[Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-world-without-work-as-robots-computers-get-smarter-will-humans-have-anything-left-to-do/2013/01/18/61561b1c-61b7-11e2-81ef-a2249c1e5b3d_story.html This subject is starting to attract attention in the mass media. I wish cold fusion would. Cold fusion will lead to more unemployment than most breakthroughs, but not as much as improvements to computers. I have a chapter about that in my book. It is surprising how few people work in energy. Here is a thought-provoking table showing all major occupations in the U.S.: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm That is the entire universe of work. Here are some comments I made about this table elsewhere: The economy has not produced any new Major Occupational Group since roughly 1880 (when precision manufacturing began) because every kind of labor we want done for us is already done. As I said, people have moved from one group to another, as the amount of labor ebbs and flows in different sectors. But there are no new groups, and robots will move into all groups simultaneously. . . . Granted, Category 15, Computer and Mathematical Occupations did not exist in 1880. But every task now done by Computer occupations was done back then by people in category 43, Office and Administrative Support. All of the other occupations in this list were already in existence by 1880. Most of them existed in Heian Japan, for that matter. There are no new tasks. That is to say, there are no occupations with novel outcomes or purposes that did not exist back then. The methods of achieving these purposes have changed. For example, in category 27 our methods of entertainment have changed, but the purpose -- entertaining people with fiction, music and so on -- is the same. There is a limited market for this. We cannot watch TV or listen to music 20 hours a day. Nearly all of the occupations on this list, and the sub-category occupations in the table, could be done better by a Watson-class computer than by a human being. . . . Someone else summarized the situation quite well: Until recently, technology advances made machines stronger, faster, and more reliable than average Joes. But, even at the slow end, he was much better at mopping a floor, understanding speech, packing a box, or driving a lorry than even the best supercomputer. So, he had some major competitive advantages for just being human. - Jed
[Vo]:Progress in food factories with LED lighting in Japan
See a bunch of photos here: http://photo.sankei.jp.msn.com/kodawari/data/2013/01/24led/ Google translate does a pretty good job converting the text on this page to English. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:censored part of the answer
If it is censored, why did you post it? - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
A truly scary prospect, I would say. Humans now have three ways they could make themselves extinct - atomic weapons, biological weapons, and smart computers. The list seems to be growing. What happens when the smart computer is run by cold fusion so that it can never be turned off? Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 8:37 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-world-without-work-as-robots-computers-get-smarter-will-humans-have-anything-left-to-do/2013/01/18/61561b1c-61b7-11e2-81ef-a2249c1e5b3d_story.html This subject is starting to attract attention in the mass media. I wish cold fusion would. Cold fusion will lead to more unemployment than most breakthroughs, but not as much as improvements to computers. I have a chapter about that in my book. It is surprising how few people work in energy. Here is a thought-provoking table showing all major occupations in the U.S.: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm That is the entire universe of work. Here are some comments I made about this table elsewhere: The economy has not produced any new Major Occupational Group since roughly 1880 (when precision manufacturing began) because every kind of labor we want done for us is already done. As I said, people have moved from one group to another, as the amount of labor ebbs and flows in different sectors. But there are no new groups, and robots will move into all groups simultaneously. . . . Granted, Category 15, Computer and Mathematical Occupations did not exist in 1880. But every task now done by Computer occupations was done back then by people in category 43, Office and Administrative Support. All of the other occupations in this list were already in existence by 1880. Most of them existed in Heian Japan, for that matter. There are no new tasks. That is to say, there are no occupations with novel outcomes or purposes that did not exist back then. The methods of achieving these purposes have changed. For example, in category 27 our methods of entertainment have changed, but the purpose -- entertaining people with fiction, music and so on -- is the same. There is a limited market for this. We cannot watch TV or listen to music 20 hours a day. Nearly all of the occupations on this list, and the sub-category occupations in the table, could be done better by a Watson-class computer than by a human being. . . . Someone else summarized the situation quite well: Until recently, technology advances made machines stronger, faster, and more reliable than average Joes. But, even at the slow end, he was much better at mopping a floor, understanding speech, packing a box, or driving a lorry than even the best supercomputer. So, he had some major competitive advantages for just being human. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Ed sez: What happens when the smart computer is run by cold fusion so that it can never be turned off? Men will be free to go back to watching professional wrestling football on TV 20 hours a day. Women... cooking shows. Thus spoke, THGTTG: Mostly harmless. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:censored part of the answer
Rossi has censored it, and I have saved it for the posterity. Peter On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 5:41 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: If it is censored, why did you post it? - Jed -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: A truly scary prospect, I would say. Humans now have three ways they could make themselves extinct - atomic weapons, biological weapons, and smart computers. I do not see it that way. Nuclear or biological weapons would cause only massive harm. Nothing good can come of using them. Whereas it is easy to imagine a society in which computers do nearly all the work, but we all prosper. I am confident that if we can devise wonderful robots, we can also devise an economy to fit them and benefit everyone. An economy is a human invention like any other -- like a building, a railroad or a computer. People sometimes say that an economy must follow the rules of economics so we have no choice about how we shape it. It has to be free market capitalistic. No other kind works. That is silly. A building must follow the laws of engineering. You cannot make it out materials so weak the walls will collapse. You cannot make a house out of straw or bubble gum; you have to use wood, stone, brick or steel. But within these restrictions we can make an infinite variety of different houses. Martin Ford described one possible economy based on robot labor. ( http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/) Other people will come up with better ideas. I am sure we can work something out, if we try. Mankind has fixed countless similar problems in the past. Life has improved tremendously for most people. History gives us every reason to be optimistic. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Well Steven, as usual you cleverly identified another way humans will become extinct. These activities will cause excessive sex from boredom, which will require the computer to thin the population, perhaps by an excessive amount using the other tools I mentioned. Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 8:54 AM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: Ed sez: What happens when the smart computer is run by cold fusion so that it can never be turned off? Men will be free to go back to watching professional wrestling football on TV 20 hours a day. Women... cooking shows. Thus spoke, THGTTG: Mostly harmless. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:censored part of the answer
Peter Gluck peter.gl...@gmail.com wrote: Rossi has censored it, and I have saved it for the posterity. Ah, I see! Rossi is short-tempered at times. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
I agree Jed, you are correct if humans were rational. Unfortunately, a significant fraction are not rational, as can be easily seen at all levels. When irrational people have the ability, they always attempt to destroy. In the past, their ability was very limited. This ability is growing. Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 9:05 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: A truly scary prospect, I would say. Humans now have three ways they could make themselves extinct - atomic weapons, biological weapons, and smart computers. I do not see it that way. Nuclear or biological weapons would cause only massive harm. Nothing good can come of using them. Whereas it is easy to imagine a society in which computers do nearly all the work, but we all prosper. I am confident that if we can devise wonderful robots, we can also devise an economy to fit them and benefit everyone. An economy is a human invention like any other -- like a building, a railroad or a computer. People sometimes say that an economy must follow the rules of economics so we have no choice about how we shape it. It has to be free market capitalistic. No other kind works. That is silly. A building must follow the laws of engineering. You cannot make it out materials so weak the walls will collapse. You cannot make a house out of straw or bubble gum; you have to use wood, stone, brick or steel. But within these restrictions we can make an infinite variety of different houses. Martin Ford described one possible economy based on robot labor. (http://www.thelightsinthetunnel.com/ ) Other people will come up with better ideas. I am sure we can work something out, if we try. Mankind has fixed countless similar problems in the past. Life has improved tremendously for most people. History gives us every reason to be optimistic. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
Eric, Here are a few other brief points leading to the conclusion that hydrogen mass is not quantized-at least not “in practice”. (to be explained) First off – it would be most unusual for only one isotope of one element in the entire periodic table to be quantized. That would be the case if the proton were to be found quantized in practice. Secondly, and most importantly for moving ahead with this hypothesis - it is possible (if not encouraged) to have a bifurcation between the theoretical and the actual – such that there is a theoretical “ideal” – the so-called Bohr atom - which exists only on paper, and which is quantized. In the pursuit of experimental physics, however, there is variation and there is leeway, and there is a range of masses with an average which corresponds to an ideal value, with populations on either side of the average that exist “in practice”. Third, the proton consists of three quarks which represent less than one half of its mass, combined with other bosons which are essentially “glue” - but most of them are said to be massless. It simply does not add up when you do the numbers. Also quark mass cannot be measured easily and there is NO firm value - and QCD teaches that quark mass is subject to color change (with consequences to mass-energy release) so quark mass itself cannot be constant. If quark mass is not quantized, then it goes without saying that proton mass cannot be quantized. Again – we can define an “ideal” value – but do not expect to see it in practice. Fourth. A so-called massless particle is integral to the standard model and is a particle whose invariant mass is zero. A major category of massless particles is gauge bosons – like the gluon (carrier of the strong force). However, gluons are never observed as free particles, since they are confined within hadrons BUT they cannot be massless to the extent the strong force is dynamic. Thus the entire structure of matter in the standard model is “built on a lie” – which is the massless particle. We know the “real mass” is actually a significant fraction of proton mass. Fifthly, electrons in hydrogen display a spectrum which tells us their energy levels- given by the Rydberg equation. Electrons are quantized, but even so, these lines are a bit fuzzy and imprecise, and their levels are also built on another sandy foundation – the FCC (fine structure constant). The FCC “ought to be” an integer value but is not since each frequency must correspond to an energy (hν) by Einstein’s equation. This photon energy must be the difference between two energy levels, since that is the amount of energy released by the electron moving from one level to the other but that does not depend on the mass of proton. The energy of a state can be characterized by an integer quantum number, n = 1, 2, 3, ... which determines its energy. The end number however is close to 137 – given by the fine structure constant but it is not exact and non-integer, so we suspect that every value in between is also not exact. Moreover, it is likely that this variation is tied to permitted mass variation in the proton mass. IOW there are fudge factors everywhere which are based primarily on the “real” proton having a variable mass (variable but within a narrow range). Even when you must conclude that the energies of electrons in atoms are quantized, that is, restricted to certain values – the slight variation in these lines indicates that the same conclusion does not apply to the underlying proton. This essentially is the best argument for quantization: if the electron is quantized – then why not the proton? But it is a false expectation. Can anyone think of any good theoretical argument which demand quantization in actual protons (as opposed to the Bohr atom, which is the ideal version)? From: Eric Walker I wrote: What is it that is causing the proton in this model to vary in mass, and is the range of possible masses discrete or continuous? I should anticipate one possible answer, which seems like a good explanation -- a proton is not a point particle, like a photon, and it does not travel at the speed of light. It has mass and it has a speed that is less than c. So the mass will vary with its speed; when it is stationary it will have a rest mass, and when it is travelling at relativistic velocities, it has a larger mass. Assuming the above is true, and assuming your model of a proton having an average mass is true, the question for me now becomes, is the (rest) mass a continuous value or discrete across a range? Eric attachment: winmail.dat
Re: [Vo]:censored part of the answer
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 6:07 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Peter Gluck peter.gl...@gmail.com wrote: Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone However the professor has a very inefficient style sweet, moral and nasty not skilled in polemiology, surely has not read or understood Sun Tzu Peter Rossi has censored it, and I have saved it for the posterity. Ah, I see! Rossi is short-tempered at times. - Jed -- Dr. Peter Gluck Cluj, Romania http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: I agree Jed, you are correct if humans were rational. They are, at times. If we were not rational, civilization and technology would not exist. Unfortunately, a significant fraction are not rational, as can be easily seen at all levels. When irrational people have the ability, they always attempt to destroy. In the past, their ability was very limited. This ability is growing. I do not see evidence that the power irrationality is growing faster than the power of rational people. The balance seems to be about the same as it was in the past. There were times in the past when irrational people held sway, and plunged the world into disaster. The most dramatic examples were the U.S. Civil War, WWI and WWII. I think we are much better off than we were then. A Third World War is highly unlikely. Rationality is winning that competition. The likelihood of a major war is receding, and many other positive trends continue. The Cold War ended peacefully. Democracy is spreading. Pollution is gradually being reduced. Out of control population growth is moderating, even in third world countries. Food factory technology is improving, and it could easily eliminate the threat of famine or massive water shortages. The Internet is bringing unprecedented access to information and education to people everywhere, even in the Third World. It is even possible that cold fusion will succeed. I will grant it is a long shot, but if I thought it could never happen -- that we will never overcome irrational opposition -- I would quit trying to promote it. I think you are unrealistic. Unwarranted pessimism is as unrealistic as Panglossian optimism. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Jan 26, 2013, at 9:39 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: I agree Jed, you are correct if humans were rational. They are, at times. If we were not rational, civilization and technology would not exist. Unfortunately, a significant fraction are not rational, as can be easily seen at all levels. When irrational people have the ability, they always attempt to destroy. In the past, their ability was very limited. This ability is growing. I do not see evidence that the power irrationality is growing faster than the power of rational people. The balance seems to be about the same as it was in the past. I'm not saying that the number of irrational people is changing, although that might not be true of Congress. I'm saying the the number who are irrational now have tools able to produce more widespread harm. There were times in the past when irrational people held sway, and plunged the world into disaster. The most dramatic examples were the U.S. Civil War, WWI and WWII. I think we are much better off than we were then. A Third World War is highly unlikely. Rationality is winning that competition. So far. The likelihood of a major war is receding, and many other positive trends continue. The Cold War ended peacefully. Democracy is spreading. Pollution is gradually being reduced. Except in China and India, which is most of the world. Out of control population growth is moderating, even in third world countries. The population is still growing exponentially world-wide. Food factory technology is improving, and it could easily eliminate the threat of famine or massive water shortages. Apparently not so easily. Hunger is even growing in the US at the low end of the economy. The Internet is bringing unprecedented access to information and education to people everywhere, even in the Third World. True, but to what effect? It is even possible that cold fusion will succeed. I will grant it is a long shot, but if I thought it could never happen -- that we will never overcome irrational opposition -- I would quit trying to promote it. I would not want to see that happen. Perhaps I had better shut up. :-) I think you are unrealistic. Unwarranted pessimism is as unrealistic as Panglossian optimism. I agree. But what role does rational and objective observation have in any evaluation? It seems to me, we need to identify a problem before we can attempt to correct it. This identification always leads to what might be called pessimism. Ed - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
