In the real world, we have to frequently make very difficult, big decisions before there is absolute proof of what the consequences are. That doesn't mean such decisions are uninformed though.
And also in the real world, raising energy prices (a major tool of AGW proponents to control CO2) costs human lives. How many poor/old/disabled peoples' lives is it worth to you? Would you still feel that countering CO2 in this manner was worthwhile if you had to personally shoot the poor/old/disabled people yourself instead of anonymously causing them to freeze/starve to death out of your sight?
Would this system flag fake news like the Michael Brown "Hands up, don't shoot" fake news that falsely claimed he had his hands up and was not charging at the police officer after already attacking him and attempting to take the officer's sidearm?
I have doubts that such a system will flag false/fake stories that nevertheless fit certain agendas and narratives.
I believe there's a lot of fake news about "fake news" in order to lay the groundwork for "officially-sanctioned news and facts" a la "MiniTruth", and systematic suppression of independent news sources that don't fit certain narratives and agendas. I think HRC's election loss and all the independent news sources that published/posted/outed inconvenient facts about her has scared TPTB, and they are now attempting to marginalize, discredit, and destroy those who publicize that which they prefer be kept from the public.
Yea good luck with that creimer. It's near enough impossible to get this voted through, would require 2/3 of the senate to vote it through, 2/3 of the house of representatives and then 75% of the states to ratify it. So when you already have some many states over-represented in our chambers it's near enough guaranteed never to change.
Working As Intended(TM) - Authors, US Constitution
They did not want it to be easy or quick. They wanted there to be a requirement for an overwhelming majority to pass constitutional amendments. "Quick and simple majority-vote to elect leaders and amend the nation's founding documents" is how dictatorships and tyrannies arise through populists.
Straight democracy does not work in more than small and close-knit homogeneous groups of people, just like socialism or communism. It allows 51% of people to exercise tyranny over 49% of people. It would theoretically allow whites in the US to bring back Jim Crow laws if they so wished or elect the leader of the KKK as POTUS (and before you start, comparing Trump to some KKK wack-job is your own projection).
So you're saying we need to destroy the planet in order to "prove" that we're destroying the planet to your satisfaction?
That seems a bit counter-productive.
Where did I say proof requires "destroying the planet"? Hyperbolic-strawman, much? Where's the planet that climate-alarmists used to prove their theory, if a planet-wide experiment is necessary to disprove it?
A poster up-thread already destroyed your strawman.
For those situations, the authors tend to expose ALL data and processes/methods needed to recreate their results. They don't hide their data and refuse to release their code...
Still waiting for those releases of data/processes/methods & tools...you know, like *real* scientists do, as opposed to climate-alarmist propaganda shills posing as scientists and their political hangers-on.
You seem to think I'm "angry". Nothing could be further from the truth. I am reminded of a quote from C. S. Lewis that you should deeply think on. It will fit my requirements for a reply admirably.
"I complained that the tone of undergraduate criticism was too often 'that of passionate resentment'. You illustrate this admirably by accusing me of 'Pecksniffian disingenuousness', 'shabby bluff' and 'self-righteousness'. Do not misunderstand. I am not in the least deprecating your insults; I have enjoyed these twenty years l'honneur d'Ãtre une cible and am now pachydermatous. I am not even rebuking your bad manners; I am not Mr Turveydrop and 'gentlemanly deportment' is not a subject I am paid to teach. What shocks me is that students, academics, men of letters, should display what I had thought was an essentially uneducated inability to differentiate between a disputation and a quarrel. The real objection to this sort of thing is that it is all a distraction from the issue. You waste on calling me a liar and hypocrite time you ought to have spent on refuting my position. Even if your main purpose was to gratify resentment, you have gone about it in the wrong way. Any man would much rather be called names than proved wrong."
Translation: "Words mean whatever I want them to mean and I can change their context afterwards to fit my agenda!"
