The Trust Fund will run out of money one day and we'll have to cut benefits or divert general funds to pay make it up or raise SS taxes
Or we could, you know, get rid of the cap. I have yet to hear a coherent argument explaining why regressive payroll taxes are a good thing for this country.
A tax with two brackets:
$0 - $117000; 2.9%
$117000+; 0.0%
I'm sure it's this way to encourage job creators to, um...
We may disagree on which agencies fall outside the purview (or should, at least) of the federal government (I, for one, think the DOE is pretty awesome, and I'm glad that my tax dollars help support it), we can at least agree that shit is broken, and it's not really because of old people or sick people.
The shit that our elected officials do with the money we give them can not be morally defended. If I spend my whole life paying into Social Security, when I'm 70 is not a good time to tell me that all of the money has been shuffled over to totally unrelated programs and that I'll be eating cardboard for the [brief] remainder of my life. It's one thing if there's simply too many old people and not enough people in the workforce to support them; it's another thing entirely if the money is being squandered elsewhere.
Who are "THEY"? The people running Medicare? No, that's not right.
The point is not that "we're fine"; we're not.
The point is that trotting out Social Security and Medicare as examples of why our budget is broken is misleading. These programs are funded through separate withholdings, withholdings that exceed the cost of said programs. Perhaps these programs are "too much", and we should decrease their scope along with their respective withholdings. Perhaps they're "not enough", and we should increase their scope along with their respective withholdings. Perhaps they're "just right", and we should leave them alone. In any case, these programs have very little to do with our current budget woes, as the funds to pay for them are being collected just fine.
That the money collected specifically for these programs is instead misappropriated or borrowed against is no indictment of the programs themselves. Yes, the money has already been spent. No, the money has not already been spent on these programs. You can start pointing at social welfare programs as the primary drivers of deficit spending once you show me how gross tax receipts are sufficient to cover defense spending and all the other shit that's paid for out of the general fund. I say that as someone who works in the defense industry.
Yes, plastic, way worse than polystyrene, which we've been happily making cups out of for decades, with nary a peep from the green crowd. Where each cup has the mass of dozens of these plastic pods, takes even longer than flimsy plastic to biodegrade, and can't be recycled. Again, penny wise, pound retarded.
Sure, a French press is "greener". But you're missing the point entirely by focusing on little flecks of plastic while giant mounds of Styrofoam fill our landfills.
I do think Robonaut is both rad hardened (or suitable rad hardened replacement components have been identified) , as it's specifically intended for operations in space, and of sufficient dexterity/flexibility, as it is built with dimensions comparable to an adult human and nearly as many degrees of freedom. It can use tools designed for humans, like screwdrivers and drills. The idea is that it will function as a teleoperated human surrogate. A human back on Earth dons a head-mounted display for visual feedback (first person Robonaut view) and a motion capture system enables any torso-and-above operator motions to be mimicked by Robonaut. Having watched a demo of this firsthand, I can't see how any task that can be performed by a gloved, legless human would be beyond the capabilities of Robonaut.
Aside from that, Pearson did a lot of work as far as ISRU production goes as well, as far as putting forth a proposal for making "bricks" out of lunar regolith, using a minimal amount of conventional technology, right there on the moon. Sure, it hasn't been done yet, but there's no indication that it we lack the capability, based on what I've read. Of course, then there's the small matter of turning bricks into unimaginably tall towers, which I haven't read much about, but that doesn't strike me as an insurmountable problem, since people have been building towers out of bricks for a while here on Earth (and the moon has no wind, no tectonics, and a lot less gravity).
I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. Also, hilarious link. Perhaps in the future, space elevators will be like airships, and we'll have figured out a much better way of getting things out of gravity wells. Or maybe everything will go full steampunk and we'll be launching chemical rockets from airships. Interesting times we live in.
Regarding the repair system: Why would AI be required? We've already demonstrated the capability to launch humans to the moon and get them back in one piece. Presumably any repairs could be conducted by astronauts (at prohibitive cost). Alternatively, the moon is close enough for Robonaut to function as a remotely operated astronaut surrogate. Are you saying the repair system would be so advanced that it couldn't even be implemented by human (or human-controlled-humanoid) labor?
