One thing that was consistent: the Europeans I met were just plain puzzled by the United States. In particular, our brutal form of capitalism, and our perverse fascination with guns.
As a European, I would like to thank your "brutal capitalism" for coming to Europe's rescue in the last two world wars and helping rebuild it afterwards.
A good union (and not the guild-type of union the US is riddled with) defends the legitimate interest of all workers in a branch or sector.
No, that is wrong. A union protects its members. Full stop. Those members are coerced to be part of the union as otherwise they won't have a job. All other workers in the field, that are not part of the union, are harmed by the union as they are not allowed to compete as individuals.
A union is just another layer of management that uses labour to hold a company hostage while seeking to control the workers itself. If you can believe in the existence of good unions then you should have no problem in believing in the existence of good management under which unions are not neccessary. It's not the 1930s anymore.
In any case, I have never met anyone that was happy working in the union. At best they had the attitude that they were protected from one bully by another bully.
Dead wrong. The challenges of the past were not global and quite a few civilizations managed to wipe themselves out by their stupidity throughout history. Today we do not have redundancy in this way anymore, everything is far too global.
Yes, WW2 was not a global thing.
The Black Plague was not a global thing.
In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century.[8] It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
Remind us, again, what are the existential challenges that you're facing in your life?
While I agree on the problem, the solution is not going to work as most people (and most children) are stupid. Just look at the decisions they make. They know that politicians are lying, yet they still vote for the one that tells the better lies. They know corporations are just after money, yet they believe the ads. They vote against their own freedom, against their economic well-being and against their future. They are driven by fear, greed, hate and arrogance, and rationality makes only very rare appearances, if at all. And the "leaders" are cut from the same cloth.
I am sorry to say this, but this installment of the human race is fucked, and it is doing all the fucking to itself. Sure, there is a minority (may 10-15%) that actually understands how things work, that can think independently, that can verify facts and that can recognize a thing for what it is. But these are far too few. It is almost as if this planet is a failed experiment as to whether this mix of independent thinkers and others works and I think we can safely say it works badly and no way to fix it that can actually be implemented is known.
Relax. The world is complicated. Progress is not a straight line. People are free to make their own decisions, your understanding is not required. On the whole, we are doing amazingly well. The "challenges" of today are nothing compared to what we faced in the past. Nothing.
Some main mirrors were replaced, the laser power increased and a technique called ``squeezing" introduced which counteracts the now stronger distortion of the beam.
"How do you pass a car doing 45 mph on a road limited at 55 mph?"
You wait. Safety compromising convenience seems reasonable to me.
People drive the safest when they are at a speed that they feel comfortable at. That means not too slow and not too fast. Going too fast for your comfort is obviously dangerous but going too slow means that the drive stops paying attention or starts getting aggravated and does something stupid. If you have a lineup of cars behind you wanting to pass you then you are not going fast enough and need to move over or speed up. Driving is a social activity.
The distributed nature of the internet was meant to create a more egalitarian society, in its image. The project failed, and birthed surveillance capitalism.
Not quite, it simply provided a new tool for everyone and didn't alter basic human nature or the tendency of bureaucracies and organizations to grab power as they grow.
Despite the doomsayers, the entire world is living much better than before on virtually every imaginable measure.
Nearly 1.1 billion fewer people are living in extreme poverty than in 1990. In 2015, 736 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day, down from 1.85 billion in 1990.
In fact, the "west" is living so good that our main issue now is mental health which is a result of a lack of any real existential threats to the individual. The internet helps (economically) and harms (toxic social networks etc.), just like any tool.
that we as a civilization are still boasting about our abilities to do harm towards one another when we're losing the only battle that matters: the battle to save Earth.
How do you propose we battle the alien invasion if not with space weapons? Duh.
I guess not bothering to read the article is something of a tradition here, but this point is addressed. From TFA:
The three-minute test in the lower atmosphere ensured there was no debris in space and the remnants would “decay and fall back on to the earth within weeks”, the ministry added.
So, no space debris, unlike China's test, which was at a much higher orbit, and caused a huge cloud of debris that will last anywhere from decades to centuries.
I only read the first line of your comment but I want to know - what about all the space debris they created?!
