Ocasio-Cortez proposes a 70% tax on the most wealthy to pay for a "Green New Deal".

[Broomstick]

Your anti-US bias is showing.

Why don't you harp on the other CO2 producing nations, like China?

Because China is actively cutting their output and is working very hard to go green now that they have a manufacturing base setup and ready to go. They're attacking climate change in a way that the US simply isn't.

Oh, please - they're pumping out more shit into the environment than anyone else, and will be for years to come. You're too young to remember what the environment in North America was like up through the mid-70's. The US made great strides in cleaning up before you were born, but like for a lot of clean-ups while the initial changes were dramatic later ones were incremental.

Yes, we've back slid thanks to the Republican nutjobs we've had lately, but overall the trend over the past 50 years has been positive.

For a 'world leader,' the US isn't leading much these days when it comes to actually implementing green technology while, arguably, the US is a nation that could easily afford to do so.

The US isn't much of a world leader anymore, and its influence will likely only continue to diminish (although still powerful for now). And no, we can't "easily afford" to do that now due to the debt we carry and our tanking economy.

You have a better time asking why I don't attack India for their output, and the honest answer is that they're stuck in the middle of trying to industrialize after the west spent years fucking them.

You mean, after the British Empire spent years fucking them - but hey, let's go spreading guilt around because none of us are worthy of life according to you. Sorry, not good enough. You've got an excuse for every twisted psychotic impulse you have.

I frankly expect more of the west than I do of developing nations and the US lags behind most of the west and, sadly, due to proximity and trade are dragging Canada down somewhat as well.

There you go again - X isn't perfect, so destroy X and whatever good there might be there because it's not perfect.

Is it wrong to expect the self-professed leader of the free world to actually lead the pack for once?

Yep, because

1) The "leader of the free world" is deflating and

2) No one likes it when we do take the lead, so why bother any more? and

3) Time for someone else to step up to the plate - we'd all be better for it if the "lead" was passed around a bit.

Is it wrong to expect the nation that benefited the most from unchecked growth and lax environmental standards to give back now that they're comfortably on top? Is it wrong to ask those with the most to invest in sustainability?

Actually... I'd argue that "benefiting the most from lax standards" would go to either the former USSR or the current China, not the US. Starting in the 1960's the US self-imposed regulations because we were tired of things like rivers catching fire.. The US was far from the most lax about the environment from that point forward. Look at the contamination in the former USSR, and what's happening in China these days, for just two more examples. The US is not the worst offender here, much less the only one.

Although you are correct we used to do more to fix things gone wrong... to imply we did nothing is inaccurate.

What catapulted the US to world power was not something intrinsic to the US (however much that might be the official line) but rather Europe fucking itself and a lot of other people over during WWII. The US leap ahead wasn't that much, it was so many others falling behind that made the leap forward look so large. The rest of the world is catching back up now.

[Broomstick]

What the heck is your obsession with genocide as a solution, Jub?

I mean, we can't really fix this over a span of 10 or 20 years at this point.

We can’t fix this in under a century if we can do that at all. It’s even possible that an attempt to fix things might make them worse because climate is complicated and we don’t fully understand it.

Why not just skip the slow suffering death of poverty and ever decreasing quality of life on a melting ice ball and get right to the fun bits?

Because most of the people you advocate killing still value their lives and still want to live.

Poor is not inherently miserable. One can be poor and still have a satisfying life with happiness and purpose.

Because it's expensive, causes more suffering and needs to be redone every couple of years?

It's actually cheaper to just remove the carbon we emit from the atmosphere, recycle part of it back into fuel, and gradually expand along this line with future expansions of humanity.

Thus, being cheaper, and causing less suffering, it is the obvious choice.

Except that there's essentially no chance we can roll it out fast enough to matter and all the while we're just tossing more coal on the fire. At least with my idea, we stop chucking coal on the fire as fast by killing the ones doing most of the shoveling.

Except, as shown, murdering half the planet could actually make things worse. Again, going HULK SMASH! isn't going to fix anything, just break more stuff.

NOTHING is going to fix the problem fast enough to satisfy you.

Sorry, I got a math error, it is 10x the cost for DAC - 4 to 15 trillion US dollars. Still, that's global expense, and should be doable, since it also creates more jobs and GDP, in turn. World GP is about 80 trillion, currently, and since it is done large scale, it should be towards the lower side of the expected cost spectrum.

Renewables are also worth billions and yet oil companies are still preferring to sell oil instead.

You know, petroleum came to dominate the world's energy sources for reasons other than simply evil men conspiring - there are advantages to petroleum like portability and energy density that a lot of renewables don't have.

Your plan has as much chance of happening as mine does but with the added benefit of being complicated.

Right... because murdering a few billion people wouldn't get complicated...

Aerius and LaCroix covered some of that so I won't repeat it.

[Jub]

Right. I get the notion that you want to fix stuff - my generation did, too - but going all HULK SMASH! is not going to work.

It really doesn't feel like your generation did all that much to help. Looking back over the 80's, 90's and 00's (the 70's are a bit too far back for me know enough to feel comfortable passing any judgment) we see a lot of the groundwork laid for the issues facing us today, but those years passed like a non-stop party. Then the party stops in 2008, right when people of my generation started to graduate, the cracks really start to show and now suddenly we're the ones left holding the bag.

Forgive my anger, but it doesn't feel like my parents and grand-parents had my best interests in mind while they voted for tax cuts, ignored the housing bubble, and covered their eyes and ears about the environment.

I made it quite clear that it doesn't have to be another vehicle - if I had a safe means to bike to work I could, at least a good part of the year. I already have a bike, and I'm healthy enough to do it. Except winter is an issue... hey, I'm open to relocation. Or work-from-home and maybe use a taxi or uber or something when I need to go somewhere. I have already lived like that - for the fifteen years I lived in Chicago I didn't own a car, didn't drive one, didn't want one.

No, we can't do it for everyone. Murdering everyone isn't a solution, either.

I think telecommuting is a good idea, a lot of jobs could be done that way and it's both cost effective and easy to implement. Closing retail spaces would be another good idea, there are a lot of stores that really don't need to exist. This would cost a lot of jobs, but with mass, automation looming and online shopping growing year over year we've headed that way anyway.

I'd support mass transit too, but I think in a lot of places that ship has sailed. It's going to be too little too late and so much urban planning just isn't designed for it.

Maybe car ownership is much more common here than where you are. No, a trade-a-vehicle-for-something-else scheme isn't going to benefit those with no car - that's why a car is an asset, it has value. That objection is ridiculous - a buy-back scheme for diamond rings "hurts" people who don't own diamond rings. No, it doesn't. It doesn't take anything from people who don't own a particular object. They don't lose anything.

I found an article about car ownership in Canada versus the US, we do on average drive less than Americans. We also don't drive beaters into the ground as often and prefer smaller more fuel-efficient vehicles, though we do have a strange love affair with trucks which I can't 100% explain.

As far as the buyback program hurting people, where there aren't just pure junk beaters being driven into the ground the cost of a used vehicle rises drastically. If you say that losing a vehicle would kill you, doesn't not having access to a vehicle at all put people at risk of death? After all, if you had no ability to get access to a car when you were forced to leave Chicago what would you have done?

You, on the other hand, advocate simply taking without compensation and murder.

Don't 'take' anything. Just raise emissions standards sharply and force junkers off the road entirely. Offer scrap value and free pick-up for something that no longer has value (or may have negative value) and people can hardly complain.

That's what you "feel". How warm and fuzzy for you. That's not science and it's not technology. It's a pipe dream.

"Diverting resources" does not automatically make a self-sufficient colony in space.

It's all very well to build dream castles in the clouds but unless there is a real foundation underneath they all fall down.

We have, or at least, had the technology to get men to the moon and clear plans on how to uprate that capacity and this was in the 60's. Had we not slashed funding at that point it is entirely reasonable to expect that we'd have overcome the technical challenges of a moon station, if not a full lunar colony, by this point. With a presence on another rocky body comes the potential to move certain types of factories off world.

Obviously, I can't prove a hypothetical, but your outright claim that we should divert funds because it might not work is myopic. Humanity WILL with 100% certainty become extinct if we do not get off this planet. It may not be a looming threat but it is a certain one. Is that not reason enough to work on getting out there? The price for failure is the death of our species, which is worse than anything I've proposed.

A bare, airless rock in space is not "living space". There is one and only one rock in space that can be said to have living space in this solar system and that's the one you're standing on. There is no guarantee we can make any other rock in this system liveable.

Sure, I'd love to see independent space colonies but reality is a motherfucker. We don't actually know if that is possible.

We've made less than rock livable. We've proven that plants can grow in space. We've proven that insects can live and breed in space. Anywhere there is water and solar energy is a place we could already live with great enough investment. This is proven science, we've just never taken the step to really test how far we can take it.

Sure did - for all the good it did.

You are mistaking lack of desired results for lack of effort. It's like prosecuting someone for murder because two hours of CPR didn't revive the heart attack victim.

Hell, it's not like I've stopped trying, either - just yesterday instead of throwing 70+ kilos of crap out I took it for recycling. Especially for aluminium, the recycling footprint is smaller than the refining from virgin ore. I replaced the weather-stripping on my new apartment at my own expense to reduce the energy costs of heating it in the winter. And so on.

It ends in the same result as far as my generation and the one coming up behind us are concerned. You failed, but seem unwilling to pay the price for that failure. Is it wrong of the youth today to look at our elders with a mix of hate and disappointment because of what you have left us?

Oh, like having your best efforts fail is such a fucking good time, right?

Wa-wa-wa - my generation said the exact same thing, blaming our parents for the "hell" our life was. Fact is, you're a First Worlder, too. Tough shit. When my parents were your age WWII was raging and there was no guarantee how that would turn out. It's that reality thing again - you have to play the hand you're dealt, fair or unfair, because there isn't any hand to play.

You started with a fairer chance than we have. Education was affordable, household debt was lower, wages were worth more, and the world wasn't yet baking in its own juices. You failed to improve the world and have left us with a worse economy and a dying planet and the best you can say is 'We tried'? Fuck that.

And there's that collective guilt thing again - wa-wa-wa - your generation is so mean! You all conspired against me! I'm going to hurt you all back! Stop acting like a toddler.

What, you expect us just to sit back and take it? You expect the seeds you've sown not to bear fruit? You set the stage for this world we live in and have the gall to call those of us unhappy with the pathetic state you've left things in whiners.

Fuck you. I hope your cars die and you're left to your wretched fate.

No, it couldn't. Just wanting hard enough won't make it work. It won't work any more than clicking your heels three times and saying "There's no place like home" is going to take you to Kansas.

Space is hard. It's also far more hazardous than any environment on Earth other than, say, trying to swim in lava. We can't "want" McMurdo base into being self-sufficient at this point, even with free air and gravity and potentially a source of water via melting ice much less make anything in space self-sufficient.

Where there is water, solar, and shelter there is everything needed for life. We know that we can grow food and bred insects in microgravity. We know that we can build habitats that can last decades in a vacuum. Is it really such a stretch to think that we couldn't build an ISS like structure on the moon with only a little extra effort?

I want as much life as I can get, and I don't give a fuck if I'd be "missed" or not - I want to be here. You're sacrificing the good in search of the perfect, which is stupid because you'll never get that perfect and you'll meanwhile miss out on the good.

And clearly, you're the good and just like the rest of those that marched blindly into our current mess blameless for the situation we're in... I'm sorry, I just don't buy it.

But you ignore China, which is currently doing more to kill the planet than anyone else.

Obviously, you didn't read my post so I'm going to ignore the rest of this screed.

No, I'm taking about your ridiculous fan-boy wanking about space colonies. It's bullshit at this point, and might well always be bullshit. "Space will save us!" is unproven and little more than click-your-heels-and-think-of-home. Not to mention your genocide scheme, as pointed out, will eliminate all the nations with space travel technology. Your "solution" actually negates your "solution". If you kill off those high-tech players what makes you think that those remaining will have the resources, knowledge, or even desire to try to get into space?

I've already stated outright that killing everybody was a poor take so you can stop harping on it. If you couldn't be assed to read my posts fuck off.

As for space saving us, we don't have a choice. Staying is 100% going to kill us with no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Do you think YOUR solution wouldn't?

Truth is, the American Hegemony is fading. Probably not fast enough for you, but it is. Our time as a superpower is winding down. You'll be worrying about China (and possibly others) before you hit middle age.

Given that you're not actually reading my posts at this point, please just fuck off.

Whether we leave Earth or not our species will inevitably go extinct. Judging by other hominid species, we'll get maybe a million years at most, perhaps as few as half that. Either we all die, or we all evolve into something else. All species end just as all individuals end. So... what can we do to make our time as good as possible?

Evolving doesn't mean extinction Broomstick. If you can't even understand that much you're not worth talking to.

Oh, please - they're pumping out more shit into the environment than anyone else, and will be for years to come. You're too young to remember what the environment in North America was like up through the mid-70's. The US made great strides in cleaning up before you were born, but like for a lot of clean-ups while the initial changes were dramatic later ones were incremental.

Yes, we've back slid thanks to the Republican nutjobs we've had lately, but overall the trend over the past 50 years has been positive.

Yay the US did a thing back in the 70's due to the oil crisis and then patted themselves on the back. Do you want a medal for something that happened in a burst 50 years ago and failed to properly follow up on?

The US isn't much of a world leader anymore, and its influence will likely only continue to diminish (although still powerful for now). And no, we can't "easily afford" to do that now due to the debt we carry and our tanking economy.

You're the second largest economy in the world and spend over half a billion yearly on your military. Until you're not among the most well armed and richest economies on the planet I expect the US to pull its weight. It's currently being carried like the overweight jock basking in past glories that it has been since WWII.

You mean, after the British Empire spent years fucking them - but hey, let's go spreading guilt around because none of us are worthy of life according to you. Sorry, not good enough. You've got an excuse for every twisted psychotic impulse you have.

Nobody else was much better to their colonies. There's plenty of guilt to go around.

There you go again - X isn't perfect, so destroy X and whatever good there might be there because it's not perfect.

It's not exactly worth much as it is. Sure there are companies and people doing good in the US, but if you gave a nation with the mentality of Canada the power and wealth that US has don't you think we'd do better with it? Name a western nation that wouldn't do better than the US with the same resources. Look at me with a straight face and tell me that the US isn't the worst western nation in the world.

Why shouldn't the rest of the world hate you?

1) The "leader of the free world" is deflating and

2) No one likes it when we do take the lead, so why bother any more? and

3) Time for someone else to step up to the plate - we'd all be better for it if the "lead" was passed around a bit.

1) You're content to use this as an excuse to stop trying?

2) If you actually lead to a place that wasn't another war people might be a little more eager to follow...

3) I think this is the first thing we can agree on.

Actually... I'd argue that "benefiting the most from lax standards" would go to either the former USSR or the current China, not the US. Starting in the 1960's the US self-imposed regulations because we were tired of things like rivers catching fire.. The US was far from the most lax about the environment from that point forward. Look at the contamination in the former USSR, and what's happening in China these days, for just two more examples. The US is not the worst offender here, much less the only one.

The US was also the fastest growing and largest economy over the span and thus more is and was expected of them than the rest of the world. When you're out front by miles, people notice more when you stumble. That's just life.

What catapulted the US to world power was not something intrinsic to the US (however much that might be the official line) but rather Europe fucking itself and a lot of other people over during WWII. The US leap ahead wasn't that much, it was so many others falling behind that made the leap forward look so large. The rest of the world is catching back up now.

It might also have something to do with a massive landmass with huge tracts of arable land, massive deposits of mineral wealth, easy access to ports in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, lack of neighbors of comparable size and power to threaten you with war. The US is easy mode and yet has failed to capitalize on the massive advantages it has to the extent it should have.

Shouldn't we feel angry that you've squandered a chance to do great things and settled for miring yourself in filth?

We can’t fix this in under a century if we can do that at all. It’s even possible that an attempt to fix things might make them worse because climate is complicated and we don’t fully understand it.

So you advocate doing the same nothing we're currently doing?

Because most of the people you advocate killing still value their lives and still want to live.

Poor is not inherently miserable. One can be poor and still have a satisfying life with happiness and purpose.

Of course, but does that happiness have value? Does a biological computer of DNA and instincts have an inherent value?

Except, as shown, murdering half the planet could actually make things worse. Again, going HULK SMASH! isn't going to fix anything, just break more stuff.

NOTHING is going to fix the problem fast enough to satisfy you.

Which is why I advocate buying time to get off this rock even if it takes drastic steps to do that.

It might not work, but given your addmission that we have no viable means to fix things is it worth the risk?

Renewables are also worth billions and yet oil companies are still preferring to sell oil instead.

You know, petroleum came to dominate the world's energy sources for reasons other than simply evil men conspiring - there are advantages to petroleum like portability and energy density that a lot of renewables don't have.[/quote]

They also stifled growth in areas like electric cars, alternative power plants, lead to the current middle eastern political situation, and are currently petitioning for the US to slacken emissions standards because of a claimed surpluss of fuel.

Yes, there are reasons why fossil fuels caught on, but once they got on top they didn't hesitate to stomp on those beneath them to ensure dominance. Kind of like the US in that regard...

[mr friendly guy]

Oh, please - they're pumping out more shit into the environment than anyone else, and will be for years to come. You're too young to remember what the environment in North America was like up through the mid-70's. The US made great strides in cleaning up before you were born, but like for a lot of clean-ups while the initial changes were dramatic later ones were incremental.

Er no they are not. India has surpassed China in pollution. You google, say the ten most polluted cities in 2018, and 9 out of 10 are in India.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/03/here-ar ... india.html
The non Indian example isn't Chinese either. This change in who is the worse polluter isn't because India's economic output jumped dramatically while China slowed, its because the Chinese have actually started cleaning up their pollution, like everyone else does when their GDP / capita increases. India has been the worse polluter (at least air pollution wise) since 2015.

The most polluting countries are developing nations for obvious economic reasons, but even then, I question how much per capita pollution they are doing compared to developed nations.

Moreover, people ignore how China helps other countries reduce pollution by providing things like solar panels or hydropower to them. China's production of solar panels dropped the prices by 80% from 2008 to 2013. This is not China saying it, its Scientific American saying it.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... -industry/

As of 2017 China had more wind power than the entire EU combined (who have the second highest wind capacity) and also more than the entire EU combined again for solar power.

[Broomstick]

Right. I get the notion that you want to fix stuff - my generation did, too - but going all HULK SMASH! is not going to work.

It really doesn't feel like your generation did all that much to help.

No, you're just pissed because we didn't succeed.

Looking back over the 80's, 90's and 00's (the 70's are a bit too far back for me know enough to feel comfortable passing any judgment) we see a lot of the groundwork laid for the issues facing us today, but those years passed like a non-stop party.

If the 70's are "too far back" crack open a history book and learn about them. Laziness is not a valid excuse. Especially since it's a hell of a lot easier to access information these days than back when I was in my 20's.

Then the party stops in 2008, right when people of my generation started to graduate, the cracks really start to show and now suddenly we're the ones left holding the bag.

Oh.... I see.

You know, when I graduated college we were also in a recession. Your generation isn't the first to graduate into a weak job market although yes, yours is worse than what I faced.

When my dad was growing up it was the Great Depression - they were raising rabbits in the backyard for food and sometimes got paid in chickens or eggs for the work they did. People literally starved to death in those days sometimes. My mom grew up in the same era. She remembers "dinners' that were a ladle of soup for each person. That was it. That was all you got for dinner, day after day. Kids used to risk maiming to gather coal falling off railroad cars so they could heat their homes in winter. Really, neither of us have had it as bad as my parents

In fact, it was NOT my generation in charge up through the 90's it was the so-called "Greatest Generation" (more like, the most self-inflated generation) who fucked everyone else over. The generation before me in the US could retire at 65 with full social security benefits, but they voted to increase that age so now I have to wait some years longer before I can do that. They've gutted public education, punched more holes in the social safety net, and basically made everyone more frightenend and desperate.

Your problem is that up until recently your parents sheltered you from the harsh, brutal facts of the world. Now the facts have bitch-slapped you and you suddenly think you've "discovered" something. No, you haven't. EVERY generation goes through that sort of wake-up call. The world is not fair. You are not given a fair deal. Shit people did generations ago will hurt you. You're ability to do anything about that is sharply limited. And, oh, by the way - the universe is an inherently hostile place that will try to kill you and you're going to wind up dead in the end anyway. Welcome to adulthood!

Forgive my anger, but it doesn't feel like my parents and grand-parents had my best interests in mind while they voted for tax cuts, ignored the housing bubble, and covered their eyes and ears about the environment.

You're right. They didn't have your interests in mind. At most they had THEIR interests in mind, and in the case of the environment, often not even that.

I think telecommuting is a good idea, a lot of jobs could be done that way and it's both cost effective and easy to implement. Closing retail spaces would be another good idea, there are a lot of stores that really don't need to exist. This would cost a lot of jobs, but with mass, automation looming and online shopping growing year over year we've headed that way anyway.

Great - close the retail stores. Do you know how many unemployed people will be the result?

Telecommuting is great, but not every job is suited to that.

Excess labor is becoming a problem - sure automation and on-line stuff is more efficient, but it results in more people with nothing to do. Unless we have something like a Universal Basic Income you wind up with hungry, homeless people when you don't have enough jobs to go around. That tends to cause problems.

Hey, I'd be up for running a forklift in a warehouse for an on-line distributor of goods (I already know how to drive a forklift) - but then there's the problem of getting me to the workplace all over again.

Maybe car ownership is much more common here than where you are. No, a trade-a-vehicle-for-something-else scheme isn't going to benefit those with no car - that's why a car is an asset, it has value. That objection is ridiculous - a buy-back scheme for diamond rings "hurts" people who don't own diamond rings. No, it doesn't. It doesn't take anything from people who don't own a particular object. They don't lose anything.

