Check out the Four Horsemen series by Chris Kennedy (and friends).

https://chriskennedypublishing.com/the-four-horsemen/

Dump a bunch of Asimov, Star Wars, Gundam, Heinlein, and a dose of Bladerunner, add a cup of political theory, put in a bowl and stir...

It's the only scifi universe I've read from in years.

I'm personal friends with a number of authors who publish books in one of several subgenres. Mostly, they rely on Amazon's Kindle Unlimited: some of them are prolific enough that their book sales account for most of their income, simply based on peoples' reading of their works.

Mostly, unless people want a piece of history or something they can reference, folks seem to hate having clutter. Fiction that sells isn't usually, primarily sold as a hardcopy book anymore, I don't believe - short of the kinds of books that end up at the end of the grocery store isle or in an airport novelty store.

Regarding the OP topic, a lot of the published hardcopy books of the types mentioned are published for the explicit purpose of a PR or political campaign. Stuff like the Obama or Hillary Clinton books which are pushed massively and funded by third parties - the fact that they're books and people (supposedly) buy them is secondary, they're being paid for by other interests. They're basically a long form version of those "get published in our magazine about who's who/the top 50 in the x industry, for a low, low price of...." magazines you'll sometimes see, still.

Unless you're so wealthy you can burn the money (as in make a pile then set it afire) spent on beta testing a toy, don't beta test toys.

Fools and their money are soon parted. Buying a Mirai was idiotic unless you are a collector with Jay Leno money.

Ah. That would be rather silly, wouldn't it? Is there something I could have said to avoid this impression?

As for rally2xs:
The definition of "luxury" is buying new items for sale at retail or services above the poverty level.

There you go, him clarifying, at the very least.

Or, get this, we don't bother. We just send everybody the mandated precalculated prebate. Done, without lots of forms needing to be filled out. Electronic deposit is very very cheap. Especially at the levels the IRS does it at. In order to keep things simple (not a lot of forms), the tax is charged on everything the tax is supposed to cover, and "everybody" gets the same rebate.

I mean, we're totally adding up everybody's spending and sending it to the IRS on some equivalent of a 1099 why? What difference does knowing the number make to their tax obligation?

I think you're getting me and rally confused. He's the supporter of fairtax. I'm the guy who read up about it years ago during his more libertarian phase and thought it was an interesting idea. That said, I'm also something of a contrarian, so I'll let you know when I think there's a problem with your understanding or logic.

It is when you're talking about getting rid of and replacing a system that hauls in $4.8T/year and replacing it with one that hauls in $6T (before sending $1.2T right back out).

And I wouldn't really call it a footnote, it's a core part of the proposal: "Replace the federal income tax with a federal sales tax. In order to keep it progressive, give everybody a prebate equal to the tax that would be paid on poverty line spending." Heck, in my "quick explanation" to you, it's the second sentence. First sentence: $4.8T of spending transformation, second, $1.2T of transformation. Hardly a footnote, but still lesser than the prior change.

It's like the second sentence in the "extremely short proposal" form. On their site, it's the 3rd paragraph.

That said, remember, I'm libertarian adjacent. The actual Libertarians and Republicans and such? They oppose UBIs pretty much on reflex (and I'm a dude who supports a UBI on libertarian reasoning). So, at least for them, you're selling them on the "get rid of income taxes!" first, and avoiding calling the prebate a UBI in order to not spook them.

I mean, it's funny, the only state in the country with a sort of UBI is Alaska, and it's republican held, and god forbid you try to touch the permanent fund dividend. But having it elsewhere? Oh no!

App appers app with apps! You LUDDITES with your low level programming wouldn't understand.

Apps!

Nah people are still mining away. It's not very sexy though, not compared to maybe 13-14 years ago.

That's the condition today. If Cali keeps scaling out with more solar panels, there will be even more excess power output.

Battery research: Already happening. Have you read about sodium-ion? Supposed to be a lot cheaper than lithium chemistries, last longer. Main downside is that they're bigger and heavier per kWh, but for grid storage, who cares?

They only store about 2/3rds the power by weight and volume. Which means that a 300 mile car becomes 200 miles with sodium. Battery pack is ~30% as much though. Given Tesla's upscale market position (for EVs)...

