It takes a special kind of asshat to deny his own words when there's an easily verifiable record. I'm not sure what motivates you to act in such a way, but I see no reason to continue this farce.
It's irrelevant anyway. The wikipedia article provides no figures and no citations. It doesn't even pretend to factor in nuclear-waste disposal costs - in fact, it states the opposite. There's no way that they COULD have accurate figures for the capital costs of an IFR, because none have ever been built. The words "current cost" when referring to the price of uranium seem rather important, also.
So your quotation of the article is roughly equivalent to saying:
"Well, it's true that IFR's would use less fuel, produce much less waste AND be able to reprocess existing waste, but some guy says they'd probably cost a lot more to build so therefore reprocessing is more expensive"
You'll forgive me if I don't find that line of argument convincing.
Your assertions of right and wrong seems completely random, and entirely irrational. They're also too complex to codify, which makes them unenforceable. While I might agree with some of your individual points, you can't base a legal code on the idea that "people can take only what they really need". I believe the soviets tried something along those lines and it didn't work out too well, but even if we ignore their example it's still quite obvious why such a system is inherently unstable.
You're also all over the place. One minute you're supposedly talking about where morals come from, the next minute you're talking about whether property rights are more important than "equality", and five minutes later you're talking about whether exploitation is ok. Those are all separate subjects. The importance of property rights has nothing to do with exploitation or the origins of morals. The origins of morals have nothing to do with property rights. I don't think you actually know what it is you're trying to argue for here - you seem to have taken your entire worldview and tried to squeeze it into one interconnected argument. I'm sorry, but I have neither the time nor the energy to deal with that. I've already explained why property rights are important, and you've essentially agreed with me (although it seems that you don't realize it). Unless you have something new to add, I'll call it good enough and leave it at that.
We were arguing about where rights derive from, I thought that was clear.
Not at all. Frankly, even now that I know what you think you were talking about, I'm having trouble actually seeing it in your original comment.
I'm saying that, if property rights are absolute, then people can initiate force through property.
If you mean they can hit you with a baseball bat, then yeah, they can "initiate force through property". However, I get the feeling that's not what you're talking about. If you think that me allowing you to starve is a type of force, then you're mistaken.
If my property rights trump your right to life, I can enslave you, unless you also own property.
If my right to life trumps your right to property, I can enslave you, unless you also own no property.
So what?
Are you suggesting that it's not ok for me to make you work in order to earn a living, but it's ok for you to take away the stuff I worked for just because you don't have any?
I'm not saying it will happen in every case, I'm saying, when property rights have trumped the right to equitable opportunities in life, we have had slavery. Simple historical fact.
In case you haven't noticed, property rights have trumped "equitable opportunities" in pretty much 100% of human societies, throughout history. You may as well say that every time human beings have had two hands and two feet, we have had slavery.
I never said that they were. All I said was that Doctors don't have the right to make end of life decisions without the consent of the patient or his authorized representative.
No, that's most definitely not what you said.
I've already stated them.
I'm sorry, but "because it's personal" is not exactly a convincing argument. I don't see why a decision to perform surgery on you in order to save your life is any less "personal" than a decision to cut open your corpse and remove some organs. The state already has the right to open up your body after your death in order to perform an autopsy, so we've clearly decided - as a society - that you don't deserve full control of your body after you die, and neither does your family.
It's not my fault you are choosing to ignore what I've said and make bullshit comparisons.
No, it's your fault that you're now backpedaling and lying about what you said. You specifically stated that doctors don't have a right to end your life without your consent, and now you're pretending that you said something completely different.
You are splitting hairs. When the law makes it a crime to have THC metabolites in your body while engaging in a lawful activity the law has effectively made it illegal to have THC in your system.
WTF?
So when the law makes it a crime for a blind person to drive, they have effectively made it illegal to be blind?
Go on, pull the other one.
Besides which, in what forms (other than a prescription for marinol) can you legally possess THC in prior to ingestion?
Apples to oranges. Doctors can assume consent to save your life when you are unable to give it.
Why? What if having your life saved is against your religion? Who gave doctors the right to play god?:p
They can not assume consent to end your life when you are unable to give it.
