Coal is expensive, but it's still cheaper than nuke and peaker thermal. If you want power fast and your state and federal government aren't worried about a few pesky environmental regulations you might see coal come back. Part of coals attraction is that it takes a lot of people to run a coal plant, and people need jobs. Those people vote and politicians like votes.
Then you would plunk down a gas turbine like everyone else. It's so much cheaper than coal to operate and uses mostly the same high capex / long-lead machinery. I could see the jobs program angle, but these are shitty jobs. It's not like working in an air conditioned mcdonald's. Workers die in mines a lot and when they don't they live shorter, less comfortable lives with disease.
I'm fine with arguing against coal for environmental reasons, but that won't convince anyone who isn't already convinced. It's always worth pointing out that gas turbines put out a lot less pollutants than coal.
Modern coal mining isn't that bad of a gig, especially surface mining (which a lot of coal is). I would certainly rather make a decent middle class wage hauling coal and support my family than work in an 'Air conditioned mcdonalds' and barely subsist in poverty.
You can make all the technical and environmental point you want. They are valid and they are largely irrelevant, at least for the purpose of achieving your stated outcome.
People want to be able to live a life with some amount of dignity and we've been so diligently eroding their ability to do so for the last 50 years that it's becoming an existential issue.
Jobs matter. If you want social progress, environmental progress, any kind of progress people need to be able to build a life where their children are better off than they were. Full stop.
Gas turbines require infrastructure the may not exist in the area yet, and significant capital outlays.
Like coal mining jobs or the like, if you’re stuck in Appalachia with 5 kids and it’s the only thing keeping you afloat, you’ll get pretty worked up if someone tells you ‘just don’t do that, duh’.
No, that's what case law is for. Modelling the zillion little details. One party claims something breaks a law another claims it doesn't, and then we decide which is true. The only alternative is an infinitely detailed law.
Case law, also known as common law, is a British legal tradition. Most of the EU does not follow the common law tradition. There may be supreme courts, but the notion of binding precedent, or stare decisis as in the US legal system does not exist. Appeal and Supreme court decisions may be referenced in future cases, but don't establish precedent.
The equivalent doctrine under a civil legal system (most of mainland Europe) is jurisprudence constante, in which "if a court has adjudicated a consistent line of cases that arrive at the same holdings using sound reasoning, then the previous decisions are highly persuasive but not controlling on issues of law" (from above Wikipedia link). See:
Interestingly, neither the principle of Judicial Review (in which laws may be voided by US courts) or stare decisis are grounded in either the US Constitution or specific legislation. The first emerged from Marbury v. Madison (1803), heard by the US Supreme Court (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison>), and the second is simply grounded in legal tradition, though dating to the British legal system. Both could be voided, possibly through legislation, definitely by Constitutional amendment. Or through further legal decisions by the courts themselves.
Yeah I'm really glad we don't have common law where I live. It makes the law way too complicated by having all these precedents play a role. If the law is not specific enough we just fix it.
Also it breaks the trias politica in my opinion. Case in point: the way the Supreme Court plays politics in the US. It shouldn't really matter what judge you pick, their job is to apply the law. But it matters one hell of a lot in the US and they've basically become legislators.
I'm not sure what consciousness has to do with whether or not you can be copied. If I make a brain scanner tomorrow capable of perfectly capturing your brain state do you stop being conscious?
who says you need to transcribe everything you hear? You just need to monitor for certain high-value keywords. 'OK, Google' isnt the only thing a phone is capable of listening for.
We won't. This is what the end of empire looks like. The US is going to end up a backwards, superstitious, backwater. I would be surprised if the "U" part of USA survives the century.
The one thing that keeps me going through the fall of the US is the knowledge that despite all, there are still lots of happy people in Russia and China. People live their lives under those single-party authoritarian regimes, and many of them are happy. Maybe I can be happy here, too.
“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
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