I guess we just have different thresholds of feasibility. You seem to tend towards "practical", whereas I tend towards "possible".
I agree with nearly everything you've said. However, I do agree with NASA's assessment that SLS is indeed feasible and low-risk. The only risk is funding, or lack thereof. I also believe that it should be scrapped, as it's already several decades late to the party.
I didn't mean to suggest that we could go to Walmart for some parts and have a lunar elevator running by next week. Obviously, a tremendous amount of work (and money) would be involved, and it doesn't help that the political will just isn't there. I'm just saying that it's feasible (by NASA's standards), and that if we threw enough money at the problem (which we won't), it would be solved. This is in contrast to other ideas that are often mentioned alongside a lunar space elevator, like an Earth-based space elevator, faster-than-light travel, Dyson spheres, or other ideas which are currently not feasible, even by NASA's standards, regardless of political will or funding.
You have a very strange way of posting. I'm not sure why you provided the URL to my comment, but I'm especially confused by why you provided the URLs to three comments that have nothing to do with mine. Anyway, I'll just respond to the part of your post that seems to address what I said.
It's not just that it's plastic waste. It's the used coffee grounds inside it, and the foil on top. In order to recycle it, someone has to take it all apart and separate it all out. I'm no wacko environmentalist, but I do squick at things that are single-use and made of semi-durable materials like that.
So let me get this straight. Pods are wasteful because it's a lot of work to take them apart when they are recycled? If they're being recycled, how are they wasteful? If they're not being recycled, then they're not being taken apart and separated, so how is it a lot of work?
More importantly, how is it that throwing away a tiny fleck of plastic can be worse than using a giant polystyrene cup that can't be recycled? Where's all the faux outrage over Dunkin Donuts and virtually any no-name coffee shop serving coffee in Styrofoam cups? Penny wise, pound retarded.
Also, this article was the first time I noticed how huge the overlap is between coffee drinkers and "green" crazies. In an article about Keurig and DRM, half the comments are about how "wasteful" coffee pods are, but not a peep about the polystyrene alternative.
Yes and no. I didn't suggest that a return to the progressive taxation of yore would be the silver bullet that eliminates all our economic woes. I understand that the tax code is designed to let the wealthy skate on by. I'm just saying that the fact that we have an income tax and not a wealth tax is no reason to throw up our hands in defeat. Taxing high earners is one way of limiting their ability to become disproportionately wealthy. It's not foolproof, but it's better than entirely abandoning the idea of taxing the rich, which is what we seem to have done over the last few decades.
That being said, I'm all for forcible redistribution of wealth. If we nationalized the wealth of just the ten richest Americans, it would amount to roughly $1000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. We could do this annually, as an economic stimulus. Not only would it kick-start an economy devoid of spending, but it would also provide some incentive for the wealthy to limit their fortunes to reasonable sizes [by spending] instead of vying for the top spots on the Forbes list.
We throw entire naval vessels away but you're concerned with tiny plastic cups?
What percentage of non-recycled plastic do you think consists of coffee pods (and even throw in the creamer cups for good measure). Is it even 0.01%? Do you honestly think that a fraction of a gram of plastic per cup of coffee is more wasteful than a giant polystyrene cup? Where's the false outrage over Dunkin Donuts or virtually any other establishment that sells drip coffee?
It always makes me chuckle when Keurig-haters points out how "hugely wasteful" tiny plastic pods are as they gulp down a Dunkin Donuts coffee from a giant polystyrene cup.
I couldn't believe this whole "Keurig" thing when I saw it, it creates all sorts of plastic waste
I see this being brought up constantly. The whole "waste" thing. I find it amazing that concern for waste has become so widespread. Comically widespread. This waste that everyone is complaining about amounts to a fraction of a gram of plastic, a tiny little plastic pod, per cup of coffee. When is the last time you heard people complaining about Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks because of waste? Surely a huge polystyrene cup is considerably more waste than a tiny plastic pod? But no, it's the Keurig that's wasteful.
Up next: cigarettes are wasteful because each pack is sealed with a layer of cellophane.
Indeed, any surface that is more hydrophilic than water will pull the water (pull it harder than the water pulls itself) into a thin film. That being said, I don't believe human skin meets this requirement. If water is forming a film over other non-skin surfaces, it doesn't pose much of a choking hazard.
