So what about the crashing of the US dollar?

[GaijinPunch]

Americans are the group of people least able to handle a complete economic collapse. With their bizarre culture of consumerism, indulgence, luxury and vanity, losing access to the basic necessities would be incomprehensible to the average middle class citizen. It is unfortunate that they are all armed with automatic weapons, I don't see things being pleasant if it ever reaches the brink.

Hand in your geek card. You've completely overlooked Japan.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

Should have written 'loss of' biodiversity. No, biodiversity itself isn't a problem
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/july ... 72414.html

Ahh I see, interesting article by the way.

[Skykid]

Yes, oligarchs and the super wealthy are human too, but what kind of persuasion do you think exists that will get them to sacrifice a portion of their earnings for the good of the common man. That would be unprecendented.

It's not a matter of "persuasion" - it's absolutely a matter of force, albeit non-violent force, at least I would hope so.

Yeeeah, good luck with that.

I hate to sound like a pessimist (fascist?) but non-violent force to get the wealthy to start sharing something with the less fortunate usually ends with them initiating some kind of violent reprisal themselves.

You saw my recent Venezuela example? People died. In Thailand it's volatile. Those people in tents are rioting and threatening any authority.

And these are the guys with cash.

Try to take from them and they will buy themselves protection, either through underhand political means, or something less clandestine but just as reactionary.

I tend to think this is all past the point of discussion. We're coming full circle back to Communist dissolution.

[Jonathan Ingram]

With their bizarre culture of consumerism, indulgence, luxury and vanity, losing access to the basic necessities would be incomprehensible to the average middle class citizen.

Now that's not very fair. The so-called culture of consumerism is hardly limited to the US. You can extend it to pretty much any place where wage is the form of labor payment, commodity is the primary form of production organization and money serves as the universal equivalent. So, basically, everywhere is that way. It's why BulletMagnet's suggested solution of changing the mindset to facilitate an economic change is at best unrealistic. The "consumerist" mindset is preceded by the economic reality.

I hate to sound like a pessimist (fascist?) but non-violent force to get the wealthy to start sharing something with the less fortunate usually ends with them initiating some kind of violent reprisal themselves.

Why? Fascism's advocacy of the use of violent force is hardly its distinguishing feature.

But you're spot-on on the futility of the non-violent approach.

[neorichieb1971]

Its just my opinion but the reason the world is in turmoil is simply because there are too many people in the world. The more people, the more opinions, the more religions, the more wars, the more everything, even shit.

The USA is setting a new precedent every single day. Each and every day that they get away with financial tinkering and living it up as they have been, the more they will be hated by everyone else. Essentially the USA is the money GOD.

I heard on facebook that America is building a new fighter jet that costs $1.3Trillion. Surely thats tinkering numbers all by itself. If anything cost that much it would have to come from outer space.

[Skykid]

I heard on facebook that America is building a new fighter jet that costs $1.3Trillion. Surely thats tinkering numbers all by itself. If anything cost that much it would have to come from outer space.

What difference does it make if you can print as much money as you need.

[BryanM]

FDR's iconic "I welcome their hatred"

It's very depressing to see Obama go "Inequality!" and then the zombies go "CLASS WARFARE!" and then that shuts Obama up. Every time.

He literally has people trying to figure out a way to talk about it without being accused of class warfare. I have your solution Mr.President: grow some balls, admit that there's a class war going on, and that the average working man is losing it. It would, what do they say, resonate with people?

Fuck we just had an election were we rejected the guy offering to give everyone's boss a tax cut and maybe start another big land war or two. We're maybe ready to hear that much.

I heard on facebook that America is building a new fighter jet that costs $1.3Trillion. Surely thats tinkering numbers all by itself. If anything cost that much it would have to come from outer space.

God don't even get me started on the F-22 and F-35. You wouldn't think there could be a bigger waste of lives, money, and potential than the space shuttle but here we are.

Let's see what the designer of the F-16 thinks about it instead.

(He doesn't mention that it melts in the rain.)

[neorichieb1971]

I heard on facebook that America is building a new fighter jet that costs $1.3Trillion. Surely thats tinkering numbers all by itself. If anything cost that much it would have to come from outer space.

What difference does it make if you can print as much money as you need.

