Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission. But actually they do. In Germany coal planets get decomissioned because they can no longer compete.
The reason that coal is not competitive in Germany is because the playing field is severely tilted in favor of wind (wind power gets a premium price that is, IIRC, funded by fossil, and also has priority in the grid. If there is renewable available, the fossil plans have to spin down). That climate makes it absolutely uneconomical to run a large powerplant that is slow to respond to changes in supply and demand.
Please note that I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing (though some of my German colleagues think the situation is untenable for various reasons), but your argument above is not nearly as simple as you frame it.
The costs associated with jail/prison phone calls are ridiculous, and NO ONE has had any incentive to change that. The institutions get a cut, politicians don't want to me "soft on crime" and the net result is that a literally captive market, which has minimal to no resources, gets screwed into the ground.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of the FCC, but good job on their part.
But they're practically identical, the.40 being only a hair larger than 9mm. Not much of a change.
"A hair larger" may be true if you're simply looking at diameters (~1mm different), and that both rounds, using modern JHPs, will probably expand to the same diameter in the end. However, your standard.40 round (180 grain) has more than 50% more mass than your standard 9mm round (115 grain). Given that both rounds have roughly the same energy at he muzzle, this means that the.40 is more likely to expend all of its energy on the target, rather than exiting it.
TL;DR: To steal a line from the car guys, "there's no replacement for displacement."
Short of innovations like those Glock brought to the table over three decades ago, the semi automatic pistol has not changed much in the last century, and the previous standard service pistol of the US military served for almost three quarters of a century (and STILL is the preferred sidearm of those who kill people and break things for a living). The standard issue rifle has been so for more than half a century.
30 years does not seem especially long for something like this.
I respect your opinion on the subject, but I think you're entirely sidestepping my points and focusing on my specific situation. Regardless of whether or not IT has merit (and as I noted above, my preference would be to NOT litigate) the opposite case (your neighbor just sued you), along with the asymmetrical case (deep pockets vs homeowner) remains valid.
In the former case, YOU just got sued. Short of giving something up (which may or may not be just) you're on the hook for costs if you lose. You have a HUGE disincentive to defend yourself, and a huge incentive to capitulate, at least in part. In the latter case, deep pocket defendants become lawsuit proof unless the case is a slam dunk.
I'm personally not a fan of Solomonic justice--disastrous consequences as an incentive to settle is something to be avoided, not encouraged.
First off, thanks for the advice: we're looking at those solutions, and others, before pursuing any legal action. This isn't due to cost (though of course it's a concern) but because, hey, who wants to sue their neighbors?
That said, I think you went off on the tangent of looking at my specific issue, rather than the overall point i was making. I'll reverse my example: I'm the neighbor, I enjoy (lawfully) shooting on my property, and the asshole next door is making a stink about it. He's threatened to sue me. I believe I'm completely within my rights to do what I am doing, but the issue is gray enough that a jury could go either way. "Loser pays" means maybe I cave in, even though from my perspective, I should win on the merits.
If the goal is to reduce the workload on the courts, you've succeeded. If the goal is to make the system more equitable, you've failed miserably. Both I and my neighbor may be denied access to the courts due to a chilling effect (me because I probably do not file, him because he probably caves. In the end, the less rational of us will probably win the issue, since the consequences are diminished in place of the desire to "win."). Further, in my other example (Pig Plant, Inc), defending that lawsuit is just the cost of doing business, and their pockets are deep enough that even if they lose, it's no big deal (as opposed to the financial ruin it would mean to the homeowner).
In the context of medical malpractice, change the examples above to: I believe you killed my mother due to your negligence, while you maintain you were not negligent and did everything you could to save her life. Sorting out the facts is the job of a jury, and "loser pays" means we probably won't see one. There is no justice to be had here.
