You raised a good point which is of far broader significance than most people realize.
The nexted issue was the war on terror/iraq. It wasn't that people were afraid to switch presidents in the middle of the war, it is that Kerry came out and tryed to slam the president as well as the military for everythign that went wrong. Even after he publicaly said he would have done it the same way or that he thought we were doing everythign in our power at the time it happened. Then we had Terry McCullough and the likes telling is we were lying or not able to unnderstand Kerry's statment when someone played the interview were he said stuff like that. There were too many claims of everythign being said was out of context as if you had to listen to the speech or interview from the previous time to understand the context of the statments being made a couple days later. This sounds too much like a con artist to me and alot of other americans. It is as if they were constantly trying to cover up something and it left alot of americans with a sence of not knowing for sure were he stood.
It's not hard to see why this is.
It's been well established by the serious media that a large section of the public (those with republican convictions) is completely out of touch with reality. And it's no accident; that reality disconnect was deliberately engineered by the White House. As Hitler's Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels said, back in the 1930's:
If you tell a big enough Lie, and keep on repeating it, in the end people will come to believe it.
This dogma seems to have been most avidly embraced by the current administrations in both the UK and US, in order to suppress dissent over the Iraq invasion and the current occupation. In fact the re-election of George W. Bush illustrates how magnificently the White House has managed to contain reality and prevent the truth from leaking out and influencing too many people to any significant degree. Consider the following scary revelation, from Ron Suskind's in the October 17 issue of New York Times Magazine:
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based
community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from
your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something
about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the
way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and
when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality
-- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities,
which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's
actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
The White House is so confident in its ability to socially engineer public perception (and thus create the reality they want) that they don't even need to care who knows about this manipulation.
This helps us understand what the Democrats were up against. Usually we would think of a presidential candidate's job as being to convince people by reasoned argument that he would do a better job of running the country. But a reasoned argument can't even take place unless both sides agree on both axioms and a consistent set of logical rules which together accurately describe reality.
In all political contests I think it's fair to say there is a certain amount of wrongfooting one's opponent via all the dirty tricks you can read about here. But in the case of this election campaign I think it was made much more difficult than usual, because before Kerry could even get started on convincing people he would have to first re-educate them upon what the argument was about, upon where they stand in the world today. To take one of the most egregious examples: although a major plank of the Democrat platform was to offer a less gung-ho approac
Biological relativism is all well and good up to a point. But when resources are *limited*, only the fittest are able to outcompete all the rest, and the weakest *do* go to the wall. That's nature, red in tooth and claw. How else do you think extinctions happen? It's not all about giant meteors and pandemics.
Why? If the uploadee has better prospects than the previous incarnation.
Such as, "You can only go to Mars as an uploadee because otherwise the radiation and other stresses would kill you".
Such as, "Your body is about to die anyway so here is a new one that will do you a bit longer so you can finish writing your book".
Such as, "Your old body is OK as far as it goes, but this new body is better. Better, stronger, faster".
Once uploading is available and once you are prepared to accept it, you are effectively immortal - without the misery of ill health and old age, to boot.
BTW I know I'm sidestepping the point that you're really trying to make, but that's quite deliberate: I believe in Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles. I also disbelieve in the self as a physical object. If somebody wakes up tomorrow thinking he's me, with some sufficient proportion of my memories, attitudes and other faculties all nicely intact, then he's me. What's to argue? You make the very same leap of faith every night when you go to sleep.
Linux, GNU et all need a kick up the arse, standards need to be written, and everything needs to be harmonized.
Windows is no better. How about a consistent keystroke combination for the "find" command? After all this time you would expect them to have cracked that one. And you don't even get the ability to customize it, as you would on most Linux desktops.
There is no reason transfering your consciousness into the robot should kill you.
The process of scanning the information content of the relevant parts of the brain (perhaps with resolution down to the quantum level) might well be destructive.
So, after this transfer, there is still a copy stuck in your body and there is a copy of you running around in a powerful robotic body. Why exactly do you want that?