I found an article about car ownership in Canada versus the US, we do on average drive less than Americans. We also don't drive beaters into the ground as often and prefer smaller more fuel-efficient vehicles, though we do have a strange love affair with trucks which I can't 100% explain.

I'm going to take a wild guess and assume the smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles are a feature of urban life. People living out in rural areas - and Canada has a LOT of rural territory - find trucks more utilitarian. Then there's the far north (which proportionally Canada has more of than the US) where travel starts getting more expensive and less efficient but I don't want to digress too far.

As far as the buyback program hurting people, where there aren't just pure junk beaters being driven into the ground the cost of a used vehicle rises drastically.

Yes, it did raise the price of used vehicles.

Even so - you CAN get a usable car for $3k around here, in part because there are more used cars available here than where you are.

If you say that losing a vehicle would kill you, doesn't not having access to a vehicle at all put people at risk of death?

Yes, yes it does.

After all, if you had no ability to get access to a car when you were forced to leave Chicago what would you have done?

I would have been unemployed and homeless. Probably would have wound up either back with my parents or living with my sister in Buffalo. I would have lost all my worldly possessions.

That sort of happened to my other sister - after her oldest son was in a car accident she lost her own car, her job, her home, and everything she owned outside of a suitcase with clothing in it. The start of her getting back on her feet was getting another car - when she couldn't crash on someone's couch she could at least sleep in it. She used it to relocate, then to go to and from work so she could finally get another apartment and start rebuilding her life. My sister wasn't a stupid or dysfunctional human being - she has a master's degree, no drug or alcohol habits, no mental or chronic physical illnesses... what she had was string of bad luck and bad occurrences. Because reality is a motherfucker and isn't fair.

You, on the other hand, advocate simply taking without compensation and murder.

Don't 'take' anything. Just raise emissions standards sharply and force junkers off the road entirely. Offer scrap value and free pick-up for something that no longer has value (or may have negative value) and people can hardly complain.

Oh, man, you do not know people - they ALWAYS complain!

That is indirect discrimination and the burden will fall disproportionately on the poor.

Scrap value is a pittance compared to the worth of a car that's working at all - those "junkers" aren't necessarily unreliable or particularly dangerous, they're rendered unusable not due to mechanical failings but by fiat. At least be honest enough to admit that.

Currently, my 20 year old truck has a resale value of somewhere between $2500 and $5000. Given that it's low mileage for it's age, isn't rusting, and doesn't have any current problems I'm inclined towards the high end (and I have actually had offers in the 4k-5k range for it). Scrap value is around $250.

So yes, if you declare by fiat my truck is now a junker and no good and can't driven, and "offer" me $250 for it I'm going to see it as you taking something of value from me. And you bet I'm going to bitch like hell and swear a blue streak over it.

That's why "cash for clunkers" did NOT offer scrap value for the cars - they offered several thousand dollars for them, comparable to trade-in value or at least the low end of private sales.

]We have, or at least, had the technology to get men to the moon and clear plans on how to uprate that capacity and this was in the 60's.

Excuse me?

You're willing to pin all that's wrong in the world on the US, but when it comes to space technology suddenly you're claiming ownership? Sorry, no - YOU do not have space technology, WE do. Canada has not, and can not, put a person into even low orbit, much less on the Moon. That's US technology, not yours. Arguably, that was also USSR (now Russian) technology - they didn't put a man on the Moon but I think they could have done so had things gone just a bit differently. Unquestionably, Russian space technology can put a man into orbit (and still does). China can do it, too. YOU, that is Canada, can not. That's you taking other people's stuff again. I correct my impression of your - you're not a murderer, you're a thief.

Had we not slashed funding at that point it is entirely reasonable to expect that we'd have overcome the technical challenges of a moon station, if not a full lunar colony, by this point.

No, sorry - YOU, Canada, did not slash funding, the US slashed funding. Because we decided we wanted to spend our money on other things. Personally, I disagreed with that but as usually when it came to a vote my side lost.

Obviously, I can't prove a hypothetical, but your outright claim that we should divert funds because it might not work is myopic. Humanity WILL with 100% certainty become extinct if we do not get off this planet. It may not be a looming threat but it is a certain one. Is that not reason enough to work on getting out there?

Humanity will one day be extinct regardless of whether we get off this rock or not. The only question is whether that will be sooner or later.

The price for failure is the death of our species, which is worse than anything I've proposed.

Our species will die one day regardless. I hope we will be replaced by something better that will remember us with some fondness and a little kindness, but since I'm aware reality is a motherfucker I'm not expecting that to happen. In either case, I won't be around to know the outcome.

A bare, airless rock in space is not "living space". There is one and only one rock in space that can be said to have living space in this solar system and that's the one you're standing on. There is no guarantee we can make any other rock in this system liveable.

Sure, I'd love to see independent space colonies but reality is a motherfucker. We don't actually know if that is possible.

We've made less than rock livable. We've proven that plants can grow in space. We've proven that insects can live and breed in space.

Oh, great - we've proven that pond scum and cockroaches will survive almost anything. Um... didn't we already sort of know that? We haven't proved HUMANS can survive in space long term. Or even for one normal length of lifespan.

Sure did - for all the good it did.

You are mistaking lack of desired results for lack of effort. It's like prosecuting someone for murder because two hours of CPR didn't revive the heart attack victim.

It ends in the same result as far as my generation and the one coming up behind us are concerned. You failed, but seem unwilling to pay the price for that failure. Is it wrong of the youth today to look at our elders with a mix of hate and disappointment because of what you have left us?

Answer the question - should someone be prosecuted for murder because their efforts at CPR failed to revive the person?

You're saying the only thing that matter is results. That the end justifies ANY means that will get you to the goal. Are you sure you want to live in that world? Because if that becomes the rule we live under I guarantee things will be even more fucked up than they are now.

You started with a fairer chance than we have. Education was affordable, household debt was lower, wages were worth more, and the world wasn't yet baking in its own juices. You failed to improve the world and have left us with a worse economy and a dying planet and the best you can say is 'We tried'? Fuck that.

There is it again - you people didn't give me the result I want so I'm going to punish you. Sorry - the answer you get isn't always the answer you want to hear.

Fun fact - the planet isn't dying, even if we are in the midst of a major extinction event. There will be life after us.

quote]And there's that collective guilt thing again - wa-wa-wa - your generation is so mean! You all conspired against me! I'm going to hurt you all back! Stop acting like a toddler.

What, you expect us just to sit back and take it? You expect the seeds you've sown not to bear fruit? You set the stage for this world we live in and have the gall to call those of us unhappy with the pathetic state you've left things in whiners.[/quote]
You're a whiner because all you do it piss and moan. Don't like the world? Get off your ass and at least TRY to change in rather than mewling about how mean your elders are.

Right now there are people trying to develop technologies to pull greenhouse gasses out the air. There are people trying to come up with better toilets that use less water and energy and even turn shit into safe fertilizer. There are people trying to develop better farming methods, design more fuel efficient vehicles. There are people trying to clean plastic out of the oceans. If those people want to talk about how prior generations fucked up I'll listen because they are trying to do something to better the world.

What have you done besides complain?

And if you hold up "I don't drive a car" or "I vote" as valid actions then don't fucking piss on people who are also trying to make their small efforts add up to larger ones regardles of where they come from.

Fuck you. I hope your cars die and you're left to your wretched fate.

...and here we're back to why people don't like you.

Wishing suffering and death on people isn't cool and worse yet, it's not constructive.

No, it couldn't. Just wanting hard enough won't make it work. It won't work any more than clicking your heels three times and saying "There's no place like home" is going to take you to Kansas.

Space is hard. It's also far more hazardous than any environment on Earth other than, say, trying to swim in lava. We can't "want" McMurdo base into being self-sufficient at this point, even with free air and gravity and potentially a source of water via melting ice much less make anything in space self-sufficient.

Where there is water, solar, and shelter there is everything needed for life. We know that we can grow food and bred insects in microgravity. We know that we can build habitats that can last decades in a vacuum. Is it really such a stretch to think that we couldn't build an ISS like structure on the moon with only a little extra effort?

Yep.

Because you're totally neglecting the problem of radiation. Radiation doesn't affect plants or insects like it does people.

And no, life requires more than just "water, solar, and shelter" - there's all sorts of minor and major elements and compounds required to grow food and sustain life long term. There's maintaining air as well as water. There's the problem of maintaining a solid shelter to keep the artificial biosphere intact where there is no atmosphere to shield against rocks falling out of space.

Building a Moon base wouldn't take just a little effort, it would take a LOT. A lot more just to get stuff to the Moon, and a lot more stuff needed because resupply missions would be further apart and cost a LOT more. We'd have to go deep to protect against radiation and flying rocks, so you're looking at a major mining operation just to start.

I want as much life as I can get, and I don't give a fuck if I'd be "missed" or not - I want to be here. You're sacrificing the good in search of the perfect, which is stupid because you'll never get that perfect and you'll meanwhile miss out on the good.

And clearly, you're the good and just like the rest of those that marched blindly into our current mess blameless for the situation we're in... I'm sorry, I just don't buy it.

Exactly. I didn't cause the problem any more than you did. I, too, was born into a fucked up world with mouthbreathing idiots in charge. At best, like me, you'll spend your life trying to make a difference only to have smart-ass ignorant kids bitch that they sky is falling and it's all your fault.

But you ignore China, which is currently doing more to kill the planet than anyone else.

Obviously, you didn't read my post so I'm going to ignore the rest of this screed.

In other words "I don't have a good answer so I'm going to pout".

I've already stated outright that killing everybody was a poor take so you can stop harping on it. If you couldn't be assed to read my posts fuck off.

You said it, you own it. If I get blamed for what my parents did I'm sure as hell going to hold you to what you said a few posts ago.

As for space saving us, we don't have a choice. Staying is 100% going to kill us with no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

We're all going to die in the end whether or not we get to space.

Yes, IF we get to space we might survive a bit longer. We might even leave a descendant species or two. But in eventually our light goes out, just like every other species.

Given that you're not actually reading my posts at this point, please just fuck off.

Translated: "I'm not getting the answer I want so I'm going to pout".

Whether we leave Earth or not our species will inevitably go extinct. Judging by other hominid species, we'll get maybe a million years at most, perhaps as few as half that. Either we all die, or we all evolve into something else. All species end just as all individuals end. So... what can we do to make our time as good as possible?

Evolving doesn't mean extinction Broomstick. If you can't even understand that much you're not worth talking to.

Yes, it does.

If we change so much we're no longer the same species then yes, H. sapiens is extinct at that point and some other, related, species goes on. That is how evolution works. That new species will be our descendants, but they won't be us."

Yay the US did a thing back in the 70's due to the oil crisis and then patted themselves on the back. Do you want a medal for something that happened in a burst 50 years ago and failed to properly follow up on?

You're not listening to me, and you're fucking ignorant.

The US environmental movement occurred BEFORE the 1970's oil crisis. And it occurred because people got tired of contaminated land, food, water, and air. And, oh yes, flaming rivers.

If you don't like our "leadership" then YOU take over that spot. Or will that cut too much into your pouting time?

The US isn't much of a world leader anymore, and its influence will likely only continue to diminish (although still powerful for now). And no, we can't "easily afford" to do that now due to the debt we carry and our tanking economy.

You're the second largest economy in the world and spend over half a billion yearly on your military. Until you're not among the most well armed and richest economies on the planet I expect the US to pull its weight.

See, that's my point - we used to be the first largest economy. We're slipping and fading and it's time for someone else to come to the forefront because no country remains on top forever.

You mean, after the British Empire spent years fucking them - but hey, let's go spreading guilt around because none of us are worthy of life according to you. Sorry, not good enough. You've got an excuse for every twisted psychotic impulse you have.

Nobody else was much better to their colonies. There's plenty of guilt to go around.

Yes. So why do you dump it all on the US?

There you go again - X isn't perfect, so destroy X and whatever good there might be there because it's not perfect.

It's not exactly worth much as it is. Sure there are companies and people doing good in the US, but if you gave a nation with the mentality of Canada the power and wealth that US has don't you think we'd do better with it?[/quote]
Nope.

Hey, ask your First Nations how well things have worked out the past century or two. Ask the child migrants shipped to Canada from the UK how things worked out for them. In the end, Canadians are just as human as anyone else and just as liable to greed and corruption.

Name a western nation that wouldn't do better than the US with the same resources. Look at me with a straight face and tell me that the US isn't the worst western nation in the world.

Look up the fucking history of the god-damned British Empire - which your nation remained a part of long after mine left - and tell me that. How about fucking Germany precipitating not one but two world wars? ANY country in Europe that had "new world" colonies. Australia and what was done not only to the convicts unwillingly sent there but also the natives.

You don't know history. All you know is that you live next to some noisy, obnoxious neighbours and you think things are better over somewhere else. They aren't, really.

The fact that the US and Canada have the longest undefended border in the world and haven't invaded each other (at least not since the early 19th Century) should be a clue that neither is the Worst and Most Terrible Nation Ever.

Why shouldn't the rest of the world hate you?

Actually... they don't.

I mean, the rest of the world rightly gets pissed off at some of the bullshit done by the US... as they do when one of the other big powers does something harmful or stupid or inconsiderate. But no, I don't think the entire rest of the world wants to see the US disappear, or destroyed. They want the US to change from what it is at present. "The world" doesn't hate China or Russia or the UK or Germany or Japan or any other country like that.. There are certainly conflicts between different countries and factions, but no one is universally hated (well, maybe North Korea...)

Part of your problem is that you project yourself onto others. YOU wouldn't mind dying for the rest of the world... but by and large the rest of the world doesn't feel that way. You have hatred for the US... but not everyone else does. You want to throw the poor of the world under the bus... but not everyone else does.

1) The "leader of the free world" is deflating and

2) No one likes it when we do take the lead, so why bother any more? and

3) Time for someone else to step up to the plate - we'd all be better for it if the "lead" was passed around a bit.

1) You're content to use this as an excuse to stop trying?

2) If you actually lead to a place that wasn't another war people might be a little more eager to follow...

3) I think this is the first thing we can agree on.

1) If you don't like how we lead then YOU do the leading.

2) If you don't like how we lead then YOU do the leading.

3) If you don't like how we lead then YOU do the leading

It all comes down to quit your bitching and DO SOMETHING. Preferably something that does NOT include genocide.

What catapulted the US to world power was not something intrinsic to the US (however much that might be the official line) but rather Europe fucking itself and a lot of other people over during WWII. The US leap ahead wasn't that much, it was so many others falling behind that made the leap forward look so large. The rest of the world is catching back up now.

It might also have something to do with a massive landmass with huge tracts of arable land, massive deposits of mineral wealth, easy access to ports in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans, lack of neighbors of comparable size and power to threaten you with war. The US is easy mode and yet has failed to capitalize on the massive advantages it has to the extent it should have.

Canada ALSO has a massive land mass, huge tracts of arable land, massive deposits of mineral wealth, ports in all those oceans, and no neighbors threatening war - why aren't YOU the world's superpower? Come on, come on - what's your excuse?

Shouldn't we feel angry that you've squandered a chance to do great things and settled for miring yourself in filth?

Oh? What about putting people in space? Oh, right - YOU claimed that, conveniently dropping the US out of it.

Sure, just forget all the technological, medical, and agricultural advances the US was involved in. They mean nothing. Forget feeding people after WWII so they didn't starve to death - a war we did not start, by the way, and actually tried to stay out of for a number of years. Forget helping to rebuild the ruins left by WWII. Forget stuff like the GPS constellation which we paid for and maintain but everyone else can use. The internet? You're welcome. On and on.

Sure, we've fucked up, too, and done bad things. But we've made a few positive contributions along the way.

We can’t fix this in under a century if we can do that at all. It’s even possible that an attempt to fix things might make them worse because climate is complicated and we don’t fully understand it.

So you advocate doing the same nothing we're currently doing?

Nope. But I don't advocate killing half the planet to "save" the other half, either. Unlike some people. Or taking away the means of making a living for millions of people.

We can't stop climate change at this point. At best, we can mitigate the damage and adapt.

At a minimum, island nations going on under water need to be granted a new place to live (some already have made arrangements).

Don't rely on any one nation to save your ass - start working on your own self-rescue.

Which is why I advocate buying time to get off this rock even if it takes drastic steps to do that.

Again - no guarantee we CAN get "off this rock".

It might not work, but given your addmission that we have no viable means to fix things is it worth the risk?

"We can't stop this process" is different than asking "can we adapt to a new environment?"

Right now I'd argue for both mitigation and adaption strategies.

Yes, there are reasons why fossil fuels caught on, but once they got on top they didn't hesitate to stomp on those beneath them to ensure dominance. Kind of like the US in that regard...

Kind of like everyone who's ever been on top, ever.

You keep regarding the US as some sort exceptional, singular event. It's not. It's just another empire. In the 19th Century you would have been making similar complaints against the British Empire. If you had lived under Spain or Portugal in the Colonial Era you would have had a LOT more to complain about.

[Broomstick]

Er no they are not. India has surpassed China in pollution. You google, say the ten most polluted cities in 2018, and 9 out of 10 are in India.

Oh, OK - well, good on China if they're cleaning up their act. I wish them the best and it can't come too soon.

Moreover, people ignore how China helps other countries reduce pollution by providing things like solar panels or hydropower to them. China's production of solar panels dropped the prices by 80% from 2008 to 2013. This is not China saying it, its Scientific American saying it.

There are issues with solar panels regarding production and disposal after their useful life is over. Solar tech is great, but the issues regarding pollution and carbon footprint for their production need to be addressed

[Jub]

No, you're just pissed because we didn't succeed.

Should we be happy that you failed?

If the 70's are "too far back" crack open a history book and learn about them. Laziness is not a valid excuse. Especially since it's a hell of a lot easier to access information these days than back when I was in my 20's.

It's 50 years back now. It's like a sad sports team looking back on past glories if you have to go back that far to show that the US cleaned up its act.

You know, when I graduated college we were also in a recession. Your generation isn't the first to graduate into a weak job market although yes, yours is worse than what I faced.

...But it hasn't recovered yet. The jobs didn't come back, the wages (especially compared to inflation) haven't gone up, the housing market hasn't gotten any cheaper. We've sent a generation in debt going to school only to tell them that there aren't any jobs for them. That didn't happen to your generation.

In fact, it was NOT my generation in charge up through the 90's it was the so-called "Greatest Generation" (more like, the most self-inflated generation) who fucked everyone else over. The generation before me in the US could retire at 65 with full social security benefits, but they voted to increase that age so now I have to wait some years longer before I can do that. They've gutted public education, punched more holes in the social safety net, and basically made everyone more frightenend and desperate.

Your problem is that up until recently your parents sheltered you from the harsh, brutal facts of the world. Now the facts have bitch-slapped you and you suddenly think you've "discovered" something. No, you haven't. EVERY generation goes through that sort of wake-up call. The world is not fair. You are not given a fair deal. Shit people did generations ago will hurt you. You're ability to do anything about that is sharply limited. And, oh, by the way - the universe is an inherently hostile place that will try to kill you and you're going to wind up dead in the end anyway. Welcome to adulthood!

I've been on my own since foster care at 15, I wasn't sheltered from shit all Broomstick. I grew up in a single parent household that didn't get child support from my drug addict father. I never had the chance to at post-secondary education and went straight into the workforce when I graduated high school in '06. I didn't have the luxury of going to school, being a pilot, being middle-class before becoming poor as you did.

Boo-hoo you don't get to retire at 65 even though quality of life and life expectancy went up. My generation my not get to retire at all with how the population pyramid has shaken out. Oh, and companies don't offer pensions so readily these days either so even working full-time isn't enough to get those funds coming in. But tell me again how Broomstick has it so bad.

You're right. They didn't have your interests in mind. At most they had THEIR interests in mind, and in the case of the environment, often not even that.

Yet you seem puzzled at my anger...

Great - close the retail stores. Do you know how many unemployed people will be the result?

It's already happening though. Malls are dying, stores are slowly merging into massive warehouses and, for most products you don't need to see them in person to know what you're getting. With the exception of things like clothing where many people want to test for fit before buying anything, there's very little that isn't easier to buy online.

Excess labor is becoming a problem - sure automation and on-line stuff is more efficient, but it results in more people with nothing to do. Unless we have something like a Universal Basic Income you wind up with hungry, homeless people when you don't have enough jobs to go around. That tends to cause problems.

That's already happening Broomy, this isn't just me making idle plans. The jobs are going away and we're no closer to UBI or affordable retraining that we were a decade ago. Get ready to lose what little work there is or to get paid even less than you are now as a machine takes all the low hanging fruit away from the lower classes.

Hey, I'd be up for running a forklift in a warehouse for an on-line distributor of goods (I already know how to drive a forklift) - but then there's the problem of getting me to the workplace all over again.

Why would they want that, it's easier to build an automater warehouse and not pay you to do a job a line following robot can do. Amazon is already doing that and many others are following suit.

I'm going to take a wild guess and assume the smaller and more fuel-efficient vehicles are a feature of urban life. People living out in rural areas - and Canada has a LOT of rural territory - find trucks more utilitarian. Then there's the far north (which proportionally Canada has more of than the US) where travel starts getting more expensive and less efficient but I don't want to digress too far.

That was my thought, but you see a lot of trucks in cities too.

Even so - you CAN get a usable car for $3k around here, in part because there are more used cars available here than where you are.

Yeah, so your plan doesn't work universally and has the added issue of ensuring that substandard cars keep rolling beyond their scrap by date. Also, $3k for a used car would have been 5th of my income some years, it's well out of my reach.

Yes, yes it does.

So you support killing people via inflated used car prices then?

