What exacerbates the volatility of economic cycles is debt. The interest/debt system is unsustainable. Watch this doc https://youtu.be/4AC6RSau7r8 by this fellow: http://www.moneyasdebt.net/

Right, I never saw an IT pro use Thinkpads or flagship models of any other manufacturer. Only Macs. Dualbooting is not a thing. Thinkpads or any other manufacturer machine dissolve into composite materials in less than five years. With PC (and Linux) it is only GPL or proprietary, but only on Macs, you can have both. And PC's cost the same as Macs. Thanks for the correction.

Especially when the first thing you want to do after your family is incinerated from a drone strike is go build a hospital, a university, a magnetic bullet train system and the beginnings of a killer space program. Yeah, these towel heads need to pull up their socks.

If there is a piece of software that only runs on the Mac platform, okay. You have lots of money and don't know how to burn it, okay. You want to look cool at the local starbucks...nevermind. In terms of taking notes, a notepad ought to be fine. Windows is too unstable or virus ridden to be used as a reliable tool. Okay. But Linux could be a cost-effective option. You can now run pro-grade audio/video and graphics applications on Linux, not just the GPL ones. Though some of the GPL stuff will give the proprietary ones a run for its money. There is less reason than ever before to pay the Mac (or Windows tax for that matter) and pick up a machine that can smoke a Mac at a fraction of the price. Unless you are running a very specific graphics/video or audio program, but that is only a matter of time.

You're right. It was wrong of Afghanistan to invade Britain in the 1800's ( https://www.goodreads.com/book... ) and it was really dumb of them to invade the USSR in December 1979 and get into a war that lasted several years. Then the Afghanis had a civil war in the 1990's. Not content with that, Afghanistan then invaded the USA in the 2000's, which led to the occupation. I tells ya, the Afghanis need to take responsibility for their own mess and stop invading already. They need to get their house in order within their own borders.

That was the issue with the previous model, Am not sure if that detail is addressed yet. Anyone know?

You can run Bitwig, Harrison Mixbus, Traktion Waveform, Reaper, DaVinci resolve, Lightworks on Linux, for starters. You want plugins? Is this enough for you? http://linux-sound.org/plugins... Audio work indeed.

The US has a slightly better track record than China in terms of space exploration. Yes, you had the Challenger disaster of 1986, but on the whole, the US has done OK. They put more resources and quality control in their space projects and seem to want to do a good job. Can't say the same for China. Perhaps China is what the US was in the early 1900's in terms of how manufacturing and quality control was handled. A big reason why things are manufactured in China is not just price, but less safety and workers rights regulations. China is used as a proxy to bypass regulations. Things that were fought hard for in the US, only to be offshored later on and the people did nothing. "You can't exploit us, but you can exploit others, as long as their eyes and skin are different. Heck, they're lucky to have a job" tends to the sentiment. Ask anyone who buys an Apple product, you can make them of ground Chinese human bones and they will still buy it. It's documented, manufacturing is a horror show over there. While the US has Latin American and other undocumented workers who are exploited, it is nothing like the Uyghurs in China. That is not to say the US does not have to clean their house, but the rats and roaches run the show in China.

Somehow, with rare exceptions, Chinese-made anything does not install a sense of awe, just sadness. Poor, overworked, unperpaid souls who cut corners out of necessity, bribe quality control, and don't follow guidelines. There are stories of new, Chinese-made buildings with balconies falling off, escalators that collapse while people are on it, food poisoning from not following health guidelines--and these people want to build a moon base? The base, craft and suits will fall apart without anyone having to do anything. It's a tragedy in the making. According to Chomsky, China is a second-world country at best who are destroying their environment and have a tenuous infrastructure. Wealth is concentrated among a minority while the masses are poor and in bad shape. I suggest they get their house in order, but this will never happen. China is too busy being a corrupt, totalitarian police state driven by greed of the few.

Planned obsolescence at its finest. Can't one jailbreak these devices and put a friendlier OS on them?

Forget launching it to Mars, if we can harness quantum entanglement, it can be transported instantaneously I am told nothing is faster than the sped of light, but quantum entanglement seems to be just that. Heck, that could be a way to ferry people to and from Mars along with supplies.

https://bit.ly/3qCbvQs

What may make colonizing Mars, or Titan, or whatever worthwhile, is if our technology advances to the point where the voyage to and from the planet is orders-of-magnitude faster to bring people back and resupply. Also, if we can edit genes and alter the body enough to withstand a lot of the detrimental effects from living on these planets. Probably end up looking like a Transformer. Maybe we can create artificial environs and mobile suits with glass-like bubbles that can block all harmful radiation and cosmic rays while giving us the gravity and air pressure we need. I don't see that technology on the horizon any time soon, though.

Oh right, the human body suffered zero detrimental effects from lack of gravity and going years without it is perfectly fine. They can go out on mars with a tent and sleeping bag. So insightful!

Very little atmosphere thus leaving dwellers vulnerable to cosmic radiation. In which case, people would have to live underground, which sort of defeats the point. There could be other planets better suited. https://ourplnt.com/mars-terri... The other things that occurs to me is lack of gravity. Leaving people out that long can't be good for the body. In early phase space travel sci fi, very little is mentioned about the gravity problem, which humans need.