The possibility of a virus or other pathogen doing something severe to the world's population is a very serious threat, simply because history tends to repeat itself. The last really big death toll we had was in the 'Spanish flu' epidemic of 1918, which killed something in the region of 80 million people over a couple of years. And the larger the world's population gets, the greater the risk. Here are a few of the potential contenders:
Influenza: It could happen again, simply because the vast majority of the influenza family have yet to cross over to humans from their pig/avian/other hosts and when a new disease does cross (called a 'zoonosis') it can be extremely lethal, like the Hong Kong 'chicken flu' of 1997 which had a high fatality rate but was fortunately nipped in the bud due to its inability to cross from one human host to another.
Ebola: Currently a small killer, but a very efficient one. Too efficient, in fact - most people killed by it die within 8 days. All it needs is a slight alteration to its life-cycle involving a longer latency phase and it could be a world beater.
Smallpox: The possibility of a new outbreak from some unknown source clearly exists. There is also next to no remaining resistance, and it could travel all over the world extremely rapidly with a high fataility rate (just look at what happened when Europeans took it to the Americas). Vaccine stocks do exist in some Western nations, but only enough to cover a small, hermetically sealed population. In the event of a pandemic, more would have to be manufactured and fast, but it would still only save a fraction of the victims. Smallpox also leaves many survivors crippled, creating a burden for the rest.
HIV: In the unlikely event of this developing a better transmission system, this could be even more disastrous than it has already been and is set to become. But as it stands it's already bad enough.
I could go on, but I'm starting to depress myself. I don't like to predict the future, but I do think we should try to do something to acknowledge these threats and stave them off. (Despite the slightly sick theory of one of my friends that the only way we could ever attain a utopian society would be if some event happened to indiscriminately wipe out the vast majority of the world's population).
The NS does tend to the majority opinion, but last I read (and admittedly it has been a while since I was a subscriber) it did provide a forum for alternative viewpoints on a wide variety of issues which even included evolutionary scepticists in its opinion section.
And furthermore, the 'current majority' in scientific opinion (or as it's also termed, 'scientific orthodoxy') isn't such a bad thing. It tends to be the view most likely to be correct on the current evidence. Which doesn't, by any means, mean it's not up for questioning. Placing any part of it in an unchallengable position would be inheritably unscientific.
Which is why (slightly OT) I disagree with quite a bit of the vitriol which was thrown Bjorn Lomborg's way when he published a statistical study which challenges many widely-held views on the environment. Admittedly I haven't studied the figures he proposes and the alternatives put forward by the environmentalists myself (and I will admit a bias to the environmental side) but many of the attacks came from the wrong direction. It sounded far too much like the majority of environmental scientists were questioning his right to challenge their position, rather than, say, the selective use of data which it is alleged he made to challenge it.
And whether, at the end of the day, he turns out to be right (which would be nice in a way, as his conclusions were pretty optimistic) or, as the majority would have it, wrong, he had a perfect right to say what he did, no matter who or what it challenged. But that's enough of a sidetrack for now;)
It's generally better than filtering for your own matching political opinion first. The seperation of science & politics is rather like the seperation of church and state - it's never going to be complete, since scientists hold positions on political issues and politicians hold positions on scientific issues, and even have to talk about them from time to time (although most scientists find it painful when they do). But it's a good idea to avoid getting your scientific opinions from sources from one side of the political debate.
Very true, but it doesn't have to be that way. We have, admittedly by great struggle, taken some steps in the right direction, but we still continue to repeat all these mistakes of the past. Long term, they don't benefit us. We have the power today to really help the world, but we choose not to use it. That's exactly like refusing to pull a drowning man out of the water. It's exactly like murder, carried out daily for our luxurious benefits on a massive scale. But we can change it, and we must.
I'm not comparing Western society in a negative light to other societies old or new. I'm comparing it to what its potential could be. The truth is that we squander resources on expensive luxuries (and weaponry), selfishly denying the needs of the rest of the world in favour of those of our own nations.
