"Treat others like you would like to be treated." - indeed a good strategy.
Only it does not originate from any religion, although it is repeated by all of them! This is of course, the Golden Rule [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule].
And although the article in Wiki gives us all cultures and religions that have expressed it over the millenia, there is this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat] which is the same - an ESS [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy]. Nature "invented" the Golden rule first, it seems!
As a side note, I have wondered recently why the intrinsic morality illustrated by Prisoners dilemma (when iterated) is seen so little in our society. Why so many choose to cheat? I have forgotten about the conditions when mutual cooperation brings higher profit than defection.
[excerpt from the Wiki article]
Where T stands for Temptation to defect, R for Reward for mutual cooperation, P for Punishment for mutual defection and S for Sucker's payoff. To be defined as prisoner's dilemma, the following inequalities must hold:
T > R > P > S
This condition ensures that the equilibrium outcome is defection, but that cooperation Pareto dominates equilibrium play. In addition to the above condition, if the game is repeatedly played by two players, the following condition should be added.[2]
2 R > T + S
If that condition does not hold, then full cooperation is not necessarily Pareto optimal, as the players are collectively better off by having each player alternate between Cooperate and Defect
[end excerpt from the Wiki article]
Perhaps, I reasoned, if we want a stable situation we can begin by changing the system in such way that 2R>T+S holds. Such system will require very little policing. Why do I have the feeling that in our world instead of 2R - S > T we have T>>> 2R - S, i.e. cheating is rewarded way higher than cooperation so it pays to cheat, even in iterative game. The other relation T > R > P > S is OK, and it is realistic - also in nature defect (receive but not give, say - you clean my parasites, I refuse to clean yours) is the most profitable course of action if you can get away with it or the game is played only once.
Yes, yes, yes, we all know how terrible it was in the past.
Only.....I used to live in totalitarian state and we although we could not afford the most modern western gadgets but as free time vs. earning enough for the necessities of life (food, shelter, water, warmth, health care, education) we had it better. I don't care what numbers one can dig from the net. It's true. Not that I am advocating totalitarian system, you see.
Only....the proportional distribution of wealth seems to remain more or less the same throughout the history of civilization. Sure, the total amount of wealth has increased.
Only...the described by you "increase leisure time and quality of life" counts for 1/5 of the Earth's population only. Before any accusations of socialism, let me tell you - I don't buy the fairy tail that our prosperity is not partly due to the poorer countries providing resources and cheap labor. I mean it's not that the west did not rape the rest of the planet to achieve our standard of living. Let's not be coy here, eh. Slavery, colonies, modern slavery, exploitation....I know from/. that americans, for instance, claim that the conquest of The West was not accompanied by genocide, but it was.
Only...it seems that most of the arable land is under heavy cultivation already. We use most of the fresh water already. And that sustainable future can be created at different levels of population where the higher the number of people the lower is the average standard. Or you tell me that the Earth is infinite. And please, no "we will colonize other planets" - if there is anything more dangerous than a fool trusting the infinite wisdom and technology of humanity it is an intelligent person believing so. What we desperately need is the "Dinosaur's prayer" - "Lord, a little bit more time!"
Only...if you unleash the geometrical progression until a certain point you WILL have more, you WILL increase wealth and you WILL have it better and better. And the best time to live around would be........just before the system collapses. I guess we never learn from history, even the fact that we do not learn from history.
I am all about development and ever increasing our knowledge and wisdom. I am all about Star Trek future and all that. But we will not get there with our present system. It's too rough, too unsophisticated, too messy, too negligent, too inhumane.
Everything on earth is a cycle. Only we behave like a progression. It will stop, with 100% certainty. The only question is when exactly. And I say it again - the people living just before the crash will have it THE BEST. That's a fact.
I don't know about you, but rent, insurance, transport, food and clothing already deplete almost all my budget. That's in the Netherlands at least. For a long time I though I am the only idiot around who cannot manage a budget until I talked with people. I am not alone. In fact almost 100% of the people I have spoken to have the same problem. Middle class people.
We are going to have elections this year and every party has announced its platform. All of them speak about rising taxes, cutting spending, increased cost of medical insurances (up to 3 times!). What for? Bail out banks, bail out countries, spend on wars. That's it. I don't know, but I find something very wrong with this situation.
Until 2014. After that every traveler to US will be DNA sampled.
The problem is I cannot find any link out there , yet the news is real, I swear. It was all over the papers at a certain point (last year?). I red in Dutch newspaper that the EU parliament is going to discus this "request" by the USA. Maybe there was even Slashdot discussion about it...
Things just disappear from the net, have you noticed? At least from the official sites....
You know, people, it is perhaps shameful to admit in front of this audience but despite working at the cutting edge of technology I only shrug at news like this one. Instead of all the exiting engineering/scientific thoughts that most of you exhibited and made the discussion interesting the only thing that crossed my mind was something like:
"So, we are going to save 70% of the fuel. What would happen in such "vacuum" Well, we will just build 70% more plains, fly even more people around, cheaper perhaps so the "gain" in efficiency will be quickly drowned by the increased volume of planes and passengers. Move along, nothing to see here..."
I don't want to rain on anybody's parade but every time when some new technological development frees us time, it is immediately filled with more work, not more recreation or hobbies or family life. When it comes to food and water it is even worst. Just consider the "green revolution" from the 70's. Population pressure due to the baby boom after the war. Solution - industrial agriculture which completely kills the taste of food (especially fruits and vegetables) but its efficient and easier to transport and preserve. When it was all over , did we wipe out the noble sweat and sat down to enjoy the fruits of our ingenuity (pun intended)?
No, because the population pressure was already pushing us again. We will never catch up with this. And as every scientist will tell you , every next step will require more energy and more effort to squeeze maximum yield from minimum volume. Asymptotic approach to use the proper term. Like trying to accelerate a mass to the speed of light. As long as we do not stop the geometrical progression of our multiplication we will never be able (most of us) to enjoy what the progress is all about - giving MORE time for ourselves and our personal development and personal life. Giving MORE and higher quality goods and services per person (population flat, but efficiency increases).