I would have been unemployed and homeless. Probably would have wound up either back with my parents or living with my sister in Buffalo. I would have lost all my worldly possessions.

That sort of happened to my other sister - after her oldest son was in a car accident she lost her own car, her job, her home, and everything she owned outside of a suitcase with clothing in it. The start of her getting back on her feet was getting another car - when she couldn't crash on someone's couch she could at least sleep in it. She used it to relocate, then to go to and from work so she could finally get another apartment and start rebuilding her life. My sister wasn't a stupid or dysfunctional human being - she has a master's degree, no drug or alcohol habits, no mental or chronic physical illnesses... what she had was string of bad luck and bad occurrences. Because reality is a motherfucker and isn't fair.

So you knowingly support a program, car buyback, that kills people or forces them into homelessness. Yet my idea of just taking away the cars and forcing change is evil...?

That is indirect discrimination and the burden will fall disproportionately on the poor.

Scrap value is a pittance compared to the worth of a car that's working at all - those "junkers" aren't necessarily unreliable or particularly dangerous, they're rendered unusable not due to mechanical failings but by fiat. At least be honest enough to admit that.

"...reality is a motherfucker and isn't fair." Why does that quote work when it's about something you're invested in but cause you to get your back up when I suggest doing something that causes the same?

Currently, my 20 year old truck has a resale value of somewhere between $2500 and $5000. Given that it's low mileage for it's age, isn't rusting, and doesn't have any current problems I'm inclined towards the high end (and I have actually had offers in the 4k-5k range for it). Scrap value is around $250.

So yes, if you declare by fiat my truck is now a junker and no good and can't driven, and "offer" me $250 for it I'm going to see it as you taking something of value from me. And you bet I'm going to bitch like hell and swear a blue streak over it.

That's why "cash for clunkers" did NOT offer scrap value for the cars - they offered several thousand dollars for them, comparable to trade-in value or at least the low end of private sales.

Cash for clunkers drives up used vehicle prices which you admit kills people. My suggestion to get rid of clunkers all together might do so to a greater degree, but at the same time, it forces people to find other solutions and rethink city design in mass transit in a way your bandaid solution doesn't. Force people to adapt and they will, string them along and they adapt to just crawling along as they are.

You're willing to pin all that's wrong in the world on the US, but when it comes to space technology suddenly you're claiming ownership? Sorry, no - YOU do not have space technology, WE do. Canada has not, and can not, put a person into even low orbit, much less on the Moon. That's US technology, not yours. Arguably, that was also USSR (now Russian) technology - they didn't put a man on the Moon but I think they could have done so had things gone just a bit differently. Unquestionably, Russian space technology can put a man into orbit (and still does). China can do it, too. YOU, that is Canada, can not. That's you taking other people's stuff again. I correct my impression of your - you're not a murderer, you're a thief.

You can't steal something that doesn't exist Broomstick. The US has at present the exact same capacity to put a man on the moon as Canada does. They had that, but you squandered it and may never get it back.

No, sorry - YOU, Canada, did not slash funding, the US slashed funding. Because we decided we wanted to spend our money on other things. Personally, I disagreed with that but as usually when it came to a vote my side lost.

Just more proof that the US doesn't deserve the position its enjoyed and likely never has.

Humanity will one day be extinct regardless of whether we get off this rock or not. The only question is whether that will be sooner or later.

Yeah, but I'd rather the last human dies shortly after the last black hole evaporates, not because of a rogue spacerock in the next hundred thousand to million years.

Our species will die one day regardless. I hope we will be replaced by something better that will remember us with some fondness and a little kindness, but since I'm aware reality is a motherfucker I'm not expecting that to happen. In either case, I won't be around to know the outcome.

Evolution is not extinction. It's a gradual change between what we are now and a form adapted to new conditions. That species may still consider itself human if indeed a technological soultion (genetic engineering or a sythetic replacement for flesh) doesn't render evolution a footnote in our history. That is if we last that long.

Oh, great - we've proven that pond scum and cockroaches will survive almost anything. Um... didn't we already sort of know that? We haven't proved HUMANS can survive in space long term. Or even for one normal length of lifespan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plants_in_space

That doesn't seem like pondscum to me.

Also, we've had animals reproduce in space as well.

Japanese rice fish, Oryzias latipes, spent 15 days in 1994 abord the Colombia Shuttle where they reproduced: http://cosmo.ric.u-tokyo.ac.jp/SPACEMED ... nts_E.html

ICE-First-Aging is one of several experiments that investigates the effects of space flight on a model organism in the nematode worm family (Caenorhabditis elegans) and aims to develop links to human physiology in space. The organism chosen for this study is known to be able to mate, reproduce and develop apparently normally during space flight.

Fruitflies have also reproduced in space.

This means we can grow food in space even in space without any form of gravity or rotating habitation module.

So yeah, educated yourself before saying it can't be done.

Answer the question - should someone be prosecuted for murder because their efforts at CPR failed to revive the person?

You're saying the only thing that matter is results. That the end justifies ANY means that will get you to the goal. Are you sure you want to live in that world? Because if that becomes the rule we live under I guarantee things will be even more fucked up than they are now.

If that person caused the initial injury via neglect that's manslaughter at least. Or is criminal negligence beyond your ability to understand?

There is it again - you people didn't give me the result I want so I'm going to punish you. Sorry - the answer you get isn't always the answer you want to hear.

Fun fact - the planet isn't dying, even if we are in the midst of a major extinction event. There will be life after us.

Fat lot of good that does for us, eh?

Also, yeah, you get judged based on results. You don't get a participating ribbon for trying and failing. You get scorn and admonishon for fucking up a perfectly good planet.

You're a whiner because all you do it piss and moan. Don't like the world? Get off your ass and at least TRY to change in rather than mewling about how mean your elders are.

Hard to do that when you're born into poverty and never given the chance for higher education. I'd love to go to school, but my credit rating and lack of income prevent that from being a viable option. I don't have the means to help outside of bitching and hoping people that could help notice and take interest.

...and here we're back to why people don't like you.

Wishing suffering and death on people isn't cool and worse yet, it's not constructive.

Your tone has been so very constructive as well. Pot. Kettle. Broomstick.

Yep.

Because you're totally neglecting the problem of radiation. Radiation doesn't affect plants or insects like it does people.

That's what dirt or water is for. They both insulate rather well and tend to be plentiful on every major body in the solar system we'd want to land on. The moon included.

Yeah, you'd need to build a hole for your shelter to land in or set down in a crater well out of direct sunlight, but those are relatively minor issues in the grand scheme of things. It's not easy or cheap, but if the US gave NASA more than a pitance it could be done.

And no, life requires more than just "water, solar, and shelter" - there's all sorts of minor and major elements and compounds required to grow food and sustain life long term. There's maintaining air as well as water. There's the problem of maintaining a solid shelter to keep the artificial biosphere intact where there is no atmosphere to shield against rocks falling out of space.

Yes, but trace elements should be brought with you and recycled as a matter of course. The atmosphere, while not a perfect mix, can be made from water and electricity to give a CO2 O2 H mix. As for rocks, they're less of an issue than you think.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016 ... dd50256f2b

Yeah, you'd want a whipple shield over head, but those don't need to be heavy or complicated.

Building a Moon base wouldn't take just a little effort, it would take a LOT. A lot more just to get stuff to the Moon, and a lot more stuff needed because resupply missions would be further apart and cost a LOT more. We'd have to go deep to protect against radiation and flying rocks, so you're looking at a major mining operation just to start.

I'd personally, after testing the concept of course, favor blasting out the wall of a deep and sturdy crater with explosives. Then send in a series of rovers to break down and remove the rock, perhaps building a larger earthworks at the mouth of the cave. Beyond that, you can send the station over in parts over a series of missions.

It wouldn't be cheap, but conceptually the idea is fairly simple and only requires money and manpower to achieve. No sci-fi tech required, just political will and capital.

Exactly. I didn't cause the problem any more than you did. I, too, was born into a fucked up world with mouthbreathing idiots in charge. At best, like me, you'll spend your life trying to make a difference only to have smart-ass ignorant kids bitch that they sky is falling and it's all your fault.

You've handed us an even worse world than you got and expect sympathy for doing so? Dream on.

In other words "I don't have a good answer so I'm going to pout".

No, in other words, Broomstick is ignorant of common knowledge about Chinese pollution in an environmental thread and choose to bitch about when other people expect her to be up to date on the issue. I'm not worried about China because, as I stated earlier, they are making massive investments into going green on a scale that dwarfs any current US program.

You said it, you own it. If I get blamed for what my parents did I'm sure as hell going to hold you to what you said a few posts ago.

Blame me for a hypothetical solution to a problem which I've since admitted was a poor take... Seems logical. As does calling a person murder for posting an idea on a message board and later recanting on it.

I'll blame you for things which happened and all you have on your side is blaming me for an anxiety induced bad idea which I recanted on the next day. Who's the petry one here?

We're all going to die in the end whether or not we get to space.

Yes, IF we get to space we might survive a bit longer. We might even leave a descendant species or two. But in eventually our light goes out, just like every other species.

Do you think evolution means that one species dies and a couple new ones crawl out from their corpses and trundle onward? The species that come from humanity will be human because they will change so slowly that, baring some major leap forward fueled by technology or a mass extinction event that leaves a new dominant intelligent species in charge, we will likely always consider ourselves to be some version of human.

The exception might be once we get out among the stars and adapt to entirely new worlds but again that's an evolution not an extinction.

Yes, it does.

If we change so much we're no longer the same species then yes, H. sapiens is extinct at that point and some other, related, species goes on. That is how evolution works. That new species will be our descendants, but they won't be us."

They may consider themselves us and thus be us. It's also not the same kind of extinction that I'm talking about and you know it.

You're not listening to me, and you're fucking ignorant.

Says the person that thinks China is the leading producer of polution on the planet and who thinks that evolution is the same sort of extinction as what happened to the Dodo... Rich.

If you don't like our "leadership" then YOU take over that spot. Or will that cut too much into your pouting time?

The odds of doing that without coming from money and going to a top educational facility are rather poor and you know it. Maybe you should have done that instead of wasting your time and money flying around burning fossil fules for fun while you had both the time and money to make a run for some local office. Unlike me you had a chance to do something and didn't take it. That's way worse than not having had the chance at all.

See, that's my point - we used to be the first largest economy. We're slipping and fading and it's time for someone else to come to the forefront because no country remains on top forever.

In some economic terms you might still be first. Your drop down the charts also has more to do with the rise of China rather than any real US decline.

The US economy has always set the trend for the world economy and, as of 2019 that hasn't changed.

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explo ... &ind=false

For somebody that calls me ignorant you sure do get a lot of facts wrong...

Yes. So why do you dump it all on the US?

Because you were at the wheel over the span of time that the damage happened? I thought I was making that clear.

Nope.

Hey, ask your First Nations how well things have worked out the past century or two. Ask the child migrants shipped to Canada from the UK how things worked out for them. In the end, Canadians are just as human as anyone else and just as liable to greed and corruption.

Yes, that is true. We have committed some of the same crimes that the US has in our history and continue to have areas we should improve on. We're also nowhere near as bad as the US is in terms of social issues, income inequality, renewable energy generation... It's almost like we're you but better in every way.

Look up the fucking history of the god-damned British Empire - which your nation remained a part of long after mine left - and tell me that. How about fucking Germany precipitating not one but two world wars? ANY country in Europe that had "new world" colonies. Australia and what was done not only to the convicts unwillingly sent there but also the natives.

You don't know history. All you know is that you live next to some noisy, obnoxious neighbours and you think things are better over somewhere else. They aren't, really.

The fact that the US and Canada have the longest undefended border in the world and haven't invaded each other (at least not since the early 19th Century) should be a clue that neither is the Worst and Most Terrible Nation Ever.

I should have seen this pedantry coming. Let me restate that, since becoming a superpower, name a western nation that has caused as much damage to the world as the US has. The US lags on social issues, healthcare, wealth inequality, has caused massive wars, destabilized governments across the globe. Contrast that with what Germany has done since WWII. Or what Japan has done.

Yeah, you kind of stand out as being shitty.

I mean, the rest of the world rightly gets pissed off at some of the bullshit done by the US... as they do when one of the other big powers does something harmful or stupid or inconsiderate. But no, I don't think the entire rest of the world wants to see the US disappear, or destroyed. They want the US to change from what it is at present. "The world" doesn't hate China or Russia or the UK or Germany or Japan or any other country like that.. There are certainly conflicts between different countries and factions, but no one is universally hated (well, maybe North Korea...)

Part of your problem is that you project yourself onto others. YOU wouldn't mind dying for the rest of the world... but by and large the rest of the world doesn't feel that way. You have hatred for the US... but not everyone else does. You want to throw the poor of the world under the bus... but not everyone else does.

You yourself stated that the world is sick of the US playing dear leader. Hate may have been too strong a world but global opinion of the US isn't great and hasn't been for a while. You probably don't fully realize how others feel given that you live in the belly of the beast.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... -9-charts/

I hate to break it to you but world news tends to center around the US. Other nations don't have a choice execpt for caring about what the world's second largest economy and largest military will do.

1) If you don't like how we lead then YOU do the leading.

2) If you don't like how we lead then YOU do the leading.

3) If you don't like how we lead then YOU do the leading

It all comes down to quit your bitching and DO SOMETHING. Preferably something that does NOT include genocide.

No other western nation has the resources to lead and the west would be skeptical about Chinese leadership. Unless the EU crystalizes into a proper nation you're the best we've got. Try to do better, when you have all the advantages people expect things from you.

Canada ALSO has a massive land mass, huge tracts of arable land, massive deposits of mineral wealth, ports in all those oceans, and no neighbors threatening war - why aren't YOU the world's superpower? Come on, come on - what's your excuse?

Not nearly to the same extent as the US, it's no secret that most of Canada's population lives along the US border. This isn't because we want to be close to you, it's because it's where the weather allows us a decently long growing season.

It's a bit of a read, but this page should illustrate the issue with feeding a large population. Canada just never had the farmland to grow the population

This Canadian government page also rather succinctly illustrates why Canada didn't have the same chance the US did simple due to lack of land suitable for farming.

[url=http://www.mappedplanet.com/tuebersicht ... emperature]These temperature maps[/utl] also show why Canada couldn't be a superpower, we're simply too damned cold.

So no Broomstick, we didn't have the same chance that the US did. We couldn't support the crops. Thus we couldn't support the population. Without a massive population, you can't be a superpower.

Try educating yourself before making such laughable claims.

Oh? What about putting people in space? Oh, right - YOU claimed that, conveniently dropping the US out of it.

Because space wasn't a solely US effort even during the cold war. or did you forget those German scientists captured and pardoned that formed your technical base to allow for spaceflight? Spaceflight and even the moon landings were never a solely US thing even if you funded them.

Sure, just forget all the technological, medical, and agricultural advances the US was involved in. They mean nothing. Forget feeding people after WWII so they didn't starve to death - a war we did not start, by the way, and actually tried to stay out of for a number of years. Forget helping to rebuild the ruins left by WWII. Forget stuff like the GPS constellation which we paid for and maintain but everyone else can use. The internet? You're welcome. On and on.

Sure, we've fucked up, too, and done bad things. But we've made a few positive contributions along the way.

Being a superpower tends to lend itself to that just via economy of scale. I'm way more impressed by what nations like Germany and Japan due with a scant fraction of the resources. Try using yours efficiently sometime and maybe you'll make advances worthy of your size.

Nope. But I don't advocate killing half the planet to "save" the other half, either. Unlike some people. Or taking away the means of making a living for millions of people.

You've already admitted that the plan you favor kills people too. Don't act all innocent.

Kind of like everyone who's ever been on top, ever.

You keep regarding the US as some sort exceptional, singular event. It's not. It's just another empire. In the 19th Century you would have been making similar complaints against the British Empire. If you had lived under Spain or Portugal in the Colonial Era you would have had a LOT more to complain about.

Yeah, but I never grew up in a UK or Spanish lead hegemony. Had I would be bitching about them instead.

Being at the top means having lofty expectations placed upon you. The US hasn't lived up to those in decades and thusly get called out for it.

Also, I've been sourcing my claims. Please start doing the same for your asspulls.

[Broomstick]

No, you're just pissed because we didn't succeed.

Should we be happy that you failed?

You're not talking about being unhappy, you're talking about punishment, up to and including the death penalty for failing.

If the 70's are "too far back" crack open a history book and learn about them. Laziness is not a valid excuse. Especially since it's a hell of a lot easier to access information these days than back when I was in my 20's.

It's 50 years back now. It's like a sad sports team looking back on past glories if you have to go back that far to show that the US cleaned up its act.

Yes, we started cleaning 50 years ago... like that's a bad thing? Seriously? It's not like we cleaned up then pulled off the regulations again and re-polluted. In fact, we're continuing to clean up. Real successes - like restoring rivers to where they can support life, lakes to where they can support a fishing industry, cleaner air, and so on are real benefits we're enjoying today. And so is Canada because you aren't getting so much shit in your air from our bad air spilling over the border.

We're both getting smog from China but I hear they're getting better so.... good, right?

I'm sure you'll still manage to twist that into disaster somehow.

You know, when I graduated college we were also in a recession. Your generation isn't the first to graduate into a weak job market although yes, yours is worse than what I faced.

...But it hasn't recovered yet. The jobs didn't come back, the wages (especially compared to inflation) haven't gone up, the housing market hasn't gotten any cheaper.

Mmmm... yes, it actually DID get better. For a couple decades.

You're coming of age in (we hope) a nadir. That doesn't mean things will be better tomorrow, but they could be better in a year or two. Cold comfort today, I get that.

We've sent a generation in debt going to school only to tell them that there aren't any jobs for them. That didn't happen to your generation.

Yes, it did, even if not to the same extent it did your generation. I escaped crushing debt due to scholarships and some help from mom and dad. I get that not everyone had or has that. I had friends who never got to college because the money wasn't there. My college roommate indentured herself to the Federal government for 7 years to get her education. Getting into college was "easy" only in the post WWII era in the US, and not easy most other places ever.

I never had the chance to at post-secondary education and went straight into the workforce when I graduated high school in '06. I didn't have the luxury of going to school, being a pilot, being middle-class before becoming poor as you did.

I started getting work at 16, and that wasn't a traditional job because I couldn't get one of those, I was selling artwork of one sort or another. I didn't get to be a pilot until my 40's, long after I left school, long after I struggled with being poor. I didn't get what my parents called a "decent" job until my mid-30's, and even then I was working on the side as well to bring in more money. I had a brief period of time when I was middle class, then the Great Recession hit and it's unlikely I'll ever have that much money again.

So yeah, I'm "settling" for my current level - poor, but able to pay the bills

Boo-hoo you don't get to retire at 65 even though quality of life and life expectancy went up. My generation my not get to retire at all with how the population pyramid has shaken out. Oh, and companies don't offer pensions so readily these days either so even working full-time isn't enough to get those funds coming in. But tell me again how Broomstick has it so bad.

I don't have it that bad - but I am very concerned with not having it worse.

Honestly, if I can retire at 70 or 75 I'll be lucky. My generation might not be able to retire, either, or most of us won't. Then again, if I am still able to work at 80 or 85 I might be a lot better off doing so, and not just financially.

You're right. They didn't have your interests in mind. At most they had THEIR interests in mind, and in the case of the environment, often not even that.

Yet you seem puzzled at my anger...

Nope. I understand it. I used to be angry, too. Then I realize my anger wasn't doing me any good. If you can't channel it into something constructive, well, you can either be miserable or look for a way to be happy even in a fucked-up world. I can appreciate what good things I have, what improvements have occurred, even while I still see things that are bad or need fixing.

That's already happening Broomy, this isn't just me making idle plans. The jobs are going away and we're no closer to UBI or affordable retraining that we were a decade ago. Get ready to lose what little work there is or to get paid even less than you are now as a machine takes all the low hanging fruit away from the lower classes.

Yep. And if it's not fixed it will be worse for your generation - so stop bitching that there is a problem and start figuring a real solution. Hint: it won't involve mass murder or theft.

Why would they want that, it's easier to build an automater warehouse and not pay you to do a job a line following robot can do. Amazon is already doing that and many others are following suit.

We're not there yet, though - so in the meanwhile I'll survive and keep looking for my next "career".

Even so - you CAN get a usable car for $3k around here, in part because there are more used cars available here than where you are.

Yeah, so your plan doesn't work universally and has the added issue of ensuring that substandard cars keep rolling beyond their scrap by date. Also, $3k for a used car would have been 5th of my income some years, it's well out of my reach.

Never claimed it was a universal solution.

Also, cars do not come with a "scrap by date", they're not a bunch of grapes. And by what criteria are they "substandard"? If it's reliable how is it substandard? Yes, emissions are an issue but normal attrition removes cars without further effort.

And there were a couple years, back in 2008-09 when I was in the exact same position. Actually, $3k would have been more like a quarter of my income at that point AND I was supporting another human being at the time besides myself. I did have the advantage of a couple assets - like two fully paid for vehicles - that gave me a leg up on someone such as yourself, but not by much. I'm not going to sit here and say "if I could do it you could do it" because I'm not that sort of asshat. Part of my climbing out of the hole, to be honest, luck. Before that happened, though, I went through a lot of shit including having my wages stolen.

Yes, yes it does.

So you support killing people via inflated used car prices then?

Nope, never said that. Recognizing that can happen is not the same as approving of it. There is probably a fancy term for that fallacy, the notion that describing something is the same as approving of it, but it is still a fallacy.

MY preference would be greater focus on mass transit, and a non-gouging (for either driver or rider) form of on-demand Uber- or Lyft-like services but no one put me in charge of anything.

So you knowingly support a program, car buyback, that kills people or forces them into homelessness. Yet my idea of just taking away the cars and forcing change is evil...?

