Call me a communist if you need to, but I'd rather not see something as important in humanity's future as space exploration in *exckusively* private hands.
Just look at how well privately owned essential infrastructure works out for the masses all over the world so far, e.g. with internet, mobile phones, water, public transportation, health...
Some perspective: 3.5 billion is less than the military spending of the USA in one single day. Less than even the *increase* in budget from 2016 to 2017, by more than an order of magnitude.
Highly interesting (I'm a physicist myself, versed in quantum mechanics, but I don't know jack about cosmology and big bang besides from what I've heard on discovery channel...).
But you shouldn't start looking for God where the physics fails -- that's a recipe for misunderstanding. Essentially, that's what everyone before already did: ancient times looked for god in nature catastrophes and anomalies, middle ages looked for him in the stars and (by today's standards) simple chemistry, and now we're looking for him at the inception of big bang or in "quantum physics" -- in other words, always at the boundary of our scientific understanding. The concept failed before, and it will fail us, as our understanding of the world inevitably advances. (I'm shamelessly assuming that one day we'll understand how the universe holds together, physically...;-) ).
Don't mix god and science. God is not there to fill the gaps in physics books. It's the humanistic side of things rather than the scientific, he's there to help us understand the "why" rather than the "how." Every time God or religion appears to meddling with scientific education, it's because somebody's not asking the right question.
Religion and science go together wonderfully as long as the other doesn't try to diletantly invade the domain of the other. (BTW, this view is not new in the Catholic church, I've learned this in religion classes since the 6th grade. It's just that the current pope is now being explicitly clear about it. And judging by the number of misunderstandings that bubble to the surface I'd say it was about f#@%$ing time, too.)
Simple. Genesis is a creation myth invented few thousands years ago around a camp fire. The idea was not to answer the question "what's truth", but to convey the meaning of "how we're all in this together and why should look after one another."
The myth, BTW, was likely put together from several (at least 3) stories that circulated orally between nomad tribes in the middle east. At that time, each tribe was having its own "one true God" - a contrast to the polytheistic ideologies of the time, formed simply from the necessity of not being able to carry around many artefacts for several gods around when you're nomad. Eventually the families (of Israel) evolved into all worshipping the *same* "one true God" - Jahwe, the god of the old testament.
God image and perception changes from the forefather tribes of Israel, to BC-Israel people (old testament), to Jesus / AD humanity (new testament).
That's essentially the official teaching stance of the Catholic church. (Source: 8 years of highschool religion lessons in Bavaria, under several catholic priests.)
Why on earth anyone would try to interpret the bible lierally, in 2017, is beyond me - let alone mistake it for a physics book. But then again, stranger things do happen in the US education system...
Because that's essentially the story I'd put my signature on. (Don't mind my high ID -- I've been lurking for years and/or posting as AC before I actually made an account.)
It's essentially just muscle memory now that drives me to/. every once in a while.
I have news for you: this is not Silicon Valley stupid.
Lack of "innovation" (i.e. new physics) is in itself a already good result. The LHC doesn't need any new shiny discoveries to justify itself. The very action of having looked for the first time in a certain place (or energy range) and having solid confirmation that there's nothing new to see would already be an outstanding scientifical result.
And everyone at CERN knows this, as does any scientist worth their spit.
So you did already realize that not everyone is poor, ill or otherwise unable to live by themselves by their own choice. (In many cases even if it may seem so from the outside.) That's a good first step.
You're helping those who arent fortunate enough to get by on their own every once in a while. That's a good, too.
Now what youre missing is that everyone has a right to live a decent life independently on you having or not having a generous day today. If you really care about others, especially unfortunate ones, help make sure that they get along decently independently from the daily whims of more fortunate people like you.
European guy here (living in Europe), not your typical pro guns activist.
I'd still join the other voices, though, which say that making this a rights to bear arms debate is not the way to handle it. The guy was not shot because a gun happened to be lying around, he was shot because someone else was a racist. Period.
That's the problem you need to fix.
