EPTAnyway, I'm going to go look up why we don't just dump our nuclear waste in the Mariana Trench...
President Obama Re-Elected - Page 333
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
Anyway, I'm going to go look up why we don't just dump our nuclear waste in the Mariana Trench... | ||
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frogrubdown
1266 Posts
On August 24 2012 06:35 DetriusXii wrote: So do you get teary eyed for all the potential universes that were destroyed because of the choices you made and because the choices your parents made? I stayed in my office rather than going outside for lunch today. Should I now have to consider the circumstances of the lives that were destroyed because I didn't go outside for lunch today? Here's an analogy to hard drives that could work fairly well. We don't generally mourn over the loss of an empty hard drive for the potential it could have had in holding information. We mourn over the loss of a hard drive that has current information though, like family photos, credit card information, and applications we install. Would you fret over an empty hard drive based on the fact that it could have had information of value to you on it or like most people, do you take it back to the retailer and ask for a refund? You'll end up getting a lot more than the permissibility of abortions if you completely disavow any moral consideration of mere potentials. I lean towards the view that much of the immorality of killing (uncontroversial) persons relates to depriving them of their potential futures. If you've got a better grounding for the immorality of murder I'm all ears. | ||
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Tula
Austria1544 Posts
On August 24 2012 07:26 radiatoren wrote: Sorry for the confusion! Water turbines are exclusive to running water or water with currents, yes. Pollution is especially from the damiming and a little from producing the turbine. 10 years of production is on the low side for sustainable energy and I do not know how much it pollutes to produce. I assume it is relatively low pollution as with water turbines. It is interesting that wind turbines are worth so much. What are the most favourable conditions for them? 10 years was the cycle used until it needs a major overhaul in the study conducted from 2001 to 2011 (to my knowledge that is pretty much the same for any kind of turbine, they need regular maintenance and at some point they will need to be more or less rebuilt). Conditions vary, obviously in Austria we did not do studies for Sea Construction (though i know Denmark and Germany sponsored some studies in that direction). Ours researched either hilltop placements or the flatland around Vienna (Marchfeld). It found that the plants need a steady wind (more or less), it doesn't need to be above 20km/h but it should be fairly regular for it to pay off. The biggest problem with wind energy is that the plants itself are not easy to maintain (meaning the turbine is usually at 25m height), but most of the construction is dirt cheap (lightweight rotors, a 25m high tower and a fairly standard turbine). Anyway, I think we should let the discussion go back to the US Election, if someone wants to continue the Energy discussion let's make our own thread instead  edit: in regards to the "why not dump it into the ocean" query, quite simply put because you don't own the Ocean in that sense. The Mariana trench is international waters, and thank you but keep your own waste | ||
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DetriusXii
Canada156 Posts
Unfortunately for you, you can toss at me all the half-assed analogies you want, it will never be equivalent to the subject at hand. You're not comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing apples to a fucking rock. Really? Then offer an explanation as to why they're different? You'll end up getting a lot more than the permissibility of abortions if you completely disavow any moral consideration of mere potentials. I lean towards the view that much of the immorality of killing (uncontroversial) persons relates to depriving them of their potential futures. If you've got a better grounding for the immorality of murder I'm all ears. It's the present state of the person that's lost that makes it a crime rather than the future potential of that person? Parents grieve over a miscarriage differently than over the death of their 18 year old child. A miscarriage is still a loss of a potential future, so the mourning process should be considered equal in your view. | ||
Souma
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On August 24 2012 07:46 DetriusXii wrote: Really? Then offer an explanation as to why they're different? It's the present state of the person that's lost that makes it a crime rather than the future potential of that person? Parents grieve over a miscarriage differently than over the death of their 18 year old child. A miscarriage is still a loss of a potential future, so the mourning process should be considered equal in your view. Nobody's saying mourning over death should be "equal" at any stage of their life. In that respect, we mourn differently over someone who's 40 compared to someone who's 8, but that's not the point. See, you're using examples that are way off base. He's not talking about death, he's talking about murder. It's like you're not reading anything we're saying. If you don't see why comparing potential human life to a hard drive or multiple universes is incredibly irrelevant, I'm not sure anything I can say would be able to persuade you to the contrary. When you have a kid and hold them for the very first time, or hear them call you, "Daddy" for the very first time, and the thought, "Wow, I was so close to not having you..." eats at you, maybe you'd understand. But in any case, I repeat: this is just my conscience speaking. It's a good thing we do not create laws based on my conscience. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