YOUR "taking cars away" would be even worse than the current imperfect programs because people would get even less than they do now. Not only would it not improve things, it would make them worse.

Also, YOU would make your program mandatory, the current ones are not. No one is forced to give up their beater currently, no matter how imperfect.

Cash for clunkers drives up used vehicle prices which you admit kills people.

That is not what I said.

Lack of transportation kills people. That's what I said.

Cash for clunkers isn't the sole factor driving up used car prices - inability to pay for new cars is another large factor. That, too, contributes to the whole mess.

My suggestion to get rid of clunkers all together might do so to a greater degree, but at the same time, it forces people to find other solutions and rethink city design in mass transit in a way your bandaid solution doesn't. Force people to adapt and they will, string them along and they adapt to just crawling along as they are.

Buses and street cars NEVER ran in the rural areas, ever. They never will. There isn't much "adapting" to do there.

You are again proposing a violent solution that leaves people maimed and suffering without actually solving the problem. One size fits all solutions generally don't fit all.

You can't steal something that doesn't exist Broomstick. The US has at present the exact same capacity to put a man on the moon as Canada does. They had that, but you squandered it and may never get it back.

We did have it. You never did.

If we decided the money was better spent elsewhere tough shit for you - cleaning up down here on Earth became more a priority for many, what with being able to breathe and drink the water being important to survival, too. We didn't "squander" anything - we took the knowledge we gained and put it into things like weather satellites and robot explorers that were more cost-effective for what WE wanted to do (well, I wanted more manned space exploration but I recognize that living in a democracy I don't always get what I want, my fellow citizens also have a say in things).

Just more proof that the US doesn't deserve the position its enjoyed and likely never has.

Sounds like jealousy and sour grapes to me.

Evolution is not extinction. It's a gradual change between what we are now and a form adapted to new conditions.

No, a species is a group that doesn't interbreed with other groups under natural conditions. If our descendants change so much that they can't interbreed with us without artificial help yes, they're a different species. And if H. sapiens disappears leaving only those descendants, yes, we're extinct and they're not.

If that person caused the initial injury via neglect that's manslaughter at least. Or is criminal negligence beyond your ability to understand?

I didn't ask about neglect I asked if CPR is unsuccessful should the person performing it be punished? Stop trying to change the question into something it's not. If someone tries to fix a problem and is unsuccessful do they deserve punishment?

Fat lot of good that does for us, eh?

Just like "it's not all about you" life on this planet is not all about us, either. YOU'RE the one advocating depriving people of their livelihood or even murdering them.

You don't get a participating ribbon for trying and failing.

Actually.... yeah, that's what "participation award" means. It means you participated. It doesn't say anything about success or failure.

Is Canada that stratified that there is zero social mobility?

Ah. But if Americans don't go to the Moon and build space colonies for you they all deserve to die. Gotcha. No doublestandards there!

In some economic terms you might still be first. Your drop down the charts also has more to do with the rise of China rather than any real US decline.

And... so what? If China is doing better than us good for China. Unlike you, I don't feel a need to tear other people and/or nations down.

The US economy has always set the trend for the world economy

No it hasn't! The world didn't begin in 1945 you ignoramus.

Because you were at the wheel over the span of time that the damage happened? I thought I was making that clear.

Only since WWII. Burning fossil fuels, fouling the environment, and industrial damage to the world goes back at least to Victorian time, arguably even further back than that. Killer London fogs, for example. Undrinkable water in Paris. So on and so forth.

It's almost like we're you but better in every way.

Well, except for being completely devoid of spaceflight technology, right? Economy not as strong. Etc.

Not nearly to the same extent as the US, it's no secret that most of Canada's population lives along the US border. This isn't because we want to be close to you, it's because it's where the weather allows us a decently long growing season.

So maybe with climate change and global warming you'll be a winner.

Of course, you may have to deal with a lot of refugees fleeing the tropics, but so will everyone else. Maybe displaced millions will demand what you have because reality is unfair and you have what they don't. Good luck with that.

So no Broomstick, we didn't have the same chance that the US did. We couldn't support the crops. Thus we couldn't support the population. Without a massive population, you can't be a superpower.

So what's Europe's excuse? If they hadn't spent all but the last 70 years of history going to war with each other maybe they'd be leading the world.

Because space wasn't a solely US effort even during the cold war. or did you forget those German scientists captured and pardoned that formed your technical base to allow for spaceflight? Spaceflight and even the moon landings were never a solely US thing even if you funded them.

Canada didn't get involved until what, the 1980's? Certainly no sooner than the 1970's and shuttle program.

Yes, German rocket scientists were held by both the US and USSR after the war and were integral to each nation's rocketry and space programs. That still doesn't include Canada or most other nations.

Being a superpower tends to lend itself to that just via economy of scale.

So.... why isn't Europe a unified nation and a superpower? Or Africa? Or China until the latter half of the 20th Century?

I'm way more impressed by what nations like Germany and Japan due with a scant fraction of the resources. Try using yours efficiently sometime and maybe you'll make advances worthy of your size.

I'm "impressed" by how they got as far as they did by butchering millions of people - that seems a solution you'd like, right? Which is why I compared you to them. They didn't generate that wealth, they took it by force from other people and killed them. Is that the sort of overlords you want?

[K. A. Pital]

I'm "impressed" by how they got as far as they did by butchering millions of people - that seems a solution you'd like, right? Which is why I compared you to them. They didn't generate that wealth, they took it by force from other people and killed them. Is that the sort of overlords you want?

For the record, “generating” wealth and massacring people go hand in hand, because industrial expansion is a story of massacres. Colonialist plunder and genocide have been perpetrated by many industrial powers, and the US is no exception.

I also think you are losing the forest, guys.

As I said, any punitive policy can be enacted, and sometimes even realized, in the name of the greater good. After all, the asbestos ban harmed people who were involved in its production, and clearly they were also not the most well-off.

But precisely because of resistance of the First World to lower their living standards we are not going to get out of the “endless growth” story, which, in the end, might doom us all (space fantasies notwithstanding - humanity must be more mature to be able to actually leave the planet). The rest of the Third World wants to have similar good standards of life, they want personal transportation and they want it now, not in the next life. And they will not stop even if annihiliation of our habitat is at stake.

In the end, an attempt by the First World to constrain the growth of the rest will be met with resistance from outside. Attempt by the First World to restrain consumption within would be met with resistance from within. Both will feel themselves in the right.

Of course, if the world was different and equitable, and everyone suffered more or less equally, but understood that it is a temporary suffering to ensure there is a sustainable living standard for the future generations... But that would need a totally different system of thinking.

The West with its individualism, me my mine, has poisoned the world and will see to its eventual burial, that is my humble opinion. A great crime than even all of prior colonial conquest is the subsequent destruction of the collective across the entire world, making us all hostage to a worldview that is passed from parent to child - only individuals matter.

[Jub]

Broomstick, this entire discussion hinges on a few simple points so rather than keeping up the quote by quote rebuttal, let me restate exactly what my position is.

1) The current efforts of several major industrial powers to curb their emissions are at best insufficient to prevent climate change are at worst actively causing additional harm via insufficient action.

2) That the goal should be to, as quickly as possible cut as many emissions as possible as a means of lessening the impact of climate change and making solutions for adapting to or reversing said changes less difficult than they will be if we continue at our current rate of reduction.

3) That some amount of suffering in the present is allowable in the service of reducing greenhouse emissions in the near term. This suffering may cause deaths in the hope that a drastic change now may have some effect on the future. This view also comes with the knowledge we may never know if this suffering and death made any difference.

4) That we should wholeheartedly pursue options that don't involve saving the human population of Earth because such may no longer be possible. These options may, and in my mind should include the active and aggressive pursuit of sustainable space colonies within 30 years.

-----

I'd also like to question the logic behind some of your statements.

1) You clearly desire to live and are unwilling to accept your own hastened death. You would no doubt take drastic actions to prolong your life in the face of a threat even if these actions have no sure means of succeeding and may cause harm to innocent bystanders. You will take these drastic actions even though you know that you are destined to die at some future date no matter which actions you do or do not take. Yet, even though the logic is the same as you argue against taking drastic actions to get to space because humanity will go 'extinct' one day.

Why is the logic for the individual different from the logic for the group?

2) You asked; "Canada ALSO has a massive land mass, huge tracts of arable land, massive deposits of mineral wealth, ports in all those oceans, and no neighbors threatening war - why aren't YOU the world's superpower? Come on, come on - what's your excuse?"

I gave evidence with citations for exactly why your statement was ignorant.

Why was your response to that evidence shift the goalposts to asking why Europe isn't a homogeneous superpower like the United States? I could provide a limited answer to this question as well as citing historical evidence and current anthropological theory but why should I when my last honest attempt to answer your quest was ignored?

Is it fair to think that as much as I likely place to much blame on the US for inaction that you, a lifelong citizen of said nation, place too little blame on it and chose to deflect difficult truths rather than acknowledge them? I think this may be true as you've made statements that suggest you find happy apathy a more appealing state of being than angry action.

3) When the crux of my argument is and always has been that our current efforts to mitigate climate change are not enough, why do you find it unacceptable that I give nations making drastic changes more of a pass on their emissions than I give to nations making changes that don't generate the same results? Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that I'm comparing the US to China and not, for example, Austalia or the UK to China?

4) You've said that a statement never acted on and swiftly recanted with the benefit of hindsight must stand. Can you explain the logic by which you have reached this conclusion?

5) If arguing with me is pointless, and I have little doubt that you find this to be the case, why did you persist in continuing the argument peppering with jabs like muderer knowing that such invective was only likely to inspire me to dig in and fight your point of view with greater fervor? Why have you spent your time posting paragraphs of text to me rather than meaningfully engaging with the more reasonable K. A. Pital who is making the same category of statement as I have made?

-----

To end this off, I'm going to admit that I'm not making arguments in this thread from an overly educated viewpoint. That my reactions are prompted by feelings of impotence, fear, and anger at the apathy of those who had more time, more resources or both to make a meaningful change that could have prevented our current situation but chose not to. That this includes lumping you in with the rest of your generation when assigning guilt for why the world we have now is as bad as it is.

I admit that assigning such guilt may be pointless but I refuse to rescind the statement that your generation isn't guilty. I only hope that generation Z doesn't find my generation as wanting as mine has found yours to be.

[Broomstick]

1) The current efforts of several major industrial powers to curb their emissions are at best insufficient to prevent climate change are at worst actively causing additional harm via insufficient action.

Yet you have focused almost solely on just one nation. If you meant "several major industrial powers" you should have said that from the beginning instead of placing all the blame on just one country and harping on how if we could just eliminate the one group of people all would be well. You were looking for a scapegoat that could be eliminated for an easy way out.

2) That the goal should be to, as quickly as possible cut as many emissions as possible as a means of lessening the impact of climate change and making solutions for adapting to or reversing said changes less difficult than they will be if we continue at our current rate of reduction.

One of your proposals - killing half the planet, essentially - which you admit you backtracked on was monstrous and, as pointed out, was as likely to cause more problems as cure the current ones, if it would do anything at all positive even in the long term.

Another one - depriving people of the transportation that makes earning a livelihood possible in their environment - would result in riots and revolutions due to pushing people into life-or-death desperation. Again, not only is even the long-term good of this questionable, it could well backfire into people saying screw all regulations we're doing what we want to survive.

The heart of the matter is that you always resort to coercion, to forcing people, rather than trying to engage them and gain cooperation. People and businesses switching to LED lighting is not occurring at the point of a gun, it's occurring because it saves them money. By reducing energy costs, it's also mitigating climate change and benefiting the planet, which is an extra feel good for those aware of that fact, but what' s motivating the actual change is an appeal to self-interest and greed. That's one small example of how you can get cooperation for a positive goal.

At times you will need some coercion, but it should be limited to only those times where it is actually needed and only as much as needed and no more.

3) That some amount of suffering in the present is allowable in the service of reducing greenhouse emissions in the near term. This suffering may cause deaths in the hope that a drastic change now may have some effect on the future. This view also comes with the knowledge we may never know if this suffering and death made any difference.

I agree that some suffering is allowable but you're the one who leaps, even now, to "killing people is OK". No, it's not OK. The early 20th Century was awash with blood because one group of people or another decided that killing a different group of people was OK because the ends justified the means. The bloodbath never really ended although it did diminish.

Dead people are not acceptable losses. We can't save everyone, but that doesn't justify taking actions we know will kill more.

4) That we should wholeheartedly pursue options that don't involve saving the human population of Earth because such may no longer be possible. These options may, and in my mind should include the active and aggressive pursuit of sustainable space colonies within 30 years.

There is no way in hell we're going to get that sort of space colony in 30 years. You might as well pray to Jesus for a miracle for all the good it will do. Such colonies are possible in a more distant future, but not in 30 years. We might get a few people up and out in space but nothing truly independent and sustainable for the long term.

Meanwhile, back on Earth - while the Earth is going to get warmer and many bad things will happen I see no evidence that it's going to wipe out humanity. In a worst-case scenario we might have to largely abandon the tropics. That will get ugly because the people the north/south will perceive themselves as being invaded and panic, and those coming from the tropics will be unwilling to take "no" for an answer. Even in the ensuing disaster there I believe more people will survive than if we attempt to shuttle a few lucky folks into space colonies.

1) You clearly desire to live and are unwilling to accept your own hastened death. You would no doubt take drastic actions to prolong your life in the face of a threat even if these actions have no sure means of succeeding and may cause harm to innocent bystanders. You will take these drastic actions even though you know that you are destined to die at some future date no matter which actions you do or do not take. Yet, even though the logic is the same as you argue against taking drastic actions to get to space because humanity will go 'extinct' one day.

I want to live as long as possible as long as that life has meaningful quality. That shouldn't be surprising as it's the default for humanity. There are circumstances under which I'd stop struggling to live longer but they are very rare and limited.

If you tell me my leg has cancer and I need to cut it off and undergo chemo and radiation to live longer I'm going to want to know if that's really going to significantly increase my lifespan. If the cancer has already spread throughout my body then I might opt for comfort measures instead because who wants to go through the hell of surgery, chemo, and radiation unless it will do some actual good.

Your proposals are like the surgery-chemo-radiation option and you have not convinced me that they're going to work.

Space colonies? Really? It's like saying you're going to cut me off my leg and save a few cells from my tumor. Henrietta Lacks is not immortal because a her cancer cells are still surviving in petri dishes. Humanity will not be "saved" by stashing a few dozen people in tin cans out in space. Just to start, it's not a big enough gene pool even if you could work out long term sustaining of an artificial biosphere. Which we can't as of yet. Everything in space depends on regular re-supply from Earth, which is not going to be coming if you throw the population of Earth under the bus. At this point if you can't save the Earth you can't have "space colonies".

Why is the logic for the individual different from the logic for the group?

Humans are not Vulcans. We do not run on logic. Any real world solution will have to take that into account.

I care more about my own life than other lives (by and large - parents will sacrifice themselves for children and other exceptions)
I care more about my family and friends than my neighbors
I care more about my neighbors than people across the country
I care more about my fellow citizens than people halfway across the planet.

That hierarchy is actually the norm for human beings. The exceptions are just that, exceptions. You have to work within that framework or you're going to get a lot of push back. Might even get riots/war/revolution. That is why the "logic" of groups is different than the "logic" of individuals.

Yes, you can get people to take risks for the group and the common good, but that generally takes the form of trying to maximize the survival of the individuals comprising the group, not suicide missions, which fall under exceptions.

[2) You asked; "Canada ALSO has a massive land mass, huge tracts of arable land, massive deposits of mineral wealth, ports in all those oceans, and no neighbors threatening war - why aren't YOU the world's superpower? Come on, come on - what's your excuse?"

I gave evidence with citations for exactly why your statement was ignorant.

Not ignorant, but you failed to miss the point. You asserted that Canada was somehow morally superior to the US and would do better with the same power. No, you won't. If you've done less damage it's because you have had less power to affect the world. Even with less power your country has still committed atrocities. You are no better and no worse. EVERY nation that achieves the status of "world power' or "super power" or "empire" is going to be a clumsy behemoth at best.

As K.A. Pital said:

For the record, “generating” wealth and massacring people go hand in hand, because industrial expansion is a story of massacres. Colonialist plunder and genocide have been perpetrated by many industrial powers, and the US is no exception.

In a warming world Canada is going to be a "winner" - you'll get a longer growing season and an expansion of land useful for farming. You have vast resources. You have space to live in. What are you going to do with all that? How many refugees from the tropics and coastal areas are you planning to take in? Or, probably a more immediate concern, what are you going to do about tens of millions of Americans trying to cross your borders to a more congenial environment? Welcome them, try to house and feed them and find them something constructive to do? Or are you going to try to keep them out? What do you think would be the outcome of the second strategy?

Why was your response to that evidence shift the goalposts to asking why Europe isn't a homogeneous superpower like the United States? I could provide a limited answer to this question as well as citing historical evidence and current anthropological theory but why should I when my last honest attempt to answer your quest was ignored?

The question is important.

If the US had remained a group of independent sovereign states we never would have become a world power. We would have been a continent full of squabbles like Europe was for centuries. If Europe had united into one country/Federation/whatever instead of creating WWI and WWII they would be a superpower to rival the US because as a continental whole Europe also has vast resources, space to live in, space to grow food, and even more manpower than the US does.

What's the difference? Cooperation rather than conflict. KAPital talks about the benefits of collective action over individualism/capitalism all the time, and there's an illustration of that. Europe has been a lot nicer place to be over the past few decades when nations have cooperated and tried to work for the common good rather than trying to take things from each other at the point of a sword or gun. Americans can be belligerent assholes and bullies, but what makes them a powerful nation is the ability of the citizens to cooperate and work for a common interest. That's breaking down right now, which is why I say America is a fading power in the world because if we can't cooperate sufficiently to keep our government funded and open we're not going to be able to cooperate sufficiently to defend ourselves against the threats we face.

That's why I favor cooperation over coercion in the battle to (melodramatically) "save the planet". Having solutions devolve into violence is only going to work against us. There are no perfect solutions to global warming, there may not even be any good ones, just a choosing of the lesser of two evils, but if you start with "let's kill X group of people" civilization isn't going to last. Some people will survive, but it will be a hard-scrabble bare survival post-apocalypse.

Is it fair to think that as much as I likely place to much blame on the US for inaction that you, a lifelong citizen of said nation, place too little blame on it and chose to deflect difficult truths rather than acknowledge them?

I don't object to you criticizing my nation for inaction. Blast the US for its sins and flaws all you want, I'll likely join you and maybe add a few you aren't aware of. What I object to is your scapegoating of me, personally. You ASSUME many things about me that aren't true, that I did absolutely nothing, that I do absolutely nothing, and wish suffering and death upon me, personally.

I would love to participate in a discussion of individual action vs. group action; of whether it makes more sense to keep an old vehicle running rather than impose the ecological costs of making a new one vs. increased fuel efficiency and lower emissions and where the tipping point is on that; of how we can move people to more efficient forms of transportation with minimal negative effects and maximum buy-in; of what we're going to do when island nations and coastal cities go underwater; how to keep developing nations from making the mistakes of the industrial world as they catch up to the rest of the world.

But it's pretty fucking hard to have a discussion with someone who says something like this:

Fuck you. I hope your cars die and you're left to your wretched fate.

That's a personal attack. It's going to generate conflict, not cooperation.

I am not going to sit here and be your personal punching bag because you're pissed at the world. No sane person would.

3) When the crux of my argument is and always has been that our current efforts to mitigate climate change are not enough, why do you find it unacceptable that I give nations making drastic changes more of a pass on their emissions than I give to nations making changes that don't generate the same results? Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that I'm comparing the US to China and not, for example, Austalia or the UK to China?

You discount the changes America made 10-20-30-40-50 years ago. Yes, I have a problem with that. I agree we could be doing more, but that's different than saying we've done nothing or what we've done doesn't count.

You don't merely say the efforts aren't enough, you're advocating that it's acceptable to kill one group of people for the benefit of another. Yes, I have a problem with that.

4) You've said that a statement never acted on and swiftly recanted with the benefit of hindsight must stand. Can you explain the logic by which you have reached this conclusion?

Anyone advocating genocide is pretty fucking monstrous - you don't get to throw that on the table then go "ha-ha just kidding". The fact that at any point you thought that acceptable makes you morally suspect in my view. It's not an ordinary transgression.

5) If arguing with me is pointless, and I have little doubt that you find this to be the case, why did you persist in continuing the argument peppering with jabs like muderer knowing that such invective was only likely to inspire me to dig in and fight your point of view with greater fervor?

Oh, and saying I deserve to suffer isn't taking a jab at me in return? Part of your problem is expecting people to take your abuse and comply with your requests for them to suffer and die without pushback. You advocated policies that would cause suffering and death to large numbers of people even after it was pointed out to you that not only would they cause mass suffering and death but likely wouldn't actually solve the problem and now you're upset that someone called you murderer in return. People who deliberately kill others ARE murderers. Intent matters.

Why have you spent your time posting paragraphs of text to me rather than meaningfully engaging with the more reasonable K. A. Pital who is making the same category of statement as I have made?

K.A.Pital is capable of distinguishing the difference between an individual and a government. You, apparently, are not. K.A.Pital recognizes that suffering, death, and atrocities occur but is not supporting deliberately inducing those things as a "cure" for the ills of the world (although he is more likely to say a revolution is the only viable solution than I am, but that's because our ideologies differ). We tend to disagree on the exact methods to achieve common goals, but we agree on many goals which enables civilized discussion.

You, on the hand, are much more inclined to resort to personal attacks up to and including wishing death on other people.

