True, OTOH, the marathon really only benefits the person who runs it, while the space program may improve the abilities of the entire nation.

Space is a small part of national expenditures i (~65B$/year) compared to healthcare (4300B$/y), and defense (850B$/year).

We've forgotten the other reason: because it is hard.

That sounds dumb but its not. Its the same reason people run marathons or climb mountains. Doing a complex difficult project trains us to be better.

Drinking causes a huge range of problems. The response that age verification is done for alcohol: That is true, but its done in a way that doesn't leave a permanent record. I think if there were a method to verify age WITOUT recording identity most of the objections would go away. But I suspect that isn't the point of the legislation. The goal is to limit adult access to porn, so its being done in a way that will reduce adult access

What organization would you trust to decide which acts should be shamed? Or do you believe in a "transparent" society where everything everyone does is public, so we can all judge each other on everything?

Its not the same. Showing ID at a bar or adult bookstore does not provide a permanent record, giving a website your ID does. The problem is that what is called "age verification" is really identification. In principal there are technical ways to verify age without providing any permanent record, but the porn companies quite reasonably do not want to be responsible for securing that information because they know how difficult it is to do that correctly.

The problem is that there is legal material that is still embarrassing. See for example https://thehill.com/homenews/e... where a university provost was fired for posting his own completely legal porn videos on a porn site. Think if the issues when some politicians preferences in legal but embarrassing porn are revealed. .

Cropping, contrast / color adjustment, noise filtering, conversion to different file formants, rescaling, are all widely used and necessary to have high quality photos. I don't see how that type of (IMHO harmless) processing can be distinguished from AI manipulation by an embedded signature. It may be possible to for example verify that an image was generated by the New York times, which has some real value but only if the technology is widely used

People don't get to just claim anything they can see is "sacred" to them. Cultures worship the sun, the moon, the stars, the oceans, the Earth. That is all fine, but its absurd that worshipping something should give you control over that thing.

Sacred places like graveyards and churches are regularly moved or destroyed as necessary - has to be that way or the entire world would end up covered with untouchable sacred sites. I have no problem protecting places of special importance to a group, but the number of those places on land not owned by that group has to be limited.

Maybe this insane overreach, claiming rights 14 MILLION square miles of land, will cause people to rethink how to deal with this sort of claim in the future.

Laser isnâ(TM)t crazy, but clouds / atmosphere block wavelengths that are the easiest to convert efficiently. OTOH the microwave densities are pretty high even if they are less than solar - they may be above safety limits.

Iâ(TM)d love to see space solar but the economics seems difficult

Hybrids are good for some applications. If someone mostly drives a short commute but with occasional long trips a hybrid can be an efficient solution

Pulse jets were still using conventional combustion, not detonation. Detonation waves travel much faster than flame fronts - faster than ambient temperature sonic.

Detonation waves have higher temperature and potentially higher efficiency, but lots of engineering challenges

I said âoerace, gender, etc.â No implied indication which was more serious. I would not be surprised if women are tipped better than men are but I havenâ(TM)t seen any statistics

Jobs where tips are a major part of income may be discriminating based on race, gender, etc. Nothing insures that customers are obeying non-discrimination laws.

Iâ(TM)d like to see tipping banned on that basis AND previously tipped jobs pay increased to keep the same average total income. I expect and accept that prices will increase accordingly

Some people feel that their jobs, no matter how non-elite are their way of contributing to society and as a matter of pride and self-worth they continue to work as ling as they can.

Of course others continue to work out of economic necessity

In the long term AI will likely provide a great reduction in mankindâ(TM)s greenhouse gas production if we ask it to. It can also eliminate disease, poverty, inequality, war, and all unhappiness as well if that is what we tell it we want.

Forever

Itâ(TM)s not clear what level of technology we could maintain with a drastically reduced population, and the resulting loss of skills, along with vast infrastructure damage.

You might be right, but I donâ(TM)t think itâ(TM)s clear. If we had plans in place it would be much better, but politics might harm our ability to react decisively until it was too late (eg see Covid)
Even now we are not trying very hard with asteroid deflection because âoenukes are badâ.