The difference is what is actually spent on the planes and what is not. Do you really think anything could cost that much? Thats 1300 billions if i'm not mistaken, not to mention that most countries GDP's couldn't match that.

Why would you need another fighter jet anyway? The USA has the biggest military in the world (and then some) and they still want more. This is just a REALLY REALLY bad excuse to dump tax payers $$$$ into some unknown quantity. Something that if tax payers knew what it was, they wouldn't go for it.

[system11]

The sky isn't falling, unless we're talking about climate change, biodiversity or the human population.

Don't really understand the part about biodiversity, can you elaborate on that?

Should have written 'loss of' biodiversity. No, biodiversity itself isn't a problem
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/july ... 72414.html

This is why I don't give a shit about 'green' measures.

It's because they don't give a shit about addressing the root cause of all the problems - humans. Human population has proveably been responsible for extinctions looking at centuries of data, and every time someone raises the question of population control they're automatically dismissed as insane/evil. I was born in 1974, the population was 4 billion, now it's over 7 billion. Three billion more mouths to feed, millions of acres of land needed for housing, three billion more people generating waste, consuming resources of all kinds. Apparently millions more worshipping fucking sky pixies and firing rockets at eachother.

Every other world problem you care to name is absolutely insignificant compared to the damage being caused by our species outsmarting natural selection, disease, the food chain and so on. It's the elephant in the room and precious few people are talking about it at all. Eventually there won't be elephants in any rooms, because they will all be dead, and it will be our fault. That article while nearly getting it right warns of effects on human health, despite human health being the cause.

As for inequality, sorry to break it to some of you but people are not born equal, and some are worth more than others. I'm worth more than the person who scanned our shopping at the supermarket today. I'm worth less than a good science teacher.

[BulletMagnet]

As for inequality, sorry to break it to some of you but people are not born equal, and some are worth more than others. I'm worth more than the person who scanned our shopping at the supermarket today. I'm worth less than a good science teacher.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone argue that everybody should be considered "equal" when it comes to monetary compensation, and rightly so (though I certainly have seen the notion used in numerous attempts to change the subject): the actual issues at hand are 1) Opportunity, i.e. has everyone been given a "fair" chance to both demonstrate and profit from their abilities, and 2) Degrees, i.e. a few decades ago a CEO was worth 10 to 20 times more than a rank-and-file worker, nowadays it's several hundred times more (and that's just talking base salary, before you even get into bonuses/investments/tax breaks/etc.); have CEOs really proved themselves that much more wonderful in every way than their subordinates in the years since, or is something else at work? I guess you could also toss the matter of whether what we "value" needs a reboot in the first place, i.e. for all our talk about how important education is, teachers earn far, far less than athletes and entertainers, to name an off-the-cuff example or two (and some particularly slimy parties insist that they still earn too much).

And before the inevitable "you'll never get rid of the problem no matter how hard you try", yes, that's obvious enough, but it's also no excuse not to try to minimize it as best we can, or at the very least ensure that we're not being actively shoved in the opposite direction outright by the more shamelessly cannibalistic members of our species.

[BryanM]

We're already facing a population decline, vis-a-vis Calhoun's death by utopia. You have birth control to thank for that. We don't need to murder people with ovens. Seriously don't put people in ovens.



The "high" projection is almost certainly wrong and crazy optimistic; the peak will be at around the ten billion mark. Then it'll sink, just like with the mice.

Assuming global warming or peak oil have little impact in that timespan.

As for inequality, sorry to break it to some of you but people are not born equal, and some are worth more than others.

Measuring people by their value according to how much currency they have on a spreadsheet somewhere isn't what we're talking about here. We're talking about how great it would be if we did not throw people into ovens or intentially increase the crime rate just so five guys can own everything, as the individual is rendered ever more obsolete and powerless as time goes on.

It's also ridiculous that you're comparing peasants to peasants. It's great that you think doctors, electricians, and plumbers are ubermensch and the rest of us are scum, but seriously. They're peasants, too. They weren't the ones that told you what to think and vote for when you were a kid. The people who did that made their overall share of everything grow 300% on average thanks to your help.

Not because of anything they did or provided society. The richest royal families of '73 aren't 300% "better" than the royalty of '13, no matter the yardstick you use. They did it using you. You made that happen. You agreed they needed to own more of our assets, more of our land, more of our country. And the central processing unit. That helped many sectors slough off many many peasants.