To end this off, I'm going to admit that I'm not making arguments in this thread from an overly educated viewpoint. That my reactions are prompted by feelings of impotence, fear, and anger at the apathy of those who had more time, more resources or both to make a meaningful change that could have prevented our current situation but chose not to. That this includes lumping you in with the rest of your generation when assigning guilt for why the world we have now is as bad as it is.

There you go again - because of the circumstances of my birth, something I have no control over and cannot change, I am guilty. That's called bigotry, you fucktoy. It's a personal attack. It pisses people off.

Stop being a goddamned bigot you're more likely to get a discussion rather than a flame war.

You want to say my generation as a collective didn't do enough, fine. Saying I have done nothing of worth and I, personally, deserve punishment, suffering and death is not fine.

I only hope that generation Z doesn't find my generation as wanting as mine has found yours to be.

Oh, don't worry - the next generation after you will find just as much fault with you as you have with your predecessors. Maybe you'll find yourself slotted for suffering and death despite your best efforts to make things better because, hey, you're generation Y and therefore guilty no matter what you did or didn't do.

[FaxModem1]

Jub, I'm going to recommend reading some of the articles posted in this thread. There are people and nations trying to make a positive influence on the environment. Advocating such practices and getting public support behind them is a more sensible route than trying to start World War III.

I hope this helps your view on the future.

I get that there is positive news with regards to both climate change (or at least techniques to combat said change) as well as space exploration, AI, and transhumanism. I just increasingly doubt that we have the political will to get to the breakpoints where we mostly survive at this stage. There are too many places unwilling or unable to change quickly enough and the current economy creating a larger lower class yearly only means that the changes open to us will hurt more people each year. A radical solution now may well be preferable to a less radical solution in a decade that hurts more people less deeply.

That's why you have to work at it. Talk to your colleagues, friends, family, etc, about what they can do, and make what changes you can. Even if they're very conservative, they'll probably be open to changes that benefit themselves, such as if they own a home, making it more green to offset their utility bills and their carbon footprint. When people learn about such things, they tend to start acting on them in some capacity. And something is better than nothing. Especially if a lot of people are contributing little somethings.

Educating people about low flow toilets, for example, is a much better option than wishing harm on others for
the amount of waste we make via factories, car emissions, and things beyond their control, and starting arguments about who is to blame. The only way that is useful is if you're trying to bring public attention to something that needs to be stopped, and hope to sway public opinion enough to cause action to stop it.

In the nonprofit sector, there's a concept called Outreach. Outreach is making people aware of something that could benefit themselves or others. If people are ignorant of what can help them, or how they can help, they're not going to do anything to improve their situation.

In general, people like to help others to an extent. They might not agree with what you're goal is, or your cause, but they might listen. And that can affect their decisions in the future.

If you want progress, you have to get the ball rolling. Shouting at those who were unable to get the ball rolling to your satisfaction doesn't solve anything. And it alienates potential allies who would help you with the ball.

[Jub]

Yet you have focused almost solely on just one nation. If you meant "several major industrial powers" you should have said that from the beginning instead of placing all the blame on just one country and harping on how if we could just eliminate the one group of people all would be well. You were looking for a scapegoat that could be eliminated for an easy way out.

And why wouldn't I do so? I live next door to the most powerful western nation, one which most nations on the planet have as part of their daily news cycle. One who's politics overshadow the politics of the nation I live in even within our own media.

I don't think that you as an American grasp how hard it is to ignore the US for those living in another nation.

The heart of the matter is that you always resort to coercion, to forcing people, rather than trying to engage them and gain cooperation. People and businesses switching to LED lighting is not occurring at the point of a gun, it's occurring because it saves them money. By reducing energy costs, it's also mitigating climate change and benefiting the planet, which is an extra feel good for those aware of that fact, but what' s motivating the actual change is an appeal to self-interest and greed. That's one small example of how you can get cooperation for a positive goal.

At times you will need some coercion, but it should be limited to only those times where it is actually needed and only as much as needed and no more.

Yeah, and switching to LED lighting is mostly a feelgood change that is occurring at a snail's pace. Commercial lighting still uses twice the power of residential lighting and many larger retailers still uses CFLs instead of LEDs and aren't rushing to change.

You're content to let the current rate of change continue because you're afraid of the consequences of forcing that change to speed up. I'm far more afraid of the consequences of ignoring the scientific consensus that we must act more swiftly in the face of an extinction level threat.

I agree that some suffering is allowable but you're the one who leaps, even now, to "killing people is OK". No, it's not OK. The early 20th Century was awash with blood because one group of people or another decided that killing a different group of people was OK because the ends justified the means. The bloodbath never really ended although it did diminish.

Dead people are not acceptable losses. We can't save everyone, but that doesn't justify taking actions we know will kill more.

So WW!! wasn't justified? The battles fought killed more people, civilians included than either of Stalin or Hitler alone managed to with their purges. We fought knowing that our actions would result in more death and suffering and with no way of knowing that the result of victory would be any better than the results of never having fought at all. Remember that we didn't fight because we knew about what a monster Hitler was, we fought to defend an alliance.

You'll argue that we had to fight, that it was a justified war, that the consequences of standing idle were to great to ignore. I feel the same about climate change. It's 1936 right now and we're still trying to appease Hitler hoping he'll settle down, hoping we can get away with doing nothing, well that hasn't worked before, why should it work now?

There is no way in hell we're going to get that sort of space colony in 30 years. You might as well pray to Jesus for a miracle for all the good it will do. Such colonies are possible in a more distant future, but not in 30 years. We might get a few people up and out in space but nothing truly independent and sustainable for the long term.

If you told somebody in 1940 that they would put a man on the moon within 30 years what do you think they would have said about it? At the time there were major technical challenges and no funds or political will to get there, but it happened.

Are you telling me that if there was sufficient will to do so that an Appolo style program couldn't get a permanent colony running somewhere within our solar system within 30 years?

Meanwhile, back on Earth - while the Earth is going to get warmer and many bad things will happen I see no evidence that it's going to wipe out humanity. In a worst-case scenario we might have to largely abandon the tropics. That will get ugly because the people the north/south will perceive themselves as being invaded and panic, and those coming from the tropics will be unwilling to take "no" for an answer. Even in the ensuing disaster there I believe more people will survive than if we attempt to shuttle a few lucky folks into space colonies.

I'm not advising that we abandon the Earth entirely, I'm saying that we should work as on as many parallel plans as possible for the survival of humanity. We think, that we may have to abandon the tropics, but we don't know how well flora and fauna will react to these changes. How much greenhouse gas would be released and how much carbon capture would we lose if the Amazon started dying due to climate change? What happens if the US bread basket turns into an un-usable desert in the face of heat and changing weather patterns and increased temperatures don't allow Canada to pick up the slack?

You can't only think about what you want to or expect to happen, you have to think about the worst case too. You have to plan for everything that can go wrong to go wrong and your plan for those scenarios should never involve laying down and dying.

I want to live as long as possible as long as that life has meaningful quality. That shouldn't be surprising as it's the default for humanity. There are circumstances under which I'd stop struggling to live longer but they are very rare and limited.

If you tell me my leg has cancer and I need to cut it off and undergo chemo and radiation to live longer I'm going to want to know if that's really going to significantly increase my lifespan. If the cancer has already spread throughout my body then I might opt for comfort measures instead because who wants to go through the hell of surgery, chemo, and radiation unless it will do some actual good.

Your proposals are like the surgery-chemo-radiation option and you have not convinced me that they're going to work.

I'm also not a doctor. I'm a concerned friend that's telling you that homeopathy won't work and your symptoms look like cancer to my untrained eye. You keep telling me that you can't afford a hospital stay, that even if you could you're too far gone anyway, while insisting that a mixture of lemon juice and Tabasco sauce makes you feel better.

We're not currently taking steps to treat the patient. We're throwing them bandages from the sideline and telling them that they'll pull through while ignoring that they're laying in a pile of broken glass and rusty nails and still actively opening new wounds.

Space colonies? Really? It's like saying you're going to cut me off my leg and save a few cells from my tumor. Henrietta Lacks is not immortal because a her cancer cells are still surviving in petri dishes. Humanity will not be "saved" by stashing a few dozen people in tin cans out in space. Just to start, it's not a big enough gene pool even if you could work out long term sustaining of an artificial biosphere. Which we can't as of yet. Everything in space depends on regular re-supply from Earth, which is not going to be coming if you throw the population of Earth under the bus. At this point if you can't save the Earth you can't have "space colonies".

We don't know that we can't do it unless we try. We had no way of knowing that the manned spaceflight wouldn't kill people, we sent them anyway. We didn't know that going to the moon wouldn't kill people, we sent them anyway.

Sailors and colonists didn't know they would survive the trip to the new world. They didn't know if their colony would thrive or die. They risked it anyway because that risk was better than the prospect of staying where they were.

You propose we stay and suffer because you personally don't think trying is worth anything. You want the status quo because you're afraid of failure. I do not want this.

Humans are not Vulcans. We do not run on logic. Any real world solution will have to take that into account.

I care more about my own life than other lives (by and large - parents will sacrifice themselves for children and other exceptions)
I care more about my family and friends than my neighbors
I care more about my neighbors than people across the country
I care more about my fellow citizens than people halfway across the planet.

By that logic, nobody should ever rush into a burning building to save a stranger, or go to war and risk life and limb for the notion of a nation that their death may not even save. Nobody should give up funds to the poor instead of giving it to somebody they know closer to home. By that logic, we are all just as petty and selfish as you are.

By that logic, every nation should have a world view as individualistic as the American world view. Yet, most nations are far more willing to endure taxes and restrictions on freedom for the greater good. How do you explain this?

How do you explain those that give what little they have when that little isn't enough for their own comfort?

Moreover, why can't we expect better from people? Why can't we expect better from people? If you believe in free will then you can expect people to overcome their base nature. If you think we don't have free will then we're no more important than an ant and nothing we do has meaning anyway. In either case it makes sense to push people for a greater cause.

Not ignorant, but you failed to miss the point. You asserted that Canada was somehow morally superior to the US and would do better with the same power. No, you won't. If you've done less damage it's because you have had less power to affect the world. Even with less power your country has still committed atrocities. You are no better and no worse. EVERY nation that achieves the status of "world power' or "super power" or "empire" is going to be a clumsy behemoth at best.

You assert that all nations are as bad as the US and would abuse their power to the same degree if they could. This is false, Germany the modern post-WWII state, hasn't done 1/5th the harm that the US has in spite of only having 1/5th the economy. Germany, France, the EU as a whole is what the US should aspire to be. They're gaining on the US too in terms of unity and in terms of power and yet there hasn't been an EU backed war on terror or war on drugs. They face a greater refugee crisis than the US does and yet aren't shut down and trying to build a wall.

As an American, you have a myopic view of the world, of how other nations think and act. You think that everywhere must work like America because, unlike the rest of the world, you aren't readily exposed to other nations as well as America. You live in a bubble that takes too much effort to pop.

In a warming world Canada is going to be a "winner" - you'll get a longer growing season and an expansion of land useful for farming. You have vast resources. You have space to live in. What are you going to do with all that? How many refugees from the tropics and coastal areas are you planning to take in? Or, probably a more immediate concern, what are you going to do about tens of millions of Americans trying to cross your borders to a more congenial environment? Welcome them, try to house and feed them and find them something constructive to do? Or are you going to try to keep them out? What do you think would be the outcome of the second strategy?

As a percentage of our population, we've taken in more refugees from the current European crisis than the US has. Currently, there is an open debate about our ability to revoke the US status as a safe country so we can legally force ourselves to take more people in. Our academics agree that with our limited resources we're doing as much as we can to help a crisis far larger than we alone can solve. Can you find a sane American academic that feels the same about your nations contributions?

Given our current attitudes and actions, I feel that we'll handle any future crisis as Europe has with grumbling and concern, not as the US has with hostility and paralyzing panic.

Fuck you for asserting that we'll be even a tenth as bad as you are. Fuck you for not looking into the facts before making that statement.

If the US had remained a group of independent sovereign states we never would have become a world power. We would have been a continent full of squabbles like Europe was for centuries. If Europe had united into one country/Federation/whatever instead of creating WWI and WWII they would be a superpower to rival the US because as a continental whole Europe also has vast resources, space to live in, space to grow food, and even more manpower than the US does

What's the difference?

That statement smacks of gross ignorance of history Broomstick. Ignorance so deep that this line of debate is closed.

Also, the fact that you keep leaping to compare the current US to wartime Europe is disgusting. Why not look at the current EU and compare the US to that.

I don't object to you criticizing my nation for inaction. Blast the US for its sins and flaws all you want, I'll likely join you and maybe add a few you aren't aware of. What I object to is your scapegoating of me, personally. You ASSUME many things about me that aren't true, that I did absolutely nothing, that I do absolutely nothing, and wish suffering and death upon me, personally.

As a democracy, your political system assigns guilt to all within your nation's borders. You have a share of that guilt which even a felon, an illegal immigrant, does not. Unlike them, you had a voice. You failed to shout loud enough.

But it's pretty fucking hard to have a discussion with someone who says something like this:

Fuck you. I hope your cars die and you're left to your wretched fate.

That's a personal attack. It's going to generate conflict, not cooperation.

I am not going to sit here and be your personal punching bag because you're pissed at the world. No sane person would.

Yet you call me a murderer when I've never killed anybody. Pot. Kettle. This is Broomstick. Welcome her to the club.

You discount the changes America made 10-20-30-40-50 years ago. Yes, I have a problem with that. I agree we could be doing more, but that's different than saying we've done nothing or what we've done doesn't count.

You can't live on past glories Broomstick. If you could the British would still act like they're a superpower that controls half the globe.

You're a championship team that won a few rings in the '70s and hasn't made the dance in decades yelling at fans to respect what they've done and to ignore what they're currently doing. We can't ignore all the player scandals, the locker room rumors, and the lackluster play we're forced to watch if we want to support the team. You need to keep on winning if you don't want people to unfavorably compare the current you to past versions.

Anyone advocating genocide is pretty fucking monstrous - you don't get to throw that on the table then go "ha-ha just kidding". The fact that at any point you thought that acceptable makes you morally suspect in my view. It's not an ordinary transgression.

People advocate for genocide all the time in the RARs on this board, some of which include modern Earth in their scenarios. Are they all suspect too?

Oh, and saying I deserve to suffer isn't taking a jab at me in return? Part of your problem is expecting people to take your abuse and comply with your requests for them to suffer and die without pushback. You advocated policies that would cause suffering and death to large numbers of people even after it was pointed out to you that not only would they cause mass suffering and death but likely wouldn't actually solve the problem and now you're upset that someone called you murderer in return. People who deliberately kill others ARE murderers. Intent matters.

Intent means nothing if you take the view that free will is an illusion. Given that there is no physical mechanism by which free will can exist intent counts for exactly zero. You probably don't like this viewpoint, you're programmed to feel special like your thoughts are somehow unique and valuable. The reality is that both you and I are chemical soup and the logical result of electrochemical reactions that, at a base level, just react to stimuli.

The reason we can't decide what makes a computer alive is the same reason why we are no different than a very complex AI, because when we look deeply into things every action we take is just the result of a set of commands and, perhaps, a little bit of random chance. Predictable. Repeatable. Insignificant.

There you go again - because of the circumstances of my birth, something I have no control over and cannot change, I am guilty. That's called bigotry, you fucktoy. It's a personal attack. It pisses people off.

Stop being a goddamned bigot you're more likely to get a discussion rather than a flame war.

Did you, when you were living a middle-class life, use those resources to make your voice heard above what you could accomplish with your current resources? If not, how can you say that you aren't guilty? If so please provide examples of what you did then that you no longer do now.

Oh, don't worry - the next generation after you will find just as much fault with you as you have with your predecessors. Maybe you'll find yourself slotted for suffering and death despite your best efforts to make things better because, hey, you're generation Y and therefore guilty no matter what you did or didn't do.

I'm a millennial actually. 31 this April.

If the reaper comes for me, if the youth call for my head, I hope to greet them as old friends and admit that I was part of the problem. That I caused them suffering. That my suffering was earned via inaction and apathy.

I'm not like you Broomstick, I'm willing to suffer for the future.

[Broomstick]

You were looking for a scapegoat that could be eliminated for an easy way out.

And why wouldn't I do so?

Because scapegoating doesn't solve problems.

Yeah, and switching to LED lighting is mostly a feelgood change that is occurring at a snail's pace.

Converting all the lights in my current apartment from incandescent (I was a little surprised to find they were incandescent) to LED cut my personal electricity bill in half. Combing that with replacing the weather stripping on the door cut my overall energy bill in half due to savings in heating costs. That's not a "feelgood" move, that was a definite improvement to my bottom line. I am now trying to encourage my neighbours to do the same, even giving LED bulbs to some even worse off financially than I am.

Commercial lighting still uses twice the power of residential lighting and many larger retailers still uses CFLs instead of LEDs and aren't rushing to change.

My employer, which has over 200 stores in six US states, just finished converting every single light in the store to LEDs. In addition to lower lighting costs, it also saves money in the freezers and coolers because LEDs generate so much less heat, so the cooling equipment doesn't have to deal with that anymore. Why did they spend multiple millions on ripping out old but still working equipment and putting in new? Because it saves the company money., Such conversions become more and more common with each passing year. Why? Because businesses see an immediate effect on their costs.

You're content to let the current rate of change continue because you're afraid of the consequences of forcing that change to speed up.

Yes, I am. I am particularly concerned with your draconian and coercive methods of change spurring opposition and even violence, along with a backlash that will make subsequent changes even harder.

I'm far more afraid of the consequences of ignoring the scientific consensus that we must act more swiftly in the face of an extinction level threat.

I'm aware of that.

But humanity isn't going to go extinct. A lot of other species are going to (or already have) but humans are too numerous, too widespread, and too adaptable to be wiped out by this.

I agree that some suffering is allowable but you're the one who leaps, even now, to "killing people is OK". No, it's not OK. The early 20th Century was awash with blood because one group of people or another decided that killing a different group of people was OK because the ends justified the means. The bloodbath never really ended although it did diminish.

Dead people are not acceptable losses. We can't save everyone, but that doesn't justify taking actions we know will kill more.

So WW!! wasn't justified?

Given that there was an existential threat to entire nations and entire groups of people yes, it was necessary. However, many of the actions taken by both sides were not justified. I tend to think the Allies were better overall than the Axis but I'm biased in no small part because I am a descendant of the winning team. Even so, I don't delude myself that the Allies were always the good guys and didn't commit atrocities. They certainly did.

The battles fought killed more people, civilians included than either of Stalin or Hitler alone managed to with their purges. We fought knowing that our actions would result in more death and suffering and with no way of knowing that the result of victory would be any better than the results of never having fought at all. Remember that we didn't fight because we knew about what a monster Hitler was, we fought to defend an alliance.

I don't know the specifics of why Canada entered WWII but the US did so because Japan attacked us in Hawaii. After the US declared war on Japan Hitler declared war on the US. So it's not like the US eagerly leapt into the fray. Certainly, the Pacific War for the US was about defending our territory in the East (whether the US acquired those territories through ethical means or not is a different question, but protecting them was certainly a US responsibility at that point), not "defending an alliance". The European War for the US was, yes, about defending Britain which was a long-time ally but also about stopping Hitler in Europe before he got any ideas about crossing the Atlantic.

At the time, people were pretty sure that surrendering to Hitler or Hirohito was going to be worse than fighting, based on what had happened to people who had taken that route in the 1930's. We weren't sure we would win, but if we didn't fight we would certainly lose. The World Wars were different than the wars that have occurred in your lifetime, or even mine, which were more localized and were less clear on the stakes and ethics.

You'll argue that we had to fight, that it was a justified war, that the consequences of standing idle were to great to ignore.

The US actually did try to stay out of the fight (even while we were supplying the Allies). By 1941 "standing idle" was not longer an option because the Axis brought the war to the US.

I feel the same about climate change. It's 1936 right now and we're still trying to appease Hitler hoping he'll settle down, hoping we can get away with doing nothing, well that hasn't worked before, why should it work now?

I think your characterization of the problem in those terms is way out of whack.

There is no way in hell we're going to get that sort of space colony in 30 years. You might as well pray to Jesus for a miracle for all the good it will do. Such colonies are possible in a more distant future, but not in 30 years. We might get a few people up and out in space but nothing truly independent and sustainable for the long term.

If you told somebody in 1940 that they would put a man on the moon within 30 years what do you think they would have said about it?

Werner von Braun was already planning space launches in the 1940's. The average person might have thought it nuts, but those involded in rocketry and aviation were more optimistic.

Are you telling me that if there was sufficient will to do so that an Appolo style program couldn't get a permanent colony running somewhere within our solar system within 30 years?

Not as I would define "permanent colony", no. An "outpost" maybe - like I said, along the lines of McMurdo base in Antarctica. An outpost that requires constant and regular resupply from outside to continue to exist at all and is in no way self-sufficient. I don't consider that a "colony". It would also be a drain on resources. Now, maybe we could get enough in return from such a place to justify the cost, but that's not certain either.

To put it another way: Skylab was not a colony. Mir was not a colony. The ISS is not a colony.

How much greenhouse gas would be released and how much carbon capture would we lose if the Amazon started dying due to climate change?

Honestly, I don't know. I'm not sure anyone else does, either, although there are probably a lot of guesses ranging from good to "pulled out of my ass".

What happens if the US bread basket turns into an un-usable desert in the face of heat and changing weather patterns and increased temperatures don't allow Canada to pick up the slack?

That's an easier one. Millions of people starve.

You can't only think about what you want to or expect to happen, you have to think about the worst case too. You have to plan for everything that can go wrong to go wrong and your plan for those scenarios should never involve laying down and dying.

And yet... YOU expect people to "lay down and die" to further your plans.

