The universe is obviously designed for the "emergence of life", but not for life per se.
Proof of this is that life doesn't last for long. Life has to "keep trying", as it were (or as I tell my g/f), otherwise no life would exist at all. Life - that is the process of "emergence, fail-and-retry" is what the universe is geared up for. Not the sustained state of "being alive".
I think the sooner we realise that, the sooner we can get on and discuss the issue from the proper perspective.
US corporations have been researching alternative energy solutions for transport for ages now. A lot of R&D has gone into it, and we're on the cusp of a new age of environmentally friendly power and transportation.
They have a deal with the US, European and SE Asian (Japan, Taiwan) governments to legislate for the significant reduction in use of the current technologies, down to the refusal of allowing such craft to enter their airports, on the grounds of EU regulations to be adopted world-wide. Must keep those greenhouse gasses down.
China has forked over a lot of US currency and largely can't operate their planes outside of China.
This is one phase in a multi-pronged attack against the Chinese economy, to ward off the possibility of China becoming a regional hegemon with its own advanced, powerful and long-range military ability rivalling that of the US, the result of which would be an incredibly unstable world.
I hope this is the case, as otherwise we're at the stage where capitalism exists for its own sake and nobody else's. Which basically puts China in the superior position into the future, since they are determined to use capitalism on their own terms and resolutely in the interests of China.
we still see that there are tons of people who keep spewing shit out of their mouth that they expect the whole world to be interested in [...] Like that guy on the bus or subway that wants to talk about every damn word he reads in the paper. Or the girl waiting in line at the fast food counter talking on the top of her lungs into the phone while ordering.
Erm.. you just made a broad generalisation, then tried to support it by mentioning things that are exceptions to the rule. The babbling guy on the bus or girl in the queue are the extreme minority.
There's just a small demographic (mostly on/.) that really doesn't, in fact, want to broadcast everything we know.
Perhaps you don't realise that posting on a popular message board is, in fact, more effective in getting your words out than babbling to your neighbour on a bus.:)
Facebook is different. It's something people actually want, and it's something that makes their lives easier and more enjoyable.
You have no data to back that up - or contract it for that matter;). Now, if you could tell me how many of your 130 friends are actually still *subscribed* (haven't blocked your posts) or are regular users (log on often enough to check the majority of their posts) - things like that - then I'd take notice.
I think Facebook will eventually "normalise", once this phenomenon of "speaking to the world" fades away and people realise what the more relevant uses of FB are: Sharing photos, organising outings, listing your company/group, and making the occasional big announcement.
I'm pretty sure FB will have to address the noise level eventually. Perhaps introduce a new type of "update", call it "announcements", which are more meaningful than status posts. Or perhaps subject tags, like "family", "events", and a few others. All so friends can be selective of what they subscribe to instead of being spammed.
Or, another network will emerge which has all the features many FB users are screaming for.
All very true. The closer someone is to you, the more dialogue you want to have with them, and the rest is mostly a bunch of irrelevant posts you skim over. Usually contact with closer people happens over email because: a) you don't always want to say the same thing to everyone you know, and b)the number of people you want to say it to is quite small.
This phenomenon of "speaking to a large audience" is a novelty. A very attractive one, but it will wear off for this reason: No-one will be interested in everything their list of 130 friends have to say and they will, as a result, realise what they have to say is also not relevant to most people they know. If everyone could see who is no longer "subscribed" to them (ie. friends who have blocked their status posts) we'd see a lot of insulted friends. Anyway, people will eventually realise most of what happens on FB is irrelevant to them.
So, what is FB's real role, as a platform, once the excitement dies down?
1. Sharing photos. 2. Holiday / special event updates ("it's a girl!"), that sort of thing. 3. Being "in the loop" with local venues, events and groups. 4. Like forums, and how the web has always been used, connecting to groups of interest.
Unless I've missed something, that's the core value of FB, and it will eventually normalise to that. That may be a problem for FB advertisers and investors. But FB will survive, they will just normalise to "a very useful site for xyz" like many other sites. They will have to rearrange their business model.
