Came here to say this!

Who said I was advocating totalitarian communism or democratic socialism (which is just as doomed because it still runs on a contemporary capitalist economy) or perfect equality (which is impossible)?

Giving about as much of the planet's resources as possible (including the work of its population) to a few hundred people is completely unsustainable however.

People could still work if they want to for some extra money. It just wouldn't be mandatory for living beyond mere survival. And if there isn't much demand for human labor, what's the problem?

But but but, teh future is supposed to be full of infinitely growing tech jobs, this is unpossible!!1!

That probably would work, if not for automation now replacing far more jobs than it creates. To paraphrase a guy I don't like to quote, these jobs aren't coming back.

Besides, at this point I think we can do better than hacking more fixes onto this tarted-up barter system. Why not be more ambitious?

I don't like the "energy" euphemism, they're not searching for some tidy glowing yellow stuff like something from an RTS game. Let's call it what it is. OIL. Wildlife-gooping, coast-ruining, fossil-carbon-filled, toxic oil that needs to have more energy dumped into it to be refined into something we can use.

Automation and/or skyrocketing inequality will soon bring capitalism as we know it today crashing down. This is just sticking your finger in the dam.

The only way forward that doesn't involve revolution and bloodshed starts with mincome.

It has to be possible to make money by "shopping around," or the HFT companies wouldn't be making money, and you wouldn't be saving any. Even if it's a miniscule amount for each trader, their total impact comes down to the balance between the savings for the "weak traders" and the losses for everyone else.

OK, so it's good for people like you who don't want to shop around for a good price. But what about those who do? They don't have the option of not going through these middlemen unless they are faster. So which is greater, the savings to those who don't want to shop around or the losses to those who do?

Well then let me rephrase what I said: The study you linked to about overestimations basically makes the "only atmospheric warming" mistake, which is what creates the illusion of "the pause."

Same problem. Now you could argue that the models were wrong by failing to predict the amount of heat to be absorbed by the oceans, but that's like accusing someone of mis-estimating the speed of a roof leak because it did not fill a bucket in the expected time, because the bucket had a hole half-way up the side. The problem is still occurring at the expected speed but the damage didn't go where expected. Which is indeed a shortcoming of the models, but not a failure to predict the amount of warming (or damage - oceanic warming is at least as bad as atmospheric warming) on a whole correctly. It's still our best knowledge and a far sight better than every claim that has flown in the face of decades of "mainstream" climate science for many years now.

I thought the issue was the models, will you not trust the observed temperature data from the same institutions that are responsible for some of those models? If not, did you make sure the datasets from the 2 satellites and 4 balloons used in Spencer's graph did not come from these institutions? And if so, how does this not lead us back with you standing in front of the C-word and whistling innocently?

So from some quick reading of your two links I take it the main problem with the "97%" study is that it doesn't take into account where exactly the "skeptics" are most lately trying to pick apart the expanding seams of the Mountain of Evidence. So a "skeptic" who believes GW is real and primarily human-caused but won't be bad, (the corner most "skeptics" have found themselves backed into in the last 5-7 years) for example, would not be counted correctly.

I suppose that's true, but it begins to blur the lines between scientific and political opposition to global warming. For example that "skeptic" could be correct for certain values of "not bad" that could be open for non-scientific debate. For example he/she may consider living on Freedom Ship while the rest of the world goes to hell to be "not bad" while I would disagree. They may overestimate the feasibility of domed cities and consider those "not bad," and I would disagree on both points.

At that point the "skeptic" becomes more like a "political opponent" because the room for anything that might pass for scientific skepticism has been practically eliminated.

You can bet every computer purchased through BitCoin is going to make a stop by the NSA. Buying a computer with untraceable currency AND having an interest in cryptography!? Either one alone would get you labelled an "extremist."

An excellent question.

I'm betting this POS machine was basically a full-blown PC hooked up to a cash drawer. It seems to be a popular setup with small businesses (I'm guessing actual cash registers cost a lot - and they're certainly not as versatile).

A hardware store and a couple car parts stores near my house have this setup. The car parts stores use them for parts info lookup as well. Maybe this machine was also holding the HR files.

Nope I gotta agree with all the other people who have replied to you. I can't figure out how this is adding value. To me it just doesn't compute. Why did the seller sell the bike for less than $600? Why did the buyer pay more than $500? If they're willing to compromise, couldn't they have done the transaction directly and saved money without the middleman?

That's not a perfect analogy, but it's not too far off.

It's more like this. There's a classifieds forum which regular users can refresh once every 10 minutes. Special users with a paid subscription can refresh once per second.

You post "Bicycle wanted, will pay up to $500" and someone else posts "Bicycle for sale, $400" then the speedy special user buys the bicycle for $400 and puts it up for sale for $500 before you or the seller can refresh (at best, when they're not doing even shadier things like spamming the forum with fake Wanted posts etc).

Somehow this is supposed to produce value. I think it has a similar effect on the economy to either robbery or counterfeiting currency. I can see no way this produces any value.

Wasn't something like this done after the Flash Crash (or some other recent stock exchange fuckup?)

Exactly. Do your worst, black hats. The system's already rooted by Wall Street bankers.