Well, it was. Just imagine if we had invested that in something like alternative energy (REAL alternative energy like nukes and algae, not corn subsidies and windmills), or cheaper medicine, or something that could start a new industry. That might hurt in the short run (too big to fail doesn't mean the bank can't fail, it means too many others are so wrapped in it they can't safely fail), but in a few years, imagine what would happen to the economy if we became energy independent.
It is kind of disappointing to think about how our society would have evolved from that point on had it turned out that Venus, Mars, and/or the moon were habitable and had their own native flora and fauna, even if they weren't sentient.
Ah, you're right, my bad (although this site really needs a less subtle troll mod, something like -1, Insinuated that Macintosh products aren't magically perfect).
I don't think this is too surprising, except that it hadn't happened sooner. Large similar populations make for easy targets for viruses. This seems to be a universal. For example, you can see the same principle as mono/multi-culture in agriculture. Compare, say, the diseases apples get with the ones pawpaws get. Apple has always been the minority but here, Apple is the apple. Welcome to having a large marketshare.
I've noticed that being technologically savvy or skeptical about one thing doesn't always translate well into other fields. I've seen people say that naturopathy is nonsense because natural doesn't mean beneficial, then almost in the same sentence praise organic food because it is natural and therefore better. Look at Bill Maher criticize creationism as unscientific, then spew fearmongering about medical science and support magic based alternative medicines. People, in general, don't seem to be good at applying one standard set of reasoning to everything they encounter. I'm kinda surprised when I see someone on this site exhibit technophobia or praise pseudoscience (like as seen in today's dowsing article), but at the same time I also expect it. Food is one area where this appears to be especially true. Expect this laser etching thing to cause cancer (or some other disease of the day). Well, it won't really cause cancer, but some forwarded email will claim it, then some luddite quack will provide supporting evidence for it (based on a study with a sample size of 3), and we'll have another 'controversial' technique that 'they' are using to impurify our precious bodily fluids.
And that is why atheists are the least liked group on the religious spectrum. People don't think of the wonder and beauty and magnificence that people like Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins see in life, or the value that must be placed on all human life because it only comes once, despite the fact that we're all just blobs of carbon based machines and no special soul has ever been discovered. No, they instead think of nihilistic twats like the parent. Sad.
Statistically, rape is a minority case, so in the vast majority of cases, they are correct. I mean, whether or not the behavior was moral of course can be debated, but the point is it was still the parents' conscious willing decisions.
The only real problem(beyond the usual high start up costs of new technology) will be the inevitable co-opting of this imagery for a new round of weepy anti-abortion ads. "Oh Noes!, Lookat the wittle heart..."
Yes. Showing people biological facts with new technology. How terrible pro-lifers must be.
I could have modded you down, but since there is no -1 Wrong moderation, I decided to correct you instead. When you use a vaccine, you ARE relying on your immune system. All vaccines do is help create an immune response in a manner usually safer than the disease. I say usually because vaccines aren't supposed to eliminate all the risk. That's impossible; all reward has risk. Would you rather have, for example, a 1/50,000 chance of getting hurt by the flu, or a 1/1,000,000 chance of getting hurt by the vaccine. Those aren't actual statistics, but you get the idea. It is true that people are hurt by vaccines, and yes, they sometimes die from the vaccine, but the point is that they're safer than not getting vaccinated. I don't know why there has to be this false dichotomy that because a vaccine is not absolutely perfect that it is dangerous. I mean, it would be like claiming that you shouldn't wear a seat belt or use airbags because people have been hurt by those things. They save many, many more than they harm. It is not about eliminating danger, it is about mitigating the danger to lower levels. It is just asinine and illogical to say that because vaccines aren't fairy dust panaceas you shouldn't get one. I hope people realize that the vast, vast majority of this anti-vaccine nonsense has its cultural roots in anti-scientific fear-mongers (lookin' at you, Wakefield), not actual fact.
Not every solution that involves something other than fossil fuels and nuclear is pie in the sky
Why is nuclear lumped in with fossil? Nuclear material doesn't fall out of the sky so we know it won't last forever like solar, but it will certainty do the trick for a good long while without pumping out the pollution of fossil fuels. Nuclear, for all intents and purposes, is one of the green alternative energies.
grades and standardized testing scores are what matter at MIT.
And, statistically speaking, money. Hey, don't blame me, I know no one wants to hear this any more than people want to hear about racism or sexism at a favored place, but that's just the numbers. I wish I could link to the site that has more than just Pell numbers but that site appear to be down at the moment, but its enlightening.
