I guess I see asteroid defense as fundamentally more worthwhile than the drug war, the terror war, corporate welfare, etc. So I would rather direct my "laughing down" efforts at those expenses...
Before we spend any money on asteroid defense, we are obligated to reduce the threat of others, higher on the priority list, to a lower threat priority than asteroids.
1) We don't have to allocate all the money to the allegedly higher-probability threats before funding other threats.
2) We can increase the amount of money available for funding by eliminating spending on certain non-existent threats such as the War on Drugs.
There are known solutions to these likely crises that will cost less, and benefit much more.
Why can't we do both? Legalize drugs and use all the money currently spent on drug enforcement to fund asteroid defense as well as the things you mentioned.
If we are questioning the utility of blindly colonizing another world, then that very questioning is also, by definition, "what life does". Have you considered that our notions of right and wrong may have developed precisely because they are favorable to survival? If by doing what is right we can accumulate knowledge at a more rapid pace than otherwise, we can better prepare for and adapt to sudden environmental changes that might otherwise wipe us out. So the very fact that we have developed beyond unthinking (or less thinking) life forms, and are able to consider such notions as "right" and "wrong", shows that we have evolved more than those other forms; the source of our enhanced survival fitness may be that we don't behave as they do...
Rights do not exist in nature, and nature has only one rule: survival of the fittest.
I think the idea is that the concept of rights, of justice, of fairness, of liberty helps increase our survival fitness.
In other words, other systems may contain knowledge that can help us. There is a good chance we may benefit from a policy based on Star Trek's "Prime Directive"; it may actually help us to survive better.
Knowledge is good for survival. The more we know the better we can predict and prepare for sudden catastrophic environmental changes. If we can gain knowledge by observing untouched systems on other worlds, the "survival of the fittest" concept would dictate that that is what we should do.
Of course if after observing for a time and giving a foreign system a chance to develop we determine that it would be in both their and our best interests to intervene, then we should do that. But once again that intervention should take into account the ideas of justice and right, because those concepts allow for more rapid accumulation of knowledge than when they are ignored...
If someone comes to murder you allowing you only to choose between being shot or stabbed, one option remaining open to you is to complain, protest, point out the injustice, talk about the situation, voice your dissent - rather than merely shut up and accept the situation and meekly choose, saying "well that's the way it is and it'll never change, that's reality, nothing we can do about it, it won't ever change in our lifetime so I might as well just make my choice and live with it because talking about it won't change anything, I'll just shut up and choose one of these methods because that's what I'm supposed to do and who am I to challenge that..."
The USA founding fathers conquered the indians. Are we better off for it, or should we never have left europe and stayed under the rule of Kings??
Why only a binary choice? We could have come here and treated the American Indian more fairly, humanely: honoring treaties, treating them as equal human beings, etc.
On Titan if we are careful we can observe, measure, analyze without significantly changing the overall environment...then later we could make more informed decisions about its possibilities for colonization...
Okay. Thinking about this some more, it is beginning to make sense. Before flipping any coins, the probability of getting two heads in a row is.25. One way to think of it is as a diagram of the four possible results of flipping two coins. After the first flip (say it turns out heads), two of those possibilities are eliminated. The two remaining possibilities are that the second flip will turn up heads or tails, a.5 probability.
There is a surface counter-intuitiveness, but I see now how it is wrong. Thanks for helping me out on this, I've used statistics professionally for years, and this has never really been clear to me, but is now...yay.
And here we see the weird contradiction within statistics. Apparently flipping a coin twice in a row is to be taken as a single, atomic event; but if you stop and think about it before flipping the coin the second time, the probabilities that apply to flipping it twice no longer apply...
Well to me, a house is on the earth's surface. Its roof is an insignificant elevation above the surface, when compared with the height of the earth's atmosphere. So a meteor that hits a house's roof is a meteorite, in my usage.
What I don't get is, why do men make such sacrifices to women? For the pussy? Yet men do it even when they don't get the pussy (online, or in situations where the possibility of getting pussy is very very low).