One derivative speculation of all of this, which points to usable details to help to better design NiH experiments, is to know “how much” excess mass-energy exists in hydrogen (as “overage” from the average) which mass can be converted to energy (via goldstone bosons). If this estimate can be based on the FCC: Alpha^-1 = 137.035,999,174. Such that 1/137 represents an “ideal” step in a progression - and we consider the non-integer fudge factor (36 parts per thousand of the final integer) as permitted variation per step, then we are getting somewhere in being able to estimate how much energy can be derived from a population of hydrogen atoms by harvesting only the “heaviest” fraction (densest one percent). We do not know the distribution curve – would be a bell curve or something more Maxwellian? Dunno. But the potential net gain per atom is still quite high – even if we are talking about being able to convert only the heaviest percent of any population. The mass-energy of a proton is roughly one giga eV and one percent of 3.6 MeV or 36 KeV per atom - is huge - in terms of comparative chemical energy. That can be optimized in fact, thus making this speculation “falsifiable” to some degree. Jones BTW - An obvious implication of this for the NiH experimenter (of the “well-funded” variety, if there are any) is to load only the heaviest (densest) protium into a NiH reactor. Don’t laugh, this is doable – even if it is not commercially practical at the present time. After all, some mass-spectrometers operate on a “mini-calutron” principle. Who cares if you waste a lot of hydrogen on a NiH experiment – if it proves an important point. Personal note: I could write a book based on this photo below – and might do that one day; but these machines are the ‘maxi’ version – not the ‘mini’ version needed for NiH … and they are still there (in Oak Ridge). Due to the wartime copper shortage, the electromagnets of these babies were made using literally millions of pounds of pure silver bullion “borrowed” from Fort Knox … but now irradiated and collecting dust. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Y12_Calutron_Operators.jpg _ Here are a few other brief points leading to the conclusion that hydrogen mass is not quantized- at least not “in practice”. (to be explained) First off – it would be most unusual for only one isotope of one element in the entire periodic table to be quantized. That would be the case if the proton were to be found quantized in practice. Secondly, and most importantly for moving ahead with this hypothesis - it is possible (if not encouraged) to have a bifurcation between the theoretical and the actual – such that there is a theoretical “ideal” – the so-called Bohr atom - which exists only on paper, and which is quantized. In the pursuit of experimental physics, however, there is variation and there is leeway, and there is a range of masses with an average which corresponds to an ideal value, with populations on either side of the average that exist “in practice”. Third, the proton consists of three quarks which represent less than one half of its mass, combined with other bosons which are essentially “glue” - but most of them are said to be massless. It simply does not add up when you do the numbers. Also quark mass cannot be measured easily and there is NO firm value - and QCD teaches that quark mass is subject to color change (with consequences to mass-energy release) so quark mass itself cannot be constant. If quark mass is not quantized, then it goes without saying that proton mass cannot be quantized. Again – we can define an “ideal” value – but do not expect to see it in practice. Fourth. A so-called massless particle is integral to the standard model and is a particle whose invariant mass is zero. A major category of massless particles is gauge bosons – like the gluon (carrier of the strong force). However, gluons are never observed as free particles, since they are confined within hadrons BUT they cannot be massless to the extent the strong force is dynamic. Thus the entire structure of matter in the standard model is “built on a lie” – which is the massless particle. We know the “real mass” is actually a significant fraction of proton mass. Fifthly, electrons in hydrogen display a spectrum which tells us their energy levels- given by the Rydberg equation. Electrons are quantized, but even so, these lines are a bit fuzzy and imprecise, and their levels are also built on another sandy foundation – the FCC (fine structure constant). The FCC “ought to be” an integer value but is not since each frequency must correspond to an energy (hν) by Einstein’s equation. This photon energy must be the difference between two energy levels, since that is the amount of energy released by the electron moving from one level to the
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 11:50 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: I wrote: What is it that is causing the proton in this model to vary in mass, and is the range of possible masses discrete or continuous? I should anticipate one possible answer, which seems like a good explanation -- a proton is not a point particle, like a photon, and it does not travel at the speed of light. It has mass and it has a speed that is less than c. So the mass will vary with its speed; when it is stationary it will have a rest mass, and when it is travelling at relativistic velocities, it has a larger mass. Assuming the above is true, and assuming your model of a proton having an average mass is true, the question for me now becomes, is the (rest) mass a continuous value or discrete across a range? Eric If a proton can ring like a bell, mass-energy equivalence would imply the proton's mass can vary with pitch. Harry
Re: [Vo]:S.Korea Fusion
On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:02 PM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Some LENR systems produce tritium and this decays into He3. Could a LENR system be engineered to supply enough He3 to make this sort of hot fusion practical? No, because tritium is a very minor product of LENR. If LENR worked, the energy created by this process could be used directly without the need to create a big machine to use the He3. Ed Thanks for this reminder. Can you imagine any reasons why hot fusion researchers might divert some of their own money into LENR research because it could advance their own program? Or will funding for hot fusion research dry up soon after the first public investment is made in LENR research? Are the two energy programs fundamentally antagnasitic with respect to public funding? Harry
Re: [Vo]:S.Korea Fusion
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:08 PM, Harry Veeder hveeder...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks for this reminder. Can you imagine any reasons why hot fusion researchers might divert some of their own money into LENR research because it could advance their own program? Or will funding for hot fusion research dry up soon after the first public investment is made in LENR research? Are the two energy programs fundamentally antagnasitic with respect to public funding? Harry I mean antagonistic. Harry
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 12:37 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: One derivative speculation of all of this, which points to usable details to help to better design NiH experiments, is to know “how much” excess mass-energy exists in hydrogen (as “overage” from the average) which mass can be converted to energy (via goldstone bosons). Would you agree that the uncertainty of 7.4 x 10^35 kg http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?mp sets the upper limit for the amount of mass-energy available?
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
7.4 x 10^-35 rather On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:14 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 12:37 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: One derivative speculation of all of this, which points to usable details to help to better design NiH experiments, is to know “how much” excess mass-energy exists in hydrogen (as “overage” from the average) which mass can be converted to energy (via goldstone bosons). Would you agree that the uncertainty of 7.4 x 10^35 kg http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?mp sets the upper limit for the amount of mass-energy available?
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Jan 26, 2013, at 10:45 AM, a.ashfield wrote: Interesting discussion. I have been writing about this for years but it is good to see the main media is starting to pick it up. The referenced article was rather unimaginative in places but noted the basic question: “who is going buy all these nice goodies if they are unemployed?” This is obviously a basic question and the obvious answer is a form of socialism. Money will have be extracted from the system to give basic support to the unemployed and underemployed. As we know from sad experience, when people are hungary and bored they gum up the system. This consequence is not hard to predict. The US will be particularly susceptible to this problem because of the irrational attitude toward such social support held by people who call themselves Republicans and libertarians. The irrationality of humans is such that it is probably impossible to see how this will play out. If no attention is given to this problem, the consequences are easy to see. We saw this happen in England when the machines put people out of work in early 1800. They rioted and attempted to destroy the machines. Now people have much better tools to do this than stones and clubs. Consider how fanatical religions may effect things. Consider the Amish for example. The Amish are not the problem, but I get your point. We have violent religions now operating throughout the world and gumming up the works for the reason I describe above. There are a lot more Greenies who think we should go back to basics no matter what. The majority doesn’t think about this at all and just worries about getting or keeping food on the table. As always. Our politicians are not interested. I can’t even get a response from my Congressman’s office on the subject. Congress is out to lunch on so many subjects, this one is not even close to their awareness. So they have not started planning how to deal with what is likely to happen. Although the transformation could happen fast I don’t think it will without some dramatic crisis. I agree. Ed
Re: [Vo]:S.Korea Fusion
On Jan 26, 2013, at 11:08 AM, Harry Veeder wrote: On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:02 PM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Some LENR systems produce tritium and this decays into He3. Could a LENR system be engineered to supply enough He3 to make this sort of hot fusion practical? No, because tritium is a very minor product of LENR. If LENR worked, the energy created by this process could be used directly without the need to create a big machine to use the He3. Ed Thanks for this reminder. Can you imagine any reasons why hot fusion researchers might divert some of their own money into LENR research because it could advance their own program? Tom Claytor has a way of making tritium based on LENR that might supply tritium to the hot fusion program. Nevertheless, once LENR is understood, who needs hot fusion? Public funding is not determined by logic, facts, or even rational analysis. It is controlled by politics, i.e. self-interest. The sooner people realize this, the quicker we can make progress getting support. Ed Or will funding for hot fusion research dry up soon after the first public investment is made in LENR research? Are the two energy programs fundamentally antagnasitic with respect to public funding? Harry
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
This would set the upper limit of available energy somewhere around 83.2 eV per atom. On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:15 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: 7.4 x 10^-35 rather On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:14 PM, Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 12:37 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: One derivative speculation of all of this, which points to usable details to help to better design NiH experiments, is to know “how much” excess mass-energy exists in hydrogen (as “overage” from the average) which mass can be converted to energy (via goldstone bosons). Would you agree that the uncertainty of 7.4 x 10^35 kg http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?mp sets the upper limit for the amount of mass-energy available?
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Louis Kelso, inventor of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan - ESOP - used by 11,000 companies, saw this coming decades ago. He suggested a Second Income Plan. See: SECOND INCOMES at www.aesopinstitute.org for a current version. Independent of savings, it would open a path to end poverty, and provide the purchasing power removed from the economy when jobs rapidly disappear due to automation. It offers a way to harmlessly deconcentrate wealth. Mark Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: Jed Rothwell [jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 7:37 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-world-without-work-as-robots-computers-get-smarter-will-humans-have-anything-left-to-do/2013/01/18/61561b1c-61b7-11e2-81ef-a2249c1e5b3d_story.html This subject is starting to attract attention in the mass media. I wish cold fusion would. Cold fusion will lead to more unemployment than most breakthroughs, but not as much as improvements to computers. I have a chapter about that in my book. It is surprising how few people work in energy. Here is a thought-provoking table showing all major occupations in the U.S.: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm That is the entire universe of work. Here are some comments I made about this table elsewhere: The economy has not produced any new Major Occupational Group since roughly 1880 (when precision manufacturing began) because every kind of labor we want done for us is already done. As I said, people have moved from one group to another, as the amount of labor ebbs and flows in different sectors. But there are no new groups, and robots will move into all groups simultaneously. . . . Granted, Category 15, Computer and Mathematical Occupations did not exist in 1880. But every task now done by Computer occupations was done back then by people in category 43, Office and Administrative Support. All of the other occupations in this list were already in existence by 1880. Most of them existed in Heian Japan, for that matter. There are no new tasks. That is to say, there are no occupations with novel outcomes or purposes that did not exist back then. The methods of achieving these purposes have changed. For example, in category 27 our methods of entertainment have changed, but the purpose -- entertaining people with fiction, music and so on -- is the same. There is a limited market for this. We cannot watch TV or listen to music 20 hours a day. Nearly all of the occupations on this list, and the sub-category occupations in the table, could be done better by a Watson-class computer than by a human being. . . . Someone else summarized the situation quite well: Until recently, technology advances made machines stronger, faster, and more reliable than average Joes. But, even at the slow end, he was much better at mopping a floor, understanding speech, packing a box, or driving a lorry than even the best supercomputer. So, he had some major competitive advantages for just being human. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Edmund Storms wrote: This is obviously a basic question and the obvious answer is a form of socialism. Money will have be extracted from the system to give basic support to the unemployed and underemployed. As we know from sad experience, when people are hungary and bored they gum up the system. This consequence is not hard to predict. The US will be particularly susceptible to this problem because of the irrational attitude toward such social support held by people who call themselves Republicans and libertarians. Basic support to the unemployed won't do it.That doesn't allow for the market of luxuries that gradually improve the standard of living and civilization in general.There are some possibilities in a much shorter working week, much earlier retirement and a direct payment to every individual from the government.The problem is the transition and from where the government would get the money for the change.There are very few ways that fit within the current cultural and political framework in the US.So like the Chinese proverb says:Interesting times.
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
Good point Terry - but - I don't have a problem with the sampling uncertainty being less than what is actually available to be captured within samples. This is not an easy point to reconcile, and I could be wrong on how NIST arrived at that number, but - the kind of uncertainty in the table could only define a variability per test sample over time and geography, and not an inherent variability within each sample. Thus you might say that there would be low mass variability between hydrogen split from tropical seawater in 1950 and hydrogen spit from Siberian methane in 2013. But within each of those samples, and independent of where they came from, is a range of mass-energy which varies from high to low at what could be as high as 36 parts per thousand. It may not be that high, but it could be much higher than the NIST uncertainty figure. If the actual variation was 36 parts per million, instead of per thousand - that is still considerably more than chemical energy. In short - even with a wider range of subatomic variability in each sample, hydrogen from any source will be more consistent. This only means that hydrogen is extremely mobile at the molecular level, which narrows variability between time and place - but the quarks and bosons are not as mobile at the subatomic level, preserving inherent variability at a finer level of measurement. After all, these same authorities will tell you that gauge bosons are massless and quarks are only a fraction of proton mass. Never mind that something is missing in that appraisal. -Original Message- From: Terry Blanton 7.4 x 10^-35 rather Terry Blanton wrote: One derivative speculation of all of this, which points to usable details to help to better design NiH experiments, is to know how much excess mass-energy exists in hydrogen (as overage from the average) which mass can be converted to energy (via goldstone bosons). Would you agree that the uncertainty of 7.4 x 10^35 kg http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?mp sets the upper limit for the amount of mass-energy available?
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: Thus you might say that there would be low mass variability between hydrogen split from tropical seawater in 1950 and hydrogen spit from Siberian methane in 2013. That would have profound implications. Some sources of hydrogen would work better than others in a NiH reactor. Remember when we speculated that the Potapov heater efficiency might depend on the water source? Texas water did not work as well as Russian water.
Re: [Vo]:S.Korea Fusion
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:29 PM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Tom Claytor has a way of making tritium based on LENR that might supply tritium to the hot fusion program. Nevertheless, once LENR is understood, who needs hot fusion? Public funding is not determined by logic, facts, or even rational analysis. It is controlled by politics, i.e. self-interest. The sooner people realize this, the quicker we can make progress getting support. Well, our nuclear arsenal has depleted of tritium by 50% since the turn of the millennium. Not that is necessarily a bad thing.
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:56 PM, a.ashfield a.ashfi...@verizon.net wrote: So like the Chinese proverb says: “Interesting times.” That has been considered a curse more than a proverb.