You can scream "numbers don't mean anything" all day until you're blue in the face, but those of us who prefer a hammer and a sickle over a hamburger hold math and science in higher esteem than everything else.

[Mischief Maker]

As for inequality, sorry to break it to some of you but people are not born equal, and some are worth more than others. I'm worth more than the person who scanned our shopping at the supermarket today. I'm worth less than a good science teacher.

Worth more or less in relation to whom? Toward what goal?

[system11]

Not because of anything they did or provided society. The richest royal families of '73 aren't 300% "better" than the royalty of '13, no matter the yardstick you use. They did it using you. You made that happen. You agreed they needed to own more of our assets, more of our land, more of our country. And the central processing unit. That helped many sectors slough off many many peasants.

None of this makes any sense, is it a quote from some poorly translated anime?

Some people deserve more money than others.
Some people deserve more opportunities than others.
Some people should be valued more than others.
Some people have more money even if they don't deserve it.
Some people are valued more without good reason.
Some are simply born into a better situation.

You can cry and cry about it all your life and it will never, ever change. Genetics aren't even handed just to begin with. I'm tired of being told I should care about people less lucky than me. I'm not lucky, I'm insignificant and unremarkable, I owe absolutely nothing to people I don't know or like other than common courtesy. I'm not going to start giving a fuck anytime soon about equality.

That was my point.

As for population decline, the lowest estimation is still twice as much as the population when my parents were born. Birth rates need to drop significantly, and it will suck for old people. Having a reduction back to 1940s levels would be a dramatic improvement and at least greatly delay some of the looming problems.

It's not going to happen though, but luckily everyone reading this thread will be dead by the time things get really ugly.

I have absolutely nothing positive to say about the future of the human race.

[neorichieb1971]

Talking of being "lesser" or "greater" in terms of value to society. What is taught at Harvard/Cambridge/Oxford and all the best Universities in the world that actually makes those people successful? In context to what you use in the real world I don't really see what they could learn that would automatically make them successful. Obviously I'm not privileged to have been to these places.

Do they skip Math and English and just get to the "How do I make shit tons of money?" class.



Its a strange find in my circles but I just saw a mention of the netflix show "House of cards" starring Kevin Spacey. I am up to date on it and I find it hard to believe thats a true portrayal of the US political system. Surely not?

[system11]

As for inequality, sorry to break it to some of you but people are not born equal, and some are worth more than others. I'm worth more than the person who scanned our shopping at the supermarket today. I'm worth less than a good science teacher.

Worth more or less in relation to whom? Toward what goal?

Simple. Anyone can do the supermarket job. If that person didn't exist they'd fill the position within a day, there are no pre-requisite skills and nobody would even notice. Do you remember the people who serve you in a mall unless they're particularly attractive (see: genetic inequality)? Probably not. I don't.

I'm slightly harder to replace, and my work allows other people to work, businesses to function. I have skills. Much of my income goes to the state and I take virtually nothing from it.

The science teacher is the most valuable of all. A good teacher is hard to find, teachers are charged with educating people in the hope that they will become more valuable to 'society' in the future. They pass along a concise record of the knowledge learned by the whole - from scientific achievements to lessons from the past. Teachers are underpaid.

[PAPER/ARTILLERY]

I have absolutely nothing positive to say about the future of the human race.

Considering this as a new sig...

[system11]

I forgot to link this earlier. I used to run charity events on PSU, all the proceeds went here because they're one of the few places trying to make population an issue people talk about:

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/

Of course we're about 2 thousand miles off topic now.

[BryanM]

Everyone is easy to replace. Doesn't matter what slot they occupy. No one is a special snowflake.

None of this makes any sense, is it a quote from some poorly translated anime?

Oh, you're just trolling.

"The top 0.1% had 7% of everything when you were born. They have 21% today. Left unchecked, in forty years they will have 50%. Forty years after that, they will have everything. You're advocating complete social collapse."
"That's an anime thing isn't it?"

Sigh.

Things don't change or happen "just because". Especially man-made systems.

Your irrational terror of a Malthusian apocolypse being an example. We have ample resources to support ten billion peasants. There's nothing magical about the number where it suddenly becomes "Oh no ten billion that's too big of a number. Two guys too many. We're dead now."