FB is certainly the first site I know of which has ever been able to attract all these small businesses, venues, performers, etc. in one place - that's been tried time and again by other sites with very limited penetration. All because FB has *ubiquity*, like Google. That ubiquity is itself of inestimable value.
True to an extent. The problem with Facebook (which is what we're talking about) is that you *can't* ignore the things you want to ignore.
If I comment on something, I should be able to avoid the 100 "also commented on" emails which follow. ie. there's no "unsubscribe" for posts and photos. So it becomes a pain. I don't want to see "is now friends with" posts. I don't want to see "likes (someone I don't know)'s status" I want to turn of, selectively, who can add "likes" shite to my feed, because some people are simply a pain in the ass on the internet and like 5 things a day, or post crap.
Basically, I want to choose what is *relevant for me* on Facebook. There are very few ways to do that, so people do get pissed off with it.
Take the Slashdot model. If it wasn't for the Score system, it would have less value to people, as the sheer number of posts would be too daunting to trawl through to find the best comments. Surely FB can come with some kind of relevance system. They might have to eventually.
Sure, unfortunately the voting system we Democracies operate under is lame (as in should be shot). In a party system, we can't vote for individual legislation, only for this or that rep/party. I mean yeah, the people doing the job matter to a certain degree, but not to the point we are voting for people instead of policies.
So yes, as long as a policy can potentially find a way under the radar, or has the support of those with deep pocketses, it won't go away. This is because the system was designed with an uneducated population in mind, so it has serious flaws in terms of executing "the will of the people". It's ludicrous to even speak that quote in relation to party politics.
Asking them around for tennis won't work too well. They tend to run off with the ball. But it doesn't take much to respect their right to live in a way which is best for them, to believe what they want to believe, to assemble, and go on TV talk shows.
This is a ridiculous and hypocritical argument which only serves to detract from the real issues, having to make real decisions and take responsibility for our actions.
The question is simple: Do we apply a code of ethics to non-human animals, and the natural world in general, or do we not? If not, fine, let's just get on with raping the planet, destroying entire species, and only worry about our own interests.
If so, then it has to apply to ALL LIFE. We can't go on about dolphins, then go on about dogs (maybe even cats) then go on about pigs, and on and on. We will be extinct before we get a handle on what we're even talking about.
The problem is simple: Up to now, perhaps still now, we have *had* to kill other animals, and reform the environment to the detriment of other animals, in order to survive. Naturally we feel a little defensive about challenging that, rightly so, but let's not become completely neurotic about it!
This kind of discussion about the merit or otherwise of each species' brains is the symptom of a species (us) which can neither come to terms with its heritage nor its future.
As long as by "conversation", you also take into account emotional and non-verbal interaction. We do it all the time between each other, so why not relevant with someone who might be a person? Of course that opens things up to a lot of "wishy washy" interpretations. But that's exactly my point. Human, person-to-person interactions are pretty much that at most times, and we call it valid. So?
Fungus is not intelligent, ergo neither is ("We must stand by our North Korean allies") Palin.
I disagree. Seriously, it depends on your perspective.
Palin says and does "dumb" things - culturally speaking. If she lived in North Korea, maybe not seen as dumb at all. She can't do calculus? We don't worry about that, most of us can't. She can't spell something? We all laugh, Palin dumb. Completely relative.
Ok forget that, just this. Palin steps up, speaks her mind, contributes to *global* conversation, manages to get support whatever merit or otherwise her ideas have. She tries to participate, tried to win. Most people watch news, post on discussion boards, don't influence anyone, probably never write to their MPs. So who is doing the "smarter" thing?
I say "smart" on purpose. You can define intelligence however you want, but if you adhere to Darwin then it matters not how survival is achieved only that it is. Palin is, in our terms, more intelligent than the Cro-Magnon, but Cro was intelligent enough to stick around and lead to us. Who knows *how* we will lead to what comes after - it only matters that we do.
Who is to say where Palin fits into the human story, our destiny as a species? If you want to judge, then prove the value of your contribution.
