Look at it this way. Imagine that we're some European nation in the 15th or 16th century, and we want to plant a colony on the New World. The Mars project that's on the drawing board now is like sponsoring a long-distance swimming contest. It seems like it's going in the right direction, but really it's not that helpful. It's the wrong set of skills to be developing. Instead, you need to be doing boring crap on shore, building shipyards and learning how to make ships that don't sink.
Sure, but at some point you need to send your primitive, rickety-ass ship to the New World, so you know what it looks like, where you can plant colonies, and so you have experience sending ships all the way over there. It would be kind of stupid to send a shipful of colonists to Mars having never sent a manned spacecraft to Mars before. Exploration is always a prerequisite to colonization.
Once again, why is it so important that we survive as a species? Why not put all our resources into making sure that the white rhino survives as a species?
Because we aren't white rhinos. How can you miss something that's so obvious? If the human race doesn't survive, then nobody survives. People are generally in favor of self-preservation, individually and collectively.
The current state of cellphone service in the US is such that 90% of existing cellular users will not be able to buy this phone, because only a small handful of users will be nearing the end of their existing contracts.
If you're willing to pay $500 for an iPhone, it's possible you're willing to pay $100-$200 extortion money to get out of your existing cellular contract early.
It's also bad to use pixie dust and Maxwell's demons as weapons, but the main reason it's a bad idea to use these things as weapons is that we have no idea how to make them.
I'd be interested to see what kind of weapon they're planning to pop out the bottom of this thing @ Mach 6.
That's easy--a scramjet-powered cruise missile. A scramjet is a ramjet that only starts working at very high supersonic speeds, and can theoretically reach even escape velocity. It can definitely exceed Mach 10. If you're gonna have trouble defending against a Mach 6 jet, imagine a Mach 10 cruise missile.
That does highlight the one area in which you'd want a pilot, though, and that's to make sure that no real technology falls into the enemy's hands.
Nonsense. Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane were captured by the Soviet Union because Gary Powers believed in self-preservation. A robot doesn't, and will destroy itself on command.
Your carton of cigarettes would be worth more than its weight in gold.
Before anyone gets wise and thinks we should have a tobacco standard--think again. In Free to Choose, Milton Friedman writes about how one of the Southern states tried that in colonial times. It was a disaster because people started growing even more tobacco, and hyperinflation ensued. The same thing happened with silver when we discovered Nevada--we had a bimetallic standard then, where a dollar was equivalent to x ounces of gold and y ounces of silver. Long story made short, you could actually make money by depositing silver and withdrawing gold on the dollar, which was an absurd monetary policy.
The only advantage gold has over fiat money is it has real, rather than artificial, scarcity. This protects gold against a government devaluing it, and has a very anti-inflationary effect.
However, it does nothing to protect gold from being devalued from gold rushes, like tobacco and silver were. Of course, gold is not at all protected from deflation, in which it just gains value sitting there gaining zero (or even negative) interest. You might think that's a great thing, but inflation encourages people to spend and lend money. Spending encourages economic growth, of course, but so does lending--if you need a mortgage, or if you're a business needing to borrow money for expansion, having relatively cheap credit helps.
Deflation is worse than inflation. That's why we have inflation--it would be best to have neither, but given the risks involved, it's better to err on the side of inflation. Of course, if you err too much, you have to continually reinvest your money and prices are more confusing, among other things, but at low inflation rates like we have now, it's manageable.
While I agree in principle with what you've said, could you tell me where to go to find a bank account that beats inflation? As far as I know, the only banks that provide that sort of interest rate are online-only establishments.
Not that I'm flush with cash, but I've had fewer problems with ING Direct than some people have with physical banks. My primary checking account is US Bank, though.
I've seen farmers in NC who's families look like they'd be better off on welfare.
I usually don't like to even double-reply (much less triple-reply), but you're just wrong in so many places it's hard to spot them all at once. Corn farmers ARE on welfare--as I mentioned before, they're given abundant corn subsidies and their competition is disadvantaged by trade barriers. If you can't make a good living even with all that going for you, farming is probably not for you or your area.