(And, even if if shouldn't matter, because - see above - different debate: sorry for your company's loss, but no, there's no guarantee that your colleague would still be alive once someone decided it's OK to attempt for his life. Punches can kill, easily; falling can kill quicker than a gunshot; sharp objects can kill. Leading the debate to an inanimate object instead of a person's motivation and deeds is a good way to perpetuate the actual problem, not to solve it.)
If he gets to build up digging know-how, he'll be the first to actually make a shitload of money off asteroid mining.
Best part: r&d possibly largelgy paid for by public money (first NASA, and maybe now he can acceds some infrastructure funds or public contracting for the boring part)... That's one hell of a way to hack the system. Go him!:-)
If they're not causing any harm, blasting music, doing damage, then they're hardly endangering society, are they?:-) They're not covered by my post then.
The original discussion was about airbnb renting. I laid out how making an excessive business model out of that harms society, a lot. That's when you (personally, or as part of the society through regulations - whichever the law permits) have every right and obligation to interfere.
Even if you think that you're entitled do doing with your home whatever you want to, that's not entirely true.
You live in a society. This has implications regarding what you can and what you should do. The obvious example would be me setting $UNPLEASANT_INDUSTRIAL_PLANT on my own property next to your apartment, effectively killing its worth or your ability to use it.
But there are also finer, albeit none the less important implications. Take the social one for example: in Berlin, Europe rents have climbed by a factor of up to 2-3x in the past 10 years. Living space is at a premium, but there are hundreds of airbnb locations at a walking distance of few minutes of anywhere within Berlin. And I'm not talking the occasional unoccupied a self-sufficient grandma may have to offer in a slightly too-large aparment. Those who offer rooms for rent ofter offer several appartments (up to 40), not only single beds. In fact, average number of beds offered per user are around 3 (see http://airbnbvsberlin.com/). In other words, it's a business. People prefer to not rent their (surplus of) apartments to normal people, but to airbnb customers instead.
Why should you care?
Because that effectively fucks up society as a whole. The same societe *you* live in, and that you're relying on in order to survive. When people who own an apartment choose to rent it at prices similar to hotels, essentially everyone who can't afford to sleep at a hotel every night can't afford to live in a city, period. You think you're unaffected because you happen to own an apartment right now? Well, where do you think your kids are going to live 20 years from now, or their children when their turn comes? (Set up a tent in the woods? You know that wild camping is illegal in large parts of Europe, right?...) Or what do you think your city going to feel like when everyone who lives there is either a tourist, or an amateur hotelier, renting 30-40 apartments to tourists?
I think it's a far stretch from plants exchanging information via pheromones to postulating empathy, but to each their own. If you think they hurt, you may want to not put them to agony (why would you?) Then again, if *I* thought they hurt, I'd probably try to stop you if I caught you; but I don't, so I won't.
As to the imposing views on others... The guy stealing acts according to his belief (or whatever). I act according to mine in stopping him (or not, depending on the context). I see no opposing principles here.
What i'm not going to do is chop his hand off to "save his soul", or make him swear by the Bible and the Constitution that he's not gay and hates commies or whatever... you get the picture.
Before you construct another example showing how I contradict myself, remember that this is no pissing contest about who can formulate a set of clean, self-consistent, non-contradicting set of rules to live by. To my knowledge, that's not possible (as in: impossibility is even mathematically provable). My post was just meant to give a different perspective on Buddhist philosophy. If there was a set of rules to follow blindly, and somehow have everything for everybody turn out optimal in every situation, I'm pretty sure they'd be mandatory by now everywhere in the world.
thanks for stepping in - I don't characterize myself as Buddhist (in a religious sense) either, but after ~2 decades of Buddhist martial arts, the philosophy inevitably begins to creep in. what you say is the western interpretation of it: it kind of describes Buddhism, but doesn't quite do the idea right.
Buddhism, as I understand it, actually has one core principle, which leads to two main consequences.
the principle is: all separation (between parts of the "universe" - us, others, animals, objects...) is only an illusion. try to overcome that illusion and you overcome the idea of suffering; after all, your hand doesn't suffer from having to wash your butt daily, they're both part of the same body.
consequences:
(1) let others do want they want, we're all the same. [this one is massively misunderstood: it doesn't mean be passive to other people's misdeeds or needs. quite the opposite. it means don't impose your views on others (there are too many viewpoints, and yours is not necessarily the only valid one), but you can and should act in consequence of what you believe is right. for examoke: don't preach to me about being honest, but do stop me from stealing or do expose me as a liar.]
