KipIngram

I don't support the idea of a world government at all, and the standardizing you refer to is essentially a world government action. That's a general theme with me, though - I'm generally in favor of decentralizing power in all forms as much has we possibly can. Here in the US I think that we should push power back out of Washington to the states and localities. The central government here has much more power than our Founders envisioned, and I don't consider that a good thing. That said, I'd certainly rather see foreign aid go to the sort of things we're talking about here rather than to military aid and so forth. I'd also prefer to see that aid directed toward things that will help the target nation get up onto its own feet (teach them to fish, rather than give them fish). Direct "to the mouth" aid fosters dependence and just perpetuates the problem. I think that the best thing we could share with developing nations is "how we did this." The United States became the most prosperous nation on the planet in just a couple of centuries. Obviously we had/have great natural resources - a critical factor. But I also give a lot of credit to our social / economic culture. I don't really mean the contemporary one, dominated by huge corporations - I'm more referring to the way things worked over the whole two century period, which had a lot more to do with small and medium size economic entities. Some nations just don't have good natural resources, and they're in a tough situation. But some do - they could learn how to harness those resources in a prosperous way just as we have.

Well, without disagreeing with your point that it will cause allies to be less forthcoming in the future, the even more fundamental reason you don't do it is that it's just wrong - it's a violation of trust. But Trump's made it very clear that his mouth is absolutely unfiltered. The man feels inherently superior to everyone around him, and that's not surprising given that he's been the supreme dictator of his business operation for most of his life.

Yes, if we can get there then our energy problems ought to be permanently dealt with. I think passively safe fision reactors (pebble bed, etc.) can buy us a big chunk of time (centuries at least), but ultimately that still leaves us steadily exhausting something that there's a limited supply of. I think the fission era would be very much an "oil era #2." Though if recently announced glass battery tech pans out we could really make EVs work, and at least we'd be treating the environment a lot better during that era as compared to now.

The problem is that all the "small bits" add up. I see the primary purpose of a national government to be operating with the goal of enhancing the lives of the citizens of that nation. Love of freedom aside, I do support an appropriately well-run welfare program (not the one we've got, which is ridiculously bloated and inefficient). But I just don't see that the United States should take on responsibility for the welfare of every person in the world. I don't think you're an asshole - as I alluded to in the last post I just think that different people have different beliefs about very basic things like whether or not we "owe" each other help and support or whether it should be a voluntary thing. I disagree that we are born with that kind of obligation to one another - i surely don't see it as the responsibility of everyone else to guarantee my personal welfare. But us disagreeing doesn't make either one of us a bad person.

Yes, I call that "removing individuals' personal freedom." But I'm guessing we disagree at a very fundamental level about whether people do or do not have moral obligations to others that they don't even know. Debates don't solve anything if the debaters are starting out with different fundamental assumptions. I'm just a very freedom oriented guy.

Well, the rules say this is the Homework Help forum, not the Homework Answers forum. Let me see if I can help but not answer. Draw an equivalent circuit with just one capacitor and one resistor. See if that makes it more clear to you.

Yes, politicians of both stripes are masters of that tactic. Pay attention to this riot over here, or that school shooting over there, or Putin, or whatever else works. But pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. In an IRC chat channel I hang out in we call it the "hey, there's a squirrel" method.

It is a nice sentiment, but my point is that it's not a decision the government should make for people - individual people are perfectly capable of writing a check if they want to express that nice sentiment.

What do you mean f and (x) are both square rooted? It's just one thing, isn't it? Isn't f(x) the function f with argument x? Can you ask the question again? I don't find what you're going for to be very clear.

I'd think that before investing in terraforming we'd do exploratory missions to try to determine whether or not there was anything of use there. And if there was, you'd probably first try to acquire it using robotic labor, which dodges the whole need to change the atmosphere.

Yeah, the charge all winds up on the outside surface anyway. And the time required for that to happen (charge relaxation time) if short compared to any other aspect of the physics of the situation (like 10^-16 seconds or something within an order of magnitude or two fo that).

