Yes, very true. I see it as one more nail in the coffin of freedom. The justice system occasionally goes against the will of the government, but it's definately not a sure thing. I'm sure you could convince a judge that Carnivore was faulty, if you spend as much money as OJ did, but what about the common joe? Looks like government will win most cases, and lawyers will win in all cases.
And, I don't love America. I don't live there, and I don't want to live there. I'm convinced there are better places to live, even though I can get a better paid job there. But still, Carnivore is a bad precedent that others will surely follow, if they havn't already.
Computers can be the best friend of any totalitarian government, as well as tools for freedom. Since we've had so much freedom already, I think a lot of people havn't realized what is possible. I think it will take one or many countries to go all the way down the dark path of computerised totalitarianism and surveillance before the masses realize how much of a bad thing this is, and push back. Sadly, once gone down such a path, it can take a hundred years to get back on track, just look at the Russian revolution.
A sad state of affairs, but sometimes humanity's best lessons are learned the hard way. It's easy to learn from history, but in the digital age, someone has to learn it the hard way the first time. My guess is that this will either be the USA or the UK. My bets are on UK so far, USA second.
Suppose someone gets taken to court based on information that Carnivore has suplied.
First, the defence would ask "Can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury that the Carnivore system has not been tampered with, either by law enforcement officials, or by a malicious third party?"
Then "Can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants win98 machine has not been cracked or tampered with by law enforcement officials or by a malicious third party?"
Voice recordings are one thing, but insecure e-mail sent from an insecure computer, and intercepted by a black box that no-one will disclose the inner workings of in a court of law? And with no safeguards in place to prove that law enforcement officials didn't upload any sneaky software not in the Carnivore documentation?
Sure, it might work, but I can hardly see anything collected by Carnivore being that strongly considered in a court of law. Just look at OJ's DNA evidence!
Carnivore is drek, the government wants it to know what it's citizens are doing, not because it will win court cases.
Hey, its a United States of America based firm, and a huge portion of Slashdot is from there too, yet they're not using mph. I am sufficiently impressed. I'll forgive them for using incorrect metric acronyms for the next ten years in advance, so long as they SWITCH TO METRIC!
I propose we give the palestinians atomic weapons on par with Israel, and then let nature take its course. They will either be forced to finally make peace, or at least the mideast will then be very quiet, peaceful and still for the next thousand years.
Sorry to break your bubble my friend, but the Demographic Transition is far more than just idle theory... There is huge evidence to back it up. You force me to quote sources.
A search on google will produce you a veritable flood of information. This is a very old concept begun in 1929, and has become the basic staple education of demography. Sorry man, but doubting demographic transition is like doubting evolution... You can, but you won't seem credible doing it.
Better yet, put one of these on the ISS itself, and have it do long cruises between earth and mars!
The ISS isn't a space "station" becasue stations can't move... The ISS can move anywhere you want if you strap a rocket or MP2P to it.
Self sustaing space stations are the perfect human interplanetary probes! The only thing stopping them is the human inability to understand that there is very little difference between "station" and "ship" once you're in space. This "station" actually moves very quickly around the earth, it wouldn't take too much to strap a rocket to it and take it anywhere in the solar system.
Plasma is a great conductor of electricity. It is easy to boost an electromagnet in space with plasma, because the plasma itself can become the electromagnet, as it conducts electricity. It's one of those self-reinforcing reactions.
You can make a magnet move by having it push against some other matter, in this case the solar wind going by at an insane speed.
On the other hand, they probably won't have a hard time tracking the vehicle even if it's a horrendously far distance from us. Could they not modulate the field as a form of communications? It is after all, just a basic magnetic field and basic electronics gear.
In the previous article, it was mentioned that this idea was in the "dream stage" of development.
The above article indicates that the first round of testing the devices has met with remarkable success. This is news for us nerds that the concept will be far more than just a dream! I'm quite happy this was posted.
This is definately stuff that matters, and news for nerds.
I think both of us could find exceptions to each others theories, thats the nature of them, they're full of exceptions. Naturally all data will not fit.
In generalities, both sides of an argument can be correct. If the demographic transition is not real, then we're screwed as a race. If the demographic transition is real, then we have a better chance.
