That's right.

So basically, all these fancy energy-saving methods we've been implementing lately have been wiped out by things that are EVEN WORSE for the grid than what we had.

Electric cars, supercapacitors, etc. all add to PEAK usage. Between 5:30 and 6:00 everyone is going to be putting their 8KW charger on, even if only for a second, and raising peak time usage (which means that even more capacity has to be brought online - sometimes for hours before and after - to cope with demand and we'll be "even more" idle throughout the rest of the day).

And, shockingly, the only plants that can really handle those are the old-fashioned, always-on, slow-to-ramp-up-and-down, coal, oil, gas and nuclear plants. Or HUGE inefficiencies from renewables.

I just find it ironic that at the time we're pushing for low power, variable, "always on" supplies, we're pushing for gadgets that need high peak load, or high load for a LONG time generally.

The US in general might have a lot of space, but most counties don't have the money to truck their crap from the coast to the middle of Iowa. As a result, a lot of landfills are indeed filled up, and landfill space is a significant issue. Just ask densely populated areas like the San Francisco bay or Miami what they do with their inert landfill - it's expensive, and they're constantly looking to reduce what gets put into landfills. Not because it's green, but because it's getting to be very expensive.

Congratulations, you don't have to feed yourself from the land you live on. Not everyone is that lucky. It's also butt ugly to have styrofoam get into everything, and just stay there.

Yes, that was one of the original reasons. Now it's bad because it finds its way into the ocean, where it is ingested by all kinds of fish, birds and other critters and killing them off, because it just fills up their stomach. And considering how much we rely on a healthy ocean to feed a good chunk of the world's population, that's almost worse than the CFC issue. The fact that it is inert is a huge issue any place you try to have a healthy ecosystem, whether it is for farming, breeding or just generally we-like-nature purposes.

Citation needed. Air is actually a better insulator, and the reason why it's cheaper to have a little double-walled cardboard ring in cups.

Every time I hear someone complain about how dumb green or environmentally conscious people are, I find someone who has even less of a clue, has a huge axe to grind and is an asshole about it.

Damn. Out of mod points. Someone help!

Right. So there has never been any progress in math, nor is there any talent. Or in any other field that pays less than lawyers, politicians and CEOs. Oh, wait, that's wrong. Not to mention that the field of law, politics and business really hasn't progressed beyond what Machiavelli outlined a couple of hundred years ago.

In other words, data points to the fact that remuneration is inversely proportional to success.

No, the point is that anyone who has ever touched the insides of a computer knows that everything is a collection of ones and zero that are manipulated by mathematical functions. As a matter of fact, the definition of a computer is the repetitive manipulation of numbers via math. As a result, anyone who argues that something running on a computer is not broken down into math has the burden of proof.

The point is that threatening legal action costs the person you're threatening. Not everyone even has a few hundred dollars to retain a lawyer no matter how briefly. Yes, you might "get it all back" but at great risk even if you are completely innocent and the charges are groundless.

A threatening letter from a lawyer doesn't have to go through another expensive lawyer. Sure, if you try to get clever, you can dig yourself in deeper, but the fact is that if you can't afford to fight the case, then you sure as hell can't afford to do anything at all - even the simplest of letters from your lawyer will not make the case go away every time, but will cause huge bills unless you find a no-win, no-fee lawyer.

Courts are quite reasonable in this regard. You just write back a letter that says "I have received your letter dated XX/XX/XXXX. I believe it to be without merit." (or similar). That's it. Just send it back. Let *them* take *you* to court if you're sure you're innocent. There, THEY have to prove YOU did it. With expensive lawyers and to a legal standard. And once you get there, junior lawyers will often jump for the chance to advise on a case for free. Once it's in court, your legal fees will be paid if you're victorious and it will be stupidly expensive if not so you have nothing to lose. Hell, if you are forced to take out a loan to hire a lawyer, it can often happen that the other side has to pay the loan too. And you will KNOW that it's time to hire a lawyer or face worse problems.

