Train quality varies across Europe. In the UK, it's pretty poor, with a recent increase in accidents linked to badly managed privatisation and a company called Railtrack who stopped investments in the basic maintenance required for a safe service. But then the trains here have been going downhill for a long time here generally, particularly in comparison to the rest of Europe.
All across continental Europe, you'd be right to compliment the trains. France, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have perfectly good systems in my experience (sorry about the random selection - I don't normally travel by train and there's a lot of Europe I haven't been to anyway), although Romania is a bit ropey.
I apologise for the shamelessly stupid bit of typing 'growing to grow'. In my defence, I have unwittingly served as further evidence for how bad exam revision is for the brain.
> In Star Wars terms, > Europe = Corusant > America = Tatooine.
I haven't the faintest idea what you meant by that. Here are a few of my guesses:
Europe is growing to grow to be the 'centre of the universe', while America will turn into a desert?
Europe is inhabited by evil scheming political types, while America is inhabited by whiny farm boys, old jedi, and really fat fetishists with big tongues?
Europe is the capital of global oppression (turn the clock back 100 years) whereas America is the birthplace of galactic freedom (in the form of a whiny farmboy)?
Heh - 'punised'. Personally, I do always wear a rubber. But can you say 'split condom?' No contraceptive is 100% guaranteed. And why sacrifice yourself to bring an unwanted child into the world? Every baby should be a wanted baby, otherwise the straightforward in-the-family care network is bound to get a little strained.
Embryonic stem cells are the best alternative we have for many branches of stem cell research, and therefore it is our duty to use them. And since, in my decided opinion, an embryo is not a person, I see no reason not to use embryos, purpose-formed or otherwise, for this kind of therapy. If you choose not to be a part of this, don't be. But don't stop those who do.
You dismiss the surplus of fertile cells produced by most of us as merely a potential.
Yet you advocate saving a 'potential' life by accepting the suffering of those who need stem cell therapy. Isn't there a slight hypocrisy here?
In the same argument, I could be judged a multiple murderer by having lived to the age of 21 and having made no moves to have children as yet. Don't I know that I have had the potential to have children and bring new life into the world for years?!! Oh my God, lock me up now!!!
Spelling out that 'The act of fertilization provides the potential to become a human being' may be accurate but at the same time misses the point. Most of us make a daily choice not to go out and get ovae fertilised, and in doing so, allow them to die. Yet they contained within themselves the potential to be a new life. Which is where the entire 'potential' argument breaks down.
To my mind, for as long as a growing embryo/fetus/whatever is entirely dependent upon its mother to be brought to term, it's her business to choose what happens to it. It's a part of her, despite only sharing half her DNA. Why should she be a slave to it?
What??? Ug halted wheel research (with big club)... And what came out of it? Now there has been research into new methods. Look for another reason to rag on Ug, because this one wont [sic] work.
Just do us all a favour and think before you open your mouth. Where something is necessary, as medical care is necessary, there will always be research to do it by any means possible. But there's generally a better or a worse way of getting what you want. And in this case, embryonic stem cells are of great value.
What right have you to condemn their use and cause lengthy delays on the achievement of the tech to heal the sick? It amounts to killing and torturing sick people by refusing them medicine. Ask yourself who suffered to give them stem cell therapy. Go ahead, try to think of an actual person in any form of pain or disadvantage. The only people suffering are the sick, and it is our duty to help them.
Well actually, _if_ fat cell stem cells could be engineered to be not merely multipotent, but totipotent, they could be used to make whole new people, genetically identical to the parent. So killing them would be unethical, if abortion is unethical.
Which of course brings us back to the other debate. Personally I don't believe that abortion is unethical, because it's a matter of personal choice to bring a new life into the world. If the fetus/whatever is not capable of being born into the world and kept alive outside of its mother's body, even with the best of modern medical care, then it is a part and parcel of the mother's body and her concern.
It is no more murder to not bring the baby to term than it is murder to refuse to have as many pregnancies as is humanly possible from as soon as it becomes possible on the grounds that any less would be to prevent a new life and thus a murder.