I always hate it when people go on about how the world is going to collapse due to overpopulation but forget to take into account that the number of people the earth can sustain is not set in stone. Sure, infinite population growth on a finite world, its going to happen eventually, but in the foreseeable future, its not a problem. We were all supposed to have starved years ago. Borlaug proved that more than everyone, as long as we keep our agricultural practices and plants current (no sliding backwards in the fear of undefined 'toxins'), thay it is more than possible to produce the required amount of food. People getting that food is another story, but the physical production, that we can do.
The same dreamworld all the sociopathic CEOs and marketers live in.
What makes you think its a dreamworld? The sad fact of the matter is, it works. We, the consumers, are part of the problem. I'm taking a marketing class right now, and it is the most depressing class I've ever had. The whole class seems to be about how you can ask someone if they want to buy another brand new car, and they'll say hell no, but if you ask them if they want to buy the 2010 POS 'kickass car for sexy people' five minutes later, they'll say 'I'll take two.' And the problem is, it's true. It might seem like the CEOs and marketing gurus are to blame, but, unfortunately, the latter group at least is very confident in getting people to think they want something, and people really buy into their annoying crap. Remember in Return of the Jedi when Jabba called Bib Fortuna a weak minded fool because Luke manipulated him with the old Jedi mind trick? It's kind of like that, and although I don't mean to sound pretentious, so shall it likely remain until people stop buying something because a commercial made it look cool/sexy or because some famous actor/athlete told them to buy it.
Well, not necessarily, but certainty it's not improbable. But either way, to say anti-truth is an Israeli value makes as much sense as saying holocaust denial is an Iranian value, or attacking random countries is an American one. Pardon my assumptions, but comments like that makes people look like bigots.
If the South Africans were the only modern nation of white people, and their only crime was overreacting whenever attacked (still bad, but that makes them no more deserving of anything than the US), and they were historically one of the most hated groups, then yes, I'd say you probably were.
I'm not saying he ever specifically put it that way, but repeatedly calling for the end of a country, no matter how you word it, sounds a lot like saber rattling to me. Those aren't things anyone wants a to hear out of a president.
Because it tells the truth, which is contrary to Israeli values
To say that about a people reveals the source of your position. The Persians I've met were cool, and although I think the Iranian leadership is nuts and I support Israel, I would never say that about the actual people of Iran. Thanks for bringing that out into the open. It's refreshing to see people who bitch about Israel having the audacity to defend themselves being open about their antisemitism for a change.
What, they should have translated that literally, without common idioms? Because, ya know, removing someone from the pages of time is so much more loving. The only defense there is is translation pedantics, huh? Did you even read your link?
Your arguments against monoculture and possible parent abuse are valid, but remember, a tool is only as good as you use it. Genetic engineering is a tool, just like any other branch of engineering, and GMOs and monoculture/patent trolling need not be mutually inclusive. Given time, hopefully we'll see a wide variety of GMO crops grown, and better patent laws, to avoid those problems.
He didn't, to the contrary, patent them, prohibit [monsanto.com] replanting seeds in subsequent years, and so on.
I for one can't wait for the day when we see large scale open source GMO crops, and we can be done with the Monsnato thing for good. Many anti-GMO arguements are, at their core, not scientific in nature, but anti-corporate/anti-patent (both, of course, involving Monsanto). And that's sad that a legitimate and viable technology with so much potential should be forced to be weighed down with that sort of stuff.
Its not that they actively want the third world to be starving and disease ridden, so much as that they're willing to gloss over the facts and the consequences of their bitching if it means they can get the smug high of being 'green.' Many of them think what they're doing is for the best for everyone, citing far off 'what-ifs' to back their point. They're deadly wrong of course, and as a group should be held accountable for the results of their factless fearmongering and their love affair with ignorance, but I don't think it is consciously malicious.
Car analogy: A drunk driver who honestly believes beer makes you a better driver, despite all the mountains of evidence to the contrary, wrecks and kills a family of four.
Overpopulation is the root cause of many problems: energy shortage, famine, global warming, etc. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are approaching. We can already hear the hooves of the horses.
Good. Let them come. When they're here, science will kick their assess too.
If you're going to go that far down the road you might as well point out the heat death of the universe will gets us all eventually. But in the mean time, Borlaug's work proved that the number which constituted overpopulation (geopolitical things like war aside)is a dependent variable, dependent on our modern agricultural technology, and as such offers a degree of flexibility, so long as we continue to advance. Yeah, its like outrunning death itself with science, and eventually all things die, but in the mean time, if we can ward off our own mythologies and use our best tools, we can really improve life for many many generations, and hopefully humanity can buy itself enough time to come up with even better solutions that would solve even the problem you proposed.
