I have reevaluated based on your link and stand by my original statement. The study clearly states that organic farming is not as efficient as modern techniques.
where fertilizer isn't really in the budget, organic methods greatly increased yields
In other words, when modern techniques aren't being used organic farming is better than nothing at all. Obviously.
That doesn't matter at all. No matter how many resources there are people want to be better than those around them. So, you can setup a system where that basic instinct seems to work (most of the time) or fight it. Capitalism vs. communism.
A man's bank account is not an accurate measure of a man's worth. But, a man's economic contribution to society IS an accurate measure of his worth. In a good system the bank account will reflect the economic contribution.
"Intelligence" and "good will" don't feed / clothe / heal people -- hard work does. I think of it as the John Stewart syndrome. Sure, he's funny, entertaining, and wicked smart. But a potato farmer provides more value to society than him. There is no GDP component for criticism.
Also I don't think that valuing people only by their economic worth is very nice.
Until there are super smart robots and infinite resources the only fair way to value some is by their economic worth. What would you prefer? Race? Religion? How warm and fuzzy you are as a person? Or shall we assume that everyone is completely 100% equal? Do we all have the exact same value? Really?
Like it or not (I like it personally) a person's worth to society is at least proportional to their economic value. Albert Einstein's value to the world would be measured in trillions of dollars (maybe more). My meth head neighbors keep stealing my shit. Maybe it is "not very nice" but I think Albert Einstein is a more valuable human than those miserable wastes of flesh next door.
It is written *specifically* to undermine organic food
As though that is a bad thing. Organic food is a crime against humanity. No trolling -- in a world where billions still lack adequate nutrition it is murderous to shun fertilizer and pesticides. When everybody has enough food THEN you can worry if it was grown to your high standards, princess.
I've heard this so many times and it is just plain wrong. Here's why:
The digestive track of a cow has evolved to extract caloric value from plant cellulose, ours is not. It is not as simple as saying a cow gets 10% of the energy from the sun via grass and we get 10% of that energy therefore we should just eat grass. No matter how much grass we eat our digestive tracks will not be able to cope -- wasting resources in the process.
You cannot be against world hunger and for organic foods. Organic foods forgo fertilizers and pesticides using more cropland and resources to produce the same amount of food. If the entire world ate organic food then only the rich could afford to eat. Personally, I'm OK with the use of technology if it means an extra child somewhere can eat.
I also heard about an investment scheme that only the rich can buy into. It was called Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, LLC and it is a sure fire way to make money -- he's been providing returns for decades now. I wish I was rich enough to buy into this sure fire way of making money.
I agree. Patents are evil. So is greed. If only we could devise a market system that abolishes both. Honestly, I am surprised no one thought of it like 150 years ago.
From each according to ones abilities and to each according to their needs.
Seriously? Creating new sources of food is evil? Patents last for a few years or a couple decades (at most). New sources of food will continue to pay dividends for generations.
During the cold war the US used induction to tap undersea wire cables running to the Soviet Union. This worked great because the device was undetectable. It didn't require severing the cable, instead the listening device was simply placed next to the cable.
Unfortunately for the US spy outfits, fiber optics can't be tapped the same way, induction doesn't work. To tap a fiber optics cable, you have to literally cut it and insert the new device.
Off the top of my head, I'd say the best way to tap a fiber optics line would be to cut it once, move to another location, cut it again, and install the monitoring equipment at the second location before the first cut is patched. By the time the first cut is patched the equipment will be functioning pretty much undetectably.
Why not tap it when the fiber optic cables come ashore? Besides the political problems of trying to get host countries to agree, an above water tap would be much easier to detect during and after installation.
I'm sure someone will point out that fiber optics can't be tapped, just like encryption can't be broken, and Windows doesn't have a backdoor for the NSA.
Industrial Solar thermal isn't as cheap as nuclear and nuclear isn't as cheap as gas. But, the real issue I pointed out is the need to transmit the power. Industrial Solar Thermal works best in places with lots of sunlight. That power needs to be transmitted across the nation to be useful to anyone except those of us that live in the desert. Nuclear plants, on the other hand, can be built pretty much anywhere (regulation and NIMBY arguments aside).
By hydroelectric dam, I was refering to the most efficient way of storing solar or wind energy to use during the night / non-windy times. There are other ways to store energy, but they are all more expensive than hydroelectric.
