2012-10-04, 16:30 | Link #61 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Stopped building new plants for about twenty-five years I think. More or less new projects were stopped after the Three Mile Island incident and only those that has been approved before that were allowed to continue being build....after being redesigned and go through a lot of political hoops. The last one I think was actually finished in the late 1980s. They just started building new ones this year, though there were efforts to build other new reactors in the 90s.
It is possible they may have build newer reactors in place of older reactors on the same certificate, but I doubt it. But that is for commercial reactors. I know the Navy has some new reactors since then for submarines and aircraft carriers. I'm guessing there have also been newly build research reactors and probably experimental reactors, but those might have been scrapped as well because the public still has a massive fear of anything with the word "Nuclear" in it.
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2012-10-04, 18:02 | Link #62 | ||||
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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If you take the former course, you're being criminally negligent(and can be put on trial for it). Taking the latter course was drilled into me on numerous occasions by my professors. Quote:
If we look at things on an individual level, most engineers do their work and don't cut corners. Of course there are always bad engineers out there, and when they do cut corners everyone hears about it. But when Engineers do their job as they're supposed to, they're basically invisible. Engineers are probably the least visible(and in my opinion most important, but I am biased ) major profession out there. At least doctors get glamorous dramas made about their lives. What do we get? One of these days someone needs to write a sitcom set on an oil rig, or something. |
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2012-10-04, 18:09 | Link #63 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Engineers get sci-fi representation in most cases. Though from what I understand "Big Bang Theory" likes to have those with doctorates pick on the engineer...because he is not a "doctor".
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2012-10-04, 18:58 | Link #64 | |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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Actually, there was Planetes, which I think is probably the closest thing to an Engineering drama. Most of the main characters in that were fairly close to being Engineers. They had to deal with a lot of mundane mechanical problems and fix them. Something like that would be good. Anyway, to get back on topic, we do have some social problems today, but I think many of these are down to our society being in a state of extreme flux. We still haven't developed the required cultural attributes to prosper in the new digital world we find ourselves in. Our attitudes are still analog. For instance, it wasn't so long ago that the general populace thought that everyone on the internet was an anti-social weirdo. Now using the internet is normal. You're an anti-social weirdo if you're not online. Many of our devices have put more barriers in place for people to socialise with one another, used to be people routinely chatted with complete strangers for want of anything better to do. This sudden decrease in communications with strangers I think causes a lot of stress, so our society will have to devise new ways to get around this fact. For instance, maybe in the future trains will have "socialisation" carriages where people can go if they want to talk to other people. Once our culture has caught up with technology, I can see people becoming a lot happier. Before that though, there's going to be a lag time. |
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2012-10-04, 20:09 | Link #66 | ||||||
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: London, England
Age: 37
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This problem of overproduction was present in the great depression and after the depression demand was stimulated via the great rise in advertisements. As advertisements became insufficient and real incomes did not rise fast enough to match capital expansion lending standards were lowered so more people could obtain credit. In addition there was a systematic move to make credit cheaper and cheaper by lowering interest rates. This financialisation of the economy really took off after the 1980s until reaching something of a climax in 2008 with the financial crisis. However because demand has to be maintained politicians and bankers keep pushing credit even though the market has been saturated with debt. Quote:
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All what I say can be summed up simply: we live in a finite planet with finite resources and energy. Yet we have an economic or should I be more precise a monetary system that demands infinite growth. Such a system will soon reach limits and a collapse in the financial system will have major consequences on other systems such as the economic, political and social systems we live in. Quote:
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Moreover the accounting derived from GDP seems a little suspect, for example GDP counts debts as income so if a country engages in deficit spending then this spending is counted as a component of GDP growth. In addition to this certain externalities such as environmental/ecosystem damage or climate change are not removed from GDP figures. In fact these negative factors may even contribute to GDP growth if some form of economic activity took place to limit the damage caused by these phenomenon. Ignoring these negative externalities seems a rather dishonest form of accounting. Other issues that come from GDP is it counts the liquidation of stock as income and this is important when this stock are non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels. These issues btw are not even addressed in the HDI indeed it is a source of criticism using that index. And these points come before we even get to the issue of various governments massaging the figures to promote greater GDP numbers than is warranted but that is another topic. If we had something that measured net worth instead of income then that would provide a far more accurate picture of where we stand. If we did this then it is quite likely we are not growing, our net worth could be declining. This potential conflict of decreasing net growth but rising incomes would suggest that some of our recent growth is either non-sustainable (due to liquidation of non-renewable stocks) or that economic growth is becoming uneconomical (as the negative externalities are exceeding the benefits of growth). If you wish, you can check some articles written by Herman Daly; a expert economist who worked in the World Bank. He talks repeatedly about uneconomic growth. Granted you may not agree with what the man says but his ideas should be interesting nonetheless. Just to be clear, I do not mean to turn this into a big thing. But I just say and wish to stress that a strong case can be made that perhaps, just maybe, things are not as great as they would appear. I do feel there is wisdom in challenging the status quo. |
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2012-10-05, 10:18 | Link #67 | |
Deadpan Snarker
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: The Neverlands
Age: 46
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Keep it in mind with the next wave of asbestos, DDT, Thalidomine, or when those geothermal reactors start creating cracks in the walls of your home ...600 miles away
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2012-10-05, 10:26 | Link #68 |
Nyaaan~~
Join Date: Feb 2006
Age: 40
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@monsta666 - I mostly don't disagree with what you're saying. My points were spurred and directly pointed at Nightbat's assertions that, and I paraphrase, "NOTHING is better. We are NOT better off than we were before" etc. You can line my points up against his side by side if you want. Things aren't perfect, will never be, and we can always improve. That said, it's intellectually dishonest to not appreciate the progress we've made. The glass is BOTH half-empty and half-full.
@Nightbat - I'm still not sure what you're saying? I'm a very critical person that looks at facts from various sources, pays attention to both sides of a debate .. And I don't think our world is perfect at all and can indeed improve. I'm also not blind to the progress that has been made. I'm the one that is trying to convince you to look at things from more than one perspective.. !? Last edited by willx; 2012-10-05 at 12:56. |
2012-10-05, 12:55 | Link #69 |
Knight Errant
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Age: 35
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The glass of human progress is not fly or empty, but, despite all our recent problems, it's more full then it ever has been at any previous time in history. That doesn't mean we shouldn't keep on trying to fill it.
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2013-11-21, 13:42 | Link #70 |
Kurumada's lost child
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Wow... its been more than a year since I last updated this thread. I have been so busy all this time that I haven't had time to contribute to these boards. In any case, 3 other episodes of the culture in decline series has since then been released.
Here is episode 3: This one deals with advertising and consumerism extensively. My review: In my personal opinion this is the best episode yet. The production values are way higher and the message is powerful. I specially enjoyed the Hot girl syndrome part. Personally, I believe that Facebook is the manifestation of our declining culture. In it you can see our obsession for physical beauty, material possessions and money is more pervasive than ever. I believe that social media, such as Facebook makes us narcissistic by over-empowering our egos. Facebook is a temple to the self, in which would be worshipers come to give offerings. In this type of media people don't really talk to each other, instead, they talk at each other.
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2013-11-21, 16:48 | Link #75 |
思想工作
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Vereinigte Staaten
Age: 32
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A society, taken as a collective, is like a privileged but lazy person. Because he is lazy, he doesn't do work that he knows ought to be done until the last minute, and sometimes when it's already too late. Most of these stupid self-caused mistakes are non-fatal, but even what he does accomplish cannot be called "efficient" by any reasonable measure of the word. Sometimes he becomes depressed and falls into a slump, during which more resources (mostly time) go to waste. Perhaps a shift in his working environment or some personal epiphany will infuse him with renewed optimism and hope, allowing him to achieve some modicum of temporary efficiency. Both nostalgia from the past and visions of the future will induce in him conflicting motivations, further undermining his ability to work and live along a straight, efficiency-maximizing path. All the while, some part of him is increasingly intellectually aware of this predicament, yet cannot bring himself to truly change.
