However, sometimes social media can work for the greater good. Take this instance http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/12/facebook.alibi/index.html where police were able to verify a status update to prove that someone was falsely accused of a crime.
That might happen in the developed world but you have to remember these few things.
A) In a lot of natural disasters everyone is the victim, there are few people just surfing the internet who are completely unaffected and can go 2 miles to loot
B) Looting will happen anyways, its generally pretty easy to tell where someone isn't at home and there are valuables left unguarded
C) Power outages plus the fact that most disasters that would require this are in the undeveloped world means that not everyone can easily have access to the information
The game is designed such that two users can play together online (no split-screen), each controlling one of the heroes.
Wonderful! I like nothing better than to play RPGs that are going to stop working in 5 years!
The problem with all these online console games is servers are going to be turned off far sooner than with PC equivalents (chances are, servers for WoW are going to be up in 2020 and beyond) making the game almost unplayable. Even with PC games, you can host your own server, you can't do that really with console games.
I don't mind paying a -bit- of money for games that are going to go away in 5 years, for example I play The Orange Box on the 360 because I only paid ~$7 used but I'm sure not gonna pay $60 for online-focused games.
Don't you guys get attacked by terrorists every single day then? Because over here in the US if you don't identify everyone based on their IP address we're gonna have 9/11 -EVERY DAY-!
...Yeah, because we all know how easy it is for sites to work together, right? What did you expect? Except for their own services, Google can't make other people implement a scripting language...
Let's celebrate the rise of this sort of universal "accessibility" which leads to more viruses, more "PC" stores like Best Buy/Geek Squad and in general the decline of the computer. Yeah, its great if you are like Geek Squad and can charge $50 to plug in a USB cable and install drivers ( see http://www.geeksquad.com/services/computer/service.aspx?id=2927 ) for everyone else? It is a nightmare.
...And the 5 year old may believe it for a time, then question it, and then forget it in a week. Few people are going to believe anything the first time they hear it and it will stick with them.
Not cheap, but rather free. Get a computer and and have access to just about every text pre-1910-ish via the internet. The only downside is you generally get crappy translations of classic works when compared to modern editions, but such is life.
...And discrimination is illegal based on race but that doesn't stop racial discrimination does it? Discrimination in a lot of forms was illegal during segregation, yet you would hardly consider it discrimination free.
Well, you must have had better textbooks than what I had. Most of my books (from about 5 years ago) were pure unsourced editorials. It contained almost no information beyond what the victors had to say. For example, the American Civil War section barely even touched on the Confederacy, it failed to mention any conflict beyond the black-and-white slavery vs abolition of slavery. There was nothing on the fact that many of the people of the south owned no slaves, or the state's rights that caused part of it.
Same thing with World War II, the entire war was caused because Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews and that was the only reason for the war, right?
It's much much tougher to eliminate bias in your selection of primary sources than it is to write a bias free textbook.
Show me one. Throughout all my education I have not found a bias-free textbook.
Do you really expect them to have the expertise to tell which one is science and which is BS?
The thing is, no one knows exactly. The great thing is you encourage -thinking- if you only read the Diary of Anne Frank you are using an unreliable, biased source. Same thing with only reading Mein Kampf. If you read Mein Kampf you quickly realize Hitler was a terrible author and really outlines his arguments poorly. But, if you don't teach both sides to a story you can lead to things like the Neo-Nazi movement where in the propaganda movement of post-WWII you have things being exaggerated and the entire German army being vilified, which naturally, leads to sympathizers. If we teach both sides its easy to tell which side has the more outlandish arguments. For example, take this strange argument that quite honestly doesn't hold up.
If today all further Aryan influence on Japan should stop, assuming that Europe and America should perish, Japan's present rise in science and technology might continue for a short time; but even in a few years the well would dry up, the Japanese special character would gain, but the present culture would freeze and sink back into the slumber from which it was awakened seven decades ago by the wave of Aryan culture.
Even a basic student would look at this statement and wonder how this would hold up, considering that Japan is doing quite well without the instruction of Hitler's Aryan race of blond haired, blue eyed Nordic people.
The point being, its impossible to write a bias free textbook, and by reading primary sources it is quite easy to figure out which ideology is better.
Even then, its pretty easy to launch a strike on them. Its hard to reform a country (such as Iraq, Vietnam, etc) but its a lot easier to win wars militarily. A coordinated bombing effort and strikes on Pyongyang would collapse the North Korean government, as would assassinations on their "dear leader" because of the personality cult. Same thing with strikes on key cities in Iran. China is very sane and knows that war with any nation isn't going to bring them any benefits and may cause their large population to revolt. If Iran/North Korea tries to do anything, they will be easy to stop any real threat to the US and western Europe. Now if you can reform the country is a different story. Similar to how we easily won the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but its hard to reform the country.