(2) be compassionate with everything that feels (e.g. living things) - we're all the same. if one part hurts, the whole hurts, and that includes yourself.
and then of course there are various religious rituals and lots of philosophic decorations, but the above is the essence.
did you ever heard the parable of the guy who jumped off the roof of a skyscraper, and as he blasts by the windows and balconies, nearing the asphalt, everyone tells him "brace for impact!". finally, about the time he flies past the 2nd story, he's fed up with it and screams back "oh shut up already, you ivory tower bastards, you people've been telling me to 'brace for impact' since I've jumped, but guess what: everything' going peaches so far and i'm having fun - so you're all lying idiots with an agenda to trick me! ever herd the story of the boy who called out wolf?"
Romania is one of the most advanced countries with regard to internet infrastructure. I'm paying 30 euros for a guaranteed 90/90 Mbit optical cable business connection, including 8 IPv4.
Residential net speeds are mostly Gbit, with actual Gbit p2p transfer rate within city limits, and 100 Mbit outside (nation wide, essentially only limited to the bandwidth of the server one is accessing).
Also IPv6 adoption advanced furthest, several of the solutions are being discussed internationally for wider adoption (don't ask me details, don't know much about it - but I'm a Romanian living in Germany with friends in tech management of one of the two largest Romanian providers).
EU is a bunch of national politicians patronizing their voters first, by introducing unpopular laws and measures they couldn't possibly introduce directly.
Then it's the same national politicians patronizing each other across borders -- Greece, Italy, Spain, Britain, even Germany... everyone gets their share of being patronized against doing useful stuff, necessary for the middle and the lower class citizens.
Last but not least everyone is being patronized by Big Business, who's effectively running the EU.
If Brits succeed in exitting, then if anything, it will at least show the rest of the EU conuntries that doing things just "because EU" is not the only option. That hast at least a marginal hope of getting some useful change.
Don't get me wrong, the concept of a unified Europe is cool. But the EU is not a unified Europe, it's a patronizing institution run by business, for business. We can try this again in 20 years, properly done, startgin democratically first and economically later, not the other way round.
How is "thinking globally" going to help me, Joe Random Small Person? That's a trick phrase of big corporations designed to enable them to use global markets; but when rules are deliberately adopted to deliberately keep customers from using the same "global" principles (region protection, visa restrictions, work permit restrictions for foreigners, e.g. in the US) "thinking globally" is just a scam to me, the small man.
It's destroying local economy and drains capital which could have otherwise been invested in local economy.
Publushing in high-ranking journals is often subject to various limits, i.e. 2500 words for an article, or 120 words for the summary etc. Having a conplex but interesting story to tell can then be quite challenging. Intricate language, with peer jargon, is often very compact. It's very rewarding to use it...:-)
Heating is a huge chunk, unless you're in thermal equilibrium with your surroundings (i.e. "dead" in medical terms). Varies greatly on individual basis - why do you think some folks are always freezing, and others never?
Maintenance ist also a large part: replacing tissue, hair, lubricating joints etc. You're also less prone to illness when you're well-fed (not obese - that would be dysfunction of its own).
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, the good old fairy tale of irreplaceable talent.
The graveyards are full of "irreplaceable" people.
"Follow the rules and you'll be fine" rhetoric - check.
"Work builds character" rhetoric - check.
"Equal chances" bull$h1t - check.
"Cultural supremacy 'cuz we fucking deserve it" BS - check.
"I know I'm right because I used to be one of $THEM, but then I saw the light" - BINGO!
Call me a communist if you need to, but I'd rather not see something as important in humanity's future as space exploration in *exckusively* private hands.
Just look at how well privately owned essential infrastructure works out for the masses all over the world so far, e.g. with internet, mobile phones, water, public transportation, health...
