The ability to survive a covid infection is not exactly something that I think humanity vitally needs to be selected for. For instance, you likely have the ability to survive covid, since most people do. But you lack intelligence. Not pruning out the person who is vulnerable to covid, but intelligent enough to understand the worth of vaccines, is far more beneficial for humankind.

Nature isn't conscious, and the fitness function it picks for us doesn't necessarily makes for better humans. It makes for humans better suited to that environment, but we're humans: we modify the environment to suit us. That's what allowed us to go places so hostile we couldn't possibly survive in, such as the moon. That's a far more valuable trait to our continued species success than whether we can weather the newest virus that evolved to attack us.

The rest of us realize that vaccines work **because** of that. Your immune system needs to be trained against what it's defending you against.

You can choose to train it by being infected, which puts you at risk because it allows the virus to replicate while your immune system ramps up, or you can train it safely with a vaccine.

That's what I'm saying. I don't want you to be forcefully vaccinated. But you don't have a right to go to school, or enter private businesses. If those places want to require vaccines to keep people inside safe, they can, and they should. If you want to be an idiot, you can stay home and be excluded, that's your business. You don't get to increase the risk of others just because you're exercising your right to be a moron.

In the tech industry?? I communicate via instant messenger to the person sitting beside me in the open plan. Literally nothing changed in our communication method.

Isn't that done via calendar software, just like any other meeting? No one goes around asking people when they're free and taking notes.

First, I'm not convinced there's any value in team building events. It always seemed to me to be one of those bs things suits latch on to, like power hand-shake moves. Second, even if I'm wrong, you do know when everyone is on the clock. If you schedule it and tell people to show up, they will show up. Then they can go back to remote working the rest of the time.

Agreed, but if your company is so disorganized that it's a burden if they can't do impromptu events on short notice, I don't think the problem is remote working. It's not going to THAT huge fucking burden on employees to make plans for someone else to take their kid to school that day, or whatever else they need to plan in order to make the commute. A week's notice is good enough, and if you can't do that, what the hell is wrong with that company?

You think it's less of an issue for employees to have to dedicate commute time every day than it is for them to find a way to free up that time once in a while?

The effect to causality is the same. If you can get a signal outside the light cone, it doesn't matter how you accomplish it, you can use it to send a signal to the past.

People at different frames of reference don't agree on what's simultaneous, and for any event currently in the future, but outside your light cone, you can change your frame of reference so that it's in your past (but still outside your light cone, so you can't send a message to it). That is, unless you can communicate outside your light cone, even if it's by taking a wormhole shortcut.

I'm a free market fiscal conservative, so one of my biggest policy problems with Trump (I specify policy problems because I'd say my biggest problem with him is his abuse of office for personal gain, including the incompetently attempted coup), has been his protectionist policies with regards to tariffs. The real question is, "why were republicans suddenly for tariffs?" Democrats actually remained consistent, and they actually agreed with Trump on that front, even during his presidency. Here's an example: Schumer praises Trump for China tariffs". That article is from 2018.

Now, I think Biden is a big improvement over Trump, because anyone trying to do the job instead of dreaming of becoming a dictator would be, but I absolutely will criticize him for continuing that particular policy. Biden wants to know why we have chip shortages and it's not a mystery. If he wanted to fix it, he would stop the damn trade war and give up on protectionism. But democrats have always been in favor of protectionist policies, moderate Democrats like Bill Clinton less so, but in general more than republicans at least. They remained consistent on that issue and agreed with Trump during his Presidency, the question is why did the republican base suddenly go protectionist too?

I don't disagree with you on principle, but I don't think it's practical. The example you're comparing it to only works because there's a **vast** number of gas and diesel cars on the road, which justifies the infrastructure (by that I mean, it can be built in such a way that is actually affordable to use). You've used the word petrol, so I assume you're from the UK, but case in point, I can't find any gas stations anywhere near me in the US that have LPG available, because there aren't cars here running with it to justify it.