I'm basically favouring the internationalist view - we need to think global, in the modern day and age, not only because of our common humanity (how come the life or death of a citizen of the West matters so massively more to his fellow citizens than that of his brother in the third world?) but also because of enlightened self-interest. Fundamentally, what goes around comes around, and with modern technology, it happens a great deal faster. If we want to be safe from terror, the whole world must be protected with us, and from us. The same goes equally for war, hunger, and pestilence. The rest of the world accepts the West's domination not because it benefits them, because it clearly does not benefit them to be exploited as they are, but because our military muscle leaves them no choice.
I'm asking that we should give the world bread, not bullets. Even from a right-wing viewpoint, the argument is obvious - stability yields productivity, which yields profit. You don't like immigrants? Then challenge the poverty which pushes them to leave their homes and risk their lives to share your luxury. You want to bring foreign criminals, such as Osama bin Laden to justice? Then set up an international justice system to whom all are answerable (something to which the US administration is stridently opposed). You want to be safe from epidemics? Set up an infrastructure to deal with them at source, wherever it may be.
Through acting with integrity, give and gain peace. It's a lot to ask, of a lot of people, and I can't foresee it happening in the immediate political climate (or any political climate we've ever had, come to that), but it's also got a lot to offer.
And America started out as a nation of invaders from an entirely different continent who slaughtered or at least supplanted the native peoples to set up shop themselves (to begin with as part of the general European Imperialist Colonisation method, before being continued with equal zeal after splitting off for tax purposes). And the Statue of Liberty may ask for 'your poor, your needy' etc but take a look at the Mexican border - we europeans came and stayed, and don't want too many poor people coming in and upsetting our rich and lazy lives.
On the plus side, there are many, many ways in which the USA is less f*cked-up than much of the rest of the world, but that's not saying a great deal. And besides, the West (America included) did a whole lot of the f*cking-up of the rest of the world and continues to do so. We owe the world a huge debt, much of it in blood, and yet they are paying us crippling rates of interest on loans made long ago.
The funny thing is, I don't hate America or Americans. I don't hate the West in general. It all comes down to one thing, the thing which above all else in this world I love and fear. People. And all they are doing is being human.
40,000 people die every day of easily preventable or curable diseases (according to Unicef). This is a tragedy which we are only too happy to ignore. The twin towers was a drop in the ocean by comparison - it would have to happen ~6 times a day, every day to keep up. AIDS is spreading throughout the third world, targetting primarily people of working age, so that those not subjected to a slow and lingering death are left even more destitute. In Rwanda, millions of people were killed in a war of genocide the West ignored completely, because there was no money in intervention. Unlike, say, Iraq, where the sanctions which GWB wishes to toughen up
are killing children every day through starvation and lack of medical supplies, and have killed (acc. to Amnesty International) more than a million already. That's the Twin Towers >150 times over, to be conservative with the figures.
The West needs to straighten up, and be honest about where our money and our privileges come from. We need to heal the world now, as fast as we can reasonably manage. We need to do what we can, be it ethical consumerism (choosing fair trade products; boycotting unethical companies), political action, giving donations to people who need them to survive or at the very least investing it ethically, aid work and/or ethical employment. (Question: How many times can I repeat the word ethics? As many as it takes).
Peace, but this world's in a mess. We have the potential today and the resources to really and clearly help, so why not start today?
This critter can withstand up to 30,000 Gy of ionising radiation (enough to blast normally packaged DNA into tiny fragments) and continue to grow, whereas a human can be killed by as little as 5 Gy. Many other bacteria, although less impressive while still going, can form endospores which can give them a high level of protection, in some cases higher even than d. Radiodurans.
Yes, but if Jupiter did hold life, it would quite likely be accustomed to objects falling out of the sky, due to the pounding which Jupiter regularly takes (handily protecting us in the process). True, these would typically not have a nuclear reactor on board, but the main destructive energy is simply derived from the heat released upon entry into the atmosphere. Which is a fairly odd word to use about Jupiter anyway, on the basis that, as we all know, it's basically a giant gaseous pressure cooker.
