Well, here we go. It's the "opt out" public option. States have until 2014 to opt out of the public option, and the reform bill moves one step forward. ..."/>

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Whatcha think of the 'Opt Out' public option?

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 19:13
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 1973
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Monday, October 26, 2009 1:42 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Well, here we go. It's the "opt out" public option. States have until 2014 to opt out of the public option, and the reform bill moves one step forward.
Quote:
U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said on Monday the Senate's sweeping healthcare reform bill would include a government-run insurance plan that lets states opt out of participation if they choose.

Reid said he would send the bill, which combines two pending Senate measures, to the Congressional Budget Office for a cost analysis and begin Senate debate on the measure as soon as the analysts report their findings.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE59P4L220091026

Is this the best we'll be able to get? Can the "cats" of the Democratic Party be "herded" to at least vote for cloture whether they agree with the public option or not? Is the opt-out public option a good or bad thing? Whatcha think?

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Monday, October 26, 2009 3:25 PM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


I think it's a brilliant (chess) move, OR just great dumb luck. Inspired either way. They got tired of hearing different things from each state so they said, "okay, it's here if you want it, but YOU (meaning, YOUR citizens) decide."

Now each state has to deal with it. Guarantee most will bend under their constituents' demands (whatever those are, and that's fine whatever way they go), whereas the more "general" US opinion could have languished without a true sense of a mandate.

It's too easy to bump the responsibility from state to Fed to state to Fed - no one wants to take it. Now each citizen and each gov personnel knows who's responsible for their own state's situation.

I hope this continues.

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Monday, October 26, 2009 6:03 PM

DREAMTROVE


Not quite up to the Constitution. The people give their consent of the governed not just by representative election, but by participation by choice in the socioeconomic structure. The right of individuals to opt out is probably our most essential freedom. Don't want to pay car insurance? You don't need a car (would be easier if there were better alternative transportation) but there is a lot of alternative medicine. I think this is a ringer. No state will opt out because they will all want the money, and as a result, we won't be able to opt out. We're going to end up paying for this monster one way or another.

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Monday, October 26, 2009 6:46 PM

SERGEANTX


Indeed. The right to "opt out" - for every single individual - is fundamental to the concept of freedom. Statists don't like that little detail, but there it is.


SergeantX

"It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"

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Monday, October 26, 2009 11:30 PM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!


Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:36 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?


Excellent point PN (sincere) - that would be the dreaded "what if?" mosh pit where Theory and Reality meet to do do battle and Theory gets it's hat handed to it every time.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:21 AM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:
Quote:

Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?



Excellent point PN (sincere) - that would be the dreaded "what if?" mosh pit where Theory and Reality meet to do do battle and Theory gets it's hat handed to it every time.


Nah, it's no point at all.

You can easily opt out of those things. The Amish opt out of all of them.

The National Healthcare plan only allows you to opt out if you never seek healthcare, and never have children. The UN has a word for forbidding or discouraging populations from having children, it's called genocide.

I see this ending in a policy where you will end up paying for insurance by the number of children you have, to additionally discourage the poor.

Of course this is nothing new. Abortion will kill more people this year than WWII. Looked at that way, In America alone, every day is September 11th.

Warning, this post may offend some views (sorry, truth hurts.)

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:40 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Quote:
Quote:

Is that like opting out of car insurance, driver license, Social Security or income tax?



Excellent point PN (sincere) - that would be the dreaded "what if?" mosh pit where Theory and Reality meet to do do battle and Theory gets it's hat handed to it every time.


Nah, it's no point at all.

You can easily opt out of those things. The Amish opt out of all of them.



Bullshit Dream - No one's going to take on the Amish and bend their arm behind their back - PR nightmare. As an individual you are pretty well screwed, certainly it's not easy to live without those things, and would you want to? No driver's license, or social security and paying no income tax - you could just sit at home and wait for the knock at the door.
Once again Theory gets the crap kicked out of it by Reality.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:40 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


So Drove, are you saying you SHOULD be able to have children you have no way to take care of?



Mike

Let the wild rumpus start!

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:41 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:
The National Healthcare plan only allows you to opt out if you never seek healthcare, and never have children.


Well, at least neither one is a huge sacrifice for me.

But the douchebags better hurry and screw everything up, then, if resistance to the government can't afford multiple generations.

Quote:


Bullshit Dream - No one's going to take on the Amish and bend their arm behind their back - PR nightmare. As an individual you are pretty well screwed, certainly it's not easy to live without those things, and would you want to? No driver's license, or social security and paying no income tax - you could just sit at home and wait for the knock at the door.
Once again Theory gets the crap kicked out of it by Reality.


I could also get by without a driver's license. I hate driving anyway. Already have a social security number, though, which kind of pisses me off, but I don't plan on claiming retirement. Can't escape income tax either, but I'm just going to save what money I can earn.

BTW, DT wasn't saying they'd try to force the Amish.


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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:49 AM

BYTEMITE


Kwicko: No, he's saying that the government is creating structures to discourage people from having children in general. Artificial inflation of the cost of expenses for living and for having a family.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:48 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)


But SHOULDN'T people be discouraged to some extent from having children, at least from having so many? Or should we be encouraged to keep having litters of six or eight at a pop, knowing full well that there's no way in hell we can support them, short of getting a reality show on TV?

We have "sin taxes" for every other damn thing in this country - tobacco, booze, etc. Why NOT have a "sin tax" on having kids, instead of giving out tax breaks for it?