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Well, it was. Just imagine if we had invested that in something like alternative energy (REAL alternative energy like nukes and algae, not corn subsidies and windmills), or cheaper medicine, or something that could start a new industry. That might hurt in the short run (too big to fail doesn't mean the bank can't fail, it means too many others are so wrapped in it they can't safely fail), but in a few years, imagine what would happen to the economy if we became energy independent.
It is kind of disappointing to think about how our society would have evolved from that point on had it turned out that Venus, Mars, and/or the moon were habitable and had their own native flora and fauna, even if they weren't sentient.
Ah, you're right, my bad (although this site really needs a less subtle troll mod, something like -1, Insinuated that Macintosh products aren't magically perfect).
I don't think this is too surprising, except that it hadn't happened sooner. Large similar populations make for easy targets for viruses. This seems to be a universal. For example, you can see the same principle as mono/multi-culture in agriculture. Compare, say, the diseases apples get with the ones pawpaws get. Apple has always been the minority but here, Apple is the apple. Welcome to having a large marketshare.
I've noticed that being technologically savvy or skeptical about one thing doesn't always translate well into other fields. I've seen people say that naturopathy is nonsense because natural doesn't mean beneficial, then almost in the same sentence praise organic food because it is natural and therefore better. Look at Bill Maher criticize creationism as unscientific, then spew fearmongering about medical science and support magic based alternative medicines. People, in general, don't seem to be good at applying one standard set of reasoning to everything they encounter. I'm kinda surprised when I see someone on this site exhibit technophobia or praise pseudoscience (like as seen in today's dowsing article), but at the same time I also expect it. Food is one area where this appears to be especially true. Expect this laser etching thing to cause cancer (or some other disease of the day). Well, it won't really cause cancer, but some forwarded email will claim it, then some luddite quack will provide supporting evidence for it (based on a study with a sample size of 3), and we'll have another 'controversial' technique that 'they' are using to impurify our precious bodily fluids.
it was still the parents' conscious willing decisions.
and of course, either way, not the baby's fault or choice. (my bad, forgot to add that part)
And that is why atheists are the least liked group on the religious spectrum. People don't think of the wonder and beauty and magnificence that people like Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins see in life, or the value that must be placed on all human life because it only comes once, despite the fact that we're all just blobs of carbon based machines and no special soul has ever been discovered. No, they instead think of nihilistic twats like the parent. Sad.
Statistically, rape is a minority case, so in the vast majority of cases, they are correct. I mean, whether or not the behavior was moral of course can be debated, but the point is it was still the parents' conscious willing decisions.
The only real problem(beyond the usual high start up costs of new technology) will be the inevitable co-opting of this imagery for a new round of weepy anti-abortion ads. "Oh Noes!, Lookat the wittle heart..."
Yes. Showing people biological facts with new technology. How terrible pro-lifers must be.
I could have modded you down, but since there is no -1 Wrong moderation, I decided to correct you instead. When you use a vaccine, you ARE relying on your immune system. All vaccines do is help create an immune response in a manner usually safer than the disease. I say usually because vaccines aren't supposed to eliminate all the risk. That's impossible; all reward has risk. Would you rather have, for example, a 1/50,000 chance of getting hurt by the flu, or a 1/1,000,000 chance of getting hurt by the vaccine. Those aren't actual statistics, but you get the idea. It is true that people are hurt by vaccines, and yes, they sometimes die from the vaccine, but the point is that they're safer than not getting vaccinated. I don't know why there has to be this false dichotomy that because a vaccine is not absolutely perfect that it is dangerous. I mean, it would be like claiming that you shouldn't wear a seat belt or use airbags because people have been hurt by those things. They save many, many more than they harm. It is not about eliminating danger, it is about mitigating the danger to lower levels. It is just asinine and illogical to say that because vaccines aren't fairy dust panaceas you shouldn't get one. I hope people realize that the vast, vast majority of this anti-vaccine nonsense has its cultural roots in anti-scientific fear-mongers (lookin' at you, Wakefield), not actual fact.
OK, can we store the waste in your basement?
As long as there's a new breeder reactor down there, please do.
Not every solution that involves something other than fossil fuels and nuclear is pie in the sky
Why is nuclear lumped in with fossil? Nuclear material doesn't fall out of the sky so we know it won't last forever like solar, but it will certainty do the trick for a good long while without pumping out the pollution of fossil fuels. Nuclear, for all intents and purposes, is one of the green alternative energies.
grades and standardized testing scores are what matter at MIT.
And, statistically speaking, money. Hey, don't blame me, I know no one wants to hear this any more than people want to hear about racism or sexism at a favored place, but that's just the numbers. I wish I could link to the site that has more than just Pell numbers but that site appear to be down at the moment, but its enlightening.