We need population control. We also need choice in how to run our own lives. Get over it.
Before I begin, I'd better state that I agree with you - broadly. But I have a couple of quibbles...
'Did just fine' isn't really right. There's always been suffering, and to my mind there always will be, no matter how good we get at collecting resources, medicine, whatever. Misery is a part of the human condition - take it away (by direct artificial influence on the brain, say), and we cease to be human. It is arguable, however, that better tech, psychology, social policy, etc. has created the potential to cheer more people up more of the time. Repeat: the potential. We are, however, going to have to rapidly replan our expansionist criteria on a global level (which sadly necessitates global control) if we aren't going to have a major crisis in the very near future. At which point, if we can be said to be 'doing just fine' at the moment, we could rapidly cease to do so and may just possibly end up looking at the current era as a kind of golden age (hah).
Besides, there're quite a few logistical problems which will require a massive amount of new tech (say 100 years of sustained development) to sort out before we have a hope of profitably colonising a new planet, IMHO. And we can't count on the next 10 years, let alone the next 100. We need to improve our odds fast, and that means big changes, some of which will hurt. Plus ca change.
They would need to cover 1% of the lunar surface on BOTH sides of the moon, because only half of the solar panels would be in sunlight at a time.
They would need to cover 5% of the surface, because the cells are only 20% efficient.
Combine those two problems, and you have 10% of the surface of the moon covered in solar panels.
> End quote
No, you don't. You cover 5% of the total surface (or 3%, if a previous poster was correct, but we'll stick to 5 for now). That way, you'll always be covering 5% of the surface in the light. The 'both sides' of the moon argument is flawed, because you're always talking about the total energy received anyway. So, that's 10% of the total (or 6) rather than 20. It's still a monumental amount, but a lot less so.
I also don't see why an environmentalist should complain about being able to 'see' solar panels on the moon. Environmentalism isn't about preserving purely aesthetic matters, but about preserving natural resources. A lot of valuable, endagered habitats aren't all that attractive, but are still valuable. And I'm not sure it would be all that ugly anyway.
I'm not saying the suggestion is good, merely that your refutation is flawed, albeit based (apparently) on a very reasonable premise (excessive cost involved).
Actually (and very OT), you'd have a good chance of being right if you accused those health nuts of having Herpes too - 60-90% of the world's population has been infected with Herpes Simplex Virus 1, and it tends to kick around in a latent form. Furthermore, you could also tell them that 1% of their genome consists of viral inserts, and that therefore they are a GMO (sorta), but they might not thank you for it.
Perhaps, but I'm hoping that habits will change pretty soon. If you look at the ever-growing effectiveness of renewables, there's real reason to hope for a genuinely clean solution. Even at present tech, Germany gets 50% of its energy from them, and they (particularly wind turbines) are getting cheaper and better all the time.
Long term, though, I'm still hoping for fusion. Between that and fuel cells, we could (theoretically) use massive amounts of energy while only endangering ourselves a fraction as much as we do today.
I very much doubt that the answer to the present population expansion lies in exploring the solar system. At current tech, it would take immense resources to keep even a few colonists on the most suitable planet (Mars). The same as a massively larger population back home.
The real benefits of exploring the solar system would be scientific knowledge and, medium to long term, mining of resources rare on Earth. Colonisation would be very long term - by current estimates, based on predictions for tech improvements, it would take 100 years and a shitload of resources to terraform Mars (based on an article I read in Focus a few years back). It's best that we wait until we really have the tech to do it well, and try to sort out our problems at home at home in the meantime.
'molars' come from God? Fair enough, if you accept creationism, which I don't. It scarcely needs pointing out though;-)
I still have difficulty with the thought of a god to whom it really matters, if he/she/it has the power to create a universe in which one small part (that we know of) has free will and the capacity to vaguely guess at His nature and receive messages from Him should honestly care what we think of him? Surely it would be gross egoism to imagine that your opinion on its existence could rank so highly with something so vast and incomprehensible?