Europan life might well not be so durable in such a regard as Jupiter's life might be. And furthermore, Earth bacteria have a much higher chance of surviving & growing on Europa _if_ they survived the journey and the crash than they do on Jupiter, based on our current rather limited knowledge. The actual probability of a highly specialised Earth hyperthermophile (organism which enjoys high temperatures) and hyperbarophile (organism which enjoys high pressure) making it all the way there is negligible.
Humanity screws with the world for fun, or gainful employment. This, in turn, screws up humanity. The only time humanity stops screwing with the world is when it isn't doing anything productive, such as when it's drinking beer, watching TV or posting on slashdot. Therefore it is in humanity's interests not to risk too much work. Therefore, non-work, such as drinking is good. Therefore, robots would be begging you to sit back, have a beer and let them make sure the world works right.
All the research stations down in Antarctica are funded primarily because maintaining them gives their countries of origin dibs on local oil reserves etc. once the general ban on drilling down there finally gets chucked (it happened to Alaska). I'm not saying that they don't do good research there (they do) and nor am I disputing the validity of this particular project (it being a fair way out of my sphere of expertise). But it's a sad thing that all of this is really just a front - kind of like how all that NASA funding in the Cold War also helped to yield some nifty weaponry with good publicity laid on.
2. No. Thermodynamics rules that you can't get more out than you put in.
But if the original source of the energy for the seperation is renewable, then you've still practically got something for nothing, so it's not all bad. Geothermal, Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydroelectric (where the dam doesn't cause too much destruction) - all of these are good places where we could be generating hydrogen by electrolysis.
I haven't been in a car since September. But then, I've been living in a city of quite manageable size (Edinburgh, Scotland) and have found my good old bicycle quite sufficient.
In addition to the efficiency and other arguments pointed out already, hydrogen fuel cells have certain other advantages over any ICE. They're more reliable - less risk of a breakdown and les maintenance requirements (another reason NASA used them). They're quieter, so there's less noise pollution (and as someone who lives in a flat backing onto a busy street, I for one would appreciate this). Because they generate electricity before mechanical power, they can be used to efficiently power external sources far better than your car battery, which as you know is charged by your ICE.
Basically, they're good. The primary reason they're not established is that they're not established, and ICEs are.
As I recall, Iceland have a scheme some time back by which they chose to power 1/3 of their fishing fleet by hydrogen produced through electolysis at Geothermal power plants. Does anyone know how this turned out?
Personally, I quite like the idea of a highly engineered, aesthetically pleasing footbridge. It's good to get away from the car (this from a man who cycles 3.5 hours a week just to get to lectures, rehearsals etc). The beauty of such a design is in the concept, and the realisation of such a concept seems well-suited for non-motorised forms of transport. Cars would probably just get it dirty anyway;)
Ideally, of course, not only should the Northern Alliance be the ones to take Kabul etc, but also it should be a significantly changed Northern Alliance - much as we would like to think that the appliance of our morality to the region is inappropriate, a great deal of morality is globally applicable and should be applied in this case. If the Northern Alliance's leaders knew that to get western support they'd absolutely have to get themselves some kind of an ethical charter, they'd probably get the charter. As it is, they're massively outnumbered by the Taliban (NA troops - 7000 to 21000, Taliban 50000 to 100000, according to the somewhat loose and varient estimates reported in the UK media, which means the numbers are at least 5:1 against them), and although they are currently capturing fresh territory, they'll never be able to completely take power alone. And even if/when they do, it'll be a long and bloody conflict by any account. There are no easy victories in that kind of terrain - it's worth pointing out that the mountains in Afghanistan were produced by the same tectonic movements as the Himalaya, and are pretty high and rugged by anyone's standards. Besides which, pretty soon no troops are going to be moving at all, with the snow coming in as it is. It's no coincidence that no one power-system has been in control of Afghanistan for 22 years. Go back a bit further, and the traditional rulership of the country was a loose federation of disparate tribes, with no one in control over the others - it's just not feasible. No external invader has ever profited from Afghanistan either, over all of history. I'm not disputing that the West needs to get involved, but we should go in with our eyes open.