I thought Pearson's 1978 paper claimed it was possible even at that time, over thirty years ago. His 2005 feasibility study confirmed this. Are there some operational requirements that he and NASA missed?
I'm Polish. The general consensus among Poles is that if you're stuck choosing sides between Hitler or Stalin, you go with Hitler, hands down.
This may be a surprise to many Americans. I was raised in America and went through the public school system. There is an overwhelming focus on the atrocities committed by Hitler but comparatively little time spent studying Stalin. Americans are much more keenly aware of the Nazi Holocaust than the Soviet Holomodor.
I'm not trying to make any claims about which side was worse. I'm merely pointing out that Americans tend to vilify Hitler more, whereas the Poles (and I'd imagine many other folks in that neighborhood, like the Ukrainians) are more focused on Stalin. Whether that's because the Slavs of eastern Europe shared Hitler's beliefs or if the firsthand experience that they suffered gives them unique insights is anyone's guess.
You know, I had a similar experience. However, my senior year, I did end up actually choosing to take a couple grand in loans, simply to have spending money for "partying" (which was the best money I ever spent). By the time I fled grad school, I had less than $5K in student loans, hardly a significant burden.
That's not the big difference between us, though. The big difference, I'd say, is that I'm not quite as full of myself. Read your post again and reflect on how much of an ass you sound like, keeping in mind how grants allotted to the top X% of applicants are necessarily not available to the bottom 1-X% applicants.
It's easy -- because in many ways "science" has become a religion to many.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - Saint Carlin
There was a day when most of the people that had the means to pursue an education were really into religion. Really, they were clergy. Anyway, since most people are imbeciles, they'd see these smart dudes, and they'd notice that all the smart dudes are into this god stuff, so they tried to get into this god stuff too. I mean, smart people dig the god stuff. And so was born the class of ignorant religious people. In Christian areas, this was characterized by mobs of illiterate idiots being preached to in a language they didn't understand. But they loved it. Without understanding it, they loved it more than I can comprehend. They loved it to the point that they were easily whipped into a frenzy, killing all sorts of people for it.
Today, not much as changed. Most of the people that have the means to pursue an education are really into science. Just kidding. Some of them are, though. A good number of the smart ones, at least. But people are still imbeciles, by and large. They see these egghead bastards and they notice that they're into this science stuff. So of course, they try to get into this science stuff too. But they're idiots, so they don't quite get it. Instead, they parade around, touting the awesomeness of this science. But they don't understand it.
While I wholeheartedly oppose any attempts to cast science as religion (primarily because it waters down the English language and makes it more difficult to communicate clearly), it can be seen that there are indeed some parallels here. Indeed, much like in the past, people had faith in their religion without even being capable of reading their holy book firsthand, today you've got people rallying behind science despite not being able to foster any critical thoughts on their own.
When you absolutely know that your products do not do what they claim to do, and you sell them anyway because you count on your customers being too dumb to figure it out, that is just really disrespectful.
That sums up the overwhelming majority of today's economy. There's no need to single out Whole Foods.
If everyone went all natural there'd be no nature left.
I dunno, non-humans have been getting by on this socially unsustainable rigid pre-scientific pre-enlightenment appeal to nature type dogma for eons, and it didn't seem to eliminate nature. Natural populations have a tendency to have their growth limited by available food. Not to go full Malthus on you, but odds are that starvation would have kept our numbers in check long before we got rid of nature.
Of course, some people prefer to eat shitty food as long as they're able to pop out a litter of kids. Kudos to them, but I'll be damned if I'm eating meat-in-a-vat just to subsidize everyone else's unsustainable breeding practices.
I mean, I'll speak for myself, but if I were on the verge of drowning in space, I'd probably take my chances gulping down the liquid, even if it meant I'd have to vomit it back up once out of the suit.
Slashdot Mirror
Ha, I knew that was you when I saw the subject line.
Is erroneus the only person that prefixes "Re:" at the front of someone else's subject line when replying to their post?
The Trust Fund will run out of money one day and we'll have to cut benefits or divert general funds to pay make it up or raise SS taxes
Or we could, you know, get rid of the cap. I have yet to hear a coherent argument explaining why regressive payroll taxes are a good thing for this country.
