Washington state already has a minimum wage of $9.19/hr and there is no shortage of thriving fast food franchises. If minimum wage really was an impediment to business, then you should be able to plot some correlation between states that have set higher minimum wages and those that have not.
After each of those events, Earth was still more hospitable to life than any other known planet. We might have the technology to travel to Mars (barely), but we have no precedent for creating a sustainable environment for supporting life. Given the choice between staying on Earth and riding out a cataclysmic event or trying to survive on another planet without outside supplies, the rational choice is to stay put.
True, but the exact timeline doesn't matter. The doctrine of most Christian denominations requires that there was a literal Adam and Eve (in order for there to be Original Sin) and that these two people lived not more than a few thousand years ago.
It's not a secret that about half of published synthesis methods are garbage and yield values are wildly creative. Reviewers don't have the means to verify these, so anything that seems plausible gets published. Then researchers are left to sort out the best methods based on which ones get the most citations.
As a research chemist, I've published a couple of papers that were motivated because I didn't believe a paper's results to be true. The trick to get it past reviewers is to not only prove that they are wrong, but to come up with an alternative that is demonstrably superior.
"More likely a permanent state of drugged obedience via constant virtual escapism while being constantly controlled and monitored by the omniscient security apparatus."
You make that sound like a bad thing. But for many people, getting high and playing video games all day would be a kind of utopia.
Point of order: Polo, Columbus and Magellan did not go where no one else had been. There were people there to greet them when they arrived at their respective destinations. And, of course, the Wright brothers didn't really go anywhere new at all.
None of those are arbitrary requirement meant to exclude people. Science is hard. Making new discoveries means first having an understanding of what's been discovered before (four-year degree) then years of practice to master the skills of contemporary research (five-year research project, ie PhD). Yes, this kind of effort means that there are some implicit socioeconomic requirements, but that's true for any non-trivial endeavor. A bio-hacker space might be a fun way to demonstrate modern biology principles to the public (Extract DNA from strawberry! Express fluorescent protein in yogurt!), but I truly doubt that anyone is going to walk in off the street and do meaningful research without putting in effort comparable to the conventional academic route.
The issue isn't whether people will buy Windows 7 instead of Windows 8. The question is whether people will buy a new computer at all. Most people don't just automatically buy a new computer every other year, they need a reason to upgrade.
You've moved the goal post. You are no longer talking about whether Wyoming is overcrowded, but whether Central North America is overcrowded. My point was that the the concept of "overcrowded" doesn't necessarily mean that people are packed in shoulder-to-shoulder. It's relative to the resources available to a given region.
"This kind of argument is semantically identical to saying the evolution of the wolf into the chihuaha is perfectly natural."
You almost get it. From an evolutionary stand-point, there is no difference between natural and unnatural. How many chihuahuas are in the world? How many wolves are left in the world? If the world's wolf population is wiped-out due to loss of habitat and chihuahuas survive because they are more suited to co-existing with humans, then chihuahuas are the more successful species. Their genes will be passed on and the wolves' will not; that's all that matters in evolution. The only objective view is to recognize that humans and chihuahuas have a symbiotic relationship. Just like cattle and humans. Just like protozoans in insects. You can't apply anthropomorphic values, like "impose" and "domination", on natural processes.
That doesn't refute my point at all. You have an implied assumption that some reproduction strategies are normal, but others are "imposed". Ants, bees and termites have adapted a successful reproductive strategy based on the selection factors of their environment. One of those factors was this parasite. Their strategy was not "imposed" upon them any more than sexual reproduction has been imposed.
Who knows what environmental factors an alien species might encounter? Who knows what reproduction strategies they might evolve in their environment? We cannot assume that our behavior is representative of all life in the universe when it isn't even representative of life on our globe.
Wyoming is not physically crowded, but in terms of carrying capacity, it's just as overcrowded as Calcutta. There's not enough water and arable land to support the population without importing outside resources.
Your concept of "individual freedom" is based on species bias. Not all successful species have a individual drive to procreate: ants, bees, and termites for example.
