Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 08 Nov 2013, at 19:44, meekerdb wrote: On 11/8/2013 12:10 AM, Chris de Morsella wrote: Ending the era of Prohibition will not mean kids will start smoking pot…. Hint they already are, and have been for a long time. Ending this dark era of Prohibition will mean that the greatest illicit funding engine ever devised will shut down and the global crime syndicates revenue streams will dry up. And will kids smoke opimum too (it was legal in China at the time of the opimum trade)? I saw a professor of medicine on TV saying that opium is the least damaging recreational drug. What about whiskey (kids already drink too)? Heroin? Cocaine? All studies show that once a drug is illegal, it becomes much more available and consumed. Always, everywhere, for any drug. It is normal because when a drug is illegal, you create a market allowing a product to be sold without any control (nor on price, nor on quality), and you make possible the street advertizing which target the kids. Prohibition might look reasonable, but it has always been at the start a technic to sell much more drugs. This admits that very simple explanation above, but it is confirmed. In the US cannabis has been very severely repressed, and it is the country where the local people smoke the most (with Canada and France). In The Netherlands, cannabis is tolerated, and it is the country where cannabis is smoked the less (by the inhabitants). We must legalize cannabis, because the danger of cannabis has been scientifically debunked since 70 years. We must legalize even more the dangerous drug, because their illegality makes them much dangerous, much more available to anyone (including kids) etc. But we must legalize all drugs to just come back to the possibility of some sense in politics, and get rid of the criminals and liars. Opium was legal in China, but has become a weapon by coercion, then the prohibition of it has aggravated the situation. Like tobacco in Turkey, drugs can be used by manipulators to destroy a country. Some americans have used alcohol against some Indian populations in a similar way. Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Spacetime is (nonphysical, platonic) mind
On 08 Nov 2013, at 20:10, Richard Ruquist wrote: The 10^120 bits for the holographic visible universe is based on the Planck Scale and is the number of Planck Areas on its surface. Penrose estimates that it will maximize at 10^122 in the future. Yes, but with comp, the visible universe is a tiny part of reality. The tip of the iceberg, as we say. Bruno Richard On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 5:45 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 08 Nov 2013, at 06:51, LizR wrote: On 7 November 2013 23:43, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 07 Nov 2013, at 04:40, Richard Ruquist wrote: I have no idea what the information capacity of a MWI multiverse is. 0, in Gods' eye. Surely the information capacity of the multiverse is equivalent to the information needed to specify the laws of physics? It is the information you need to define addition and multiplication. OK, it is a bit more than 0. I would guess the information capacity of all possible multiverses would either be zero or perhaps whatever information is stored in maths (although I guess that could be considered as zero). It has to be a little above zero, as you cannot specify math from no axioms at all. Infinity, from inside, and our partial relative position. Surely the information capacity as seen from our particular position isn't infinite, although it is very large? I've heard the figure 10^120 bits mentioned for the visible universe, which is - I assume - all we currently have even potentially available. But the visible universe is like a dust, compared to the non visible realities ... Also, 10^120 is a very rough estimate, and makes no sense if there are continuous observable. Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything- l...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Spacetime is (nonphysical, platonic) mind
On 08 Nov 2013, at 22:16, Jason Resch wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 3:50 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 07 Nov 2013, at 00:51, LizR wrote: I was thinking specifically of Max Tegmark's MUH. He considers minds to be subsystems of the maths - he doesn't say anything about computations existing in arithmetic. So I think he probably hasn't developed that aspect of the theory to the extent that you have, and may not realise the full implications. Have you had any communication with him? It could be interesting to combine your ideas. We have discussed on this list a long time ago. I was astonished that he does not believe in the quantum immortality, Interesting. And he is one who is well known for popularizing the idea of proving MWI by putting a quantum gun to one's head. How did he justify his disbelief in quantum immortality while at the same time believe in MWI? What would he think the experimenter will experience when he gets in the box with Schrodinger's cat? Tegmark thinks he will survive, if the gun works sufficiently well. if not he might degrade and eventually ... die. This makes no sense to me. It is annoying, but we can degrade a lot, yet we can't die (with just comp, or, ITSM, with just the quantum MWI). With comp, we can expect jump, and consciousness phase transition, though. Bruno and is not aware of comp (and mathematical logic). There is a big gap between physicists and logicians. The book by Pale Yourgrau on Einstein and Gödel illustrates this very well. The book by Penrose, which I find very courageous, but erroneous on the Gödel/mind/ machine relation, has considerably augment that gap. Physicists tends to run away when hearing the word Gödel ... many logicians runs away when they heard the word reality, or even worst physical reality. Bruno On 7 November 2013 12:39, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 22:17, LizR wrote: If the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis is correct, spacetime (and everything else) is an emergent feature of maths, which makes it a secondary feature of a nonphysical, Platonic object, though not mind. And if we are digitalizable machine, then the Mathematical Universe hypothesis is correct for the ontology, and we need only elementary arithmetic, and physics is a secondary feature, but it *is* a mind fetaure, with the mind emerging from the computations (existing by elementary arithmetic). By allowing an observer to be a non-machine *of some kind*, you can need richer mathematical theologies/physics, but that's not entirely clear to me. The mind itself cannot be entirely mathematical. At least, nor from inside, where we are living (now), assuming we are machine. So if we consider both the 3p and the 1p, the mathematical hypothesis is only 99,9998% correct. The tail of the cow can't go through the window! Bruno On 7 November 2013 07:01, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote: Roger, Perhaps it is because you are just plain wrong. Richard On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Spacetime is (nonphysical, platonic) mind I am shocked to find that so far I have not found a scientist anywhere that understands that spacetime, being just lawful behavior (laws) is platonic (is mind). Perhaps they consider it to be quantum gravity. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List
Re: Spacetime is (nonphysical, platonic) mind
On 09 Nov 2013, at 00:22, Jason Resch wrote: Liz, That is very interesting. Do you remember anything about this interview (where it was, who was interviewing him, etc.)? One answer is in this very list. I think that it was in an early (interesting) thread Amoeba Croaks. I don't know if the archive can give that back. May be Liz will provide another answer. Bruno Thanks, Jason On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 5:07 PM, LizR lizj...@gmail.com wrote: In an interview Max Tegmark said that he expected to have a truncated form of QI - he'd survive the quantum suicide experiment, but his brain would still deteriorate in any case until he eventually fades out (like when an amoeba croaks were his exact words, iirc) I think he also mentioned that this might segue into being reborn, so a form of reincarnation - but it's a while since I read it. On 9 November 2013 10:16, Jason Resch jasonre...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 3:50 AM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 07 Nov 2013, at 00:51, LizR wrote: I was thinking specifically of Max Tegmark's MUH. He considers minds to be subsystems of the maths - he doesn't say anything about computations existing in arithmetic. So I think he probably hasn't developed that aspect of the theory to the extent that you have, and may not realise the full implications. Have you had any communication with him? It could be interesting to combine your ideas. We have discussed on this list a long time ago. I was astonished that he does not believe in the quantum immortality, Interesting. And he is one who is well known for popularizing the idea of proving MWI by putting a quantum gun to one's head. How did he justify his disbelief in quantum immortality while at the same time believe in MWI? What would he think the experimenter will experience when he gets in the box with Schrodinger's cat? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ?