Globally as humans we experience what we people in the west experience with the constant inflation - you have to run ever harder just to stand still. Miss one year's promotion or a raise and your buying power goes down. The effect of missing one year only is accumulative like compound interest. I am sick to the teeth that I have to run like a mouse on an endless tread just to stand still. Just to exists. And being told all the time how good I have it.
Not to mention that one of the best tricks the mammals have is our comparatively enhanced ability to communicate and cooperate.
Sharks vs. dolphins been the most recognizable media example...and of course, we humans, who brought sex and mucking about to high levels of sophistication (thank you Terry!). We really did speed things up with our communication and cooperation skills, didn't we?
It’s even better. Non-biased history is highly entertaining, thought provoking and generally very good for the brain and the soul. It promotes the creation of responsible, unbiased, reasonable citizens and that’s why it will never catch up.
I know exactly what I am talking about. A very brave soul from my insignificant nation decided to write down our history. [see this if you can read Cyrillic http://www.book.store.bg/p17824/bylgarski-hroniki-tom-ii-stefan-canev.html Sorry no English info available - I give this in case there are others from my country on/.]
He wanted to give us the true history in an accessible form, without any bias (as much as possible). The man himself is a poet and play writer and he did an absolutely magnificent job. According to him, the serious scholars always had access to the real deal, but the populous never did. The textbooks in school were heavily biased and heavily written. The specialized literature is too difficult to find and very dry to read. So he rose to the challenge.
It is impossible for me to transmit in this post the supreme delight I experienced by reading the books. For the first time there was a historical text that made sense! People were behaving like real people; there are no black and white characters. People who we thought were heroes turned out not to be and vice versa. The real politic was exposed. It was a revelation. Almost everything I knew about our history was wrong! All my life I am striving to understand the “real politic” behind everything that matters – countries politics and wars, business's behavior , and religions too. What is behind a certain act? What reasoning, what aim, what logic, what emotion? And this man gave to me the rare glimpse behind the scenes. Priceless!
Ohhh, if only I had some time to translate properly for you, say the episode about the saving of the Jews from my country during the WWII. To give you what we “knew” compared to what really happened. Maybe I will try one day. Then you will know what I am talking about.
Everyone in the country was pissed off by those books. The communists, the capitalists, the church, the patriots, EVERYONE. This shows beyond doubt that those books are the real deal. I have not stopped banging the awareness drum ever since. I have bought them to people that cannot afford them. I have recommended them to all my relatives and friends.
I do not think that it will make big difference in the public mind, though, because people with propaganda in their heads do not want to hear, see or think about anything different from their beliefs. But at least for those of us that want to know, there is a source.
Since a year or two I am trying to investigate whether the people of other countries in the world have been blessed with similar books. So far I could not find any. And today I saw this news on/. Speechless!
My fellow countrymen (if there are any here), do you remember the popular song that emerged after the wall collapsed “When are we going to catch up with the Americans”? Well, I have an answer to this – in terms of history education we have left the Americans to eat our dust. We are in the next Galaxy compared to them! Rejoice! Because not only the Americans do not have access (for the few that want to know) to their real history but also they want to falsify even further the public version.
My fellow Americans, I am deeply puzzled that Texas has not been nuked from orbit yet. It’s the only way to be sure..
BTW, I red that Oliver Stone is making 10 episode documentary about the real history of USA in the 20th century. So perhaps the US citizen will have access to the unbiased version. One can only hope!
I think the large sale figures are because they are trying (and perhaps succeeding) to engage the completely non-technical crowd that still has to/would like to use at least the Web in their lives.
Like my mom who has first seen PC at the age of 45 and never needed it, but now would want to Skype with me, being 2000km away. And no one around her can support (without payment) a PC. Add to that girlfriends/wives (some of them), posers, fan boys, uber consumers....I am damn sure the hype will not die out in a hurry.
I would still not buy it for my mom because it will be some time (if ever) until the OS is translated into my language (mom does not speak English). I hope they do it for Russian though - that will solve it for her.
I offered my wife to consider the iPad, but she disagrees with Apple about the pr0n thing and Steve's high moral horse (she reads/. sometimes).
I would love to be able to browse while in the sofa though, so I hope there will be many more and suited to every taste devices like this. And I hope the whole DRM thing will not spoil the book reading, music listening and movie watching experiences on said devices.
According to this http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html , 4-8 units will be build in the next decade in the US.
Europe has taken sharp turn as well. Even the Dutch are considering building a new one. East Europe is not sleeping too. Russia wants to build 50 new plants, how about China and India.
The advance of nuclear power was certainly hindered but not by any environmentalists (or just a few) but global hysteria, market interests and politics. Plus the "bio fuel scam" delayed us in Europe. Now we are backing out of it but many concessions are rewarded because the fucking politicians did not listen to the majority of scientists when they should have.
On a side note: You make another mistake too. You confuse the disgust some thinking people (including myself) share about THE WAY our civilization is run for an attempt to destroy it. Which is utter bullshit, because if only transportation stops for a month most city dwellers around the world will starve. The civilization will be destroyed exactly by those people that see conspiracy every time when someone tries to change something for the better. Like a small child that goes mad with contempt and rejection and starts breaking anything in sight.
Here is my music greeting for the day:
Dogs of war and men of hate With no cause, we don't discriminate Discovery is to be disowned Our currency is flesh and bone Hell opened up and put on sale Gather 'round and haggle For hard cash, we will lie and deceive Even our masters don't know the web we weave
One world, it's a battleground One world, and we will smash it down One world... One world
Invisible transfers, long distance calls, Hollow laughter in marble halls Steps have been taken, a silent uproar Has unleashed the dogs of war You can't stop what has begun Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion We all have a dark side, to say the least And dealing in death is the nature of the beast
One world, it's a battleground One world, and we will smash it down One world... One world
The dogs of war don't negotiate The dogs of war won't capitulate, They will take and you will give, And you must die so that they may live You can knock at any door, But wherever you go, you know they've been there before Well winners can lose and things can get strained But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain.
One world, it's a battleground One world, and we will smash it down One world... One world
What he prefers is what his bloody organization did in the middle ages - all the info and knowledge in their hands to be distributed or destroyed at their whim.