Uranium is not limited in our lifetimes, our children's lifetimes, or our grandchildren's lifetimes. Besides, Thorium, one of the most abundant substances on earth is a decent alternative. By the time Uranium runs out, if we haven't perfected fusion power -- the ultimate solution -- then we have failed miserably. Also, while Uranium may be limited, it does sidestep the carbon emissions problem that seems more important.
The corporation commission where I live, Phoenix Arizona, illustrates perfectly that even though your idea is brilliant the politicians aren't following it.
The corporation commission here recently spent $800,000 to install solar panels on the convention center. According to them, this will offset the power needed for 12 houses. $800,000 / 12 = $66,667 per house.
One of the corporation commission officers, her name escapes me at the moment, was on NPR a few months ago. A caller pointed out that a new solar installation at those 12 homes would total less than $20,000 per house, less than 1/3 the cost. She avoided the question by saying "We like to invest in a variety of options."
Because of the variability of wind and solar power the Obama administration and T. Boone Pickens want to build thousands of miles of new transmission corridors for a couple reasons:
1) Energy will be produced away from cities on the plains or in the desert and shuttled to the cities via new transmission lines.
2) The grid will be enhanced (more lines added) so that it can compensate for the variability of wind/sunlight in different places in the country.
For example, if Phoenix, Arizona depends on solar power and a storm rolls in, then Phoenix will have to depend on power shipped in from elsewhere, like the mid-west. If Phoenix doesn't have transmission lines to other parts of the country then Phoenix will have to fire up some coal/natural gas plants to provide the difference.
That is a great idea, but it is not the one being pursued by the Obama administration and isn't the one being pursued by T. Boone Pickens.
Both Obama and T. Boone Pickens want to build wind farms and solar farms in desolate places (the mid-west plain states for wind, desert states for solar) and transport the energy to city centers.
- They require thousands of miles of new power lines to be built. Getting power lines approved and built is monumentally expensive (which is why Mr. Pickens wants the tax payers to pay for them instead of building them himself).
- The wind doesn't blow all the time, nor does the sun shine all the time. You can store it (which is equivalent to running a hydroelectric dam) or build gas powered plants to run during the evenings.
- Solar and wind are not as inexpensive as proponents claim.
Nuclear is the only power source with a virtually unlimited source of fuel and that can be brought online without a massive new power grid and is nearly as cheap as gas powered generation.
I'm not disagreeing at all. But, if trains are a non-starter because of NIMBY, then so are solar and wind farms since both also require new transmission corridors.
I doubt many environmentalists have thought through the consequences of wind and solar.
When Obama announced that he was going to start the largest public works program since the Interstate system, I thought he might be talking about an interstate high speed rail network.
Though, after looking through his proposal, I don't see anything about high speed trains. I think a train network would kill many birds with one stone:
- it would provide a fast alternative to flying, which I hate. - it would cut down on carbon emissions since trains are much more efficient than cars or planes. - it could do for the country what the interstate system did in the last half of the last century. - it would create lots of jobs spread out across the country
I don't dispute the points you made about the law of diminishing returns. I think if you read the points you posted carefully you'll understand why you can't live off your checks forever without doing anything.
I spent quite some time trying to simplify things into a form you could understand. I would suggest rereading my last comment very carefully. Perhaps if you have specific questions I can clarify further, but I really don't know where your logic is failing for you.
I find it hard to believe that someone who isn't familiar with basic economics can afford a "mega-yacht". But, lets assume for a minute that you did stumble into money.
So you invest it. In a savings account, at N%. Inflation runs at M%, so your net return is (N-M)%, lets say K%.
The first problem I see is that historically M has been greater than N. The rate of inflation is almost always higher than the rate of return from a savings account. Even inflation adjusted T-bills are set so that M = N. Best case scenario you make nothing in the long run and most of the time K is negative meaning that your money is slowly dwindling in real inflation adjusted terms.
But, so that we don't divert onto another tangent, I will ignore the first problem. I'll assume you've found an incredible savings account that always pays better than inflation. In this scenario K is positive and you make more money in real dollar adjusted terms every year. I'll also assume that K% of your initial investment is so high that you can live off it exclusively and never draw down the investment.