I think this is a case where us scientists would love if the data would fit our models. If the demographic transition is too loose of a generalization to be of much help, I think it's up to humanity to give it a bit of a push. The chineese realize this, and good for them.
I admit you have perfectly valid examples of why I'm wrong, just as I have valid examples you're wrong. I don't know about you, but I don't have enough data to prove my point conclusively. But I know which of the two I'd like to be true.
Not good science, admittedly. But it's the hints of the existence of these kind of checks and balances that *might* me the salvation of humanity. If I were a dean, I'd appropriate money into more reasearch on this.
"Yeah, didn't that seem odd to anyone else? I mean, space is not exactly a habitable place. We don't know of any planets capable of supporting life the way Earth does as is. So, if we're going to have to create artificial environments to survive, why can't we just stay on Earth and do that here? It's a lot cheaper..."
Thats exactly what a dumb politician would say to justify cutting funding to space exploration. (Not implying that you are dumb.)
Heh! Hawking is smart, he knows that. But he's also smart enough to know that we might fail in fixing our environment. So he tells the huddled masses that they better git into space just in case.
Often there is very little reason why one individual lives and another individual dies. Often times it is very meaningless, and attributed to being at the right place at the right time.
So the theory of evolution should also be wrong, because it's only a GROSS assumption about how animals and people survive.
Much like gas laws are just a GROSS assumption on how atoms bounce around like billiard balls.
Often gross is all you need. Spread rough laws over a large enough sample size, and you can safely bet money on them nine times out of ten.
"So while a social sciences high school teacher might say this, an expert anthropologist would disagree."
"What does it matter if we lower population rates at the expense of increased energy consumption, and therefor increased pollution per person? The point is that it's unsustainable and generating noticable global changes right now"
Hmm, I wonder what will happen first. Will we destroy our environment because of our high energy consumption? Or will we run out of energy before we destroy our environment too much?
Oil has already peaked and will slowly be declining. We will eventually run down our fossil fuels and be forced into a lower energy consumption state.
I wish I could live long enough, I'm curious to see which happens!
"Hawking is using projections based on what's going on right now. You are introducing this "demographic transition" to which you assign no quantifiable cause except that you "think" so. And of course your infallible vision of "bumps and corrections."
No, I did not introduce it out of thin air. It was introduced to me in my second year of high school as a fact. I think most social scientists will agree that "higher standard of living = lower population growth rate". If you still insist, I can quote credible sources.
"And of course your infallible vision of bumps and corrections."
You call me infalliable. I don't. I'm trying to be very careful about not making outlandish claims, I'm trying to outline possible scenarios, and highlight which of these we want to work towards.
I'm proposing that humanity is dumb enough that any road towards any possible steady state will be bumpy. I quote the last 50 years of history as proof that we can occasionally cull our herd. I quote the black plague or flying rocks that our herd can be culled naturally.
"So pardon me if I still choose to believe Hawking's predictions"
I do too. Hawking also knows better than you or I that no prediction like this is 100% accurate. I'm almost certain (call it a hunch) that he considered the steady state theory as a possible desirable outcome, also not guaranteed.
So what's a scientist to do? Tells us to get our asses off the planet in case the worst happens. Use one possible prediction of the truth to impart urgency into it. Less intelligent people will (hopefully) listen and do the right thing, and never realize that this is but one of many possible futures.
Some Slashdot readers are smarter than the masses, so we can discuss all options.
"Hawking is using projections based on what's going on right now. You are introducing this "demographic transition" to which you assign no quantifiable cause except that you "think" so. And of course your infallible vision of "bumps and corrections."
No, I did not introduce it out of thin air. It was introduced to me in my second year of high school as a fact. I think most social scientists will agree that "higher standard of living = lower population growth rate". If you still insist, I can quote credible sources.
"And of course your infallible vision of bumps and corrections."
You call me infalliable. I don't. I'm trying to be very careful about not making outlandish claims, I'm trying to outline possible scenarios, and highlight which of these we want to work towards.
