All personal data should be presumed copyrighted by the person it describes (including email and such). And a new law is passed that requires any company that sells personal data is required to keep a record of where that data came from, and any requests to delete that data would be fed upstream to the sources of that data.
Today "privacy" can't work with things like "take me off your list". Because the company that makes the call doesn't "own" the list. They rent it from a company that keeps a master list. The master list company will *never* try to contact a customer directly, because then they'd be responsible for taking someone off the list, when required.
But if the list renter was required by law to pass the removal request to the source of the data, then "take me off your list" would have real teeth. In addition to helping the people who complain and ask to be removed, it would help everyone because it would drive the master list companies out of business. Rent-seeking middle men who profit from arbitrage caused by legal loopholes should never exist.
My superiority to you in this matter is that I know what I don't know and I know better the problems with framing the question. You believe you have the answers and you believe your simplistic question has no flaws in it. This is obviously ignorance on your part.
I have lived under multiple systems. How many countries have you lived in as a permanent resident or citizen?
You seem to be making up a new logical fallacy. The appeal to ignorance. "Since I don't know, you can't know, so the more sure you are, the more that proves you don't know what you are talking about."
I don't need to have a huge in-depth discussion on which top 20% you'd take from every possible medical system. They all simplify to the US or UK systems. Multi-payer with (or without) government subsidy. The single payer with (or without) government subsidy. It is a dichotomy. Unless you can point to a system that is both. Is there such a system, that is both single-payer and multi-payer? If not, then one *must* pick one as a starting point. The question isn't about subsidy, other than pointing out that those who have highly subsidized systems pay less with single payer than multipayer. But it's not a discussion about the level of subsidy, just a point of difference between single payer and multi-payer.
Be more emotionally detached. Don't be such a drama queen. Think the issue through. You're not. And it is poisoning your ability to speak on this issue intelligently.
You sound like someone who deliberately creates drama, just to complain about it. I'm speaking intelligently on the issue, and you refuse to listen because I'm not saying what you want to hear. Then you blame me for you inability to follow along.
You are a lying asshole again. I'm not in England. I never stated where I was. You are being an idiot and making up strawmen. Does it make you feel better? Or do you need to kick more kittens?
You are wrong. You are lying. I didn't strawman you. I stated my opinion. You don't like it, so you ignore it, and whine about some rhetorical games you declare you were playing against me, and that you win because you said "strawman" first. Good for you. You win the Internet. Feel better?
You've decided there is no right answer, so anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong, by definition. You are on a discussion site looking to lecture, and attacking anyone who tries to enter into discussion. That makes you a troll.
I find it amusing that you are so sure that the US system is better than the UK version, despite the US version being more expensive and not having patient metrics supporting any real difference in quality.
But the answer to your question is:
"choice is allowed."
It doesn't need to be more than that. If you give someone the choice, they are free to take it. If their opinion is that NHS sucks, they are free to go elsewhere, even if their opinion is unfounded and factually false.
Some don't want to wait for elective surgery. Others want specific drugs. Third opinions, and other reasons.
There are a wide variety of reasons why someone turns down a perfectly good "free" choice to pay for a second.
Something I've noticed in the UK is they have a lot of imported doctors. People that grew up in India, went to medical school in india, and then immigrate to the UK to practice. I've been to a few UK hospitals and they're largely foreign born. Which implies the salaries being offered are below market rates for the UK.
That suggests that even if the US is over paying for doctors, the UK is likely underpaying.
I don't follow. That there are more "dark" doctors than white means that UK is underpaying? If they were underpaying, and the US is overpaying, why aren't there more "dark" doctors in the US, moving there for the increased pay? There has to be something else at work. Such as the AMA's stranglehold on doctors, trying to artificially limit the number of US doctors to prevent competition. If the doctors in the UK are underpaid, then those moving to the UK should have instead moved to Australia or elsewhere where doctors are paid between the UK and US numbers.
The Universities just adjust the tuition so they take 100 percent of the loan + they take whatever the student or family might be able to afford on top of that.
You mean the states cut education funding to take as much student and federal money possible, with no thought as to how that affects the residents.
If what you said was true, as money for education was easier to get, universities would increase income, as they collect more. But the numbers I've seen indicate the income is stagnant. The source of the income for universities has shifted from state programs to federal programs, but the total income hasn't. This means that the states have given university funding to the feds. If it was the universities being greedy, they'd be making more, not the same or even less.
