Loonie Legislators and that Wacky Webernet Thingo

tliet,

I think there are a lot of people out there that want to make green energy less expensive. The person who comes up with a solar cell efficient enough to compare to even twice the price of coal will be able to print the kind of money Saudi Kings couldn't even dream of. I just think that is a long way off. I personally think we should go all electric by building a shitload of nuclear plants (yes, even I can admit France does some things right), because I think there is a better chance we can reprocess spent fuel than make solar energy affordable in the next 50 years. I have faith that sometime in the future, we will have fusion or solar energy will be cheap enough, meaning we don't have to worry as much about the waste.

The part I dislike about the greens is that too many hold the all or nothing idea of energy, ie all energy must be renewable as quickly as possible or we're all going to fucking die (from shame mostly).

I want clean energy. And really, energy has been getting cleaner every year, but like a lot of things, you may not see significant changes in one year, 5 year, or even 20 year cycles. As much as coal sucks, it's much better at lighting things than when we used to use whale blubber. In another 200 years, we may look back at our use of coal and laugh how silly we were because Mr. Fusion gives us plenty of power or the war with skynet makes it all moot.

I think mokers is completely rational regarding energy, and I strive for rationality in my arguments on this matter too, funny thing is, when it comes to web filtering (which though we have drifted and I feel a bit bad for muddying another thread...) I feel that the Greens ARE the rational ones.

The thought pattern that mokers is suggesting regarding even coal plants is, to my mind, not dissimilar to the argument one could lay out regarding kiddie porn:

Once upon a time people really did not do anything about either poorly thought out coal plants or wide open file sharing. The people that made money from both decided it was in their economic interest to NOT ignore the deleterious nature of some of their activities. While legislation may have prompted some of this, the great change came from shifts in attitudes and campaigns of truth that bring more people to the side of people that simply will not stand for dirty coal or freakishly unregulated file sharing. To mandate imperfect technical solutions and attempt to use the "big stick" of government when PUBLIC SENTIMENT is not there will invite failure...


BTW, Last night I saw a rather odd movie on ShowTime, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0833960/. The plot summary is flat out WRONG. Tom Arnold does not merely 'take' an 8 year old girl, he maniacally abducts her, plots out an elaborate and twisted life and completely shapes her and a little boy that he has done the same to into a picture of the most believable yet horribly screwed-up story imaginable. I recommend it to all fans of on-line communication if only to scare the crap out of us and NEVER let any one we encounter, however casually get away with spreading their freaky horrors via the 'net. The writer/director spent probably too much researching this subject and Arnold plays the character too well. It appears to pre-date widespread internet usage but it is not hard at all to imagine how much easier /lucrative in some ways these horrific crimes can be with the aid of instant electronic file transfer. That said I still firmly believe that the way to not merely 'control' but actually RID the web of such heinous behavior is not simple-mindedly "blocking" and filtering of such usage which I believe only encourages more sophisticated counter measures, but in calling on 'netizens' to self police the web and assist crime enforcement officials in putting thess bastards behind bars. If you see this movie it is hard not to feel responsible for the horrible lives that some kids are trapped in...

Bit of thread drift here... how did we start talking about coal in the internet censorship thread?

Big oil, big pharma or big agenda usually get the full attention once people start to take notice :-)

Isn't that some equivalent of Godwin's Law there? As soon as the thread strays to kiddie porn comparisons ... ? Wow.

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I am a total Nuke advocate. We are frittering away time and should be building them now! Nukes here, Nukes now! Build baby build!
It's a national jobs program and it's smart.

Unless some serious miracle occurs in physics nothing else matches it for the energy capacity.

Modern plants are safe.

If we believe that wind power is an answer (hint: it's not) then we can believe that spent fuel can be dealt with too.

Ummm, why wasn't this already illegal?

Quote

A Japanese software industry body has decided to ban computer games in which players simulate sexual violence against females, a spokesman said.

The industry move came after a Japanese computer game maker attracted furious protests from US rights campaigners against the game "RapeLay," which lets players simulate stalking and raping young girls.

In the game players earn points for acts of sexual violence, including following girls on commuter trains, raping virgins and their mothers, and then forcing them to have abortions.

US online retailer Amazon in February took RapeLay off its websites, but the game's Yokohama-based maker Illusion brushed off the protests, saying the game was made for the domestic market and abided by laws in Japan.

Fucking bizzarre...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/05/2009 06:42PM by Tony Leggett.

Yeah, the Japanese seem Westernized, but underneath the surface they have a lot of disturbing sexist/racist attitudes.

Remy, Rino and Stan,

Of course I realise that the current alternatives are no match for coal fired plants. Right now, that is.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it should come from both ways; if we continue on our current path of overconsumption, with constant 'growth' as the ultimate goal, I don't think there's anything that can satisfy our hunger for energy.

I still think it's perfectly rational to think that we should be looking at alternatives than to 'burn things' for our energy need and at the same time look at ways to actively reduce our energy consumption.

the kiddie porn thing is actually kinda more 'on thread' as that what most loonie legislators try to legislate on the webernet...

They abuse it as a cover for taking control of things they should have no control over, just in case the terrorism word doesn't scare people enough to give away their freedoms.

...and because the masses don't argue with a politician who takes a dramatic stand against child porn. So he can be seen to by dynamic and proactive without the bother of tackling a real issue where he would have to take a position that might offend large numbers of constituents.

"I am against those things that everybody thinks are bad, and for those things that everybody thinks are good!"

Innovation seems to be beating draconian legislation...

If the movie studios were smart, they'd start thinking about "if you can't beat 'em, join em". They are not going to win this with lawyers...

DVD-quality, DRM free movies for $2 a pop may give them some sort of relevance.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/07/25/0049217/Australian-Net-Filter-Gets-One-Step-Closer?from=rss

my god this is too much like china or Iran.

The first thing that needs to be filtered out are the websites of the proponents of these technologies. Let's see how long they stay proponents.

They can have their filters. Just keep sending us your Elle McPhersons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2009 05:53AM by El Jeffe.

I'll believe it when I see it about the censorship not slowing down speeds.

The big suppliers have been honing their devices and software for a while now, selling huge installations to China, Iran and who knows what else. Plus, this is standard practice in big organisations.

I'm just amazed that the people aren't in the streets over this one. I guess the western governments have taking a good look at China, people don't want freedom, they want enough freedom to buy stuff.

Hmmm. Do we have 4 weeks of ongoing Michael Jackson coverage?
Check.

Do we have vitriolic opinion as news?
Check.

What's missing?

$5 million? Why not a public beheading while they're at it?

Because they would have to share the proceeds from the inevitable movie deal with the victim's evil song-swapper's family.