Which nobody was suggesting. This idea that organs have to be harvested while you're alive is asinine, and has repeatedly been shown to be false. When your organs are taken, you are DEAD. D-E-A-D. Doctors cannot end the life of a corpse. Period, full stop.
Now that you've been informed that your objection is a myth, have you got any more reasons why we shouldn't have opt-out organ donation?
No, you can not borrow my car for an extended period of time because we, as a society, have agreed that individuals have certain limited rights to control their own possessions.
Yes, we've agreed on property rights.....
What are we arguing about again?
Funny, you did not address the part where I explained how and why absolute property rights lead to slavery, you just assert that I am wrong.
That's because you didn't explain anything - you just asserted that people who own property would enslave or starve those who didn't. That's not an explanation, it's simply a restating of your premise (aka, a tautology).
Let me be very clear about this concept of natural or God given rights.
You're wasting your breath since I don't accept either of the two. Property rights have nothing to do with that, unless you're asserting that property rights have to be inherently "natural" or "god given", which would be foolish.
The law doesn't state that you can't have X in your system - it states that you cannot operate a motor vehicle while X is in your system. So I'll repeat what I said earlier:
"You can put as much THC into your body as you want - there's no law prohibiting you from having THC in your system."
The source you quote talks about reprocessing using thermal reactors. Under those conditions, I agree completely - reprocessing would be more costly. That's not what I was talking about, though, nor is it being seriously considered by anyone else I've ever heard of. Since you like wikipedia, you might want to check out their page on the IFR
My body, my choice. Not yours. Not the Doctors. Not some legislator in Albany or Washington. My choice.
Agreed. Likewise, the default should be that if you get in an accident, no medical help is provided. If you're unconscious and we can't find your consent form, well, tough luck. Unless you opt into the "yes, please help me" club, we should leave you on the streets to bleed to death. After all, we don't want to offend any religious beliefs you may have.
I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place (no pun intended), but if he considers himself a dead man anyway, is it really altruistic?
It depends. If he's only doing it as a way of committing suicide, then no, it's not. If he's willing to give up a few more years of life in order to help others, then yeah, it is.
It's kind of like the old millionaire who leaves his estate to a charity. Was it really charitable of him if he didn't give it away while he was still living?
Not really a valid comparison - the millionaire could do any number of other things with the money. Leave it to family. Use it to build a 200 foot tall statue of himself in every major city. Burn it. Have it burred with him. Just look at the Egyptian Pharaohs:)
So yea, choosing to give it to charity instead is certainly altruistic. Although, once again, it gets a bit muddled if you start to consider motives.
Libertarians want to make everything about ownership, but ownership is a simplistic and selfish concept.
Awesome - can I "borrow" your car for an extended period of time?
In short, "I own my own body and therefore should have absolute property rights" leads, inevitably, to slavery.
Nonsense. Using the same "logic" you could argue that the lack of property rights leads directly to slavery, since it allows anyone to take what you have. Of course, both arguments are completely ludicrous - slavery doesn't arise from any particular economic system.
Then I guess we are all slaves because someone tried to put some THC into his body the other day and got arrested for doing so......
I actually disagree with drug laws in general, but I gotta point out that your line of reasoning is wrong. You can put as much THC into your body as you want - there's no law prohibiting you from having THC in your system. You cannot, however, legally posses marijuana without a license. The end result may be quite similar, but there IS a difference, and it's a difference that's worth noting in the context of this discussion.
Reprocessed fuel is more expensive than virgin fuel.
Um, no. In a breeder your consumption of fissile material goes down to a tiny fraction of a normal reactor. Reprocessing doesn't cost you a penny.
So including that would raise the cost, not lower it.
Even if we accepted your initial premise, this part is definitely wrong. Reprocessing fuel means you have less waste to transport and store, which takes a big chunk out of your operating costs.
The follow up costs of nuclear are unknown, because we don't know what to do with the spent nuclear fuel.
See above. Build yourself an IFR. The tiny bit of waste you're left with will have a much shorter halflife than the usual fission waste. Stick it in a hole for 200 years, and you're good to go. Not only will the waste products be less of a concern, but IFR's could be used to get rid of the waste we have NOW, since they can use the waste output of other reactors as fuel.
No studies have been conducted about the effects of neutrinos on young children's development and so far all subjects exposed to neutrinos have later died or showed effects of cell degradation.
Hah. Considering that trillions of Neutrinos are passing through your body every second, I'm going to have to call bullshit on this one. Unless you're intending this as a dihydrogen monoxide type joke - "every person who's ever ingested it has later died!".
You know, no matter how many times you lie about it, you're not going to change what's true. Not only is it not true that the "follow up costs" are ignored, but they're actually overestimated due to the current policy of not reprocessing fuel. Change that, and electricity becomes even cheaper than the current calculations show.
If you can build and operate ten 100 megawatt solar plants for the cost of building, operating and decommissioning one 1 gigawatt nuke plant (and insuring it for liability, and dealing with its waste), why not go with solar?
If you can pull 1 terawatt out of your ass, for free, why not go with your ass?
The politics are a formidable problem with moving the technology forward, and that is not likely to change any time soon.
Yeah, just like perpetual motion machines, right? Damn Big Science and their quest to oppress the little guys!
Please, save the conspiracy theories for a more gullible forum. The problem with the "technology" is that it doesn't fucking work - if it did, you'd have absolutely no problem getting it funded.
Well, yeah, exactly. Smolin is a little out there, too - he's rejects the idea of a multiverse out of hand, and completely dismissed string theory. Now, while we may find out at a later date that he is in fact correct, it doesn't really help your case to brag about Lisi publishing with Smolin. It's like claiming that one cold-fusion whacko must be a serious contender because he co-authored a paper with another cold-fusion proponent.
I think their work is worth keeping an eye on, and following up on, but I'm quite skeptical of their claims. You're giving them entirely too much credit.
Slashdot Mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Minds
It takes a special kind of asshat to deny his own words when there's an easily verifiable record. I'm not sure what motivates you to act in such a way, but I see no reason to continue this farce.
Funny how you left out the very next sentence.
It's irrelevant anyway. The wikipedia article provides no figures and no citations. It doesn't even pretend to factor in nuclear-waste disposal costs - in fact, it states the opposite. There's no way that they COULD have accurate figures for the capital costs of an IFR, because none have ever been built. The words "current cost" when referring to the price of uranium seem rather important, also.
So your quotation of the article is roughly equivalent to saying:
"Well, it's true that IFR's would use less fuel, produce much less waste AND be able to reprocess existing waste, but some guy says they'd probably cost a lot more to build so therefore reprocessing is more expensive"
You'll forgive me if I don't find that line of argument convincing.
Your assertions of right and wrong seems completely random, and entirely irrational. They're also too complex to codify, which makes them unenforceable. While I might agree with some of your individual points, you can't base a legal code on the idea that "people can take only what they really need". I believe the soviets tried something along those lines and it didn't work out too well, but even if we ignore their example it's still quite obvious why such a system is inherently unstable.
You're also all over the place. One minute you're supposedly talking about where morals come from, the next minute you're talking about whether property rights are more important than "equality", and five minutes later you're talking about whether exploitation is ok. Those are all separate subjects. The importance of property rights has nothing to do with exploitation or the origins of morals. The origins of morals have nothing to do with property rights. I don't think you actually know what it is you're trying to argue for here - you seem to have taken your entire worldview and tried to squeeze it into one interconnected argument. I'm sorry, but I have neither the time nor the energy to deal with that. I've already explained why property rights are important, and you've essentially agreed with me (although it seems that you don't realize it). Unless you have something new to add, I'll call it good enough and leave it at that.
We were arguing about where rights derive from, I thought that was clear.
Not at all. Frankly, even now that I know what you think you were talking about, I'm having trouble actually seeing it in your original comment.
I'm saying that, if property rights are absolute, then people can initiate force through property.
If you mean they can hit you with a baseball bat, then yeah, they can "initiate force through property". However, I get the feeling that's not what you're talking about. If you think that me allowing you to starve is a type of force, then you're mistaken.