I always hate it when people go on about how the world is going to collapse due to overpopulation but forget to take into account that the number of people the earth can sustain is not set in stone. Sure, infinite population growth on a finite world, its going to happen eventually, but in the foreseeable future, its not a problem. We were all supposed to have starved years ago. Borlaug proved that more than everyone, as long as we keep our agricultural practices and plants current (no sliding backwards in the fear of undefined 'toxins'), thay it is more than possible to produce the required amount of food. People getting that food is another story, but the physical production, that we can do.
The same dreamworld all the sociopathic CEOs and marketers live in.
What makes you think its a dreamworld? The sad fact of the matter is, it works. We, the consumers, are part of the problem. I'm taking a marketing class right now, and it is the most depressing class I've ever had. The whole class seems to be about how you can ask someone if they want to buy another brand new car, and they'll say hell no, but if you ask them if they want to buy the 2010 POS 'kickass car for sexy people' five minutes later, they'll say 'I'll take two.' And the problem is, it's true. It might seem like the CEOs and marketing gurus are to blame, but, unfortunately, the latter group at least is very confident in getting people to think they want something, and people really buy into their annoying crap. Remember in Return of the Jedi when Jabba called Bib Fortuna a weak minded fool because Luke manipulated him with the old Jedi mind trick? It's kind of like that, and although I don't mean to sound pretentious, so shall it likely remain until people stop buying something because a commercial made it look cool/sexy or because some famous actor/athlete told them to buy it.
Well, not necessarily, but certainty it's not improbable. But either way, to say anti-truth is an Israeli value makes as much sense as saying holocaust denial is an Iranian value, or attacking random countries is an American one. Pardon my assumptions, but comments like that makes people look like bigots.
If the South Africans were the only modern nation of white people, and their only crime was overreacting whenever attacked (still bad, but that makes them no more deserving of anything than the US), and they were historically one of the most hated groups, then yes, I'd say you probably were.
I'm not saying he ever specifically put it that way, but repeatedly calling for the end of a country, no matter how you word it, sounds a lot like saber rattling to me. Those aren't things anyone wants a to hear out of a president.
Because it tells the truth, which is contrary to Israeli values
To say that about a people reveals the source of your position. The Persians I've met were cool, and although I think the Iranian leadership is nuts and I support Israel, I would never say that about the actual people of Iran. Thanks for bringing that out into the open. It's refreshing to see people who bitch about Israel having the audacity to defend themselves being open about their antisemitism for a change.
What, they should have translated that literally, without common idioms? Because, ya know, removing someone from the pages of time is so much more loving. The only defense there is is translation pedantics, huh? Did you even read your link?
Your arguments against monoculture and possible parent abuse are valid, but remember, a tool is only as good as you use it. Genetic engineering is a tool, just like any other branch of engineering, and GMOs and monoculture/patent trolling need not be mutually inclusive. Given time, hopefully we'll see a wide variety of GMO crops grown, and better patent laws, to avoid those problems.
He didn't, to the contrary, patent them, prohibit [monsanto.com] replanting seeds in subsequent years, and so on.
I for one can't wait for the day when we see large scale open source GMO crops, and we can be done with the Monsnato thing for good. Many anti-GMO arguements are, at their core, not scientific in nature, but anti-corporate/anti-patent (both, of course, involving Monsanto). And that's sad that a legitimate and viable technology with so much potential should be forced to be weighed down with that sort of stuff.
Its not that they actively want the third world to be starving and disease ridden, so much as that they're willing to gloss over the facts and the consequences of their bitching if it means they can get the smug high of being 'green.' Many of them think what they're doing is for the best for everyone, citing far off 'what-ifs' to back their point. They're deadly wrong of course, and as a group should be held accountable for the results of their factless fearmongering and their love affair with ignorance, but I don't think it is consciously malicious.
Car analogy: A drunk driver who honestly believes beer makes you a better driver, despite all the mountains of evidence to the contrary, wrecks and kills a family of four.
Overpopulation is the root cause of many problems: energy shortage, famine, global warming, etc. The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are approaching. We can already hear the hooves of the horses.
Good. Let them come. When they're here, science will kick their assess too.
If you're going to go that far down the road you might as well point out the heat death of the universe will gets us all eventually. But in the mean time, Borlaug's work proved that the number which constituted overpopulation (geopolitical things like war aside)is a dependent variable, dependent on our modern agricultural technology, and as such offers a degree of flexibility, so long as we continue to advance. Yeah, its like outrunning death itself with science, and eventually all things die, but in the mean time, if we can ward off our own mythologies and use our best tools, we can really improve life for many many generations, and hopefully humanity can buy itself enough time to come up with even better solutions that would solve even the problem you proposed.