Actually, it always was a zero-sum game within any given pool of readers. Each individual has some amount of money that they are willing to spend buying books, and if they buy one author's books, it reduces the available funds that can be used to buy another author's books. The subscription model that Amazon is adopting changes the model by paying authors , not when their work is purchased, but when it is read. This changes the way a book is valued by its author; previously, once the book was sold, the author has no direct interest in how many times the purchaser reads it. Under Amazon's model, readers no longer own their books; they effectively rent them anew each time they want to read them. And a book that would have been purchased, read once, and binned to go to a second-hand bookstore has less value to an author than a book that would have been re-read again and again over time. And there are two ways for authors to respond to this change -- they can produce works that are worth reading again and again, or they can produce more books for Amazon to 'charge' for. As Scalzi points out, we are seeing authors, resigned to the lack of quality and rereadability of their work, breaking books up into chunks so that each piece of the book can be counted as a separate publication for the purposes of receiving payments. It will work to the detriment of the 'story collection' books -- why should an author publish an e-book that collects a dozen of their stories, when they can get a dozen times the 'read count' by publishing each story individually? Other authors might break up books into chapters as individual publications to artificially boost their 'read count', or write shorter stories instead of novels. By treating all works as equal, regardless of size, the payment method encourages authors "gaming" the system to artificially inflate the number of times their works have been read.

That's a real down side.

It's not going away. People still regulate things.

Let them eat chicken.

It's not "better", you do both. It's not clear that there are any technologies which will let us continue deforesting without consequences.

Making food's price reflect its cost can only be a good thing.

Unfortunately, algae's rate of conversion has been harmed by increased UV exposure, the algae near the surface is dying off. Most UV is absorbed by the first foot of water, so algae below that are doing fine, but they don't get nearly as much gas exchange there. Oceanic algae is where pretty much all our O2 comes from, in fact, so it's an issue for some significant concern.

We could transfer them to a prison inside the USA which met at least the standards they have to meet here, which are pretty pitiful as it is. Why aren't we doing that? Answer, because there would be more pressure to treat those people like human beings, with rights.

Then why have we got them? That's bullshit.

This is the argument from apathy. You didn't cause it, so you shouldn't do anything about it.

But the world is chock-full of problems that aren't going to be fixed by those who created them, so you can either throw up your hands and say "fuck it" or you can do something.

It's frustrating to have to clean up other people's messes, but it's depressing to live in a mess.

Wait, really? We don't have a moon base because of political correctness? You're going to have to draw us a map. Please. I can't wait. Making popcorn now.

There are more important issues at hand than being about to buy a burger for a buck, like whether production of burgers will even remain a viable proposal for, say, the next generation.

Nope. This is a call to graze cattle on native grasses on slopes. And if that means less beef is produced, and it costs more, you're just going to have to get comfortable eating other things — or spending more money on beef. But there's no particular reason why beef should destroy the biosphere.

You could easily think that if you're bound and determined to find racism everywhere. But that's not really thinking. It's just knee-jerking.

But that's not what I'm saying.

No, I'm saying it won't.

I think they won't.

No, I think they need to be served by people who understand and care about the issues which affect them in particular. Which, simply by the typically racist and segregationist nature of our society, means other black people. Sure, there's exceptions. Some people are more tuned into other cultures than are other people. That doesn't take away from the general point.

There's nothing racist about observing that black and white people are treated differently in our society, and further, that they are treated differently by black and white people — or, if you like, white and black people. Observing racism is not itself racism. On the other hand, when someone assumes that an observation of racism is racism, I assume that they are racist — because of all the times I've been accused of racism by people who made it abundantly clear that they were racist themselves, typically either in the preceding or following sentence.

I don't know if I've actually gone swimming in the Pacific on Xmas day, but I've certainly done it right around it. The water is actually warmer then, but it's cold as shit all year anyway so who cares? Then you get out and get dressed quick because it's windy.

Maybe one day we'll solve this light pollution problem. We're already making minor inroads into it by going to more efficient lighting and paying more attention to reflector use and design.