Moving this video to Crake's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Permanently discarding this video - kill requested by Crake.

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued - promote requested by original submitter Crake.

Moving this video to Crake's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Moving this video to Crake's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

@Crake would you like some cheese with that whine?

Technically this one includes everything that would fall under *Ocean. Hopefully by the time Crake reaches a ruby I can hand this trident to him and take over Dance or Wtf.

I think this is a fantastic choice! I know @Crake was looking to make *ocean (in a couple of years when he gets a ruby), but this will do nicely.

>> ^Crake:

sure, it's large scale geo-engineering, but it can only lead to greater knowledge of how such systems work, and maybe greater control of them. presumably the hundreds of salter sinks will have temperature monitors as well, and could be used to actually test hypotheses, instead of just waiting for events.

Yeah, great. Let's just cool the surface of the ocean enough to disrupt weather patterns and see what happens. Are you seriously suggesting that's a good idea?

Bear in mind that the heat transferred away from the surface isn't disappearing. This could actually end up being a more efficient way of getting heat into the ocean, leading to more heat energy in the oceans and all the fun and games that would go with that.

Moving this video to Crake's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 6:14am PDT - promote requested by original submitter Crake.

Very droll, Mycroft.

In reply to this comment by MycroftHomlz:
the voices in my head told me to downvote your pqueue.

@blankfist,

Whether or not the younger generation loves this model, they almost certainly will love it when they get free schooling, health care, and later on an elders pension. And looking at world happiness, it's hard to get worse than the United States.

The flexicurity model Crake mentioned is interesting. I'd wager that any rational business would hold onto qualified staff, and would only let the ones go who don't measure up. It makes sense to me as it would cut down on costly litigation and save loads of time. And if everyone is cool with it, all the better. I know if I owned a business, it would be nice to have a headache-free process to get rid of underachieving staff without worrying about their physical well-being.

I don't see why this model couldn't work in the United States (of course, other than the fact that politicos love to yell 'FREEDOM' and 'TYRANNY' so much that the words become little more than buzzwords). Formal Freedom and Substantive Freedom are 2 completely separate concepts, and the Formal Freedom lovers need to understand that while it's all well and nice to talk about Formal Freedoms and 'Freedom of opportunity', unless there is a level playing field the rich just get richer, and the poor just get poorer. Recent U.S. demographic statistics confirm this.

Of course, there are the Corporatists who would complain, but Corporations can't vote in the U.S. (yet).

Looking at the 2009 HDI report, Norway (1), Iceland (3), Canada (4), Sweden (7), and Finland (12) all rank higher than the United States (13) in terms of Human Development. And all have generally higher taxes than does the U.S. (although Canada and possibly some others have lower Corporate Tax rates). The HDI is the closest thing to an objective measurement of a nations well-being that I've come across. You may disagree.

Your moral disagreement with income taxes is understandable - no one likes paying taxes. What taxes, I would ask, are acceptable? If none, how does a government function? If some taxes are acceptable, how is this not legitimized theft? Who decides what taxes are acceptable? The electorate? All the countries I listed ^up there are democracies - so now what?

Also, what punishments would you mete out over moving violations? If not financial, would there be jail time? Confiscation of vehicles? The honour system?

I find it hard to believe bleedMeGood and Crake didn't collude on the robot sentry followed by this. Sigh. I'm glad these computers won't have actual emotions as I would feel sorry for the dears, locked up in a basement somewhere in the pentagon playing spot the darkie 24/7, Lol

Permanently discarding this video - kill requested by Crake.