Way to take phrases out of context.

If that really is how life got started then it's likely that primitive cells are still being spontaneously created near these vents today

Modern conditions are very considerably different to those in which life developed on earth.

For a start, there is oxygen. Now, it may be true that oxygen is essential for large organisms to develop (we only have a sample of one ecosystem, in which oxygen is almost ubiquitously associated with large organisms ; but that's an "almost ubiquitously", not an "always" ; the case may be suggestive, but it is certainly not proven.), but we're not talking about large organisms, we're talking about the formation of the first very small organisms. For certain, life evolved on Earth for a very long time before there was any significant amount of free oxygen in the ecosystem. Life and significant concentrations of oxygen have coexisted at best for a half of the duration of life on Earth.

For a second thing, the modern world is full of organisms that breakdown ad re-use organic molecules. While there is a lot of debate about what particular compounds were common in the pre-biotic/ peri-biogenetic environment, it is sure that the modern environment has been stripped of many of the more complex molecules. Some of that stripping is due to the molecules being broken up by reaction with oxygen (see above), but much of it is simply going to be eaten.

The likelihood of life spontaneously developing around modern deep-sea vents (or shallow-sea vents, for that matter) is considered pretty low, even though their ancient analogues are certainly sites of interest for biogenetic models.

Radical re-thinking about the possible environments for biogenesis happens almost every time there is a new student writing a paper on the subject. There is not a scientific consensus on the question (though there are certainly ideas that are more popular than others). If this clashes with what you've heard on Discovery Channel, then I'd advise you to swap their (pretty shoddy) "journalism" for actually reading the relevant science. Much of it is available open access.

Everyone who works in ad-tech has some justification for why it's ok.

You're making the common error of expecting that your opponents are stupid. That has killed a lot of people.

Your opponents may be wrong - or they may be right and you're wrong. They disagree with you, that is what "opponent" means. But it doesn't mean that they're stupid.

There are geoengineering schemes that you could build on a "fire and forget" basis. For example, you might place a fleet of solar sails near the Lagrange-1 point in the Earth-Sun-Solar system point, with electron/ magnetism thrusters for station keeping, and a telescopic monitoring system aimed at the Earth. Set the control logic up so that if the polar ice caps vary by more than 10% from present (pre-industrial norms), then the solar sail fleet re-configures to increase or decrease the insolation on the Earth by a couple of percent.

OK - it needs engineering on a multi-millennial reliability scale, and a control loop that thinks for a decade or so before taking any action, which are substantial pieces of engineering beyond present capabilities. But they don't violate the laws of physics.

With CO2 at over 400 ppm, even if everyone went zero-emissions tomorrow, the planet would still continue to warm up for at least a millennium, more likely five millennia.

FTFY

The experiment was done, on Earth, around 54 million years ago. It was called the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, and I've just finished drilling through the rocks laid down around that interval, with their associated fossil changes, changes in rock chemistry, etc. (Steering oil wells to land in particular horizons in this sequence is a bread-and-butter bit of industrial geology for me.) The temperature increases, as calibrated by Milankovitch 20kyr cycles in magnoetostratigraphic records) took about 5kyr, though our best estimates for the gas releases is more like 1kyr (runaway warming once the methane hydrates around the proto-Icelandic High started to rise above their stability limits).

Really, within the geological industry, the argument has been over for more than a decade. We know, with the confidence of seeing the results of the last experimental run, what is in the pipeline for us.

I almost wish I knew what the heebie-jeebies are in your world. In mine they're Mini cars stuffed with long-haired androgynes.

Venus is probably a better match for Earth's climate system than Mars is. There's a lot of water in the atmosphere of Venus.

So ... let's say we build a sunshade to start to lower the temperature of Venus' atmosphere at twice the rate we're raising the temperature on Earth. Let's say that we get it in place by 2050, to get our test running. That's about 4K/decade, and we've about 300K to decrease the surface temperature by.

So in about the year 2750 (if I've got my numbers right), our experiment will have reduced the temperature of Venus to the point that liquid water will start to condense to the surface. Then we'll get into a complex situation of convecting heat (as clouds of steam) from the surface rocks to the higher atmosphere, where the heat gets dumped to space. How long is that going to take? Tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands of years? I wouldn't rule out millions of years - but I'm a geologist and I've got some sort of idea how long similar process took on the Hadean Earth.

Sorry, but wasn't the point to get some data relevant to the lives of your children/ grand children, or at least people who might know your name as an ancestor?

