Reminds me of a quote from one of the economists my wife works with.
Humans don't understand exponential curves.
I'm not sure what you're saying there. Are you saying that the past 110 years of data is not relevant to estimating future performance? Statistically, that's completely true. Just because we've seen 9+% growth for the past 110 years is no indication that the next 110 years will show the same. I'm just curious as to what data you are looking at that indicates that it won't.
Please forgive me if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Since my impression is that your perspective is different than mine, I'm truly interested in understanding where you're coming from in order to make sure that I'm not perpetuating an incorrect perspective.
And how many crashes will their be in 100 years? How many 401k did well after last time? Boom bust cycles is the way the current economy works. Your 2Billion today would not look anything like 100 billion in a 100 years no matter how confidant the guy is that takes your money.
Ever heard the phrase "Climate is not weather"? The argument being that a momentary snapshot is not indicative of a long term trend. If you look at the DOW, from 1900 to 2009 the average annual return was ~9.4%. That's including the Great Depression and the current economic mess we're in along with 13 other significant recessions. Boom/bust is the way the economy has always worked. And, over the long term it always grows.
This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference.
Too bad we didn't actually believe in no government interference in the market... we wouldn't have these artificial entities without any real liability that we refer to as corporations. It's easy to blame the corporations for our problems since they're such a big contributor. But, claiming government is the solution to the corporate problem is a little strange when it's the government that created them to begin with.
Get rid of government and corporations disappear immediately.
I'm not advocating that as the solution. I'm just highly entertained by those that rail against corporations and claim because of that we need to get government more involved. We're complaining about symptoms and recommending the disease as a cure.
The second is that no one can militarily push China around. Before the US could point guns at a (generally) middle eastern oil state and grimace while paying slightly higher prices.
Don't confuse the US's ineptness in Iraq and Afghanistan for a weak military. There's a huge difference between fighting small, independent groups within a nation and a nation itself. China has a lot more to lose than a handful of "insurgents" do. Military vs military, I wouldn't question what the US could do to China.
Now, I don't believe it will ever come to that. There's too much interdependence between the two for that to happen. It's actually probably the same with virtually any relatively established country. That's why the US has to get it's war jollies fighting poppy farmers in Afghanistan. Stable nations generally want to negotiate rather than fight.
Anybody with a brain would realize that the work is hundreds of years old, and the performance in question is owned by the poster (the guy sitting at the piano)...
IANAL, but I do believe that anyone can record their own version of any work, regardless of when it was written, if the piece has been recorded and released by someone already. There are considerations for publishing royalties to the song writers, but as far as I know, once something has been released, a "cover" can be produced without anyone's consent required.
That's a separate issue, the classification of income.
Which is why an income tax is always ridiculous. Income is a very nebulous concept. You have to take into account expenses incurred in creating revenue. Open up that can of worms, and there you go. Why can't individuals deduct their costs of getting to work? That's required to generate the income and should be considered an expense, but it's not. Income is hard to define, particularly when you're talking about a business venture. So, why bother with all the confusion?
One does not need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. While people like Warren Buffet are an exception, there are many, many thousands of people at the highest end that would see their tax burden decrease under the so-called "fair" tax. Furthermore, Warren Buffet does pay capital gains tax. His tax burden is not zero; just his income tax burden. Are you deliberately misconstruing his tax burden to support your argument, or was it an honest mistake?
Capital gains rates are much lower than income tax rates. Buffet, as a percentage, pays less than his secretary. It doesn't matter if his amount is higher, especially when arguing your position.
Sorry, typo. I think I did that a couple times, it comes from my aversion to calling the so-called "fair" tax the fair tax. It's not a fair tax in my opinion, and I think the misnomer is a disingenuous way of lending the idea merit.
I think using the word fair in any concept in the political process is misleading. It's a completely subjective word that can never be realized. So, I would agree with you about calling the fair tax "fair". But, of all the proposals I've seen so far, it's the closest to a neutral definition of the word.
I'm not redefining words. You are redefining contexts. Consumption taxes are regressive as a function of income... perhaps for some reason it was not clear to you, despite the fact that both your examples, and my writings, and general discussion of progressive taxes, are based on comparisons of income?
Progressive/regresssive have nothing to do with income. It's refering to the change of rates in relation to what is being taxed. You can have a progressive income tax or a progressive sales tax or whatever. But, the fair tax is a consumption tax in which the rate of taxation increases with the amount of spending. So, it is a progressive consumption tax.
No. My statements make it clear that I do not agree with the premise of the "fair" tax. It is possible for someone to understand an idea, without agreeing with that idea. Your error here is a classic one that intelligent people often make... that if people understand an issue, they must come to the same conclusion you have. I would actually posit that the ignorance here is on your side, because not once have you touched on the economic impacts of the "fair" tax. In addition, it is clear to me that you are making a lot of assumptions about my knowledge of the subject, and about my motivations. More on that below.
All of my assumptions are based around your clear mistatements of fact and emotionally loaded rhetoric void of reason. You're not offering anything in terms of support that points to a better option.
And yet every proposal for a "fair" tax on consumption results in a lower tax burden on the extremely wealthy, and a higher tax burden on the middle class. EVERY single proposal I've seen for a "fair" tax results in this under analysis. If you can cite a single proposal where this is not the case, please share it... I'd be very interested in seeing one that doesn't shift the tax burden like this.
You need to look at the facts on the fair tax. For virtually everyone making over 60k, it's a net break even from the current system. For those under that, it's a decrease. You can find the Harvard study
Dude, I understand the fair tax. I've researched it. It's regressive at the highest levels... even with your prebates or whatever you want to call them.
If the more you spend (and you can't spend what you don't have), the higher your percentage of taxation is, HOW CAN THAT BE REGRESSIVE? Regressive means the rate of taxation increases as what is taxed decreases. You may not like the tax, but you can't redefine words to argue against it.
What happens under the "fair tax" is that the very rich get a MASSIVE tax break. That is the net impact, and why the flat tax gets so much support among the wealthy.
How do they get a massive tax break? Most of the "very rich" don't even pay income taxes today. Haven't you heard Warren Buffet making the statement that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does? Their profits are from capital gains, which are not taxed as income. You're saying you like that system better?
A flat tax shifts some of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class, even with an exemption level or "prebates".
Huh? We're not talking about a flat income tax. We're talking about a consumption tax. How does ending withholding of people's money from their checks and sending them a check that covers the majority of what they will pay (if they choose to spend, which they don't have to other than for necessities, which is paid back to them) shifting the burden? The fair tax is specifically designed to have a net neutral effect on people's current tax situation. It just changes how it's collected and eliminates the loopholes that the "rich" keep getting in our current system.
And that's the crux of why a flat tax on consumption is a bad idea. It's a disincentive to consume, and it would choke the economy. This is the problem with transactional taxes -- they directly inhibit the activity they tax.
We need a disinsentive for consumption. You could argue in the near term that wouldn't necessarily be good, but the reason we're in this mess is because too many people were spending money that they didn't have.
And, regardless, people are already paying the exact same taxes when they buy things because the current taxes are embedded into the prices of everything you buy. 22-25% of the cost of everything you purchase is the embedded taxes that are hidden from you right now. You're already paying the tax when you purchase, you just don't get it broken out on the receipt so you can see it.
