't a pool ball (actually, it's smoother than a pool ball) but that gives you a good idea of spin. Long story short, because the Boulder you're pushing is also pushing on the earth, the system retains it's energy.
Now, if the center of gravity of the earth+waves was, in fact, the center of the earth, I would totally agree with you. But however small, the center is not in fact the same. A small degree of the moon's rotation - it's momentum - is kept by the fact that you have this huge sloshing amount of water - and it's corollary mass - also moving, keeping the center of gravity of the whole system the same. The whole thing moves like a gyroscope. But if you press down on one side of a gyroscope - what I'm analogizing the tidal generators to be - you draw off energy as it tries to right itself, slowing it down.
This energy is infinitesimally small. Hence my tongue in cheek, "But what about the MOOOOON!?" The moon's orbital velocity is maintained by constantly 'falling' towards the earth. If the earth changes where it's mass is, it will start 'falling' oddly; presumably at a slower speed. You are correct; I am implying that the turbines *stop* the water. However, once you show that there is a change with stopped water (absorption of 100% of the energy), you show that there is a change with the water being stopped at all.
Why doesn't the coast do this? To start with, it probably does. Again, to a Small degree. But it is also storing all of it's energy in angular momentum rather than in electric potential. There is a large difference between energy stored as the velocity of matter and heat energy.
And if you have a decent grasp of this stuff, you'll know what that last sentence is funny.;)
Well, you might as well count me, and for that matter nearly every progressive architect and designer in the country, in the chronically 'stupid' category, then. No one is saying any of this happens overnight, or that the solution is right there if we only seize it. What we are saying is that there are tangible, actual gains that can be had through conservation.
On a more personal level, I think blaming 'Society' is a huge cop-out. If you can realize a tangible gain, and do things better than your neighbor, nevermind the next country over, why not do it? I mean, other than having to admit the way you *were* doing it wasn't the best idea?
The solution will be to use less energy per unit of work. It has to be. There isn't enough energy - nuclear or no nuclear - otherwise. I might remind you, as well, that correlation does not actually equal causation. As humans have progressed our population has grown. Yet no one is suggesting that farming babies as fast as possible is the best route to a better life. The solution will include finding more powerful energy sources, but 'power' does not necessarily mean 'more energy in one centralized location'. Indeed, nuclear power fails to handle transmission issues, or distribution issues. These are still big problems that are actually addressed by things like decentralized PV; a solution that actually scales, unlike nuclear.
In fact, I envision a world where smart design and redesign utilizing things as simple as passive solar, local sources of materials and better insulation, over the course of several decades rapidly improves the energy efficiency of most, if not all buildings, cutting down on the draw needed per unit of 'developed' space. Solar panels, wind turbines and other localized, renewable sources can account for the majority of local energy needs, but buildings are still plugged into a grid that is underwritten by nuclear and hyrdo generators. Flow back and forth can allow for load balancing when and where needed, but critical failure on the part of any given component does not lead to utter catastrophe.
And the thing of that is that it does not rely on any particularly new technology, any particularly new infrastructure, any particularly centralized or single-source solution. It's all stuff we have, but in a different assembly than we currently use.
I recognize that many places in the US are relatively sprawly, but I don't accept that that in and of itself is a reason to encourage cars as our sole, or even primary means of transportation. You give an example: 40 miles from your work? Personally, I don't see why you'd spend an hour each way to get to work. I would have to have a flipping amazing job to do that. And even in that case, I suspect that I would do what I had to do to live closer.
But more to the point, if you don't insist on better public transportation, it's not going to be provided. You have to be willing to vote for it and to pay for it, but it can be created. We are under a cultural assumption (I suspect 'driven' by certain industries...) that the car is simply the best solution so we should get used to it. Yet we lived for millenniums without cars - only in the last century have we really geared towards cars. Is there a particular reason to, though? Even in the US many people live in places and situations where it is entirely not needed. In our biggest city it's even considered foolish to use a car. Why are we still gearing for that, then?
More to the point, why are more urban centers not gearing for other things? Most of our population is, in fact, urban: 75% in the United States. There is, in my opinion, why we aren't spending money on mass transit infrastructure in at least a 2:1 ratio.
I think the thing your missing is that the tidal generators are stationary, like the cliffs off the Oregon coast, and are not adding energy to the equation, They don't take away that energy, just utilizing the energy that dissipates from the oceans rise and fall.
The generators by definition must take energy out of the 'tidal system'. The energy they take is not simply summoned out of the ether, nor is it energy that would otherwise 'do nothing' if it were left in the system.