Darwinian processes don't always result in a drive to overpopulate. Ants, bees and other social insects are highly successful species where reproduction is limited to a tiny percentage of the population. If an intelligent species evolved along those lines, it would be a lot easier for rationale decisions to be made about limiting growth to match available resources.
The fisherman parable that you are referring to is not from the Bible. Earliest references to the "Teach a man to fish..." quote attribute it to a Chinese proverb, but it was probably invented in the Victorian England.
The world, as we know it, does not exist. What we are experiencing is an illusion or a simulation. The parameters have been set up in such as way that we lack the necessary information to answer some of the deeper philosophical questions.
"In other words, pot damages your brain."
That's a HUGE jump to a conclusion. There are any number of variables that could co-correlate with teen pot use that might account for the difference in IQ.
Out of respect for your signature, I'm giving up mod points to reply to you.
First of all, very few people fit neatly into a political category. Whether we're talking about Jared Loughner or Fidel Castro, the left/right labels are always going to be inaccurate to some degree when applied to specific individuals.
But there's a very simple reason why every crazy gunman in America is labelled a right-winger: because it's the right-wing that continues to protect the means of crazy people to obtain guns. Until the NRA and Republicans come to the table to discuss real solutions, we're going to hold their feet the fire every time a school, church or movie theater is shot up.
Consumers aren't going to leave Windows to other desktop operating systems, they're going to leave the desktop altogether. Gamers will continue the migration to consoles and casual PC users will get tablets. Windows will be left to compete for the attention of power users, who are knowledgeable enough to consider Linux, and businesses, who upgrade their computers about every third OS release.
IQ is interesting. Nobody, especially researchers, thinks that it directly measures intelligence. But it does correlate with many outcomes that might be expected to be associated with intelligence: level of educational attainment, income, religious beliefs, etc. So you're right, nobody knows what they are measuring, but it's something that related to intelligence. For scientific purposes having an indirect, but quantifiable, metric is better than no metric at all.
You don't need global climate models to predict that the Central Valley is drying up. You just need to track the water table levels. Whether this is directly related to AGW is, perhaps, debatable. But it's a reasonable hypothesis.
Slashdot Mirror
Washington state already has a minimum wage of $9.19/hr and there is no shortage of thriving fast food franchises. If minimum wage really was an impediment to business, then you should be able to plot some correlation between states that have set higher minimum wages and those that have not.
After each of those events, Earth was still more hospitable to life than any other known planet. We might have the technology to travel to Mars (barely), but we have no precedent for creating a sustainable environment for supporting life. Given the choice between staying on Earth and riding out a cataclysmic event or trying to survive on another planet without outside supplies, the rational choice is to stay put.
True, but the exact timeline doesn't matter. The doctrine of most Christian denominations requires that there was a literal Adam and Eve (in order for there to be Original Sin) and that these two people lived not more than a few thousand years ago.
Complexity is more interesting than purity. Physics is just the branch of science that is simple enough to be modeled accurately with math.
It's not a secret that about half of published synthesis methods are garbage and yield values are wildly creative. Reviewers don't have the means to verify these, so anything that seems plausible gets published. Then researchers are left to sort out the best methods based on which ones get the most citations.
As a research chemist, I've published a couple of papers that were motivated because I didn't believe a paper's results to be true. The trick to get it past reviewers is to not only prove that they are wrong, but to come up with an alternative that is demonstrably superior.
You make that sound like a bad thing. But for many people, getting high and playing video games all day would be a kind of utopia.
Point of order: Polo, Columbus and Magellan did not go where no one else had been. There were people there to greet them when they arrived at their respective destinations. And, of course, the Wright brothers didn't really go anywhere new at all.
It's too bad that you think the meaningfulness of life should be measured by how memorable your accomplishments are.