I'm not advocating one way or another; I'm just asking questions. As a libertarian/anarchist, I'm hoping you can give me some insight into the conundrum of not wanting to limit people's rights, versus how to pay for people's ill-informed choices? If you don't discourage people from having children they can't afford to care for, who's going to pay? Who pays for their schooling? Their healthcare? The rest of us?

Mike

Let the wild rumpus start!

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:02 AM

BYTEMITE


I say, as an anarchist, that capitalism itself is a restriction on family size that probably shouldn't be. You talk about "paying" for it like having children is a negative, reducer of survival on an individual-and-society level.

One of the problems you might cite is of course the issue of food. But that's another problem with capitalism in supply and demand: we let some food go bad to keep up the prices so farmers get paid enough to want to stay farmers. Another problem is of course water, which in the west is a serious consideration, and some amount of planning and management is necessary.

Look, I'm not saying that people shouldn't be responsible and make good decisions. Even though I agree with DT that there's a clandestine movement to depopulate the earth, I also agree that overpopulation is a problem and we can't just keep growing until we've used everything up (I advocate studying space travel and terraforming technology, and implementing sustainability).

I'm only saying that the system shouldn't be set up to discourage certain choices if they don't hurt anyone else. The issues about cost associated with raising children... Those are all social constructs.

In my ideal society, children are seen as future potential, for productivity, creativity, etc. Children have parents they live with, but we also have to acknowledge that the community already plays a large role in the upbringing of children. Short of the extent where the community interferes with the parent's efforts to raise their own children, the more a community connects with a child, and the more the child connects with their community, the more human sympathy/empathy there is and the less crime, murder, theft etc.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:08 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
forbidding or discouraging populations from having children, it's called genocide.
Bull

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:14 AM

BYTEMITE


It's also called War, Sig, and a lot of the nations who are part of the UN, and interested in a global government ARE also interested in manageable population sizes.

I believe in sustainability, but you can't deny there isn't an element of sustainability that says "wouldn't it be nice if there were just so much FEWER of us?"

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:46 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


I read the UN definition of genocide, and "discouraging" births isn't part of it. If that were the case, then the wealthy are being genocided because their access to birth control and the myriad of life options available to them clearly discourages having children. You could say that a high standard of living is then a genocidal act! I think DT has stretched the definition past the breaking point.
Quote:

I believe in sustainability, but you can't deny there isn't an element of sustainability that says "wouldn't it be nice if there were just so much FEWER of us?"
And so....? We're beyond the limits of the carbon and nitrogen cycles to absorb our waste, we have a dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River the size of Massachusetts and a garbage patch in the Pacific twice the size of Texas. Facts are facts, DT. It wouldn't be "nice" if there were fewer of us, it will be necessary. And as we've bred up to - and beyond- the carrying capacity of the biosphere, we've disturbed equilibria that have kept the planet reasonably habitable for the past several millenia. I believe that in the near future, our population WILL decrease, but it won't be from any rational action on our part, and it won't be gentle.

Mother nature is not kind. The earth has been smacked by meteors the size of Mount Everest, frozen over with ice about 2 miles thick, baked dry, driven down to oxygen as low as 16% and as boosted high as 25%. Volcanos and lava flows the size of Texas have checkered our geologic history. Given that instability of our basic environment, I think the rational thing to do is to decrease our population from about six billion to about one. We should have multiple population centers across the globe capable of survining independently, each with about two years worth of food and water, and seed stocks representing the gamut of vegetation. But instead, pretty much as unthinkingly as bacteria in a petri dish or rabbits on the plains, we just keep on multiplying until outside forces intervene.

Not very smart, are we?

And now, back to our regularly-scheduled discussion.
----------------

Done

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:13 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:
I read the UN definition of genocide, and "discouraging" births isn't part of it. If that were the case, then the wealthy are being genocided because their access to birth control and the myriad of life options available to them clearly discourages having children. You could say that a high standard of living is then a genocidal act! I think DT has stretched the definition past the breaking point.


Oops, bitten by the snark.

I consider myself a feminist. I wouldn't ever deny birth control or abortions to someone who needed it, or even someone who was concerned about the impact children might have on being able to support themselves, or who had concerns about their ability to raise the children, or the obvious cases of rape, incest, and health problems.

The problem is, and DT has probably given you this argument before, but there's some literature in regards to a legal case, when a lady, now widely considered one of the first feminists began popularizing abortion and birth control and was prosecuted for it. The pamphlet she wrote in her defense is... Strange, to say the least. She seems to be advocating eugenics, to what end I don't know.

Even women towards the blue collar end of things can afford birthcontrol, and I consider them among the more underpaid part of our society. And I would also say that I still think that socio-economic concerns in regards to raising another child is what is the predominant reason for birth control or abortion. You might be better off than some, but you can still have money concerns, or be worried that you aren't ready/mature enough (another way of saying I don't know if I can afford or support having children. College loans may be an issue, or job hunting, etc.)

http://pages.prodigy.net/wrjohnston/policy/abortion/abreasons.html

There is an active effort to encourage the nuclear family model, with only one or two children. Two children is stagnancy, one child is population decline.

I don't particularly have a problem with that if it's the choice of the family/parents, but I do have a problem with the increasingly common desire to penalize people who have more children. Unless they're on welfare, it's no one's business but their own. And even on welfare, even if the parents aren't productive members of society, is it determined that the children will never be, either? I'd be interested to see the numbers of how many children of long-term welfare recipients become welfare recipients themselves.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:14 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg


Can we Opt-Out of Federal government? Sure we can.