Bloody ACs, why don't they have the character to post under real accounts?

Let's say that we decide in 2020 that we have no option for survival beyond 2200 but to start a programme of geoengineering which will take 150 years to have sufficient effects. (That would be starting in 2050, and you can make a rough guess that we started having significant effects on the planets climate in around 1900. So I'm making a guess that it'll take as long to bring the problem under control as it took to cause the problem.)

So, how do you manage to test an areoengineering programme on Mars, in the 30 years leeway that you've got?

There's a more fundamental problem - Mars essentially lacks the large heat buffer that comprises our oceans. So the climate system of Mars is almost completely unlike that of Earth. The climate on Titan is probably a closer match in terms of processes.

Geoengineering is something that we're unlikely to have an opportunity to experiment with before having to implement it. Which means we'll have to be in a pretty desperate situation before trying it. So, maybe, just maybe, bringing our dangerous ecological destruction habits under control might just possibly be better. But since that is going to impact the ability of a small proportion of people to make money, that is a forbidden concept.

Strangely, I consider the cat videos to be a good thing on the internet. Furthermore, the vast majority of political posts I see far exceed the stupidity of the cat videos.

How about a fact-check of a statement by theHUD secretary?

I had to look up Cabrini Green, and have to say 'not really'. The individual housing areas would be much smaller in number. The housing project you mentioned was originally aimed at low-income people, not the outright homeless.

Put unstated 'on average' in there and you most certainly can. We've long passed the point of efficiency. Heck, compare our success rate with nordic countries and it shows that despite longer sentences we have worse outcomes, and that's after you control for crimes committed and everything else. Long prison sentences for stupid shit(like drug use) don't work, especially when the expense of the long sentence means that you end up not treating, rehabilitating, and training the prisoner.

If anything, I was being conservative about the benefits. Nordic countries manage to have 1/3rd the recidivism with 1/3rd the prison sentence(on average). Given how much we pay to incarcerate somebody for a year, how could this NOT be cheaper?

As for 'dumping recidivist offenders back on the street' - that's the POINT of making prison about reform - so they AREN'T nearly as likely to re-offend the moment they get back on the street. A 20% recidivism rate after 5 years of prison means LESS CRIME on the street than a 60% recidivism rate after 15.

Ahem, original post: "help with the federal deficit". Besides that, I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that I was ignoring our debt load when proposing 3 major policy changes all centered around saving money. Fortunately our deficit is down below $500B this year, which means that with only a minimum of extra belt tightening(see my proposals) to actually balance the thing. Then we can start paying off the debt.

Of course, attacking me as opposed to a strawman wouldn't let you do a good rant, now would it?

You need to work on your reading comprehension. I'll restate: The federal and state governments combined already spend more than enough on healthcare to cover everybody in the USA under a system that reduces healthcare costs in the USA to the median of developed nations. Indeed, since the Federal government alone could cover 90% of the bill with CURRENT spending, on average individual states would experience SUBSTANTIAL SAVINGS.

That's an excuse to do nothing about anything and you know it. We're not going to fix the problems we face doing nothing.

...Boy, you don't know me at all.
100% participation - Why do I need this? 100% participation in what?
No recidivism - 'less likely to come back(to prison)' is certainly not 'No recidivism'. In the case of the reforms I'm looking at, it's more like reducing the current 60% return rate down to 20%.
Nobody abusing the system - Not writing a book, but I always figure on a certain level of abuse. That's what auditors and such are for, to keep that to a minimum.

Well, since you are being the judge of 'successful,' I'm not surprised you've never seen that. You are no different than most people in that you don't like to lose your own argument.

In the case of climate change, people and politicians are happy to help the environment. You will rarely see a politician who says he wants to hurt the environment.

It's only when you get down to specific propositions that people object. How much are you willing to help the environment? Are you willing to double the price of gas (to decrease demand)? Are you willing to significantly increase your electric bill? The answer to these for most people is no, they aren't.

But if it's just 'doing something', sure, I'm in favor of 'doing something,' as long as it doesn't negatively effect me.

And most of those are trying to move away from nuclear.

How long did it take before they were back in debt?

Or better, test your aid to make sure it's actually working. A technique could work in multiple studies of competing hypotheses and still not work later on.

But if you are spending millions of dollars without checking how well it's working, why not?

I'm not sure that's relevant. Deworming kids isn't exactly a big idea.