Which is in no way, shape or form a "very high relative concentration of ice". If you think this is, I recommend you make yourself a mixture of 50-85% ice, 15-50% rock, dust and sand, and drink it.
I do every day, from even lower concentrations of water and higher concentrations of sand & rock. It's this thing called a "well". Amazing technology. You should read-up on this technical wonder.
Contrary to how the media is spinning this, shallow permafrost deposits on Mars are not a new discovery.
Did you even read TFS?
" It ranges in thickness from about 260 feet to about 560 feet, and has a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, with what appears to be dust or larger rocky particles mixed in as well."
That's "shallow permafrost" to you?
There is no "very high relative concentration of water-ice".
And again:
"...has a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, with what appears to be dust or larger rocky particles mixed in as well."
Look, it's obvious you're being disingenuous here and I'm wasting my time and energy replying to any of your other claims. Just stop with the Luddite stuff, OK? It's not flattering.
Oh, you mean you have published work showing that human being do not affect climate?
Still waiting for published proof. Not claims..verifiable, reproducible, proof...including all data used and how it was collected and any 'adjustments' made) that proves that humans are a major controlling factor in global climate.
And, in case you want to point to peer-reviewed journals, I give you one of the newer/. submissions on the front page:
Another point is that while it is easy to rail against the renewable industry and their presumed abuse of subsidies, you don't see a whole lot of chagrin about the subsidies for Oil and gas.
I don't think either...or any...particular business, industry, etc should get 'subsidies' (tax breaks). That includes corn for ethanol. The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. It does an extremely bad job of it and typically results in the opposite effect they aimed for.
The problem is that if we have a simple market only solution, eventually we just trade money back and forth, and end up victims of countries where technology advances because they fund it.
This is easily disproved by the rise of US technology and industry far outstripping the entire world because of capitalism in the private sector in the space of less than 200 years from the founding of the US. Who was it that landed people on the moon and returned them safely to Earth first? I don't think it was the USSR or communist China.
Or you can just call other people names...
Just calling out the stupid when it's being shoved in my face. Sorry if I expect intellectual honesty and have an extremely low tolerance for BS. This is the real world not some meaningless gender-studies college course. Truth and facts matter here.
do you actually think anyone here is ignorant enough to believe you give a damn about anyone in any impoverished countries?
I actually care a lot more than you do because I do not wish to inflict a fascist US upon the world, never mind myself and my fellow Americans. I've also done fund-raisers on my own dime to send aid to impoverished people in other nations. I walk the walk, I don't just talk the talk.
Pop quiz: what do you get when you boil perchlorates? Answer, in case you didn't know: hydrochloric acid vapours. And that's just the start of problems you're going to have.
So, the studies you refer to NASA performing regarding extraction of H2O from Martian soil somehow were able to take into account the large deposits of relatively pure (compared to plain Martian soil) water-ice deposits that were *just discovered*? Was not aware NASA had broken the time-barrier.
Pop quiz: Are the temperatures and vapor-pressures the same or far different between water and those contaminants? What temperature does water boil at compared to those other chemicals and compounds at a far lower air pressure than on Earth? At what temperatures and pressures do they condense? Will a very high relative concentration of water-ice make it easier or more difficult to extract and purify? How in the world do we manage to extract relatively-pure water locked away in rocky layers from wells in many homeowners' back yards? How are you certain enough of the relative amount and types of contamination of water-ice on Mars to be able to all but dismiss the idea that we have the technology to extract usable, potable water from ice on Mars?
C'mon! This is elementary chemistry and physics! Always a reason why 'it can't be done!' when it comes to manned space travel with modern-day Luddites, eh? If we'd listened to that sort of defeatist crap in the 1960s the entire world wouldn't instantly recognize the name Neil Armstrong.
It's probably still heavily mixed with salts and/or chlorine compounds. They might be solid inclusions because of the freezing process, but it will still be necessary to treat the water before using. That's not to say the water isn't immensely useful -- it will be! It just may take more work than "hey let's put a farm next to it and mine ice".