However, before it gets to court, there's no point settling unless you are guilty (and sometimes not even then) as it will only be to your detriment. Settlement paperwork often has clauses that say you were guilty and accept that you did it. It's then an irrevocable fact of law that you can't ever contest. This is also why "no comment" exists, and why you have the right to say nothing when arrested, and why you SHOULD say nothing until a lawyer arrives. However, if you are innocent, there's no harm in saying "No, I didn't do that, etc." By letter, being silent is easily confused with ignorance, disregard, attempts to evade justice, etc. so you just write back and say, in effect, "Nope".

Even if settle only to get away from the case, you are forever taking responsibility for that event. If it later comes up in another case that "if you did X, then you must have done Y" (i.e. if you downloaded that tune at that time on that day, then that MUST have been you driving your car past your house a minute earlier, etc.) then you are stuffed.

Until something lands in court, you don't need a lawyer. It may be prudent if you can afford it, but lots of people can't. And in the same way you don't need a lawyer to go over your terms and conditions of every service you use, or approve everything you say to a sales person, you don't need a lawyer in the early stages of response to threats like that.

I have been threatened with court several times. Funnily, it's never actually happened.

First, over a mobile phone contract (with phone) that never arrived at my door, was never signed by me, and I phoned up to REPORT IT MISSING / STOLEN. They wanted to force me to pay for the contract (for the whole year!), pay for the missing phone, pay for any replacement, etc. They threatened all sorts, in writing and on the phone. I wrote back, stated my side, and let them get on with it.

I can see it from their point of view - I ordered a phone, it might have arrived and I've done a runner with it. Sure. I get that. It's a valid case that there might be a simple answer to or that might need taking to court to get to the facts of the matter.

They harassed me for a month with letters and phone calls and after a while, I just stopped answering or answered only with "Sorry, your company has threatened me with legal action. Therefore, I will not discuss the issue."

In the end, I had the bank force a refund of my money that they'd taken (with zero problems, actually, it took only ten minutes and no paperwork - good old Direct Debit scheme!). Which made them even angrier, and they threatened even more, including recouping their bank default charges etc. And, after a month I received a letter. "We're sorry... " blah, blah, blah. And they "generously" decided not to charge me for the chargeback.

Because, I assume, by that point a lawyer had actually looked at the case and decided that they had no proof of postage, let alone proof of receipt, no received contract, no authorisation from myself for the funds given (they are supposed to be taken only on verification of the contract, and the contract was presumably in the box that never arrived!), no way to prove any sort of malice on my behalf, and I had phoned THEM up to report the phone missing and DEMANDED they place it on the IMEI blacklist that my country uses (so even if I had "stolen" the phone, it would have been useless from that point onwards).

You can threaten all you like. Until it's in court, it doesn't matter and actually until then, the less you say, the better. But silence isn't the best option either. It's only if you're playing dodgy legal games that saying things will hurt your case, though. And even when you get a letter from a lawyer who may have a case, until it gets to a court it still doesn't matter.

Case in point: I collided with a car, in my car. It was a little knock, but my fault. It went through the insurance, all legal. A year later, I get a snotty letter from the other driver's insurance company's lawyer (on letter-headed paper, and with any amount of legal threats) demanding I pay £9000 because my insurers hadn't paid out despite agreeing to do so. It threatened court action and taking my money and all sorts. It looked very scary, I give them that, and cited lots of technical legal mumbo-jumbo.

I sent a letter back. It said that they had no recourse through myself, that my insurer was the only entity they had any business talking to, that there were compensation schemes and regulators whom they need to take their complaint to for it to have any merit (and still wouldn't involve me, even in my insurers had gone bankrupt), and that - even if I was wrong - what my insurer agreed as reasonable costs isn't in any way binding on myself.