I'm proposing that humanity is dumb enough that any road towards any possible steady state will be bumpy. I quote the last 50 years of history as proof that we can occasionally cull our herd. I quote the black plague or flying rocks that our herd can be culled naturally.
"So pardon me if I still choose to believe Hawking's predictions"
I do too. Hawking also knows better than you or I that no prediction like this is 100% accurate. I'm almost certain (call it a hunch) that he considered the steady state theory as a possible desirable outcome, also not guaranteed.
So what's a scientist to do? Tells us to get our asses off the planet in case the worst happens. Use one possible prediction of the truth to impart urgency into it. Less intelligent people will (hopefully) listen and do the right thing, and never realize that this is but one of many possible futures.
Some Slashdot readers are smarter than the masses, so we can discuss all options.
Bork! Bork! Bork!
Agreed, the oceans could change overnight. I certainly hope not. We better be careful.
As for China, they're passing laws to control their population, with some success. They're also becoming richer. An increase in wealth equals a decrease in population growth rate. This is common knowlege to any high school social sciences teacher. This is the glimmer of the natural mathematical push towards the steady state. I don't claim that as any sort of proof, just some supportive evidence to an unproved theory.
If you take any complex system, and throw it into disarray (as we are doing), one of a few things could happen.
1) It will continue to fluctuate all over the place wildly for a very long time. (Napster good! Chaos bad!)
2) It will settle down into a predictable pattern or state that is uninhabitable to us. (Hawkings prediction, bad.)
3) It will settle down into a predictable pattern or state that is habitalbe, or even good for us. (This is most desirable.)
If we want to pick door number three, we better find natural rules that reinforce that good state. The (commonly accepted) rule of demographic transition is one, but I'm not sure it's enough. Captialism is a good rule that keeps greed somewhat under check, but it might work against us. I think (hope) there are more of those good rules out there.
If not... I think we better do as Hawking says, and get our butts off this planet. I'm sure he knows all about the possiblility of a steady state for us, but he's smart enough to know it's not a SURE THING (TM). So he tells us to get our butts off the planet as fast as possible. Good insurance plan.
He's a smart guy.
He's speaking to the dumb masses.
Us smart guys (?!?) know you don't tell end users all the details, they'll just get confused and do the wrong thing. If you told a politician your "steady state" theory, he'd choose that and not spend dollars on an insurance plan in space.
Not exactly stasis, but there are stable ground states, both in atomic physics, and in biology.
Honeybees and flowers have survived tens (hundreds?) of millions of years by achieving a steady-state symbiosis with each other and the rest their environment.
Call me an optimist, but I think I am seeing humans moving towards that. Demographic transition, breeding (cows, chickens), advanced breeting (genetic modification), and the decline of fossil fuels are all pushing us into this direction.
But then again some opportunist could sell some Palestinians a few atomic bombs, then we could see the mother of all population corrections. So it's up in the air!
Hope and strive, thats the best we can do!
By the way, to directly answer your question, I don't think genetic engineering is the last word, or even a good word yet. I just hope that all this technological change will finally settle us down into a self-reinforcing groove that is good for us. Whether its medicinal lentils and horses born with wheels, or transporters and food replicators is anyone's guess. Could be both?
Last I heard, he was a quantum cosmologist, not an environmental scientist. Sure, he's smart, but even smart scientists can make mistakes if they don't have the correct data, and somehow I don't think he does.
Firstly, because he underestimates the ability of green things to grow absolutely anywhere... I'm not sure humanity is capable of wiping out enough of regenerative greenery to cause that kind of environmental disaster.
Second, he underestimates the force of the demographic transition. As this polluting technology makes individual lives easier, the population growth rate declines and stabilizes, reducing the load on the environment. As it is here in Canada, more people die than are born. Thank goodness for immigrants!
While not ruling out several holocausts, in the long term I see humanity stabilizing with the environment in a new ecological balance. This won't happen any time soon, I think we have to wait until industrialization runs its course and we run out of our fossil fuels. Then, we wait for biotechnology to run its course and settle down into something stable. We then will be in symbiosis with our manmade ecology. Once we settle down into a several hundred year groove and all are new technologies become old, we will be in a steady state. But mind you, I see bumps and population "corrections" along the way.