Re:Please do not feed the hypocrites
on
Digital Biology
·
· Score: 2
OK, I'll bite.
How precisely is belief in evolution 'damaging'? Compared to say: war, plague, famine, injustice, murder, disloyalty, dishonesty, etc, from matters great to little, I struggle to see how I am damaged by my belief (as a best working hypothesis) in evolution or how my belief in evolution could damage others. Even if you disagree with it, I'd suggest that you seriously need a sense of proportion. (This from a man who's posting on slashdot when he should be writing a 2000 word essay on comparative genomics...)
In saying that this work believes in the reality of evolution, you are saying that it works on the assumption that the current scientific orthodoxy is accurate. And believe me that, as a biologist, we are just as certain about evolution as rocket engineers are that their designs are propelled by fuel etc rather than the will of God.
Of course, 'believing' in the current scientific orthodoxy would be wrong too, in terms of having faith in it being 100% correct. Almost everybody who can call themselves a scientist would feel quite certain that they cannot be certain of its accuracy, and shouldn't try to be. Science works on scepticism and guesswork based on the data available, not faith.
The militants on either side are equivalently bad, the citizens equivalently innocent. The only significant difference is in the extent of the suffering, the brunt of which is carried by the Palestinians, not because the Israelis are intrinsically worse, but because they are more powerful. Peace would benefit both sides. How then should peace be arranged?
The only peaceful and ethical solution would be a return to Israel's 1967 borders. People have a right to self determination, and the people in the occupied territories don't want to be a part of Israel, and don't want to leave their homes either. Therefore, ethically, they should have a right to stay and the new settlements should be disbanded. But Sharon and the religious extremists in Israel will never take those measures, which is a part of the tragedy.
Where you upset me is in accusing the Palestinians of being uncivilised. Hamas and the other groups have done some terrible things, but so have the Israelis. Ordinary Palestinians, on the whole, haven't, and neither have ordinary Israelis. It is still the innocents who take the majority of the pain. And when Israeli troops fire on ambulances and children, just how 'civilised' are they being? And the 'something' which Israel has made out of the desert has involved destroying as much as possible of the historical buildings and culture of the area which isn't Israeli.
The US developed nukes to win the war, plain and simple. Their use was no more to be condemned than the conventional bombing which went on at the time; in fact, after the event, their use had some highly beneficial consequences, such as ending the war in the Pacific (probably decreasing overall the amount of civilian lives which would have been lost) and preventing a further world war by the nuclear deterrent.
The Nazis have a lot to be blamed for, but nukes are not one of them - the Nazi nuclear weapon programmes were a long way behind the US, largely because leading German scientists either believed it could not be done or had emigrated.
True, an induced higher rate of mutations does not tend to lead to an increased rate of evolution (unless it be towards radiation tolerance) since the vast majority of mutations are silent or disadvantageous. But this would have influenced evolution nevertheless, simply by killing a load of creatures and creating turmoil in the ecosystem, leading to a period of rapid change and differing evolutionary pressures.
Evolution occurs primarily in response to outside influences of the time, rather than towards any particular goal. Asteroid impacts, volcanic eruptions, and now apparently (although IANA astronomer, and mistrust CNN) supernovae all have a bearing on how things have turned out today.
I agree with the crux of your judgement, which is that actually using nuclear weapons will be of no benefit to the US. The only possible scenario in which it makes sense for any leader to use nuclear weapons is in response to nuclear weapons. In fact, even that would be disastrous in the event, but as a deterrent it's worked very well so far.
The points on which I differ are as follows:
China is unlikely to start a cold war with America as it's making too much of a profit from the present circumstances.
Russia is equally unlikely for the converse reason - it is too poor, and has become heavily dependent on the US-influenced IMF.
North Korea, however, is a definite possibility. But then it just about qualifies as being in a cold war as matters stand.
But what this would trigger would be a global political backlash against the US administration, both outside, and I would like to believe, inside the US itself. Nobody wants nukes to be used except in the utmost extremity. It sets a terrifying precedent.
I would like to believe that even the UK and Canada might pull out of backing the US should it take such action. Fortunately, even with the Toxic Texan at the controls, the odds of nukes being used are still very slim as I see them.
Well, technically, 84 countries have signed it (including the USA) and 49 of those have ratified it or similar. The trouble is, that the countries doing the ratification are those that do the least damage and suffer the most, as can be observed when you look down the list, shown here:
http://unfccc.int/resource/kpstats.pdf
Incidentally, I was interested to note that no EU countries have actually ratified it yet.
Leaving the issue of moral relativism aside for now, it might perhaps be simply a matter of there being no 'good guys' or 'bad guys' on a national level. To fight a war effectively means to do a hell of a lot of bad things. Not everybody on the side that's doing them has to be involved in the actions - conscientious objectors in WW1 working as stretcher bearers provides a case in point. But pretty much every side has to take decisions which will have unethical consequences, along the lines of civilian casualties etc.
Many of the rules that are set for conflicts, as laid down in the Geneva convention, are routinely broken by just about everybody in just about every conflict nowadays. The only real restraining factors on militiary action on the part of a western government these days are cost (not as limiting as it used to be, at least in terms of money if not in the blood of your own soldiers) and profitability (in terms of votes for the governing body at least as much as national profit).
Where then does the answer lie? Perhaps in pursuing peace rather than war, perhaps in pursuing justice (which would have to embrace all parties) rather than revenge. Perhaps in accepting our common humanity and the sacred nature (even to an atheist such as myself) of any human life as more important than national boundaries and the conflicting interest of empowered individuals.
Perhaps in not dismissing the deaths of hundreds or thousands of civilians as 'collateral damage'. Perhaps in not unsustainably exploiting another country and culture to the point of engineering widespread suffering and resultant collapse. Perhaps in getting outside of our little local problems and local lives for just a short space of time and seeing how the rest of the world manages. Perhaps in not looking on our own misfortunes, including September 11th, as infinitely more tragic than those which occur outside of our borders and which destroy vastly more lives.
Is in coming this close to the 'real world', and still imagining good guys and bad guys. They don't really exist, especially in times of war, as history will tell you as often as you please. Still, it's twenty years in the future, so we can dream, right?
I have a problem with the original contention, which is that the problem is the proportion of humanity with non-Utopian traits in the population. I would counter that at our current level of technological and societal development, we could do extremely well with a small fraction of the present population, allowing for a complicated routine of reeducation etc.
But running with your idea for now, if you were to discriminatingly wipe out the world's population, who would you discriminate for/against, and on what criteria? IQ? Physical fitness (heh)? Success in life, perhaps with a value-added measure? Agreement with your own political/societal viewpoint? The last is the worst of a very bad set, but also the most popular historically.
And how would any society that would commit such an act of genocide ever have a hope of becoming truly utopian? Everyone would be worried who would be up for the block next, while hating the system, each other and themselves for being a part of it.
The only way to avoid genocide and select for a population would be to wait for something or someone to do it for you, and then save a chosen few million or so. And then rebuild from the ground up. But it's passing the buck - you'd still be choosing to let the rest of the world die, which is in practical terms the same as killing them yourself (is there a difference between not reaching out a hand to a drowning man and shooting him in the street, except perhaps that the second is quicker and more merciful?), not to mention massively unutopian.
The closest to a humane way of decreasing the world's population would be to enforce something along the lines of a global one child policy. Which is deeply f*cked up in itself, because in the long term you'd have a much smaller population of an age to work supporting a larger geriatric one (us). So what would you do then? Cull the pensioners?
The world is deeply screwed as things stand. But it's very hard to see any sane way of actually sorting it out. I'm inclined to get on with my own life, while things remain good, and live it as well (by which I mean at a good balance of fun and ethics) as I can for as long as I can. And most of the world, luckily, would more-or-less agree with me. So the party has a little while left, and with any luck, we may not make it through to see the morning after.