Additionally, they are lawyers, and they know this - they knew this before they started writing the letter - and they shouldn't be sending me such letters at all. I threatened to report them to their bar. I got a letter back that was equally snotty, but didn't address any of my points. I ignored it. Haven't heard back from them in 4 years. But the guy I hit? He didn't even know anything about it and has had all his work paid for a long time ago, and my insurer's happily reinsured me for years, are still in business etc.

I can only assume there was some dispute over the £9000 charge (which seems very excessive for what damage was caused) and the lawyers were hoping to scare me into either paying or pressuring my insurer's to pay it.

I did a little basic research, told them where to go, and at all times made my view clear. It cost me nothing. I imagine it cost them a lot more then it needed to (probably why they charge £9000 for a dent). I imagine they couldn't possibly have made me pay that in a court and it would have been laughed out, but they could have made an awful mess of my life in the meantime if they'd tried to. But I also imagine that some people just pay up because it's a scary letter from a lawyer.

I was renting a house once with someone. The plumbing blocked meaning we had no toilet. In law, the landlord (or their agent) is responsible for fixing that, and it's a public-health sort of law, not just "Well, we'll get round to it in 30 days or so". Phoned up the landlord's agent, they refused to send someone out to fix it, or give the landlords details. Not just "that day", but ever. So just kept phoning and phoning and phoning.

They threatened me with ALL sorts. I told them they can do what they like, because when the policeman knocks on my door asking why I'm "harassing" them with phonecalls in their little office, I'll be quite happy to explain the situation. Strangely it didn't happen. Nor their threats to sue me. Strangely, I had a plumber on my doorstep at 9am the next day. Strangely, I also had the landlord come around because he'd heard that I'd "been harassing the agent" and it was then that he discovered that I had proof of paying the rent that the agent said they'd never received from me and never passed onto the landlord (I didn't know anything about that, but it was certainly entertaining when the landlord found out, and he was very nice about it, very reasonable and dealt with me direct from them on, and sued the agency, I believe. But if the situation had continued you could quite easily see the agency throwing me out and not telling me why because they'd told the landlord I'd not paid the rent!).

They threatened me with police, with lawyers, with everything you can imagine. But, in the end, it never materialised. And, in fact, my threat to report them to Companies House wasn't as empty as their threats. And - purely because I wanted to dig down into the agency and find out who was in charge - their absence of prominent display of company registration details on their website, their paperwork, and their place of business (which *almost* stopped me finding out who was actually director of the company) just meant that they had to have a word with a government agency and pay THOUSANDS to replace all their stationery and change their website to include said details. And pay for the emergency plumber. And the follow-up work he recommended. And compensate the landlord. And lose all his future custom on several properties.

Funnily, at no point did they mention the "harassment" after that, or try to sue me for destroying their reputation, etc.

I had a friend get one of the infamous letters from ACS:Law. Told them to ignore it, write back a simple letter saying "No" in posh words. All the people who fought it - even the genuine innocents - lost out when ACS:Law was declared bankrupt by its owner. Sometimes thousands of pounds more than it would have cost to settle. But the ones who wrote back "No"? Never even got to court. They were just ignored by ACS:Law and their cases forgotten about. They knew they were meritless, they were just trying to cash in quickly. The people who took them to court caused the company's bankruptcy because they never expected anyone to actually bother to fight it.

Don't get clever. If it gets complex, call in a lawyer. But 99.9% of these things can be handled by denial or coming to the settlement yourself (a settlement is a two-way agreement, not just what they put on paper, so even if you were guilty of pirating, say, $10 of music, you could offer to pay $10 or even $20 first and see how that goes).

Cooperate, even in the face of ridiculous accusations or outright lies, but that doesn't mean capitulate. And then if it ever does goes before a court, you're extremely unlikely to have done anything to make the situation worse for yourself and quite likely to have made it MUCH worse for the other side. What do you think a judge would make of a case involving the "unauthorised copying" of $10 of music which a lawyer then tries to turn into a $5000 settlement / fight, plus legal expenses, and waste the court's time - when the accused is perfectly happy to pay reasonable recompense from the start?

