Some time ago I wanted to become a scientific corespondent for a major weekly paper in my country. I wrote them an article about the LHC. They rewrote it almost completely, putting 90% of the article focus on....you guessed it "The GOD particle".
I turned the job down (and I am very good at this, even though I say it myself). I was also a teacher. Not anymore, because society wanted me to produce zombies, not humans. Critical thinking is out, people, even in science class. It is wrong. Everyone says so - politics, business, religion, parents.
The whole problem is the politicization. Society does not want to hear the truth about the world. How many of you will stand in a lecture hall and say that feeding people in Africa is a very bad idea? And you know it is, don't you? You know what we do there - we make money and subsidize our farmer who are fueling an unprecedented demographic boom, without development of adequate infrastructure that can support all those people.
So, there you go - this is one very important scientific truth. Now go out there and explain it!!!
What I am afraid of is that tomorrow the powers of the day might find me, or you, unreasonable all of a sudden and the list is still there. Once a tool is created, someone will use it.
We can ignore the "silly biological shells and these antiquated ecosystems" at our own peril. I really would like to elaborate on this but have no time. Just think objectively how much of a free will the little voice in your head has over your whole self.
"resistance is futile. you will be assimilated"
Sad, but true. Why sad? Because culture behaves similarly to a big organization IMO - at the beginning its all about innovation and progress; at the end its all about preservation and perpetuation of the same old conservative ideas and stamping anything new and different. Which means if we got it wrong from the start (I think we did, on several issues), if the foundations of our civilization turn counterproductive in the long run, we will not be able to change, but will firmly march to catastrophe. The inertia is HUGE.
So, you see I am not shouting "memetic evolution" from the rooftops. It's a wonderful thing, sure, and it gave us the ultimate trump card over other species, but it is also cumbersome, conservative, backwards. Infective. Destructive. In short - we are both the perpetrators and the slaves of it. Just like the cells of my lungs hate me, because I smoke, but they cannot do anything about it except mutate and kill me. The same for the humans and our culture (extelligence).
Many years ago in an Easter European communist state a new type of toilet paper was introduced - not a single but double layered. Extra strong! Wow! Immediately a joke was invented:
Q: What's with this new double layered toilet paper? A: One layer goes to the KGB archive!
After the collapse of the system yet another paper arrived - triple layered! The joke - ohh well, times have changed, now the CIA needs a copy too!
Saw it first in R.Dawkins book. Considering how well evolution is received in our "modern society" I say this tattoo is pretty strong statement of sanity, no? Pardon, I meant neediness, not sanity. Silly me...
Yep! I always brought every foreign guest to the pirates and nobody went home empty handed. One physics professor was so happy to buy some otherwise very expensive CAD/CAM software, because all he wanted was to play with it for a while. Not to use it in his work or make money, just to play.
I remember having the whole 3D studio suite in the 90's on my first PC. I never earn money with it or use it at work. Just play and then throw away.
If the Eastern countries were abiding to the law we would have completely PC illiterate population. I mean you saved money for years just to get the hardware. The software would be as expensive as the rig, even more. Try it with 200$ salary a month.
Hell, we even had the whole German national football team shopping hundreds of CD's from the pirates when they came along to play qualification game for Euro 96.
"If you think you can notice the difference between a high quality (320kbit/s or higher) MP3 and a CD then you need to have your head examined."
What an utter BS! You are a liar, sir, and probably a corporate whore. I don't see why else you posted this. There is a difference between FLAC and 320kbit/s MP3. If you have the headphones to hear it. I do.
I have just emerged from my own comparative study. I shrunk CD's to FLAC and 320 kbit/s MP3 with CD DA extractor (max settings for the MP3) and tested them on a Cowon player with Sennheiser IE7 headphones. MASSIVE difference. No contest at all. So I keep buying CD's for now, and if the industry removes this option I stop buying.
Did I say you are a liar? Abbusive too. Go to a shrink, eh? Thanks, corporate whore....
I recently purchased all the books from Card in English (I have read only Ender's game in my language), and while reading I realized something funny: Peter Wiggin's success as Locke was possible only because in this future world anonymity on the Net was still possible. Not easy, but possible.
Tragically I think, in our world such event is already impossible. Anybody who gains such respect and influence on the net will be sooner or later forced to reveal his/her identity. I am sure there is a law already in place and if not it will be voted on a moment's notice. Governments over the wold realised the potential of Internet as a game changer and as we know all to well, are busy strangling, hacking, slashing and killing it before it is too late (for them).