Presumably the 'largest' chunk of the 'generated' energy is being captured from the motion of the oceans. The generator uses the speed and mass of the water to, say, turn a turbine - just like in hydroelectric. But the water moving through it has some of it's energy captured, so it's moving slower. This is distinctly different from the hydrodam solution, because the energy there is captured from the potential energy of the water flowing down the hill. Where was that potential energy generated from? Water evaporated (via capturing solar energy) and then condensed at a higher altitude. So, in essence, hydro is one way of capturing solar energy.
Tidal turbines are getting their energy from the motion of the ocean, however. Where does that come from? The oceans aren't born with it - it comes from The Moon! But because they're inherently gravity-based, the energy is coming from the rotation of the Moon around the earth. The mass of the water on the planet, though, has to have an equal-but-opposite effect if it 'stops moving'. If you refer to the diagram on the cited page, you are effectively changing the 'center of gravity', and by doing so capturing energy.
I'm simply positing that, over time, little changes might produce something noticeable - because that energy is not simply 'dissipated' by the forces of friction or brownian motion. Rather, that energy is actually part of the equation, and leads to that 'off center' motion of the Earth/Moon.
I find it interesting that you call it the 'gravity' problem, as though we should all stay on the ground, and not use airplanes, because they were hard to conceive of in the first place. Gravity made solving the airplane problem difficult. Balloons, planes, helicopters - none of these were trivial solutions.
Nor is creating a sustainable environment or economy. But it can be done; and there are plenty of people working to make the theory a practical reality. We are by no means 'stuck' with the structure we have; only our conditioning to accept the status quo suggests that we are. Come on! We're humans! We make tools out of things that were clearly not meant for that purpose originally. Opposable thumbs and pattern-recognizing fore-brains let us do all sorts of neat things.
You claim that inertia prevents us from changing 'any time soon'. But while inertia is a powerful force, it works both ways; things at rest tend to stay at rest, and things in motion tend to stay in motion. China, while it is adding on cars by the fistful, is also designing sustainable cities from scratch. Is this cheap? No. Is it possible? Yes. Just like it is possible for us to retool our cities in piecemeal to achieve those same energy goals; to decentralize consumer outlets, decentralize the power grid, rethink water management, rethink food processing, rethink every aspect of our society that causes us to think we're 'stuck' with what we have.
If you don't like it, change it. The solution cannot reasonably come in the form of a holy grail. Nuclear energy is nice, but it's not going to solve all your problems, much less all of our problems. And while you're at it, recognize that as the transportation infrastructure we have becomes progressively more expensive, it will become progressively less supported. Parts of the country will die; clinging to them is not a wise move. Rolling with the punch and modifying how you live so that it's not a problem is, on the other hand, a solution.
Less so, I think, than if you're asked to keep track of your own stuff. Businesses drop big bucks on making sure they have backups of all computer files because the average person simply cannot be relied upon to do it themselves, accurately and regularly.
No, consumption is what drives our current economic model. While not a good model, Communism was not driven by consumption. In our current economy, though, we measure our health by the increase in sales. Which is not sustainable.
The cost of conservation at a level that would make a real environmental impact... would severely impact quality of life in every nation that attempted such measures.
'Quality of Life'? By that do you mean a life being constantly polluted by heavy industry and oil-dependent transportation? My quality of life would not be negatively impacted if I had to spend some additional money because I didn't want my air to be smoggy - but I'm not given that option. The Green Movement is about fighting for that freedom; the freedom to say, 'Gosh, a clean environment is more valuable to me than mere money or stuff.'
Let us compare fuel efficiencies. In a 'smart' economy, which would you want to use more? Personally, I think that you'd want to get some actually efficiency in there; thus weight it towards things like trains, and away from things like cars. Well, do we support that philosophy in our society? We do not. Instead, we pay far more for our road infrastructure than we do for our train infrastructure, subsidizing it with taxes left and right - taxes which are paid for by everyone, not just the people who utilize the roads. Of course, therefore, the roads get used more. In situations where tolls are exacted, there is a far greater likelihood for people to seek out and utilize alternative transport - such as buses, carpooling, trains and so on.
Of course, this represents a 'tax' on cars, and we hate taxes. All taxes. Period. Except that for some reason we accept the hidden tax over the obvious one, even if that hidden tax ends up costing us more because we are not only taxed for the roads, but for the egregious cost of the environmental cleanup they require, the vastly larger amount of fuel they require and the huge amount of overseas investment in oil infrastructure, transport and security they require.
It is true, the oil magnates probably would suffer a significant impact to their 'quality of life' if we started using transportation more intelligently. But my money is on the average person's quality of life increasing, and the impact on their wallet decreasing.
Everyone take the bus! Now there's a realistic solution to the energy problem.