But once we get to that harmonious steady state... Why settle the stars? We could be happy and content here for millions of years.
I think old Steve knows the best fire he can light under interstellar settlers is the threat of imminent death... So why not predict doom to achieve that end? Heck, I would.
I have to agree with you there! Then again, doesn't Coca-Cola (tm) make the selfsame claims? If more people realized how self-serving the IOC truly was, perhaps then people would have reason to make it otherwise.
In any contract, people are giving up some freedom, for a reward.
An athlete gets to participate in the Olympics, and possibly get corporate sponsorship (commercials), plus the possibility of winning a medal, something of value. Just being seen in the Olympics is something of value! In exchange, they agree to play by the rules the IOC sets out, therby giving up some freedoms. Fair exchange.
An employee gets a paycheque, and agrees to give up some freedoms (such as their time and freedom of association, and some freedom of speech like NDA's.) Fair exchange.
What part of this don't you understand? Nobody's forcing anyone into doing anything. The athletes bound themselves into contracts of their own free will. You've been reading too much Karl Marx and Lenin for your own good.
Bleh! You give up something, in exchange for something else! Why don't some slashdotters understand the fundamental principle of contrats unless it's the GPL?
Corporations are evil, because they restrict my freedom of association! If I spend my entire day associating freely at the water cooler, I won't get paid! Waaaaaah!
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, very true. I see it as one more nail in the coffin of freedom. The justice system occasionally goes against the will of the government, but it's definately not a sure thing. I'm sure you could convince a judge that Carnivore was faulty, if you spend as much money as OJ did, but what about the common joe? Looks like government will win most cases, and lawyers will win in all cases.
And, I don't love America. I don't live there, and I don't want to live there. I'm convinced there are better places to live, even though I can get a better paid job there. But still, Carnivore is a bad precedent that others will surely follow, if they havn't already.
Computers can be the best friend of any totalitarian government, as well as tools for freedom. Since we've had so much freedom already, I think a lot of people havn't realized what is possible. I think it will take one or many countries to go all the way down the dark path of computerised totalitarianism and surveillance before the masses realize how much of a bad thing this is, and push back. Sadly, once gone down such a path, it can take a hundred years to get back on track, just look at the Russian revolution.
A sad state of affairs, but sometimes humanity's best lessons are learned the hard way. It's easy to learn from history, but in the digital age, someone has to learn it the hard way the first time. My guess is that this will either be the USA or the UK. My bets are on UK so far, USA second.
Bleh.
Suppose someone gets taken to court based on information that Carnivore has suplied.
First, the defence would ask "Can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury that the Carnivore system has not been tampered with, either by law enforcement officials, or by a malicious third party?"
Then "Can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants win98 machine has not been cracked or tampered with by law enforcement officials or by a malicious third party?"
Voice recordings are one thing, but insecure e-mail sent from an insecure computer, and intercepted by a black box that no-one will disclose the inner workings of in a court of law? And with no safeguards in place to prove that law enforcement officials didn't upload any sneaky software not in the Carnivore documentation?
Sure, it might work, but I can hardly see anything collected by Carnivore being that strongly considered in a court of law. Just look at OJ's DNA evidence!
Carnivore is drek, the government wants it to know what it's citizens are doing, not because it will win court cases.
Blah.
Hey, its a United States of America based firm, and a huge portion of Slashdot is from there too, yet they're not using mph. I am sufficiently impressed. I'll forgive them for using incorrect metric acronyms for the next ten years in advance, so long as they SWITCH TO METRIC!
Bork! Bork! Bork!
I propose we give the palestinians atomic weapons on par with Israel, and then let nature take its course. They will either be forced to finally make peace, or at least the mideast will then be very quiet, peaceful and still for the next thousand years.
Bork! Bork! Bork!
Sorry to break your bubble my friend, but the Demographic Transition is far more than just idle theory... There is huge evidence to back it up. You force me to quote sources.
t ran.htm
http://www.unfpa.org/swp/1998/pressumary2.htm
http://www.sru.edu/depts/artsci/ges/d-3-13a.htm
http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/Demotrans/dem
A search on google will produce you a veritable flood of information. This is a very old concept begun in 1929, and has become the basic staple education of demography. Sorry man, but doubting demographic transition is like doubting evolution... You can, but you won't seem credible doing it.