Worst case scenarios? Let's try a few:

The Yellowstone volcano blows in a big way - OMG! North America is fucked! Global weather is fucked! Billions die! What can we do about it? Not a goddamned thing other than trying to cobble something out of the debris. Or rather, the Southern Hemisphere gets to do that, I expect most of North America will be dead in that case.

A rock falls out of space! It's Chixalub all over again! Again - we're fucked, billions die, not a goddamned thing we can do about it. Alright, IF we spot it soon enough maybe we can alter its course. Maybe.

Global warning is horrific, island nations and coastal cities are drowning, everyone is desperate for resources, war breaks out, evnetually nuclear weapons are deployed, billions die, survivors are fucked.

Gee, I don't find any of that helpful, do you?

I'm also not a doctor. I'm a concerned friend that's telling you that homeopathy won't work and your symptoms look like cancer to my untrained eye. You keep telling me that you can't afford a hospital stay, that even if you could you're too far gone anyway, while insisting that a mixture of lemon juice and Tabasco sauce makes you feel better.

Yes, well, I live in the US. If I can't afford a hospital no, my cancer won't be treated. That is absolutely true in the US. Again, you can't step out of your own situation to really look at someone else's life and environment. Ditto for many in the third world. You propose solutions that will work for you because you live in a nation with the money and will to fund a safety net. Billions of other people don't - either there's no money, or no will if there is money, or both.

[We don't know that we can't do it unless we try. We had no way of knowing that the manned spaceflight wouldn't kill people, we sent them anyway.

I'm just going to point out that in addition to testing the effects of g-forces and such on the ground we didn't send people up first, we sent animals to see if they'd survive.

We didn't know that going to the moon wouldn't kill people, we sent them anyway.

By the time we were sending people to the Moon we actually did have a pretty good idea that they would survive. Sure, there were plans in place in case they didn't, but the expectation was that those men would come home.

[Sailors and colonists didn't know they would survive the trip to the new world. They didn't know if their colony would thrive or die. They risked it anyway because that risk was better than the prospect of staying where they were.

Except, of course, for the convicts and slaves transported against their will, many of whom did NOT survive.

By the time Europe started sending colonists to other continents they actually did have a pretty good notion that most of them would survive the trip. You sure have some odd notions about history, and that's saying something if an American can spot that in you, it's not like our history education is anything wonderful.

You want the status quo because you're afraid of failure. I do not want this.

Do not mistake my reluctance to impose draconian policies and coercion for wanting the status quo. I very much want change, but I view your means of achieving the desired end as abhorrent and unjustified.

Humans are not Vulcans. We do not run on logic. Any real world solution will have to take that into account.

I care more about my own life than other lives (by and large - parents will sacrifice themselves for children and other exceptions)
I care more about my family and friends than my neighbors
I care more about my neighbors than people across the country
I care more about my fellow citizens than people halfway across the planet.

By that logic, nobody should ever rush into a burning building to save a stranger, or go to war and risk life and limb for the notion of a nation that their death may not even save.

Yes, so why do they do that?

You get people to care about others by getting them to see their neighbors as friends, getting them to see distant people as neighbors and fellow human beings.

By that logic, every nation should have a world view as individualistic as the American world view. Yet, most nations are far more willing to endure taxes and restrictions on freedom for the greater good. How do you explain this?

No, nations are NOT more willing to endure restrictions, that's nonsense - what is the reaction of Canada to, say, Italy trying to dictate what Canada should do? Within a nation the citizens might be willing to have more taxation and restrictions but that's because they see their fellow citizens as closer to them than people farther away.

How do you explain those that give what little they have when that little isn't enough for their own comfort?

"Idiots"

If you believe in free will then you can expect people to overcome their base nature.

While I'm thrilled when someone does overcome their "base nature" I don't expect them to do so. Most people aren't going to and holding them to that as a minimum standard is a guarantee of failure in most cases.

Not ignorant, but you failed to miss the point. You asserted that Canada was somehow morally superior to the US and would do better with the same power. No, you won't. If you've done less damage it's because you have had less power to affect the world. Even with less power your country has still committed atrocities. You are no better and no worse. EVERY nation that achieves the status of "world power' or "super power" or "empire" is going to be a clumsy behemoth at best.

You assert that all nations are as bad as the US and would abuse their power to the same degree if they could.

Yes, I do. Some would probably be even worse (see Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany)

This is false, Germany the modern post-WWII state, hasn't done 1/5th the harm that the US has in spite of only having 1/5th the economy.

That's because Germany has been at a disadvantage since WWII due first to the consequences of that war, then being split into two separate nations, then the problems of reunification. It is only now emerging as another power (again) and even so is viewed with some lingering suspicion. It is barred from having anything other than a strictly defensive military.

Japan is another one - big economy, but lingering suspicion makes it difficult for them to work with their neighbors and they were largely stripped of their military. They depend on the US to defend them because what defensive forces they are permitted are pretty damn weak.

Both of those nations have been hobbled regarding international matters because of what they did in the 1940's when they had power.

The USSR did a crapload of damage to both people and the planet.

Again - the reason Canada hasn't done as much damage is because they haven't been able to do as much. Your nation isn't comprised of saints, it's comprised of human beings.

Germany, France, the EU as a whole is what the US should aspire to be.

Why? You think we should be rioting in the streets like France? The "EU as a whole"? That's less unified and cooperative than the US states are.

They're gaining on the US too in terms of unity and in terms of power and yet there hasn't been an EU backed war on terror or war on drugs. They face a greater refugee crisis than the US does and yet aren't shut down and trying to build a wall.

Yes, the US is currently having a problem with a wanna-be dictator, I am probably even more aware of that than you are what with living here. One of the reasons the shutdown is continually is that people are refusing to approve that wall and trying to stop the Toddler-in-Chief from fucking things up even more thoroughly.

In a warming world Canada is going to be a "winner" - you'll get a longer growing season and an expansion of land useful for farming. You have vast resources. You have space to live in. What are you going to do with all that? How many refugees from the tropics and coastal areas are you planning to take in? Or, probably a more immediate concern, what are you going to do about tens of millions of Americans trying to cross your borders to a more congenial environment? Welcome them, try to house and feed them and find them something constructive to do? Or are you going to try to keep them out? What do you think would be the outcome of the second strategy?

As a percentage of our population, we've taken in more refugees from the current European crisis than the US has. Currently, there is an open debate about our ability to revoke the US status as a safe country so we can legally force ourselves to take more people in. Our academics agree that with our limited resources we're doing as much as we can to help a crisis far larger than we alone can solve. Can you find a sane American academic that feels the same about your nations contributions?

How much longer can you continue to do that, though?

If the US collapses how are you going to handle the potential of a wave of refugees that might well outnumber you coming across the border? Because that's what will happen if the US collapses, for whatever reason. Do you think your nation could handle that?

Yay, good on Canada, you ARE doing your share, and maybe more, but you might have some self-interest in trying not to make things worse (by, say, forcing policies that will leave people destitute or starving) and generating more refugees than are already being generated.

Given our current attitudes and actions, I feel that we'll handle any future crisis as Europe has with grumbling and concern, not as the US has with hostility and paralyzing panic.

"Grumbling and concern"? And you say I'm out of touch?

No, Europe (collectively, as we could all cherry-pick exceptions) have left people to drown in the Mediterranean, deported people back to war zones, piled refugees into camps with inadequate facilities, Hungary built a border wall. Norway is building one. Another wall in Slovenia. Walls in Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Reports of attacks on refugees across Europe.

Yes, Europe has taken in a lot of people, but they're closing the door now. Sure, a lot of people have been welcoming. Some have been complete asshats, too.

Fuck you for asserting that we'll be even a tenth as bad as you are.

And here we are, back at your bigotry again asserting Americans are a special evil.

Also, the fact that you keep leaping to compare the current US to wartime Europe is disgusting.

Why?

It's not like the US states haven't gone to war with each other in the past, too. We've done better when we don't fight each other. Europe does, too.

I don't object to you criticizing my nation for inaction. Blast the US for its sins and flaws all you want, I'll likely join you and maybe add a few you aren't aware of. What I object to is your scapegoating of me, personally. You ASSUME many things about me that aren't true, that I did absolutely nothing, that I do absolutely nothing, and wish suffering and death upon me, personally.

As a democracy, your political system assigns guilt to all within your nation's borders. You have a share of that guilt which even a felon, an illegal immigrant, does not. Unlike them, you had a voice. You failed to shout loud enough.

And here we go again, collective guilt. Really, I'm worse than a convicted felon? Wow. If I tried to change things and failed I deserve to be punished as severely as those who did nothing, or who made things worse? Why the hell should I cooperate with you in anything when it's clear you're just looking for excuses to kick me?

Hey, I suppose you think the entire population of Germany should have been jailed for WWII atrocities, right? Because they were all equally guilty because they didn't "shout loud enough" to stop the Nazis, they are all as bad as Hitler, even the ones who died trying to stop Hitler because they failed, they didn't try hard enough. Would you like a ticket to Europe so you can spit on their graves?

I get that you hate America, but if you keep attacking people on a personal level you're not going to get cooperation with your schemes.

You can't live on past glories Broomstick. If you could the British would still act like they're a superpower that controls half the globe.

Some of them actually do act like that. But I don't hold every Briton I meet responsible for every bad thing the government of Britain does.

Anyone advocating genocide is pretty fucking monstrous - you don't get to throw that on the table then go "ha-ha just kidding". The fact that at any point you thought that acceptable makes you morally suspect in my view. It's not an ordinary transgression.

People advocate for genocide all the time in the RARs on this board, some of which include modern Earth in their scenarios. Are they all suspect too?

Yes, they are.

There you go again - because of the circumstances of my birth, something I have no control over and cannot change, I am guilty. That's called bigotry, you fucktoy. It's a personal attack. It pisses people off.

Stop being a goddamned bigot you're more likely to get a discussion rather than a flame war.

Did you, when you were living a middle-class life, use those resources to make your voice heard above what you could accomplish with your current resources? If not, how can you say that you aren't guilty? If so please provide examples of what you did then that you no longer do now.

Yes, I did.

I worked for years at an inner city clinic across the street from one of the most notorious housing projects in Chicago to try an improve the lives of poor people in that city. I paid for hundreds of pounds of food for local soup kitchens so hungry people could eat. I donated to charities like Médecins Sans Frontières and environmental groups both local and international. I gave to Amnesty international. I wrote to my elected representatives to tell them which policies I believed to be the best for the greater good. I've been an advocate of both nuclear and solar power since the 1970's. I've lived without such energy-wasting appliances as dishwashers, opted for the most fuel efficient vehicles I could when buying a new one (when I've owned a car at all - for many years I didn't), and recycled/reused/repurposed whenever possible over buying new. Unfortunately, most of the people I voted for didn't win - and no doubt you'll tell me I failed because I didn't vote hard enough. I've participated in local environmental clean ups. I've done a shitload more than you have in your pathetic life but you didn't even have the courtesy to ask until this point, you just assumed I was as evil as your bigoted presumptions about me based solely on my country of origin.

So shut the fuck up about how guilty you think I am - I have done more to help other people in any ten years of my life than you have done in your entire life you mewling piece of shit.

I'm a millennial actually. 31 this April.

OMG - you're over 30 and you haven't saved the world yet? You fail, you aren't trying hard enough.

I'm not like you Broomstick, I'm willing to suffer for the future.

Right - because I suffered to make the world a better place in the present, to help people NOW instead of insisting they be worse off for someone else to benefit.

[Jub]

But humanity isn't going to go extinct. A lot of other species are going to (or already have) but humans are too numerous, too widespread, and too adaptable to be wiped out by this.

Didn't you already say that humanity was doomed to evolve into extinction to justify saying we shouldn't focus on space colonies?

I question your internal logic Broomstick, will humanity go extinct or not?

<snip lighting section for brevity>

The movement is too slow. Too conditional. It is good, it is needed, it is too slow.

We need to force a faster change by any possible means.

<snip WWII portion>

You stated, without qualifier that 'Dead people are not acceptable losses. We can't save everyone, but that doesn't justify taking actions we know will kill more.' I used that logic on WWII. Don't shit goalposts because you can't construct a sentence that means what you want it to.

Also, WWI was a shit show. It's literally, on a moral level, no different than any pointless proxy war in the middle east just on a larger scale and in Europe.


Lastly, Canada was a British subject for WWI and WWII. We had no choice in joining either conflict, we joined the moment the UK did. I know that Americans are ignorant about the history of other nations, but you ought to know at least that much about such an important historical event and your closest neighbor and ally. I know that level of basic US history. Do better.

Werner von Braun was already planning space launches in the 1940's. The average person might have thought it nuts, but those involded in rocketry and aviation were more optimistic.

So why doubt a space colony when projects like Mars One exist? They might be pie in the sky at best and scams at worst, but people want this and are taking steps. They just don't have the funds or backing.

Not as I would define "permanent colony", no. An "outpost" maybe - like I said, along the lines of McMurdo base in Antarctica. An outpost that requires constant and regular resupply from outside to continue to exist at all and is in no way self-sufficient. I don't consider that a "colony". It would also be a drain on resources. Now, maybe we could get enough in return from such a place to justify the cost, but that's not certain either.

To put it another way: Skylab was not a colony. Mir was not a colony. The ISS is not a colony.

Why must the cost be justified? What of discovery for the sake of discovery? Why not an outpost to make way for a colony?

Worst case scenarios? Let's try a few:

The Yellowstone volcano blows in a big way - OMG! North America is fucked! Global weather is fucked! Billions die! What can we do about it? Not a goddamned thing other than trying to cobble something out of the debris. Or rather, the Southern Hemisphere gets to do that, I expect most of North America will be dead in that case.

A rock falls out of space! It's Chixalub all over again! Again - we're fucked, billions die, not a goddamned thing we can do about it. Alright, IF we spot it soon enough maybe we can alter its course. Maybe.

Global warning is horrific, island nations and coastal cities are drowning, everyone is desperate for resources, war breaks out, evnetually nuclear weapons are deployed, billions die, survivors are fucked.

Gee, I don't find any of that helpful, do you?

I do actually. Every one of those events only hurts us if we stay confined to this single planet.

You want to know why I want space so badly, it's because those events are inevitable. Stare at those words you wrote. Let it sink in that inevitable events will kill all of us if we stay here.

When I say not going to space leads us to extinction this is what I mean. Not word games about evolution leading to extinction regardless of reaching space or not.

Yes, well, I live in the US. If I can't afford a hospital no, my cancer won't be treated. That is absolutely true in the US. Again, you can't step out of your own situation to really look at someone else's life and environment. Ditto for many in the third world. You propose solutions that will work for you because you live in a nation with the money and will to fund a safety net. Billions of other people don't - either there's no money, or no will if there is money, or both.

You live in the worst western nation but your situation isn't common among advanced nations. It's an outlier, it should not be your baseline for how things have to work.

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0 ... 16a106667c

Look at how the rest of the west rates. Now look hard at the US, look at what it shares a color with. Are you proud?

I'm just going to point out that in addition to testing the effects of g-forces and such on the ground we didn't send people up first, we sent animals to see if they'd survive.

Did we send animals to the surface of the moon? Nope.

The US actually never sent animals into deep space before sending men. The USSR did, but not the US and it's unlikely that the US was fully aware of the effects of deep space on the animals the USSR sent out there.

Except, of course, for the convicts and slaves transported against their will, many of whom did NOT survive.

By the time Europe started sending colonists to other continents they actually did have a pretty good notion that most of them would survive the trip. You sure have some odd notions about history, and that's saying something if an American can spot that in you, it's not like our history education is anything wonderful.

You do as well.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/10- ... -jamestown

There was no sure thing when people went over to the new world and even once there were footholds loads of people died getting here and more died trying to establish a sustainable homestead.

No, nations are NOT more willing to endure restrictions, that's nonsense - what is the reaction of Canada to, say, Italy trying to dictate what Canada should do? Within a nation the citizens might be willing to have more taxation and restrictions but that's because they see their fellow citizens as closer to them than people farther away.

How did you leap to that of all things?

I'm talking about strict gun controls, high base tax rates, freedom of speech restrictions, high levels of surveillance, corporate oversight... Things that apparently are unacceptable in the US but which are common in Europe.

"Idiots"

This just sums you up Broomstick. You're selfish.

If you were on your last $20 you wouldn't spare a dollar for a guy with even less than you. I'm not like that.

I'm broke, behind on rent, but I can't turn away from suffering. I'll give to the homeless if I have anything on hand to offer.

I won't do it everytime, but I'll still give. I practice what I preach.

While I'm thrilled when someone does overcome their "base nature" I don't expect them to do so. Most people aren't going to and holding them to that as a minimum standard is a guarantee of failure in most cases.

Why shouldn't we work to make that expectation the standard? Why shouldn't we design our society around the notion that we can overcome our base nature?

Yes, I do. Some would probably be even worse (see Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany)

Then you have a bleak and myopic world view, that apparently fixates on WWII... For a person that claims to have a post-secondary education your view of history and sociology is bizzarely limited.

That's because Germany has been at a disadvantage since WWII due first to the consequences of that war, then being split into two separate nations, then the problems of reunification. It is only now emerging as another power (again) and even so is viewed with some lingering suspicion. It is barred from having anything other than a strictly defensive military.

That bar is a self-imposed one at this stage. If Germany wanted to change that it could, but I doubt they will in any foreseeable near term.

Japan is another one - big economy, but lingering suspicion makes it difficult for them to work with their neighbors and they were largely stripped of their military. They depend on the US to defend them because what defensive forces they are permitted are pretty damn weak.

Again this is self-imposed at this stage. Yes, Japan is enlarging her SDF but they're justified in doing so.

Why? You think we should be rioting in the streets like France? The "EU as a whole"? That's less unified and cooperative than the US states are.

France has the best healthcare system in the western world and precisely because they protest so regularly they get very quick changes from their elected officials. They are 100% a model of how a society can be less than unified but still have a great quality of life and access to amazingly fast social change.

Yes, the US is currently having a problem with a wanna-be dictator, I am probably even more aware of that than you are what with living here. One of the reasons the shutdown is continually is that people are refusing to approve that wall and trying to stop the Toddler-in-Chief from fucking things up even more thoroughly.

You elected him and haven't gotten rid of him, we elected the opposite at the time when the trend was to go conservative.

The point goes to Canada.

How much longer can you continue to do that, though?

It's hard to say, especially with our current economy but the fact that we're willing to try is telling of the difference between Canada and the US. I hope that we can expand our agricultural sector as land opens up and prepare for a potentially massive influx of displaced people on an even greater scale, but we will reach a limit. It won't be political though.

We're a nation with 1/9th the population of the US, less than California. We simply only have so much carrying capacity for new arrivals. The US should have 9x more capacity than we have, more due to the size of their political outreach and ability to coordinate international efforts, and yet you've never done 9x the work.

If the US collapses how are you going to handle the potential of a wave of refugees that might well outnumber you coming across the border? Because that's what will happen if the US collapses, for whatever reason. Do you think your nation could handle that?

Yay, good on Canada, you ARE doing your share, and maybe more, but you might have some self-interest in trying not to make things worse (by, say, forcing policies that will leave people destitute or starving) and generating more refugees than are already being generated.

So doesn't it make sense that I want the US to do better than they are? You wonder why I fxate on the US yet you post things like this.

Do you really need me to continue to point out why the US is my number one target?

"Grumbling and concern"? And you say I'm out of touch?

No, Europe (collectively, as we could all cherry-pick exceptions) have left people to drown in the Mediterranean, deported people back to war zones, piled refugees into camps with inadequate facilities, Hungary built a border wall. Norway is building one. Another wall in Slovenia. Walls in Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Reports of attacks on refugees across Europe.

Yes, Europe has taken in a lot of people, but they're closing the door now. Sure, a lot of people have been welcoming. Some have been complete asshats, too.

Yeah, they've reached a limit. We all knew they were going to eventually because Europe is already densely populated and crowded. Possibly at the limits of their means to sustain their population in a sustainable fashion without a major quality of life impacts. In spite of this, as a whole, the EU is still trying to help.

Maybe we could ask the US to pitch in a little and take their share. I mean, you only caused the crisis in the first place.

And here we go again, collective guilt. Really, I'm worse than a convicted felon? Wow. If I tried to change things and failed I deserve to be punished as severely as those who did nothing, or who made things worse? Why the hell should I cooperate with you in anything when it's clear you're just looking for excuses to kick me?

*kicks Broomstick harder*

You at least had a choice and a voice. That felon, whatever they may have done, doesn't have that option.

Hey, I suppose you think the entire population of Germany should have been jailed for WWII atrocities, right? Because they were all equally guilty because they didn't "shout loud enough" to stop the Nazis, they are all as bad as Hitler, even the ones who died trying to stop Hitler because they failed, they didn't try hard enough. Would you like a ticket to Europe so you can spit on their graves?

The ones that took action beyond shuffling to the polls, certainly not. Had the rest of the world chosen to keep beating down Germany post-WWII they, to some lines of thinking, would have been justified in doing so. In some ways, Germans are still being painted with that brush and you yourself have noted that they are somewhat hampered in foreign policy, a punishment which effects all German citizens for not having stopped Hitler.

So my line of thinking holds true while yours does not.

schemes.

Msg brds are srs bzness guys. THis postr has schemz!

Some of them actually do act like that. But I don't hold every Briton I meet responsible for every bad thing the government of Britain does.

But unlike the US it isn't the common view. The US still likes to talk about how it 'won' WWII as if they were the sole reason.

Yes, they are.

You're a bit paranoid Broomy. Maybe seek help for that.

Yes, I did.