Cut the mandatory spending. Most of that is just pork now. Cut the military. We have multiple bases open solely because a senior Representative has it in his area. We have a navy that alone could take on most (if not all) of the world, in any location. We don't need to "project power" everywhere in the world. We have military bases in Germany to prevent East Germany from invading West Germany. How's that working out? Or the F-35? Shoulda just bought more of the existing planes, than make a new one that's jack-of-all and master-of-none.
As for health care, we spend more per person of Federal dollars on health care than places with "Free" health care for all pay. So we'd get more and pay less if we abolished Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, and all that, and just went to a single-payer system. About 50% of the cost of health care in the US is profit for private companies. Single payer non-profit would cut health care costs in half the first day.
Though, if I were president, I'd abolish the Air Force, Army, and Marines. Recall all troops and set up the "military" for the sole purpose of defending the territories of the USA. Use the militia as the founders intended. We have more private guns in the US than the Chinese military. If we need to send troops to Iraq, call up the National Guard, and send them.
All we'd really need to do to "make" a few hundred billion dollars, is trim the nuclear arsenal to the ability to destroy the Earth only once.
The question isn't "what do we cut". I could go on for hours on all the ways we could cut costs (and none of them are done with privatization). The question is, will those who lose profits from bad government spending ever allow anyone to change it? That answer is "no" so where to cut doesn't matter.
Jam the radio...in a way that couldn't possibly interfere with other emergency communications?
Since it's illegal for any drones to operate over 4.9 Ghz range, and that's what the first responders are transitioning to, I don't see an issue. Jam the drone frequencies. They are almost all on unlicensed spectrum, so it wouldn't be hard to figure out what they are or how to jam them.
Firemen were only on that poll once, in 2001 (after 9/11) and they topped it. Not sure why they weren't included before or after. Other polls I found were too small or international. Internationally, teachers are more trusted than they are in the US, so they rise up. And medical personnel regularly beat firemen as well. Though firemen are consistently near the top, just about everywhere. The point was that with infinite power, comes little abuse in firemen. Though not so with other professions.
Those who would be firemen are those who should be cops. They want to help others. They have power, but don't want it, and don't abuse it.
Instead, in the US, the people who become cops are the ones that want to abuse power.
More legislation to try and catch the US up with the rest of the world. Here (outside the US), firefighters are "allowed" to commandeer water from wherever necessary to fight a fire. This includes driving a fire truck over a residential fence to drop the intake hose in someone's pool and empty it to fight a fire (though, doing so to a fiberglass pool could cause $50k or more damage). The only exception is that if the owner asks you to stop, and the owner is someone with diplomatic immunity, then the firefighters must leave.
Here, if a fire fighter were to spray a fire with a hose or arial drop, and a drone is hit with water and damaged, then the person who was damaged has no means to claim. He should have been aware of his surroundings and not operated where emergency services needed to be.
In the US, if a fire fighter tramples the roses saving your children, you can sue (not that you'd be likely to win, but you can sue almost anyone for almost any reason). What should be done is to recognize firemen as agents of the state (as they are here) and give them sovereign immunity.
Though, with all that impunighty, the firemen could be in disrepute. Here the number one most trusted profession (above police, doctors, and others) is firemen. Maybe because despite having more power than the police to trespass, they almost never use it. The only time I've heard of the pool being used for water was for rural-ish properties where the pool water was being pumped onto the house owned by the pool owner. Putting out your house with your own water doesn't seem like too bad a deal.
Ownership of anything is just a concept we have invented
Which is unrelated to your initial claim that "All property is imaginary." My shoes are property, and aren't imaginary, thus your opinion is directly contradicted by reality.
Non-commercial infringement [...] is basically a civil offence. But professional copyright infringement [...] can be a criminal matter,
That's unrelated to TFA. "the people creating copies of movies, sometimes before release, and uploading them to be downloaded by thousands upon thousands." So a single user "downloading" a single movie with bittorrent could fall under the 10-year rule. That they don't is your opinion at the moment. It isn't coded into law, or otherwise protected. That's how these laws go. They pass a broad law, stating the goal of stopping screeners and pre-release leaks, but word them to cover everything, so there are no gaps or holes, then apply them to the targeted area, for a year or two, then target anyone using bittorrent.
It harms them to about the same extent as ripping a copyright work with a market of two paying customers so that you sell one copy to a paying customer for your own profit and the legitimate rightsholder then sells only one copy to the second paying customer.
So "lost profit" is the same as robbery. I can just toss you in the "batshit insane" category and ignore you.