Hasn't this guy heard? Climate change is BIG BUSINESS! We can't go and solve it for pennies. We need more conferences, more modelling, more money for pet projects, more talking points for politicians to scare us with.
Regardless of what you think about climate change, one thing is certain: the last thing politicians (and activists) want is for it to be solved quickly and cheaply. It's way too good of a tool for them to take your money and look like they're relevant.
Imagine if the fear of climate change went away over night. What would they all do?
No surprise there... there is a reason private ownership is important in order to maximize the value of items. However, ownership requires responsibility - something that increasing numbers of people desperately try to avoid these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Or maybe he has a sense of proportion and understands that his private jet is a drop in the bucket compared to the fact that he's been a huge factor in changing the automotive world for the better.
Individual actions are nice and all, but they are dwarfed by changes to standards and to industry practices.
So, as individuals, we are all ok to keep driving gas guzzlers?
It might be a good car ($100k cars usually are), but it's a little disingenuous to feel smug about driving a tax-supported EV in Norway when you consider how that
is being paid for - oil exports.
Petroleum exports are 17% of GDP, 21% of total state revenue and a whooping 43% of total exports!
If, as is often stated here, renewables are the most cost-effective energy sources, then they shouldn't need subsidies.
The subsidies for fossil fuels are already built-in to our economy so they are invisible, renewables are the newcomer so their subsidies are more explicit.
Fossil fuels are massively taxes. In Canada (BC) we pay around $1.28 / US gallon in taxes. I don't call that a subsidy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Those taxes go to funding public transportation, roads and subsidising renewables. And yet, IC cars are still a better value.
My money was totally on the Volvo creaming the smart car. Turns out it went the other way and the fkn smart car totaled the Volvo! Something something "impact zones"
That is because you completely misinterpreted the results. Normal cars have crumple zones that absorb the energy of the impact and reduce the deceleration. The Smart Car has virtually no crumple zones. Had that Smart Car hit a wall (or other solid object), its passengers would be dead. The Volvo's crumple zones, on the other hand, would give its occupants a much better chance of surviving.
That said, here in Norway, we used to buy a lot of GM cars... now we don't. Now we buy primarily Tesla, BMW i series, Nissan Leafs, Kia electrics. In fact as of October this year, 45% of all new car sales in Norway are electric and we're also buying a bunch of fuel cell cars.
We are ahead of the rest of the world on this because... well... we're western oil country and can afford it. It seems almost humorous that the massive amount of money we spent getting rid of internal combustion engine vehicles was paid for using oil money.
I'm sure it looks like the i3 was the cheapest car because you paid for the other half through your taxes. Norway gives absolutely massive incentives for electric cars, including not charging the 25% tax that they have on other cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
According to the results of a study published by Reuters in March 2013, prepared by Bjart Holtsmark, an analyst of Statistics Norway, the tax exemptions on the purchase of an electric car are worth almost US$11,000 in comparison to the fully taxed price of a regular internal combustion engine car, which is equivalent to US$1,400 a year over a car's lifetime (8 years). The value of the toll exemption for driving into Oslo are worth US$1,400 per year, the free parking is worth US$5,000 per year, and electric cars avoid other charges worth US$400 a year. Without adding value to the benefit of driving in bus lanes, the annual benefit of owning an electric car in Oslo is estimated at US$8,200 per car, per year.
I hope it's worth it. Distorting the market and hiding the real cost of things can only lead to bad outcomes in the long run.
Slashdot Mirror
She said it can get her from Seattle to Victoria BC on 3/4 charge.
Yes, because it's only 82 miles to Port Angeles and the rest is by ferry. So she used up 3/4 charge for 82 miles?
One thing that was consistent: the Europeans I met were just plain puzzled by the United States. In particular, our brutal form of capitalism, and our perverse fascination with guns.
As a European, I would like to thank your "brutal capitalism" for coming to Europe's rescue in the last two world wars and helping rebuild it afterwards.
A good union (and not the guild-type of union the US is riddled with) defends the legitimate interest of all workers in a branch or sector.
No, that is wrong. A union protects its members. Full stop. Those members are coerced to be part of the union as otherwise they won't have a job. All other workers in the field, that are not part of the union, are harmed by the union as they are not allowed to compete as individuals.
