What is "evil"

[Seattleite]

BTG, stop posting on serious topics. You're making it clear you believe EVERYTHING the Koch brothers want you to, and never do any research.

 

By your own logic, and seriously, do the math on this, a solar cell powering a house would have to cover the entire city block in order to work. In REALITY, a place you've clearly never been, solar cells don't even cover the entire roof of the house, and they DO provide enough power to run most places through the night. Solar cells are 20-25% efficient, and a 1m square (a single, very small panel) generally produces an average of 200-300w per hour of daylight. Most houses with panels have 20+ square metres of solar panels. I think you can do that math yourself, but in case you're too retarded that's 4-6kw of power. That's considerably more than you can actually use, so it can store some for night, and for days with rain, snow or heavy cloud cover. Granted, it's not so effective where I live, we don't get enough sunlight, but in places such as Nevada it'll work perfectly fine.

 

Hydroelectric has much less environmental impact than you think, it's a rather hefty amount of my state's power and the environmental repercussions are very small compared to the world-killing effects of YOUR pet industry.

 

Geothermal... Actually, until technology considerably improves, you're right about this.

 

Wind is NOT expensive, it NEVER draws ANY power, and it's NOT noisy. My aunt has a wind turbine in front of her house as her PRIMARY power supply, and I can't remember the thing EVER making ANY sound. The thing wasn't cheap, no, but it has needed upkeep a grand total of once and for less than a hundred dollars in the two years it's been there. Not to mention the blades spin slowly and do NOT cause issues with airborne animals because airborne animals because even birds are not stupid enough to fly into the very slow moving blade.

 

Biofuel works just fine, it just doesn't work in an engine or generator not specifically built for it. The big issue is that it'd be taking space that we would prefer to use to grow food, except we don't NEED that space if we cut back on the meat a bit because the food grown there is what we're feeding to factory farm livestock. If we switched back to conventional farming for livestock we'd produce less meat, but we'd have enough space left over, after solving world hunger ON THE SPOT, to start making massive amounts of biofuel. And we'd STILL have PLENTY of meat with the livestock grazing naturally, just not as much as we have now. (Oh, perish the thought we might stop eating meat on a daily basis and go back to our healthier, more natural state of eating it only 2-3 times a week. Oh, the horror.)

 

Tidal power you're also right about, except for the claim that we lack the technology. No, we totally have the technology to do it RIGHT NOW, it's the same technology as hydroelectric with barely any adjustments, but we're not doing it because then your party's precious sponsors, like the Koch brothers, would lose SOME money. Not all their money, but SOME money, and they hate that idea no matter how good it would be for everybody else.

 

I think there's a word for that kind of obsessive, all-encompassing selfishness taken to the point of intentionally harming others to further your own goals, even if the benefits to yourself are absolutely tiny in comparison to the damage you do. I believe that word is "Evil"?

[Vapymid]

Wind as replacement for fossil fuels generation IS expensive and it doesn't work (it tends to generate best when there is no need for it). Stand-alone installations require alternative back-up (hydro or diesel) and those feeding the grid are often forced to go off-line when their output is either too high or too low (balancing problems). Of course, the green racket means that the Government must pay the wind operators *to not generate* when that happens. Oh, joy!

 

With solar on a large scale there is a similar problem - it does not generate at night, when you need the power, and there is no practical energy storage technology at the moment to make it effective.

 

Production of PV panel IS energy intensive and although they are claimed to have energy pay-back periods of 2 to 4 years these figures are seriously suspect as they don't really follow through on the entire production chain, including mining and refining the materials.

 

Bio fuels are OK in theory but in practice the bio-fuel crops displace food crops, which causes food prices to go up, especially in those places on Earth where people can least afford it.

 

Tidal power - if you use the same principles as for hydro-electric (i.e. huge dams and turbines) they are extremely disruptive to the environment. Beside the ridiculously high capital requirements this is one of the reasons why it is not being widely used.

 

The alternative tidal or wave-powered generation is in the infancy stage and a commercially-viable technology has not yet been demonstrated.

 

So, well, nuclear fission is the greenest energy source there is at the moment (pending development of fusion nuclear).

 

Regards

[Seattleite]

Love the blatant nonsense, especially towards the end.

 

Wind as replacement for fossil fuels generation IS expensive and it doesn't work (it tends to generate best when there is no need for it). Stand-alone installations require alternative back-up (hydro or diesel) and those feeding the grid are often forced to go off-line when their output is either too high or too low (balancing problems). Of course, the green racket means that the Government must pay the wind operators *to not generate* when that happens. Oh, joy!

 

We don't NEED a single power source to replace all energy production anywhere. Wind power WORKS in HUGE sections of the country, and bringing in something stupid like "the government then has to pay them to not generate" is RETARDED, because an issue like that is pretty damned easy to remove.