Indirect taxes, like income tax, do not have this problem to the same extent.
Indirect taxes mean that they can sneak in new ones without you knowing. They can sneak in new loopholes that you and I will never know about because we're nowhere near rich enough to get them. Never mind how many social resources are wasted to stay compliant. Never mind how easy it is to cheat the current system in ways that would never be possible with a consumption tax. In the current system, you just have to lie on your taxes. Most of it they can't validate. With a consumption based tax, it takes a conspiracy of a few people to cheat the system.
I don't think you really do understand the current system or the fair tax. That's fine if you are open to looking, but your statements make it clear that you have some bias against the idea, which means you're ignorant, not stupid.
I don't know if that bias comes from something you hold against someone that came out in support of it at some point or what. Maybe, at least it seems from what you've been saying, you just don't believe in a fair system. Of course, I don't either because the definition of that term is pretty hard to nail down, which makes it an easy tool to poo-poo any idea you don't agree with.
It seems like you just have a grudge with people that have money. That's ok if you do, but you just need to be honest that you think that people that have
The Washington Post can't go out of business fast enough for me.
There's no such thing as neutral media. They all have bias. Personally, I wish we'd drop the pretention that it's possible to not have bias. Then, maybe everyone would stop the whole pissing contest about who is, as they say, "fair and balanced."
Keep the Wikileaks coming, I say.
I'm completely with you there. Just like what I said above, we need information out there. We need to know who's saying what. And, we need to know where they're coming from so that we can put the correct context on what is being said.
I'm more than happy for people that I disagree with to have a strong voice, even if that's made up of idiots like Palin or Guraffalo. No one is correct 100% of the time. No one is wrong 100% of the time. Let people be straight about where they're coming from and balance what they say with that. Don't just dismiss someone because they're idiots most of the time. Sometimes the idiots actually have decent ideas.
Unless we can get past this contemptuous division we have in our political system and take things on their merits rather than the merits of who said them, we're going to be screwed as far as digging out of the multitude of messes we are in. Thoughtful political discourse requires us to separate our emotions from the process and weigh statements only within themselves outside of the divisive labeling we want to throw around.
The most dangerous bias in media is that of the consumers. Those of us that insist that only this network or newspaper or whatever espouses "truth" and this other has despicable motivations. The fact is, most people in the process, even those that disagree strongly with you or me, have good intentions. We may all differ in how to best make things better, but most really in their heart believe they are trying to do that.
We've got to quit questioning each others motives, throwing labels at each other and being dismissive just because we don't agree with someone in general. Until we get it all out in the open and deal with things as they are, no real solutions will ever be found.
I'll go so far as to throw your logic back on you -- if you believe the fair tax is an improvement on the current situation, then you must be either extremely wealthy (these are the true beneficiaries of the "fair" tax) or you must have been bamboozled by people who are extremely wealthy. How's that for turnabout and fair play?
If you think the fair tax is regressive, you either don't know what the definition of regressive is or don't understand how the fair tax works because it is a progressive tax by design.
It seems most people just make the assumption that the fair tax is only a sales tax. Even if that were the case, it's not regressive, it's flat. However, it's not just a sales tax. It also includes a pre-bate, which is a payment made to heads of household for the taxes that would be incurred for the basic cost of living (determined by the poverty line). It is paid BEFORE taxes would be paid on purchases for the month.
If you're living at the poverty line, all the taxes you will pay, assuming you spend your entire salary, will be completely covered by the pre-bate. So, you effectively pay nothing. If you're below the poverty line, you get money to cover taxes you could never incur because you would never be able to spend more than you make. So, in effect, it's a salary bonus giving you more income. No one pays taxes on any money spent up to the poverty line.
To put it in mathematical terms to illustrate the progressive nature, assume a poverty line of $40,000 for a family of 4. Take one family that makes $20,000 (and will bring every dime of it home rather than have chunks withheld for later as with the current system), one that makes $40,000 and one that makes $80,000. With a 20% tax (that's not the fair tax number, but I'm using that for simplicity of calculation), the family that makes $20,000 would incur $4,000 in taxes. The family with $40,000 would incur $8,000. And, the family at $80,000 would incur $16,000. With a pre-bate of $8,000, the first family actually makes $4,000 more. The second family breaks even. The third has an $8,000 tax expense.
This means for the first family, their tax rate is effectively -20%. The second family's rate is 0%. And, the third family's rate would be 10%. Or, basically, the more money you spend, the higher your rate is, which is the definition of a progressive tax.
Sure, you can argue that "rich" people won't spend all their money and can thus avoid the taxes. If they're not spending it, they're investing it in businesses and such which also will pay the sales tax, but get no pre-bate for it. There are no loopholes to get out of paying. When you consume, you pay. If you can't afford to consume much, you either get paid more, pay nothing or very little at all in taxes.
They don't refuse to do that. They just allow you to calculate it yourself.
You can always ask the IRS to calculate your tax for you... they'll be glad to do so, as long as you make an estimated payment of net taxes due at filing time.
Seriously, where do you wingnuts get your "facts" from? A cracker-jack box?
I've had 3 different IRS agents come up with 3 different numbers for the same year with the same information. Sure, they'll tell you what you owe, but which one do you have to believe?
If you need to hire someone to calculate how much you owe, you must be stupid. It's ridiculously easy, you just need to follow some instructions. What's silly is that so many people are so bad at basic arithmetic and language that they can't follow a form that was written to a seventh-grade level.
And yes, I've been self-employed and received a W2 in the same year, along with capital gains tax due. It's not hard. It takes some time. People pay others to do it because it's convenient, or because they have an irrational fear of forms and numbers.
And, if your time isn't valuable to you, then that's great. Unfortunately, most people running small businesses are already spending 80+ hours each week just trying to run a good business. And, it may just be basic math, but there can be lots of it depending on your situation. And, since the rules change each year, you have to read up on everything to make sure you don't screw up. Also, what can be counted and how it can be counted as expenses or deductions changes, so you also have to keep up with that throughout the year to make sure you're not expensing something that you can't or in a way that isn't allowed.
There's a reason people hire others to manage their taxes. The rules are extremely complicated and if you screw up, the consequences can be substantial. It's not as easy as sit down one afternoon and do some math problems. If you've ever had to go through a major audit that spans several years of returns, you'd understand that.
I won't comment on fairtax, arguing about it with you would be a waste of time. But the reason you cite... it's just false.
I didn't read the gp, and maybe they didn't make a great argument. But, if you think the current system is better than the fair tax, you don't understand what they both really are or you're a lobbyist or politician that derives all their power from the current system with it's convoluted calculations and loopholes.
Here's the problem with a Sales Tax based solution...
I buy expensive shoes when I can afford it. I spend, say $100. That $100 buys me a good pair of shoes that lasts me maybe 2 years.
The guy one income bracket down buys the cheap shoes because he never has $100 cash on hand. He spends the $20 he has to get a passable pair of shoes. In those 2 years he replaces them 8 times.
In two years he has spent and been taxed on $160, I have spent and been taxed on $100. This is not because he *likes* his $20 shoes, it's not because he's simply being short-sighted. It's because he simply doesn't have $100 to spend all at once on shoes.