A union is just another layer of management that uses labour to hold a company hostage while seeking to control the workers itself. If you can believe in the existence of good unions then you should have no problem in believing in the existence of good management under which unions are not neccessary. It's not the 1930s anymore.
In any case, I have never met anyone that was happy working in the union. At best they had the attitude that they were protected from one bully by another bully.
Well, you started it.
Excellent comeback. My kids use that defence as well.
I doubt you are smart enough to see it though.
Another ad hominem, just in case the first one was missed.
Learn some history. Get some perspective.
Instead I will just not listen to idiots like you.
Ad hominem to the rescue! What a winner.
Dead wrong. The challenges of the past were not global and quite a few civilizations managed to wipe themselves out by their stupidity throughout history. Today we do not have redundancy in this way anymore, everything is far too global.
Yes, WW2 was not a global thing.
The Black Plague was not a global thing.
In total, the plague may have reduced the world population from an estimated 450 million to 350–375 million in the 14th century.[8] It took 200 years for the world population to recover to its previous level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
Remind us, again, what are the existential challenges that you're facing in your life?
Learn some history. Get some perspective.
I think the senators should just skip to the chase and give us the output that the algorithm should produce. Problem solved.
While I agree on the problem, the solution is not going to work as most people (and most children) are stupid. Just look at the decisions they make. They know that politicians are lying, yet they still vote for the one that tells the better lies. They know corporations are just after money, yet they believe the ads. They vote against their own freedom, against their economic well-being and against their future. They are driven by fear, greed, hate and arrogance, and rationality makes only very rare appearances, if at all. And the "leaders" are cut from the same cloth.
I am sorry to say this, but this installment of the human race is fucked, and it is doing all the fucking to itself. Sure, there is a minority (may 10-15%) that actually understands how things work, that can think independently, that can verify facts and that can recognize a thing for what it is. But these are far too few. It is almost as if this planet is a failed experiment as to whether this mix of independent thinkers and others works and I think we can safely say it works badly and no way to fix it that can actually be implemented is known.
Relax. The world is complicated. Progress is not a straight line. People are free to make their own decisions, your understanding is not required. On the whole, we are doing amazingly well. The "challenges" of today are nothing compared to what we faced in the past. Nothing.
Get some perspective.
Some main mirrors were replaced, the laser power increased and a technique called ``squeezing" introduced which counteracts the now stronger distortion of the beam.
What, no Blockchain and AI?
LEAVE AL ALONE! He's had so much press lately and he's tired of it...
"How do you pass a car doing 45 mph on a road limited at 55 mph?"
You wait. Safety compromising convenience seems reasonable to me.
People drive the safest when they are at a speed that they feel comfortable at. That means not too slow and not too fast. Going too fast for your comfort is obviously dangerous but going too slow means that the drive stops paying attention or starts getting aggravated and does something stupid. If you have a lineup of cars behind you wanting to pass you then you are not going fast enough and need to move over or speed up. Driving is a social activity.
The distributed nature of the internet was meant to create a more egalitarian society, in its image. The project failed, and birthed surveillance capitalism.
Not quite, it simply provided a new tool for everyone and didn't alter basic human nature or the tendency of bureaucracies and organizations to grab power as they grow.
Despite the doomsayers, the entire world is living much better than before on virtually every imaginable measure.
Nearly 1.1 billion fewer people are living in extreme poverty than in 1990. In 2015, 736 million people lived on less than $1.90 a day, down from 1.85 billion in 1990.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
In fact, the "west" is living so good that our main issue now is mental health which is a result of a lack of any real existential threats to the individual. The internet helps (economically) and harms (toxic social networks etc.), just like any tool.
that we as a civilization are still boasting about our abilities to do harm towards one another when we're losing the only battle that matters: the battle to save Earth.
How do you propose we battle the alien invasion if not with space weapons? Duh.
I guess not bothering to read the article is something of a tradition here, but this point is addressed. From TFA:
The three-minute test in the lower atmosphere ensured there was no debris in space and the remnants would “decay and fall back on to the earth within weeks”, the ministry added.
So, no space debris, unlike China's test, which was at a much higher orbit, and caused a huge cloud of debris that will last anywhere from decades to centuries.