Yhea, and there are some delusional people out there who think that religions are "modernizing" themselves. Pfffft!
What's the fucking point you are trying to make? The global dimming effect is known for years. This is no news to me at all. Only ostriches with their heads in the sand have missed this.
Every agricultural society that relies on open irrigation (canals, not pipes underground) measures every single day how much water evaporates per unit surface in direct sunlight. For decades. They noticed the decreased intensity of the sunlight already in the 60's and 70's. In Israel, Russia, Greece and basically everywhere, where someone cared to measure.
The effect is twofold - on one hand you have "gray optical filter". On the other, sooth particles in the air on altitude where clouds are forming act as "seeds" for droplet generation and shift the droplet size distribution towards bigger droplets, thus changing (positively) the reflective properties of the clouds, i.e. more light is reflected back in space. Add to that the effect of the aircraft trails, which we seem to have underestimated.
And for the other AC idiot above , read this http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/19/eyjafjallajokull-volcano-climate-carbon-emissions
I really tired of people pushing their delusions, desires, anxieties, laziness and so onto reality. WE ALL ARE GOING TO HELL because of you , idiots, who do not live in the real world. Wake up, for crying out loud!!!
That's right - the major threat to us at this stage is ourselves. We are already there. Sure, a massive global extinction event is also possible but far less likely than human made catastrophe.
I have always thought that a meaningful colonization effort is possible only if:
1. We preserve the Earth and create sustainable society to give us time to develop ourselves. 2. Explore and use available resources in the Solar system.
So, it's kind of natural cosmic selection - if you are unable to create sustainable society you go extinct before the colonization, because said colonization requires much more resources than are available on Earth or any other "normal" planet (I can foresee a case or two of extremely favorable conditions - 2 sister planets both rich in resources or some such, but it is a slim chance)
I don't think it is a coincidence that in Contact , Segan puts the question that our heroine would want to ask the aliens "How did you make it? How did you build an interstellar civilization without destroying yourselves?" he was thinking along the same lines.
Now, what is going to happen to such civilization that makes it? I think they will be enlightened enough to realize that geometric progression is unsustainable and once they are among the stars they will (most probably) not "revert" to mindless consumerism, so to speak. Because as we all know, humanity can fill the whole damn galaxy with humans in 3000 years given instantaneous travel and terraform capabilities.
If I was an advanced interstellar civilization I will actually look for other civilizations and if, by a slim chance, some make it to colonization without the need to stabilize their society and they go to space with the firm intention to continue their geometrical progression I would destroy such civilization. We don't need no Conan the Space Conquistador, thank you very much!
If we control ourselves there will be virtually endless resources for every civilization out there (I feel the ratio between habitable and non-habitable planets will be very much close to zero). But it takes one Conan the Space Conquistador to fuck the whole galaxy.
.....and an ass, for mentioning the kiddies. So, having i-thing makes you (this is just from the last week):
a:) Alpha male whom women like more b:) Morally sound, "think for the kiddies", responsible citizen
Up until this news came out, I did not care about Apple likes/dislikes at all. But this man is yet another apparently brilliant mind that succumbs to the idiocy of our civilization. Apparently for money and power. Is that a news to anyone anymore?
As a small retribution I crafted (or re-invented) this little motto today:
"Apple fans masturbate when they look, show or touch their mp3 players. I masturbate when I listen to mine."
Disclaimer: My only priority in mobile sounds is quality - I use one of the most audiophile player/headphones combos available and do not compress beyond flac. So the second part of the motto is accurate, the first one is speculative.
And for me, the tipping point (also an atheist, scientific one) it was when I learned that the muslims have joined the effort of the christians in destroying the secular societies in Europe, spreading leaflets against science and so on.
Now, you cannot make me fight because of religion, money, patriotism or any other -ism. But try to take away the secular society (how secular it is by not prosecuting the pedo-priests is another question) and I will meet you with deadly force. I was eager to join any anti-war demonstration in the last decade and I have always accused the west of poring oil in the fire (pun intended) of the christian-muslim antagonism, but now both sides are given the label "destructive, ignorant motherfuckers" and I will gladly fight them all given the chance.
Illustration - recently, there were local elections in the Netherlands. I was not entirely surprised to discover that when it comes to restricting human liberties and removing the excellent "freedom package" TM, that the Dutch enjoy (the best package in the world, you know - gay rights, abortion, euthanasia, soft drugs, legal prostitution) the party of the notorious anti-islamist Gert Wilders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Wilders) and the Islamic democratic party were in accord. Lovely!
In fact the coffe shops in Amsterdam had a poster dividing the parties that are for and against the coffieshops and the "against" section consisted of:
1. Christian democrats - religious wackos
2. PVV (Wilders) - nazi, xenophobic wackos
3. The "democratic" muslims - religious wackos (isn't it that smoking hash is kind of part of being muslim? I get that impression from movies for Afghanistan and the coffee shops in some districs)
4. The VVD (kind of started as party for the middle class but turned IMO into big business lapdog) - economy wackos. Maybe they are paid by the mafia on this issue because they want the business back in their hands (pure speculation here).
On top of that I realized how much non-secular, knee-jerk the USA and UK are because they were the first to back out and remove the content after the Danish cartoon scandal exploded.
Quote: Yes, but wasn't that really just retaliation against the Muslims for their recent (at the time) aggressiveness?
Not really, at least not in all cases.
I really love the story of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade
After they established the Latin Empire, having sacked Constantinople, they rejected the peaceful attempts by Kaloyan, king of Bulgaria, who was only too happy to see Byzantium fail. Small detail that is always omitted from all non-professional sources - the catholics thought of the Orthodox Christians no better than they did of the Muslims. They slaughtered, raped and razed on massive scale. Their own historians wrote so.
Very unfortunately for the new Latin emperor, Kaloyan is now thought to have suffered from a injury in the head which left damage on the skull and gave him fits of murderous rage (we found his remains recently). He was briliant strategist and very tough bastard overall. He took the throne at the age of 18. His elder brothers were both kings before him and were killed by internal conspirators, as was eventually, Kaloyan himself. The three of them led the battle that re-gained our independence from the Byzantium empire after 2 centuries of occupation.