That's exactly what I found as well. I tried to work out what was going on, and noticed that if I did fix my "peripheral attention" on a particular outer circle as it moved, I could detect its changes, and a little of those adjacent to it.
I think also what is happening is that, when rotation begins, many dots are traversing the *same area* of vision while your eye is keeping very still. So instead of the brain "intentionally silencing" change over motion, another possibility is simply that points are traversing previous points' after-images and the brain can't process what's going on and gives up.
So it would be interesting to see if this effect also happens when: 1. The rotation is very much slower 2. Dots are spaced father apart 3. Do it with just 1 rotating dot. Perhaps effect only occurs with several. 4. These are quite subtle changes. Try large dots, large changes.
Haven't read the paper, so just musing.:) But I think this one experiment, on its own, probably doesn't delve into it deeply enough.
I agree, with the caveat that it's not always possible. But it's like any job really - you will feel more or less valued depending on who your managers are, the kind of company culture you're in.
I decided about 6 years ago to stop being an employee and do freelance work. There are pros and cons. But in terms of feeling valued, it's much better. You're working directly for a company as a "consultant" and you're in a position of trust.
Once you prove you're not out to rip anyone off, and you care about the quality of your work and really care about the outcome for the client, you're put on the "this guy is great to work with" list and it's a nice atmosphere to work in.
Of course the cons are you don't have an office of peers to shoot the breeze with, compare notes, etc. I miss that. And the obvious benefits of being an employee. But in the end it's up to you how to work with it. At least there are options.
I realize this is a nit-picking distinction, but it's relevant.
It's not nit-picking at all. If a human is brain-damaged to the point they can't, say, feel emotion or empathise with other's emotions (there are many fascinating types of brain dysfunction) we still consider them a "person" even though a chimpanzee might exhibit more capacity than they do. But of course the chimp isn't a "person".
We basically hold onto the idea of being "in God's image" (whether religious or not) - we simply believe we're better. The same way we just can't *assume* there is intelligent life on at least one of a billion other planets - we'd simply rather assume we're the best damn species in the universe, until shown otherwise.
It's a lovely illusion of superiority we carry. It must have something to do with our survival. We obviously need to "dehumanise" animals otherwise we couldn't kill and eat them without feeling bad about ourselves. Actually not even that. If you can't draw the line between "who" is ok to kill and "who" isn't, we wouldn't be surviving as well, people eating each other etc. Probably all comes from there. It feels ok to kill "that animal" (animal) but not "that animal" (human) so let's culturally define what that means. Let's make a word, "person", meaning "animal like me, of great value to all of us". Because that's what our basic instincts tell us to do.
When a puppy looks at you as his/her parent, with what we may as well call "love" and "devotion", are they not speaking to you directly, asking to be treated as a person?
What about a dog who, in the pack mentality, decides that you are their equal (some dogs even assume themselves pack leader over a person)? Is that not a direct message saying "I'm equal to you".
Or any other number of animal behaviours which send the message, "this is my turf, you don't belong here" - that's clearly not asking but demanding that you treat them as dominant and superior.
That's enough messages to go on for now. The truth is we ignore the messages animals send us because it suits us to ignore them.
It annoys me how we decide to treat animals based on what we think goes on in their brains. We constantly discuss how big our brains are, or whale brains, dolphin brains, etc. We appear to judge person-hood purely on a judgement of brain activity. Yet we fail to support that in reality.
I mean, if we judge person-ness on what goes on in the brain, then why do we still treat people with Alzheimer's, Downs Syndrome, Autism, or serious brain damage (to the point some people can't even feel emotion, recognise faces or that their own arm belongs to them) as "people"?
We experiment to see if a crow can make a tool, or a chimp can recognise itself in the mirror. Then a human comes along who can't do something like that as we still give them preferential treatment.
We should admit we still hold onto the "in God's image" idea for dear life, and stop trying to hide the fact with discussions about which species is more worthy based on their brain. IMO, we will *never* treat animals better until we admit that and do something about changing that basic attitude.
