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Author Topic: Occupying Wallstreet  (Read 297314 times)

SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #105 on: October 02, 2011, 01:02:10 am »

Thanks for the link, Vector.  Powerful stuff.

What's sad, is I don't think those stories will sway many people.  I really don't know if any more awareness can be raised about how bad things are.  There are some privileged youth who might not know yet... but most people already do and have already decided whether they care or not.

-Those who care either don't know what they can do or are divided over proposed solutions.
-Those who don't are simply apathetic, selfish, and/or justify it via a 'survival of the fittest' philosophy.  They'd probably look at the people in those links and say "Well obviously they're doing ____ wrong" or "Those people are weak and can't survive without a modern society investing in them" both statements meant to imply that we shouldn't care about them.

I think if things are going to change, it will be through real conflict.  Blocking traffic is nothing.  Disruption is necessary for change, and if you don't support one type then you're going to end up with another.
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In the land of twilight, under the moon
We dance for the idiots
As the end will come so soon
In the land of twilight

Maybe people should love for the sake of loving, and not with all of these optimization conditions.

sneakey pete

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #106 on: October 02, 2011, 02:06:38 am »

With regards to the wind/solar etc, be careful to not cherry pick info to much. Yes solar panels are cheap, and yes they are more efficient than ever, and yes they can be woven into fabric. But generally each of those properties is mutually exclusive. The high efficiency panels are still expensive, and rigid. the cheap ones aren't as efficient, and the woven ones are still expensive as they still haven't sorted the technology out. Not to mention that weather patterns can still effect them. major major issue that needs to be solved with solar.
Ontop of this, you have issues of subsidies, base load, old plants (eg, if you have a power plant, and then install half of its capacity worth of solar panels... then you have to run that plant at 50% capacity, which is generally less efficient  than running it at 100% capacity. aswell as that you can't dismantle it as you might need to run it upto 100% again for weather issues), beauty issues, (there's a dam good reason why they don't allow wind turbines on blocks less than 5 acres), chicken and egg situations (Sure, building a solar plant in the desert might be good, but there's no transmission lines, noone will build then unless there's a really good case for them, but until someone builds the plant there isn't the case, etc. More of an issue with new emerging technologies such as hot rock geothermal), the fact that combined cycle natural gas plants produce half the emissions than coal, the issue of providing transportation (I honestly can't see non hydrocarbon based fuels working for that in the mid term) and many other issues.

To tie this back into the debate at hand... as we still have veritable crap loads of coal and gas left (enough for at least the next 50 years, probably more), and that it is comparatively cheap compared to practically any other option, why don't we stick with that to save people money? keep investing in other technologies, allow them to mature even more before we more heavily build into them!
(I could be slightly biased due to the much larger amount of resources in this country, though as far as i'm aware the US still wouldn't need to rely on foreign imports to run on coal and gas for their power industry)

Also: i'd like to see some info on this 1500 buck turbine that could provide the required power.
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SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #107 on: October 02, 2011, 03:28:25 am »

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In the land of twilight, under the moon
We dance for the idiots
As the end will come so soon
In the land of twilight

Maybe people should love for the sake of loving, and not with all of these optimization conditions.

Luke_Prowler

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #108 on: October 02, 2011, 04:05:38 am »

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SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #109 on: October 02, 2011, 04:20:52 am »

One definite trend that I can't decide if it should be a source of hope or fear...

The number of scorned veterans out there.  There's at least one on every page.  Keep convincing kids the world is full of bad guys that need to be fought, training them to be killers, shipping them off to witness the depth of your greed and disregard for life, and then dropping them on the streets of their homeland in their prime adulthood, disillusioned and with nothing to show for their sacrifices.  Go ahead, America... see what happens.
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In the land of twilight, under the moon
We dance for the idiots
As the end will come so soon
In the land of twilight

Maybe people should love for the sake of loving, and not with all of these optimization conditions.

KaelGotDwarves

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #110 on: October 02, 2011, 04:22:59 am »

I don't have anything to add other than later today I will be proud to stand alongside our local protesters in San Francisco for awhile. Ya'll should stand with us too. :)

https://occupywallst.org/
http://www.occupytogether.org/

*sings* Get up, stand up! Stand up for your rights!

SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #111 on: October 02, 2011, 04:24:50 am »

Good luck, Kael!  Very proud of you :)

Post links if you show up on any media, and don't get arrested :P
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In the land of twilight, under the moon
We dance for the idiots
As the end will come so soon
In the land of twilight

Maybe people should love for the sake of loving, and not with all of these optimization conditions.

scriver

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #112 on: October 02, 2011, 07:33:49 am »

I don't have anything to add other than later today I will be proud to stand alongside our local protesters in San Francisco for awhile. Ya'll should stand with us too. :)

https://occupywallst.org/
http://www.occupytogether.org/

*sings* Get up, stand up! Stand up for your rights!
I promise I'll go outside and stand up for you. Which will be nice, seeming as how I'll end up in the middle of a field out here on the Swedish countryside.
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Love, scriver~

Bauglir

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #113 on: October 02, 2011, 10:27:46 am »

Hrm, the Iowa one is being organized as yet so there's nothing within a distance I can actually afford to drive. Stupid gasoline. Keeping track of this, though, and trying to think of what I could do to contribute to getting it underway.
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In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat hacking at the PDP-6.
“What are you doing?”, asked Minsky. “I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe” Sussman replied. “Why is the net wired randomly?”, asked Minsky. “I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play”, Sussman said.
Minsky then shut his eyes. “Why do you close your eyes?”, Sussman asked his teacher.
“So that the room will be empty.”
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #114 on: October 02, 2011, 10:46:41 am »

beauty issues, (there's a dam good reason why they don't allow wind turbines on blocks less than 5 acres),
No there isn't. I'm not sure what causes people's pathological hatred of the appearance of wind turbines, but it's not a good reason by any stretch of the imagination. "I don't like how they look!" is the most petty argument ever, especially considering our slowly looming energy crisis.
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chicken and egg situations (Sure, building a solar plant in the desert might be good, but there's no transmission lines, noone will build then unless there's a really good case for them, but until someone builds the plant there isn't the case, etc.
There are already plenty of solar energy plants in deserts, being that deserts are the prime location for their operation.
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the fact that combined cycle natural gas plants produce half the emissions than coal,
That's not all that great, given the level of coal emissions.
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the issue of providing transportation (I honestly can't see non hydrocarbon based fuels working for that in the mid term)
We've already seen proof that there are perfectly viable electric cars, just not ones that have yet become cheap enough for the wide market. That said, the price is dropping like a rock.
Quote
To tie this back into the debate at hand... as we still have veritable crap loads of coal and gas left (enough for at least the next 50 years, probably more), and that it is comparatively cheap compared to practically any other option, why don't we stick with that to save people money?
The US has a 150 year supply of coal at current levels, and has been post-peak on oil production since the 70's. We can't stick with them for a lot of reasons, including getting addicted to their usage before the supply runs dry, the global oil supply running dry, and the high environmental cost of using coal plants (the US South has low air quality for a reason).
Quote
(I could be slightly biased due to the much larger amount of resources in this country, though as far as i'm aware the US still wouldn't need to rely on foreign imports to run on coal and gas for their power industry)
We are already reliant upon foreign imports for our gasoline, mostly from Russia and Saudi Arabia. The second is particularly troublesome, as the version of Islam being spread by Saudi Arabian imams, in part due to their country's wealth, is doing no favors for the progress of the Middle East and North Africa. Hell, Osama Bin Laden was from Saudi Arabia.
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Quote from: Thomas Paine
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
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Miggy

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #115 on: October 02, 2011, 01:32:29 pm »

beauty issues, (there's a dam good reason why they don't allow wind turbines on blocks less than 5 acres),
No there isn't. I'm not sure what causes people's pathological hatred of the appearance of wind turbines, but it's not a good reason by any stretch of the imagination. "I don't like how they look!" is the most petty argument ever, especially considering our slowly looming energy crisis.

Sneaking in with a teensy little remark...

Wind turbines are renowned for making damn much noise. Even though the actual turbines are placed very high in the air, the noise is still very prominent, and can be heard from a mile or two away.

It's not that I'm against wind mills, but that specific claim is actually valid. In Denmark we have a lot of windmills, and a lot of "green" people have been converted away from renewable energy once they moved close to a wind mill. Our solution is to simply put them up at sea, in large wind-mill parks. The fish even prefer to swim around them there.
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SalmonGod

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #116 on: October 02, 2011, 02:21:30 pm »

and the high environmental cost of using coal plants

ugh... mountaintop removal mining...
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In the land of twilight, under the moon
We dance for the idiots
As the end will come so soon
In the land of twilight

Maybe people should love for the sake of loving, and not with all of these optimization conditions.

ChairmanPoo

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #117 on: October 02, 2011, 02:31:04 pm »

Bah, I've lived a couple of km from two separate  wind turbine fields, and been at the foot of one ,s and there wasnt much noise...
« Last Edit: October 02, 2011, 02:33:16 pm by ChairmanPoo »
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LostCosmonaut

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #118 on: October 02, 2011, 04:06:57 pm »

I might be crazy, but I sort of think wind turbines look cool, in a weird sort of way. I'd be perfectly fine with sticking one on my house.
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sneakey pete

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Re: Occupying Wallstreet
« Reply #119 on: October 02, 2011, 04:23:18 pm »

move the convo on energy over to here
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