I was just commenting on the premise that greed == always bad == corporations.
Greed can also exist in individual scientists and bureaucrats and can be against the best interest of the corporation (or the funders of the project).
Cancer cures are a good thing.
Cancer cures requires work and investment capital.
Scientists need to be paid (along with everyone else including HR and people mopping the floors)
Investment capital needs to be repaid with dividends.
All the above are good good things.
Common F. Sense agrees that all of the above are good things
The problem is Greed N. Corruption isn't really interested in curing jack shit anymore, and will always favor perpetual treatments to feed profits.
Treatments create unending profits.
Treatments create unending jobs.
Cures ultimately destroy jobs and severely limit perpetual revenue and profits, which does not pay the dividends that Wall Street now demands.
Those running counter to the best interests of those in Control will ultimately be removed from the equation.
Not being argumentative here, but many forms of cancer are, in fact, things where successful treatment nowadays does mean a cure with no further treatment required; like in the old days when the main job of pharmacology was curing infections, and unlike the current paradigm of lifelong treatments of things that would otherwise be fatal, like HIV or diabetes or autoimmune stuff. In fact, it seems to me that the occasions where people are not cured and require lifelong treatments for cancer tend not to last for a particularly long life, by and large.
In fairness, if I found out that teh guvmnt was putting significant quantities of sugar in my water I'd be a little upset too. It would certainly make washing up more challenging.
Sure, just let every researcher have an additional section in the budget for money for reproducing things before publication. Shouldn't be a problem, the man on the street absolutely loves science and is always bugging the government to spend more on it.
Actual scientists would be educated in subject and have degrees not containing either of those words; those words could mean a hippie who is interested or an activist.
Also I don't see how even hundreds of these monuments could make the *whole* Amazon rainforest less pristine... But because the FA does not define what was "the area" they surveyed, it's difficult to discuss this...
Yeah; if these items had made a significant dent in the rainforest's total area, chances are we'd have noticed them by now, seems to me.
One of my ex girl friends, not dumb per se, we separated when she was 37, did not even know that the sun rises in the east and is due south at noon and goes down in the west....
I looked very long very disbelieving at her when she admitted that. Then she said: no one ever told me. Then I looked at the sky and rolled my eyes.
Then she picked up her white cane and her dog led her away.
look at the massive amount of resources people pour into religion... historically it is perhaps only rivaled by defense.
Based on your argument all our major cities will be viewed as giant mecca's of religion. Which they clearly are not. I expect the subways would be the church of the underworld etc.
It's only very recently that we've regularly created massive structures for purely secular use.
Roleplay:
5000k+ years ago we had massive structures built for purely secular purposes using 'green' technology. What would those ruins look like?
I think causing the phone to explode is more reliable. I have doubts that simply crushing the phone can reliability destroy the flash memory.
If they've got 10-15 seconds for the phone to self-destruct, that ought to be enough time to overwrite the memory a jillion times before it finally destructs.In fact, would they even need to destruct it if they overwrote the memory for 15 seconds?
I don't think that the human race deserves to make it out of the gravity well.
The events of the past year would seem to indicate that it won't. Gorbachev had it right when he said last week that the world seems to be getting ready for war again. (Trump is just a symptom of a movement which seems to be on the rise everywhere, not just the US).
Perhaps we are genetically prone to getting into a big war once in our lives, then we learn better, and WWII is now receding out of living memory. That kind of thing works better when a big war means thumping the nearby chimps with big sticks, than when it means thumping a nuclear power with our own nukes.
For that matter, I also hate X times bigger. To my mind X times bigger is X + 1 times as big.
Yes. The proper way to phrase that type of comparison is with "as big", "as fast", etc. Using bigger or faster leads to ambiguity at best.
If 300% as big were "3 times bigger" then something of equal size must be "1 times bigger," which is retarded.
And another thing!! For example, "A reduction of 7% in deaths from cancer" or similar phrasing of statistics as featured in half the news articles on "science"; does that mean cancer deaths went from X% to (X-7)%, or to (0.93)X%? One would be a huge decrease, the other would be trivial.
This is more of a math issue than it is a language issue.
Horrifying any one who took middle school algebra.
It's an admission that many Americans have no math skills, don't know what basic fractions are, and saying something like "one-sixth the distance" confuses them terribly.
I've been hearing nonsense like "six times closer" on national and local newscasts in the last year.
So many times, I have seen something similar to "a reduction of more than 100%".
A mathematician sees two men go into a house; a while later three leave. "Hmm," he muses. "If one more man goes into the house, it will be empty"
Yes with billions of dollars they're going to figure out how to move the earth a few thousand miles for a day or 3 until "the big one" passes. I think the money would be better off being spent on the legal American public that can't feed their kids tonight.
But we're not spending the money on figuring out how to move the earth now, and we're not spending it on the legal American public that can't feed their kids tonight either. The only conclusion is that there's some other thing which we deem more important than either.
Slashdot Mirror
That must be nice to know for people who live in sealed transparent tanks of air.
You live where the land/sea/air is not a closed system with regard to chemical constituents? Wow! Tell us about it.
I was just commenting on the premise that greed == always bad == corporations. Greed can also exist in individual scientists and bureaucrats and can be against the best interest of the corporation (or the funders of the project). Cancer cures are a good thing. Cancer cures requires work and investment capital. Scientists need to be paid (along with everyone else including HR and people mopping the floors) Investment capital needs to be repaid with dividends. All the above are good good things.
Common F. Sense agrees that all of the above are good things
The problem is Greed N. Corruption isn't really interested in curing jack shit anymore, and will always favor perpetual treatments to feed profits.
Treatments create unending profits.
Treatments create unending jobs.
Cures ultimately destroy jobs and severely limit perpetual revenue and profits, which does not pay the dividends that Wall Street now demands.
Those running counter to the best interests of those in Control will ultimately be removed from the equation.
Not being argumentative here, but many forms of cancer are, in fact, things where successful treatment nowadays does mean a cure with no further treatment required; like in the old days when the main job of pharmacology was curing infections, and unlike the current paradigm of lifelong treatments of things that would otherwise be fatal, like HIV or diabetes or autoimmune stuff. In fact, it seems to me that the occasions where people are not cured and require lifelong treatments for cancer tend not to last for a particularly long life, by and large.
In fairness, if I found out that teh guvmnt was putting significant quantities of sugar in my water I'd be a little upset too. It would certainly make washing up more challenging.
I'd bottle it and sell it.
Sure, just let every researcher have an additional section in the budget for money for reproducing things before publication. Shouldn't be a problem, the man on the street absolutely loves science and is always bugging the government to spend more on it.
If the former then we already know who designed them...
We know that it wasn't Ian. He was given a napkin. Whether or not Nigel knew the difference between feet and inches was not his problem.
Went on to work at NASA. http://articles.latimes.com/19...
Actual scientists would be educated in subject and have degrees not containing either of those words; those words could mean a hippie who is interested or an activist.
Not necessarily. http://colleges.startclass.com...
Also I don't see how even hundreds of these monuments could make the *whole* Amazon rainforest less pristine... But because the FA does not define what was "the area" they surveyed, it's difficult to discuss this...
Yeah; if these items had made a significant dent in the rainforest's total area, chances are we'd have noticed them by now, seems to me.
One of my ex girl friends, not dumb per se, we separated when she was 37, did not even know that the sun rises in the east and is due south at noon and goes down in the west ....
I looked very long very disbelieving at her when she admitted that. Then she said: no one ever told me. Then I looked at the sky and rolled my eyes.
Then she picked up her white cane and her dog led her away.
but even simple things as the motion of stars/planets elude the average human now. Not even to talk about when and how to plant which fruit
I wish I could say you're wrong here, but for the most point I think that has to do greatly with the abundance of distraction that's available.
Like the OP said, "When you live in a society where food is abundant you have to find some way to waste your time"
'The natives are friendly, they fed us.'
That could go in the "To Serve Man' direction, also.
Butt aliens?