The second problem I see here is that to achieve a positive K, your money has to do something. It has to provide mortgages or start businesses and provide a return on the investment for the bank providing the savings account. So, even if you aren't doing the productive work directly, someone you trust has to. There is no magical interest fairy that adds cash to your bank account. That money has to come from somewhere. It has to be made.
But, I'll ignore the second problem also, since you didn't explicitly rule out other people using your money for productive uses. You're still sitting around doing nothing even if your money is working for you.
Time goes on and you breed. I have to assume this one or there will be no kids to inherit the money. And here's where it breaks down, and I can't find a way around it. You have kids. Your kids marry. They have kids. They marry. Ad infinitum. The progression here is geometric. If you know your math then you know a geometric progression grows more quickly than an exponential one, like interest. Your family will always grow to overwhelm the growth of your investment -- it is just a matter of time.
Of course, you can extend the "do nothing" mentality in your family by having less kids or hoping to God that all of them spend the money wisely and that the bank never collapses and that your currency never undergoes a devaluation. But, even in a perfect world, your offspring will eventually have to start contributing to society no matter how large the initial "lucky" investment was.
See, even in a perfect world, your kids can't live of your money forever. And, in the real world, it will run out much more quickly.
I think your logical failure stems from your assumption that investing is not real work and provides no value to society. If you actually have money, I think you'll see how difficult it is to achieve that positive K. People spend their whole lives trying, and failing to achieve a positive K.
Investing is incredibly difficult. Everybody thinks that if they just had a million dollars they'd be set for life. I think the fact that most lottery winners go broke within a few years speaks very loudly that this isn't the case.
Investing is an individual trying to predict the future. That is the most difficult job I can imagine. And the most useful to society.
So, even if you sit around on your ass living off your investment, you are still providing an extremely valuable service to society by deciding which ideas get funding and which are left to die. And, even if you do great at this job, your kids will have to continue your legacy if they hope to sit on their asses also.
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I have reevaluated based on your link and stand by my original statement. The study clearly states that organic farming is not as efficient as modern techniques.
where fertilizer isn't really in the budget, organic methods greatly increased yields
In other words, when modern techniques aren't being used organic farming is better than nothing at all. Obviously.
That doesn't matter at all. No matter how many resources there are people want to be better than those around them. So, you can setup a system where that basic instinct seems to work (most of the time) or fight it. Capitalism vs. communism.
A man's bank account is not an accurate measure of a man's worth. But, a man's economic contribution to society IS an accurate measure of his worth. In a good system the bank account will reflect the economic contribution.
"Intelligence" and "good will" don't feed / clothe / heal people -- hard work does. I think of it as the John Stewart syndrome. Sure, he's funny, entertaining, and wicked smart. But a potato farmer provides more value to society than him. There is no GDP component for criticism.
Also I don't think that valuing people only by their economic worth is very nice.
Until there are super smart robots and infinite resources the only fair way to value some is by their economic worth. What would you prefer? Race? Religion? How warm and fuzzy you are as a person? Or shall we assume that everyone is completely 100% equal? Do we all have the exact same value? Really?
Like it or not (I like it personally) a person's worth to society is at least proportional to their economic value. Albert Einstein's value to the world would be measured in trillions of dollars (maybe more). My meth head neighbors keep stealing my shit. Maybe it is "not very nice" but I think Albert Einstein is a more valuable human than those miserable wastes of flesh next door.
It is written *specifically* to undermine organic food
As though that is a bad thing. Organic food is a crime against humanity. No trolling -- in a world where billions still lack adequate nutrition it is murderous to shun fertilizer and pesticides. When everybody has enough food THEN you can worry if it was grown to your high standards, princess.
I've heard this so many times and it is just plain wrong. Here's why:
The digestive track of a cow has evolved to extract caloric value from plant cellulose, ours is not. It is not as simple as saying a cow gets 10% of the energy from the sun via grass and we get 10% of that energy therefore we should just eat grass. No matter how much grass we eat our digestive tracks will not be able to cope -- wasting resources in the process.
Do what nature intended you to do and eat meat.
You cannot be against world hunger and for organic foods. Organic foods forgo fertilizers and pesticides using more cropland and resources to produce the same amount of food. If the entire world ate organic food then only the rich could afford to eat. Personally, I'm OK with the use of technology if it means an extra child somewhere can eat.