Now, apply this same concept to any commodity or property you like. The Sales Tax based solutions *always* favor the rich who have far greater latitude to manage their money into tax-free ventures just by virtue of having more of it at any given time.
That's not a problem with a sales tax based system. That's a market situation in which you pay more for quality up front, but less in the long run.
And, with the current system, you're paying the taxes anyway. They're just hidden in the price of the shoes. By removing the income tax component of the price, the price goes down and the consumption tax is paid on the lower price. You spend the same money, you just actually see what the two components (the cost to make them and the tax) are on your receipt now.
The problem with income tax vs consumption tax is that income taxes put a tax on productivity, which is beneficial to society. Consumption is what costs society and thus is what should be taxed. It's also the most fair, because when you add in the pre-bate that the fair tax has, it's an extremely progressive tax that substantially lowers the cost of living burden for low income people while forcing those that spend lavishly to pay a lot more by taking away all the loopholes that their lobbyists buy them in the current system. The only way you can shelter money is to not spend it. And since the pre-bate pays people the cost of the taxes for the basic cost of living up-front before they would ever have to pay the taxes, those under the poverty line actually end up with a net gain on their income because they get money for taxes they would have never paid since they didn't reach that level of income.
Don't listen to all the propaganda and read up on it. There's been plenty of studies done by reputable and independent institutions that conclude that everyone would be much better under the fair tax than the current system.
Actually, that's not entirely true. The politicians and lobbyists that derive all their power and wealth from the current system would be screwed. But, the rest of us would be much better off.
Unfortunately, most students are too lazy or too stupid to learn on their own and need someone to do the song and the dance going with the lesson.
Yeah, like those shiftless fuckers in first grade. We should let the free market sort this out.
I realize you were joking and seem to be (though it's very hard to tell... sorry if I assume wrong) against a free market solution there, but you're right to a fair degree there. While I don't believe that the government has absolutely no role in providing education, if parents had to pay out of pocket for their kids schooling, I can guarantee you wouldn't have a lot of the problems we have to day with parents that completely abdicate their responsibility assuming that it's the school and teachers job to teach their kids and they have no role to play. They would be much more involved and focused on dealing with whatever issues that need to be dealt with to ensure they're getting something for that money. They'd also not tolerate their kid being in a school that didn't try whatever methods necessary to ensure that learning takes place.
Even if the parents aren't having to come out of pocket personally, like with a voucher system, they are engaged in consumerism by choosing the schools that are turning out the best results. That's why voucher systems are so popular with urban parents that have been victimized by a system in which they don't get to decide if their kid goes to a bad school or not, and thus poverty is perpetuated because those parents don't have the luxury of paying for a quality school.
I hear way too much free market bashing going on here, and it's ridiculous. I can't believe that the same people that argue for open source over proprietary software can then turn around and say that they prefer a centralized, monolithic system over a distributed one in which those that are using the outputs are closely involved with creating the systems. Big government, big corporations and big, bloated, proprietary software have the same problems. There are too few people that have proper influence. There are too few people that have proper visibility to the problems. And, since there's someone whose "job" it is to make sure something is done, there are too many people that just assume that the job will be done without verifying it. And, we only find out there's a problem when there's $9 billion that can't be found, or there's a huge oil spill in the ocean, or there's a huge vulnerability that allows malware to hijack thousands of machines and execute ddos attacks.
The free market isn't perfect. Nothing is. But, the bigger something is, the less effective it is at achieving it's intended objective. Size and waste are exponentially related. The universe doesn't like big things. Big government is a waste. Big corporations are wastes. Big stars consume themselves much more quickly than smaller stars.
The universe doesn't like big. It's a distributed system that is optimized for distributed systems. Whether we like it or not, those are the rules of the universe. We can go against it, but it's an amazing waste of resources.
We need a system now because the evil corporations who control everything (news, transport, government, education, food) are doing evil things that honest and decent people are definitely considering fighting with violence.
You do realize that it's the "system" that created corporations. Without the government creating those artificial entities, there would be no corporations to cause trouble... just people that can be locked up and held accountable.
Honestly only a complete fool is loyal to the company. Because the company is never EVER loyal to you.
Neither is a rock. Why people keep expecting loyalty, a quality of humanity, from something that isn't human is beyond me. Corporations and government just look at the numbers (even if they don't actually understand them). When you're dealing with either, that's exactly what you should do, too. Don't expect humane treatment from something that isn't human.
Create a sufficiently huge X-Prize funded by the world's governments.
Libertarians, the one's of us that actually use our brain, don't believe in no government role in society. We're just realists in that if you need to devise an innovative solution to a problem, bureaucracy and democracy are extremely poor tools to achieve that objective. Just look at any "reform" that comes through government and you can see how letting every little special interest into the process ends up with watered down, marginally functional and very inefficient results.
Government's first priority should be the physical security of it's citizens (within an acceptable range of security/risk). It's perfectly acceptable to spend government funds to achieve the objective of deflecting an asteroid. But, if you leave figuring it out to a bureaucracy, you're virtually guaranteed mediocre results at best and complete failure at worst.
Why hasn't NASA made the progress it should have since Apollo? Because in a democratic decision making process, everyone has to make sure they're getting something out of it. So, you get space shuttles that are insanely expensive to operate and don't give any significant advantages over previous technologies. You get each administration coming in and pushing out programs that the previous one prioritized and put in their own new priorities which are then pushed out by the next one.
I hear all the Libertarian bashing that goes on around here and I really don't understand it other than it's a complete misunderstanding of what we stand for. Of course, I'm speaking in generalizations and concede there are those that call themselves libertarian that would be more appropriately called anarchists. But, if you read people like Hayek, we believe that the government does have a role to play in society. We believe in a social safety net that ensures that those that can't afford to live in our society are taken care of with respect to food, shelter and health care.
Our core argument, however, is that the government should not be wasting resources on providing those things for those that can afford it on their own because large organizations, whether they are government or corporations, are terribly wasteful and inefficient. Too much of what should be going to the objectives of those organizations is wasted because by nature of size, they have to be complicated. And, that complication of process and such is an exponential problem because as things grow, there's more holes for special interests, unethical individuals and organizations to exploit the system's inefficiency for their own gain.
Show me anything from a large corporation or government that met it's huge objectives while meeting reasonable cost/benefit ratios and I'm willing to change my mind. But, on the aggregate, big corporations and big governments are wasteful, inefficient and not good ways to solve any problems beyond the most basic. They're both dinosaurs that have no real place in the fast paced, modern world with it's complex and nuanced issues that must be dealt with.
And, yes. I hate corporations as much as bloated government. Of course, I blame the existence and power that those corporations have on government. They're the one's that created those artificial entities without personal accountability. So, every time you feel like corporation bashing, as I do often, be sure to remember that in the end, it's really the government's fault too. It's not because they don't have enough regulation of the corporations, either. It's because they have too many regulations which actually allow corporations to exist to begin with. Get rid of those and put an actual person's neck on the line and you'll see a lot of the stupidity disappear as the sociopaths are locked up one-by-one.
