I can't help but wonder whether all those predictions are really actionable.
It depends on the action.
By far the most effective changes so far have been because of technological progress: Fracking (gas emits half the CO2 as coal), LED lighting, more efficient solar panels, bigger & better wind turbines, electric vehicles, better batteries, etc.
So if the "action" is more scientific progress, then sure, that makes sense.
If the "action" is to spend even more on scientific research, and engineering R&D, that likely makes sense as well.
If the"action" is some enormous and expensive subsidy scheme, we can wait on that.
Coming from Michigan I can tell you that decades of hand outs to the big three didn't keep them from closing factories here in the 70's, 80's, and 90's.
In order to pay those subsidies they had to increase taxes on OTHER businesses, driving them out of the state and hollowing out the economy. So when the Big 3 left, there was nothing else to fall back on.
Their projections show that they will recoup the cost. Past experience shows these projections are usually wildly optimistic.
Tax incentives and subsidies are a Prisoner's Dilemma. Each locale feels obligated to offer incentives because other locales are offering them. But they would be collectively better off if no one offered them. Amazon would still expand, but do so on the basis of business efficiency rather than subsidies. If NYC wants to attract more businesses, they should improve their overall friendliness to commerce, rather than lavishing subsidies on one corporation.
These subsides are a race to the bottom. This is what the Commerce Clause in the US Constitution was designed to prevent. The CC has often been abused, but a federal ban on these subsidies would be a legitimate use, and would be an overall benefit to the country's economy, and a relief to the taxpayers.
The trouble with taking her seriously is that she keeps saying stupid shit.
So did Trump. The Democrats thought they could win just by pointing out his mistakes, while ignoring the concerns of his supporters. They were wrong.
AOC said that being morally correct was more important than being factually correct. A poll of people in her district showed a majority agreed with that statement.
Facts no longer matter in American politics, on either the left or right.
She's a junior representative with no actual power yet you all can't stop talking about her.
She has more twitter followers than any other congressperson, ever. She can get a national audience for anything she has to say. Any talk show would LOVE to have her as a guest. Her influence goes way beyond her single vote in the HR.
The right can't afford to ignore her. They need to stop ridiculing her, and start taking her seriously. She is the champion of a large group of disaffected voters, and pointing out that she is often factually-challenged isn't going to dissuade them any more than it dissuaded Trump supporters.
The left is in even greater peril. Her influence is pulling the Democratic Party out of the Overton Window, and toward electoral suicide. She may be leading the Democratic Party off a cliff.
So by this logic, you're going to stop going to the doctor and taking medicine when you are sick? If you break a leg or get blinded in an accident someone should just dump you in a remote area to go and die?
Nonsense, nobody is saying that we should kill or mistreat stupid people. We are just saying that they should be sterilized.
It was a good commercial, if a bit late to the game.
No it wasn't.
1. "Masculinity" is not the problem. It is lack of masculinity. Boys raised in female headed households, without a strong male role model, are more likely to grow up to be violent and abusive toward women.
2. "Online bullying" is attributed to "toxic masculinity", but is actually almost entirely a female-on-female phenomena.
3. In the commercial, nearly all the "bad" males are white. Nearly all the "good" males are black. Why does race need to used so prominently?
4. A "bad/white" man steps toward a woman, apparently to initiate a conversation. A "good/black" man stops him, because talking to women is toxic. Really?
5. Here's a nice butt photo of some "pit babes" in another Gillette commercial, shamelessly exploiting women's bodies to sell razor blades. They aren't preaching from the moral high ground.
The Anti-Vax Movement is not a left/right issue. Instead, it is correlated with extremism in either direction. Right-wing nutjobs see vaccines as a government conspiracy. Left-wing nutjobs see vaccines as a corporate conspiracy. Moderates on both sides vaccinate their kids.
Increased to the point of functional immunity for all intents and purposes.
This depends on both the disease and the patient.
Some vaccines confer nearly 100% immunity. MMR is 97% effective against measles. The smallpox vaccine was also nearly 100% effective.
Other vaccines are much less effective. Influenza vaccines are estimated to be about 40% effective, and its primary benefit is keeping R0 well below one, so that the disease does not spread through the herd.
Tipping is America is completely different from other countries. It is basically a tax, and has little relation to quality of service. This is, of course, stupid, but that's the way it is, and blaming Amazon for America's tipping culture is silly.
Visitors to America are often confusing by tipping. They expect it to make sense. It doesn't.
