Natural selection doesn't account for artificial selection. If one male were to be produced with these genetic characteristics naturally as a mutation, those characteristics would almost certainly be selected/filtered out. Instead you're talking about a population of males engineered and introduced in masses that would never occur so rapidly with such a difference in natural systems.
You also should educate yourself on sexually antagonistic selection. There are instances where genetic changes have led to positive outcomes for one gender of a species and negative outcomes for the other. So long as the net effect is positive, the genes will be just as likely to be selected as not. But selection pressures are complex.
Heh, I originally was putting together a rather detailed answer, but on second thought I don't really want to detail the IT operations of the federal agencies I've worked with.
Suffice to say, the federal government is not a monolith. I've worked for agencies that are as lax on internet policy as a hip startup. Even with more strict agencies, the usage policies only apply to the federal systems, not those of the private contractor. When you work in a private facility with private infrastructure and the government is no more than a VPN, it's a pretty moot point.
What's it like living in the paleolithic? I've worked a dozen different places in the last decade (part and parcel of being a perennial contractor), and few of them have done more than block "inappropriate" (i.e. porn) sites. It's just as well, because I don't think I could last very long anywhere that had draconian blocks. It's a matter of quality of life, if there's downtime (and in the wait-until-something-breaks business I'm in there's always downtime) I'd rather spend it online than off.
It isn't really relevant to me anymore though, since I've started using a mobile broadband connection (802.16e) for all my personal stuff. Although most companies don't block anymore, they sure as hell track and log, and so I've gone off their grid.
I think you significantly underestimate the number of women, especially younger ones, who watch porn. It's a market with a lot of opportunity considering that they want different niches than do men, but increasing numbers want it nonetheless.
Further, the vast majority of porn actresses are not being "trafficked"... makes me wonder if you even know what the word means. (Nor does anybody get locked up for watching porn other than kiddie or snuff, and that's not because it's porn but because it's kiddie rape or homicide.)
Giving soldiers land, while not sustainable beyond an impetus, in fact had a stabilizing effect on the Roman Republic and the early empire. The problem was really that in later campaigns the earlier convention was reversed. The now-landed lower classes were conscripted to military service, and after serving in the legions they would come home to find they didn't have one any more. Wealthy Roman patrons would use their power and influence to illegally seize and consolidate the land of lower class Romans who were away in service. This greatly destabilized the economy on the lower side, and the now-landless farmers became a drag on society.
I have addressed this already to one of the ACs, but since it has been brought up over and over... When the word was in use in Latin it was contextualized to Roman-centrism, just as it would later be contextualized to later Western civilizations. I misspoke when I used the word 'origin', but Latin and the word's use therein is nonetheless part of the etymological history of the word.
The Edict of Milan neither established Christianity as the state religion nor did a mark a turning point in the empire's status. The demarcation comes when Theodosius I establishes Christianity as the religion of the state, and by the way, the borders of the empire from Diocletian to Theodosius I are largely the same. It is, in fact, only after Theodosius and the sea change in Roman civic life with regard to religion that the empire itself begins to shrink. Cases can be made for systemic weakness at just about any time in Rome's history.
You also have your history quite backward. The Huns were not an active pressure upon Rome until after its Christianization. When the Edict of Milan granted religious tolerance (not establishment), the Hunic Empire didn't even exist. By Theodosius I's time, it had barely managed to tame it's barbarian neighbors and still posed no direct threat to Rome. That came much later.
So while there's a certain argument for correlation doesn't equal causation, the real decline of the empire did occur *after* the Christianization. Lots of seeds were sewn before then, both systemically and by some very poor decisions. As an example of the latter, the carrot of Romanization, Roman citizenship, was devalued to nothing by a double blow under Caracalla. First, it was made universal to all free men in the territories. Second, Caracalla got butthurt by the Alexandrians' mockery of him and order thousands of them slaughtered, which, if they were now truly full Roman citizens, inexcusably violated the basic tenet that no Roman citizen could be executed without trial. Roman citizenship was no longer something anybody had to seek, nor was it anything somebody would want.
Rome could have persisted through the barbarians' rise if it would have worked with them instead of being delusional about its superiority. Alaric I who sacked Rome was in fact part of Theodosius' legions (what a coincidence, the emperor who established Christianity...), and was a mercenary for Rome until Honorius betrayed him and his Roman handler Flavius Stilicho. Because Rome broke its promise to pay Alaric and his men, and purged many mercenaries and their families whose survivors clamored to Alaric to lead them in revenge, he did so. If Rome had given the deference Alaric had asked for and not persecuted other foederati, the Western Roman Empire might have been stable enough to resist the Hunic hordes. Hypothetically.
Either way, the important point hear is that you have your history very backwards. The most significant pressures from barbarians and the Huns specifically undeniably followed, not preceded, the establishment of Christianity within the Roman Empire.
Roman society was born from and thrived upon 'barbarity' (an ironic description considering it is a term whose Latin etymological origin meant persons/cultures who were not Roman). It was not a devolution, it was the impetus and drive of the culture which led it to a leadership role throughout the Mediterranean world. This cold pragmatism led to things like the rape of the Sabines (which was not some aberrant exception to Roman behavior, marriage rites in the earliest Roman society included ritualized kidnapping and 'free prostitution' {citation: Otto Kiefer's Sexual Life in Ancient Rome, which is not in front of me at the moment so I can't give you a page number}). In order for Rome to achieve and maintain its success it had to actively fight against human rights and equality. It fought several wars against its slaves (the Servile Wars), ruthlessly put down several populist movements (the brothers Gracchus among many, most of which probably had anti-populist ulterior motives in the end anyway), and would decimate any population in revolt.
Rome fell not because it was brutal (as it always had been), but because it ceased to be. It had built an empire upon exceptionalism and an inhumane disregard for any opposition, and this simply could not be translated to fit the mindset of the early church as it was instituted as the state religion. It would not be until the Crusades that the clergy would succeed in bastardizing Christianity enough that it could be used as an excuse for further military brutality.
'Vote with your feet' lacks any real teeth within a centralized, Federalist system. Different states and localities lack the sovereignty necessary to demonstrate the superiority of a radically different method of government. I agree the idea is a good one, in fact I fully identify as a panarchist because I have come to realize that there is no perfect system under which every person can be happy, but the first necessary change would be to decentralize authority, and good luck ever achieving that.
The first function of most computers in the world today is connectivity. They are literally built to deliver information in themselves. Even if a car gets you somewhere that has information, it doesn't provide the information (except in a case where the car is so advanced that it has a computer built into that can download books or whatever). Computers are both the "transport" and the means of access and dissemination.
Your argument from antiquity fails on its face. To say that C64s didn't function in this way is the same as saying that chariots couldn't be used to learn about internal combustion. We all know that we're not talking about computers from decades ago.
You can't just pop open a computer never having seen at least pictures of electronics before, and automatically know what each of those electric parts are.
You're right, but unlike the car, the computer can help you find those pictures (and more) and deliver them at will. The car is a means of transport, but it doesn't search or analyze in the way a computer can. Transport can enable education at a certain logistical level, but it cannot in itself educate or provide analysis.
He's right, you're a retard. The crops don't salinate the soil, the irrigation does. Water from the sky has much less dissolved in it for the very reason that it had to evaporate to get there, but water from irrigation has been running all over the ground dissolving whatever it wants on the way. When it reaches the fields this dissolved material stays after the water is used by the crops and/or evaporates. It has been a problem with irrigation since it was invented.
Do you really think there would be *that many* chickens, cows and pigs if we weren't raising them for the express purpose of eating them? It's not like we're culling wild herds here. You simply draw down the current stock, and you don't raise more. I don't expect that livestock for meat is going to vanish any time soon, but it could cause a lot of shift on the lower end. This is the sort of thing that fast food places would really be interested in if they could sell it. Probably as a new 'humane value menu' or other spin that will prevent everybody from crying 'frankenfood' like the luddite wankers they are.
Those don't come with the cars (the owner's manuals that come with cars don't usually go beyond how to keep fluids filled), so you do not invalidate my argument that cars are not educational in and of themselves. Cars are not intrinsically conduits for information.
You're the one talking out of your ass. Iodine levels in the US population are considered on average higher than they should be, according to the World Health Organization. Maybe you should check your information before you parrot.
The problem with your perspective is it assumes wrongly that this work is being done from scratch, read further out of context it would seem like you're saying that these researchers are creating tissue (and by extension a lifeform) that didn't exist before. This isn't the case. Natural selection isn't being thrown out the window, all that work is simply being isolated, packaged, and controlled. It will probably be adjusted as the work proceeds, but that isn't surprising considering the 'natural' process you vaunt in fact is focused on 'good enough' solutions. Life is a process for gene replication and everything else is gravy. Artificial selection is by definition more intelligent and efficient than natural selection, and unlike natural selection it can have goals in excess of simple gene survival.
Where 'folks like you' means psychosomatic nutbags? I suppose so. Here's the hint, when 99.9999999% of the population doesn't exhibit symptoms under the same circumstances, and the effect is demonstrably not histamine or other allergenic, it's probably in your head.
Not killing animals is creepy, huh? Seems pretty ridiculous. And the fact that you, random guy on the internet, have managed to consider nutrient levels in the first few minutes probably guarantees that the incredibly smart people behind these developments will probably think about those too before anything like this is brought to market. Iodine is a particularly ironic example because it is the poster child for addition after the fact. That represents no real barrier at all.
That's cute, problem is your points aren't specific to engineering. They apply equally to almost any profession a woman might choose. By that logic the representation of women in engineering should be equal to all other industries, which we already know isn't true.
Slashdot Mirror
Natural selection doesn't account for artificial selection. If one male were to be produced with these genetic characteristics naturally as a mutation, those characteristics would almost certainly be selected/filtered out. Instead you're talking about a population of males engineered and introduced in masses that would never occur so rapidly with such a difference in natural systems.
You also should educate yourself on sexually antagonistic selection. There are instances where genetic changes have led to positive outcomes for one gender of a species and negative outcomes for the other. So long as the net effect is positive, the genes will be just as likely to be selected as not. But selection pressures are complex.
Heh, I originally was putting together a rather detailed answer, but on second thought I don't really want to detail the IT operations of the federal agencies I've worked with.
Suffice to say, the federal government is not a monolith. I've worked for agencies that are as lax on internet policy as a hip startup. Even with more strict agencies, the usage policies only apply to the federal systems, not those of the private contractor. When you work in a private facility with private infrastructure and the government is no more than a VPN, it's a pretty moot point.
What's it like living in the paleolithic? I've worked a dozen different places in the last decade (part and parcel of being a perennial contractor), and few of them have done more than block "inappropriate" (i.e. porn) sites. It's just as well, because I don't think I could last very long anywhere that had draconian blocks. It's a matter of quality of life, if there's downtime (and in the wait-until-something-breaks business I'm in there's always downtime) I'd rather spend it online than off.
It isn't really relevant to me anymore though, since I've started using a mobile broadband connection (802.16e) for all my personal stuff. Although most companies don't block anymore, they sure as hell track and log, and so I've gone off their grid.
The University of Pennsylvania has been doing this for years, and already has the capacity to build towers larger than the one proposed.
Being under the age of consent means that it is rape by legal definition regardless of what the child thinks.
I think you significantly underestimate the number of women, especially younger ones, who watch porn. It's a market with a lot of opportunity considering that they want different niches than do men, but increasing numbers want it nonetheless.
... makes me wonder if you even know what the word means. (Nor does anybody get locked up for watching porn other than kiddie or snuff, and that's not because it's porn but because it's kiddie rape or homicide.)
Further, the vast majority of porn actresses are not being "trafficked"
Giving soldiers land, while not sustainable beyond an impetus, in fact had a stabilizing effect on the Roman Republic and the early empire. The problem was really that in later campaigns the earlier convention was reversed. The now-landed lower classes were conscripted to military service, and after serving in the legions they would come home to find they didn't have one any more. Wealthy Roman patrons would use their power and influence to illegally seize and consolidate the land of lower class Romans who were away in service. This greatly destabilized the economy on the lower side, and the now-landless farmers became a drag on society.
I have addressed this already to one of the ACs, but since it has been brought up over and over... When the word was in use in Latin it was contextualized to Roman-centrism, just as it would later be contextualized to later Western civilizations. I misspoke when I used the word 'origin', but Latin and the word's use therein is nonetheless part of the etymological history of the word.
The Edict of Milan neither established Christianity as the state religion nor did a mark a turning point in the empire's status. The demarcation comes when Theodosius I establishes Christianity as the religion of the state, and by the way, the borders of the empire from Diocletian to Theodosius I are largely the same. It is, in fact, only after Theodosius and the sea change in Roman civic life with regard to religion that the empire itself begins to shrink. Cases can be made for systemic weakness at just about any time in Rome's history.
You also have your history quite backward. The Huns were not an active pressure upon Rome until after its Christianization. When the Edict of Milan granted religious tolerance (not establishment), the Hunic Empire didn't even exist. By Theodosius I's time, it had barely managed to tame it's barbarian neighbors and still posed no direct threat to Rome. That came much later.
So while there's a certain argument for correlation doesn't equal causation, the real decline of the empire did occur *after* the Christianization. Lots of seeds were sewn before then, both systemically and by some very poor decisions. As an example of the latter, the carrot of Romanization, Roman citizenship, was devalued to nothing by a double blow under Caracalla. First, it was made universal to all free men in the territories. Second, Caracalla got butthurt by the Alexandrians' mockery of him and order thousands of them slaughtered, which, if they were now truly full Roman citizens, inexcusably violated the basic tenet that no Roman citizen could be executed without trial. Roman citizenship was no longer something anybody had to seek, nor was it anything somebody would want.
Rome could have persisted through the barbarians' rise if it would have worked with them instead of being delusional about its superiority. Alaric I who sacked Rome was in fact part of Theodosius' legions (what a coincidence, the emperor who established Christianity...), and was a mercenary for Rome until Honorius betrayed him and his Roman handler Flavius Stilicho. Because Rome broke its promise to pay Alaric and his men, and purged many mercenaries and their families whose survivors clamored to Alaric to lead them in revenge, he did so. If Rome had given the deference Alaric had asked for and not persecuted other foederati, the Western Roman Empire might have been stable enough to resist the Hunic hordes. Hypothetically.
Either way, the important point hear is that you have your history very backwards. The most significant pressures from barbarians and the Huns specifically undeniably followed, not preceded, the establishment of Christianity within the Roman Empire.
When it was used in Latin the meaning was contextualized to Roman culture. I will admit that I gave the wrong impression by using the word 'origin'.
I modify my hosts file directly. I don't need extra shit using resources.
Roman society was born from and thrived upon 'barbarity' (an ironic description considering it is a term whose Latin etymological origin meant persons/cultures who were not Roman). It was not a devolution, it was the impetus and drive of the culture which led it to a leadership role throughout the Mediterranean world. This cold pragmatism led to things like the rape of the Sabines (which was not some aberrant exception to Roman behavior, marriage rites in the earliest Roman society included ritualized kidnapping and 'free prostitution' {citation: Otto Kiefer's Sexual Life in Ancient Rome, which is not in front of me at the moment so I can't give you a page number}). In order for Rome to achieve and maintain its success it had to actively fight against human rights and equality. It fought several wars against its slaves (the Servile Wars), ruthlessly put down several populist movements (the brothers Gracchus among many, most of which probably had anti-populist ulterior motives in the end anyway), and would decimate any population in revolt.