So, I think the situation is that if you take the entire group of people for which electric cars are inconvenient, be it because they have no place to charge it or make frequent long trips that make it inconvenient...these people represent such a tiny proportion of the overall population that filling stations wouldn't be able to do enough business to justify opening in every corner. I just don't think there's a chance the type of infrastructure needed is ever going to materialize.

If that assumption is correct, then your concern about zero emissions is also not an issue. There's a certain amount of fossil fuel emissions that can be perfectly sustainable and if we have 5% or less of vehicles running on gas...honestly, transportation represents the lion's share of carbon emissions at a whopping 28% of the total. Of those, cars and trucks represent 74% of that piece of the pie, so 21% total. If 95% of cars and trucks went electric and the other 5% remained dirty gas cars, then the car and truck segment would now be only 1% of carbon emission. At that point, you can be really angry about that 5% of cars that aren't zero tailpipe emissions or realize that the problem isn't cars anymore and switch your efforts to cleaner ways of producing electricity (currently 27% of carbon emissions) or industrial emissions (currently 22%).

If my assumption isn't correct, and it is economically viable to have a hydrogen infrastructure coexist with the massive shift to electric cars, then absolutely, I agree with you. Honestly, I don't really know, but I was operating under that assumption based on the fact most people commute 40 miles a day or so and can charge at home. If they rent at an apartment complex, charger stations can be a revenue booster for the apartment / garage building, and as long as they're paying less than they pay to fill up on gas now, I don't imagine they'd care that it's not their charger.

I agree with you there, but if you're not making those trips frequently, just rent a gas car whenever you need to. I think owning the car that is convenient for a relatively rare event is a little bit like people who buy a pickup truck because once in a while they need to haul large items. Sometimes I need that too, but I can always go get a u-haul pickup for a day.

To be clear, I'm not saying that's what **you** should do, because I think everyone has to decide for themselves what the frequency of trips has to be before it's inconvenient to not be able to use your own car. But in my case, I made a couple of long trips a year, and I felt renting was fine for that.

It's not hard to get higher energy densities than lithium ion batteries. The advantage of lithium ion batteries is that they're rechargeable by plugging it into the wall.

Stuff like this has its uses for other applications, but the entire idea of hydrogen powered cars needs to die already. Having owned an electric car, nothing beats never having to visit a gas station. Yeah, it takes longer to charge than the 2 minutes it takes to fill up, but it takes 10 seconds to plug it in when you get home for the day, and that's all the time that it consumes from **you**. Who cares how long the car takes, you save time by never having to stop by a gas station.

Unless you frequently travel outside an electric car's range, filling up time is irrelevant. If you do have to frequently drive over 200 miles in a day, then the electric car isn't for you, but gas is still better than hydrogen because the infrastructure already exists.

It doesn't take a degree to understand what the law says, there is absolutely no law that has ever passed that doesn't require complex analysis to fully understand the consequences.

Take, for instance, something as simple as minimum sentencing laws. People looked at the problem where they notice judges being biased and you get unequal justice. Two people commit the same crime, one of them gets a slap in the writs, the other gets jail time.

It's a real problem. And on the surface, it's easy to convince someone, "we're going to solve this issue by ensuring a minimum sentence for these different crimes, so no one gets a pass because they're rich." Sounds good. You can campaign on that, and you can win on that. But when those laws get passed, no one fully considered the consequences: prison overcrowding with non-violent crimes, sabotaging rehabilitation for people who were involved in a crime due to extenuating circumstances, continued unfair sentencing as a biased judge can still give just the minimum sentence to someone who committed that crime on a much bigger scale, etc.

Every single problem should be taken to a committee composed of experts who can look at different solution, predict effectiveness and consequences, and then a proper cost/benefit analysis is made to figure out the best approach. And things will still be missed, and bad laws will be passed, and changes will have to made, but it's guaranteed to be better than the raw opinion of someone who isn't trained or educated on the issue.

