I think they are waiting for journalists to make a comprehension breakthrough. I mean if researchers actually managed to cure cancer one day what would be the headline?
Is that the definition of republic that is taught in America? I have seen it here quite often but only from Americans - others cast it in terms of monarchy vs. republic (which is certainly the historical meaning). I am quite interested to find out where it comes from.
I honestly haven't read much about this but from the military perspective they had more troops and tanks (and bigger tanks) than the Germans (taken together with British expeditionary force). If there was political instability it certainly would have contributed to the disorder after the blitzkrieg.
I think its easy to criticise the French for not stopping the war in hindsight but what nation would start a war over a country simply moving its troops over its sovereign territory (remember that Germany did not "occupy" the Rhineland they simply re-militarised it - i.e. move its troops within its own territory - not conquer territory belonging to another nation) something that the British had indicated they were prepared to accept?
Perhaps somewhat off-topic but I read somewhere that all this French = weak stuff started as allied propaganda to explain why the Nazis managed to beat such a powerful (and it was a world power at the time) country so easily. The thinking (according to this article or whatnot) was to keep up morale after such a disastrous outcome by essentially claiming that any other nation would have managed to fight them off but that the French are weak and gave up without a fight. Naturally the real reason was the blitzkrieg tactics combined with bypassing the majority of the French and English (they too where out in force as well) army by going thru the Ardennes (a forest region that the allies thought was not practical to pass thru). Its worth noting as well that every other European country attacked (including Russia at the start) pretty much collapsed under the blitzkrieg.
Why do you need intelligence to do decision-making? This seems an arbitrary requirement - and the literature on decision-making doesn't use intelligence as a prerequisite, rather it refers to cognition - which is more rigorously defined and can be automated.
Your example of grass and dogs seems quite confused - grass lacks the ability to move in real time so the notion of it being unable to choose to lay down seems bizarre, unless I am missing something. According to this one could argue that a failure of a dog to teleport out of the way of a bus shows their inability to make decisions! Likewise chemicals are following externally set rules in physics, there is no internal selection of outcome.
Perhaps the difference in our thinking relies on the definition of decision-making. The one I use is the one used in most decision-making literature, which roughly states is "a cognitive process of selecting among several different options based on external and internal factors." According to this the bacteria is engaging in decision making as it is selecting for several different courses of action. Its use of cognition is pretty basic, but more that enough to satisfy that criteria - its processing information and applying internal biases to select a course of action.
Also your statement about bacteria being sacks of chemicals and micro structures and its reaction is just as applicable to humans and dogs as to bacteria. Remember that we are made up of individual cells too.
They are - and for good reason. Game theory has been very successful in understanding some of the basic trade-offs involved in individual vs group decision-making. Certain set-ups such as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_dilemma are generic forms of common problems that are encountered both in the human world and the natural world. Having worked in this area I can tell you that solutions found in the natural world often end up as inspiration for real life applications - such as regulation of industry and organisational psychology. At the end of the day one of the most re-occurring problems is how to get selfish people to co-operate as a group - and this problem has been solved so many times by nature in so many ways its basically a handy repository of tried and true solutions just waiting to be discovered.
Human decision making is taking inputs and deciding on an output based on the inputs + internal biases. This is the same process as in software and in bacteria. Humans can do this process in a generic way, where in the other two examples they are limited to pre-defined scenarios - but its not really that different. I think there is a confusion here between decision making and consciousness, which is strictly speaking not necessary for decision making (i.e. rational decision making).
Most of these funded "anti-global warming technologies" are really the same old shit in disguise - in Australia the great majority of funding has gone to carbon sequestration and "clean" coal instead of actual green technologies. But governments still advertise that they spent x million dollars on "green" technology. Its a bit of a joke. (http://www.ret.gov.au/Department/Documents/CEI%20Fact%20Sheet%20%2813%20May%2009%29.pdf)
I've read some of the emails and found nothing of interest - can you link to a particular damning email? So far they are all fairly vague that could be interpreted in any number of ways.