Too bad there isn't some simple process to purify water, I mean really simple, like boiling-water and condensing-steam simple...
Ah well. I guess purifying dirty water is still beyond our technical abilities.
Still not taken off the glasses with the reversing lenses yet, I see...
Oh, so you know all about what my beliefs are by...what?...a crystal ball? Tea leaves? WaPo/HuffPo and the MSM? Your gender-studies professor? Find a safe space and a comfort-dog, cupcake.
*I* don't want to have government involved in picking winners and losers in the private sector. That *is* fascism. Just because the US government and the useful-idiots try to put a smiley-face on it and call it by other names doesn't change what it is. Just like your post is a classic text-book example of projection. Alinsky, much?
I guess Mussolini was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, eh?
And, who is this "we" you speak of? It's not the majority of people and the impoverished who would be facing higher costs to not freeze to death and to afford enough food to not starve. Nobody is asking *them*. It's not being put up in national referendums to be voted on (campaign promises from proven liars don't count), you're just dictating your beliefs and ideology at the point of government guns.
It is astonishing to me that America seems to be slipping down this road. But it is, in Europe, and I hate to say this, but even in Africa, we see America as going backwards.
You see it that way because that's the reality. Please help Americans who are trying to rein-in US government power by doing all you can to apply pressure to the US to alter course, even if it's only writing letters and emails and posting to social media, and to encourage your own government to help. Of course, economic pressure gets the most results so if you are a foreign business trading with the US do what you can to make them feel the pressure. Please understand, the American people for the most part do not like the way our government has been acting, but we are under siege by our own government and it's propaganda, intelligence, & law enforcement agencies.
That the US government committed potentially criminal or unconstitutional acts doesn't somehow mean Snowden wouldn't be convicted.
And that's a problem. Revealing blatant illegal and unconstitutional acts should be an absolute defense and actions taken to accomplish it not prosecutable.
And since he hasn't appeared to have held much back, what is it exactly that he could reveal now that isn't already known?
It's not that he would reveal anything more, it's that the government would not want the optics of the railroading job they'd do to Snowden in any kangaroo-court they frog-marched him in front of. It would also serve as a warning to other potential whistle-blowers that, no matter what, you'll never get a chance at a fair trial and you'll never win.
Also, i'm sure the order would activate and be executed so swiftly that by the time a challenge were even initiated, Snowden would already be in the US standing before a firing squad.
FTFY
I doubt that the US government would allow any sort of public trial, especially not one that had a jury. Snowden publicly outed illegal & unconstitutional actions by the government against it's own citizens. They will kill him if they ever get the opportunity.
In their eyes they cannot afford to NOT kill him as that might embolden other whistle-blowers to out other illegal & unconstitutional actions of the government. They feel it is imperative to make an example of Snowden. I'm actually surprised that they haven't had him killed yet despite Russian security and/or any international repercussions resulting from assassinating someone under Russian protection.
The US is only a representative republic in outward appearance. It is actually an authoritarian oligarchical tyranny and will kill or destroy anyone or anything that gets in their way.
Trump is nothing, he's just the latest clown to fill the shoes of the current scapegoat and be a distraction.
Remember the HHGTTG entry on the President of the Galaxy;
"The President is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it."
I agree. With the goal of feeding the global human population in the future (as stated in the article) we need to become much more efficient. Automation will happen, but its importance is very small compared to what we gain from stopping or reducing meat consumption.
I grew up on a dairy farm, I'm a vegetarian and a climatologist.
It may be scientifically, economically, and otherwise sensible.
But people won't stop eating meat. Sorry, won't happen.
There's ~10,000 years of positive genetic selection for meat-eating humans. We are omnivorous. Meat tastes *good* to people. It won't stop tasting good any time in the foreseeable future. As long as that's true people will seek meat as a food regardless of any laws, rules, or regulations. They won't settle for artificial even if you prove scientifically there's no difference. People will still believe 'natural' meat tastes and is better. Outlaw meat and you will see a black market and organized crime to support it in hyperdrive.
