Sorry, why can this not be a coincidence? I understand that the universe is smooth across large spaces similar to how a fog is smooth on larger spaces, and coarse on smaller ones.
But even then, given a large universe, why would this be mathematically impossible? If galaxies formed evenly everywhere, couldn't this have happened by coincidence? Which theory is violated here?
Sorry my knowledge is a limited "The great courses Cosmology" course from 2009
On the positive side, Gamescom has been on the rise for a while, together with other more local gaming events. It shows how the focus of a live event changed from bringing news, to providing entertainment to hundreds of thousands of cosplayers and fans. With maybe some "news" on the side, which then becomes available on Youtube 5 minutes after.
Fascinating. Maybe a similar mental model applies as in Switzerland. I am a foreigner living in wealthy Switzerland. They also talk about themselves as being very poor a few decades ago. Maybe it is that people really were poor back then, just not as poor as the other europeans, and this for them is hard to imagine.
According to the statistics that I can find, they have been one of the wealthiest european nations for 250 years now, with GDP per capita being 50% higher than the Netherlands consistently for the past 70 years.
Nothing works if that person is your superior and holds absolute power over you.
Examples situations close friends of mine have experienced:
1. You are a PhD student and he (and it usually is a he) is your professor.
2. You are in a profession with limited opportunity (say, HR) and he is your boss.
3. You are an immigrant, and losing your job means leaving the country.
4. All of the above.
I feel articles like these are written by people that have never been in above situations. If you are in a dependency situation, you are fucked. Pro lifetip: Avoid dependency situations whenever you can. And sometimes you can't and just have to hope for the best.
Omg why was I unaware of this? I bought an HP laserjet last year and am fighting SaaS software crap every time I want to attempt to print or scan. I am tempted to just trash my printer now.
I worked in WeWorks office for a year (Barcelona) and was awed by the amazing quality and design of their offices. Focusing on my work was easy, interchange with my colleagues natural, and the post-workday beer kept me staying late. Most of their buildings have gone, and now it is back to the dreary and loud staple office space. It makes me sad.
Is anybody else having a similar experience? Is there anything outside the US with a similar level of quality?
Very good point. I read Olaf Stapledon's First and Last man, a sci-fi book which describes the next few billion years for mankind and deals with this issue.
In one scenario, human society collapses, spends 80 million years living as hunter/gatherers (with some evolution) and then develops once again to a technological civilization, in part because the minerals and fossil fuels have been replenished.
About 15 years ago, in the era of dumbphones, I read an article in the news paper that in Japan's top 10 novels, 7 of them were written on a mobile phone.
It appeared as if writing and text editing (writing a novel is a lot of editing) for mobile phones was solved for Japanese, and it was a matter of time until it would arrive in Latin scripts.
Still waiting for that future. I wonder if things in Japane regressed too?
As a regular reader of The Economist, that switched to the Guardian last year to due circumstance, I can only concur. My god is The Guardian a poor "newspaper". All they do is whine about problems without providing any analysis or solution. So yeah, why even look up the source if the standard of your output is abysmal?
Edit: FYI gave up my subscription after a couple of Months. Now I read the New Scientist. Significantly more optimistic news :).
You are implicitly assuming zero progress on battery and or car technology. This is not entirely unfounded as the combustion engine has stopped progressing much for decades. As for Electric Cars, this is a whole different ballgame. The battery you are going to get in 15-25 years when you replace yours, will be a significant upgrade.
Also, an n=1 story: My girlfriend's parents bought an electric car in the mid 2000's with a range of 120km for short trips. 15ish years later, it still works perfectly.
Finally, Air Pollution is easily one of the most lethal (can it be THE most lethal?) thing in the world depending on how you measure. A significant part of this comes from cars. My guess is that for most of us, the gains in air pollution are personally significantly more important than those in climate change
This is similar to the point being made in "The Innovators Dilemma" [1].
I experience this currently at the wealth management bank I work. They were reluctant for a long time to invest into a mobile app for trading because it may cannibalise their current portfolio. They built it last year, but pricing was close to our bespoke services. The developers built a great product but when pricing is double whats on the market, then you are going nowhere.