A tax with two brackets:
$0 - $117000; 2.9%
$117000+; 0.0%
I'm sure it's this way to encourage job creators to, um...
It does.
We may disagree on which agencies fall outside the purview (or should, at least) of the federal government (I, for one, think the DOE is pretty awesome, and I'm glad that my tax dollars help support it), we can at least agree that shit is broken, and it's not really because of old people or sick people.
The shit that our elected officials do with the money we give them can not be morally defended. If I spend my whole life paying into Social Security, when I'm 70 is not a good time to tell me that all of the money has been shuffled over to totally unrelated programs and that I'll be eating cardboard for the [brief] remainder of my life. It's one thing if there's simply too many old people and not enough people in the workforce to support them; it's another thing entirely if the money is being squandered elsewhere.
THEY HAVE SPENT ALL THAT MONEY.
Who are "THEY"? The people running Medicare? No, that's not right.
The point is not that "we're fine"; we're not.
The point is that trotting out Social Security and Medicare as examples of why our budget is broken is misleading. These programs are funded through separate withholdings, withholdings that exceed the cost of said programs. Perhaps these programs are "too much", and we should decrease their scope along with their respective withholdings. Perhaps they're "not enough", and we should increase their scope along with their respective withholdings. Perhaps they're "just right", and we should leave them alone. In any case, these programs have very little to do with our current budget woes, as the funds to pay for them are being collected just fine.
That the money collected specifically for these programs is instead misappropriated or borrowed against is no indictment of the programs themselves. Yes, the money has already been spent. No, the money has not already been spent on these programs. You can start pointing at social welfare programs as the primary drivers of deficit spending once you show me how gross tax receipts are sufficient to cover defense spending and all the other shit that's paid for out of the general fund. I say that as someone who works in the defense industry.
Yes, plastic, way worse than polystyrene, which we've been happily making cups out of for decades, with nary a peep from the green crowd. Where each cup has the mass of dozens of these plastic pods, takes even longer than flimsy plastic to biodegrade, and can't be recycled. Again, penny wise, pound retarded.
Sure, a French press is "greener". But you're missing the point entirely by focusing on little flecks of plastic while giant mounds of Styrofoam fill our landfills.
Excellent post.
I do think Robonaut is both rad hardened (or suitable rad hardened replacement components have been identified) , as it's specifically intended for operations in space, and of sufficient dexterity/flexibility, as it is built with dimensions comparable to an adult human and nearly as many degrees of freedom. It can use tools designed for humans, like screwdrivers and drills. The idea is that it will function as a teleoperated human surrogate. A human back on Earth dons a head-mounted display for visual feedback (first person Robonaut view) and a motion capture system enables any torso-and-above operator motions to be mimicked by Robonaut. Having watched a demo of this firsthand, I can't see how any task that can be performed by a gloved, legless human would be beyond the capabilities of Robonaut.
Aside from that, Pearson did a lot of work as far as ISRU production goes as well, as far as putting forth a proposal for making "bricks" out of lunar regolith, using a minimal amount of conventional technology, right there on the moon. Sure, it hasn't been done yet, but there's no indication that it we lack the capability, based on what I've read. Of course, then there's the small matter of turning bricks into unimaginably tall towers, which I haven't read much about, but that doesn't strike me as an insurmountable problem, since people have been building towers out of bricks for a while here on Earth (and the moon has no wind, no tectonics, and a lot less gravity).
I suppose we'll just have to wait and see. Also, hilarious link. Perhaps in the future, space elevators will be like airships, and we'll have figured out a much better way of getting things out of gravity wells. Or maybe everything will go full steampunk and we'll be launching chemical rockets from airships. Interesting times we live in.
Regarding the repair system: Why would AI be required? We've already demonstrated the capability to launch humans to the moon and get them back in one piece. Presumably any repairs could be conducted by astronauts (at prohibitive cost). Alternatively, the moon is close enough for Robonaut to function as a remotely operated astronaut surrogate. Are you saying the repair system would be so advanced that it couldn't even be implemented by human (or human-controlled-humanoid) labor?
I guess we just have different thresholds of feasibility. You seem to tend towards "practical", whereas I tend towards "possible".
