You're falling into the trap of thinking that thing stay the same. The Conservatives we see today in government have very little to do with the conservatives of the past. Add to that the fact that most politicians do what they must to stay re-elected, and you'll see why Bush and his Cronies are 'Neo-Conservatites.'
Well, that is another topic. The theory is that a relatively simple protein by random accident had the ability to replicate itself. Mutations and natural selection eventually provided it the ability to become a more efficient replicator. Nobody knows the simplest possible "starter" protein.
Well, it probably wasn't something that happened in liquid water, as the reactions of the sort that create proteins -- turning monomers into polymers -- are not energetically favorable in a liquid medium.
But where a space original may simplify the theory is that it provides a wider "probability pool" for the happy accident to happen.
Uh, Hi there. You and me? You see, we're having this conversation. About the probability. OF life having arisen. I'd say probability in excess of.99...
Intelligent life, on the other hand...
Life may have arisen from some distant planet and spread into intergalactic space via bombardment, supernovea explosions, etc. Newer research has suggested that certain kinds of bacteria spores can survive in rocky chunks blown out of collisions. Other high-altitude types perhaps may be blown into the cosmic wind and have radiation-hardiness evolved from living so high in the atmosphere. Remember, the universe was about 10 billion years old already when earth formed.
You're still avoiding my point.
It may be that life can spread without having to evolve independently on each planet. It only would then have to evolve one or a few times in each galaxy.
That's great. However, my point still stands. Panspermia says nothing about how life originally arose. It's just like going, "Oh, life? How it started? Came from the stars, you know... Oh, life? How it started? Came from the..."
Perhaps he wants to set up a directory of local methamphetamine labs, a la Google Local Search?
"Need a fix? Come to Methlabs.org and search out your local lab! We even offer a subscriber service to alert you when your preferred meth labs have been raided by the police!"
Ah, if only everybody was always rational.
Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.
I don't think it is, either. But I'm a rational anarchist. I have a perfect ideal towards which I strive, knowing that I am an imperfect being and thus my attempts will never be anything more than imperfect, yet I keep on trying.
Anyway, I could stand America staying as irrational as it is if everyone wasn't so damn stupid.
However, if that person doesn't mind it, no one, whether it be a fellow no-one like me, or someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, has any right to stop me from doing it , or to stop the person who is enjoying having the crap beaten out of them from enjoying it.
That's a fine sentiment. But how do you determine whether that person doesn't mind it? You can't necessarily believe them if they say so. They might be afraid that you'll do something worse to them if they say they don't like it.
This is not a hypothetical question. It's an issue that comes up a lot in rape cases, for example. So what's your solution? How would you solve this problem in your mature and permissive utopia?
My solution? If they're saying they're enjoying it, and I have no reason to suspect they're lying, then I must assume that they are enjoying it.
I can only operate on what data I am given. If someone is not enjoying or does not like something, I have no way of knowing that if their body language and speech indicate otherwise. If they don't like something, they shouldn't lie about wanting me to stop. That's not rational.
I can do C, C++, and Java, and have written a few MUDS with minimum functionality (They were all in C -- part of the reason I switched to C++ and then to Java), but I never got past Algebra in High School. I can't do Trig. Calc makes me want to die.
I guess I could just say, "I fucking hate integration!" Who's with me?
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
To sum it up: People who want to forbid you from doing something for your own good who do it because their own concience tells them to do so will never stop doing it, and will keep stopping you from doing things, not because that thing hurts them, but because it hurts you or someone else.
I tend to live by the idea that no one has any right to tell anyone not to do anything else as long as it's not hurting someone -- and something hurting someone is defined by the person who is supposed to be being hurt.
In other words, I cannot beat the crap out of people in broad daylight on city streets -- unless that person happens to not mind my doing it.
However, if that person doesn't mind it, no one, whether it be a fellow no-one like me, or someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, has any right to stop me from doing it , or to stop the person who is enjoying having the crap beaten out of them from enjoying it.
People always want rules, they always want laws -- always for other people. When is the last time you ever say some elected official trying to get something banned, "Because I need it to be banned to make me stop?" Never. First of all, if you know it's wrong, why do you need a law to make you stop doing it? And second of all, if you know it's wrong in the first place, why are you doing it? You must not think it's really that wrong, or you have no self-control. And if you have no self control, why are you in office?
I don't think we're going to get anywhere in this world until we find some way to rid humanity of the busy-body trait that makes others try to stop letting their fellow humans go to hell in their own way. Of course, the problem is, people like me, who feel in this way, are generally too pacifist to take any drastic action to stop it.
However, even though I am a pacifist, I am still rational, and I never let my pacifism get in the way of what I feel needs must be done.
To these people who want to take away our rights to listen to and read and watch what we will, I say this: If it offends you, don't watch it. Turn off the TV, or the Radio, or skip that story in the Magazine. But don't you dare stop me from being able to turn of the TV to that Program, or the Radio to that Song, or to that Page in the Magazine or Newspaper. Restricting the Rights of the People 'a little bit' falls into the same classic silliness as 'a little bit pregnant.' You are either pregnant or not. You are either taking my Rights away or not. There is a reason they are called Rights, and not Privellages.
I would, to paraphrase the words of Thomas Jefferson, suffer from having too much Freedom than too Little. To badly quote Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither." Has no one ever noticed that the Product of Freedom and Security is a constant? To have freedom, you must give up your security!
The freedom to drive an automobile is the freedom to be involved in a 37 car pile-up on the interstate. The freedom to have hardware stores is the freedom to possibly be killed with a hammer by an assailant, or to nail your hand to a board with a nailgun.
Are so many of my countrymen in these, the failing days of our once great Republic, become so stupid? Are the words of our Founding Fathers no longer required learning, even for those who would run this, the country they designed?
Very soon in this country, one of two things will happen. Either we will become the Evangelical Christian States of A
Yes, but, as you point out, the Problem with the Idea of Panspermia is that it does not explain how life arose -- it just shifts the blame for it (as it were) elsewhere.
In the meantime, I think we can clearly see that, like global temperatures, the number of Saturnian Spokes is inversely related to the number of pirates. The decline in pirates has obviously caused an increase in the number Noodly Saturnian Spokes.
This is true. And the decline in Pirates is clearly due to the ancient, noble fued between the Pirates and the Ninja. Clearly this senseless violence must stop, lest the world come that much closer to the Great Heat Death, from which only the Lord Kelvin, who Loves US, and wants to CONSERVE OUR SOULS FROM ENTROPY, can protect us from.
Clearly the Flying Spaghetti Monster has put planet-sized representations of His Noodly Appendages into orbit around Saturn to show us his majestic power.
Heathen. Clearly the Spokes will occur in, relate to, or somehow be connected to, the number five.
Saturn was the Father of the Gods, but Eris is clearly showing us she can make him wear the galactic tu-tu.
My mother is a mental health professional in South Carolina who does workshops on Suicide for other Mental Health Workers who need more continuing education credits to keep their licenses.
In America, all of the diagnosises you will see in the DSM IV are based on 'societal norms.' She and I have had many talks about ethnocentrism -- judging one culture's X or Y from the view of another.
It's wrong, and you don't do it.
In Japan, suicide is more acceptable and in more (And different) forms, for different reasons than in the US.
The right to commit suicide is the most important right there is (in my opinion,) even above that to freedom of speech. The Right to Commit Suicide, the right to choose the manner and time of your own death, is the ultimate right to make your own choice in life. You should never take it away from anyone (who is in their right mind -- this can cause problems, especially if you feel that someone who wants to commit suicide cannot be in their right mind, which is how American Mental Health professionals tend to view it.)
The reason in the United States that Suicide is Illegal (yes, it actually is illegal to attempt suicide in some places and states) is because that suicide and murder are the greatest crimes against the state you can commit -- you deprive them of a Tax Payer.
That is why murder cases are always "The State Versus So-and-so," never "So-and-so's Relatives versus So-And-So's killer."
Slashdot Mirror
You're falling into the trap of thinking that thing stay the same. The Conservatives we see today in government have very little to do with the conservatives of the past. Add to that the fact that most politicians do what they must to stay re-elected, and you'll see why Bush and his Cronies are 'Neo-Conservatites.'
Whenever I do that at the corner of University and W 17th Street in Gainesville, Flordia, people look at me funny.
Maybe I shouldn't do it when my audience is drunk... of course, if they're sober, I sound like shit.
I wouldn't do it. Too much intelligence is a Major Drag.
You think Niven was just 'poo-poo'ing with that stuff about not having any free will when you're a Protector?
Yes, but where life first arose is not nearly as important a question as how it arose in the first place, unless you're trying to understand how.
My point is is that Panspermia is often used to avoid that question entirely.
Today I'm feeling Whimsical.
Well, it probably wasn't something that happened in liquid water, as the reactions of the sort that create proteins -- turning monomers into polymers -- are not energetically favorable in a liquid medium.
Uh, Hi there. You and me? You see, we're having this conversation. About the probability. OF life having arisen. I'd say probability in excess of .99...
Intelligent life, on the other hand...
You're still avoiding my point.
That's great. However, my point still stands. Panspermia says nothing about how life originally arose. It's just like going, "Oh, life? How it started? Came from the stars, you know... Oh, life? How it started? Came from the..."
Yes, and I may have had sex with a woman.
Dude, methlabs.google.com is so last week.
I don't think it is, either. But I'm a rational anarchist. I have a perfect ideal towards which I strive, knowing that I am an imperfect being and thus my attempts will never be anything more than imperfect, yet I keep on trying.
Anyway, I could stand America staying as irrational as it is if everyone wasn't so damn stupid.
Well, the Math teacher for Algebra was the Football coach. Oddly enough, all football players took his class, and none ever failed.
My solution? If they're saying they're enjoying it, and I have no reason to suspect they're lying, then I must assume that they are enjoying it.
I can only operate on what data I am given. If someone is not enjoying or does not like something, I have no way of knowing that if their body language and speech indicate otherwise. If they don't like something, they shouldn't lie about wanting me to stop. That's not rational.
I can do C, C++, and Java, and have written a few MUDS with minimum functionality (They were all in C -- part of the reason I switched to C++ and then to Java), but I never got past Algebra in High School. I can't do Trig. Calc makes me want to die.
I guess I could just say, "I fucking hate integration!" Who's with me?
The problem is best summed up by C. S. Lewis:
To sum it up: People who want to forbid you from doing something for your own good who do it because their own concience tells them to do so will never stop doing it, and will keep stopping you from doing things, not because that thing hurts them, but because it hurts you or someone else.
I tend to live by the idea that no one has any right to tell anyone not to do anything else as long as it's not hurting someone -- and something hurting someone is defined by the person who is supposed to be being hurt.
In other words, I cannot beat the crap out of people in broad daylight on city streets -- unless that person happens to not mind my doing it.
However, if that person doesn't mind it, no one, whether it be a fellow no-one like me, or someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, has any right to stop me from doing it , or to stop the person who is enjoying having the crap beaten out of them from enjoying it.
People always want rules, they always want laws -- always for other people. When is the last time you ever say some elected official trying to get something banned, "Because I need it to be banned to make me stop?" Never. First of all, if you know it's wrong, why do you need a law to make you stop doing it? And second of all, if you know it's wrong in the first place, why are you doing it? You must not think it's really that wrong, or you have no self-control. And if you have no self control, why are you in office?
I don't think we're going to get anywhere in this world until we find some way to rid humanity of the busy-body trait that makes others try to stop letting their fellow humans go to hell in their own way. Of course, the problem is, people like me, who feel in this way, are generally too pacifist to take any drastic action to stop it.