Slashdot Mirror
Train quality varies across Europe. In the UK, it's pretty poor, with a recent increase in accidents linked to badly managed privatisation and a company called Railtrack who stopped investments in the basic maintenance required for a safe service. But then the trains here have been going downhill for a long time here generally, particularly in comparison to the rest of Europe.
All across continental Europe, you'd be right to compliment the trains. France, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have perfectly good systems in my experience (sorry about the random selection - I don't normally travel by train and there's a lot of Europe I haven't been to anyway), although Romania is a bit ropey.
I apologise for the shamelessly stupid bit of typing 'growing to grow'. In my defence, I have unwittingly served as further evidence for how bad exam revision is for the brain.
> In Star Wars terms,
> Europe = Corusant
> America = Tatooine.
I haven't the faintest idea what you meant by that. Here are a few of my guesses:
Europe is growing to grow to be the 'centre of the universe', while America will turn into a desert?
Europe is inhabited by evil scheming political types, while America is inhabited by whiny farm boys, old jedi, and really fat fetishists with big tongues?
Europe is the capital of global oppression (turn the clock back 100 years) whereas America is the birthplace of galactic freedom (in the form of a whiny farmboy)?
Or is it merely about population density?
You're overlooking the magnificent typo in the title ;)
Heh - 'punised'. Personally, I do always wear a rubber. But can you say 'split condom?' No contraceptive is 100% guaranteed. And why sacrifice yourself to bring an unwanted child into the world? Every baby should be a wanted baby, otherwise the straightforward in-the-family care network is bound to get a little strained.
Embryonic stem cells are the best alternative we have for many branches of stem cell research, and therefore it is our duty to use them. And since, in my decided opinion, an embryo is not a person, I see no reason not to use embryos, purpose-formed or otherwise, for this kind of therapy. If you choose not to be a part of this, don't be. But don't stop those who do.
You dismiss the surplus of fertile cells produced by most of us as merely a potential.
Yet you advocate saving a 'potential' life by accepting the suffering of those who need stem cell therapy. Isn't there a slight hypocrisy here?
In the same argument, I could be judged a multiple murderer by having lived to the age of 21 and having made no moves to have children as yet. Don't I know that I have had the potential to have children and bring new life into the world for years?!! Oh my God, lock me up now!!!
Spelling out that 'The act of fertilization provides the potential to become a human being' may be accurate but at the same time misses the point. Most of us make a daily choice not to go out and get ovae fertilised, and in doing so, allow them to die. Yet they contained within themselves the potential to be a new life. Which is where the entire 'potential' argument breaks down.
To my mind, for as long as a growing embryo/fetus/whatever is entirely dependent upon its mother to be brought to term, it's her business to choose what happens to it. It's a part of her, despite only sharing half her DNA. Why should she be a slave to it?
What??? Ug halted wheel research (with big club)... And what came out of it? Now there has been research into new methods. Look for another reason to rag on Ug, because this one wont [sic] work.
Just do us all a favour and think before you open your mouth. Where something is necessary, as medical care is necessary, there will always be research to do it by any means possible. But there's generally a better or a worse way of getting what you want. And in this case, embryonic stem cells are of great value.
What right have you to condemn their use and cause lengthy delays on the achievement of the tech to heal the sick? It amounts to killing and torturing sick people by refusing them medicine. Ask yourself who suffered to give them stem cell therapy. Go ahead, try to think of an actual person in any form of pain or disadvantage. The only people suffering are the sick, and it is our duty to help them.
Well actually, _if_ fat cell stem cells could be engineered to be not merely multipotent, but totipotent, they could be used to make whole new people, genetically identical to the parent. So killing them would be unethical, if abortion is unethical.
Which of course brings us back to the other debate. Personally I don't believe that abortion is unethical, because it's a matter of personal choice to bring a new life into the world. If the fetus/whatever is not capable of being born into the world and kept alive outside of its mother's body, even with the best of modern medical care, then it is a part and parcel of the mother's body and her concern.