Rome fell not because it was brutal (as it always had been), but because it ceased to be. It had built an empire upon exceptionalism and an inhumane disregard for any opposition, and this simply could not be translated to fit the mindset of the early church as it was instituted as the state religion. It would not be until the Crusades that the clergy would succeed in bastardizing Christianity enough that it could be used as an excuse for further military brutality.
'Vote with your feet' lacks any real teeth within a centralized, Federalist system. Different states and localities lack the sovereignty necessary to demonstrate the superiority of a radically different method of government. I agree the idea is a good one, in fact I fully identify as a panarchist because I have come to realize that there is no perfect system under which every person can be happy, but the first necessary change would be to decentralize authority, and good luck ever achieving that.
Redundant. (And addressed.)
Your argument from antiquity fails on its face. To say that C64s didn't function in this way is the same as saying that chariots couldn't be used to learn about internal combustion. We all know that we're not talking about computers from decades ago.
You can't just pop open a computer never having seen at least pictures of electronics before, and automatically know what each of those electric parts are.
You're right, but unlike the car, the computer can help you find those pictures (and more) and deliver them at will. The car is a means of transport, but it doesn't search or analyze in the way a computer can. Transport can enable education at a certain logistical level, but it cannot in itself educate or provide analysis.
I know this is facetious, but to indulge my own pedantry I must add that cells in fact kill themselves through apoptosis.
Mmmmmmm... veal...
He's right, you're a retard. The crops don't salinate the soil, the irrigation does. Water from the sky has much less dissolved in it for the very reason that it had to evaporate to get there, but water from irrigation has been running all over the ground dissolving whatever it wants on the way. When it reaches the fields this dissolved material stays after the water is used by the crops and/or evaporates. It has been a problem with irrigation since it was invented.
Do you really think there would be *that many* chickens, cows and pigs if we weren't raising them for the express purpose of eating them? It's not like we're culling wild herds here. You simply draw down the current stock, and you don't raise more. I don't expect that livestock for meat is going to vanish any time soon, but it could cause a lot of shift on the lower end. This is the sort of thing that fast food places would really be interested in if they could sell it. Probably as a new 'humane value menu' or other spin that will prevent everybody from crying 'frankenfood' like the luddite wankers they are.
Those don't come with the cars (the owner's manuals that come with cars don't usually go beyond how to keep fluids filled), so you do not invalidate my argument that cars are not educational in and of themselves. Cars are not intrinsically conduits for information.
You're the one talking out of your ass. Iodine levels in the US population are considered on average higher than they should be, according to the World Health Organization. Maybe you should check your information before you parrot.
The problem with your perspective is it assumes wrongly that this work is being done from scratch, read further out of context it would seem like you're saying that these researchers are creating tissue (and by extension a lifeform) that didn't exist before. This isn't the case. Natural selection isn't being thrown out the window, all that work is simply being isolated, packaged, and controlled. It will probably be adjusted as the work proceeds, but that isn't surprising considering the 'natural' process you vaunt in fact is focused on 'good enough' solutions. Life is a process for gene replication and everything else is gravy. Artificial selection is by definition more intelligent and efficient than natural selection, and unlike natural selection it can have goals in excess of simple gene survival.
Where 'folks like you' means psychosomatic nutbags? I suppose so. Here's the hint, when 99.9999999% of the population doesn't exhibit symptoms under the same circumstances, and the effect is demonstrably not histamine or other allergenic, it's probably in your head.
Not killing animals is creepy, huh? Seems pretty ridiculous. And the fact that you, random guy on the internet, have managed to consider nutrient levels in the first few minutes probably guarantees that the incredibly smart people behind these developments will probably think about those too before anything like this is brought to market. Iodine is a particularly ironic example because it is the poster child for addition after the fact. That represents no real barrier at all.
That's cute, problem is your points aren't specific to engineering. They apply equally to almost any profession a woman might choose. By that logic the representation of women in engineering should be equal to all other industries, which we already know isn't true.