Don't forget the 2.5m crimes avoided through firearm self defense each year.

Gotta have both sides to make an accurate measurement.

Besides, a tool is a tool. Car, kitchen knife, chainsaw... each is a great tool but also constant injury and death.

Most countries are just sneakier - they have government officials embedded in "private" corporations. France and China come to mind. Other countries indirectly support their home grown monopolies through technicalities.

The point of trade is that another country can do something better/faster/cheaper. If you can't compete then don't compete - don't invent some imaginary barriers then use lots of logic fallacies to defend it.

And that's the problem with green energy (other than hydro) - production is lowest when consumption is highest. What are they going to do, use all those batteries to store electricity? Does that mean if I buy an electric car I'm paying premium prices for a used battery with limited life?

I've done the calcs. Hydropower is 1/4 the cost, all known factors included. Nothing beats it.

Internationally? Whenever I travel international from the USA, I typically only see 1 airline offering the flight. But I digress... I'm speaking directly about USA national flights. I've made around 300 round trips in the last 15 years and watched business flights go from very nice to dismal.

If you're speaking about european or asian flights then those have overcapacity due to massive government subsidies overbuilding the fleets, not from capitalism.

Most seats no longer have enough room to open a laptop.

As a frequent flier and 6 ft tall, I can attest that airline seats have gotten to the point of cause widespread pain and suffering, including physical injury. There is not nearly enough competition in the airline industry to lead to improvements driven from capitalism. This is unfortunately the time where government needs to step in for the general well being of society.

OR ...

It could be that the FAA needs to get off it's ass and write some updated regulations instead of turning law abiding citizens into criminals.

Self absorbed, amoral, and rampantly driven... but he's no moron.

Current and future education is all about multidisciplinary integration. Even right now you need 2 bachelors or a master's degree to get anywhere, then ongoing learning spans many disciplines. As for history, how it is currently taught is worthless. Dates and names are irrelevant. The real value - Why and How - is not taught in any 100 level class.

Quality matters. The CS graduates from my school could design a clean OS, much less API. To bad that quality doesn't matter much to management.

A Programmer Codes. An Engineer Designs. Which do you want to be? The theory that CS teaches is mostly and directly translatable to Software Engineering.

And on a tangent, anyone with the intelligence to get a CS degree should instead be focused on getting a couple bachelors then MIS or MBA. Twice the pay for half the work.

The Stern report assumes that how we do things doesn't change, which is fundamentally incorrect. We constantly change. fivethirtyeight.com has had a few backwards-looking comprehensive stat reports that show we do adapt and that this type of report is bogus.

Climate change is happening and will continue to happen. Society isn't going to abandon oil so researchers need to quit having that fantasy. What are REAL ways that society will agree to change? The simplest is to quit building below anticipated sea levels (probably by adjusting insurance rates... put a cap of CPI-U+5% yearly increase to make it politically palatable). Focus on that - it's an area of society and economics that has a decent chance of actually being changed.

All I see is "the world is ending!" without any realistic measurements provided. Show me what it's going to cost at each point, and when. The simplest, lowest cost adaptation is simply to build above future sea levels. The lowest cost food change is crop switching and genetic manipulation. The simplest - and probably only - long term solution is reducing population numbers.

Yea, that's almost as crazy at the NSA hacking and tracking pretty much everything and everyone. Oh wait...

As usual, the ACM totters between cluelessness and a corporate stooge.

CS population is a social issue. To be blunt, the USA views STEM as low class. "nerd" and "geek" are 4 letter slurs coming from most people.

Women are taught to be more in tune with social issues so shy away. Later on, 75% of STEM graduates leave the field.

It's worse in Canada and some European countries. After working several years there, I'll never willingly go back. If you're in tech then you're an untouchable lower social rung.