I also heard about an investment scheme that only the rich can buy into. It was called Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, LLC and it is a sure fire way to make money -- he's been providing returns for decades now. I wish I was rich enough to buy into this sure fire way of making money.
California is not experiencing negative population growth:
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=uspopulation&met=population&idim=state:06000&q=population+california
Modern Japan and Germany would disagree.
I remember reading 20 years ago how acid rain would kill us all and we would be out of oil by 1997.
I agree. Patents are evil. So is greed. If only we could devise a market system that abolishes both. Honestly, I am surprised no one thought of it like 150 years ago.
From each according to ones abilities and to each according to their needs.
Do only evil
Seriously? Creating new sources of food is evil? Patents last for a few years or a couple decades (at most). New sources of food will continue to pay dividends for generations.
The simple solution is to use google docs and tie your documents to google analytics.
During the cold war the US used induction to tap undersea wire cables running to the Soviet Union. This worked great because the device was undetectable. It didn't require severing the cable, instead the listening device was simply placed next to the cable.
Unfortunately for the US spy outfits, fiber optics can't be tapped the same way, induction doesn't work. To tap a fiber optics cable, you have to literally cut it and insert the new device.
Off the top of my head, I'd say the best way to tap a fiber optics line would be to cut it once, move to another location, cut it again, and install the monitoring equipment at the second location before the first cut is patched. By the time the first cut is patched the equipment will be functioning pretty much undetectably.
Why not tap it when the fiber optic cables come ashore? Besides the political problems of trying to get host countries to agree, an above water tap would be much easier to detect during and after installation.
I'm sure someone will point out that fiber optics can't be tapped, just like encryption can't be broken, and Windows doesn't have a backdoor for the NSA.
Industrial Solar thermal isn't as cheap as nuclear and nuclear isn't as cheap as gas. But, the real issue I pointed out is the need to transmit the power. Industrial Solar Thermal works best in places with lots of sunlight. That power needs to be transmitted across the nation to be useful to anyone except those of us that live in the desert. Nuclear plants, on the other hand, can be built pretty much anywhere (regulation and NIMBY arguments aside).
By hydroelectric dam, I was refering to the most efficient way of storing solar or wind energy to use during the night / non-windy times. There are other ways to store energy, but they are all more expensive than hydroelectric.
Uranium is not limited in our lifetimes, our children's lifetimes, or our grandchildren's lifetimes. Besides, Thorium, one of the most abundant substances on earth is a decent alternative. By the time Uranium runs out, if we haven't perfected fusion power -- the ultimate solution -- then we have failed miserably. Also, while Uranium may be limited, it does sidestep the carbon emissions problem that seems more important.
The corporation commission where I live, Phoenix Arizona, illustrates perfectly that even though your idea is brilliant the politicians aren't following it.
The corporation commission here recently spent $800,000 to install solar panels on the convention center. According to them, this will offset the power needed for 12 houses. $800,000 / 12 = $66,667 per house.
One of the corporation commission officers, her name escapes me at the moment, was on NPR a few months ago. A caller pointed out that a new solar installation at those 12 homes would total less than $20,000 per house, less than 1/3 the cost. She avoided the question by saying "We like to invest in a variety of options."
Because of the variability of wind and solar power the Obama administration and T. Boone Pickens want to build thousands of miles of new transmission corridors for a couple reasons:
1) Energy will be produced away from cities on the plains or in the desert and shuttled to the cities via new transmission lines.
2) The grid will be enhanced (more lines added) so that it can compensate for the variability of wind/sunlight in different places in the country.
For example, if Phoenix, Arizona depends on solar power and a storm rolls in, then Phoenix will have to depend on power shipped in from elsewhere, like the mid-west. If Phoenix doesn't have transmission lines to other parts of the country then Phoenix will have to fire up some coal/natural gas plants to provide the difference.
That is a great idea, but it is not the one being pursued by the Obama administration and isn't the one being pursued by T. Boone Pickens.
Both Obama and T. Boone Pickens want to build wind farms and solar farms in desolate places (the mid-west plain states for wind, desert states for solar) and transport the energy to city centers.
