But there is no reason to think all those extra years of potential labor is needed. We already have more people than we need to do the available work.
Old people (even more than the young) need housing, most of them need (or at least use) food services, and of course there are those that need continuous medical or other care. Assuming that the average 130 year old has the same needs as today's average 65 year old, we're going to have to have a lot more construction workers, handymen, cooks, waitresses, nurses, bus drivers, etc.
Basically, the whole world economy is going to start looking a lot more like Florida, without the sunshine and beaches. (As a lifelong Florida resident, I can say this is not a good thing.)
If we could create a social contract that anyone beyond the age of 85 who is not demonstrably self-sufficient gracefully step into the Kevorkian machine, then it could work beautifully - it will take a lot of adjustment to give up the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" just because you're un-naturally old. I also would fear a world where that age gets reduced to 50 or less, lots of people don't get life even half figured out by 50.
Well, maybe it is just my ludite side showing up, but I think that the first step should be stop unearthing and burning all the carbon already sequestred (sequestrated?) underground.
If you want to improve it, then just get the carbon out of the trees (pressure + heat with no oxygen) and bury it.
Until we have surplus clean energy to create that pressure and heat, it's probably better to not use the energy on carbon sequestration. I believe if you bury the wood below the water table (a mostly anaerobic environment), it will retain much of its carbon for a long long time.
I own 20 acres in Florida that was logged of old-growth pine in 1880-1890, it was used (along with a few thousand other acres of timber) to build a town about six miles down-river. In 19 O something, the town burned down, releasing the sequestered carbon. The woods have been fire-suppressed ever since, so the pine was out-competed by oak, oak that burns to the ground fairly easily (as a 1/4 acre clearing that was burned and stopped by human action in about 1970 attests to.) Also, Hurricane Charley came through and ripped out about 50% of the oak canopy, throwing it to the ground, I think that was a carbon neutral event, as the canopy rotted, undergrowth exploded in volume, making much of the land unpassable on foot now. 40 or 50 years from now, the oak will regain canopy shade status and suppress the undergrowth regrowth rate, unless another big storm or fire comes through.
All in all, I'd rather have 1000 year old pine trees on the land, but I'm not likely to live long enough to see that.
Properly managed rotational cattle grazing systems that mimic wild herds actually sequesters huge amounts of carbon.
What percentage of current cattle operations are "properly managed to mimic wild herds"? I've observed current governments being much more effective at banning land-use than telling users how to go about their business.
So, you're saying that propaganda is a legitimate and moral tool? I'm thinking this won't end well.
At the very least, on the short term, making claims that are demonstrably untrue will be demonstrated untrue, hence damaging the case that might actually be true.
Legitimate? No. Moral? Absolutely not. It's already happening, and regardless of your stance or mine on the issues, we are powerless to stop it. Those claims that are demonstrably untrue will be proven untrue, damaging the position of the claimants in the eyes of the scientific community, but - if you haven't noticed - they're a minority of the actual powerbase that determines what happens in the world, used and abused by the decision makers to further their own agendae.
The ideal scenario is to build a solid scientific case quietly, while puffing out some very inflammable straw men to get the public's attention - the straw men can go up in smoke while gaining everyone's attention, but if the solid science is there to back up the basic premise, it will stand up just as well as it would have without the straw-men.
The problem is, both sides are buying the "best science they can afford..."
I'm infuriated by climate change denying morons myself, but rewriting history and ignoring basic science is not how you defeat those losers.
No, but slinging a little of their own style of rhetoric back their way once in awhile does keep them inline better than always, predictably, maintaining the scientific moral high ground. The Scopes monkey trial went so badly in part because the scientific representative just couldn't think outside of his world of solid scientific proof as the final word. I had a similar experience in traffic court when the officer opened with a reading of his notebook which contained a full accounting of what he imagined happened before he first saw me.
Well we have an easy solution to global warming then. Just depopulate America again.
America isn't the only potential candidate here... areas nearer to the equator will have a more dramatic effect since the vegetation will regrow faster. Putting an end to Brazilian cattle production would be a bigger effect than neutron bombing all of rural U.S.A.
Old growth forests don't capture as much carbon as new growth. Cut down a stand of 1000 year old trees and let them repopulate with all new trees and the new trees will capture carbon faster as they grow and add mass at a faster rate than the maxed out trees, while the old wood retains its carbon in the form of ships, buildings, tools, etc.