I think you and I are like mind on the general state of the legal profession, so I will not comment on your second point. However:
I'm not so sure it would curtail all that many cases with obvious merit. The judgments would still be potentially big and if there was enough merit in the case the draw would be strong to get to trial. What would happen is lawyers would be more selective about the cases they took on contingency and those they didn't. If you have a good case, they will take you, but if your case is not that good, they might be more apt to not take the chance on you. If you want to pay up front and assume the risks, they will be happy to take you. Nobody is prevented from taking a case to court if that's what they want to do.
Contingency wouldn't change at all--in a "loser pays" system, the attorneys will not be the ones to bear the costs, since as you allude to, the lawyers ALWAYS get paid.
What I am getting at with my statement that "cases with strong merit would not get heard by a jury" I propose the following example: your neighbor has turned your subdivision into a free fire zone. You do not live inside the city limits, so there is no law preventing him from doing so, but the deed restrictions on your (and, thusly, his) property, while not outright declaring the discharge of firearms to be forbidden, has a clause in it stating that "nuisances" are, in fact, prohibited. You talk to the neighbor to try to curtail the activity, but he disagrees he is in the wrong and maintains that he will continue to engage in this behavior. Your only recourse is civil court, with the goal to get an injunction to prevent the activity.
The above is not hypothetical, but what I am actually going through right now (some might consider it ironic, given my sig and position on the 2nd amendment in general, but I personally see no conflicts). In a loser pays environment, there's no way I go to court with this--the potential downsides are too high, and the issue is gray enough that a jury could go either way. The case DOES have merit, but the chilling effect of loser pays keeps the jury from hearing it.
In my case, legal fees on both sides would probably amount to a couple of thousand dollars, in total. Now imagine a scaled up version of the above--some agribusiness moves in across the street and turns your neighborhood into an uninhabitable wasteland because of the stench of the pig processing they are doing there. They are in violation of no laws (not even EPA regulations). Because you're dealing with $GIANT_AGRIBUSINESS, Inc. legal fees will be not be in the thousands, but in the hundreds of thousands, or even the millions. Because they have brought hundreds of new jobs to the area, the potential jury pool (everyone in the county who doesn't have to live across the street) is heavily biased against you.
Again, your case has merit, but you will never go to court, because the downsides of a loss outweigh the benefits of winning. That's where "loser pays" fails.
The solution to this problem is "Looser pays legal fees"
"Loser pays" would certainly curtail frivolous cases. Unfortunately, it would also severely curtail cases that have strong merit and deserve to be heard by a jury.
Short of complete reform of our legal system, I don't believe there is a good, just solution to the problem short of something like all punitive damages are paid to the state, rather than to the losing party, and possibly something draconian like a cap on legal fees... but both of these have their own problems.
We can feed the world, but we are not giving that a priority.
This is not an environmental problem. Modern farming is EASILY capable of feeding everyone on earth without changing a damn thing. In fact, we probably already produce enough produce (no pun intended) to do so today, again without changing anything on the production side.
The problem is distribution and politics. If you are converting maize into fuel for vehicles, you obviously cannot feed that to a hungry person. In areas with famine, the nations of the world (especially the west, but definitely NOT limited to us) send STAGGERING amounts of relief supplies. However, most of the food ends up not getting into the hands of people who need it because it is diverted for "other" uses, be it by governments or warlords.
So on THAT point, don't blame the economists. Blame humans in general.
The judge, after moving from anti-trust to constitutional law, interpreted the US constitution very strictly. He argued that citizens had no privacy: He meant citizens had no freedoms outside those expressly dictated by the constitution.
Interpreting the constitution strictly would have the opposite result: you would find that the people have many freedoms that are not specifically enumerated, and that the government has no power beyond what is strictly defined. The constitution itself is rather clear on this topic (see amendments nine and ten, which have been cheerfully ignored by the courts for generations. Those in power, on both the left and right, appear to be quite happy with this state of affairs).
This illustrates a common misunderstanding of the constitution. The constitution is not the law of the land. It is a framework that defines what all laws of the united states must abide.