Even if non-destructive scanning were sufficient so that there were two of you running around after the procedure, is that a problem? One of you still gets to go to Mars. And the one that gets to go, still remembers being you. It has just as much right to lay claim to being "you" as the one left behind has.
And, for that matter, why would anybody else want that? And how would that be different from just sending a robotic probe?
People working in AI now are rather pessimistic about the prospects of engineering a sentient, human level artifical intelligence (I'm not, but let that pass). Isn't it worthwhile to send someone who can offer a human perspective rather than just a literal-minded robot? I think most people would agree that it is.
Finally, would you feel so negative about it if the space traveller's memories could be downloaded back into the Earthbound copy's skull and merged with his own after the traveller's return? It seems likely to me that the technology for rewriting the brain might appear not long after the technology for reading it.
would you be willing to go into a matrix-esque environment for those months
The brain is the busiest organ (in terms of energy expenditure) in the body. Obviously, to support the brain's metabolism, the other organs would have to be working as well. So if you want to keep the brain going then you have to forget hibernation altogether. Hibernation is going to mean a very deep sleep.
When they finally come for you and break down your door, and they are sweeping your house with their scanning devices and there you are hiding trembling in the cupboard, your false teeth will suddenly pipe up: "HEY! HE'S IN HERE! IN THE GODDAM CUPBOARD!"
Good thing too. If you're doing something that nobody likes, it is wrong by definition. By definition, because society gets to decide. That's what civilization *is*, asshole.
> If I drove a manual for my daily commute I'd be registered disabled, permanently limping and in constant pain - due to the wear and tear on my left knee.
Manual transmission is the norm in the some markets, such as here in the UK (many people, particularly those driving performance cars, just prefer it). We're no strangers to long distance commuting either. I haven't heard many people complaining of clutch operation related injuries though.
However if you *already* had an old injury in your clutch leg, I can see how it might be exacerbated in a manual transmission car.
The way I read it, they are only planning to index books with the help of the publisher (thus avoiding copyright violation). Publishers will likely be able to supply the text in an electronic (and thus searchable) format. Should be do-able for any book currently in print.
So you're a fan of strong govt. Well I'm not - I'd much prefer a leader perpetually in fear of being thrown out so he doesn't get too cocky. Better still if he actually *does* get thrown out nice and early, before he can fuck anything up.
Only a truly great statesman, a uniter and consensus builder, should be able to hold on to power for any length of time; and only laws which attract and sustain cross-party, independent expert and genertal public support over a significant period of time should be legislatable. Otherwise I would like these hubristic morons to be forcibly restrained from continually bloody moving my bloody cheese.
Clinton was (still is) pretty popular with at least some sections of the public here in the UK.
His implementation of foreign policy was far from perfect but he clearly meant well (for a US president anyway) and the general approach was fairly multilateral by today's standards. eg its conceivable that Clinton might have signed the US up to the "Kyoto Protocol" on carbon emissions.
The business with Monica Lewinsky didn't hurt him a bit. Actually I think many people saw the humour in the situation, or sympathised with this minor and clearly human failing of succumbing to a bit of illicit nookie. The roasting he got afterwards didn't play well over here (Kenneth Starr as a jumped-up, joyless pinprick). There was the further barracking via impeachment proceedings etc. and it all didnt reflect well on the republicans who were clearly just out to bring the man down by whatever dirty methods they could muster, no matter how hypocritical.
It didn't hurt that Clinton had an easygoing manner, played the sax in his off hours, and that he had treated the world to a Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" line-up reunion concert at his inaugural ball (utterly priceless - thanks Bill!)
TNG was not entirely stateless - far from it. For instance, after the events of "The Inner Light", there were profound changes in Picard's character which were echoed in many subsequent episodes.
I liked some Voyager stories too, but the show was frequently ruined by the very annoying (Katherine Hepburn-like) captain Janeway. She was inconsistent, frequently hypocritical and often guilty of poor decision making. Not what we like to see having been spoiled on a diet of Kirk and Picard. If the situation had been real she would surely have been relieved of her command by a cabal of senior officers.
Water the gas down with what? If you used water, which is immiscible in water, the water would just sit in the bottom of the pump reservoir until all the gas was gone.
Perhaps you were just making a joke and its your moderator who erred (insightful? come on!).
Actually this is not new in the UK. Here, a few years ago Jack Straw (as New Labour Home Secretary) introduced legislation against what is actually called, unbelievably, "HateCrime".
Shades of 1984 already, no?
The Blair administration are widely recognized as has masters of what has been called "spin". In earlier times this would have been called propaganda. But there isn't really any specific term in general use to categorize the full range of techniques used by modern governments in pursuit of what I would call "meme control". Because that's what this is. The government knows that, just as in disease control, it doesn't matter if the measures they take aren't 100% effective. So long as they take some measures to dampen the spread, eventually the disease (or meme) will disappear, over time.
I would cite as an example, that of discrimination against homosexuals. Just twenty years ago, although homosexuality was tolerated, it was still generally looked upon as wrong and relatively few were out in the open. But after two decades of strenuous lobbying by militant Gay groups, extreme over-representation in the media world and (some might say) significant over-representation in the political world, legislation against the presentation of "positive images" of homosexuals in the media has finally been scrapped and under the HateCrime laws it is now actually *illegal* - an arrestable, criminal offence - to make any kind of negative comments about homosexuality in the presence of another person. We now face wall-to-wall homosexuality in the media and presumably, at some point, the return of teaching of "equally valid alternative lifestyles" in our primary schools. But this is just the final underline; already you will find hardly any young person who doesn't believe that being gay is cool. The gay lobby already won this war.
Draconian though the hatecrime law is, the thinking behind such legislation is a utilitation philosophy of the "greater good". To the sponsors, the end justifies the means. It's just too bad for you if you disagree with the end result being aimed at; your right to protest has been taken away from you. The government decided on the issue already, for the greater good, and that is an end to it.
I am personally against such initiatives on the simple basis that nobody can be trusted to decide for us what limits should be set on what we are "allowed" to think and say. Even the most high-minded government can be misled by ideology; even the most apparently incorruptible can be subverted by single-issue pressure groups.
BTW, in the UK the last couple of years the biggest TV phenomenon was undoubtedly a reality TV show called "Big Brother". Before that, if you said "Big Brother" everybody who knew would have thought "1984, government mind control". But now everybody thinks "reality TV" and the youngsters who never heard of 1984 now don't even ask. This prophetic novel is disappearing from the public consciousness just as most of its most frightening predictions are coming to pass. Not only ironic but just convenient for the government, eh? Draw your own conclusions.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not hard to see why this is.
It's been well established by the serious media that a large section of the public (those with republican convictions) is completely out of touch with reality. And it's no accident; that reality disconnect was deliberately engineered by the White House. As Hitler's Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels said, back in the 1930's:
This dogma seems to have been most avidly embraced by the current administrations in both the UK and US, in order to suppress dissent over the Iraq invasion and the current occupation. In fact the re-election of George W. Bush illustrates how magnificently the White House has managed to contain reality and prevent the truth from leaking out and influencing too many people to any significant degree. Consider the following scary revelation, from Ron Suskind's in the October 17 issue of New York Times Magazine:
The White House is so confident in its ability to socially engineer public perception (and thus create the reality they want) that they don't even need to care who knows about this manipulation.
This helps us understand what the Democrats were up against. Usually we would think of a presidential candidate's job as being to convince people by reasoned argument that he would do a better job of running the country. But a reasoned argument can't even take place unless both sides agree on both axioms and a consistent set of logical rules which together accurately describe reality. In all political contests I think it's fair to say there is a certain amount of wrongfooting one's opponent via all the dirty tricks you can read about here. But in the case of this election campaign I think it was made much more difficult than usual, because before Kerry could even get started on convincing people he would have to first re-educate them upon what the argument was about, upon where they stand in the world today. To take one of the most egregious examples: although a major plank of the Democrat platform was to offer a less gung-ho approac
I think it's somewhat bogus to use any sentence containing the non-word "virii".
He mistyped "viruses" as well.
Shouldn't a patent be struck down *automatically* once indisputable evidence of prior art turns up?
All in front of the TV watching the election results come in I guess...
Biological relativism is all well and good up to a point. But when resources are *limited*, only the fittest are able to outcompete all the rest, and the weakest *do* go to the wall. That's nature, red in tooth and claw. How else do you think extinctions happen? It's not all about giant meteors and pandemics.
ideas are fucking worthless [google.com]
Whoa - nice googlewhack!
Why? If the uploadee has better prospects than the previous incarnation.
Such as, "You can only go to Mars as an uploadee because otherwise the radiation and other stresses would kill you".
Such as, "Your body is about to die anyway so here is a new one that will do you a bit longer so you can finish writing your book".
Such as, "Your old body is OK as far as it goes, but this new body is better. Better, stronger, faster".
Once uploading is available and once you are prepared to accept it, you are effectively immortal - without the misery of ill health and old age, to boot.
BTW I know I'm sidestepping the point that you're really trying to make, but that's quite deliberate: I believe in Leibniz' Identity of Indiscernibles. I also disbelieve in the self as a physical object. If somebody wakes up tomorrow thinking he's me, with some sufficient proportion of my memories, attitudes and other faculties all nicely intact, then he's me. What's to argue? You make the very same leap of faith every night when you go to sleep.
Windows is no better. How about a consistent keystroke combination for the "find" command? After all this time you would expect them to have cracked that one. And you don't even get the ability to customize it, as you would on most Linux desktops.
Correct. If I had mod points available you'd get 'em.
Finally, would you feel so negative about it if the space traveller's memories could be downloaded back into the Earthbound copy's skull and merged with his own after the traveller's return? It seems likely to me that the technology for rewriting the brain might appear not long after the technology for reading it.
Aye. Diaspora is a bloody fantastic story (poor Yatima!)
Have you read Permutation City? It's mind blowing.
Egan rocks.
When they finally come for you and break down your door, and they are sweeping your house with their scanning devices and there you are hiding trembling in the cupboard, your false teeth will suddenly pipe up: "HEY! HE'S IN HERE! IN THE GODDAM CUPBOARD!"
Good thing too. If you're doing something that nobody likes, it is wrong by definition. By definition, because society gets to decide. That's what civilization *is*, asshole.
> If I drove a manual for my daily commute I'd be registered disabled, permanently limping and in constant pain - due to the wear and tear on my left knee.
Manual transmission is the norm in the some markets, such as here in the UK (many people, particularly those driving performance cars, just prefer it). We're no strangers to long distance commuting either. I haven't heard many people complaining of clutch operation related injuries though.
However if you *already* had an old injury in your clutch leg, I can see how it might be exacerbated in a manual transmission car.
D'oh! Serves me right for not RTFA properly....
The way I read it, they are only planning to index books with the help of the publisher (thus avoiding copyright violation). Publishers will likely be able to supply the text in an electronic (and thus searchable) format. Should be do-able for any book currently in print.
So you're a fan of strong govt. Well I'm not - I'd much prefer a leader perpetually in fear of being thrown out so he doesn't get too cocky. Better still if he actually *does* get thrown out nice and early, before he can fuck anything up.
Only a truly great statesman, a uniter and consensus builder, should be able to hold on to power for any length of time; and only laws which attract and sustain cross-party, independent expert and genertal public support over a significant period of time should be legislatable.
Otherwise I would like these hubristic morons to be forcibly restrained from continually bloody moving my bloody cheese.
Clinton was (still is) pretty popular with at least some sections of the public here in the UK.