Your definition of Agnosticism seems to derive its moral element from humanism, IMHO. Humanism, acc. to loosely-remembered Sartre, is 'a moral system derived solely from common sense and our own experiences'. Personally, I'm a weak atheist humanist existentialist. Approximately;)
Which is all the more reason why they need an infrastructure, as quickly as possible. And they aren't going to get one without outside assistance of some kind. And by the way, the word's 'Afghans', hence 'Afghanistan' meaning, more or less 'country of the Afghans' - kinda like Tajikistan, Turkmenistan etc. Pakistan seems to be the rare exception in this, for some reason.
Or history, for that matter? The day we allow our governments to commit any such actions of genocide as you describe would be the day that we prostitute ourselves and our integrity for very short term gain. And for your information, much of the middle-east has been immensely valuable historically. It was the first place to have really successful agriculture, which laid the groundwork for the first civilizations, such as the Sumerians and Babylonians, also of the middle east. The middle-east was also the origin of the knowledge which allowed the Renaissance to take place - knowledge of the Ancient Greeks which had been substantially expanded upon. This is fundamental to our own culture.
More recently, Afghanistan provided a major stumbling block to the USSR, which in turn helped lead to the victory of the West in the cold war, and so to the increased potential of democracy and human rights to spread to the rest of the world. Let's build a better world, not destroy it and burn in the ruins.
I'm really impressed by your arguments here. A couple of other examples backing up your 'rule of law' argument - the longest lasting empires in history have always had some form of definite legal structure. With the Chinese, Roman, Ottoman &, I vaguely believe, Abyssinian empires (OK, so the last was fairly small, but it did stick around for ~1500 years, if I remember my Thesiger correctly), the vast majority of the populace were controlled by a system of laws that bound and dictated 'civilised' behaviour. I'm uncertain about other long-lasting nations/empires, but would be happy to be better informed. It may not have applied to the rulers, or even sometimes the ruling classes, but it did create the basic framework within which many complex and valuable institutions could exist. It also was often quite divergent with modern, Western, judicial practice but I guess that's progress for you. Incidentally, the Ottoman empire was brought down partly by Western sponsored Saudi nationalists back in WW1 - does this sound familiar to anyone?
It's not entirely the case that there will be nothing to rebuild. When Afghanistan was last at peace (1978) it was poor, certainly, but did have a decent agricultural output and a fair-sized tourist trade (from what I remember reading in the Philips Geographical Encyclopaedia anyway). I don't honestly expect that the second of these could be rebuilt anytime within the next ten years minimum, but doing something to restore the farms which the Soviets restored would be a step forward. It should also help a lot to restore the health infrastructure, roads, remove some of the massive amounts of landmines also left behind by the Soviets (tens of thousands of Afghans are injured or killed by these every year) and try to establish the rule of law and similar principles as delicately as possible. It won't be easy, and it will be expensive, but we cannot afford the destabilising effect of leaving the place in the shit as we did in 1989. Particularly with the current situation in Pakistan. It is in the West's interests to help these people, quite apart from the basic and powerful ethical considerations.
On the whole, I pretty much agree with what you said here - particularly about getting off topic. Perhaps it might be better to let the matter lie, and leave exact definitions to the courts. It probably doesn't help that I suspect we're from different countries (I'm from the UK; statistically, you're most likely to be from the US) with different legal systems which would v. likely contain subtly different definitions of murder and other classes of killing. It's been a pleasure discussing this with you.
I'm sorry to be going into the semantics here, but I would quibble your definition of murder. The 'unprovoked' is too weak - far better to spell out the self-defence or, perhaps, immediate protection of others. Malice is also incomplete - there are other inpermissable guiding factors. Such as needing a scapegoat, for example. Or trying to look 'hard' - it's just as wrong whether you're a person or a government.
You know, this is always the bit I like in a debate - where both parties come together on ground they agree on and find that (a) they cannot continue arguing easily without contradicting their own beliefs and (b) that they're never quite sure whether they won or lost. Personally, you see, I'm not too bothered about definitions but do agree that all three matters you mentioned are things I strongly oppose. It's been a pleasure nattering to you.