If intelligence basically means thriving & succeeding in *your environment*, then yes, she is more intelligent than most people. Most people "do ok" and "get by" in their environment. Of course that doesn't mean she is of much value to the human race in terms of its overall survivability and success.
Then again, maybe so. History is full of both the outrageous and outstanding, and it seems we need both as fuel for the reactor. Perhaps that's just how the machine of human society moves from one place to another. In which case Palin, as part of that process, occupies a perfectly valid role.
A lot of things come together to sway public opinion. It's easy to forget that leaders are a product of the environment as well as an influence on it.
A brain scan shows activity which seems to pre-empt a conscious decision by up to 6 seconds, which sparks some interesting ideas. Firstly, it's proof of ESP. The machine is detecting a process of thought undetectable by normal human senses. Ironic that a machine can do it, reliably and repeatedly, before any so-called psychic can. Go machine.
How and where do we actually "decide" certain things? The brain certainly initiates a lot - reflexes, emotional responses - before we can "decide" to have them. So how much of what we feel and do is "free will"? Or, does free will really reside way beyond the slim spectrum of what we perceive as "conscious thought"?
Also ironic (or perhaps not) is that a scientific experiment like this raises these interesting metaphysical questions.
The term ESP itself is silly. How can one perceive something which is extra-sensory? If you perceive it, you've sensed it, with any of your 5 physical senses or some supposed additional sense.
That being said, it's an entirely appropriate term for phenomena which has never been proven to exist.
if the companies purchasing the ads ever manage to quantitatively assess their impact.
Surely that's as easy as marrying up any increase in sales with advertising on any network. Can't be that hard - but since it's relatively new territory, we may be waiting a little while longer for businesses to start going, "hm, this isn't working as well as I'd hoped."
But at the same time it's a numbers game. New advertisers get on board all the time, so even the disappointed ones won't count for much, as the new ones have the same stars in their eyes. There's no way to get an overall, objective picture of results. Like starting a new diet - you have no idea how other people fared who started that diet, so you try it anyway. Diet plan sees "success", at least until the next diet plan comes along (probably created by the same company who does nothing but create diet plans because people are that stupid/uninformed).
Exactly. I would never use any web-based email service which didn't support pop/imap.
If your emails are important, it's simply stupid to rely on an external service to whom your account's integrity is of little consequence. Nothing beats having a local copy and doing your own backups.
Speaking of backups, there was a short period of time when the average person was just starting to get the idea of doing regular backups of their info (it's unbelievable that no OS I've seen has an intelligent backup service). But now we're seeing web services for frickin everything (so they can sell our lives to advertisers) and the average person is going to get *less* computer literate, not more.
Who is doing the buying though? It seems many large companies in China are owned, or at least in the control of, the government. So when an overseas company is bought, is the buyer basically the Chinese government?
I can imagine that being the real problem here - not Chinese "commercial interests", but rather the Chinese government controlling all these foreign assets. Even if they are being privately bought, surely the Chinese government can tell them how high to jump at any time.
As an aside, we are now importing apples from China - either because they're cheaper to produce than our own, or as part of some trade deal, as we grow more than enough here. Either way, it's insane, particularly given China has lax, in any, controls over pesticide use, environmental damage, etc. - all those things we fight so hard for in the West. All now completely undermined by globalisation.
I think nowadays we can see that unconstrained capitalism is completely dysfunctional, and that Globalisation was entered into without any decent controls or forethought over market and other abuses. But the real hypocrisy is that governments will cry "free market" while manipulating it to suit themselves, often at the long-term expense, since governments only think till the next election.
Which is what makes China and its ilk so dangerous. They are in a position to think long term. The winner of a chess game is usually the one who can plan more moves ahead.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, as a language fan, I must say this is very observant. Interesting.
The universe is obviously designed for the "emergence of life", but not for life per se.
Proof of this is that life doesn't last for long. Life has to "keep trying", as it were (or as I tell my g/f), otherwise no life would exist at all. Life - that is the process of "emergence, fail-and-retry" is what the universe is geared up for. Not the sustained state of "being alive".