Give it a few more months.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:17 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


To answer the question: I think the "opt out" tack is political legerdemain, but I like it. The reason WHY I like it is because it bypasses Senate "moderates" (ie corporatists). These so-called moderates reject the public option not because their constituents reject it but because their Senatorial pockets have been lined and their honorable palms have been crossed. Max Baucus is a good example, so is Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman (Joe's home state has a huge number of insurances incorporated there, so Joe has always been kind to insurances and related financial institutions.)

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:19 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
But instead, pretty much as unthinkingly as bacteria in a petri dish or rabbits on the plains, we just keep on multiplying until outside forces intervene.

Not very smart, are we?



Yo! That's REALITY Holmes!

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:29 AM

BYTEMITE


I just gave you what I think would be the ethical solution to this; not war, which is being used this way, and not indirect statutes on the number of children people can have, but space exploration AND sustainability.


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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 9:34 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Oops, bitten by the snark.
That wasn't snark, Byte. That was a logical extension of DT's definition. FWIW, here is the UN definition
a) Killing members of the group;
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group [eg forced sterilization]
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Quote:
The problem is, and DT has probably given you this argument before, but there's some literature in regards to a legal case, when a lady, now widely considered one of the first feminists began popularizing abortion and birth control and was prosecuted for it. The pamphlet she wrote in her defense is... Strange, to say the least. She seems to be advocating eugenics, to what end I don't know.
You mean Margaret Sanger. She was. But so what? That's like saying that since the internet began with a military application (DARPA) we should reject it now.
Quote:
And I would also say that I still think that socio-economic concerns in regards to raising another child is what is the predominant reason for birth control or abortion.
There are several bumps on the way to at least stabilizing our population. The first is the relative powerlessness of woman in many parts of the globe: Africa, many areas of the middle east and south Asia (eg India), and Central and South America. These women are subject to wartime or traditionally-accepted rape, forced marriages, often with no access to prenatal and maternal care, much less birth control, STD treatment, or abortion services. Basically, societies treat them as baby-factories. (lack of access)

The second is the economics of their situation: even with access to birth control, women in agricultural societies WANT more children. Why? Because at least half will die before the age of five, and they need the remainder to work the fields and (hopefully) take care of them in their old age. (economic security)

Third is self-expectation. Having six, seven, or more children was considered "the norm". But television is changing that idea. The telenovelas (and their Indian and Pakistani equivalents) are showing women with fewer children who are more in control over their (more interesting) lives. Not sure where we're disagreeing, Byte.

There will always be "outside" forces on women to have fewer (OR MORE) children than they really "want" These decisions aren't made in a vacuum. To imply- as DT did- that a society which is not actively aiding every decision along these lines is somehow prcaticing genocide is a stretch.
Quote:
space exploration
Sheer fantasy. We can't even get green power going. How in hell do you think we'd have a significant space-emigration plan? Like I said: Unless there is a program where peeps are lifted into space and shoved out the airlock (or even more efficiently, NOT lifted into space, just shoved into a killing-machine which looks like a space ship) the resources and organization for this option are way beyond us.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:15 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:
You mean Margaret Sanger. She was. But so what? That's like saying that since the internet began with a military application (DARPA) we should reject it now.


No it's not. Did I say we should reject birth control, abortion, or planned parenthood?

All I'm saying is that maybe we should keep a close eye on who's advocating it and for what end, in case some of those influences have stuck around.

Quote:
There are several bumps on the way to at least stabilizing our population. The first is the relative powerlessness of woman in many parts of the globe: Africa, many areas of the middle east and south Asia (eg India), and Central and South America. These women are subject to wartime or traditionally-accepted rape, forced marriages, often with no access to prenatal and maternal care, much less birth control, STD treatment, or abortion services. Basically, societies treat them as baby-factories. (lack of access)

The second is the economics of their situation: even with access to birth control, women in agricultural societies WANT more children. Why? Because at least half will die before the age of five, and they need the remainder to work the fields and (hopefully) take care of them in their old age. (economic security)

Third is self-expectation. Having six, seven, or more children was considered "the norm". But television is changing that idea. The telenovelas (and their Indian and Pakistani equivalents) are showing women with fewer children who are more in control over their (more interesting) lives. Not sure where we're disagreeing, Byte.

There will always be "outside" forces on women to have fewer (OR MORE) children than they really "want" These decisions aren't made in a vacuum. To imply- as DT did- that a society which is not actively aiding every decision along these lines is somehow prcaticing genocide is a stretch.


Admitted, birth control as genocide, not so much. But it is half of the depopulation scheme. The other half IS war/genocide.

I just want people to make choices for themselves is all. If they're making a choice in regards to gender role or family size/structure that culturally appeals to them, I don't think that's our place to intervene. We can educate, but we shouldn't dictate policy.

Quote:
Sheer fantasy. We can't even get green power going. How in hell do you think we'd have a significant space-emigration plan? Like I said: Unless there is a program where peeps are lifted into space and shoved out the airlock (or even more efficiently, NOT lifted into space, just shoved into a killing-machine which looks like a space ship) the resources and organization for this option are way beyond us.


And I've already argued with you about that because I think self-sustaining colonies, given enough technological advancement, are a possibility and THE only ETHICAL long-term solution to the population problem.