Hi Anna Of course. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough - Receiving the following content - From: Anna Receiver: everything-list,- mindbr...@yahoogroups.com,4dworldx,theoretical_physics_board Time: 2013-11-08, 23:52:10 Subject: Re: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ? First of all, there is no evidence that any strings exist. So, the question of mass is irrelevant, unless for the string theoretician. The theory requires that strings have mass, but where is the proof? Mathematical proof is not enough. Anna From: Roger Clough Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:36 AM To: everything-list ; mailto:mindbr...@yahoogroups.com ; 4dworldx ; theoretical_physics_board Subject: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ? I need some help. Yesterday I made the claim that strings are massless and so are nonphysical (mental, by my definition). But you can show theoretically that strings have mass, based on line tension and other variables. So is mass physical ? Unless I am mistaken, mass is always defined in terms of other variables, much like in a dictionary words are defined in terms of other words.. For example, m = E/c^2, where E is energy and c is the speed of light. But energy is the ability to do work, which in turn is defined as W = F*d, where F is a force moved through distance d. But Force is mass*acceleration. So we are back wihere we started, since m =E/c*2. To me this means that we must empirically define some force like the weight of a selected and saved lump of lead as say a Newton of force, and a length given by some metal rule to be saved, and proceed from there. To me this means that all physical variables are actually nonphysical (theoretical or mental). Which is the basic foundation of idealism or platonism. Everything, even mass, is mental in the sense of being theoretical or mathematical. Is this correct ? Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ?
Anyone that still is clung to the idea that existence and matter are the same by the sanctification of physical sciences either is not familiarized with the physics of the last 50 years or it is too afraid to leave his comfortable position 2013/11/9 Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net Hi Anna Of course. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough - Receiving the following content - From: Anna Receiver: everything-list,- mindbr...@yahoogroups.com ,4dworldx,theoretical_physics_board Time: 2013-11-08, 23:52:10 Subject: Re: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ? First of all, there is no evidence that any strings exist. So, the question of mass is irrelevant, unless for the string theoretician. The theory requires that strings have mass, but where is the proof? Mathematical proof is not enough. Anna From: Roger Clough Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:36 AM To: everything-list ; mailto:mindbr...@yahoogroups.com ; 4dworldx ; theoretical_physics_board Subject: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ? I need some help. Yesterday I made the claim that strings are massless and so are nonphysical (mental, by my definition). But you can show theoretically that strings have mass, based on line tension and other variables. So is mass physical ? Unless I am mistaken, mass is always defined in terms of other variables, much like in a dictionary words are defined in terms of other words.. For example, m = E/c^2, where E is energy and c is the speed of light. But energy is the ability to do work, which in turn is defined as W = F*d, where F is a force moved through distance d. But Force is mass*acceleration. So we are back wihere we started, since m =E/c*2. To me this means that we must empirically define some force like the weight of a selected and saved lump of lead as say a Newton of force, and a length given by some metal rule to be saved, and proceed from there. To me this means that all physical variables are actually nonphysical (theoretical or mental). Which is the basic foundation of idealism or platonism. Everything, even mass, is mental in the sense of being theoretical or mathematical. Is this correct ? Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ?
Mathematical proof is all that is lacking. That is that particles like electrons and quarks are strings. That electrons and quarks have mass is established experimentally On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 6:50 AM, Roger Clough rclo...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Anna Of course. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough - Receiving the following content - From: Anna Receiver: everything-list,- mindbr...@yahoogroups.com ,4dworldx,theoretical_physics_board Time: 2013-11-08, 23:52:10 Subject: Re: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ? First of all, there is no evidence that any strings exist. So, the question of mass is irrelevant, unless for the string theoretician. The theory requires that strings have mass, but where is the proof? Mathematical proof is not enough. Anna From: Roger Clough Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:36 AM To: everything-list ; mailto:mindbr...@yahoogroups.com ; 4dworldx ; theoretical_physics_board Subject: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ? I need some help. Yesterday I made the claim that strings are massless and so are nonphysical (mental, by my definition). But you can show theoretically that strings have mass, based on line tension and other variables. So is mass physical ? Unless I am mistaken, mass is always defined in terms of other variables, much like in a dictionary words are defined in terms of other words.. For example, m = E/c^2, where E is energy and c is the speed of light. But energy is the ability to do work, which in turn is defined as W = F*d, where F is a force moved through distance d. But Force is mass*acceleration. So we are back wihere we started, since m =E/c*2. To me this means that we must empirically define some force like the weight of a selected and saved lump of lead as say a Newton of force, and a length given by some metal rule to be saved, and proceed from there. To me this means that all physical variables are actually nonphysical (theoretical or mental). Which is the basic foundation of idealism or platonism. Everything, even mass, is mental in the sense of being theoretical or mathematical. Is this correct ? Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. *I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly.*... Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce *M O R E money HONESTLY?* Same question to Brent's text above: *that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively*. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY *owns *Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the *efforts* invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly. Once a few fake money (based on a lie) appears, it corrupts the whole system, and the society get pyramidal, with a higher gap between poor and rich, and eventually this crush down. We must think about a way to prevent that. Some state can play a role. But we have to get rid of the bandits first, and there is an easy way: legalize all drugs. Regulate them, and tax them proportionally by the real harm (that is measured by statistics no more confusing a - b and b - a) they do. May be that is not enough. Prohibitionists should be judged. We have to get spiritual or mature enough to understand that. The state must ensure the fairness of competition among products, their traceability, the presence of notice with the secondary effects, etc. But the state has nothing to say about what is good or
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
One more remark: the H O N E S T heirs? super-rich they may be? Do you find an honestly accumulated heirloom to inherit? Did they work productively/honestly to be 'rich'? JM On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 11:50 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. *I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly.*... Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce *M O R E money HONESTLY?* Same question to Brent's text above: *that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively*. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY *owns *Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the *efforts* invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly. Once a few fake money (based on a lie) appears, it corrupts the whole system, and the society get pyramidal, with a higher gap between poor and rich, and eventually this crush down. We must think about a way to prevent that. Some state can play a role. But we have to get rid of the bandits first, and there is an easy way: legalize all drugs. Regulate them, and tax them proportionally by the real harm (that is measured by statistics no more confusing a - b and b - a) they do. May be that is not enough.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Look, we all have our opinions, but none of us are being scientific about all this. Just for the sake of giggles and laughs, let us set up an imaginary town, where the government is minimal. Call it Chaosville, or Telmoland, or Brentburg. Let the law stand aside as the passage of drugs through this location is not criminalized. Where merchants can charge the going price, where using heroin, or crack cocaine, or ketamine, or even tobacco is legal. I am sure we will have a body count, but I'd be a bit surprised if its over money and territory (money again) and likely, be from drug overdoses. There will be social costs to pay, and psychological, and sorrow-just like there is today, just about everywhere. My guess is the costs of drugs would drop fantastically, thus the profit motive is greatly, reduced. This experiment would be measurable, rather then just my opinion. Perhaps the Netherlands is up for this? -Original Message- From: Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 7:29 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 3:55 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? There can be no marketplace without government. Yes. This is why when the government makes a certain type of trade illegal it disappears. Otherwise, drug dealers could create complex global organisations with major trade routes feeding local resellers and so on. It would be possible to buy drugs produced in distant lands even without the government's help. Government's define ownership, property rights, contracts - all stuff essential for markets. Again, this is another reason why illegal drugs are not bought or sold. It doesn't make any sense. How could you possibly buy or sell drugs without the government defining your right of ownership, contracts and so on? Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 12:12 am Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:49 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? I do not subscribe to your Manichean world view, in fact I find it ill reflective of the complexity and nuance of reality. You like to see things in a either this or that kind of way, and maybe that works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. Are you really that certain you know your energy facts. Global installed solar consumption went from 2.1 TWh in 2001 to 55.7 TWh in 2011; growing by a factor of more than 20X in 10years; this is reflected in the growth in installed capacity, which went from a little over 2GW of installed solar capacity in 2001 to around 20GW of installed capacity in 2011. In fact there is so much solar and wind electric capacity already installed in Germany that on days which are favorable for wind and solar power, the overabundance of supply can drive the wholesale price into sharply negative territory. The market inverts and in order to shed load onto the grid – when supply exceeds demand beyond the capacity of the grid to manage it -- you need to pay the grid operators because the grid cannot accept any more energy without becoming unstable – the grid is a balancing between instantaneous supply and demand (act at the speed of electricity) The cost per kwh of solar PV is following a Moore’s Law type progression in falling costs and the dollar per kwh of solar PV are closing in on the cost of coal generated electricity, which has been the least expensive (largely because it can externalize hundreds of billions of dollars per year of costs incurred by mining, and burning coal onto the commons). -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Thu, Nov 7, 2013 9:44 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 4:26 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Not to be sarcastic, but probably yes. Money from bitumin brings money for research into environmental remediation. It also helps liberate people from pouring cash into the OPEC world, which seems to only inflame Muslim passions. Plus the Canadians are world class technologists and will likely invent more efficient engines, and also fund the green technologies that you crave. Theres a reason why poor nations do not do technology well. You have a cornucopian view that we can go on making horrible messes on this planet without worrying about the consequences because somehow it will all get magically remediated yeah like that actually happens in the real world.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 09 Nov 2013, at 17:50, John Mikes wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce M O R E money HONESTLY? I give you an example. I live in a village and someone come to see me, because he has some health problem. I sell him some good herb, with a link to the papers showing that the herb can help. That's an example of doing more money and being honest. I would put some bd herb, knowing it, and then I have fall in the dishonestly realm of method. Dishonesty is when you lie on what you sold, or when you disallow competition by defamation on products. Making more money honestly is like selling more beef steaks, when those are indeed beef steaks and not horse steaks. Money is not the problem. It is a formidable work distribution tools, and when play fair, everyone can win. The problem are the cheaters. Of course, the cheaters get enormous benefits, and invest in hiding their misdeed, and corrupts the whole system especially when they got the media. To condems ùoney is like condemning the blood cells, when they are deviate in nourishing cancers cells and tumors. Those who pervert the system are happy to see people condemning the system, and not their misdeed. Bruno Same question to Brent's text above: that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY owns Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the efforts invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
I am emphasizing having governments print out (Keynes style) absolutely, colossal, amounts of cash, as a reward for coming up with excellent disease treatments and cures, human solar system tours, and clean energy solution, environmental remediation. If the banks won't fund researchers, then private equity will, if private equity won't then a million contributors-open source-will, provided they get a cut of the reward offered by a government prize. I wouldn't be shocked if you, Professor, Marchal, might summon up 25 ECU's in exchange for receiving 3000 ECU's or Golden Yuans, in payment, 5 years later. -Original Message- From: Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Wed, Nov 6, 2013 3:58 am Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 06 Nov 2013, at 02:43, LizR wrote: On 6 November 2013 14:38, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: We could offer a 20 or 100 billion dollar prize for a new clean energy source and award the winner. The contestents would have to get bank or private equity funding to accomplish this. We can do the same for medicine and outer space too. Sounds good to me. How do you persuade the banks etc to put up the prize money? Allowing effective competition would solve the problem, easily. But banks and your taxes invest in preventing real competition, and that is the origin of the problem. Our system is good, but old, and by tolerating the prohibition nonsense, we have put bandits into power, and they have crushed the separation guards. There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. The war on drugs and the war on terror are used to hide that facts. It is still better than in Somalia, unless you are dying in some hospital, because the effective treatment is forbidden, or you are just in jail because you defend the constitution. Prohibition *has* transformed the whole planet in a giant Chicago. We are not governed by elected people, but by well organized gangs with very special interest. Media and a part of the academic world is rotten. Might TOR saves our children ... Bruno -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 09 Nov 2013, at 17:56, John Mikes wrote: One more remark: the H O N E S T heirs? super-rich they may be? Do you find an honestly accumulated heirloom to inherit? Did they work productively/ honestly to be 'rich'? That's an interesting question. It is a particular case of can we give money?. I don't know. Surely parents can make gifts to their children, but even that is not clear to me, and in some case a child can got the feeling that his affection is bought, and that is perilous for the genuine affection he can have. Money has common point with energy and love. That needs to be handled with some caution. Inheritance? Why not? In some case that might work better than an expensive non working social security taxes system. I think you raise a very difficult question which has no global answers and depends on local traditions and way of life. Honesty relies in clear basic (voted) rules, and their application to all people, where they apply. Also, there is a problem with lobbying, and we should find a way to separate money and politics, but when some proportion of cheaters have power, that can take time. Bruno JM On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 11:50 AM, John Mikes jami...@gmail.com wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the middle class and they are relatively diverse this works OK. But the system seems to be unstable in that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. So those who inherit wealth tend to gain even more wealth. Society needs to do something to stabilize the system and prevent the increasing concentration of wealth. I completely agree. The problem is that with money, you can produce more money in two ways, honestly or dishonestly Bruno, before I touch the basics - could you explain what you would consider to produce M O R E money HONESTLY? Same question to Brent's text above: that the rich can and do use their wealth and power to get more wealth and power - and not necessarily productively. I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. It is exploitation, political scam, bribery, terrorism, etc. - all in the framework of accepted morals of the system (either capitalist, or fascist). I recall some basics (I am no 'Socialist') from Marx: NOBODY owns Nature so any natural products (mining, farming, or other) are valued 'honestly' as recompensation for the efforts invested into the natural process for getting money - honestly - productively, without exploitation. Does any mine-owner work on his product? Does any Farming conglomerated stockholder work honestly on the crop? I do not advocate the CEO to sweep the floor: there is tasks' - organization in which everyone has a role to perform, but are the roles proportionately paid for? Mao tried to switch 'roles' temporarily - he failed. Lenin realized that such just distribution is impossible in today's society and postulated FIRST the development of som COMMUINST MAN who lives up to such 'just distribution' of benefits - surely realizing the impossibility of such development. All other (Socialist?) countries suffered from the same malaise as the (democraticly?) capitalistic ones: the leadership and its power usurped wealth, acquired MONEY and POWER on the back of the 'not so fortunate' exploited majority. Alas, I have no solution to remedy the situation. Re-hire Dr. Guillotine is unrealistic. JM On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bruno Marchal marc...@ulb.ac.be wrote: On 06 Nov 2013, at 17:25, meekerdb wrote: On 11/6/2013 12:58 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: There is nothing wrong being rich, unless the money is stolen money, and that's the case today. There's nothing morally wrong with being rich, but it creates an ethical problem. Being much wealthier than others bestows a lot of power. If there is no effective government (like parts of Somalia) then the rich hire a personal army to protect their property. Where there is government, the police protect their property and the rich attempt to control the government through propaganda and buying influence. So long as the rich are not so rich as to live in a different 'world' than the
Re: Spacetime is (nonphysical, platonic) mind