But none of those are cataclysmic. Yes, it may lead to increased violence, but violence has always been a part of humanity. And violence doesn't mean that humanity will be destroyed. Oil will be phased out when it is really dwindling, we have a -lot- of oil, not limitless but a pretty large amount. Water will increase with newer advances in technology as will food. If we really start to run out of food, we can easily create greenhouses in uninhabited parts of the world that aren't very arable (Wyoming, the Dakotas, etc). Ethnic problems won't lead to massive-scale wars because they are all intermingled. There aren't any towns in the US that would be targets for large-scale ethnic warfare killing off large amounts of people like the World Wars or a hypothetical nuclear war.
Exactly, plus how much more learning will the students get from actually -reading- Aristotle, Plato, Chaucer, Voltaire, Kant, and Smith rather than reading -about- those people?
If everyone were forced to pay for their own education, we would have a less educated populace, as fewer people would be able to afford it, or would consider it valuable. We would have a less educated populace, creating less value, and we would be worse off overall.
We would be better off honestly. Think about it this way, how many people in your high school were complete idiots yet managed to pass? Right there we reduced the value of a high school education. Now think back to your college education, how many people there had no clue yet still got a bachelors degree? We just cheapened that degree. Add in colleges where you basically just pay money and get a degree and we have a system where no one can get ahead unless they pay -a lot- of money.
We now have a situation where you have to pay for more education than you would have with a private school (not to mention you still pay taxes even when you and your family don't use public education...) and "waste" a lot of time in school.
How many classes have -really- been of use to you in life? How many classes (especially in elementary/secondary/high school) have been ruined because some people who have no interest in the subject were simply there taking up space and disrupting the class?
In a pre-internet world and in a caste system world, public education paid by all was a good argument, we had classes to teach -thinking-, today? We don't even have them in university level. The point of education isn't to make everyone be educated but rather to make sure that the best people end up with the best roles. That a shepherd who was great at science could become a scientist, not that the shepherd who was great at raising sheep -had- to be the scientist which he was terribly poor at, which is what we have today.
When we have near universal access to the internet in the western world, there will be nearly no need to continue public education, all the information is there. If we taught thinking in school, there might be an argument to save it, but with the way that it is now? The sooner it dies the better for all.
A court can rule that the evidence goes against fact to prevent any more lawsuits about it. Similar to if a court would rule that X product is not likely to fail so you can't have a class action lawsuit.
What public health risk is there really? Even un-immunized the risks of most sicknesses are quite low to cause any real damage. Measles, Mumps and Rubella generally are low-mortality when generally speaking. About the only really severe sickness we immunize against is Tetanus (which you generally don't get from others), Polio (which is pretty much wiped out) and Smallpox which is totally wiped out.
Yeah, a few kids might be really sick, but if treatment is quick enough, it is easy to contain and cure. While I think not immunizing your kids is totally stupid, it isn't going to cause another plague.
The scary part is, its pretty easy for them to get a sample of DNA for "drug" testing. Its quite sad how bad the paranoia is about it. ZOMG its so terrible to have someone take phone calls that may have used drugs!!!111!!11!1
I think that humanity as a whole can easily last another 500 years, unless there is a sudden threat from space, I don't see humanity killing each other as much lately. Why? Because we are so connected. Back during the cold war, unless you came from Russia to America, you didn't know anyone in Russia, there was no media to connect you to Russia. It was easy to imagine Russia as the enemy. Today? We'd get both sides of the story and most people would be indecisive on whether to fight or not. Will there be wars? Of course. Will weapons of mass-scale destruction be used? Probably. Will humanity as a whole die out? I don't think so. We've come a long way from the cold war. And even the most alarmist predictions of "global warming" still leaves a very large habitable chunk of land for humans.
With every advancement in figuring out genetic diseases, I can't help but think that the combination of this plus drug testing will lead to genetic discrimination, or at least defamation.
Plus, even then is there much we -can- do if we figure out something is genetic?
in the next 1.5 million years. As the Oort Cloud is thought to be the source of many long-period comets, the gravitational effects of Gliese's passing could send a shower of comets into the inner Solar System, threatening Earth
So, in 1.5 million years we might possibly be threatened by some comets? Something tells me that unless we do something incredibly stupid in the next 1.5 million years, a lot of humanity isn't going to be on earth.
So, in short, how is this news? I don't think anyone is going to be around in 1.5 million years.
Slashdot Mirror
However, sometimes social media can work for the greater good. Take this instance http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/12/facebook.alibi/index.html where police were able to verify a status update to prove that someone was falsely accused of a crime.
Everything that passes either into the public domain or is open source helps humanity in one way or another.
That might happen in the developed world but you have to remember these few things.