Solar and wind are bad solutions because:
- They require thousands of miles of new power lines to be built. Getting power lines approved and built is monumentally expensive (which is why Mr. Pickens wants the tax payers to pay for them instead of building them himself).
- The wind doesn't blow all the time, nor does the sun shine all the time. You can store it (which is equivalent to running a hydroelectric dam) or build gas powered plants to run during the evenings.
- Solar and wind are not as inexpensive as proponents claim.
Nuclear is the only power source with a virtually unlimited source of fuel and that can be brought online without a massive new power grid and is nearly as cheap as gas powered generation.
I'm not disagreeing at all. But, if trains are a non-starter because of NIMBY, then so are solar and wind farms since both also require new transmission corridors.
I doubt many environmentalists have thought through the consequences of wind and solar.
You meant "trillions", right?
When Obama announced that he was going to start the largest public works program since the Interstate system, I thought he might be talking about an interstate high speed rail network.
Though, after looking through his proposal, I don't see anything about high speed trains. I think a train network would kill many birds with one stone:
- it would provide a fast alternative to flying, which I hate.
- it would cut down on carbon emissions since trains are much more efficient than cars or planes.
- it could do for the country what the interstate system did in the last half of the last century.
- it would create lots of jobs spread out across the country
I don't dispute the points you made about the law of diminishing returns. I think if you read the points you posted carefully you'll understand why you can't live off your checks forever without doing anything.
I spent quite some time trying to simplify things into a form you could understand. I would suggest rereading my last comment very carefully. Perhaps if you have specific questions I can clarify further, but I really don't know where your logic is failing for you.
I find it hard to believe that someone who isn't familiar with basic economics can afford a "mega-yacht". But, lets assume for a minute that you did stumble into money.
So you invest it. In a savings account, at N%. Inflation runs at M%, so your net return is (N-M)%, lets say K%.
The first problem I see is that historically M has been greater than N. The rate of inflation is almost always higher than the rate of return from a savings account. Even inflation adjusted T-bills are set so that M = N. Best case scenario you make nothing in the long run and most of the time K is negative meaning that your money is slowly dwindling in real inflation adjusted terms.
But, so that we don't divert onto another tangent, I will ignore the first problem. I'll assume you've found an incredible savings account that always pays better than inflation. In this scenario K is positive and you make more money in real dollar adjusted terms every year. I'll also assume that K% of your initial investment is so high that you can live off it exclusively and never draw down the investment.
The second problem I see here is that to achieve a positive K, your money has to do something. It has to provide mortgages or start businesses and provide a return on the investment for the bank providing the savings account. So, even if you aren't doing the productive work directly, someone you trust has to. There is no magical interest fairy that adds cash to your bank account. That money has to come from somewhere. It has to be made.
But, I'll ignore the second problem also, since you didn't explicitly rule out other people using your money for productive uses. You're still sitting around doing nothing even if your money is working for you.
Time goes on and you breed. I have to assume this one or there will be no kids to inherit the money. And here's where it breaks down, and I can't find a way around it. You have kids. Your kids marry. They have kids. They marry. Ad infinitum. The progression here is geometric. If you know your math then you know a geometric progression grows more quickly than an exponential one, like interest. Your family will always grow to overwhelm the growth of your investment -- it is just a matter of time.
Of course, you can extend the "do nothing" mentality in your family by having less kids or hoping to God that all of them spend the money wisely and that the bank never collapses and that your currency never undergoes a devaluation. But, even in a perfect world, your offspring will eventually have to start contributing to society no matter how large the initial "lucky" investment was.
See, even in a perfect world, your kids can't live of your money forever. And, in the real world, it will run out much more quickly.
I think your logical failure stems from your assumption that investing is not real work and provides no value to society. If you actually have money, I think you'll see how difficult it is to achieve that positive K. People spend their whole lives trying, and failing to achieve a positive K.
Investing is incredibly difficult. Everybody thinks that if they just had a million dollars they'd be set for life. I think the fact that most lottery winners go broke within a few years speaks very loudly that this isn't the case.
Investing is an individual trying to predict the future. That is the most difficult job I can imagine. And the most useful to society.
So, even if you sit around on your ass living off your investment, you are still providing an extremely valuable service to society by deciding which ideas get funding and which are left to die. And, even if you do great at this job, your kids will have to continue your legacy if they hope to sit on their asses also.