An unfortunate reality, and I agree. But I just wanted to make sure the qualification of the politician here isn't to be an expert on the problem he's working on, it's the soft-skill of being able to coordinate experts in different fields. Addressing the problem of global warming, you need to have climate scientists to estimate the effects, economists to evaluate the costs of the solutions, engineers to recommend what technologies have the most promise and should have R&D funding priority vs which ones are just people hunting for grants in projects that aren't likely to lead to anything, etc. The politician needs to get these people together, to let them work on their own field of expertise, to take their results to the other groups when necessary, and to distill everything everyone tells him into a bill designed to address the issue. He doesn't need to be an economist or a climate scientist, but he does need to talk to them.

Absolutely. And we should vote them out because they're not effective at their jobs. But we shouldn't replace them with the guy who will also ignore good expert advice, but is promising the solution that sounds good to our uninformed asses. Basically, I'm not saying we have a great working system right now, and I'm not saying I know how to fix the problems we have right now. I am saying populist candidates aren't the solution, they're a way to make it worse. That's what we've seen with Trump, and that's what we would have seen with Bernie Sanders. Better, because I think Sanders at least is genuine in wanting to help, but he and his supporters don't consider consequences either..he tends to think the money can just throw money at a problem.

No, but thanks for proving my point. You lack the reading comprehension to read a slashdot post, but you want to run the country.

We should choose our leaders (therefore not being slaves), to be people who are educated and well-informed enough to know how to delegate to those more educated and well-informed than them in specific issues, and to coordinate those experts to get a complete solution.

It's not a matter of intelligence. It's a matter of training and time. You don't have the time to work and be informed of every aspect of a complex problem. But if you think you know better, it's because you took a complex problem, created a simplified model in your mind that bears no resemblance to the real issue, and then created a simplified solution. Exactly like you did to my post, where you removed all nuance and simplified it to, 'we should let ourselves be ruled because we're too dumb,' which bears zero resemblance to what I actually said. A doctor is an extremely intelligent and educated person, hopefully very well informed in his field. But you don't want to hire a doctor to design a bridge. Is he smart enough to learn how to be a civil engineer? Yes, but he didn't, and he doesn't have the time to while continuing to be a doctor. That's why we elect representatives instead of having a direct democracy where we decide on every issue: delegating it to experts is the entire point of a representative system.

If you want to build a bridge, do you want to put the design choices up to a vote, or do you want to let an engineer that it won't fall? If you get cancer, do you want to put your cancer treatment options up to a vote for the whole population, instead of simply asking knowledgeable doctors? If you are charged with a crime, do you want to put your defense strategy up to a vote for the whole population, instead of hiring a good lawyer?

You and I are not qualified to determine the approach government should use to solve complex problems. We're the ones who need to be asked about the problems we're currently facing, but anytime anyone lets the public pick the best approach, it's not going to be made based on sound, well thought-out, informed research. Now, politicians aren't qualified to make those decisions either, because they can't be experts on every subject. But their qualifications should be being good at listening to our problems, taking it to a team of experts in the field, and coordinating with teams with experts in related fields.

For instance:
People: "Too many accidents are happening in that intersection!"
Ideal politician: "I hear you. Hey, department of transportation engineers, what can you do to solve this?"
DOT: "First, we do confirm a higher rate of accidents at that intersection, it's not just the impression of the people. We set up studies to determine the daily flow of traffic, and decided the best approach at that location is a traffic circle."
Ideal Politician: "Hey, budget office, look into how much this will cost. Then let's examine our options to pay for it. City bonds, increase in taxes, cutting a service that hasn't been cost efficient..."
Populist: "Traffic circles suck. You guys like traffic circles? They're confusing, you're going to get into more accidents."
People: "Yeah, we hate traffic circles, why are they adding something that will create more accidents?"
Ideal Politician: "Actually, the DOT engineers have data that say that although traffic accidents sometimes slightly increase after adding a traffic circle, this increase is temporary. The accidents decrease and have better traffic flow after a short while..."
Populist: "You're going to trust these elitist engineers over your commons sense? Ever been to a traffic circle? Ever felt that feeling of not knowing what to do when you're about to enter it? How is that going to be better?"
People: "Yeah! Down with traffic circles."
Populist: "I"m going to put a traffic light. And no taxes, no debt, no services cut!"
Ideal Politician: "Not only is his plan inferior, he doesn't know how to pay for it"
People: "We don't want to pay for it!"