Slashdot Mirror
The possibility of a virus or other pathogen doing something severe to the world's population is a very serious threat, simply because history tends to repeat itself. The last really big death toll we had was in the 'Spanish flu' epidemic of 1918, which killed something in the region of 80 million people over a couple of years. And the larger the world's population gets, the greater the risk. Here are a few of the potential contenders:
Influenza: It could happen again, simply because the vast majority of the influenza family have yet to cross over to humans from their pig/avian/other hosts and when a new disease does cross (called a 'zoonosis') it can be extremely lethal, like the Hong Kong 'chicken flu' of 1997 which had a high fatality rate but was fortunately nipped in the bud due to its inability to cross from one human host to another.
Ebola: Currently a small killer, but a very efficient one. Too efficient, in fact - most people killed by it die within 8 days. All it needs is a slight alteration to its life-cycle involving a longer latency phase and it could be a world beater.
Smallpox: The possibility of a new outbreak from some unknown source clearly exists. There is also next to no remaining resistance, and it could travel all over the world extremely rapidly with a high fataility rate (just look at what happened when Europeans took it to the Americas). Vaccine stocks do exist in some Western nations, but only enough to cover a small, hermetically sealed population. In the event of a pandemic, more would have to be manufactured and fast, but it would still only save a fraction of the victims. Smallpox also leaves many survivors crippled, creating a burden for the rest.
HIV: In the unlikely event of this developing a better transmission system, this could be even more disastrous than it has already been and is set to become. But as it stands it's already bad enough.
I could go on, but I'm starting to depress myself. I don't like to predict the future, but I do think we should try to do something to acknowledge these threats and stave them off. (Despite the slightly sick theory of one of my friends that the only way we could ever attain a utopian society would be if some event happened to indiscriminately wipe out the vast majority of the world's population).
Let's hope it doesn't happen soon.
The NS does tend to the majority opinion, but last I read (and admittedly it has been a while since I was a subscriber) it did provide a forum for alternative viewpoints on a wide variety of issues which even included evolutionary scepticists in its opinion section.
;)
And furthermore, the 'current majority' in scientific opinion (or as it's also termed, 'scientific orthodoxy') isn't such a bad thing. It tends to be the view most likely to be correct on the current evidence. Which doesn't, by any means, mean it's not up for questioning. Placing any part of it in an unchallengable position would be inheritably unscientific.
Which is why (slightly OT) I disagree with quite a bit of the vitriol which was thrown Bjorn Lomborg's way when he published a statistical study which challenges many widely-held views on the environment. Admittedly I haven't studied the figures he proposes and the alternatives put forward by the environmentalists myself (and I will admit a bias to the environmental side) but many of the attacks came from the wrong direction. It sounded far too much like the majority of environmental scientists were questioning his right to challenge their position, rather than, say, the selective use of data which it is alleged he made to challenge it.
And whether, at the end of the day, he turns out to be right (which would be nice in a way, as his conclusions were pretty optimistic) or, as the majority would have it, wrong, he had a perfect right to say what he did, no matter who or what it challenged. But that's enough of a sidetrack for now
It pays at a time like this to actually step back and have a look at the facts, from a balanced source:
9 99 91938
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns
It's generally better than filtering for your own matching political opinion first. The seperation of science & politics is rather like the seperation of church and state - it's never going to be complete, since scientists hold positions on political issues and politicians hold positions on scientific issues, and even have to talk about them from time to time (although most scientists find it painful when they do). But it's a good idea to avoid getting your scientific opinions from sources from one side of the political debate.
Very true, but it doesn't have to be that way. We have, admittedly by great struggle, taken some steps in the right direction, but we still continue to repeat all these mistakes of the past. Long term, they don't benefit us. We have the power today to really help the world, but we choose not to use it. That's exactly like refusing to pull a drowning man out of the water. It's exactly like murder, carried out daily for our luxurious benefits on a massive scale. But we can change it, and we must.
Oh, and well-spotted about the England part.
I'm not comparing Western society in a negative light to other societies old or new. I'm comparing it to what its potential could be. The truth is that we squander resources on expensive luxuries (and weaponry), selfishly denying the needs of the rest of the world in favour of those of our own nations.
