sdunwoody

Using a custom library over Bootstrap would potentially offer them the following benefits:

* Full control over browser support (Government Agencies are likely to have to support older browser than Bootstrap for example would support).

* Full control over accessibility (as far as I know, Bootstrap is not entirely accessible).

* Ability to limit customisation to more closely fit any government style guide etc.

* Not needing to update the version they are using whenever Twitter drop support for older versions, as they completely control the development life cycle and how long they support each version for.

Possibly some other ones I have missed as well.

Would they have saved money in the long term by using Bootstrap? Quite possibly (although I think it is hard to say definitively, and I really doubt creating this library cost significant amounts of money).

Would using Bootstrap have resulted in sites that didn't look as nice? I highly suspect so.

I think we're very fortunate in the UK to have a great mix of wind/solar/tidal to utilise for power generation (although I don't think solar is as appropriate for our situation as wind or tidal). TBH I really wish our politicans would actually do more to advance both wind and tidal generation in this country.

But it still doesn't significantly help countries like Belgium or the Netherlands, or even Germany.

I'm actually very interested to see how Germany tried to decarbonise over the next couple of decades, as I think they've managed to get most of the low hanging fruit (for example, from what I've read, I don't think there's really anymore space for them to install offshore turbines without quite significant difficulties).

No offence taken, I'm happy to learn! It seems like I need to go and do more reading about this.

I suppose efficiency aside, the next big problem(s) would be of a political nature? Having no control over your power supply (which is hosted in a foreign nation) is quite a big geopolitical risk?

Let's take the UK as an example.

Densely populated, so there's not lots of "dark barren" land.

Energy consumption rises considerably in the winter, just as sunlight hours reduce, and the weather gets cloudier.

Even assuming there was lots of free surface area, I would assume that the extra number of panels would far exceed 20-30% when you consider the disparity in energy consumption alongside when it happens (after the sun sets, and before it rises).

The only way it would work is with a very large surplus of panels (quite how large I can only guess, but 20-30% seems incredibly optimistic to me), alongside a very significant storage mechanism. And even then, I'm not sure if that would insure against a severe cold patch coinciding with a few days of cloudly, dark weather.

Some countries yes, but what about others? The UK, Ireland, the Baltics (I was thinking of the Netherlands and Belgium too, although they don't strictly fit in the definition apparently) - not all of these countries have oil reserves or good sources of hyrdo/geothermal electricity.

I'm not an expert at all when it comes to this sort of stuff, but don't you lose quite a high percentage of the electricity generated when you move it over the vast distances needed for that to work?

Solar doesn't work that well the further you get from the equator.

Nortern Europe? Freezing in the winter (so lots of heating necessitating more electricity), and generally poor weather, plus the daylight hours can be incredibly short.

I'm not sure how solar works in places like this unless you massively overbuild (not exactly appealing, efficient, or environmentally friendly), and/or rely on electricity transported over vast distances (which I understand is not particularly viable).

Not a scientific achievement, but doesn't the Sagrada Família count?

"On 19 March 1882, construction of the Sagrada Família began ... It was anticipated that the building would be completed by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death, but this has now been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Continuing construction (admittedly not continuosly) for roughly 150 years is pretty impressive in my opinion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia

There's obviously room for improvement here too yes.

Although I really really doubt anyone here would be arrested for having a doze on the pavement.

So I think the problem there is that the root causes of homelessness need addressing.

Moving all these people to a different city/town/location is not "solving" the issue.

I find it really nasty.

I visited Los Angeles a couple of years back, one of the first places we went was a McDonalds. Some guy was dozing sat at a table (with a coffee in front of him). A cop came up to him and told him he'd be reprimanded if he caught him napping like that again.

In all my life living in the UK I've honestly never witnessed something like that. It may seem minor, but seeing an armed cop come up to someone and reprimand them for dozing off? I have no idea why a waiter couldn't have dealt with that. It's not like the McDonalds was even full or anything.

On top of this, the advertising boards saying stuff like "No homeless shelter in our community, keep it safe!" was just completely lacking in compassion.

I think a lot of people out there just don't see homeless people as deserving of empathy. At least, that's the impression I get.

I also find it profoundly ironic that America is supposedly the "land of the free", but you can get arrested/in trouble for:

- Drinking in public (even in parks or at the beach) - Sleeping in public (apparently) - Jaywalking - Eating on public transport

I just don't understand all these weird and arbitrary rules they have out there.

This whole thing is pretty depressing (and would make me pretty angry if I lived in the USA).

But I was even a bit shocked in the first paragraph:

>He woke up to a police officer arresting him for violating the city’s ban on lying down in public places.

Is that legitimately something that can happen? If so, find it mind boggling that you could be arrested in America for falling asleep on the pavement/sidewalk!?