Staying on earth as a long-term survival plan with no alternatives is basically choosing extinction, because if we don't kill ourselves off, or pollute ourselves to death, or cause MORE unforseen problems with delicate planet systems, the sun will eventually explode.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:29 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
And I've already argued with you about that because I think self-sustaining colonies, given enough technological advancement, are a possibility and THE only ETHICAL long-term solution to the population problem.
No. They may be the answer to our ultimate survival, but they are NOT the answer to our population problem here on earth. Unless you feel that "the answer" is to give up this planet as a lost cause and move elsewhere. In which case, I submit that we really haven't learned anything, and will simply be exporting our ignorance with us.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:49 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Sig:
Quote:
To answer the question: I think the "opt out" tack is political legerdemain, but I like it. The reason WHY I like it is because it bypasses Senate "moderates" (ie corporatists). These so-called moderates reject the public option not because their constituents reject it but because their Senatorial pockets have been lined and their honorable palms have been crossed. Max Baucus is a good example, so is Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman (Joe's home state has a huge number of insurances incorporated there, so Joe has always been kind to insurances and related financial institutions.)
I agree; every word. And of course now it may be a moot point, given fucking Lieberman has stated he will vote with the Republicans on the filibuster. His state's REALLY got to get rid of the man, he can't decide whether he's Repub, Dem, Ind. or WHAT the hell he is. Except he's whatever fulfills his own agenda and keeps him in office!!

The man pisses me off no end...

It's not a great public option, tho'--from what I hear, you can only make use of it if you can't GET private insurance, it'll only cover a small number of people, and given that, it can't survive with only a small contingency of people, some (maybe many) of whom can't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions so they're already sick. Built to fail? Sheeeet...

Maybe in ANOTHER twenty years? When we're all bankrupted by insurance companies, many of us dead because of lack of treatment or poor treatment, many of us having lost our homes because of exhorbidant insurance costs? Whooopee...NOT!


Here's a quote which is DEFINITELY from Robin Williams: "Politics: from the Latin "poli", meaning "many", and "tics", meaning bloodsucking creatures."

________________________
Together we are greater than the sum of our parts

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:54 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:
No. They may be the answer to our ultimate survival, but they are NOT the answer to our population problem here on earth. Unless you feel that "the answer" is to give up this planet as a lost cause and move elsewhere. In which case, I submit that we really haven't learned anything, and will simply be exporting our ignorance with us.


And I'm not. I also recall mentioning sustainability. My thinking is we should be focusing on terraforming and space exploration research instead of resource conflicts and warfare to reduce the population.

I don't like force and authoritarian style laws to get people to comply with population measures, and I don't like killing people to meet population goals. I do approve of educational measures, and informing people about the potential problems of over-population, and green technology, and improving technology and irrigation to produce better crop/food yields. And I also believe it's important to preserve wilderness, conserve resources, and not waste.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 12:09 PM

DREAMTROVE


Okay,

There was a lot of misinterpretation posted here, and I stopped reading, because I don't have time to read a book on why I'm wrong, so I'll just address Mike because he hit the core of the point that you're all missing:

Ability to care for children or yourself is not defined by dollars. In fact, life doesn't really require money. I view it as a necessary evil, not a goal. I think I'm in good company here with just about every religious or philosophical leader over the last few millennia.

One of the accomplishments of Ronald Reagan, whether people like him or not, was to restructure the tax system so that people living below the poverty line never owe any tax. This is an option that anyone can take, simply by opting to live in poverty. Of course in order to do it, you have to carry no debt. I filed my taxes every year, but rarely owe anything, due to a lack of income. Anyone else could do the same.

Ralph Nader chooses to not have a car. This would be inconvenient for me, so here's a need for money to pay insurance so I can have one. However, if the US had a public transportation system like Europe, I would gladly give up a car. I find them to be a pain in the ass. If I needed one, I could always rent. Renters carry their own insurance. This would make "driving" a "pay on demand" service, like all services should be.

One tax that I pay regularly which I think is unconstitutional but I'm stuck with it: Property Tax. You should be allowed to have a home without automatically incurring debt. There are other taxes I get stuck with, but they tend to be associated with purchases, not just sales tax, but taxed embedded into the price of various goods and services.

A tax-free society would clearly kick the ass of this society, and that's the real problem we're having internationally: A lot of countries we outsource to for tax reasons alone.

But a tax is a tax is a tax, whether it comes with the word on the top in a bill paid to the govt, or as a bill you have to pay for some service you're obligated to buy, or embedded in the price of something else.

However, if you can opt to make your own food, education, etc. you don't need to buy into this society. You can opt out.

For the record, people go after the Amish all the time in lawsuits. The Amish always win not because it's like beating up a puppy, but because they are within your constitutional rights.

The new healthcare proposal might make opting out impossible, and create a USSA. Currently Amish families have 7.5 children on average. They buy their land and feed and educate their children. If you multiply 7.5 times health insurance premiums, you could take that option away from them. They don't have very high incomes, but they can support their own. It's very easy to imagine a situation where suddenly they would only be able to have 1.5 children, and fairly soon their society would be wiped out.

Speaking here from the ranks of the intentionally poor, if you want freedom, it lies in poverty. For now... until they take that option away.

On more footnote: Our medical system was recently ranked by the UN as a "net zero benefit" meaning, as likely to harm or kill you as heal or save you. Perhaps this is why they are now pushing to force you to buy the product.

Another failed system that is now a "net negative" is our public education system. Yes, children who do not get a public education on average learn more than those who do. It's amazing what you can learn with 8 free hours a day. If someone wanted to point to a freedom that has already been infringed upon, there's one. I have to pay a few hundred a year in "school tax" to support this system, because a choose to have a home. Well, a home is a more basic necessity than a car, it's pretty bogus. Additionally, I'd point out that the tax is the same regardless of your income, or whether or not you have children in school. Or in my case, whether you used the "service" at all yourself.

The proposal that you must buy health insurance is a large enough financial burden that it would crush the American way of life, sort of like saying you must send your children to college. Undoubtedly, your children are better off without college, where they are more likely to pick up diseases and substance abuse problems than an education these days. But at least college is still above the zero mark in value, though that must be slipping...