Thanx there AC - we look in awe from our corporate chains to your inspiring and radical free thought. My heart races just reading your origional and thought provoking commentary and wonder how you have the courage to express dissent to windows 7, on slashdot of all places! Oh! How I long to express my true feelings on windows 7, yet fear the horrific backlash it would provoke, hence I say things like "I have had no problems using windows 7" or "It runs my games fine" - such lies! and all in the hope that people will not know my terrible secret - one that would have me expelled from this community. Truly you are a man beholden to nobody!
Let me know when your socialist paradise is complete:D
My comment needs to be read in the context to the one I was responding to - I don't necessarily think that drug research needs to be private, but for it to be so you need to keep it profitable (see the GP).
I'm not sure that you are fair when you say that doctors are only in it for the money - some of them work very long hours in highly stressful situations. Researchers do what they do because they are hoping to solve diseases that harm people.
I don't think taking out the profit motive will solve greed as it is something inherent in human nature. Some people are idealistic and will do the right thing, most wont.
Thanx chief - thousands and thousands of scientists failed to notice the link between temperature and CO2, but now that you have pointed it out, there were red faces all around - False alarm people... Get a grip on reality.
As for the simple model, it illustrates why linear comparison is not always valid. That was quite obviously the point, not to be a complete climate model. As a "physicists" you should know all about the usefulness of simple models to help understand phenomena so quit being a idiot.
Also "governments aren't in no way necessary or even beneficial for healthy societies." - are you on drugs? Where are these fabulous government-less utopias? "In a world without such authorities" you would be still be bartering.
I don't get why this is such a difficult concept. Imagine a tank of water that is slowly leaking and getting refilled at the same rate. Now increase the refill rate slightly - and presto - the tank will eventually overflow even though the increased refill rate is "inconsequentially" larger to the normal rate. The CO2 ecosystem works in a similar way. If this has not blown your mind you should read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_dynamics and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems.
There are examples of excesses, but you are proposing a solution that throws away the baby with the bathwater. You need to craft a fine balance between giving workers good conditions and ensuring the viability of the business. Unions will be part of this because business and governments have historically only acted in the wake of unions to improve conditions. Removing unions from the equation has historically resulted in lower wages, more injuries and deaths on the job, job insecurity and higher stress levels, all of which effect the quality of life in your country. While its easy to wax lyrical about the uselessness of unions from a secure financial position, try and imagine what life is like for an average worker in the early 20th century - that is where you go back if you remove unions.
While we see closely related cousins in living species, we only find other cousins in the fossil record. Why have we never found a direct descendant?
I wouldn't say we never have found a direct descendant - check the wiki link - most of the things there are more or less on the direct line to modern species (or at least the lucky bastard in that species). Establishing that an individual fossil find is on the actual direct line to some modern day species would be damn difficult if not impossible not just because of the odds involved (think about how many cousins you have compared to direct line - works the same way for species) but for technical reasons as well (no dna etc).
If you logically think about what you said the answer would become apparent. For a common ancestor to be both in its original form as a bookmark for when a species split off AND still alive today it would mean that the niche it occupies (and has adapted to) has not changed since whenever the species split off. This is very unlikely as the co-evolution between itself and the environment (including new creatures that come into play) is quite rapid (on an evolutionary time-scale). There are always new opportunities to exploit - and species that don't go extinct.
Your statement that every fossil is from an evolutionary dead end is wrong however - as there are plenty of 'missing-link' fossils that are found that have a (very likely) lineage (as a species rather than individuals) to current species.
Slashdot Mirror
I think they are waiting for journalists to make a comprehension breakthrough. I mean if researchers actually managed to cure cancer one day what would be the headline?
As a human being: Woooosh!
Is that the definition of republic that is taught in America? I have seen it here quite often but only from Americans - others cast it in terms of monarchy vs. republic (which is certainly the historical meaning). I am quite interested to find out where it comes from.
