basically imagine that the water eventually is fed into a river/sea/lake/basin/whatever :)
that's how sewage systems generally seem to work
For this map I imagine that the righthand channel (smaller one) eventually feeds into the lefthand one some ~100 meters north (where north is the upper end of the image)
and then eventually the lefthand channel (bigger) will feed into the River Never (flows through neverwinter), or maybe into an underground sewage basin, or maybe into the underdark
so basically the first image is the main level with sewage collection/distribution into channels
I will still make a map, but only with access elements, and maybe a street-system or so
basically the stairs in the center of the first image lead up into an airing-tower (2-3 story tower with no access from the outside, only used to exchange air)
And the stairwell to the north-east of that spiral will lead into an aboveground access building or something
Originally I was thinking about a tunnel leading off from there, but that makes no sense due to depth indeed
For some reason this whole thing has made me think of the idea of selling Harry King and Vetinari on the idea of putting sewers into Ankh Morpork... My brain is working really weird today
Seems like a natural progression after bringing the railroad in. RIP Sir Pratchett.
@dot_Sp0T I don't think so. There is a kind of under city, since what Ankh Morpork is mostly built on is Ankh Morpork. But they don't really have sewers, or plumbing.
@AndyD273 So my local republican is a lock step Trump supporter, which you know...rubs me the wrong way. The worst part is the guy is prior Air Force and talks about civility all the time :eyeroll: . So anyway the woman likely to run against him in the next election (she also ran against him in 2018) called him out for supporting Trump, which I can appreciate, but then she followed that up with: Medicare for all and debt free college for all...
So I responded and said "free everything" is just another kind of crazy
it was a little more detailed but that was the gist
So anyway this stranger responds with "Your "site" tells me you hate women and 19 followers since 2011 says ALOT. Loved the bible quotes about concubines and Eden......carry on with your "trickle down" mission of freedom 1950's style. I am sure it will carry you in good stead." She also had another tweet that told me to stop mansplaining things ...
I asked her what bible quotes I had used (cause I don't), why she thinks I hate women and told her I don't care about twitter followers...and asked if there was a site with my name on it I wasn't aware of...
Then she blocked me.
wtf?
Really its not twitter's fault so much as humans...
@James I'm kind of sad that they are all running toward pandering to the fringe crazy pseudo communist crowd, ignoring the much higher percentage of normal voters
@dot_Sp0T Clip Studio Paint Pro. Can't say that I heard of this... mind if I ask why you're suggesting it? (And alternative software was what I was looking for, so thank you)
@NexTerren it's what I am using for all the digital art on my computer. Japanese Software originally (I believe). It's mainly intended for drawing comics & manga, but I have been finding it quite useful for my mapmaking and other stuff. It can do Raster-Graphics and Vector-Graphics, alas it couldn't export SVGs last time I felt I wanted to do that. It does very good layering and multilayer functionality (such as filling an area defined on another layer, boundaries, etc).
@James It is kind of twitters fault for a couple reasons: It encourages that kind of behavior, giving a much larger loud speaker to the crazies. It encourages that behavior by selectively enforcing it's policy and not removing people that align with the political views they hold, even when what they do is a blatant violation.
@James I agree. But screaming, attacking, and censoring is the only thing you can do if you don't have any actual ideas. Why Yang at least doesn't seem to do that.
The funny thing is that if that lady actually gets elected, then it will be illegal for her to block you.
Anyway, back to Yang. I would be curious to see an economist crunch some real numbers to see if the UBI plan is actually doable. You basically have to opt-in by renouncing all other social programs, which would help, but there are a whole lot of people who don't qualify for social programs now but would be able to get the UBI, and renouncing social programs is easy when you don't get any, so even more people would be taking advantage of it than are using social programs now.
Also, he proposes to help pay for it by "getting Amazon and other tech giants to pay their share, (since all the loopholes they can use to get out of paying taxes now), by making a VAT", BUT that is not what a VAT is! A VAT is just another sales tax, meaning that Amazon won't be paying it, I will, so everything I buy costs more, which means that it is a consumption tax. I'd be OK with a consumption tax if it meant getting rid of income tax altogether, but I don't know if it makes sense for a UBI
@AndyD273 I was just reading his site a bit...seems a portion of the funds will come from reductions to existing social programs, some from a VAT, and some from reductions in things like incarceration, emergency medical, stuff like that.
