Plato often gets overlooked, but it was highly influential. A well written book on it is: "The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture"

The wikipedia page has some overview info on it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)

In terms of usage, there aren't many stats, but I saw this: "The CERL PLATO system logged 10 million hours of use between September, 1978 and May, 1985 (a period for which the most complete statistics are available).

https://liz.nl/plato18.htm

Turning off nuclear power plants while you still are burning coal does not meet the criteria for a crime against humanity, but that decision has resulted in the death of many people already. Those that supported this decision are responsible for those deaths and for that contribution to future deaths caused by climate change.

>...Today solar & wind are significantly cheaper than natural gas, and orders of magnitude cheaper than nuclear.

Solar is not "orders of magnitude" cheaper than nuclear. Utility solar cost is somewhat comparable to older nuclear power plants that are already running and much cheaper than new nuclear. Rooftop solar is much more expensive than older nuclear power plants that are already running and comparable to the price of new nuclear.

The Japanese had already moved all of their experienced troops from Manchuria before the Soviet invasion. They were maybe surprised that the USSR would break the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, but the defense of the home islands was their main concern at that point.

The Japanese knew the USSR was not a threat to the main islands as the Soviets could never have done a large invasion of Japan. The Soviets had a few ships that the USA had given them as part of Project Hula, but that is nothing compared to what would be needed for a full scale invasion of Japan. The Soviets did have plans to possibly attack Hokkaido, but as the wikipedia entry says "...Historians have generally considered it unlikely that an invasion of Hokkaido would have succeeded. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_Soviet_invasion_of_Ho...

In comparison, the proposed allied invasion was planned to have 42 aircraft carriers, 24 battleships, and 400 destroyers and destroyer escorts. Even that wasn't considered enough:

>...Ken Nichols, the District Engineer of the Manhattan Engineer District, wrote that at the beginning of August 1945, "[p]lanning for the invasion of the main Japanese home islands had reached its final stages, and if the landings actually took place, we might supply about fifteen atomic bombs to support the troops."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

>...If total citywide property value drops by 50%, the tax rate would hit its legal maximum ceiling, and the city would have to make up the money somewhere else or cut spending.

And the city wouldn't even get all of the increase it is allowed as there are other tax districts who would also want a higher rate. The tax increase that would be allowed would be prorated with the other tax districts.

(The 1% revenue growth cap you referred to earlier is a different statute and a different issue.)

This claim is simply not true. Even in a budget based system like Seattle, there are hard statutory limits on how much the tax could increase.

If total citywide property value drops by 50%, the tax rate would hit its legal maximum ceiling, and the city would have to make up the money somewhere else or cut spending.

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_c...

Obviously every person tries to avoid taxes - you don’t have to be rich do do that - but the idea that there are magic banks that loan money and don’t mind waiting decades to get their money back is some kind of weird propaganda.

>...I suspect you are simplifying what's happening quite a bit

People keep saying “buy, borrow, die” as if it is really that simple - like it is that one simple trick that banks and the IRS hate.

>...But wouldn't the more likely scenario be that you borrow 100m with a 10 year draw at x% interest and then at the end of the 10 years you do a stock sale (some taxes paid), pay the interest (interest is generally non-taxable) ...

Your scenario is not “buy, borrow, die” as a core concept of that meme is you take advantage of the stepped-up basis upon death and the estate pays the interest. With your scenario the person imght have an interest payment of 50 million + the original 100 million, so now they have to sell enough stock to pay the 150 million and the 23-36% taxes on the gain (depending on the state they are located in - obviously different for countries other than the USA). That isn’t estate planning, that is hoping your stocks really go up and that the loan doesn’t come due in a downturn like 2008.

>"oh no my art lost value!"

That trick where for example, where someone would donate some painting to a museum and pay someone to say the donation is with N million, might have worked at some point in time, but that kind of thing is pretty much guaranteed to get an audit these days from what I have read and I would be very careful trying to do that.

A variant of the "buy, borrow, die" which some claim is done is basically that a bank essentially becomes a minority shareholder of the estate for giving the money. Though I recall one CPA who dealt in this area replying that none of the family offices he knew would likely be interested in this approach - people like Goldman Sachs are not your friends.

Go get a calculator - if you took out a loan and had the interest set a the minimum of the AFR, what would it compound to in 30 years? It would obviously be much higher than just selling stock and paying capital gains on it.

The ultra rich do take out loans, and these loans do get repaid, and that money has to come from somewhere. Go google something like billionaire stock sales to see examples - if they all could just say, "Thanks for the zero percent interest loan! I'll pay you back in 30 years in my estate!" - I think they would have.

This is just Internet mythology. The IRS would go after such arrangements very quickly - the IRS has the Applicable Federal Rate for loans. Though this really isn't an issue with banks as they are not charities and tend to want to make money.

>Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people":

>First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

>Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

>The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html

Democrat Presidents: Bosnia, Haiti, Iran, Kosovo, Libya, Niger, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen.

Republican Presidents: Afghanistan, Cambodia, Grenada, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Panama, Somalia, Syria, and Venezuela.

It is outside the 50 year timeframe, but go back another 10 years and you have Viet Nam which caused more deaths than all the rest combined.

Economists refer to this idea as the lump of labour fallacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

In the last few decades both political parties in the USA have tried to outdo each other in reckless over-spending, but for the first couple hundred years that wasn't the case. Something changed.

If your parents were WW II vets, wouldn't they be part of Greatest Generation (often considered to be those born 1901–1927)? Silent Generation are often considered to be those born 1928–1945. They weren't adults when WW II was fought.

Yes, utility solar is very safe. Unfortunately rooftop solar is much more dangerous and also much, much more costly. So one has to wonder why anyone supports the massive subsidies that are still given to rooftop solar.