"Humanity's evolutionary path has been a long littany of advances in how to modify the environment to better suit themselves. Tools, agriculture, medicine, culture-- they all converge on the unified objective."
First I'll point out that modifying the environment involves moving dirt and clearing areas of wildlife and vegetation to be replaced by agriculture and the construction of buildings, walls, and roads. It also includes pollution.
Making tools, in the sense of chipping rocks and whittling sticks, does not really modify the environment. Sustainably harvesting wild plants for medicinal or nutritional use does not modify the environment.
"Culture" is orthogonal; some cultures try to make nature fit themselves, some try to make themselves fit into nature.
Second, your idea that the entirety of humanity is unified across space and time in the singular objective of modifying the environment.to better suit themselves is preposterous. There have been countless cultures, and the most enduring ones have been those who, if they had an "objective", strived for exactly the opposite of what you claim.
That your culture is one of self-indulgence to the point of mass suicide does not make every culture thus. It's a mistake to project your cynical culture onto an entire species that sustained a stable population for tens of thousands of years.
I think the word "civilization" implies a dense population; sparse populations don't require complex societies.. Would you agree with that?
Any time an area is densely populated, the population will consume local resources faster than nature can replenish them, and they will rely on trade and transportation systems to sustain the population, and complex laws to maintain order.
Even outside of densely populated areas, humans like any other species will reproduce until the point their population can not be sustained by their habitat, and individuals will die as equilibrium is restored.
But none of those facts disprove the notion that some aboriginal cultures evolved philosophies, morals and superstitions that encouraged them to live as a part of their environment rather than attempting to place themselves beyond the reach of nature.
Whether because nature imposed it or because cultures accepted it, the aboriginal population numbers were relatively stable over millenia, and their activity over time had little environmental impact compared to the european immigrants'.
Native cultures were far more sustainable than ours. GP's points are valid.
"The issue is always budgets, and the $1 here, $4 there for better components supposedly adds up... Sometimes that is true, sometimes I want to...whack someone upside the head with a baseball bat."
While baseball bats may be suitable, we here in accounting will only approve the less expensive 1-meter steel pipe from Dai Yung Enterprises.
"The Mediterranean wasn't even there 5 or 6 million years ago"
Not sure if I understand the implications.
Are you suggesting that because the Mediterranean wasn't there 5 million years ago we shouldn't care all that much what happens to it tomorrow?
Or are you suggesting that the environmental disaster of having Syria's chemical weapons actually deployed would be smaller than the disaster of making the Mediterranean uninhabitable?
After they got lots of nasty letters to the editor, they asked the authors to retract. The authors declined. So the journal went over the original study with a fine-toothed comb and decided the experiment was good, the data was good, and the best objection they could come up with was that they no longer liked the sample size.
Other christians may find certain doctrines way out of the mainstream, but their is nothing in mormon doctrine or lore that's weirder than what one can find in the bible.
I agree. If Elsevier thought the study was too weak, they shouldn't have published it.
Asking the authors to retract it makes it look like they just wanted to save face by not doing it themselves. Didn't work.
The "Nature" post says Elsevier bowed to "scientists' near-universal scorn"; I have no idea what that means. It suggests perhaps that the study was unconvincing. But it's Elsevier's job to screen for that. It's not their job to retroactively delete honest experiments with honest data which have been honestly reproduced and peer-reviewed because of negative letters to the editor.
We don't need a grand plan; nature regulates populations.
For starving children around the world I have great empathy. But we won't get fewer of them by artificially and unsustainably enabling further population growth. All species expand their population until nature cuts them down to size. We have managed to cleverly hold nature off for a while so we can overpopulate by an order of magnitude.
Time will prove that all we really accomplished with our industrial-scale petrochemical nutrient mining was to lay waste to fertile habitat and to bring in that many more children to starve.
"It's pretty much the whole summary." Then it's pretty unlikely I'd miss it, wouldn't you say?
Did you miss the implication of big software gender inequality hypocrisy? What the author leaves dangling as an indictment actually supports big software's effort to train more.
"are you suggesting that mom and shops will be able to adequately supply the worlds 7 billion and growing population?"
I would suggest that: 1) we don't really need to grow past 7 billion people. I can think of no problem facing humanity today which lessens as population increases. 2) There are down-sides to industrial-scale monoculture such that it's not clear to many of us that that is "the right direction."
"Insurance companies are always looking for an excuse to raise rates"
Why is this insightful? Of course they want to make money, and to do so, insurance companies will want to know what the odds really are. That's where mathematicians and scientists and RMS come in. RMS doesn't make more money for hyping risk. They make money by being correct.
I just got back from a multi-night camping trip. Natural low-light conditions are amazingly bright. Once those rods are adjusted for the darkness, and no artificial lights are around to throw them off, we can see at night well enough on clear nights to safely walk around and see what's moving around.
Slashdot Mirror
"Humanity's evolutionary path has been a long littany of advances in how to modify the environment to better suit themselves. Tools, agriculture, medicine, culture-- they all converge on the unified objective."
First I'll point out that modifying the environment involves moving dirt and clearing areas of wildlife and vegetation to be replaced by agriculture and the construction of buildings, walls, and roads. It also includes pollution.
Making tools, in the sense of chipping rocks and whittling sticks, does not really modify the environment. Sustainably harvesting wild plants for medicinal or nutritional use does not modify the environment.
"Culture" is orthogonal; some cultures try to make nature fit themselves, some try to make themselves fit into nature.
Second, your idea that the entirety of humanity is unified across space and time in the singular objective of modifying the environment.to better suit themselves is preposterous. There have been countless cultures, and the most enduring ones have been those who, if they had an "objective", strived for exactly the opposite of what you claim.