I'm basically favouring the internationalist view - we need to think global, in the modern day and age, not only because of our common humanity (how come the life or death of a citizen of the West matters so massively more to his fellow citizens than that of his brother in the third world?) but also because of enlightened self-interest. Fundamentally, what goes around comes around, and with modern technology, it happens a great deal faster. If we want to be safe from terror, the whole world must be protected with us, and from us. The same goes equally for war, hunger, and pestilence. The rest of the world accepts the West's domination not because it benefits them, because it clearly does not benefit them to be exploited as they are, but because our military muscle leaves them no choice.
I'm asking that we should give the world bread, not bullets. Even from a right-wing viewpoint, the argument is obvious - stability yields productivity, which yields profit. You don't like immigrants? Then challenge the poverty which pushes them to leave their homes and risk their lives to share your luxury. You want to bring foreign criminals, such as Osama bin Laden to justice? Then set up an international justice system to whom all are answerable (something to which the US administration is stridently opposed). You want to be safe from epidemics? Set up an infrastructure to deal with them at source, wherever it may be.
Through acting with integrity, give and gain peace. It's a lot to ask, of a lot of people, and I can't foresee it happening in the immediate political climate (or any political climate we've ever had, come to that), but it's also got a lot to offer.
And America started out as a nation of invaders from an entirely different continent who slaughtered or at least supplanted the native peoples to set up shop themselves (to begin with as part of the general European Imperialist Colonisation method, before being continued with equal zeal after splitting off for tax purposes). And the Statue of Liberty may ask for 'your poor, your needy' etc but take a look at the Mexican border - we europeans came and stayed, and don't want too many poor people coming in and upsetting our rich and lazy lives.
On the plus side, there are many, many ways in which the USA is less f*cked-up than much of the rest of the world, but that's not saying a great deal. And besides, the West (America included) did a whole lot of the f*cking-up of the rest of the world and continues to do so. We owe the world a huge debt, much of it in blood, and yet they are paying us crippling rates of interest on loans made long ago.
The funny thing is, I don't hate America or Americans. I don't hate the West in general. It all comes down to one thing, the thing which above all else in this world I love and fear. People. And all they are doing is being human.
40,000 people die every day of easily preventable or curable diseases (according to Unicef). This is a tragedy which we are only too happy to ignore. The twin towers was a drop in the ocean by comparison - it would have to happen ~6 times a day, every day to keep up. AIDS is spreading throughout the third world, targetting primarily people of working age, so that those not subjected to a slow and lingering death are left even more destitute. In Rwanda, millions of people were killed in a war of genocide the West ignored completely, because there was no money in intervention. Unlike, say, Iraq, where the sanctions which GWB wishes to toughen up
are killing children every day through starvation and lack of medical supplies, and have killed (acc. to Amnesty International) more than a million already. That's the Twin Towers >150 times over, to be conservative with the figures.
The West needs to straighten up, and be honest about where our money and our privileges come from. We need to heal the world now, as fast as we can reasonably manage. We need to do what we can, be it ethical consumerism (choosing fair trade products; boycotting unethical companies), political action, giving donations to people who need them to survive or at the very least investing it ethically, aid work and/or ethical employment. (Question: How many times can I repeat the word ethics? As many as it takes).
Peace, but this world's in a mess. We have the potential today and the resources to really and clearly help, so why not start today?
This critter can withstand up to 30,000 Gy of ionising radiation (enough to blast normally packaged DNA into tiny fragments) and continue to grow, whereas a human can be killed by as little as 5 Gy. Many other bacteria, although less impressive while still going, can form endospores which can give them a high level of protection, in some cases higher even than d. Radiodurans.
Yes, but if Jupiter did hold life, it would quite likely be accustomed to objects falling out of the sky, due to the pounding which Jupiter regularly takes (handily protecting us in the process). True, these would typically not have a nuclear reactor on board, but the main destructive energy is simply derived from the heat released upon entry into the atmosphere. Which is a fairly odd word to use about Jupiter anyway, on the basis that, as we all know, it's basically a giant gaseous pressure cooker.