I worked for years at an inner city clinic across the street from one of the most notorious housing projects in Chicago to try an improve the lives of poor people in that city. I paid for hundreds of pounds of food for local soup kitchens so hungry people could eat. I donated to charities like Médecins Sans Frontières and environmental groups both local and international. I gave to Amnesty international. I wrote to my elected representatives to tell them which policies I believed to be the best for the greater good. I've been an advocate of both nuclear and solar power since the 1970's. I've lived without such energy-wasting appliances as dishwashers, opted for the most fuel efficient vehicles I could when buying a new one (when I've owned a car at all - for many years I didn't), and recycled/reused/repurposed whenever possible over buying new. Unfortunately, most of the people I voted for didn't win - and no doubt you'll tell me I failed because I didn't vote hard enough. I've participated in local environmental clean ups. I've done a shitload more than you have in your pathetic life but you didn't even have the courtesy to ask until this point, you just assumed I was as evil as your bigoted presumptions about me based solely on my country of origin.

So shut the fuck up about how guilty you think I am - I have done more to help other people in any ten years of my life than you have done in your entire life you mewling piece of shit.

*claps*

I knew most of that actually, but what you did was triage. The sad fact is all of that was mostly done to make you feel better and none of it had any real impact on the world. Those funds would have been better used campaigning for social change, spent on the future, rather than slapping bandages no current wounds.

You call me heartless, but I want actual change. I don't want to waste effort on the status quo. Such triage is admirable, but foolish. Spending resources to save one when it could have been spent to save 100 later. Look at this thread for proof that I'm not just making this up on the spot to spit on you. Look at how many posters agreed with me.

The current and past methods of doing good are failures. They haven't done lasting good. Donations to children in Africa have created dependencies and allowed poor governments to survive times where there might have been a revolt. Most of the 'good' we do are feel good lies we tell ourselves.

Tell me I'm wrong.

OMG - you're over 30 and you haven't saved the world yet? You fail, you aren't trying hard enough.

I've already admited as much. Try to keep up with the conversation.

Right - because I suffered to make the world a better place in the present, to help people NOW instead of insisting they be worse off for someone else to benefit.

The present doesn't exist, it's an imaginary line between past and future. Preserving it does no good. Funds spent to triage the now sacrifice the future.

Let's get to that future, get to post scarcity, and then worry about the present. We'll finally have the luxury to do so responsibly.

[Jub]

Also, in another post for emphasis, can you stop shifting the goalposts every time I answer a direct question with supported facts?

You asked me to present my argument for other nations being better than the US when given the same chances. It's a purely hypothetical question and not provable either way, but I tried. I pointed to recent European unity; you brought up WWII. I brought up Canada's history of outsized humanitarian aid and current handling of the refugee crisis; you switch the topic to the sustainability of these actions. You keep ignoring my points because it's easier to paint me as an idiotic monster and I'm sick of it.

You're not arguing in good faith or from a point of logic. You'll point to past events as if they are relevant to the current discussion and carry as much weight as current events. In a topic arguing that we need more and faster change, you seem determined to drag us into the past where the US looked better than they do now. It's transparent and dishonest. I know you can do better and I expect better of you.

You won't accept my concessions and continue to hammer on recanted ideas as if no opinion can ever change. I've changed my opinion many times based on debates had on this very message board. To give an example my views of native groups in Canada changed based on a thread here some years ago, my only dealings were with the richest most powerful and most populous nation (The Sylix) and it colored my view. I no longer feel that the Canadian government doesn't owe these people more than we give them. People are nuanced and capable of change than you give credit for.

I'll stop hammering on you personally but you need to meet me halfway and debate fairly. Please read this before quote spamming me with your reply.

[K. A. Pital]

Once again, running in circles.

Jub, Canada is not much different from the US. As its resource rich hinterland, it had to partake and be a party to the plunder its neighbor to the South has engaged in. It is a bit funny to get on a moral high horse.

I must say you do more than most people I have met, if you really do give to the poor before paying your own bills. Admirable.

What I said before, sometime several years ago, here on SDN is that the industrialization of the Third World will exacerbate poverty in the First World, unless socialism wins.

This has basically come to pass - breakneck industrial expansion in the poorest areas to extract value from cheap and unprotected labour happened, as did the slow and inescapable downward adjustment of newcomer wages and their purchasing power in the First World.

The issue at hand is that even with this brutal adjustment, the First World still consumes such an enormous amount of resources that further adjustments are only a matter of time.

The people in France whom we all respect so much for the courage to stand up to Macron‘s neoliberal nightmare government, among other things have successfully defeated an eco-tax which would have likely driven down the consumption of petroleum and quite possibly individual car rides, including associated emissions.

This does not rhyme well with self-restraint that you see as a key to success in combatting global warming. If AOC enacts a plan to ban old cars or go full nuclear, there will be vested interests to fight. With enough money, the oil barons can stage a protest that looks 100% genuine popular outrage, too. What would you say then? Support the people? Support someone who claims to act in the best interests of all, even if misunderstood?

Will you find a behavior line that lets you stay true to your class?

[Jub]

Jub, Canada is not much different from the US. As its resource rich hinterland, it had to partake and be a party to the plunder its neighbor to the South has engaged in. It is a bit funny to get on a moral high horse.

In some ways, you're entirely correct. Canadian land is stolen land and we've yet to give proper restitution to our native/first nations groups. We're a capitalist society that has wealth inequality and poor workers rights. We have our share of corruption and scandal too. I'm sure that with a critical eye I could find many more issues with how my nation conducts business internally and externally.

But there are bits that we do pretty well too. Our healthcare system might not have the satisfaction ratings of a nation like France, but I've never been denied any service I could need and have never had a long wait for anything urgent. I wish we'd start seeing dental services as the same as general healthcare as coverage there is lacking. There are also issues accessing one-on-one therapy for mental health issues, but we're making strides in mental health coverage.

Our welfare system is pretty barebones, but it exists and is easy to access. Aside from two provinces (Alberta and Saskatchewan) all of our provinces get most of their energy from renewable sources or nuclear power. We're willing to take in refugees and actively welcome workers from Mexico into Canada because we have jobs they are willing and able to fill. If I could steal bits from other nations I'd want Australia's voting system and worker protections laws, France's healthcare system, the Nordic model of welfare and education, so we're not perfect.

We're a strange midpoint between Europe and ther United States but not entirely like either of them.

I must say you do more than most people I have met, if you really do give to the poor before paying your own bills. Admirable.

I'm bad with my money if I have it, I want to spend it. With how little I've made over my adult life saving for retirement hasn't been realistic. So, when I have a chunk it goes to bills that can be paid off, but if I'm given $600 and I'm $1000 behind on rent, they get maybe $300 or $400 so I have cash to live on. If I go out to buy a small treat, say $10 worth of snacks at the corner store, and I see a homeless person how can I not offer them something? I'm out spending money I don't have on useless junk I know I don't need, why not give either some of that $10 or just a little more from whatever I have left to somebody with no roof at all?

What I said before, sometime several years ago, here on SDN is that the industrialization of the Third World will exacerbate poverty in the First World, unless socialism wins.

Yeah, it was inevitable. Once we kicked the population bomb issue down the road, consumption of other resources was bound to become and issue.

The people in France whom we all respect so much for the courage to stand up to Macron‘s neoliberal nightmare government, among other things have successfully defeated an eco-tax which would have likely driven down the consumption of petroleum and quite possibly individual car rides, including associated emissions.

That's awful, but I think the key is to bend on some issues and stand your ground on others. In many cases, the people know what they need to survive better than you do and when given a voice and the knowledge that it will be heard can get those needs met. This is a good thing and can result in a well cared for population and a system that adapts well to changes in societal needs. That same system can be hijacked easily, however, and when that happens one must not bend. One must shine a light on the origin of the protests such that most will see from whence their turmoil came. It can also be hijacked by outsiders which is why France works so hard to make those that live there FRENCH, the system doesn't allow for much of a melting pot and blending of identity.

The best idea I can come up with is to let the people vote on small scale issues that most closely affect them as well as social changes. With great amounts of transparency and oversight let the experts vote on matters of long-term policy. Where the two meet and conflict then you must find the compromise that hurts the most the least where possible. I argue that the harm done to the future matters more than the harm done in the here and now where one has the choice between the two. When there is no easy answer, set your target, and hit it regardless of the costs. A leader must be bold and must be resolute if they are to achieve any sort of long-term goal.

[Broomstick]

But humanity isn't going to go extinct. A lot of other species are going to (or already have) but humans are too numerous, too widespread, and too adaptable to be wiped out by this.

Didn't you already say that humanity was doomed to evolve into extinction to justify saying we shouldn't focus on space colonies?

I question your internal logic Broomstick, will humanity go extinct or not?

Didn't say we should give up on space, what I am saying is that your time line is not realistic. And yes, one day humanity will be extinct just as one day I'll be dead, but neither fact is a reason to stop living now.

The movement is too slow. Too conditional. It is good, it is needed, it is too slow.

We need to force a faster change by any possible means.

Yes, there you go again - then end justifies the mean, therefore it's OK to cause suffering and death.

You stated, without qualifier that 'Dead people are not acceptable losses. We can't save everyone, but that doesn't justify taking actions we know will kill more.' I used that logic on WWII. Don't shit goalposts because you can't construct a sentence that means what you want it to.

I'm getting really tired of having to write a novel to cover all possible contingencies because you find it amusing to nitpick and find outliers and exceptions to what anyone else would recognize as a general rule of thumb.

Lastly, Canada was a British subject for WWI and WWII. We had no choice in joining either conflict, we joined the moment the UK did. I know that Americans are ignorant about the history of other nations, but you ought to know at least that much about such an important historical event and your closest neighbor and ally.

I wasn't addressing why Canada entered the war, I was addressing your error in saying the US joined the war to support an ally. No, we joined the war because we were attacked. What's your excuse for ignorance?

So why doubt a space colony when projects like Mars One exist? They might be pie in the sky at best and scams at worst, but people want this and are taking steps. They just don't have the funds or backing.

Mars One? Four employees that are trying to "launch" a colony but has no expertise in aerospace and no hardware, just slick media presentations? How ridiculous! When Mars One lands... no, let's make it easier - when Mars One gets even one bit of hardware into Mars orbit then we can consider them something other than a laughingstock. It's all talk, no action. Would you consider a small, private company that makes slick presentations on solving global warming but didn't actually do anything towards solving the problem(s) to be worthy of consideration?

If you think Mars One is somehow a viable company or a way to get to Mars then I have lost all ability to take seriously your dreams of going into space.

[ snip paragraph about why space stations are not colonies ]

Why must the cost be justified? What of discovery for the sake of discovery? Why not an outpost to make way for a colony?

The cost must be justified because all this shit that goes into a launch/station/colony has to be paid for somehow. There's no such thing as a free lunch as Robert Heinlein's characters were so fond of saying. Either those of us in the first world pay up front for such an endeavor or we extract labor and good from the underclass and third world. Either way, somebody somewhere will pay the bill. I think it should be paid by those wanting it, don't you?

Discovery for the sake of discovery is fine - that is, after all, the whole reason for people being in Antarctica in the first place (well, along with political reasons). Discovery, however, does not require a colony, or even the presence of human beings. It's actually a lot easier to explore space via remote.

Sure, if you're going to have a colony you can start with an outpost, but an outpost isn't a colony. What are you goals here? Discovery? Doesn't require a colony and if you don't have a colony you can spend more on actual exploring rather than supporting people in a location. Mines and resource extraction? Doesn't require a colony. Getting people off space in a sort of cosmic lifeboat? Great - now you need a colony, but you need a self-supporting colony for that and we're not going to have that in 30 years. Hell, the Europeans didn't have that in North America for a generation or two on even the same planet - entire colonies died off before the graft "took".

[ snip list of catastrophes ]

I do actually. Every one of those events only hurts us if we stay confined to this single planet.

Bullshit. Every single one of those events kills billions and leaves maimed and suffering survivors. It shows just how lacking in empathy you are, to go along with your delusion that something like Mars One is going to get a paperclip, much less a human being, off this rock.

You live in the worst western nation but your situation isn't common among advanced nations. It's an outlier, it should not be your baseline for how things have to work.

And you think the "not advanced" nations are better? Again, you're basing everything on YOU, on how YOU live, on YOUR environment. You haven't a fucking clue that other people are not you, and not just in the big, bad ol' US but other places in the world. In the industrial world UHC is a thing, outside the US, but in the developing world the situation is even worse than the US because there is less money, less resources, and often no such thing as health insurance, not even the jacked-up version in the US.

I'm just going to point out that in addition to testing the effects of g-forces and such on the ground we didn't send people up first, we sent animals to see if they'd survive.

Did we send animals to the surface of the moon? Nope.

Didn't need to - we knew we could keep people alive in a vacuum in the space environment which was the big question at the start. Of course, if I give a detailed answer to that you'll accuse me of moving the goalposts when really it's you that are doing that.

I'm talking about strict gun controls, high base tax rates, freedom of speech restrictions, high levels of surveillance, corporate oversight...

You want to live in a police state? Forget the gun control issue - I'm in favor of more of that here, too, and the tax issue - but you want to abolish freedom of speech? Of course you do - you want to be able to silence anyone who doesn't agree with you. Can't have any dissent on the march into the future! Even if someone might be raising a valid point!

Yet another example that your solutions are all about force and coercion.

If you were on your last $20 you wouldn't spare a dollar for a guy with even less than you. I'm not like that.

I'm broke, behind on rent, but I can't turn away from suffering. I'll give to the homeless if I have anything on hand to offer.

Then you are a fucking idiot. If you don't take care of your own basic needs you can't take care of anyone else. Giving to others when you're broke and behind on rent just generates another homeless, destitute, starving human being. It doesn't solve anything, just contributes to more suffering.

I already told you I helped the homeless - but fuck me, right, NOTHING I ever do will be enough in your eyes. Again, why should I play your game when I'll always lose? You've decided me and mine are expendable.

While I'm thrilled when someone does overcome their "base nature" I don't expect them to do so. Most people aren't going to and holding them to that as a minimum standard is a guarantee of failure in most cases.

Why shouldn't we work to make that expectation the standard? Why shouldn't we design our society around the notion that we can overcome our base nature?

Because you're dealing with human beings, not saints. What part of "guaranteed to fail" don't you understand? Why don't we make it mandatory that everyone get a PhD in mathematics or particle physics? Why don't we make it mandatory everyone run a mile in three minutes and forty-five seconds and also run a marathon in two hours? Because those people are outliers. So are people willing to die for strangers. They're not normal people and you can't design around such outliers.

Japan is another one - big economy, but lingering suspicion makes it difficult for them to work with their neighbors and they were largely stripped of their military. They depend on the US to defend them because what defensive forces they are permitted are pretty damn weak.

Again this is self-imposed at this stage. Yes, Japan is enlarging her SDF but they're justified in doing so.

Uh... no - Japan's lack of anything more than a token self-defense force is baked into the constitution the US forced on them at the end of WWII. It's not self-imposed and if they tried to change that it would have some pretty fierce consequences in regards to how their near neighbors would react.

Why? You think we should be rioting in the streets like France? The "EU as a whole"? That's less unified and cooperative than the US states are.

France has the best healthcare system in the western world and precisely because they protest so regularly they get very quick changes from their elected officials.

If they had effective change they wouldn't have repeated riots. And while I recall a lot of reasons for their riots I don't recall healthcare being one of the issues.

You elected him and haven't gotten rid of him, we elected the opposite at the time when the trend was to go conservative.

Actually, the popular vote went for Clinton, it was the electoral college that put Trump in office. As for getting rid of him - we have to have a legal reason to overturn an election, or would you prefer that the rule of law be abolished in a nation to your south that outnumbers you 10:1 and awash in guns? No, that can't possibly turn out badly.... Would you prefer a military coup followed by a dictatorship down here? Would that make you feel safer? Do you think such a successor to the current US would be any better in regards to mitigating climate change?

To be clear, I didn't vote for Trump, I find him appalling, and I want someone else in the Oval Office... but it would be pointless to replace him with something worse.

Do you really need me to continue to point out why the US is my number one target?

No, it's clear you're prejudiced against the US and consider the entire nation unredeemable and the world better off without any of them. You've made that very clear.

Yeah, they've reached a limit. We all knew they were going to eventually because Europe is already densely populated and crowded. Possibly at the limits of their means to sustain their population in a sustainable fashion without a major quality of life impacts. In spite of this, as a whole, the EU is still trying to help.

Sorry. "Building walls" and "trying to help" are sort of mutually exclusive when it comes to millions of people seeking to relocate just to stay alive.

*kicks Broomstick harder*

You at least had a choice and a voice. That felon, whatever they may have done, doesn't have that option.

I used my choices and voice, but you're pissed off because my best efforts weren't enough so I should be punished. Failure equals death in your world view. Anyone not meeting your standards should be killed. If I sound like I;m harping on WWII it's because the last time someone took that attitude had actual power it left 50 million people dead in its wake.

You're saying a felon, any felon, is better than a law-abiding citizen regardless of what that person did? Wow. What a warped view of the world you have. Murderers and rapists and thieves are better than people working in clinics or running homeless shelters or working to install solar panels to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, how bizarre. Of course, you advocate taking from people without compensation so why should I be surprised you favor criminals over everyone else?

Hey, I suppose you think the entire population of Germany should have been jailed for WWII atrocities, right? Because they were all equally guilty because they didn't "shout loud enough" to stop the Nazis, they are all as bad as Hitler, even the ones who died trying to stop Hitler because they failed, they didn't try hard enough. Would you like a ticket to Europe so you can spit on their graves?

The ones that took action beyond shuffling to the polls, certainly not.

But you won't grant that grace to any American for any reason - which shows just what a hypocrite you are. Germans who tried to resist the Third Reich are laudable even if they failed. Americans who try to change their system and fail, though, are just as bad as those doing bad things, they're all bad, evil, and unforgivable. You are a hypocrite as well as a bigot.

Msg brds are srs bzness guys. THis postr has schemz!

Please don't post drunk. It makes you look bad.

[ snip list of things I've actually done with my life ]

I knew most of that actually, but what you did was triage. The sad fact is all of that was mostly done to make you feel better and none of it had any real impact on the world. Those funds would have been better used campaigning for social change, spent on the future, rather than slapping bandages no current wounds.

Again - nothing I do will ever measure up in your eyes.

What I did was worthwhile. It helped people. You, on the other hand, would have been happy to leave people to starve, to suffer without access to modern medical care... It was more useful than your dreams of space colonies will ever be because it actually did something to make even one tiny corner of the world a better place. You want to help the future or faraway places but you won't pay attention to the person standing next to you bleeding out.

By your rationale we shouldn't have hospitals or modern medical care at all - spend that money on Mars One instead! Don't help subsidize toilets in India, or solar power in Africa, it's a waste! Fuck anyone who doesn't share your exact dreams and delusions and damn the consequences.

You call me heartless, but I want actual change. I don't want to waste effort on the status quo. Such triage is admirable, but foolish. Spending resources to save one when it could have been spent to save 100 later.

If you don't take care of the people already here how the hell do you expect to have anyone left later?

Tell me I'm wrong.

You're wrong.

See how easy that was?

What have YOU done with YOUR life, other than whine?

I posted my resume, not it's your turn.

Let's get to that future, get to post scarcity, and then worry about the present. We'll finally have the luxury to do so responsibly.

Oh my god - you believe in "post-scarcity"? Oh, that's a good laugh! That's as likely to happen in your lifestime as Mars One actually getting anything to Mars.

You aren't going to get to post-scarcity by the sort of suffering and death you propose.

[Broomstick]

What I said before, sometime several years ago, here on SDN is that the industrialization of the Third World will exacerbate poverty in the First World, unless socialism wins.

Sorry, K.A., I'm not feeling optimistic about socialism these days. The greedy rich guys seem to have the upper hand. If this keeps going we're not going to have contemporary capitalism either, we're going to have a few elites at the top and everyone else laboring serfs for their benefit (or worse).

The people in France whom we all respect so much for the courage to stand up to Macron‘s neoliberal nightmare government, among other things have successfully defeated an eco-tax which would have likely driven down the consumption of petroleum and quite possibly individual car rides, including associated emissions.

In other words, the brave rioters of France, by Jub's criteria, are guilty and deserve suffering and death because their rioting defeated an eco-tax that would have saved the planet for future generations. Their rioting had the opposite effect from the one he desires.

And that's why I say draconian methods and coercion won't work - a relatively (compared to Jub's agenda) mild tax on fuel resulted in rioting and governmental roll-back on the tax in France. What sort of pushback would Jub's methods generate?

[K. A. Pital]

I never said I am optimistic, merely that the choice is between poorer but together or a total “man eat man” situation, and the choice still stands as it is.

I think you are very critical of poorer countries, but many countries which are many times poorer that the US achieve humane outcomes in terms of healthcare, for example. Universal insurance exists and previously existed in much poorer countries than the US and it is used to great effect.

Jub had a point when he mentioned other nations achieving good results, although having worse starting conditions.

I was born “poor” by US standards, perhaps the entire nation was “poor”, but not in terms of hunger, or lack of access to healthcare or housing.

A level of income which is enough to support oneself inside your own nation, a guaranteed working place and healthcare, as well as education, could be more than enough. These things were achieved by nations nowhere near the US in terms of economic clout or corporations per capita.

A more equitable world does not mean everyone gets to live like an oligarch, but it means maybe we all get to live normal lives.

[Jub]

Yes, there you go again - then end justifies the mean, therefore it's OK to cause suffering and death.

The environment is one giant trolly problem. Do you throw the switch and kill one person now to save 5 later?

I wasn't addressing why Canada entered the war, I was addressing your error in saying the US joined the war to support an ally. No, we joined the war because we were attacked. What's your excuse for ignorance?

You did join the war for the purpose though, otherwise, there would have been no US troops in the European theater. The US also joined the war as a valid target the moment it started lend-lease to an active participant. In either case you are factually incorrect.

