You are probably thinking in terms of graphics but don't forget that more powerful consoles provide "horsepower" that can be used for any number of things like better AI, VR headsets, speech recognition, multitasking and so on. A lot of people seem to argue that we have good enough graphics and therefore do not need more powerful machines but this ignores all of the other things that more powerful processors etc. can be used for.

The Golden Age of Netflix was the DVD service roughly 5 years or so after it was started. At that point, you had a relatively cheap service with fast delivery times and the content selection was incredible -- you could watch nearly every single movie or tv show that had been released on DVD (I actually read once that Netflix had at least one copy of every North American release). Yes, quite a few people missed out on this time so for those people, they consider streaming to be a "golden age" but I greatly preferred the DVD age since the selection was incredible.

The reality is that most people don't want to spend the time or effort to accomplish [insert random thing here]...and even if they did want to spend the time or effort, some things are unaffordable or impossible. Consider...

1) Think about having sex with some person (movie star, model, celebrity)
2) Have VR sex with some person (movie star, model, celebrity)
3) Try to actually meet the movie star, model, celebrity and have sex with them

I have a feeling that most people are going to choose the second option instead of the other two.

Is the robot going to spend its wages at this fast food restaurant or any other fast food restaurant? If we all lost our jobs to automation, how exactly are we going to pay the automaton at the counter?

In all seriousness, what exactly was it that you were trying to say? Are you for minimum wage, no minimum wage, more automation? I couldn't follow. For example, what does this mean?

Are you saying they need more than $15 per hour, or between $5 and $15 or something else?

Do these sort of people consider softcore nude content (thinking of something like Playboy) as also dangerous or are they referring specifically to actual hardcore pornography? I'd be curious if any research has ever been done on more softcore stuff (like topless photos, lingerie photos etc.) Are there actually Doctors/Psychologists etc. that consider that sort of softcore stuff as being dangerous as well? I'm curious as I normally assume they are referring to hardcore stuff.

I just had to highlight these...

I'm not sure if any of us can determine how difficult/bad any sort of labor/job is for anybody else. I think that might have been the entire problem originally..."It's not that bad..."

Uh...so what? There's probably more scientifically correct stuff in Star Trek...does that tell us anything about God, the big bang, or anything else for that matter...

From what I've read elsewhere, streams are roughly 15 Mbps... which is pretty pathetic. Most blurays at 1080p are anywhere from 20 Mbps to 40 Mbps. I target my 1080p rips at 15 Mbps. If you have a small screen, then that bitrate will probably suffice but on 70 inches or more, that's too low. I've got a 106 inch setup and 4k at that bitrate looks bad. I plan on testing the Netflix streams later and I'll try to get some real world results.

Maybe this sort of thing varies by location. My wife and I lived in a fairly rural area two years ago and our house was robbed. Our local police showed up immediately and they were very thorough to the point that I thought it was comical. Nothing that was taken was that high dollar or important. Also, the detective in charge of our case came back to the house three times to personally give me an update on what they had found. I got the feeling that the local cops were bored. Anyway, I think location really makes a difference in how the police treat these sort of crimes.

North Dakota and South Dakota are already split...they are entirely distinct states with their own taxes, governors, state laws etc.

"Yes, there are movies out there like that"...

You make it sound as if this is the exception...I just checked these films on canistream.it and none of these are on Netflix instant as far as I could see.
American Hustle
12 Years a Slave
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
The Wolf of Wall Street

That's most of the Best Picture nominations from this year (I think I left out two). Maybe canistream.it is wrong or not updated but if it is accurate, I think that is pretty pathetic. Netflix doesn't have most of the Oscar Best Picture Noms...seriously? Can someone with Netflix Instant check that. I've been using the disc service for years and I thought the Instant was catching up. Is it that off?

That's a lot of image in one day...so I'll assume we mean high resolution porn images...

I think your Not list makes sense other than on Privacy. I don't see how we could imprison anyone without the loss of privacy. The very act of locking someone up would seem to involve some type of monitoring (so you know if they are actually locked up) which in turn means they lose some of their privacy (since you know where they are at all times).

It really depends on what is found. If we found some sort of basic or animal life, then it very well could impact people's religious views. Is it going to change my parent's minds? Of course not. They are 60+ and so fundamentally tuned that they would explain it away but for the younger generations that are already leaving churches, abandoning formal religion etc., it would probably play a role in altering the religious landscape. If we found intelligent life that we could communicate with, that would be a completely different matter. Imagine that these beings have such advanced medicine that they can somehow revive someone that has died or instantly cure the most advanced cancer we know of or create life. At that point, some people might say they are the "God" we've always worshiped but what are we going to say when they deny that and tell us that it is their science etc. that has given them those abilities...