I'm sorry, but is that sarcasm I detect? Because I really don't see the problem here. Plenty of countries run primarily on mass transport and non-ICE vehicles (you know, 'bikes' and 'walking'). What actually necessitates a car?
I love how anti-nuclear guys say "nuclear power is expensive", but then say "wind power will create hundreds of thousands of jobs". "Nuclear power is expensive, but paying joggers to run on a treadmill which powers a turbine will create millions of jobs!"
While it's not an argument I would use myself, you have to admit Nuclear Power is both more expensive and has many fewer available jobs; simply because we place a premium on risk. And NP has far more risk than wind or photovoltaic.
You make some pretty sweeping claims about the stance of Greenpeace. Do you have sources? Quotations? Anything other than rhetoric? About Greenpeace or your supposed Path to Energy Plentifulness
As someone who works in the domestic energy industry in the U.S. I find your claims hard to believe without a shred of evidence. And your slamming of 'Kerry' as the 'guy who ruined everything' makes me think you haven't actually examined the issue in too much depth.
Oh, yes, it all makes sense. I wouldn't call myself a physics geek, but I'm reasonably versed - and quite familiar with the laws of thermodynamics. The thing is, you cannot simply Lose energy - like matter, it can neither be created nor destroyed. You can dissipate it to some degree (two atoms spinning off into space effectively 'separate' the energy into less-usable quantities), but in a system such as earth all that energy has to be going somewhere.
So, the moon gives the water energy by spinning around the earth. The water returns that energy, at least in some small degree, to the rotation of the moon, because it sloshes around and has mass. But if it's sloshing less because of turbines, will that have a noticeable effect on the moons orbit over a sufficient period of time?
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manners and ethics. Perhaps a rather blurry line, as you suggest; is it right to gossip? No, probably not. Is it wrong; I can't say that it is that, either. While there is certainly malevolent gossip, most gossip is not, in fact, meant in that manner. It's hard to say that ethics covers it; nor should the law.
Malicious action, such as defamation, though, is unethical - similarly, defamation is (in theory) covered by the law, and sometimes other codes of conduct.
I might also suggest, at the risk of getting way off topic, that your seeing my picking my nose and talking about it is not very much a reflection of me. The proximal effect might be to 'humiliate' or 'marginalize' me, but it is actually my actions that would cause that by engaging in the sillyness. The underlying effect is actually to reflect on you. I don't think this sort of human interaction - especially given the admittedly trivial, grade-school example - is something that ethics, per se, covers. Manners definitely does, though.
includes many elements that your personal definition excludes, including questions of self-harm
I'm sorry, I don't see where I said that...
Ah, but I do see where you may have arrived at that conclusion. It is, of course, a bad idea - and reasonably under the aegis of 'ethics' - to inflict self harm. It is, in fact, something we legislate. However, the 'act of drinking' is not inherently a self-harming action, any more than jumping in the water is. Both can, given the right context (an alcoholic or someone who cannot swim) cause harm, but neither is an unethical action.
I'm just baffled where this becomes an ethical question. Specifically, I am baffled how something like 'free speech' can be ethical, but 'gossip' can be unethical. I find that highly idiosyncratic.
My bad. We simply (in the US) legislate in such a way that it is illegal to defame or incite to riot. I would be curious to know if, in the cited event, they were given permission to say things like, "Jews suck", or if they had to stick to "Nazis rule"?
Counterexample: I am a moderate drinker. I drink two or three drinks a week. It is not unethical for me to have a beer. I have a friend who is a reformed alcoholic. He can't risk drinking a beer because he has found he slips off the wagon to easily. I have another ex problem drinker friend who does have an occasional beer; it doesn't seem to create problems for him.
Each of our ethical situations with regard to drinking is different. Same act, different implications.
It is possible we're dealing with very different ideas what 'ethics' are. It is not unethical for a recovering alcoholic to drink. It is, perhaps, a choice contrary to their goals - but drinking is not itself unethical. Nor would you find, I think, many alcoholics - recovering or otherwise - who believe that it is.
Implications are, of course, different. But the consequences of a thing does not always impact the ethics of it. I might, for instance, set up my own Morris Dancing studio. But perhaps simply because the Rhumba is 'in' right now, it would be a failure. It's not unethical for me to start a failing business - just not in accordance with my goals. That is why there are 'ethical considerations' and, say, 'aesthetic considerations'.
Perhaps, in your original post you were getting at the fact that in regarding the aesthetic considerations of porn, you find yourself considering avoidance in situations where the aesthetics are displeasing, or 'offensive to your aesthetic values'. I definitely took the question, though, in terms of an ethical consideration. The only ethical question remains, "Was it created ethically?" And therein only if the viewing of it supports the creation - which you can reasonably assume it does.