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
From Ashfield: ... The referenced article was rather unimaginative in places but noted the basic question: who is going buy all these nice goodies if they are unemployed? Precisely. personal rant IMHO, too many politicians are focusing on a misguided belief that balancing the national budget is the most important thing, above everything else, that must be tackled. What most fail to realize is the fact that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between individuals and legal entities. Most don't like to ponder the realization that money is quite ephemeral in nature, despite all attempts to back it with a representation of limited physical resources like gold and silver. In a sense, I think this is false advertising of the worst kind. It's worshiping the value of money over the value of the actual work labor that creates said goods and services that money attempts to accurately represent. It's as if money is being worshiped as a false god. It's putting the cart before the horse. IMHO, politicians need to focus more on whatever it takes to create environments that allow people to go back to work (or remain working) so that that they can start (or continue) acquiring enough of these symbolic representations of goods and services that they can cash in for themselves. I don't think one can accomplish that by constantly slashing national budgets in a misguided belief that doing so will stabilize the value of money, which in turn will somehow miraculously cause businesses to automatically flourish so that they will automatically start employing more people... many whom may end up being hired at minimum wage. But Hey! It's a job! All that national budget slashing... the national budget employs a lot of people too, just like out in the private sector. If massive amounts of them lose their jobs due to forced budget cutting and are forced into the unemployment lines, it's absolutely no different than private companies firing it's employees because it has insufficient money to pay them for their services. Everyone suffers as fewer goods and services are being generated which, in turn, devalues the value to money. We need to stop finding scapegoats to blame (i.e. national budget), and start focusing on ways to make sure everyone has a chance to continue to make valuable contributions to society. In the end, allowing enough people to continue to make valuable contributions to society is the only real way of saving the value of money. I don't think one can accomplish that by, in a draconian manner, slashing the budget. /personal rant Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
as explained in the wired, and as experienced in the 50s, the automation will reduce some work, but create others that we don't imagine, or we don't dare to. there is also old need that will be covered better like elderly care, better health care, disabled care, ... vacation will develop (I don't understand why people in US don't imagine that worktime will change). about deconcentrating wealth, during technology transition the card are redistributed and the old riche , keep their wealth, but since all other wealth increase, they are relatively lowered if they don't adapt and innovate... this is why incumbent try to block innovation, typically by frightening the mass with fear to lose their old job... A bit like Malthusian ideas, that are spread by the fear of invation by enriched poors, and lead to manipulation of the mass to block the change. never seen a Malthusian prediction true. never seen a productivity increase bad for the population on long term... and you can even suspect that the trouble of technology change are not because of change, but because the incumbent try to block change, and use resource that would rather help to train the workforce to enter the new generation. 2013/1/26 Mark Goldes mgol...@chavaenergy.com Louis Kelso, inventor of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan - ESOP - used by 11,000 companies, saw this coming decades ago. He suggested a Second Income Plan. See: SECOND INCOMES at www.aesopinstitute.org for a current version. Independent of savings, it would open a path to end poverty, and provide the purchasing power removed from the economy when jobs rapidly disappear due to automation. It offers a way to harmlessly deconcentrate wealth. Mark Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: Jed Rothwell [jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 7:37 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-world-without-work-as-robots-computers-get-smarter-will-humans-have-anything-left-to-do/2013/01/18/61561b1c-61b7-11e2-81ef-a2249c1e5b3d_story.html This subject is starting to attract attention in the mass media. I wish cold fusion would. Cold fusion will lead to more unemployment than most breakthroughs, but not as much as improvements to computers. I have a chapter about that in my book. It is surprising how few people work in energy. Here is a thought-provoking table showing all major occupations in the U.S.: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm That is the entire universe of work. Here are some comments I made about this table elsewhere: The economy has not produced any new Major Occupational Group since roughly 1880 (when precision manufacturing began) because every kind of labor we want done for us is already done. As I said, people have moved from one group to another, as the amount of labor ebbs and flows in different sectors. But there are no new groups, and robots will move into all groups simultaneously. . . . Granted, Category 15, Computer and Mathematical Occupations did not exist in 1880. But every task now done by Computer occupations was done back then by people in category 43, Office and Administrative Support. All of the other occupations in this list were already in existence by 1880. Most of them existed in Heian Japan, for that matter. There are no new tasks. That is to say, there are no occupations with novel outcomes or purposes that did not exist back then. The methods of achieving these purposes have changed. For example, in category 27 our methods of entertainment have changed, but the purpose -- entertaining people with fiction, music and so on -- is the same. There is a limited market for this. We cannot watch TV or listen to music 20 hours a day. Nearly all of the occupations on this list, and the sub-category occupations in the table, could be done better by a Watson-class computer than by a human being. . . . Someone else summarized the situation quite well: Until recently, technology advances made machines stronger, faster, and more reliable than average Joes. But, even at the slow end, he was much better at mopping a floor, understanding speech, packing a box, or driving a lorry than even the best supercomputer. So, he had some major competitive advantages for just being human. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Second Incomes, as suggested by Louis Kelso, would be derived from a broad new program of capital investment. This is not in any way Socialism. Kelso's first book, with Mortimer Adler, was The Capitalist Manifesto. There is a link, under SECOND INCOMES, on the Aesop Institute website, to a recent article by Gary Reber, that provides a complete overview of Kelso's legacy. This is an invention in the field of economics that might be viewed as an analog to LENR, insofar as it addresses a huge problem - and is, to date, largely ignored by the mainstream media. Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: a.ashfield [a.ashfi...@verizon.net] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 10:56 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment Edmund Storms wrote: “This is obviously a basic question and the obvious answer is a form of socialism. Money will have be extracted from the system to give basic support to the unemployed and underemployed. As we know from sad experience, when people are hungary and bored they gum up the system. This consequence is not hard to predict. The US will be particularly susceptible to this problem because of the irrational attitude toward such social support held by people who call themselves Republicans and libertarians.” Basic support to the unemployed won’t do it. That doesn’t allow for the market of luxuries that gradually improve the standard of living and civilization in general. There are some possibilities in a much shorter working week, much earlier retirement and a direct payment to every individual from the government. The problem is the transition and from where the government would get the money for the change. There are very few ways that fit within the current cultural and political framework in the US. So like the Chinese proverb says: “Interesting times.”
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Agreed. See HUMAN INVESTMENT, on the Aesop Institute site, for a way to sharply increase employment. Weak versions of the incentives we suggested in Discussion Papers we wrote for the Economic Development Administration (U.S. Department of Commerce) were included in the Jobs Tax Credit of 1977 and resulted in 2 million jobs. The Human Investment Tax Credit program is designed to generate 6 million jobs and help 4 million small firms. The sad fact is that the current Congress is not likely to pass such sensible law. Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson [orionwo...@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 11:45 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment From Ashfield: ... The referenced article was rather unimaginative in places but noted the basic question: “who is going buy all these nice goodies if they are unemployed?” Precisely. personal rant IMHO, too many politicians are focusing on a misguided belief that balancing the national budget is the most important thing, above everything else, that must be tackled. What most fail to realize is the fact that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between individuals and legal entities. Most don't like to ponder the realization that money is quite ephemeral in nature, despite all attempts to back it with a representation of limited physical resources like gold and silver. In a sense, I think this is false advertising of the worst kind. It's worshiping the value of money over the value of the actual work labor that creates said goods and services that money attempts to accurately represent. It's as if money is being worshiped as a false god. It's putting the cart before the horse. IMHO, politicians need to focus more on whatever it takes to create environments that allow people to go back to work (or remain working) so that that they can start (or continue) acquiring enough of these symbolic representations of goods and services that they can cash in for themselves. I don't think one can accomplish that by constantly slashing national budgets in a misguided belief that doing so will stabilize the value of money, which in turn will somehow miraculously cause businesses to automatically flourish so that they will automatically start employing more people... many whom may end up being hired at minimum wage. But Hey! It's a job! All that national budget slashing... the national budget employs a lot of people too, just like out in the private sector. If massive amounts of them lose their jobs due to forced budget cutting and are forced into the unemployment lines, it's absolutely no different than private companies firing it's employees because it has insufficient money to pay them for their services. Everyone suffers as fewer goods and services are being generated which, in turn, devalues the value to money. We need to stop finding scapegoats to blame (i.e. national budget), and start focusing on ways to make sure everyone has a chance to continue to make valuable contributions to society. In the end, allowing enough people to continue to make valuable contributions to society is the only real way of saving the value of money. I don't think one can accomplish that by, in a draconian manner, slashing the budget. /personal rant Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Kelos's goal was to enable almost everyone to receive half your income from diversified investments by about age 50. That could lower the nominal work week to 20 hours. Herbert Marcuse defined toil as work you do not choose to do. All other work he viewed as play. His only optimistic book, Eros and Civilization, greeted automation as an important way to liberate mankind. In his opinion, if we can reduce toil to less than 25 hours per week, we would see a dramatic, extremely positive, change in civilization. Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: alain.coetm...@gmail.com [alain.coetm...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Alain Sepeda [alain.sep...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 11:50 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment as explained in the wired, and as experienced in the 50s, the automation will reduce some work, but create others that we don't imagine, or we don't dare to. there is also old need that will be covered better like elderly care, better health care, disabled care, ... vacation will develop (I don't understand why people in US don't imagine that worktime will change). about deconcentrating wealth, during technology transition the card are redistributed and the old riche , keep their wealth, but since all other wealth increase, they are relatively lowered if they don't adapt and innovate... this is why incumbent try to block innovation, typically by frightening the mass with fear to lose their old job... A bit like Malthusian ideas, that are spread by the fear of invation by enriched poors, and lead to manipulation of the mass to block the change. never seen a Malthusian prediction true. never seen a productivity increase bad for the population on long term... and you can even suspect that the trouble of technology change are not because of change, but because the incumbent try to block change, and use resource that would rather help to train the workforce to enter the new generation. 2013/1/26 Mark Goldes mgol...@chavaenergy.commailto:mgol...@chavaenergy.com Louis Kelso, inventor of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan - ESOP - used by 11,000 companies, saw this coming decades ago. He suggested a Second Income Plan. See: SECOND INCOMES at www.aesopinstitute.orghttp://www.aesopinstitute.org for a current version. Independent of savings, it would open a path to end poverty, and provide the purchasing power removed from the economy when jobs rapidly disappear due to automation. It offers a way to harmlessly deconcentrate wealth. Mark Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.comhttp://www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.orghttp://www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070tel:707%20861-9070 707 497-3551tel:707%20497-3551 fax From: Jed Rothwell [jedrothw...@gmail.commailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 7:37 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.commailto:vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-world-without-work-as-robots-computers-get-smarter-will-humans-have-anything-left-to-do/2013/01/18/61561b1c-61b7-11e2-81ef-a2249c1e5b3d_story.html This subject is starting to attract attention in the mass media. I wish cold fusion would. Cold fusion will lead to more unemployment than most breakthroughs, but not as much as improvements to computers. I have a chapter about that in my book. It is surprising how few people work in energy. Here is a thought-provoking table showing all major occupations in the U.S.: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm That is the entire universe of work. Here are some comments I made about this table elsewhere: The economy has not produced any new Major Occupational Group since roughly 1880 (when precision manufacturing began) because every kind of labor we want done for us is already done. As I said, people have moved from one group to another, as the amount of labor ebbs and flows in different sectors. But there are no new groups, and robots will move into all groups simultaneously. . . . Granted, Category 15, Computer and Mathematical Occupations did not exist in 1880. But every task now done by Computer occupations was done back then by people in category 43, Office and Administrative Support. All of the other occupations in this list were already in existence by 1880. Most of them existed in Heian Japan, for that matter. There are no new tasks. That is to say, there are no occupations with novel outcomes or purposes that did not exist back then. The methods of achieving these purposes have changed. For example, in category 27 our methods of entertainment have changed, but the purpose -- entertaining people with fiction,
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Jan 26, 2013, at 11:45, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: I don't think one can accomplish that by constantly slashing national budgets in a misguided belief that doing so will stabilize the value of money, which in turn will somehow miraculously cause businesses to automatically flourish so that they will automatically start employing more people... many whom may end up being hired at minimum wage. But Hey! It's a job! I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment. But I think the problems are deeper. This level of analysis is repugnant to the people proposing the deep budget cuts. They don't want to follow the implications of their policy recommendations far enough to see this kind of thing. The deeper problems go back to education and critical thinking. We've neglected the matter of education for a generation or more, and now we are being confronted with the consequences. I'm optimistic that we'll eventually be able to leverage the increasing automation to everyone's benefit. But that will require people worthier than those alive today. Until then, enjoy the ride. Eric