None of those are arbitrary requirement meant to exclude people. Science is hard. Making new discoveries means first having an understanding of what's been discovered before (four-year degree) then years of practice to master the skills of contemporary research (five-year research project, ie PhD). Yes, this kind of effort means that there are some implicit socioeconomic requirements, but that's true for any non-trivial endeavor. A bio-hacker space might be a fun way to demonstrate modern biology principles to the public (Extract DNA from strawberry! Express fluorescent protein in yogurt!), but I truly doubt that anyone is going to walk in off the street and do meaningful research without putting in effort comparable to the conventional academic route.
R Buckminster Fuller did not discover buckyballs. They were named in his honor because of the similar to his geodesic dome designs.
The issue isn't whether people will buy Windows 7 instead of Windows 8. The question is whether people will buy a new computer at all. Most people don't just automatically buy a new computer every other year, they need a reason to upgrade.
You've moved the goal post. You are no longer talking about whether Wyoming is overcrowded, but whether Central North America is overcrowded. My point was that the the concept of "overcrowded" doesn't necessarily mean that people are packed in shoulder-to-shoulder. It's relative to the resources available to a given region.
"This kind of argument is semantically identical to saying the evolution of the wolf into the chihuaha is perfectly natural." You almost get it. From an evolutionary stand-point, there is no difference between natural and unnatural. How many chihuahuas are in the world? How many wolves are left in the world? If the world's wolf population is wiped-out due to loss of habitat and chihuahuas survive because they are more suited to co-existing with humans, then chihuahuas are the more successful species. Their genes will be passed on and the wolves' will not; that's all that matters in evolution. The only objective view is to recognize that humans and chihuahuas have a symbiotic relationship. Just like cattle and humans. Just like protozoans in insects. You can't apply anthropomorphic values, like "impose" and "domination", on natural processes.
Who knows what environmental factors an alien species might encounter? Who knows what reproduction strategies they might evolve in their environment? We cannot assume that our behavior is representative of all life in the universe when it isn't even representative of life on our globe.
Wyoming is not physically crowded, but in terms of carrying capacity, it's just as overcrowded as Calcutta. There's not enough water and arable land to support the population without importing outside resources.
Your concept of "individual freedom" is based on species bias. Not all successful species have a individual drive to procreate: ants, bees, and termites for example.
Darwinian processes don't always result in a drive to overpopulate. Ants, bees and other social insects are highly successful species where reproduction is limited to a tiny percentage of the population. If an intelligent species evolved along those lines, it would be a lot easier for rationale decisions to be made about limiting growth to match available resources.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/give-a-man-a-fish.html
The world, as we know it, does not exist. What we are experiencing is an illusion or a simulation. The parameters have been set up in such as way that we lack the necessary information to answer some of the deeper philosophical questions.
"In other words, pot damages your brain." That's a HUGE jump to a conclusion. There are any number of variables that could co-correlate with teen pot use that might account for the difference in IQ.
Out of respect for your signature, I'm giving up mod points to reply to you. First of all, very few people fit neatly into a political category. Whether we're talking about Jared Loughner or Fidel Castro, the left/right labels are always going to be inaccurate to some degree when applied to specific individuals. But there's a very simple reason why every crazy gunman in America is labelled a right-winger: because it's the right-wing that continues to protect the means of crazy people to obtain guns. Until the NRA and Republicans come to the table to discuss real solutions, we're going to hold their feet the fire every time a school, church or movie theater is shot up.
Consumers aren't going to leave Windows to other desktop operating systems, they're going to leave the desktop altogether. Gamers will continue the migration to consoles and casual PC users will get tablets. Windows will be left to compete for the attention of power users, who are knowledgeable enough to consider Linux, and businesses, who upgrade their computers about every third OS release.
IQ is interesting. Nobody, especially researchers, thinks that it directly measures intelligence. But it does correlate with many outcomes that might be expected to be associated with intelligence: level of educational attainment, income, religious beliefs, etc. So you're right, nobody knows what they are measuring, but it's something that related to intelligence. For scientific purposes having an indirect, but quantifiable, metric is better than no metric at all.
You don't need global climate models to predict that the Central Valley is drying up. You just need to track the water table levels. Whether this is directly related to AGW is, perhaps, debatable. But it's a reasonable hypothesis.