A) In a lot of natural disasters everyone is the victim, there are few people just surfing the internet who are completely unaffected and can go 2 miles to loot
B) Looting will happen anyways, its generally pretty easy to tell where someone isn't at home and there are valuables left unguarded
C) Power outages plus the fact that most disasters that would require this are in the undeveloped world means that not everyone can easily have access to the information
The game is designed such that two users can play together online (no split-screen), each controlling one of the heroes.
Wonderful! I like nothing better than to play RPGs that are going to stop working in 5 years!
The problem with all these online console games is servers are going to be turned off far sooner than with PC equivalents (chances are, servers for WoW are going to be up in 2020 and beyond) making the game almost unplayable. Even with PC games, you can host your own server, you can't do that really with console games.
I don't mind paying a -bit- of money for games that are going to go away in 5 years, for example I play The Orange Box on the 360 because I only paid ~$7 used but I'm sure not gonna pay $60 for online-focused games.
Don't you guys get attacked by terrorists every single day then? Because over here in the US if you don't identify everyone based on their IP address we're gonna have 9/11 -EVERY DAY-!
...Yeah, because we all know how easy it is for sites to work together, right? What did you expect? Except for their own services, Google can't make other people implement a scripting language...
Let's celebrate the rise of this sort of universal "accessibility" which leads to more viruses, more "PC" stores like Best Buy/Geek Squad and in general the decline of the computer. Yeah, its great if you are like Geek Squad and can charge $50 to plug in a USB cable and install drivers ( see http://www.geeksquad.com/services/computer/service.aspx?id=2927 ) for everyone else? It is a nightmare.
...And if you look at the facts, you can see that all of the symptoms could easily be caused by driver error. Look at this http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/opinion/11schmidt.html?scp=1&sq=driver%20error&st=cse (currently the page doesn't need registration, your results may change in the coming days/hours).
Most software is nearly -impossible- to test under flawless conditions. Especially embedded systems with small amounts of CPU power and memory.
Plus, all this hype around these Toyota acceleration problems is just that, hype.
...And the 5 year old may believe it for a time, then question it, and then forget it in a week. Few people are going to believe anything the first time they hear it and it will stick with them.
Not cheap, but rather free. Get a computer and and have access to just about every text pre-1910-ish via the internet. The only downside is you generally get crappy translations of classic works when compared to modern editions, but such is life.
...And discrimination is illegal based on race but that doesn't stop racial discrimination does it? Discrimination in a lot of forms was illegal during segregation, yet you would hardly consider it discrimination free.
Well, you must have had better textbooks than what I had. Most of my books (from about 5 years ago) were pure unsourced editorials. It contained almost no information beyond what the victors had to say. For example, the American Civil War section barely even touched on the Confederacy, it failed to mention any conflict beyond the black-and-white slavery vs abolition of slavery. There was nothing on the fact that many of the people of the south owned no slaves, or the state's rights that caused part of it.
Same thing with World War II, the entire war was caused because Hitler wanted to kill all the Jews and that was the only reason for the war, right?
It's much much tougher to eliminate bias in your selection of primary sources than it is to write a bias free textbook.
Show me one. Throughout all my education I have not found a bias-free textbook.
Do you really expect them to have the expertise to tell which one is science and which is BS?
The thing is, no one knows exactly. The great thing is you encourage -thinking- if you only read the Diary of Anne Frank you are using an unreliable, biased source. Same thing with only reading Mein Kampf. If you read Mein Kampf you quickly realize Hitler was a terrible author and really outlines his arguments poorly. But, if you don't teach both sides to a story you can lead to things like the Neo-Nazi movement where in the propaganda movement of post-WWII you have things being exaggerated and the entire German army being vilified, which naturally, leads to sympathizers. If we teach both sides its easy to tell which side has the more outlandish arguments. For example, take this strange argument that quite honestly doesn't hold up.
If today all further Aryan influence on Japan should stop, assuming that Europe and America should perish, Japan's present rise in science and technology might continue for a short time; but even in a few years the well would dry up, the Japanese special character would gain, but the present culture would freeze and sink back into the slumber from which it was awakened seven decades ago by the wave of Aryan culture.
Even a basic student would look at this statement and wonder how this would hold up, considering that Japan is doing quite well without the instruction of Hitler's Aryan race of blond haired, blue eyed Nordic people.
The point being, its impossible to write a bias free textbook, and by reading primary sources it is quite easy to figure out which ideology is better.
Even then, its pretty easy to launch a strike on them. Its hard to reform a country (such as Iraq, Vietnam, etc) but its a lot easier to win wars militarily. A coordinated bombing effort and strikes on Pyongyang would collapse the North Korean government, as would assassinations on their "dear leader" because of the personality cult. Same thing with strikes on key cities in Iran. China is very sane and knows that war with any nation isn't going to bring them any benefits and may cause their large population to revolt. If Iran/North Korea tries to do anything, they will be easy to stop any real threat to the US and western Europe. Now if you can reform the country is a different story. Similar to how we easily won the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but its hard to reform the country.
But none of those are cataclysmic. Yes, it may lead to increased violence, but violence has always been a part of humanity. And violence doesn't mean that humanity will be destroyed. Oil will be phased out when it is really dwindling, we have a -lot- of oil, not limitless but a pretty large amount. Water will increase with newer advances in technology as will food. If we really start to run out of food, we can easily create greenhouses in uninhabited parts of the world that aren't very arable (Wyoming, the Dakotas, etc). Ethnic problems won't lead to massive-scale wars because they are all intermingled. There aren't any towns in the US that would be targets for large-scale ethnic warfare killing off large amounts of people like the World Wars or a hypothetical nuclear war.
Exactly, plus how much more learning will the students get from actually -reading- Aristotle, Plato, Chaucer, Voltaire, Kant, and Smith rather than reading -about- those people?
If everyone were forced to pay for their own education, we would have a less educated populace, as fewer people would be able to afford it, or would consider it valuable. We would have a less educated populace, creating less value, and we would be worse off overall.
We would be better off honestly. Think about it this way, how many people in your high school were complete idiots yet managed to pass? Right there we reduced the value of a high school education. Now think back to your college education, how many people there had no clue yet still got a bachelors degree? We just cheapened that degree. Add in colleges where you basically just pay money and get a degree and we have a system where no one can get ahead unless they pay -a lot- of money.
We now have a situation where you have to pay for more education than you would have with a private school (not to mention you still pay taxes even when you and your family don't use public education...) and "waste" a lot of time in school.
How many classes have -really- been of use to you in life? How many classes (especially in elementary/secondary/high school) have been ruined because some people who have no interest in the subject were simply there taking up space and disrupting the class?
In a pre-internet world and in a caste system world, public education paid by all was a good argument, we had classes to teach -thinking-, today? We don't even have them in university level. The point of education isn't to make everyone be educated but rather to make sure that the best people end up with the best roles. That a shepherd who was great at science could become a scientist, not that the shepherd who was great at raising sheep -had- to be the scientist which he was terribly poor at, which is what we have today.
When we have near universal access to the internet in the western world, there will be nearly no need to continue public education, all the information is there. If we taught thinking in school, there might be an argument to save it, but with the way that it is now? The sooner it dies the better for all.
A court can rule that the evidence goes against fact to prevent any more lawsuits about it. Similar to if a court would rule that X product is not likely to fail so you can't have a class action lawsuit.
What public health risk is there really? Even un-immunized the risks of most sicknesses are quite low to cause any real damage. Measles, Mumps and Rubella generally are low-mortality when generally speaking. About the only really severe sickness we immunize against is Tetanus (which you generally don't get from others), Polio (which is pretty much wiped out) and Smallpox which is totally wiped out.
Yeah, a few kids might be really sick, but if treatment is quick enough, it is easy to contain and cure. While I think not immunizing your kids is totally stupid, it isn't going to cause another plague.
The scary part is, its pretty easy for them to get a sample of DNA for "drug" testing. Its quite sad how bad the paranoia is about it. ZOMG its so terrible to have someone take phone calls that may have used drugs!!!111!!11!1
I think that humanity as a whole can easily last another 500 years, unless there is a sudden threat from space, I don't see humanity killing each other as much lately. Why? Because we are so connected. Back during the cold war, unless you came from Russia to America, you didn't know anyone in Russia, there was no media to connect you to Russia. It was easy to imagine Russia as the enemy. Today? We'd get both sides of the story and most people would be indecisive on whether to fight or not. Will there be wars? Of course. Will weapons of mass-scale destruction be used? Probably. Will humanity as a whole die out? I don't think so. We've come a long way from the cold war. And even the most alarmist predictions of "global warming" still leaves a very large habitable chunk of land for humans.
With every advancement in figuring out genetic diseases, I can't help but think that the combination of this plus drug testing will lead to genetic discrimination, or at least defamation.
Plus, even then is there much we -can- do if we figure out something is genetic?
in the next 1.5 million years. As the Oort Cloud is thought to be the source of many long-period comets, the gravitational effects of Gliese's passing could send a shower of comets into the inner Solar System, threatening Earth
So, in 1.5 million years we might possibly be threatened by some comets? Something tells me that unless we do something incredibly stupid in the next 1.5 million years, a lot of humanity isn't going to be on earth.
So, in short, how is this news? I don't think anyone is going to be around in 1.5 million years.
I don't know about you, but I switch programs a lot more quickly than I do switch cars.