Don't be an idiot, and you'll be fine. Once it gets to court, bring in backup - at that point it's win or lose so you need to make damn sure you win. Before that? Nothing much matters so long as you don't write "I did it, but ha ha, fuck you".

And 99.9% of everyone who threatens you with court action - even lawyers - know that it would never stand or would cost so much it wouldn't be worth it. And when it would stand up, they'll issue you a court order or similar legal notice first.

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/nonerrors.html

It's actually an Americanism and not "wrong", so much as "superfluous" (i.e. unnecessary, not incorrect).

Foed just because you're quoting Ayn Rand.

You misunderstood. I'm not arguing that there have been perfect governments. I'm arguing that when it came to contesting for resources, larger, more efficient organizations always won out. Furthermore, by standard measures of prosperity, larger, more efficient organizations always come out on top. The only exceptions are smaller organizations that can piggy-back on the services of larger, nearby organizations.

Furthermore, what's decried as tyranny is pretty damn far from what people normally have in mind when they complain about tyranny. In the US, people argue that a tax rate of 35% on the top income is tyranny, which is ridiculous. Talk to me when you get killed for criticizing the government.

Considering how wrong you are about this, I'm not sure how much credence to give to the rest of your post. Fun fact: what was the top marginal tax rate from the thirties through the sixties?

Wow. You always, always amaze me with your ability to change topics, redefine commonly used words and ignore statistics to cherry-pick data. But what takes the cake is that instead of actually following up with your ideals, you move from a somewhat socialist country (Canada) to an even more socialist country (Germany). Next, I expect you to end up in Sweden or France. It's almost as if those countries offer better opportunities than the countries that fit your small-government ideals. Nah, that couldn't be.

By the way, thanks for actually providing the relevant text. As expected, the concept that you ascribe to your quote is a descriptive detail to the overall theme of the paragraph: that the idea of federal state is being made irrelevant by easier travel, and that the concept of the cultural nation is taking over. As a result, for Nationalsocialism to compete on the field of cultural ideas, it also has to ignore the federal states. Which is quite different from what you said it does, and, coincidentally, is very similar to what you're arguing for: that the idea of laissez-faire capitalism and personal freedom has to transcend the boundaries of federal states in order for it to win in the battle with the other social ideas. Even funnier is that the carrot at the core of Nationalsocialism is more individual freedom. Ironic, to say the least.

Even ignoring for a second the fact that local government is how government even got started, your own life is giving lie to your propaganda. If even someone like you is actually moving to more socialist, more big-government countries, your ideas are losing followers, not gaining them.

The point that you're missing is that every time there was any resource contention, any conflict whatsoever, the larger, more organized group of people won out. Every. Single. Time. For fun times, check out what happened to the Indians in the US. And ultimately, that is why people band together: for safety. You might have your ideals living out by yourself in the boonies, but they don't serve you much when you're dead because a few people thought they could use your resources and didn't take no for an answer.

What's a town? If I live in the Los Angeles area, I have about as much influence on local politics as if I'd live somewhere in North Dakota. I will know the mayor about as well as the Senator from California, and they will care approximately as much about me. If it's a town of 10000 somewhere out in the middle of Iowa, my vote might carry a higher percentage weight, but what about the guy who owns the local grain processor, and whose net worth is about 1 million times mine? If I and 9000 other people in the town decide on something, and the guy with the grain processor says no, what exactly do you think will happen? Certainly not what I want.
The point (and which you're missing again) is that there's always a power center. If government is weak - whether it is by design, or because it is too local - it is overtaken by private power, which in turn is defined by resource control. And those private people will rule just as much as any government entity would. The difference now is that their power cannot be checked by elections or any voting system.