Bork!
Better yet, put one of these on the ISS itself, and have it do long cruises between earth and mars!
The ISS isn't a space "station" becasue stations can't move... The ISS can move anywhere you want if you strap a rocket or MP2P to it.
Self sustaing space stations are the perfect human interplanetary probes! The only thing stopping them is the human inability to understand that there is very little difference between "station" and "ship" once you're in space. This "station" actually moves very quickly around the earth, it wouldn't take too much to strap a rocket to it and take it anywhere in the solar system.
Bork!
Plasma is a great conductor of electricity. It is easy to boost an electromagnet in space with plasma, because the plasma itself can become the electromagnet, as it conducts electricity. It's one of those self-reinforcing reactions.
You can make a magnet move by having it push against some other matter, in this case the solar wind going by at an insane speed.
Bork! Bork! Bork!
On the other hand, they probably won't have a hard time tracking the vehicle even if it's a horrendously far distance from us. Could they not modulate the field as a form of communications? It is after all, just a basic magnetic field and basic electronics gear.
Food for thought!
In the previous article, it was mentioned that this idea was in the "dream stage" of development.
The above article indicates that the first round of testing the devices has met with remarkable success. This is news for us nerds that the concept will be far more than just a dream! I'm quite happy this was posted.
This is definately stuff that matters, and news for nerds.
Bork! Bork! Bork!
I think both of us could find exceptions to each others theories, thats the nature of them, they're full of exceptions. Naturally all data will not fit.
In generalities, both sides of an argument can be correct. If the demographic transition is not real, then we're screwed as a race. If the demographic transition is real, then we have a better chance.
I think this is a case where us scientists would love if the data would fit our models. If the demographic transition is too loose of a generalization to be of much help, I think it's up to humanity to give it a bit of a push. The chineese realize this, and good for them.
I admit you have perfectly valid examples of why I'm wrong, just as I have valid examples you're wrong. I don't know about you, but I don't have enough data to prove my point conclusively. But I know which of the two I'd like to be true.
Not good science, admittedly. But it's the hints of the existence of these kind of checks and balances that *might* me the salvation of humanity. If I were a dean, I'd appropriate money into more reasearch on this.
(Thats my last word.)
Bork! Bork! Bork!
"Yeah, didn't that seem odd to anyone else? I mean, space is not exactly a habitable place. We don't know of any planets capable of supporting life the way Earth does as is. So, if we're going to have to create artificial environments to survive, why can't we just stay on Earth and do that here? It's a lot cheaper..."
Thats exactly what a dumb politician would say to justify cutting funding to space exploration. (Not implying that you are dumb.)
Heh! Hawking is smart, he knows that. But he's also smart enough to know that we might fail in fixing our environment. So he tells the huddled masses that they better git into space just in case.
Bork! Bork! Bork!
Often there is very little reason why one individual lives and another individual dies. Often times it is very meaningless, and attributed to being at the right place at the right time.
So the theory of evolution should also be wrong, because it's only a GROSS assumption about how animals and people survive.
Much like gas laws are just a GROSS assumption on how atoms bounce around like billiard balls.
Often gross is all you need. Spread rough laws over a large enough sample size, and you can safely bet money on them nine times out of ten.
"So while a social sciences high school teacher might say this, an expert anthropologist would disagree."
What would a statistician say?
Bork! Bork! Bork!
"What does it matter if we lower population rates at the expense of increased energy consumption, and therefor increased pollution per person? The point is that it's unsustainable and generating noticable global changes right now"
Hmm, I wonder what will happen first. Will we destroy our environment because of our high energy consumption? Or will we run out of energy before we destroy our environment too much?
Oil has already peaked and will slowly be declining. We will eventually run down our fossil fuels and be forced into a lower energy consumption state.
I wish I could live long enough, I'm curious to see which happens!
Bork! Bork! Bork!
Newtonian physics is very wrong, because it only accurately describes motion in the lower range of relative velocities.