Sure. Reducing incarcerations would be nice, but you either have to (a) not enforce the laws, (b) get rid of existing laws, or (c) stop people from breaking the laws...
@AndyD273 VATs make sense to me...If I can afford a bunch of non-essential stuff, I can afford to pay tax to keep the system functioning. They added a restaurant tax here a few years back and people were freaking out...I kinda figured...If I can afford to go out all the time I can afford to pay an extra .5% in tax
@James But does giving people free money they didn't earn reduce crime? I'm not saying that it won't, but I'd like to see real world examples, not just theory.
@AndyD273 True, curious if they just made the UBI too high. I think it needs to be set at a rate where its a supplement and safety net, not a primary source of income.
I've just starting thinking about UBI this week so I haven't really fully processed it, but on the surface so far I am really liking the idea. The government doesn't mess with the money on programs that are inefficient, they just give it to me and I decide what I need. Seems far more efficient.
I dunno. I think that a big part of it is trying to find people that have a will to work and get ahead, and I feel that there is some (not small) percentage of people who will take the handout and live within that limit, instead of using it to move beyond it.
@AndyD273 For UBI I don't think it needs to be which is nice. Think about it this way. If you take UBI you are forgoing other social services by choice. You are going to spend that money on something so money goes back into the economy.
@James To the first part, you aren't getting any social services, so forgoing them is a no brainer. But yes, getting the money back into the economy may be a good thing.
@AndyD273 Jeez I am unclear today. I meant if generic human A who gets government services.
@AndyD273 There is a bullet item on inflation on Yang's site:
Wouldn’t that cause rampant inflation? The federal government recently printed $4 trillion for the bank bailouts in its quantitative easing program with no inflation. Our plan for a Universal Basic Income uses mostly money already in the economy. In monetary economics, leading theory states that inflation is based on changes in the supply of money. Our UBI plan has minimal changes in the supply of money because it is funded by a Value-added Tax.
It is likely that some companies will increase their prices in response to people having more buying power, and a VAT would also increase prices m…
The way I see it. One group of people will use it as intended, as a safety net and spring board to get ahead. I, and I think you, fall into that category. Another group of people will use it for all subsistence and not do anything to better themselves. The third group will blow it in a huge pile of drugs and other destructive activities, increasing the crime rate and and mortality rate. What those percentages will be I have no idea
So as a side note, you guys are having a civil, intelligent, open, friendly political discussion, and not one with tense feigned politeness. It's freaking me out.
@NexTerren You're a Rino and traitor or something...and you are the problem with America. Make America Great Socialism and Nazis Apple Pie (MAGSNAP)!!!!
I'm all for acknowledging when people on the other side of the political isle do things that I think are good, even when I don't agree with everything they say.
money has no inherent value. It's an infinite artificial 'resource' that is made finite by laws governing the creation of more of it.
The arguments about prices increasing due to an unconditional base-income stem from the fact that to produce something (food, etc.) somebody has to work. They want to be compensated for that work - and that 'fairly'. Or maybe that's the wrong approach to the argument right now, but I don't like deleting every paragraph 5 times...
idk. the issues seems to be that you don't trade/work/whatever for it. So it is devalued
My knee-jerk reaction to UBI is to not like it, but if we enter into the automation age that we seem to be sailing towards, full speed... I don't know of an alternative.
@dot_Sp0T I actually follow what you're saying. Most kids tend to value money less until they get a job. If you grow up your whole life without a job, you're going to more recklessly spend it. These theoretical people will buy less, but but that less for more money, which in theory would drive up prices while reducing industry (fewer jobs because fewer products are being bought).
@dot_Sp0T Minor gripe, I don't like those as synonyms. Post-scarcity implies "If I have a material need there are resources." An automation society implies "I cannot provide value, because automation does it better."
I actually imagine in an automation society, if governed by the laws and social norms today, we'll have a lot of scarcity, and a lot of starvation, as there won't be motivation to hire humans, and humans won't have money, and moneyless humans won't buy food or other basic goods, and thus food and other basic goods won't be made.