Some perspective: 3.5 billion is less than the military spending of the USA in one single day. Less than even the *increase* in budget from 2016 to 2017, by more than an order of magnitude.
Highly interesting (I'm a physicist myself, versed in quantum mechanics, but I don't know jack about cosmology and big bang besides from what I've heard on discovery channel...).
But you shouldn't start looking for God where the physics fails -- that's a recipe for misunderstanding. Essentially, that's what everyone before already did: ancient times looked for god in nature catastrophes and anomalies, middle ages looked for him in the stars and (by today's standards) simple chemistry, and now we're looking for him at the inception of big bang or in "quantum physics" -- in other words, always at the boundary of our scientific understanding. The concept failed before, and it will fail us, as our understanding of the world inevitably advances. (I'm shamelessly assuming that one day we'll understand how the universe holds together, physically... ;-) ).
Don't mix god and science. God is not there to fill the gaps in physics books. It's the humanistic side of things rather than the scientific, he's there to help us understand the "why" rather than the "how." Every time God or religion appears to meddling with scientific education, it's because somebody's not asking the right question.
Religion and science go together wonderfully as long as the other doesn't try to diletantly invade the domain of the other. (BTW, this view is not new in the Catholic church, I've learned this in religion classes since the 6th grade. It's just that the current pope is now being explicitly clear about it. And judging by the number of misunderstandings that bubble to the surface I'd say it was about f#@%$ing time, too.)
Simple. Genesis is a creation myth invented few thousands years ago around a camp fire. The idea was not to answer the question "what's truth", but to convey the meaning of "how we're all in this together and why should look after one another."
The myth, BTW, was likely put together from several (at least 3) stories that circulated orally between nomad tribes in the middle east. At that time, each tribe was having its own "one true God" - a contrast to the polytheistic ideologies of the time, formed simply from the necessity of not being able to carry around many artefacts for several gods around when you're nomad. Eventually the families (of Israel) evolved into all worshipping the *same* "one true God" - Jahwe, the god of the old testament.
God image and perception changes from the forefather tribes of Israel, to BC-Israel people (old testament), to Jesus / AD humanity (new testament).
That's essentially the official teaching stance of the Catholic church. (Source: 8 years of highschool religion lessons in Bavaria, under several catholic priests.)
Why on earth anyone would try to interpret the bible lierally, in 2017, is beyond me - let alone mistake it for a physics book. But then again, stranger things do happen in the US education system...
> usefullnes
Wrong gauge to measure fundament research by. It's about knowledge, in and of itself.
Any "useful" application with or without a "ROI" is a welcome distraction, a cherry on top, but nowhere near the core of argument pro research.
Are you me? :-)
Because that's essentially the story I'd put my signature on. (Don't mind my high ID -- I've been lurking for years and/or posting as AC before I actually made an account.)
It's essentially just muscle memory now that drives me to /. every once in a while.
"Getting desperate"?
Projecting, much?
I have news for you: this is not Silicon Valley stupid.
Lack of "innovation" (i.e. new physics) is in itself a already good result. The LHC doesn't need any new shiny discoveries to justify itself. The very action of having looked for the first time in a certain place (or energy range) and having solid confirmation that there's nothing new to see would already be an outstanding scientifical result.
And everyone at CERN knows this, as does any scientist worth their spit.
They're not the same.
Are you trolling, or simply just clueless?
Google the difference if the latter.
So you did already realize that not everyone is poor, ill or otherwise unable to live by themselves by their own choice. (In many cases even if it may seem so from the outside.) That's a good first step.
You're helping those who arent fortunate enough to get by on their own every once in a while. That's a good, too.
Now what youre missing is that everyone has a right to live a decent life independently on you having or not having a generous day today. If you really care about others, especially unfortunate ones, help make sure that they get along decently independently from the daily whims of more fortunate people like you.
European guy here (living in Europe), not your typical pro guns activist.
I'd still join the other voices, though, which say that making this a rights to bear arms debate is not the way to handle it. The guy was not shot because a gun happened to be lying around, he was shot because someone else was a racist. Period.
That's the problem you need to fix.
