[TheForge] Slack tank...POL OT

[Andrew Vida]

peter fels & phoebe palmer wrote:
> 
> On 12/21/2010 7:56 PM, Andrew Vida wrote:
>> peter fels&  phoebe palmer wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Long odds...fusion has been 20 years away as long as i can
>>> remember...and that's with major funding.
>> 	That is not the same approach as LENR.
> Yeah, i got that part..But the science behind making hot fusion happen 
> is  much more developed,
> much better understood and the theoretical underpinnings are much more 
> credible.

It is also a far tricker approach.  Containing tens of thousands of 
degrees is no mean feat.  Keeping the reaction going without tipping 
into non controlled status is similarly tricky, failure to the wrong 
side of the fence a BIG problem.

> After the Stanley and Ponds fiasco..funding and talent to work on cold 
> fusion tends to be real thin.

	LAttice is betting their balls on it.

> "Clean, safe too cheap to meter" was what PG&E kept repeatedly trumpeted
> when they wanted to build the big Diablo Canyon nuke plant.
> Of course , rates keep rising and PG&E has ducked out of the final clean-up liability.
> Oh yeah...and the radioactive waste keeps piling up in those huge steel tanks ,
> on an earthquake fault,next to the ocean, where the coast keeps eroding.

State's failure.  THey shoudl have takent he board and tossed their 
asses to those lonely men in FOlsom.
> 
> Do you really expect folks to properly dispose of radioactive tritium?

	An engineering problem with an engineering solution.

> Even if they can reproducibly demonstrate a tiny trace of tritium,after 
> all these years of work, there is no indication that
> a small, reliable power source might possibly be developed from that.

That is what refinement is about.  Proof of concept is what is important 
here.  Once that is established, there may be a bandwagon appearing. 
You never know how things will evolve.

>> I have no problem with placing certain regulations on CORPORATIONS.  I
>> object to regulating individual free choice where action brings no harm
>> to others.  Harm yourself all you want if that floats your boat, just
>> leave non-consenting third parties in peace.
> Change that to consenting and i'll agree.

	Eh?  makes no sense.  If my neighbor and I decide to sit down to some 
Russian roulette, who is anyone to stop us?  But if I do not consent, I 
should not be forced.

> This was back in the 50s..by 76 things had improved i think..though i'd 
> fled by then.
> But my point is that it was the draconian, interfering, widely protested 
> air pollution laws
> that made that difference. It imposed expensive smog requirements on 
> individual's cars.

	The problem is not regua=lation per se, but corruption in regulation, 
which is the rule rather than the exception.

> Y' know, there used to be a run of silver salmon up Malibu creek!
>>> Does the above qualify as the social costs you recently dismissed?
>> 	No.  Those are the costs to individuals and it serves us best to
>> remember it and dispense with all this "social" bullshit.  Keep it real
>> and don't attribute material reality to insubstantial abstractions.
>> That keeps it grounded in what is real and who really gets hurt.
>> "Society" is nothing but an abstract concept.  Society has no rights, no
>> interests, no possessions, no feelings because, like "government" it has
>> no material reality.  People are real - flesh, blood, mind.  That is
>> what is hurt.  I so despise this foolish abuse of language - it causes
>> SO many problems.
> When most of the folks under a government are demonstrably hurt by an 
> entity's actions...then the "social" abstraction
> is a useful concept.

Given the penchant for abuse I would have to disagree.

> Otherwise what? Would you have every individual taking
> each coal burning power plant to court and dunning them for their % of 
> the person's mercury burden?

	THis is nonsequitur.  The one does not follow from the other.  THey are 
wholly unrelated.  Class action does not rely on use of the concept of 
"society".

> Your position above just isn't practical given this nation's population 
> density and need to deal with other nations.

	It is eminently practical because it better reflects reality.  Just 
consider the twits whining about "social justice".  Pure BS and "social" 
is a key word whose misused provides the emotional force to the 
otherwise bereft arguments.

>> 	YOu may be right,  but we don't really know that.  Sometimes shit
>> happens suddenly and the next thing you know the world is on its ear.
> Yup, and we don't know what it , or they will be..good or bad or more 
> probably a mixture.

	Not too many people knew what effects the network would have on the world.