The only two forces that can change that are global warming and peak oil. The global warming will decimate our arable land long it renders it impossible to survive outdoors during the day time. The peak oil can at least be worked around somewhat. And we will, indeed, have a pretty good idea if extinction is inevitable from these forces by the time we're old men. Front row seats and all.

And the reason to care about peasants becoming homeless is so they don't shank you in the streets to pay for their sustenance. Every sociopath checks the crime charts and goes "Ok, I like living in a country that isn't Central America. I'm glad our poors have better options in life."

[Ed Oscuro]

BryanM and Mischief Maker get the gold star for this thread.

However I have to admit something else: System11's 'old fashioned' focus on population is important. If I was going to trade in generalities, I'd say that it seems every generation has some issue it cares about, while it tries to forget about all the previous problems. Population growth is still one of these problems. With respect towards BryanM's contribution, I'd say that at the moment we clearly do not have a system that works long-term to give what's thought of as a high standard of living - even if the population is kind of flat - without continued harmful effects on the larger biosphere. But I'll stop before Tom Clancy's ghost retroactively puts me in with the very-relevant (snicker) ecoterrorists from Rainbow Six.

But the economic model we use also seems to require that the population continues to grow. Additionally, we don't get to choose throwing away the poor without throwing them in ovens. Poor people tend to have more kids than do the wealthy - which has something to do with opportunity costs and the intention of having somebody from one's family survive and hopefully even thrive. Fortunately, poor people do not necessarily breed poor, undignified people. The wealthy world has got to find a way to get over its own distractions and technodrugs if it wants to have its own babies having an impact on the world, rather than trying to blame poor people for doing what has been determined a successful model by all life on the earth. At the same time, it would be devastatingly helpful to the problem of wealth inequality if people stopped strangling off the fruits of the modern economy under the guise of decent profits.

Still, one of system11's central points seems to be right here. Without free energy (which isn't going to happen, ever), the future is not so much Star Trek and more like gently growing old and dying. Population expansion, like economic expansion, or that lovely sphere of gold to Jupiter thought experiment BryanM mentioned a while back. In my view, it would be best if we started thinking about these problems now, rather than later. At the same time, I wonder how I square this with my distrust of austerity measures. The answer is probably - we'll still be selective in what we want to acknowledge, but at the very moment we can say that many things

It's harder to imagine something more closely aligned with population control than green policies, however. Green policies might be there in part due to nostalgia for the ancient forests, or for reasons of the morality of letting non-human-dominated lifeforms survive (this is mostly a distant memory, in fact), but they also sync up very well with controls on the tendency of living things (not just humans) to live beyond their means. We humans don't have no foxes, like the rabbits do, keeping us in check. But we can say "boy, it's easy - just a nuke every now and then, or a genocide," but those are really terrible answers even if you don't look at them morally. Alternatively, we could say that strongly following green policies will help us prevent many of the other problems caused by too many people with too few resources to go around.

Ironically, "the money" is the least important real consideration. Again, money is an abstraction which is supposedly representative of our power to get other people to do things for us. If you can't breathe the air, can't drink the water, and don't have room to lay down and sleep, what good is your trillion billion dollarz of funny money? I find that the best economists can understand and laugh at this apparently unserious state of affairs, while never losing sight of the fact that it's the impacts of people that ultimately matters.

He literally has people trying to figure out a way to talk about it without being accused of class warfare. I have your solution Mr.President: grow some balls, admit that there's a class war going on, and that the average working man is losing it. It would, what do they say, resonate with people?

I didn't much like Noam Chomsky before today, and I still don't, but this reminds me of a line I read out of a TomDispatch he wrote recently:

In the 1950s, President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles explained quite clearly the dilemma that the U.S. faced. They complained that the Communists had an unfair advantage. They were able to “appeal directly to the masses” and “get control of mass movements, something we have no capacity to duplicate. The poor people are the ones they appeal to and they have always wanted to plunder the rich.”

That causes problems. The U.S. somehow finds it difficult to appeal to the poor with its doctrine that the rich should plunder the poor.

And later:

As we are all surely aware, we now face the most ominous decisions in human history. There are many problems that must be addressed, but two are overwhelming in their significance: environmental destruction and nuclear war. For the first time in history, we face the possibility of destroying the prospects for decent existence -- and not in the distant future. For this reason alone, it is imperative to sweep away the ideological clouds and face honestly and realistically the question of how policy decisions are made, and what we can do to alter them before it is too late.

