351–360 of 443 posts
It saddens me whenever I go out wit my friends and I try to have a conversation, that everyone is glued to their phones and can't have face-face conversation.
Even sadder is when you see this happen to families, with the kids' eyes glued to the phone screen instead of interacting with their families
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Heh, yeah. It's like talking to climate "skeptics" - people who believe climate change is real but disagree on the level of human agency. You can show them graph after graph of greenhouse gas emissions being pumped into the atmosphere at alarming rates and they'll say "I'm not that alarmed, we don't know how much of an impact it will have." Meanwhile, coral reefs are bleaching, Florida is flooding, and we are experie…
Yea, climate change is ultimately a problem of risk and risk management. And the "climate skeptic" position that we can't assess the risks well is just amazing, as if we shouldn't worry because we can't tell how bad it could be, or how likely the worst effects are.
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If you look beyond reminder apps, I think things look a little different. There are good aspects to automation and some shortcomings as well. I'm not saying people need to maintain survivalist skills. But I think there is a danger in relinquishing your will and control to data. How will people, in the future, be able to adjust to catastrophe? I have no pocket computer, what should I do? Can I eat now? What can I eat?…
I think that ignores that there is always a spectrum of people who want differing levels of control. Even if there apps to suggest all our actions, there will be people that use them sparingly or not at all, because they want to feel in control. This is acceptable and normal, and also leads to situations where some people do maintain survivalist skills. Our population is homogeneous in almost nothing, which is one of…
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If you look beyond reminder apps, I think things look a little different. There are good aspects to automation and some shortcomings as well. I'm not saying people need to maintain survivalist skills. But I think there is a danger in relinquishing your will and control to data. How will people, in the future, be able to adjust to catastrophe? I have no pocket computer, what should I do? Can I eat now? What can I eat?…
I think that ignores that there is always a spectrum of people who want differing levels of control. Even if there apps to suggest all our actions, there will be people that use them sparingly or not at all, because they want to feel in control. This is acceptable and normal, and also leads to situations where some people do maintain survivalist skills. Our population is homogeneous in almost nothing, which is one of…
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What happens if we spend hundreds of billions of dollars on reducing CO2 emissions and it turns out it was all for naught? That money has to come from somewhere. It could be spent on healthcare, getting people clean water, etc. To me that would be a tragedy.
Yes. It would be tragic to cut out polluting forms of energy production that destroy rivers and lives.
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If you look beyond reminder apps, I think things look a little different. There are good aspects to automation and some shortcomings as well. I'm not saying people need to maintain survivalist skills. But I think there is a danger in relinquishing your will and control to data. How will people, in the future, be able to adjust to catastrophe? I have no pocket computer, what should I do? Can I eat now? What can I eat?…
I think that ignores that there is always a spectrum of people who want differing levels of control. Even if there apps to suggest all our actions, there will be people that use them sparingly or not at all, because they want to feel in control. This is acceptable and normal, and also leads to situations where some people do maintain survivalist skills. Our population is homogeneous in almost nothing, which is one of…
We'll be relegated to a state where there are a few "important people" and the rest are basically just vegged out (with a few pockets of 'natural people' here and there). People will not even notice this happen as they will slide into this state willingly and happily. Just as we slid in to a sugary diet without complaint.
It's hard to make the case for "inconvenience" in life, it's harder, it takes more energy, it's not efficient, and so on. But I think if we are to remain a useful species (not just a few useful people), we have to contrary to our inclination.
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One thing that really ought to be stressed about Chernobyl is that it was a really shitty reactor design (probably just about the most unsafe reactor design ever) manned by poorly-trained and incompetent people. With the outlier of Chernobyl, nuclear energy has a very good safety record. Shoddy and dangerous Soviet engineering has a very bad safety record. The operative variable here is shoddy and dangerous Soviet en…
FINALLY! Someone who understands the reality of the situation and backs it up with FACTS! If people weren't so terrified of nuclear energy by movies like Silkwood or TV shows like The Simpsons they might actually look past their own emotional hinderances and do some trivial comparisons, like, say, the extraction-to-power-generation death rates of nuclear energy versus coal and oil (not to mention air pollution) of th…
These media strongly questioned those institutions based on stories of cases in which they seem to have failed.
If operators of nuclear power plants manage to reduce the effectiveness and autonomy of the institutions that are working to guarantee safety, the situation gets more like the Soviet Union. One way of thinking about this is that the most useful lesson of the 1970s anxiety about the nuclear industry is less "nuclear power is dangerous!" and more "how effective and independent are our institutions, and how do we know?".
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Whatever you tax becomes more expensive. Whatever is more expensive, you have less of. Your question can be restated: what's your overall economic goal? You tax to achieve that.
I'd tax rent-seeking, and the most effective way to do that is a land value tax.
Allowances for that which is reasonable. Disallowances for that which is not.