You may also know that the green revolution that you blame is also responsible for (as an example) transforming India from a starving, net grain consumer, to a net grain producing country. Read up on Norman Borlaug, the greatest American who ever lived. I think saving a billion people from starvation is worth a few people in North Carolina having to find other jobs, wouldn't you say?
Have you ever considered that maybe it's time for them to find other ways of making a living? When this country was founded, 90% of Americans were farmers. It's now less than 10%. I don't particularly want to hold back technological process and farming efficiency in order to enrich people in an overflooded business--to say nothing of what our farm policies do to farmers in third-world countries, who are artificially unable to compete and are consequently impoverished, not in the North Carolina sense but in the Africa sense.
Biofuels will have their place, and I hope that farmers can finally make a few bucks on corn and soybeans.
I hope you're being ironic. The US corn industry is the richest bunch of corrupt thieves in the country. They put the RIAA and MPAA to shame. Not only do they get government subsidies so they can undercut the world market price, but their competitors are kept out of the US market by tariffs. Ever wonder why "sugar" is spelled "high fructose corn syrup" these days?
Even if not enough people wanted the cars for GM to continue to produce EV1s, it makes no sense for GM to refuse to sell the cars to the lessee's who BEGGED to buy them and instead crush them; GM could have at least made some of their investment back instead of spending MORE money to haul away the cars and crush them.
Bullshit. They still would have had to manufacture spare parts and support the cars--that's the law. And that's expensive resources, especially since GM is a union shop.
It takes a whole lot more training to learn how to service a modern ICE than a simple electric drive train. Different skills, yes. Skills that could be learned from a 50-page training manual, yes. GM could have paid any mechanic $15/hour off the street to service an EV1.
I repeat: GM is a union shop. They absolutely could not have paid any mechanic $15/hour off the street to service an EV1.
Allowing for longer ranges is the entire point. Even if 19 out of 20 times you get in your car, you only drive to the grocery store or to work, what about that once a month that you take a trip out of town? Are you going to buy a separate car just for that? Most people aren't that rich, and for those of us who are, it's still wasteful. What does that leave? Trains? Yeah, but if you're in Europe you don't need a car anyway. Airlines? Please. You want to take the short distances you can reach in a day trip while driving, and fly airplanes instead? That'll solve the energy problem, while being an absolute joy to everyone involved.
The thing is, if there were such a thing as natural rights, they would be clear and self evident to all. Therefore the discussion of natural rights would never need to take place because we would all know them by instinct.
No. By that argument, you could just as well say, "if there were such a thing as natural laws, they would be clear and self-evident to all." Yet it takes a continual process of theory and experiment to discover natural laws, not to mention high-powered mathematics.
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Sure, but at some point you need to send your primitive, rickety-ass ship to the New World, so you know what it looks like, where you can plant colonies, and so you have experience sending ships all the way over there. It would be kind of stupid to send a shipful of colonists to Mars having never sent a manned spacecraft to Mars before. Exploration is always a prerequisite to colonization.
Because we aren't white rhinos. How can you miss something that's so obvious? If the human race doesn't survive, then nobody survives. People are generally in favor of self-preservation, individually and collectively.
If you're willing to pay $500 for an iPhone, it's possible you're willing to pay $100-$200 extortion money to get out of your existing cellular contract early.
It's also bad to use pixie dust and Maxwell's demons as weapons, but the main reason it's a bad idea to use these things as weapons is that we have no idea how to make them.
What you're describing is pantheism, which is specifically rejected by most religious faiths.
That's easy--a scramjet-powered cruise missile. A scramjet is a ramjet that only starts working at very high supersonic speeds, and can theoretically reach even escape velocity. It can definitely exceed Mach 10. If you're gonna have trouble defending against a Mach 6 jet, imagine a Mach 10 cruise missile.
Nonsense. Gary Powers and his U-2 spy plane were captured by the Soviet Union because Gary Powers believed in self-preservation. A robot doesn't, and will destroy itself on command.
