It takes jobs to make RVs. Those jobs are exactly the opportunities you complain about the lack of.

You could also start with:
  - two molecules that (moderately) accurately copied each other (though getting them both at the same time makes the time scale to the big event much longer.)
  - A molecule that makes NEARLY always inacurate (but occasionally acurate and complete) copies of itself. (This also drastically pulls in the time to a two-molecule solution.)
  - A molecule that makes inaccurate copies but with string of typical errors that occasionally loops back to an accurate and complete (mod a few errors in unimportant places) copy of a previous version.

These could eventually mutate into a version that can perform a one-step copy-itself loop.

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I've always been partial to an RNA-only origin. RNA can do it all (self-copy, enzymes, energy transport batteries in at least two sizes with self-pluggin-in connectors: ATP/ADP and UTP/UDP, expression regulation, directed genetic code editing, etc.). It's also still doing a lot of that in current lifeforms, especially in key parts (such as many of the components of the DNA duplication, DNA repair, DNA-to-MRNA copy, gene expression regulation, MRNA exon-eliminating editing, and MRNA directed protein synthesis machinery)

The statistics are misleading and unreliable. There's no general agreement on the number of illegals in the country; I've heard estimates from 10 million to 40 million. There are frequent news reports of prosecutors refusing to indict illegals, even repeat offenders. Police are reluctant to look into murders among drug distribution gangs. Murderers not prosecuted are not convicted.

Yes, the heavily processed cell phone cameras can do surprisingly well, and there are advantages in depth of field for small lenses. But some difficult conditions require big sensors and big lenses to get high quality results, notably low light and extreme telephoto. You can't beat the physics of the Rayleigh limit and needing a large number of photons.

People can learn to code in a particular language in a few weeks with some help. It's hardly more than typing,

Perhaps most people can learn to do simple things in most languages. Few people can quickly learn to do complex tasks involving recursion, pointers, structures, etc.. Imagine trying to write a C++ compiler after "a few weeks with some help." There's too much complexity and too many new concepts to learn.

Your larger point looks correct. Achieving competence in traditional grade school subjects is very important. Most people would benefit from learning at least the basics of the use of tools that could lead to a trade. Alas, the public school shop classes I took were very inefficient. There's no value to hand sanding the same block of wood for 2 weeks.

The DOE is probably unConstitutional. If so, that makes its every action illegal.

Here's that first sentence with them...

They've known for a while now, and been talking about it for well over a year.

They've known for a while now, and been talking about it for well over a year.

On Jan 1 2020 a new IMO (International Maratime Organization) regulation went into effect. The shipping industry drastically lowered the sulfur content of its fuels and the SOx content of ship exhaust plumes dropped by about 77%. (Other aspects of the fuel change also reduced some particulate pollution, too.)

The COVID sequestration also reduced shipping (and cloud-seeding exhaust from it), along with aircraft contrails and upper-atmosphere dust, and dust-generating industrial processes and transportation activity, which (like volcanic dust) also reflect sunlight over the ocean and lower temperatures.

I've seen claims that the reduction in ship exhaust plumes, alone, are enough to account for ALL the sea temperature rise since 2020, and that with the low-sulfur fuel in continued use the bulk of that excess heating will continue even as activity ramps up post-COVID.

There is strong scientific evidence that getting vaccinated significantly decreased the chance of death from COVID, and therefore were a net benefit for the population.

Your conclusion does not follow from your initial claim. The vaccine may well have been beneficial on net short term (say one year) but there is slowly accumulating evidence that the vaccine has decreased quality of life and lifespan mid and long term.

Furthermore, Pfizer and Moderna have been strongly pushing in advertisements for continuing use of their vaccines beyond the first 2 doses, despite evidence that the third and later shots become ineffective quickly and are more likely to cause severe damage. Those two companies have become massively corrupted by their own success.

It's not long term. It hasn't even been half a decade.

Regarding the "hockey stick" graph. (Taking absolutely no position on whether Mann was honest or not, competent or not, etc.)

I was under the impression that the Hockey Stick graph had been shown to be defective as an indicator of warming, primarily because it took tree ring data as one of its proxies for temperature, but carbon dioxide concentration increases alone have been shown to substantially promote tree growth even in the absence of temperature increases. So how much of the sudden rise in the graph is from temperature increase (if any) and how much just from increased CO2 levels is unknown.

But I don't have any links to reliable scholarly articles examining this issue. Do any of you?

"changing perceptions" through marketing? that sounds like an arms race with the other side. Long time ago we thought the right way to change perceptions was through good education and development of critical thinking skills.

Where did it all go wrong :)

It all went wrong when each sides of the discussion concluded that scientific papers supporting the other side were marketing fake-news, trying to gaslight them into supporting a scam to let the opposing side acquire money and/or power, rather than actual science.

Warmists think evidence against any aspect of their side's story is akin to smoking research sponsored by tobacco companies. Skeptics think any evidence for a global warming story has been corrupted, ala early drug war research on psychedelic drugs, to feed government power grabs and attempts to put rent-seeking taxes on commerce (e.g. Gore's carbon-credit exchange).

Now neither side believes academic papers on the subject. We'll just have to wait and see what the climate does.

Following this paper's prescription, of course, would just put the nail in the coffin on any remaining hope of convincing the population to pay attention to the sort of propaganda it prescribes. (Assuming the very existence of the paper hasn't already done that.)

Are you a product of the system you are advocating? If so, Q. E. D. for your opponent.

The shared payment of these things is a system created by power-lusting politicians trying to secure their re-elections and the appointments of their family members and cronies to cushy, overpaid jobs. Every other excuse is window dressing.

Flight time is about 20 years. (Proxima is about 4 light years away and the swarm is averaging about 1/5th lightspeed.) I suspect even some of us boomers can hang in here that long - even if life-extension treatments don't become available.

Oops. Maybe not. They're talking about 75 years before getting around to a launch.