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Steven: How many people could $400 BILLION dollars feed? -Mark From: OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson [mailto:orionwo...@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 11:46 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment From Ashfield: ... The referenced article was rather unimaginative in places but noted the basic question: who is going buy all these nice goodies if they are unemployed? Precisely. personal rant IMHO, too many politicians are focusing on a misguided belief that balancing the national budget is the most important thing, above everything else, that must be tackled. What most fail to realize is the fact that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between individuals and legal entities. Most don't like to ponder the realization that money is quite ephemeral in nature, despite all attempts to back it with a representation of limited physical resources like gold and silver. In a sense, I think this is false advertising of the worst kind. It's worshiping the value of money over the value of the actual work labor that creates said goods and services that money attempts to accurately represent. It's as if money is being worshiped as a false god. It's putting the cart before the horse. IMHO, politicians need to focus more on whatever it takes to create environments that allow people to go back to work (or remain working) so that that they can start (or continue) acquiring enough of these symbolic representations of goods and services that they can cash in for themselves. I don't think one can accomplish that by constantly slashing national budgets in a misguided belief that doing so will stabilize the value of money, which in turn will somehow miraculously cause businesses to automatically flourish so that they will automatically start employing more people... many whom may end up being hired at minimum wage. But Hey! It's a job! All that national budget slashing... the national budget employs a lot of people too, just like out in the private sector. If massive amounts of them lose their jobs due to forced budget cutting and are forced into the unemployment lines, it's absolutely no different than private companies firing it's employees because it has insufficient money to pay them for their services. Everyone suffers as fewer goods and services are being generated which, in turn, devalues the value to money. We need to stop finding scapegoats to blame (i.e. national budget), and start focusing on ways to make sure everyone has a chance to continue to make valuable contributions to society. In the end, allowing enough people to continue to make valuable contributions to society is the only real way of saving the value of money. I don't think one can accomplish that by, in a draconian manner, slashing the budget. /personal rant Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Jan 26, 2013, at 12:45 PM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: From Ashfield: ... The referenced article was rather unimaginative in places but noted the basic question: “who is going buy all these nice goodies if they are unemployed?” Precisely. personal rant IMHO, too many politicians are focusing on a misguided belief that balancing the national budget is the most important thing, above everything else, that must be tackled. What most fail to realize is the fact that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between individuals and legal entities. No Steven, what you say is not the issue. The issue is that money has been lent to the US in various forms and by various people and they want their money back eventually. Meanwhile they want to be paid interest. The US is rapidly approaching a level of debt such that if the interest rates rose to normal levels, we could not pay the interest without shutting down significant parts of the government. The US is presently printing dollars to cover this expense. As a result, the debt is growing because this money is borrowed from the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank owned by individuals who want to be paid. At some point in the near future, the debt will be so large, it simply can not be paid. At that point, the US is in default, and the financial system of the world collapses. This means starvation and civil strife. The problem is serous and can not be solved without great pain, which means further loss of jobs. The fools in Congress over the last 20 years have created a no win situation that very few people understand. Ed Most don't like to ponder the realization that money is quite ephemeral in nature, despite all attempts to back it with a representation of limited physical resources like gold and silver. In a sense, I think this is false advertising of the worst kind. It's worshiping the value of money over the value of the actual work labor that creates said goods and services that money attempts to accurately represent. It's as if money is being worshiped as a false god. It's putting the cart before the horse. IMHO, politicians need to focus more on whatever it takes to create environments that allow people to go back to work (or remain working) so that that they can start (or continue) acquiring enough of these symbolic representations of goods and services that they can cash in for themselves. I don't think one can accomplish that by constantly slashing national budgets in a misguided belief that doing so will stabilize the value of money, which in turn will somehow miraculously cause businesses to automatically flourish so that they will automatically start employing more people... many whom may end up being hired at minimum wage. But Hey! It's a job! All that national budget slashing... the national budget employs a lot of people too, just like out in the private sector. If massive amounts of them lose their jobs due to forced budget cutting and are forced into the unemployment lines, it's absolutely no different than private companies firing it's employees because it has insufficient money to pay them for their services. Everyone suffers as fewer goods and services are being generated which, in turn, devalues the value to money. We need to stop finding scapegoats to blame (i.e. national budget), and start focusing on ways to make sure everyone has a chance to continue to make valuable contributions to society. In the end, allowing enough people to continue to make valuable contributions to society is the only real way of saving the value of money. I don't think one can accomplish that by, in a draconian manner, slashing the budget. /personal rant Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Ed, Huge cuts could be made in our military budget which is bloated, wasteful and largely redundant. (I was a USAF Officer and speak with first hand knowledge). That alone would make an enormous difference. Try and get Congress to approve it! Fat chance! Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: Edmund Storms [stor...@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 12:16 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: Edmund Storms Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment On Jan 26, 2013, at 12:45 PM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson wrote: From Ashfield: ... The referenced article was rather unimaginative in places but noted the basic question: “who is going buy all these nice goodies if they are unemployed?” Precisely. personal rant IMHO, too many politicians are focusing on a misguided belief that balancing the national budget is the most important thing, above everything else, that must be tackled. What most fail to realize is the fact that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between individuals and legal entities. No Steven, what you say is not the issue. The issue is that money has been lent to the US in various forms and by various people and they want their money back eventually. Meanwhile they want to be paid interest. The US is rapidly approaching a level of debt such that if the interest rates rose to normal levels, we could not pay the interest without shutting down significant parts of the government. The US is presently printing dollars to cover this expense. As a result, the debt is growing because this money is borrowed from the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank owned by individuals who want to be paid. At some point in the near future, the debt will be so large, it simply can not be paid. At that point, the US is in default, and the financial system of the world collapses. This means starvation and civil strife. The problem is serous and can not be solved without great pain, which means further loss of jobs. The fools in Congress over the last 20 years have created a no win situation that very few people understand. Ed Most don't like to ponder the realization that money is quite ephemeral in nature, despite all attempts to back it with a representation of limited physical resources like gold and silver. In a sense, I think this is false advertising of the worst kind. It's worshiping the value of money over the value of the actual work labor that creates said goods and services that money attempts to accurately represent. It's as if money is being worshiped as a false god. It's putting the cart before the horse. IMHO, politicians need to focus more on whatever it takes to create environments that allow people to go back to work (or remain working) so that that they can start (or continue) acquiring enough of these symbolic representations of goods and services that they can cash in for themselves. I don't think one can accomplish that by constantly slashing national budgets in a misguided belief that doing so will stabilize the value of money, which in turn will somehow miraculously cause businesses to automatically flourish so that they will automatically start employing more people... many whom may end up being hired at minimum wage. But Hey! It's a job! All that national budget slashing... the national budget employs a lot of people too, just like out in the private sector. If massive amounts of them lose their jobs due to forced budget cutting and are forced into the unemployment lines, it's absolutely no different than private companies firing it's employees because it has insufficient money to pay them for their services. Everyone suffers as fewer goods and services are being generated which, in turn, devalues the value to money. We need to stop finding scapegoats to blame (i.e. national budget), and start focusing on ways to make sure everyone has a chance to continue to make valuable contributions to society. In the end, allowing enough people to continue to make valuable contributions to society is the only real way of saving the value of money. I don't think one can accomplish that by, in a draconian manner, slashing the budget. /personal rant Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.comhttp://www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworkshttp://www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Yes, Mark, this would be the best place to start. But jobs will be lost, the only issue is which jobs. Congress does not want to cut any jobs because these are voters. They only want to cut things that will piss off the fewest number of people who vote. The poor do not vote so they are fair game. Of course, a combination of increased taxes especially at the high end and careful cuts over a period of time would be the way to go. But as you note - fat chance. Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 1:21 PM, Mark Goldes wrote: Ed, Huge cuts could be made in our military budget which is bloated, wasteful and largely redundant. (I was a USAF Officer and speak with first hand knowledge). That alone would make an enormous difference. Try and get Congress to approve it! Fat chance! Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
Jones: Reading this reminds me of WHACK-A-MOLE :^(but that's chemistry not quantum physics/sorry). None-the-less Eric your comments/assessments are astute. Alternative: Is it that protons don't quantize well because they have singularity-centres that dialate or contract relative to variable 'quantum-frequency' in their 'environment' inputs; and via this, protons so are by their natures 'creatures' of 'quantum-flux' fluctuations due to said dialations /or contractions in mass which MAY explain the 'defacto' gradient variants that you are describing ? From: jone...@pacbell.net To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2013 08:18:53 -0800 Eric, Here are a few other brief points leading to the conclusion that hydrogen mass is not quantized-at least not in practice. (to be explained) First off - it would be most unusual for only one isotope of one element in the entire periodic table to be quantized. That would be the case if the proton were to be found quantized in practice. Secondly, and most importantly for moving ahead with this hypothesis - it is possible (if not encouraged) to have a bifurcation between the theoretical and the actual - such that there is a theoretical ideal - the so-called Bohr atom - which exists only on paper, and which is quantized. In the pursuit of experimental physics, however, there is variation and there is leeway, and there is a range of masses with an average which corresponds to an ideal value, with populations on either side of the average that exist in practice. Third, the proton consists of three quarks which represent less than one half of its mass, combined with other bosons which are essentially glue - but most of them are said to be massless. It simply does not add up when you do the numbers. Also quark mass cannot be measured easily and there is NO firm value - and QCD teaches that quark mass is subject to color change (with consequences to mass-energy release) so quark mass itself cannot be constant. If quark mass is not quantized, then it goes without saying that proton mass cannot be quantized. Again - we can define an ideal value - but do not expect to see it in practice. Fourth. A so-called massless particle is integral to the standard model and is a particle whose invariant mass is zero. A major category of massless particles is gauge bosons - like the gluon (carrier of the strong force). However, gluons are never observed as free particles, since they are confined within hadrons BUT they cannot be massless to the extent the strong force is dynamic. Thus the entire structure of matter in the standard model is built on a lie - which is the massless particle. We know the real mass is actually a significant fraction of proton mass. Fifthly, electrons in hydrogen display a spectrum which tells us their energy levels- given by the Rydberg equation. Electrons are quantized, but even so, these lines are a bit fuzzy and imprecise, and their levels are also built on another sandy foundation - the FCC (fine structure constant). The FCC ought to be an integer value but is not since each frequency must correspond to an energy (hν) by Einstein's equation. This photon energy must be the difference between two energy levels, since that is the amount of energy released by the electron moving from one level to the other but that does not depend on the mass of proton. The energy of a state can be characterized by an integer quantum number, n = 1, 2, 3, ... which determines its energy. The end number however is close to 137 - given by the fine structure constant but it is not exact and non-integer, so we suspect that every value in between is also not exact. Moreover, it is likely that this variation is tied to perm! itted mass variation in the proton mass. IOW there are fudge factors everywhere which are based primarily on the real proton having a variable mass (variable but within a narrow range). Even when you must conclude that the energies of electrons in atoms are quantized, that is, restricted to certain values - the slight variation in these lines indicates that the same conclusion does not apply to the underlying proton. This essentially is the best argument for quantization: if the electron is quantized - then why not the proton? But it is a false expectation. Can anyone think of any good theoretical argument which demand quantization in actual protons (as opposed to the Bohr atom, which is the ideal version)? From: Eric Walker I wrote: What is it that is causing the proton in this model to vary in mass, and is the range of possible masses discrete or continuous? I should anticipate one possible answer, which seems like a good explanation -- a proton is not a point particle, like a photon, and it does not travel at the speed of light. It has mass and it has a speed that is less than c. So the mass will vary with its speed; when it
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
Well, if I had the backing to test the hypothesis, one of the first experiments would be to set up three identical reactors using nickel nanopowder, or Ni loaded zeolite. 1) argon fill, as an inert baseline 2) H2 enriched via multi-stage enrichment of the least dense fractional component of bottled hydrogen. 3) H2 enriched via multi-stage enrichment of the densest fractional component of bottled hydrogen. Would there be a significant difference in the three ? Enquiring minds want to know -Original Message- From: Terry Blanton Jones Beene wrote: Thus you might say that there would be low mass variability between hydrogen split from tropical seawater in 1950 and hydrogen spit from Siberian methane in 2013. That would have profound implications. Some sources of hydrogen would work better than others in a NiH reactor. Remember when we speculated that the Potapov heater efficiency might depend on the water source? Texas water did not work as well as Russian water. attachment: winmail.dat
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
Yes: That pesky 'Spooky Action @ a Distance' again. Quantum spinning particles 'tailed'/quantum-singularitized through XO-PlasmicSpace(regardless of distance of separation) to be in multiple locations simultaneously interacting in 'real-time' with other particles aka quantum-units. This is also a better explanation that the 'common ion transition' explanations for the action within a HYDROGEN FUEL CELL for instance. Until this is grasped, Practical overunity-Cold Fusion will continue to allude practical application. Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:18:12 -0500 Subject: Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions From: janap...@gmail.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Energy can be transferred from one molecule to another threw a quantum mechanical mechanism. Yes http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/07/diamonds-entangled-in-physics-feat/ In the case of Walmsley's study, photons were showing up in two spots at the same time and causing vibrations within a pair of diamonds. The researchers made it happen by placing two diamonds about 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) apart on a table and then shooting a series of photons at a device called a beam splitter. Most of them went toward one diamond or the other, but a few of the photons went both ways at the same time. When those multitasking photons struck the pair of diamonds, they caused vibrations called phonons with each of the crystals. The light from each of the beams recombines after exiting the crystals. And sometimes when the light is leaving the crystals, it has less energy than when it entered. That's how the researchers could tell that the photon had caused some vibrations. We know that one diamond is vibrating, but we don't know which one, Walmsley said. In fact, the universe doesn't know which diamond is vibrating – the diamonds are entangled, with one vibration shared between them, even though they are separated in space. Cheers: Axil On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 6:10 PM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: On Jan 25, 2013, at 3:49 PM, torulf.gr...@bredband.net torulf.gr...@bredband.net wrote: Excuse my grammar. English is not my native language. I will try to answer your questions as simply as possible. Can energy and momentum be transferred from the new He4 to another nucleus at some distains? No Energy can be transferred from one molecule to another threw a quantum mechanical mechanism. Yes, at chemical levels of energy This occurs in photo synthesis there excitations can jump between electrons in different molecules. Yes From an older tread. http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg75294.html Maybe a similar phenomenon can occur between nucleus? This means the excitation from a He4 and momentum can be transferred The amount energy generated by a nuclear reaction requires direct emission of a particle, which can include a photon. This is observed fact. The magnitude is too great to use mechanisms available in a chemical structure. That is why most nuclear reactions are almost totally independent of the chemical environment. to one or more receiver nucleus. These receiver nucleus must be a special nuclide suitable for receive the energy and have a mechanism to get rid of it. If several nucleus can get energy from one He4 it may radiate it as UV. If this not is possible I suggest that the receiver nucleus is a C12 how decay to 3 He4 as an reversed triple alpha. In absence of receiver nucleus there will be no reactions. But this did not explain the overcome of the coulomb barrier and why its not works in absence of receiver nucleus. I have heard that the conservation of momentum in LENR is commonly explained to something how would be like the Mössbauer effect. But I understand this not so easily to explain more exactly. The Mossbauer effect involves a very small energy change. It works only because the target nucleus is very sensitive to the energy of the bombarding gamma. Therefore, the slight effect produced by the chemical lattice become visible. This effect is too small to influence energy being emitted by a fusion reaction in any meaningful way. Ed TG
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 12:16 PM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.comwrote: No Steven, what you say is not the issue. The issue is that money has been lent to the US in various forms and by various people and they want their money back eventually. Meanwhile they want to be paid interest. The US is rapidly approaching a level of debt such that if the interest rates rose to normal levels, we could not pay the interest without shutting down significant parts of the government. The US is presently printing dollars to cover this expense. As a result, the debt is growing because this money is borrowed from the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank owned by individuals who want to be paid. At some point in the near future, the debt will be so large, it simply can not be paid. At that point, the US is in default, and the financial system of the world collapses. This means starvation and civil strife. The problem is serous and can not be solved without great pain, which means further loss of jobs. The fools in Congress over the last 20 years have created a no win situation that very few people understand. I should clarify an earlier remark I made about people who propose deep budget cuts not wanting to think through the implications. This is obviously not the case for everyone making such a proposal, as Ed's thoughtful analysis here shows. What becomes clear is that there is a complex situation that must be carefully worked through. I see no need to slash government entitlements that are basically self-funding and which, if anything, help to bring down costs. But I also appreciate the reasoning behind calls to limit the amount of US government debt that has been issued. As with any complex problem, there are no simple solutions. Eric
