Epa095

> DOGE was such a missed opportunity. If only they could use their smarts to actually improve government efficiency.

No. A bunch of kids are not going to be able to come in and improve a system they do not understand the least. Government can be improved, but its not a 1 or 2 year program, it will need deep, proper understanding. There is no lack of "smarts", these kids have nothing to contribute. There is lack of time and mandate.

Chesterton's Fence is no joke.

> I do not believe that a majority of humans can be made to meaningfully engage with democracy.

Why not? Is it just that you have not experienced it, or is there a more principled argument?

My personal experience is that democracy feels to work much better in smaller (sub 10 million people) than larger, but it could also just be correlation not causation.

Marginal value (which is the relevant measure) of Hydro is not zero, because the used water has a potential value in the future when it could have been used instead. Hydro plants calculate a monetary value of the water based on a guess on future prices where the water could have been used, in addition to all kind of other smaller factors (like increased maintenance cost of shutting of, and legal requirements for minimal water in the rivers, etc). And then they bid based on this.

Any power-source which can move its production has this feature, independently of renewability.

But if you have some points in time where all the energy is delivered by intermittent power-sources, and there is insufficient power lines to transport this power elsewhere, prices can to 0, and if too much power is offered, the price becomes negative, and power producers has to pay to push in power. This is not just theoretical, it has happened in the European power market. But the equilibrium still exists. And because there are some costs associated with turning them off, it does not actually drop immediately to 0 production at negative prices.

Wait, they privatized transmission as well?

Electric production and transmission is interesting from an economic perspective, as the physical infrastructure is almost as perfect an example as it's possible to make for something which should be governmental (or under its direct control). You just can't get working competition there. While the power itself is the perfect example of the opposite, where the market should (according to theory at least) be perfect.

Ruined? You mean the continent with the highest life expectancy, highest rate of higer education, lowest infant mortality, and lowest rate of child poverty (and relative poverty in general).

The world is angry, we live in the age of the predators. European youth are also disappointed, just as in north America, that higer education is no longer a highway to a better life than our parents. But ruined? No.

And do you also include the forced deportation of people with non-German ethnic backgrounds, even if they are citizens of Germany, in these "mildly conservative views"?

Idk why this is relevant, is the air condition going to kill people in a civil war?

But I still get baited into a conversation! Note that if you instead of nr of deaths measured 'nr of life-years lost'(relative to average age of death) the magnitude would be flipped, as most of the heath-deaths were old people who died earlier than expected because of heath. These are still preventable deaths, and should not have their importance scoffed at. But at the same time, these stats does get a bit complicated at end-of-life. Its clear (to me at least) that if e.g. (philosophical thought-experiment incoming!) a single doctor is on duty, and has to choose between saving the life of an infant or prolonging the life of someone on palliative care with a day, the choice is clear. And if the doctor did the obvious choice, did she kill the old person? Should this death today be counted as a 'preventable death' which could be prevented if we just had more doctors?

There are many activities we as a society can do to lengthen life expectancy of old people, like creating social gathering spots, exercise groups, or installing more AC in their homes. In most cases you can't attribute any single death or extra day-of-life to any single cause, but you can see statistical differences in death-rate and attribute causes on a population level.

I have noticed that ACs has become part of some culturewar thingy. In reality it is one of many factors influencing life-expectancy, and in some cases it's the most effective solution to increase life-expectancy, but in many cases other things are far more efficient.

I still don't understand why you compare guns with air conditioning, but this might be a relevant point, depending on where you were going with it :P

Hyundai Inster.

Exactly, so when asdff said good riddance to the wealthy, mentioning how much tax the top 1% wage earners brings in is irrelevant.

Top 1% wage earners is not the top 1% wealthiest.

This is obviously the top 1% wage earners, not the top 1% wealt-holders (aka the 1% richest).

Yes, a major problem of taxing the billionaires is that they are much more mobile than the rest of us. That is one of many features which help the rich get richer. Once you get to the point where you can live on less than 1% of your wealth annually, you and your descendants won't ever need to work a day in your life, and can migrate around the world, forever consuming the fruit of others labour.

I get the sarcasm, but its not like e.g. TSMC popped up in a environment of pure libertarian free market capitalism. It was, from the beginning, a project of the Taiwanese state, and without significant public influence there is no way it would have become what it is. Are the EU laws what's needed? IDK. But without a proper public industrial policy besides "low taxes and few regulations" there is no way Europe will be able to get significant semiconductor-production up, the rich-get-richer phenomenon is just to strong.

Like fentanyl, tobacco, heroin, sugar,... All very useful...

Its hard because its 27 different countries, but they are working on making it less hard. Many startups are made in Europe, but then bought up (often by Americans) or moves to USA when its time to expand outside the single countries boarders. Canada has the same problem.

Canada has made it pretty clear that they do not want to be part of the big country south of it, so they will have to find a way to create large companies that stays. Doing this together with a market of 450 million people seems like a good idea.

If the Chinese loves their children too.