On 11/9/2013 1:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Tegmark thinks he will survive, if the gun works sufficiently well. if not he might degrade and eventually ... die. This makes no sense to me. It is annoying, but we can degrade a lot, yet we can't die (with just comp, or, ITSM, with just the quantum MWI). With comp, we can expect jump, and consciousness phase transition, though. Aside from not finding myself the oldest person on the planet, I see a problem with quantum immortality in that quantum mechanics is time-reverse invariant. So I should be 'past immortal' also. But as Mark Twain said, I do not fear death, in view of the fact that I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. If we are what our brains do it is easy to see why we should live from past (low entropy) to future (higher entropy), be born and die. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Why would the decline in price of solar power mean it can never power all human civilization? The lower the price the better for its prospects for large-scale adoption, no? Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. It sounds like you are buying into the myth that Solyndra was somehow representative of government investment in solar power in general. It's not, the department of energy invested money in a large portfolio of clean energy businesses and most did well while a few like Solyndra did not, and then opponents of investing of clean energy cherry-picked an example of a failure. See these articles: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/energy-department-loan-guarantee-charts/64932/ http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/28/fox-puts-its-solyndra-blinders-on-again/190200 The second of the two articles mentions that only 3 out of 26 loan guarantees dispersed under the Department of Energy's 1705 loan guarantee program have gone to companies that later filed for bankruptcy. One of those three, Beacon Power, is still operating, has repaid most of its loan guarantee, and rehired most of its employees. It also mentions at the bottom that Fox news is promoting the idea that declining prices of solar panels are bad for solar power in general (as opposed to just some individual manufacturing companies), so perhaps you got that puzzling idea above from Fox or some other conservative media source--but as the graph at the bottom of the article shows, solar installations (and the corresponding total energy output from solar) have surged in the last few years, probably thanks in part to government investment. In case you don't trust the left-leaning Media Matters site, here's a piece from Forbes magazine arguing for the overall success of government investment in clean energy so far, and for the important role played by such investment in promoting innovation in this field: http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2011/09/02/solyndras-failure-is-no-reason-to-abandon-federal-energy-innovation-policy/ 'Solyndra’s failure, while unfortunate, is hardly an indictment of federal energy technology policy. Failure is to be expected with emerging, innovative companies, whether they are financed by the government or the private sector. The success of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program (LGP) should thus be judged not by any one investment but by the performance of the entire portfolio. Critics have seized on the news of Solyndra’s bankruptcy to condemn the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program, which provided a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009. The National Review’s Greg Pollowitz writes that Solyndra’s failure shows “why the government should not play venture capitalist.” Yet the fact is that, when judged by its entire diverse portfolio of investments, the LGP has performed remarkably well. Indeed, with a capitalization of just $4 billion, DOE has committed or closed $37.8 billion in loan guarantees for 36 innovative clean energy projects. The Solyndra case represents less than 2% of total loan commitments made by DOE, and will be easily covered by a capitalization of eight to ten times larger than any ultimate losses expected following the bankruptcy proceedings. The broad success story of the LGP shows why federal investment in clean energy is necessary to help early-stage clean energy technologies achieve scale and reach commercialization. The inherent uncertainty in investing in novel technologies, coupled with the high capital costs and long time horizons, prohibits most venture capital funds from investing in large-scale clean energy projects. Financing tools and direct investment from the federal government can help bridge this well-known “Commercialization Valley of Death,” and the LGP is an effective way of doing that. Instead of “picking winners and losers,” as the program’s critics allege, the program actually reduces risk for a suite of innovative clean energy technologies and allows venture capitalists and other private sector
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don't know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever. You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:50 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Blablabla - do you just regurgitate talking points you hear on Faux News? In the real world the installed base of solar power has exploded by a factor of 20X in ten years and is closing in on 50GW of installed capacity. It must begreat living in a fact free world spudboy - you get to say whatever you want (or more probably whatever talking points you were fed) Do you realize the level of subsidies that all the fossil energy sectors currently and have long enjoyed? Of course you don't, because that does not fit the agenda of your thought leaders. In many markets solar PV is starting to become the cheapest source of supply and the price per watt keeps falling as the price of fossil energy keeps rising (long term trends) The crossover point is very close and may already have been reached. Solar is already far cheaper than burning coal if you count the external costs that the coal companies currently are able to shed onto the commons and onto the backs of the general tax payers. A recent Harvard University study has estimated that the externalized costs of the US Coal sector is well over 350 billion dollars a year. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 12:12 am Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com? ] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:49 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? I do not subscribe to your Manichean world view, in fact I find it ill reflective of the complexity and nuance of reality. You like to see things in a either this or that kind of way, and maybe that works for you, but it doesn't work for me. Are you really that certain you know your energy facts. Global installed solar consumption went from 2.1 TWh in 2001 to 55.7 TWh in 2011; growing by a factor of more than 20X in 10years; this is reflected in the growth in installed capacity, which went from a little over 2GW of installed solar capacity in 2001 to around 20GW of installed capacity in 2011. In fact there is so much solar and wind electric capacity already installed in Germany that on days which are favorable for wind and solar power, the overabundance of supply can drive the wholesale price into sharply negative territory. The market inverts and in order to shed load onto the grid - when supply exceeds demand beyond the capacity of the grid to manage it -- you need to pay the grid operators because the grid cannot accept any more energy without becoming unstable - the grid is a balancing between instantaneous supply and demand (act at the speed of electricity) The cost per kwh of solar PV is following a Moore's Law type progression in falling costs and the dollar per kwh of
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 4:29 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 3:55 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? There can be no marketplace without government. Yes. This is why when the government makes a certain type of trade illegal it disappears. Otherwise, drug dealers could create complex global organisations with major trade routes feeding local resellers and so on. It would be possible to buy drugs produced in distant lands even without the government's help. Government's define ownership, property rights, contracts - all stuff essential for markets. Again, this is another reason why illegal drugs are not bought or sold. It doesn't make any sense. How could you possibly buy or sell drugs without the government defining your right of ownership, contracts and so on? You create your own 'government' and enforce the rules with guns, just like any other government. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 8:50 AM, John Mikes wrote: I don't see a 'productive' way how 'the rich' get more wealth and power by using their wealth and power. If they risk their money on some development or invention that is successful that's productive and there must be some potential profit in it, otherwise why take the risk. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 9:50 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. ?? And that is significant compared to what? Nine million birds killed each year by flying into building? Human deaths due to fossil fuel pollution? Annual $ cost of pollution deaths from a new 400 MW coal-based power plant. Taking the European valuation of $5 million per person (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836), the ANNUAL cost due to deaths of Victorians (Australians) of a new 400 MW coal-based power plant = 50 persons x $5 million/person = $250 million ANNUALLY. Human disability due to fossil fuel pollution? HOWEVER, morbidity (illness) costs can be 6 times mortality costs. The Ontario Ministry of Energy study estimated that the costs from long-term exposure were more than six times those from premature deaths (avoidable deaths, excess deaths) (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836). The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Sez your crystal ball. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Of course there's no commercial incentive to switch from fossil fuel because when you sell energy from fossil fuel you don't have to pay all the cost you impose on the public. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Why would the decline in price of solar power mean it can never power all human civilization? The lower the price the better for its prospects for large-scale adoption, no? Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. It sounds like you are buying into the myth that Solyndra was somehow representative of government investment in solar power in general. It's not, the department of energy invested money in a large portfolio of clean energy businesses and most did well while a few like Solyndra did not, and then opponents of investing of clean energy cherry-picked an example of a failure. See these articles: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/energy-department-loan-guarantee-charts/64932/ http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/28/fox-puts-its-solyndra-blinders-on-again/190200 The second of the two articles mentions that only 3 out of 26 loan guarantees dispersed under the Department of Energy's 1705 loan guarantee program have gone to companies that later filed for bankruptcy. One of those three, Beacon Power, is still operating, has repaid most of its loan guarantee, and rehired most of its employees. It also mentions at the bottom that Fox news is promoting the idea that declining prices of solar panels are bad for solar power in general (as opposed to just some individual manufacturing companies), so perhaps you got that puzzling idea above from Fox or some other conservative media source--but as the graph at the bottom of the article shows, solar installations (and the corresponding total energy output from solar) have surged in the last few years, probably thanks in part to government investment. In case you don't trust the left-leaning Media Matters site, here's a piece from Forbes magazine arguing for the overall success of government investment in clean energy so far, and for the important role played by such investment in promoting innovation in this field: http://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2011/09/02/solyndras-failure-is-no-reason-to-abandon-federal-energy-innovation-policy/ 'Solyndra’s failure, while unfortunate, is hardly an indictment of federal energy technology policy. Failure is to be expected with emerging, innovative companies, whether they are financed by the government or the private sector. The success of the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program (LGP) should thus be judged not by any one investment but by the performance of the entire portfolio. Critics have seized on the news of Solyndra’s bankruptcy to condemn the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee Program, which provided a $535 million loan guarantee in 2009. The National Review’s Greg Pollowitz writes that Solyndra’s failure shows “why the government