I had a regulator once tell me (in the role of VP of R&D) that I might have to fire my software team and hire an new one to develop the product under proper regulations, since the current team couldn't be trusted to not copy their "unregulated" work. He was about 22, straight out of regulator training school, he was also talking to the whole software development team (me.) We managed to get past that little bump, but the implication was that mere exposure to the "illegally developed code" was enough to taint any further code developed by the same people - no copies of source, no pictures, no sketches, just a memory crime.
Somewhat related was a non-compete I was asked to sign that essentially banned me from working in the entire industry for a period of 7 years after severance. They said "that's not what we mean," I said "that's what's written on the contract I'm not signing," they said "all of our other employees signed this," I said "that's not my concern." They amended the contract.
I was busted for this in a US post office in 2004 (I wanted proof of what was inside a certified letter I was sending...), you could tell the Postmaster knew she was stepping in sticky territory, but she wasn't satisfied until I showed her the pictures were deleted from the camera. In 2004, the notion of a digital camera was a little exotic to postal workers.
A former employer was working with a Russian-based software company to introduce their restaurant POS system to the US. They were appalled that there were such things as local taxes that varied from one community to another, they were going to have to re-write the entire tax module to accommodate it. Delayed the product too long and they abandoned the effort, since in the meantime a whole slew of cheap POS systems (including the one from MS) had hit the market.
So, in short, the tax system worked in this case - protecting domestic industry from foreign competition.
Clearly nobody in the 354 person study uses Outlook. Worst. Search. Ever. I could see it in gmail maybe, but never in Outlook. I'd go crazy if I had to keep my work emails in the Inbox, or in one folder. In Outlook, organizing my email(filters or by hand) keeps me sane.
I have a theory that there is a conspiracy within Microsoft to create busywork for the rest of the modern world, cripple us so they don't have to innovate as quickly to keep up.
it seems unlikely that users are sorting their emails into folders just because doing electronic shit work is all fun and giggles
I don't know, I see people play Farmville during their lunchbreak, pretty close to electronic shit work even if it is called a game. You don't even have to wait for lunchtime to take a break by sorting your e-mail.
Project folders are superior, especially as time passes one can't remember proper keyword to bring up all relevant emails. Yes, I've used e-mail systems that were folderless and only search was possible, not quite as useful.
Depends on how often you actually do a history search. I had IT wipe my e-mail history after 2 years (OS upgrade from XP to Vista, told them the only thing I cared about on the XP machine was my e-mail history, they still screwed it up.) It was somewhat liberating, I used to do an e-mail history search about once a month for whatever random reason, that search was fruitful somewhat less than 50% of the time. After the history was gone, I didn't have to do the search and simply soldiered on without that little scrap of written history - it didn't really hurt at all, the information was always available from other sources, and often the new source was more relevant than a years old e-mail.
The problem is that unless the sorting mechanism is perfect you can wind up in the situation where you never see an email and don't know that it's even arrived.
Or... if the message was truly important, the sender would try again, perhaps via an alternate channel. I live my life in such a manner that every scrap of information that comes my way does not have to be scoured as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, too much crap comes my way, the important stuff will distinguish itself or it will be ignored.
for most people putting emails in folders is a waste of time.
Many (most) people I know spend most of their work day on various wastes of time - sorting your mail not only makes you look busy while you do it, it also produces a tangible product of your labor, and gives you something to act overwhelmed about after you've been out for 3 days at a trade show: "I'll be working through my Inbox all morning."
Simple answer, if you don't like the output of the editorial staff, take it off your list (as I have done a couple of tech blogs that went down the tubes for whatever reason.) Yes, the editors of/. have a reposting habit, it's only a problem if you're too OCD to skip a story you think you've seen before.
Thus, needing an infinite number of monkeys... actually, I think long before you achieve a dozen planets full of monkeys, you'll probably hit a genetic aberration or two that will break any statistical models by variations in their behavior - some might actually type words, if they are exposed to them in print or spoken form. The monkeys that finally produce a work of Shakespeare are apt to be different from your average monkey.
/. hasn't been the fastest news source around since blogs took off. The point of/. isn't getting news first, it's getting news that matters to Nerds without having to scrounge the entire net to get it. If you scrounge the entire net every day, then there's no point at all in reading/.
Slashdot Mirror
You also need something that adresses the wear on the body.
Titanium and plastics. Works really well for about 30% of implant recipients - I hope that number goes up before I need them.
But there is no reason to think all those extra years of potential labor is needed. We already have more people than we need to do the available work.