@NexTerren I always understood it as: Everything is automated, we've done with the need to spend energy to make the things necessary for living - so it's free now
The thing is the missing motivator. Once earth goes down the drain that might become a motivator for working together again. But until that we're doomed - lest we get an alien invasion
But I'll take myself out of the discussion again, because the main subject matter is right now USA-centric and I don't know much about USA politics - would rather follow @James and @AndyD273 debating some more
@dot_Sp0T Eh, you can still contribute. A lot of the policies that are being discussed are ones that have happened elsewhere in the world. For instance, do you have a VAT? If so, how do you feel about it? I am inclined to hate it personally, but we already have state sales tax, so a second sales tax seems like too much tax.
yah we do. since 1995. We've had on and off sales-taxes before that, starting with 2 years in WW1 to finance the forces. Meanwhile the current form of our Vat is at 7.7% for most things, with separate VATs of 3.8% and 2.5% for certain business-branches. The VAT is used to pay for stuff such as extension of street networks (one VAT increase was to pay for the tunnels through the alps), and currently much of it goes towards the pension-system.
Although each of these things is supported by other taxes as well (e.g. gas-taxes for streets; everyone working pays a small percentage of their incom…
(the swiss have a very elaborate tax-system I think..)
@NexTerren I just looked that up and it's not clear. I think sales tax is only charged on the final sale whereas VAT is charged at every stage of the chain.
@Bellerophon Huh. Well I guess I'm fine with business A selling raw product to business B and being taxed. Although I'd just have it all as "sales tax." From that description I don't see a reason to split it up.
Huh... So a manufacturer makes a widget and sells it for $1. The distributer buys it for $1.20, marks it up, and sells it for $2.40. The store buys it for $2.88, marks it up, and sells it for $6. I buy it for $7.20... And that widget has cost almost twice it's original price in just taxes... Crazy
To me, if you sell something it makes sense to tax it. To me that's just "sales tax." The government shouldn't worry about "if you're the middle man" or not, in my opinion. Just tax a sale.
Sales tax isn't too bad, all things considered... Michigan only has a 6% sales tax, which isn't terrible. But taxing things over and over is only going to hurt people who don't have as much money.
Though I guess getting an extra $1000 a month will help toward paying all that VAT.
If a product switching hands 11 times significantly drives up costs, somebody is going to come along, get together with other companies, and figure out a process where it only changes hands 3 times.
The 3 (or 2, I believe it'd actually be) companies that figured that out would pocket some of the difference, drop their price, and take the sales.
@NexTerren Sure, seems smart. That should happen anyway, because every time it changes hands it gets marked up a little. Ideally, it changes hands twice, from manufacturer to store to customer.
Here in Switzerland as far as I know the VAT is only charged once; and while the product changes hands (getting modified) you can do a Rückforderung for the VAT you've paid
Brought up by this question, the Reality-Check and Hard-Science tags' descriptions aren't in implied agreement (at least, as I read them) on if they can be combined.
Reality-Check reads:
Asks if a given concept is realistic in a given context. Answers
should say yes or no, with supporting ...
@AndyD273 I don't think it quite works like that. you only pay VAT on the added value a each step so it's something like. Manufacturer makes it for £1, distributor buys £1.20 and sells for £2.40. Store buys it for £2.64 (only pay VAT on the £1.20 increase). They could then sell for £6.00 and I would pay £6.67 (only charge VAT on the £3.36 increase) so the VAT I pay is only 67p not £1.20.
But again I'm no expert that's just the way I understand it.
The other thing about it is people don't see it as a tax on all their goods since almost everything (at least in the UK) is priced including VAT so the VAT is just seen as part of the cost.
@AndyD273 The idea I think is that the VAT would only apply to non-essentials. So if you spend the bulk of your money on must haves you're good. The more discretionary spending you do the more VAT you would pay. I am actually wondering if we could find the average income where you VAT spending would become more than your 1k monthly allotment.
@James Yeah, I was being a bit hyperbolic with that... I guess I'd like to see actual numbers for it. If it was 2% it might not be a big deal. If it was 20% then I think it's starting to get high. If it's 100%, like it is for buying a car in Norway, then we've got problems.
I don't think there is sales tax on gas... Because the law says that you can't bundle the sales tax in with the listed price of an item, so if you put $20 in the tank, they'd have to add the sales tax on afterward. And that doesn't happen.
Here's the thing with Yangs UBI; In my opinion he's a few years too early. His big concern/sales pitch is that automation is going to make it impossible to find work, and we're going to have massive unemployment, and so we'll need a UBI to make up for that. But the problem with his reasoning is that thanks to Trump we have all time record lows when it comes to unemployment right now, and while automation is a thing, experts say that things like self driving cars are about 10 years off.