Anyway I don't actually see how anybody could make money by selling pirated movies or songs when it they are available easily for free. Unless they are claiming they are not pirated, then of course they are committing fraud anyway.
DVDs in China. Street vendors selling pirated content openly as pirated. Why do people pay? Because you pay (About $0.50 USD equivalent) for it on DVD/CD. The convenience factor of buying a "DVD" of the movie you can walk home and play in any DVD player. Though I worded it as I did because you can end up buying a CD with the movie (a cam or screener version) on CD, not DVD, and rarely are the rips highest quality. Though many are the full-feature DVD with menus and languages, for the same $0.50. Part of the risk is not knowing what you have until too late to do anything about it if you don't like it.
So the shoes I'm wearing aren't there? Or are you saying that ownership is imaginary? Because that's unrelated to the question of the thing being claimed as owned being imaginary.
The people these laws are aimed at aren't "stealing thoughts". They are directly defrauding the rightsholders, and ultimately everyone who works in creative industries and earns their living contributing to these works, of staggering amounts of money.
Either there are no laws against "fraud" in the UK, or this isn't about defrauding anyone. In a sane world, the person making copies, 1 or 10,000, would get a fine of no more than 3x retail value of the loss (that's the US standard for punitive damages), and if they were making a separate transaction of selling the song for profit, that'd be one fraud case per transaction, as they would be presenting themselves as having the "right" to sell that. So those that sell copies can go to jail for fraud, and those that copy with no financial motive could be fined for more than any "loss" they caused the copyright holder.
But that's too sane and logical for the 1%, who want to rain down vengeance on all those who oppose their quest for profit.
I wonder if you'd feel the same way if, say, the person responsible for managing your pension fund took risks they weren't supposed to, lost, and left you with no savings.
That's a form of fraud here. Not sure about the UK.
It's only financial crime and no-one got hurt (directly).
So taking $1 from someone and giving them back $0.50 doesn't harm them in any way? By your logic, muggings don't hurt anyone.
I've never had one. I just know they have a dual-screen function, and Google Play. You are 100% provably wrong.
And if they have Google Play, they also have a window manager that forces every app to run maximized.
Proven wrong. Now that you've moved the goal posts, are you going to revise your hypothesis? Or continue arguing that reality is wrong because it disagrees with your personal opinion?
Seriously though, we need an international law that states that end of life of any object put into orbit must include a plan for it's debris collection and de-orbit into a target zone in the pacific ocean. (it's a big target)
Won't work for GEO. They don't carry enough fuel to de-orbit, and doing so would be cost prohibitive.
If we ever sent up a space elevator, how would we protect it from all our junk? Would we need to clean up the orbits, or could we armor it, or have a point defense system?
It was tested against the "erratic current" received, just not a transition between two independent and unconnected grids. At most, there should be a single phase jump per transition. Are you asserting that a single change of phase has a large chance of frying consumer electronics and starting a fire?
Given nearly everything these days works with 50 Hz, or 60 Hz, I'd be surprised if something designed as a "world" power supply couldn't handle a phase jump. As they are already designed for changing/multiple phases.
The entire GDP? Who came up with that estimate? Or is it 1 year's GDP over 50 or 100 years? That sounds a lot more like 2% of the GDP or something like that.
And the reason to spend the money is the same reason you buy insurance. You aren't sure there will be a loss, but you are better off for having spent the money and "lost" it, than not having spent it and suffering the loss. The issue is then the risk vs cost. And I'm sure you'd say it's a low risk event with expensive insurance.
At the height of lynchings, the numbers were never much above 100 across the whole US. It isn't about killing the Niggers that needed killing, the law still did that. It was about killing some Niggers to prevent the others from getting out of their place. Focusing on the numbers indicates you have no idea what a hate crime is. Think of 9/11. About a month of traffic fatalities died. That's not even worth counting. If the numbers were all that mattered, we should have ignored it. But it's not the numbers that matter, it's also the statement about the hate crime. A Hate Crime is terrorism. No more, no less.
Slashdot Mirror
All personal data should be presumed copyrighted by the person it describes (including email and such). And a new law is passed that requires any company that sells personal data is required to keep a record of where that data came from, and any requests to delete that data would be fed upstream to the sources of that data.
Today "privacy" can't work with things like "take me off your list". Because the company that makes the call doesn't "own" the list. They rent it from a company that keeps a master list. The master list company will *never* try to contact a customer directly, because then they'd be responsible for taking someone off the list, when required.