However, even though I am a pacifist, I am still rational, and I never let my pacifism get in the way of what I feel needs must be done.
To these people who want to take away our rights to listen to and read and watch what we will, I say this: If it offends you, don't watch it. Turn off the TV, or the Radio, or skip that story in the Magazine. But don't you dare stop me from being able to turn of the TV to that Program, or the Radio to that Song, or to that Page in the Magazine or Newspaper. Restricting the Rights of the People 'a little bit' falls into the same classic silliness as 'a little bit pregnant.' You are either pregnant or not. You are either taking my Rights away or not. There is a reason they are called Rights, and not Privellages.
I would, to paraphrase the words of Thomas Jefferson, suffer from having too much Freedom than too Little. To badly quote Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither." Has no one ever noticed that the Product of Freedom and Security is a constant? To have freedom, you must give up your security!
The freedom to drive an automobile is the freedom to be involved in a 37 car pile-up on the interstate. The freedom to have hardware stores is the freedom to possibly be killed with a hammer by an assailant, or to nail your hand to a board with a nailgun.
Are so many of my countrymen in these, the failing days of our once great Republic, become so stupid? Are the words of our Founding Fathers no longer required learning, even for those who would run this, the country they designed?
Very soon in this country, one of two things will happen. Either we will become the Evangelical Christian States of A
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea. -- Robert Anton Wilson
Yes, but, as you point out, the Problem with the Idea of Panspermia is that it does not explain how life arose -- it just shifts the blame for it (as it were) elsewhere.
ZAP BRANNIGAN: Gravity, you win again!
I say, sirruh, we Americans may on average be large assholes, but that is a bit much, don't you think?
This is true. And the decline in Pirates is clearly due to the ancient, noble fued between the Pirates and the Ninja. Clearly this senseless violence must stop, lest the world come that much closer to the Great Heat Death, from which only the Lord Kelvin, who Loves US, and wants to CONSERVE OUR SOULS FROM ENTROPY, can protect us from.
Fnord.
Heathen. Clearly the Spokes will occur in, relate to, or somehow be connected to, the number five.
Saturn was the Father of the Gods, but Eris is clearly showing us she can make him wear the galactic tu-tu.
Actually, I've just arrived early.
Dude, there's no way Sony would let Microsoft into Hell's Capital.
Government does not care for its citizens. Government exists solely for the same purpose that every other living thing exists: To keep on existing.
The way you can tell government does not care is in the fact that it will put its own welfare ahead of yours.
My mother is a mental health professional in South Carolina who does workshops on Suicide for other Mental Health Workers who need more continuing education credits to keep their licenses.
In America, all of the diagnosises you will see in the DSM IV are based on 'societal norms.' She and I have had many talks about ethnocentrism -- judging one culture's X or Y from the view of another.
It's wrong, and you don't do it.
In Japan, suicide is more acceptable and in more (And different) forms, for different reasons than in the US.
The right to commit suicide is the most important right there is (in my opinion,) even above that to freedom of speech. The Right to Commit Suicide, the right to choose the manner and time of your own death, is the ultimate right to make your own choice in life. You should never take it away from anyone (who is in their right mind -- this can cause problems, especially if you feel that someone who wants to commit suicide cannot be in their right mind, which is how American Mental Health professionals tend to view it.)
The reason in the United States that Suicide is Illegal (yes, it actually is illegal to attempt suicide in some places and states) is because that suicide and murder are the greatest crimes against the state you can commit -- you deprive them of a Tax Payer.
That is why murder cases are always "The State Versus So-and-so," never "So-and-so's Relatives versus So-And-So's killer."
And due to a night of drunken debauchery and general evil, I have to call a friend from high school 'My Liege.'
The Romps through Graveyards, the ER visits at 3 AM for sword-wounds, the worship of the Porcelain Idol...
Oh, those were happier times.
That'll keep Bush busy forever...
You, sirruh, are a genius. A genius.