You could hold a similar debate on every service the government currently provides, and you would essentially end up with toll roads everywhere and parents having to pay exorbitant amounts to educate their children properly.

The BBC is similar to these things in the sense that it provides good value for the taxpayer, and contributes quite significantly to society (even if it doesn't directly effect you in the sense of you consuming their content regularly).

The BBC would face significant cuts if that was the case. It would likely end up at a point where the quantity and quality of content was reduced due to less revenue, which then would cause additional people to cancel subscriptions.

This would be quite damaging for the UK as the BBC is a great way of projecting soft power, plus it provides quite a lot of great resources (as has been pointed out in other comments).

I'd be more in favour of a system like Germany has to be honest.

Not read the article, but as a political aside, the licence fee is a big subject of debate here at the moment.

It was designed so that the BBC essentially had independence from the government, and as such, they could more easily be politically neutral (if they were funded directly by the government, there would be more pressure for them to cover the government favourably in news programs etc.).

Problem is that these days the licence fee is outdated with lots of people just watching Netflix/Amazon etc.

A lot of the "right wing" here also think the BBC has a left wing bias, which I think is a bit ridiculous really, as a lot of the "left wing" also think it has a right wing bias. But the consequence of this is that a lot in the current government want to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee. This would basically mean that there is no consequence to not paying the licence fee, and assuming the government didn't come up with an alternative way of funding it, it would amount to death by a thousand cuts for the BBC (which a lot of right wingers are actually quite open about wanting).

It's quite a tough problem in my opinion. Direct funding from the government would solve a lot of problems, but also make political impartiality a lot more difficult to achieve. A direct subscription like for Netflix would likely result in a significant drop in revenue.

Hard to see a good solution here.

I'm not a military expert, but from what I've read (and watched) my understanding is that the "Seoul sea of fire" scenario is slightly over-egged for the following reasons:

- NK has a LOT of artillery, but the majority of this artillery doesn't actually have the range to target Seoul from within NK.

- To significantly damage Seoul, NK would have to concentrate most of the necessary artillery into a rather small area. That would make the artillery easy for the south to target, and difficult for the north to mobilise away quickly (say if they needed to retreate for whatever reason). It would also leave this force more vulnerable to something like an encirclement.

- Assuming hostilities are unavoidable, there would be little military benefit to NK doing this. It would leave military assets in the south free to retaliate in any way they see fit rather than having to recoup from damage a bombardment would bring. It would also further jeapordise any attempts for a peace settlement, or international aid (which NK would surely need due to its military inferiority when compared with the south).

- It is likely that the north would be unable to hold the border for that long, and would be pushed back, so any potential artillery barrage wouldn't last for long.

- NK has a very weak airforce compared to the south, so the amount of functional artillery it could field would drop quite quickly due to airstrikes.

That said, Seoul being targeted is a terrifying prospect, and it would likely happen in a conflict, but I think you are slightly overstating this scenario.

Also, any attack on Seoul would also hurt the economy of SK yes, but a war with the north probably wouldn't last long enough for that to be a factor (although admittedly this is hard to predict with any certainty). And even if the souths economy contracted, say, 50%, it is still larger than the north by an order of magnitude).

I think you're right that most people are talking about different levels. What frustrates me often is that when a UBI is discussed, very rarely do amounts seem to be discussed; whether in terms of montly payments, or overall cost of implementing such a system.

In terms of £400 a month. I think that is feasible (although still a very large amount of money!).

Although £400 isn't enough to live on, at all (I'm not sure if that's what you mean in your reply, or whether you're talking about 1000/mo?). It could still have other benefits - reducing poverty, allowing for extra leisure time, more risk taking in terms of setting up businesses etc.

I'd be much more open to a lower level of UBI than something that is "enough to live on without working". I think any large UBI just becomes incredibly difficult to fund.

Just in terms of the UK budget (as in my example above), the welfare and pensions budget accounts for about £220 billion a year:

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2018UKbt_17...

Let's be generous and round it up to £250 billion, as some other savings might possibly be made in other areas.

The total government spending each year is £842 billion, and the cost of the UBI above (£1,000 a month) is £636 billion.

We're still about £380 billion short ... not far off half the current government budget.

Your point about cities is a good one, but I think this would actually increase the cost. It would be pretty difficult to live on £1,000 a month anywhere, but it would be impossible in some cities (definitely London!).

And while your point on revenue from other sources is valid, as VAT is about 20% here, I imagine the extra returns would be marginal.

Infact, when you consider reduced income taxes through some choosing to cut back on work/not-work, you might see these gains completely negated.

I'm not necessarily saying a UBI is a bad idea in and of itself, but it just seems impossible to implement a decent UBI due to budgetary constraints (it seems unfeasible to me).

You could feasibly pay out a UBI of something like £400 a month if you just replaced the current welfare budget with a UBI, but £400 a month isn't much, and this also ignores the fact that this would massively disadvantage people who were previously reliant on the welfare system for all of their income (perhaps due to inability to work).