I think the sooner we realise that, the sooner we can get on and discuss the issue from the proper perspective.
What's really happening is this.
US corporations have been researching alternative energy solutions for transport for ages now. A lot of R&D has gone into it, and we're on the cusp of a new age of environmentally friendly power and transportation.
They have a deal with the US, European and SE Asian (Japan, Taiwan) governments to legislate for the significant reduction in use of the current technologies, down to the refusal of allowing such craft to enter their airports, on the grounds of EU regulations to be adopted world-wide. Must keep those greenhouse gasses down.
China has forked over a lot of US currency and largely can't operate their planes outside of China.
This is one phase in a multi-pronged attack against the Chinese economy, to ward off the possibility of China becoming a regional hegemon with its own advanced, powerful and long-range military ability rivalling that of the US, the result of which would be an incredibly unstable world.
I hope this is the case, as otherwise we're at the stage where capitalism exists for its own sake and nobody else's. Which basically puts China in the superior position into the future, since they are determined to use capitalism on their own terms and resolutely in the interests of China.
*hurls*
Why would "old-schoolers" go back to the original menu? This reminds me so much of Windows 95, it's a keeper.
We are all going to die. Over 50 million people die each year.
That's catastrophic by any measure. Something must be done.
No I mean real windows, glass ones.
I mean, wasn't this government supposed to be more transparent?
How else do you get transparency without leaks?
Obviously the Pentagon needs more windows.
You're welcome.
we still see that there are tons of people who keep spewing shit out of their mouth that they expect the whole world to be interested in [...] Like that guy on the bus or subway that wants to talk about every damn word he reads in the paper. Or the girl waiting in line at the fast food counter talking on the top of her lungs into the phone while ordering.
Erm.. you just made a broad generalisation, then tried to support it by mentioning things that are exceptions to the rule. The babbling guy on the bus or girl in the queue are the extreme minority.
There's just a small demographic (mostly on /.) that really doesn't, in fact, want to broadcast everything we know.
Perhaps you don't realise that posting on a popular message board is, in fact, more effective in getting your words out than babbling to your neighbour on a bus. :)
Facebook is different. It's something people actually want, and it's something that makes their lives easier and more enjoyable.
You have no data to back that up - or contract it for that matter ;). Now, if you could tell me how many of your 130 friends are actually still *subscribed* (haven't blocked your posts) or are regular users (log on often enough to check the majority of their posts) - things like that - then I'd take notice.
I think Facebook will eventually "normalise", once this phenomenon of "speaking to the world" fades away and people realise what the more relevant uses of FB are: Sharing photos, organising outings, listing your company/group, and making the occasional big announcement.
I'm pretty sure FB will have to address the noise level eventually. Perhaps introduce a new type of "update", call it "announcements", which are more meaningful than status posts. Or perhaps subject tags, like "family", "events", and a few others. All so friends can be selective of what they subscribe to instead of being spammed.
Or, another network will emerge which has all the features many FB users are screaming for.
All very true. The closer someone is to you, the more dialogue you want to have with them, and the rest is mostly a bunch of irrelevant posts you skim over. Usually contact with closer people happens over email because: a) you don't always want to say the same thing to everyone you know, and b)the number of people you want to say it to is quite small.
This phenomenon of "speaking to a large audience" is a novelty. A very attractive one, but it will wear off for this reason: No-one will be interested in everything their list of 130 friends have to say and they will, as a result, realise what they have to say is also not relevant to most people they know. If everyone could see who is no longer "subscribed" to them (ie. friends who have blocked their status posts) we'd see a lot of insulted friends. Anyway, people will eventually realise most of what happens on FB is irrelevant to them.
So, what is FB's real role, as a platform, once the excitement dies down?
1. Sharing photos.
2. Holiday / special event updates ("it's a girl!"), that sort of thing.
3. Being "in the loop" with local venues, events and groups.
4. Like forums, and how the web has always been used, connecting to groups of interest.
Unless I've missed something, that's the core value of FB, and it will eventually normalise to that. That may be a problem for FB advertisers and investors. But FB will survive, they will just normalise to "a very useful site for xyz" like many other sites. They will have to rearrange their business model.