The people's involvement at the government needs to stop at, "this is what our problem is, and that guy has been effective or not at solving our problems." Everyone has an idea of how they want to solve a problem, but few people are qualified to make the call. That's something that needs to be left to the experts and education and experience is often what's meant by "elite" for populist types.

Let's think about this a little bit. You're telling your supporters that the election was fraudulent, that the lawmakers are about to certify an illegitimate President, and that the current Vice-President has the authority to fix it, but doesn't have the courage to. So all of you should go there and do something about it. But peacefully. To the people who supposedly are already ignoring the voice of the people, as in, their actual votes.

If any of his claims had any weight behind them, a violent revolution would be justified. But they never did. Not only that, he set up his incompetent coup attempt before the election even took place. He made claims the mail-in ballot was going to be fraudulent, urged his voters to not vote by mail, and then after the election tried to use the large discrepancy between in-person and mail votes as evidence of the fraud. Even though he actively worked to make that gap as large as possible. The polls placed Biden as the clear favorite before the election, and unlike his rhetoric, he believed those polls. So he worked out this stupid plan.

The sedition started long before January 6th. It started long before November 3rd. It was methodical. It was stupid, and never had a chance of working because he's a moron, but the intent is clear. Before the election, it was clear that he was not going to accept the results if he lost, because he said so. It was clear what he was going to use to contest it. And it was clear it wasn't going to work, but it was likely to end in bloodshed as his followers would believe him, and at least some of them are bound to be violent about it given the seriousness of the claims.

Your argument amounts to claiming the mobster never threatened to destroy a business for money, because his words were "nice place you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it," and then offered his services to protect it. Clearly he's just a concerned citizen aware of the crime in the area, and wants to provide neighborhood watch services. Some money to support that service is completely justified!

Dissent is patriotic. Dissent in bad faith isn't. Donald Trump's arguments were in bad faith, as I described above, investigations found no evidence of voting irregularities in sufficient quantities to flip the election, as stated by **his own Attorney General, William Barr,** who resigned soon after because that's the fate of everyone in the administration that disagrees with him. His own administration's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency called the 2020 election, "the most secure in American history." He lost every court challenge. The Supreme Court, currently at a conservative super-majority, and with three justices nominated by Trump himself, didn't even find the case worthy of hearing.

That's not dissent. It's refusal to give up power. Which is the single most unpatriotic thing that can be done in the country founded by men who did not wish a monarchy, and whose first President chose to not run again after two terms before the Constitution required that of Presidents. Dissent, given the evidence presented, is backing up a wanna-be dictator based on the most transparent lies ever told by this government. Lies completely debunked even by **republican election administrators**, such as in GA.

When Donald Trump won the election on November 8, Hillary Clinton conceded on November 9. Obama invited him over to the White House and began the transition process on November 10. One of the most leftist talk show hosts, Stephen Colbert, reacted to completely peaceful protests on November 9 by saying, ""Freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, First Amendment, the most important things we can do together," Colbert shared. "Don't stop speaking your mind. Don't ever be cowed by what happens in the next four years...like it or not, and for the record, not, we have to accept Donald Trump will be the 45th President of the United States."

You don't have to like it, you can (and should) complain about the policies and speak your mind about anything you dislike about the new administration. But we must accept the results of an election, and doing anything is the single most unamerican thing possible.

