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climate change times are a changin'

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Re: climate change times are a changin'

Kepler said:
Well, here's the thing.

On the one hand, yes, obviously they're white collar criminals looking to hook venture capital. Their hands drip with the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocents. That's who they are; it's who they've been for thirty years. Fine.

On the other hand... do you know how many truly brilliant folks they have managed to lock up over the last generation? The nerds who launched the Silicon Valley revolution aren't working out of their garages anymore. The guys who are truly, truly, staggeringly good at these kinds of problems (leaving aside they are 80% Aspy and 90% sociopath) have been sucked into these incredibly high-paying gigs. Who knows? Maybe the little bastids actually cracked it.

The stinger in the tail is "We never forget who we're working for." If you think the early applications of this technology (if true) are going to be for the good, you are a very nice person who I will buy coffee and enclose in bubble wrap to keep your naiveté fresh.
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More likely, the military has already had their hands all over this and has a ship out there somewhere running one of these bad boys. Or an earlier version. So at this point, I think the money is in consumer power generation. If this is anywhere near cost effective, the race to purchase these things will be overwhelming. Think about it. "overnight" this would get rid of coal and gas. The generation could be done closer to the end user saving up to 25% right off the top. Add to that the fact that the fuel required is miniscule. And every nation has it if they arent landlocked.

****, leave it to Skunk works to beat SimCity by 35 years.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

Sadly, the Skunkworks is just another division of another aerospace company these days. As my mentor there said in the mid-90s: "The skunk is dead." Don't believe me? How about this page, which proudly states "In fact, an SR-72 could be operational by 2030." 2030? Seriously? The real Skunkworks acted first, and thumped its chest about its accomplishments never. Speculative press releases about stuff that might happen in 16 years does not become them, and they need to knock that ***** off.

More generally on this topic: I've worked at 2 of Kepler's big five, worked on another one's aircraft as a subcontractor, married a woman who worked at another (and her father still does). Just need one more to round out my pent-fecta (look out, GD - I'm, coming for you!) There's a great deal of truth in what Kepler says - the companies are extremely similar, and they have groupthink when it comes to HR policies, benefits, performance evaluations, etc. There are enough real and noticeable differences to be able to choose the least of the 5 evils, though. I would also mention that the executive's contempt for their employees might only be exceeded by employees' contempt for management. If we could harness the power of eye-rolling and water cooler whine sessions after any management change or directive, the world would not *need* any fusion reactors...
 
LynahFan said:
Sadly, the Skunkworks is just another division of another aerospace company these days. As my mentor there said in the mid-90s: "The skunk is dead." Don't believe me? How about this page, which proudly states "In fact, an SR-72 could be operational by 2030." 2030? Seriously? The real Skunkworks acted first, and thumped its chest about its accomplishments never. Speculative press releases about stuff that might happen in 16 years does not become them, and they need to knock that ***** off.

More generally on this topic: I've worked at 2 of Kepler's big five, worked on another one's aircraft as a subcontractor, married a woman who worked at another (and her father still does). Just need one more to round out my pent-fecta (look out, GD - I'm, coming for you!) There's a great deal of truth in what Kepler says - the companies are extremely similar, and they have groupthink when it comes to HR policies, benefits, performance evaluations, etc. There are enough real and noticeable differences to be able to choose the least of the 5 evils, though. I would also mention that the executive's contempt for their employees might only be exceeded by employees' contempt for management. If we could harness the power of eye-rolling and water cooler whine sessions after any management change or directive, the world would not *need* any fusion reactors...
Click to expand...
Have we fallen that far?
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

LynahFan said:
Sadly, the Skunkworks is just another division of another aerospace company these days. As my mentor there said in the mid-90s: "The skunk is dead." Don't believe me? How about this page, which proudly states "In fact, an SR-72 could be operational by 2030." 2030? Seriously? The real Skunkworks acted first, and thumped its chest about its accomplishments never. Speculative press releases about stuff that might happen in 16 years does not become them, and they need to knock that ***** off.

More generally on this topic: I've worked at 2 of Kepler's big five, worked on another one's aircraft as a subcontractor, married a woman who worked at another (and her father still does). Just need one more to round out my pent-fecta (look out, GD - I'm, coming for you!) There's a great deal of truth in what Kepler says - the companies are extremely similar, and they have groupthink when it comes to HR policies, benefits, performance evaluations, etc. There are enough real and noticeable differences to be able to choose the least of the 5 evils, though. I would also mention that the executive's contempt for their employees might only be exceeded by employees' contempt for management. If we could harness the power of eye-rolling and water cooler whine sessions after any management change or directive, the world would not *need* any fusion reactors...
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This all matches exactly my experience in The Industry. I'm not sure if it was always this way, though my dad worked for a Grumman sub for 30 years and didn't have a bad word to say about them. In his last 5 years they were acquired by UTC and he and his longtime co-workers had to hit the picket lines to save their pensions from the Harvard MBAs.

IMHO there is nowhere* where the acidic effect of Wall Street finance is so obviously hurtful to real business. People have to get it into their skulls that there is a huge difference between the free market and crony capitalism. The former is the salubrious effect of competition and innovation. The latter is a disease of rent-seeking and oligopoly. When politicians tub-thump about "getting gumbint out of the way of individual freedom," it's the guise of the former but in the service of the latter. That's who is writing the checks.