Just saying is all. We still have the right to essentially "opt out" ... a right which is slipping away from us.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 12:34 PM

DREAMTROVE


Oh, and there is no population problem, there's a resource management problem. The Earth is filled with species and populations that vastly outnumber and outweigh the human race.

A parallel:
If you were to drive a tractor trailer, for an equal eco-balance, your entire cab would be filled with mice, probably your engine too, and the first trailor with ants, the second with termites, the road you drove on would be made entirely out of shrimp, and the surrounding visible landscape, entirely out of plankton.

Given this image, you can see what I mean: All these other species live here with almost no visible impact on our planet. What we have is a resource management issue.

A typical field crop yields about 200lbs of digestible foodstuffs per acre. The maximum biomass yield of an arable acre is around 20 tons. That means we're operating at about 0.5% efficiency in terms of food production. This plummets if you move from a vegetarian diet to a carnivorous one, which operates at about 0.1%.

The other species on this list don't have that problem, hence, life is good. We still could, without tilling a single extra acre, if we had a decent food distribution system. We could easily build rail or boat systems that used only solar and wind power, and irradiation as a preservative, with no harm to the people ingesting the food... or more simply: move the people to where the food is.

We don't, because we manage resources poorly. If we switch to GMO foods, we could easily move up 10 times, and conceivably 100 times, still without tilling a single additional acre of land.

The another option would be to resurrect land that is being destroyed by bad farming, and increase the yield per acre.

Human population is nowhere near critical, but human resource management is a disaster, and has been ever since Lucy. Not to blame it on Lucy particularly, but the earliest human remains were found dated at 3 million years, in the middle of the Sahara, at the time, a rainforest. The propensity for cutting down trees and even more for herding cattle, among humans, is the most destructive force the Earth has seen in 65 million years.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 12:39 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


DT, I have no idea what you're talking about. The latest version of the "public option", as I've read it, is that it will be a government-run voluntary offering for those unable to buy insurance premiums. It will be paid by premiums, and the government will have to negotiate payment rates, as opposed to setting rates by fiat (like Medicare).

I haven't heard anything about mandatory insurance, but even if it was... if you're THAT poor, you qualify for Medicare/ Medicaid anyway.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 12:56 PM

BYTEMITE


DT: Is there a point in the future that you think human population could conceivably be a problem? Based on the fact that we are larger than the species mentioned and consume more poundage of food per year and are more technologically advanced? If such a point exists, should we make plans for it?

(I'm sorry that I misrepresented you, but I've never quite been sold on the idea that there is no over-population problem and never will be. If there is a population problem, and I think there is, my recommendation is something that will help/benefit us anyway. The important thing I think is to not get carried away by sensationalism or doomsday scenarios)

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 3:41 PM

DREAMTROVE


Sig,

I don't read all the healthcare articles, so I missed the details of the latest one. You've clearly missed quite a few yourself. The "You must buy health insurance" plan was the one Obama ran on, as did Hillary, and it was the major plan and has been the major plan since he came into office. The only question so far has been "how to help the poor."

The real concern is not for the poor, but for the poor companies who could use the extra customers. The dominant plan was the Max Baucus plan last I checked. This would set rates at around $5,000, if you were poor, you would get a "limited" plan, which would cost around $2,000 for the first two years, after that, there was no guarantee of discount. That plan seems to have been pretty well shot down now, but some sort of compromise will result.

Right now under medicare, my mom pays the first $500. Under medicaid, I pay nothing, which is pretty close to what our healthcare system is worth. My worry is that there will be some plan that leaves the insurance middlemen in place, doesn't control costs, and forces everyone to subscribe to this ridiculous system.

The solution to the problem is extremely simple: Deregulate the whole thing. Make this a competitive consumer service. You go, you pay for services rendered, you don't like it, go to someone else. That would keep service high and cost low. If they harm people, doctors could face charges. This is no mystery, this is true in lots of countries in the world, and it works.

Having govt. healthcare there as a benchmark competitor is not a bad idea, like they do in Britain. I don't know any brits who actually use the service, but it does set a base of price/quality standards which competitors must exceed in order to draw away traffic, which they do handily, but for a great deal less than we pay.

Also, this is no mystery to anyone on this board.

Almost all of you are my age or older, and must've grown up under this system just like I did. Anyone else recall when a doctor's visit was three bucks, and a pharmacy was where you went for lunch, and medicine, and the pharmacist was more likely to tell you about the various drugs than the doc? That was America not very long ago. It seems like everyone has an incredibly short memory.

We don't need insurance companies, and we don't need a govt. program. We don't need an AMA, or malpractice insurance. A doctor is skilled labor, and his time should be worth the same as any other skilled labor, maybe 40, 50 bucks an hour, depending on the value of the dollar of course. An MRI is not a spaceship, it's a camera, taking pictures with it doesn't cost thousands of dollars. You only need 1 MRI machine per X number of doctors, depending on the demand for MRIs, and the doctors don't have to buy it, it can be, and often is, a separate on demand service.

What almost no one is getting is that after the long delay, the push for a national healthcare system is not a "victory." It's the death throes of a dying industry. They've been superseded by superior technology, and now want to have their customers locked in at ridiculous rates.

Someone of course will come up with a free market system...


Okay, so a short answer to your overall question is: Yes, I think it's an excellent idea that states be able to opt out. Maybe one of them will have the sense to build a superior system. It'll probably be Vermont or somewhere that thinks independently. It's unlikely to be New York.