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
TARGETED RESONANT FREQUENCY/Hertz MODULATION at the quantum level indicated by PHONON outputs will be the KEY to discovering the most efficacious input-technique for discovering why(for instance) that Russian water is more salubrious than Texan water and to TRIGGER cascading 'cooler' fusion reactions yielding notable XO-Plamic flux harvest. . . To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions From: dlrober...@aol.com Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 23:21:59 -0500 A thought occurred to me after the brief discussion that was conducted about the subject of D + D fusion. The wikipedia article on fusion of this type suggests that there is always either a neutron or proton emitted from the reaction when hot fusion takes place. This of course makes sense from the conservation of momentum and energy perspective as Dr. Storms has pointed out. I commented that a measurement of the actual energy released to the alpha particles of cold fusion reactions would allow someone to calculate the energy and momentum that had to be left behind for the numbers to make sense. My first thoughts on the matter were that this was going to require a large reactionary force if conservation of momentum was to be maintained. I did not actually calculate the magnitude of the momentum or the energy associated with that mass conversion. My choice of a central location from which to observe the reaction made it clear that the alpha particle would be frozen in place pending the release of this mass. With this in mind I think that it would be wise for us to give very serious consideration to the prospect that direct fusion of D + D is unlikely. It would be a good idea to explore different paths that ultimately lead to the release of one or more alpha particles. Of course the source for the reaction must be deuterium. I am confident that this suggestion has been covered before and I am curious about the possible paths that are available. Do any of these fit into place when a review of the active cold fusion metals is considered? Would the addition of a deuterium nuclei be encouraged by Pd for example? Dave -Original Message- From: Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Fri, Jan 25, 2013 9:18 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions Energy can be transferred from one molecule to another threw a quantum mechanical mechanism. Yes http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/07/diamonds-entangled-in-physics-feat/ In the case of Walmsley's study, photons were showing up in two spots at the same time and causing vibrations within a pair of diamonds. The researchers made it happen by placing two diamonds about 15 centimeters (about 6 inches) apart on a table and then shooting a series of photons at a device called a beam splitter. Most of them went toward one diamond or the other, but a few of the photons went both ways at the same time. When those multitasking photons struck the pair of diamonds, they caused vibrations called phonons with each of the crystals. The light from each of the beams recombines after exiting the crystals. And sometimes when the light is leaving the crystals, it has less energy than when it entered. That's how the researchers could tell that the photon had caused some vibrations. We know that one diamond is vibrating, but we don't know which one, Walmsley said. In fact, the universe doesn't know which diamond is vibrating – the diamonds are entangled, with one vibration shared between them, even though they are separated in space. Cheers: Axil On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 6:10 PM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: On Jan 25, 2013, at 3:49 PM, torulf.gr...@bredband.net torulf.gr...@bredband.net wrote: Excuse my grammar. English is not my native language. I will try to answer your questions as simply as possible. Can energy and momentum be transferred from the new He4 to another nucleus at some distains? No Energy can be transferred from one molecule to another threw a quantum mechanical mechanism. Yes, at chemical levels of energy This occurs in photo synthesis there excitations can jump between electrons in different molecules. Yes From an older tread. http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg75294.html Maybe a similar phenomenon can occur between nucleus? This means the excitation from a He4 and momentum can be transferred The amount energy generated by a nuclear reaction requires direct emission of a particle, which can include a photon. This is observed fact. The magnitude is too great to use mechanisms available in a chemical structure. That is why most nuclear reactions are almost totally independent of the chemical environment. to one or more receiver nucleus. These receiver nucleus must be a special nuclide suitable for receive the energy and have a mechanism to get rid of it. If several nucleus can get energy from one He4 it may radiate it
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 8:18 AM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: This essentially is the best argument for quantization: if the electron is quantized – then why not the proton? But it is a false expectation. Can anyone think of any good theoretical argument which demand quantization in actual protons (as opposed to the Bohr atom, which is the ideal version)? Interesting discussion. It raises for me, among other things, questions about the limits of the instruments used to determine the mass of the various particles being discussed. But it also is suggestive (to a hobbyist) of there being a variable proton mass. Perhaps the variability resides in the gluons not being massless after all. I assume this would cause problems for one or two assumptions in the standard theory? Your argument is general and would seem to go beyond protons, since it operates at the level of quarks and gluons and so on and calls out nothing specific to protons, in particular. You appear to extend the variable-mass hypothesis to electrons; can I assume that it applies to neutrons as well? If so, why would any form of energy arbitration, in which a magnetic field is used to drain off a little bit of the mass of a proton, not also apply to neutrons and electrons? Eric
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Jan 26, 2013, at 2:11 PM, Eric Walker wrote: On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 12:16 PM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: No Steven, what you say is not the issue. The issue is that money has been lent to the US in various forms and by various people and they want their money back eventually. Meanwhile they want to be paid interest. The US is rapidly approaching a level of debt such that if the interest rates rose to normal levels, we could not pay the interest without shutting down significant parts of the government. The US is presently printing dollars to cover this expense. As a result, the debt is growing because this money is borrowed from the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank owned by individuals who want to be paid. At some point in the near future, the debt will be so large, it simply can not be paid. At that point, the US is in default, and the financial system of the world collapses. This means starvation and civil strife. The problem is serous and can not be solved without great pain, which means further loss of jobs. The fools in Congress over the last 20 years have created a no win situation that very few people understand. I should clarify an earlier remark I made about people who propose deep budget cuts not wanting to think through the implications. This is obviously not the case for everyone making such a proposal, as Ed's thoughtful analysis here shows. What becomes clear is that there is a complex situation that must be carefully worked through. I see no need to slash government entitlements that are basically self-funding and which, if anything, help to bring down costs. But I also appreciate the reasoning behind calls to limit the amount of US government debt that has been issued. Debt is good within limits, Eric. The problem comes when the amount of debt exceeds the ability to pay back or even to service, i.e. to pay the interest. This is why people lost their homes. The US government has now reached a debt so large that it cannot be paid back and can barely be serviced. This is a fact. We had been living off China, who lent us the money we had spent on items made in China. China has largely stopped doing this. To keep interest rates low on this debt, the FR is printing money and lending it to the US government, i.e. buying Treasury bonds , which artificially keeps interest rates low so that the interest payments are low. So they are fixing one major problem by creating another. As the debt grows, the amount of interest grows. At some point, the government does not have enough money to pay this interest without taking the money from a government program. The hope is that the economy would repair itself and start to generate income for the government before the debt become impossible to support. That hope has not been fulfilled. So, we are essentially having to sell the furniture to pay the mortgage. The next step is on the street. The family cannot agree who's bed to sell, so the sheriff will decide when the house is foreclosed. God help us all, everyone. Ed As with any complex problem, there are no simple solutions. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 1:29 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: If so, why would any form of energy arbitration Typo: arbitrage not arbitration. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 4:29 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting discussion. It raises for me, among other things, questions about the limits of the instruments used to determine the mass of the various particles being discussed. I think this is used for the proton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penning_trap
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Pollution is gradually being reduced. Except in China and India, which is most of the world. Pollution per dollar of GDP is down in both. China is making rapid strides, adding nuclear and wind power. Out of control population growth is moderating, even in third world countries. The population is still growing exponentially world-wide. The growth rate is now 1%, which is lower than it was anytime in the 20th century. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_met_y=sp_pop_growtdim=truedl=enhl=enq=world%20population%20growth The rate is down sharply, even in developing countries. It is below replacement in most first world countries: http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/english/beyond/beyondco/beg_03.pdf Food factory technology is improving, and it could easily eliminate the threat of famine or massive water shortages. Apparently not so easily. Hunger is even growing in the US at the low end of the economy. That is a political problem, not a technical problem. There is plenty of food in the U.S. That is a bit like saying cold fusion research is not funded because there is a shortage of money. At present the world is awash in money. We are knee deep in unused capital to such an extent that investors are effectively paying the U.S. government to take their money (less than zero interest after inflation). The Internet is bringing unprecedented access to information and education to people everywhere, even in the Third World. True, but to what effect? Why would the effect be any different than educating First World people? Education is always a good thing. But what role does rational and objective observation have in any evaluation? It seems to me, we need to identify a problem before we can attempt to correct it. This identification always leads to what might be called pessimism. Not in my case. I don't know where we stand on the rationality or objectivity scale, but I do know history. I read a lot of history. It is clear to me that things have never been better, and they are presently heading in the right direction by most metrics. Something like global warming may clobber us, but then again we might act to prevent it in time. We have often fixed problems and made things better. We tend to forget that, because we take good things for granted and we come to ignore them, while we always see problems. Improvements which seemed miraculous when they were introduced are now invisible. For example: automobiles, electricity, computers, word processing and the Internet. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
I should have described the difficulty of transition. When a few companies have changed to fully automated production it is hard to see how they can be made to use a shorter work week, earlier retirement, higher taxes etc.To impose those things just on companies changing to full automation would lower the incentive to do so and dramatically slow the transition.Yet to impose those things on companies that have not yet made the change would probably kill them.I think the result is a transition that will be much slower to take advantage of new technologies than one would otherwise like. It is already cheaper to make many things here with high automation, than to buy them from abroad, from countries with low labor costs.Then what happens to those third world countries?Meanwhile we have sustained, then growing, high unemployment that we can't afford. If Rossi's Hot Cat actually works as well as he claims, there is a chance it could be the black swan event that would allow/pay for the transition.The slow, painful transition is more likely.
[Vo]:~:)FUN WITH PLASMA PHYSICS~:D
* * *Here's some fun with PLASMA PHYSICS: In Korean air/ground-skimming space: the quasi-FUSION project has produced the Mageto-XO-Plamic-toroid ELECTRO-PLAS METEOR-technology. That latest most 'fun' development is that launch-generators/launchers are far more directable now(accurate) via using a similar parallel BUSS-BAR launcher of the XO-gravion-TOROIDS(projectiles) much like the RAIL-GUN. Gene Roddenbury predicted this technology(somewhat) in a series called ANDROMEDA in which was illustrated a weapon known as a POINT-SINGULARITY(plasma-breach)FIRING WEAPON. WHEN Tesla did this inadvertantly from Wardenclyff-Long Island circa 1908 he went ALL-OUT from his generators at Niagra in one-shot because George Westinghouse was cutting off his funding for his Atomospheric-Charging Station Energy Project: within moments of Nikola throwing the power switch on what he thought would generate(at the very least)a psychedelic SUPER AURORA BOREALIS; oops instead he created-broadcasted an ELECTRO-PLASMIC(Plasma-Breach-frisbee)TOROID that fired up along the EM-geo-flux grid to the N-Mag-Pole and bounced across as far as Tunguska where which it connected to the Geo-Flux-EM-Planet via STORM FRONT-LIGHTENING GIGA INPUT to the Plasma-Breach which amplified it to FULL WHITE HOLE status for a pin-point/split instant to egress XO-PLASMA which created FUSION in the UPPER STRATOSPHERE. . . the timing here is IRREFUTABLE to the nano-second. . . meteors and comets were NOT in the neighborhood at the time. CONCOMMITANTLY: When FISSION(or fusion) BLASTS etc.(Hiroshima etc.) create their notable MAGNETO-PLASMIC(bagel-shaped) TOROIDS they are in fact a PLASMA-BREACH REACTOR which is strong enough to KICK-START via trans spectrum field viscosity a parallel XO- SPACE HyperPlasma-Breach Toroid which opens up an Einstein-Rosen Connection between the two. In the Fission Blast's case a pin-point white-hole is opened up and the notably large PILLAR OF FIRE MUSHROOM CLOUD is how much XO-PLASMA ingress POWER comes into our space-time normal in a microscopic blink of a nano-second. A PROTON A GALAXY etc. is a model of this also. . . but with a 'proton' the mushroom collumn(characteristic axial jet) creates the ELECTRO-VALENT shell(s) circulation-configuration. . . the Bohr model is closest. . .(and this is what the PRIMER FIELDS you-tube video was REALLY ILLUSTRATING. . .) Tesla called it his death-ray. John Hutchison of Vancouver-BC got a lot closer aka THE HUTCHISON EFFECT. Einstein was Tesla's Protege' during the Phoenix Project/CLASSIFIED before Tesla passed. Relativity and the Phoenix project led to the Manhattan Project. . . and we all ride their coat-tails. . . WHAT FUN! DARPA.mil and CANADIAN SECRET SERVICE--SEIZED John Hutchisons workbefore he could take his project (at fervent invitation!) to Max Planck Institute, Deutschland-Munich. Now that's what I call ENTERTAINMENT! Cheers; Walter Bishop~;) Subject: Re: [Vo]:S.Korea Fusion From: jounivalko...@gmail.com Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2013 03:29:56 +0200 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Indeed, However plasma physics is by itself interesting, so it is nice to have some big science experiments running. Science is not about profit but having fun! If plasma physicist would like really do something that could spawn profits on a long run, then they should study helium-3 fusion. It is nicer, because it does not produce a neutron flux, but it emits fast protons. This means in practice that protons can be captured with magnets and their kinetic energy can be transformed directly into electricity with high efficiency (over 70%). This would negate at least your arguments (1) and (2) that are devastating for the deuterium based plasma fusion to have any economical prospects. However argument (3) is still valid and it hard to see how even he-3 plasma fusion could compete economically with solar electricity, wind power and 4th gen nuclear. China is already building quite promisingly cheap 4th gen helium cooled nuclear plant at Rongcheng. —Jouni Sent from my iPad On Jan 25, 2013, at 1:54 AM, Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: This type of hot fusion has three problems that have not been solved or even widely acknowledged. 1. The fusion is between D+T. The tritium must be created because it is not a natural isotope. The plan is to convert the neutron flux into tritium which is fed back into the reactor. Unfortunately, this conversion process is not 100% efficient because many neutrons are lost without making tritium. This missing tritium must be made using a fission reactor or accelerator, with the added expense this gives. 2. The first wall is exposed to an intense flux of radiation. As a result, its integrity is gradually compromised. Replacement is a major problem and requires shutting down the reactor for an extended time. During this
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Technology is only part of the solution. Second Incomes can be adapted to most of the industrialized world. If we are wise enough to pass such legislation the pain of transition can be reduced. See a proposed act for the U.S. Congress at SECOND INCOMES on the Aesop site. See CHEAP GREEN, on the same site, for a few other Black Swan technologies that do not depend on the commercialization of LENR. Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: a.ashfield [a.ashfi...@verizon.net] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 1:58 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment I should have described the difficulty of transition. When a few companies have changed to fully automated production it is hard to see how they can be made to use a shorter work week, earlier retirement, higher taxes etc. To impose those things just on companies changing to full automation would lower the incentive to do so and dramatically slow the transition. Yet to impose those things on companies that have not yet made the change would probably kill them. I think the result is a transition that will be much slower to take advantage of new technologies than one would otherwise like. It is already cheaper to make many things here with high automation, than to buy them from abroad, from countries with low labor costs. Then what happens to those third world countries? Meanwhile we have sustained, then growing, high unemployment that we can’t afford. If Rossi’s Hot Cat actually works as well as he claims, there is a chance it could be the black swan event that would allow/pay for the transition. The slow, painful transition is more likely.