Europan life might well not be so durable in such a regard as Jupiter's life might be. And furthermore, Earth bacteria have a much higher chance of surviving & growing on Europa _if_ they survived the journey and the crash than they do on Jupiter, based on our current rather limited knowledge. The actual probability of a highly specialised Earth hyperthermophile (organism which enjoys high temperatures) and hyperbarophile (organism which enjoys high pressure) making it all the way there is negligible.
Humanity screws with the world for fun, or gainful employment. This, in turn, screws up humanity. The only time humanity stops screwing with the world is when it isn't doing anything productive, such as when it's drinking beer, watching TV or posting on slashdot. Therefore it is in humanity's interests not to risk too much work. Therefore, non-work, such as drinking is good. Therefore, robots would be begging you to sit back, have a beer and let them make sure the world works right.
Go on, drink for humanity!
All the research stations down in Antarctica are funded primarily because maintaining them gives their countries of origin dibs on local oil reserves etc. once the general ban on drilling down there finally gets chucked (it happened to Alaska). I'm not saying that they don't do good research there (they do) and nor am I disputing the validity of this particular project (it being a fair way out of my sphere of expertise). But it's a sad thing that all of this is really just a front - kind of like how all that NASA funding in the Cold War also helped to yield some nifty weaponry with good publicity laid on.
2. No. Thermodynamics rules that you can't get more out than you put in.
But if the original source of the energy for the seperation is renewable, then you've still practically got something for nothing, so it's not all bad. Geothermal, Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydroelectric (where the dam doesn't cause too much destruction) - all of these are good places where we could be generating hydrogen by electrolysis.
I haven't been in a car since September. But then, I've been living in a city of quite manageable size (Edinburgh, Scotland) and have found my good old bicycle quite sufficient.
In addition to the efficiency and other arguments pointed out already, hydrogen fuel cells have certain other advantages over any ICE. They're more reliable - less risk of a breakdown and les maintenance requirements (another reason NASA used them). They're quieter, so there's less noise pollution (and as someone who lives in a flat backing onto a busy street, I for one would appreciate this). Because they generate electricity before mechanical power, they can be used to efficiently power external sources far better than your car battery, which as you know is charged by your ICE.
Basically, they're good. The primary reason they're not established is that they're not established, and ICEs are.
As I recall, Iceland have a scheme some time back by which they chose to power 1/3 of their fishing fleet by hydrogen produced through electolysis at Geothermal power plants. Does anyone know how this turned out?
Personally, I quite like the idea of a highly engineered, aesthetically pleasing footbridge. It's good to get away from the car (this from a man who cycles 3.5 hours a week just to get to lectures, rehearsals etc). The beauty of such a design is in the concept, and the realisation of such a concept seems well-suited for non-motorised forms of transport. Cars would probably just get it dirty anyway ;)
Ideally, of course, not only should the Northern Alliance be the ones to take Kabul etc, but also it should be a significantly changed Northern Alliance - much as we would like to think that the appliance of our morality to the region is inappropriate, a great deal of morality is globally applicable and should be applied in this case. If the Northern Alliance's leaders knew that to get western support they'd absolutely have to get themselves some kind of an ethical charter, they'd probably get the charter. As it is, they're massively outnumbered by the Taliban (NA troops - 7000 to 21000, Taliban 50000 to 100000, according to the somewhat loose and varient estimates reported in the UK media, which means the numbers are at least 5:1 against them), and although they are currently capturing fresh territory, they'll never be able to completely take power alone. And even if/when they do, it'll be a long and bloody conflict by any account. There are no easy victories in that kind of terrain - it's worth pointing out that the mountains in Afghanistan were produced by the same tectonic movements as the Himalaya, and are pretty high and rugged by anyone's standards. Besides which, pretty soon no troops are going to be moving at all, with the snow coming in as it is. It's no coincidence that no one power-system has been in control of Afghanistan for 22 years. Go back a bit further, and the traditional rulership of the country was a loose federation of disparate tribes, with no one in control over the others - it's just not feasible. No external invader has ever profited from Afghanistan either, over all of history. I'm not disputing that the West needs to get involved, but we should go in with our eyes open.