Well, this is actually something I've predicted for a while now.

If solar becomes predominant enough, it actually flips the idea of night-time power being cheaper. At which point the logical time to charge your car switches to the daytime, probably at work.

Put enough chargers together, with smart enough network management, and you should be able to soak any excess periods just by topping off "All" the EV batteries at that time. As well as powerwalls, BESS systems, and other such storage systems.

Why? He corrected himself later. You're the one not accepting the correction over the poorly phrased attempt. Not accepting it simply means that you're now attacking a strawman.
Note: I replied to him as well, so we've nitpicked at each other a bit over it.

Sure it can. The poverty line is defined as a dollar amount, right? Thus, if you look at annual spending, it can be above, below, or equal to that dollar amount, correct? Equal just being very unlikely because, well, what are the odds that you spend exactly $15,060 in a year? Not that you wouldn't have a number out of ~300M people. Is an individual's annual spending greater than $15,060? Then their spending is above the poverty line. Is it less? Then it's below. Simple.

Why would it be meaningless? The poverty line is determined in terms of expenses, not income. To be exact, it's 3 times the cost of the 1963 minimum food diet in modern dollars. So, you end up with $15k in modern dollars. Why would comparing an expense calculation to spending be meaningless? Seems that comparing it to income is the more meaningless measure to me.

Still has meaning though. Obviously, if you don't have savings/assets, your spending is limited to your income. Spending and Income, especially at the lower levels, are similar enough to be considered equal.

So, given that the poverty line is a commonly accepted* measure of the minimum acceptable living expense, if we're going to do the equivalent of making food sales tax free** because taxing something people need to live is considered bad, giving a rebate on that amount becomes a sort of UBI/BIG, which should reduce the amount of means-based welfare (paperwork!) we need to do. So, we give everybody $3,450 to cover the tax they pay on minimum living expenses. That way somebody living right on the edge isn't paying taxes they "can't afford", somebody living on even less is subsidized, and those living on more (crab and caviar) pay taxes. If you're only spending a little above the poverty line, you pay only a little. If you're spending a lot, then you pay a lot. Done.

Probably, but it's not like I'm a proponent of fairtax, as I've said a couple times. Nor am I especially talented in this sort of stuff. I make mistakes, and you didn't say anything to make me think to lead with it. I'm mostly familiar with fairtax because I'm libertarian adjacent. IE of all the political parties, I'm closest to the libertarians, but I'm not particularly close to even them. I'm more classical libertarian than the extremist Libertarians that make up the party today.

I actually support having a UBI, though I'm nasty and only support like $6k/year, half that of most proposals. But that is because, well, given my family's history (we came from poverty), I actually know how cheaply people can live. Also, I think the higher amounts are unsustainable.

*No where near universally, but I'd argue that it's a good start.
**Though there are arguments about whether or not things like candy, soda, and really expensive foods should be included, or just "staples".

You might want to take a fresh look at the market then. So many people take this sort of advice and never check out the new car market that used car prices are elevated - you can often get a NEW car for less than a newer used. And that's not being a "status following sheep", that's just saving money.

Who cares if GM or Ford is hurt? GM and Ford obviously. Their investors second. Their lenders third. Fourth would be the politicians and such who want more jobs inside the USA. Not that GMs and Fords are actually made in the USA all that often anymore.

Darn tooting GM and Ford should feel threatened. Hell, Tesla feels threatened, Musk has mentioned it before, and Tesla is like the biggest threat to the traditional manufacturers right now.

They need to wake up and adapt, but as you mention, they tend to get sitting on their laurels, what little remains, until they get into bankruptcy level trouble and get bailed out. Or bought out. Remember when we had like a dozen independent car manufacturers in the USA alone?

Would I personally feel all that sad if they actually fold? Not really. But there would be people who would be. Like the UAW killing the golden goose. The car manufacturers need to survive for those workers to get their pensions, after all.

Desalination is a good idea. So is wastewater treatment.

Mine crypto.

Purify wastewater.

Generate hydrogen or synthetic fuels.

Etc.