I personally think it's a socially conditioned thing, and a power thing. Women control so much, men feel obligated to sacrifice (money, self-esteem, pride, sense of justice and fairness, whatever) to the altar of the female. So it's very similar to the old testament idea of sacrifice, it's a religious thing...
I've experienced the same thing in the crack game. In fact, I got royally fucked up because I refused to sacrifice my crack to the crack hos. So they shut me down, they became jealous of the damn crack! Absurd, unbelievable, ridiculous, bizarre. Read more about it in my journal if you're so inclined...
But under the constitution of this United States of America, the people are ultimately in control of the laws.
So we need to vote for candidates who support legalization. Or maybe the initiative process can lead to a grass-roots rebellion against the "war on drugs". Or, a legal challenge to the constitionality of the drug laws through the courts...
Personally I'm more worried about the crack "Families" doing this surveillance. In Seattle the "Family" that controls the crack distribution is very powerful, very rich, and very technologically sophisticated. They probably control much of the police force. It's scary.
Legalize drugs, so the motivation for a lot of property crime and assault is eliminated or greatly reduced. Why is it illegal for me to choose to ingest something that makes me feel better?
It turns out as they have redeployed the cops _they_already_have_ to sections where smaller crimes were occuring (theft, prostitution, small area dealers, etc.),
Here in Seattle, the crack is so prevalent that the "Family" that controls its distribution probably controls most of the police force.
It's really insane. There is so much money in crack that the "Family" (local crackheads greet each other on the street with the term of endearment "Fam") can afford to buy up businesses and bribe officials and put their own spy cameras everywhere. If you smoke crack, they know everything about you...
I know because I got fucked up by one of the Family here, a crack whore named Raquel. I pissed her off once in a Howard Johnson's by choosing to keep the rest of my crack for myself instead of exchanging it for sex with her. And she was able to get her entire Family to dog me for something like a year. Incredible. Absurd. Ridiculous. One skanky crack whore can get a whole city practically to turn their backs on some poor cluck. Just because she had deeper throat and pockets than I...
Yep I'm bitter. The best I can do I figure is try to warn others who may follow down the path I went. So if you are in Seattle, watch the fuck out for a raquel (aka rachel). You have been warned.
Seattle and the motherfucking Crack "Family" that controls it can go fuck themselves.
Yeah, I've been basically exiled from the burg, which I consider my fucking home town. Because I pissed off one measly crack ho. And she used her power to dog me all over town and shut me down.
Yes I am bitter. But before you write me off as just another paranoid kook fucked up on crack, remember the name Raquel Krusen. If you don't know her, I pray you never will...
For more of this sordid tale of injustice and criminality please see my journal. Thanks.
you are going to pay for society's drug problems one way or another. you can either pony up some tax to get crack heads off the street, into rehab and turn them into productive citizens... or you can ignore the problem and pay in lost economic productivity, increased policing costs and in one lump cash payment when that untreated crack head sticks you up for a fix.
Just thought I'd mention (I probably shouldn't but what the hell, I ain't afraid): here in Seattle, the people who control the crack control a lot of things. There is so much money in crack, they can afford to buy up businesses and bribe public officials. One rumor I heard was that the governor of the state was involved. There is a "Family" here (crackheads on the street greet each other with the term of endearment "Fam"). It is very extensive. They have "managers" and such. They use technology very extensively and widely to spy on things, organize gangs quickly via cellphone, etc. It is very hard to believe at first. But they thrive on not being visible, on everyone being afraid to speak out and say what is obvious and what everyone knows anyway.
Personally I say, legalize the fucking crack and take the power away from hardened criminals.
(Read my journal if you want to know more. Thanks.)
Re:One day crackers are going to have more fun...
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Couldn't be as scary as the regular old girlfriend.
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Should humans have to do manual, repetitive tasks that can be automated?
If a robot can do it better, that frees up the human to pursue its happiness.
A serious re-orientation of the "work ethic" and economic thinking is necessary.
I want a realdoll.