I personally am pretty confident that cryonics works. Yes, I have a degree in a related field and I am working on an MD. When I say "works", I mean that if a patient is frozen with a well oxygenated brain within a short time period following legal death (the heart stops), and cryoprotectants are used, then I am confident that nearly all personality and memories are preserved.
I recall actually hearing the opposite regarding oxygenation. Based on people that have fallen through ice that have ceased brain and body function, which have then later been reanimated without any noticeable body or brain damage, severe oxygen deprivation and quick chilling seem to be the key. For those that fell through ice and survived, they essentially drowned and their bodies rapidly cooled before any deterioration was able to happen.
Okay, NOW I see your point. Sorry I was being dense. Good thoughts on the subject, actually. I'll try to tone it down a little.;)
No problem. That's means a lot coming from someone with such a low uid.:)
There's just too much political bs going on to make it difficult to not assume that there's only two perspectives on the issue. That's the problem with our whole political process. We're too sound-bite, 150 characters or less as a culture. That doesn't allow nuance. That's how you end up with someone making a speech about overcoming an understandable urge toward bigotry getting fired for being a racist. I don't know if there's an answer for our attention spans, but if there is, it's got to be rooted entirely in simplicity and common sense.
It'd be nice if our elected representatives could be counted on to actually represent us, but unfortunately, even Obama seems much too much like Bush was. So, we're really just left with social pressure and subversive misdirection to reach our objectives. We have to put things into a personal context that will change peoples hearts in a way that will change their behaviour. We've been too much about rhetoric as a society for too long. Actions matter. Motivations and words don't.
The importance of the difference is this: we can predict the climate, even if we can not predict the weather.
The importance in regards to an argument... Your religious fervor reaks of one trying to enforce dogma and losing the good that can be gained by allowing grey-ness to exist in your black and white world. It's completely irrelevant when its the political class, which is empowered by a populace that will never en masse make the distinction, that will be required to make the proposed changes to avert disaster.
Aggregate over time, the climate is undeniably getting warmer, not based on one or two anecdotes, but on actual temperatures averaged over time. I'm not saying "look how hot it is today, global warming!!" Denialists do that. Show me a climate change supporter saying something dumb like that, please.
Denialist... the new heretic... you speak like a hell-fire and brimstone baptist with a slightly different god...
If you think that there aren't idiots that also believe in AGW that point at weather as an indication of climate change, you're clueless... Or you got that low uid by remaining in your mom's basement for the past 30 years and need to get out and see that there are also idiots that will agree with you.
Obstinate people like you are a big reason for strong opposition to the whole idea to begin with... It's like fucking Bush with the whole you're with us or you're with the terrorists bullshit... How the hell do you expect to get people to join you in concern if they feel like stopping to think about things for a second will get them ostracized? People don't like being guilted into believing something... that's why most don't go to church...
There ARE NOT equal numbers on both sides of this debate. It is not a he said, she said situation. There are people who understand science, and agree that anthropogenic climate change is a real problem, and idiots. I mean that in the original Greek sense of 'selfish private individuals' because there is no reason to doubt climate change except for selfish, personal reasons. And even those reasons are illogical and stem from ignorance, not any real knowledge of what would benefit an individual.
Which matters if there's a direct vote on the subject... So, it doesn't matter. There's plenty of hysterical idiots on both sides either claiming that just want to turn us into communist cavemen or that sea levels are going to rise 300 meters and we'll be living in water world. You may be smart, but I assure you that the only idiots around are not those that don't believe in AGW. This my side is smarter than your side because you don't see things the same way we do is juvenile and a big reason for why I've given up on having any intelligent conversation about the subject on the merits.
You can lament it all you like, but you're not going to get away from the tragedy of the commons... that's why we're fucked. You can call everyone selfish, but it's human nature to not care for things that we don't feel a significant personal ownership of. That's why you can scream about the science until you're blue in the face. People know that if they sacrifice and no one else does, we're fucked and they had to sacrifice to do it... and that extends to nations, too, which is why there'll never be any real action taken. Even governments know that you can't trust government... so, no deal.
This topic is NOT nuanced. It is clear cut. The climate is getting warmer, and we are making it happen. And we WILL stop it before it is too late, despite any defeatist statements designed to make people feel helpless about it.
For those that wear blinders, no topic is nuanced...
Look, with a 4 digit uid, you've been here awhile, which means you're most likely a really sharp, technical guy. And, you're absolutely right about the science... but, the entirety of this subject is not the science. You're dealing with politics...
Like I said, if you don't like my definition, we can use yours...
But, I still don't see how my statement that climate is just weather in aggregate contradicts what you're saying. You keep talking about predicting, but that's not the same thing as something's essence. Weather is about how much precipitation or temperature or whatever at a specific point. Climate is the same thing in aggregate. They use the same metrics. The only difference is that one requires the other to be aggregated and averaged over time.
I understand why it's such an important distinction to your position due to the fact that when the weather is a little colder than expected, people begin shouting about how climate change is bogus. And, there are just as many people on the other side of the argument that will shout in the other direction when things are a little warmer than expected despite it too just being weather.
The real problem is that it's a very nuanced topic and most people aren't capable of nuance. So, I can't blame you for insisting on making a strong distinction so that people are clear on what's being discussed. But, like I said before, this whole discussion is futile anyway. We're dependent on politicians to fix things if there is a problem. So... we're fucked.
Do you realize how dumb you sound when you say things like that?
I realize virtually everything I say probably sounds dumb to someone... so it really depends on who's making the assessment as to whether I might remotely give a shit.:)
You are not a trained scientist of any stripe, let alone a climate scientist.
You must be incredibly perceptive to have picked that up from a few word, tongue-in-cheek, taking shots at both sides comment.
You have no idea what you are talking about, and are relying on your preconceptions and common sense, which have failed you utterly.
No... I know exactly what I'm talking about. Apparently, you're the one wound too tight for humour.
I explained, in clear laymans terms, what the difference is, but you don't like that, and so you impugn climate scientists' motivations.
I didn't say anything about climate scientists. I don't hear climate scientists wasting much of their time in this debate. They have more important things to do. It's all the politically motivated drones on both sides I'm taking shots at.
You have no idea how science works. Go back to digg.com, it's more your speed.
lol... I think you'd find a higher percentage of people on digg that agree with you than here.
This place is for smart people, now GTFO.
I'd say that's debatable...
But, I will take a moment to be serious since you seem incapable of operating in any other way. It doesn't matter who's right here. We're stuck in a position that if there is something that needs to be done, we have to have world-wide government cooperation to make the changes necessary to avoid the consequences. And, the standards of evidence for that to happen are light years higher than science.
So, it doesn't really matter that climate and weather are really the same thing and it's just a semantic argument. Climate is the aggregation of weather. Weather drives climate... climate drives weather.
But, if you don't like my definition, then fine, we'll go with yours. It doesn't matter because even if there is a problem, nothing of consequence will ever be done about it until it is catastrophically too late.
Slashdot Mirror
Reminds me of a quote from one of the economists my wife works with. Humans don't understand exponential curves.
I'm not sure what you're saying there. Are you saying that the past 110 years of data is not relevant to estimating future performance? Statistically, that's completely true. Just because we've seen 9+% growth for the past 110 years is no indication that the next 110 years will show the same. I'm just curious as to what data you are looking at that indicates that it won't.
