And even if they did, they have no thoughts, so the pain would mean nothing.
Yes. Thoughts have "meaning" to us human beings. We have no idea what meaning (if any) thoughts have for animals. And we have no idea of a plant's experience, and whether there is anything which has any "meaning". In this completely anthrocentric view - why is "meaning" of thought, more important than "meaninglessness" of plants? In fact, human suffering and thought, and meaning, when viewed in certain contexts, can shrink to almost nothing. Imagine stubbing your toe. Now imagine the meaning of that thought, 1,000,000 years from now. Not so much meaning to that, is there?
They have no fear, panic, or sadness. They live, but they live without consciousness.
Why is a plant's existence any less meaningful than an animals? Why does consciousness preclude suffering?
There is an argument about meat-eaters, that since they eat cows and pigs, but not dogs or cats, that this is really an argument of "survival of the cutest". Dogs and cats are the most human-like, and they are cute, so we don't eat them. But they are not human, so it's really no different if we ate dogs or cats. (some cultures eat dogs, of course). But if we can extend our humanity to dogs and cats because they "feel pain" or "have conscious thought" - then we can really extend that to most of the mammals, and many higher animals. And if dogs and cats have thoughts and feelings (though, clearly they're different from human thoughts and feelings) - why would we place value on those, and not the thoughts and feelings of cows and pigs - which are clearly even more different. And if we can conceive of an existence of cows and pigs being sacred - then why is not all life (even plant life) sacred? Where do you draw the line, and why do you draw one? What is "complex" enough to merit not being eaten? It's either a biological argument, or it's an argument of empathy. And even the biological argument is empathic. We draw our lines of distinction at the classification boundary between the plant and animal kingdom?
But there were thousands of bad decisions (mostly made by politicians), in the decade prior to this accident, which led to the poor design, that led to this accident. These decisions were based on the attitude of hundreds of politicians and the people who voted them into office. This attitude is what killed "the future".
And this was following the decade of America's triumph at "conquering" the moon, which included a huge propaganda effort (on the part of Werner Von Braun, and Walt Disney, but also many other great thinkers) - to try to "educate" the American public on why space exploration (and indeed, settlement) was so important for our civilization's future.
In the end, the american public just plain didn't want to pay for it.
Actually, only a few lucky-duckies at ground zero are going to have that kind of experience.
Most people will die, in a nuclear war, of starvation and radiation sickness (and complications) after wards. Many will die of direct or indirect consequences from the blast and heat. But far more will die from the consequences of loss of our modern industrial infrastructure and support systems.
I would also add: In nurturing this reading habit - read a "long thing".
It does no good to sit and read (for example) reddit (or other internet/social-network) comments for 25 minutes, because you're actually training your brain to flip over new thoughts and ideas, which may only be remotely connected, at a superficial level, shifting focus several times per minute (or more) - and you will lose your ability to look deeply at ideas within a broader context. This is the opposite of what you want your brain to be able to do.
This is actually similar to the argument about headless servers: How Microsoft forced the desktop GUI onto their servers - when the IT industry was telling them that was stupid.
Now; taking a look at Windows Server 2012 - behold! An option in the installer to setup a system with no desktop GUI, only a console. Could it be? So just as Microsoft FINALLY gets a fucking CLUE on the server side, they start pulling this same crap on on the Desktop/Mobile users.
many digital camera sensors are actually pretty sensitive to IR; however, most manufacturers put IR filters on the sensors, because what we want is visible light, when we're taking a photo. I've seen mods on hackaday where someone who wants to do IR photography removes the IR filter on the sensor. (which is doable, when the filter is a separate glass or plastic plate, and not bonded to the surface of the sensor).
Self-Driving cars, I believe, have the ability to drastically reduce deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents...one of the highest causes of death in the USA.
Telecommuting has the same potential.
But for psychological reasons, Employers are not willing to allow widespread adoption of this.
Similarly, I don't think that employers are going to suddenly, magically decide to pay their employees (in aggregate) the increased salaries that would be required to add $10,000 worth of equipment to their commuter cars. We don't get a raise when gas-prices go up a nickel - but commuters eat the difference anyway. Self-driving cars will be a toy of the wealthy. Not broadly adopted throughout society. We're living in a generation where, even car-ownership, is on the decline.
you know you're basically talking about the most aerodynamically efficient production car out there.
I don't dispute that, but for MOST cars, 50 mph is the AVERAGE peak. And there are a lot of factors, including transmission, engine type, power-weight ratio - but none of these factors are nearly as important as MAINTAINING STEADY SPEED.
If your average is 50 mph, but you're slowing down and speeding up constantly, because the rest of traffic is doing 75, and you're needing to overtake 45 mph traffic (for example,) and thus, speeding up to merge with the faster traffic - then you'll consume SIGNIFICANTLY more fuel.
