Right?! There's a very "end of history" vibe in this piece. Remember when we almost had all of physics understood in 1910? Remember when desktop computing finally got good in 2005? Remember when the perfect sailing ship came out in 1840?

Writing a piece that essentially says "ah, the future is finally clear to me" is a sure-fire way to get a humbling dose of revolutionary disruption.

Science is not exempt from Dogmatism and Groupthink, as is the case with all human institutions. The Italian researchers may not even know how often their thinking is pre-empted (what water? says the fish). Alice Dreger wrote a book on runaway bias in soft sciences:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/books/review/galileos-middle-finger-by-alice-dreger.html

I'd have second thoughts about that quality and reliability. I remember this one time they couldn't even take over a single island!

I agree with this to a point (i.e. that still happens but it's getting a little better).

What really matters is the relationship. My company has an Chinese executive who spends weeks a year renewing relationships and trust. It's expensive and hard to do outsourcing right, but when it's done well it is transparent to the consumer and adds wealth to both countries.

I imagine those meetings go something like this:

"We can save $10M by manufacturing in China."
"Great! Let's do that!"
"But we have to spend $1M to ensure a smooth transition."
"No thanks. I want all the savings and none of the spending. Next meeting."

Education, for one, is sorely lacking. Here's an example of someone living a historically luxurious life without the faintest idea where it all comes from.

Ah yes, the old "outsider-dabbler who knows the industry better than the players and the market" fallacy. I knew he would be making an appearance sooner or later.

Oblig. xkcd https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fxkcd.com%2F793%2F

Hey hey hey---give some credit to our clueless justice system, too!

Step 1. Warn that it will be too costly
Step 2. Litigate every single step of planning, construction, and maintenance
Step 3. Be really smug about how right you were

From your link: "This assessment, however, does not take into account issues such as dispatch characteristics, capacity factors, fuel and other costs needed to compare generation technologies"

Poor capacity factor techs are inappropriate for baseload. Think of the small example: one windmill on your house. That's obviously not appropriate because the wind will stop blowing (and you can't store energy). You have to pair the windmill with a baseload generator that has the capability to run your whole house, but you can turn it off when the wind is blowing. Baseload with quick on/off: hydro, nat gas. Your property may not have geography for a dam, so you run the gas generator when the wind stops---not too bad.

The windmill only saves you gas, not a gas plant. Full redundancy is required, which isn't cheap. It is dishonest to talk about solar or wind without considering capacity factor (until an energy storage system is invented).

This is spot on. No matter what the environmental catastrophe (Global cooling, global warming, climate change, overpopulation, recycling, deforestation, hunger), "they" always demand the same response: a big step back in quality of life. This thinkprogress piece is a perfect example of it: decarbonization is just the latest red-herring. If they were serious about carbon qua carbon, they'd embrace the only acceptable zero-carbon baseload generation technology. Since carbon is just a tool to achieve their real end, nuclear is [unacceptable, impractical, immoral, whatever].

This is pretty obvious to me. Maybe I have my crazy mother to thank for shoring me up from common manipulation techniques.

These celebs are fine at operating their tech, as evidenced by their growing collection of self-nudes.

Try to imagine a licensing course of study that will protect against this kind of attack. How quickly does it turn into an 2-year IT security certificate? That's way way way too much to ask of your market.

A different analogy that might be more relevant for you is card-skimmers. What do you really need to reliably ID a good card skimmer? An engineering degree and about 5 years of experience with electromechanical product design. Is it reasonable for the bank to require us to ID them?

This is a failure of industry, not a failure of individuals. Do we require drivers to be mechanics? Fliers to be aeronautical engineers?

Starting from zero, it is astoundingly complicated to maintain personal information security--we don't see it like fish don't see water. Industry's response can't be to limit the market for connected devices to themselves.

Definitely. Groupthink is strong in science and we miss out on a lot while a fad is in full swing.

In AGW, you definitely begin any study with the answer already defined for you. If you uncover things like a pause or no warming in Antarctica (which could lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms in play), you better bury it or be shouted down.

Somewhere, in some boardroom, these guys are making a toast to youthful naivete.