So the holy crusade was decapitated in the battle of Adrionopol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople_%281205%29
It was Easter week, BTW. Thursday. I could never get the hang on Thursdays:)
In fact we got excellent weather in the Netherlands. It was no surprise for me because I knew about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming Quote: Some climate scientists have theorized that aircraft contrails (also called vapor trails) are implicated in global dimming, but the constant flow of air traffic previously meant that this could not be tested. The near-total shutdown of civil air traffic during the three days following the September 11, 2001 attacks afforded a unique opportunity in which to observe the climate of the United States absent from the effect of contrails. During this period, an increase in diurnal temperature variation of over 1 °C (1.8 °F) was observed in some parts of the U.S., i.e. aircraft contrails may have been raising nighttime temperatures and/or lowering daytime temperatures by much more than previously thought.[26]
See, the truth is really out there. But it is complex, difficult to understand and it is constantly misinterpreted (intentionally or not) by virtually every media, including popular science magazines.
You did not reply on my question above. Show me the success stories.
And again, me and the dude you are responding are not "noble savage" brainwashed. It is you , who is overly brainwashed by civilization.
And to answer one of your questions above:
Hell, they even go invade other countries, to enforce their own twisted reality there too. And... You think... that tribes won't? Seriously?
YES, SERIOUSLY! Even the Maia and Inca, who had a sort of civilization did not do it. They did not demand that the conquered tribes live like them. The tribal people were not stupid, you know. THEY KNEW from experience that you cannot "convert" another tribe, it does not work.
And face it, the civilization was never about "converting people" We just wanted their land and resources and pretended to sell them our "superior" way of life. Strange that most fought to the death....silly savages!!
"Or, to put it even more bluntly, Africans are suffering because their culture is too primitive to support nation-states, and they should either go back to being hunter-gatherer tribes living in jungle or copy the necessary memes from Chinese or European culture to finish their transition to be part of the modern world."
Which is what I also think except two small details.
First, the word "primitive". Judging by the rest of your post you do not use the word scientifically (meaning "first") but in a demeaning sense (less advanced, less sophisticated). WTF?!?! Their system was serving them right as hunter-gatherers. It was WORKING, otherwise it would disappear, no? Memes behave like genes, no? Evolutionary stable strategies and so on.....we have red R. Dawkins it seems, let's hope most of us understood it
Second, show me an example where prehistoric people were "thought" civilization successfully! Is it that simple as "copy the necessary memes from Chinese or European culture" ?! Where are the successes? Where is the civilized country of say, aboriginal people, or Native Americans? You have clear example in the history of USA (presuming you are American, statistically probable on/.) and yet you somehow seem to think that civilization is a bullet that you can shot at somebody and, presto, they are civilized. What if you cannot teach it and the proper memes have to evolve and cannot be imported?
Anyway, I am not a slave to the whole "noble savage" meme, but calling everyone before civilization savage and brutal misses the point by a mile. And I'm still wondering from what kind of high ground do we give away labels sooooo easily. The mongol hordes, the Church, the Roman empire, Dark ages, Inquisition, Genocide of EVERY pre-civilized society we encountered, WWI, WWII, atomic bombs, wars for resources, wars for pure political influence (helping dictators and indeed maniacal killers because it happened to suit us), destruction of the ecosystem....well that's hell of a high ground to step on....
In other words, they are ignorant, unprepared and inexperienced about how to run a civilization. Then leave them be....when they are prepared they will knock on the door themselves.
However, I cannot agree with your mindset which seems to allege that "genocidal maniacs killing each other" is somehow a hallmark of pre-civilized societies only? How it's my turn to say "Please"......most anthropologist and historians tend to disagree.
I support your points, but I would like to make another one too. The biggest tragedy (to me) about Africa is that the people there are left hanging between the two systems - hunter gatherer and civilized. They cannot go back, because due to our "humanitarian help" their numbers are too high. On the other hand they are not given opportunity ti develop fully functional civilization with all the essential infrastructure to run it.
The net result - they will remain low-paid, working in extreme conditions (see http://www.outrightdistribution.com/programmes/blood-sweat-and-luxuries-513.aspx) and basically exploited to the limit.
The generous white guys who fucked their land, enslaved them, divided the borders arbitrary and happily sold them guns to kill each other will, oh so generously, "integrate" them in the modern world by a slow and painful exploitation. It will last decades. It's disgusting...
According to what I have red (no link, the info is not free), a full scale war of conquest and extermination is a by-product of civilization. The pre-historic people mostly did not have the necessary resources to wage a war of extermination and the gain would have been to little to justify the expense. It's a waste of energy for them. Only in civilized times the population pressure can become so high that such a war is "energy-efficient".
So, get your "Peace is a luxury of advanced societies." statement back and run to the library. The anthropology department.
Cheers!
P.S. Women, though , it's different thing. Even lower animals have the instinct to avoid incest, we certainly do to.
I have thought about it. All my life so far, in fact. And I came to the conclusion that there is very little if any connection between profit and quality, ingenuity, creativity, usefulness and fairness. It's negligible.
It is views like yours "If you are so smart show me your money" that make me puke. Like it is possible for all of us to make iPads and Windows (who's going to buy them then). Like only people with money and power are correct...I mean WTF?
Status, symbols, power, money - those do not tell you anything really important and do not say anything useful about the persons involved. Do I need to give you 999 999 examples of this simple truth? Just look around....
""III and the new one? They are absolutely nothing but special effects""
That's because III and VI are propaganda.
The hilarious thing is that when I first watched III on a crappy VHS player (but every boy in class was envying the owner, a boy who's father, naturally, worked for the secret service), smuggled from hand to hand under communist regime with terribly bad dubbing (one voice, male, with bad dialect) we all cheered when Rambo kicked Russian ass. Knowing fully well that what happened on screen was 100% impossible - we did not buy that part. So the propaganda was working on us, or rather, we did not really needed it to know what's what. This is one of my fondest memories for its cultural and historical significance in my little life. As far as I can remember there was a dedication in the beginning "To the valiant people of Afghanistan" or some such. Utterly hilarious, especially with hindsight.