... Will Amazon supplement their income to reach the guaranteed minimum income
Yes. They guarantee a minimum income. Income is wages+tips. This is exactly the same as it works in restaurants and other businesses. There is nothing underhanded or sneaky about what Amazon is doing. It is normal business practice.
or will they fire the underperformer?
Probably. If you are not good at a job, you should go find a different job that you are good at.
There is zero evidence that tech workers are more misogynistic. I have worked in several professions, and tech is the least misogynist. Have you ever worked with salesmen, or warehouse workers? They make nerds look like saints.
Not sure you understand how 100% fatality works...
Not sure if you understand that in the real world, no poison is 100% fatal, especially against a widely dispersed and hardy critter like Aedes aegypti. They range across millions of square miles of the tropics, and can breed in an upturned bottle cap.
What they're objecting to, of course, is not the jobs being brought in
It is unlikely many jobs would be created. The limiting factor is housing, and very little new construction is being permitted. The roads can't handle many more commuters, and there are already shortages of labor in the area. So all this facility would do is suck employees from existing businesses.
There would be little net economic benefit, which is another reason that the subsidies and tax giveaways were misguided. They are just replacing many small businesses that pay taxes and contribute to the community with one big business that doesn't.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't help but wonder whether all those predictions are really actionable.
It depends on the action.
By far the most effective changes so far have been because of technological progress: Fracking (gas emits half the CO2 as coal), LED lighting, more efficient solar panels, bigger & better wind turbines, electric vehicles, better batteries, etc.
So if the "action" is more scientific progress, then sure, that makes sense.
If the "action" is to spend even more on scientific research, and engineering R&D, that likely makes sense as well.
If the"action" is some enormous and expensive subsidy scheme, we can wait on that.
Coming from Michigan I can tell you that decades of hand outs to the big three didn't keep them from closing factories here in the 70's, 80's, and 90's.
In order to pay those subsidies they had to increase taxes on OTHER businesses, driving them out of the state and hollowing out the economy. So when the Big 3 left, there was nothing else to fall back on.
Their projections show that they will recoup the cost. Past experience shows these projections are usually wildly optimistic.
Tax incentives and subsidies are a Prisoner's Dilemma. Each locale feels obligated to offer incentives because other locales are offering them. But they would be collectively better off if no one offered them. Amazon would still expand, but do so on the basis of business efficiency rather than subsidies. If NYC wants to attract more businesses, they should improve their overall friendliness to commerce, rather than lavishing subsidies on one corporation.
These subsides are a race to the bottom. This is what the Commerce Clause in the US Constitution was designed to prevent. The CC has often been abused, but a federal ban on these subsidies would be a legitimate use, and would be an overall benefit to the country's economy, and a relief to the taxpayers.
This sounds like a new type of syntactic foam.
An obvious application is in aviation and aerospace.
Instead of using an app, how about turning off your fucking phone? Jesus.
I totally agree.
Sent from my iPhone.
The trouble with taking her seriously is that she keeps saying stupid shit.
So did Trump. The Democrats thought they could win just by pointing out his mistakes, while ignoring the concerns of his supporters. They were wrong.
AOC said that being morally correct was more important than being factually correct. A poll of people in her district showed a majority agreed with that statement.
Facts no longer matter in American politics, on either the left or right.
She's a junior representative with no actual power yet you all can't stop talking about her.
She has more twitter followers than any other congressperson, ever. She can get a national audience for anything she has to say. Any talk show would LOVE to have her as a guest. Her influence goes way beyond her single vote in the HR.
The right can't afford to ignore her. They need to stop ridiculing her, and start taking her seriously. She is the champion of a large group of disaffected voters, and pointing out that she is often factually-challenged isn't going to dissuade them any more than it dissuaded Trump supporters.
The left is in even greater peril. Her influence is pulling the Democratic Party out of the Overton Window, and toward electoral suicide. She may be leading the Democratic Party off a cliff.
So by this logic, you're going to stop going to the doctor and taking medicine when you are sick? If you break a leg or get blinded in an accident someone should just dump you in a remote area to go and die?
Nonsense, nobody is saying that we should kill or mistreat stupid people. We are just saying that they should be sterilized.
5: isn't "mending your ways" a good thing?
Mending is good if done appropriately.
Appropriate: We were wrong to use wiggling women's butts to market our blades. WE were part of the problem.
Inappropriate: If you have a penis, YOU are the problem. Because we say so.
