First of all, this is giving EMP weapons more leverage if you rely too heavily on it. The ephemeral nature of security is also a problem.

I'm also reminded of some plans by some to use RFID tags to decide who is allowed to trade on the market and who is not. I'm wondering whether the efficiency gains are worth the effort. For so little privacy, I at least demand the availability of a far denser power source than diesel to me, i.e. where is my nuclear powered flying car.

Forget it, if you are having a degree that deals with a specialized field like IT, you are in a minority. The rest of the population won't stand up for you, unless you have something tangible to offer. I hear Linux doesn't quite have the market share for that.

Since you mention the familial homeland, I'm wondering whether Germany would allow Americans with a German ancestry back in, as it did with the Volga-Germans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans). They settled in Russia some 200 years earlier and were now allowed back in, because the conditions for them in Russia sucked.

Of course this requires that Germany doesn't go down the same path.

There have been ill spent investments before, appealing to authority won't change that.

I don't question the part of your argument where you want to keep resources in orbit. The issue is with shipping them to earth. Then you have to ponder the energy spent on transport. If you can get it with less energy from earth (almost a given) then mining asteroids won't do anyone any good.

Here is a link going into more detail.
http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/spaceresvol3/pmofld1a.htm
I particularly like: "This discussion of geochemical availability and extractive metallurgy implies that extraction of minor elements in space is questionable unless specific natural concentrations are discovered or energy becomes very inexpensive.". So energy is the catch, either nature has invested it already or you have to invest it to concentrate ores.

Slashdot got dumbed down, which may explain the anti-technology trend.

The other thing is that the asteroid mining thing may only be viable for really rare but useful stuff.

The thing is there could be realistic concerns about energy efficiency regarding mining asteroids that could be a deal breaker. Notice that asteroids probably have there minerals finely mixed since there is little geological activity there to concentrate ores.

I don't know how rare earths behave. If they are available in similar concentrations in either place then we can stay on earth.

The energy situation is worth pondering though, and some opposition to fancy tech might result if it is not energy efficient.

There is slavery in western societies, just much less than in other parts of the world.

So is the following to your liking or more yellow journalism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAE-xqFr0iQ

No, we need all the energy to deal with the problems global warming may cause, also to continue growth. Beyond that gas flows much faster than oil.

This is my sarcastic contribution of the day, although it might turn out to be reality.

Also if past performance is any indication the sun is going to cook us all.

"But as long as the industry tends to exclude more than half of the potential workforce,"

Men are expendable, why don't we keep it that way, and waste them on irrelevant stuff.

Sweet!

http://xkcd.com/305/

Naw, porn sucks, people should just have sex. Also porn doesn't give you any physical contact, which according to some is important.

You had the opportunity to say something different in your first statement, but no you just had to go with the usual "she could have prevented it".

You could have reminded us that some men have the wrong protocol for dealing with women that show a little bit more.

It also took you a while to arrive at a slightly more reasonable position, far too long for the crowd to notice anyway. Do you think anybody is reading/rating our discussion after that much time has passed?

Amusingly I'm doing a similar thing like you now. Let me ask you to think for the people you are dealing with. If you don't have a socially conservative position which I made an attempt at criticising, your chance was in the first comment.

Alright, let me have a look at your first post:

"That said, I've never been the type to play with people like that, or "teach them a lesson", but there is no denying that there are people out there who do these things. If you don't want to fall victim to it, don't dress and act in ways that invite it."

While you might feel tempted to call yourself a realist, you are still blaming the victim for attracting those vaguely named things you would never do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

They don't all bring you down, that is an overgeneralization.
I don't need a psych degree to understand that.

Goodby Mr. Troll.

"I did fail to proofread prior to posting, but you will note the correction I posted immediately after."

I noticed after I sent the reply.

"There is no danger that I am doing serious damage by simply not associating with someone who acts in a way I find unacceptable. If you wish to argue this further, please go into great detail regarding how, by not interacting with someone, I am causing any damage at all."

Well, assuming that people like/need to communicate with others, withholding that possibility can make them feel isolated and some get depressed. I would grant you the right to be stressed out by unnecessarily talkative people, but your behaviour could erect some "wall of silence" if copied. I remember situations where I felt about silence like that.

Also ghettoization happens not only because some party builds a wall around another group but because people move closer to similarly minded people, here is an example:

"To take just one example: a large number of Muslim teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, reputedly an enlightened institution with liberal outlook and social sensitivity, prefer to live in Muslim-dominated colonies or ghettos rather than on university campus after 1992."

From here:
http://twocircles.net/2010apr14/living_together_separately_ghettoization_muslims.html

I personally think we should rather try to live all mixed up, if we claim we live in the same country. While you are not that far yet, ghettoization is the next step.

Regarding the "great damage", I could point you to the Origins of violence paper by Prescott, that appeared around 1975 in the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists". While we are not talking about bringing up children, I have the suspicion that it is still important for the larger society. Personally I would rather follow the precautionary principle regarding my social interactions.

Here is a link:

http://www.violence.de/

Don't worry it is an english language website. Also there is some nudity.

I just went to some erotic massage training course over the weekend, one woman there said that she has stopped judging people. I wished more people were like that. But yes, I find the society of promiscuous people relaxing, I'm almost ready to move into some sort of ghetto :).

So assuming that slut means promiscuous woman, I never used the word actually, would you still discriminate (giving them less respect than the ones that follow your standards) against people who give physical contact and sex away too (according to your standards?) freely?

I can understand that you wouldn't want to marry a promiscuous woman, just what you mean with giving respect is too vague to me.

Assuming you are monogamous, you still interact with people that can behave slutty. Will you still act differently towards them even if you have no sexual interest?

You do understand that limiting other peoples reproductive and social behaviours can seriously harm their well-being. Given that these are core aspects of our existence (what your parents never had sex?) the danger that you are doing serious damage is far too great.