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Jan 26, 2013, at 2:48 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Pollution is gradually being reduced. Except in China and India, which is most of the world. Pollution per dollar of GDP is down in both. China is making rapid strides, adding nuclear and wind power. That does not seem to translate into improvement. Last night the news showed a picture from space where the pollution was clearly visible. Beijing's Air Pollution Steps Get Poor Reception Among Some In ... http://www.huffingtonpost.com / 2013 / 01 / 22 / beijings-new-air- polluti... -
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
AIR POLLUTION: Plant extremely fast growing forests to sharply reduce it. See details at http://www.adamsmithtoday.com/an-australian-solution-to-the-co2-problem. It could readily be tried in China. Water might be supplied by air wells instead of desalination. Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: Edmund Storms [stor...@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 2:39 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: Edmund Storms Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment On Jan 26, 2013, at 2:48 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.commailto:stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Pollution is gradually being reduced. Except in China and India, which is most of the world. Pollution per dollar of GDP is down in both. China is making rapid strides, adding nuclear and wind power. That does not seem to translate into improvement. Last night the news showed a picture from space where the pollution was clearly visible. Beijing's Air Pollution Steps Get Poor Reception Among Some In ...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/beijings-new-air-pollution-china_n_2523742.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com / 2013 / 01 / 22 / beijings-new-air-polluti...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/beijings-new-air-pollution-china_n_2523742.html -
Re: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
I wrote: Your argument is general and would seem to go beyond protons, since it operates at the level of quarks and gluons and so on and calls out nothing specific to protons, in particular. You appear to extend the variable-mass hypothesis to electrons; can I assume that it applies to neutrons as well? If so, why would any form of energy arbitration, in which a magnetic field is used to drain off a little bit of the mass of a proton, not also apply to neutrons and electrons? There is a possible error here, which is partly hidden by the ambiguity of the phrasing, in which I seem to be suggesting that an electron is a hadron, composed of quarks and gluons. I was suggesting that, and I was wrong. I periodically forget that it is a fundamental particle. But the question still applies to neutrons. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Pollution per dollar of GDP is down in both. China is making rapid strides, adding nuclear and wind power. That does not seem to translate into improvement. Last night the news showed a picture from space where the pollution was clearly visible. It will translate into an improvement if they keep it up. They have 16 nuclear power plants, and they are building 30 more. I believe that is the fastest rate of expansion in the history of nuclear power, exceeding U.S. expansion in the 1970s. See: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html I do not think it would be wise to build them any faster. They are adding wind power faster than any other country. I think they are up to 60 GW nameplate, and the turbines are mostly in very windy places where the COP is high. Probably ~20 GW at least, which is roughly as much as those 16 nukes. 32 nukes worth of pollution-free energy is a lot! If they begin introducing electric cars they will soon reduce pollution even as they expand the economy. The U.S., Europe and Japan reduced pollution over the last 50 years. The Chinese can as well, and I think they intend to. Their energy efficiency is way up. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Debt is good within limits, Eric. The problem comes when the amount of debt exceeds the ability to pay back or even to service, i.e. to pay the interest. This is why people lost their homes. The US government has now reached a debt so large that it cannot be paid back and can barely be serviced. This is a fact. That is not true. All we have to do is raise taxes back to the level they were under Mr. Clinton. If the economy recovers the debt will soon begin to decline. It was declining rapidly under Clinton. Government expenditures have not increased, except for the Pentagon, and now that the wars are over I don't see why the military budget should be so high. The debt crisis is ginned up nonsense, in my opinion. It could be fixed with slightly higher tax rates so small we would hardly notice them. Mainly on wealthy people. I am sure that wealthy people can afford to pay 3% more than they now do. It is trivial matter for them. For that matter, the U.S. government can print money. A little inflation would soon reduce the debt as a percent of the GDP. We would hardly notice that, either. The Japanese government under PM Abe is deliberately trying to inflate by 3%, after years of deflation. It is about time! If they succeed and the economy also grows, their debt will decline. It is twice as high as the U.S., as a percent of the GDP, but Japan is not in crisis. - Jed
[Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen
We've already gone over the new Science paper on muonic hydrogen elsewhere, but I saw a comment on E-Cat World that I thought was worth bringing up here. According to a summary of the Science article in Ars Technica [1], the problem I alluded to in the title is that the charge radius of the proton has been measured very accurately to be both 0.84fm and 0.88fm. This would not be a big deal if the accuracy of the measurements allowed both of these values. But the measurements are extremely accurate, and incompatible, unless there is something unexplained going on. The comment by Gerrit in E-Cat World elaborates [2]: Have we discussed the recent finding of the shrunken proton yet ? The proton in muonic hydrogen is 4% smaller that normal hydrogen. They cannot explain it with current understanding, yet the new measurements are very high accuracy. http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/hydrogen-made-with-muons-reveals-proton-size-conundrum/ “The proton structure is important because an electron in an S [ground] state has a nonzero probability to be inside the proton.” Oh wait a minute, if the electron is inside the proton, doesn’t the whole structure look like a neutron, ie it won’t see a coulomb barrier and can fuse with another hydrogen at will ? The next question that “established” science should target is measuring the proton size of a hydrogen in a metal lattice. I think it is inevitable that “established” science will eventually stumble over the same phenomenon that has been shown to exists for over 23 years. In a few years we’ll probably be hearing “Well, with the current understanding of physics we can no longer claim that Fleischmann and Pons were wrong” So it seems that under certain conditions, physicists are measuring something vaguely like Mills's fractional hydrogen -- it might be that it is Mills's fractional hydrogen, or it might be something entirely different. Gerrit asks whether you could get screening, e.g., sufficient to lead to the anomalous behavior in metal hydrides we've been following here, from whatever it is that is going on. The Ars Technica article ends with this interesting comment: The one option they [the research team] seem to like is the existence of relatively light force carriers that somehow remained undiscovered until now. New force carriers is an interesting thought. Would that imply a heretofore unknown interaction? Eric [1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/hydrogen-made-with-muons-reveals-proton-size-conundrum/ [2] http://www.e-catworld.com/2013/01/robotics-and-lenr/comment-page-1/#comment-105365
Re: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen
I wrote: So it seems that under certain conditions, physicists are measuring something vaguely like Mills's fractional hydrogen -- it might be that it is Mills's fractional hydrogen, or it might be something entirely different. This is incorrect. The physicists are measuring *muonic* hydrogen and getting a different charge radius for the proton. So we're not dealing with Mills hydrogen or even something that looks like Mills hydrogen, since these have an electron and not a muon. If you extrapolate the charge radius from these experiments to the case of the normal proton-electron system, that is interesting. But what I don't understand yet is that the new charge radius is 0.04fm *smaller* than previously measured. In light of this, I'm not sure what is meant by the quotation going back to the paper that The proton structure is important because an electron in an S [ground] state has a nonzero probability to be inside the proton. Eric
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Eric wrote: “I see no need to slash government entitlements that are basically self-funding and which, if anything, help to bring down costs.” Care to explain how government entitlements are ‘self-funding’… And how do they ‘help to bring down costs’… -Mark From: Eric Walker [mailto:eric.wal...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 1:12 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment snip I see no need to slash government entitlements that are basically self-funding and which, if anything, help to bring down costs. But I also appreciate the reasoning behind calls to limit the amount of US government debt that has been issued. As with any complex problem, there are no simple solutions. Eric
RE: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen
“But the measurements are extremely accurate, and incompatible, unless there is something unexplained going on.” Perhaps protons have different energy levels (shells) similar to elections? -Mark From: Eric Walker [mailto:eric.wal...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 3:17 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen We've already gone over the new Science paper on muonic hydrogen elsewhere, but I saw a comment on E-Cat World that I thought was worth bringing up here. According to a summary of the Science article in Ars Technica [1], the problem I alluded to in the title is that the charge radius of the proton has been measured very accurately to be both 0.84fm and 0.88fm. This would not be a big deal if the accuracy of the measurements allowed both of these values. But the measurements are extremely accurate, and incompatible, unless there is something unexplained going on. The comment by Gerrit in E-Cat World elaborates [2]: Have we discussed the recent finding of the shrunken proton yet ? The proton in muonic hydrogen is 4% smaller that normal hydrogen. They cannot explain it with current understanding, yet the new measurements are very high accuracy. http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/hydrogen-made-with-muons-reveals-proton-size-conundrum/ “The proton structure is important because an electron in an S [ground] state has a nonzero probability to be inside the proton.” Oh wait a minute, if the electron is inside the proton, doesn’t the whole structure look like a neutron, ie it won’t see a coulomb barrier and can fuse with another hydrogen at will ? The next question that “established” science should target is measuring the proton size of a hydrogen in a metal lattice. I think it is inevitable that “established” science will eventually stumble over the same phenomenon that has been shown to exists for over 23 years. In a few years we’ll probably be hearing “Well, with the current understanding of physics we can no longer claim that Fleischmann and Pons were wrong” So it seems that under certain conditions, physicists are measuring something vaguely like Mills's fractional hydrogen -- it might be that it is Mills's fractional hydrogen, or it might be something entirely different. Gerrit asks whether you could get screening, e.g., sufficient to lead to the anomalous behavior in metal hydrides we've been following here, from whatever it is that is going on. The Ars Technica article ends with this interesting comment: The one option they [the research team] seem to like is the existence of relatively light force carriers that somehow remained undiscovered until now. New force carriers is an interesting thought. Would that imply a heretofore unknown interaction? Eric [1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/hydrogen-made-with-muons-reveals-proton-size-conundrum/ [2] http://www.e-catworld.com/2013/01/robotics-and-lenr/comment-page-1/#comment-105365
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 3:35 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.netwrote: Care to explain how government entitlements are ‘self-funding’… And how do they ‘help to bring down costs’… No problem. Medicare is believed to bring down costs through its bargaining power and ability to control costs [1]. If you broke up the system into agencies that operate at the level of US states, it is likely that health care inflation would increase. Social security is self-funding, through the payroll tax. It is not a strain on the current deficit. See, for example, [2]. Its self-funding arrangement is part of a longer term problem, because this arrangement creates the illusion that it can just run on its own indefinitely. But social security is not a problem at the present moment. Beyond its budget neutrality, I would guess that, if anything, it is sustaining a lot of older people who would be on the streets and placing additional strain on public services and private entities such as hospitals. Eric [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/opinion/Krugman.html?_r=0 [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/budget-baloney-why-social_b_824331.html
RE: [Vo]:Chemonuclear Transitions
From: Eric Walker * why would any form of energy arbitration, in which a magnetic field is used to drain off a little bit of the mass of a proton, not also apply to neutrons and electrons? For any energy to transfer, even spin energy - from a disturbed proton to another nucleus (such as Ni), there must first be the energy priming event in the protons – such as QCD color change in two repelling protons which have split from a transient 2He nucleus (in which they were temporarily joined). In short, this coupling follows “reversible fusion” … and as far as I know, this limits the phenomenon to P+P reactions in a confined cavity. The leap of faith is that “reversible fusion” is slightly energetic. There could be reversible fusion with other nuclei but I doubt it, and am not aware of this type of reaction relating to anything other than P+P. But more to the general point of magnons - and magnetic coupling as the pathway for dispersal of that spin energy - the proton has very significant NMR sensitivity and other magnetic properties which are lost or diminished in nuclei with neutrons. Add a neutron to a proton, for instance (to get deuterium) - and the magnetic sensitivity goes down by a factor of about 100. Please do not assume that every detail of this hypothesis has a ready answer. I was slightly prepared on this one, but that will not always be the case. It is a work-in-progress. Jones
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Sorry Jed, but your analysis conflicts with every economist that I have read and I read many. Raising taxes back to Clayton is not possible because the economy is not growing as fast as it was then so that the tax rate would have to be a bigger fraction of the income to provide the same amount of money, which people resist. Also, the debt is much larger now. We have passed the point of no return according to most analysts. Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 4:11 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Debt is good within limits, Eric. The problem comes when the amount of debt exceeds the ability to pay back or even to service, i.e. to pay the interest. This is why people lost their homes. The US government has now reached a debt so large that it cannot be paid back and can barely be serviced. This is a fact. That is not true. All we have to do is raise taxes back to the level they were under Mr. Clinton. If the economy recovers the debt will soon begin to decline. It was declining rapidly under Clinton. Government expenditures have not increased, except for the Pentagon, and now that the wars are over I don't see why the military budget should be so high. The debt crisis is ginned up nonsense, in my opinion. It could be fixed with slightly higher tax rates so small we would hardly notice them. Mainly on wealthy people. I am sure that wealthy people can afford to pay 3% more than they now do. It is trivial matter for them. For that matter, the U.S. government can print money. A little inflation would soon reduce the debt as a percent of the GDP. We would hardly notice that, either. The Japanese government under PM Abe is deliberately trying to inflate by 3%, after years of deflation. It is about time! If they succeed and the economy also grows, their debt will decline. It is twice as high as the U.S., as a percent of the GDP, but Japan is not in crisis. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
You simply can’t rely on one-sided references to make important decisions with these kinds of complex programs... All articles, regardless of whether they are on a liberal website or conservative, are one-sided; they usually leave out important points which do not support the article’s slant. Thus, I find that reading the comment section helps to more accurately inform me; but that depends on whether knowledgeable folks are participating. E.g., here are two comments which bring up good points: -- Paul Krugman [the author of the referenced article] has also distorted the facts. As a practicing doctor I can attest to the waste and fraud in the Medicare system. There will be rationing of care. The very elderly will not receive a hip replacement if their estimated longevity does not justify it. The Obama money will be insufficient as costs escalate. The system will be overwhelmed when large numbers of newly covered patients seek care. Hospitals will close as their reimbursement drops. Doctors will drop out of Medicare. Only the well off will be able to buy private care. We need competition in the system. Medicare has a cost of insurance per patient as do vouchers. This cost has been increasing exponentially. Medicare Advantage has more benefits, thus higher costs and premiums. What does Obamacare do for Medicare. It removes a large number of dollars. I doubt if this money can be made up with savings elsewhere in Medicare. What makes Krugman the ultimate authority on Medicare? Are there not other ways to reform heath care? Perhaps a combination of conservative and liberal ideas might work? (The number for voucher care in the comment section by Kimberly is incorrect.) Let's sort out the real facts, then we can take a reasonable course. Paul, by defending the Medicare status quo you're missing the point. The growth of Medicare costs is unsustainable. The Republicans plan to solve that problem via private insurers who will shift cost onto the patient, who then is forced to choose just how much that MRI scan is worth to him or her. That would be an effective, market-based solution, but it rations care based on ability to pay. Total health costs may go up or down - the purses of the people decide. The Democrats, on the other hand, propose that the government will study health care decisions and determine by edict which treatments are worth paying for. Thus, the government would ration health care for everyone and force costs down whether people like it or not. Which form of rationing do you prefer: big government or free market? --- I would agree with the liberal side that a single-payer system would likely be more efficient, and that medical insurance companies take too much of our premiums in administrative costs, but then, with the federal govt raiding the social security ‘fund’ and numerous other bloated and wasteful programs, one would have to be blind to think that the govt is going to do it more efficiently than a competitive system. -Mark From: Eric Walker [mailto:eric.wal...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 3:46 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 3:35 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: Care to explain how government entitlements are ‘self-funding’… And how do they ‘help to bring down costs’… No problem. Medicare is believed to bring down costs through its bargaining power and ability to control costs [1]. If you broke up the system into agencies that operate at the level of US states, it is likely that health care inflation would increase. Social security is self-funding, through the payroll tax. It is not a strain on the current deficit. See, for example, [2]. Its self-funding arrangement is part of a longer term problem, because this arrangement creates the illusion that it can just run on its own indefinitely. But social security is not a problem at the present moment. Beyond its budget neutrality, I would guess that, if anything, it is sustaining a lot of older people who would be on the streets and placing additional strain on public services and private entities such as hospitals. Eric [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/opinion/Krugman.html?_r=0 [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/budget-baloney-why-social_b_824331.html