I only read the first line of your comment but I want to know - what about all the space debris they created?!
I just pronounce it "AL". I think it's more meaningful that way.
Hasn't this guy heard? Climate change is BIG BUSINESS! We can't go and solve it for pennies. We need more conferences, more modelling, more money for pet projects, more talking points for politicians to scare us with.
Regardless of what you think about climate change, one thing is certain: the last thing politicians (and activists) want is for it to be solved quickly and cheaply. It's way too good of a tool for them to take your money and look like they're relevant.
Imagine if the fear of climate change went away over night. What would they all do?
No surprise there... there is a reason private ownership is important in order to maximize the value of items. However, ownership requires responsibility - something that increasing numbers of people desperately try to avoid these days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I haven't read the initial research or the article but I'm 100% certain that both are wrong.
3. Musk doesn’t get a flying fuck about climate change. If he did, he wouldn’t be making frivolous 20 mile flights in his private jet.
Or maybe he has a sense of proportion and understands that his private jet is a drop in the bucket compared to the fact that he's been a huge factor in changing the automotive world for the better.
Individual actions are nice and all, but they are dwarfed by changes to standards and to industry practices.
So, as individuals, we are all ok to keep driving gas guzzlers?
It might be a good car ($100k cars usually are), but it's a little disingenuous to feel smug about driving a tax-supported EV in Norway when you consider how that is being paid for - oil exports.
Petroleum exports are 17% of GDP, 21% of total state revenue and a whooping 43% of total exports!
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/...
Oil exports are taxed at 78%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Your electricity might be coming from Hydro but the money that paid for the car and continues to subsidise it comes from selling oil.
Wouldn't a large number of small object in the Kuiper Belt essentially form a spherical shell with roughly uniformly distributed mass?
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.g...
Given that, the net gravity and gravitational influence within would be zero so it wouldn't explain anything inside it...
I guess the question is, are the strange orbits inside or outside of the "shell".
Yay, more taxes!
If, as is often stated here, renewables are the most cost-effective energy sources, then they shouldn't need subsidies.
The subsidies for fossil fuels are already built-in to our economy so they are invisible, renewables are the newcomer so their subsidies are more explicit.
Fossil fuels are massively taxes. In Canada (BC) we pay around $1.28 / US gallon in taxes. I don't call that a subsidy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Those taxes go to funding public transportation, roads and subsidising renewables. And yet, IC cars are still a better value.
My money was totally on the Volvo creaming the smart car. Turns out it went the other way and the fkn smart car totaled the Volvo! Something something "impact zones"
That is because you completely misinterpreted the results. Normal cars have crumple zones that absorb the energy of the impact and reduce the deceleration. The Smart Car has virtually no crumple zones. Had that Smart Car hit a wall (or other solid object), its passengers would be dead. The Volvo's crumple zones, on the other hand, would give its occupants a much better chance of surviving.
That said, here in Norway, we used to buy a lot of GM cars... now we don't. Now we buy primarily Tesla, BMW i series, Nissan Leafs, Kia electrics. In fact as of October this year, 45% of all new car sales in Norway are electric and we're also buying a bunch of fuel cell cars. We are ahead of the rest of the world on this because... well... we're western oil country and can afford it. It seems almost humorous that the massive amount of money we spent getting rid of internal combustion engine vehicles was paid for using oil money.
I'm sure it looks like the i3 was the cheapest car because you paid for the other half through your taxes. Norway gives absolutely massive incentives for electric cars, including not charging the 25% tax that they have on other cars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
According to the results of a study published by Reuters in March 2013, prepared by Bjart Holtsmark, an analyst of Statistics Norway, the tax exemptions on the purchase of an electric car are worth almost US$11,000 in comparison to the fully taxed price of a regular internal combustion engine car, which is equivalent to US$1,400 a year over a car's lifetime (8 years). The value of the toll exemption for driving into Oslo are worth US$1,400 per year, the free parking is worth US$5,000 per year, and electric cars avoid other charges worth US$400 a year. Without adding value to the benefit of driving in bus lanes, the annual benefit of owning an electric car in Oslo is estimated at US$8,200 per car, per year.
I hope it's worth it. Distorting the market and hiding the real cost of things can only lead to bad outcomes in the long run.