anovikov

But for the US, there's no question like that. It produces a lot lot more than it consumes anyway. There can't be a shortage.

Yes US produces mostly light crude and production of refined products requires also inputs of heavy one, but it's not produced in the Middle East anyway, so current situation can't impact that, either.

There is a dumb ass simple explanation: in about the same time it took to build rockets that took people to the Moon, we figured out that there was nothing to do there for humans. Or anywhere in the Solar System for that matter.

I mean until 1960 people expected to find whole civilisation or at least intelligent life on Venus and until 1964, at least some life on Mars. By then, it was too late to stop Apollo, but already no point to go anywhere else or expand Moon presence.

Well this is natural, terrorism in Europe is almost entirely Russia-originating (and have always been, see drop to nearly zero after 1991 when Russia lost the capability).

I wonder what happens to China when this factor disappears. China workforce peaked in 2016, and city workforce will peak in the next few years. With the economy still growing, acute labor shortage is less than 10 years away.

"1920s style crisis of overproduction with Chinese characteristics"

This is a total joke. This kind of numbers are a drop in the bucket vs what's needed. US needs to install at least 10x as much simply to cover daily fluctuations in demand.

Thing is, what can they realistically do? Any work that does not involve a social component is on the way out. All work that remains will be more like "service" than like "work" the way we see it today ("service" as in "civil service", not as in "held in service or labor", i hope).

Indeed, where the hell Cyprus is? Or you think it is too Russified to trust anymore? Perhaps you have a point.

Problem is, public thinks that the government is corrupt but it doesn't impact their voting choices. Public is OK with corruption. If you look at many deeply corrupt countries, corruption is beneficial for majority of population there. As people in Belarus used to complain to Russians some 20 years ago, "in Belarus we live very poorly because Lukashenka does not allow us to steal unlike your bosses", and they were right.

Simple solution is:

- Rely on manned platforms and JDAMs, they work perfectly, cheap, and abundant. It was demonstrated that US pilots can fly anywhere in Iran including nuclear sites and center of Tehran with very little risk and let that be the case. Supply of retiring, effectively expendable F-16s is limitless (they will be written off for being worn out or just plainly aged out, much faster than they can be realistically shot down). US has enormous capacity for training fighter pilots.

- Don't use Patriot missiles to shoot down cheap targets, have plenty of 3D printed interceptors for everything that flies below 250 mph - Shaheds, jet-powered Shaheds (at the limit), helicopters, piston-powered and most turboprop planes, suicide boats. Use Patriots and THAADs for ballistic missiles with over 500km range, these are few in numbers and interceptors will be sufficient. This is a solved science, and mass production is there, Ukraine makes and uses thousands of 3D printed electric low-speed interceptors per day.

- Develop and mass-produce an interceptor missile compatible with Patriot system and capable of taking out an unsophisticated ballistic target with <500km range. In fact, no need to develop it, just buy them from Ukraine when they are done developing. Ukraine is under a lot more pressure than any of us. They have no way around building it, so just buy from them when they are ready. Mass produce it.

- Cruise missiles are pretty much out of the picture, it seems both Iranians and Russians realised they don't really work in this reality anymore. Somehow they still work for US very well though.

Someone who supports Palestine should not be surprised finding themselves on the receiving end of every legal trouble. It's perplexing how are they still allowed at all.

Ships will carry interceptors, they are cheap, they are currently made for like 2-3K apiece. They can't handle jet-powered Shaheds, but those are a lot more expensive and won't be available in quantities nearly as big. And interceptors (electric too) for them are on the way, all that lacks is a range channel.

A movement that openly supports "Palestine" and gets surprise when they get sanctioned.

Well, it doesn't require EU's approval by definition. Because it means just unilaterally handing out EU a lot of cash.

It's hard to imagine how anything like this can legally exist anywhere within legal reach of Western system. Indeed liberty has gone too far.

Shaheds are not at all a problem. Yours truly is one of perhaps hundreds of entities who work on them and in Ukraine, it is a solved problem - virtually none of them ever gets through (question now is how to fight them cheaper and while letting them slip through less Ukrainian territory before being shot down - but in Gulf states it won't a problem, distances are much longer there).

And after pipelines are built, straight will no longer be needed, and Iran will have to negotiate, or end up like Afghanistan (without electricity -> without functioning cities) - no one could call it a victory.

Well, only way to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon is denying them electricity. Trump can do it easily but it literally means "ending civilisation" (knock out all thermal plants and monitor with infrared sensors to ensure they are not restored, there is no way to hide a working power plant). But it means no city life. Maybe it will come to that. Iran needs to be made irrelevant, and this can be done by working around the strait by building enough pipelines, in 1-3 years they will be gradually commissioned, and Iran's leverage will no longer exist.

I seriously dislike this prevailing dichotomy between black and white view on AI. Most likely it will be something in between: some unemployment, more scams, more capital concentration, more idiocy in politics and division, some cool stuff made, but also better productivity and higher economic growth... It's just one more variable thrown into equation, not something that brings us to hell or to Communism.

How can Iran war escalate? Is there anything in which Iran is still relevant at all? At this point we can just forget of it. Of course, pipelines around Hormuz need to be finished but they are being quickly built right now. Surely cheap mass-produced interceptors for simple ballistic missiles are needed. Ukraine is working on them, it has to - in this sense, we can be confident in them simply because they are cornered and have no way around it.

German plant to produce them is about to come online in weeks and reach full production in a year so there's no reason to worry.

These are reasonable prices for a place much cheaper than SFO. This is what people pay in Eastern Europe. 2500 CZK for a set - around $120 - won't be at all surprising or perceived as high in Prague, for instance. It can go up to 8000 or so.

The way it is displayed in press is a literate evocation of the ancient "scientist rapes reporter" meme.

Which only suggests that SNAP recipients drank just as much soda as Americans in general, because 12% of population are on SNAP. And it also suggests that they were not all that addicted to it since when it stopped being free, they stopped buying it.

TL;DR: totally safe exposure. 53K people received a total collective dose sufficient to reliably kill 3-4 people or get about 10 people visibly sick.

Around 15 years ago i was introduced to the concept of online sex/webcam sites and i was horrified. Now same thing came to food... scary.

I'm sure it can't work this way. Govtech was designed around different incentive structure innate to government orgs, resulting products, and especially production process, will poorly transplant into private hands and even if successful, will not bring any serious benefit. Private space companies need to develop their own rockets, and they come out very different from government ones.

I hired people for 25 years. I understand why. Because you know the person's worth only once you see them and CV is not at all a replacement. Fair pay for same job may vary 2x or more for someone with totally the same qualifications, experience and skills. Because their dependability, cultural fit within the company, and effect they project on partners, clients etc. will depend a lot on factors that are part subjective, part simply illegal to require in a job ad. So posting a wage on a job ad is possibly only for a narrow range of very repeatable jobs that are mostly performed alone and without any client contacts. These jobs are now mostly automated away anyway, and this factor will only get stronger going forward. The pay rate will depend more and more on a particular person, not their diploma or CV.

TL;DR: they do it because they can

This simply isn't how any addiction works. You can just as well say to an alcoholic to "just stop drinking". Humankind tried to rid itself of obesity for too long and it only kept getting worse. GLP-1 is the key.

People's habits usually don't change. They still eat the same plastic crap, just less of it.