(* maybe Insurance is worse)
 
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Re: climate change times are a changin'

I guess I'm still young and unjaded so I'm hoping they actually have something
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

Kepler said:
The biggest enemy of the free market isn't government; it's cartel.
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First of all, a nit. No one claims that "government" is a problem per se. Rather, it is the size and scope of the federal government in its current incarnation that is the problem. it is just too powerful and too intrusive. The 10th Amendment said clearly,
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people
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That is no longer the case. The federal government has arrogated so much power and control that it is seen by many as a danger to freedom and opportunity. So either you are proposing a straw man fallacy or you are ignoring a very reasonable concern because it is inconvenient for you to acknowledge just how much power the federal government actually has these days. You are opposed to cartels? Fine, we agree with you!! :) let's devolve a lot of the federal government agencies back to the states then!! How about that, we can concur! :)



Anyway, setting that aside,

These days, the federal government and big business are so interpenetrated with each other that it's hard to tell them apart.

You work in a regulatory agency for a few years, then you get a job in the same industry, or you are a lobbyist. or mix and match the progression, it works out the same.

The same people rotate among these three places in various orders. Look at how many retired generals who then get hired to lobby procurement officers who used to be under their command. You see this over and over in many different industries. Our Treasury Secretaries lately have all come from Wall St. big banks. One could continue down a list of all the major agencies and you'll find the same story each time: the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is staffed by people from the Board of Trade and the Mercantile Exchange, etc etc. etc.
 
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Re: climate change times are a changin'

Stay classy, GOP.

If the oil and gas industry wants to prevent its opponents from slowing its efforts to drill in more places, it must be prepared to employ tactics like digging up embarrassing tidbits about environmentalists and liberal celebrities, a veteran Washington political consultant told a room full of industry executives in a speech that was secretly recorded.
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Re: climate change times are a changin'

FreshFish said:
These days, the federal government and big business are so interpenetrated with each other that it's hard to tell them apart.
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This, at least, is exactly correct.

The old joke is "Liberals see big business as the enemy of the republic while Libertarians see big government as the enemy of the republic. They're both half right."

But really, they're both entirely right, because big government and big business are the same people, now. There are really only about 100,000 people in the country who truly control policy. The rest of us are just paying for their preferences in the form of corporate welfare or corporate-interest warfare.

A Liberal-Libertarian alliance against the corporate-government complex would go a long way towards restoring real representative democracy. Unfortunately for now they are easily played against each other, with the Dems scaring liberals away and the GOP scaring libertarians away. But an Occupy-Tea Party alliance could accomplish some good things if the leadership of each movement could figure out they have common cause.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

St. Clown said:
So, they need to employ the tactics against the left that the left has been employing against the right for years now. AKA, politics as usual.
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I'd say they are employing tactics against the left that all parties have employed since the beginning of time. It is interesting, though, that the pseudo-science of the Deniers is so weak they themselves recognize they can't even win on trumped up merits anymore. :D
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

The Sicatoka said:
" ... secretly recorded" and "stay classy" used together --> oxymoron writ large.
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Ah, the lovely scent of false equivalence. "Your honor, it's true I admitted to the murder, but I was secretly wiretapped, SO WHO'S THE REAL VICTIM HERE???!!!!"
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

FreshFish said:
These days, the federal government and big business are so interpenetrated with each other that it's hard to tell them apart.
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Yup. Former White House staffers going to "big media" jobs and vice versa, or to "big < industry here >" jobs and vice versa, from both sides of the aisle.

But whom do we blame? Polling shows Americans say Congress sucks ... except their representation there, which keeps being sent back. (Isn't that the definition of insanity?)
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

Kepler said:
Ah, the lovely scent of false equivalence. "Your honor, it's true I admitted to the murder, but I was secretly wiretapped, SO WHO'S THE REAL VICTIM HERE???!!!!"
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"If you're gonna get 'em, get 'em clean or expect to get called on it." -- a former on-ice official*


*Me. ;)
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

The Sicatoka said:
But whom do we blame? Polling shows Americans say Congress sucks ... except their representation there, which keeps being sent back. (Isn't that the definition of insanity?)
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It's getting better, by a tiny bit. 538 had a story that argued that incumbency, independent of all factors, is now worth about 7 points. Enough to sway most elections, but a decade ago it was worth more than twice that!

Personally, I have my doubts. I think what's more likely is we are seeing a gradual regional realignment and that has led to a pretty high body count of incumbents who get squeezed out. Once the cement sets, however, we'll have a political alignment that is also a regional alignment, and that's going to be very hard to break. It would not surprise me if the GOP held a majority of EV in the South in every election for the next 50 years. Likewise the Dems for the northeast and west coast. We've had party-regional alignments before, but we've never had a protracted party-regional-ideological alignment, and I doubt it will be good for the country.
 
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Re: climate change times are a changin'

The Sicatoka said:
Yup. Former White House staffers going to "big media" jobs and vice versa, or to "big < industry here >" jobs and vice versa, from both sides of the aisle.

But whom do we blame? Polling shows Americans say Congress sucks ... except their representation there, which keeps being sent back. (Isn't that the definition of insanity?)
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That's always interesting until you boil each one down and find out what they really stand for. Then you start to wonder how anyone in their right mind could reelect Mitch McConnell and you give up entirely.
 
Re: climate change times are a changin'

ScoobyDoo said:
That's always interesting until you boil each one down and find out what they really stand for.
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ROTFLMFAO.

Oh. Wait. You're serious? You think any of them stand for anything more than the next contribution to re-election?
 
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