But I was more disappointed by this example of what is not allowed: "Determining whether crops need to be watered that are grown as part of a commercial farming operation."
You don't need a big, heavy drone to take pictures, and there isn't much to crash into on farm land. (Granted, the max altitude must still be limited to prevent collisions with larger aircraft.)
Now, maybe satellite imagery is or will soon be the cheapest way to do this anyways, and maybe moisture imaging is best done in non-visible wavelengths that hobby drones don't have. But those are market concerns. I don't see much safety concern in buzzing around a farm.
There are plenty of ways to get research funding that don't involve a trillion dollar bureaucracy.
"Plenty," such as....
In a true democracy this argument should not bear much weight, since MOST (over 50%) of all stock is owned by only 1% of citizens. Most of us have a tiny slice, and I (for example) would benefit much more from higher wages in the tech sector than from a little more growth in my 401K. But in general, we small-potatoes shareholders (that is, almost all shareholders) are too short-sighted to take a hit now for the long-term economy.
More ominously, real influence is proportional to the wealth of a group rather than how many people are in it. Even if you convinced the bottom 99% of voters, you would still only have a minority of shares.
The reason I dwell on this is because I think the same logic, exactly, explains why the bank bailout occurred and the implosion of Wall Street had no real corrective result on the US economy or the distribution of wealth.
Certainly it is on its deathbed at least.
Clearly people want to be monitored at all times, they just haven't been convinced properly yet.
No, but there will be political hell to pay if there is another 9/11.
Factorials were someone's attempt to make math LOOK exciting.