Isn't thrust, um, air movement?
Well said, and thanks for clarifying.
I agree with nearly everything you've said. However, I do agree with NASA's assessment that SLS is indeed feasible and low-risk. The only risk is funding, or lack thereof. I also believe that it should be scrapped, as it's already several decades late to the party.
I didn't mean to suggest that we could go to Walmart for some parts and have a lunar elevator running by next week. Obviously, a tremendous amount of work (and money) would be involved, and it doesn't help that the political will just isn't there. I'm just saying that it's feasible (by NASA's standards), and that if we threw enough money at the problem (which we won't), it would be solved. This is in contrast to other ideas that are often mentioned alongside a lunar space elevator, like an Earth-based space elevator, faster-than-light travel, Dyson spheres, or other ideas which are currently not feasible, even by NASA's standards, regardless of political will or funding.
If by innocent you mean twice-convicted, then sure. Unless you have some evidence that you've been withholding from the Italian courts...
It's not just that it's plastic waste. It's the used coffee grounds inside it, and the foil on top. In order to recycle it, someone has to take it all apart and separate it all out. I'm no wacko environmentalist, but I do squick at things that are single-use and made of semi-durable materials like that.
So let me get this straight. Pods are wasteful because it's a lot of work to take them apart when they are recycled? If they're being recycled, how are they wasteful? If they're not being recycled, then they're not being taken apart and separated, so how is it a lot of work?
More importantly, how is it that throwing away a tiny fleck of plastic can be worse than using a giant polystyrene cup that can't be recycled? Where's all the faux outrage over Dunkin Donuts and virtually any no-name coffee shop serving coffee in Styrofoam cups? Penny wise, pound retarded.
Also, this article was the first time I noticed how huge the overlap is between coffee drinkers and "green" crazies. In an article about Keurig and DRM, half the comments are about how "wasteful" coffee pods are, but not a peep about the polystyrene alternative.
Yes and no. I didn't suggest that a return to the progressive taxation of yore would be the silver bullet that eliminates all our economic woes. I understand that the tax code is designed to let the wealthy skate on by. I'm just saying that the fact that we have an income tax and not a wealth tax is no reason to throw up our hands in defeat. Taxing high earners is one way of limiting their ability to become disproportionately wealthy. It's not foolproof, but it's better than entirely abandoning the idea of taxing the rich, which is what we seem to have done over the last few decades.
That being said, I'm all for forcible redistribution of wealth. If we nationalized the wealth of just the ten richest Americans, it would amount to roughly $1000 for every man, woman, and child in this country. We could do this annually, as an economic stimulus. Not only would it kick-start an economy devoid of spending, but it would also provide some incentive for the wealthy to limit their fortunes to reasonable sizes [by spending] instead of vying for the top spots on the Forbes list.
We throw entire naval vessels away but you're concerned with tiny plastic cups?
What percentage of non-recycled plastic do you think consists of coffee pods (and even throw in the creamer cups for good measure). Is it even 0.01%? Do you honestly think that a fraction of a gram of plastic per cup of coffee is more wasteful than a giant polystyrene cup? Where's the false outrage over Dunkin Donuts or virtually any other establishment that sells drip coffee?
It always makes me chuckle when Keurig-haters points out how "hugely wasteful" tiny plastic pods are as they gulp down a Dunkin Donuts coffee from a giant polystyrene cup.
I couldn't believe this whole "Keurig" thing when I saw it, it creates all sorts of plastic waste
I see this being brought up constantly. The whole "waste" thing. I find it amazing that concern for waste has become so widespread. Comically widespread. This waste that everyone is complaining about amounts to a fraction of a gram of plastic, a tiny little plastic pod, per cup of coffee. When is the last time you heard people complaining about Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks because of waste? Surely a huge polystyrene cup is considerably more waste than a tiny plastic pod? But no, it's the Keurig that's wasteful.
Up next: cigarettes are wasteful because each pack is sealed with a layer of cellophane.
Indeed, any surface that is more hydrophilic than water will pull the water (pull it harder than the water pulls itself) into a thin film. That being said, I don't believe human skin meets this requirement. If water is forming a film over other non-skin surfaces, it doesn't pose much of a choking hazard.