Next time you are in Amsterdam, go to Belgium beer bar. Try Quack (served in funny round bottom glasses that need wooden frame and handle). It's my favorite. Be careful though, its rather strong...
You put yourselves in charge just like any other empire. These days I never say USA. I say the American Empire.
Even the public behavior of POTUS is designed after Roman emperors. The gestures, the statue, the elevation above the crowd, the lot. I say the first step you Americans need to take is to acknowledge that you are an Empire and ask yourselves where it will lead you. Then perhaps you might muster the strength to dismantle your Empire before it collapses on you.
At least allegiance, you say? At least? I say, it's much more valuable than money.
In the only interview I have seen with one of the originators of ID (the lawyer, forgot his name) he explained in plain English what it is all about and yet it impressed no one!
He said something like "To teach the future generations of what is a fact about our origins and what is not is great power. And I do not see why one particular group of people (scientist) should have it" So he went out to find Dembski and the others. There is the profit of the scam - he said it - the minds of the next generations.
Do you think this price is worth the effort?
"Indeed, it is a great power", I wanted to reply. "But scientists as a whole are no conspirators pushing agenda and therefore cannot use this power. What are you going to do with it when you get it? ??? -profit?"
Of course the intention was to laugh at this scene. I laughed too.
Now, when it comes to serious stuff nobody is laughing (mostly).
The most horrific thing I ever saw on screen was not a movie or a game but the central news at 20:00h on Channel I in my country – supposedly the most serious journalism available.
What they showed was part from a video, taken by Chechen rebels and distributed by them. I was playing bridge with my friends and had the volume of the TV to zero, but unfortunately my partner played the contract, so I was watching the screen. They decapitated a captured Russian soldier. With a very big knife. The part of the murder that was shown did not include any gore at all. Yet it was absolutely horrific! You know what made me rush to the bathroom? They laid the soldier down and stepped on his head. Then the executioner drove the knife in his neck, twisted and started cutting towards the Adam apple. At that moment the body of the soldier reacted just like a chicken or a rabbit you decapitate (my grandparents were farmers, I have killed myself animals on the farm). The body started to shake without control, reacting on its own, trying to get away from the imminent death. It drove me nuts! It brought me nightmares!
All people involved in this particular news item were fired in the scandal afterward. But I think every chair warmonger should be shown this video with perhaps sticks preventing the eyes to close, like in Clockwork Orange. If there is a person out there that would laugh at this, they should be killed on the spot without trial. But I think you will find out that almost everyone will puke, rather than laugh. Cause its real.
On a related note – I always liked the Dune books from Herbert, because the battles were mostly hand-to-hand. You are no warrior if you do not kill hand-to-hand. You are a weasel pushing buttons and people die off hundreds of kilometers away. If you have to kill in person, your attitude towards violence and wars in general will change. Granted the few psychopaths do not count, but for most it will. Ask any sane veterans from wars where they had to meet the enemy face to face.
The premise assumes that we do not know whether god exists (otherwise why wager?). However, the body of the argument takes for granted that god does want you to believe (i.e. we don't know whether it exist but we know what it wants?!?!?). What if god likes atheists and does not require believe in it? We have only the word of MAN saying that we should believe.
BTW, do you know Terry Pratchett's take on the Pascal wager? I don't remember in which book uf the Discworld equivalent of pascal found himself after dying surrounded by all major gods with sharp, nasty looking sticks saying "We will show you now what we think of mister Clever Dick in these parts"
BTW, according to a BBC documentary I saw he was a fraud and probably invented (or rather compiled) the philosophy allegedly obtained from a South American native.
However, his exercises http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensegrity_(Castaneda) really worked for me [from a book, never participated in a seminar]. But so did martial arts. The same achievements through different means. It has always seemed to me that there is a certain "truth"out there and different people interprete it differently and thus, advocate different ways to get there.
Even more funny, according to a popular New Age author from the 60's (I think this is the guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda) gaining control over your dreams is a major step towards the kind of enlightenment he advocates.
I tried for ages to "see my hands" in my dreams [just an arbitrary task to start with], but I always wake up. On several occasions though I managed to control for a few seconds the dream.
So, gaming is the path to enlightenment. Who would suspect!
The last book I read about mathematics and physics of human interactions, including economy, was "Critical Mass (how one thing leads to another)" According to the author the best models for predicting the stock market still perform worst than "gut feeling" of an experienced trader.
It seems that the models fail because no one out there plays the game according to the simple rules that are said to define the free market. Or because the system is inherently unstable and prone to collapse. Overall I got the idea that the free market is an illusion, say, like communism. A system that requires people to change themselves first in order to work. Man, such ideologies never work!