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
OK, a polemicist. Now tell me what city on Earth, say with a population of 1 million or more is powered, 24 hours per day, all year round, homes hospitals, factories, by your precious 40 gigawatts? This is versus bad electricity sources like coal, hydroelectric, uranium or natural gas. Peking, Boston, Tokyo, Moscow? Brussels? Miami? -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don’t know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever.You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb lt;meeke...@verizon.netgt; To: everything-list lt;everything-list@googlegroups.comgt; Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted WorldOn 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Telmo. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 2:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. If, but then you draw conclusions as if you had stated a fact. Decades after oil was discovered it too only supplied a fraction of the world's energy. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What's your point - that you can imagine some insuperable problem with solar power? The Sun might stop shining? What about not nearly so speculative exhaustion of easily extracted fossil fuel? What if fossil fuel runs out? What if it makes large areas of the earth uninhabitably hot and dry. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. You surmise whatever fits your prejudice. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 2:57 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World OK, a polemicist. Now tell me what city on Earth, say with a population of 1 million or more is powered, 24 hours per day, all year round, homes hospitals, factories, by your precious 40 gigawatts? This is versus bad electricity sources like coal, hydroelectric, uranium or natural gas. Peking, Boston, Tokyo, Moscow? Brussels? Miami? No large city on earth gets its electrical powered from a single source of electricity generation. The grid(s) is a vast diversified machine you just don't seem to get. Here is something for you to chew on: During the first half of 2012 Germany got more than a quarter of its electric energy supply from renewable sources. Last I checked Germany was a leading industrialized metropole of global importance and it is starting to get a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources (of which wind and solar comprise more than half) -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don’t know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever.You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted WorldOn 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, Easy. Set him on fire. :-) Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 5:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. Which one? The idea that declining prices of solar panels are bad news for solar energy? Or the one that says Solyndra is representative of what happens when the government invests in solar and other forms of clean energy? If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. I only cited Kos as an afterthought, to support the point that the Solyndra story is being pushed by conservative media outlets (they provided plenty of links to original sources, so I wonder if you actually question the specifics of that post or if any link to their site would elicit a knee-jerk ad hominem dismissal from you regardless of its specific content). My main point, that Solyndra isn't representative of the outcome from government investment in solar, was supported by the three articles before that. It's fine with me if you prefer to address the other articles rather than the Kos article, but you didn't do that, in fact your response completely ignored the other articles and the evidence they presented. Did you glance over those articles? If so, do you dispute any of the factual points they made? For example, do you dispute the graph at the end of the Media Matters article showing a recent surge in the amount of energy from solar each year? Likewise, do you dispute any factual aspect of this part of the longer Forbes magazine quote I posted? when judged by its entire diverse portfolio of investments, the LGP has performed remarkably well. Indeed, with a capitalization of just $4 billion, DOE has committed or closed $37.8 billion in loan guarantees for 36 innovative clean energy projects. The Solyndra case represents less than 2% of total loan commitments made by DOE, and will be easily covered by a capitalization of eight to ten times larger than any ultimate losses expected following the bankruptcy proceedings. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. Decades in which it wasn't anywhere close to being cost-competive with oil, something which is changing now (see for example http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-solar-challenge-natural-gas). Are you just assuming the future will be like the past, or do you have any other basis for predicting solar will always be just a fraction of world energy? Jesse -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Why would the decline in price of solar power mean it can never power all human civilization? The lower the price the better for its prospects for large-scale adoption, no? Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. It sounds like you are buying into the myth that Solyndra was somehow representative of government investment in solar power in general. It's not, the department of energy invested money in a large portfolio of clean energy businesses and most did well while a few like Solyndra did not, and then opponents of investing of clean energy cherry-picked an example of a failure. See these articles: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/energy- department-loan-guarantee-charts/64932/ http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/09/28/fox-puts-its- solyndra-blinders-on-again/190200 The second of the two articles mentions that only 3 out of 26 loan guarantees dispersed under the Department of Energy's 1705 loan guarantee program have gone to companies that later filed for bankruptcy. One of those three, Beacon Power, is still operating, has repaid most of its loan guarantee, and rehired most of its employees. It also mentions at the bottom that Fox news is promoting the idea
RE: Our Demon-Haunted World
-Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of meekerdb Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 3:31 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent, Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both statist. Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, publicists, and scientists who claimed that: 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action. Well put. I would add that it is not only the current revenue streams these fossil energy interests are protecting, but also perhaps even more fundamentally they do this to protect the future valuation of the carbon reserves they control. If the world got serious about global warming and began to move away from carbon based fossil energy the valuation of these reserves would plummet. This is a matter of many trillions of dollars of evaluation that is counted in the asset column on their books. Chris Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, you are against subsidies for fossil fuels (I am good on that) and that somehow solar power will prevail, which reminds me of the Marxist historic inevitability argument. On the Harvard study, we'd both have to identify what the authors mean about externalized costs mean. Also, you are invoking Moore's laws to photovoltaics, which was an estimate by Gordon Moore in 65' strictly, about computer processing power. Well, it could be as you say, but if the residents of say, Philadelphia, want to survive the coming January 2014 winter nights, I would recommend, the old, vile, dirty, reliable energy, rather then someone's grand promise of tomorrow. Unless, you have an example of powering a city 7 x 24? Let me know, ok? -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:34 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:50 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Blablabla – do you just regurgitate talking points you hear on Faux News? In the real world the installed base of solar power has exploded by a factor of 20X in ten years and is closing in on 50GW of installed capacity. It must begreat living in a fact free world spudboy – you get to say whatever you want (or more probably whatever talking points you were fed) Do you realize the level of subsidies that all the fossil energy sectors currently and have long enjoyed? Of course you don’t, because that does not fit the agenda of your thought leaders. In many markets solar PV is starting to become the cheapest source of supply and the price per watt keeps falling as the price of fossil energy keeps rising (long term trends) The crossover point is very close and may already have been reached. Solar is already far cheaper than burning coal if you count the external costs that the coal companies currently are able to shed onto the commons and onto the backs of the general tax payers. A recent Harvard University study has estimated that the externalized costs of the US Coal sector is well over 350 billion dollars a year. -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 12:12 am Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 5:49 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will power his civilization for the rest of his life, and unless we can produce this energy source, bang goes the gun. I will shout shale gas or even tar sands. If you shout out sun and wind, bang goes the gun against your skull. Why? Because even after decades of work, even after daily advances, there's no city on earth that is now powered by sun or win, were that it was so. My point is we cannot legislate reality. I will take the marketplace with all its flaws versus coercive government. Which would you choose? I do not subscribe to your Manichean world view, in fact I find it ill reflective of the complexity and nuance of reality. You like to see things in a either this or that kind of way, and maybe that works for you, but