If I hear a rumor that a person is having an affair, it is usually unethical for me to repeat that rumor. However a law against gossip would not only fail, it would almost certainly be used harmfully.
It is not unethical to gossip, it's unmannered. Typically speaking I define manners as 'behaviors used to show respect'. Usually it's respectful to act ethically, and it's always disrespectful to act unethically. But there are some behaviors that you can engage in which are crude, but ethical. For instance, cracking someone's ribs in order to give CPR, or rudely telling someone to get out of the way in an emergency situation. (Note; I am separating the concern of 'effectiveness'.) So, while the two are linked, I don't know that they are so closely linked as you imply.
This strikes me as quibbling. Depiction itself is an act undertaken for some end or another.
Perhaps you see it as 'quibbling' because you're taking 'depiction' as an act rather than a physical object. Acts can clearly be ethical or unethical; that is not the point. Acts should clearly be judged based on that. But the product should be judged on somewhat separate terms (causing, quite often, a mess of "do the ends justify the means"?). I'm saying that physical objects are not inherently ethical or unethical, be they pictures of loved ones, videos of BDSM sex acts, or bombs. But if you portray any of those in certain lights - contexts, if you will - then you can have an ethical or unethical situation. Which, I would note, is very nearly what you said.
""Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle." -Thomas Jefferson
Just because something offends me doesn't mean that it is unethical -- although it may be. Just because something is unethical doesn't mean it should be illegal.
Um, I think that something that is unethical *should* be illegal. It should not be accepted by the society.
I think Aristotelean virtue ethics are a bit dated to work off of. There is a reason they came first; they're rather unsophisticated. Is there a link between taste and ethics? I think there is a link between ethics and tolerance, and certainly things I wouldn't tolerate I find distasteful, so I expect there is a link - but perhaps that is not what you meant?
Suffice to say, I think that depiction of, well, anything, can hardly be considered unethical. In some contexts it certainly can be used to an unethical end, but the depiction itself is not the unethical part. Certainly consenting adults should be free to examine what depictions they choose, as presumably they have agency to examine the depictions with a modicum of power - such as that given to you by a healthy social life.
And, of course, you are certainly free to dislike someone for whatever reason you wish. But there is no guarantee that reason is an ethical reason.
See, people who seem to be 'suffering' in pornography is not particularly offensive to me. People who are suffering, however, is. The problem with pornography and, more importantly, the porn industry is not that some of the depictions are dark, but that there are a lot of people (mostly young, uneducated women) who are driven to it out of a maladjustment of some sort; so called exploitative pornography. And that's not something you can sniff out just by looking at the people involved.
I don't think the point is to find "The One True Solution". There is no such thing. There are many, many ways to do things, and if you can find some use for a thing chances are you can build on it. Personally - though I may be a bit OCD about such things - I find the 'slowing' distortion of noises to be grating, like nails on a chalkboard. And, contrariwise, I love tactile feedback. But I could see how others would want it other ways.
The framers recognized that free speech is so fundamental to the democratic process that even that process should not be able to abridge it -- at least, not without a great deal of debate.
I think, in fact, the framers were against any change being made to be easy. Easy changes mean inconsistency and more importantly allow temporary situations to be leveraged into longer-term tyranny. Arguably this has occurred of late.
But note that they did not disallow change; the need to change is a recognized and valid part of a democracy, to be flexible and cope with long term, emergent issues.
I'd argue that the free market decides, which means we collectively decide -- very democratic, you'll notice -- but the system does have its flaws. Most of those flaws come from excessive government interference in the market. I could get cheaper health care, for example, if my doctor didn't need the government's authorization to practice medicine, because there would be more doctors to choose among, and thus more competition. As long as I trust his credentials, and I (or my insurance provider) am willing to pay what he asks, why should either of us need to ask permission?
You are arguing that there is too much interference in the market, when I think it's as likely to be the opposite in most issues related to the public good. Health care is a great example of this; insurance companies have little to no incentive to pay out for medical treatment because it negatively affects their bottom line. You gloss over the fact that health care is very expensive, and a great deal of that cost comes from the fact that providers have to offset the industry-controlled 'bulk rates' that insurance companies get - making insurance a necessity. I'm sure, in theory, that a free-market solution might do better, in the long run. But the fact is that the US is behind many other first world countries in terms of life expectancy.
So would a free market health system work better? I suggest no: most people are not equipped to have a good idea whether a doctor is good, or a total quack. This is the problem with any expert. If you don't know as much as you need to, it's unlikely you're going to have a good handle on how good they are. And thus, we need a third-party non-invested source to give us the skinny. Should it cost a lot for doctors to get licensed? Yes, because they're important, and it's important that we make sure they're good.