Central Washington's library uses Firefox excusively on all public internet terminals.
Who gets to go into space?
I guess I see asteroid defense as fundamentally more worthwhile than the drug war, the terror war, corporate welfare, etc. So I would rather direct my "laughing down" efforts at those expenses...
Before we spend any money on asteroid defense, we are obligated to reduce the threat of others, higher on the priority list, to a lower threat priority than asteroids.
1) We don't have to allocate all the money to the allegedly higher-probability threats before funding other threats.
2) We can increase the amount of money available for funding by eliminating spending on certain non-existent threats such as the War on Drugs.
There are known solutions to these likely crises that will cost less, and benefit much more.
Why can't we do both? Legalize drugs and use all the money currently spent on drug enforcement to fund asteroid defense as well as the things you mentioned.
If we are questioning the utility of blindly colonizing another world, then that very questioning is also, by definition, "what life does". Have you considered that our notions of right and wrong may have developed precisely because they are favorable to survival? If by doing what is right we can accumulate knowledge at a more rapid pace than otherwise, we can better prepare for and adapt to sudden environmental changes that might otherwise wipe us out. So the very fact that we have developed beyond unthinking (or less thinking) life forms, and are able to consider such notions as "right" and "wrong", shows that we have evolved more than those other forms; the source of our enhanced survival fitness may be that we don't behave as they do...
Rights do not exist in nature, and nature has only one rule: survival of the fittest.
I think the idea is that the concept of rights, of justice, of fairness, of liberty helps increase our survival fitness.
In other words, other systems may contain knowledge that can help us. There is a good chance we may benefit from a policy based on Star Trek's "Prime Directive"; it may actually help us to survive better.
Knowledge is good for survival. The more we know the better we can predict and prepare for sudden catastrophic environmental changes. If we can gain knowledge by observing untouched systems on other worlds, the "survival of the fittest" concept would dictate that that is what we should do.
Of course if after observing for a time and giving a foreign system a chance to develop we determine that it would be in both their and our best interests to intervene, then we should do that. But once again that intervention should take into account the ideas of justice and right, because those concepts allow for more rapid accumulation of knowledge than when they are ignored...
If someone comes to murder you allowing you only to choose between being shot or stabbed, one option remaining open to you is to complain, protest, point out the injustice, talk about the situation, voice your dissent - rather than merely shut up and accept the situation and meekly choose, saying "well that's the way it is and it'll never change, that's reality, nothing we can do about it, it won't ever change in our lifetime so I might as well just make my choice and live with it because talking about it won't change anything, I'll just shut up and choose one of these methods because that's what I'm supposed to do and who am I to challenge that..."
The USA founding fathers conquered the indians. Are we better off for it, or should we never have left europe and stayed under the rule of Kings??
Why only a binary choice? We could have come here and treated the American Indian more fairly, humanely: honoring treaties, treating them as equal human beings, etc.
On Titan if we are careful we can observe, measure, analyze without significantly changing the overall environment...then later we could make more informed decisions about its possibilities for colonization...
We elect Congress. It's ultimately our fault.
Okay. Thinking about this some more, it is beginning to make sense. Before flipping any coins, the probability of getting two heads in a row is .25. One way to think of it is as a diagram of the four possible results of flipping two coins. After the first flip (say it turns out heads), two of those possibilities are eliminated. The two remaining possibilities are that the second flip will turn up heads or tails, a .5 probability.
There is a surface counter-intuitiveness, but I see now how it is wrong. Thanks for helping me out on this, I've used statistics professionally for years, and this has never really been clear to me, but is now...yay.
no but I still use vi. Love those cursor movement keys.
And here we see the weird contradiction within statistics. Apparently flipping a coin twice in a row is to be taken as a single, atomic event; but if you stop and think about it before flipping the coin the second time, the probabilities that apply to flipping it twice no longer apply...
Well to me, a house is on the earth's surface. Its roof is an insignificant elevation above the surface, when compared with the height of the earth's atmosphere. So a meteor that hits a house's roof is a meteorite, in my usage.
ya i use caps lock for code constants. it would be a pain to have to type those out without caps lock.
