The workers aren't imaginary, they're in China. Well, maybe that makes them imaginary to some people in the U.S.

There's much less labour in designing, building and operating the automated plants than in building regular ones and then running them with people. And even though the people creating the automated plants will be better paid, the end cost of production will still be lower.

But now those people in China are going to need new jobs. And there are probably still jobs in the U.S. that could be outsourced to China in order to lower costs. In which case the displaced workers are actually other Americans.

get your head out of your ass and out of the sand

So they've got their heads stuck in the sand that's in their ass? I'm thinking anyone with that much sand in their ass (not to mention their head) should really be worrying about their problems first.

connected to a world-wide network that allows formerly unimaginable near instantaneous communication

Unfortunately it allows both good and bad communication. There's plenty of information out there, and there's also plenty of garbage and misinformation out there. And sometimes it can be hard to know which is which.

I remember some popular web site running this story about NASA finding what looked like plastic beads on Mars. And I would not be at all surprised to hear that somewhere on the internet there would have been something saying they couldn't be of natural origin and drawing any number of crazy conclusions from that idea and people believing that's the truth.

The internet is a tool which can allow you access to information from and maybe communication with some of the smartest people on the planet. Unfortunately it also allows you to connect with some of the dumbest people on the planet,

True, but there are way more stupid people out there than bad people so...

Hmm, I guess I need to think a bit more about my counter argument. Let me get back to you.

I'd say the money IS the property of the bank for some values of "IS". How truthfully is your house YOUR house while you still owe the bank money on the mortgage?

If the bank can give away the money and still pay what it owes to the customers then essentially the bank is giving away its own money. If the bank can't repay the customers or requires relying on some sort of insurance then they're really giving away somebody else's money and I'd say my original point still stands.

As long as all the money in the safe is the property of the banker then your example seems fine.

However as the money is usually the property of other people, your example is ridiculous, unless all those other people also consent. Good luck with that.

Now drop the capital "J".

I went to the family farm, and while there helped my uncle ack off a horse.

Yes, grammar does matter. So does saying what you actually mean to say. Like change the "J" to lower case.

I've thought about a number of different options for saving energy related to heating and cooling.

In a house you could use a diverter to run water from the bathtub drain through a radiator in the basement in winter instead of just sending all that heat into the sewer.

In the summer time you could make use of a radiator on the water supply to dump heat from the house into the water that's been cooled by the ground, then send that heat into the sewer.

When I see an indoor rink with a pile of ice from the zamboni sitting outside in the summer I wonder why they don't use the ice to dump heat from the cooling system that created it in the first place.

I have a dryer in my apartment and divert the hot air inside in the winter. I also use a dehumidifier to get rid of the excess humidity. The heat generated replaces heat that would otherwise come from electric baseboard heating.

Fracking: Great way of getting energy or GREATEST way of getting energy?

Since my mod points expired overnight and I can only give out fictitious ones I'll give you another +1 for such a nice illustration of the bias.

- USG invests hunderds of thousands or millions of dollars in training for 1334 soldiers and pays them a civil service salary

It would have been so much better if they had trained just 3 more soldiers.

On the question of using condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa, the pope says they don't work.

"You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms," the Pope told reporters aboard his plane to Yaounde, Cameroon. "On the contrary, it increases the problem."

Their stance does not seem to be logical or consistent. Given the number of people in Africa, including children, infected with HIV it most certainly is not moral.

If nobody is going to be blown up, shot, or poisoned, DHS probably shouldn't be involved

So it seems the problem is easily fixed. Just start shooting, blowing up and poisoning DHS. Now that I think of it, that would likely fix a few other problems as well.