Consumption without production means you're printing money somewhere. That can only lead to inflation and eventual collapse.
Consumption without production leads to prices rising which leads to companies increasing their production capabilities which leads them to hiring more people. You can't run a market economy if you're afraid of prices fluctuating, since it's that fluctuation which guides production.
On p. 14, "Cutting the front trunk first responder loop", it shows how to disable the high voltage. Under the hood there is a coiled loop of red wire with a big bright orange label with a picture of wire cutters. You cut the red wire.
Could this be done automatically, either through an accelerometer or just tying a weight to the wire? It's not like the car is going anywhere anyway after experiencing 200+g's.
Like everything new, it's initially a luxury that few can afford, but it's in society's interest to bring the technology to everyone.
It might be in society's interests to augment everyone, but is it it in the one percent's interests to let the plebs catch up, especially if machines do most work? Our society is not big on common good, after all.
The UK is ~14% of the total GDP of the EU (second largest in the EU): it dropping out without replacing the existing trade deals would be a massive economic blow to the EU.
How much of that is banks and such which will simply leave the UK to stay in the EU?
Governments are pushing socialism more than helping create jobs.
How could a government possibly "help create jobs" without messing with economy in far more involved ways than merely distributing money?
This is a disturbing trend that portends an ever growing underclass that has little opportunity to advance in life.
We have such underclass right now, made of people who capitalism judges to have little economic value. Having internalized the values of the system they're embedded in, they stay relatively peaceful - for now. But it's just a matter of time before either socialism returns in full force or some new ideology comes along and offers them hope of a better tomorrow which capitalism can't.
But even if the economy miraculously recovered overnight capitalism is still doomed for the simple reason that the world - or at least the developed nations - are moving from industrial to information economy, and information is not naturally scarce so property rights are a poor fit to it. Just take a look at how miserably all of Hollywood's bought legislation is failing to enforce copyrights to get a glimpse of the future where even the mightiest of megacorps are rendered impotent by nobody much caring about what they want.
I don't think we should be playing God and deciding who and what species deserve to be around.
Deciding people should die for the sake of preserving mosquitoes is also playing God. Once the possibility exists, you can't avoid deciding.
It is quite probable that nature itself is trying to curb our own population growth in some manner.
The closest this planet has to a nervous system is our society. Nature isn't trying to limit us any more than your body is trying to limit you. Some choices might have less than optimal outcomes, but that's no different from you getting a hangover: it's not that your body is trying to stop you from drinking, it's that it's not working well do to your actions.
If you wish to mystify this, then karma is a better framework than vengeful nature deity.
Imagine how amazing it will be once the first company is able to use a rocket to launch a satellite!
It was a huge step forward, just like the first country launching one was before. We're currently at the point where even our lower aristocracy can afford a trip to space, and seem to be moving towards Joe Average vacationing there in my lifetime.
And then once they have accomplished that, maybe they can go to Mars. Or even better, another star!
Well, yes. That's what we're moving towards. However, it'll probably take a few hundred years to colonize our own solar system and get used to not being planetbound before making a serious effort to venture forward.
But by all means, tell us where you think the virtuous circle of falling launch costs, more people who can afford them, and more money going towards developing space technology and infrastructure further are going to lead?
Mainly because Star Trek needed to cripple its future to keep its main characters and their challenges recognizable to the audience. Thus things like cyborgs, sapient supercomputers and genetic engineering were reserved for enemies. On the other hand, we have little reason to self-limit ourselves to what natural selection came up with, so why would a thousand-year journey be any more of a problem for our descendants than morning commute is for us?
But the laws of physics make visits from flesh and blood aliens highly unlikely.
I suspect becoming a truly spacefaring species means the ability to alter your flesh and blood to forms more suitable to space and alien environments at will, for example through mind uploading. There are potential additional benefits as well, such as intelligence boost or true multitasking.
Since Europe has not produced any technology firms to compete with US tech companies they are left with shaking down profitable US companies. It's amazing the morons in EU\EC think they can harass US companies and not evoke a response from the US.
And what response would be appropriate for the EU shutting down a tax haven a US company was using to avoid US taxes? A "thank you" note?