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:35 PM

DREAMTROVE


Byte,

It's conceivable but unlikely. The overwhelming evolutionary trend seems to be "humans as food source," a problem we created ourselves through habitat destruction. A lot of diseases that plague humans do so because of evolution, they used to plague something else, that we killed off, took their land, destroyed the local higher life forms and vegetation, didn't use it, and left all the parasites to find a new home: us. IMHO? The end result of our demographic trend is that the human race will probably be wiped out, save a small % of technologically advanced people who can fight disease, and another small population so remote that they are unaffected. Also, when it does happen, I don't think that it will be the first time. I suspect we're in a cycle of this nature.

If the human race were to survive to a point where we reach a population of a trillion or so, which I think is easily sustainable, based on the potential yield of land we currently use, and based on the success of species more successful than ourselves, that we will probably survive through the development of vastly superior technology and the organizational ability to share that technology globally. If we can do that, it should stand to reason that we would also be able to colonize other planets. As there seems to be no shortage of planets, again, I don't see this as a problem.

That, of course, is globally. Locally, it's a problem all over the place. I expect to see a lot of political upheaval over who produces food vs. who consumes it. This is really the main reason I think these technologies are so important. You have a lot of local environmental destruction related to agriculture, and a lot of ethnic and political conflicts over who has the food and who controls the distribution. If we were able to radically ratchet up the food production per acre, the would help a lot. It would also be of tremendous assistance to develop revitalization technologies so that semi-arid land such as Northern Nigeria could be rehabilitated into decent farmland. This requires pretty simple technology we already have, and someone to give a damn, which the halls of power seem desperately short on.

The size of humans is not important. The collective biomass of humans is. We do not consume more food as a species than do termites. We just manage it very poorly.

IIRC, around 97% of all life lives in the sea, which contains around 99% of the earth's atmosphere by weight. Land-based life has a much greater asset, photosynthesis, which is the source of all food. The basic human requires around 900 calories a day to survive at optimum health.

Simple enzymatic processing of plant matter could produce around twice that per pound of vegetable dryweight, including oils, proteins and carbohydrates.

In theory, you could support over a thousand people per acre, but planet Earth could not. You'd run into much more serious problems than that first. Every species runs the risk of becoming a primary food source as population increases. There are an unknown number of species on the planet, but in the trillions, most of whom are looking for something to eat. At a population of around 100 billion, the human race would become a primary target for anything that was looking.

Fighting off diseases is a matter of technology, actually stopping the forces of nature is probably impossible. I'd say that, theoretically, the planet could support a trillion or so, but ecologically, at around 100 billion it would be very difficult for the population to increase, as humans would be eaten at a faster rate than we could make new humans, any microcosm study would yield this sort of trend. Logistically, I think the proximity of humans and the communicability of diseases would cause a population collapse at around 10 billion or so. I think the support level would be around 1 billion, and things would begin to climb again from there.

I've used figures of ten here to show a logarithmic projection, it would take a lot more math to come up with exact numbers, but some other trends are fairly obvious and very disturbing:

the overwhelming majority of foods (90%+) comes from a high level well maintained farmland, which is about 1-2% of the Earth's surface. About 3/4ths or so of the land surface of the Earth has been destroyed in search of new farmland. Probably half of that has returned to some sort of semi-wild state, the other half is arid or semi-arid. Most of the damage was probably done during the stone age, but an appalling amount has been done recently, a fair share by both mass-agricultural industry (both capitalist and socialist alike) and peasantry living a fairly stone age existence.

Presently, the main cause should be to stop the destruction, and to distribute the food we have. We currently produce far more than we consume. Africa, by itself, produces more food than it consumes, the famines are essentially political in nature. As I put it earlier today: the world has a lot of Mugabes, he just gets a lot of attention because his people are very literate, educated, and speak english. Still, he's a good example: We think about Zimbabwe and we think things like "Why are you selling food when your people are starving?" And he thinks "My people aren't starving, every Shona has food on the table." Because of course the borders are artificial colonial borders. To him, his people are Shona. That Ndebele starve is not particularly of any concern to him. They're not his people, they just happen to live in land that he claims as part of Zimbabwe, because the borders were there when he took it over.

Another problem you have in Zimbabwe, and also in Ethiopia, and a number of other places: Nationalized social food distribution programs. If the govt. is given the power of food distribution, and controlled by one ethnic group, they will see that their own get fed first. Right now there is a famine in the major food producing region of Ethiopia, because the govt. is taking the food and redistributing it to "their own" people.

But for real ecological disaster slides of late, take a look at India and S.E. Asia. These are areas where food efficiency technologies are very desperately needed to prevent the total destruction of the local environment. Those ancient societies standing in the middle of deserts should be powerful stark reminders to us that things like this can and do happen.

But, no, I don't think the population of the Earth will ever become unmangeable, I just think it's being unmanaged. Some areas are currently critical. But this doesn't mean that people should go in and start trying to introduce population control in India and Africa. People should go in and start introduce environmental control and advanced agricultural techniques first, and see what can be stablized and saved.

At the moment, as I write this, scientists are working on ways to process dead vegetable matter such as hay, corn stalks, etc., into oils and carbohydrates. It may not be tasty, but it will keep you from starving to death.

But long before these areas run out of food without the intervention of technology, they will run out of potable water.

DT: Is there a point in the future that you think human population could conceivably be a problem? Based on the fact that we are larger than the species mentioned and consume more poundage of food per year and are more technologically advanced? If such a point exists, should we make plans for it?

(I'm sorry that I misrepresented you, but I've never quite been sold on the idea that there is no over-population problem and never will be. If there is a population problem, and I think there is, my recommendation is something that will help/benefit us anyway. The important thing I think is to not get carried away by sensationalism or doomsday scenarios)


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Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:44 PM

BYTEMITE


Lots to think about and digest. Thanks.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:12 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Geebus Dream... talk about biomass... I think your posts consumed 5 acres of corn.