FB is certainly the first site I know of which has ever been able to attract all these small businesses, venues, performers, etc. in one place - that's been tried time and again by other sites with very limited penetration. All because FB has *ubiquity*, like Google. That ubiquity is itself of inestimable value.
True to an extent. The problem with Facebook (which is what we're talking about) is that you *can't* ignore the things you want to ignore.
If I comment on something, I should be able to avoid the 100 "also commented on" emails which follow. ie. there's no "unsubscribe" for posts and photos. So it becomes a pain.
I don't want to see "is now friends with" posts.
I don't want to see "likes (someone I don't know)'s status"
I want to turn of, selectively, who can add "likes" shite to my feed, because some people are simply a pain in the ass on the internet and like 5 things a day, or post crap.
Basically, I want to choose what is *relevant for me* on Facebook. There are very few ways to do that, so people do get pissed off with it.
Take the Slashdot model. If it wasn't for the Score system, it would have less value to people, as the sheer number of posts would be too daunting to trawl through to find the best comments. Surely FB can come with some kind of relevance system. They might have to eventually.
Sure, unfortunately the voting system we Democracies operate under is lame (as in should be shot). In a party system, we can't vote for individual legislation, only for this or that rep/party. I mean yeah, the people doing the job matter to a certain degree, but not to the point we are voting for people instead of policies.
So yes, as long as a policy can potentially find a way under the radar, or has the support of those with deep pocketses, it won't go away. This is because the system was designed with an uneducated population in mind, so it has serious flaws in terms of executing "the will of the people". It's ludicrous to even speak that quote in relation to party politics.
Depends what you mean by treating them as humans.
Asking them around for tennis won't work too well. They tend to run off with the ball. But it doesn't take much to respect their right to live in a way which is best for them, to believe what they want to believe, to assemble, and go on TV talk shows.
This is a ridiculous and hypocritical argument which only serves to detract from the real issues, having to make real decisions and take responsibility for our actions.
The question is simple: Do we apply a code of ethics to non-human animals, and the natural world in general, or do we not? If not, fine, let's just get on with raping the planet, destroying entire species, and only worry about our own interests.
If so, then it has to apply to ALL LIFE. We can't go on about dolphins, then go on about dogs (maybe even cats) then go on about pigs, and on and on. We will be extinct before we get a handle on what we're even talking about.
The problem is simple: Up to now, perhaps still now, we have *had* to kill other animals, and reform the environment to the detriment of other animals, in order to survive. Naturally we feel a little defensive about challenging that, rightly so, but let's not become completely neurotic about it!
This kind of discussion about the merit or otherwise of each species' brains is the symptom of a species (us) which can neither come to terms with its heritage nor its future.
As long as by "conversation", you also take into account emotional and non-verbal interaction. We do it all the time between each other, so why not relevant with someone who might be a person? Of course that opens things up to a lot of "wishy washy" interpretations. But that's exactly my point. Human, person-to-person interactions are pretty much that at most times, and we call it valid. So?
Fungus is not intelligent, ergo neither is ("We must stand by our North Korean allies") Palin.
I disagree. Seriously, it depends on your perspective.
Palin says and does "dumb" things - culturally speaking. If she lived in North Korea, maybe not seen as dumb at all. She can't do calculus? We don't worry about that, most of us can't. She can't spell something? We all laugh, Palin dumb. Completely relative.
Ok forget that, just this. Palin steps up, speaks her mind, contributes to *global* conversation, manages to get support whatever merit or otherwise her ideas have. She tries to participate, tried to win. Most people watch news, post on discussion boards, don't influence anyone, probably never write to their MPs. So who is doing the "smarter" thing?
I say "smart" on purpose. You can define intelligence however you want, but if you adhere to Darwin then it matters not how survival is achieved only that it is. Palin is, in our terms, more intelligent than the Cro-Magnon, but Cro was intelligent enough to stick around and lead to us. Who knows *how* we will lead to what comes after - it only matters that we do.