Slashdot Mirror
"Treat others like you would like to be treated." - indeed a good strategy.
Only it does not originate from any religion, although it is repeated by all of them! This is of course, the Golden Rule [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule].
And although the article in Wiki gives us all cultures and religions that have expressed it over the millenia, there is this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat] which is the same - an ESS [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy]. Nature "invented" the Golden rule first, it seems!
As a side note, I have wondered recently why the intrinsic morality illustrated by Prisoners dilemma (when iterated) is seen so little in our society. Why so many choose to cheat? I have forgotten about the conditions when mutual cooperation brings higher profit than defection.
[excerpt from the Wiki article]
Where T stands for Temptation to defect, R for Reward for mutual cooperation, P for Punishment for mutual defection and S for Sucker's payoff. To be defined as prisoner's dilemma, the following inequalities must hold:
T > R > P > S
This condition ensures that the equilibrium outcome is defection, but that cooperation Pareto dominates equilibrium play. In addition to the above condition, if the game is repeatedly played by two players, the following condition should be added.[2]
2 R > T + S
If that condition does not hold, then full cooperation is not necessarily Pareto optimal, as the players are collectively better off by having each player alternate between Cooperate and Defect
[end excerpt from the Wiki article]
Perhaps, I reasoned, if we want a stable situation we can begin by changing the system in such way that 2R>T+S holds. Such system will require very little policing. Why do I have the feeling that in our world instead of 2R - S > T we have T>>> 2R - S, i.e. cheating is rewarded way higher than cooperation so it pays to cheat, even in iterative game.
The other relation T > R > P > S is OK, and it is realistic - also in nature defect (receive but not give, say - you clean my parasites, I refuse to clean yours) is the most profitable course of action if you can get away with it or the game is played only once.
Yes, yes, yes, we all know how terrible it was in the past.
Only.....I used to live in totalitarian state and we although we could not afford the most modern western gadgets but as free time vs. earning enough for the necessities of life (food, shelter, water, warmth, health care, education) we had it better. I don't care what numbers one can dig from the net. It's true. Not that I am advocating totalitarian system, you see.
Only....the proportional distribution of wealth seems to remain more or less the same throughout the history of civilization. Sure, the total amount of wealth has increased.
Only...the described by you "increase leisure time and quality of life" counts for 1/5 of the Earth's population only. Before any accusations of socialism, let me tell you - I don't buy the fairy tail that our prosperity is not partly due to the poorer countries providing resources and cheap labor. I mean it's not that the west did not rape the rest of the planet to achieve our standard of living. Let's not be coy here, eh. Slavery, colonies, modern slavery, exploitation....I know from /. that americans, for instance, claim that the conquest of The West was not accompanied by genocide, but it was.
Only...it seems that most of the arable land is under heavy cultivation already. We use most of the fresh water already. And that sustainable future can be created at different levels of population where the higher the number of people the lower is the average standard. Or you tell me that the Earth is infinite. And please, no "we will colonize other planets" - if there is anything more dangerous than a fool trusting the infinite wisdom and technology of humanity it is an intelligent person believing so. What we desperately need is the "Dinosaur's prayer" - "Lord, a little bit more time!"
Only...if you unleash the geometrical progression until a certain point you WILL have more, you WILL increase wealth and you WILL have it better and better. And the best time to live around would be........just before the system collapses. I guess we never learn from history, even the fact that we do not learn from history.
I am all about development and ever increasing our knowledge and wisdom. I am all about Star Trek future and all that. But we will not get there with our present system. It's too rough, too unsophisticated, too messy, too negligent, too inhumane.
Everything on earth is a cycle. Only we behave like a progression. It will stop, with 100% certainty. The only question is when exactly. And I say it again - the people living just before the crash will have it THE BEST. That's a fact.
I don't know about you, but rent, insurance, transport, food and clothing already deplete almost all my budget. That's in the Netherlands at least. For a long time I though I am the only idiot around who cannot manage a budget until I talked with people. I am not alone. In fact almost 100% of the people I have spoken to have the same problem. Middle class people.
We are going to have elections this year and every party has announced its platform. All of them speak about rising taxes, cutting spending, increased cost of medical insurances (up to 3 times!). What for? Bail out banks, bail out countries, spend on wars. That's it. I don't know, but I find something very wrong with this situation.
Until 2014. After that every traveler to US will be DNA sampled.
The problem is I cannot find any link out there , yet the news is real, I swear. It was all over the papers at a certain point (last year?). I red in Dutch newspaper that the EU parliament is going to discus this "request" by the USA. Maybe there was even Slashdot discussion about it...
Things just disappear from the net, have you noticed? At least from the official sites....
You know, people, it is perhaps shameful to admit in front of this audience but despite working at the cutting edge of technology I only shrug at news like this one. Instead of all the exiting engineering/scientific thoughts that most of you exhibited and made the discussion interesting the only thing that crossed my mind was something like:
"So, we are going to save 70% of the fuel. What would happen in such "vacuum" Well, we will just build 70% more plains, fly even more people around, cheaper perhaps so the "gain" in efficiency will be quickly drowned by the increased volume of planes and passengers. Move along, nothing to see here..."
I don't want to rain on anybody's parade but every time when some new technological development frees us time, it is immediately filled with more work, not more recreation or hobbies or family life. When it comes to food and water it is even worst. Just consider the "green revolution" from the 70's. Population pressure due to the baby boom after the war. Solution - industrial agriculture which completely kills the taste of food (especially fruits and vegetables) but its efficient and easier to transport and preserve. When it was all over , did we wipe out the noble sweat and sat down to enjoy the fruits of our ingenuity (pun intended)?
No, because the population pressure was already pushing us again. We will never catch up with this. And as every scientist will tell you , every next step will require more energy and more effort to squeeze maximum yield from minimum volume. Asymptotic approach to use the proper term. Like trying to accelerate a mass to the speed of light. As long as we do not stop the geometrical progression of our multiplication we will never be able (most of us) to enjoy what the progress is all about - giving MORE time for ourselves and our personal development and personal life. Giving MORE and higher quality goods and services per person (population flat, but efficiency increases).
