silent_cat

My way of thinking is always this: how can someone speak of something being sentient, if the process can be done on paper/calculator combined with a lot of time?

The real question is: how do we know that our own brains can't be simulated by paper/calculator with a lot of time? The answer is: we don't know.

I get that war sucks, but it's pretty odd to picture them as helpless refugees from a burned down home when it costs a lot of money to come here. Some "refugees" pay 200k SEK for a false work permit. I mean, that's more money than I have.

There's no contradiction here. You can be fleeing from a burned down home and still have 200k SEK. You can have all the money in the world but money doesn't build houses. People with machines and materials build houses. You can't eat money. Money doesn't buy you safety.

Don't confuse the economic migrants (who have no money or skills) with the people seeking asylum from war. The former group have no place here, but the latter group does have skills and money and could easily earn their keep if we let them.

Of course, as the war drags on you get the third category, the not so rich people fleeing a war. That's harder, but still worth keeping.

How rich do we have to be before we can share?

The other part is that primary schools are usually very close to home and thus don't lead to a lot of travel. Students tend to travel further for high schools & college so the risks of spreading are higher.

There's no contradiction here. You can be fleeing from a burned down home and still have 200k SEK. You can have all the money in the world but money doesn't build houses.

But it buys houses that are currently for sale.

Assuming there are houses for sale. They're not allowed to buy houses outside the country for arbitrary legal reasons. And they can't buy houses in the country because there aren't enough. 1,200,000 houses less than at the beginning of the war.

You can use money to buy food.

Only if there is food to buy. You can't magic it form the other side of the world.

I know economic theory says that if demand exceeds supply prices rise until everyone is happy. However, demand for housing and food is rather inelastic so at some point no amount of money will buy anything. In the long run it all works out, but in the long run we're all dead.

Money does pretty much everything you said it does not, and does it all quite easily.

Money is a mechanism for trade and it can supply you with anything that is available for trading. But if it doesn't exist then money won't create it.

What about EVs battery disposal? Is it really that green of an option?

Recycle them. All the lithium that went into them is still there, it isn't used up. Lithium is quite valuable.

The only reason why it hasn't really taken off yet is that we've gotten a lot better at making batteries last longer.