It is no more murder to not bring the baby to term than it is murder to refuse to have as many pregnancies as is humanly possible from as soon as it becomes possible on the grounds that any less would be to prevent a new life and thus a murder.
We need population control. We also need choice in how to run our own lives. Get over it.
Before I begin, I'd better state that I agree with you - broadly. But I have a couple of quibbles...
'Did just fine' isn't really right. There's always been suffering, and to my mind there always will be, no matter how good we get at collecting resources, medicine, whatever. Misery is a part of the human condition - take it away (by direct artificial influence on the brain, say), and we cease to be human. It is arguable, however, that better tech, psychology, social policy, etc. has created the potential to cheer more people up more of the time. Repeat: the potential. We are, however, going to have to rapidly replan our expansionist criteria on a global level (which sadly necessitates global control) if we aren't going to have a major crisis in the very near future. At which point, if we can be said to be 'doing just fine' at the moment, we could rapidly cease to do so and may just possibly end up looking at the current era as a kind of golden age (hah).
Besides, there're quite a few logistical problems which will require a massive amount of new tech (say 100 years of sustained development) to sort out before we have a hope of profitably colonising a new planet, IMHO. And we can't count on the next 10 years, let alone the next 100. We need to improve our odds fast, and that means big changes, some of which will hurt. Plus ca change.
> Begin quote
They would need to cover 1% of the lunar surface on BOTH sides of the moon, because only half of the solar panels would be in sunlight at a time.
They would need to cover 5% of the surface, because the cells are only 20% efficient.
Combine those two problems, and you have 10% of the surface of the moon covered in solar panels.
> End quote
No, you don't. You cover 5% of the total surface (or 3%, if a previous poster was correct, but we'll stick to 5 for now). That way, you'll always be covering 5% of the surface in the light. The 'both sides' of the moon argument is flawed, because you're always talking about the total energy received anyway. So, that's 10% of the total (or 6) rather than 20. It's still a monumental amount, but a lot less so.
I also don't see why an environmentalist should complain about being able to 'see' solar panels on the moon. Environmentalism isn't about preserving purely aesthetic matters, but about preserving natural resources. A lot of valuable, endagered habitats aren't all that attractive, but are still valuable. And I'm not sure it would be all that ugly anyway.
I'm not saying the suggestion is good, merely that your refutation is flawed, albeit based (apparently) on a very reasonable premise (excessive cost involved).
Actually (and very OT), you'd have a good chance of being right if you accused those health nuts of having Herpes too - 60-90% of the world's population has been infected with Herpes Simplex Virus 1, and it tends to kick around in a latent form. Furthermore, you could also tell them that 1% of their genome consists of viral inserts, and that therefore they are a GMO (sorta), but they might not thank you for it.
Perhaps, but I'm hoping that habits will change pretty soon. If you look at the ever-growing effectiveness of renewables, there's real reason to hope for a genuinely clean solution. Even at present tech, Germany gets 50% of its energy from them, and they (particularly wind turbines) are getting cheaper and better all the time.
Long term, though, I'm still hoping for fusion. Between that and fuel cells, we could (theoretically) use massive amounts of energy while only endangering ourselves a fraction as much as we do today.
I very much doubt that the answer to the present population expansion lies in exploring the solar system. At current tech, it would take immense resources to keep even a few colonists on the most suitable planet (Mars). The same as a massively larger population back home.
The real benefits of exploring the solar system would be scientific knowledge and, medium to long term, mining of resources rare on Earth. Colonisation would be very long term - by current estimates, based on predictions for tech improvements, it would take 100 years and a shitload of resources to terraform Mars (based on an article I read in Focus a few years back). It's best that we wait until we really have the tech to do it well, and try to sort out our problems at home at home in the meantime.
'molars' come from God? Fair enough, if you accept creationism, which I don't. It scarcely needs pointing out though ;-)
I still have difficulty with the thought of a god to whom it really matters, if he/she/it has the power to create a universe in which one small part (that we know of) has free will and the capacity to vaguely guess at His nature and receive messages from Him should honestly care what we think of him? Surely it would be gross egoism to imagine that your opinion on its existence could rank so highly with something so vast and incomprehensible?
OK, I'll bite.
How precisely is belief in evolution 'damaging'? Compared to say: war, plague, famine, injustice, murder, disloyalty, dishonesty, etc, from matters great to little, I struggle to see how I am damaged by my belief (as a best working hypothesis) in evolution or how my belief in evolution could damage others. Even if you disagree with it, I'd suggest that you seriously need a sense of proportion. (This from a man who's posting on slashdot when he should be writing a 2000 word essay on comparative genomics...)
In saying that this work believes in the reality of evolution, you are saying that it works on the assumption that the current scientific orthodoxy is accurate. And believe me that, as a biologist, we are just as certain about evolution as rocket engineers are that their designs are propelled by fuel etc rather than the will of God.
Of course, 'believing' in the current scientific orthodoxy would be wrong too, in terms of having faith in it being 100% correct. Almost everybody who can call themselves a scientist would feel quite certain that they cannot be certain of its accuracy, and shouldn't try to be. Science works on scepticism and guesswork based on the data available, not faith.
The militants on either side are equivalently bad, the citizens equivalently innocent. The only significant difference is in the extent of the suffering, the brunt of which is carried by the Palestinians, not because the Israelis are intrinsically worse, but because they are more powerful. Peace would benefit both sides. How then should peace be arranged?
The only peaceful and ethical solution would be a return to Israel's 1967 borders. People have a right to self determination, and the people in the occupied territories don't want to be a part of Israel, and don't want to leave their homes either. Therefore, ethically, they should have a right to stay and the new settlements should be disbanded. But Sharon and the religious extremists in Israel will never take those measures, which is a part of the tragedy.
Where you upset me is in accusing the Palestinians of being uncivilised. Hamas and the other groups have done some terrible things, but so have the Israelis. Ordinary Palestinians, on the whole, haven't, and neither have ordinary Israelis. It is still the innocents who take the majority of the pain. And when Israeli troops fire on ambulances and children, just how 'civilised' are they being? And the 'something' which Israel has made out of the desert has involved destroying as much as possible of the historical buildings and culture of the area which isn't Israeli.
I don't hate the Israelis. I hate the hate.
The US developed nukes to win the war, plain and simple. Their use was no more to be condemned than the conventional bombing which went on at the time; in fact, after the event, their use had some highly beneficial consequences, such as ending the war in the Pacific (probably decreasing overall the amount of civilian lives which would have been lost) and preventing a further world war by the nuclear deterrent.
The Nazis have a lot to be blamed for, but nukes are not one of them - the Nazi nuclear weapon programmes were a long way behind the US, largely because leading German scientists either believed it could not be done or had emigrated.
True, an induced higher rate of mutations does not tend to lead to an increased rate of evolution (unless it be towards radiation tolerance) since the vast majority of mutations are silent or disadvantageous. But this would have influenced evolution nevertheless, simply by killing a load of creatures and creating turmoil in the ecosystem, leading to a period of rapid change and differing evolutionary pressures.
Evolution occurs primarily in response to outside influences of the time, rather than towards any particular goal. Asteroid impacts, volcanic eruptions, and now apparently (although IANA astronomer, and mistrust CNN) supernovae all have a bearing on how things have turned out today.
I agree with the crux of your judgement, which is that actually using nuclear weapons will be of no benefit to the US. The only possible scenario in which it makes sense for any leader to use nuclear weapons is in response to nuclear weapons. In fact, even that would be disastrous in the event, but as a deterrent it's worked very well so far.
The points on which I differ are as follows:
China is unlikely to start a cold war with America as it's making too much of a profit from the present circumstances.
Russia is equally unlikely for the converse reason - it is too poor, and has become heavily dependent on the US-influenced IMF.
North Korea, however, is a definite possibility. But then it just about qualifies as being in a cold war as matters stand.
But what this would trigger would be a global political backlash against the US administration, both outside, and I would like to believe, inside the US itself. Nobody wants nukes to be used except in the utmost extremity. It sets a terrifying precedent.
