351–356 of 356 posts
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Why would we willingly give up this fight? Isnt that idea defeatist? "Well in 100 years, theres no way we can continue, so may as well give up now".
Well in 100 years do you want to be remembered as a partner who helped out or an archnemesis who tried everything to abort progress? Lee Kwan Yew has a pretty good book on the subject, it's worth considering.
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1) Energy density matters. You cite no data to back your claims up, in fact the opposite is true. Lithium batteries pack just as much energy per kg. Lithium is at 41.7 kJ per gram [0], Oil is at 45 kJ per gram [1] Battery tech has more room for improvement than the hard chemical/physical limits of oil. 2) Job creation is a farce. We don't more oil riggers any more than we need more lamplighters and switchboard operat…
1.) By cost per barrel and energy provided, oil is impossible to beat. If there was something cheaper, it would have mass adoption. 2.) Job creation is a farce? So lets just give everyone money? We passed NAFTA and destroyed the mid west, 15 years later everyone in those states realized what happened and then voted for Trump. The whole nation was caught off guard by something that was hiding in plan sight. Government…
2.) Yes! Precisely. If you're paying people to dig a hole, then some one else to fill it, why not skip the meaningless labor and just give people the money? It wastes less energy/labor. Obviously we need some people to do important jobs for society, but this is a driving principle behind a universal basic income. It's not about entitlements or free money, it's about what's most efficient for our country. While I'm undecided whether I'd vote for him in the primaries, Andrew Yang is actually doing a great job of educating people on this, I suggest you take a look at his website if this is new to you: https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/. A really good alternative to this would be reducing the hours in the work week.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons [1] https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/ex/sustainablecitiescollecti...
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Well in 100 years do you want to be remembered as a partner who helped out or an archnemesis who tried everything to abort progress? Lee Kwan Yew has a pretty good book on the subject, it's worth considering.
I'm going to die in 50 years, why get out of bed?
To that end, live a life in accordance with death, an event which you expect, don't try to deny it.
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Whoever sells the treasuries gets the money. That's how buying and selling works.
You understand that China is unlikely to just leave the cash sitting around, aren't you? That money will probably end up being dumped on Forex crashing the US dollar.
Thats not a one sided situation, that's a situation far more likely to destroy the chinese than the US.
They're using their USD to buoy their crashing currency, not to dump out of spite to try to crash the USD.
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>Unless that is an absolute certainty then and this is a game of high stakes chicken, then I would say the USA has more to lose. Nothing is ever certain and that's not how people make decisions. What are you waiting for Chinese to use manipulated currency to buy local factories all over the world? It's already nearly too late.
> Nothing is ever certain. That's exactly my point. I was pointing out that unless the previous comment was absolutely true (i.e., China would be wrecked and the USA would not be) then even if both fare badly the USA would __relatively__ be hurt more.
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I'm sure those minerals are mined elsewhere.
In copper, top 3 are: Chile, (one fifth) China , Peru (similar to China). In iron: Australia, Brazil (half of former), China (similar to Brazil). In aluminium: China , Russia (similar to China), Canada (tenth of former). So except for aluminium, this would be very problematic but not insurmountable. I bet Russians won't sell their aluminium to US without many strings attached.
Iron is incredibly abundant in the USA, and regarding copper, see here:
https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-copper-has-been-found-wor...
"Of the identified copper that has yet to be taken out of the ground, about 65% is found in just five countries on Earth -- Chile, Australia, Peru, Mexico, and the United States. "