I thought Pearson's 1978 paper claimed it was possible even at that time, over thirty years ago. His 2005 feasibility study confirmed this. Are there some operational requirements that he and NASA missed?
I'm Polish. The general consensus among Poles is that if you're stuck choosing sides between Hitler or Stalin, you go with Hitler, hands down.
This may be a surprise to many Americans. I was raised in America and went through the public school system. There is an overwhelming focus on the atrocities committed by Hitler but comparatively little time spent studying Stalin. Americans are much more keenly aware of the Nazi Holocaust than the Soviet Holomodor.
I'm not trying to make any claims about which side was worse. I'm merely pointing out that Americans tend to vilify Hitler more, whereas the Poles (and I'd imagine many other folks in that neighborhood, like the Ukrainians) are more focused on Stalin. Whether that's because the Slavs of eastern Europe shared Hitler's beliefs or if the firsthand experience that they suffered gives them unique insights is anyone's guess.
You know, I had a similar experience. However, my senior year, I did end up actually choosing to take a couple grand in loans, simply to have spending money for "partying" (which was the best money I ever spent). By the time I fled grad school, I had less than $5K in student loans, hardly a significant burden.
That's not the big difference between us, though. The big difference, I'd say, is that I'm not quite as full of myself. Read your post again and reflect on how much of an ass you sound like, keeping in mind how grants allotted to the top X% of applicants are necessarily not available to the bottom 1-X% applicants.
It's easy -- because in many ways "science" has become a religion to many.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - Saint Carlin
There was a day when most of the people that had the means to pursue an education were really into religion. Really, they were clergy. Anyway, since most people are imbeciles, they'd see these smart dudes, and they'd notice that all the smart dudes are into this god stuff, so they tried to get into this god stuff too. I mean, smart people dig the god stuff. And so was born the class of ignorant religious people. In Christian areas, this was characterized by mobs of illiterate idiots being preached to in a language they didn't understand. But they loved it. Without understanding it, they loved it more than I can comprehend. They loved it to the point that they were easily whipped into a frenzy, killing all sorts of people for it.
Today, not much as changed. Most of the people that have the means to pursue an education are really into science. Just kidding. Some of them are, though. A good number of the smart ones, at least. But people are still imbeciles, by and large. They see these egghead bastards and they notice that they're into this science stuff. So of course, they try to get into this science stuff too. But they're idiots, so they don't quite get it. Instead, they parade around, touting the awesomeness of this science. But they don't understand it.
While I wholeheartedly oppose any attempts to cast science as religion (primarily because it waters down the English language and makes it more difficult to communicate clearly), it can be seen that there are indeed some parallels here. Indeed, much like in the past, people had faith in their religion without even being capable of reading their holy book firsthand, today you've got people rallying behind science despite not being able to foster any critical thoughts on their own.
I've tried their homeopathic rotisserie chicken. While it did quench my thirst, I found the flavor to be a bit bland.
When you absolutely know that your products do not do what they claim to do, and you sell them anyway because you count on your customers being too dumb to figure it out, that is just really disrespectful.
That sums up the overwhelming majority of today's economy. There's no need to single out Whole Foods.
How does their grasp of science effect the freshness of their kale?
Perhaps the scientific method has helped them determine an optimally efficient route for their produce delivery trucks?
Effect, v., to cause, to make happen, to bring about.
(You probably meant: Affect, v., to produce an effect, to influence.)
Pedantry.
If everyone went all natural there'd be no nature left.
I dunno, non-humans have been getting by on this socially unsustainable rigid pre-scientific pre-enlightenment appeal to nature type dogma for eons, and it didn't seem to eliminate nature. Natural populations have a tendency to have their growth limited by available food. Not to go full Malthus on you, but odds are that starvation would have kept our numbers in check long before we got rid of nature.
Of course, some people prefer to eat shitty food as long as they're able to pop out a litter of kids. Kudos to them, but I'll be damned if I'm eating meat-in-a-vat just to subsidize everyone else's unsustainable breeding practices.
I mean, I'll speak for myself, but if I were on the verge of drowning in space, I'd probably take my chances gulping down the liquid, even if it meant I'd have to vomit it back up once out of the suit.