The case for self-driving cars improving efficiency, is made when EVERYONE has one, and they can all travel the same consistent narrow-range of speed, because they're not subject to human driving patterns. This is something that, IN THEORY, should make all cars way more efficient. But there's no practical way to test this theory. (and it's possible that this ideal condition may not work, because cars still need to speed up and slow down to enter/exit the freeway - and traffic signals on non-freeway roads, and differences in performance capabilities in different car models). It's certainly a nice idea, but I don't think it's realistic to expect everybody to have a driving car, any time in the next 50 years. We're more likely to see the efficiency savings from a broad adoption of electric/hybrid car technologies (like regenerative braking, elimination of transmission losses, etc).
Because the software and hardware (and maintenance costs) for a self-driving car is far (FAR) beyond the reach of even above-average wage earners, it will likely be rammed down our throats by insurance companies, and then funded by privacy-invading data collection, and . . . wait, you're not busy paying attention to the ROAD while you're driving? We'll show you ads. And we'll select a route that drives you past billboards, and shopping malls. Oh, you can opt-out of that if you want. For a "small" fee.
Expect lots of lobbyist-driven legislation to support this model.
Your mere presence in a past time would alter it such it will be forked from our own time line.
What's to say that the "prior" timeline is not erased?
And if so: this shift in time, all that mass, and distance; moving, instantaneously, to wherever else they would have to be. Laws of conservation of momentum and mass? Personally, I think that it's likely that backwards time-travel would result in some cataclysmic energy releases.
Even if it's as simple as ONE person, (say, the time-traveler) - deciding that at a future point in time, he would locate himself or herself somewhere else (perhaps to avoid some traumatic event in his or her life) - the moment at which they travel back, would release the energy from how they moved from point A to point B. If it took them X amount of time to make that physical transition, the energy expended at that point would instantaneously have to go "somewhere" in the "original" timeline. (plus every other person or object which reacted to, or was affected by those changes).
In the biggest earthquake I was ever in, I was about 50 miles from the epicenter of a 6.5. I was standing on a thinly carpeted concrete floor, which was directly on the ground floor (single-story office building). We're next to a busy road, so trucks going by frequently make the ground shake. But as it started, it lasted longer than a normal truck, then it got a little stronger. I stood up, and looked across the room. (cube farm), and I saw the cubes at the far end of the room start to shake violently. And this shaking advanced across the room towards ME. Maybe took 2-3 seconds to go across a 30-40 yard room? I actually felt the wave go under my right-foot, then under my left foot. It was very surreal. I saw my desk bend, in a way that should have broken it to splinters, as the wave passed. I never really figured out if that was real, or imaginary.
After the quake, we all ran out the emergency exit - and we were standing in the parking lot looking at each other. There was no more shaking, but we were all feeling quite seasick for several minutes after. None of us could tell if the ground was actually still moving, or if we were all feeling motion-sickness. That was very weird.
But in relation to your story, I could postulate that as the seismic waves transited your location, you were insulated from the shaking at the ground level. But the energy of things moving in weird directions may have caused some disorientation, and your brain got confused about how it was interpreting what you were seeing+feeling?
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Plant life does not factor into it because they can not suffer.
according to your definition of "suffer".
They can’t suffer because they have no nervous system with which to think.
Why is thinking a necessary criterion for suffering?
They also have no physical mechanisms with which to feel pain.
Their mechanisms are different from those of animals, to be sure. No nerves, etc. But plants DO have mechanisms for registering and even communicating physical damage and distress.
http://www.reeis.usda.gov/web/crisprojectpages/0187702-mechanism-for-biosynthesis-release-and-detection-of-volatile-chemical-in-plant-insect-interactions.html
And even if they did, they have no thoughts, so the pain would mean nothing.
Yes. Thoughts have "meaning" to us human beings. We have no idea what meaning (if any) thoughts have for animals. And we have no idea of a plant's experience, and whether there is anything which has any "meaning". In this completely anthrocentric view - why is "meaning" of thought, more important than "meaninglessness" of plants? In fact, human suffering and thought, and meaning, when viewed in certain contexts, can shrink to almost nothing. Imagine stubbing your toe. Now imagine the meaning of that thought, 1,000,000 years from now. Not so much meaning to that, is there?
They have no fear, panic, or sadness. They live, but they live without consciousness.
Why is a plant's existence any less meaningful than an animals? Why does consciousness preclude suffering?
