With capitalism, you can use money to get more money, exponentially. It's hard to beat exponential.

You oughta temper your glee; we go down, we're taking the whole ball of mud with us.

I bet you even want to make water available at no charge. You probably think it should just gush freely at the push of a button for anybody. You probably think government funded agencies should install such devices at locations where people are likely to be thirsty. Communist. /sarc.

Knowing the geology is good; but I'd like to see us work on effective ways to use that knowledge.

It always comes down to money, especially when the area is already built.

Yes, if they are not the sharpest knives in the drawer, they're less likely to stab you in the back.

When theory conflicts with observation, You have two choices. You can modify your theory to fit the observation, or your observations to fit your theory. The first choice is what we generally regard as science. The second choice occurs in a number of circumstances including, but by no means limited to: religion, politics, mental illness, and general stupidity.

Note, checking to make sure that your observations are accurate is not the same thing as modifying them. "Did I fail to see the gorilla?" is valid when theory indicates gorillas should be present. "I saw a gorilla because my guru said I should" isn't.

Quite the opposite, I was pointing out that even people with no empathy at all could easily make the choice, in their own self-interest, which the study declares proof of altruism. Even if they remain anonymous to their victim, they may feel the loss of reputation in the eyes of the researchers is worth more than a few cents.

This is not entirely idle speculation, either. I took a game theory class, and everyone thumbed their noses at the "proper self-interested actions" recommended by game theory when their actions were public in favor of a reputation for cooperation. When the teacher made arrangements to make everything entirely anonymous, suddenly everyone turned vicious.

As a bonus, if the robots wear out, they can be easily disassembled.

And what does your economics theory says happens to profits for an inelastic good when production increases? Or in more specific terms, during a famine (low farm production) are farmers the first or the last to go broke?

Less shocking if you consider it as getting paid to attack someone, vs getting paid to do something painful. Even a sociopath wouldn't attack people for a few cents.

I think you may be overestimating your knowledge of both farming and economics.

And yet there's always several comments on his material. Granted, most of them complaining about Bennett, but clicks nonetheless. My theory is that the editors are trolling you.

Hey, this time he has a link!

The price of gas is only inelastic in the short term. Even if the price of gas goes up 10X for a week due to some fluke event, people will still buy about as much gas. However, if the price goes up 10X for the long term, everyone and their mothers will be adjusting some way or another to use less gas. Nothing is perfectly inelastic.

The downside of lower gas prices is that gas prices are too low (according to some people).

I can tell you as a fact that lower prices on some things are terrible. Specifically, low prices can cause something to be overused and then depleted, or it could have secondary bad effects, or it could impede the development or use of alternatives. I could believe this to be the case for gasoline, and could also believe a lower price would be better -- to be sure I'd have to integrate over the entire economy and resources and present and future technology.

Just to give some examples, the Tragedy of the Commons is an example of something being underpriced, and stupidly expensive monopolies are an example of something overpriced.