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Brent, let us look at human nature as it exists and not posit perfection to scientists and bureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin in the game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs and do the planning and make policies if true, thus, their careers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say, then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climate pause takes longer, then the people proposing climate change, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please that until recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My best bet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, as exemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. No Miami temps in London so far. This goes against earlier forecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. But if you have knowledge of workable solutions, maybe you could write about it? Even denialists want to hear what we all can do? -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 3:55 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going through the six stages of denial: 1. There is no global warming. 2. The science is uncertain. 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. 4. Global warming will really be good for us. 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. 6. Nothing can be done. Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to do. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Good point. But it wasn't entirely a command economy that achieved these technical wins. In other words you can say Sputnik in 57, but everything you listed appears to have had a capitalist basis. NASA could not have gotten off the ground withoutr Grumann, for example. GE, the boiling water reactor, the internet, the military internet in 66 without TRW. Why I like the prize model for innovation, is that it seems to work better nowadays, where as the command economy model works better in 1913 or 1948. I cannot be certain of this, or why this seems true. Perhaps, its not true and I am wrong, but for example when the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 3 years ago, we saw a flood of innovation coming to the rescue. From what I understand, the fix to the oil flood was stemmed by the design of a master plumber living in Kansas. The plumber was paid an undisclosed sum for his model, but there were lots of others, some from private companies, others from academia. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 6:21 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 2:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. If, but then you draw conclusions as if you had stated a fact. Decades after oil was discovered it too only supplied a fraction of the world's energy. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What's your point - that you can imagine some insuperable problem with solar power? The Sun might stop shining? What about not nearly so speculative exhaustion of easily extracted fossil fuel? What if fossil fuel runs out? What if it makes large areas of the earth uninhabitably hot and dry. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. You surmise whatever fits your prejudice. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Large cities do get a majority of electricity from a few sources. The cleanest in large scale hydroelectric, the dirtiest may be coal. If solar and wind contribute a minuscule supplemental amount of juice to the transformers, that's nice. I can guarantee that sun and wind do not provide much compared to dirty coal, natural gas turbines, uranium 235, and hydroelectric. What the issue is that making promises about the capabilities of solar and wind will not provide enough electricity, today, or 10 years down the line. People cannot live on promises, and transmission lines that suffer brown outs and black outs, because sun and wind cannot do the job, consistently, is no cause for comfort. Germany. As for Germany and its vaunted success stories with wind and solar, lets go to the mainstream progressive, pro-Green media. Germany now produces megatons more pollution on coal burning system (American Coal!) since it shut down its uranium burners. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/20/world/la-fg-germany-nuclear-20120421 and http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/business/german-offshore-wind-farms/ They are both, on your side of this argument, but realize that the ideology of electricity, rather then the engineering of electricity, causes big troubles. Freeman Dyson guess-timated once, that the Sun, in a single second, produces more power than humanity does in a single year. He posited that the Sun give off 33 Trillion times the energy that we might ever use. So, your concept must be correct, but engineering a civilization that can survive on solar power is, so far, a real bottleneck. This is our disagreement in essence. I would want a solar power system that can power humankind, that is tactile, that we can roll our tongues over, that really exists, and really does the job, and not just bright promises. We are thinking about human survival, you know? -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 6:29 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World -Original Message- From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 2:57 PM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World OK, a polemicist. Now tell me what city on Earth, say with a population of 1 million or more is powered, 24 hours per day, all year round, homes hospitals, factories, by your precious 40 gigawatts? This is versus bad electricity sources like coal, hydroelectric, uranium or natural gas. Peking, Boston, Tokyo, Moscow? Brussels? Miami? No large city on earth gets its electrical powered from a single source of electricity generation. The grid(s) is a vast diversified machine you just don't seem to get. Here is something for you to chew on: During the first half of 2012 Germany got more than a quarter of its electric energy supply from renewable sources. Last I checked Germany was a leading industrialized metropole of global importance and it is starting to get a quarter of its electricity from renewable sources (of which wind and solar comprise more than half) -Original Message- From: Chris de Morsella cdemorse...@yahoo.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: RE: Our Demon-Haunted World From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of spudboy...@aol.com Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 9:38 AM To: everything-list@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the idealists to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying Oh they're working on solar and soon.. Unacceptable. Tomorrowland existed no where except at Disney World. Naw. This is about getting the thinker to be realists, and not dreamers. There are more than 40GW of installed solar capacity existing now and the rate of increase of capacity is literally exploding. You don’t know what you are talking about spudboy; you keep repeating nonsensical opinions with no evidence for them whatsoever.You are being a polemicist; and that is all you are doing. -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, Nov 8, 2013 9:54 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted WorldOn 11/8/2013 5:48 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: If you hold the Rational Optimist view aka Matt Ridley, people will act altruistic much more, if they get a reward, then in they get jack. A dictatorship of your own preference is suitable for many, but not for most. Plus, think about pure materiality. If a cruel dictator has his goon point a semi-automatic at each of our heads and demands of us to immediately produce an energy source that will
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Don't you suppose that all those costs passed on to the poor public would have an X crosses Y moment, but now? Wouldn't Joe Sixpack be raging about the Goddamn Costs of electricity if this was so? Do you feel that all the people all over the world are susceptible to bribed, corrupt, rulers? Lets us considerJapan, after Fukushima. I have avidly, read, about the Japanese trying to find a substitute for uranium 235. Ever since the tsunami, I have looked at pictures of a floating island of rubble, heading for US territory Hawaii, California, I have seen pictures, of weird plant mutations of some crops, downstream from the Fukushima site. Japanese are now, desperately, looking as their islands have few other resources, they can turn to for lighting their cities. What I find is that it isn't solar or wind they are principally, looking toward now. They are researching the mining or extraction of methane ice in the oceans, know as gas hydrate or methane hydrate. I do not know what the damage to sea life will be, if much. I do know that I wrote about a news article from the science journal, Bioscience, from two dudes (professors) from the University of Colorado report bat kills up to a million from wind turbines. I am betting that on all other matters they are on your side of this argument, but this one gets people's ire up, because its a matter of fact. All I demand is that whatever energy sources we use that it be affordable, abundant and able to work on a 7 x 24 hour day basis. Plus, I don't like it when technology takes an ideological bent. Engineering should be engineering. Of course there's nocommercial incentive to switch from fossil fuel because whenyou sell energy from fossil fuel you don't have to pay allthe cost you impose on the public. Brent -Original Message- From: meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 4:07 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On 11/9/2013 9:50 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. ?? And that is significant compared to what? Nine million birdskilled each year by flying into building? Human deaths due tofossil fuel pollution? Annual $ cost of pollution deaths from a new 400 MW coal-basedpower plant. Taking the European valuation of $5 million per person(see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836), the ANNUAL costdue to deaths of Victorians (Australians) of a new 400 MW coal-basedpower plant = 50 persons x $5 million/person = $250 millionANNUALLY. Human disability due to fossil fuel pollution? HOWEVER, morbidity (illness) costs can be 6 times mortality costs.The Ontario Ministry of Energy study estimated that the costs fromlong-term exposure were more than six times those from prematuredeaths (avoidable deaths, excess deaths) (see:http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836). The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Sez your crystal ball. Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable substitutes are non substitutes. Of course there's nocommercial incentive to switch from fossil fuel because whenyou sell energy from fossil fuel you don't have to pay allthe cost you impose on the public. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