You are, of course, free to get your health care from an unlicensed quack. But the government can't allow such people to mix in with doctors they are signing off on; the harm there is obvious and great.
I fully agree that a valid role for government is to protect the commons. But I don't agree that children are part of the commons -- parents, and parents alone, bear that responsibility.
Children aren't part of the commons, of course. But we're not utilizing them as a resource, so much as they need to be protected from disadvantages in their environment. Arguing the public airwaves aren't a commons issue is different, though. I expect that 20 years this will be a moot point, but as it stands now, yes, you can totally turn off the TV. But allowing a free-for-all in terms of content would mean that a child looking for a particular program would be faced with a challenge (nearly) equivalent to finding a book appropriate to them in a library overrun with pornography. I may not have a problem with this. You may not have a problem with this. But surely we can see how the general consensus is that it's not exactly alright? And be it the V chip, or limiting what can be aired when, the public does have some right to say that certain things aren't acceptable.
And realize that this is entirely separate from whether a thing can be said at all. Only a few, truly maladjusted people think that pornography, say, should be banished. But there is a difference between allowing speech and allowing it anywhere, anytime. The difficult question is how to draw the bright line between what is a reasonable restriction and what is tyrannical restriction.
But compare that to the 'instant' response you get by looking at the readout. I think that wiggling it would be faster, and does not require you to take it out of your pocket.
"Fuck" in most situations is a term that is considered, at the extreme, 'filth', because it is generally used to demarcate a degree of disrespect. Indeed, disrespect being the opposite of respect, not just the lack of it. It should not be common unless you feel a particular need to live in a culture of disrespect.
It is hard to have a word that carries such a strong connotation in common usage if you do not want that connotation to affect the behavior of people. This is not to say that there aren't a host of other things that might also negatively impact behavior, but most 'sane' parents disallow the use of words like that because they want their children to learn to respect other people. And it's not an unreasonable stance to take; most of the great people of the world in did not use such language. If they had, people would have on some level not seen them worthy of respect - simply because they clearly did not have much themselves.
There is absolutely no reason to be puritanical about language, but in channels of media wherein we can expect many consumers, it is not necessarily a bad idea to refrain from things that carry a connotation we do not necessarily want to propagate in behavior. This is why even if these restrictions were lifted I bet that even in three or more generations you would fail to see most 'respected' media take up the use of such words on a regular basis.
First of all, you attribute to me a stance I don't hold. But you should see the logic behind the current reasoning before you get so up in arms about it.
The harm to democracy that arises from outlawing ANY speech far outweighs whatever harm that speech could cause by being heard.
So you say. But the thing about democracy is that it does not have to do with what one person holds to be true, or even what the objective truth is, but rather what the society as a whole holds to be true. If the society holds that hate speech is a form of speech that should not be tolerated, because its harm outweighs the harm done by a degree of censorship - then that is the case. That is, in fact, the meaning of democracy, that these values are decided not by a single authoritative voice, but by a consensus.
Before you argue, though, that we don't have a true consensus; that is a problem with the process and not the result. If your actual issue is that we do a poor job of achieving a true consensus, then wage that battle instead.
The only difference between the government and corporations is that government gets to use force.
You're implying here that physical force is some sort of trump card. You go on to suggest that corporations cannot inflict bodily harm. The truth of the matter is that people's freedom is constrained a great many ways, and that corporations have access to a large number of those ways, just as the government does. Nevermind pollutants, corporations decide who has the right to health care in this country and who does not.
Would I want the freedom to change channels and watch what I want to watch? Hell yes! And Comcox could even provide that service to me; except that they won't. They give you prescribed channels and their selection of TV shows. Why is iTunes doing so well except that it offers the option of watching what it is you want to watch? You cannot claim cable companies are providing that same degree of freedom; and there is mounting evidence they collude to keep you from actual freedom on these counts.
You really think this is better than allowing consenting adults to make decisions for themselves? This is the world you want to live in?
The world I want to live in allows consenting adults whatever freedoms do not infringe on others'. But it also looks out for people whom are not consenting. Children are the easiest example of this; we disallow children being exposed to all sorts of things because, as a society, we have deemed those things harmful. I might draw the line differently, but mine is one voice. And it's a voice that upholds the society's right to exclude things from public broadcast if that is what the society chooses. Living with other people, in a house, in a neighborhood, in a city, state or country by necessity requires you to subject yourself to a communal will. Communal choice, if you will, that should be every bit as protected as individual choice and will. This is difficult, I will grant. Protection of individual rights plays an important part. But I will be buggered before I let a few maladjusted jerks pollute the communal environment on the basis of their 'individual right to do so'. Just like I disagree that corporations should be allowed to dump chemicals willy nilly into our water supply, simply because it happens to run through 'their' land, I disagree that anyone, any entity, should have the right to force upon me or mine a constant stream of stuff I don't agree with.