They just need to know enough to run the machines and tend to the crops.
Farming encompasses a lot more than crops of various fruits, plants, and trees.
Cows (meat & milk). Pigs. Chickens (meat & eggs).
Chickens may not be that big a problem, but cows and pigs are relatively intelligent (for farm animals, especially pigs) and even have emotions. Farmers often must 'comfort' a cow when giving birth, sometimes pigs as well. I don't think 'farmbot' will 'comfort' them much, likely the opposite.
Animals are also surprisingly adept at finding places to escape or otherwise get into places they shouldn't be. Animals can be unpredictable, something machines are not good at...adapting to unpredictable new situations, circumstances, and conditions.
I can see automation of growing/harvesting field crops occurring even now, but meat & dairy animals pose a whole different and much more complex set of requirements and will require much more sophisticated systems. I think a partial-automation is all that can be achieved in the near future regarding food-animals, full automation may be quite a ways down the timeline.
Hitler - no, he never did. The NAZI's cut ties with the labour unions before he ever even joined the party.
Hitler didn't 'join' the National Socialist Party in Germany, he essentially created it. As for labor/trade unions:
"MAY 2, 1933 NAZIS SEIZE CONTROL OF TRADE UNIONS Storm Troopers (SA) and police occupy the offices of trade unions. Trade union officials and activists are terrorized. The trade unions' records are impounded and their assets seized. The unions are forcibly merged with the Nazi organization, the German Labor Front. Independent labor representation is thus abolished."
Actually, in the case of Germany the U.S. is older as a country by something like a hundred years.
A country's current government is not the same as the country's culture, history, and society...what really makes up a country. Germans have been Germans for centuries despite multiple governments. The US has been the US for a bit over 200 years, while keeping basically the same government, although it has grown far beyond the limits set forth in it's founding document and has become a detriment to the US, it's citizens, and the world, in it's current form.
And the statement "Capitalism and free markets have lifted more people out of poverty and lifted the standards of living of more people than any other system yet tried, combined" ignores that China has lifted billions of people out of poverty. You can make lots of truthful bad statements about China, and I certainly would not want to live there. But it does prove that statement wrong.
Sorry, no. Claiming the Chinese have lifted billions out of poverty depends on what you define as 'poverty' and where you set the bar to exclude those above it from the status of 'impoverished'. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Additionally, most of these increases to standards of living have occurred because Chinese authorities started to allow limited amounts of capitalism.
And talk about the US being rich in resources? China is immensely rich in resources, yet only when China started to allow their people the freedom to engage in capitalism did standards of living for impoverished Chinese improve significantly.
But even more to the point: Germany has a much more social-based system than ours. Clearly in areas of heath-care, education, workers rights, and welfare systems. But they are doing better than the U.S. in terms of growth, average wage, and unemployment. How does your argument survive that?
Quite easily. Germany was rebuilt with new infrastructure, new industrial base, and huge amounts of aid post-WW2 courtesy of the US. It's had a huge leg-up. It also greatly benefits from being able to rely on NATO and the US for the majority of heavy-lifting in the area of military defense, and so saves immense amounts of wealth they would otherwise have to invest. That's not even taking into account wealth generated as a consequence of US military bases located in Germany.
Slashdot Mirror
In the real world, we have to frequently make very difficult, big decisions before there is absolute proof of what the consequences are. That doesn't mean such decisions are uninformed though.
And also in the real world, raising energy prices (a major tool of AGW proponents to control CO2) costs human lives. How many poor/old/disabled peoples' lives is it worth to you? Would you still feel that countering CO2 in this manner was worthwhile if you had to personally shoot the poor/old/disabled people yourself instead of anonymously causing them to freeze/starve to death out of your sight?
Strat
Would this system flag fake news like the Michael Brown "Hands up, don't shoot" fake news that falsely claimed he had his hands up and was not charging at the police officer after already attacking him and attempting to take the officer's sidearm?