Before anyone gets wise and thinks we should have a tobacco standard--think again. In Free to Choose, Milton Friedman writes about how one of the Southern states tried that in colonial times. It was a disaster because people started growing even more tobacco, and hyperinflation ensued. The same thing happened with silver when we discovered Nevada--we had a bimetallic standard then, where a dollar was equivalent to x ounces of gold and y ounces of silver. Long story made short, you could actually make money by depositing silver and withdrawing gold on the dollar, which was an absurd monetary policy.
However, it does nothing to protect gold from being devalued from gold rushes, like tobacco and silver were. Of course, gold is not at all protected from deflation, in which it just gains value sitting there gaining zero (or even negative) interest. You might think that's a great thing, but inflation encourages people to spend and lend money. Spending encourages economic growth, of course, but so does lending--if you need a mortgage, or if you're a business needing to borrow money for expansion, having relatively cheap credit helps.
Deflation is worse than inflation. That's why we have inflation--it would be best to have neither, but given the risks involved, it's better to err on the side of inflation. Of course, if you err too much, you have to continually reinvest your money and prices are more confusing, among other things, but at low inflation rates like we have now, it's manageable.
Not that I'm flush with cash, but I've had fewer problems with ING Direct than some people have with physical banks. My primary checking account is US Bank, though.
Back in the day, my dealer only accepted cunnilingus as payment. (Remember to check "post anonymously"!)
You pick up a dollar off the street. Do you report it on your income tax? No? You're a tax evader!
I usually don't like to even double-reply (much less triple-reply), but you're just wrong in so many places it's hard to spot them all at once. Corn farmers ARE on welfare--as I mentioned before, they're given abundant corn subsidies and their competition is disadvantaged by trade barriers. If you can't make a good living even with all that going for you, farming is probably not for you or your area.
You may also know that the green revolution that you blame is also responsible for (as an example) transforming India from a starving, net grain consumer, to a net grain producing country. Read up on Norman Borlaug, the greatest American who ever lived. I think saving a billion people from starvation is worth a few people in North Carolina having to find other jobs, wouldn't you say?
Have you ever considered that maybe it's time for them to find other ways of making a living? When this country was founded, 90% of Americans were farmers. It's now less than 10%. I don't particularly want to hold back technological process and farming efficiency in order to enrich people in an overflooded business--to say nothing of what our farm policies do to farmers in third-world countries, who are artificially unable to compete and are consequently impoverished, not in the North Carolina sense but in the Africa sense.
Ha! I appreciate your sense of humor!
"Hey! Here's how to commit insurance fraud!" is not what I would call a "consumer tip".
I hope you're being ironic. The US corn industry is the richest bunch of corrupt thieves in the country. They put the RIAA and MPAA to shame. Not only do they get government subsidies so they can undercut the world market price, but their competitors are kept out of the US market by tariffs. Ever wonder why "sugar" is spelled "high fructose corn syrup" these days?
You misspelled "bidness".
Fuck that. Most modern cellphones you can set up to block calls from people who aren't in your address book.
We're all the same person?
Bullshit. They still would have had to manufacture spare parts and support the cars--that's the law. And that's expensive resources, especially since GM is a union shop.
I repeat: GM is a union shop. They absolutely could not have paid any mechanic $15/hour off the street to service an EV1.
Allowing for longer ranges is the entire point. Even if 19 out of 20 times you get in your car, you only drive to the grocery store or to work, what about that once a month that you take a trip out of town? Are you going to buy a separate car just for that? Most people aren't that rich, and for those of us who are, it's still wasteful. What does that leave? Trains? Yeah, but if you're in Europe you don't need a car anyway. Airlines? Please. You want to take the short distances you can reach in a day trip while driving, and fly airplanes instead? That'll solve the energy problem, while being an absolute joy to everyone involved.
He said gas, not gasoline. Gasoline is a liquid. Can I get an "informative" moderation now too?
Yeah, but that's true for any sport. All I'm saying is that there's more "raw athletic ability" in American football than in association football.
No. By that argument, you could just as well say, "if there were such a thing as natural laws, they would be clear and self-evident to all." Yet it takes a continual process of theory and experiment to discover natural laws, not to mention high-powered mathematics.