And for that reason, I think some control on public airwaves is not an inherently bad idea. I think it's in the public good.
The grandparent makes an interesting point; the FCC is actually part of the executive branch. But all the branches have traditionally been granted the right to do things 'for the public good'. It falls, at some point, to a decision about whether your shouting 'fuck' does more harm than good. Not just to you. Not just to the 'average, hypothetical listener', but to all of society.
I would note that any protest you staged that is considered to do harm to the public interest can be stopped. This is why we forbid hate speech; it generates a toxic environment. Similarly, with airwaves, the reasoning is that because there is a limited number, and everyone has access to them and regularly utilizes it, we should be aware of how what we put there affects them. In the interest of children, for instance, we forbid certain categories of behavior being portrayed during certain periods of the day.
You can argue all you want about the categories, but it's pretty accepted that environments that affect everyone should have some publicly motivated controls on them. The regulator of those controls, ultimately, is the government. And thank goodness! Because we have no inherent protection from corporations or even just other individuals otherwise.
But before I go, let me just say that the protection of private speech is every bit as important as the protection of public speech. Indeed, every horror tale of mind control and thought police centers around the loss of your right to say things privately. Read 1984 - it is an excellent illustration of the varying types of speech and how they might be impinged upon.
I have to imagine that any blind user of a cell phone would think this is awesome. No longer do you have to wade through some exchange with a computer to figure out if you have messages; you just shake your cell phone. And figuring out your charge without any need for visual interaction must be useful, too.
Additionally, though, I don't think there is all that much problem with shaking solid-state electronics. The 'Wiimote syndrome' isn't at issue, because you're not trying to control cartoon characters on the screen - and shaking a rattle, say, is a far more sedate activity than swinging a hammer. Unless you're way, way hyper-aggressive.
*sigh*
In interest of full disclosure, I have, in fact, taken first year physics at an Ivy institution. I pulled Bs - it's a complicated subject. I don't claim to be an expert, but I do claim to not be ignorant of physics.
Let us take your example of pushing a boulder. You are, in fact, "pushing the earth". You apply some force to the boulder and must similarly apply the *same* force to the earth. What does this do to the earth? Well, it's easy to say, "nothing" - because the infinitesimal amount of work being done on the Earth in comparison to the Boulder means you're unlikely to have precise enough an instrument to measure it.
Let us suppose a rock magically appears in the air and falls to the ground. Does it move the earth? Yes; just like a huge, planet-sized asteroid would. It just does it a great deal less.
There are some complicating factors. (Of course!) Specifically, the earth is rotating, is round and you're not applying the force squarely. Take that asteroid you're dropping on the earth; it would not be odd to see the earth warble off, off-kilter after hitting it. The earth isn't a pool ball (actually, it's smoother than a pool ball) but that gives you a good idea of spin. Long story short, because the Boulder you're pushing is also pushing on the earth, the system retains it's energy.
Now, if the center of gravity of the earth+waves was, in fact, the center of the earth, I would totally agree with you. But however small, the center is not in fact the same. A small degree of the moon's rotation - it's momentum - is kept by the fact that you have this huge sloshing amount of water - and it's corollary mass - also moving, keeping the center of gravity of the whole system the same. The whole thing moves like a gyroscope. But if you press down on one side of a gyroscope - what I'm analogizing the tidal generators to be - you draw off energy as it tries to right itself, slowing it down.
This energy is infinitesimally small. Hence my tongue in cheek, "But what about the MOOOOON!?" The moon's orbital velocity is maintained by constantly 'falling' towards the earth. If the earth changes where it's mass is, it will start 'falling' oddly; presumably at a slower speed. You are correct; I am implying that the turbines *stop* the water. However, once you show that there is a change with stopped water (absorption of 100% of the energy), you show that there is a change with the water being stopped at all.
Why doesn't the coast do this? To start with, it probably does. Again, to a Small degree. But it is also storing all of it's energy in angular momentum rather than in electric potential. There is a large difference between energy stored as the velocity of matter and heat energy.
And if you have a decent grasp of this stuff, you'll know what that last sentence is funny. ;)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
How painfully, utterly ironic...
Well, you might as well count me, and for that matter nearly every progressive architect and designer in the country, in the chronically 'stupid' category, then. No one is saying any of this happens overnight, or that the solution is right there if we only seize it. What we are saying is that there are tangible, actual gains that can be had through conservation.