I honestly haven't read much about this but from the military perspective they had more troops and tanks (and bigger tanks) than the Germans (taken together with British expeditionary force). If there was political instability it certainly would have contributed to the disorder after the blitzkrieg.
I think its easy to criticise the French for not stopping the war in hindsight but what nation would start a war over a country simply moving its troops over its sovereign territory (remember that Germany did not "occupy" the Rhineland they simply re-militarised it - i.e. move its troops within its own territory - not conquer territory belonging to another nation) something that the British had indicated they were prepared to accept?
Perhaps somewhat off-topic but I read somewhere that all this French = weak stuff started as allied propaganda to explain why the Nazis managed to beat such a powerful (and it was a world power at the time) country so easily. The thinking (according to this article or whatnot) was to keep up morale after such a disastrous outcome by essentially claiming that any other nation would have managed to fight them off but that the French are weak and gave up without a fight. Naturally the real reason was the blitzkrieg tactics combined with bypassing the majority of the French and English (they too where out in force as well) army by going thru the Ardennes (a forest region that the allies thought was not practical to pass thru). Its worth noting as well that every other European country attacked (including Russia at the start) pretty much collapsed under the blitzkrieg.
Why do you need intelligence to do decision-making? This seems an arbitrary requirement - and the literature on decision-making doesn't use intelligence as a prerequisite, rather it refers to cognition - which is more rigorously defined and can be automated.
Your example of grass and dogs seems quite confused - grass lacks the ability to move in real time so the notion of it being unable to choose to lay down seems bizarre, unless I am missing something. According to this one could argue that a failure of a dog to teleport out of the way of a bus shows their inability to make decisions! Likewise chemicals are following externally set rules in physics, there is no internal selection of outcome.
Perhaps the difference in our thinking relies on the definition of decision-making. The one I use is the one used in most decision-making literature, which roughly states is "a cognitive process of selecting among several different options based on external and internal factors." According to this the bacteria is engaging in decision making as it is selecting for several different courses of action. Its use of cognition is pretty basic, but more that enough to satisfy that criteria - its processing information and applying internal biases to select a course of action.
Also your statement about bacteria being sacks of chemicals and micro structures and its reaction is just as applicable to humans and dogs as to bacteria. Remember that we are made up of individual cells too.
They are - and for good reason. Game theory has been very successful in understanding some of the basic trade-offs involved in individual vs group decision-making. Certain set-ups such as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_dilemma are generic forms of common problems that are encountered both in the human world and the natural world. Having worked in this area I can tell you that solutions found in the natural world often end up as inspiration for real life applications - such as regulation of industry and organisational psychology. At the end of the day one of the most re-occurring problems is how to get selfish people to co-operate as a group - and this problem has been solved so many times by nature in so many ways its basically a handy repository of tried and true solutions just waiting to be discovered.
Human decision making is taking inputs and deciding on an output based on the inputs + internal biases. This is the same process as in software and in bacteria. Humans can do this process in a generic way, where in the other two examples they are limited to pre-defined scenarios - but its not really that different. I think there is a confusion here between decision making and consciousness, which is strictly speaking not necessary for decision making (i.e. rational decision making).
Is it really that difficult to read a paragraph?
What? Did you do sophistry instead of a real degree?
Most of these funded "anti-global warming technologies" are really the same old shit in disguise - in Australia the great majority of funding has gone to carbon sequestration and "clean" coal instead of actual green technologies. But governments still advertise that they spent x million dollars on "green" technology. Its a bit of a joke. (http://www.ret.gov.au/Department/Documents/CEI%20Fact%20Sheet%20%2813%20May%2009%29.pdf)
I've read some of the emails and found nothing of interest - can you link to a particular damning email? So far they are all fairly vague that could be interpreted in any number of ways.
I think humanity is at a pretty shit state when one hopes that a statement is a troll rather than sincere opinion
Thanx there AC - we look in awe from our corporate chains to your inspiring and radical free thought. My heart races just reading your origional and thought provoking commentary and wonder how you have the courage to express dissent to windows 7, on slashdot of all places! Oh! How I long to express my true feelings on windows 7, yet fear the horrific backlash it would provoke, hence I say things like "I have had no problems using windows 7" or "It runs my games fine" - such lies! and all in the hope that people will not know my terrible secret - one that would have me expelled from this community. Truly you are a man beholden to nobody!