(And, even if if shouldn't matter, because - see above - different debate: sorry for your company's loss, but no, there's no guarantee that your colleague would still be alive once someone decided it's OK to attempt for his life. Punches can kill, easily; falling can kill quicker than a gunshot; sharp objects can kill. Leading the debate to an inanimate object instead of a person's motivation and deeds is a good way to perpetuate the actual problem, not to solve it.)
He's already going to space.
If he gets to build up digging know-how, he'll be the first to actually make a shitload of money off asteroid mining.
Best part: r&d possibly largelgy paid for by public money (first NASA, and maybe now he can acceds some infrastructure funds or public contracting for the boring part)... That's one hell of a way to hack the system. Go him! :-)
If they're not causing any harm, blasting music, doing damage, then they're hardly endangering society, are they? :-) They're not covered by my post then.
The original discussion was about airbnb renting. I laid out how making an excessive business model out of that harms society, a lot. That's when you (personally, or as part of the society through regulations - whichever the law permits) have every right and obligation to interfere.
Yes you do. You have every business keeping the society you're part of in working condition. Same goes for your neighbours.
From time to time, this implies telling each other what you are to do and what not.
Even if you think that you're entitled do doing with your home whatever you want to, that's not entirely true.
You live in a society. This has implications regarding what you can and what you should do. The obvious example would be me setting $UNPLEASANT_INDUSTRIAL_PLANT on my own property next to your apartment, effectively killing its worth or your ability to use it.
But there are also finer, albeit none the less important implications. Take the social one for example: in Berlin, Europe rents have climbed by a factor of up to 2-3x in the past 10 years. Living space is at a premium, but there are hundreds of airbnb locations at a walking distance of few minutes of anywhere within Berlin. And I'm not talking the occasional unoccupied a self-sufficient grandma may have to offer in a slightly too-large aparment. Those who offer rooms for rent ofter offer several appartments (up to 40), not only single beds. In fact, average number of beds offered per user are around 3 (see http://airbnbvsberlin.com/). In other words, it's a business. People prefer to not rent their (surplus of) apartments to normal people, but to airbnb customers instead.
Why should you care?
Because that effectively fucks up society as a whole. The same societe *you* live in, and that you're relying on in order to survive. When people who own an apartment choose to rent it at prices similar to hotels, essentially everyone who can't afford to sleep at a hotel every night can't afford to live in a city, period. You think you're unaffected because you happen to own an apartment right now? Well, where do you think your kids are going to live 20 years from now, or their children when their turn comes? (Set up a tent in the woods? You know that wild camping is illegal in large parts of Europe, right?...) Or what do you think your city going to feel like when everyone who lives there is either a tourist, or an amateur hotelier, renting 30-40 apartments to tourists?
No need to chew on anything.
I think it's a far stretch from plants exchanging information via pheromones to postulating empathy, but to each their own. If you think they hurt, you may want to not put them to agony (why would you?) Then again, if *I* thought they hurt, I'd probably try to stop you if I caught you; but I don't, so I won't.
As to the imposing views on others... The guy stealing acts according to his belief (or whatever). I act according to mine in stopping him (or not, depending on the context). I see no opposing principles here.
What i'm not going to do is chop his hand off to "save his soul", or make him swear by the Bible and the Constitution that he's not gay and hates commies or whatever... you get the picture.
Before you construct another example showing how I contradict myself, remember that this is no pissing contest about who can formulate a set of clean, self-consistent, non-contradicting set of rules to live by. To my knowledge, that's not possible (as in: impossibility is even mathematically provable). My post was just meant to give a different perspective on Buddhist philosophy. If there was a set of rules to follow blindly, and somehow have everything for everybody turn out optimal in every situation, I'm pretty sure they'd be mandatory by now everywhere in the world.
thanks for stepping in - I don't characterize myself as Buddhist (in a religious sense) either, but after ~2 decades of Buddhist martial arts, the philosophy inevitably begins to creep in. what you say is the western interpretation of it: it kind of describes Buddhism, but doesn't quite do the idea right.
