Sustainable development

[Jake_Ellison]

May I make a suggestion? Start a new thread on whether Kant was immoral or just plain wrong.

Naah, starting a thread about how evil Kant is on an Objectivist forum would be a bit clichéd, especially since I don't have all that much to say about it, that wasn't said in all the threads already made about Kant. Most of the things said contradict your position, so, if you prefer to comment in those threads rather than this one (since this is about bulbs and filaments and whatnot), there's plenty of stuff for you to argue against there. Or start a thread yourself, defending Kant. Now that would be a brand new type of animal. (I think)

[JMeganSnow]

If you get 120V lamps at the hardware store, they last just as long as the curly ones, with a much warmer and more natural light - without the eye damaging occilations that fluorescent lights have . The 120V industrial bulbs have a heavier tungsten filament; incidentally, they are not considered Hazardous Waste when broken.

I wasn't saying that they're the best product out there by any standards, I'm saying that I happen to like them. They're fairly inexpensive (not like the $40 per lamp on the 120V's I just looked up), they're nice and bright for the areas where I want them, and I, personally, have absolutely no problems with headaches or eyestrain from fluorescent lights. If I did, I'd be dead by now, because I've lived and worked in a variety of windowless caves with nothing but fluorescent illumination for pretty much all of my life.

[Robert J. Kolker]

Naah, starting a thread about how evil Kant is on an Objectivist forum would be a bit clichéd, especially since I don't have all that much to say about it, that wasn't said in all the threads already made about Kant. Most of the things said contradict your position, so, if you prefer to comment in those threads rather than this one (since this is about bulbs and filaments and whatnot), there's plenty of stuff for you to argue against there. Or start a thread yourself, defending Kant. Now that would be a brand new type of animal. (I think)

I am not going to defend Kant. The major concept at the basis of his Critique of Pure Reason, the apodictic synthetic apiriori judgment is bogus. This is where I parted company with Kant. I have no interest whatsoever in his moral, ethical or religious philosophy. I have no time to waste on bogosity. In addition to the incoherence of the synthetic apriori, his thesis that the axioms of geometry (which is to say Euclidean geometry) are necessarily true is bogus. Kant was unaware of the development (during his lifetime) of non-Euclidean geometries that are just as consistent as Euclidean geometry. So on a purely factual level, Kant's suppositions are shown to be false. To put a point on it, Kant's philosophy is broken. Kant also made a similar assertion about Newton's theory of motion, that it was based on necessarily true axioms. Once again, an error. Newtonian mechanics, while useful as an approximation is false to fact. Velocities do not add, as is required in a Galilean Invariant theory nor are Newton's force laws entirely consistent with electrodynamics. The problem was solved by Einstein in 1905. Furthermore, Newton's law of Universal Gravitation is empirically false, as is demonstrated by the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury. Once again, Kant's premises have been falsified. So there is no point defending his philosophy. It is wrong.

I think this is just about all I wish to say about Kant, so let this posting close the issue for us.

Bob Kolker

[Steve D'Ippolito]

3. Hydrogen powered cars. Don't know much about them, but they do seem to work.

Yes and no.

Storing the hydrogen in the car is a bit of a problem--heavy tanks needed. Or there is a technology out there that uses an aluminum alloy to "crack" water on demand, so you can burn the hydrogen--but you end up consuming the aluminum alloy, and it needs to be processed again. The logistics of removing several hundred pounds of aluminum oxide and replacing it with new aluminum alloy, every time you want a fillup, are a nightmare.

Leaving aside that technology--hydrogen gas must itself be produced, presumably by electrolyzing water. Which means electricity, which means an electric plant somewhere--a nuke, coal burner or what-have-you. This means that hydrogen will never be a *source* of energy, merely a way to store it. (Some wiseguy is going to bring up fusion but we are talking about burning it here, not fusing it.)

The hydrogen must be transported to where it is needed, a major challenge (ordinary gas pipelines won't work--the hydrogen leaks out).

But once the hydrogen gets into an engine, it's great fuel.