Speed. 290km/h is pretty quick by maritime standards.
And comfort. With a 1.5m swell, you're gonna feel that in a boat. A hydrofoil will still go up and down.
Whereas a ground-effect vehicle is still flying, so a lot smoother.
12,016 karma · joined April 5, 2011
And comfort. With a 1.5m swell, you're gonna feel that in a boat. A hydrofoil will still go up and down.
Whereas a ground-effect vehicle is still flying, so a lot smoother.
Not really :) - My parents traveled by ship between the UK and South Africa in the 70's. And they certainly weren't in the "rich" category, and it wasn't a "holiday cruise", it was "how to get from here to there".
>> Cars replaced horses.
Exactly my point. There was a huge industry around horses (stabling, grooming, farriers, vets, cleaning the streets etc) and all that went away. Yes there were new industries (mechanics, panel-beaters etc), and that's the point. Change happened, and people adapted...
Funny, I don't remember this wailing when every other industry was destroyed. When cars replaced horses, planes replaced ships, computers replaced typists, phones replaced travel agents.
But replace the programmers? Woe is us, the end of humanity is here. How do we save ourselves from the machines?
You're suggesting that Canada bomb US data centers? Or that the US bombs one in China? Or that Germany bombs one in Poland? I mean, what could possibly go wrong with that idea?
The US can't agree within themselves on pretty much anything. They actively trash global co-operation on, well, everything. Their politics is driven by money, and specifically money from AI owners (aka Musk).
And once the US has figured out what the bounds should be, you expect the other 190 countries to just fall in line? Like, um, why?
What exactly are "high penalties " you have in mind? Trade? Military action? Kidnapping leaders? The US has done all those in the last 12 months and achieved precisely nothing.
If this is the "best path" you can come up with, then, well, you may as well lobby for fairies and unicorns.
The world has changed many times already. The industrial revolution changes humanity away from agriculture (95% of people then, 2% today). The transport revolution (first ships, then planes) improves trade and makes countries interdependent.
Medicine has transformed life expectancy in less than 100 years. The human population has exploded since ww2. The dystopia imagined in the 50s was "4 billion people".
The arrival of the computer transformed offices within a couple decades. Secretary, Filing Clerk, Typist et al are all jobs considered good when my mom grew up. All gone forever.
Phones move the needle as well. Travel Agents become a tiny niche (to name just 1 profession.)
I get that when it's your job being threatened it feels existential. But many, many jobs have become obsolete in my lifetime, and in the lifetime before mine.
So to answer your question, humanity will do just fine. This is just another step on a long road, and it won't be the last.
Your real question of course is "what will happen to you?" And that depends on where you are.
If you are in the US its likely your standard of living will drop. The US is currently in late-stage-empire, and some correction is inevitable. But drop doesn't mean crater. You'll all be just fine.
The rest of the world will likely improve. Some places (like Europe) are post-empire and have reached a (mostly) stable equilibrium. Asia has seen enormous improvements, and will likely continue to do so.
South America and Africa have so much opportunity for growth and will like progress into powerhouses.
I'm not worried. We'll be just fine, and likely better than before.
I agree with your post, but the above statement is not technically accurate.
Panels do drop in production over time; A very rough rule-of-thumb is around 1% loss per year.
So after 20 years production is at like 80%. (Ymmv)
Of course this isn't really a big deal. The panels themselves are cheap and can be replaced very easily. Equally there is a market for 2nd hand panels as they still produce, and are ideal for places that are not space constrained.
On a rainy day that drops closer to 20%.
As an aside - cloudy days avoid a problem I have with shade. In winter, at 3:30pm, the sun goes behind a tree and my production plummets to near zero. If there's cloud cover the sunlight is far more dispersed and there's no "shade".
When I was growing up movies were watched in cinemas. It was a big event and we saw maybe 5 a year.
Over time more start appearing on TV, but those tended to be a bit older, but also cherry picked the good ones. (I don't live in the US).
PayTV didn't appear until mid 80s. They had more movies, but again tended to cherry pick. VHS meant we recorded the ones we wanted to see. All these things together meant we tended to watch "good" movies.
Hollywood of course were making lots and lots of movies we never saw, or had and way to see. The bad stuff simply didn't have a channel to the world.
The arrival of Video Stores changed that. Suddenly the mediocre (and worse) had an outlet. And trust me, there was plenty of rubbish in there. But there was still a cost to distribute.
Today, distribution cost is zero. If Netflix commission a movie it'll get onto Netflix. Regardless of the result. Some really good stuff, most mediocre, lots of real rubbish.
Repeat for Amazon, Disney, Hulu, et al.
