3,217 karma · joined February 18, 2010
Whilst the smaller parties / independents do not have a real chance to gain majority, they can still have a voice and oftentimes hold the balance of power. This leads to some claiming that these smaller players have a much bigger influence than they deserve.
Far better to send economic help to the poor, instead of by gender/race/religion etc.
Today there are more women graduating medical and law school than men. Given the trends the current imbalance (of sheer numbers) will be a thing of the past in a decade or two.
> It looks like schools are performing better for men than women.
Or school isn't the only factor? Schools could be failing boys, and society could be failing women in other ways.
Investments made today into li-ion production would expect to have a return on investment in under ten years, so it makes sense to make such an investment.
Edit: If it were to take less time to commercialize the new chemistry, it would be because it can piggyback off existing techniques. If that were the case, converting existing infra to the new battery chemistry would be possible. So the current investment would likely not be wasted.
I guess you could generalize people that believe in the risks of climate changes as "people with an agenda". You could probably also generalize people who believe the opposite that way as well.
Given there is more money to be made (or less to be spent) in maintaining the status quo I'd say it is more motivations for an agenda in climate change denial.
> refer to nebulous externalized costs that they cannot actually quantify. How are you measuring these costs and what are they?
There are a whole range of possibilities here. Some are lower risk, but huge "costs" (world war III, runaway greenhouse effect). Other lower impact scenarios are more likely (more extreme weather conditions resulting in increased storm damage/flooding, uninhabitable areas due to heat/regular flooding, mass migration).
The costs of the worst case scenario are really off the scale. The costs of the less extreme scenario is extreme.
The problem is that for all our science, it's hard to predict the future. And how do you calculate the cost for something decades away that has such uncertainty? It's hard for individuals (or most companies) to build this into their financial models as they tend not to operate on those sorts of timelines, but it is something governments should be looking at.
> Because I see a lot of people making excuses for why we need a government to do everything
That's nice, but you were responding to my comment. I am not making excuses or asking the government to do "everything". I think I was clear in my previous comment, but I will try again: governments need to act to put a cost on negative externalities, which in turn will allow a market to develop, leading to private companies provide solutions for said market.
You just need to count the number of rooftop solar installations there are in the world to get an idea of the market size. Another $2k investment to get significantly more value out of an existing multithousand outlay would be a no brainer for most of them.
I thought you were arguing against forcibly shrinking the population (which I don't think anyone was advocating btw), but are you actually arguing to grow the population as a way to improve things environmentally?
Having more people in the world does not lead to "more people are working on these issues". Well, maybe it could, but it would be one of the least efficient (and most indirect) ways to make it happen.
> Btw more population also usually results in more urbanization and more efficient energy use per person.
Problem: We've got a problem with too many humans being ineffecient.
Answer: increase the population to get more ubanization, which brings some efficiencies.
I'll just ignore the decrease in quality of life for everyone, and just say that this doesn't seem like an elegant solution.
If we if ignore population size/growth as a factor, we will ignore possible solutions related to that variable.
Reducing the world's population doesn't have to some dystopian horror show, with forced sterilization and mass cullings.
Perhaps the most cost efficient way to combat global warming is lifting the world's poorest out of poverty. It's been shown as populations become richer/educated their growth slows and shrink over time.
In low g environments, convection due to density changes doesn't happen (hot air does not rise) which means heat pools around bodies at rest.
Edit: after reading the article a bit, i see that you were quoting a section that ends with "...(conduction and convection) cannot occur without matter." Which does make the distinction the author was making a little more less useful. However lack of convection is an issue inside the space station where fans must be installed to keep air from pooling around heat sources like lights and human bodies.
Note: I think such laws are rediculous, but what liabilities is Amazon inviting to their users?
Whilst they are doing their multiyear rewrites, it would be nice if someone could optimise the ruby runtime a bit for them.
How about people who are interested in warp physics study warp physics, and those interested in establishing off-world colonies spend their time on that persuit?
In australia we have a $12.50/hr minimum for 15 year olds. It climbs in increments until about $25/hr.
This system allows teenagers to get a foot in the door for low-skilled jobs, and allows adults to get paid a livable wage.
The result is that a lot of fast food jobs are performed by teenagers, and they are considered entry level jobs. Adults are then paid more, and take positions where they can add more value that what a teen can provide.
It's hard to imagine anyone with half a brain working under such conditions.
It's also hard to imagine that putting such a measure in place would not result in data and systems being so locked down that they become unusable to most staff.
Plastic is only used in a really wasteful/damaging way because the costs are externalized, making it the cheapest option.
If manufacturers had to pay the real cost, they would quickly start packaging their products in alternative manners because they are cost effective.
Cleanup should probably also be included
Heavy trucks actually do the majority of damage to road infrastructure.
From the linked article: The registration fee seems steep. However,a B-Double can cause, per kilometre travelled, 20,000 times the road wear and tear that a family car does
https://theconversation.com/trucks-are-destroying-our-roads-...
I.e. The social cachet from the older style panels being super visible outweighs the reduced asthetic, therefore people will not pay extra for nicer looking solar.
It's a good thing too that we have a domestic cabability, as other countries appear to be diverting previously promised doses elsewhere because of Australia's successful covid-19 control programs.
Note: happy to be corrected on any of this. Also, no judgement on the diverting of vaccine doses to more at risk populations, it seems sensible.
Is it other people detached from reality? It seems unrealistic to assume 100% of people will not want to use such a service.
> There are many reasons this won't happen.
The very fact taxis and Uber exist means there is a demand for such a service.
Afaik vaccines are not useful after the fact. I.e. this HIV vaccine won't be given to people already infected.
If these heady futures of AI do come to fruition, then the cost of "stuff" trends towards zero. We've sort of seen this already playing out since the industrial revolution, and more recently outsourcing manufacturing to countries with very cheap labour. It used to be that it would take a week's wages to buy a pair of pants. Now you can buy a cheap pair for an hour of minimum wage.
So what has happened? People's expectations have increased, and more and more of people's incomes get shifted to focus on the physically scarce e.g. desirable land.
Stuff (and most labour value) will trend toward zero, and land will trend toward the infinite.
If we do get to a "post scarcity" economy, we really need to ensure no one person/company controls too much land. At a certain point, most labour will not be exchangeable for enough $$ to trade for land, and you'll have very little economic mobility for the majority.
At this point one might expect revolution, but AI would also upset the balance of physical projection of power the masses currently have over the few.
Interesting to think about!
> Insanely high compared to the cost of producing it.
Ok, how about you share your numbers on the cost of production for 1kwh.
Your use of "insanely high" leads me to believe you are comparing the capital outlay for batteries, vs operating costs of a power station. It's important to compare like for like.