I'm glad you read my wiki links! I wish you had read the context of the post as well :D
Let me know when your socialist paradise is complete :D
My comment needs to be read in the context to the one I was responding to - I don't necessarily think that drug research needs to be private, but for it to be so you need to keep it profitable (see the GP).
I'm not sure that you are fair when you say that doctors are only in it for the money - some of them work very long hours in highly stressful situations. Researchers do what they do because they are hoping to solve diseases that harm people.
I don't think taking out the profit motive will solve greed as it is something inherent in human nature. Some people are idealistic and will do the right thing, most wont.
Thanx chief - thousands and thousands of scientists failed to notice the link between temperature and CO2, but now that you have pointed it out, there were red faces all around - False alarm people... Get a grip on reality.
As for the simple model, it illustrates why linear comparison is not always valid. That was quite obviously the point, not to be a complete climate model. As a "physicists" you should know all about the usefulness of simple models to help understand phenomena so quit being a idiot.
Sorry but that is just retarded. Drugs require years of basic research then years of testing to get approval, and are easy to copy. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_development#Cost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_drugs#Economics. You have to strike a balance between ensuring that drug development is profitable, but not excessively so - not an easy thing to do.
Also "governments aren't in no way necessary or even beneficial for healthy societies." - are you on drugs? Where are these fabulous government-less utopias? "In a world without such authorities" you would be still be bartering.
I don't get why this is such a difficult concept. Imagine a tank of water that is slowly leaking and getting refilled at the same rate. Now increase the refill rate slightly - and presto - the tank will eventually overflow even though the increased refill rate is "inconsequentially" larger to the normal rate. The CO2 ecosystem works in a similar way. If this has not blown your mind you should read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlinear_dynamics and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems.
Look at the name eagle-eye :D
There are examples of excesses, but you are proposing a solution that throws away the baby with the bathwater. You need to craft a fine balance between giving workers good conditions and ensuring the viability of the business. Unions will be part of this because business and governments have historically only acted in the wake of unions to improve conditions. Removing unions from the equation has historically resulted in lower wages, more injuries and deaths on the job, job insecurity and higher stress levels, all of which effect the quality of life in your country. While its easy to wax lyrical about the uselessness of unions from a secure financial position, try and imagine what life is like for an average worker in the early 20th century - that is where you go back if you remove unions.
Excellent. That is exactly what I'm looking for. Is there a link (URL, not "missing":-)
I think this is what you might be looking for - but this stuff isn't exactly news so I'm not sure if I have misunderstood you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils
While we see closely related cousins in living species, we only find other cousins in the fossil record. Why have we never found a direct descendant?
I wouldn't say we never have found a direct descendant - check the wiki link - most of the things there are more or less on the direct line to modern species (or at least the lucky bastard in that species). Establishing that an individual fossil find is on the actual direct line to some modern day species would be damn difficult if not impossible not just because of the odds involved (think about how many cousins you have compared to direct line - works the same way for species) but for technical reasons as well (no dna etc).
If you logically think about what you said the answer would become apparent. For a common ancestor to be both in its original form as a bookmark for when a species split off AND still alive today it would mean that the niche it occupies (and has adapted to) has not changed since whenever the species split off. This is very unlikely as the co-evolution between itself and the environment (including new creatures that come into play) is quite rapid (on an evolutionary time-scale). There are always new opportunities to exploit - and species that don't go extinct.
Your statement that every fossil is from an evolutionary dead end is wrong however - as there are plenty of 'missing-link' fossils that are found that have a (very likely) lineage (as a species rather than individuals) to current species.
Because ill-informed rage is so much easier. Is it not "common sense" to read a bit about something before you criticise it eh gp?
So how do research organisations exist, if not by licensing their research outcomes?