Overall movies haven't gotten worse. Objectively production values are higher. But your access to mediocre and bad movies has increased.
Judging past output though introduces survivor bias, which in turn makes comparison to today misleading.
Before that it was only accessible via an infrequent ship which took 3 days out of Cape Town, South Africa.
But given the air link it is a lot more accessible now.
Tristan is still only accessible via sea, and even if you make it there, there's no guarantee you can land. There is no port, so ship-to-land transfers are via small boat, so the whole process is very weather dependent.
Both islands though have a really interesting history, and are well worth reading about, even if you never get there.
And these days you can get a flavor of local life via the local newspaper online. https://sthelenaonline.org/st-helena-independent/
For example there's me, an empty plot, and the next neighbor. Nothing is more local to the both of us than the empty plot. We've even grassed it, and maintain it.
The owner of the plot wants to build a house. Since we are the locals we simply say no. We like the plot as it is. Plus the loss of this open plot would affect the value of our property. And traffic in the neighborhood would increase.
This sounds bonkers - surely the owner of the plot has rights too? Sure, but this is democracy so our 2 votes outweigh his one.
The consequence of small govt is that nothing gets done at all because the majority of people are resistant to any change at all. If everything takes a majority, well, nothing happens.
Ultimately though local people are the worst decision makers. Which is why my city let's the owner build on his plot, and doesn't allow me and my neighbor to decide.
Municipal rules, zoning, community feedback and so on all operate in the space of keeping people happy. No-one wants noise, so we have noise restrictions. Oops, construction is constrained. We all want no traffic, and lots of parking, so low density please, but that creates housing shortages and limits the usefulness of public transport.
So a rule is added here, a process there, and everyone is fighting everything all the time. Can't build this because traffic. Can't build that because impact on the neighborhood.
But yay, democracy? We can do anything as long as no one is subjectivly harmed.
And when nothing at all gets done, we blame politicians for being lazy, incompetent, or corrupt.
Plus charging points are everywhere, so it's trivial to just top up for 30 mins or so.
I feel like the range question is becoming more FUD than reality.
In Europe EV's have a positive political support, which means lots of sales, which means "all" European manufacturers have solid (and improving) offerings.
By contrast the biggest EV manufacturer is politically toxic to the very people likely to buy it. And oil companies lobby hard to keep anti-EV talking points alive. Which drives sales down, and manufacturers drop EVs from the range. Banning competition doesn't seem to help with making progress.
And yes, I get the "Europe short distances" argument, but how many Americans are really driving 300+ miles every day?
So, 20 years from now, will US manufacturers exist? Or will products from Asia and Europe be too far ahead?
The key point is how they see themselves. The average American sees the US as "the good guys". This is not a self-image lightly over-turned. Regardless of how the rest of the world views them.
The US sees itself as a "policeman" not a "gangster", they are out to save the world, not conquer it.
And yet, the line between the two is very blurry. Kuwait was justified, Iraq contrived. Afghanistan meaningless. Iran is a solution looking for a problem (nooo they can't have nuclear weapons, but who trashed JPOA?)
The 20th century was no better. The righteous of WW2 allows any excess, Vietnam being a poster child.
For the US to change they first need to accept they are the bad guy. And that's a very difficult thing to accept. The shiny uniform for example is what the good guy wears.
But in the end the gangster and police can be hard to tell apart.
Given the current instability of oil prices, where considerably more than 4 countries are producers, it's perhaps dangerous to bet the farm on future fuel supply.
Edit: for reference each reactor consumes about 140 tons of uranium each year, and current production is lower than demand by about 10%.
So if there's a growth in nuclear reactors (which there is, in China alone) I guess we're hoping for an equivalent growth in uranium supply? Do yeah, you're not wrong. Currently nuclear, once built, is very reliable. But equally it has a "single supplier" problem as well.
The problem with fusion is not technical (although we've not yet solved the technical challenges, which are considerable) but financial/economical.
Let's assume all the physics are sorted out later today. Now all we need is $100 billion to build a demo plant. Because we live in a real world, it will take 10 years before we can break ground.
Probably 5 more years of construction, testing, etc. So your $100b should start earning a return 15 years from now. If all goes well.
And returns should be pretty good. Assuming no great breakthroughs in storage tech between now and then.
Of course, returns will be seasonal, and mostly at night. We can expect solar to supply daytime demand. (Hey, solar is a form of fusion energy as well!)
So yeah, we need $100 billion now, perhaps more later as costs spiral, theres no prospect of a return anytime soon, actual returns are hard to forecast, and frankly life-span of the asset is hard to predict.
All of which is to say that it's unlikely to be privately funded. Govt maybe. Assuming the project survives multiple govt funding rounds. And, of course, being govt funded, timelines will drag and costs will overrun.