His implementation of foreign policy was far from perfect but he clearly meant well (for a US president anyway) and the general approach was fairly multilateral by today's standards. eg its conceivable that Clinton might have signed the US up to the "Kyoto Protocol" on carbon emissions.
The business with Monica Lewinsky didn't hurt him a bit. Actually I think many people saw the humour in the situation, or sympathised with this minor and clearly human failing of succumbing to a bit of illicit nookie. The roasting he got afterwards didn't play well over here (Kenneth Starr as a jumped-up, joyless pinprick). There was the further barracking via impeachment proceedings etc. and it all didnt reflect well on the republicans who were clearly just out to bring the man down by whatever dirty methods they could muster, no matter how hypocritical.
It didn't hurt that Clinton had an easygoing manner, played the sax in his off hours, and that he had treated the world to a Fleetwood Mac "Rumours" line-up reunion concert at his inaugural ball (utterly priceless - thanks Bill!)
TNG was not entirely stateless - far from it. For instance, after the events of "The Inner Light", there were profound changes in Picard's character which were echoed in many subsequent episodes.
I liked some Voyager stories too, but the show was frequently ruined by the very annoying (Katherine Hepburn-like) captain Janeway. She was inconsistent, frequently hypocritical and often guilty of poor decision making. Not what we like to see having been spoiled on a diet of Kirk and Picard. If the situation had been real she would surely have been relieved of her command by a cabal of senior officers.
where are my mod points when I need them...
Water the gas down with what? If you used water, which is immiscible in water, the water would just sit in the bottom of the pump reservoir until all the gas was gone.
Perhaps you were just making a joke and its your moderator who erred (insightful? come on!).
Yes, you have hit it right on the button.
Actually this is not new in the UK. Here, a few years ago Jack Straw (as New Labour Home Secretary) introduced legislation against what is actually called, unbelievably, "HateCrime".
Shades of 1984 already, no?
The Blair administration are widely recognized as has masters of what has been called "spin". In earlier times this would have been called propaganda. But there isn't really any specific term in general use to categorize the full range of techniques used by modern governments in pursuit of what I would call "meme control". Because that's what this is. The government knows that, just as in disease control, it doesn't matter if the measures they take aren't 100% effective. So long as they take some measures to dampen the spread, eventually the disease (or meme) will disappear, over time.
I would cite as an example, that of discrimination against homosexuals. Just twenty years ago, although homosexuality was tolerated, it was still generally looked upon as wrong and relatively few were out in the open. But after two decades of strenuous lobbying by militant Gay groups, extreme over-representation in the media world and (some might say) significant over-representation in the political world, legislation against the presentation of "positive images" of homosexuals in the media has finally been scrapped and under the HateCrime laws it is now actually *illegal* - an arrestable, criminal offence - to make any kind of negative comments about homosexuality in the presence of another person. We now face wall-to-wall homosexuality in the media and presumably, at some point, the return of teaching of "equally valid alternative lifestyles" in our primary schools. But this is just the final underline; already you will find hardly any young person who doesn't believe that being gay is cool. The gay lobby already won this war.
Draconian though the hatecrime law is, the thinking behind such legislation is a utilitation philosophy of the "greater good". To the sponsors, the end justifies the means. It's just too bad for you if you disagree with the end result being aimed at; your right to protest has been taken away from you. The government decided on the issue already, for the greater good, and that is an end to it.
I am personally against such initiatives on the simple basis that nobody can be trusted to decide for us what limits should be set on what we are "allowed" to think and say. Even the most high-minded government can be misled by ideology; even the most apparently incorruptible can be subverted by single-issue pressure groups.
BTW, in the UK the last couple of years the biggest TV phenomenon was undoubtedly a reality TV show called "Big Brother". Before that, if you said "Big Brother" everybody who knew would have thought "1984, government mind control". But now everybody thinks "reality TV" and the youngsters who never heard of 1984 now don't even ask. This prophetic novel is disappearing from the public consciousness just as most of its most frightening predictions are coming to pass. Not only ironic but just convenient for the government, eh? Draw your own conclusions.