Not that Apple is really a US company. It's an international company with zero loyalty to anyone. It deserves none in return.
How about we withdraw from NATO and let Germany worry about Russia on their own?
That will end up with the return of either the Nazis - this time with nukes - or the Soviet Union or, in the absolute best case, EU turning into a real federation which will be the new #1 superpower on the planet.
You don't get paid what a CEO does because you don't do a CEO's job. You don't have a CEO's level of risk.
What risk? If the company does well the CEO gets a bonus, if it does badly the CEO gets a golden parachute and a new job from his friends in other companies.
You don't get paid what a CEO does because the CEO belongs to the ruling class and you don't.
No one starves to death in Scandinavia, unless they deliberately starve themselves.
At least here in Finland the welfare state is being dismantled for the sake of right-wing ideology. So we're going in the exact wrong direction, if a non-dystopian automated future is the goal.
Multiculturalism always fails and has in every society on Earth.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Every succesful society on Earth thus far from the Roman Empire to the United States has been multicultural, simply because being a succesful society involves more people and geographic area than it's possible to keep monocultural.
And for all the samizdat activity in the old S.U., what ultimately undid them were blue jeans. Or more precisely, lack of consumer goods.
No, not really. Soviet Union didn't fall to a popular uprising, after all. What did it in was the inability to change, grow and adapt caused by a system hell-bent on maintaining the status quo at all costs. Censorship was a means to enforce that by essentially lobotomizing the public and thus wasting their creative potential, but the same can be achieved in other ways - for example by blaming all problems on suitable scapegoats like immigrants rather than the system's own failures, thus preventing them from being corrected.
I wish the world could be rid of game streamers, who upload hours and hours of mind-numbingly boring gameplay with their ugly mugs superimposed in the corners.
If only you could watch some other video instead or go do something else, like shitpost on Slashdot about other people having hobbies you find boring.
College bans all alcohol everywhere on campus - caught with as much as a nip bottle anywhere, automatic expulsion.
That is not in the best interests of colleges, students, or the surrounding society. As the War on Drugs shows, draconian punishments don't do anything but victimize people needlessly.
Students learn responsible behavior, cause it is reinforced.
Or they simply go outside the campus to drink, and endanger both themselves and innocent bystanders on their way back.
But suppose it worked. What do you think happens when someone who only behaved "responsibly" because they were forced to by authority figures graduates and realizes that "Hey, I can drink as much as I want now that I'm free!"? Why, the exact same thing that now happens when kids leave their parents to go to college. Why? Because, like it or not, drunken debauchery is part of being a human being.
Why advertise that which your product shares with your competition? You emphasize it's advantages.
Being loaded with crapware and nonstandard UI is hardly an advantage, at least for the consumer. What you're seeing is a desperate attempt to fight against smartphones becoming mass-market products with low brand loyalty and thus low profit margins.
Sounds like Palo Alto wants to remain a suburban wasteland.
Or maybe Palo Alto doesn't want to go the way of Detroit when software industry collapses, as any industry eventually will. Manufacturing stuff, physical or intangible, for export is lucrative but means your destiny is dependent on things beyond your control. Having most money circulate locally isn't as profitable but a lot safer.
Why not tell them to grow up instead of indulging their ongoing foolishness?
Because lying marketers are a bigger problem to me than tantruming netizens, both because the latter are easier to filter out and because economy can't really work without the former because nobody can buy your product if they don't know it exists, no matter how useful it might be for them, thus logic dictates I side with the latter.
Also, having to keep your guard up at all times least some predatory asshole takes advantage of you is a miserable and wasteful way to live. Humanity has a habit of driving anything that preys on us into extinction or as close as possible where ever we go; why break with that tradition with those of us who choose to prey on their own species?
Twitter could have been the proverbial "marketplace of ideas", where people can offer their point of view and by approval and disapproval
It sounds like you had an interesting and considered point to make. Sadly, since you're limited to 140 characters, it got cut off. Better have simpler ideas, ones easily reducible to soundbytes, if you want to market them on Twitter.