I have doubts that such a system will flag false/fake stories that nevertheless fit certain agendas and narratives.
I believe there's a lot of fake news about "fake news" in order to lay the groundwork for "officially-sanctioned news and facts" a la "MiniTruth", and systematic suppression of independent news sources that don't fit certain narratives and agendas. I think HRC's election loss and all the independent news sources that published/posted/outed inconvenient facts about her has scared TPTB, and they are now attempting to marginalize, discredit, and destroy those who publicize that which they prefer be kept from the public.
Strat
Yea good luck with that creimer. It's near enough impossible to get this voted through, would require 2/3 of the senate to vote it through, 2/3 of the house of representatives and then 75% of the states to ratify it. So when you already have some many states over-represented in our chambers it's near enough guaranteed never to change.
Working As Intended(TM) - Authors, US Constitution
They did not want it to be easy or quick. They wanted there to be a requirement for an overwhelming majority to pass constitutional amendments. "Quick and simple majority-vote to elect leaders and amend the nation's founding documents" is how dictatorships and tyrannies arise through populists.
Straight democracy does not work in more than small and close-knit homogeneous groups of people, just like socialism or communism. It allows 51% of people to exercise tyranny over 49% of people. It would theoretically allow whites in the US to bring back Jim Crow laws if they so wished or elect the leader of the KKK as POTUS (and before you start, comparing Trump to some KKK wack-job is your own projection).
Strat
So you're saying we need to destroy the planet in order to "prove" that we're destroying the planet to your satisfaction?
That seems a bit counter-productive.
Where did I say proof requires "destroying the planet"? Hyperbolic-strawman, much? Where's the planet that climate-alarmists used to prove their theory, if a planet-wide experiment is necessary to disprove it?
A poster up-thread already destroyed your strawman.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
For those situations, the authors tend to expose ALL data and processes/methods needed to recreate their results. They don't hide their data and refuse to release their code...
Still waiting for those releases of data/processes/methods & tools...you know, like *real* scientists do, as opposed to climate-alarmist propaganda shills posing as scientists and their political hangers-on.
Strat
You seem to think I'm "angry". Nothing could be further from the truth. I am reminded of a quote from C. S. Lewis that you should deeply think on. It will fit my requirements for a reply admirably.
"I complained that the tone of undergraduate criticism was too often 'that of passionate resentment'. You illustrate this admirably by accusing me of 'Pecksniffian disingenuousness', 'shabby bluff' and 'self-righteousness'. Do not misunderstand. I am not in the least deprecating your insults; I have enjoyed these twenty years l'honneur d'Ãtre une cible and am now pachydermatous. I am not even rebuking your bad manners; I am not Mr Turveydrop and 'gentlemanly deportment' is not a subject I am paid to teach. What shocks me is that students, academics, men of letters, should display what I had thought was an essentially uneducated inability to differentiate between a disputation and a quarrel. The real objection to this sort of thing is that it is all a distraction from the issue. You waste on calling me a liar and hypocrite time you ought to have spent on refuting my position. Even if your main purpose was to gratify resentment, you have gone about it in the wrong way. Any man would much rather be called names than proved wrong."
Strat
Shallow = low overburden
Translation: "Words mean whatever I want them to mean and I can change their context afterwards to fit my agenda!"
Which is in no way, shape or form a "very high relative concentration of ice". If you think this is, I recommend you make yourself a mixture of 50-85% ice, 15-50% rock, dust and sand, and drink it.
I do every day, from even lower concentrations of water and higher concentrations of sand & rock. It's this thing called a "well". Amazing technology. You should read-up on this technical wonder.
Strat
Contrary to how the media is spinning this, shallow permafrost deposits on Mars are not a new discovery.
Did you even read TFS?
" It ranges in thickness from about 260 feet to about 560 feet, and has a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, with what appears to be dust or larger rocky particles mixed in as well."
That's "shallow permafrost" to you?
There is no "very high relative concentration of water-ice".