In the same way, a society has its history and inherited legacy from the past. Great men rise to power with the hope that they can change the people through various means, such as law or revolution. However, conflicting interpretations of the past and future lead to contradictions in deciding what is to be done about the present. In the course of these conflicts we see that society may experience temporary spurts of revolutionary or cultural motivation, but they are never successful in their articulated aims. The result is that the legacy of revolution ends up normalized in the existing societal character, which in turn has been shaped by a multitude of both knowable and unknowable factors that cannot be overcome simply by any clear set of progressive standards. The privileged but lazy person from above who truly changes for the better cannot simply throw away his entire past identity and expect to make progress; he has to build from his existing base, good or bad, and morph himself. Likewise, the best sort of revolution is not one that tries to unify the society and force it along any one path, but one that attempts to rejuvenate its existing character. Through this perennial renewal of nebulous but universal philosophy, concrete change will come naturally. The progress will be slow and painful, but it is the only genuine way it can be done. Otherwise you just end up up with utopian dreams and failed states. |
2013-11-21, 23:11 | Link #76 |
Kurumada's lost child
Join Date: Nov 2003
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No true change can arrive when made by force. The people at the ZM understand this well. What Peter is trying to do here is to provoke you to think from a different perspective. The whole movement wants people start thinking more critically and in order to do so we are doing whatever we can to make people start a discussion about our current society.
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2013-11-22, 17:08 | Link #77 |
カカシ
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I think there is a fundamental problem in this thread that people think capitalism is a good thing, or 'the best thing we've got so far'. This is a myth. Capitalism is nothing more than a global power structure which started in the middle ages (a continuation of feudal relations). It's important to understand this or we go around in circles defending what is essentially a system of subjugation through wage-slavery. We are all peasants in this system, we should at least understand this. Here is a useful link to understand its origins:
http://endofcapitalism.com/2009/11/0...of-capitalism/ I will take a look at the latest episode tomorrow! |
2013-11-25, 16:41 | Link #78 | ||
Kurumada's lost child
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Great link Kakashi, I read the whole thing and I am very interested in getting the book. Here is an excerpt that really struck me as true, since I am aware that racism began with the slave trade:
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Here is part 4th of the series, the topic this time war. "In this episode, Peter investigates the nature of War and human conflict; the White House declares War On Nature itself; a french chef prepares an international delicacy for the kids; Louie the Logic Gremlin returns to piss everyone off and our Man on the Street gets rowdy." This episode is even better than the 3rd one; it was quite comical. Guy in a tie ftw!
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2013-12-11, 14:59 | Link #79 | |
カカシ
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It seems to me that heterodox economists have long been thinking about different ways to structure economies in ways which will provide equality, but only orthodox economists have been given voice in the media as they serve the wealthy elite (here is one heterodox economist, Paul D. Fernhout, who discusses a resource-based economy as well as other types of possible economies: http://www.artificialscarcity.com/). I personally think these things are all very viable to implement, but as you may have gathered from my previous link I believe we are locked in this capitalist power structure (now in the form of a corporate empire) whether we like it or not. As a result, I don't think that the wealthy elite will just hand-over power without some kind of resitance/revoltion from below. As in history and still now, egalitarian movements or people's movements have always been the opposing force. In America the left has been greatly weakened since the red scare (I strongly recommend reading books by John Hedges especially Death of the Liberal Class). People irrationally fear or are skeptical any kind of socialism in the US because propagandists were very successful in obfuscating Russian communism with real socialism and were therefore able to weaken the left which functioned to protect the working class from corporate exploitation. In any case, I do think American culture is in decline and it is not by accident. It is a corporate culture aimed at distracting the average American citizen from the fact that the US has undergone a corporate takeover. |
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