That's certainly true now, but originally Minecraft didn't make use of GPUs and relied almost entirely on CPU. That said When it first came out I was playing it just fine on an older computer that had a four year old CPU. I guess it has always been more resource hungry than some people might expect but how many people had any experience with voxel games where the world wasn't just a static environment.

I see posts about the necessity of mods for minecraft all the time, but I don't see that as being the case among most of the people I know that play.

I've only ever installed mods to allow better textures, and that hasn't been needed for years now. So the most I ever play with is non-default texture packs. And I've been playing since around the time of the Penny Arcade strip. I don't play it a lot anymore but I'll go back to it for a few weeks here and there, I've probably got around 2K hours in. And I've played almost no multiplayer, I think I might have done a couple hours hosting a server for a few friends.

I don't know about that, vocal talent isn't that rare. Certainly there are a lot of people who don't have that talent and are trying anyways.There are still likely more singers than our modern media distribution methods will readily support. That isn't much different than it has ever been though. The term "starving artist" has been around for a very long time and for good reason. Even among the historic artists that have been held up as the masters of their art, they have rarely had success while still alive.

I know a number of musicians that are paid to play live on a frequent basis. And all of them have some other job that brings in the money and lets them pursue their musical hobby. Turning that hobby into an actual career is rarely successful. The person closest to that which I've known is an uncle who makes most of his money from traveling the county playing folk music during financial downturns, and crafting lady's haircombs with inlays and exotic woods during upturns.

It would definitely be a pretty extreme measure but the alternative is rapid over population and all of the joys that would bring. I would go for permanent sterilization for everyone, probably irradiating ovaries and testes. You'd probably want to collect and store some samples first though. Someone has a kid outside of the approved means, they can pick to be exiled or stay and spend the rest of their unextended life basically on parole. I'm not sure you can reverse the sterilization caused by essentially microwaving your gonads, although I suppose in time we could clone new ones. It should be a pretty cheap procedure to accomplish, plenty of people get it for free because of poor safety standards.

I think a very shallow screening process would be appropriate. Maybe very basic means testing to ensure the kid doesn't starve or freeze to death. And maybe a basic psych evaluation to try and weed out physcopathic parents. I don't think education level testing would be necessary at all honestly, with everyone living hundreds of years and being of sound mind they should eventually all end up much smarter than most of us are now. We'd likely see most of the population eligible to have a child should they win the lottery. In fact I'd just let everyone who hadn't had a child yet be enrolled in the lottery, then once a person won they could choose to be tested and have their kid, or sell/barter their baby voucher to someone else.

Someone else already mentioned that an actuary already ran the math showing that even with the elimination of death from old age and related causes only rarely would anyone make it to 1k years old. So over anyone persons lifespan they are likely to have the chance to have a child should they so choose it'll just be at a much slower pace than today.

Or, your children will eat your other children, or possibly you, and maybe both. Regardless they are very unlikely eat my children because yours are far more likely to end up sold into child slavery or prostitution by virtue of your locale. Which location is also so extremely removed from my children that any interactions at all are unlikely.

I'm not opposed to having large families, I come from one myself. And I don't consider the idea of restricting procreation rights lightly. But in the hypothetical scenario of eliminating aging it would likely be a necessity at some point, even if that point is centuries away.

By collecting genetic samples from each person they can then later have children if the opportunity arises. Sterilizing someone is hardly the same as nuetering. Sterilizing merely removes the ability to procreate via natural means. Nuetering would actually remove the organs, like testes, which fill other purposes also which would be unnecessary.

People that don't go with the anti aging treatments could procede to have their replacement kid, but if they want more they'd need to purchase lottery slots from others, or move elsewhere, like you said. In those other places were such laws aren't the standard you'll probably see an eventual poverty state with overcrowding and lack of resources. At that point depending on the situation wars will probably ensue over resources between the nations that didn't restrict breeding, and those that did. The winner could be the side with the most people but it's unlikely as they'll likely be very resource poor at that point.