I really don't think enough thought goes into the affordability of a UBI when it comes up in discussions.

Just a quick estimate, assuming that we're talking about the UK here

The UBI pays out to 53,000,000 people (very roughly the number of people 18 and over).

The amount the UBI pays out is £1,000 a month (whether you could really live on this is debateable, but it's certainly not possible in most of London for example).

53,000,000 * £1000 = £53,000,000,000 (£53 billion) monthly cost

53,000,000,000 * 12 (months) = £636,000,000,000 (£636 billion) yearly cost

Bear in mind the entire UK budget for 2018 was £842 billion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_Kingdom_budget

Infact, if you break this down to local/national spending, the national government budget for 2018 was £652 billion:

https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/year_spending_2018UKbt_17...

So a UBI would cost pretty much as much as the entire UK national budget (healthcare, education, defence, infrastructure, welfare etc.)

I'm all for increasing taxes, but assuming that you replaced welfare with a UBI, you'd still have a (roughly) £400 billion shortfall - just where does that money come from?

It's affordable at a lesser amount, sure, but at that sort of level, what's the point?

This is before even getting to other arguements (if you want to use it to replace a welfare system, then in my opinion, it's essentially a regressive scheme, because everyone is getting the same payout, regardless of need).

I think by saying "you can't afford to build infrastructure where it's not crowded", he actually means that it's not affordable because the ridership will be too low, so it's not really viable in that sense.

I think a lot of people are incorrectly identifying this as a good thing.

Really, this is an unprecedented phenomenon in recorded human history.

The entire social structure of basically every country on the planet is completely unprepared for the challenges that a rapidly aging popuation will bring. The effects won't be felt for decades after the change begins, and once it starts in earnest, it will prove very difficult to reverse in any short timescale.

It will become a sort of feedback loop - fewer people have children, so the capacity for children in the next generation is reduced. Because the retiree/worker ratio has now increased, the young people there are, are unable to afford having children, and so on.

Even with massive increases in productivity, you would see economies contracting. Ending up in a deflationary trap with increasing (and unsustainable) debt.

I see these kind of statements so often:

"AI will solve this problem" - really? The World Bank development report 2019 (https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2019) basically comes to the conclusion that "while automation displaces workers, technological innovation creates more new industries and jobs on balance". This has been the case for centuries now.

Automation causing mass unemployment always seems right around the corner, yet never comes. I'm confident that we're now in the "trough of disillusionment" when it comes to progress on AI. Things like self driving cars for example are much more complex than we had considered.

"This is good for the environment" - It might not be though; the economic issues caused by aging populations could lead countries to take exploitative short-term decisions; converting rainforests to farmland, using cheaper means of generating electricity (that also prove to be more damaging to the environment) for example.

It is generally more expensive to be green (in the environmental sense).

The competition for immigration (which seems like an inevetable outcome in this scenario) could also destabilise certain countries, with potentially dire outcomes.

"It will reduce inequality" - Japan is ahead of the curve on the whole aging population front, and the average wages there have basically stagnated for the past two decades: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/wage-growth even as the number of employed people has stagnated/fallen: https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/employed-persons

I think the keys to this are: - Why are people having fewer children? If it's a genuine choice, then of course this is acceptable. But I think often the number of children people want to have is actually higher than the number they feel they are able to support due to economic (and other) reasons: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2016/08/27/the-empty-crib - If the retiree/worker ratio is going to increase, and life expectancy is going to increase, then how can we manage this in a way that puts minimal pressure on health and social care systems? - Are there any other ways we can prepare economically/socially for a society with an inverse population pyramid (I personally think this is a very, very difficult problem to solve, but would love to be proved wrong) - How do we manage depopulation of specific communities? This is a problem that Spain is currently experiencing (e.g. it is more economical to forcibly move people away from communities that are dying out and no longer economically viable)

I'm not sure about France, but it's rare to have air con in the UK because the summers aren't hot enough :) I think a lot of Europe is similar in this regard (with the exception being the south).

Even if France does have a reasonable number of air con units installed, I would expect energy consumption to be higher in the winter due to shorter days etc. It would be good to see statistics though.

Please forgive me if this is a stupid question - but is heavily investing in solar electricity a good idea in Europe considering the variation in climate throughout the year?

Energy demand is highest in the Winter, when mean monthly sunshine hours are at the lowest.

Even in Nice (the very south of France) where I assume this difference would be smaller, there's still a big gap between 347.5 mean hours in July and 139.3 mean hours in December (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nice#Climate).

Surely we'd need to heavily invest in backup generation capacity that would be dormant for the vast majority of the summer then heavily in use over the winter?

Admittedly I have a very limited amount of knowledge in this area - but wouldn't wind or tidal power generation be a better bet here (well, Europe anyway)?