Old people (even more than the young) need housing, most of them need (or at least use) food services, and of course there are those that need continuous medical or other care. Assuming that the average 130 year old has the same needs as today's average 65 year old, we're going to have to have a lot more construction workers, handymen, cooks, waitresses, nurses, bus drivers, etc.
Basically, the whole world economy is going to start looking a lot more like Florida, without the sunshine and beaches. (As a lifelong Florida resident, I can say this is not a good thing.)
If we could create a social contract that anyone beyond the age of 85 who is not demonstrably self-sufficient gracefully step into the Kevorkian machine, then it could work beautifully - it will take a lot of adjustment to give up the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" just because you're un-naturally old. I also would fear a world where that age gets reduced to 50 or less, lots of people don't get life even half figured out by 50.
Well, maybe it is just my ludite side showing up, but I think that the first step should be stop unearthing and burning all the carbon already sequestred (sequestrated?) underground.
If you want to improve it, then just get the carbon out of the trees (pressure + heat with no oxygen) and bury it.
Until we have surplus clean energy to create that pressure and heat, it's probably better to not use the energy on carbon sequestration. I believe if you bury the wood below the water table (a mostly anaerobic environment), it will retain much of its carbon for a long long time.
I own 20 acres in Florida that was logged of old-growth pine in 1880-1890, it was used (along with a few thousand other acres of timber) to build a town about six miles down-river. In 19 O something, the town burned down, releasing the sequestered carbon. The woods have been fire-suppressed ever since, so the pine was out-competed by oak, oak that burns to the ground fairly easily (as a 1/4 acre clearing that was burned and stopped by human action in about 1970 attests to.) Also, Hurricane Charley came through and ripped out about 50% of the oak canopy, throwing it to the ground, I think that was a carbon neutral event, as the canopy rotted, undergrowth exploded in volume, making much of the land unpassable on foot now. 40 or 50 years from now, the oak will regain canopy shade status and suppress the undergrowth regrowth rate, unless another big storm or fire comes through.
All in all, I'd rather have 1000 year old pine trees on the land, but I'm not likely to live long enough to see that.
Properly managed rotational cattle grazing systems that mimic wild herds actually sequesters huge amounts of carbon.
What percentage of current cattle operations are "properly managed to mimic wild herds"? I've observed current governments being much more effective at banning land-use than telling users how to go about their business.
So, you're saying that propaganda is a legitimate and moral tool? I'm thinking this won't end well.
At the very least, on the short term, making claims that are demonstrably untrue will be demonstrated untrue, hence damaging the case that might actually be true.
Legitimate? No. Moral? Absolutely not. It's already happening, and regardless of your stance or mine on the issues, we are powerless to stop it. Those claims that are demonstrably untrue will be proven untrue, damaging the position of the claimants in the eyes of the scientific community, but - if you haven't noticed - they're a minority of the actual powerbase that determines what happens in the world, used and abused by the decision makers to further their own agendae.
The ideal scenario is to build a solid scientific case quietly, while puffing out some very inflammable straw men to get the public's attention - the straw men can go up in smoke while gaining everyone's attention, but if the solid science is there to back up the basic premise, it will stand up just as well as it would have without the straw-men.
The problem is, both sides are buying the "best science they can afford..."
I'm infuriated by climate change denying morons myself, but rewriting history and ignoring basic science is not how you defeat those losers.
No, but slinging a little of their own style of rhetoric back their way once in awhile does keep them inline better than always, predictably, maintaining the scientific moral high ground. The Scopes monkey trial went so badly in part because the scientific representative just couldn't think outside of his world of solid scientific proof as the final word. I had a similar experience in traffic court when the officer opened with a reading of his notebook which contained a full accounting of what he imagined happened before he first saw me.
Well we have an easy solution to global warming then. Just depopulate America again.
America isn't the only potential candidate here... areas nearer to the equator will have a more dramatic effect since the vegetation will regrow faster. Putting an end to Brazilian cattle production would be a bigger effect than neutron bombing all of rural U.S.A.
Old growth forests don't capture as much carbon as new growth. Cut down a stand of 1000 year old trees and let them repopulate with all new trees and the new trees will capture carbon faster as they grow and add mass at a faster rate than the maxed out trees, while the old wood retains its carbon in the form of ships, buildings, tools, etc.