While the spirit of your post has it right, the wording of it leaves a little to be desired The Constitution itself does in fact claim (along with federal laws and treaties) to be the supreme law of the land.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
It's a far better deal than CBO estimate that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will have cost us ~$2.5 trillion by 2017. $60 billion is a drop in the bucket in comparison.
non sequitur (nän sekwdr) noun - a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
IIRC, when Apple talked about paying dividends, they had some plan where they would use (some of) their $100B in cash held outside the US to collateralize a loan that they would use to pay those dividends. When you have such fantastically large sums of money, "not being able to repatriate it," is a soluble problem (unless your business is black market pharmaceuticals).
an embarrassing counter-example to American and western democracy's political claims against communism
I really can't argue anything else in your post, but I can't help but wonder how Cuba was supposed to be an embarrassment vis a vis political systems. Sure, it's easy to make the point that "America can't dislodge this thorn in their side that sits less than 200km from their own shore" but I'm hard pressed to come up with any positive connotations to "our dictatorship is better than your democracy."
The problem with your argument is that man's niche is currently defined as "the entire surface of the world" and we have the ability to visit parrs off the world that are actively hostile to us (deep ocean, the upper atmosphere, etc). Without our intelligence, we would still be living in grasslands and the trees.
The OP claimed to be "libertarian leaning" and not a libertarian, so I'm sure he would agree with you.
I gather from the tone of his post that he sees himself as "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" which tends to fall into the same part of the spectrum as libertarian. I also note that OP is doing a pure economic analysis of the situation and finding it cheaper than what we have today, hence his support.
If I'm putting words into your moth, OP, you have my apologies.
I am NOT going to weigh in on this issue in general, but you may want to reexamine your math. It would cost more than $2.4T per year to give 33% of the population even half of the $4000 number you provided. This is roughly 2/3rds of the federal budget for FY2015, much less "less than our annual military spending."
By what measure do you consider humans to be the dominant species? As the post you responded to said
In evolutionary terms, we're not much of a success; by mass, algae and amoebas are way ahead. We're more populous than monkeys, but then so are mice.
In the comment you are replying to, I stated that I did not find his argument of biomass to be compelling, and defined "dominant" as "the ability to displace any competing organism we choose to."
Thanks very much for the correction re: sentient/sapient, you're entirely correct, and apologies for the error.
Your point about tool use being separate from intelligence is well taken, though I think you probably overstate things a bit. Tool users will obviously enjoy success, but that success is likely fleeting without tool creators in the mix as well. The users are standing on the shoulders of giants, and will be lost once their tools break or otherwise no longer support their ability to thrive in their environment.
That said, no amount of intelligence if going to help you if you lack the ability to make use of it. You can invent the spear, but if you can't throw it, then it's not exactly an advantage (in fact, someone else will likely come along, take away your spear, and skewer you with it, so sum disadvantage). Likewise, no amount of wit is going to give a garden snail the ability to master the garden, no matter how many of his offspring survive--barring some other dramatic change, his line is stuck with the disadvantage of being slow and squishy, and building skyscrapers is not in his species future.
If I combine both of our arguments, I come up with "intelligence and the ability to leverage it" as the key evolutionary advantage. I can live with that, and I'd love to hear the rebuttal from the grandparent poster.
My opinion is that intelligence is in general not a useful evolutionary attribute and the fact we have it is simply dumb luck
While it's not exactly good practice to make sweeping generalizations based on a sample size of one, it seems more than likely that the dominant species on our planet also being the only sentient species (that we're aware of) on that same planet is not coincidental.
I realize that you're making this claim in the context of "success" as "biological mass" but frankly, your chosen measure is less than compelling. Humans do not in any way compete with algae from an evolutionary standpoint. If one wanted to examine the evolutionary success that intelligence brings to the table, it would make a lot more sense to look at competing organisms, rather than pond scum. There is literally nowhere[1] on earth where man cannot displace the local competition, and I don't believe there is any better measure of success than that.