On a more personal level, I think blaming 'Society' is a huge cop-out. If you can realize a tangible gain, and do things better than your neighbor, nevermind the next country over, why not do it? I mean, other than having to admit the way you *were* doing it wasn't the best idea?
The solution will be to use less energy per unit of work. It has to be. There isn't enough energy - nuclear or no nuclear - otherwise. I might remind you, as well, that correlation does not actually equal causation. As humans have progressed our population has grown. Yet no one is suggesting that farming babies as fast as possible is the best route to a better life. The solution will include finding more powerful energy sources, but 'power' does not necessarily mean 'more energy in one centralized location'. Indeed, nuclear power fails to handle transmission issues, or distribution issues. These are still big problems that are actually addressed by things like decentralized PV; a solution that actually scales, unlike nuclear.
In fact, I envision a world where smart design and redesign utilizing things as simple as passive solar, local sources of materials and better insulation, over the course of several decades rapidly improves the energy efficiency of most, if not all buildings, cutting down on the draw needed per unit of 'developed' space. Solar panels, wind turbines and other localized, renewable sources can account for the majority of local energy needs, but buildings are still plugged into a grid that is underwritten by nuclear and hyrdo generators. Flow back and forth can allow for load balancing when and where needed, but critical failure on the part of any given component does not lead to utter catastrophe.
And the thing of that is that it does not rely on any particularly new technology, any particularly new infrastructure, any particularly centralized or single-source solution. It's all stuff we have, but in a different assembly than we currently use.
I recognize that many places in the US are relatively sprawly, but I don't accept that that in and of itself is a reason to encourage cars as our sole, or even primary means of transportation. You give an example: 40 miles from your work? Personally, I don't see why you'd spend an hour each way to get to work. I would have to have a flipping amazing job to do that. And even in that case, I suspect that I would do what I had to do to live closer.
But more to the point, if you don't insist on better public transportation, it's not going to be provided. You have to be willing to vote for it and to pay for it, but it can be created. We are under a cultural assumption (I suspect 'driven' by certain industries...) that the car is simply the best solution so we should get used to it. Yet we lived for millenniums without cars - only in the last century have we really geared towards cars. Is there a particular reason to, though? Even in the US many people live in places and situations where it is entirely not needed. In our biggest city it's even considered foolish to use a car. Why are we still gearing for that, then?
More to the point, why are more urban centers not gearing for other things? Most of our population is, in fact, urban: 75% in the United States. There is, in my opinion, why we aren't spending money on mass transit infrastructure in at least a 2:1 ratio.
I think the thing your missing is that the tidal generators are stationary, like the cliffs off the Oregon coast, and are not adding energy to the equation, They don't take away that energy, just utilizing the energy that dissipates from the oceans rise and fall.
The generators by definition must take energy out of the 'tidal system'. The energy they take is not simply summoned out of the ether, nor is it energy that would otherwise 'do nothing' if it were left in the system.
Presumably the 'largest' chunk of the 'generated' energy is being captured from the motion of the oceans. The generator uses the speed and mass of the water to, say, turn a turbine - just like in hydroelectric. But the water moving through it has some of it's energy captured, so it's moving slower. This is distinctly different from the hydrodam solution, because the energy there is captured from the potential energy of the water flowing down the hill. Where was that potential energy generated from? Water evaporated (via capturing solar energy) and then condensed at a higher altitude. So, in essence, hydro is one way of capturing solar energy.
Tidal turbines are getting their energy from the motion of the ocean, however. Where does that come from? The oceans aren't born with it - it comes from The Moon! But because they're inherently gravity-based, the energy is coming from the rotation of the Moon around the earth. The mass of the water on the planet, though, has to have an equal-but-opposite effect if it 'stops moving'. If you refer to the diagram on the cited page, you are effectively changing the 'center of gravity', and by doing so capturing energy.
I'm simply positing that, over time, little changes might produce something noticeable - because that energy is not simply 'dissipated' by the forces of friction or brownian motion. Rather, that energy is actually part of the equation, and leads to that 'off center' motion of the Earth/Moon.
I find it interesting that you call it the 'gravity' problem, as though we should all stay on the ground, and not use airplanes, because they were hard to conceive of in the first place. Gravity made solving the airplane problem difficult. Balloons, planes, helicopters - none of these were trivial solutions.
Nor is creating a sustainable environment or economy. But it can be done; and there are plenty of people working to make the theory a practical reality. We are by no means 'stuck' with the structure we have; only our conditioning to accept the status quo suggests that we are. Come on! We're humans! We make tools out of things that were clearly not meant for that purpose originally. Opposable thumbs and pattern-recognizing fore-brains let us do all sorts of neat things.