And again:
"...has a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, with what appears to be dust or larger rocky particles mixed in as well."
Look, it's obvious you're being disingenuous here and I'm wasting my time and energy replying to any of your other claims. Just stop with the Luddite stuff, OK? It's not flattering.
Strat
Oh, you mean you have published work showing that human being do not affect climate?
Still waiting for published proof. Not claims..verifiable, reproducible, proof...including all data used and how it was collected and any 'adjustments' made) that proves that humans are a major controlling factor in global climate.
And, in case you want to point to peer-reviewed journals, I give you one of the newer /. submissions on the front page:
Science Journals Caught Publishing Fake Research For Cash https://science.slashdot.org/s...
Oh, snap!
Strat
Another point is that while it is easy to rail against the renewable industry and their presumed abuse of subsidies, you don't see a whole lot of chagrin about the subsidies for Oil and gas.
I don't think either...or any...particular business, industry, etc should get 'subsidies' (tax breaks). That includes corn for ethanol. The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. It does an extremely bad job of it and typically results in the opposite effect they aimed for.
The problem is that if we have a simple market only solution, eventually we just trade money back and forth, and end up victims of countries where technology advances because they fund it.
This is easily disproved by the rise of US technology and industry far outstripping the entire world because of capitalism in the private sector in the space of less than 200 years from the founding of the US. Who was it that landed people on the moon and returned them safely to Earth first? I don't think it was the USSR or communist China.
Or you can just call other people names...
Just calling out the stupid when it's being shoved in my face. Sorry if I expect intellectual honesty and have an extremely low tolerance for BS. This is the real world not some meaningless gender-studies college course. Truth and facts matter here.
Strat
do you actually think anyone here is ignorant enough to believe you give a damn about anyone in any impoverished countries?
I actually care a lot more than you do because I do not wish to inflict a fascist US upon the world, never mind myself and my fellow Americans. I've also done fund-raisers on my own dime to send aid to impoverished people in other nations. I walk the walk, I don't just talk the talk.
Try again, snowflake.
Strat
Pop quiz: what do you get when you boil perchlorates? Answer, in case you didn't know: hydrochloric acid vapours. And that's just the start of problems you're going to have.
So, the studies you refer to NASA performing regarding extraction of H2O from Martian soil somehow were able to take into account the large deposits of relatively pure (compared to plain Martian soil) water-ice deposits that were *just discovered*? Was not aware NASA had broken the time-barrier.
Pop quiz: Are the temperatures and vapor-pressures the same or far different between water and those contaminants? What temperature does water boil at compared to those other chemicals and compounds at a far lower air pressure than on Earth? At what temperatures and pressures do they condense? Will a very high relative concentration of water-ice make it easier or more difficult to extract and purify? How in the world do we manage to extract relatively-pure water locked away in rocky layers from wells in many homeowners' back yards? How are you certain enough of the relative amount and types of contamination of water-ice on Mars to be able to all but dismiss the idea that we have the technology to extract usable, potable water from ice on Mars?
C'mon! This is elementary chemistry and physics! Always a reason why 'it can't be done!' when it comes to manned space travel with modern-day Luddites, eh? If we'd listened to that sort of defeatist crap in the 1960s the entire world wouldn't instantly recognize the name Neil Armstrong.
Strat
It's probably still heavily mixed with salts and/or chlorine compounds. They might be solid inclusions because of the freezing process, but it will still be necessary to treat the water before using. That's not to say the water isn't immensely useful -- it will be! It just may take more work than "hey let's put a farm next to it and mine ice".
Too bad there isn't some simple process to purify water, I mean really simple, like boiling-water and condensing-steam simple...
Ah well. I guess purifying dirty water is still beyond our technical abilities.
0_o
Strat
Still not taken off the glasses with the reversing lenses yet, I see...
Oh, so you know all about what my beliefs are by...what?...a crystal ball? Tea leaves? WaPo/HuffPo and the MSM? Your gender-studies professor? Find a safe space and a comfort-dog, cupcake.