I can't see this going over well. It doesn't have a big popularity base (as far as I've been able to tell), and would alienate many in the financial industry that don't see it as called for. Oh well ... The gold standard has returned to mainstream U.S. politics for the first time in 30 years, with a “gold commission” set to become part of official Republican party policy. Drafts of the party platform, which it will adopt at a convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, next week, call for an audit of Federal Reserve monetary policy and a commission to look at restoring the link between the dollar and gold. The move shows how five years of easy monetary policy — and the efforts of congressman Ron Paul — have made the once-fringe idea of returning to gold-as-money a legitimate part of Republican debate. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican congresswoman from Tennessee and co-chair of the platform committee, said the issues were not adopted merely to placate Paul and the delegates that he picked up during his campaign for the party’s nomination. “These were adopted because they are things that Republicans agree on,” Blackburn told the Financial Times. “The House recently passed a bill on this, and this is something that we think needs to be done.” The proposal is reminiscent of the Gold Commission created by former president Ronald Reagan in 1981, 10 years after Richard Nixon broke the link between gold and the dollar during the 1971 oil crisis. That commission ultimately supported the status quo. “There is a growing recognition within the Republican party and in America more generally that we’re not going to be able to print our way to prosperity,” said Sean Fieler, chairman of the American Principles Project, a conservative group that has pushed for a return to the gold standard. A commission would have no power except to make recommendations, but Fieler said it would provide a chance to educate politicians and the public about the merits of a return to gold. “We’re not going to go from a standing start to the gold standard,” he said. The Republican platform in 1980 referred to “restoration of a dependable monetary standard," while the 1984 platform said that “the gold standard may be a useful mechanism”. More recent platforms did not mention it. Any commission on a return to the gold standard would have to address a host of theoretical, empirical and practical issues. Inflation has remained under control in recent years, despite claims that expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet would lead to runaway price rises, while gold has been highly volatile. The price of the metal is up by more than 500 per cent in dollar terms over the past decade. A return to a fixed money supply would also remove the central bank’s ability to offset demand shocks by varying interest rates. That could mean a more volatile economy and higher average unemployment over time. source | ||
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Savio
United States1850 Posts
On August 24 2012 07:24 screamingpalm wrote: Well, as it relates to Romney's proposed energy policy, the biggest issue I have is the absence of investment in R&D of renewable sources. Does anyone have an argument as to why we shouldn't invest in this? Just seems extremely short sighted to me. Sorry if this is OT, I would consider the candidates' policies relevant to the topic though. Because we don't NEED to spend government resources in R&D of renewables. If they are viable, then markets will develop it anyway. Does the government PAY Apple to research improvements in their Ipads? No, Apples does it on their own because they will make a profit, and they do a better job than they would if the government forced them to do it. | ||
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Savio
United States1850 Posts
On August 24 2012 07:05 Tula wrote: SImply put no it doesn't. Until someone somewhere figures out a way to either get rid of the depleted Uranium (or plutonium doesn't really make a difference) without poisoning the entire area, or to recycle it into something non-radioactive you really cannot say nuclear power produces the least waste. For your education: http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/wast.htm "Nuclear power is the only energy industry which takes full responsibility for all its wastes, and costs this into the product." | ||
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HunterX11
United States1048 Posts
On August 24 2012 08:50 Savio wrote: Because we don't NEED to spend government resources in R&D of renewables. If they are viable, then markets will develop it anyway. Does the government PAY Apple to research improvements in their Ipads? No, Apples does it on their own because they will make a profit, and they do a better job than they would if the government forced them to do it. R&D doesn't necessarily have short-term payouts that make it a worthwhile investment for the private sector; even liberal economists acknowledge this. Things like the internet and a lot of basic drug research probably wouldn't happen at all without government R&D. And even the best examples of private R&D like Bell Labs aren't around anyone with how businesses have become increasingly focused on short-term gains. The market simply cannot adequately price for the fact that fossil fuels will become more expensive at some indeterminate point in the not-too-distant future. Sure, the market could correct itself more abruptly at a later date, but human suffering and even death can be part of market corrections, and some people for subjective moral reasons value human life over dogmatic adherence to free markets. | ||
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Souma
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On August 24 2012 08:50 Savio wrote: Because we don't NEED to spend government resources in R&D of renewables. If they are viable, then markets will develop it anyway. Does the government PAY Apple to research improvements in their Ipads? No, Apples does it on their own because they will make a profit, and they do a better job than they would if the government forced them to do it. You can't rely on the market for everything. There's a reason we fund NASA (and are asking for more funding). There's a reason why we throw money into R&D for the military. When it comes to enormous projects with huge global/future impact that require lots of funding, it's always beneficial to have government sponsorship. Renewable energy is the future. I believe it's a worthwhile investment. Not saying nuclear isn't the way to go at the moment, but we shouldn't just hope the market develops something as beneficial as clean, renewable energy on their own. The government is not forcing anything - just aiding. | ||
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HunterX11
United States1048 Posts
On August 24 2012 08:29 Danglars wrote: GOP platform includes another look at the gold standard. I can't see this going over well. It doesn't have a big popularity base (as far as I've been able to tell), and would alienate many in the financial industry that don't see it as called for. Oh well ... source Even if by some miracle Ron Paul were elected president, we wouldn't go back onto the gold standard. | ||
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BallinWitStalin
1177 Posts
On August 24 2012 08:50 Savio wrote: Because we don't NEED to spend government resources in R&D of renewables. If they are viable, then markets will develop it anyway. Does the government PAY Apple to research improvements in their Ipads? No, Apples does it on their own because they will make a profit, and they do a better job than they would if the government forced them to do it. I think the whole point of government performing/subsidizing R&D is that a lot of the times it doesn't pay off, at least in the short term. Government has the resources to sink large amounts of capital projects that private companies are hesitant to do, especially when it comes to developing novel industries/resources/technologies. Private firms can take the ball and run, but it takes a lot of effort to get it into the air. Also, externalities are a big thing too. Companies don't give a shit about those. Communities and governments might decide to help pursue R&D on projects that they think won't necessarily generate monetary profit, but might benefit society as a whole. Education, public healthcare, environmental preservation, are all things that come to mind. Additionally, the structure of markets often doesn't capture all of the negative costs associated with different forms of production (like pollution). If governments are the ones who have to clean up the messes left by oil producing companies, for example, doesn't it make sense from a cost perspective for them to try to help R&D along the way to reduce the need for the polluting industries in the first place. Take Alberta up here. They're fine now and rakin' in the dough. I dunno though, in fifty to a hundred years when reserves start running low and they have an environmental catastrophe on their hands, things might look different. And the government and people will be on the hook for it, not the companies that produced the waste. But hey, maybe Alberta will be able to figure its shit out, who knows. | ||
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frogrubdown
1266 Posts
On August 24 2012 07:46 DetriusXii wrote: Really? Then offer an explanation as to why they're different? It's the present state of the person that's lost that makes it a crime rather than the future potential of that person? Parents grieve over a miscarriage differently than over the death of their 18 year old child. A miscarriage is still a loss of a potential future, so the mourning process should be considered equal in your view. First, I have no idea what you're basing your assumed version of "[my] view" on. I didn't say anything that implied that all potential futures receive equal weight or that every type of thing deserves to have its potential futures weighted. I only said that removal of potential futures is one of the considerable harms that results from killing someone who is uncontroversially a person. I also don't see any clear way of making sense of your alternative ground for the wrongness of killing. As I already made clear, I said nothing that implies that the present state of the person is not relevant to whether or not it is wrong or deserves to be a crime. But that says nothing about what is wrong about it. The question is simple. What harm has been done to a person that is killed? Obviously the answer will vary somewhat depending on the person, and some people receive the additional harms of violent deaths. As far as I can see, your answer is that they have lost the state they are in at the time of their death, but I don't see how that is a workable solution to the problem. It's not as though some person continued to exist whom you took the state from and now wishes they had it; the relevant person is dead. The best sense I can make of your view is that the killed person has been deprived of their ability to enjoy their current state in the future, but then you're simply agreeing with me that deprivation of potential futures is a harm that is relevant to the wrongness of killing. | ||
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kwizach
3658 Posts
On August 24 2012 08:29 Danglars wrote: GOP platform includes another look at the gold standard. I can't see this going over well. It doesn't have a big popularity base (as far as I've been able to tell), and would alienate many in the financial industry that don't see it as called for. Oh well ... source It's like we're watching the Republicans walk back into the 19th century with each new step they take. | ||
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Souma
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
This article really spoke to me. It's about the end of a means to prosperity through acquiring a degree, and with it a deterioration of education and looming social and economic inequality. A recommended read. | ||
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Tula
Austria1544 Posts
On August 24 2012 08:56 Savio wrote: For your education: http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/wast.htm "Nuclear power is the only energy industry which takes full responsibility for all its wastes, and costs this into the product." Interesting link. I hope I don't have to go into detail why it might not be the most unbiased source possible, but let us assume that everything written there is the full truth and examine a few things in detail: 1) While quite a bit of information is given there is a suspicious lack of some hard facts, for example the half life of uranium is not actually mentioned for the hard waste which requires storage. In fact the one example given discusses a natural process which happened 2 billion years ago, even if it talks only about storing the waste for a few hundred years. 2) It states that the cost of "dealing" with the waste is included into the pricing. That seems quite surprising considering that all long term storage solutions (if you call long term storage a solution, remember that is not quite as clear cut currently) are still in the planning stages. Their cost might very well triple before we are done. 3) Quote: Final disposal of high-level waste is delayed for 40-50 years to allow its radioactivity to decay, after which less than one thousandth of its initial radioactivity remains, and it is much easier to handle. That is flat out untrue (or only true for a very specific part of the waste which they do not specify) 5 minutes of searching tells us that depending on the Fuel used in the specific reactor half life of the waste is between 1000 and 5000 years, meaning 40 years are the least of our problem. In addition to the above points (which should be fairly easy to see) the article doesn't mention goverment subsidies to nuclear power (and storage), I have no idea what the US spends in this area, but the EU currently spends nearly 10billion a year in research (and funding the facility in Sweden cited in your article). | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On August 24 2012 07:34 frogrubdown wrote: You'll end up getting a lot more than the permissibility of abortions if you completely disavow any moral consideration of mere potentials. I lean towards the view that much of the immorality of killing (uncontroversial) persons relates to depriving them of their potential futures. If you've got a better grounding for the immorality of murder I'm all ears. Your grounding (as all "philosophical" groundings of morality) just begs the question and the only way to stop the regress of question begging is to either attribute morality to god/something-like-god or make it arbitrary or make it relative or ground it in biology(+culture). Only the last one is satisfactory and so murder is immoral because human moral compass considers it so and the reasons for that can be gathered from (evolutionary) biology. All those philosophical ethical systems are just a way of trying to formalize our inner morality using language so as to be able to communicate it and analyze it. So in the end there is no need for any additional justification of why murder is wrong, it simply is. That does not mean that there is no place for those analytic ethical systems. They are excellent for exploring the unclear and modern parts of the moral landscape where evolution did not have time/need to provide us with clear moral sense. But in the end the grounding/justification stems from the biological moral compass as there is nothing else that can be used. As for potential futures it is good tool for analyzing morality of murder, but I do not see much help from it in deciding morality of abortion. The reason is that the necessary weighting of the different potential futures seems somewhat arbitrary. Basically you again get to a problem of the status of the fetus, that you need to solve prior to using the potential futures tool. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On August 24 2012 09:46 Tula wrote: Interesting link. I hope I don't have to go into detail why it might not be the most unbiased source possible, but let us assume that everything written there is the full truth and examine a few things in detail: 1) While quite a bit of information is given there is a suspicious lack of some hard facts, for example the half life of uranium is not actually mentioned for the hard waste which requires storage. In fact the one example given discusses a natural process which happened 2 billion years ago, even if it talks only about storing the waste for a few hundred years. 2) It states that the cost of "dealing" with the waste is included into the pricing. That seems quite surprising considering that all long term storage solutions (if you call long term storage a solution, remember that is not quite as clear cut currently) are still in the planning stages. Their cost might very well triple before we are done. 3) Quote: Final disposal of high-level waste is delayed for 40-50 years to allow its radioactivity to decay, after which less than one thousandth of its initial radioactivity remains, and it is much easier to handle. That is flat out untrue (or only true for a very specific part of the waste which they do not specify) 5 minutes of searching tells us that depending on the Fuel used in the specific reactor half life of the waste is between 1000 and 5000 years, meaning 40 years are the least of our problem. In addition to the above points (which should be fairly easy to see) the article doesn't mention goverment subsidies to nuclear power (and storage), I have no idea what the US spends in this area, but the EU currently spends nearly 10billion a year in research (and funding the facility in Sweden cited in your article). You should read more about what radioactivity is, as your argument in point 3 is incorrect. The radioactivity of the material is not some magical property. It consists of particles that are created when the isotope decays. That of course means that isotopes with short half-life are more radioactive than the ones with long half-lifes. Nuclear waste consists of great many isotopes with different half-lifes. The ones with shorter half-lifes are extremely radioactive, but they also disappear much sooner. So the very radioactive ones will be mostly gone in 40-50 years, leaving only the less radioactive ones with longer half-lifes. So long story short, it is quite plausible for waste with aggregate half-life of 5000 years to lose nearly all of its radioactivity in 50 years. I should add that it is slightly more complicated as it also depends on relative masses of the isotopes in the waste and on what is the product of the decay, whether it is another radioactive isotope or not radioactive one. But that does not change the previous statement. They can of course lie about specific numbers, but your objection was incorrect. | ||
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BluePanther
United States2776 Posts
On August 23 2012 22:53 paralleluniverse wrote: As you can see from the graph, TARP and the stimulus is peanuts compared to the Bush tax cuts and the 2 wars. In fact, by today TARP has made a profit. A lot of the increase in the deficit under Obama is due to falling tax revenues as a result of the GFC. Democrats are proposing to solve the problem by a jobs bill (stimulus), which will increase employment, GDP, improve the economy and hence increase tax revenue. They're also proposing cuts to spending and taxes on the rich. Romney is going to make it worse by blowing up the deficit with massive tax cuts in a plan that the TPC calls mathematically impossible. lol @ JOBS bill. The naming of these things is so ridiculous because it actually works... Democrats are proposing to solve the problem by a jobs bill (stimulus), which will increase employment, GDP, improve the economy and hence increase tax revenue. You honestly believe that will work? It didn't work the first two times, but the third times it's going to *poof* and all the problems go away? I'm sure that plan and the claimed "savings" comes with an 8% estimated GDP growth by the CBO too... | ||
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frogrubdown
1266 Posts
On August 24 2012 10:06 mcc wrote: Your grounding (as all "philosophical" groundings of morality) just begs the question and the only way to stop the regress of question begging is to either attribute morality to god/something-like-god or make it arbitrary or make it relative or ground it in biology(+culture). Only the last one is satisfactory and so murder is immoral because human moral compass considers it so and the reasons for that can be gathered from (evolutionary) biology. All those philosophical ethical systems are just a way of trying to formalize our inner morality using language so as to be able to communicate it and analyze it. So in the end there is no need for any additional justification of why murder is wrong, it simply is. That does not mean that there is no place for those analytic ethical systems. They are excellent for exploring the unclear and modern parts of the moral landscape where evolution did not have time/need to provide us with clear moral sense. But in the end the grounding/justification stems from the biological moral compass as there is nothing else that can be used. As for potential futures it is good tool for analyzing morality of murder, but I do not see much help from it in deciding morality of abortion. The reason is that the necessary weighting of the different potential futures seems somewhat arbitrary. Basically you again get to a problem of the status of the fetus, that you need to solve prior to using the potential futures tool. You know from other threads that we disagree on metaethics and what philosophy can accomplish more generally. I have no interest in bringing that broader debate into this thread, especially since it has little to do with what's under discussion. The participants in this discussion seem to be in agreement that you in general can and often must (to be justified) provide reasons for general moral principles used to argue about specific cases. As to your second paragraph, I don't think that potential futures are useful for this debate either and if you relook at my posts in abortion threads you'll see that I'm completely in agreement that almost everything in the debate hinges on the personhood issue. I only chimed in because another poster tried to argue that abortion is ok because potential futures are never relevant. This is a bad argument because they are sometimes relevant, and you agree with me here as well. Why does everybody have to assume I'm making some grand pro-life argument every time I point out how terrible a specific pro-choice argument is? I'm pro-choice, people. More importantly, I'm also pro-arguments-that-aren't-terrible. | ||
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