Also, you stated that you didn't know what Canada joined the war. Are you really so ignorant that you don't know basic historical facts about your ally and closest neighbor?

Mars One? Four employees that are trying to "launch" a colony but has no expertise in aerospace and no hardware, just slick media presentations? How ridiculous! When Mars One lands... no, let's make it easier - when Mars One gets even one bit of hardware into Mars orbit then we can consider them something other than a laughingstock. It's all talk, no action. Would you consider a small, private company that makes slick presentations on solving global warming but didn't actually do anything towards solving the problem(s) to be worthy of consideration?

No, I even went so far as to point them out as pie in the sky at best and a possible scam at worst. That said, we are close enough that a company like Mars One can be taken seriously by some members of the public. NASA has mentioned a moon base, though I remain skeptical that such gets funded.

In a hypothetical world where NASA was never defunded, we might have a colony by now. In a hypothetical future, where NASA gets an Appolo level funding injection and a mandate to form a self-sustaining colony within 30 years I believe that could also happen. In our present state, it may NEVER happen.

The last option leaves humanity doomed to extinction no matter what we do to save our planet.

The cost must be justified because all this shit that goes into a launch/station/colony has to be paid for somehow. There's no such thing as a free lunch as Robert Heinlein's characters were so fond of saying. Either those of us in the first world pay up front for such an endeavor or we extract labor and good from the underclass and third world. Either way, somebody somewhere will pay the bill. I think it should be paid by those wanting it, don't you?

How about we use the third option, we cut out useless labor that serves only to generate wealth and luxury goods and divert that effort into developing useful technology? That engineer designing a new shampoo bottle because marketing requested a new design after market research suggested that curved bottles sell 3.5% more among women aged 20-35 could design parts for a space habitat. No labor is lost and thus nothing real is wasted. All it costs is imaginary bargaining chips that we've been trained to assign a value to.

Sure, if you're going to have a colony you can start with an outpost, but an outpost isn't a colony. What are you goals here? Discovery? Doesn't require a colony and if you don't have a colony you can spend more on actual exploring rather than supporting people in a location. Mines and resource extraction? Doesn't require a colony. Getting people off space in a sort of cosmic lifeboat? Great - now you need a colony, but you need a self-supporting colony for that and we're not going to have that in 30 years. Hell, the Europeans didn't have that in North America for a generation or two on even the same planet - entire colonies died off before the graft "took".

The expansion of humans beyond all currently known bounds. Unlimited 'free' energy and more resources than we know what to do with. The ability to survive a disaster that would otherwise see us extinct. Scientific horizons beyond our wildest imagination. New challenges to seek out and overcome.

Economic concerns are not the only reason to do or not do something. That's one of the biggest lies the US (as the champion of cpaitalism) has ever peddled.

Bullshit. Every single one of those events kills billions and leaves maimed and suffering survivors. It shows just how lacking in empathy you are, to go along with your delusion that something like Mars One is going to get a paperclip, much less a human being, off this rock.

Your crystal ball has shown you this with certainty has it? Killing billions may well cause a chain of events that leads to human extinction. At the very least it sets us even further away from the stars and the unlimited resources they present. Either of those are terrible events to be avoided at all but the worst possible cause.

And you think the "not advanced" nations are better? Again, you're basing everything on YOU, on how YOU live, on YOUR environment. You haven't a fucking clue that other people are not you, and not just in the big, bad ol' US but other places in the world. In the industrial world UHC is a thing, outside the US, but in the developing world the situation is even worse than the US because there is less money, less resources, and often no such thing as health insurance, not even the jacked-up version in the US.

Hence why I only compared to other western nations. I'm making an apples to apples comparison about the US compared to other nations of comparable wealth and cultural backgrounds.

Didn't need to - we knew we could keep people alive in a vacuum in the space environment which was the big question at the start. Of course, if I give a detailed answer to that you'll accuse me of moving the goalposts when really it's you that are doing that.

They didn't know that radiation wouldn't kill the astronauts once they passed outside of the Earth's magnetosphere. They didn't know that the moon wouldn't contain toxic elements that would kill the astronauts once they removed their space suits. They didn't even know that there weren't microorganisms on the moon that might cause a plague and thusly quarantined returning Appolo astronauts after multiple missions.

To claim that they went knowing the risks is foolish in light of what they knew at the time.

You want to live in a police state? Forget the gun control issue - I'm in favor of more of that here, too, and the tax issue - but you want to abolish freedom of speech? Of course you do - you want to be able to silence anyone who doesn't agree with you. Can't have any dissent on the march into the future! Even if someone might be raising a valid point!

How is increased surveillance, such as what the UK has, a police state when that same police force doesn't even carry guns? Is it a police state to setup a checkpoint that tests every driver for intoxication on major holidays or near sporting events where people are at increased risk to drink and drive?

Are Germany's hate and anti-Nazi speech laws a bad thing? Those laws would likely be struck down in the United States. Are laws that target cartoon pornography depicting minors a bad thing? Artistic expression is a form of free speech.

Should false reporting in the media be allowed to continue? How about false advertising laws those are a restriction on freedom should those be struck down? Should parents have the freedom to avoid vaccinating their children? To refuse medical treatment to minors in their care on religious grounds?

Every freedom has a cost Broomstick, many nations are more willing to pay those costs than Americans are.

Then you are a fucking idiot. If you don't take care of your own basic needs you can't take care of anyone else. Giving to others when you're broke and behind on rent just generates another homeless, destitute, starving human being. It doesn't solve anything, just contributes to more suffering.

That $20 wouldn't make the difference between being behind on rent or not, unless you think that being $580 behind on rent would save me and being $600 behind wouldn't. I earn so little than any hole I end up with could be more than a month's wage to climb out of. My reality is even if I saved every cent I spend on little luxuries for bills I'd still be significantly behind, given that why shouldn't I offer money to those with less than I have?

Because you're dealing with human beings, not saints. What part of "guaranteed to fail" don't you understand? Why don't we make it mandatory that everyone get a PhD in mathematics or particle physics? Why don't we make it mandatory everyone run a mile in three minutes and forty-five seconds and also run a marathon in two hours? Because those people are outliers. So are people willing to die for strangers. They're not normal people and you can't design around such outliers.

No, but you can ensure that people become more like them than not. You can put a focus on community over the induvidual and make sure it prevades everything from early education to the media, the way the 'American Dream' of induvidual success is currently presented. Not everybody will be perfect or even good at learning and appying these ideals but when you hold Superman up as the ideal instead of Lux Luthor you influence people to act morer like one than the other.

Uh... no - Japan's lack of anything more than a token self-defense force is baked into the constitution the US forced on them at the end of WWII. It's not self-imposed and if they tried to change that it would have some pretty fierce consequences in regards to how their near neighbors would react.

So? Just like with whaling in their own waters they are free to make that choice. Given the current climate many nations likely wouldn't do more than raise an eyebrow if they said something like 'Due to the current state of the US government we feel a greater need for self-defense capacity'.

If they had effective change they wouldn't have repeated riots. And while I recall a lot of reasons for their riots I don't recall healthcare being one of the issues.

No, healthcare isn't an issue because it is so damned good. The riots are for many other things and happen so frequently because, gasp, they work and effect change.

Actually, the popular vote went for Clinton, it was the electoral college that put Trump in office. As for getting rid of him - we have to have a legal reason to overturn an election, or would you prefer that the rule of law be abolished in a nation to your south that outnumbers you 10:1 and awash in guns? No, that can't possibly turn out badly.... Would you prefer a military coup followed by a dictatorship down here? Would that make you feel safer? Do you think such a successor to the current US would be any better in regards to mitigating climate change?

To be clear, I didn't vote for Trump, I find him appalling, and I want someone else in the Oval Office... but it would be pointless to replace him with something worse.

The system as a whole voted for him. The popular vote was very slim either way, like 2000's election recount slim if you go by percentage.

Plus, if most of the nation wants him gone now, why not force a special election to change things? You mean your system of government doesn't have that safety valve... Maybe you ought to get that one fixed first.

Sorry. "Building walls" and "trying to help" are sort of mutually exclusive when it comes to millions of people seeking to relocate just to stay alive.

Please, show me the EU back wall. I'll wait.

You're saying a felon, any felon, is better than a law-abiding citizen regardless of what that person did?

No, I said they had less of a share of the national guilt than you have due to their inability to vote or run for office. You put the rest of those words in my mouth.

Murderers and rapists and thieves

Not all felonies are violent in nature. Not all felons are guilty. Not all crimes that are felonies should be crimes at all.

In a hypothetical nation where abortion is a felony, would that felon be a worse or less moral person than you are Broomstick?

But you won't grant that grace to any American for any reason - which shows just what a hypocrite you are. Germans who tried to resist the Third Reich are laudable even if they failed. Americans who try to change their system and fail, though, are just as bad as those doing bad things, they're all bad, evil, and unforgivable. You are a hypocrite as well as a bigot.

Content redacted: a little too close to advocating violent overthrow of the government - SCRawl

You set the standard when you compared yourself to those who tried to assassinate Hitler. Not me.

What I did was worthwhile. It helped people. You, on the other hand, would have been happy to leave people to starve, to suffer without access to modern medical care... It was more useful than your dreams of space colonies will ever be because it actually did something to make even one tiny corner of the world a better place. You want to help the future or faraway places but you won't pay attention to the person standing next to you bleeding out.

Did it really? How many of those people ever escaped poverty because of your help? How many more people will suffer in Africa because we allowed those already starving to reproduce into the same hellish conditions instead of fixing things for a more manageable population to thrive?

Every action, every transaction has an opportunity cost. It's the reasons doctors won't try to treat a person with a 1% chance of survival if they come in next to a person with a 20% chance. It's the reason why they don't like to revive people unlikely to recover with significant expected quality of life. Saving a person by simply prolonging their suffering another few years isn't saving them at all.

It's not easy to make those judgment calls. I don't make those judgment calls when a homeless person is there asking me for help, but they're the calls we should seriously consider making.

By your rationale we shouldn't have hospitals or modern medical care at all - spend that money on Mars One instead! Don't help subsidize toilets in India, or solar power in Africa, it's a waste! Fuck anyone who doesn't share your exact dreams and delusions and damn the consequences.

Not all. To some extent raising the quality of life now is good for the future as it predicts a higher quality of life in the future. What I'm against is stringing the poor along on just enough to get by knowing that they have next to no chance of escaping that poverty outside of a miracle. Creating a fair and equitable system that meets everybody's minimal needs for survival regardless of income or ability is good, spend money on that. Buying one homeless man insulin is bad because it does not foster a better future even for the man you gave it to beyond the immediate future.

Do you see now that I want to help the society and not any single person in it? ANY given person is next to worthless (though exceptional individuals are exceptions) EVERY given person is worth saving via creating a system that doesn't cause death and has resources to spare. You don't seem to get the whole needs of the many versus the few thing very well.

If you don't take care of the people already here how the hell do you expect to have anyone left later?

If you can't give people a certain expected quality of life don't string them along with false hope. If you were in a situation where you had enough persevered food for 100 people to barely survive 100 days and you knew, with 100% certainty, that rescue was 200 days away would it be kinder to kill half the group by drawing lots, to let half the group starve slowly, or to kill the entire group by feeding everybody for 100 days? If you're starving and a person with food to spare refuses to give you food is it immoral to rob him violently if you see no other options?

Oh my god - you believe in "post-scarcity"? Oh, that's a good laugh! That's as likely to happen in your lifestime as Mars One actually getting anything to Mars.

You aren't going to get to post-scarcity by the sort of suffering and death you propose.

You don't think that we can have unlimited resources and energy via the use of the plentiful resources space offers? Or are you so cynical that you think that space will end up being Capitalism+ complete with artificial scarcity?

-----

I never said I am optimistic, merely that the choice is between poorer but together or a total “man eat man” situation, and the choice still stands as it is.

I think you are very critical of poorer countries, but many countries which are many times poorer that the US achieve humane outcomes in terms of healthcare, for example. Universal insurance exists and previously existed in much poorer countries than the US and it is used to great effect.

Jub had a point when he mentioned other nations achieving good results, although having worse starting conditions.

I was born “poor” by US standards, perhaps the entire nation was “poor”, but not in terms of hunger, or lack of access to healthcare or housing.

A level of income which is enough to support oneself inside your own nation, a guaranteed working place and healthcare, as well as education, could be more than enough. These things were achieved by nations nowhere near the US in terms of economic clout or corporations per capita.

A more equitable world does not mean everyone gets to live like an oligarch, but it means maybe we all get to live normal lives.

I wish I had your ability to express what I desire in terms that other people find tolerable rather than being dragged into unfavorable comparisons and situations where I lack the means to properly clarify my meaning.

I basically want what you want but with the added goal of making sure we get to space where plentiful resources might allow for both equality and our current western standards of living. I'm willing to suffer for it and wish that my skills and society allowed me to interact with wealth in a way that didn't exploit me or force me to exploit others. It raises the question of welfare being more moral than service industry slavery simply because enough people choosing welfare could conceivably end wage slavery.

[K. A. Pital]

It might help to distance yourself from the “trolley problem“ and look at the fundamental requirements for a society to function with low income but good outcomes in terms of life expectancy, education, etc., and center your argument around a point that cannot be denied even by the most humane: a reduction in income does not mean a worse outcome, if it coincides with reform that makes a difference.

In general, incomes in Europe, especially the East, are lower than in the US. But crippling sickness, long-term hospitalization and other adverse events carry less risk of financial ruin or death than when you are in the US.

Look at the society in question and figure out why it should be destroyed, if you think it should. What are the key features which make it irredeemable? Bear in mind, it would not be easy to follow through with the argument; utilitarian calculations are a weak tool - they are very abstract and often fail to acknowledge intricate details of suffering which we may find unacceptable.

Is it the inability of the US to have efficient mass transit and cut down emissions? Or is it their way of life being spread to others around the world,making the world into a „keep up with the Joneses“ race towards common doom?

Valid or seemingly valid counterpoints could be raised to each such argument (the US is merely a continuation of the British Empire, remove it and there could be another similar thing taking its place, etc.), because convincing a person his/her society must perish for the common good is never easy.

Even if it is only to build something better on the remains, convincing people is hard and arguments need to be strong, even if things get emotional.

[Jub]

It might help to distance yourself from the “trolley problem“ and look at the fundamental requirements for a society to function with low income but good outcomes in terms of life expectancy, education, etc., and center your argument around a point that cannot be denied even by the most humane: a reduction in income does not mean a worse outcome, if it coincides with reform that makes a difference.

In general, incomes in Europe, especially the East, are lower than in the US. But crippling sickness, long-term hospitalization and other adverse events carry less risk of financial ruin or death than when you are in the US.

Look at the society in question and figure out why it should be destroyed, if you think it should. What are the key features which make it irredeemable? Bear in mind, it would not be easy to follow through with the argument; utilitarian calculations are a weak tool - they are very abstract and often fail to acknowledge intricate details of suffering which we may find unacceptable.

Is it the inability of the US to have efficient mass transit and cut down emissions? Or is it their way of life being spread to others around the world,making the world into a „keep up with the Joneses“ race towards common doom?

Valid or seemingly valid counterpoints could be raised to each such argument (the US is merely a continuation of the British Empire, remove it and there could be another similar thing taking its place, etc.), because convincing a person his/her society must perish for the common good is never easy.

Even if it is only to build something better on the remains, convincing people is hard and arguments need to be strong, even if things get emotional.

It's hard to find that distance when this system is grinding you and the main exporter of the causes of your misery sits next door ignorant of the harm it causes by merely existing but you are correct that it's needed for such debate to be fruitful. You must have conviction but also be able to restrain your passion.

[Broomstick]

Yes, there you go again - then end justifies the mean, therefore it's OK to cause suffering and death.

The environment is one giant trolly problem. Do you throw the switch and kill one person now to save 5 later?

You don't get it. The switch has already been thrown. We are standing on Easter Island the day after the last tree was cut down.

Mars One? Four employees that are trying to "launch" a colony but has no expertise in aerospace and no hardware, just slick media presentations?

No, I even went so far as to point them out as pie in the sky at best and a possible scam at worst. That said, we are close enough that a company like Mars One can be taken seriously by some members of the public.

Not "possible" scam, definite scam. "some members of the public"? Some members of the public believe the earth is flat.

How is increased surveillance, such as what the UK has, a police state when that same police force doesn't even carry guns?

Used as the UK does? Doesn't seem to be a problem - but YOU were talking about suppressing freedom of speech and information so people won't dissent from your "paradise". That's what makes it a police state. The only speech is what you allow, the only thought is what you find acceptable, and those you view as disposable should just shuffle off to the showers without complaint - that's what makes your vision a police state dystopia.

Are Germany's hate and anti-Nazi speech laws a bad thing?

Yes, because it treats the symptom and not the cause. Suppressing the speech doesn't make the hate go away, it drives it underground where it's harder to see and track.

Should false reporting in the media be allowed to continue?

We already have laws against libel and fraud, we don't need more of them, we need to enforce the laws we have.

How about false advertising laws those are a restriction on freedom should those be struck down?

No, because false advertising causes harm to people.

Should parents have the freedom to avoid vaccinating their children?

Outside of medical reasons contraindicating them, no.

To refuse medical treatment to minors in their care on religious grounds?

No. It's appalling that that is allowed.

My reality is even if I saved every cent I spend on little luxuries for bills I'd still be significantly behind, given that why shouldn't I offer money to those with less than I have?

Given what you've already written about being willing to sacrifice others for saving the planet how do you justify any luxuries for yourself at all?

You want applause for giving a homeless guy $20, but you spit on me even though I spent years working to help others fulltime as my job. Again, you are a hypocrite.

Plus, if most of the nation wants him gone now, why not force a special election to change things?

Because our government doesn't have "special elections". We have impeachment and removal. Are you advocating that Trump be removed outside of lawful means? Is that really what you want in a nation you already regard as dangerous?

You're saying a felon, any felon, is better than a law-abiding citizen regardless of what that person did?

No, I said they had less of a share of the national guilt than you have due to their inability to vote or run for office. You put the rest of those words in my mouth.

Baring felons from voting is not universal, whether or not that is the case and details regarding restoration of civil rights after a conviction varies from US state to state. 38 states allow convicted people to vote after serving their prison terms. Two states allow people to vote from prison. Felons most certainly can run for public office - Marion Barry, for example, was elected mayor of Washington, DC after a felony drug conviction.

It would help considerably if you actually knew some facts.

Content redacted - SCRawl

Again, you're advocating overturning the rule of law. Are you SURE you want to do that?

Also - threatening the PotUS is a pretty bad idea. It's unlikely the Secret Service is reading your posts (they're not getting paid, either) and even less likely they'd pay you a visit, but do consider while you're speeching freely that words can have consequences.

What I did was worthwhile. It helped people. You, on the other hand, would have been happy to leave people to starve, to suffer without access to modern medical care... It was more useful than your dreams of space colonies will ever be because it actually did something to make even one tiny corner of the world a better place. You want to help the future or faraway places but you won't pay attention to the person standing next to you bleeding out.

Did it really? How many of those people ever escaped poverty because of your help?

Several dozen, in fact - they got better, straightened out their lives, either got some education to get a good job or were reinstated in their prior roles. One lady in particular didn't get better herself but all five of her kids went on to higher education and middle-class lives without the dysfunctional crap she lived through so poverty didn't extend into another generation. You've bought into the myth that poverty is inescapable and multi-generational. No, often it is a temporary situation (albeit one that can last years) and even when multiple generations have been afflicted the next one is not inherently doomed. I spend years of my life trying to help people get out of poverty and drug addiction and crime and sometimes even succeeded.

Sometimes things do get better. Sometimes you can truly help people not just eat a meal but enable them to feed themselves for a lifetime.

How many more people will suffer in Africa because we allowed those already starving to reproduce into the same hellish conditions instead of fixing things for a more manageable population to thrive?

Advocating the deaths of millions is not "fixing things".

Every action, every transaction has an opportunity cost. It's the reasons doctors won't try to treat a person with a 1% chance of survival if they come in next to a person with a 20% chance.

That's triage, not medicine. When it's not a disaster or emergency yes, in fact, doctors will attempt to treat someone with NO chance of survival if that person is willing to try something new or experimental, or just wants a little more time to put their affairs in order and say goodbye. If there are resources available you don't abandon the dying.

It's not easy to make those judgment calls. I don't make those judgment calls when a homeless person is there asking me for help, but they're the calls we should seriously consider making.

So... if we shouldn't expend anything resources, effort, or sympathy on the hopeless how do you justify giving money to people you haven't evaluated for "hope"?

Buying one homeless man insulin is bad because it does not foster a better future even for the man you gave it to beyond the immediate future.

So... you'd walk by someone falling into a diabetic crisis and just ignore them? WTF? At least call for an ambulance!

If you reach space by slaughtering half the human race in the name of "saving" the other half you will NOT wind up with a society of equals that shares everything nicely. You will end up with "might makes right" - because that's how you got there - and you would long for the days of US-style capitalism even with all of its glaring flaws.

"Unlimited resources" is what conned a lot of people into coming to America where only a few got rich and most of the rest wound up poor and struggling.

You are assuming it's possible for us to get into space. I do not. Even if/when we do get out there it's going to be a long, long time before those resources are available in meaningful quantities, and those in space will be dependent on the Earth for a long time before achieving self-sufficiency on a level that could save the species if Earth became uninhabitable.

We're in a lifeboat and you're pointing to the horizon saying there's dry land over there, lets put all our effort into rowing... but if you don't try to patch the leaks in the boat, bail water, and keep the rowers healthy it doesn't matter that there's dry land over there, you'll never reach it. It's not enough to try hard, you have to try hard in the right manner or you won't reach your goal.

The flame war has been fun, but my vacation is over and I have to go back to working for a living so no more long screeds from me.