Actually if they are counter-rotating at the same speed then the gyro torques cancel "externally." Whatever structure is holding them in a parallel configuration will experience stresses, though, so that would have to be a strong enough design hence weight etc. I actually "experienced" this recently - my wife bought my daughter a couple of those little spinner thingies people use to just play with or spend nervous energy. I could hold one between my thumb and finger, spin it, and feel the gyro torques. But if I held two and spun them opposite directions (matching speed as best I could) that effect was much diminished. These gizmos: http://www.asseenontvandbeyond.com/Fidget-Spinner--The-Original-Stress-Relief-Toy_p_357.html?gclid=CjwKCAjwjPXIBRBhEiwAz-kF6Q65lc10fWJHVOZ-sQcSuW9mDPS7nKAosobLxjXtjiZo03OVvIYCPxoCI_gQAvD_BwE

I think that pretty much says it all right there. Frank Zappa used to give away cassettes of his performances, figuring that a live recording still wasn't like having the album because you don't get studio quality, and it deprived the pirates of their profit source. It's been really interesting to watch the "arms race" between various forces squared off against each other in the technology war. Regarding piracy itself, I oppose pirates that record performances for commercial purposes (trying to make a profit off the backs of the creative artists). I don't think someone who's just recording memories the same as he or she would record a kid's birthday part represent a problem. Problem is you can't tell them apart at the time. I suspect this technology will mostly prevent non-commercial recording (the "memory makers"). Serious pirates will learn how to defeat the technology. I felt the same about the whole "Let's ban WhatsApp" thing in England. Banning Whatsapp won't stop terrorists; it won't even stop them from using encryption. They'll just fall back to less convenient ways of doing so. The people that will be hurt are the everyday casual users of encryption, who like the idea of privacy but aren't going to go to the trouble to set up and use GnuPG, for example. Things like this rarely wind up accomplishing the originally stated goal; they mostly just have unintended consequences.

I think it would depend very much on whether you had opportunities to demonstrate those new skills prior to the overt focus change. I think companies will acknowledge self-education, if you can prove it to them. If you had to get the new gig before being able to show you could do it, you might face an uphill climb. But if you can mount some sort of transition it would probably go well.

I've often thought that a good tax plan would be as follows: Use negative income tax as the only welfare program. Everyone would start with a poverty credit. Up until some level higher than that credit income would be taxed at a rate designed to offset the credit. For example, a 50% tax rate up to 2X, or a 33% rate up to 3X. One the credit was fully paid back, the income tax rate would drop to 0% up to a rather large amount (enough to represent "extremely comfortable affluence.) A cap would define the upper end of the 0% bracket. Above the cap, impose an extremely stiff (quickly reaching near 100%) rate. This tax bracket would be designed to prevent "super wealthy" individuals such as Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. Use a value added tax for general revenue raising - a flat VAT rate on everything with no social engineering allowed. Important features of the program (i.e., things that would "break it" if not implemented correctly, would include Don't set the poverty credit too high. If people can live a content and happy life on just the poverty credit, you destroy incentive to earn. Set the multiplier associated with paying back the poverty credit high enough. People receiving the poverty credit need to feel that if they do earn money it will bring them immediate marginal benefit. If too much is kept back to repay the poverty credit then once again the incentive to work one's way off the welfare program would be destroyed. Set the cap at which the "super wealth prevention" tax kicks in high enough. People need to be rewarded for their success - if the cap is too low once again you will destroy incentives. I could see the cap being as high as a $1 million a year, or more. We don't want to destroy all wealth - just the ridiculously extreme wealth. I would structure business taxes in a similar way (except there would be no poverty credit for businesses). I believe that an economy based on small and medium sized businesses would be better than one based on huge corporations, so I'd use a "super wealth prevention" tax for businesses to to prevent the emergence of such huge entities. I would also use tax policy to penalize companies that outsource jobs - American companies should promote the welfare of American workers (and German companies that of German workers, etc.) Generally speaking I'd like to see an American economy in which the "most wealthy" class of people numbered in the millions or tens of millions, and in which the class of "biggest businesses" numbered in the tens or hundreds of thousands. This would spread economic power far and wide, instead of concentrating in the hands of a few. No single entity or small group of entities would be large enough to "buy the government." The reason for the VAT for general revenue is that I would expect almost no one to pay the large "super wealth" prevention tax. Achieving incomes significantly above the cap would bring one no benefit, so there would be no reason to seek it - the tax would wind up raising very little revenue. The purposes of the income tax would be 1) welfare implementation and 2) super wealth prevention - not revenue raising per se.