I had a regulator once tell me (in the role of VP of R&D) that I might have to fire my software team and hire an new one to develop the product under proper regulations, since the current team couldn't be trusted to not copy their "unregulated" work. He was about 22, straight out of regulator training school, he was also talking to the whole software development team (me.) We managed to get past that little bump, but the implication was that mere exposure to the "illegally developed code" was enough to taint any further code developed by the same people - no copies of source, no pictures, no sketches, just a memory crime.
Somewhat related was a non-compete I was asked to sign that essentially banned me from working in the entire industry for a period of 7 years after severance. They said "that's not what we mean," I said "that's what's written on the contract I'm not signing," they said "all of our other employees signed this," I said "that's not my concern." They amended the contract.
I was busted for this in a US post office in 2004 (I wanted proof of what was inside a certified letter I was sending...), you could tell the Postmaster knew she was stepping in sticky territory, but she wasn't satisfied until I showed her the pictures were deleted from the camera. In 2004, the notion of a digital camera was a little exotic to postal workers.
WalMart prices can vary by a factor of more than 2x between isolated rural and competitive urban stores separated by less than 40 miles...
A former employer was working with a Russian-based software company to introduce their restaurant POS system to the US. They were appalled that there were such things as local taxes that varied from one community to another, they were going to have to re-write the entire tax module to accommodate it. Delayed the product too long and they abandoned the effort, since in the meantime a whole slew of cheap POS systems (including the one from MS) had hit the market.
So, in short, the tax system worked in this case - protecting domestic industry from foreign competition.
Clearly nobody in the 354 person study uses Outlook. Worst. Search. Ever. I could see it in gmail maybe, but never in Outlook. I'd go crazy if I had to keep my work emails in the Inbox, or in one folder. In Outlook, organizing my email(filters or by hand) keeps me sane.
I have a theory that there is a conspiracy within Microsoft to create busywork for the rest of the modern world, cripple us so they don't have to innovate as quickly to keep up.
it seems unlikely that users are sorting their emails into folders just because doing electronic shit work is all fun and giggles
I don't know, I see people play Farmville during their lunchbreak, pretty close to electronic shit work even if it is called a game. You don't even have to wait for lunchtime to take a break by sorting your e-mail.
My Gmail account is somewhere in the 10-20K message range in the Inbox, doesn't hamper its usefulness at all.
Project folders are superior, especially as time passes one can't remember proper keyword to bring up all relevant emails. Yes, I've used e-mail systems that were folderless and only search was possible, not quite as useful.
Depends on how often you actually do a history search. I had IT wipe my e-mail history after 2 years (OS upgrade from XP to Vista, told them the only thing I cared about on the XP machine was my e-mail history, they still screwed it up.) It was somewhat liberating, I used to do an e-mail history search about once a month for whatever random reason, that search was fruitful somewhat less than 50% of the time. After the history was gone, I didn't have to do the search and simply soldiered on without that little scrap of written history - it didn't really hurt at all, the information was always available from other sources, and often the new source was more relevant than a years old e-mail.
Or... if the message was truly important, the sender would try again, perhaps via an alternate channel. I live my life in such a manner that every scrap of information that comes my way does not have to be scoured as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, too much crap comes my way, the important stuff will distinguish itself or it will be ignored.
Ditching Outlook is pretty good at cutting down the search time too - anything else I have used does search better.
for most people putting emails in folders is a waste of time.
Many (most) people I know spend most of their work day on various wastes of time - sorting your mail not only makes you look busy while you do it, it also produces a tangible product of your labor, and gives you something to act overwhelmed about after you've been out for 3 days at a trade show: "I'll be working through my Inbox all morning."
Your inbox gets too unwieldy.
Only if you use Outlook.
Simple answer, if you don't like the output of the editorial staff, take it off your list (as I have done a couple of tech blogs that went down the tubes for whatever reason.) Yes, the editors of /. have a reposting habit, it's only a problem if you're too OCD to skip a story you think you've seen before.
Thus, needing an infinite number of monkeys... actually, I think long before you achieve a dozen planets full of monkeys, you'll probably hit a genetic aberration or two that will break any statistical models by variations in their behavior - some might actually type words, if they are exposed to them in print or spoken form. The monkeys that finally produce a work of Shakespeare are apt to be different from your average monkey.
The million dollar webpage was sensationalist crap too, there's tangible value in sensationalist crap.
/. hasn't been the fastest news source around since blogs took off. The point of /. isn't getting news first, it's getting news that matters to Nerds without having to scrounge the entire net to get it. If you scrounge the entire net every day, then there's no point at all in reading /.