This is another thing Japan has implemented in certain areas. There's a supermarket near us called Trial that has this method of checkout: https://www.trial-net.co.jp/prepaid/regi-cart/
Yeah, it's really a shame that geo-engineering projects keep getting shut down. We either control the climate, or it kills people. It's that simple. Without controlling the climate you don't get to pick and choose who lives and who dies because of "nature". It's not even a coordination problem. It's a regulation problem. People don't all need to agree before progress can happen and errors can be corrected. We just need any organization to show some backbone and stop kowtowing to the suicidal environmentalists.
"Suicidal environmentalists"? What kind of preposterous position is that?
There is no known CO2 removal or capture technology currently capable of reducing levels faster and with less energy inputs than simply shutting down the current emitters.
Geo-engineering is essential, but stopping emissions is even more so.
More to the point, geo-engineering is guaranteed to fail if emissions are unchecked. Whatever gains the former can offer, the latter may easily overwhelm. Our only hope is for emitting processes to become much more expensive than non-emitting alternatives. Fortunately we are on that path, although entrenched interests force emitting processes to continue well beyond economic rationality. E.g., new coal burning infrastructure being built even now.
Yes. It's one of the few countries where citizens are protected from the government. This means anyone can make huge mistakes, and it's viewed as immoral to stop them. Myopically, it drives a politics of fear and control ('Won't someone please think of the children [who we don't consider people with rights, so as to individually choose not to go to school, for example]'). Long term, America has provided more progress to the world in terms of ideas, technology, knowledge, than any other community in human history. It also means that they are free to make ideological mistakes, no one is embraced to say their opinion even if it's wrong. This is a Tradition of Criticism, and it extends to the West in general, but is exemplified by America (Hollywood, US media, etc). All progress comes from criticism. America is 'exceptional', but with that power comes great responsibility--something recent generations don't seem to want. So, giving up rights, puts the responsibility in some other's hand--an appeal to authority. This has lead to a great culture of pessimism. I hope that will end soon and more American's will be optimistic and proud of their responsibility to infinite knowledge growth through a Tradition of Criticism.
Conversely, the EU is one of the few economies where citizens are protected from abuse by corporations. In America, mostly we're not. Choose your poison.
Claim 1: bubbles are natural, that doesn't mean that underlying solutions are wrong, just that not all speculators are right or understand the problems being solved.
Claim 2: Google 'Bitcoin Spacechains'
Claim 3: On a long enough time scale all discoveries are minor, this is what it means to always be optimistically solving problems at the beginning of infinity.
All value is explanatory, that is, even if it has "intrinsic value" like carbohydrates in ATP in a cell, it is still knowledge instantiated for a resilient purpose (eg to power a cell to replicate its knowledge).
As explanations change, value changes, so anything can be a currency at the level of the individual--in this way, at least for conscious minds, a public monopoly on money is, while possible, morally wrong. It's a form of Marxism.
There's already been a solution the problem of state monopoly on symbolic abstractions for value (money), that started with Bitcoin and has been growing a new global economy since 2009.
What do you mean by, 'Try paying your taxes in BTC ...' ?
In USA, sales taxes are paid to government by the vendor. As just a typical person in USA who does not work for federal government nor reside in D.C., sales taxes and property taxes are all that I (implicitly) pay. The vendor and I determine amount and type of my payment.
Your comment had a threatening tone implying something bad may happen. What is the lurking threat?
Many people don't qualify to pay 'income' tax, but most people just think they have to do it. And employers withhold it from wage slave paychecks, which does make it challenging to opt out.
Definitely possible to not have what is known as wage income. Many do it. The super rich structure their affairs to avoid being in that system of voluntary contributions.