Anyway, I totally agree about the growth thingy. I have always advocated that we should self-control our numbers and keep the progress going even if it has to slow down a tad. Restructure our activities in such way as to merge within the natural cycles (like water cycle, carbon cycle and so on) It would mean ever more wealth and possibilities for the everyone. Instead we have a pyramid, a Ponzi scheme. I laughed my head off decades ago when the globalization plans were announced. What, you want to remove the foundation of the pyramid? Make everyone wealthy? Who says that? Oh, the people sitting on top of the pyramid. Right!
T-shirts slogan: "You cannot sustain a progression in a finite Universe moving in cycles"
I know it by simply being alive and working. The ones that do not play Pacman, browse the news. Or chat for a while next to the coffee machine. Or go out for a smoke. Go out for a minute of sunshine. Take a walk around the building. The list is endless.
While simultaneously encouraging overpopulation and spread of diseases? Getting people back on their feet!? Why did they fall on the ground in the first place?
So the church basically created (arbitrary numbers) 1000 starving and sick people and helped 20 of them. Great job!
BTW, it is my personal conviction that the catholics should be prosecuted for genocide for what they did to Africa. Never before we have seen the ruin of communities on such a large scale, because religion put dogma before reality (as usual). This is a crime!
What did they told them (lets look only at a few basic concepts):
-birth control is a sin -protecting oneself from STD is a sin -the next life is better, this one is only important as a "test" to get to the other one (thus if you leave unimaginable mess in this one it still does not matter if you secure the proper afterlife one way or the other) -be patient and content with your lot in life -God loves you and Jesus will save you
Can you put your hand on your heart and honestly imagine what the above will do to a mind totally ignorant about the history and reality of the world? Please, try! Enlightenment lies in this path!
Slashdot Mirror
"When, in human history has that not been the case?"
Before civilization.
People have the right to be complete assholes as long as they do not harm me.
Some time ago I wanted to become a scientific corespondent for a major weekly paper in my country. I wrote them an article about the LHC. ....you guessed it "The GOD particle".
They rewrote it almost completely, putting 90% of the article focus on
I turned the job down (and I am very good at this, even though I say it myself). I was also a teacher. Not anymore, because society wanted me to produce zombies, not humans. Critical thinking is out, people, even in science class. It is wrong. Everyone says so - politics, business, religion, parents.
The whole problem is the politicization. Society does not want to hear the truth about the world. How many of you will stand in a lecture hall and say that feeding people in Africa is a very bad idea? And you know it is, don't you? You know what we do there - we make money and subsidize our farmer who are fueling an unprecedented demographic boom, without development of adequate infrastructure that can support all those people.
So, there you go - this is one very important scientific truth. Now go out there and explain it!!!
Reasonable? According to....?
What I am afraid of is that tomorrow the powers of the day might find me, or you, unreasonable all of a sudden and the list is still there. Once a tool is created, someone will use it.
We can ignore the "silly biological shells and these antiquated ecosystems" at our own peril. I really would like to elaborate on this but have no time. Just think objectively how much of a free will the little voice in your head has over your whole self.
"resistance is futile. you will be assimilated"
Sad, but true. Why sad? Because culture behaves similarly to a big organization IMO - at the beginning its all about innovation and progress; at the end its all about preservation and perpetuation of the same old conservative ideas and stamping anything new and different. Which means if we got it wrong from the start (I think we did, on several issues), if the foundations of our civilization turn counterproductive in the long run, we will not be able to change, but will firmly march to catastrophe. The inertia is HUGE.
So, you see I am not shouting "memetic evolution" from the rooftops. It's a wonderful thing, sure, and it gave us the ultimate trump card over other species, but it is also cumbersome, conservative, backwards. Infective. Destructive. In short - we are both the perpetrators and the slaves of it. Just like the cells of my lungs hate me, because I smoke, but they cannot do anything about it except mutate and kill me. The same for the humans and our culture (extelligence).
In Soviet Russia....
Many years ago in an Easter European communist state a new type of toilet paper was introduced - not a single but double layered. Extra strong! Wow! Immediately a joke was invented:
Q: What's with this new double layered toilet paper?
A: One layer goes to the KGB archive!
After the collapse of the system yet another paper arrived - triple layered! The joke - ohh well, times have changed, now the CIA needs a copy too!
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/files/2008/07/five-kingdoms.jpg
Saw it first in R.Dawkins book. Considering how well evolution is received in our "modern society" I say this tattoo is pretty strong statement of sanity, no? Pardon, I meant neediness, not sanity. Silly me...
Yep! I always brought every foreign guest to the pirates and nobody went home empty handed. One physics professor was so happy to buy some otherwise very expensive CAD/CAM software, because all he wanted was to play with it for a while. Not to use it in his work or make money, just to play.
I remember having the whole 3D studio suite in the 90's on my first PC. I never earn money with it or use it at work. Just play and then throw away.
If the Eastern countries were abiding to the law we would have completely PC illiterate population. I mean you saved money for years just to get the hardware. The software would be as expensive as the rig, even more. Try it with 200$ salary a month.
Hell, we even had the whole German national football team shopping hundreds of CD's from the pirates when they came along to play qualification game for Euro 96.
Bottle of nitrogen would do it for me if it comes to that. You get high and then you die without noticing! Perfect!
"If you think you can notice the difference between a high quality (320kbit/s or higher) MP3 and a CD then you need to have your head examined."
What an utter BS! You are a liar, sir, and probably a corporate whore. I don't see why else you posted this. There is a difference between FLAC and 320kbit/s MP3. If you have the headphones to hear it. I do.
I have just emerged from my own comparative study. I shrunk CD's to FLAC and 320 kbit/s MP3 with CD DA extractor (max settings for the MP3) and tested them on a Cowon player with Sennheiser IE7 headphones. MASSIVE difference. No contest at all. So I keep buying CD's for now, and if the industry removes this option I stop buying.
Did I say you are a liar? Abbusive too. Go to a shrink, eh? Thanks, corporate whore....
I recently purchased all the books from Card in English (I have read only Ender's game in my language), and while reading I realized something funny: Peter Wiggin's success as Locke was possible only because in this future world anonymity on the Net was still possible. Not easy, but possible.
Tragically I think, in our world such event is already impossible. Anybody who gains such respect and influence on the net will be sooner or later forced to reveal his/her identity. I am sure there is a law already in place and if not it will be voted on a moment's notice. Governments over the wold realised the potential of Internet as a game changer and as we know all to well, are busy strangling, hacking, slashing and killing it before it is too late (for them).
Next time you are in Amsterdam, go to Belgium beer bar. Try Quack (served in funny round bottom glasses that need wooden frame and handle). It's my favorite. Be careful though, its rather strong...
Can I have JUST a telephone please? You know, just to make calls.
So, they are killing the ohh, so dangerous open PC's for the sake of ooops, so dangerous "appliances". Mission accomplished!
You put yourselves in charge just like any other empire. These days I never say USA. I say the American Empire.
Even the public behavior of POTUS is designed after Roman emperors. The gestures, the statue, the elevation above the crowd, the lot. I say the first step you Americans need to take is to acknowledge that you are an Empire and ask yourselves where it will lead you. Then perhaps you might muster the strength to dismantle your Empire before it collapses on you.
But they don't believe sincerely. It's a scam. Why do people do not see this, even without any compromising leaks, is beyond me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
At least allegiance, you say? At least? I say, it's much more valuable than money.
In the only interview I have seen with one of the originators of ID (the lawyer, forgot his name) he explained in plain English what it is all about and yet it impressed no one!
He said something like "To teach the future generations of what is a fact about our origins and what is not is great power. And I do not see why one particular group of people (scientist) should have it" So he went out to find Dembski and the others. There is the profit of the scam - he said it - the minds of the next generations.
Do you think this price is worth the effort?
"Indeed, it is a great power", I wanted to reply. "But scientists as a whole are no conspirators pushing agenda and therefore cannot use this power. What are you going to do with it when you get it? ??? -profit?"
Of course the intention was to laugh at this scene. I laughed too.
Now, when it comes to serious stuff nobody is laughing (mostly).
The most horrific thing I ever saw on screen was not a movie or a game but the central news at 20:00h on Channel I in my country – supposedly the most serious journalism available.
What they showed was part from a video, taken by Chechen rebels and distributed by them. I was playing bridge with my friends and had the volume of the TV to zero, but unfortunately my partner played the contract, so I was watching the screen. They decapitated a captured Russian soldier. With a very big knife. The part of the murder that was shown did not include any gore at all. Yet it was absolutely horrific! You know what made me rush to the bathroom? They laid the soldier down and stepped on his head. Then the executioner drove the knife in his neck, twisted and started cutting towards the Adam apple. At that moment the body of the soldier reacted just like a chicken or a rabbit you decapitate (my grandparents were farmers, I have killed myself animals on the farm). The body started to shake without control, reacting on its own, trying to get away from the imminent death. It drove me nuts! It brought me nightmares!
All people involved in this particular news item were fired in the scandal afterward. But I think every chair warmonger should be shown this video with perhaps sticks preventing the eyes to close, like in Clockwork Orange. If there is a person out there that would laugh at this, they should be killed on the spot without trial. But I think you will find out that almost everyone will puke, rather than laugh. Cause its real.
On a related note – I always liked the Dune books from Herbert, because the battles were mostly hand-to-hand. You are no warrior if you do not kill hand-to-hand. You are a weasel pushing buttons and people die off hundreds of kilometers away. If you have to kill in person, your attitude towards violence and wars in general will change. Granted the few psychopaths do not count, but for most it will. Ask any sane veterans from wars where they had to meet the enemy face to face.
She, not He. Just saying..
And it is logically false.
The premise assumes that we do not know whether god exists (otherwise why wager?). However, the body of the argument takes for granted that god does want you to believe (i.e. we don't know whether it exist but we know what it wants?!?!?). What if god likes atheists and does not require believe in it? We have only the word of MAN saying that we should believe.
BTW, do you know Terry Pratchett's take on the Pascal wager? I don't remember in which book uf the Discworld equivalent of pascal found himself after dying surrounded by all major gods with sharp, nasty looking sticks saying "We will show you now what we think of mister Clever Dick in these parts"
Here is the book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Dreaming
BTW, according to a BBC documentary I saw he was a fraud and probably invented (or rather compiled) the philosophy allegedly obtained from a South American native.
However, his exercises http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensegrity_(Castaneda) really worked for me [from a book, never participated in a seminar]. But so did martial arts. The same achievements through different means. It has always seemed to me that there is a certain "truth"out there and different people interprete it differently and thus, advocate different ways to get there.
Even more funny, according to a popular New Age author from the 60's (I think this is the guy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda) gaining control over your dreams is a major step towards the kind of enlightenment he advocates.
I tried for ages to "see my hands" in my dreams [just an arbitrary task to start with], but I always wake up. On several occasions though I managed to control for a few seconds the dream.
So, gaming is the path to enlightenment. Who would suspect!
The last book I read about mathematics and physics of human interactions, including economy, was "Critical Mass (how one thing leads to another)" According to the author the best models for predicting the stock market still perform worst than "gut feeling" of an experienced trader.
It seems that the models fail because no one out there plays the game according to the simple rules that are said to define the free market. Or because the system is inherently unstable and prone to collapse. Overall I got the idea that the free market is an illusion, say, like communism. A system that requires people to change themselves first in order to work. Man, such ideologies never work!
Anyway, I totally agree about the growth thingy. I have always advocated that we should self-control our numbers and keep the progress going even if it has to slow down a tad. Restructure our activities in such way as to merge within the natural cycles (like water cycle, carbon cycle and so on) It would mean ever more wealth and possibilities for the everyone. Instead we have a pyramid, a Ponzi scheme. I laughed my head off decades ago when the globalization plans were announced. What, you want to remove the foundation of the pyramid? Make everyone wealthy? Who says that? Oh, the people sitting on top of the pyramid. Right!
T-shirts slogan: "You cannot sustain a progression in a finite Universe moving in cycles"
I know it by simply being alive and working. The ones that do not play Pacman, browse the news. Or chat for a while next to the coffee machine. Or go out for a smoke. Go out for a minute of sunshine. Take a walk around the building. The list is endless.
Charity, eh!
While simultaneously encouraging overpopulation and spread of diseases? Getting people back on their feet!? Why did they fall on the ground in the first place?
So the church basically created (arbitrary numbers) 1000 starving and sick people and helped 20 of them. Great job!
BTW, it is my personal conviction that the catholics should be prosecuted for genocide for what they did to Africa. Never before we have seen the ruin of communities on such a large scale, because religion put dogma before reality (as usual). This is a crime!
What did they told them (lets look only at a few basic concepts):
-birth control is a sin
-protecting oneself from STD is a sin
-the next life is better, this one is only important as a "test" to get to the other one (thus if you leave unimaginable mess in this one it still does not matter if you secure the proper afterlife one way or the other)
-be patient and content with your lot in life
-God loves you and Jesus will save you
Can you put your hand on your heart and honestly imagine what the above will do to a mind totally ignorant about the history and reality of the world? Please, try! Enlightenment lies in this path!
"By this point, the Catholic church has mostly improved from malicious to benign on the science front"
Yep, and the million dollar question is why they did it?
I'll tell you - because they have less power than before. ASAT (as simple as that).
How can I experience absence of God in Hell, since God created everything, including Satan and Hell?