Einsteins theory is much better.
But Newton definately had better theories than any clods around him, but he was never able to disprove his own (wrong) theory.
Hawking proved himself wrong.
Who is smarter?
Bork! Bork! Bork!
"Hawking is using projections based on what's going on right now. You are introducing this "demographic transition" to which you assign no quantifiable cause except that you "think" so. And of course your infallible vision of "bumps and corrections."
No, I did not introduce it out of thin air. It was introduced to me in my second year of high school as a fact. I think most social scientists will agree that "higher standard of living = lower population growth rate". If you still insist, I can quote credible sources.
"And of course your infallible vision of bumps and corrections."
You call me infalliable. I don't. I'm trying to be very careful about not making outlandish claims, I'm trying to outline possible scenarios, and highlight which of these we want to work towards.
I'm proposing that humanity is dumb enough that any road towards any possible steady state will be bumpy. I quote the last 50 years of history as proof that we can occasionally cull our herd. I quote the black plague or flying rocks that our herd can be culled naturally.
"So pardon me if I still choose to believe Hawking's predictions"
I do too. Hawking also knows better than you or I that no prediction like this is 100% accurate. I'm almost certain (call it a hunch) that he considered the steady state theory as a possible desirable outcome, also not guaranteed.
So what's a scientist to do? Tells us to get our asses off the planet in case the worst happens. Use one possible prediction of the truth to impart urgency into it. Less intelligent people will (hopefully) listen and do the right thing, and never realize that this is but one of many possible futures.
Some Slashdot readers are smarter than the masses, so we can discuss all options.
Bork! Bork! Bork!
"Hawking is using projections based on what's going on right now. You are introducing this "demographic transition" to which you assign no quantifiable cause except that you "think" so. And of course your infallible vision of "bumps and corrections." No, I did not introduce it out of thin air. It was introduced to me in my second year of high school as a fact. I think most social scientists will agree that "higher standard of living = lower population growth rate". If you still insist, I can quote credible sources. "And of course your infallible vision of bumps and corrections." You call me infalliable. I don't. I'm trying to be very careful about not making outlandish claims, I'm trying to outline possible scenarios, and highlight which of these we want to work towards. I'm proposing that humanity is dumb enough that any road towards any possible steady state will be bumpy. I quote the last 50 years of history as proof that we can occasionally cull our herd. I quote the black plague or flying rocks that our herd can be culled naturally. "So pardon me if I still choose to believe Hawking's predictions" I do too. Hawking also knows better than you or I that no prediction like this is 100% accurate. I'm almost certain (call it a hunch) that he considered the steady state theory as a possible desirable outcome, also not guaranteed. So what's a scientist to do? Tells us to get our asses off the planet in case the worst happens. Use one possible prediction of the truth to impart urgency into it. Less intelligent people will (hopefully) listen and do the right thing, and never realize that this is but one of many possible futures. Some Slashdot readers are smarter than the masses, so we can discuss all options. Bork! Bork! Bork!
Agreed, the oceans could change overnight. I certainly hope not. We better be careful.
As for China, they're passing laws to control their population, with some success. They're also becoming richer. An increase in wealth equals a decrease in population growth rate. This is common knowlege to any high school social sciences teacher. This is the glimmer of the natural mathematical push towards the steady state. I don't claim that as any sort of proof, just some supportive evidence to an unproved theory.
If you take any complex system, and throw it into disarray (as we are doing), one of a few things could happen.
1) It will continue to fluctuate all over the place wildly for a very long time. (Napster good! Chaos bad!)
2) It will settle down into a predictable pattern or state that is uninhabitable to us. (Hawkings prediction, bad.)
3) It will settle down into a predictable pattern or state that is habitalbe, or even good for us. (This is most desirable.)
If we want to pick door number three, we better find natural rules that reinforce that good state. The (commonly accepted) rule of demographic transition is one, but I'm not sure it's enough. Captialism is a good rule that keeps greed somewhat under check, but it might work against us. I think (hope) there are more of those good rules out there.