Who is to say where Palin fits into the human story, our destiny as a species? If you want to judge, then prove the value of your contribution.
I, for one, welcome the coming of Homo Palinus.
That's exactly what I found as well. I tried to work out what was going on, and noticed that if I did fix my "peripheral attention" on a particular outer circle as it moved, I could detect its changes, and a little of those adjacent to it.
I think also what is happening is that, when rotation begins, many dots are traversing the *same area* of vision while your eye is keeping very still. So instead of the brain "intentionally silencing" change over motion, another possibility is simply that points are traversing previous points' after-images and the brain can't process what's going on and gives up.
So it would be interesting to see if this effect also happens when:
1. The rotation is very much slower
2. Dots are spaced father apart
3. Do it with just 1 rotating dot. Perhaps effect only occurs with several.
4. These are quite subtle changes. Try large dots, large changes.
Haven't read the paper, so just musing. :) But I think this one experiment, on its own, probably doesn't delve into it deeply enough.
I agree, with the caveat that it's not always possible. But it's like any job really - you will feel more or less valued depending on who your managers are, the kind of company culture you're in.
I decided about 6 years ago to stop being an employee and do freelance work. There are pros and cons. But in terms of feeling valued, it's much better. You're working directly for a company as a "consultant" and you're in a position of trust.
Once you prove you're not out to rip anyone off, and you care about the quality of your work and really care about the outcome for the client, you're put on the "this guy is great to work with" list and it's a nice atmosphere to work in.
Of course the cons are you don't have an office of peers to shoot the breeze with, compare notes, etc. I miss that. And the obvious benefits of being an employee. But in the end it's up to you how to work with it. At least there are options.
I realize this is a nit-picking distinction, but it's relevant.
It's not nit-picking at all. If a human is brain-damaged to the point they can't, say, feel emotion or empathise with other's emotions (there are many fascinating types of brain dysfunction) we still consider them a "person" even though a chimpanzee might exhibit more capacity than they do. But of course the chimp isn't a "person".
We basically hold onto the idea of being "in God's image" (whether religious or not) - we simply believe we're better. The same way we just can't *assume* there is intelligent life on at least one of a billion other planets - we'd simply rather assume we're the best damn species in the universe, until shown otherwise.
It's a lovely illusion of superiority we carry. It must have something to do with our survival. We obviously need to "dehumanise" animals otherwise we couldn't kill and eat them without feeling bad about ourselves. Actually not even that. If you can't draw the line between "who" is ok to kill and "who" isn't, we wouldn't be surviving as well, people eating each other etc. Probably all comes from there. It feels ok to kill "that animal" (animal) but not "that animal" (human) so let's culturally define what that means. Let's make a word, "person", meaning "animal like me, of great value to all of us". Because that's what our basic instincts tell us to do.
When a puppy looks at you as his/her parent, with what we may as well call "love" and "devotion", are they not speaking to you directly, asking to be treated as a person?
What about a dog who, in the pack mentality, decides that you are their equal (some dogs even assume themselves pack leader over a person)? Is that not a direct message saying "I'm equal to you".
Or any other number of animal behaviours which send the message, "this is my turf, you don't belong here" - that's clearly not asking but demanding that you treat them as dominant and superior.
That's enough messages to go on for now. The truth is we ignore the messages animals send us because it suits us to ignore them.
It annoys me how we decide to treat animals based on what we think goes on in their brains. We constantly discuss how big our brains are, or whale brains, dolphin brains, etc. We appear to judge person-hood purely on a judgement of brain activity. Yet we fail to support that in reality.
I mean, if we judge person-ness on what goes on in the brain, then why do we still treat people with Alzheimer's, Downs Syndrome, Autism, or serious brain damage (to the point some people can't even feel emotion, recognise faces or that their own arm belongs to them) as "people"?
We experiment to see if a crow can make a tool, or a chimp can recognise itself in the mirror. Then a human comes along who can't do something like that as we still give them preferential treatment.