Let me ask you Jesse do you suggest any substitute that we can turn to for transforming world civilization to clean power? The only significant thing I can think of, would be hiring Craig Venter to produce some methane or hydrogen maker, that can, if necessary convert sea water to fuel. This would be nice, but it would make me like my critics, which is making promises with my keyboard, (Signing a Check!) that my technological, ass, cannot cash. (American expression) If I switched off the coal, the hydro, the nukes, the natural gas plants-people would die. Why? Because I would have nothing on had to turn to. So whatever way we do this, by funding research (which I have no faith in) or promising a gigantic prize, I go with the prize. Promises don't feed the kids or keep the lights on. Mitch -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 6:34 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 5:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. Which one? The idea that declining prices of solar panels are bad news for solar energy? Or the one that says Solyndra is representative of what happens when the government invests in solar and other forms of clean energy? If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. I only cited Kos as an afterthought, to support the point that the Solyndra story is being pushed by conservative media outlets (they provided plenty of links to original sources, so I wonder if you actually question the specifics of that post or if any link to their site would elicit a knee-jerk ad hominem dismissal from you regardless of its specific content). My main point, that Solyndra isn't representative of the outcome from government investment in solar, was supported by the three articles before that. It's fine with me if you prefer to address the other articles rather than the Kos article, but you didn't do that, in fact your response completely ignored the other articles and the evidence they presented. Did you glance over those articles? If so, do you dispute any of the factual points they made? For example, do you dispute the graph at the end of the Media Matters article showing a recent surge in the amount of energy from solar each year? Likewise, do you dispute any factual aspect of this part of the longer Forbes magazine quote I posted? when judged by its entire diverse portfolio of investments, the LGP has performed remarkably well. Indeed, with a capitalization of just $4 billion, DOE has committed or closed $37.8 billion in loan guarantees for 36 innovative clean energy projects. The Solyndra case represents less than 2% of total loan commitments made by DOE, and will be easily covered by a capitalization of eight to ten times larger than any ultimate losses expected following the bankruptcy proceedings. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. Decades in which it wasn't anywhere close to being cost-competive with oil, something which is changing now (see for example http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-solar-challenge-natural-gas ). Are you just assuming the future will be like the past, or do you have any other basis for predicting solar will always be just a fraction of world energy? Jesse -Original Message- From: Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com To: everything-list everything-list@googlegroups.com Sent: Sat, Nov 9, 2013 2:25 pm Subject: Re: Our Demon-Haunted World On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 12:50 PM, lt;spudboy...@aol.comgt; wrote: Chris, I just read a study by the U of Colorado, published in the Journal, Bioscience, claiming that up to 1 million bats have been killed by green energy wind turbines. The arrival of solar power, its decline in price, and thus it will power all human civilization never arrives. Why would the decline in price of solar power mean it can never power all human civilization? The lower the price the better for its prospects for large-scale adoption, no? Its what the math people call asymptotic, which in this case means, it never achieves target, it never gets there. The same with nuclear fusion, despite happy reports. It never gets there after decades of research. Thus, it cannot be Relied Upon to substitute for Dirty energy sources. What might prime the technological pump is the market place, where supply and demand are invoked, and there is commercial reason to produce minus government hand outs to crony companies, in Germany, and in the US. With tax payer monies, these companies vanish, like farts in a high wind, like Solyndra did. Unreliable
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 10 November 2013 12:34, Jesse Mazer laserma...@gmail.com wrote: Are you just assuming the future will be like the past, or do you have any other basis for predicting solar will always be just a fraction of world energy? Jesse There is no rational basis for this belief because solar energy incident on Earth far, far, far outstrips anything our puny civilisation can generate. I'm not sure of the exact ratio (and I'm too lazy to look it up right now) but it's at least thousands, probably millions to one. In my opinion no civilisation can call itself technologically advanced when it has a fusion reactor in its backyard yet gets most of its energy by digging up dead plants (originally powered by said fusion reactor, of course) and extracting the minute amount of energy they managed to trap. In 100 billion years they will look back and say you had all that energy available and you *still* screwed up because of stupid mammalian politics? All we have is black dwarfs, and we're doing OK... Admittedly that message from the future may have been slightly garbled in transmission, but I think that's what they said. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Consciousness is simply the perceptions of the first person singular, which are not available to materialist philosophy.
Dear Dr. Hameroff, I mean no disrespect, and with my only credential being that of common sense, I would like to suggest that you consider abandoning materialist solutions to the problem of consciousness in your series of seminars on the science of consciousness, for these can never work. This is because consciousness is simply the perceptions by first person singular. But materialist solutions can only give descriptions of consciousness, those of the third person singular. Kant and Plato have partly described the nature of the first person singular, but Leibniz has given us the most complete and logical definition in his platonic theory of perception: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/ So I invite you to look into the platonic, not the materialist, solution. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
The rich get richer via the stock exchange and similar financial institutions. This is done with software nowadays - a thousandth of a second delay in investing can mean the difference between accumulating and losing. This doesn't actually produce improvements in anything (except financial modelling software). It's a cloud of abstract numbers spiralling off into never never land with no connection to producing anything useful. On 10 November 2013 12:20, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 2:49 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Yes, Jesse, I do buy into that arguement. If you permit me, I will exclude DailyKos Kos Kids from your evidence, as the are far from a disinterested party in this matter. Whatever the politics, whatever the polemics, a technology has to do this, be successful. If solar is always just a fraction of the world's energy, despite decades and bilions, then I have some problem with proposing it. If, but then you draw conclusions as if you had stated a fact. Decades after oil was discovered it too only supplied a fraction of the world's energy. Or a successful solar tech, that powers all human activity, forever, may be 200 years away, for some unknown reason. What's your point - that you can imagine some insuperable problem with solar power? The Sun might stop shining? What about not nearly so speculative exhaustion of easily extracted fossil fuel? What if fossil fuel runs out? What if it makes large areas of the earth uninhabitably hot and dry. What should we do until that glorious day? We can say exactly, the same with fusion. Tax payer subsudies are fine, if they work. But I surmise these companies live for the subsidies, and not the big win in the market place. You surmise whatever fits your prejudice. Hence, my alternative of a grand prize to spur innovation, and win a giant profit that will wipe out an investors debts. I say we as a society have waited way too long, doing things the Statist way, lets let innovatoes, innovate, for the reward of an avalanche of prize money, plus tons of profits. I sense we are standing still, otherwise. And where are the great entrepreneurial advances of the past? Did private investors invent nuclear power, space flight, GPS, the internet, vaccinations, the Panama Canal, interstate highways. Free market capitalism is great for some things, but it's not going to invest in developing stuff with a 20yr horizon for return. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 4:53 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Your basically saying I am wrong for no contestable reason, you have no city in the world to cite to me that is powered by solar power or wind, for that matter, And there are none powered exclusively by hydroelectric power either. It's a completely specious critereon that you cite as though it meant something. Because B cannot now completely satisfy all demand for X currently supplied by A doesn't make B useless, nor does it make A desirable or necessary. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 5:12 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, let us look at human nature as it exists and not posit perfection to scientists and bureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin in the game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs and do the planning and make policies if true, thus, their careers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. Complete bullshit from the Faux News talking points. All the climate scientists are civil servants or tenured academics and have good job whether AGW is true or not. What they have on the line is their professional reputations and if any one of them had data to dispute AGW they'd be only to glad to make their reputation as the guy who proved AGW wrong. It's the deniers and obfuscators who only get paid by Exxon and the Koch brothers if they publish some junk science to obfuscate the question. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say, then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climate pause takes longer, then the people proposing climate change, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please that until recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My best bet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, as exemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. No Miami temps in London so far. This goes against earlier forecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? Nuclear (especially LFTRs), wind, and solar. 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? Of course not. No one has ever suggested that (except Deniers setting up a straw man). 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? ?? You mean the U.S. government refuses to act in the best interests of it's citizens: Vote them out. 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? Economic sanctions. I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. So you've already given up. I hope you've bought land in the Arctic. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 5:27 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Good point. But it wasn't entirely a command economy that achieved these technical wins. In other words you can say Sputnik in 57, but everything you listed appears to have had a capitalist basis. NASA could not have gotten off the ground withoutr Grumann, for example. GE, the boiling water reactor, the internet, the military internet in 66 without TRW. I didn't say the government had to do it with civil servants (although that's how LFTRs were developed). NACA did just find without Grumman and later became NASA. Westinghouse built the first power reactor for the Navy under direction from Rickover. The internet's technology (TCP/IP) was developed by academics at CERN and MIT. But the government had to set the goals, contract for the work, and tax to pay to make it happen. No investors came forward to fund space flight or NASA. Why I like the prize model for innovation, is that it seems to work better nowadays, where as the command economy model works better in 1913 or 1948. Nobody mentioned command economy, except you - another straw man. Brent I cannot be certain of this, or why this seems true. Perhaps, its not true and I am wrong, but for example when the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico 3 years ago, we saw a flood of innovation coming to the rescue. From what I understand, the fix to the oil flood was stemmed by the design of a master plumber living in Kansas. Les the Plumber from Boca Raton. Sounds like a Faux News wet dream. Les says the cap use looks like (on TV) the one he sent in a sketch to President Obama The plumber was paid an undisclosed sum for his model, but there were lots of others, some from private companies, others from academia. Sure, there were a lot sent in by first graders. 77,000 ideas were submitted by the public and 190 were selected for further review but none were used per Joesph Groveman spokesman for the spill response center. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 6:13 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Let me ask you Jesse do you suggest any substitute that we can turn to for transforming world civilization to clean power? The only significant thing I can think of, would be hiring Craig Venter to produce some methane or hydrogen maker, that can, if necessary convert sea water to fuel. You seem ignorant that converting sea water to fuel takes more energy than you can get from burning the fuel (hydrogen). So you still need a clean energy source to do the conversion. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 11/9/2013 8:17 PM, LizR wrote: The rich get richer via the stock exchange and similar financial institutions. This is done with software nowadays - a thousandth of a second delay in investing can mean the difference between accumulating and losing. This doesn't actually produce improvements in anything (except financial modelling software). It's a cloud of abstract numbers spiralling off into never never land with no connection to producing anything useful. Right. The liquidity of the market is necessary; nobody would buy stock if they couldn't sell it. But microtrading is just trying to profit on the noise. There have been proposals to tax it so as to make it unprofitable. But stock trading in general isn't really producing anything, it's just moving ownership around. The real *investing* is done by the startup investors. I have hope that cloud sourcing may provide a way for small investors like myself to participate in this real investing. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Re: [4DWorldx] Is mass mental or physical ?
On 10 November 2013 04:11, Richard Ruquist yann...@gmail.com wrote: Mathematical proof is all that is lacking. That is that particles like electrons and quarks are strings. That electrons and quarks have mass is established experimentally Well, they appear to, in the sense that they interact in certain ways. Does string theory and / or the higgs mechanism explain the equivalence of gravitational and intertial mass, by the way? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Spacetime is (nonphysical, platonic) mind
On 10 November 2013 08:13, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 1:57 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Tegmark thinks he will survive, if the gun works sufficiently well. if not he might degrade and eventually ... die. This makes no sense to me. It is annoying, but we can degrade a lot, yet we can't die (with just comp, or, ITSM, with just the quantum MWI). With comp, we can expect jump, and consciousness phase transition, though. Aside from not finding myself the oldest person on the planet, I see a problem with quantum immortality in that quantum mechanics is time-reverse invariant. So I should be 'past immortal' also. But as Mark Twain said, I do not fear death, in view of the fact that I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. If we are what our brains do it is easy to see why we should live from past (low entropy) to future (higher entropy), be born and die. Leaving aside time reversibility (which I am myself rather hot on) for a moment, if you're quantum immortal you can only expect to *eventually* find yourself the oldest person. Give it time. You have to go through the bit beforehand beforehand... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 10 November 2013 18:11, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote: On 11/9/2013 6:13 PM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Let me ask you Jesse do you suggest any substitute that we can turn to for transforming world civilization to clean power? The only significant thing I can think of, would be hiring Craig Venter to produce some methane or hydrogen maker, that can, if necessary convert sea water to fuel. You seem ignorant that converting sea water to fuel takes more energy than you can get from burning the fuel (hydrogen). So you still need a clean energy source to do the conversion. This would be a possible way of creating fuel for easy transport. One of the big points about petrol is that it's very transportable. The best solution to the world's energy problems imho would be to find a method of extracting carbon dioxide from the air and converting it plus water into petrol using solar power. Carbon-neutral petrol and we don't have to rejig all our existing transport systems. If we can extract more carbon than we use we might even cool the earth too. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Our Demon-Haunted World
On 10 November 2013 14:12, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: Brent, let us look at human nature as it exists and not posit perfection to scientists and bureaucrats. Climate scientist who peddle AGW have skin in the game. What's their reward? They get guaranteed jobs and do the planning and make policies if true, thus, their careers are set Bureaucrat's ,like politicians, want power over others and also have guaranteed careers. If AGW is more nuanced, shall we say, then the salaries, the power is diminished. If the climate pause takes longer, then the people proposing climate change, have to come up with an excuse. Notice, please that until recently, AGW is now called Climate Change. My best bet on this is that the term was change to cover all variations in climate, in case it doesn't get warmer, as exemplified by the UK's weather over the last 10 years. No Miami temps in London so far. This goes against earlier forecasts, doesn't it? Now to your Libertarian denial theme, let us say I am agnostic but deeply suspicious myself, but allow me to counter question. 1. What non-carbon fuel source do you have at the ready to replace climate damaging fossil fuels? 2. Do your solutions include switching off dirty power in the US, without a working substitute? 3. What do you recommend if the US refuses to comply? 4. Ditto, India, China, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc? I guess I am at step 5 and 6 on your scheme of things. But if you have knowledge of workable solutions, maybe you could write about it? Even denialists want to hear what we all can do? Although there are lots of grassroots movements on this, the real power to do some good of course lies with governments and big business. This is an infrastructure thing, like state highways, but on a global scale - there is no bigger commons than the environment, nor a bigger tragedy of the commons than ecological collapse. Can we get our fingers out of our arses and do something? I doubt it, but here are a few suggestions. We need lots more nuclear (yes, I know, and I live in New Zealand where around 70% of the power is hydro and wind). Subcritical reactors are best, they run on thorium, can't melt down, and can be used to reprocess uranium and plutonium into something less dangerous. However they can't be used as part of a weapons programme, which is why they've been ignored (except, I think, by India). We need lots more solar - the Sun produces far more energy that we can use, even the tiny bit that falls on Earth far exceeds our requirements. How much is going begging in (say) the Sahara alone? A useful by-product would be bringing Africa's economy up to speed, if it started exporting cheap power. We probably need some geoengineering like aerosols in the upper atmosphere for a short term fix, given that every week new climate records are broken, Australia and America keep catching fire, we have the biggest storm on record in the Phillipines, hottest year on record, hottest decade on record etc etc etc. We need a ton of research into renewables and carbon sequestration. Treating this as a war might help - it could be called the war on shooting ourselves in the foot perhaps. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