Globally as humans we experience what we people in the west experience with the constant inflation - you have to run ever harder just to stand still. Miss one year's promotion or a raise and your buying power goes down. The effect of missing one year only is accumulative like compound interest. I am sick to the teeth that I have to run like a mouse on an endless tread just to stand still. Just to exists. And being told all the time how good I have it.
Not to mention that one of the best tricks the mammals have is our comparatively enhanced ability to communicate and cooperate.
Sharks vs. dolphins been the most recognizable media example...and of course, we humans, who brought sex and mucking about to high levels of sophistication (thank you Terry!). We really did speed things up with our communication and cooperation skills, didn't we?
It’s even better. Non-biased history is highly entertaining, thought provoking and generally very good for the brain and the soul. It promotes the creation of responsible, unbiased, reasonable citizens and that’s why it will never catch up.
I know exactly what I am talking about. A very brave soul from my insignificant nation decided to write down our history. [see this if you can read Cyrillic http://www.book.store.bg/p17824/bylgarski-hroniki-tom-ii-stefan-canev.html Sorry no English info available - I give this in case there are others from my country on /.]
He wanted to give us the true history in an accessible form, without any bias (as much as possible). The man himself is a poet and play writer and he did an absolutely magnificent job. According to him, the serious scholars always had access to the real deal, but the populous never did. The textbooks in school were heavily biased and heavily written. The specialized literature is too difficult to find and very dry to read. So he rose to the challenge.
It is impossible for me to transmit in this post the supreme delight I experienced by reading the books. For the first time there was a historical text that made sense! People were behaving like real people; there are no black and white characters. People who we thought were heroes turned out not to be and vice versa. The real politic was exposed. It was a revelation. Almost everything I knew about our history was wrong! All my life I am striving to understand the “real politic” behind everything that matters – countries politics and wars, business's behavior , and religions too. What is behind a certain act? What reasoning, what aim, what logic, what emotion? And this man gave to me the rare glimpse behind the scenes. Priceless!
Ohhh, if only I had some time to translate properly for you, say the episode about the saving of the Jews from my country during the WWII. To give you what we “knew” compared to what really happened. Maybe I will try one day. Then you will know what I am talking about.
Everyone in the country was pissed off by those books. The communists, the capitalists, the church, the patriots, EVERYONE. This shows beyond doubt that those books are the real deal. I have not stopped banging the awareness drum ever since. I have bought them to people that cannot afford them. I have recommended them to all my relatives and friends.
I do not think that it will make big difference in the public mind, though, because people with propaganda in their heads do not want to hear, see or think about anything different from their beliefs. But at least for those of us that want to know, there is a source.
Since a year or two I am trying to investigate whether the people of other countries in the world have been blessed with similar books. So far I could not find any. And today I saw this news on /. Speechless!
My fellow countrymen (if there are any here), do you remember the popular song that emerged after the wall collapsed “When are we going to catch up with the Americans”?
Well, I have an answer to this – in terms of history education we have left the Americans to eat our dust. We are in the next Galaxy compared to them! Rejoice! Because not only the Americans do not have access (for the few that want to know) to their real history but also they want to falsify even further the public version.
My fellow Americans, I am deeply puzzled that Texas has not been nuked from orbit yet. It’s the only way to be sure..
BTW, I red that Oliver Stone is making 10 episode documentary about the real history of USA in the 20th century. So perhaps the US citizen will have access to the unbiased version. One can only hope!
I think the large sale figures are because they are trying (and perhaps succeeding) to engage the completely non-technical crowd that still has to/would like to use at least the Web in their lives.
/. sometimes).
Like my mom who has first seen PC at the age of 45 and never needed it, but now would want to Skype with me, being 2000km away. And no one around her can support (without payment) a PC. Add to that girlfriends/wives (some of them), posers, fan boys, uber consumers....I am damn sure the hype will not die out in a hurry.
I would still not buy it for my mom because it will be some time (if ever) until the OS is translated into my language (mom does not speak English). I hope they do it for Russian though - that will solve it for her.
I offered my wife to consider the iPad, but she disagrees with Apple about the pr0n thing and Steve's high moral horse (she reads
I would love to be able to browse while in the sofa though, so I hope there will be many more and suited to every taste devices like this. And I hope the whole DRM thing will not spoil the book reading, music listening and movie watching experiences on said devices.
Rejected?
... One world
... One world
... One world
According to this http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html , 4-8 units will be build in the next decade in the US.
Europe has taken sharp turn as well. Even the Dutch are considering building a new one. East Europe is not sleeping too. Russia wants to build 50 new plants, how about China and India.
The advance of nuclear power was certainly hindered but not by any environmentalists (or just a few) but global hysteria, market interests and politics. Plus the "bio fuel scam" delayed us in Europe. Now we are backing out of it but many concessions are rewarded because the fucking politicians did not listen to the majority of scientists when they should have.
On a side note: You make another mistake too. You confuse the disgust some thinking people (including myself) share about THE WAY our civilization is run for an attempt to destroy it. Which is utter bullshit, because if only transportation stops for a month most city dwellers around the world will starve. The civilization will be destroyed exactly by those people that see conspiracy every time when someone tries to change something for the better. Like a small child that goes mad with contempt and rejection and starts breaking anything in sight.
Here is my music greeting for the day:
Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don't discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
Hell opened up and put on sale
Gather 'round and haggle
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know the web we weave
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world
Invisible transfers, long distance calls,
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can't stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
We all have a dark side, to say the least
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world
The dogs of war don't negotiate
The dogs of war won't capitulate,
They will take and you will give,
And you must die so that they may live
You can knock at any door,
But wherever you go, you know they've been there before
Well winners can lose and things can get strained
But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain.
One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world
I know!
What he prefers is what his bloody organization did in the middle ages - all the info and knowledge in their hands to be distributed or destroyed at their whim.
Yhea, and there are some delusional people out there who think that religions are "modernizing" themselves. Pfffft!
What's the fucking point you are trying to make? The global dimming effect is known for years. This is no news to me at all. Only ostriches with their heads in the sand have missed this.
Every agricultural society that relies on open irrigation (canals, not pipes underground) measures every single day how much water evaporates per unit surface in direct sunlight. For decades. They noticed the decreased intensity of the sunlight already in the 60's and 70's. In Israel, Russia, Greece and basically everywhere, where someone cared to measure.