*I* don't want to have government involved in picking winners and losers in the private sector. That *is* fascism. Just because the US government and the useful-idiots try to put a smiley-face on it and call it by other names doesn't change what it is. Just like your post is a classic text-book example of projection. Alinsky, much?
Strat
Believe it or not, we DO get to pick winners...
Fascism-101
I guess Mussolini was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, eh?
And, who is this "we" you speak of? It's not the majority of people and the impoverished who would be facing higher costs to not freeze to death and to afford enough food to not starve. Nobody is asking *them*. It's not being put up in national referendums to be voted on (campaign promises from proven liars don't count), you're just dictating your beliefs and ideology at the point of government guns.
Strat
It is astonishing to me that America seems to be slipping down this road. But it is, in Europe, and I hate to say this, but even in Africa, we see America as going backwards.
You see it that way because that's the reality. Please help Americans who are trying to rein-in US government power by doing all you can to apply pressure to the US to alter course, even if it's only writing letters and emails and posting to social media, and to encourage your own government to help. Of course, economic pressure gets the most results so if you are a foreign business trading with the US do what you can to make them feel the pressure. Please understand, the American people for the most part do not like the way our government has been acting, but we are under siege by our own government and it's propaganda, intelligence, & law enforcement agencies.
TIA
Strat
Remove any subsidies that coal gets so as not to distort the cost...
Sure, as soon as renewables have their subsidies, grants, and sweetheart government-backed loan guarantees removed.
Wouldn't want to "distort the cost" now, would we?
Strat
Bwaaahahahahaa!
Oh, wait...you're serious? Let me laugh even harder!
Bwaaahahahahhahaaaahahaha!
https://youtu.be/_n5E7feJHw0
Strat
That the US government committed potentially criminal or unconstitutional acts doesn't somehow mean Snowden wouldn't be convicted.
And that's a problem. Revealing blatant illegal and unconstitutional acts should be an absolute defense and actions taken to accomplish it not prosecutable.
And since he hasn't appeared to have held much back, what is it exactly that he could reveal now that isn't already known?
It's not that he would reveal anything more, it's that the government would not want the optics of the railroading job they'd do to Snowden in any kangaroo-court they frog-marched him in front of. It would also serve as a warning to other potential whistle-blowers that, no matter what, you'll never get a chance at a fair trial and you'll never win.
Strat
Also, i'm sure the order would activate and be executed so swiftly that by the time a challenge were even initiated, Snowden would already be in the US standing before a firing squad.
FTFY
I doubt that the US government would allow any sort of public trial, especially not one that had a jury. Snowden publicly outed illegal & unconstitutional actions by the government against it's own citizens. They will kill him if they ever get the opportunity.
In their eyes they cannot afford to NOT kill him as that might embolden other whistle-blowers to out other illegal & unconstitutional actions of the government. They feel it is imperative to make an example of Snowden. I'm actually surprised that they haven't had him killed yet despite Russian security and/or any international repercussions resulting from assassinating someone under Russian protection.
The US is only a representative republic in outward appearance. It is actually an authoritarian oligarchical tyranny and will kill or destroy anyone or anything that gets in their way.
Trump is nothing, he's just the latest clown to fill the shoes of the current scapegoat and be a distraction.
Remember the HHGTTG entry on the President of the Galaxy;
"The President is very much a figurehead - he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it."
Strat
Be easy on him.
He's still triggered and in his safe space with his comfort-dog. Facts are micro-aggressions, you CIS-male predator! :P
Strat
DRONE
Don't obey any rules or laws.
Recklessly endanger the public.
Obnoxiously 'buzz' police and emergency responders.
Never fly a drone where you can observe it or people may observe you..
Explosives are also fun, attach bombs to your drones.
(Naturally, the above is purely in jest.)
Strat
I agree. With the goal of feeding the global human population in the future (as stated in the article) we need to become much more efficient. Automation will happen, but its importance is very small compared to what we gain from stopping or reducing meat consumption.