Unless of course, well, China. Cost is no object, experienced at getting major stuff built. Fewer delays. Money no object. But even there, why choose fusion when solar is so cheap? What strategic advantage does it hold?
Betting on fusion today means betting that it gets to production faster than storage. Indeed that it beats storage hy 30 years. And that's some bet to make.
So, as a rule of thumb, the solar panel loses approximately 1% per year. So after 30 years it's generating around 70% of rated capacity.
At that (or any earlier or later) point one could replace the panels. That's really cheap to do, and can be done with more-or-less unskilled labor.
If you are space-constrained (like your residential roof) then you'll likely do it earlier.
If you are a commercial producer, sitting in a desert somewhere, it'll likely be better to just "plant another field" next door. Keep the 70% (it's free), and bolster capacity by adding more panels, not replacing old ones.
And this is before we take into account places where the ecology under the panels has changed and become more valuable in its own right.
So 25 years from now, or maybe 10 years from now, it might pay to replace panels. Which may in turn lead to very cheap 75% 2nd hand panels becoming widely available.
While it's true the US is a massive producer, it focuses on automation, which means more productivity per job.
And this is the crux of it all. US factory jobs weren't Los "overseas" as much as they were lost to machines. Each production line needs fewer and fewer workers.
Yes, you can cherry-pick examples (software jobs going to India or coal mines closing etc) but even mines use much less labor today per ton of say coal than they did 50 years ago.
So really, I think, the sense is that good blue-collar union jobs are what's dwindling. It's less about raw output and more about job losses.
One group (mostly students) believe it is a skills training facility, training for specific job skills for specific jobs.
Another group (mostly faculty) believes it is teaching people how to learn skills.
Students in the first group are always panicking about their jobs going away.
Students in the second group learn new skills quickly, and see opportunities when the world changes around them.
Leaving aside for the moment people working multiple jobs for whom free time is a luxury.
Leaving aside working parents who are also raising children who choose to spend that time with them.
Of the rest, though we do see some productive outlets. Open Source Software for example being perhaps the poster child for work done without return.
Or what about those who volunteer? Perhaps in a church context or charity context or whatever.
Or all those with a side hustle, selling home-made goods in weekend markets. Some of that to earn more, some to exercise their creativity.
Yes, in countries where there are sufficient social nets that unemployed people can survive some choose not to work. And yet the overall unemployment numbers in those countries is pretty low.
So maybe "majority" isn't really the right term?
I get the urge to find someone to blame. It's not the fault of the voter, because that would imply personal accountability. Or at the very least, it would imply a lot about the underlying character of chunk of the population.
On the other hand, you can't blame the media for gas price reports. Or the cost of housing. Or the people dying of measles. Or the men in masks rounding up people. The voter can see all that themselves.
The voter knows about the current conflict with Iran. That is not a "media bias". They are free to decide themselves if that is justified.
The voter who spends all day on Fox news is welcome to decide for themselves if they want a hand-out of cash promised for after the the election. (A promise they've heard before, but not seen).
So yeah, it eould be nice to blame the oligarchs, or the media, or China, or the church, or pretty much anyone, as long as that anyone is not the voter who can see what is happening, and votes for more of the same.
American culture is capitalism, and that isn't changing, just getting more extreme. Equally American culture is "white European" and the resistance to change there (racially and culturally) is woven into US history.
Short of impeachment (reasons for which are not in short supply, but which seems unlikely) there's not much congress can actually do to change things. 60 votes is a tough threshold to reach.
But a third of Americans approve of the current administration. Around half of the people who voted, voted for this administration. And a lot of the footguns you refer to were gleefully part of the campaign.
If you want to apportion blame you might include moderate voters who may not approve of the status quo, but alas are so partisan that they cannot vote for the other side.
With more elections imminent, it remains to be seen if it's really the oligarchs fault, or if the root fault is the real source of power.
In other words, it can be useful even if it's not the most efficient way to do it. It only has to be more efficient than the status quo.
I don't have thd capital to build utility-scale solar. I do have the capital to install residential solar. My electricity is now cheaper.
Most reports are not supported by the evidence, but some are, and that helps us improve driver behavior, while at the same time protecting drivers from bad reports.
It's not an insurance thing, but more a "manager confidence in drivers" thing.
In other words their motivations and your and my motivations are different. I have limited cash, and my primary goal is expanding my ability to get more cash.
By contrast, the Google's of this world have too much cash. Their primary goal is finding things to depend the cash on (billions at a time) that can return, or at least potentially return, either mountains of more cash, or a competitive advantage.
So yes, for them, hard problems, the harder the better, are desirable.