Also, when automation does come into full force, a few people in the industry are saying that they won't so much replace humans, as supplement them. Yang says AI could replace lawyers, which may be true (he is one), but a human lawyer combined with an AI lawyer would still be better than either on their own.
But we should be having the conversation, because there may be a time down the road where something like a UBI might become necessary.
And of the democrats Yang does seem to be the most reasonable and level headed (also sane).
I'm also really glad that he's going to be able to appear in the debates.
60 years ago, pretty much any business person responsible for multiple projects and record keeping had a secretary. 6/9 members of my team fit that description. None of us have secretaries. I can see someone back in the 60s or 70s or even 80s arguing "A human combined with a computer will still be a better secretary than a computer on its own."
@AndyD273 He mentions this specifically. Which isn't to say you couldn't still be correct.
I don’t see robots. Isn’t this early? No. ‘Robots’ aren’t when some walking talking robot comes knocking on your door. It’s when software replaces thousands of helpdesk workers or cars start driving themselves or even when a mall closes down because everyone now shops from their computer.
We are in the fourth inning of automation. Four million manufacturing jobs have been taken since 2000 and automated trucks are already making deliveries in Colorado. 1 out of 10 American workers works in retail. If we wait any longer, we will be out of time. It took the Affordable Care Act seven years to …
So from that abstract, Andy, (emphasis mine): "Hybrid intelligence systems combine machine and human intelligence to overcome the shortcomings of existing AI systems"
Okay, I misinterpreted this bit: "Yang says AI could replace lawyers." I read it as "Yang says AI could [in the future as it develops] replace lawyers," and you meant it as "Yang says AI could [today, right now] replace lawyers." In which case Yang is smoking crack.
In the interview I saw with him, he did not specify a time frame, but from the context, it seems like something he thinks people should be imminently worried about. I am credulous, but I'm not a lawyer, and he is, so I'll defer on that one.
@AndyD273 So I feel ridiculously unqualified to weigh in, so this is more of a question than a statement, but Biden seems very... status quo. Which I guess makes more his policy "sane" than him. I need to research Biden's positions and (re)research Ying, though.
@NexTerren Biden is, or at least the conventional wisdom is, the safe bet likely to safely beat Trump. He is at least in comparison very centrist.
@AndyD273 Some aspects of lawyering have been replaced by computers, particularly in real-estate and taxes. Alot of the easy money, like reading home sale agreements and stuff like that, getting approvals for loans...that kind of stuff can all be done pretty quickly via computer.
He talks about the automating a lawyers job around the 35 minute mark. I guess I got the part about replacing lawyers with AI a bit wrong, but what he says does make a stronger case for my thoughts on human/AI symbiosis.
So we could dive into what "AI" actually is, but if we roughly define it as "replacing something that normally is tackled by humans with some degree of creativity," then any profession that uses Google searches already uses AI to ease their work.
Like we take a lot computers do right now for granted because we're so used to it.
And automation has been happening for... decades.
I think it's just a pitfall for a lot of people to go "Well, AI isn't the normal stuff we have today... it's that impressive stuff I read about online."
@NexTerren Yang makes a point somewhere that productivity is up 72% in the last 3/4 decades, but pay was only up something like 9% over the same period...so yes. Automation is a thing, even if there are still people around.
If new shiny tools triple my output, I've effectively replaced the need for two other people (unless things are growing and we want to make more)
@NexTerren Yeah, the number of rules related to spending in the military are challenging. You are basically required to buy from a US source unless absolutely unable to get what you need.
@James Sometimes. But all efficiencies always have that risk. The luddites were pretty scared about that. A conveyor belt lets a human stand still and the work comes to them, instead of having to have multiple people running around doing the same thing.
He actually seems to have opinions that aren't about victimization or impeaching Trump, which means he's going to make all the others look bad in comparison.
@AndyD273 "But Biden, I thought you died!" "The Biden you knew, Sanders, did die. I am his long lost twin brother. I actually have been impersonating him for the last few years, but he was the one Clinton poisoned." "But your wife, Jill, has already remarried!" "Say it's not so, Sanders! Who was it?!" "It was I." "How could you?!" "It was true love!"
Brought up by this question, the Reality-Check and Hard-Science tags' descriptions aren't in implied agreement (at least, as I read them) on if they can be combined.
Reality-Check reads:
Asks if a given concept is realistic in a given context. Answers
should say yes or no, with supporting ...
The Factory Floor
The Factory Floor