The question "Will it cannibalise our current profits?" is asked to stop every idea. Rightfully so maybe: We make 750k revenue per employee. Money is bursting through the seams. Shame it all goes to shareholders, not employees.
Would have been nice if this headline started with "As a person living in a big city, I ditched my car (...)". Now it just feels ignorant towards people living in other areas - as everybody is pointing out in the comments.
I've worked a bit in this sector, and here are my observations:
1. Solar Home sets range from $5 flashlights with solarcells to $150 home lights+panels+phonecharger+radio to $400 sets with TV. The more expensive sets are usually paid off over time.
2. The impact of even the smallest flashlights on human wellbeing is enormous. You may imagine a village in the third world has a cosy campfire. But in truth it is usually too much effort to collect the wood, so people live in the dark half the day. The mentioned kerosine lamps are already a luxury to many. Having a flashlight so you can spot the snakes and spiders when you go outside at night to have a pee, or make sure you do not slip is life saving. Having a 100lumen light in your bedroom so you can see faintly your wife or husband while you have sex is amazing.
3. So this is about improving well-being. Not industrialising. These solar home systems do not significantly make people wealthier or more likely to become wealthy. It just makes them 20% happier. You need significantly more and cheaper power to start a factory. For that, "Commercial and Industrial solar" is a big deal. Where companies in India/Africa/Indonesia buy $10-30k worth of solar panels + battery + inverter to make sure their factories are always powered. Cost of up-front capital and competing with subsidised energy makes this not always a no-brainer.
4. Grid expansion is... expensive. I do not think we'll see the grid covering everywhere by the end of this century. And microgrids are great, but also expensive. How expensive? Consider that connecting your house to the grid in a developed country costs about $10k. Companies have been able to connect villages under the grid for about $1500 per house. Microgrids (with all their limitations) can sometimes do it for $700. If you consider that a household makes anywhere between $100 and $700 per year, then you see that the only way to be able to do this is with heavy subsidies (development aid) from foreign countries. And then you still need to pay for the actual power and maintain the grid. If that costs $300/household/year, and the household makes less per year, then your economics go nowhere.
One more thing: A related problem that affects the same population is that of clean cooking. Poor people (women) cook on wood or charcoal instead of electricity or gas. Arguably this is the worst problem in the world (yes worse than war, natural disasters, HIV, Malaria and all other diseases together) as millions of people die from it each year. Solutions are similar: Selling small gas stoves.
Tl dr; The real problem with energy poverty is that the people it is trying to reach are unimaginably poor. Way poorer than that great grandfather of yours that grew up in poverty. Solve poverty and you solve energy.
It is not so simplistically true. This is what Reaganomics will want you to believe. Examples abound of companies that did not prioritise shareholder returns over everything. Companies are organisations that operate within a society and therefore have a role to play to keep that society together.
There are (very limited) lawful structures that try to make this happen, but much more is down to culture. In many (most?) countries it is considered shameful if a company prioritises shareholder value above everything else. I honestly believe the US is an exception in this regard. Unfortunately US culture is taking over.
- And now to go on a complete tangent: In the second part of "The Three Body Problem" trilogy, The Dark Forest, institutions are described that have both an operational officer and a political officer. The navy has an Admiral that decides the strategy, and a political officer that makes sure the Navy does the right thing. The same is then applied to companies. - I wonder if this is a model to apply to a capitalist society: Where you have a CEO doing their regular thing, but also a political officer making sure society is not disadvantaged. Hard to pull off without falling into totalitarianism I guess.
And the production of these drugs is still illegal, which has led to a big increase in (the wealth of) organised crime, similar to how the Maffia was spawned during the prohibition.
I am not joking. In the Netherlands a druglord has ordered the assassination of one of its most famous journalists, and has blackmailed one of the most renowned lawyers to break the law. The netherlands exports $20bn (!!!) worth of MDMA and XTC per year. Where do you think these criminal instutions come from?
But even then, given a large universe, why would this be mathematically impossible? If galaxies formed evenly everywhere, couldn't this have happened by coincidence? Which theory is violated here?
Sorry my knowledge is a limited "The great courses Cosmology" course from 2009