 

With solar on a large scale there is a similar problem - it does not generate at night, when you need the power, and there is no practical energy storage technology at the moment to make it effective.

 

BULLSHIT. We can store power JUST FINE. It's called a BATTERY. Ever heard of those? Of course you have, but you just "forgot" the second they were inconvenient to your BULLSHIT position.

 

You're as bad as BTG, you know that?

 

Production of PV panel IS energy intensive and although they are claimed to have energy pay-back periods of 2 to 4 years these figures are seriously suspect as they don't really follow through on the entire production chain, including mining and refining the materials.

 

One word: Gigafactory. Google it. It's a thing, in production RIGHT NOW by Elon Musk, that completely fucks your entire position into non-existence by allowing cheap production of the power cells that are the most expensive part of a solar panel. The rest of it is pretty cheap, actually.

 

I love how idiotic anti-green people are, where they completely forget everything about everything if it contradicts their position. Like how the price of lithium ion batteries and power cells is dropping, and is about to drop even further. Or how we're NOT talking about any ONE form of renewable energy taking over entirely, just being put in place WHERE THEY CAN to cut back on the need for non-renewable resources, and if ONE form of renewable energy doesn't work, then ANOTHER usually will, so very little of the power grid actually needs to be run off non-renewable resources.

 

Bio fuels are OK in theory but in practice the bio-fuel crops displace food crops, which causes food prices to go up, especially in those places on Earth where people can least afford it.

 

You just went full retard. I just explained why that's NOT TRUE AT ALL, ONE TINIEST FUCKING BIT, YOU FUCKING MORON. Seriously, pay attention. Most of our food production goes to feeding factory-farm livestock. If we instead switched from factory farm livestock to traditionally raised livestock, we wouldn't NEED the HUGE amount of food that goes to them, and not only would the price of food not go up anywhere but in meat, the price of ALL OTHER FOODS would PLUMMET. We would have less meat, but more grains, more vegetables, more everything that's NOT meat. We'd have enough food just by not using factory farming to solve world hunger TWICE, and the excess could be used to produce biofuel.

 

Tidal power - if you use the same principles as for hydro-electric (i.e. huge dams and turbines) they are extremely disruptive to the environment. Beside the ridiculously high capital requirements this is one of the reasons why it is not being widely used.

 

Bullshit. The issue with a river, which REALLY isn't that big, is that there's nowhere else for the water to go. Not so in the ocean. Water happily flows around on every other side except for where there'd be a funnel leading into the turbines, which is a TINY section of the ocean required and is NOT a problem.

 

The alternative tidal or wave-powered generation is in the infancy stage and a commercially-viable technology has not yet been demonstrated.

 

Funny, but do you have anything more specific? Like, what the alternative to the "turbine fans in a funnel" actually is? Because there's not a thing to say if you don't tell me WHAT the alternative to the perfectly viable technology already mentioned is, so I can't really comment on it.

 

So, well, nuclear fission is the greenest energy source there is at the moment (pending development of fusion nuclear).

 

Okay, see, I LIKE nuclear power. At least more than coal or oil. But I'd rather NOT use it if solar, wind, hydroelectric or tidal power can be used in a given area instead. As far as I'm concerned, fission is plan B. If nothing else works there, THEN put up a reactor. But HUGE sections of the country can get most or all of their power from renewable sources, our combustion cars can be converted to run biofuel (all I'd actually want biofuel for) as can the backup generators if something goes wrong, and the places that don't get high daytime sun exposure, don't have an abundance of rivers, aren't on the coast and don't get a lot of wind can run nuclear. Everyone else should just run the renewable resource(s) that work(s) in their area.

[Vapymid]

Enthusiastic ignorance is amusing but only to a point. I especially love how solving legislative corruption and politically inspired boondoggles is easy for you. Resolve the world problems twice over in one fell swoop. Go on then, what holds you up?

 

Batteries? You probably meant ultracaps? Well, maybe. On a large scale, though? Unlikely. Time will tell.

 

http://www.oxfam.org/en/grow/pressroom/pressrelease/2012-09-17/europes-thirst-biofuels-spells-hunger-millions-food-prices-shoot-up

http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/21/germanys-412-billion-green-energy-plan-meets-harsh-reality/

 

There is plenty here on possible technologies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

 

Regards

[Seattleite]

Speaking of enthusiastic ignorance, you are just exuding it right now. I particularly love how you:

A. Refuse to address the fact that we waste several times more food that would be required to solve world hunger just running factory farms, and that if we STOPPED using factory farms we could easily

B. Point to Daily Caller. Want to guess who pays for them? Right, the Koch brothers. Want to guess why? Right, because the Koch brothers have a vested interest in ensuring that clean and renewable energies and environmental studies and protection never take off, as they are busy selling non-renewable, world-killing fossil fuels.