No more probes! I have nothing concealed up there that will save your dying planet!
look at the massive amount of resources people pour into religion... historically it is perhaps only rivaled by defense.
Based on your argument all our major cities will be viewed as giant mecca's of religion. Which they clearly are not. I expect the subways would be the church of the underworld etc.
It's only very recently that we've regularly created massive structures for purely secular use.
Roleplay: 5000k+ years ago we had massive structures built for purely secular purposes using 'green' technology. What would those ruins look like?
http://sultanaeducation.org/wp...
Or Stonehegnge could be the remnants of the foundation for a tall structure.
Why do all ancient stone ruins *always* have to be called some kind of temple? chances are it served a much more mundane purpose?
The First Law of Archaeology. Any object, construct, or behavior, the purpose of which we cannot discern, must be religious.
crushing google's servers to eliminate the automatic backup the user forgot to disable.
Commodore 64 Killer Poke.
or, the old HCF instruction
I think causing the phone to explode is more reliable. I have doubts that simply crushing the phone can reliability destroy the flash memory.
If they've got 10-15 seconds for the phone to self-destruct, that ought to be enough time to overwrite the memory a jillion times before it finally destructs.In fact, would they even need to destruct it if they overwrote the memory for 15 seconds?
Dunno about your wish but I's sure be happy if it landed on Mr. Cheeto-Head.
So would an increasing majority of Americans I suspect...
Mac
Those aren't Cheetos, they are a sophisticated defense system against just such incoming collisions.
I am with you, my friend.
I don't think that the human race deserves to make it out of the gravity well.
The events of the past year would seem to indicate that it won't. Gorbachev had it right when he said last week that the world seems to be getting ready for war again. (Trump is just a symptom of a movement which seems to be on the rise everywhere, not just the US).
Perhaps we are genetically prone to getting into a big war once in our lives, then we learn better, and WWII is now receding out of living memory. That kind of thing works better when a big war means thumping the nearby chimps with big sticks, than when it means thumping a nuclear power with our own nukes.
It certainly is weird. Reading things like this is literally killing me. It's even worse then people saying their are to many grammar nazis.
I can't even!
compounded by "more than twice as close." Does that mean less than half the distance (my guess) or more than half the distance?
While the farness has reduced, paradoxically the closeness has at the same time increased! Scientists are studying this unique phenomenon.
Yes. The proper way to phrase that type of comparison is with "as big", "as fast", etc. Using bigger or faster leads to ambiguity at best. If 300% as big were "3 times bigger" then something of equal size must be "1 times bigger," which is retarded.
And another thing!! For example, "A reduction of 7% in deaths from cancer" or similar phrasing of statistics as featured in half the news articles on "science"; does that mean cancer deaths went from X% to (X-7)%, or to (0.93)X%? One would be a huge decrease, the other would be trivial.
This is more of a math issue than it is a language issue. Horrifying any one who took middle school algebra.
It's an admission that many Americans have no math skills, don't know what basic fractions are, and saying something like "one-sixth the distance" confuses them terribly.
I've been hearing nonsense like "six times closer" on national and local newscasts in the last year.
So many times, I have seen something similar to "a reduction of more than 100%".
A mathematician sees two men go into a house; a while later three leave. "Hmm," he muses. "If one more man goes into the house, it will be empty"
What does 67 degrees above absolute zero have to do with km?
It's 67 degrees above a kilometer. I thought everyone knew that.
(50% of the time it works every time!)
"At least close to the new spot and to the equator, nothing less than global warming is expected." http://motls.blogspot.com/2006...
brutal headline...67K km would make a lot more sense to most.
"K km" that would be millions of meters... so asteroid would pass within 67 mm of Earth. AAAAAAHHHHH!
Yes with billions of dollars they're going to figure out how to move the earth a few thousand miles for a day or 3 until "the big one" passes. I think the money would be better off being spent on the legal American public that can't feed their kids tonight.
But we're not spending the money on figuring out how to move the earth now, and we're not spending it on the legal American public that can't feed their kids tonight either. The only conclusion is that there's some other thing which we deem more important than either.