If your intention was to stun with sheer volume you have succeeded - I have so many contentions but I just don't have the time or inclination to post them. Huzzah for you! Let's just say in general I find your suggestions utterly fantastic, completely fascinating to read, and totally impractical.

As to my original point - litigation by a neighbor is not the same as the US Gov suing to change the core practices of the Amish. So, for them to ignore mainstream rules is not proof that "it's easy to opt out." A small point.

Disclosure: I have a brother who has opted out of most everything - especially work. So my mom pays for his rent, health care, car, etc. She is 80, a widow, and heart broken, but damnit, he is free! His principles are intact! Victory for him!

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:26 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Yanno, I keep half expecting Siggy to break out in Agent Smiths "humans are a virus" rant from The Matrix cause that's really the wind I feel blowing off that argument.

As for GMO foods, one of the reasons folk view them askance, and some nations would rather starve than accept shipment is a very real distrust, and not without some cause, of the corporations involved.

Given the catastrophic effects of other "help" of that nature, some of which have been proven to be entirely deliberate, can you really blame them for viewing any further "help" from those same people every bit as skeptically as a native american would view an offer of free blankets from the US Gov ?

I also highly reccommend you read the Isaac Asimov short story "The Winnowing" for another reason folk might be suspicious - if you think the powers that be are above that sort of behavior for even a moment, there's nothin useful I could tell ya.

That's why the trailers for 2012 make me laugh - if the powers that be actually HAD an escape vessel for such a disaster, they'd NEVER let us peons on it no matter how much room they had, they'd just stuff in more of their little yes men and luxuries and to hell with us less-than-human beasts of burden who exist soley to enrich them...

You wanna solve problems of this nature, you have to strike the root, attack and destroy the structures which encourage it by making our social "values" competitive instead of cooperative, and do so to such an extreme that both competitors destroy each other and the resources besides for no effective gain.

A bombed out and poisoned field surrounded by piles of bones is of no use to anyone.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:51 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Byte

A very smart person once mentioned that we will not be able to live anywhere else but earth - b/c we are adapted to the most exquisite nuance of minerals and trace elements, and food sources (which we are royally screwing up BTW with our pollution and industrial food.) You can get short-term visits 'out there', but not long term survival generation after generation.

That limitation makes the idea of terraforming just as useless. B/c we don't know in enough detail WHAT we need to turn a planet into, even if it was possible.

On top of that, we would have to be able to create a self-sustaining eco-system on every planet. Otherwise, we would be stuck with the 'industrial' model of terraforming - large scale use of energy to create an atmosphere, recycle water, modulate the weather etc.

Personally, I don't think we are up to doing either (creating an ecosystem or industrial terraforming), certainly not in the time scale we need it done. Quick back of the envelope calculation - are we up to terraforming earth and repairing its damage in the next 30 years ? If not, then it isn't going to be the answer we need.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:56 AM

RIVERLOVE


I think Harry Reid will soon be "opted out" of the Senate. Maybe the next majority leader will be able to provide some cohesive leadership.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:58 AM

BYTEMITE


I distinctly remember calling space travel and terraforming the LONG TERM solution. And I also remember saying we CURRENTLY need anti-pollution measures and clean-up efforts and sustainability. Both for while we develop these technologies, and during the colonization and growth period.

Frem, you and me both. I also have to say I'm skeptical of genetically modified food, some of the stuff that's been distributed to Africa was specifically made to not reseed when done, so that Africans would become reliant on purchasing seeds year after year. Economic malice. And couldn't some genetically modified food be engineered to produce certain drugs and chemicals? Erg...

But better processing for food is good, get more substance out of them, increase output, nothing bad about that unless something is introduced.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:00 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


OK then - my bad. I offer my apologies.

I still think it's beyond us for a long, long LOOOOOONG time !

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:07 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Yanno, I keep half expecting Siggy to break out in Agent Smiths "humans are a virus" rant from The Matrix cause that's really the wind I feel blowing off that argument.
If we're a virus, Frem, it's only to ourselves. The earth will survive us; it's been through fire and brimstone and frozen hell and mass extinctions before. We need to look at our collective selves with something like rational self-interest.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:18 AM

BYTEMITE


Heh... I guess maybe I just wasn't clear on that, so no worries, Rue. Obviously I didn't get across that while I think this is something we should be working on right now for later, we should be doing some effort at management of resources and limiting pollution in the meantime.

I'm still not sure what to do about population, the only thing I'm comfortable with is people who willingly choose to have less children. But considering how we live in a climate of fear and intentional economic instability, I'm not sure how much of that choice is a choice. The only thing I feel like I can ethically support is reducing the IMPACTS of population as much as possible and educational efforts.

And still another problem exists there, we know the consequences of population growth, but we don't know if there's any consequences for reduction of population. I think I floated an idea to you before that what might be going on is a selection towards a small upper class and a large worker class. I know there are vested interests that want a small population, the question that concerns me is what KIND of population, and for what end.


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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:20 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


"The earth will survive us; it's been through fire and brimstone and frozen hell and mass extinctions before."

There IS a chance we will turn the planet into Venus with runaway (positive feedback loop) global warming, complete with sulfuric acid atmosphere.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:41 AM

BYTEMITE


Hmm. The run-away greenhouse effect...