If my property rights trump your right to life, I can enslave you, unless you also own property.
If my right to life trumps your right to property, I can enslave you, unless you also own no property.
So what?
Are you suggesting that it's not ok for me to make you work in order to earn a living, but it's ok for you to take away the stuff I worked for just because you don't have any?
I'm not saying it will happen in every case, I'm saying, when property rights have trumped the right to equitable opportunities in life, we have had slavery. Simple historical fact.
In case you haven't noticed, property rights have trumped "equitable opportunities" in pretty much 100% of human societies, throughout history. You may as well say that every time human beings have had two hands and two feet, we have had slavery.
Wow, that wins the award for dumbest comparison of the day.
You really hate to lose an argument, huh?
I never said that they were. All I said was that Doctors don't have the right to make end of life decisions without the consent of the patient or his authorized representative.
No, that's most definitely not what you said.
I've already stated them.
I'm sorry, but "because it's personal" is not exactly a convincing argument. I don't see why a decision to perform surgery on you in order to save your life is any less "personal" than a decision to cut open your corpse and remove some organs. The state already has the right to open up your body after your death in order to perform an autopsy, so we've clearly decided - as a society - that you don't deserve full control of your body after you die, and neither does your family.
It's not my fault you are choosing to ignore what I've said and make bullshit comparisons.
No, it's your fault that you're now backpedaling and lying about what you said. You specifically stated that doctors don't have a right to end your life without your consent, and now you're pretending that you said something completely different.
You are splitting hairs. When the law makes it a crime to have THC metabolites in your body while engaging in a lawful activity the law has effectively made it illegal to have THC in your system.
WTF?
So when the law makes it a crime for a blind person to drive, they have effectively made it illegal to be blind?
Go on, pull the other one.
Besides which, in what forms (other than a prescription for marinol) can you legally possess THC in prior to ingestion?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis#United_States
Apples to oranges. Doctors can assume consent to save your life when you are unable to give it.
Why? What if having your life saved is against your religion? Who gave doctors the right to play god? :p
They can not assume consent to end your life when you are unable to give it.
Which nobody was suggesting. This idea that organs have to be harvested while you're alive is asinine, and has repeatedly been shown to be false. When your organs are taken, you are DEAD. D-E-A-D. Doctors cannot end the life of a corpse. Period, full stop.
Now that you've been informed that your objection is a myth, have you got any more reasons why we shouldn't have opt-out organ donation?
No, you can not borrow my car for an extended period of time because we, as a society, have agreed that individuals have certain limited rights to control their own possessions.
Yes, we've agreed on property rights. ....
What are we arguing about again?
Funny, you did not address the part where I explained how and why absolute property rights lead to slavery, you just assert that I am wrong.
That's because you didn't explain anything - you just asserted that people who own property would enslave or starve those who didn't. That's not an explanation, it's simply a restating of your premise (aka, a tautology).
Let me be very clear about this concept of natural or God given rights.
You're wasting your breath since I don't accept either of the two. Property rights have nothing to do with that, unless you're asserting that property rights have to be inherently "natural" or "god given", which would be foolish.
You serious or you just trolling?
The law doesn't state that you can't have X in your system - it states that you cannot operate a motor vehicle while X is in your system. So I'll repeat what I said earlier:
"You can put as much THC into your body as you want - there's no law prohibiting you from having THC in your system."
The source you quote talks about reprocessing using thermal reactors. Under those conditions, I agree completely - reprocessing would be more costly. That's not what I was talking about, though, nor is it being seriously considered by anyone else I've ever heard of. Since you like wikipedia, you might want to check out their page on the IFR
My body, my choice. Not yours. Not the Doctors. Not some legislator in Albany or Washington. My choice.
Agreed. Likewise, the default should be that if you get in an accident, no medical help is provided. If you're unconscious and we can't find your consent form, well, tough luck. Unless you opt into the "yes, please help me" club, we should leave you on the streets to bleed to death. After all, we don't want to offend any religious beliefs you may have.
Better hope your wife isn't a fan of /.
I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place (no pun intended), but if he considers himself a dead man anyway, is it really altruistic?