Twitter is awful as a marketplace of ideas, is what I'm saying. Forums like Slashdot itself are far better alternatives.
the true opinions of people visiting, unblemished and unencumbered by peer pressure, due to the general anonymity of the medium
A pseudonymous platform isn't immune to peer pressure because it allows karma whoring. Not even truly anonymous platforms like the *chans are immune, because there's an instinctual need to conform and thus peer pressure exists even without any consequences to anything you say or do.
Yes, that does mean that you get to see the radical and even the mean side of society, but if that is what you see, this is what we are.
And it turns out being mean has consequences, such as being shunned or even thrown out. This, too, is what we are. The important question is whether we should be either mean or censorship-happy.
When you release something into the world, you should really understand people.
You should, but "some idiot might try to change batteries while driving" is not a kind of thing you can reasonably protect against.
More generally, at some point safety features will actually make things less safe. For example, forklifts have to sound alarm while backing. Good idea if there were always just one, but if you have many of them working in the same warehouse the resulting cacophony masks other sounds - such as the tire noise of the forklift that's about to drive over you.
Slashdot Mirror
Consumption without production leads to prices rising which leads to companies increasing their production capabilities which leads them to hiring more people. You can't run a market economy if you're afraid of prices fluctuating, since it's that fluctuation which guides production.
Could this be done automatically, either through an accelerometer or just tying a weight to the wire? It's not like the car is going anywhere anyway after experiencing 200+g's.
It might be in society's interests to augment everyone, but is it it in the one percent's interests to let the plebs catch up, especially if machines do most work? Our society is not big on common good, after all.
How much of that is banks and such which will simply leave the UK to stay in the EU?
How could a government possibly "help create jobs" without messing with economy in far more involved ways than merely distributing money?
We have such underclass right now, made of people who capitalism judges to have little economic value. Having internalized the values of the system they're embedded in, they stay relatively peaceful - for now. But it's just a matter of time before either socialism returns in full force or some new ideology comes along and offers them hope of a better tomorrow which capitalism can't.
But even if the economy miraculously recovered overnight capitalism is still doomed for the simple reason that the world - or at least the developed nations - are moving from industrial to information economy, and information is not naturally scarce so property rights are a poor fit to it. Just take a look at how miserably all of Hollywood's bought legislation is failing to enforce copyrights to get a glimpse of the future where even the mightiest of megacorps are rendered impotent by nobody much caring about what they want.
Deciding people should die for the sake of preserving mosquitoes is also playing God. Once the possibility exists, you can't avoid deciding.
The closest this planet has to a nervous system is our society. Nature isn't trying to limit us any more than your body is trying to limit you. Some choices might have less than optimal outcomes, but that's no different from you getting a hangover: it's not that your body is trying to stop you from drinking, it's that it's not working well do to your actions.
If you wish to mystify this, then karma is a better framework than vengeful nature deity.
It was a huge step forward, just like the first country launching one was before. We're currently at the point where even our lower aristocracy can afford a trip to space, and seem to be moving towards Joe Average vacationing there in my lifetime.
Well, yes. That's what we're moving towards. However, it'll probably take a few hundred years to colonize our own solar system and get used to not being planetbound before making a serious effort to venture forward.
But by all means, tell us where you think the virtuous circle of falling launch costs, more people who can afford them, and more money going towards developing space technology and infrastructure further are going to lead?
Mainly because Star Trek needed to cripple its future to keep its main characters and their challenges recognizable to the audience. Thus things like cyborgs, sapient supercomputers and genetic engineering were reserved for enemies. On the other hand, we have little reason to self-limit ourselves to what natural selection came up with, so why would a thousand-year journey be any more of a problem for our descendants than morning commute is for us?
I suspect becoming a truly spacefaring species means the ability to alter your flesh and blood to forms more suitable to space and alien environments at will, for example through mind uploading. There are potential additional benefits as well, such as intelligence boost or true multitasking.
And what response would be appropriate for the EU shutting down a tax haven a US company was using to avoid US taxes? A "thank you" note?
Not that Apple is really a US company. It's an international company with zero loyalty to anyone. It deserves none in return.