Re: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen
I am going to play the skeptic on this thread. I have a very strong suspicion that the accuracy of the proton measurement is most likely not as good as is thought. Why does the uncertainty principle allow the size measurement to be this accurate since the particle momentum appears to be well defined. The proton size is a theoretical number that may one day prove to be grossly wrong. The next theory will eventually come around and a new argument will begin. Dave -Original Message- From: Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, Jan 26, 2013 6:36 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen I wrote: So it seems that under certain conditions, physicists are measuring something vaguely like Mills's fractional hydrogen -- it might be that it is Mills's fractional hydrogen, or it might be something entirely different. This is incorrect. The physicists are measuring *muonic* hydrogen and getting a different charge radius for the proton. So we're not dealing with Mills hydrogen or even something that looks like Mills hydrogen, since these have an electron and not a muon. If you extrapolate the charge radius from these experiments to the case of the normal proton-electron system, that is interesting. But what I don't understand yet is that the new charge radius is 0.04fm *smaller* than previously measured. In light of this, I'm not sure what is meant by the quotation going back to the paper that The proton structure is important because an electron in an S [ground] state has a nonzero probability to be inside the proton. Eric
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
FYI: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm Interest on the Federal Debt Historical Data, Fiscal Year End 2012 $359,796,008,919.49 2011 $454,393,280,417.03 2010 $413,954,825,362.17 2009 $383,071,060,815.42 2008 $451,154,049,950.63 2007 $429,977,998,108.20 2006 $405,872,109,315.83 2005 $352,350,252,507.90 2004 $321,566,323,971.29 2003 $318,148,529,151.51 2002 $332,536,958,599.42 2001 $359,507,635,242.41 2000 $361,997,734,302.36 Again I ask. how many people could $400 BILLION feed, or provide basic medical care for And when interest rates begin to go up, those interest payments will also go up and consume the vast majority of the fed'l budget. the income tax rate would have to go up to 80+% to maintain fed'l spending. The interest payments are tax-dollars WASTED. Ever ask yourself who is getting those interest payments. that's a helluva lot of money going somewhere! -Mark From: Edmund Storms [mailto:stor...@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 3:55 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: Edmund Storms Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment Sorry Jed, but your analysis conflicts with every economist that I have read and I read many. Raising taxes back to Clayton is not possible because the economy is not growing as fast as it was then so that the tax rate would have to be a bigger fraction of the income to provide the same amount of money, which people resist. Also, the debt is much larger now. We have passed the point of no return according to most analysts. Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 4:11 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Debt is good within limits, Eric. The problem comes when the amount of debt exceeds the ability to pay back or even to service, i.e. to pay the interest. This is why people lost their homes. The US government has now reached a debt so large that it cannot be paid back and can barely be serviced. This is a fact. That is not true. All we have to do is raise taxes back to the level they were under Mr. Clinton. If the economy recovers the debt will soon begin to decline. It was declining rapidly under Clinton. Government expenditures have not increased, except for the Pentagon, and now that the wars are over I don't see why the military budget should be so high. The debt crisis is ginned up nonsense, in my opinion. It could be fixed with slightly higher tax rates so small we would hardly notice them. Mainly on wealthy people. I am sure that wealthy people can afford to pay 3% more than they now do. It is trivial matter for them. For that matter, the U.S. government can print money. A little inflation would soon reduce the debt as a percent of the GDP. We would hardly notice that, either. The Japanese government under PM Abe is deliberately trying to inflate by 3%, after years of deflation. It is about time! If they succeed and the economy also grows, their debt will decline. It is twice as high as the U.S., as a percent of the GDP, but Japan is not in crisis. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 4:16 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.netwrote: You simply can’t rely on one-sided references to make important decisions with these kinds of complex programs... Agreed. Thus, I find that reading the comment section helps to more accurately inform me; but that depends on whether knowledgeable folks are participating. Yes -- the comments can be very interesting. with the federal govt raiding the social security ‘fund’ and numerous other bloated and wasteful programs, one would have to be blind to think that the govt is going to do it more efficiently than a competitive system. I have no problem with the basic gist of this -- I am sure there is a lot of government bloat that can be trimmed. I guess I'm one for trying to sift the wheat from the chaff, rather than throw everything out, and for making use of bargaining power when it can be used to the advantage of the public good. Careful measures, carefully taken, enacted in light of positive experience in similar areas in other parts of the world. I am also not one to believe the a purely market based system is going to do an old person who has no money any good. He or she will suffer more than anyone else, because he or she will have no purchasing power, and a market based system will end up specializing in plastic surgery rather than helping him or her with some basic geriatric problem. A similar thing goes for the mentally retarded, the chronically ill, the physically disabled and those who, for whatever reason, are unlikely to ever be gainfully employed because they don't have the skills or ability to be employed. Whenever I hear of market-based solutions, I think of these people and the likelihood that they will be forever scrounging around for their basic needs. I think the market has a role to play, but I think we should also not be persuaded into thinking it is a magic bullet. I don't imagine you have been persuaded that it is, but I think a lot of people have. Everything in moderation. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
I agree, this is extremely dangerous for our economy. The usual solution is to allow inflation to erase the hard earned money of those that save instead of spend. If you want to have a bit of fun, consider doing the following. Take the poorest country in the world and lend each of the residents the same amount of money that each citizen of the USA owes. Now, they find themselves in debt, but they use the money to make enormous improvements to their homes, infrastructures, and etc. Or, they could solve all their food problems with plenty left over. When you think of the US debt in the above manner, you realize that we are not in that great shape here. Most of the others in the third world are less indebted than the US. What is going to happen to the future generations unless this is stopped somehow? Dave -Original Message- From: MarkI-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, Jan 26, 2013 7:26 pm Subject: RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment FYI: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm Interest on the Federal Debt Historical Data, Fiscal Year End 2012 $359,796,008,919.49 2011 $454,393,280,417.03 2010 $413,954,825,362.17 2009 $383,071,060,815.42 2008 $451,154,049,950.63 2007 $429,977,998,108.20 2006 $405,872,109,315.83 2005 $352,350,252,507.90 2004 $321,566,323,971.29 2003 $318,148,529,151.51 2002 $332,536,958,599.42 2001 $359,507,635,242.41 2000 $361,997,734,302.36 Again I ask… how many people could $400 BILLION feed, or provide basic medical care for And when interest rates begin to go up, those interest payments will also go up and consume the vast majority of the fed’l budget… the income tax rate would have to go up to 80+% to maintain fed’l spending. The interest payments are tax-dollars WASTED… Ever ask yourself who is getting those interest payments… that’s a helluva lot of money going somewhere! -Mark From: Edmund Storms [mailto:stor...@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 3:55 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: Edmund Storms Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment Sorry Jed, but your analysis conflicts with every economist that I have read and I read many. Raising taxes back to Clayton is not possible because the economy is not growing as fast as it was then so that the tax rate would have to be a bigger fraction of the income to provide the same amount of money, which people resist. Also, the debt is much larger now. We have passed the point of no return according to most analysts. Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 4:11 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Debt is good within limits, Eric. The problem comes when the amount of debt exceeds the ability to pay back or even to service, i.e. to pay the interest. This is why people lost their homes. The US government has now reached a debt so large that it cannot be paid back and can barely be serviced. This is a fact. That is not true. All we have to do is raise taxes back to the level they were under Mr. Clinton. If the economy recovers the debt will soon begin to decline. It was declining rapidly under Clinton. Government expenditures have not increased, except for the Pentagon, and now that the wars are over I don't see why the military budget should be so high. The debt crisis is ginned up nonsense, in my opinion. It could be fixed with slightly higher tax rates so small we would hardly notice them. Mainly on wealthy people. I am sure that wealthy people can afford to pay 3% more than they now do. It is trivial matter for them. For that matter, the U.S. government can print money. A little inflation would soon reduce the debt as a percent of the GDP. We would hardly notice that, either. The Japanese government under PM Abe is deliberately trying to inflate by 3%, after years of deflation. It is about time! If they succeed and the economy also grows, their debt will decline. It is twice as high as the U.S., as a percent of the GDP, but Japan is not in crisis. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen
This proton measurement thing has me perplexed. So much so that I don't care about it. My only interest is the nuclear wave number. It appears to be 1.36 fm-1 for all nucleons. Frank -Original Message- From: David Roberson dlrober...@aol.com To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, Jan 26, 2013 7:17 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen I am going to play the skeptic on this thread. I have a very strong suspicion that the accuracy of the proton measurement is most likely not as good as is thought. Why does the uncertainty principle allow the size measurement to be this accurate since the particle momentum appears to be well defined. The proton size is a theoretical number that may one day prove to be grossly wrong. The next theory will eventually come around and a new argument will begin. Dave -Original Message- From: Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sat, Jan 26, 2013 6:36 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen I wrote: So it seems that under certain conditions, physicists are measuring something vaguely like Mills's fractional hydrogen -- it might be that it is Mills's fractional hydrogen, or it might be something entirely different. This is incorrect. The physicists are measuring *muonic* hydrogen and getting a different charge radius for the proton. So we're not dealing with Mills hydrogen or even something that looks like Mills hydrogen, since these have an electron and not a muon. If you extrapolate the charge radius from these experiments to the case of the normal proton-electron system, that is interesting. But what I don't understand yet is that the new charge radius is 0.04fm *smaller* than previously measured. In light of this, I'm not sure what is meant by the quotation going back to the paper that The proton structure is important because an electron in an S [ground] state has a nonzero probability to be inside the proton. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
There is always the option of forfeiting growth and trying to be a world power. Let it be a job to be of China or India. Scrap the military bases, inside and outside US. Heavily tax the rich to the point of bankruptcy for those who like to live off unproductive business (Wall Street). Employ the unemployed in government backed jobs. Plan the damn economy. Or, there is the option of let it go and see the quality of life of the average people decrease to South American levels. -- Daniel Rocha - RJ danieldi...@gmail.com
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Ed, Paul Krugman of Princeton (and a NY Times columnist) believes they are seriously in error. Robert Reich at Berkeley agrees. This appears to be a case where conventional belief may prove to be as wrong as it has been with regard to LENR. Mark Mark Goldes Co-Founder, Chava Energy CEO, Aesop Institute www.chavaenergy.com www.aesopinstitute.org 707 861-9070 707 497-3551 fax From: Edmund Storms [stor...@ix.netcom.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 3:54 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Cc: Edmund Storms Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment Sorry Jed, but your analysis conflicts with every economist that I have read and I read many. Raising taxes back to Clayton is not possible because the economy is not growing as fast as it was then so that the tax rate would have to be a bigger fraction of the income to provide the same amount of money, which people resist. Also, the debt is much larger now. We have passed the point of no return according to most analysts. Ed On Jan 26, 2013, at 4:11 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.commailto:stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Debt is good within limits, Eric. The problem comes when the amount of debt exceeds the ability to pay back or even to service, i.e. to pay the interest. This is why people lost their homes. The US government has now reached a debt so large that it cannot be paid back and can barely be serviced. This is a fact. That is not true. All we have to do is raise taxes back to the level they were under Mr. Clinton. If the economy recovers the debt will soon begin to decline. It was declining rapidly under Clinton. Government expenditures have not increased, except for the Pentagon, and now that the wars are over I don't see why the military budget should be so high. The debt crisis is ginned up nonsense, in my opinion. It could be fixed with slightly higher tax rates so small we would hardly notice them. Mainly on wealthy people. I am sure that wealthy people can afford to pay 3% more than they now do. It is trivial matter for them. For that matter, the U.S. government can print money. A little inflation would soon reduce the debt as a percent of the GDP. We would hardly notice that, either. The Japanese government under PM Abe is deliberately trying to inflate by 3%, after years of deflation. It is about time! If they succeed and the economy also grows, their debt will decline. It is twice as high as the U.S., as a percent of the GDP, but Japan is not in crisis. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
I think that a competitive market-based system for most things results in the best price for the end-consumer, but for certain critical needs such as medical and basic research, some govt/industry cooperation is warranted. This goes with the caveat that the markets are truly competitive with NO collusion/favoritism from government, which is a rarity these days. For a hundred years after the country was founded, there were no ‘entitlement’ programs; the only aid that the founders felt the fed’l govt was obligated to was caring for veterans injured in the line of duty… and that certainly makes sense. As far as other forms of entitlements, whatever happened to families taking care of their own; why is it the govt’s responsibility to care for people when they have family to do it! Or local charities, which are MUCH more efficient than any government program will ever be… How about giving tax-payers and companies generous tax breaks for contributing to local charities to provide enough incentive to adequately fund the town’s social welfare needs. We also need to look at how the entitlement programs are structured… I’ve seen examples about how the rules are not structured to encourage one to become self-reliant, but promote dependency… dependency is just another way the control freaks (politicians) maintain control, and their power and elitist positions. I would have no problem if the programs ‘taught you how to fish’ in addition to giving you some fish for a limited period of time. Washington DC’s avg household income is now the highest in the country; surpassing the Silicon Valley of California… that should tell you all you need to know about politicians. We need to go back to one-term, citizen politicians; get rid of all lobbyists and corporate influence-peddlers in DC. From: Eric Walker [mailto:eric.wal...@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 4:31 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 4:16 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: You simply can’t rely on one-sided references to make important decisions with these kinds of complex programs... Agreed. Thus, I find that reading the comment section helps to more accurately inform me; but that depends on whether knowledgeable folks are participating. Yes -- the comments can be very interesting. with the federal govt raiding the social security ‘fund’ and numerous other bloated and wasteful programs, one would have to be blind to think that the govt is going to do it more efficiently than a competitive system. I have no problem with the basic gist of this -- I am sure there is a lot of government bloat that can be trimmed. I guess I'm one for trying to sift the wheat from the chaff, rather than throw everything out, and for making use of bargaining power when it can be used to the advantage of the public good. Careful measures, carefully taken, enacted in light of positive experience in similar areas in other parts of the world. I am also not one to believe the a purely market based system is going to do an old person who has no money any good. He or she will suffer more than anyone else, because he or she will have no purchasing power, and a market based system will end up specializing in plastic surgery rather than helping him or her with some basic geriatric problem. A similar thing goes for the mentally retarded, the chronically ill, the physically disabled and those who, for whatever reason, are unlikely to ever be gainfully employed because they don't have the skills or ability to be employed. Whenever I hear of market-based solutions, I think of these people and the likelihood that they will be forever scrounging around for their basic needs. I think the market has a role to play, but I think we should also not be persuaded into thinking it is a magic bullet. I don't imagine you have been persuaded that it is, but I think a lot of people have. Everything in moderation. Eric
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