[1] - I've obviously ignored "under the sea" here, since we don't live there (and can't) but our intelligence allows us to visit, and eat just about everything that does live there.
As for unbundling layer 2 & 3 service*, most areas don't do that - I get ALL my phone service, including long distance, from the local phone company. I don't rent the pipes then pay to have water delivered from a different company, nor with the electric company. I view it as an efficiency thing - is the added competition over layer 3 providers going to improve provision of service more than the efficiency of the local cooperative providing everything? Personally, my thought is that the latter will be more efficient.
The phone service thing is your choice. Unbundled long distance has been a thing in the US for decades, so just because you choose to use the ILEC doesn't make it a good example of something "most areas don't do." With regard to water, I don't know anywhere that offers infrastructure + service provider, so score one for you--but for electricity, the state of Texas DOES do things thing way. We're opening a new office in Houston, and we had nine different companies bid to offer us electrical service, all with different rates (and generation types. If you want to pay more for green power, you can actually do that and be sure that it's going to the wind farm or whatever instead of being sleight-of-handed away). All in all, I was fairly impressed by the whole thing, and I think it's a GREAT model for broadband.
The sad thing is we had this model for DSL two decades ago, but the FCC killed it.
You'll be quite happy you posted AC, since you appear to have suffered a major reading comprehension fail: the GP was talking about Longmont, Colorado, where TFA is talking about Salisbury, North Carolina.
I don't know if the claim is true or not (nor do I really care) but righteously calling someone a propaganda spreading cave dweller is really uncalled for in any circumstances, much less when you're doing so from a position of false knowledge.
Slashdot Mirror
Wind and solar will never compete with coal and fission.
But actually they do. In Germany coal planets get decomissioned because they can no longer compete.
The reason that coal is not competitive in Germany is because the playing field is severely tilted in favor of wind (wind power gets a premium price that is, IIRC, funded by fossil, and also has priority in the grid. If there is renewable available, the fossil plans have to spin down). That climate makes it absolutely uneconomical to run a large powerplant that is slow to respond to changes in supply and demand.
Please note that I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad thing (though some of my German colleagues think the situation is untenable for various reasons), but your argument above is not nearly as simple as you frame it.
FTFY. (I think strich is more correct that schlitz, but schlitz sounds better because of the z.)
The down side is that no self-respecting German would ever drink Schlitz.
The costs associated with jail/prison phone calls are ridiculous, and NO ONE has had any incentive to change that. The institutions get a cut, politicians don't want to me "soft on crime" and the net result is that a literally captive market, which has minimal to no resources, gets screwed into the ground.
I'm not the world's biggest fan of the FCC, but good job on their part.
But they're practically identical, the .40 being only a hair larger than 9mm. Not much of a change.
"A hair larger" may be true if you're simply looking at diameters (~1mm different), and that both rounds, using modern JHPs, will probably expand to the same diameter in the end. However, your standard .40 round (180 grain) has more than 50% more mass than your standard 9mm round (115 grain). Given that both rounds have roughly the same energy at he muzzle, this means that the .40 is more likely to expend all of its energy on the target, rather than exiting it.
TL;DR: To steal a line from the car guys, "there's no replacement for displacement."
Short of innovations like those Glock brought to the table over three decades ago, the semi automatic pistol has not changed much in the last century, and the previous standard service pistol of the US military served for almost three quarters of a century (and STILL is the preferred sidearm of those who kill people and break things for a living). The standard issue rifle has been so for more than half a century.
30 years does not seem especially long for something like this.
Are you talking about Kilrathi, Orions, or some other cat species?
I respect your opinion on the subject, but I think you're entirely sidestepping my points and focusing on my specific situation. Regardless of whether or not IT has merit (and as I noted above, my preference would be to NOT litigate) the opposite case (your neighbor just sued you), along with the asymmetrical case (deep pockets vs homeowner) remains valid.