I know that's your definition. That's the only way that your argument holds the any problem. The problem with that ridiculous assertion is that the only people who think that way are those whose basic needs are fulfilled, aren't threatened by government overreach or warlord terror, and can spend time dreaming about how much life better could be it weren't for other people.

Holy crap. I had no idea that you could so completely misread Stalin. He specifically used that to point out that people are terrible at statistics, and care only about personal stories. On the other hand, it nicely illustrates your problem: the only result you care about is how a system affects you. That's it. If something has the slightest negative effect on you, it is terrible, regardless of how much it helps others. As a matter of fact, not only do you only care about how a system affects you, you are incapable of devising a system that does anything but help you specifically.

Considering how badly you mangled the Stalin quote, I'm waiting for the entire paragraph in Mein Kampf where you got that quote from. In German.

Your problem is two-fold: you think that at the core, liberty is a stronger need for humans than safety, and you think that power structures are not part of human nature. What you call the evil central government is nothing but the formalization of what used to be ad-hoc power structures. You're arguing that individuals can't compare to the killings of today's central governments - what you're missing is that until the emergence of nationalism and the nation-state, individuals WERE the central government. In other words, the vast majority of genocides, wars and misdeeds going on in the world until about 1800 were done at the command of individuals sitting atop a pyramid whose order was enforced through violence.

In other words, you're committing the oldest social science fallacy: that of the noble savage. At least you're in good company with the communists there.

You might even argue that such a government is by definition tyrannical, since it generally will only work for the benefit of its friends, and exploit everyone else. However, there are differences between, for example, some people in the tax collecting agency specifically targeting organizations that use words associated with tax revolts, and the head of the government publicly praising the incarceration of opposition members or authorizing the use of troops to force the nationalization of businesses. While both are capricious enforcement of rules that end up benefiting the ruling party, the damage caused is very, very different. As a result, the solutions need to be very different, as well.

Always keep in mind: The best is the enemy of the good.

There is one simple fact that contradicts your argument: there hasn't been a single group of people operating without a central government (you still haven't defined where central government stops and local government starts, by the way) that has made a mark on history. The closest to them might have been the barbary coast pirates, and they were ultimately wiped out by the armed forces of a centralized government. In other words, when groups competed for resources, the ones with a larger or more effective central governments always won out. Always. Furthermore, the largest and most successful nations/organizations in history were marked by highly effective, pervasive and very large central governments.

Now, you can redefine crime and prosperity, but the more successful a nation or organization, the larger its government, and the better the average prosperity and crime rates.

Just for fun, show me nation-wide numbers.

Criminal negligence is... wait for it... a concept that requires a government and regulation that is outside of contract law. Furthermore, ENFORCEMENT of criminal negligence requires an independent government, bureaucrats to track the paperwork, jack-booted thugs to apprehend suspects and judges unbeholden to the public to make decisions of law.

Considering you cry about the abuses of government in the most unimportant, small-scale and even incorrect situations (and spare me the slippery slope argument - if government was that efficient and monolithic, we wouldn't be having this argument), you seem to really be incapable of doing any cost/benefit analysis when it comes rules governing people's interactions.

Roman's comment is a classic example of a black-and-white world. In his mind, it isn't possible to have a government do anything without it automatically becoming tyrannical. Furthermore, the slightest overreach by any apparatchik is immediately an indictment of the incompetence of all government, followed by cries to dismantle government in general. Because of the extremely low threshold that people like roman have for any sort of government activity at all, there is no way to have any sort of government regulation at all. What's more though, their threshold for what is appropriate for government allows absolutely no discussion - to paraphrase someone else, you're either with them, or against them. That's the worst aspect of their "solutions": there is no possibility for debate about it.

Furthermore, you're falling into the same logic trap that roman does: there are only two states, and if one advocates against one, one is forcibly for the other extreme. What I'm arguing is that their worldview has been tested, and it is utterly failing - and has always failed in the past as well.