Please forgive me if I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Since my impression is that your perspective is different than mine, I'm truly interested in understanding where you're coming from in order to make sure that I'm not perpetuating an incorrect perspective.
And how many crashes will their be in 100 years? How many 401k did well after last time? Boom bust cycles is the way the current economy works. Your 2Billion today would not look anything like 100 billion in a 100 years no matter how confidant the guy is that takes your money.
Ever heard the phrase "Climate is not weather"? The argument being that a momentary snapshot is not indicative of a long term trend. If you look at the DOW, from 1900 to 2009 the average annual return was ~9.4%. That's including the Great Depression and the current economic mess we're in along with 13 other significant recessions. Boom/bust is the way the economy has always worked. And, over the long term it always grows.
This is America! We believe in the Market, not in that damn Government interference.
Too bad we didn't actually believe in no government interference in the market... we wouldn't have these artificial entities without any real liability that we refer to as corporations. It's easy to blame the corporations for our problems since they're such a big contributor. But, claiming government is the solution to the corporate problem is a little strange when it's the government that created them to begin with.
Get rid of government and corporations disappear immediately.
I'm not advocating that as the solution. I'm just highly entertained by those that rail against corporations and claim because of that we need to get government more involved. We're complaining about symptoms and recommending the disease as a cure.
The second is that no one can militarily push China around. Before the US could point guns at a (generally) middle eastern oil state and grimace while paying slightly higher prices.
Don't confuse the US's ineptness in Iraq and Afghanistan for a weak military. There's a huge difference between fighting small, independent groups within a nation and a nation itself. China has a lot more to lose than a handful of "insurgents" do. Military vs military, I wouldn't question what the US could do to China.
Now, I don't believe it will ever come to that. There's too much interdependence between the two for that to happen. It's actually probably the same with virtually any relatively established country. That's why the US has to get it's war jollies fighting poppy farmers in Afghanistan. Stable nations generally want to negotiate rather than fight.
Anybody with a brain would realize that the work is hundreds of years old, and the performance in question is owned by the poster (the guy sitting at the piano)...
IANAL, but I do believe that anyone can record their own version of any work, regardless of when it was written, if the piece has been recorded and released by someone already. There are considerations for publishing royalties to the song writers, but as far as I know, once something has been released, a "cover" can be produced without anyone's consent required.
That's a separate issue, the classification of income.
Which is why an income tax is always ridiculous. Income is a very nebulous concept. You have to take into account expenses incurred in creating revenue. Open up that can of worms, and there you go. Why can't individuals deduct their costs of getting to work? That's required to generate the income and should be considered an expense, but it's not. Income is hard to define, particularly when you're talking about a business venture. So, why bother with all the confusion?
One does not need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. While people like Warren Buffet are an exception, there are many, many thousands of people at the highest end that would see their tax burden decrease under the so-called "fair" tax. Furthermore, Warren Buffet does pay capital gains tax. His tax burden is not zero; just his income tax burden. Are you deliberately misconstruing his tax burden to support your argument, or was it an honest mistake?
Capital gains rates are much lower than income tax rates. Buffet, as a percentage, pays less than his secretary. It doesn't matter if his amount is higher, especially when arguing your position.
Sorry, typo. I think I did that a couple times, it comes from my aversion to calling the so-called "fair" tax the fair tax. It's not a fair tax in my opinion, and I think the misnomer is a disingenuous way of lending the idea merit.
I think using the word fair in any concept in the political process is misleading. It's a completely subjective word that can never be realized. So, I would agree with you about calling the fair tax "fair". But, of all the proposals I've seen so far, it's the closest to a neutral definition of the word.
I'm not redefining words. You are redefining contexts. Consumption taxes are regressive as a function of income... perhaps for some reason it was not clear to you, despite the fact that both your examples, and my writings, and general discussion of progressive taxes, are based on comparisons of income?
Progressive/regresssive have nothing to do with income. It's refering to the change of rates in relation to what is being taxed. You can have a progressive income tax or a progressive sales tax or whatever. But, the fair tax is a consumption tax in which the rate of taxation increases with the amount of spending. So, it is a progressive consumption tax.
No. My statements make it clear that I do not agree with the premise of the "fair" tax. It is possible for someone to understand an idea, without agreeing with that idea. Your error here is a classic one that intelligent people often make... that if people understand an issue, they must come to the same conclusion you have. I would actually posit that the ignorance here is on your side, because not once have you touched on the economic impacts of the "fair" tax. In addition, it is clear to me that you are making a lot of assumptions about my knowledge of the subject, and about my motivations. More on that below.
All of my assumptions are based around your clear mistatements of fact and emotionally loaded rhetoric void of reason. You're not offering anything in terms of support that points to a better option.
And yet every proposal for a "fair" tax on consumption results in a lower tax burden on the extremely wealthy, and a higher tax burden on the middle class. EVERY single proposal I've seen for a "fair" tax results in this under analysis. If you can cite a single proposal where this is not the case, please share it... I'd be very interested in seeing one that doesn't shift the tax burden like this.
You need to look at the facts on the fair tax. For virtually everyone making over 60k, it's a net break even from the current system. For those under that, it's a decrease. You can find the Harvard study
Dude, I understand the fair tax. I've researched it. It's regressive at the highest levels... even with your prebates or whatever you want to call them.
If the more you spend (and you can't spend what you don't have), the higher your percentage of taxation is, HOW CAN THAT BE REGRESSIVE? Regressive means the rate of taxation increases as what is taxed decreases. You may not like the tax, but you can't redefine words to argue against it.
What happens under the "fair tax" is that the very rich get a MASSIVE tax break. That is the net impact, and why the flat tax gets so much support among the wealthy.
How do they get a massive tax break? Most of the "very rich" don't even pay income taxes today. Haven't you heard Warren Buffet making the statement that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does? Their profits are from capital gains, which are not taxed as income. You're saying you like that system better?
A flat tax shifts some of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class, even with an exemption level or "prebates".
Huh? We're not talking about a flat income tax. We're talking about a consumption tax. How does ending withholding of people's money from their checks and sending them a check that covers the majority of what they will pay (if they choose to spend, which they don't have to other than for necessities, which is paid back to them) shifting the burden? The fair tax is specifically designed to have a net neutral effect on people's current tax situation. It just changes how it's collected and eliminates the loopholes that the "rich" keep getting in our current system.
And that's the crux of why a flat tax on consumption is a bad idea. It's a disincentive to consume, and it would choke the economy. This is the problem with transactional taxes -- they directly inhibit the activity they tax.
We need a disinsentive for consumption. You could argue in the near term that wouldn't necessarily be good, but the reason we're in this mess is because too many people were spending money that they didn't have.
And, regardless, people are already paying the exact same taxes when they buy things because the current taxes are embedded into the prices of everything you buy. 22-25% of the cost of everything you purchase is the embedded taxes that are hidden from you right now. You're already paying the tax when you purchase, you just don't get it broken out on the receipt so you can see it.
Indirect taxes, like income tax, do not have this problem to the same extent.
Indirect taxes mean that they can sneak in new ones without you knowing. They can sneak in new loopholes that you and I will never know about because we're nowhere near rich enough to get them. Never mind how many social resources are wasted to stay compliant. Never mind how easy it is to cheat the current system in ways that would never be possible with a consumption tax. In the current system, you just have to lie on your taxes. Most of it they can't validate. With a consumption based tax, it takes a conspiracy of a few people to cheat the system.
I don't think you really do understand the current system or the fair tax. That's fine if you are open to looking, but your statements make it clear that you have some bias against the idea, which means you're ignorant, not stupid.
I don't know if that bias comes from something you hold against someone that came out in support of it at some point or what. Maybe, at least it seems from what you've been saying, you just don't believe in a fair system. Of course, I don't either because the definition of that term is pretty hard to nail down, which makes it an easy tool to poo-poo any idea you don't agree with.
It seems like you just have a grudge with people that have money. That's ok if you do, but you just need to be honest that you think that people that have
The Washington Post can't go out of business fast enough for me.
There's no such thing as neutral media. They all have bias. Personally, I wish we'd drop the pretention that it's possible to not have bias. Then, maybe everyone would stop the whole pissing contest about who is, as they say, "fair and balanced."
Keep the Wikileaks coming, I say.
I'm completely with you there. Just like what I said above, we need information out there. We need to know who's saying what. And, we need to know where they're coming from so that we can put the correct context on what is being said.
I'm more than happy for people that I disagree with to have a strong voice, even if that's made up of idiots like Palin or Guraffalo. No one is correct 100% of the time. No one is wrong 100% of the time. Let people be straight about where they're coming from and balance what they say with that. Don't just dismiss someone because they're idiots most of the time. Sometimes the idiots actually have decent ideas.
Unless we can get past this contemptuous division we have in our political system and take things on their merits rather than the merits of who said them, we're going to be screwed as far as digging out of the multitude of messes we are in. Thoughtful political discourse requires us to separate our emotions from the process and weigh statements only within themselves outside of the divisive labeling we want to throw around.
The most dangerous bias in media is that of the consumers. Those of us that insist that only this network or newspaper or whatever espouses "truth" and this other has despicable motivations. The fact is, most people in the process, even those that disagree strongly with you or me, have good intentions. We may all differ in how to best make things better, but most really in their heart believe they are trying to do that.
We've got to quit questioning each others motives, throwing labels at each other and being dismissive just because we don't agree with someone in general. Until we get it all out in the open and deal with things as they are, no real solutions will ever be found.
I'll go so far as to throw your logic back on you -- if you believe the fair tax is an improvement on the current situation, then you must be either extremely wealthy (these are the true beneficiaries of the "fair" tax) or you must have been bamboozled by people who are extremely wealthy. How's that for turnabout and fair play?
If you think the fair tax is regressive, you either don't know what the definition of regressive is or don't understand how the fair tax works because it is a progressive tax by design.
It seems most people just make the assumption that the fair tax is only a sales tax. Even if that were the case, it's not regressive, it's flat. However, it's not just a sales tax. It also includes a pre-bate, which is a payment made to heads of household for the taxes that would be incurred for the basic cost of living (determined by the poverty line). It is paid BEFORE taxes would be paid on purchases for the month.
If you're living at the poverty line, all the taxes you will pay, assuming you spend your entire salary, will be completely covered by the pre-bate. So, you effectively pay nothing. If you're below the poverty line, you get money to cover taxes you could never incur because you would never be able to spend more than you make. So, in effect, it's a salary bonus giving you more income. No one pays taxes on any money spent up to the poverty line.
To put it in mathematical terms to illustrate the progressive nature, assume a poverty line of $40,000 for a family of 4. Take one family that makes $20,000 (and will bring every dime of it home rather than have chunks withheld for later as with the current system), one that makes $40,000 and one that makes $80,000. With a 20% tax (that's not the fair tax number, but I'm using that for simplicity of calculation), the family that makes $20,000 would incur $4,000 in taxes. The family with $40,000 would incur $8,000. And, the family at $80,000 would incur $16,000. With a pre-bate of $8,000, the first family actually makes $4,000 more. The second family breaks even. The third has an $8,000 tax expense.
This means for the first family, their tax rate is effectively -20%. The second family's rate is 0%. And, the third family's rate would be 10%. Or, basically, the more money you spend, the higher your rate is, which is the definition of a progressive tax.
Sure, you can argue that "rich" people won't spend all their money and can thus avoid the taxes. If they're not spending it, they're investing it in businesses and such which also will pay the sales tax, but get no pre-bate for it. There are no loopholes to get out of paying. When you consume, you pay. If you can't afford to consume much, you either get paid more, pay nothing or very little at all in taxes.
How is that regressive?
Claiming that the government refuses to tell you how much you owe is a falsehood.
The mob will tell you how much you owe them, too...
They don't refuse to do that. They just allow you to calculate it yourself. You can always ask the IRS to calculate your tax for you... they'll be glad to do so, as long as you make an estimated payment of net taxes due at filing time. Seriously, where do you wingnuts get your "facts" from? A cracker-jack box?
I've had 3 different IRS agents come up with 3 different numbers for the same year with the same information. Sure, they'll tell you what you owe, but which one do you have to believe?
If you need to hire someone to calculate how much you owe, you must be stupid. It's ridiculously easy, you just need to follow some instructions. What's silly is that so many people are so bad at basic arithmetic and language that they can't follow a form that was written to a seventh-grade level. And yes, I've been self-employed and received a W2 in the same year, along with capital gains tax due. It's not hard. It takes some time. People pay others to do it because it's convenient, or because they have an irrational fear of forms and numbers.
And, if your time isn't valuable to you, then that's great. Unfortunately, most people running small businesses are already spending 80+ hours each week just trying to run a good business. And, it may just be basic math, but there can be lots of it depending on your situation. And, since the rules change each year, you have to read up on everything to make sure you don't screw up. Also, what can be counted and how it can be counted as expenses or deductions changes, so you also have to keep up with that throughout the year to make sure you're not expensing something that you can't or in a way that isn't allowed.
There's a reason people hire others to manage their taxes. The rules are extremely complicated and if you screw up, the consequences can be substantial. It's not as easy as sit down one afternoon and do some math problems. If you've ever had to go through a major audit that spans several years of returns, you'd understand that.
I won't comment on fairtax, arguing about it with you would be a waste of time. But the reason you cite... it's just false.
I didn't read the gp, and maybe they didn't make a great argument. But, if you think the current system is better than the fair tax, you don't understand what they both really are or you're a lobbyist or politician that derives all their power from the current system with it's convoluted calculations and loopholes.
Repeat this over decades and you get a tax code that reads like the source code of Windows Vista.
It's not just the tax code. It's all the codes. But, you're dead on there.
Here's the problem with a Sales Tax based solution...
I buy expensive shoes when I can afford it. I spend, say $100. That $100 buys me a good pair of shoes that lasts me maybe 2 years.
The guy one income bracket down buys the cheap shoes because he never has $100 cash on hand. He spends the $20 he has to get a passable pair of shoes. In those 2 years he replaces them 8 times.
In two years he has spent and been taxed on $160, I have spent and been taxed on $100. This is not because he *likes* his $20 shoes, it's not because he's simply being short-sighted. It's because he simply doesn't have $100 to spend all at once on shoes.