In the former case, YOU just got sued. Short of giving something up (which may or may not be just) you're on the hook for costs if you lose. You have a HUGE disincentive to defend yourself, and a huge incentive to capitulate, at least in part. In the latter case, deep pocket defendants become lawsuit proof unless the case is a slam dunk.
I'm personally not a fan of Solomonic justice--disastrous consequences as an incentive to settle is something to be avoided, not encouraged.
First off, thanks for the advice: we're looking at those solutions, and others, before pursuing any legal action. This isn't due to cost (though of course it's a concern) but because, hey, who wants to sue their neighbors?
That said, I think you went off on the tangent of looking at my specific issue, rather than the overall point i was making. I'll reverse my example: I'm the neighbor, I enjoy (lawfully) shooting on my property, and the asshole next door is making a stink about it. He's threatened to sue me. I believe I'm completely within my rights to do what I am doing, but the issue is gray enough that a jury could go either way. "Loser pays" means maybe I cave in, even though from my perspective, I should win on the merits.
If the goal is to reduce the workload on the courts, you've succeeded. If the goal is to make the system more equitable, you've failed miserably. Both I and my neighbor may be denied access to the courts due to a chilling effect (me because I probably do not file, him because he probably caves. In the end, the less rational of us will probably win the issue, since the consequences are diminished in place of the desire to "win."). Further, in my other example (Pig Plant, Inc), defending that lawsuit is just the cost of doing business, and their pockets are deep enough that even if they lose, it's no big deal (as opposed to the financial ruin it would mean to the homeowner).
In the context of medical malpractice, change the examples above to: I believe you killed my mother due to your negligence, while you maintain you were not negligent and did everything you could to save her life. Sorting out the facts is the job of a jury, and "loser pays" means we probably won't see one. There is no justice to be had here.
I think you and I are like mind on the general state of the legal profession, so I will not comment on your second point. However:
I'm not so sure it would curtail all that many cases with obvious merit. The judgments would still be potentially big and if there was enough merit in the case the draw would be strong to get to trial. What would happen is lawyers would be more selective about the cases they took on contingency and those they didn't. If you have a good case, they will take you, but if your case is not that good, they might be more apt to not take the chance on you. If you want to pay up front and assume the risks, they will be happy to take you. Nobody is prevented from taking a case to court if that's what they want to do.
Contingency wouldn't change at all--in a "loser pays" system, the attorneys will not be the ones to bear the costs, since as you allude to, the lawyers ALWAYS get paid.
What I am getting at with my statement that "cases with strong merit would not get heard by a jury" I propose the following example: your neighbor has turned your subdivision into a free fire zone. You do not live inside the city limits, so there is no law preventing him from doing so, but the deed restrictions on your (and, thusly, his) property, while not outright declaring the discharge of firearms to be forbidden, has a clause in it stating that "nuisances" are, in fact, prohibited. You talk to the neighbor to try to curtail the activity, but he disagrees he is in the wrong and maintains that he will continue to engage in this behavior. Your only recourse is civil court, with the goal to get an injunction to prevent the activity.
The above is not hypothetical, but what I am actually going through right now (some might consider it ironic, given my sig and position on the 2nd amendment in general, but I personally see no conflicts). In a loser pays environment, there's no way I go to court with this--the potential downsides are too high, and the issue is gray enough that a jury could go either way. The case DOES have merit, but the chilling effect of loser pays keeps the jury from hearing it.
In my case, legal fees on both sides would probably amount to a couple of thousand dollars, in total. Now imagine a scaled up version of the above--some agribusiness moves in across the street and turns your neighborhood into an uninhabitable wasteland because of the stench of the pig processing they are doing there. They are in violation of no laws (not even EPA regulations). Because you're dealing with $GIANT_AGRIBUSINESS, Inc. legal fees will be not be in the thousands, but in the hundreds of thousands, or even the millions. Because they have brought hundreds of new jobs to the area, the potential jury pool (everyone in the county who doesn't have to live across the street) is heavily biased against you.