And, I would add, we don't do this by scapegoating various groups of the Great Unwashed or by viewing things that don't matter in isolation.

But all this needs to be understood that the critical points - energy sources is a prime one - are still controversial, and we don't know how long we really have on the clock when it comes to cheap(ish) energy. I've heard some stuff lately that says that energy policy is moving in essentially the right direction in the U.S. despite the criticisms coming out of West Virginia (and Western Pennsylvania, I might add). But then I hear other stuff that says that even this is too optimistic.

I never can shake away the long-term picture here. What's feeding 10 billion people good for if we still have to destroy that system in the future, if it eventually becomes unsustainable? Best-case scenario is that we somehow flatline population growth, long term, without destroying the economy. Now that I think about it, isn't this what they did in Star Trek? Except there they also had the questionable benefit of WWIII dramatically reducing the world population.

[system11]

Everyone is easy to replace. Doesn't matter what slot they occupy. No one is a special snowflake.

None of this makes any sense, is it a quote from some poorly translated anime?

Oh, you're just trolling.

"The top 0.1% had 7% of everything when you were born. They have 21% today. Left unchecked, in forty years they will have 50%. Forty years after that, they will have everything. You're advocating complete social collapse."
"That's an anime thing isn't it?"

Sigh.

That's better. Except they won't have everything. It's not possible, because they have to give workers something - or they won't work. They'll just have a proportionally larger amount of the total imaginary money that exists, when taking into account all the money we peasants have no access to anyway. If in 2014 Rupert Murdoch has 20 billion pounds, and I have 20 - in 4 years he may turn that into 20 trillion, and I will probably have about 30. The fact that he has 20 trillion is of little or no consequence to me because I and all my fellow peasants will still be about the same place relational to eachother.

Using examples of super-rich is thus pointless.

If the UK government cared about equality at all, which it doesn't (and which is strange because most of them are peasants too), it would try to do something about peasants feeding on peasants, but it doesn't. Ruperts 20 trillion does not affect my life, but the proliferation of buy-to-let mortgates taken out by peasants with £30 utterly fucks the ones with £20. The ones with £30 will never go to Ruperts dinner party, but they'll happily stamp on the face of everyone else in their scramble to do so. This is just another facet of human desire to hoard and consume resources for the self.

Your irrational terror of a Malthusian apocolypse being an example. We have ample resources to support ten billion peasants. There's nothing magical about the number where it suddenly becomes "Oh no ten billion that's too big of a number. Two guys too many. We're dead now."

If I have one 9v battery and I power a single bulb, it will last longer than if I power two. This is basic and obvious. 10 billion consume resources faster. Other species die primarily from pollution and habitat loss. 5 billion people produce less pollution and use less space than 10 billion. Again obvious. I'm sure we can feed 10 billion, but we will wreck the planet faster doing so. The elephants will look at us with sad long faces, it will be your fault because you wouldn't put people in ovens.

The only two forces that can change that are global warming and peak oil.

Peak oil isn't that big of a deal, although I'm sure there will be wars fought over it. The writing is on the wall for the petrol/diesel engine. Combined fossil fuel scarcity causing the lights to go out and all the electric cars to stop is more of an issue, because those guys who built a nuclear power station right next to a fault line proved that all reactors everywhere can and will explode, causing mutant babies just because it's Tuesday. Since then governments are being very shy about nuclear, because it scares simple minded voters. These simple minded voters are the ones who if presented with a question sheet asking if they should a) put people in ovens, b) build nuclear power stations or c) push all the elephants into the sea, would probably decide they didn't like elephants much anyway - because of 1) irrational fear and 2) a belief that they have infinitely more right to the planet than *every other species on it combined* - except for cows and chickens who really do go in ovens.

And the reason to care about peasants becoming homeless is so they don't shank you in the streets to pay for their sustenance. Every sociopath checks the crime charts and goes "Ok, I like living in a country that isn't Central America. I'm glad our poors have better options in life."