I sure as hell support that.

I support that, as long as you you're not merging that with those who have rightfully claimed he is unfit to be President, considering the four years of openly criminal behavior that only didn't get him removed from office because most republicans value power more than their country. With a few exceptions, like Mitt Romney.

Yes, they do. And by not recognizing that the Donald Trump's election in 2016 was recognized as legitimate by his opponent, by the President, by leftist talk show hosts who were not hiding the fact they hated the result, you are trying to claim hypocrisy where none exist. What's happening here does not happen on the left. Hell, what's happening here doesn't happen on the right either. Previous Republican Presidents have stepped down with honor and dignity upon their defeat, including single term Presidents such as George Bush in 1992. This isn't about left or right. This is about one corrupt individual who happens to be republican and the enablers who, despite openly disagreeing with him before he received the nomination, decided to sweep the corruption under the rug if it looked like they would be at risk of being primaried out if they didn't fall in line.

Yes, and that has been the case for years.

It's obviously a bit more complex than that, but not that much more, honestly. When the economic centers boom, they get more expensive to live in due to various factors: good companies attract well-paid workers from out of town, the population grows, the available real estate shrinks, and the aforementioned well-paid workers can out-compete the locals for homes, causing costs to rise...

So, if you create roads and transportation to the nearby "boonie", a lot of people choose to go there where the housing is cheap, and commute to the work at the big town. The cheaper it is to live there, the more commute time people are willing to accept. The easiest it is to commute because of roads or trains, more people will choose to do it. As the population grows, businesses start to flock there as well to reach that market, and the next thing you know, the cycle starts over again and you go to the next nearby small town.

Obviously there are a lot of other factors involved, and it's not as easy for the small towns that are nowhere near the big economic centers, or the towns with a known crime and drug problem, etc., etc. But the bottom line pretty much is, just like Sim City, you address the local problems, you add infrastructure, you make it cheap for businesses and people and you the growth happens by itself. Then you have to keep up with any problems caused by the fast growth.

If the only reason you don't cheat is because of the consequences if you get caught, then you don't really understand what honor is.

I tend to agree with your other points, though. It isn't something that you're born with, it is something that you learn. I think the students not cheating start to understand the reasons behind the honor code the first time they get put in a group with the cheaters, and realize that they don't have the knowledge to contribute. Everyone will understand after they graduate: if you have a degree that you got by cheating, you can't get through a cursory knowledge check at interviews. Then you end up with a lot of debt and unable to find a job in your field. If you have a degree that you didn't get by cheating, you start interviewing people with a good-looking resume who quickly show that they don't have the most basic understanding you would expect. Or worse, unqualified people who managed to make past the interview process, but you start working with them.

It's at that point that you realize that honor codes exist because our society suffers when people don't abide by them. It's not about fairness, it's about broader consequences that apply to more than just the individuals involved.

I hate to see people saying that, because I feel that unless they have a significant mental development problem, it's rarely true. There are a lot of factors involved in failing. I teach a class and the vast majority of people doing badly are clearly people who aren't putting in the effort. However I'm going to assume you really tried your hardest and still couldn't cut it: it still could be the case you didn't have aptitude for that field, but would have excelled in another. I started my undergrad work as a mechanical engineering major. I was good at math, felt like a nice fit. Then I spent two semesters taking Statics and Dynamics, and I was seeing everyone around me ace those courses while I was studying my ass off and still feeling like I didn't grasp it. At the same time,I had to take a Circuits class, and the class I took ended up being a weed-out course with a professor that failed over half the people in it. I didn't crack the book open, and aced it. I realized I had aptitude there and could easily grasp and understand those concepts, but had a harder time visualizing mechanical engineering problems, and I switched majors.

Basically, the first step is always to avoid frustration and try harder. But if that doesn't work, keep in mind Isaac Asimov's take on intelligence. It's highly field-specific, and if you don't have the talent for one thing, try something else until you find your aptitude.