Now, apply this same concept to any commodity or property you like. The Sales Tax based solutions *always* favor the rich who have far greater latitude to manage their money into tax-free ventures just by virtue of having more of it at any given time.
That's not a problem with a sales tax based system. That's a market situation in which you pay more for quality up front, but less in the long run.
And, with the current system, you're paying the taxes anyway. They're just hidden in the price of the shoes. By removing the income tax component of the price, the price goes down and the consumption tax is paid on the lower price. You spend the same money, you just actually see what the two components (the cost to make them and the tax) are on your receipt now.
The problem with income tax vs consumption tax is that income taxes put a tax on productivity, which is beneficial to society. Consumption is what costs society and thus is what should be taxed. It's also the most fair, because when you add in the pre-bate that the fair tax has, it's an extremely progressive tax that substantially lowers the cost of living burden for low income people while forcing those that spend lavishly to pay a lot more by taking away all the loopholes that their lobbyists buy them in the current system. The only way you can shelter money is to not spend it. And since the pre-bate pays people the cost of the taxes for the basic cost of living up-front before they would ever have to pay the taxes, those under the poverty line actually end up with a net gain on their income because they get money for taxes they would have never paid since they didn't reach that level of income.
Don't listen to all the propaganda and read up on it. There's been plenty of studies done by reputable and independent institutions that conclude that everyone would be much better under the fair tax than the current system.
Actually, that's not entirely true. The politicians and lobbyists that derive all their power and wealth from the current system would be screwed. But, the rest of us would be much better off.
Unfortunately, most students are too lazy or too stupid to learn on their own and need someone to do the song and the dance going with the lesson. Yeah, like those shiftless fuckers in first grade. We should let the free market sort this out.
I realize you were joking and seem to be (though it's very hard to tell... sorry if I assume wrong) against a free market solution there, but you're right to a fair degree there. While I don't believe that the government has absolutely no role in providing education, if parents had to pay out of pocket for their kids schooling, I can guarantee you wouldn't have a lot of the problems we have to day with parents that completely abdicate their responsibility assuming that it's the school and teachers job to teach their kids and they have no role to play. They would be much more involved and focused on dealing with whatever issues that need to be dealt with to ensure they're getting something for that money. They'd also not tolerate their kid being in a school that didn't try whatever methods necessary to ensure that learning takes place.
Even if the parents aren't having to come out of pocket personally, like with a voucher system, they are engaged in consumerism by choosing the schools that are turning out the best results. That's why voucher systems are so popular with urban parents that have been victimized by a system in which they don't get to decide if their kid goes to a bad school or not, and thus poverty is perpetuated because those parents don't have the luxury of paying for a quality school.
I hear way too much free market bashing going on here, and it's ridiculous. I can't believe that the same people that argue for open source over proprietary software can then turn around and say that they prefer a centralized, monolithic system over a distributed one in which those that are using the outputs are closely involved with creating the systems. Big government, big corporations and big, bloated, proprietary software have the same problems. There are too few people that have proper influence. There are too few people that have proper visibility to the problems. And, since there's someone whose "job" it is to make sure something is done, there are too many people that just assume that the job will be done without verifying it. And, we only find out there's a problem when there's $9 billion that can't be found, or there's a huge oil spill in the ocean, or there's a huge vulnerability that allows malware to hijack thousands of machines and execute ddos attacks.
The free market isn't perfect. Nothing is. But, the bigger something is, the less effective it is at achieving it's intended objective. Size and waste are exponentially related. The universe doesn't like big things. Big government is a waste. Big corporations are wastes. Big stars consume themselves much more quickly than smaller stars.
The universe doesn't like big. It's a distributed system that is optimized for distributed systems. Whether we like it or not, those are the rules of the universe. We can go against it, but it's an amazing waste of resources.
A high tax burden is not a sign of an absence of subsidy.
It's most likely a sign of a really big one... all that tax money goes somewhere... usually to those with the best connections.
We need a system now because the evil corporations who control everything (news, transport, government, education, food) are doing evil things that honest and decent people are definitely considering fighting with violence.
You do realize that it's the "system" that created corporations. Without the government creating those artificial entities, there would be no corporations to cause trouble... just people that can be locked up and held accountable.
Oops... amazing what a difference ignoring the word "that" in a sentence can make. :)
What a scoop!
Honestly only a complete fool is loyal to the company. Because the company is never EVER loyal to you.
Neither is a rock. Why people keep expecting loyalty, a quality of humanity, from something that isn't human is beyond me. Corporations and government just look at the numbers (even if they don't actually understand them). When you're dealing with either, that's exactly what you should do, too. Don't expect humane treatment from something that isn't human.
So, let's hear the libertarian solution:
Create a sufficiently huge X-Prize funded by the world's governments.
Libertarians, the one's of us that actually use our brain, don't believe in no government role in society. We're just realists in that if you need to devise an innovative solution to a problem, bureaucracy and democracy are extremely poor tools to achieve that objective. Just look at any "reform" that comes through government and you can see how letting every little special interest into the process ends up with watered down, marginally functional and very inefficient results.
Government's first priority should be the physical security of it's citizens (within an acceptable range of security/risk). It's perfectly acceptable to spend government funds to achieve the objective of deflecting an asteroid. But, if you leave figuring it out to a bureaucracy, you're virtually guaranteed mediocre results at best and complete failure at worst.
Why hasn't NASA made the progress it should have since Apollo? Because in a democratic decision making process, everyone has to make sure they're getting something out of it. So, you get space shuttles that are insanely expensive to operate and don't give any significant advantages over previous technologies. You get each administration coming in and pushing out programs that the previous one prioritized and put in their own new priorities which are then pushed out by the next one.
I hear all the Libertarian bashing that goes on around here and I really don't understand it other than it's a complete misunderstanding of what we stand for. Of course, I'm speaking in generalizations and concede there are those that call themselves libertarian that would be more appropriately called anarchists. But, if you read people like Hayek, we believe that the government does have a role to play in society. We believe in a social safety net that ensures that those that can't afford to live in our society are taken care of with respect to food, shelter and health care.
Our core argument, however, is that the government should not be wasting resources on providing those things for those that can afford it on their own because large organizations, whether they are government or corporations, are terribly wasteful and inefficient. Too much of what should be going to the objectives of those organizations is wasted because by nature of size, they have to be complicated. And, that complication of process and such is an exponential problem because as things grow, there's more holes for special interests, unethical individuals and organizations to exploit the system's inefficiency for their own gain.
Show me anything from a large corporation or government that met it's huge objectives while meeting reasonable cost/benefit ratios and I'm willing to change my mind. But, on the aggregate, big corporations and big governments are wasteful, inefficient and not good ways to solve any problems beyond the most basic. They're both dinosaurs that have no real place in the fast paced, modern world with it's complex and nuanced issues that must be dealt with.
And, yes. I hate corporations as much as bloated government. Of course, I blame the existence and power that those corporations have on government. They're the one's that created those artificial entities without personal accountability. So, every time you feel like corporation bashing, as I do often, be sure to remember that in the end, it's really the government's fault too. It's not because they don't have enough regulation of the corporations, either. It's because they have too many regulations which actually allow corporations to exist to begin with. Get rid of those and put an actual person's neck on the line and you'll see a lot of the stupidity disappear as the sociopaths are locked up one-by-one.