This is an important and valid point, but on the other and uncompromisingly harsh side of the scale - do you know what happens if you feed rats? I have no answer to this problem, but throwing free sustenance at an ever increasing pool of people who don't do anything doesn't seem ideal, just the least unpleasant. I live extremely close to some places like the infamous 'benefits street'. You haven't lived until a borderline feral group of children threaten your property for no reason other than you walking past, while their parents stand chain smoking in the door and yelling ineffective abuse at them. It wasn't even my property, I was renting it from one of the people with £30 to my £20.

[neorichieb1971]

I know this is all nice to know stuff but we can't change anything. Democracy would have taken care of all this if it were possible.

What I'm more interested in is getting the liars, the inadequate and the failing out of governments.

[system11]

I know this is all nice to know stuff but we can't change anything. Democracy would have taken care of all this if it were possible.

What I'm more interested in is getting the liars, the inadequate and the failing out of governments.

I think no government should be able to enact a law (aside from actual emergencies, times of war etc) without a public vote, unless it was in the manifesto they were voted into power on the basis of.

That would fix ... a lot.

[Skykid]

What I'm more interested in is getting the liars, the inadequate and the failing out of governments.

That will be the bankers and oligarchs then. And in their eyes they're succeding.

What you're looking for is guns.

Unfortunately they can buy more of those than you can.

Democracy is here to stay, deal with it!!! 1! 1

[BulletMagnet]

The fact that he has 20 trillion is of little or no consequence to me because I and all my fellow peasants will still be about the same place relational to eachother.

Using examples of super-rich is thus pointless.

You can't possibly think this. In its pursuit of near-exclusive self-interest to nothing short of cosmic proportions, the ruling class affects what we eat, where we can live, what our kids learn in school, what we earn for our labors, what we pay for both taxes and commodities, whether or not we can find work of any kind, who we can vote for, which amenities a society offers to its citizens, which rights we can claim at work and in society at large, what manner of medical care we can get, and countless other facets of our existence, to a greater degree with each passing day. Do you honestly believe that this is somehow the way it must be (as mentioned earlier, it wasn't always thus), or should be?

Except they won't have everything. It's not possible, because they have to give workers something - or they won't work.

They made quite a lot of people work for absolutely nothing for hundreds upon hundreds of years, until their governments, for various reasons, finally forced them to stop. And nowadays they're simply shifting the labor market away from people who have come to expect some manner of living wage for their work and dumping it onto destitute, desperate populations with no workers' rights and governments who are as willing to exploit them as they are. And those in the former group have been making less and less for several decades now - I believe the average person's purchasing power in the US is lower now than it was in the 60's. "Something" ain't what it used to be.

Short version: whoever you are, you can earn and earn and earn until the day you drop dead, but you will have absolutely nothing to show for all that earning unless someone sees fit to give it to you, and most of the people in a position to give anything substantial, despite their constant insistence to the contrary, will not do so unless they're forced. These are not people deserving of a constant benefit of the doubt, let alone admiration, emulation or capitulation.

Since then governments are being very shy about nuclear, because it scares simple minded voters.

Presumably the fact that it produces the most toxic and long-lasting waste of any form of energy production has nothing to do with it.

[neorichieb1971]

At least we can expect to live in decent homes, eat decent food (if we choose to) and get educated enough to get a job. For me thats just about

So going back to my question earlier that nobody answered about Harvard/Cambridge etc. I assume now that the highest of education teaches those (who pay through the ass for it) how to exploit the system to continue to be successful. Whilst the rest of us are taught how to fit within the system.

That certainly explains why these people at the top are so corrupt.

[system11]

Presumably the fact that it produces the most toxic and long-lasting waste of any form of energy production has nothing to do with it.

In very small amounts in sealed containers, rather than spewing pollution into the air. Nuclear is responsible for fewer deaths and less pollution than other feasable methods of power generation. Unfortunately since the Japan incident countries like Germany have stepped well away purely as a political posturing statement for dumb voters - which is a shame since a lack of investment and development in the technology is why we don't already have plants that recycle 90%+ of their own spent fuel.

There are no real alternatives to the technology, we can't continue strip mining the planet.

[BulletMagnet]

Unfortunately since the Japan incident countries like Germany have stepped well away purely as a political posturing statement for dumb voters - which is a shame since a lack of investment and development in the technology is why we don't already have plants that recycle 90%+ of their own spent fuel.

