jlc

I do not personally see a need for religion, but I observe that many pleasant and rational people do. I am unwilling to do anything that limits their right to conceive of the universe, or some portion thereof, in a faith-based fashion: These are people who I would like to have as neighbors.

Jan

That is a different issue. The hypothetical church in question should also be free to not perform such a ceremony.

Jan

Yes. This ruling represents an end to a limitation on the freedom of an individual.

Jan

Just back from vacation and followed your link. Interesting. Thanks.

Jan

Martimus -

I think that this is closely linked to the concept of self-worth. If you have a solid sense of self, then it gives you a good foundation to say, "I just don't like you. Go away."

You had great parents.

Jan

I read an article a long time ago, I think in Readers Digest, about men having to train women for the workforce during WWII. One supervisor did much better than all the others. His technique was to say: Remember how you change the setting on your washing machine? This dial is where you change the setting on this [industrial machine] - just like on your washer. And then, remember how you set the timer on your washing machine? Well, here is where you set the timer on [machine].

I remembered this article when we started Schuyler House - I was the chief trainer back then. If I had trouble relating how to work the software, I would try to find some relation to an everyday task. Once, the trainee was so...uh...challenging, that I finally made up a little song, "Three letters of the last name. Comma. Three letters of the first name. Enter...."

If I recall correctly, Kimball Kennison also taught an heiress about space travel in a similar fashion.

The problem is that change is happening so quickly that you can barely find a metaphor before the user interface changes again.

Jan

THAT was where I got the mental image. I remembered somewhere a sharp picture of a submarine in orbit and how the story had described how well a submarine was suited to being a space ship...if you had unlimited power and could disregard weight constraints.

Thank you. I always read my father's Analog's...sometimes when he was still reading them. We would quarrel happily over who got it next, and then discuss the stories.

Jan

It is most noticeable when it has not worked - when ideological splits amongst the anti-socialist voters have resulted in liberal gains.

Jan

This gets the Obama's elected. Always. We need to vote for the 'least stinky' in an iterative manner, each time pushing the envelope a bit further in the direction we want to go.

'Feel good' does not figure into the decision.

Jan

"Drunkard's Walk", eh?

Jan

Yes! He will open up issues that the other candidates will then have to address.

Jan

"May you live in interesting times." is not a curse for me. I am basically a very lazy person who is fascinated by many things. I am motivated to drag myself off the couch of indolence and run around, sticking my nose into stuff, "What is that? Look! What is over there?"

I realize that I have made many decisions in my life to secure the basis for a good income, but that I have never yet made a life decision per se, "to make more money". I want to live in wonderful times, so I poke around, creating moments of wonder.

And thus has lain the rest.

Jan

We have to deal with FM* all the time. We have had customers demand that our system print worksheets BEFORE the accessions that go on said worksheets are entered into the system! They were more than willing to enter the accessions after the worksheets printed...but it would be so much more convenient if the worksheets printed right away...

Jan
* (second word is "Magic")

Ha! Great schadenfreude post.

Jan

If we had space drive, then just take a nuclear sub, outfit it with the new drive...hey presto! the stars.

More realistically, I do not see why the space industry has totally disregarded these nuclear units with which we have a lot of experience. I rarely see this possibility mentioned any more: Is it just because of the weight? Is it politically forbidden?

Jan

I will have to vote for whomever makes it through the political sieve and comes to the finals and 'who is not Hillary'. I cannot afford to vote based on whom I want, but must place my minute amount of power to exclude whomever would be worse.

So far, Rand Paul is my preference. He has warts, but I can work around them.

Jan

United Socialist States of America?!

Jan, washing her keyboard after typing that line

I brought this question up with a friend of mine who is a long time Objectivist, and she immediately responded that Ayn Rand said that a person must be "productive" but did not specify that they had to earn money thereby.

I think that the concept of a world where everyone has (due to robots) what we now consider an affluent lifestyle as a 'given'. A subset of those people go on to be productive in spite of the fact that they have no physical incentive to do so.

On the other hand, my social span of acquaintances is broad and I am aware that there is already a substantial segment of society who make their lives around drugs and lethargy and TV. I think that this would become the norm in such a world.

What do you think?

Jan

Yeah, VetteGuy. While I don't recall reading or hearing about it at the time, Wm is fond of mentioning that at one point, electricity that cost less to produce than it did to bill was in our future. It was the Ecology movement (I DO remember that) that made villains of the nuclear industry...and here we are today.

I have read speculation that if not for the anti-technology movement of the late 1960's, we might already be living in an enclave that is what we consider our dream-future. I am glad that we saved the whales; I am not glad that it was at the expense of our dreams

Jan

It is right on the path I want to travel - nuclear power, preferably Thorium (your namesake, almost). It would pull the rug right out from under the Middle East financial model. Our local petroleum would do quite well for industrial use.

So many benefits - all 'they' (gov) have to do is go away and let us achieve for a while.

Thanks for starting this thread.

Jan

Even if there were a magical and instant absence of regulations and disincentives, there might well 'never be enough good jobs again'. All that needs to happen is for robots to become a bit more pervasive and the jobs disappear.

But then we will not need them. And that requires a new model of productivity.

Jan

So - this is not a law yet. Are you asking for people to comment before the 3Aug deadline?

Jan

Increasingly, they are, Thoritsu.

The Ecomodernist Manifesto that I linked to (yesterday?) has quotes such as, "Urbanization, agricultural intensification, nuclear power, aquaculture, and desalination are all processes with a demonstrated potential to reduce human demands on the environment, allowing more room for non-human species. Suburbanization, low-yield farming, and many forms of renewable energy production, in contrast, generally require more land and resources and leave less room for nature. " and "Nuclear fission today represents the only present-day zero-carbon technology with the demonstrated ability to meet most, if not all, of the energy demands of a modern economy. However, a variety of social, economic, and institutional challenges make deployment of present-day nuclear technologies at scales necessary to achieve significant climate mitigation unlikely. A new generation of nuclear technologies that are safer and cheaper will likely be necessary for nuclear energy to meet its full potential as a critical climate mitigation technology...In the long run, next-generation solar, advanced nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion represent the most plausible pathways toward the joint goals of climate stabilization and radical decoupling of humans from nature. "

Here is a link to that document. http://www.ecomodernism.org/manifesto
I think this is a definite 'things are looking up' moment.

Jan

I was dismayed when two intelligent liberals I know summed up their opposition to Sarah Palin with the words, "She's crazy." (and were not able to tell me 'why'). This reminded me so much of the Equal Rights Amendment of the 1970's, which was brought down by the conservatives circulating the rumor, "That is not the whole Law."

Now I am being reminded of both of those occurrences again. It does not matter how specious the argument is, just whether or not some telling phrase 'sticks'.

Jan

Thank you. I often bring up the vineyards of Roman Britain, but I did not know about the 11th C ones!

Jan