It depends. If he's only doing it as a way of committing suicide, then no, it's not. If he's willing to give up a few more years of life in order to help others, then yeah, it is.
It's kind of like the old millionaire who leaves his estate to a charity. Was it really charitable of him if he didn't give it away while he was still living?
Not really a valid comparison - the millionaire could do any number of other things with the money. Leave it to family. Use it to build a 200 foot tall statue of himself in every major city. Burn it. Have it burred with him. Just look at the Egyptian Pharaohs :)
So yea, choosing to give it to charity instead is certainly altruistic. Although, once again, it gets a bit muddled if you start to consider motives.
Libertarians want to make everything about ownership, but ownership is a simplistic and selfish concept.
Awesome - can I "borrow" your car for an extended period of time?
In short, "I own my own body and therefore should have absolute property rights" leads, inevitably, to slavery.
Nonsense. Using the same "logic" you could argue that the lack of property rights leads directly to slavery, since it allows anyone to take what you have. Of course, both arguments are completely ludicrous - slavery doesn't arise from any particular economic system.
Then I guess we are all slaves because someone tried to put some THC into his body the other day and got arrested for doing so......
I actually disagree with drug laws in general, but I gotta point out that your line of reasoning is wrong. You can put as much THC into your body as you want - there's no law prohibiting you from having THC in your system. You cannot, however, legally posses marijuana without a license. The end result may be quite similar, but there IS a difference, and it's a difference that's worth noting in the context of this discussion.
Reprocessed fuel is more expensive than virgin fuel.
Um, no. In a breeder your consumption of fissile material goes down to a tiny fraction of a normal reactor. Reprocessing doesn't cost you a penny.
So including that would raise the cost, not lower it.
Even if we accepted your initial premise, this part is definitely wrong. Reprocessing fuel means you have less waste to transport and store, which takes a big chunk out of your operating costs.
The follow up costs of nuclear are unknown, because we don't know what to do with the spent nuclear fuel.
See above. Build yourself an IFR. The tiny bit of waste you're left with will have a much shorter halflife than the usual fission waste. Stick it in a hole for 200 years, and you're good to go. Not only will the waste products be less of a concern, but IFR's could be used to get rid of the waste we have NOW, since they can use the waste output of other reactors as fuel.
No studies have been conducted about the effects of neutrinos on young children's development and so far all subjects exposed to neutrinos have later died or showed effects of cell degradation.
Hah. Considering that trillions of Neutrinos are passing through your body every second, I'm going to have to call bullshit on this one. Unless you're intending this as a dihydrogen monoxide type joke - "every person who's ever ingested it has later died!".
You know, no matter how many times you lie about it, you're not going to change what's true. Not only is it not true that the "follow up costs" are ignored, but they're actually overestimated due to the current policy of not reprocessing fuel. Change that, and electricity becomes even cheaper than the current calculations show.
If you can build and operate ten 100 megawatt solar plants for the cost of building, operating and decommissioning one 1 gigawatt nuke plant (and insuring it for liability, and dealing with its waste), why not go with solar?
If you can pull 1 terawatt out of your ass, for free, why not go with your ass?
Gene Ray? Is that you?
The politics are a formidable problem with moving the technology forward, and that is not likely to change any time soon.
Yeah, just like perpetual motion machines, right? Damn Big Science and their quest to oppress the little guys!
Please, save the conspiracy theories for a more gullible forum. The problem with the "technology" is that it doesn't fucking work - if it did, you'd have absolutely no problem getting it funded.
Well, yeah, exactly. Smolin is a little out there, too - he's rejects the idea of a multiverse out of hand, and completely dismissed string theory. Now, while we may find out at a later date that he is in fact correct, it doesn't really help your case to brag about Lisi publishing with Smolin. It's like claiming that one cold-fusion whacko must be a serious contender because he co-authored a paper with another cold-fusion proponent.
I think their work is worth keeping an eye on, and following up on, but I'm quite skeptical of their claims. You're giving them entirely too much credit.
Yea, I guess with the average persons diet being what it is, we're getting closer and closer to being able to fill that much bandwidth.