Discussions with Zen

[pocaracas]

Awesome concept... don't know how I could apply it at my home... maybe when the kids have grown and left...

I would suggest you implement it NOW. Mum and Dad NEED time (say about 30 mins whilst the kiddies are watching their favourite TV program) to have a discussion. Besides it would be a good influence on them (the kiddies) that males and females actually TALK to each other rather than being servants to a brood of kiddies.

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"have become", or "have always been, for the most part"?

In this day and age I am being generous and leaning towards "become"

HAHA... I still lean towards the always have been... with a few striving for something better. In relative terms, the amount of people who strive now is the same as then.... but, since there are much more people today, in absolute terms, there are more people working to advance human knowledge.

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Take away the people and the wealth that money represents will mostly go away, yes... but some will still be around.
A friend of mine once drew my attention to the fact that the value money has is mostly psychological. Money is valued because people perceive that money as something they can use to exchange for other things.
Not all money is equal.... would you accept monopoly money in exchange for your hard earned carrots?

That's the whole point. You ARE accepting monopoly $$ for you hard earned carrots. Your friend is correct (in my thinking) that $$ are psychological-idea construct and the only system we function within...take that away (people and structure) and what do you have?

You have direct trade, which sucks.
Or each person does everything for himself, which sucks.
I understand the need for a common asset/currency which intermediates the trade of goods and services. What I don't understand is the financial market, where money generates money, no goods nor services required.

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Fission and fusion rely on heating the material around with fast neutrons.

Matter/anti-matter annihilate and release only photons... in opposing directions! Look into solar sails and you'll probably come to the conclusion that photons don't give off that much power... although you should be getting the full energy of the two particles that annihilated.

There's a huge plus: no waste! everything gets turned to light.

And there's a huge con: The trouble* of handling anti-matter...

*trouble, as in amount of energy required.

This is Zen's area of interest (as I stated) apparently it is more to do with $cost$ than anything else

Fusion is becomes cost-effective, so more and more research money is being spent in it... under the promise of cleaner and long-lasting nuclear power.
In some 15 years we should have some good news from all that research... until then... we wait.

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Living in an apartment, "home garden" is something that goes missing, we do have a few pots with flowers and stuff, but nothing we can live of.
Perhaps, some day...

Even "apartment living" can yield results so think about it? Your recycling, use of electricity, purchasing locally grown food and container gardening (if you have a balcony) all help. Heck, if people can grow hydroponic marijuana why not food?

Aye, recycling, local goods, efficient electrical and gas devices... as well as rational use of water... those are default on people of my generation... I think.
The problem is, what else?!

Growing leaves for smoking isn't exactly the same as growing a lettuce, or a cabbage.

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When reasonable, I eat it... when it sounds like too much of a stretch, I try to dig deeper... take Syria... it's starting to look an awful lot like Iraq.
On the other hand, news like this, sound reasonable:
http://rt.com/news/radiation-tepco-fukushima-leak-637/

It does sound reasonable. And yes Syria is like Iraq...it's all about the oil.

Follow the money!