I don't think frequency changes. If you had different frequencies for the incident and refracted waves you'd wind up with phase discontinuities at the interface, I believe. I guess the formal way to say that is to say that you can't satisfy the boundary conditions for Maxwell's equations at the interface if you presume a transmitted wave that differs in frequency from the incident wave. I'd like to also say that this has to do with keeping the same amount of energy in each photon, which requires the same frequency, but I don't have my head around that well enough right now to make it stick.

I'm sure others will reply, but I have a general observation to offer. The problem isn't getting the reaction to sustain per se - the problem is maintaining the very high temperature, very high pressure conditions required for ignition in the first place. I think they'd still have to maintain those conditions for fusion to occur, whether they were below or above break-even. So I'm guessing no - if we could do that reliably we'd probably also be able to sustain a net-positive process. I'm not an expert in the area, and I thought about not posting. But I decided to go ahead and caveat it properly because this way if it's nonsense someone will teach me something.

No more so, in my opinion than has always been the case. The history of the world is replete with "trouble spots." We are kept much more well-informed about it all than our ancestors were, so it would be easy to think that it's a special age.

I have to agree with you 100% on your second paragraph. The problem is on both sides. That's why I deliberately listed both "Cops Lives Matter" and "Black Lives Matter." The bottom line is that *lives matter*. I'm fully supportive of appropriate law enforcement, but that does not mean I don't think there are bad apples in the police barrel, for example. One of the things that happens here is that the news media focuses on the extremes; people that actually do have a well-balanced attitude on these things just aren't sensational enough to make good news. I don't want to screw anyone over - I'm happy to let other people lead whatever life they want to lead. But anyone who wants my good will has to offer me the same (i.e., let me lead whatever life *I* want to lead). And I don't expect anyone to help me make my life what I want it to be - that's on me. Honestly, I think "live and let live" is really the only moral obligation we have to one another. (I do support a basic sustenance welfare program, but I regard it as a gift of compassion, not a moral obligation). I could not care less who someone else sleeps with. And I couldn't care less how someone else worships. That has nothing to do with me. However, the ones that interpret that religion as calling for the death of me and those dear to me because we don't share their faith? That does have to do with me - those people are problems. It's just never appropriate to stereotype a whole group based on the actions of a few, though.

Yes, we're fine. And neither of us has changed his mind in any way. Which is the way this sort of thing usually goes. And while we were all busy not changing each other's mind, we've gotten seriously OT.

I think you're definitely onto something there with broader focus driving the need for progress. I made a reference to "external stimuli"; you really expressed it clearly and precisely.

Who pledged that (on behalf of America) and what qualified that person to make decisions of that sort for the free people living in America? I don't see how charitable individual American people are as being one itty bitty bit of the US government's business.

How about we forget Trump (I don't mean that literally - not "forget" but rather cease making him the distracting center of attention) and focus on the fact that we are all Americans (in America at least) and are in this together. The Cop Lives Matter people and the Black Lives Matter people and this group and that group and the other group? We're all Americans and we share life in this country. How about we start focusing on recognizing that and trying to be more understanding to our opponents, while at the same time not just rolling over and playing dead? I remember a time in this country when the Democrats and the Republicans worked together. Tip O'Neill was a Democrat - a very liberal one - and Ronald Reagan was, well... *not* liberal at all. The opposed each other on many many issues. But they could go off into a room, hammer out a compromise, and come out smiling and cracking jokes to one another. In other words, if we could approach the issues that divide us with an attitude of "none of us are going to get exactly what we want, but we'll work something out we can live with" instead of being intent on total destruction of the adversary we'd be a lot better off. This total polarization we've acquired in the last decade or two is terribly, terribly unhealthy.

Wait a minute. Up until now I thought you were quibbling over the amount of bad effects arising from social media. Are you really claiming that there are none??? https://childmind.org/article/how-using-social-media-affects-teenagers/ https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/blog/social-media-and-young-peoples-mental-health http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/children/11943810/Excessive-social-media-use-harms-childrens-mental-health.html https://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/cyberbullying-social-media.html ... etc. Just open your eyes online - this information is everywhere out there. I have witnessed it affect my own children, so nothing will ever convince me it's not a problem. I've seen it. Regarding the alcohol topic, I think you misunderstood me (or I wasn't sufficiently clear). I was speaking primarily of teenagers (near adults - the ones who most partake of underage drinking now). I'm quite well aware of the adverse effects alcohol can have on small children / infants. So I think we were looking at two different things.