I grew up on a dairy farm, I'm a vegetarian and a climatologist.
It may be scientifically, economically, and otherwise sensible.
But people won't stop eating meat. Sorry, won't happen.
There's ~10,000 years of positive genetic selection for meat-eating humans. We are omnivorous. Meat tastes *good* to people. It won't stop tasting good any time in the foreseeable future. As long as that's true people will seek meat as a food regardless of any laws, rules, or regulations. They won't settle for artificial even if you prove scientifically there's no difference. People will still believe 'natural' meat tastes and is better. Outlaw meat and you will see a black market and organized crime to support it in hyperdrive.
Strat
They just need to know enough to run the machines and tend to the crops.
Farming encompasses a lot more than crops of various fruits, plants, and trees.
Cows (meat & milk). Pigs. Chickens (meat & eggs).
Chickens may not be that big a problem, but cows and pigs are relatively intelligent (for farm animals, especially pigs) and even have emotions. Farmers often must 'comfort' a cow when giving birth, sometimes pigs as well. I don't think 'farmbot' will 'comfort' them much, likely the opposite.
Animals are also surprisingly adept at finding places to escape or otherwise get into places they shouldn't be. Animals can be unpredictable, something machines are not good at...adapting to unpredictable new situations, circumstances, and conditions.
I can see automation of growing/harvesting field crops occurring even now, but meat & dairy animals pose a whole different and much more complex set of requirements and will require much more sophisticated systems. I think a partial-automation is all that can be achieved in the near future regarding food-animals, full automation may be quite a ways down the timeline.
Strat
Hitler - no, he never did. The NAZI's cut ties with the labour unions before he ever even joined the party.
Hitler didn't 'join' the National Socialist Party in Germany, he essentially created it. As for labor/trade unions:
"MAY 2, 1933
NAZIS SEIZE CONTROL OF TRADE UNIONS
Storm Troopers (SA) and police occupy the offices of trade unions. Trade union officials and activists are terrorized. The trade unions' records are impounded and their assets seized. The unions are forcibly merged with the Nazi organization, the German Labor Front. Independent labor representation is thus abolished."
https://www.ushmm.org/outreach...
Strat
Actually, in the case of Germany the U.S. is older as a country by something like a hundred years.
A country's current government is not the same as the country's culture, history, and society...what really makes up a country. Germans have been Germans for centuries despite multiple governments. The US has been the US for a bit over 200 years, while keeping basically the same government, although it has grown far beyond the limits set forth in it's founding document and has become a detriment to the US, it's citizens, and the world, in it's current form.
And the statement "Capitalism and free markets have lifted more people out of poverty and lifted the standards of living of more people than any other system yet tried, combined" ignores that China has lifted billions of people out of poverty. You can make lots of truthful bad statements about China, and I certainly would not want to live there. But it does prove that statement wrong.
Sorry, no. Claiming the Chinese have lifted billions out of poverty depends on what you define as 'poverty' and where you set the bar to exclude those above it from the status of 'impoverished'. Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Additionally, most of these increases to standards of living have occurred because Chinese authorities started to allow limited amounts of capitalism.
And talk about the US being rich in resources? China is immensely rich in resources, yet only when China started to allow their people the freedom to engage in capitalism did standards of living for impoverished Chinese improve significantly.
But even more to the point: Germany has a much more social-based system than ours. Clearly in areas of heath-care, education, workers rights, and welfare systems. But they are doing better than the U.S. in terms of growth, average wage, and unemployment. How does your argument survive that?
Quite easily. Germany was rebuilt with new infrastructure, new industrial base, and huge amounts of aid post-WW2 courtesy of the US. It's had a huge leg-up. It also greatly benefits from being able to rely on NATO and the US for the majority of heavy-lifting in the area of military defense, and so saves immense amounts of wealth they would otherwise have to invest. That's not even taking into account wealth generated as a consequence of US military bases located in Germany.
Strat