But if the list renter was required by law to pass the removal request to the source of the data, then "take me off your list" would have real teeth. In addition to helping the people who complain and ask to be removed, it would help everyone because it would drive the master list companies out of business. Rent-seeking middle men who profit from arbitrage caused by legal loopholes should never exist.
My superiority to you in this matter is that I know what I don't know and I know better the problems with framing the question. You believe you have the answers and you believe your simplistic question has no flaws in it. This is obviously ignorance on your part.
I have lived under multiple systems. How many countries have you lived in as a permanent resident or citizen?
You seem to be making up a new logical fallacy. The appeal to ignorance. "Since I don't know, you can't know, so the more sure you are, the more that proves you don't know what you are talking about."
I don't need to have a huge in-depth discussion on which top 20% you'd take from every possible medical system. They all simplify to the US or UK systems. Multi-payer with (or without) government subsidy. The single payer with (or without) government subsidy. It is a dichotomy. Unless you can point to a system that is both. Is there such a system, that is both single-payer and multi-payer? If not, then one *must* pick one as a starting point. The question isn't about subsidy, other than pointing out that those who have highly subsidized systems pay less with single payer than multipayer. But it's not a discussion about the level of subsidy, just a point of difference between single payer and multi-payer.
Be more emotionally detached. Don't be such a drama queen. Think the issue through. You're not. And it is poisoning your ability to speak on this issue intelligently.
You sound like someone who deliberately creates drama, just to complain about it. I'm speaking intelligently on the issue, and you refuse to listen because I'm not saying what you want to hear. Then you blame me for you inability to follow along.
I also compared what you pay your english doctors
You are a lying asshole again. I'm not in England. I never stated where I was. You are being an idiot and making up strawmen. Does it make you feel better? Or do you need to kick more kittens?
You are wrong. You are lying. I didn't strawman you. I stated my opinion. You don't like it, so you ignore it, and whine about some rhetorical games you declare you were playing against me, and that you win because you said "strawman" first. Good for you. You win the Internet. Feel better?
If you deny that, then how do you think the US system rates vs the average of industrialized nations? How about the UK specifically?
So why don't you ask me why I said something I actually said, ehm chump?
I didn't ask you why you said anything. That you imply I did makes you a liar. Quit lying, you lying liar.
You've decided there is no right answer, so anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong, by definition. You are on a discussion site looking to lecture, and attacking anyone who tries to enter into discussion. That makes you a troll.
Why do people go to private doctors in the UK?
I find it amusing that you are so sure that the US system is better than the UK version, despite the US version being more expensive and not having patient metrics supporting any real difference in quality.
But the answer to your question is:
"choice is allowed."
It doesn't need to be more than that. If you give someone the choice, they are free to take it. If their opinion is that NHS sucks, they are free to go elsewhere, even if their opinion is unfounded and factually false.
Some don't want to wait for elective surgery. Others want specific drugs. Third opinions, and other reasons.
There are a wide variety of reasons why someone turns down a perfectly good "free" choice to pay for a second.
Something I've noticed in the UK is they have a lot of imported doctors. People that grew up in India, went to medical school in india, and then immigrate to the UK to practice. I've been to a few UK hospitals and they're largely foreign born. Which implies the salaries being offered are below market rates for the UK.
That suggests that even if the US is over paying for doctors, the UK is likely underpaying.
I don't follow. That there are more "dark" doctors than white means that UK is underpaying? If they were underpaying, and the US is overpaying, why aren't there more "dark" doctors in the US, moving there for the increased pay? There has to be something else at work. Such as the AMA's stranglehold on doctors, trying to artificially limit the number of US doctors to prevent competition. If the doctors in the UK are underpaid, then those moving to the UK should have instead moved to Australia or elsewhere where doctors are paid between the UK and US numbers.
The Universities just adjust the tuition so they take 100 percent of the loan + they take whatever the student or family might be able to afford on top of that.
You mean the states cut education funding to take as much student and federal money possible, with no thought as to how that affects the residents.
If what you said was true, as money for education was easier to get, universities would increase income, as they collect more. But the numbers I've seen indicate the income is stagnant. The source of the income for universities has shifted from state programs to federal programs, but the total income hasn't. This means that the states have given university funding to the feds. If it was the universities being greedy, they'd be making more, not the same or even less.
