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Comment Re:Growth production (Score 2) 136

This. The idea that a lack of constant compounding growth is a bad thing comes from capitalists who want to be able to turn their money into more money without doing any work. To do that they need growth. If you work for a living rather than owning for a living, you have no need for infinite growth in a finite world.

Comment A job for marine artificial upwelling? (Score 1) 33

Disabling this power-up pad for hurricanes whenever it becomes a danger could be an ideal job for marine artificial upwelling, we'd just need to be careful not to run it more than necessary because it generally worsens global warming in the long term:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/r...

Comment Re:People worry about government surveillance? (Score 1) 60

Plus in most jurisdictions (especially China and more recently the US) it's quite easy for governments to get access to corporate data for "security" purposes. So any data corporate surveillance collects, government can get access to as well. Often just for a small fee, no ominous security laws required.

A lot of people don't realize this. Gun nuts in the US get bent out of shape about the idea of a gun registry, all while you can be pretty sure the NSA already has something similar based on data from buyer transactions with corporations.

Comment Re:A sad day (Score 5, Informative) 181

Promising? How? It's a concept that's only been kept limping along by the fossil fuel industry, that carries the best selection of the worst downsides: Expensive and currently fossil-sourced fuel like an ICE, high up-front vehicle cost and slow "refuel" times like an EV, a fuel with very few filling stations in the world that needs to be stored at enormous pressures, burns with an invisible flame, can escape through solids and embrittles steel on the way out like...hydrogen.

Comment Re:Unicornia is the land of Net Zero (Score 1) 55

Short answer, CO2 is bad for the environment. On average, it's also bad for plants at present-day levels.

CO2 is plant junk food, on average plants only benefit from it up to 400ppm (which we've already exceeded), beyond that it begins to harm crop nutrition. Certain plants can benefit from higher CO2 levels at particular growth stages but that doesn't mean those levels are good for most plants most of the time.

And that's without getting into the possibility of the plants being destroyed by a flood or wildfire or drought brought on by global warming that comes along with the higher CO2. CO2 levels that would be ideal for plants growing in a theoretical greenhouse would be too high for everything else in the environment, directly unhealthy for any humans inhaling the air, and catastrophic to established human settlements.

Comment Re:We've heard this SO MANY times before... (Score 5, Informative) 64

That someone is a group called TIGHAR. News outlets don't treat them with the level of skepticism they deserve because it isn't easy to see what would motivate this group to mislead. TIGHAR only seeks to achieve fame by "finding Amelia", and the funding that comes with promises to do so and any clues they claim to have found is a nice bonus. The trouble is that they're quite willing to bend the truth to get there.

The theory that Earhart ended up anywhere near Nikumaroro is implausible:

https://skeptoid.com/blog/2016...
https://skeptoid.com/episodes/...

Comment Re:Fuel or electrical? (Score 1) 106

Contaminated fuel isn't totally impossible but is highly unlikely since no other planes had an issue that day, and even with contaminated fuel the odds of the two engines shutting down so close together are quite low. The theory of the jet fuel being contaminated with avgas is also pretty much impossible at a big commercial airport like the one this jet took off from.

Something weird may have caused an electrical or electronic failure that took out both engines at once. Highly unlikely again but not impossible.

Another greater possibility is that one engine failed for some reason and the pilots reacted incorrectly causing the good engine to be shut down. This is the most likely and there have been other crashes caused by this kind of mistake. Pilots spend their whole careers maintaining equal thrust between a plane's engines, but then when an engine failure happens they have to go for maximum unequal thrust.

Comment WHAT ABOUT THE HOURS PER WEEK? (Score 1) 38

These stories on the supposedly shortened British working week are never specific as to whether they're working less hours per week for the same pay. If hours per week are the same, then the only thing workers may be gaining is some scheduling flexibility.

Today's workers should be down to about a 30-hour work week based on productivity improvements since the '70s. Either that or about 40% more pay.

Comment Re: should be 'CEO doesn't understand tech, is sca (Score 1) 93

That's just a minor side effect, what they actually used it for was to grow corporate profits continuously for half a century while keeping worker pay stagnant. If workers got any benefit from their own productivity improvements over that time, they'd be making 40% more money or working 2 less days per week on average now.

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