We should admit we still hold onto the "in God's image" idea for dear life, and stop trying to hide the fact with discussions about which species is more worthy based on their brain. IMO, we will *never* treat animals better until we admit that and do something about changing that basic attitude.
If intelligence basically means thriving & succeeding in *your environment*, then yes, she is more intelligent than most people. Most people "do ok" and "get by" in their environment. Of course that doesn't mean she is of much value to the human race in terms of its overall survivability and success.
Then again, maybe so. History is full of both the outrageous and outstanding, and it seems we need both as fuel for the reactor. Perhaps that's just how the machine of human society moves from one place to another. In which case Palin, as part of that process, occupies a perfectly valid role.
A lot of things come together to sway public opinion. It's easy to forget that leaders are a product of the environment as well as an influence on it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6S9OidmNZM
A brain scan shows activity which seems to pre-empt a conscious decision by up to 6 seconds, which sparks some interesting ideas. Firstly, it's proof of ESP. The machine is detecting a process of thought undetectable by normal human senses. Ironic that a machine can do it, reliably and repeatedly, before any so-called psychic can. Go machine.
How and where do we actually "decide" certain things? The brain certainly initiates a lot - reflexes, emotional responses - before we can "decide" to have them. So how much of what we feel and do is "free will"? Or, does free will really reside way beyond the slim spectrum of what we perceive as "conscious thought"?
Also ironic (or perhaps not) is that a scientific experiment like this raises these interesting metaphysical questions.
The term ESP itself is silly. How can one perceive something which is extra-sensory? If you perceive it, you've sensed it, with any of your 5 physical senses or some supposed additional sense.
That being said, it's an entirely appropriate term for phenomena which has never been proven to exist.
if the companies purchasing the ads ever manage to quantitatively assess their impact.
Surely that's as easy as marrying up any increase in sales with advertising on any network. Can't be that hard - but since it's relatively new territory, we may be waiting a little while longer for businesses to start going, "hm, this isn't working as well as I'd hoped."
But at the same time it's a numbers game. New advertisers get on board all the time, so even the disappointed ones won't count for much, as the new ones have the same stars in their eyes. There's no way to get an overall, objective picture of results. Like starting a new diet - you have no idea how other people fared who started that diet, so you try it anyway. Diet plan sees "success", at least until the next diet plan comes along (probably created by the same company who does nothing but create diet plans because people are that stupid/uninformed).
Exactly. I would never use any web-based email service which didn't support pop/imap.
If your emails are important, it's simply stupid to rely on an external service to whom your account's integrity is of little consequence. Nothing beats having a local copy and doing your own backups.
Speaking of backups, there was a short period of time when the average person was just starting to get the idea of doing regular backups of their info (it's unbelievable that no OS I've seen has an intelligent backup service). But now we're seeing web services for frickin everything (so they can sell our lives to advertisers) and the average person is going to get *less* computer literate, not more.
Who is doing the buying though? It seems many large companies in China are owned, or at least in the control of, the government. So when an overseas company is bought, is the buyer basically the Chinese government?
I can imagine that being the real problem here - not Chinese "commercial interests", but rather the Chinese government controlling all these foreign assets. Even if they are being privately bought, surely the Chinese government can tell them how high to jump at any time.
We have a similar problem here in Oz. It has recently come to light that China is "investing" quite seriously is our farm land.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-14/china-investment-in-australian-farms-rises-10-fold-agents-say.html
As an aside, we are now importing apples from China - either because they're cheaper to produce than our own, or as part of some trade deal, as we grow more than enough here. Either way, it's insane, particularly given China has lax, in any, controls over pesticide use, environmental damage, etc. - all those things we fight so hard for in the West. All now completely undermined by globalisation.
I think nowadays we can see that unconstrained capitalism is completely dysfunctional, and that Globalisation was entered into without any decent controls or forethought over market and other abuses. But the real hypocrisy is that governments will cry "free market" while manipulating it to suit themselves, often at the long-term expense, since governments only think till the next election.
Which is what makes China and its ilk so dangerous. They are in a position to think long term. The winner of a chess game is usually the one who can plan more moves ahead.