Cut the mandatory spending. Most of that is just pork now. Cut the military. We have multiple bases open solely because a senior Representative has it in his area. We have a navy that alone could take on most (if not all) of the world, in any location. We don't need to "project power" everywhere in the world. We have military bases in Germany to prevent East Germany from invading West Germany. How's that working out? Or the F-35? Shoulda just bought more of the existing planes, than make a new one that's jack-of-all and master-of-none.
As for health care, we spend more per person of Federal dollars on health care than places with "Free" health care for all pay. So we'd get more and pay less if we abolished Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, and all that, and just went to a single-payer system. About 50% of the cost of health care in the US is profit for private companies. Single payer non-profit would cut health care costs in half the first day.
Though, if I were president, I'd abolish the Air Force, Army, and Marines. Recall all troops and set up the "military" for the sole purpose of defending the territories of the USA. Use the militia as the founders intended. We have more private guns in the US than the Chinese military. If we need to send troops to Iraq, call up the National Guard, and send them.
All we'd really need to do to "make" a few hundred billion dollars, is trim the nuclear arsenal to the ability to destroy the Earth only once.
The question isn't "what do we cut". I could go on for hours on all the ways we could cut costs (and none of them are done with privatization). The question is, will those who lose profits from bad government spending ever allow anyone to change it? That answer is "no" so where to cut doesn't matter.
Jam the radio...in a way that couldn't possibly interfere with other emergency communications?
Since it's illegal for any drones to operate over 4.9 Ghz range, and that's what the first responders are transitioning to, I don't see an issue. Jam the drone frequencies. They are almost all on unlicensed spectrum, so it wouldn't be hard to figure out what they are or how to jam them.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/180...
Firemen were only on that poll once, in 2001 (after 9/11) and they topped it. Not sure why they weren't included before or after. Other polls I found were too small or international. Internationally, teachers are more trusted than they are in the US, so they rise up. And medical personnel regularly beat firemen as well. Though firemen are consistently near the top, just about everywhere. The point was that with infinite power, comes little abuse in firemen. Though not so with other professions.
Those who would be firemen are those who should be cops. They want to help others. They have power, but don't want it, and don't abuse it.
Instead, in the US, the people who become cops are the ones that want to abuse power.
More legislation to try and catch the US up with the rest of the world. Here (outside the US), firefighters are "allowed" to commandeer water from wherever necessary to fight a fire. This includes driving a fire truck over a residential fence to drop the intake hose in someone's pool and empty it to fight a fire (though, doing so to a fiberglass pool could cause $50k or more damage). The only exception is that if the owner asks you to stop, and the owner is someone with diplomatic immunity, then the firefighters must leave.
Here, if a fire fighter were to spray a fire with a hose or arial drop, and a drone is hit with water and damaged, then the person who was damaged has no means to claim. He should have been aware of his surroundings and not operated where emergency services needed to be.
In the US, if a fire fighter tramples the roses saving your children, you can sue (not that you'd be likely to win, but you can sue almost anyone for almost any reason). What should be done is to recognize firemen as agents of the state (as they are here) and give them sovereign immunity.
Though, with all that impunighty, the firemen could be in disrepute. Here the number one most trusted profession (above police, doctors, and others) is firemen. Maybe because despite having more power than the police to trespass, they almost never use it. The only time I've heard of the pool being used for water was for rural-ish properties where the pool water was being pumped onto the house owned by the pool owner. Putting out your house with your own water doesn't seem like too bad a deal.
Ownership of anything is just a concept we have invented
Which is unrelated to your initial claim that "All property is imaginary." My shoes are property, and aren't imaginary, thus your opinion is directly contradicted by reality.
Non-commercial infringement [...] is basically a civil offence. But professional copyright infringement [...] can be a criminal matter,
That's unrelated to TFA. "the people creating copies of movies, sometimes before release, and uploading them to be downloaded by thousands upon thousands." So a single user "downloading" a single movie with bittorrent could fall under the 10-year rule. That they don't is your opinion at the moment. It isn't coded into law, or otherwise protected. That's how these laws go. They pass a broad law, stating the goal of stopping screeners and pre-release leaks, but word them to cover everything, so there are no gaps or holes, then apply them to the targeted area, for a year or two, then target anyone using bittorrent.
It harms them to about the same extent as ripping a copyright work with a market of two paying customers so that you sell one copy to a paying customer for your own profit and the legitimate rightsholder then sells only one copy to the second paying customer.
So "lost profit" is the same as robbery. I can just toss you in the "batshit insane" category and ignore you.
