Basically what I've seen in the few live examples we have is that yes, there are power blocs, but they tend to shift more and it's easier for new factions to emerge. Additionally, some voting systems push towards the center rather than the extremes, ranked voting for example tends to produce "consensus" candidates more often than first past the post. *shrug* There is no perfect system, but I think some are better than what we have now.

I would argue it's more of an artifact of a first past the post voting system. Third parties act as spoilers and thus end up merging with one of the two dominant ones instead.

Well, he's guilty of crimes that are usually punished by jail time. In this case I think what he deserves is a pardon and a presidential medal of freedom.

No need to have a rotating ring, just design the station as a ring or cylinder and then rotate the whole thing.

Heh, that's pretty funny.

Wait, how does that have anything to do with Obama? Capitalism, sure, but Obama? Are you telling me it was happy fun land where no one ever did anything they didn't like for a paycheck when prior presidents were in office?

Paper tape readers for program loading.

Flat file database with a COBOL front end.

Although temperature does equal energy, energy doesn't necessarily equal temperature. Energy can be stored in other ways that just heat.

Logging in to 500 servers and making a small settings change using a text editor is simple, but not very productive. Setting up then using a configuration management system to script an update to do the same task is more complex but a lot less total work. Productive != Simple.

If it's a tax that reduces some behavior we don't like then that's still a net win. Generally when you tax something you get less of it. Forcing the re-internalization of externalized costs is a legitimate function of government.

You do realize the system is made up of more than just gas?

It's more productive, that's not the same thing as simpler.

It all depends on the power imbalance. If one side is vastly more powerful and they prioritize their own interests heavily then obviously it's not going to go well for the weaker side.

Not from where I'm sitting. Instead, the complexity goes up every year as they keep trying to do more with less. I'm fine with that as means I get paid more since they still need someone who understands how it all works.

If it's of comparable intelligence to us and it doesn't somehow enter a singularity via self-upgrade then the likely outcomes are much like our relations with any other group with their own interests, some positive some negative.

On the other hand if it quickly outstrips us in intellect, then the relationship will more likely be like that of ours with ants, indifference combined with local eradication where there is conflict of interest.