I personally am pretty confident that cryonics works. Yes, I have a degree in a related field and I am working on an MD. When I say "works", I mean that if a patient is frozen with a well oxygenated brain within a short time period following legal death (the heart stops), and cryoprotectants are used, then I am confident that nearly all personality and memories are preserved.
I recall actually hearing the opposite regarding oxygenation. Based on people that have fallen through ice that have ceased brain and body function, which have then later been reanimated without any noticeable body or brain damage, severe oxygen deprivation and quick chilling seem to be the key. For those that fell through ice and survived, they essentially drowned and their bodies rapidly cooled before any deterioration was able to happen.
Here's a great Ted talk on the subject.
Okay, NOW I see your point. Sorry I was being dense. Good thoughts on the subject, actually. I'll try to tone it down a little. ;)
No problem. That's means a lot coming from someone with such a low uid. :)
There's just too much political bs going on to make it difficult to not assume that there's only two perspectives on the issue. That's the problem with our whole political process. We're too sound-bite, 150 characters or less as a culture. That doesn't allow nuance. That's how you end up with someone making a speech about overcoming an understandable urge toward bigotry getting fired for being a racist. I don't know if there's an answer for our attention spans, but if there is, it's got to be rooted entirely in simplicity and common sense.
It'd be nice if our elected representatives could be counted on to actually represent us, but unfortunately, even Obama seems much too much like Bush was. So, we're really just left with social pressure and subversive misdirection to reach our objectives. We have to put things into a personal context that will change peoples hearts in a way that will change their behaviour. We've been too much about rhetoric as a society for too long. Actions matter. Motivations and words don't.
The importance of the difference is this: we can predict the climate, even if we can not predict the weather.
The importance in regards to an argument... Your religious fervor reaks of one trying to enforce dogma and losing the good that can be gained by allowing grey-ness to exist in your black and white world. It's completely irrelevant when its the political class, which is empowered by a populace that will never en masse make the distinction, that will be required to make the proposed changes to avert disaster.
Aggregate over time, the climate is undeniably getting warmer, not based on one or two anecdotes, but on actual temperatures averaged over time. I'm not saying "look how hot it is today, global warming!!" Denialists do that. Show me a climate change supporter saying something dumb like that, please.
Denialist... the new heretic... you speak like a hell-fire and brimstone baptist with a slightly different god...
If you think that there aren't idiots that also believe in AGW that point at weather as an indication of climate change, you're clueless... Or you got that low uid by remaining in your mom's basement for the past 30 years and need to get out and see that there are also idiots that will agree with you.
Obstinate people like you are a big reason for strong opposition to the whole idea to begin with... It's like fucking Bush with the whole you're with us or you're with the terrorists bullshit... How the hell do you expect to get people to join you in concern if they feel like stopping to think about things for a second will get them ostracized? People don't like being guilted into believing something... that's why most don't go to church...
There ARE NOT equal numbers on both sides of this debate. It is not a he said, she said situation. There are people who understand science, and agree that anthropogenic climate change is a real problem, and idiots. I mean that in the original Greek sense of 'selfish private individuals' because there is no reason to doubt climate change except for selfish, personal reasons. And even those reasons are illogical and stem from ignorance, not any real knowledge of what would benefit an individual.
Which matters if there's a direct vote on the subject... So, it doesn't matter. There's plenty of hysterical idiots on both sides either claiming that just want to turn us into communist cavemen or that sea levels are going to rise 300 meters and we'll be living in water world. You may be smart, but I assure you that the only idiots around are not those that don't believe in AGW. This my side is smarter than your side because you don't see things the same way we do is juvenile and a big reason for why I've given up on having any intelligent conversation about the subject on the merits.
You can lament it all you like, but you're not going to get away from the tragedy of the commons... that's why we're fucked. You can call everyone selfish, but it's human nature to not care for things that we don't feel a significant personal ownership of. That's why you can scream about the science until you're blue in the face. People know that if they sacrifice and no one else does, we're fucked and they had to sacrifice to do it... and that extends to nations, too, which is why there'll never be any real action taken. Even governments know that you can't trust government... so, no deal.
This topic is NOT nuanced. It is clear cut. The climate is getting warmer, and we are making it happen. And we WILL stop it before it is too late, despite any defeatist statements designed to make people feel helpless about it.
For those that wear blinders, no topic is nuanced...
Look, with a 4 digit uid, you've been here awhile, which means you're most likely a really sharp, technical guy. And, you're absolutely right about the science... but, the entirety of this subject is not the science. You're dealing with politics...
Like I said, if you don't like my definition, we can use yours...
But, I still don't see how my statement that climate is just weather in aggregate contradicts what you're saying. You keep talking about predicting, but that's not the same thing as something's essence. Weather is about how much precipitation or temperature or whatever at a specific point. Climate is the same thing in aggregate. They use the same metrics. The only difference is that one requires the other to be aggregated and averaged over time.
I understand why it's such an important distinction to your position due to the fact that when the weather is a little colder than expected, people begin shouting about how climate change is bogus. And, there are just as many people on the other side of the argument that will shout in the other direction when things are a little warmer than expected despite it too just being weather.
The real problem is that it's a very nuanced topic and most people aren't capable of nuance. So, I can't blame you for insisting on making a strong distinction so that people are clear on what's being discussed. But, like I said before, this whole discussion is futile anyway. We're dependent on politicians to fix things if there is a problem. So... we're fucked.
Do you realize how dumb you sound when you say things like that?
I realize virtually everything I say probably sounds dumb to someone... so it really depends on who's making the assessment as to whether I might remotely give a shit. :)
You are not a trained scientist of any stripe, let alone a climate scientist.
You must be incredibly perceptive to have picked that up from a few word, tongue-in-cheek, taking shots at both sides comment.
You have no idea what you are talking about, and are relying on your preconceptions and common sense, which have failed you utterly.
No... I know exactly what I'm talking about. Apparently, you're the one wound too tight for humour.
I explained, in clear laymans terms, what the difference is, but you don't like that, and so you impugn climate scientists' motivations.
I didn't say anything about climate scientists. I don't hear climate scientists wasting much of their time in this debate. They have more important things to do. It's all the politically motivated drones on both sides I'm taking shots at.
You have no idea how science works. Go back to digg.com, it's more your speed.
lol... I think you'd find a higher percentage of people on digg that agree with you than here.
This place is for smart people, now GTFO.
I'd say that's debatable...
But, I will take a moment to be serious since you seem incapable of operating in any other way. It doesn't matter who's right here. We're stuck in a position that if there is something that needs to be done, we have to have world-wide government cooperation to make the changes necessary to avoid the consequences. And, the standards of evidence for that to happen are light years higher than science.
So, it doesn't really matter that climate and weather are really the same thing and it's just a semantic argument. Climate is the aggregation of weather. Weather drives climate... climate drives weather.
But, if you don't like my definition, then fine, we'll go with yours. It doesn't matter because even if there is a problem, nothing of consequence will ever be done about it until it is catastrophically too late.
Have a nice day! :)