Here's a few million anecdotes: when I was a kid living in Los Angeles, smog really sucked. Many days a year we had Smog Alerts. Now it's fairly rare to get an Alert. It took decades to get to the point of constant smog, and, apparently, due to the "knee-jerk", it's taken decades to get us where we are now (it's not an easy solution).

So some regulations are good. I think we agree on that. A lot of regulations, though, are created when private businesses find ways to game the system (of course, some regs come to us via corruption or incompetence). I guess I'd rather have businesses have to retain an "army of lawyers" to deal with their pollution, vs. having to have private citizens or local govt have to hire an army of lawyers to deal with each polluter individually, on a case-by-case basis.

I think that I and a few million Angelenos prefer the knee-jerk. It is working, I don't believe that the court system would have worked as well or as comprehensively.

Hah! What a sight picture!

For a dramatic rendering of the phrase, see the movie "Airplane".

Assuming that this is a disguised lament over the retirement of the shuttles: With both a calculated and displayed failure rate of over 2%, I'd have to agree. Keeping a shuttle around for neato stuff like this would end up with some astrofolks being "handily dead".

Thanks, I was going to bring up that old episode, but then I thought "certainly someone else has...let's read a bit further", and here you are.

Magellan & co. went around the world in 1519. Around 60 years later, Drake made the 2nd trip.

Magellan did it to be "first" to find the western route to the Spice Islands (and profits). Drake did it more for nationalism (and profits).

Note that even though the first trip made enough money to pay for the project, there was still a 2-3 generation time lag before it was done again.

Similarities come to mind when considering that the US landed on the moon 60 years ago. We went to the moon to be "first", and for nationalism (and profits? not so much, directly).

It seems that if history is an example, the second set of folks to the moon will be because of nationalism (and profits), and it won't be the same folks who went the first time.

This can be looked at a couple of ways:

1) We're a dead, decaying society, spiraling to oblivion, and won't ever get anyone anywhere, anyhow, anyways.

2) Been there, done that. See you on Mars!

I'd like to see this work, but I think this has been tried before. Google something like "industrial revolution poorhouses debtor prisons".

Actually, some of these things were good ideas at the time to solve some of the same problems. Once institutionalized, though, you had all kinds of abuses from people, companies, and governments taking advantage of the situation.

Our current system of incarceration is our current attempt at a solution. Now it's being privatized. Now companies & communities depend on this for their livelihood.

History is re-entrant.

Whitey wrap from a Beowolf cluster of Zappas...

Dreamed I was an eskimo
Frozen wind began to blow
Under my boots and around my toes
The frost that bit the ground below
It was a hundred degrees below zero...

And my mama cried
And my mama cried
Nanook, a-no-no
Nanook, a-no-no
Don't be a naughty eskimo
Save your money, don't go to the show

Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said ho, ho
And the northern lights commenced to glow
And she said, with a tear in her eye
Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow
Watch out where the huskies go, and don't you eat that yellow snow

First you say something is not creative, but the result of "grueling hours". Then you go on to say that once you take a "spark" and mix it with "grueling hours", now you got creativity. Somehow you don't believe that creative musicians have any sparks?

Wow. Just wow. Very interesting. Thanks for posting this.

Excellent comment, thanks. I too have wondered about the conventional wisdom today of FPTP voting. And my thoughts were along the lines that you have detailed. I haven't come to any conclusions.

One thing I've noticed: People like races. They'll race anything and anybody. Even watching cars or critters go around in a circle can be exciting, and vast fortunes attend to these events. All to see who's going to win.

So perhaps FPTP voting, winner takes all, applies to some human or cultural characteristic.

"unregluted corporations". Priceless.

This method has been tried before and was found wanting.

The Roman Republic had a similar system. At the time, f'rinstance, the top Scrooge McDuck, Crassus, setup associations. If there was a fire, his brigades would show up and put it out if you were paid-up. If not, well, if you wanted to save your stuff, why, all you had to do is sell your property to Crassus for pennies on the dollar, and your stuff is saved! And you got a bit of money out of the deal! This was helpful in paying the rent on your former property.

Some also discovered that a bit of judicious arson was also great for business.

Yeah, when I read through my old Heinlein, I get a chuckle nowadays. He tended to use gay fairly often...the old definition, of course.

Yep, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

On the other hand, sulphur emissions and acid rain is not so much of a problem today, due to cap n trade. Apparently that kind of thing works sometimes.

Yeah, I went through Houston in '75, and I stopped by the JSC museum. The museum was ok, some cool capsules, etc. I don't remember it too much, but I still remember the big Saturn V laying there, rusting. What should have been a centerpiece of the museum was more like a jalopy on blocks.