Good points, but not necessarily eternal truths. I suspect you could use magnetic fields to strengthen the cable. Of course, that would collapse if the power failed. But perhaps there are other alternatives that nobody has thought of.

Still, my favorite skyhook is the PinWheel, though it needs a hefty mass in a fairly low orbit (as well as long arms that reach into the stratosphere). But you need to lower as much mass as you raise (on the average) or the orbit decays.

Looks like you're implementing LISP.

>"Just an acknowledgement that there is more money to be made serving the rich."

Oh, there certainly is more money to be made there. But with far less volume. Most companies will try to have products of all ranges to cover all the market. That is true for most car manufacturers as well.

>"He's pointing out the obvious that there are lots of important issues and that isn't one of them."

It isn't terribly important to you or him (apparently). And it isn't all that important to me, either. But to many, it is very important.

>"Its being used to distract from those more important issues. Just as it is here."

His bringing it up here *is* a distraction. I am interested in the conversation about vehicle sales...

>"Yes. Why else do you Chinese cars are outright banned in this country? Plenty of people on Youtube drive these cars and yes they are better quality and literally half the price. Domestic auto makers are scared shitless."

Oh, I don't doubt that the banning of Chinese cars is protectionism but also security related. We aren't banning Korean or Japanese cars... or cars from anywhere else. Just China. More than one thing can be true at the same time.

I honestly don't know if the Chinese car ban is a net/overall good or bad. I can see both sides of the arguments are valid and neither seems substantially better than the other.

so I can spend my mental cycles on something more better...

>"I'd say the biggest factor discouraging parents from being more involved in their kid's lives is time"

As far a devices, I think it is mostly just lack of awareness and available tools. I would like to see awareness rise a LOT and tools become more visual and available. A parent shouldn't need to know a whole lot of "tech" to get an appropriate device for their child. When they get a phone/tablet/whatever, it should ask if this is going to be used by a minor and walk the parent through setting up remote controls by their account and whitelisting/restrictions.

>"If they had the slightest fear of competition then they wouldn't take that risk because a competitor might work their way up in the cheaper markets and then jump into the more profitable ones"

There are many manufacturers that sell all kinds of vehicles in the USA. Some made completely abroad from various different countries. Some domestically. And a lot are a complex mixture of the two. But you think there is a grand conspiracy/collusion among them all of them to deprive consumers of lower-priced/lower-end models?

>" but since we don't enforce antitrust law because we're busy freaking out about trans girls playing field hockey in the Midwest you can kiss that goodbye."

1) Do you seriously think that having concern about "trans sports" is preventing antitrust enforcement? That is quite an assertion, and a ridiculous one at that.
2) They are not "trans girls" playing, they are males. And they have many or most (if not all, in many cases) of the sports advantages of males, and it greatly diminishes the value of female sports competition.
3) It is far from just "field hockey in the Midwest", it has been across all kinds, ages, and levels of sports, except where it is finally being stopped.

>"Yep, because itâ(TM)s not just EV itâ(TM)s also gas vehicles [cnbc.com]. The average went from 30k in 2012 to 48k in 2022 and they arenâ(TM)t coming down much because of greedflation."

Part of that is due to the inclusion of ever more and more features and safety equipment. Even the lowest-end vehicles, regardless of propulsion method, are packed with stuff that used to be seen only on higher-end models. Another part is that vehicles kept getting bigger and bigger. For example, look at the Civic, it is bigger than the Accord used to be.

Also, you need to adjust the prices for inflation or they are meaningless for comparisons. $30k in 2012 is now $42.4k. (I wish my salary were also adjusted accordingly).

>"Woohoo! And, how well do 'public service announcements' help with girls in high school or before getting pregnant? Same for smoking."

The service is targeted at adults, not minors. We know they are not effective on minors. Minors have poor judgement, focus, reasoning, wisdom, etc. Which is why they shouldn't be accessing the internet on unrestricted devices.

>"Maybe not give the kid an $800 cellphone... give'em a flip phone [...]"

Or a $200 phone/tablet, but with appropriate parental controls and whitelisting enabled/enforced.

What I wonder is whether it's any good. Admittedly, I don't wonder hard enough to listen to it, but then I generally (almost always) avoid podcasts.

There will be tools. But there will also be the more general intelligence. One can argue about the time-line, and that's quite reasonable, but denying it requires accepting spiritualism or some such.

For that matter, people are often used as tools. It's not an "either/or" choice.

Video games are on average horrible for training fine motor control; they are good for fast twitch hand eye coordination, within a very small envelope, and that's about it.

>"What undue burden? most social media isn't even readable now without creating an account for each platform. As part of their required account creation they can add a verification feature."

Creating an account is one thing for them, and quite easy. Trying to validate actual identity/age for every user is a whole other complicated and expensive process. I run a web forum. Is that "social media"? I wouldn't begin to know how to "verify" people (and certainly would never try to).

>"they [social media companies] brought this on themselves."

How so? Why are children using social media or browsing the open web or installing any apps they want or sending and getting nude photos to strangers? Answer: Because their parents/agents GAVE THEM that ability by giving them unrestricted devices. The parents/agents "brought this on" their own children.

>"If one wishes to play devil's advocate:
Because many parents don't do this. If the parents won't do a good job bringing up their kids, someone has to."

There are so many other more effective things that could be done. Some examples that pop into my mind:

1) Spend some money on public service education that it is NOT OK to give children unrestricted or unsupervised access to the internet.
2) Incentivize development of additional age-controls and whitelisting functionality ON DEVICES, under parental control
3) Foster development of VOLUNTARY flags on sites so locked-down devices can detect inappropriate content and add to filters.
4) Make it an actual crime for parents/agents to give devices to children that have unrestricted access to the internet.

Of those, I think #1 is the most important. We need to change the culture and norms to be that parents/agents should be responsible and restrict children's devices. They will then be shamed by others, and probably seek out tools, and hopefully the market will respond with more/better tools.

Personally, I think giving children unrestricted/unsupervised access to the internet is child abuse, or at least child endangerment. Both of which are already ILLEGAL.

>"Sounds to me like Virginia is trying to give parents tools to enforce their decisions."

No it is not. It is usurping parents' abilities and at the expense of ALL adults while not actually protecting children. Parental controls need to be on the devices children use, not on all sites that any person of any age with any device might visit.

"Social Media" isn't even defined in the bill/law. There are going to be many MILLIONS of inappropriate sites that children will STILL be able to access that are totally inappropriate. And that is in addition to being able to get/send texts/calls/photos to just anyone they want. That is why the only REAL controls are those on the actual devices they have access to. Responsible parents do not give unrestricted, internet-connect devices to their children and then walk away, hoping that the internet will somehow do the protecting.