It's the founder effect -- when a small group leaves and establishes a new colony, that group's genes become the dominant genes in the region, even if followed by a relatively large influx some time later. This means that the risks of exploration are countered with the possibility of a tremendous reward in terms of breeding capacity. Thus natural selection favors genes for exploration. ... sorry, I meant "A love for exploration."

The reason no one does realistic space battles in movies is that they would violate people's intuitions just to be incredibly boring, at least if you're trying to show the battle. On the other hand, it would be easy and require little/no cgi to actually make a realistic space battle video, but you'd definitely want to focus on the humans at their consoles rather than on the battlefield. It would be little different than a submarine combat video, I would think.

Let me play games all day and some day I'll be rich!

He got a stroke of inspiration?

It's cheaper for everyone. For 8 hours work at minimum wage, you can buy hundreds of pounds of corn (or other grain). That may not be free but in the old days that would probably cost a whole season's work.

If it were me I'd be looking to get my ass off the volcano ASAP.

But we have made lunches much cheaper over the years, which is similar to adding several free lunches. Used to be if you wanted light at night you had to gather olives and squeeze the oil out of them, and keep refilling your lamp, or similar for candles. Now you can buy a solar panel to recharge the battery over the day and power your light at night, which ends up being so much cheaper and more convenient.

It's legitimate satire. His "business plan" would be possible to implement before graphene even comes close to fulfilling its "promise". Not saying graphene doesn't have the potential, it's just that sort of thing takes way longer than journalists are allowed by their editors to admit.

Do tools count as toys, if I enjoy using them?

True, but I'm pretty sure that in this case cause and effect works in both directions (ie, it's a viscous cycle). Being poor makes making poor choices more attractive, and making poor choices makes you poor.

But if you make poor choices, having money won't solve your problems. For example, 70% of people who unexpectedly gain a fortune, end up bankrupt 7 years later (link).

And what cause-and-effect relation would you suggest between poor people making poor decisions?

I bet Debian users are feeling a dash of pride right now. Maybe a few of them will take the opportunity to bash the other distros?

Did I say protect? I meant prosecute.

I think the briefing consists of: The results are in, you won the election. You can stop pandering now and do whatever the hell you actually planned to do.

This is the price that we pay for popularity contest elections, plus that politicians aren't held accountable for breaking campaign promises. (Forcing them to keep campaign promises would be a whole different set of problems)

Or an elaborate attack on Emma Watson by kicking the hornet's nest and pointing to her?