[continued]

takes a lot of work to bring about and maintain. Corruption, incompetence and venal ambition can cripple democratic systems. What is very worrying is that many younger people - those with 'no history' - would rather have stability than the sometimes-ferment of democratic politics, in an infantile craving for certainty and control rather than have the courage to participate in the to and fro of healthy political activity.

Not helping is the recent push by Jesuits towards some sort of synthesis with communism: is it Middle-Ages-type certainty, even at the cost of 'bourgeois' freedoms, that they crave ? Or are many young people afraid of the uncertainties of a changing world ? Do they demand nothing less than perfection and its supposed 'closure' of any uncertain issues ? That they don't want to have to think about anything difficult ? Is there, indeed, a sort of comfortable (for some), luxury-age fascism that many people would prefer to the difficulties and openness of democracy ? Are we on the 'road to serfdom' (Hayek) and the suppression of any move towards an 'open society' (Popper) ?

Are we moving towards a gutless society that would rather be castrated in comfort than stimulated by new and dangerous ideas ?

Joe

Anyone who thinks the price of Lithium batteries is about to reduce, must be living on a pink cloud in fairy land.

I use LiPo batteries in my remote controlled planes. A popular size for the planes I fly is a 2200MaH 3 cell LiPo. As recently as 2.5 years ago I was buying them from a popular on line hobby shop for between $5.50 & $10.00. Just yesterday I received a promotion email from them offering the same battery on special for $22.00.

On this planet, where most of us live, it is very hard to see that as a price reduction.

Hasbeen, it's likely the price of batterie will fall when batteries based on cheap elements (sodium, aluminium, iron etc) are developed. And when that happens, the price of lithium batteries is also likely to fall as demand for them in non-transport uses will become much lower.

That has been going to happen for at least 20 years Aidan.

Pardon me if I don't hold my breath waiting for which century such a dream will come to pass.

I've just picked up an error. In the third paragraph of the "Renewable Folly" section, US$180 billion should be US$136 billion. Sorry about that.

When Joseph Goebbels died he arrived in heaven.
There he saw, everyone was reading scripture and uninterested in anything else. They did not even need to eat or sleep, only study, study and study for eternity.

So Goebbels, who was bored to his teeth, pleaded with St. Peter: "if this is heaven, can you then please take me to hell?". Finally St. Peter conceded to allow him in hell, but just for one night. The elevator went down, down, down in what seemed to be eternity, but eventually it stopped, the door opened and Goebbels saw the residents of hell all partying, drinking, making merry, yet the night quickly passed and he was sent back to heaven.

Again Goebbels pleaded, "please send me to hell again", but St. Peter told him: "do you know how much this elevator-ride costed us the other night? we could never afford another such 2-way ride", so Goebbels replied: "I do not need a 2-way ride, just take me down and I will stay there forever". "Are you sure?", asked Peter, "Will you promise never to come back". "Absolutely sure, sure as hell", replied Goebbels. "Very well then", said St. Peter.

Down came the elevator, down, down and down. Finally the door opened and Goebbels was faced with lashes of fire and brimstone, dark angels torturing him in the most painful ways. "But, but, I was sent to hell, cried Goebbels, where are all the parties? where is all the fun?".

"This", answered the angels, "is for tourists only!"

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So far, much more than technology serves us, we are made servants of technology.