It was a good commercial, if a bit late to the game.
No it wasn't.
1. "Masculinity" is not the problem. It is lack of masculinity. Boys raised in female headed households, without a strong male role model, are more likely to grow up to be violent and abusive toward women.
2. "Online bullying" is attributed to "toxic masculinity", but is actually almost entirely a female-on-female phenomena.
3. In the commercial, nearly all the "bad" males are white. Nearly all the "good" males are black. Why does race need to used so prominently?
4. A "bad/white" man steps toward a woman, apparently to initiate a conversation. A "good/black" man stops him, because talking to women is toxic. Really?
5. Here's a nice butt photo of some "pit babes" in another Gillette commercial, shamelessly exploiting women's bodies to sell razor blades. They aren't preaching from the moral high ground.
The Anti-Vax Movement is not a left/right issue. Instead, it is correlated with extremism in either direction. Right-wing nutjobs see vaccines as a government conspiracy. Left-wing nutjobs see vaccines as a corporate conspiracy. Moderates on both sides vaccinate their kids.
Anti-Vax beliefs don't follow the usual political polariization
Increased to the point of functional immunity for all intents and purposes.
This depends on both the disease and the patient.
Some vaccines confer nearly 100% immunity. MMR is 97% effective against measles. The smallpox vaccine was also nearly 100% effective.
Other vaccines are much less effective. Influenza vaccines are estimated to be about 40% effective, and its primary benefit is keeping R0 well below one, so that the disease does not spread through the herd.
In Germany tips are a "gift"
TFA isn't about Germany. It is about America.
Tipping is America is completely different from other countries. It is basically a tax, and has little relation to quality of service. This is, of course, stupid, but that's the way it is, and blaming Amazon for America's tipping culture is silly.
Visitors to America are often confusing by tipping. They expect it to make sense. It doesn't.
... Will Amazon supplement their income to reach the guaranteed minimum income
Yes. They guarantee a minimum income. Income is wages+tips. This is exactly the same as it works in restaurants and other businesses. There is nothing underhanded or sneaky about what Amazon is doing. It is normal business practice.
or will they fire the underperformer?
Probably. If you are not good at a job, you should go find a different job that you are good at.
And hydrogen is worth ten times more. Sigh....
Hydrogen is about twice the cost of gasoline per unit of energy.
The energy consumed would have been consumed anyway. So oil made from discarded plastic means we need to pump less oil from the ground.
So there is no net additional release of carbon, and likely a net decrease since the plastic would eventually degrade and outgas in a landfill.
Why would you lose a massive amount of energy to make it a liquid fuel instead of a solid one?
Because cars don't burn solids.
Oil is worth ten times as much as coal for the same energy content.
Gamergate.
So Amazon engineers are misogynist because some gamers once were?
Since when does playing games make you "tech"?
if any oversight is needed at all, then use it to put competent IT staff in place.
The competency deficiency in government is in the overseers, not the workers.
One of the most technical areas is the Department of Energy. This is the guy running it.
Misogynists are not welcome in NYC
There is zero evidence that tech workers are more misogynistic. I have worked in several professions, and tech is the least misogynist. Have you ever worked with salesmen, or warehouse workers? They make nerds look like saints.
Not sure you understand how 100% fatality works...
Not sure if you understand that in the real world, no poison is 100% fatal, especially against a widely dispersed and hardy critter like Aedes aegypti. They range across millions of square miles of the tropics, and can breed in an upturned bottle cap.
What they're objecting to, of course, is not the jobs being brought in
It is unlikely many jobs would be created. The limiting factor is housing, and very little new construction is being permitted. The roads can't handle many more commuters, and there are already shortages of labor in the area. So all this facility would do is suck employees from existing businesses.
There would be little net economic benefit, which is another reason that the subsidies and tax giveaways were misguided. They are just replacing many small businesses that pay taxes and contribute to the community with one big business that doesn't.
The belief that only stupid people ever need help is a self-aggrandizing my
I have worked at help desks, and done phone support. Not everyone needing support is stupid, but the vast majority are.
Feeding them poison reduces it 100%
... until they develop resistance. But they would have strong selective pressure to develop resistance to the appetite suppressor as well.
Maintaining a server costs money
Not much. $10 per month is enough for an AWS instance. Storage for 10 million documents of 100kB each would cost another $5/month.
the help desk that answers questions like "how do I do this search and how do I get that document" costs money.
Then charge for support, not access. It would be like a tax on stupidity.