Your definition of Agnosticism seems to derive its moral element from humanism, IMHO. Humanism, acc. to loosely-remembered Sartre, is 'a moral system derived solely from common sense and our own experiences'. Personally, I'm a weak atheist humanist existentialist. Approximately ;)
Which is all the more reason why they need an infrastructure, as quickly as possible. And they aren't going to get one without outside assistance of some kind. And by the way, the word's 'Afghans', hence 'Afghanistan' meaning, more or less 'country of the Afghans' - kinda like Tajikistan, Turkmenistan etc. Pakistan seems to be the rare exception in this, for some reason.
Or history, for that matter? The day we allow our governments to commit any such actions of genocide as you describe would be the day that we prostitute ourselves and our integrity for very short term gain. And for your information, much of the middle-east has been immensely valuable historically. It was the first place to have really successful agriculture, which laid the groundwork for the first civilizations, such as the Sumerians and Babylonians, also of the middle east. The middle-east was also the origin of the knowledge which allowed the Renaissance to take place - knowledge of the Ancient Greeks which had been substantially expanded upon. This is fundamental to our own culture.
More recently, Afghanistan provided a major stumbling block to the USSR, which in turn helped lead to the victory of the West in the cold war, and so to the increased potential of democracy and human rights to spread to the rest of the world. Let's build a better world, not destroy it and burn in the ruins.
I'm really impressed by your arguments here. A couple of other examples backing up your 'rule of law' argument - the longest lasting empires in history have always had some form of definite legal structure. With the Chinese, Roman, Ottoman &, I vaguely believe, Abyssinian empires (OK, so the last was fairly small, but it did stick around for ~1500 years, if I remember my Thesiger correctly), the vast majority of the populace were controlled by a system of laws that bound and dictated 'civilised' behaviour. I'm uncertain about other long-lasting nations/empires, but would be happy to be better informed. It may not have applied to the rulers, or even sometimes the ruling classes, but it did create the basic framework within which many complex and valuable institutions could exist. It also was often quite divergent with modern, Western, judicial practice but I guess that's progress for you. Incidentally, the Ottoman empire was brought down partly by Western sponsored Saudi nationalists back in WW1 - does this sound familiar to anyone?
It's not entirely the case that there will be nothing to rebuild. When Afghanistan was last at peace (1978) it was poor, certainly, but did have a decent agricultural output and a fair-sized tourist trade (from what I remember reading in the Philips Geographical Encyclopaedia anyway). I don't honestly expect that the second of these could be rebuilt anytime within the next ten years minimum, but doing something to restore the farms which the Soviets restored would be a step forward. It should also help a lot to restore the health infrastructure, roads, remove some of the massive amounts of landmines also left behind by the Soviets (tens of thousands of Afghans are injured or killed by these every year) and try to establish the rule of law and similar principles as delicately as possible. It won't be easy, and it will be expensive, but we cannot afford the destabilising effect of leaving the place in the shit as we did in 1989. Particularly with the current situation in Pakistan. It is in the West's interests to help these people, quite apart from the basic and powerful ethical considerations.
On the whole, I pretty much agree with what you said here - particularly about getting off topic. Perhaps it might be better to let the matter lie, and leave exact definitions to the courts. It probably doesn't help that I suspect we're from different countries (I'm from the UK; statistically, you're most likely to be from the US) with different legal systems which would v. likely contain subtly different definitions of murder and other classes of killing. It's been a pleasure discussing this with you.
Of course actually reading your commen makes me realise that my actual mistake was the adding of an extra zero - gotta watch those typos!
I'm sorry to be going into the semantics here, but I would quibble your definition of murder. The 'unprovoked' is too weak - far better to spell out the self-defence or, perhaps, immediate protection of others. Malice is also incomplete - there are other inpermissable guiding factors. Such as needing a scapegoat, for example. Or trying to look 'hard' - it's just as wrong whether you're a person or a government.
You know, this is always the bit I like in a debate - where both parties come together on ground they agree on and find that (a) they cannot continue arguing easily without contradicting their own beliefs and (b) that they're never quite sure whether they won or lost. Personally, you see, I'm not too bothered about definitions but do agree that all three matters you mentioned are things I strongly oppose. It's been a pleasure nattering to you.