Orf wiv their 'eads [2]
Aug. 9th, 2006 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyMy post on capital punishment the other day appears to have sparked a fair old debate, which is always gratifying. It's interesting to note that the pro/anti camp on the poll seems fairly evenly split, which surprised me considering that LJ tends to be the natural environment of the woolly lefty and led to me thinking that the atavistic human desire for revenge is quite strong across the population.
After consideration, my own opinion of the death penalty is that I'm against it; not because I consider people inherently worth saving or because I'm worried about ethical concerns of turning the state into a murderer, but simply because I reckon that giving the state the power of life and death over it's citizenry is a really bad idea which historically has gone badly wrong so often that it simply isn't worth the risk and the death penalty is just the thin end of the wedge. Let's face it - I wouldn't trust Tony and Gordon with my phone number* and so any suggestion that a legal structure giving a state with them in charge the authority to kill its people is just plain laughable.
I think that most people wouldn't argue that there are some people out there who just plain have it coming and if they were kiled by a falling piano tomorrow then the world would be a better place for it - whether or not we should go out and kill them, however, is another matter.
Last Sunday I found myself in the happy position of rowing a remarkably attractive young lady across a lake (this hasn't got much to do with my point, I just wanted to boast) and this topic of conversation came up. "Ah", she said. "What about euthanasia?"
Good point, thinks I, and the more I think about it, the better it gets, especially as the people who oppose the death penalty tend often (in my experience) to be pro-euthanasia, and vice versa.
By way of comparison: The death penalty is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical)professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who by any reasonable moral standard have really got it coming. Euthanasia is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical) professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who have, at worst, just been unlucky. The question is: is it legitimate for the state to allow the legal killing of people who've just been dealt a bum hand, but not to allow the legal killing of people who can reasonably be said to have it coming?
*Because they'd sell it to telemarketers to try and pull the Labour party out of the £14m black hole it finds itself in. Either that or John Prescott would make dirty phone calls to my sister.
After consideration, my own opinion of the death penalty is that I'm against it; not because I consider people inherently worth saving or because I'm worried about ethical concerns of turning the state into a murderer, but simply because I reckon that giving the state the power of life and death over it's citizenry is a really bad idea which historically has gone badly wrong so often that it simply isn't worth the risk and the death penalty is just the thin end of the wedge. Let's face it - I wouldn't trust Tony and Gordon with my phone number* and so any suggestion that a legal structure giving a state with them in charge the authority to kill its people is just plain laughable.
I think that most people wouldn't argue that there are some people out there who just plain have it coming and if they were kiled by a falling piano tomorrow then the world would be a better place for it - whether or not we should go out and kill them, however, is another matter.
Last Sunday I found myself in the happy position of rowing a remarkably attractive young lady across a lake (this hasn't got much to do with my point, I just wanted to boast) and this topic of conversation came up. "Ah", she said. "What about euthanasia?"
Good point, thinks I, and the more I think about it, the better it gets, especially as the people who oppose the death penalty tend often (in my experience) to be pro-euthanasia, and vice versa.
By way of comparison: The death penalty is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical)professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who by any reasonable moral standard have really got it coming. Euthanasia is a system whereby highly trained (legal and medical) professionals are given the option of ending the lives of people who have, at worst, just been unlucky. The question is: is it legitimate for the state to allow the legal killing of people who've just been dealt a bum hand, but not to allow the legal killing of people who can reasonably be said to have it coming?
*Because they'd sell it to telemarketers to try and pull the Labour party out of the £14m black hole it finds itself in. Either that or John Prescott would make dirty phone calls to my sister.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 04:28 pm (UTC)Big problem with hydrogen is transportability. It's a small molecue which likes to leak, has a propensity to go bang, and pretty ropey energy density, so as a road fuel it is a bit second rate.
Basically, mobile apps, such as automobiles & motorcycles, are much more suited to the consumer with highly energy dense, easily handled, and reasonably safe if spilled liquid fuels (like diesel oil) as they will be safer, faster, and go further between fill-ups. Anything you can get a cable to (trains, houses, trolley busses, electric chairs) or big enough to carry proper electric plant (ships) will benefit from eco-electricity.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 05:52 pm (UTC)It is possible to concentrate the solar rays onto a smaller cell using mirrors and lenses, which is being encouraged in some places, however there are huge problems with heat dissipation which deteriorates the cells faster.
PV's a lovely idea but while we're still using the silicon based cells that were designed over 40 years ago we're not going to get anywhere.
Additionally, unless you can find a way of pumping energy around the world from the Sahara it's only going to benefit those locally, largely only during daylight hours as you would not be able to store as much as you could harness with a power-station sized grid.
(My dissertation was concentration of PV)
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 06:13 pm (UTC)And solar satellites with microwave receiving stations on Earth has to be abhorrently expensive, and a cost to communications.
Solar - big fan of solar, despite its problems
Date: 2006-08-09 06:08 pm (UTC)1. Care & maintenance so one doesn't lose efficiencies due to grime, grit, and dust. Supporting components may be particularly prone to failure (the plastic frames from heat & cold, the steel frames from salt & rust).
2. Weather - the Sahara is notorious for the Harmatan...besides actual occasional rainfall - which can create particularly hazardous landscape changes.
3. Energy inefficiency due to the heat.
4. Distance from market...great local & rural solution though.
5. Night-time energy storage challenges. Batteries promote hazardous chemicals use, and are heavy & expensive; hydrogen is attractive, but has other limits; grid 'storage' is best for built-up economies, and requires massive regional/global gridding. Flywheels are expensive, and not particularly great at small scales, afaik.
6. DC/AC inverter efficiences have improved considerably, thankfully - but add to the capital cost of the system.
In fairer climates, many of these problems remain, and are traded for others.
As for the accompanying efficiencies of smart passive solar design, solar boiler, solar ovens etc. - we face the dilemma of the built environment we already have, and the costs of modifying that.
re: hydrogen - two thoughts: one, there's quite a lot of interesting work on solid-state room temperature hydrogen, binding it to various metal powders (but will come at expense of emissions); plus 'second rate' transport energy is what we may have to get ready to accept. Though I don't think BMW would agree that hydrogen is a second-rate fuel.
Re: Solar - big fan of solar, despite its problems
Date: 2006-08-10 07:57 am (UTC)Based on sales volumes, for them it's third rate, after gasoline & diesel. For mid term growth, CNG & methanol both leave it for dead, so fifth rate would be my call, at least 'til 2030
Hydrogen is a tough fuel to handle. There have been musings after lithium storage for decades, but at massive mutilples of liquid fuel storage cost, and piffling fractions of the energy density, coupled with refuel times in hours not seconds. There were even proposals to use demountable energy skids (so you refuel your car with a forklift) to overcome the low filling rate.
On the plus side, it 'goes away' pretty quickly if you have a leak, instead of hanging round killing fish.
With vegetable oil yields at around 60 gallons to the acre (75 US gallons) we can't grow all the oil we need either. Check "The search for energy" in here:
http://www.sae.org/automag/techbriefs/05-2006/1-114-5-20.pdf
Sadly, sunny places are run in general by nasty little men with a penchant for blowing stuff up, and whilst technology marches relentlessly forwards, civilisation is doing precisely the opposite in the places where the sun do shine.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-09 06:17 pm (UTC)Can a Corrections institution claim 'ethical executions'? ;-)