Anyway I don't actually see how anybody could make money by selling pirated movies or songs when it they are available easily for free. Unless they are claiming they are not pirated, then of course they are committing fraud anyway.
DVDs in China. Street vendors selling pirated content openly as pirated. Why do people pay? Because you pay (About $0.50 USD equivalent) for it on DVD/CD. The convenience factor of buying a "DVD" of the movie you can walk home and play in any DVD player. Though I worded it as I did because you can end up buying a CD with the movie (a cam or screener version) on CD, not DVD, and rarely are the rips highest quality. Though many are the full-feature DVD with menus and languages, for the same $0.50. Part of the risk is not knowing what you have until too late to do anything about it if you don't like it.
All property is imaginary.
So the shoes I'm wearing aren't there? Or are you saying that ownership is imaginary? Because that's unrelated to the question of the thing being claimed as owned being imaginary.
The people these laws are aimed at aren't "stealing thoughts". They are directly defrauding the rightsholders, and ultimately everyone who works in creative industries and earns their living contributing to these works, of staggering amounts of money.
Either there are no laws against "fraud" in the UK, or this isn't about defrauding anyone. In a sane world, the person making copies, 1 or 10,000, would get a fine of no more than 3x retail value of the loss (that's the US standard for punitive damages), and if they were making a separate transaction of selling the song for profit, that'd be one fraud case per transaction, as they would be presenting themselves as having the "right" to sell that. So those that sell copies can go to jail for fraud, and those that copy with no financial motive could be fined for more than any "loss" they caused the copyright holder.
But that's too sane and logical for the 1%, who want to rain down vengeance on all those who oppose their quest for profit.
I wonder if you'd feel the same way if, say, the person responsible for managing your pension fund took risks they weren't supposed to, lost, and left you with no savings.
That's a form of fraud here. Not sure about the UK.
It's only financial crime and no-one got hurt (directly).
So taking $1 from someone and giving them back $0.50 doesn't harm them in any way? By your logic, muggings don't hurt anyone.
I've never had one. I just know they have a dual-screen function, and Google Play. You are 100% provably wrong.
And if they have Google Play, they also have a window manager that forces every app to run maximized.
Proven wrong. Now that you've moved the goal posts, are you going to revise your hypothesis? Or continue arguing that reality is wrong because it disagrees with your personal opinion?
Are these non-Google Play devices?
Like the Samsung Galaxy Note that comes with split screen and Google Play?
Taking notes on a document requires being able to split the screen,
Like on the Samsung Galaxy Note, which comes with Google Play?
Seriously though, we need an international law that states that end of life of any object put into orbit must include a plan for it's debris collection and de-orbit into a target zone in the pacific ocean. (it's a big target)
Won't work for GEO. They don't carry enough fuel to de-orbit, and doing so would be cost prohibitive.
If we ever sent up a space elevator, how would we protect it from all our junk? Would we need to clean up the orbits, or could we armor it, or have a point defense system?
Kessler syndrome indicates that if they wait for a couple large impacts, it could be too late.
It was tested against the "erratic current" received, just not a transition between two independent and unconnected grids. At most, there should be a single phase jump per transition. Are you asserting that a single change of phase has a large chance of frying consumer electronics and starting a fire?
Given nearly everything these days works with 50 Hz, or 60 Hz, I'd be surprised if something designed as a "world" power supply couldn't handle a phase jump. As they are already designed for changing/multiple phases.
Why are people banned by law from doing things at their own risk?
Can you imagine solar irradiance falling by 60% over 30 years?
If we are here to see that happen, it'll be too late to out-run the supernova that follows (unless we have FTL by then).
The entire GDP? Who came up with that estimate? Or is it 1 year's GDP over 50 or 100 years? That sounds a lot more like 2% of the GDP or something like that.
And the reason to spend the money is the same reason you buy insurance. You aren't sure there will be a loss, but you are better off for having spent the money and "lost" it, than not having spent it and suffering the loss. The issue is then the risk vs cost. And I'm sure you'd say it's a low risk event with expensive insurance.
At the height of lynchings, the numbers were never much above 100 across the whole US. It isn't about killing the Niggers that needed killing, the law still did that. It was about killing some Niggers to prevent the others from getting out of their place. Focusing on the numbers indicates you have no idea what a hate crime is. Think of 9/11. About a month of traffic fatalities died. That's not even worth counting. If the numbers were all that mattered, we should have ignored it. But it's not the numbers that matter, it's also the statement about the hate crime. A Hate Crime is terrorism. No more, no less.