You claim that inertia prevents us from changing 'any time soon'. But while inertia is a powerful force, it works both ways; things at rest tend to stay at rest, and things in motion tend to stay in motion. China, while it is adding on cars by the fistful, is also designing sustainable cities from scratch. Is this cheap? No. Is it possible? Yes. Just like it is possible for us to retool our cities in piecemeal to achieve those same energy goals; to decentralize consumer outlets, decentralize the power grid, rethink water management, rethink food processing, rethink every aspect of our society that causes us to think we're 'stuck' with what we have.
If you don't like it, change it. The solution cannot reasonably come in the form of a holy grail. Nuclear energy is nice, but it's not going to solve all your problems, much less all of our problems. And while you're at it, recognize that as the transportation infrastructure we have becomes progressively more expensive, it will become progressively less supported. Parts of the country will die; clinging to them is not a wise move. Rolling with the punch and modifying how you live so that it's not a problem is, on the other hand, a solution.
While you're at it, put in your own greywater system.
Data corruption/loss would be a problem though.
Less so, I think, than if you're asked to keep track of your own stuff. Businesses drop big bucks on making sure they have backups of all computer files because the average person simply cannot be relied upon to do it themselves, accurately and regularly.
Consumption is what drives economies forward.
No, consumption is what drives our current economic model. While not a good model, Communism was not driven by consumption. In our current economy, though, we measure our health by the increase in sales. Which is not sustainable.
The cost of conservation at a level that would make a real environmental impact ... would severely impact quality of life in every nation that attempted such measures.
'Quality of Life'? By that do you mean a life being constantly polluted by heavy industry and oil-dependent transportation? My quality of life would not be negatively impacted if I had to spend some additional money because I didn't want my air to be smoggy - but I'm not given that option. The Green Movement is about fighting for that freedom; the freedom to say, 'Gosh, a clean environment is more valuable to me than mere money or stuff.'
Let us compare fuel efficiencies. In a 'smart' economy, which would you want to use more? Personally, I think that you'd want to get some actually efficiency in there; thus weight it towards things like trains, and away from things like cars. Well, do we support that philosophy in our society? We do not. Instead, we pay far more for our road infrastructure than we do for our train infrastructure, subsidizing it with taxes left and right - taxes which are paid for by everyone, not just the people who utilize the roads. Of course, therefore, the roads get used more. In situations where tolls are exacted, there is a far greater likelihood for people to seek out and utilize alternative transport - such as buses, carpooling, trains and so on.
Of course, this represents a 'tax' on cars, and we hate taxes. All taxes. Period. Except that for some reason we accept the hidden tax over the obvious one, even if that hidden tax ends up costing us more because we are not only taxed for the roads, but for the egregious cost of the environmental cleanup they require, the vastly larger amount of fuel they require and the huge amount of overseas investment in oil infrastructure, transport and security they require.
It is true, the oil magnates probably would suffer a significant impact to their 'quality of life' if we started using transportation more intelligently. But my money is on the average person's quality of life increasing, and the impact on their wallet decreasing.
Everyone take the bus! Now there's a realistic solution to the energy problem.
I'm sorry, but is that sarcasm I detect? Because I really don't see the problem here. Plenty of countries run primarily on mass transport and non-ICE vehicles (you know, 'bikes' and 'walking'). What actually necessitates a car?I love how anti-nuclear guys say "nuclear power is expensive", but then say "wind power will create hundreds of thousands of jobs". "Nuclear power is expensive, but paying joggers to run on a treadmill which powers a turbine will create millions of jobs!"
While it's not an argument I would use myself, you have to admit Nuclear Power is both more expensive and has many fewer available jobs; simply because we place a premium on risk. And NP has far more risk than wind or photovoltaic.You make some pretty sweeping claims about the stance of Greenpeace. Do you have sources? Quotations? Anything other than rhetoric? About Greenpeace or your supposed Path to Energy Plentifulness
As someone who works in the domestic energy industry in the U.S. I find your claims hard to believe without a shred of evidence. And your slamming of 'Kerry' as the 'guy who ruined everything' makes me think you haven't actually examined the issue in too much depth.
Oh, yes, it all makes sense. I wouldn't call myself a physics geek, but I'm reasonably versed - and quite familiar with the laws of thermodynamics. The thing is, you cannot simply Lose energy - like matter, it can neither be created nor destroyed. You can dissipate it to some degree (two atoms spinning off into space effectively 'separate' the energy into less-usable quantities), but in a system such as earth all that energy has to be going somewhere.
So, the moon gives the water energy by spinning around the earth. The water returns that energy, at least in some small degree, to the rotation of the moon, because it sloshes around and has mass. But if it's sloshing less because of turbines, will that have a noticeable effect on the moons orbit over a sufficient period of time?