C. Fail to provide an argument against storing electricity from solar and wind power immediately after wasting my time with semantics.

D. Put words in my mouth. I said that issues like that can be easily removed, not that *I* could easily remove them. And what's holding me up is the same thing that has kept us from adopting clean and renewable resources to begin with. That issue is money in politics. If we get money out of politics, then without our politicians being bribed most of our most obvious issues, like this bullshit, can be settled fairly rapidly. And why yes, there is work being done towards that end. For example, there's several very large movements being made to get state legislators to push for a convention of the states to pass a constitutional amendment on campaign finance reform. And if that's done, then we can cut down on political corruption and make actual progress without ridiculous crap like this.

[optimusjamie]

Guys, can we not turn it into a political debate? I only used it as a test case for my definition of evil- intentionally causing unnecessary harm. Now whilst I happen to think that pollution comes very close to that definition, it was only a test case.

[ThePest179]

Guys, can we not turn it into a political debate? I only used it as a test case for my definition of evil- intentionally causing unnecessary harm. Now whilst I happen to think that pollution comes very close to that definition, it was only a test case.

 

I'm pretty sure the horse is out of the barn on that one.

[Seattleite]

Guys, can we not turn it into a political debate? I only used it as a test case for my definition of evil- intentionally causing unnecessary harm. Now whilst I happen to think that pollution comes very close to that definition, it was only a test case.

 

I'm pretty sure the horse is out of the barn on that one.

 

And across the pasture, and down the road.

[Alyxx Thorne]

Seattleite, tone down your language, please... flaming is not tolerated...

[Doom Shepherd]

He's been using his Koch so much that it's gotten all kinda Soros.

[dashofweak]

We still haven't discussed fully what evil is. This energy talk has been fascinating but it is for a different board, make a new thread or find an older one to debate this but this thread is for the topic of evil. And I can think of no better company to talk about when talking about evil: Wal-Mart

[Jeb_CC]

Evil is a sort of perspective thing i guess? What I see as evil, may not be the same thing as what YOU see as evil. Evil is just a term we use for people or things we dislike, like how we call things 'good' or 'bad'. Are they ACTUALLY good? Are they ACTUALLY bad?

[BTGBullseye]

It's all in the intention... You can turn bad into good, and vice versa...

[Rocket Propelled Gordon]

Is it considered evil if I kill merely for war? None will know; all I know is that I have a creeping feeling that morality issues with the world may stagger my opportunities as a born commander to conquer the world. My aching trigger finger aside, my opinion is that if you are killing for the good of your country, (even if you are starting your own country! ) it's morally okay. Atleast, for me.

[BTGBullseye]

It depends all on the intention. If you intend good, and do what you can to achieve it, then it wouldn't necessarily be evil.

[ShakyOregon]

I feel like I have to agree with seattleite on everything because Im from western WA.

[Xanthien]

Is it considered evil if I kill merely for war? None will know; all I know is that I have a creeping feeling that morality issues with the world may stagger my opportunities as a born commander to conquer the world. My aching trigger finger aside, my opinion is that if you are killing for the good of your country, (even if you are starting your own country! ) it's morally okay. Atleast, for me.

 

You're a troll, right? There are numerous examples about how killing for your country is NOT morally excusable. I hate to get all godwinny, but Nazi Germany is an excellent example of this. Also there is no such thing as "killing merely for war", wars have a cause of action behind them that either is or isn't morally justifiable.

[dashofweak]

It depends all on the intention. If you intend good, and do what you can to achieve it, then it wouldn't necessarily be evil.

 

Just beware about good intentions, even the best intentions can lead to some of the most horrible evils a person can imagine. Trying to achieve something "good" by extreme means is the fastest way to "fight a war for peace" as it were. So your intentions don't mean you're free from evil, it just means you think you are which is far more dangerous than actually knowing that your actions are wrong. This is why evil is very very tricky, because the way that I see it there is only one way to be good: doing a good/neutral act with human/good (i really need to find a good synonym for good) means. Otherwise if you do a good act via evil means, well usually it's considered bad, like killing a living human being who deals drugs in order to slow down drug dealing. Or perhaps you're doing an evil act via good means, like feeding an entire town in order to raise a local militia (i'm thinking countries that are unstable here).

[BTGBullseye]

And therein lies the problem, it's not just intentions, but how you go about acting on the intentions.

 

It's quite obvious that we don't have the words in the English language to accurately depict the difference.

[dashofweak]

It's quite obvious that we don't have the words in the English language to accurately depict the difference.

 

I don't think it's just English that has that limitation, but ya, I agree with what you're saying here.