I have to say that I'm not sure we could ever really turn our planet into Venus. For one, Venus has a predominantly sulfuric atmosphere, as you said... But except for the sulfides from volcanoes, Earth doesn't have much naturally occurring sulfides on the surface. And we're a closed system, so we're not going to spontaneously generate it. Unless you mean from thermophile bacteria? But even then, the sulfides they produce have to already be in the environment.

A primitive earth methane-CO2-water atmosphere would be more likely in the event of an earth run-away greenhouse. Though even still it'd be different, because there's still so much nitrogen and oxygen that's been released since the Archaen.

The actual possibility of a run-away green house earth though, I don't know. Historically, we've had double the amount of CO2 ppm in the atmosphere, and more methane, and didn't have a run-away greenhouse.

I think there's a such thing as global warming. I even think there's been a correlative rise in CO2. The rate of CO2 increase might be dangerous in that it overwhelms natural systems and the ability of organisms to adapt. We could release the Siberian methane traps, or even methane traps on the ocean floor.

But as for any calculations or models about earth going to a real run-away greenhouse, I haven't seen any, nor have I seen any estimates on a maximum safe concentrations for atmospheric CO2 and methane.

The thing to be concerned about is the melting ice-caps and thermal expansion of the ocean. It won't kill all life on earth, but that could theoretically flood the coastlines, where a lot of major cities are. That may not be necessarily ruinous, Venice seems functional through engineering, even though it's sinking into the Mediterranean. We also have to be concerned about stronger storms, droughts, and duststorms. And, the warmer water does seem to be putting a strain on oceanic species, which are already stressed from overfishing.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:42 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


Byte

India has voluntary (no) population control, China has the 'one child' (per urban couple) policy. India has a 2.76 total fertility rate (births per woman), China a 1.77. India has a per capita income of $1,000, China has $6,000. India's GDP growth has been as high as 9%, recently falling to 6%, China's GDP growth has been consistently the highest in the world over the last 10 years, as high as 30%, recently dropping to 11%.

Policy decisions to discourage large families, such as withdrawing government benefits or imposing financial penalties, seems to be a workable strategy resulting in overall economic and environmental improvement.

Improving the quality of woman's lives and having good access to contraception and abortion results in a demographic transition which drops family size considerably. In a country where resources are stretched however, and there are not enough resources to create the circumstances for a demographic transition, formal family size limits may be the most practical solution.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:46 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


"I have to say that I'm not sure we could ever really turn our planet into Venus."

"Sulfur is 13th most abundant element in Earth’s crust (0.1%) and 9th most abundant in sediments."

You'd have to get the earth hot enough to drive the sulfur hydration reaction to form sulfuric acid.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:50 AM

BYTEMITE


Yeah, but I think I read that Venus has something like a 98% sulfuric atmosphere? I'm just not sure how Earth could get anywhere near that.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:54 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!


AH !

I wasn't being quantitative. I was just considering an unliveable sulfuric acid corrosive atmosphere.

But, as my thoughts wander, let's say the sulfuric acid atmos does happen. And it eats the carbonate rocks, which release more CO2 ... not going anywhere with this. Just thinking.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 7:59 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...


Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

But better processing for food is good, get more substance out of them, increase output, nothing bad about that unless something is introduced.


Please read "The Omnivore's Dilema" - it talks directly to that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006
040601701.html

"Oil underlines Pollan's story about agribusiness, but corn is its focus. American cattle fatten on corn (even though they are designed to digest grass and have to take drugs to digest corn). Corn also feeds poultry, pigs and sheep, even farmed fish. But that's just the beginning. In addition to dairy products from corn-fed cows and eggs from corn-fed chickens, corn starch, corn oil and corn syrup make up key ingredients in prepared foods. High-fructose corn syrup sweetens everything from juice to toothpaste. Even the alcohol in beer is corn-based. Corn is in everything from frozen yogurt to ketchup, from mayonnaise and mustard to hot dogs and bologna, from salad dressings to vitamin pills. "Tell me what you eat," said the French gastronomist Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, "and I will tell you what you are." We're corn."

Notice any similarities to what corn is used for with livestock and the US waistline?

"Is eating all this corn good for us? Who knows? We think we've tamed nature, but we're just beginning to learn about all that we don't yet know. Ships were once provided with plenty of food, but sailors got scurvy because they needed vitamin C. We're sailing on the same sea, thinking we're eating well but still discovering nutrients in our food that we hadn't known were there -- that we don't yet know we need."

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:01 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:
Policy decisions to discourage large families, such as withdrawing government benefits or imposing financial penalties, seems to be a workable strategy resulting in overall economic and environmental improvement.


China and India don't have inflation like we do. Hell, you can buy a computer over there for $200 bucks. From what I understand people can live on incomes of $1,000 to $6,000 a year over there. I'm not sure domestic income is comparable to the U.S. or is an argument for reducing family sizes, not for the benefit of the citizens of those nations, any way.

And I mentioned that policies for reduced family sizes unnerve me, so I can't really support that, despite your arguments for improved lifestyle and better financial stability. It still has to be a CHOICE, otherwise your dictating matters of personal life.

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009 8:05 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
AH !

I wasn't being quantitative. I was just considering an unliveable sulfuric acid corrosive atmosphere.

But, as my thoughts wander, let's say the sulfuric acid atmos does happen. And it eats the carbonate rocks, which release more CO2 ... not going anywhere with this. Just thinking.

***************************************************************

Silence is consent.


I was thinking a bit about that myself. I'd have to look at the chemical reactions, but by releasing CO2 from carbonates, and theoretically having evaporated a lot of water, you might also make carbonic acid. I think that's actually a low temperature reaction, you might even get that happening before sulfuric acid. But, this is pretty speculative.

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