That your culture is one of self-indulgence to the point of mass suicide does not make every culture thus. It's a mistake to project your cynical culture onto an entire species that sustained a stable population for tens of thousands of years.
I think the word "civilization" implies a dense population; sparse populations don't require complex societies.. Would you agree with that?
Any time an area is densely populated, the population will consume local resources faster than nature can replenish them, and they will rely on trade and transportation systems to sustain the population, and complex laws to maintain order.
Even outside of densely populated areas, humans like any other species will reproduce until the point their population can not be sustained by their habitat, and individuals will die as equilibrium is restored.
But none of those facts disprove the notion that some aboriginal cultures evolved philosophies, morals and superstitions that encouraged them to live as a part of their environment rather than attempting to place themselves beyond the reach of nature.
Whether because nature imposed it or because cultures accepted it, the aboriginal population numbers were relatively stable over millenia, and their activity over time had little environmental impact compared to the european immigrants'.
Native cultures were far more sustainable than ours. GP's points are valid.
That's wonderful. But doesn't change a thing.
"If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory."
What's with this "if"? Either He does or He doesn't.
And using boat rudders, we could in theory target multiple tree-huggers with only one water cannon.
"The issue is always budgets, and the $1 here, $4 there for better components supposedly adds up ... Sometimes that is true, sometimes I want to...whack someone upside the head with a baseball bat."
While baseball bats may be suitable, we here in accounting will only approve the less expensive 1-meter steel pipe from Dai Yung Enterprises.
I invented some noise-cancelling headphones that work perfectly beyond the atmosphere.
"The Mediterranean wasn't even there 5 or 6 million years ago"
Not sure if I understand the implications.
Are you suggesting that because the Mediterranean wasn't there 5 million years ago we shouldn't care all that much what happens to it tomorrow?
Or are you suggesting that the environmental disaster of having Syria's chemical weapons actually deployed would be smaller than the disaster of making the Mediterranean uninhabitable?
Thank you - finally an american who understands.
The rest of your pathetic little ignorant country just calls us "arrogant frenchies."
What bad science?
After they got lots of nasty letters to the editor, they asked the authors to retract. The authors declined. So the journal went over the original study with a fine-toothed comb and decided the experiment was good, the data was good, and the best objection they could come up with was that they no longer liked the sample size.
" a single kid... that is essentially what happened here"
Really? They "essentially" had a sample size of 1 with no control group?
"either it was fraud or incompetence that motivated these scientists to publish"
How do you know their motive?
Is there any religion without strange doctrine?
Other christians may find certain doctrines way out of the mainstream, but their is nothing in mormon doctrine or lore that's weirder than what one can find in the bible.
I agree. If Elsevier thought the study was too weak, they shouldn't have published it.
Asking the authors to retract it makes it look like they just wanted to save face by not doing it themselves. Didn't work.
The "Nature" post says Elsevier bowed to "scientists' near-universal scorn"; I have no idea what that means. It suggests perhaps that the study was unconvincing. But it's Elsevier's job to screen for that. It's not their job to retroactively delete honest experiments with honest data which have been honestly reproduced and peer-reviewed because of negative letters to the editor.
"I desperately don't want ... to see the end of the human race."
"I want engineered diseases that have a 100% fatality rate"
What you do want could lead to what you don't want.
We don't need a grand plan; nature regulates populations.
For starving children around the world I have great empathy. But we won't get fewer of them by artificially and unsustainably enabling further population growth. All species expand their population until nature cuts them down to size. We have managed to cleverly hold nature off for a while so we can overpopulate by an order of magnitude.
Time will prove that all we really accomplished with our industrial-scale petrochemical nutrient mining was to lay waste to fertile habitat and to bring in that many more children to starve.
" I'm sick of seeing these efforts to artificially shift the demographics of a work force purely to meet some political agenda"
So you must be relieved than now women can vote. And attend technical universities. And be astronauts for NASA.
Just think how much better you'll feel when the last vestiges of artificial male domination have disappeared from our own profession.
"I don't have any problem with nuclear weapons - they're a fact of life now. I just want ours to be the best."
I agree. Knowing that our nukes are shinier than China's will make our death so much more satisfying.
"It's pretty much the whole summary."
Then it's pretty unlikely I'd miss it, wouldn't you say?
Did you miss the implication of big software gender inequality hypocrisy? What the author leaves dangling as an indictment actually supports big software's effort to train more.
"women still account for only about 25% of all employees at Code.org supporters "
And how many unemployed female software engineers do we have who can't find work?
Businesses can't hire people who don't exist.
"are you suggesting that mom and shops will be able to adequately supply the worlds 7 billion and growing population?"
I would suggest that:
1) we don't really need to grow past 7 billion people. I can think of no problem facing humanity today which lessens as population increases.
2) There are down-sides to industrial-scale monoculture such that it's not clear to many of us that that is "the right direction."
How did you get to "not overwhelming" == 0?
That is *your* real life. Others of us didn't become drug dealers.
For USD $5000, I'll see to it that Martha Stewart won't visit you.
"Insurance companies are always looking for an excuse to raise rates"
Why is this insightful? Of course they want to make money, and to do so, insurance companies will want to know what the odds really are. That's where mathematicians and scientists and RMS come in. RMS doesn't make more money for hyping risk. They make money by being correct.
I just got back from a multi-night camping trip. Natural low-light conditions are amazingly bright. Once those rods are adjusted for the darkness, and no artificial lights are around to throw them off, we can see at night well enough on clear nights to safely walk around and see what's moving around.