For whatever it's worth, the same argument, i.e. "we haven't invested enough in it, that's why it isn't as good as it should be", is frequently invoked when it comes to solar, wind, geothermal and other renewable energy sectors. That said, I'm not enough of an expert to say precisely how much water the notion holds in any particular case, nuclear or otherwise.

[Ed Oscuro]

This is an important and valid point, but on the other and uncompromisingly harsh side of the scale - do you know what happens if you feed rats? I have no answer to this problem, but throwing free sustenance at an ever increasing pool of people who don't do anything

You're drawing heavily on some discredited Galton eugenics ideas here. As I said, there's literally nothing that prevents poor people from having excellent kids. If we believe your story, then the human race is just still a bunch of hunter-gatherers because we were all poor and nobody ever had any ambition.

And on nuclear energy - there's a lot to say here, but painting the opposition as just "simple minded" is totally wrong. Nuclear energy has never been cheap, in part because it is dangerous and everybody has agreed that it needs to have expensive safeguards.

Really, what you've been writing lately is just embarrassingly uninformed and you should feel bad.

[system11]

This is an important and valid point, but on the other and uncompromisingly harsh side of the scale - do you know what happens if you feed rats? I have no answer to this problem, but throwing free sustenance at an ever increasing pool of people who don't do anything

You're drawing heavily on some discredited Galton eugenics ideas here. As I said, there's literally nothing that prevents poor people from having excellent kids. If we believe your story, then the human race is just still a bunch of hunter-gatherers because we were all poor and nobody ever had any ambition.

And on nuclear energy - there's a lot to say here, but painting the opposition as just "simple minded" is totally wrong. Nuclear energy has never been cheap, in part because it is dangerous and everybody has agreed that it needs to have expensive safeguards.

Really, what you've been writing lately is just embarrassingly uninformed and you should feel bad.

I'm not drawing on anyones ideas, I judge based on what I see. What I see is a species which simply grows until the resources run out, but unlike other creatures whose numbers depend on resources, we're advanced enough to shape our environment in highly destructive ways. I live in a country where the welfare state functions such that some hard working families have a worse standard of living than others who have never worked. Again I judge based on what I see, I have seen this, I have lived literally next door to examples of this. My sister (1 child, divorced) at one point chose not to work because she would have been worse off. If you have not seen this, then you're unqualified to judge the opinion of someone who has.

And on to nuclear power - I never said it was cheap, I said several countries backed off from investing in it purely as a knee jerk vote winner because lots of voters are terrified of things they're told to be terrified of. You yourself have fallen into the trap claiming it's dangerous. It's the same as pointing at Malaysian airlines and saying flying is dangerous - there are proportionally fewer deaths attributed to flying than driving, cycling, or even walking. Nuclear stations are significantly safer than coal burning ones, and cause fewer deaths, whether you look at accidents or pollution. I hope that renewable efficiency will see many more improvements but really we could have done with more nuclear stations being built 10 years ago to address problems now. Burning more coal is not the solution and it flies in the face of the governments stated targets of reducing pollution via renewables and green levies (these efforts have driven an increase in 'fuel poverty' by the way, for the socially minded). We import electricity from France, and most of that imported electricity came from what type of station? I'm sure you can guess.

We'll probably see the most innovation in this area from China. I think the only realistic future for energy production is a mixture of renewables and nuclear. I don't think it's possible to reach a point where everything is clean and everything is profitable though, all of this needs to be heavily state subsidised, one of the few times you'll see me saying 'spend public money'.

Of course if there were significantly fewer people, we wouldn't need as much power to begin with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgyumGSF9-4

[BulletMagnet]

My sister (1 child, divorced) at one point chose not to work because she would have been worse off.

Follow-up question: do you think the real problem here is that the standard of living being offered on the public dole is so unduly generous that a fair number of people are powerless to resist it, or that so much of what's on offer from employers nowadays is so paltry that the government has been forced to compensate (to some degree) to avoid having even working people starving in the streets (I imagine you've already seen my past rants about how full-time McDonald's employees are openly told by the company to apply for food stamps and Medicaid)? If your sister was in a position to make a real living wage (not anything huge, but enough to live with some measure of comfort, dignity and security) from a job she was considered "qualified" to do, how much longer do you think she, or most anyone like her, would choose to remain on welfare?