Again, your case has merit, but you will never go to court, because the downsides of a loss outweigh the benefits of winning. That's where "loser pays" fails.
The solution to this problem is "Looser pays legal fees"
"Loser pays" would certainly curtail frivolous cases. Unfortunately, it would also severely curtail cases that have strong merit and deserve to be heard by a jury.
Short of complete reform of our legal system, I don't believe there is a good, just solution to the problem short of something like all punitive damages are paid to the state, rather than to the losing party, and possibly something draconian like a cap on legal fees... but both of these have their own problems.
I imagine that you're totally behind the NSA indexing everything you do? I mean, after all, the 4th amendment says "the people" too.
Or does "the people" only mean what it plainly says when you happen to agree with the right in question?
We can feed the world, but we are not giving that a priority.
This is not an environmental problem. Modern farming is EASILY capable of feeding everyone on earth without changing a damn thing. In fact, we probably already produce enough produce (no pun intended) to do so today, again without changing anything on the production side.
The problem is distribution and politics. If you are converting maize into fuel for vehicles, you obviously cannot feed that to a hungry person. In areas with famine, the nations of the world (especially the west, but definitely NOT limited to us) send STAGGERING amounts of relief supplies. However, most of the food ends up not getting into the hands of people who need it because it is diverted for "other" uses, be it by governments or warlords.
So on THAT point, don't blame the economists. Blame humans in general.
The judge, after moving from anti-trust to constitutional law, interpreted the US constitution very strictly. He argued that citizens had no privacy: He meant citizens had no freedoms outside those expressly dictated by the constitution.
Interpreting the constitution strictly would have the opposite result: you would find that the people have many freedoms that are not specifically enumerated, and that the government has no power beyond what is strictly defined. The constitution itself is rather clear on this topic (see amendments nine and ten, which have been cheerfully ignored by the courts for generations. Those in power, on both the left and right, appear to be quite happy with this state of affairs).
This illustrates a common misunderstanding of the constitution.
The constitution is not the law of the land. It is a framework that defines what all laws of the united states must abide.
While the spirit of your post has it right, the wording of it leaves a little to be desired The Constitution itself does in fact claim (along with federal laws and treaties) to be the supreme law of the land.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.
It's a far better deal than CBO estimate that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will have cost us ~$2.5 trillion by 2017. $60 billion is a drop in the bucket in comparison.
non sequitur (nän sekwdr)
noun - a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
IIRC, when Apple talked about paying dividends, they had some plan where they would use (some of) their $100B in cash held outside the US to collateralize a loan that they would use to pay those dividends. When you have such fantastically large sums of money, "not being able to repatriate it," is a soluble problem (unless your business is black market pharmaceuticals).
an embarrassing counter-example to American and western democracy's political claims against communism
I really can't argue anything else in your post, but I can't help but wonder how Cuba was supposed to be an embarrassment vis a vis political systems. Sure, it's easy to make the point that "America can't dislodge this thorn in their side that sits less than 200km from their own shore" but I'm hard pressed to come up with any positive connotations to "our dictatorship is better than your democracy."
The problem with your argument is that man's niche is currently defined as "the entire surface of the world" and we have the ability to visit parrs off the world that are actively hostile to us (deep ocean, the upper atmosphere, etc). Without our intelligence, we would still be living in grasslands and the trees.
The OP claimed to be "libertarian leaning" and not a libertarian, so I'm sure he would agree with you.
I gather from the tone of his post that he sees himself as "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" which tends to fall into the same part of the spectrum as libertarian. I also note that OP is doing a pure economic analysis of the situation and finding it cheaper than what we have today, hence his support.
If I'm putting words into your moth, OP, you have my apologies.
