It would not work so well without them knowing a lot about us. If we are too primitive, we would not be able to assemble the machine and if we are too advanced we will know what it does. As they would presumably be doing it blindly, their chances to succeed are pretty slim.
Also if they are far more advanced than, they would not be threatened by us in any way, as we are not threatened by gorillas in Afrika, even if they use sticks.
The problem of solving polynomial equations was not to find a closed form solution, but to find an expression in terms of a finite combination of radicals (roots).
It turns out that even for cubics there is no "closed form" solution unless you allow taking radicals of complex numbers.
Not necessarily; profit is one of those microeconomics things that is a curve. If you're on the top half of the curve for a specific product, lowering the price of a product will increase profits because volume goes up faster than unit-profit goes down.
However, the fact that not all explanations of phenomena are testable by the scientific method can be determined fairly easily.
That is indeed the case. We can usually make claims about validity or acceptability of theories within the scientific method. This practice is often reffered to as _science_:) The method itself, however, is a _belief_.
You are correct, of course. Whether these muscle contractions are a more reliable source than the actual speech sound is not entirely clear. Also there must be huge variations between different people (just as in speech). The main problem, clearly, is that you have to fit people with electrodes and then tune the system. Seems a little far-fetched for a practical speech recognition solution as every time you re-fit, you would have to re-tune as well.
> Do you believe in the scientific method?
That's the beauty of it - you don't have to believe in it. You can test it.
Belief (in the context used) means faith in something untestable.
No, this is a misconception, you cannot really test the _scientific method_ itself. The scientific method is a _belief_ that your conclusions should be empirically testable. It provides one with a systematic way for testing those conclusions.
In fact the scientific method did not even exist before Galileo, etc. The ancients used logic, typically without trying to verify it experimentally.
if you don't want to eliminate evil, then from my viewpoint, you are irrelevant.
I am very much afraid of politicians who declare that they want to eliminate evil. Some of the most terrible things in history (e.g., various revolutions) started with similar declarations.
I don't think the goal of eliminating evil is useful. The goal may be to have free elections or to promote freedom of speech or to make sure prisoners are treated humanely.
Evil is a useless politically and highly culturally dependent category. For example, premarital sex or homosexuality for many are in evil.
As I said, if you were captured out of uniform doing terrorist stuff, they were'nt considered prisoners. E.g. http://www.geocities.com/fort_tilden/uboats.html. And people attacking their own countries was treason too. Hell the British executed people for broadcasting for the enemy, it's safe to say that the British citizens captured fighting for the Taliban would have been dead. Ditto the American ones. And I guess most of the people in gitmo would be caught by either the fighting out of uninform, or treason or both.
You are right, although the conditions were quite different in Afghanistan, where nobody was fighting in uniform. That was more similar to a colonial conquest in many ways.
So the levelling Dresden means that the Allies were no less evil than the Nazis? This is really my point, you need to be able to support the less evil side. Of course that doesn't stop you pushing for a rethink on things like gitmo, or Dresden for that matter.
Well, Robert McNanamara once said that if we did not win the war, we would be tried for war crimes. I am not at all sure that the conduct of the war by the Allies was any better than by Germany and Japan. Firebombing of Tokyo, for example, was the biggest slaughter of civilians in WWII.
While Hitler is a monster, who exterminated millions of innocent people before and during the war, US and Britain were allied with Stalin, whose track record is hardly better.
I'd say that in terms of evilness, Mao > Current Chinese Government >> America.
Come on, Mao's China and modern China are not anywhere comparable in terms of the scale of human rights violations. Tens of millions
were killed under Mao. At present political prisoners number
in perhaps hundreds at most a few thousands, which is
comparable to the scale of Guantanamo. Whether those are
foreigners or Americans is something of a moot point. Of course the Chinese regime is opressive in many other ways, e.g. freedom of word, but to even compare it to Mao is ridiculous.
And you need to keep in mind that the democracies conduct in recent wars is less questionable than in WWII, where Kabul&Baghdad would have been levelled to the ground, and the people in gitmo would have been summarily executed.
Why would war prisoners be executed? I don't think that was common in WWII. The Allies did some pretty terrible
things in WWII, but attacking Iraq and levelling Baghdad
without provokation would be pretty unprecedented for a modern democracy.
I just think it's important to realise that there are good guys and bad guys, even if the good guys are not exactly perfect.
The problem is that the "good guys" do some pretty bad things.
Some of them can be justified and some cannot, but I am very skeptical about attributing "goodness" to the government of any major power.
Any government is opressive to some degree. American government, for example is keeping hundreds of people in Guantanamo without access to the judicial system. Many of the prisoners there may be innocent.
There is a big difference between Chairman Mao and the current Chinese government. You have to look at exactly what they do and to what purpose before writing them off as evil.
But I do appreciate the blanket forgive-all of amoralism,
Well, if you want to use such value judgements, you should be consistent. Do you consider the US government evil for killing thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians?
It is easy to pass judgement on an alien country, which you don't understand. I don't like much of what the Chinese government (or US government, for that matter) does, but they typically do not do it just out of being evil.
Also do you think that if Chinese government is deposed, the Chinese will benefit from the resulting anarchy?
one that happens to have one of most evil governments.
These moralistic terms are incredibly annoying. Most people would agree it is opressive, but why do you expect other people to share your views on good and evil?
Well, there are interesting things going on in biotech, for sure, and there could be breakthroughs, but this constant hype certainly gets on one's nerves a bit.
Slashdot Mirror
Humans learn behavior during cognition and conversely learn to think while behaving, said Takeno.
Hm...
Interesting point. As they get more advances they may also forget they initiated this program a few hundred thousnad years earlier
It would not work so well without them knowing a lot about us. If we are too primitive, we would not be able to assemble the machine and if we are too advanced we will know what it does. As they would presumably be doing it blindly, their chances to succeed are pretty slim.
Also if they are far more advanced than, they would not be threatened by us in any way, as we are not threatened by gorillas in Afrika, even if they use sticks.
Do they also implant a chip in your brain, which cross-references the class schedule limiting your access to inappropriate memory during class?
The series on the right equals 1.
The problem of solving polynomial equations was not to find a closed form solution, but to find an expression in terms of a finite combination of radicals (roots).
It turns out that even for cubics there is no "closed form" solution unless you allow taking radicals of complex numbers.
Not necessarily; profit is one of those microeconomics things that is a curve. If you're on the top half of the curve for a specific product, lowering the price of a product will increase profits because volume goes up faster than unit-profit goes down.
Yeah, right. Keep dreaming.
Was it a comparison chart for space heaters?
That is indeed the case. We can usually make claims about validity or acceptability of theories within the scientific method. This practice is often reffered to as _science_ :) The method itself, however, is a _belief_.
You are correct, of course. Whether these muscle contractions are a more reliable source than the actual speech sound is not entirely clear. Also there must be huge variations between different people (just as in speech). The main problem, clearly, is that you have to fit people with electrodes and then tune the system. Seems a little far-fetched for a practical speech recognition solution as every time you re-fit, you would have to re-tune as well.
No, this is a misconception, you cannot really test the _scientific method_ itself. The scientific method is a _belief_ that your conclusions should be empirically testable. It provides one with a systematic way for testing those conclusions.
In fact the scientific method did not even exist before Galileo, etc. The ancients used logic, typically without trying to verify it experimentally.
Do you believe in the scientific method?
Affording fuel should be no problem. As long as you don't eat.
More likely you will be living in the street. Remember, you will have to pay for insurance and repairs on it as well.
They are still relatively new to that game. Next thing you know, they will be donating money ot the Republicans.
I am very much afraid of politicians who declare that they want to eliminate evil. Some of the most terrible things in history (e.g., various revolutions) started with similar declarations.
I don't think the goal of eliminating evil is useful. The goal may be to have free elections or to promote freedom of speech or to make sure prisoners are treated humanely.
Evil is a useless politically and highly culturally dependent category. For example, premarital sex or homosexuality for many are in evil.
Don't worry, the Ministry of Truth will inform you through the usual channels.
You are right, although the conditions were quite different in Afghanistan, where nobody was fighting in uniform. That was more similar to a colonial conquest in many ways.
So the levelling Dresden means that the Allies were no less evil than the Nazis? This is really my point, you need to be able to support the less evil side. Of course that doesn't stop you pushing for a rethink on things like gitmo, or Dresden for that matter.
Well, Robert McNanamara once said that if we did not win the war, we would be tried for war crimes. I am not at all sure that the conduct of the war by the Allies was any better than by Germany and Japan. Firebombing of Tokyo, for example, was the biggest slaughter of civilians in WWII.
While Hitler is a monster, who exterminated millions of innocent people before and during the war, US and Britain were allied with Stalin, whose track record is hardly better.
Come on, Mao's China and modern China are not anywhere comparable in terms of the scale of human rights violations. Tens of millions were killed under Mao. At present political prisoners number in perhaps hundreds at most a few thousands, which is comparable to the scale of Guantanamo. Whether those are foreigners or Americans is something of a moot point. Of course the Chinese regime is opressive in many other ways, e.g. freedom of word, but to even compare it to Mao is ridiculous.
And you need to keep in mind that the democracies conduct in recent wars is less questionable than in WWII, where Kabul&Baghdad would have been levelled to the ground, and the people in gitmo would have been summarily executed.
Why would war prisoners be executed? I don't think that was common in WWII. The Allies did some pretty terrible things in WWII, but attacking Iraq and levelling Baghdad without provokation would be pretty unprecedented for a modern democracy.
I just think it's important to realise that there are good guys and bad guys, even if the good guys are not exactly perfect.
The problem is that the "good guys" do some pretty bad things. Some of them can be justified and some cannot, but I am very skeptical about attributing "goodness" to the government of any major power.
Exactly -- the difference is scale, not what they actually do.
Where the U.S. surpasses China in evil is in the mass-murder of people living in other countries.
Ok, so here is a balance of evil. So by your argument US is roughly as evil as China presumably?
Any government is opressive to some degree. American government, for example is keeping hundreds of people in Guantanamo without access to the judicial system. Many of the prisoners there may be innocent.
There is a big difference between Chairman Mao and the current Chinese government. You have to look at exactly what they do and to what purpose before writing them off as evil.
Well, if you want to use such value judgements, you should be consistent. Do you consider the US government evil for killing thousands of Iraqi and Afghani civilians?
It is easy to pass judgement on an alien country, which you don't understand. I don't like much of what the Chinese government (or US government, for that matter) does, but they typically do not do it just out of being evil.
Also do you think that if Chinese government is deposed, the Chinese will benefit from the resulting anarchy?
These moralistic terms are incredibly annoying.
Most people would agree it is opressive, but why do you expect other people to share your views on good and evil?
Well, there are interesting things going on in biotech, for sure, and there could be breakthroughs, but this constant hype certainly
gets on one's nerves a bit.
Kurzweil has got to be one of the worst.