What I don't get is, why do men make such sacrifices to women? For the pussy? Yet men do it even when they don't get the pussy (online, or in situations where the possibility of getting pussy is very very low).
I personally think it's a socially conditioned thing, and a power thing. Women control so much, men feel obligated to sacrifice (money, self-esteem, pride, sense of justice and fairness, whatever) to the altar of the female. So it's very similar to the old testament idea of sacrifice, it's a religious thing...
I've experienced the same thing in the crack game. In fact, I got royally fucked up because I refused to sacrifice my crack to the crack hos. So they shut me down, they became jealous of the damn crack! Absurd, unbelievable, ridiculous, bizarre. Read more about it in my journal if you're so inclined...
Amen.
But under the constitution of this United States of America, the people are ultimately in control of the laws.
So we need to vote for candidates who support legalization. Or maybe the initiative process can lead to a grass-roots rebellion against the "war on drugs". Or, a legal challenge to the constitionality of the drug laws through the courts...
Personally I'm more worried about the crack "Families" doing this surveillance. In Seattle the "Family" that controls the crack distribution is very powerful, very rich, and very technologically sophisticated. They probably control much of the police force. It's scary.
More in my journal...
Legalize drugs, so the motivation for a lot of property crime and assault is eliminated or greatly reduced. Why is it illegal for me to choose to ingest something that makes me feel better?
It turns out as they have redeployed the cops _they_already_have_ to sections where smaller crimes were occuring (theft, prostitution, small area dealers, etc.),
Here in Seattle, the crack is so prevalent that the "Family" that controls its distribution probably controls most of the police force.
It's really insane. There is so much money in crack that the "Family" (local crackheads greet each other on the street with the term of endearment "Fam") can afford to buy up businesses and bribe officials and put their own spy cameras everywhere. If you smoke crack, they know everything about you...
I know because I got fucked up by one of the Family here, a crack whore named Raquel. I pissed her off once in a Howard Johnson's by choosing to keep the rest of my crack for myself instead of exchanging it for sex with her. And she was able to get her entire Family to dog me for something like a year. Incredible. Absurd. Ridiculous. One skanky crack whore can get a whole city practically to turn their backs on some poor cluck. Just because she had deeper throat and pockets than I...
Yep I'm bitter. The best I can do I figure is try to warn others who may follow down the path I went. So if you are in Seattle, watch the fuck out for a raquel (aka rachel). You have been warned.
My journal has more on this...
Seattle and the motherfucking Crack "Family" that controls it can go fuck themselves.
Yeah, I've been basically exiled from the burg, which I consider my fucking home town. Because I pissed off one measly crack ho. And she used her power to dog me all over town and shut me down.
Yes I am bitter. But before you write me off as just another paranoid kook fucked up on crack, remember the name Raquel Krusen. If you don't know her, I pray you never will...
For more of this sordid tale of injustice and criminality please see my journal. Thanks.
you are going to pay for society's drug problems one way or another. you can either pony up some tax to get crack heads off the street, into rehab and turn them into productive citizens... or you can ignore the problem and pay in lost economic productivity, increased policing costs and in one lump cash payment when that untreated crack head sticks you up for a fix.
Just thought I'd mention (I probably shouldn't but what the hell, I ain't afraid): here in Seattle, the people who control the crack control a lot of things. There is so much money in crack, they can afford to buy up businesses and bribe public officials. One rumor I heard was that the governor of the state was involved. There is a "Family" here (crackheads on the street greet each other with the term of endearment "Fam"). It is very extensive. They have "managers" and such. They use technology very extensively and widely to spy on things, organize gangs quickly via cellphone, etc. It is very hard to believe at first. But they thrive on not being visible, on everyone being afraid to speak out and say what is obvious and what everyone knows anyway.
Personally I say, legalize the fucking crack and take the power away from hardened criminals.
(Read my journal if you want to know more. Thanks.)
Couldn't be as scary as the regular old girlfriend.