I am NOT going to weigh in on this issue in general, but you may want to reexamine your math. It would cost more than $2.4T per year to give 33% of the population even half of the $4000 number you provided. This is roughly 2/3rds of the federal budget for FY2015, much less "less than our annual military spending."
By what measure do you consider humans to be the dominant species? As the post you responded to said
In evolutionary terms, we're not much of a success; by mass, algae and amoebas are way ahead. We're more populous than monkeys, but then so are mice.
In the comment you are replying to, I stated that I did not find his argument of biomass to be compelling, and defined "dominant" as "the ability to displace any competing organism we choose to."
Thanks very much for the correction re: sentient/sapient, you're entirely correct, and apologies for the error.
Your point about tool use being separate from intelligence is well taken, though I think you probably overstate things a bit. Tool users will obviously enjoy success, but that success is likely fleeting without tool creators in the mix as well. The users are standing on the shoulders of giants, and will be lost once their tools break or otherwise no longer support their ability to thrive in their environment.
That said, no amount of intelligence if going to help you if you lack the ability to make use of it. You can invent the spear, but if you can't throw it, then it's not exactly an advantage (in fact, someone else will likely come along, take away your spear, and skewer you with it, so sum disadvantage). Likewise, no amount of wit is going to give a garden snail the ability to master the garden, no matter how many of his offspring survive--barring some other dramatic change, his line is stuck with the disadvantage of being slow and squishy, and building skyscrapers is not in his species future.
If I combine both of our arguments, I come up with "intelligence and the ability to leverage it" as the key evolutionary advantage. I can live with that, and I'd love to hear the rebuttal from the grandparent poster.
My opinion is that intelligence is in general not a useful evolutionary attribute and the fact we have it is simply dumb luck
While it's not exactly good practice to make sweeping generalizations based on a sample size of one, it seems more than likely that the dominant species on our planet also being the only sentient species (that we're aware of) on that same planet is not coincidental.
I realize that you're making this claim in the context of "success" as "biological mass" but frankly, your chosen measure is less than compelling. Humans do not in any way compete with algae from an evolutionary standpoint. If one wanted to examine the evolutionary success that intelligence brings to the table, it would make a lot more sense to look at competing organisms, rather than pond scum. There is literally nowhere[1] on earth where man cannot displace the local competition, and I don't believe there is any better measure of success than that.
[1] - I've obviously ignored "under the sea" here, since we don't live there (and can't) but our intelligence allows us to visit, and eat just about everything that does live there.
As for unbundling layer 2 & 3 service*, most areas don't do that - I get ALL my phone service, including long distance, from the local phone company. I don't rent the pipes then pay to have water delivered from a different company, nor with the electric company. I view it as an efficiency thing - is the added competition over layer 3 providers going to improve provision of service more than the efficiency of the local cooperative providing everything? Personally, my thought is that the latter will be more efficient.
The phone service thing is your choice. Unbundled long distance has been a thing in the US for decades, so just because you choose to use the ILEC doesn't make it a good example of something "most areas don't do." With regard to water, I don't know anywhere that offers infrastructure + service provider, so score one for you--but for electricity, the state of Texas DOES do things thing way. We're opening a new office in Houston, and we had nine different companies bid to offer us electrical service, all with different rates (and generation types. If you want to pay more for green power, you can actually do that and be sure that it's going to the wind farm or whatever instead of being sleight-of-handed away). All in all, I was fairly impressed by the whole thing, and I think it's a GREAT model for broadband.
The sad thing is we had this model for DSL two decades ago, but the FCC killed it.
You'll be quite happy you posted AC, since you appear to have suffered a major reading comprehension fail: the GP was talking about Longmont, Colorado, where TFA is talking about Salisbury, North Carolina.
I don't know if the claim is true or not (nor do I really care) but righteously calling someone a propaganda spreading cave dweller is really uncalled for in any circumstances, much less when you're doing so from a position of false knowledge.
.