Buddhism, as I understand it, actually has one core principle, which leads to two main consequences.
the principle is: all separation (between parts of the "universe" - us, others, animals, objects...) is only an illusion. try to overcome that illusion and you overcome the idea of suffering; after all, your hand doesn't suffer from having to wash your butt daily, they're both part of the same body.
consequences:
(1) let others do want they want, we're all the same. [this one is massively misunderstood: it doesn't mean be passive to other people's misdeeds or needs. quite the opposite. it means don't impose your views on others (there are too many viewpoints, and yours is not necessarily the only valid one), but you can and should act in consequence of what you believe is right. for examoke: don't preach to me about being honest, but do stop me from stealing or do expose me as a liar.]
(2) be compassionate with everything that feels (e.g. living things) - we're all the same. if one part hurts, the whole hurts, and that includes yourself.
and then of course there are various religious rituals and lots of philosophic decorations, but the above is the essence.
did you ever heard the parable of the guy who jumped off the roof of a skyscraper, and as he blasts by the windows and balconies, nearing the asphalt, everyone tells him "brace for impact!". finally, about the time he flies past the 2nd story, he's fed up with it and screams back "oh shut up already, you ivory tower bastards, you people've been telling me to 'brace for impact' since I've jumped, but guess what: everything' going peaches so far and i'm having fun - so you're all lying idiots with an agenda to trick me! ever herd the story of the boy who called out wolf?"
no? well now you have.
Romania is one of the most advanced countries with regard to internet infrastructure. I'm paying 30 euros for a guaranteed 90/90 Mbit optical cable business connection, including 8 IPv4.
Residential net speeds are mostly Gbit, with actual Gbit p2p transfer rate within city limits, and 100 Mbit outside (nation wide, essentially only limited to the bandwidth of the server one is accessing).
Also IPv6 adoption advanced furthest, several of the solutions are being discussed internationally for wider adoption (don't ask me details, don't know much about it - but I'm a Romanian living in Germany with friends in tech management of one of the two largest Romanian providers).
Not going to change much for the average person.
EU is a bunch of national politicians patronizing their voters first, by introducing unpopular laws and measures they couldn't possibly introduce directly.
Then it's the same national politicians patronizing each other across borders -- Greece, Italy, Spain, Britain, even Germany... everyone gets their share of being patronized against doing useful stuff, necessary for the middle and the lower class citizens.
Last but not least everyone is being patronized by Big Business, who's effectively running the EU.
If Brits succeed in exitting, then if anything, it will at least show the rest of the EU conuntries that doing things just "because EU" is not the only option. That hast at least a marginal hope of getting some useful change.
Don't get me wrong, the concept of a unified Europe is cool. But the EU is not a unified Europe, it's a patronizing institution run by business, for business. We can try this again in 20 years, properly done, startgin democratically first and economically later, not the other way round.
How is "thinking globally" going to help me, Joe Random Small Person? That's a trick phrase of big corporations designed to enable them to use global markets; but when rules are deliberately adopted to deliberately keep customers from using the same "global" principles (region protection, visa restrictions, work permit restrictions for foreigners, e.g. in the US) "thinking globally" is just a scam to me, the small man.
It's destroying local economy and drains capital which could have otherwise been invested in local economy.
The point to having a balanced, happy life isn't to be a better programmer. It's to have a balanced, happy life.
Exactly this.
Yours has to be the most underrated post ever.
We're not. We're calling it Free Software.
Publushing in high-ranking journals is often subject to various limits, i.e. 2500 words for an article, or 120 words for the summary etc. Having a conplex but interesting story to tell can then be quite challenging. Intricate language, with peer jargon, is often very compact. It's very rewarding to use it... :-)
You're both wrong.
kJ-intake = kJ-spent(working) + kJ-spent(heating) + kJ-spent(maintenance) + kJ-expelled.
Expelled part is indeed small.
Heating is a huge chunk, unless you're in thermal equilibrium with your surroundings (i.e. "dead" in medical terms). Varies greatly on individual basis - why do you think some folks are always freezing, and others never?
Maintenance ist also a large part: replacing tissue, hair, lubricating joints etc. You're also less prone to illness when you're well-fed (not obese - that would be dysfunction of its own).