I love this idea, thanks for replying, I'll be thinking about that all day :)

It's like a coin after being tossed; when you see what's face up you know what's face down, there is no communication between the two sides. It's just that in the QM case the two sides might be light years apart.

Just because it's been proven to be disastrous doesn't mean that it won't be the precedent that makes it okay in automobiles. I mean don't assume legislators will always make the most sane decisions.

There is also the Veblen good effect where at higher price points items become more attractive to potential consumers simply because they are expensive. This is kind of a distortion or even contradiction of the normal supply and demand effect - Read the Wiki article here.

It sounds silly but that's exactly how autopilot and fly by wire systems work in Airbus and Boeing aircraft and they have hundreds of passengers at a time.

>If someone thinks that you're going to be driving along in your car not paying attention to the road, and suddenly the computer is doing to say "fuck it, I don't know, you do it" they're complete morons. It sounds silly but that's exactly how autopilot and fly by wire systems work in Airbus and Boeing aircraft and they have hundreds of passengers at a time.

Lindt dark chocolate in bars starts at 75% but there are also 85% and 95% bars available. Truffles are not pure chocolate, consider them as a kind of fudge, it's a different sweet made with chocolate, but it is not pure chocolate...

Did they really? Then why isn't our world still full of old working things that require no maintenance? I mean I can agree with the impression that things used to be built to last, but I think it might have more to do with the fact that old things were put together by hand, and were very big and electronic components were big and simple. It used to be easy to find a faulty component and fix it, but now that everything's been shrunk and stuck on a chip it's no longer simply a matter of replacing a universally available component, you have to find and buy the correct chip, which can cost more than just going down to the shop and getting a new entire product. Old things are still around and have the fame of being reliable because they are simple to fix.

While all of those things you listed affect the technician or enthusiast almost none of them have any bearing on regular users. Most people don't upgrade their own machines anymore. If they ever did.

Xerox's problem was that they didn't listen to their r&d people.

There are probably thousands of viruses that if mutate to become transmissible by air that would have a similar or worse effect on the human population. It's just not that likely.

The mitigating factor is that we don't have to start from scratch, we have the knowledge to survive in an energy poor environment, we know what minerals we need and where to find them. Yes we might only be able to find a very small percentage of what we used to but we should be able to find power to supply critical infrastructure and further research into alternative energy once the plug on mainstream energy is pulled. It's true to say life as we know it would end, but that might just mean we're not so consumer oriented.

Considering that Africa accounts for about 7.7%* of the total world's energy consumption then no, even if all of Africa died it would not reverse climate change. It would not even stop it. It would not even slow it that much.

Source: World Energy Consumption

There are a few good applications for this, the most obvious one being police firearms where weapons are sometimes drawn by someone else and used against the officer.

We all work so that we can pay the bills. If we're given an opportunity to sell something we've made for the option of never working again but living in luxury for the rest of our lives why not take it? That gives security, and the option to go on and do bigger and better things that 2BN dollars can provide. It's a dream come true.