The effect is twofold - on one hand you have "gray optical filter". On the other, sooth particles in the air on altitude where clouds are forming act as "seeds" for droplet generation and shift the droplet size distribution towards bigger droplets, thus changing (positively) the reflective properties of the clouds, i.e. more light is reflected back in space. Add to that the effect of the aircraft trails, which we seem to have underestimated.
And for the other AC idiot above , read this http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/19/eyjafjallajokull-volcano-climate-carbon-emissions
I really tired of people pushing their delusions, desires, anxieties, laziness and so onto reality. WE ALL ARE GOING TO HELL because of you , idiots, who do not live in the real world. Wake up, for crying out loud!!!
That's right - the major threat to us at this stage is ourselves. We are already there. Sure, a massive global extinction event is also possible but far less likely than human made catastrophe.
I have always thought that a meaningful colonization effort is possible only if:
1. We preserve the Earth and create sustainable society to give us time to develop ourselves.
2. Explore and use available resources in the Solar system.
So, it's kind of natural cosmic selection - if you are unable to create sustainable society you go extinct before the colonization, because said colonization requires much more resources than are available on Earth or any other "normal" planet (I can foresee a case or two of extremely favorable conditions - 2 sister planets both rich in resources or some such, but it is a slim chance)
I don't think it is a coincidence that in Contact , Segan puts the question that our heroine would want to ask the aliens "How did you make it? How did you build an interstellar civilization without destroying yourselves?" he was thinking along the same lines.
Now, what is going to happen to such civilization that makes it? I think they will be enlightened enough to realize that geometric progression is unsustainable and once they are among the stars they will (most probably) not "revert" to mindless consumerism, so to speak. Because as we all know, humanity can fill the whole damn galaxy with humans in 3000 years given instantaneous travel and terraform capabilities.
If I was an advanced interstellar civilization I will actually look for other civilizations and if, by a slim chance, some make it to colonization without the need to stabilize their society and they go to space with the firm intention to continue their geometrical progression I would destroy such civilization. We don't need no Conan the Space Conquistador, thank you very much!
If we control ourselves there will be virtually endless resources for every civilization out there (I feel the ratio between habitable and non-habitable planets will be very much close to zero). But it takes one Conan the Space Conquistador to fuck the whole galaxy.
.....and an ass, for mentioning the kiddies. So, having i-thing makes you (this is just from the last week):
a:) Alpha male whom women like more
b:) Morally sound, "think for the kiddies", responsible citizen
Up until this news came out, I did not care about Apple likes/dislikes at all. But this man is yet another apparently brilliant mind that succumbs to the idiocy of our civilization. Apparently for money and power. Is that a news to anyone anymore?
As a small retribution I crafted (or re-invented) this little motto today:
"Apple fans masturbate when they look, show or touch their mp3 players. I masturbate when I listen to mine."
Disclaimer: My only priority in mobile sounds is quality - I use one of the most audiophile player/headphones combos available and do not compress beyond flac. So the second part of the motto is accurate, the first one is speculative.
And for me, the tipping point (also an atheist, scientific one) it was when I learned that the muslims have joined the effort of the christians in destroying the secular societies in Europe, spreading leaflets against science and so on.
Now, you cannot make me fight because of religion, money, patriotism or any other -ism. But try to take away the secular society (how secular it is by not prosecuting the pedo-priests is another question) and I will meet you with deadly force. I was eager to join any anti-war demonstration in the last decade and I have always accused the west of poring oil in the fire (pun intended) of the christian-muslim antagonism, but now both sides are given the label "destructive, ignorant motherfuckers" and I will gladly fight them all given the chance.
Illustration - recently, there were local elections in the Netherlands. I was not entirely surprised to discover that when it comes to restricting human liberties and removing the excellent "freedom package" TM, that the Dutch enjoy (the best package in the world, you know - gay rights, abortion, euthanasia, soft drugs, legal prostitution) the party of the notorious anti-islamist Gert Wilders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gert_Wilders) and the Islamic democratic party were in accord. Lovely!
In fact the coffe shops in Amsterdam had a poster dividing the parties that are for and against the coffieshops and the "against" section consisted of:
1. Christian democrats - religious wackos
2. PVV (Wilders) - nazi, xenophobic wackos
3. The "democratic" muslims - religious wackos (isn't it that smoking hash is kind of part of being muslim? I get that impression from movies for Afghanistan and the coffee shops in some districs)
4. The VVD (kind of started as party for the middle class but turned IMO into big business lapdog) - economy wackos. Maybe they are paid by the mafia on this issue because they want the business back in their hands (pure speculation here).
On top of that I realized how much non-secular, knee-jerk the USA and UK are because they were the first to back out and remove the content after the Danish cartoon scandal exploded.
Do you see a trend here, or is it just me....
Quote:
Yes, but wasn't that really just retaliation against the Muslims for their recent (at the time) aggressiveness?
Not really, at least not in all cases.
I really love the story of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Crusade
After they established the Latin Empire, having sacked Constantinople, they rejected the peaceful attempts by Kaloyan, king of Bulgaria, who was only too happy to see Byzantium fail. Small detail that is always omitted from all non-professional sources - the catholics thought of the Orthodox Christians no better than they did of the Muslims. They slaughtered, raped and razed on massive scale. Their own historians wrote so.
Very unfortunately for the new Latin emperor, Kaloyan is now thought to have suffered from a injury in the head which left damage on the skull and gave him fits of murderous rage (we found his remains recently). He was briliant strategist and very tough bastard overall. He took the throne at the age of 18. His elder brothers were both kings before him and were killed by internal conspirators, as was eventually, Kaloyan himself. The three of them led the battle that re-gained our independence from the Byzantium empire after 2 centuries of occupation.
So the holy crusade was decapitated in the battle of Adrionopol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Adrianople_%281205%29
It was Easter week, BTW. Thursday. I could never get the hang on Thursdays:)
Served them right, I have always thought.
Your comparison is highly offensive to the barbarians!
In fact we got excellent weather in the Netherlands. It was no surprise for me because I knew about this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
Quote:
Some climate scientists have theorized that aircraft contrails (also called vapor trails) are implicated in global dimming, but the constant flow of air traffic previously meant that this could not be tested. The near-total shutdown of civil air traffic during the three days following the September 11, 2001 attacks afforded a unique opportunity in which to observe the climate of the United States absent from the effect of contrails. During this period, an increase in diurnal temperature variation of over 1 °C (1.8 °F) was observed in some parts of the U.S., i.e. aircraft contrails may have been raising nighttime temperatures and/or lowering daytime temperatures by much more than previously thought.[26]
See, the truth is really out there. But it is complex, difficult to understand and it is constantly misinterpreted (intentionally or not) by virtually every media, including popular science magazines.
You did not reply on my question above. Show me the success stories.
And again, me and the dude you are responding are not "noble savage" brainwashed. It is you , who is overly brainwashed by civilization.
And to answer one of your questions above:
Hell, they even go invade other countries, to enforce their own twisted reality there too.
And... You think... that tribes won't? Seriously?
YES, SERIOUSLY! Even the Maia and Inca, who had a sort of civilization did not do it. They did not demand that the conquered tribes live like them. The tribal people were not stupid, you know. THEY KNEW from experience that you cannot "convert" another tribe, it does not work.
And face it, the civilization was never about "converting people" We just wanted their land and resources and pretended to sell them our "superior" way of life. Strange that most fought to the death....silly savages!!
OK, now I'm really worked up! You state:
/.) and yet you somehow seem to think that civilization is a bullet that you can shot at somebody and, presto, they are civilized. What if you cannot teach it and the proper memes have to evolve and cannot be imported?
"Or, to put it even more bluntly, Africans are suffering because their culture is too primitive to support nation-states, and they should either go back to being hunter-gatherer tribes living in jungle or copy the necessary memes from Chinese or European culture to finish their transition to be part of the modern world."
Which is what I also think except two small details.
First, the word "primitive". Judging by the rest of your post you do not use the word scientifically (meaning "first") but in a demeaning sense (less advanced, less sophisticated). WTF?!?! Their system was serving them right as hunter-gatherers. It was WORKING, otherwise it would disappear, no? Memes behave like genes, no? Evolutionary stable strategies and so on.....we have red R. Dawkins it seems, let's hope most of us understood it
Second, show me an example where prehistoric people were "thought" civilization successfully! Is it that simple as "copy the necessary memes from Chinese or European culture" ?! Where are the successes? Where is the civilized country of say, aboriginal people, or Native Americans? You have clear example in the history of USA (presuming you are American, statistically probable on
Anyway, I am not a slave to the whole "noble savage" meme, but calling everyone before civilization savage and brutal misses the point by a mile. And I'm still wondering from what kind of high ground do we give away labels sooooo easily. The mongol hordes, the Church, the Roman empire, Dark ages, Inquisition, Genocide of EVERY pre-civilized society we encountered, WWI, WWII, atomic bombs, wars for resources, wars for pure political influence (helping dictators and indeed maniacal killers because it happened to suit us), destruction of the ecosystem....well that's hell of a high ground to step on....
In other words, they are ignorant, unprepared and inexperienced about how to run a civilization. Then leave them be....when they are prepared they will knock on the door themselves.
However, I cannot agree with your mindset which seems to allege that "genocidal maniacs killing each other" is somehow a hallmark of pre-civilized societies only? How it's my turn to say "Please"......most anthropologist and historians tend to disagree.
I support your points, but I would like to make another one too.
The biggest tragedy (to me) about Africa is that the people there are left hanging between the two systems - hunter gatherer and civilized. They cannot go back, because due to our "humanitarian help" their numbers are too high. On the other hand they are not given opportunity ti develop fully functional civilization with all the essential infrastructure to run it.
The net result - they will remain low-paid, working in extreme conditions (see http://www.outrightdistribution.com/programmes/blood-sweat-and-luxuries-513.aspx) and basically exploited to the limit.
The generous white guys who fucked their land, enslaved them, divided the borders arbitrary and happily sold them guns to kill each other will, oh so generously, "integrate" them in the modern world by a slow and painful exploitation. It will last decades. It's disgusting...
What?!?!
According to what I have red (no link, the info is not free), a full scale war of conquest and extermination is a by-product of civilization. The pre-historic people mostly did not have the necessary resources to wage a war of extermination and the gain would have been to little to justify the expense. It's a waste of energy for them. Only in civilized times the population pressure can become so high that such a war is "energy-efficient".
So, get your "Peace is a luxury of advanced societies." statement back and run to the library. The anthropology department.
Cheers!
P.S. Women, though , it's different thing. Even lower animals have the instinct to avoid incest, we certainly do to.
I have thought about it. All my life so far, in fact. And I came to the conclusion that there is very little if any connection between profit and quality, ingenuity, creativity, usefulness and fairness. It's negligible.
It is views like yours "If you are so smart show me your money" that make me puke. Like it is possible for all of us to make iPads and Windows (who's going to buy them then). Like only people with money and power are correct...I mean WTF?
Status, symbols, power, money - those do not tell you anything really important and do not say anything useful about the persons involved. Do I need to give you 999 999 examples of this simple truth? Just look around....
International Socialism???
I have been socialist my whole life and I never new about it! You just made my day, bro!
I am coming after your SUV with a bazooka once the International Socialism issues it to me.
Cheers!
""III and the new one? They are absolutely nothing but special effects""
That's because III and VI are propaganda.
The hilarious thing is that when I first watched III on a crappy VHS player (but every boy in class was envying the owner, a boy who's father, naturally, worked for the secret service), smuggled from hand to hand under communist regime with terribly bad dubbing (one voice, male, with bad dialect) we all cheered when Rambo kicked Russian ass. Knowing fully well that what happened on screen was 100% impossible - we did not buy that part. So the propaganda was working on us, or rather, we did not really needed it to know what's what. This is one of my fondest memories for its cultural and historical significance in my little life. As far as I can remember there was a dedication in the beginning "To the valiant people of Afghanistan" or some such. Utterly hilarious, especially with hindsight.
But the first was quite good, for sure!