Everywhere you go in public will be trackable and connectable to your online "public" activities by mapping your DNA to a picture of you online. Laws will not be able to prevent this. This will just become the new norm. . .

Of course, this will also increase the public scrutiny of public officials and other powerful individuals, which I can only see as a good thing (as any "House of Cards" fan should be able to agree with. . .).

I find this type of argument ignores real world trends. Per capita resource requirements in the developed world are trending downward (thanks to tech like LEDs, etc . . .) while populations are stable or declining. Most underdeveloped nations are becoming developed and experiencing the same trends once they become developed.

"too small" is relative to your tech and our tech is increasing at an ever faster pace, thanks in no small part to the large number of participants. Malthusianism has been a horrible predictor of the future. Why would it start working now?

Sorry, I do not read Anon replies. . .

Obviously, the difference is that you can add features yourself (or pay someone to do so), if you really need those features. This is incredibly important if you are providing a product or service that has dependencies on external tools.

However, if you are a "whiny consumer" type user who feels entitled to software (without contributing anything yourself), I agree there is little difference between closed and open source to you. Your sense of self entitlement and ability to only consume and not contribute anything means you will never be able to take responsibility for your own experience with software. Accordingly, your experience with software will always be a poor one.

Not sure if it is my writing style or just the average /.er's reading comprehension but "every time I go to the doctor" does not indicate the actual frequency of doctor visits nor the severity of a given visit. It could apply to an average visit of once every 4 years due to symptoms serious enough that official advice is "go see a doctor if you have symptoms like this" (which describes my case) .

Yes, since the tools to economically diagnose viral vs bacterial infections does not exist, doctors do tend to push antibiotics like complete idiots, just incase you have bacterial infection (that is kind of the whole point of my earlier post. . .).

that I can get this test so that next time I get sick they can check the difference and have an explicit idea of what I have. . .

Now, every time I go to the doctor, they are like "we will put you on these antibiotics and if you don't get better, you have a virus." It feels like the freaking middle ages. . .

How do we really know, until we give it a try?

Think of how much MORE Google would have to pay if Android was not the dominate OS. . . HINT: Companies usually Open Source technologies to reduce costs, not to DIRECTLY increase revenues.

Impressive, but let's see smart engineers do all of that without capitalism (like in a country like North Korea).

Seriously, though, all those things you list are easy compared to trying to predict human behavior. I think most people fail at predicting human behavior (whether they are an engineer or economist seems irrelevant. . . ) and those that succeed become crazy rich and never reveal their secret (or, if they do reveal it, it no longer applies since human behavior constantly adopts new knowledge).

As batteries, solar, wind, microgrids, EVs, etc. . . become cheaper and cheaper, I wonder if this still holds true. As we see more and more small communities become self sufficient, the traditional argument for moving towards centralized efficiency will be harder and harder to make. Looking at how decentralized technologies have defined recent history, I would not bet my money on investments that depend on increased centralization at this point. . ..

In a free market, less demand means a lower price. Utilities do not operate in a free market and can force their customers to eat their costs. Consequently, less demand during peak hours will require them to charge more from fewer people. . . until there are no longer enough people to recoup their costs from. Then they will go bankrupt (at which point, I suppose tax payers get to foot the bill for their incompetent decisions).

Which is a big assumption since this technology is going to allow a large portion of the population to greatly reduce their dependence on utilities. With utilities still thinking in terms of 20 ~ 80 years when planning their capacity investments, I think it is pretty certain we will start seeing significant increases in electricity prices as huge, misguided fixed asset investments have to be allocated across a smaller and smaller population. This will just cause more people to defect. So begins the Utility Death Spiral.

I think the word we want to use here is grit.

Don't take this the wrong way. This is for your own good, but. . . get over yourself. You stopped being happy as soon as you stopped seeing yourself as an underdog. You are a hairless monkey that occasionally leaves shit stains on your underwear. Be happy that you can feed yourself without help and without getting most of the shit you stuff your face hole with all over your lap. Your "I am awesome but I could have been so much more awesome" lament shows the true reason you are not happy. You are clueless. The dumbest humans are so, so much smarter than the monkeys with fur. The difference between the smartest and dumbest human is just a rounding error in respect to that. "Smart" people are so unhappy because they forget how "stupid" they really are. "Stupid" people are happier because they are more realistic about their lot in life. Understand that if you accomplished anything worth noting in this very big universe, it was being a little less stupid than your genetics and environment destined you to be. Forgetting that you are an underdog is becoming a self-entitled SOB who wastes precious time lamenting about forgone endless potential. . .

You act as though he is being punished for violating the rules on airspace. Clearly he is being punished for raising too much awareness about finance reform. The powers that be want to make an example of him before this gets too out of hand. . .