When discussing the Soviet Union, and more specifically Russia, you have to also consider the beginning point as well. It should be noted how far behind Russia was compared to the rest of Europe in 1918. Coming out of abject serfdom bordering on generalized slavery, they actually made tremendous progress in both abstract metrics and tangible result in quality of life up until the late 50′s or early 60′s. Over time that then declined.
In any case, to an extent their G was “production”, measurable production, in the sample case: nails. Their G was not the market value of nails, their G was “progress through central planning”, but they didn’t know how to measure “progress” except through the early-capitalist metrics of “production”. Thus: produce more = progress, in their practice.
Our G is GDP. People seem so happy with our GDP, without reflecting on things like income disparity, striation of wealth, etc. If we allow it, we can G* ourselves into a mutant 3rd world nation, with great GDP performance but declining quality of life generally. G is quality of life. Economists, and lay people, generally equate the two, and the correlate generally, but they are not irrevocably entangled.
simplyeric
There are conflicting issues though. There are studies (that I read years ago, and have no link to) that show that consistency is better… that consistent low-level caffeine drinkers are more alert than their non-caffeine colleagues, but less jittery than high-caffeine people (optimum seemed to be 2-3 cups per day).
Associated with that would be method of consumption: concentrated does (espresso) v. sipping american coffee over an afternoon. Using is in a “targeted” manner might fail you: If you are not particularly used to the effects and suddenly drink coffee for short term memory reasons, you might not get the desired result because you’d be too “hepped-up” (to use the technical term...ha!).
If you ARE used to drinking coffee, and suddenly avoid it for long term learning reasons, you might be either sleepy or hit withdrawal.
As an anecdotal comparison: my father has been a computer programmer since back in the day when there was no such thing as “software”. He changed vacuum tubes...and went with it through I am not even sure how many iterations. He was still doing pramming until he retired last year. He, cliche-edly, can barely program a VCR (blinking noon for 6 years...) On another note, I teach the use of software for architects (it’s a side thing I do), and I watch students try to come to grips with modes of thought they are not familiar with (vector based v. raster images, for example). I can sit and watch a person freeze solid in dismay when I’ve asked them to do something I’ve seen them do dozens of times within the last hour. Sometimes it’s not an issue of “being” clueless as it is “feeling” clueless. A student who has done a task recently is not actually clueless when flummoxed by something he/she has done before, nor is my father actually clueless about VCR’s. But they definitely feel clueless.
Behavioraly the result is the same: inaction or incorrect action. But the source is different.
Point taken about evidence of predictive value v. random chance. Just to clarify, the intellectual exercise was more in the lines of, rather than taking an astrology book and seeing if what it says is predictive v. chance, let’s rephrase the question: The question not as “is Astrology real or correct”, it becomes “could time of birth affect development, apart from seasonal effects?”. (why day or hour of birth, from year to year, might matter). Then the exercise leads to “could planetary alignment (gravitational changes, electrical fields, etc.) have subtle and predictive effects on personality or development?” And that is where I hit “who am I to say” seeing as that’s not my area of knowledge, and I have not come across any studies that might have analyzed that either way. Maybe it’s because some proto-analysis suggests that it’s not “worth” studying because there’s nothing to study (fields from high-tension power lines affecting development, possibly), but maybe the “worth” is more monetary: who’s going to bother funding it? a. it seems ridiculous, b. it would be really really hard = expensive, c. the effect might be there but too subtle for us to measure at this time. Anyway, I’m in no way a proponent of astrology, just relaying a process that seemed a rational exploration at the time.
As a point withiin the greater whole, I don’t think that the security requirements of photovoltaics are the same as those for a nuclear reactor. Also, security difference between “spent” photovoltaic cells v. spent nuclear fuels?
In any case, the overarching point: “you wouldn’t believe the amount of nonsense that can be disposed of simply by looking up the relevant numbers and doing a minute’s worth of easy arithmetic.” turns out to not be so simple, because there are a lot of issues involved. There’s the issue of disposal, which you show a link to, but you don’t seem to have incorporated those numbers. There’s the issue of how much taxpayer money goes into scrambling jets near Indian Point each time alerts are raised, etc.
The calculation clearly isn’t easy in the present, and also does not incorporate the cost/benefits analysis of focusing on photvoltaics because ultimately they will almost certainly be more efficient (your efficiency/production rates for existing infrastructure doesn’t reflect changes and advances in technology, of which there are many).
In short, “easy arithmetic” isn’t always so easy.
I’m atheistically agnostic about astrology...”I doubt it, but who am I to say?”. As in intellectual exercise once I tried to come up with a plausible mechanism for how astrology might happen.
Who’s to say that planetary alignment could not in fact subtly effect protein expression or the development of neuroligcal systems during very critical stages of cell division and development in the embryo? To be clear, I don’t really buy it, but with a little imagination.....
Another thing to calculate on the cost of nuclear power:
photovoltaics don’t have evacuation plans, labled evacuation routes, large government monitoring safety boards, or National Guard/Air Force aerial defense concerns.
It’s hard to look up data on so-called “externalities” like that.
“Okay, but there’s one innocent interpretation even here. People learn language, and when we learn language we copy the verbal behavior of other people.
This is not innocent! Just because everyone does it, doesn’t make it okay. You can’t trust your instincts! ….”
We have to be careful about the notion of “can’t trust your instincts.” There is a fundamental process of language aquisition I think we’d be hard pressed to deny. This is similar to learning about thermodynamics. The first word we know is “mommy” (often, +/-). At this stage, and for a long time, we don’t understand what it really means, this concept of “mother” (and many of us never will). How is that different than “conduction”? You have to start somewhere, and necessarily small.
On the other hand, the notion in teaching that you have succeeded if they know the passwords is insidious and lazy. The big password fetish nowadays is standardized tests: if the students test well, then you’ve succeeded in teaching them well. It’s passwords with no follow-up, no synthesis.