If not... I think we better do as Hawking says, and get our butts off this planet. I'm sure he knows all about the possiblility of a steady state for us, but he's smart enough to know it's not a SURE THING (TM). So he tells us to get our butts off the planet as fast as possible. Good insurance plan.
He's a smart guy.
He's speaking to the dumb masses.
Us smart guys (?!?) know you don't tell end users all the details, they'll just get confused and do the wrong thing. If you told a politician your "steady state" theory, he'd choose that and not spend dollars on an insurance plan in space.
DOOM AND GLOOM WILL SAVE US!
Bork! Bork! Bork!
Not exactly stasis, but there are stable ground states, both in atomic physics, and in biology.
Honeybees and flowers have survived tens (hundreds?) of millions of years by achieving a steady-state symbiosis with each other and the rest their environment.
Call me an optimist, but I think I am seeing humans moving towards that. Demographic transition, breeding (cows, chickens), advanced breeting (genetic modification), and the decline of fossil fuels are all pushing us into this direction.
But then again some opportunist could sell some Palestinians a few atomic bombs, then we could see the mother of all population corrections. So it's up in the air!
Hope and strive, thats the best we can do!
By the way, to directly answer your question, I don't think genetic engineering is the last word, or even a good word yet. I just hope that all this technological change will finally settle us down into a self-reinforcing groove that is good for us. Whether its medicinal lentils and horses born with wheels, or transporters and food replicators is anyone's guess. Could be both?
Bork! Bork! Bork!
My astrophysics prof told me this...
"In our like of work, being off by just an order of magnitude in your calculations means that you're probably on the right track."
He threw around numbers like crazy, it helps you get a better understanding of the big picture.
Last I heard, he was a quantum cosmologist, not an environmental scientist. Sure, he's smart, but even smart scientists can make mistakes if they don't have the correct data, and somehow I don't think he does.
Firstly, because he underestimates the ability of green things to grow absolutely anywhere... I'm not sure humanity is capable of wiping out enough of regenerative greenery to cause that kind of environmental disaster.
Second, he underestimates the force of the demographic transition. As this polluting technology makes individual lives easier, the population growth rate declines and stabilizes, reducing the load on the environment. As it is here in Canada, more people die than are born. Thank goodness for immigrants!
While not ruling out several holocausts, in the long term I see humanity stabilizing with the environment in a new ecological balance. This won't happen any time soon, I think we have to wait until industrialization runs its course and we run out of our fossil fuels. Then, we wait for biotechnology to run its course and settle down into something stable. We then will be in symbiosis with our manmade ecology. Once we settle down into a several hundred year groove and all are new technologies become old, we will be in a steady state. But mind you, I see bumps and population "corrections" along the way.
But once we get to that harmonious steady state... Why settle the stars? We could be happy and content here for millions of years.
I think old Steve knows the best fire he can light under interstellar settlers is the threat of imminent death... So why not predict doom to achieve that end? Heck, I would.
my two cents...
BORK BORK BORK!
Bork!
I have to agree with you there! Then again, doesn't Coca-Cola (tm) make the selfsame claims? If more people realized how self-serving the IOC truly was, perhaps then people would have reason to make it otherwise.
Again, good to point that out.
I invoke Godwins rule!
So shut up!
In any contract, people are giving up some freedom, for a reward.
An athlete gets to participate in the Olympics, and possibly get corporate sponsorship (commercials), plus the possibility of winning a medal, something of value. Just being seen in the Olympics is something of value! In exchange, they agree to play by the rules the IOC sets out, therby giving up some freedoms. Fair exchange.
An employee gets a paycheque, and agrees to give up some freedoms (such as their time and freedom of association, and some freedom of speech like NDA's.) Fair exchange.
What part of this don't you understand? Nobody's forcing anyone into doing anything. The athletes bound themselves into contracts of their own free will. You've been reading too much Karl Marx and Lenin for your own good.
Bleh! You give up something, in exchange for something else! Why don't some slashdotters understand the fundamental principle of contrats unless it's the GPL?
Lenin and Marx were wrong, give it a rest!
Corporations are evil, because they restrict my freedom of association! If I spend my entire day associating freely at the water cooler, I won't get paid! Waaaaaah!
Corporations are EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL!