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[wierd]

Nope. It has a finite rate.

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l4.html


If you want to suggest putting a big assed mirror in space, then you have just altered the thermal equilibrium of the planet.

It is not a freebie Reelya.


Dyson sphere is not within our technological or materials availability budgets. Even if we desperately needed one, we could not produce one.

[smjjames]

Energy from the sun is effectively untappable, Wierd.

Unless you use a Dyson sphere / Dyson swarm (Dysons original idea). Wouldn't be great for any planets with life however.

Ninja'd by wierd, though the mirror thing is good too.

[Reelya]

My point is how it's silly to being far future entropy etc concerns into a discussion on whether providing school lunches is a good idea.

But the point about the sun "still being there" is missing the point. you can do work with energy collected. You can store energy for later. In 1 second of 100% solar output you could provided for billions of people for their entire lives. So every second wasted is literally like a holocaust of potential lives wasted.

[PTTG??]

PTTG:
Not seeing the value in revocation of opportunity of rival nations.

There is a reason why the RIAA insists that artists sign exclusivity agreements. It isn't for shits and giggles.

Reelya:
Takes energy to evaporate water. That is finite. Changes in temperature associated with increased evaporation elsewhere to replace the water will alter local climates.

Suppose a genie shows up any your house and says "hey, I've got an offer. You accept the deal, and I'll make the SCS islands inconvertably and irrevocably controlled by the USA. We can even define the terms all you like, get you a lawyer, whatever. The cost is that ten minutes afterwards, I kill you. No pain, no getting shot, nothin'. You're just dead, and you go off to your reward or cease to exist or whatever. I'm just a genie, I don't actually know anything about afterlives."

Do you accept the offer?

If not, why the hell should anyone else accept the raw deal to get seasick on the way over, sit in a boat looking at a screen, get hit by spall fragments from the inside of the carrier's armor, feel the blood seeping from their body as the saltwater seeps into the hull, hear the steel groan as it sinks into sunless depths, and then spend eight days bleeding out/dying of thirst in a trapped pocket of lightless air sideways on the bottom of the Pacific, knowing that death is coming for you but will take all the time it likes, and being too weak physically to even end the pain, before finally dying so slowly that you can feel parts of your brain suffocating at different rates, all so that the USA can maybe get a temporary hold on some shitty islands in the middle of nowhere?

[smjjames]

@pttg: Nobody is suggesting as far as I know, that the US grab control of the South China Sea. The issue is that China is trying to effectively take its big butt and hog the sandbox that is the SCS which is supposed to be a shared international space.

[wierd]

Incorrect premise.

There is such a thing as public commons. There is also a reason why the likes if Disney Corp likes to rob it blind, and forbid ANYTHING going back in.  It is the same reason why DeBeers diamonds hoards warehouses full of diamonds. (Really, Diamond is NOT rare. It is quite common. The market is just cornered.)

Right now, parts of the china sea are commons. They are international waters, that any nation can send ships on, without having to worry about lengthly customs inspections, detainments, worries of impoundments or seizures, etc.

If said genie offered me the chance to assure that no single nation could control said area, (and better, all public commons would be protected, but still useful publicly, eg-- not rendered without utility), I would consider that deal more than favorable.

[PTTG??]

If said genie offered me the chance to assure that no single nation could control said area, (and better, all public commons would be protected, but still useful publicly, eg-- not rendered without utility), I would consider that deal more than favorable.

You are either far more noble, or far less honest, than I.

[smjjames]

And if said genie was of the not-so-nice type, it'd probably grant it in a way that prevents anybody from using it.

[wierd]

If said genie offered me the chance to assure that no single nation could control said area, (and better, all public commons would be protected, but still useful publicly, eg-- not rendered without utility), I would consider that deal more than favorable.

You are either far more noble, or far less honest, than I.

By assuring that all public commons are protected from poaching, the end of my existence would enrich all of humanity for all time, in ways that are simply impossible to quantify. Art, culture, free to take and use, but not to restrict from others.  Humanity would only blossom from that.  Far more valuable than any menial input my toil on this earth could achieve.

[wierd]

And if said genie was of the not-so-nice type, it'd probably grant it in a way that prevents anybody from using it.

Being rendered without utility would be a deal breaker. I would not agree to those terms, and would outright say so.

[Descan]

I don't really know what your point is, but arguing against welfare (is that even what you're arguing?) because... we don't have an infinite source of material in the universe... (?) seems completely wrongheaded. "We can't use the much-less-than-1% of the resources of Earth it would take to feed, cloth, and shelter everybody because... Then we can't use that for something else!"

Like, if I'm mis-characterizing your stance or... purpose, or thoughts, or whatever... I don't know how I can be really blamed here. I quite honestly do not know what, or *why*, you're on about here.

[smjjames]

Ideally though, one could take China to court for violating international law, but the problem is one of enforcement, who would enforce it and how?

The international courts however, are barely any more potent than the UN.

[Reelya]

I don't really know what your point is, but arguing against welfare (is that even what you're arguing?) because... we don't have an infinite source of material in the universe... (?) seems completely wrongheaded. "We can't use the much-less-than-1% of the resources of Earth it would take to feed, cloth, and shelter everybody because... Then we can't use that for something else!"

Like, if I'm mis-characterizing your stance or... purpose, or thoughts, or whatever... I don't know how I can be really blamed here. I quite honestly do not know what, or *why*, you're on about here.

It would seem to be a valid argument against just about anything. We should ban meat completely, because meat uses too much of that precious water to produce.

And don't get me started on the idea of allowing people to eat ice cream. Do you know just how much more normal-temperature healthy food could be made if we stopped letting people eat chilled sugar-loaded junk with animal products?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It would seem to be a valid argument against just about anything. We should ban meat completely, because meat uses too much of that precious water to produce.

*cough*

[wierd]

No.

It is an attack at the premise of welfare.

The premise of welfare is one of two.

1) We just want to assure that our citizenry is able to perform optimally
(In which case, welfare may not be the best/most efficient/effective way to accomplish it, so protecting it so closely is irrational.)

2) We want to make our society fair, by providing for the less fortunate.
(Which, as I pointed out, is not possible. At all. If the premise is to be fair, the 'solution' proposed creates unfairness.)

I tend to take ideology #1, where others here of more liberal bent tend to gravitate toward ideology #2.  It was a refutation of the foundation behind ideology #2.