I would like to believe that even the UK and Canada might pull out of backing the US should it take such action. Fortunately, even with the Toxic Texan at the controls, the odds of nukes being used are still very slim as I see them.
Well, technically, 84 countries have signed it (including the USA) and 49 of those have ratified it or similar. The trouble is, that the countries doing the ratification are those that do the least damage and suffer the most, as can be observed when you look down the list, shown here:
http://unfccc.int/resource/kpstats.pdf
Incidentally, I was interested to note that no EU countries have actually ratified it yet.
Leaving the issue of moral relativism aside for now, it might perhaps be simply a matter of there being no 'good guys' or 'bad guys' on a national level. To fight a war effectively means to do a hell of a lot of bad things. Not everybody on the side that's doing them has to be involved in the actions - conscientious objectors in WW1 working as stretcher bearers provides a case in point. But pretty much every side has to take decisions which will have unethical consequences, along the lines of civilian casualties etc.
Many of the rules that are set for conflicts, as laid down in the Geneva convention, are routinely broken by just about everybody in just about every conflict nowadays. The only real restraining factors on militiary action on the part of a western government these days are cost (not as limiting as it used to be, at least in terms of money if not in the blood of your own soldiers) and profitability (in terms of votes for the governing body at least as much as national profit).
Where then does the answer lie? Perhaps in pursuing peace rather than war, perhaps in pursuing justice (which would have to embrace all parties) rather than revenge. Perhaps in accepting our common humanity and the sacred nature (even to an atheist such as myself) of any human life as more important than national boundaries and the conflicting interest of empowered individuals.
Perhaps in not dismissing the deaths of hundreds or thousands of civilians as 'collateral damage'. Perhaps in not unsustainably exploiting another country and culture to the point of engineering widespread suffering and resultant collapse. Perhaps in getting outside of our little local problems and local lives for just a short space of time and seeing how the rest of the world manages. Perhaps in not looking on our own misfortunes, including September 11th, as infinitely more tragic than those which occur outside of our borders and which destroy vastly more lives.
Is in coming this close to the 'real world', and still imagining good guys and bad guys. They don't really exist, especially in times of war, as history will tell you as often as you please. Still, it's twenty years in the future, so we can dream, right?
I have a problem with the original contention, which is that the problem is the proportion of humanity with non-Utopian traits in the population. I would counter that at our current level of technological and societal development, we could do extremely well with a small fraction of the present population, allowing for a complicated routine of reeducation etc.
But running with your idea for now, if you were to discriminatingly wipe out the world's population, who would you discriminate for/against, and on what criteria? IQ? Physical fitness (heh)? Success in life, perhaps with a value-added measure? Agreement with your own political/societal viewpoint? The last is the worst of a very bad set, but also the most popular historically.
And how would any society that would commit such an act of genocide ever have a hope of becoming truly utopian? Everyone would be worried who would be up for the block next, while hating the system, each other and themselves for being a part of it.
The only way to avoid genocide and select for a population would be to wait for something or someone to do it for you, and then save a chosen few million or so. And then rebuild from the ground up. But it's passing the buck - you'd still be choosing to let the rest of the world die, which is in practical terms the same as killing them yourself (is there a difference between not reaching out a hand to a drowning man and shooting him in the street, except perhaps that the second is quicker and more merciful?), not to mention massively unutopian.
The closest to a humane way of decreasing the world's population would be to enforce something along the lines of a global one child policy. Which is deeply f*cked up in itself, because in the long term you'd have a much smaller population of an age to work supporting a larger geriatric one (us). So what would you do then? Cull the pensioners?
The world is deeply screwed as things stand. But it's very hard to see any sane way of actually sorting it out. I'm inclined to get on with my own life, while things remain good, and live it as well (by which I mean at a good balance of fun and ethics) as I can for as long as I can. And most of the world, luckily, would more-or-less agree with me. So the party has a little while left, and with any luck, we may not make it through to see the morning after.