I ranted: IMHO, too many politicians are focusing on a misguided belief that balancing the national budget is the most important thing, above everything else, that must be tackled. What most fail to realize is the fact that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between individuals and legal entities. Ed replied: No Steven, what you say is not the issue. The issue is that money has been lent to the US in various forms and by various people and they want their money back eventually. Meanwhile they want to be paid interest. The US is rapidly approaching a level of debt such that if the interest rates rose to normal levels, we could not pay the interest without shutting down significant parts of the government. The US is presently printing dollars to cover this expense. As a result, the debt is growing because this money is borrowed from the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank owned by individuals who want to be paid. At some point in the near future, the debt will be so large, it simply can not be paid. At that point, the US is in default, and the financial system of the world collapses. This means starvation and civil strife. The problem is serous and can not be solved without great pain, which means further loss of jobs. The fools in Congress over the last 20 years have created a no win situation that very few people understand. I'm 100% in agreement with your debt analysis, Ed. I suspect we are probably discussing the same issue, but from slightly different angles. And perhaps with slightly different objective as well. As we all know the nation is getting more and more in debt. However, as Jed points out in a follow-up post, I also suspect this debt crisis is a contrivance with a specific objective in mind. That objective being that those with the most amount of money now stand to end up making even more money in the future! This obviously can't continue. Such a scam will eventually break system. For me, this gets back to my prior comment that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between parties. The only thing that gives value to money is the generation of goods and services the piece of paper attempts to represent at the precise moment of the exchange. It's not due to the fact that we have printed up a fixed amount of money that others then, through hard work, try to accumulate - as if money itself has some mysterious kind of intrinsic magical value in itself. Massive debt on the national level can only be created as a result of keeping the amount of money that can ever be allowed in circulation maintained at a fixed aggregate amount. There are those in power who want to keep everyone worshipping the notion that the total amount of aggregate money in the system must remain a FIXED amount. And they are ...duh... those with the most amount of money languishing about in their vaults. Under this convenient arrangement the temporary illusion of extra cash that suddenly flows into the macroeconomic system can only be generated by those who have more money than they know what to do with who, in turn, generously LEND it back into the system. And we all know what happens when it's finally time to pay the piper. The rich end up with an even bigger slice of the entire pie while everyone else ends up with less. This simply can't continue. Some archetypical form of a Robin Hood scenario will eventually force itself upon the political area as the only means left to help balance the books in a more equitable manner. IMHO, the only means left to a nation rapidly growing its debt load would be to start printing up more money - money which will not be paid for through issuing more bonds. Printing up more unaccountable money would be the only means left to a nation as a means to better redistribute slices of the pie. If we don't, I think we will ironically sow the seeds of where the intrinsic value of money will become devalued, if not seriously damaged. This will happen because more and more of the work force will be forced out of business and into employment. When that happens there will be fewer and fewer goods and services being generated for which money... ANY MONEY still circulating in the system could be used to purchase them. IMHO, if we end up enduring a scenario where there are far fewer goods and services being generated, it is not wise to assume that offering up gold coins as payment will be any more advantageous than offering up the equivalent amount in the form of paper bills. For one thing, only a tiny number of individuals will profit under a scenario of amassing gold with the expectation they will later use it to buy all the goods and services they need. As we all know there is only so much gold to go around on the planet. It would not be wise to assume that they will be able to better insulate
RE: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
From Mark: How many people could $400 BILLION dollars feed? Your point being. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/newvortex/
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 5:28 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.netwrote: I think that a competitive market-based system for most things results in the best price for the end-consumer, but for certain critical needs such as medical and basic research, some govt/industry cooperation is warranted. This goes with the caveat that the markets are truly competitive with NO collusion/favoritism from government, which is a rarity these days. This makes a lot of sense. I am not at all enthusiastic about enriching the pockets of a few lucky subcontractors who have no incentive to find efficiencies. For a hundred years after the country was founded, there were no ‘entitlement’ programs; the only aid that the founders felt the fed’l govt was obligated to was caring for veterans injured in the line of duty… and that certainly makes sense. I have only respect to the US founding fathers. They had some great ideas and put in place a remarkably stable democracy, and they had an allergic reaction to paternalism and to an extractive UK mercantilist policy. But I don't think they were any wiser than you or I, or that we need to feel bound by the solutions that they came up with to the problems of their times. Some of our problems are similar to what they were facing, and some are a world apart. We should look at the problems we face today and come up with our own solutions. This is what they would have done in our situation, and what they would have recommended to us that we do. As far as other forms of entitlements, whatever happened to families taking care of their own; why is it the govt’s responsibility to care for people when they have family to do it! Or local charities, which are MUCH more efficient than any government program will ever be… How about giving tax-payers and companies generous tax breaks for contributing to local charities to provide enough incentive to adequately fund the town’s social welfare needs. Saying that people should rely upon their families is effectively saying we're content to ignore the problem. Some people have no families. Some people are estranged from their families. Those who can do so are no doubt already relying upon their families. That leaves all of the rest, who are the ones I was thinking of. At a deeper level, I think this gets down to what divides the US -- what the basic social contract is. I'm arguing that as a society we will all do well and prosper if we look to the good of everyone, including those who are left behind in the current system. I'm open to the idea of tax-breaks to local charities for handling some of these problems. Let's look for some examples of where this model is being effectively used, and then go from there. We also need to look at how the entitlement programs are structured… I’ve seen examples about how the rules are not structured to encourage one to become self-reliant, but promote dependency… dependency is just another way the control freaks (politicians) maintain control, and their power and elitist positions. I would have no problem if the programs ‘taught you how to fish’ in addition to giving you some fish for a limited period of time. Washington DC’s avg household income is now the highest in the country; surpassing the Silicon Valley of California… that should tell you all you need to know about politicians. We need to go back to one-term, citizen politicians; get rid of all lobbyists and corporate influence-peddlers in DC. Yes, would not be surprised if dependency were a problem -- I have witnessed some of it myself. But with that I have two reservations. First, let's approach the problem empirically. Are there existing programs out there that have a proven track record of helping people at the margins of society without encouraging dependency? Let's copy what they're doing and see if we can tweak it. Second, dependency is only a problem for those who can avoid it. There are many people, incompetents among them, who are, by their nature, dependent. There is no conceivable way that we will educate them out of it; they will simply either sink into the existing social darwinism or, if we can help them, they will lead out lives in dignity at a modest cost to the public. I am persuaded that this will not only be satisfying in some ethical sense, but that we will all be better off economically as well. Eric
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Edmund Storms stor...@ix.netcom.com wrote: Sorry Jed, but your analysis conflicts with every economist that I have read and I read many. Read Krugman. Raising taxes back to Clayton is not possible because the economy is not growing as fast as it was then so that the tax rate would have to be a bigger fraction of the income to provide the same amount of money . . . I said we should raise the rates back, and then wait for the economy to recover. I did not say we should raise total revenues back right away. . . . which people resist. People do like paying taxes, that's for sure. Also, the debt is much larger now. We have passed the point of no return according to most analysts. Hey, I can do arithmetic. I am good with spreadsheets. Assuming the economy recovers, I can see that the debt will soon stabilize. As a percent of the GDP it has not risen much. It may soon start to fall even with the present tax rates. It is nothing to worry about. See: http://www.progressinaction.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/debt_gdp_dollars_percentage1.png Note the percent of GPD. That's what matters. The actual dollar amount is unimportant. If the economy expands by a factor of ten and everyone's income goes up by a factor of 10, it would make no difference if the total national debt also increased by a factor of 10. We would be in the same place. That graph is from this article, which is partisan, but no one disputes that data, which is from the government as noted in the second graph: http://www.progressinaction.com/republicans/conservative-dishonesty-and-their-deficit-scare/ Seriously, I do not know which analysts you refer to but it seems they cannot do arithmetic. This is not rocket science. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Ed and others: The US net wealth after all debt is deducted is higher now than it has ever been in US history. Print the money, default or make the citizens of the US pay it off, it makes almost no difference. Debt is more or less an illusion. Picking one or the other of the above choices will cause different redistributions of wealth among the weathy of the world but will have almost no impact on overall product production. Those that claim otherwise do so principally to promote allocation of wealth to those protected by their policy approach. Nothing is more illusion than the concept of debt. (From the world's point of view). Sent from my iPhone On Jan 26, 2013, at 8:11 PM, OrionWorks - Steven Vincent Johnson orionwo...@charter.net wrote: I ranted: IMHO, too many politicians are focusing on a misguided belief that balancing the national budget is the most important thing, above everything else, that must be tackled. What most fail to realize is the fact that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between individuals and legal entities. Ed replied: No Steven, what you say is not the issue. The issue is that money has been lent to the US in various forms and by various people and they want their money back eventually. Meanwhile they want to be paid interest. The US is rapidly approaching a level of debt such that if the interest rates rose to normal levels, we could not pay the interest without shutting down significant parts of the government. The US is presently printing dollars to cover this expense. As a result, the debt is growing because this money is borrowed from the Federal Reserve, which is a private bank owned by individuals who want to be paid. At some point in the near future, the debt will be so large, it simply can not be paid. At that point, the US is in default, and the financial system of the world collapses. This means starvation and civil strife. The problem is serous and can not be solved without great pain, which means further loss of jobs. The fools in Congress over the last 20 years have created a no win situation that very few people understand. I'm 100% in agreement with your debt analysis, Ed. I suspect we are probably discussing the same issue, but from slightly different angles. And perhaps with slightly different objective as well. As we all know the nation is getting more and more in debt. However, as Jed points out in a follow-up post, I also suspect this debt crisis is a contrivance with a specific objective in mind. That objective being that those with the most amount of money now stand to end up making even more money in the future! This obviously can't continue. Such a scam will eventually break system. For me, this gets back to my prior comment that money is nothing more than a contractual representation of the exchange of goods and services between parties. The only thing that gives value to money is the generation of goods and services the piece of paper attempts to represent at the precise moment of the exchange. It's not due to the fact that we have printed up a fixed amount of money that others then, through hard work, try to accumulate - as if money itself has some mysterious kind of intrinsic magical value in itself. Massive debt on the national level can only be created as a result of keeping the amount of money that can ever be allowed in circulation maintained at a fixed aggregate amount. There are those in power who want to keep everyone worshipping the notion that the total amount of aggregate money in the system must remain a FIXED amount. And they are ...duh... those with the most amount of money languishing about in their vaults. Under this convenient arrangement the temporary illusion of extra cash that suddenly flows into the macroeconomic system can only be generated by those who have more money than they know what to do with who, in turn, generously LEND it back into the system. And we all know what happens when it's finally time to pay the piper. The rich end up with an even bigger slice of the entire pie while everyone else ends up with less. This simply can't continue. Some archetypical form of a Robin Hood scenario will eventually force itself upon the political area as the only means left to help balance the books in a more equitable manner. IMHO, the only means left to a nation rapidly growing its debt load would be to start printing up more money - money which will not be paid for through issuing more bonds. Printing up more “unaccountable” money would be the only means left to a nation as a means to better redistribute slices of the pie. If we don't, I think we will ironically sow the seeds of where the intrinsic value of money will become devalued, if not seriously damaged. This will happen because more and more of the
Re: [Vo]:The hydrogen s-orbital and the problem of muonic hydrogen
Perhaps the proton's radius can be both increased and descreased under certain conditions. Does anyone know how (or if) in theory the proton's radius would effect rates of fusion? Would the proton have to be larger or smaller to increase rates of fusion? Harry On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 6:16 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: We've already gone over the new Science paper on muonic hydrogen elsewhere, but I saw a comment on E-Cat World that I thought was worth bringing up here. According to a summary of the Science article in Ars Technica [1], the problem I alluded to in the title is that the charge radius of the proton has been measured very accurately to be both 0.84fm and 0.88fm. This would not be a big deal if the accuracy of the measurements allowed both of these values. But the measurements are extremely accurate, and incompatible, unless there is something unexplained going on. The comment by Gerrit in E-Cat World elaborates [2]: Have we discussed the recent finding of the shrunken proton yet ? The proton in muonic hydrogen is 4% smaller that normal hydrogen. They cannot explain it with current understanding, yet the new measurements are very high accuracy. http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/hydrogen-made-with-muons-reveals-proton-size-conundrum/ “The proton structure is important because an electron in an S [ground] state has a nonzero probability to be inside the proton.” Oh wait a minute, if the electron is inside the proton, doesn’t the whole structure look like a neutron, ie it won’t see a coulomb barrier and can fuse with another hydrogen at will ? The next question that “established” science should target is measuring the proton size of a hydrogen in a metal lattice. I think it is inevitable that “established” science will eventually stumble over the same phenomenon that has been shown to exists for over 23 years. In a few years we’ll probably be hearing “Well, with the current understanding of physics we can no longer claim that Fleischmann and Pons were wrong” So it seems that under certain conditions, physicists are measuring something vaguely like Mills's fractional hydrogen -- it might be that it is Mills's fractional hydrogen, or it might be something entirely different. Gerrit asks whether you could get screening, e.g., sufficient to lead to the anomalous behavior in metal hydrides we've been following here, from whatever it is that is going on. The Ars Technica article ends with this interesting comment: The one option they [the research team] seem to like is the existence of relatively light force carriers that somehow remained undiscovered until now. New force carriers is an interesting thought. Would that imply a heretofore unknown interaction? Eric [1] http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/01/hydrogen-made-with-muons-reveals-proton-size-conundrum/ [2] http://www.e-catworld.com/2013/01/robotics-and-lenr/comment-page-1/#comment-105365
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Notably, F. Hayek, one of the greatest advocates of free market economics, argued that everyone should receive a basic income or (what he called a minimum income) regardless of employment. See chapter 9 Security and Freedom in his book _Road to Serfdom_ . https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.286147002267.143173.676517267type=1l=e117e9f0c2 Harry
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
Meant people do NOT like paying taxes . . . It is a shame we cannot edit these messages. Krugman and others think this deficit issue has been hyped by people who want to use it as an excuse to reduce programs they dislike. Right wing people want to reduce social spending; left wing people want to reduce military spending. I think that if you oppose an expenditure, you should propose reducing it, and not point to the deficit as a reason. Anyway, this is getting off topic. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Another article about the impact of automation on employment
On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 9:26 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jan 26, 2013 at 5:28 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net We also need to look at how the entitlement programs are structured… I’ve seen examples about how the rules are not structured to encourage one to become self-reliant, but promote dependency… dependency is just another way the control freaks (politicians) maintain control, and their power and elitist positions. I would have no problem if the programs ‘taught you how to fish’ in addition to giving you some fish for a limited period of time. Washington DC’s avg household income is now the highest in the country; surpassing the Silicon Valley of California… that should tell you all you need to know about politicians. We need to go back to one-term, citizen politicians; get rid of all lobbyists and corporate influence-peddlers in DC. Yes, would not be surprised if dependency were a problem -- I have witnessed some of it myself. But with that I have two reservations. First, let's approach the problem empirically. Are there existing programs out there that have a proven track record of helping people at the margins of society without encouraging dependency? Let's copy what they're doing and see if we can tweak it. Second, dependency is only a problem for those who can avoid it. There are many people, incompetents among them, who are, by their nature, dependent. There is no conceivable way that we will educate them out of it; they will simply either sink into the existing social darwinism or, if we can help them, they will lead out lives in dignity at a modest cost to the public. I am persuaded that this will not only be satisfying in some ethical sense, but that we will all be better off economically as well. The truth is everyone depends on something and/or someone to maintain their way of being in the world. Nobody exists in a state of independence. Dependency is not an affliction or a sin. (For example, the self-employed, who often portray themselves as independent and therefore morally superior, depend heavily on a system that can process monetary transactions.) Everyone is entitled (can I say that?) to a degree of autonomy from which they can choose how they prefer to lean on the world and others and to give back to the world and others. Harry