Put your savings in a market indexed fund with as small of a management as you can find. Granted this is somewhat risky as the market could be in a down period when you need to take money out for something. But the market index has averaged something like 7% returns over the last few decades. Keep a few thousand dollars on hand for emergencies in a checking account or something and invest the rest.

You're thinking of forms of birth control that aren't meant to be permanent by and large. If this ever became an issue the most likely solution would be to only administer anti aging treatment through a contract. Part of the contract terms is that the person submits some reproductive samples and is then sterilized radiologically, which so far as I'm aware is not reversible. If someone is found to have obtained the treatment without abiding by the terms of such a contract they are forcibly sterilized with no samples taken. If you've already had children after the treatment became publicly available plus some grace period then you are inelligible for age reversing treatment.

Now of course you'll have people continuing to die from diseases, accidents, and whatever else. Those deaths create vacancies for new people, which can be filled by immigration and or new babbies. Who gets to have those babbies can be determined by lottery. If you want to keep it nice and capitalist you could allow people to sell their baby vouchers won through the lottery, but once you've won such a voucher you are ineligible to win another.

Well for meat raised mostly on pasture it is unlikely that water would have been collected and used for anything else. If you are counting that rain water that the grass used to grow which the cow ate, then are you also figuring all the wasted rain water that flows into sewer drains and falls on lawns through out the country?

When it comes to the grain that is used to supplement you might have a point. But then again I grew up in an area where they grew lots of corn and I don't recall seeing farmers watering their corn fields.

But, it's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave!.....

I switched to charter from AT&T, about a year ago. I haven't yet had to deal with their customer service and the internet service has been good.

AT&T made me sad though as I was customer of theirs for over ten years and while their customer service people were good, they weren't empowered to do much of anything. The service had gotten pretty bad and I was at the point that I had to replace the DSL modem at my cost just to see if that was the issue. They couldn't/wouldn't send me a new one even though the modem I had was the original they sold me over a decade ago. Instead they wanted me to gamble on buying a DSL modem and hope it was compatible with their system. Screw that I switched to cable, got a better connection, lower bill, and new equipment.

Maybe Charter will tank in the near future but so far it's been great.

Does the average worker have a retirement investment account? I was under the impression that people saving for retirement were in the minority. Even if you are saving for retirement you have to ask your self which is more important to you, a bit larger of a retirement balance or the proposed benefits from more taxes being collected? My wife and I discuss a variation on this every once in awhile. I would like to save a bit more, she would like to spend more making the house prettier.

My Mother in Law has commented on breastfeeding an infant, while behind the wheel, driving cross country, without wearing seatbelts. That was back in the late 60's early 70's I guess. I wouldn't even consider removing my child from their safety seat while a vehicle isn't parked these days. Of course some of her children were sent home from the hospital in a cardboard box that she was just supposed to put on the floorboards, different times for sure.

My younger brother used to never wear his seatbelt, arguing that he'd rather be thrown clear of an accident than be trapping in a rolling and or crushed vehicle. I had tried to tell him that the odds of that weren't good, even if he ended up out of the vehicle he'd likely get crushed. It all fell on deaf ears.

Then one day a high school buddy of his was in an accident while not wearing his seatbelt. He was thrown halfway out of the pickup truck when the truck rolled over and cut him in half. His friend died almost immediately of course and my brother now religously wears his seatbelt.

I seem to remember a study showing that pornography reduced sexual assaults and such.

Not accurate at all.

The prosecutor decided that the 137 shots fired by the officers in the dozens of patrol cars involved in the chase were perfectly legal. What the prosecutor didn't think was reasonable was the officer who jumped up on the hood of the car, after the 137 shots had been fired, and unloaded another 15 rounds into the two unarmed people in the car.

I agree with the prosecutor that what that officer did was unreasonable. But I disagree with the previous 137 shots being reasonable, at least given what information I've read so far.