You're looking at simple volume instead of the rate that represents the percentage of the population. Of course there are more people in poverty, that's because there are more people, however the percentage in poverty out of the whole population has stayed in the same 10-15% range since the late 60s. That low rate you're looking at in 1974 was even reached again in 2000, but population growth means that the same rate in 2000 simply encompasses more people than it did in 1974.
So, no, your own statistics demonstrate that poverty as a percentage of population has not been steadily increasing.
Poverty is on the rise in the US, but only the last few years. You should realize that the global picture, which is what I was referencing, has been improving for decades.
Argument by analogy is a logical fallacy in itself. That aside, the only way to give rise to the sort of open-ended possibilities that exist in evolution is through de-regulation. Just saying that evolution is more than conflict does not establish any metaphorical proof that the additional dimension disproves the analogy of evolution through market forces.
Your linked article goes on to decry growth, citing the same old Malthusian claptrap that is disproved not only by current reality, but by the factual trend of decreased fertility rates on every continent over the last half century, as well as the decrease in poverty per capita.
The authors blatant oversimplification of capitalism ignores the most significant aspect: the market cycle. Infinite growth is never postulated. Every market has parameters, within which companies compete for share, and in most cases for companies to grow others must shrink, and market forces ensure that companies which are the most efficient grow at the expense of companies who are the least.
Yahoo has however colluded and collaborated with governments like the PRC to hand over information to incriminate political dissidents and support unequivocal censorship like the Great Firewall and similar principles.
So many people watched Yahoo do these things in China and said 'oh well, it won't happen here, so why should we worry?'
Ahem. The chickens are home to roost. Even if this was some kind of coincidental misfire of an adaptive spam filter, it demonstrates the capability if not the intent to do exactly the sort of things that the company has done in/with totalitarian states.
In TOS at the very least there were exceptions to the Prime Directive for exactly that sort of thing. Kirk decided in 'The Apple' that the culture on Trianguli VI was stagnant to their detriment and blew up the god-like machine that kept them in line. Very similarly did the same to Landru in 'Return of the Archons'.
Doing nothing is a superior moral position than doing harm, even if the harm is not intended. If you watch the Federation's interaction with less advanced cultures (which really only happens in TOS), it doesn't just ignore them, it helps them with resources that don't threaten their social equilibrium. Food and medical supplies etc. are not withheld but phasers are. Considering that meddling beyond that level resulted in genocide in cases like 'Patterns of Force'.
You see when William the Bastard took over England with a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys (who only won because Harold Godwinson had just finished spanking a sizable Viking incursion) and made the English speak French, they set the stage for the complete destruction of the French language by English-speakers over time. There are many borrowed words and phrases which have evolved different meanings and pronunciations in English from their French roots.
Giving the historical background it is wholly laughable that you are trying to stick Americans with the guilt for something that happened before transatlantic voyages were even possible.
Though this criticism is primary directed at your general point of "because US'ians frequently use french words to mean different things, usually with horrible spelling and pronounciation." J'accuse specifically does not have a history tied to linguistic intermingling following the Norman Conquest, per se.
Agreed, 12 Angry Men is no less than character acting as art in itself, and its laser focus makes every tiny thing outside of the actors themselves have an impact... the claustrophobic space, the perception of heat, etc.
It makes me sick to see how many movies have thrown out any regard for acting talent and thoughtful cinematography in favor of naught more than some shiny polygons that don't even impress anybody anymore because people just think 'oh more CGI ho hum'.
Seven Samurai the best action movie? Really? Seven Samurai is an excellent film, but less so for its action and far more so for its frank portrayal of peasant life in pre-industrial Japan and the development of the various characters so deeply and completely that one feels one knows them as actual human beings (which is Kurosawa's strength in most of his films and why his legacy is so significant).
If action is the primary dimension under which the film is judged I think it falls far short of many films. I think of it more as an excellent period drama that happens to conclude with a big battle.
Humans are the cockroaches of large mammals. We can eat anything and live anywhere and can even withstand (as a population) large amounts of toxins and pathogens. More importantly, we can solve problems rationally and move or convert resources in innumerable ways. Mankind is as close to extinction-proof as any large animal can be.
You think that a third of CO2 in the atmosphere comes from human activity? You think that what we do is more substantial than an entire world of decaying organic matter and volcanic activity? Decomposing organics alone accounts for more than four times more than human activity (at least according to Wikipedia, which I don't necessarily trust but I've been searching for the better part of a hour for hard numbers for world biogenic CO2 emissions and found nothing), which if you can do basic math already invalidates your own number as folly or lies, and that doesn't take into account any of the other sources of CO2.
You've unwittingly described the climate that gave rise to life in the first place. It wasn't until organisms started photosynthesis that a new type of life came along and radically altered the atmosphere, killing almost everything else that came before it in the Oxygen Catastrophe of the Siderian. Which in turn allowed all the animal life we know to come to exist.
This is the fundamental problem with green ideologues, they think that the biosphere is static and that life is impossible if it changes. You need to wrap your head around some facts. Mass extinctions created the current biosphere. If you think mass extinctions are bad, you must by extension think that the current biosphere you currently hold next to sacred is also ultimately a perversion of the state of life before said extinctions.
Life can spring back from virtually nothing. During the greatest mass extinction, 90% of ocean-dwelling species perished completely. Have you noticed how they're not still empty? More importantly, have you noticed how there are a lot more species in the oceans now than in the Permian? Over time, biodiversity has always increased, regardless of how severe any event has been over short periods.
The Chinese have a saying: 'Jiu de bu qu xin de bu lai' which means 'If old things don't go, new things will never come.'
Of course my heresy against green dogma will be properly downmodded.
Shhh! It's supposed to be a secret that CO2 accounts for less than 10% of greenhouse gases, and that the amount generated by human activity is further less than 10% of that CO2. If people really knew that we were destroying our freedoms and way of life hoping that less than a percent of real change is enough, they might not go with the program!
I feel exactly the same way. When I was a teenager I was pretty gung ho patriotic, and not just because I thought it was the 'thing to do' but because I had (insofar as I could at that age) studied history and been convinced that the USA had done more good than harm despite its faults.
The last decade has been deeply disturbing and embarrassing. Not since the Sedition Act has there been such unconstitutional nonsense as 'free speech zones', 'warrantless wiretapping', etc. and such heinous SCotUS rulings as Kelo v. New London. And in every legislative session the 'PATRIOT' Act as is rubber stamped, and somebody finds some new way of arbitrarily removing freedoms from persons by creating new secret 'lists' with no appeal and no oversight. It has the feel of the 'enemies' lists of dictators or Roman emperors.
Neither party has a contrary position. Until people wake up and free themselves from the duopoly (which will take a political crisis the nature of which I can't honestly imagine) we're due for more of the same.
All I know is I'm not part of the problem. Where there is any option I vote for a 3rd party candidate.
In case you weren't paying attention to the way Google works, if their actions in China are taken as an example, Google could, if exasperated enough, just redirect all search traffic to servers located in a place with different laws. This is the internet. Location isn't all that important.
I don't think you realize how expensive it is to leave the gravity well. Even if there were solid gold bullion in orbit there would have to be a fuckton of it just for the operation to break even.
Mining in space will be important, but it's unlikely to be important or cost effective to get the materials back to Earth. Whatever is ultimately mined in space will likely stay in space to build things there.
There are two things being neglected in that, a) scale and b) the difference between (relatively) recent geological events and those that would have occurred in the immediate aftermath of the formation of a stable crust.
As significant as large regional veins of precious metals' ore are to mining operations, if one hypothesizes that they were originally brought to the outer crust by superplume-driven volcanic events that would make Krakatoa look like a science fair display they would account for a very, very minute percentage of the total material being moved by the eruption. So if only a small amount of material actually leaves the core during plume events, that doesn't invalidate the hypothesis on its face.
Something also to be borne in mind is that these sorts of events tend to happen over and over again in (relatively) the same place (you can see the drift in the hotspot responsible for Yellowstone Caldera is only a few hundred miles, which becomes closer and closer the farther down you go by the very nature of spheroids). So if some core material is only partially transited during the first event, it might be moved further by the second and further by the third etc.
Quite frankly it makes me want to dig up my old rock hounding pick and go prospecting around some of these mega calderas.
Superplumes are believed by some to emanate from the core itself, though potentially spawning a chain of other plumes at different strata. It's not really a settled matter in the geological sciences.
While I'm sure that some precious metals have arrived from space after the earth's accretion, I think it's rather a stretch to think that the concentration in places like South Dakota or Alaska/Yukon are the result of impact events.
It's true that these elements settled into lower strata, but it must also be remembered that many volcanic events are fueled by plumes of material that emanate from the core itself (the Yellowstone Caldera is believed to be such). That certain metals were concentrated in the lower strata during Earth's early formation does not mean that 100% of them stayed there.
Neo-malthusianism is like a millennarian cult. It doesn't matter that their doomsdays are proved wrong over and over and over again, they keep harboring this near-religious belief that civilization is going to self-destruct in a matter of years. When it keeps proving not to be true, they ignore the fact that nothing happened and invent a new prophetic date and new prophetic threshold when everything is supposed to collapse. It gets so old, and it seems like the majority ascribe to it in some way or another, at least whenever the topic comes up it seems to be 80% neo-malthusians.
I've gotten too tired of explaining how for four decades the number of children each woman produces has gone down steadily on every continent, and that many nations have population growth below replacement. The statistical reality doesn't show runaway growth, it shows a leveling off, but that doesn't sell to the crowd that wants to believe in impending disaster for no other purpose than to feel like moral heroes when they put out the recycling.
I think the difference is between the nature of a bathyscaphe vs. a full-fledged submarine. Presumably is doesn't have to be tied to anything to operate and will have greater ability for independent motion. So, yes, they won't be the first people to reach the depth, but will be the first people to reach that depth in the specific manner inherent to the device used.
Slashdot Mirror
You're looking at simple volume instead of the rate that represents the percentage of the population. Of course there are more people in poverty, that's because there are more people, however the percentage in poverty out of the whole population has stayed in the same 10-15% range since the late 60s. That low rate you're looking at in 1974 was even reached again in 2000, but population growth means that the same rate in 2000 simply encompasses more people than it did in 1974.
So, no, your own statistics demonstrate that poverty as a percentage of population has not been steadily increasing.
Poverty is on the rise in the US, but only the last few years. You should realize that the global picture, which is what I was referencing, has been improving for decades.
Argument by analogy is a logical fallacy in itself. That aside, the only way to give rise to the sort of open-ended possibilities that exist in evolution is through de-regulation. Just saying that evolution is more than conflict does not establish any metaphorical proof that the additional dimension disproves the analogy of evolution through market forces.
Your linked article goes on to decry growth, citing the same old Malthusian claptrap that is disproved not only by current reality, but by the factual trend of decreased fertility rates on every continent over the last half century, as well as the decrease in poverty per capita.
The authors blatant oversimplification of capitalism ignores the most significant aspect: the market cycle. Infinite growth is never postulated. Every market has parameters, within which companies compete for share, and in most cases for companies to grow others must shrink, and market forces ensure that companies which are the most efficient grow at the expense of companies who are the least.
Yahoo has however colluded and collaborated with governments like the PRC to hand over information to incriminate political dissidents and support unequivocal censorship like the Great Firewall and similar principles.
So many people watched Yahoo do these things in China and said 'oh well, it won't happen here, so why should we worry?'
Ahem. The chickens are home to roost. Even if this was some kind of coincidental misfire of an adaptive spam filter, it demonstrates the capability if not the intent to do exactly the sort of things that the company has done in/with totalitarian states.
In TOS at the very least there were exceptions to the Prime Directive for exactly that sort of thing. Kirk decided in 'The Apple' that the culture on Trianguli VI was stagnant to their detriment and blew up the god-like machine that kept them in line. Very similarly did the same to Landru in 'Return of the Archons'.
Doing nothing is a superior moral position than doing harm, even if the harm is not intended. If you watch the Federation's interaction with less advanced cultures (which really only happens in TOS), it doesn't just ignore them, it helps them with resources that don't threaten their social equilibrium. Food and medical supplies etc. are not withheld but phasers are. Considering that meddling beyond that level resulted in genocide in cases like 'Patterns of Force'.
You see when William the Bastard took over England with a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys (who only won because Harold Godwinson had just finished spanking a sizable Viking incursion) and made the English speak French, they set the stage for the complete destruction of the French language by English-speakers over time. There are many borrowed words and phrases which have evolved different meanings and pronunciations in English from their French roots.
Giving the historical background it is wholly laughable that you are trying to stick Americans with the guilt for something that happened before transatlantic voyages were even possible.
Though this criticism is primary directed at your general point of "because US'ians frequently use french words to mean different things, usually with horrible spelling and pronounciation." J'accuse specifically does not have a history tied to linguistic intermingling following the Norman Conquest, per se.
Agreed, 12 Angry Men is no less than character acting as art in itself, and its laser focus makes every tiny thing outside of the actors themselves have an impact... the claustrophobic space, the perception of heat, etc.
It makes me sick to see how many movies have thrown out any regard for acting talent and thoughtful cinematography in favor of naught more than some shiny polygons that don't even impress anybody anymore because people just think 'oh more CGI ho hum'.
Seven Samurai the best action movie? Really? Seven Samurai is an excellent film, but less so for its action and far more so for its frank portrayal of peasant life in pre-industrial Japan and the development of the various characters so deeply and completely that one feels one knows them as actual human beings (which is Kurosawa's strength in most of his films and why his legacy is so significant).
If action is the primary dimension under which the film is judged I think it falls far short of many films. I think of it more as an excellent period drama that happens to conclude with a big battle.
Not to mention he has managed to paradox freeze every dangerous AI he's ever dealt with and outwitted several god-like beings.
Humans are the cockroaches of large mammals. We can eat anything and live anywhere and can even withstand (as a population) large amounts of toxins and pathogens. More importantly, we can solve problems rationally and move or convert resources in innumerable ways. Mankind is as close to extinction-proof as any large animal can be.
You think that a third of CO2 in the atmosphere comes from human activity? You think that what we do is more substantial than an entire world of decaying organic matter and volcanic activity? Decomposing organics alone accounts for more than four times more than human activity (at least according to Wikipedia, which I don't necessarily trust but I've been searching for the better part of a hour for hard numbers for world biogenic CO2 emissions and found nothing), which if you can do basic math already invalidates your own number as folly or lies, and that doesn't take into account any of the other sources of CO2.
You've unwittingly described the climate that gave rise to life in the first place. It wasn't until organisms started photosynthesis that a new type of life came along and radically altered the atmosphere, killing almost everything else that came before it in the Oxygen Catastrophe of the Siderian. Which in turn allowed all the animal life we know to come to exist.
This is the fundamental problem with green ideologues, they think that the biosphere is static and that life is impossible if it changes. You need to wrap your head around some facts. Mass extinctions created the current biosphere. If you think mass extinctions are bad, you must by extension think that the current biosphere you currently hold next to sacred is also ultimately a perversion of the state of life before said extinctions.
Life can spring back from virtually nothing. During the greatest mass extinction, 90% of ocean-dwelling species perished completely. Have you noticed how they're not still empty? More importantly, have you noticed how there are a lot more species in the oceans now than in the Permian? Over time, biodiversity has always increased, regardless of how severe any event has been over short periods.
The Chinese have a saying: 'Jiu de bu qu xin de bu lai' which means 'If old things don't go, new things will never come.'
Of course my heresy against green dogma will be properly downmodded.
Shhh! It's supposed to be a secret that CO2 accounts for less than 10% of greenhouse gases, and that the amount generated by human activity is further less than 10% of that CO2. If people really knew that we were destroying our freedoms and way of life hoping that less than a percent of real change is enough, they might not go with the program!
I feel exactly the same way. When I was a teenager I was pretty gung ho patriotic, and not just because I thought it was the 'thing to do' but because I had (insofar as I could at that age) studied history and been convinced that the USA had done more good than harm despite its faults.
The last decade has been deeply disturbing and embarrassing. Not since the Sedition Act has there been such unconstitutional nonsense as 'free speech zones', 'warrantless wiretapping', etc. and such heinous SCotUS rulings as Kelo v. New London. And in every legislative session the 'PATRIOT' Act as is rubber stamped, and somebody finds some new way of arbitrarily removing freedoms from persons by creating new secret 'lists' with no appeal and no oversight. It has the feel of the 'enemies' lists of dictators or Roman emperors.
Neither party has a contrary position. Until people wake up and free themselves from the duopoly (which will take a political crisis the nature of which I can't honestly imagine) we're due for more of the same.
All I know is I'm not part of the problem. Where there is any option I vote for a 3rd party candidate.
Honestly it just makes me want to find somebody with this mental problem and fuck with them.
"Ok, I have just turned on this megawatt radio tranmitter, how are you feeling?"
"Arglbargl!"
"Ha ha, I lied, I don't have a megawatt transmitter."
Seems like it would be hilarious. And nutjobs like that deserve it if they're not getting mental health treatment.
In case you weren't paying attention to the way Google works, if their actions in China are taken as an example, Google could, if exasperated enough, just redirect all search traffic to servers located in a place with different laws. This is the internet. Location isn't all that important.
I don't think you realize how expensive it is to leave the gravity well. Even if there were solid gold bullion in orbit there would have to be a fuckton of it just for the operation to break even.
Mining in space will be important, but it's unlikely to be important or cost effective to get the materials back to Earth. Whatever is ultimately mined in space will likely stay in space to build things there.
There are two things being neglected in that, a) scale and b) the difference between (relatively) recent geological events and those that would have occurred in the immediate aftermath of the formation of a stable crust.
As significant as large regional veins of precious metals' ore are to mining operations, if one hypothesizes that they were originally brought to the outer crust by superplume-driven volcanic events that would make Krakatoa look like a science fair display they would account for a very, very minute percentage of the total material being moved by the eruption. So if only a small amount of material actually leaves the core during plume events, that doesn't invalidate the hypothesis on its face.
Something also to be borne in mind is that these sorts of events tend to happen over and over again in (relatively) the same place (you can see the drift in the hotspot responsible for Yellowstone Caldera is only a few hundred miles, which becomes closer and closer the farther down you go by the very nature of spheroids). So if some core material is only partially transited during the first event, it might be moved further by the second and further by the third etc.
Quite frankly it makes me want to dig up my old rock hounding pick and go prospecting around some of these mega calderas.
Superplumes are believed by some to emanate from the core itself, though potentially spawning a chain of other plumes at different strata. It's not really a settled matter in the geological sciences.
While I'm sure that some precious metals have arrived from space after the earth's accretion, I think it's rather a stretch to think that the concentration in places like South Dakota or Alaska/Yukon are the result of impact events.
It's true that these elements settled into lower strata, but it must also be remembered that many volcanic events are fueled by plumes of material that emanate from the core itself (the Yellowstone Caldera is believed to be such). That certain metals were concentrated in the lower strata during Earth's early formation does not mean that 100% of them stayed there.
You know, kettle, we've got to stop meeting like this.
Projectingly Yours,
Pot
Neo-malthusianism is like a millennarian cult. It doesn't matter that their doomsdays are proved wrong over and over and over again, they keep harboring this near-religious belief that civilization is going to self-destruct in a matter of years. When it keeps proving not to be true, they ignore the fact that nothing happened and invent a new prophetic date and new prophetic threshold when everything is supposed to collapse. It gets so old, and it seems like the majority ascribe to it in some way or another, at least whenever the topic comes up it seems to be 80% neo-malthusians.
I've gotten too tired of explaining how for four decades the number of children each woman produces has gone down steadily on every continent, and that many nations have population growth below replacement. The statistical reality doesn't show runaway growth, it shows a leveling off, but that doesn't sell to the crowd that wants to believe in impending disaster for no other purpose than to feel like moral heroes when they put out the recycling.
I think the difference is between the nature of a bathyscaphe vs. a full-fledged submarine. Presumably is doesn't have to be tied to anything to operate and will have greater ability for independent motion. So, yes, they won't be the first people to reach the depth, but will be the first people to reach that depth in the specific manner inherent to the device used.
This isn't China... yet.
MatLab is too YTMND, unless you've already finished C.