That will end up with the return of either the Nazis - this time with nukes - or the Soviet Union or, in the absolute best case, EU turning into a real federation which will be the new #1 superpower on the planet.
What risk? If the company does well the CEO gets a bonus, if it does badly the CEO gets a golden parachute and a new job from his friends in other companies.
You don't get paid what a CEO does because the CEO belongs to the ruling class and you don't.
Pitchforks are hardly a match for Terminators. Security can be automated, just like everything else.
Of course, everyone but the plutocrats dying off is also a possible outcome.
At least here in Finland the welfare state is being dismantled for the sake of right-wing ideology. So we're going in the exact wrong direction, if a non-dystopian automated future is the goal.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Every succesful society on Earth thus far from the Roman Empire to the United States has been multicultural, simply because being a succesful society involves more people and geographic area than it's possible to keep monocultural.
No, not really. Soviet Union didn't fall to a popular uprising, after all. What did it in was the inability to change, grow and adapt caused by a system hell-bent on maintaining the status quo at all costs. Censorship was a means to enforce that by essentially lobotomizing the public and thus wasting their creative potential, but the same can be achieved in other ways - for example by blaming all problems on suitable scapegoats like immigrants rather than the system's own failures, thus preventing them from being corrected.
If only you could watch some other video instead or go do something else, like shitpost on Slashdot about other people having hobbies you find boring.
Would you expect either the Saudis or China to put up with birthers or 9/11 truthers - or, for that matter, you?
That is not in the best interests of colleges, students, or the surrounding society. As the War on Drugs shows, draconian punishments don't do anything but victimize people needlessly.
Or they simply go outside the campus to drink, and endanger both themselves and innocent bystanders on their way back.
But suppose it worked. What do you think happens when someone who only behaved "responsibly" because they were forced to by authority figures graduates and realizes that "Hey, I can drink as much as I want now that I'm free!"? Why, the exact same thing that now happens when kids leave their parents to go to college. Why? Because, like it or not, drunken debauchery is part of being a human being.
Being loaded with crapware and nonstandard UI is hardly an advantage, at least for the consumer. What you're seeing is a desperate attempt to fight against smartphones becoming mass-market products with low brand loyalty and thus low profit margins.
Or maybe Palo Alto doesn't want to go the way of Detroit when software industry collapses, as any industry eventually will. Manufacturing stuff, physical or intangible, for export is lucrative but means your destiny is dependent on things beyond your control. Having most money circulate locally isn't as profitable but a lot safer.
Because lying marketers are a bigger problem to me than tantruming netizens, both because the latter are easier to filter out and because economy can't really work without the former because nobody can buy your product if they don't know it exists, no matter how useful it might be for them, thus logic dictates I side with the latter.
Also, having to keep your guard up at all times least some predatory asshole takes advantage of you is a miserable and wasteful way to live. Humanity has a habit of driving anything that preys on us into extinction or as close as possible where ever we go; why break with that tradition with those of us who choose to prey on their own species?
Have you tried Space Engine? It's pure exploration with no game elements, be that a plus or minus for you, and is free.
It sounds like you had an interesting and considered point to make. Sadly, since you're limited to 140 characters, it got cut off. Better have simpler ideas, ones easily reducible to soundbytes, if you want to market them on Twitter.
Twitter is awful as a marketplace of ideas, is what I'm saying. Forums like Slashdot itself are far better alternatives.
A pseudonymous platform isn't immune to peer pressure because it allows karma whoring. Not even truly anonymous platforms like the *chans are immune, because there's an instinctual need to conform and thus peer pressure exists even without any consequences to anything you say or do.
And it turns out being mean has consequences, such as being shunned or even thrown out. This, too, is what we are. The important question is whether we should be either mean or censorship-happy.
You should, but "some idiot might try to change batteries while driving" is not a kind of thing you can reasonably protect against.
More generally, at some point safety features will actually make things less safe. For example, forklifts have to sound alarm while backing. Good idea if there were always just one, but if you have many of them working in the same warehouse the resulting cacophony masks other sounds - such as the tire noise of the forklift that's about to drive over you.