There is an argument about meat-eaters, that since they eat cows and pigs, but not dogs or cats, that this is really an argument of "survival of the cutest". Dogs and cats are the most human-like, and they are cute, so we don't eat them. But they are not human, so it's really no different if we ate dogs or cats. (some cultures eat dogs, of course). But if we can extend our humanity to dogs and cats because they "feel pain" or "have conscious thought" - then we can really extend that to most of the mammals, and many higher animals. And if dogs and cats have thoughts and feelings (though, clearly they're different from human thoughts and feelings) - why would we place value on those, and not the thoughts and feelings of cows and pigs - which are clearly even more different. And if we can conceive of an existence of cows and pigs being sacred - then why is not all life (even plant life) sacred? Where do you draw the line, and why do you draw one? What is "complex" enough to merit not being eaten? It's either a biological argument, or it's an argument of empathy. And even the biological argument is empathic. We draw our lines of distinction at the classification boundary between the plant and animal kingdom?
Every hipster except the Ruby on Rails hipsters. And the Java hipsters.
My network connection.
My computer. My CPU. My RAM.
My video card.
My monitor.
My electricity.
I fucking paid for every cent of it.
So stay the fuck off my lawn.
I want to say you're right;
But there were thousands of bad decisions (mostly made by politicians), in the decade prior to this accident, which led to the poor design, that led to this accident. These decisions were based on the attitude of hundreds of politicians and the people who voted them into office. This attitude is what killed "the future".
And this was following the decade of America's triumph at "conquering" the moon, which included a huge propaganda effort (on the part of Werner Von Braun, and Walt Disney, but also many other great thinkers) - to try to "educate" the American public on why space exploration (and indeed, settlement) was so important for our civilization's future.
In the end, the american public just plain didn't want to pay for it.
Actually, only a few lucky-duckies at ground zero are going to have that kind of experience.
Most people will die, in a nuclear war, of starvation and radiation sickness (and complications) after wards.
Many will die of direct or indirect consequences from the blast and heat. But far more will die from the consequences of loss of our modern industrial infrastructure and support systems.
Logic is a talent?
I would also add:
In nurturing this reading habit - read a "long thing".
It does no good to sit and read (for example) reddit (or other internet/social-network) comments for 25 minutes, because you're actually training your brain to flip over new thoughts and ideas, which may only be remotely connected, at a superficial level, shifting focus several times per minute (or more) - and you will lose your ability to look deeply at ideas within a broader context. This is the opposite of what you want your brain to be able to do.
Still haven't caught up with Fedora.
QEMM
This is actually similar to the argument about headless servers: How Microsoft forced the desktop GUI onto their servers - when the IT industry was telling them that was stupid.
Now; taking a look at Windows Server 2012 - behold! An option in the installer to setup a system with no desktop GUI, only a console. Could it be? So just as Microsoft FINALLY gets a fucking CLUE on the server side, they start pulling this same crap on on the Desktop/Mobile users.
note to space.com: defeats the purpose.
many digital camera sensors are actually pretty sensitive to IR; however, most manufacturers put IR filters on the sensors, because what we want is visible light, when we're taking a photo. I've seen mods on hackaday where someone who wants to do IR photography removes the IR filter on the sensor. (which is doable, when the filter is a separate glass or plastic plate, and not bonded to the surface of the sensor).
Self-Driving cars, I believe, have the ability to drastically reduce deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents...one of the highest causes of death in the USA.
Telecommuting has the same potential.
But for psychological reasons, Employers are not willing to allow widespread adoption of this.
Similarly, I don't think that employers are going to suddenly, magically decide to pay their employees (in aggregate) the increased salaries that would be required to add $10,000 worth of equipment to their commuter cars. We don't get a raise when gas-prices go up a nickel - but commuters eat the difference anyway. Self-driving cars will be a toy of the wealthy. Not broadly adopted throughout society. We're living in a generation where, even car-ownership, is on the decline.
you know you're basically talking about the most aerodynamically efficient production car out there.
I don't dispute that, but for MOST cars, 50 mph is the AVERAGE peak. And there are a lot of factors, including transmission, engine type, power-weight ratio - but none of these factors are nearly as important as MAINTAINING STEADY SPEED.
If your average is 50 mph, but you're slowing down and speeding up constantly, because the rest of traffic is doing 75, and you're needing to overtake 45 mph traffic (for example,) and thus, speeding up to merge with the faster traffic - then you'll consume SIGNIFICANTLY more fuel.
The case for self-driving cars improving efficiency, is made when EVERYONE has one, and they can all travel the same consistent narrow-range of speed, because they're not subject to human driving patterns. This is something that, IN THEORY, should make all cars way more efficient. But there's no practical way to test this theory. (and it's possible that this ideal condition may not work, because cars still need to speed up and slow down to enter/exit the freeway - and traffic signals on non-freeway roads, and differences in performance capabilities in different car models). It's certainly a nice idea, but I don't think it's realistic to expect everybody to have a driving car, any time in the next 50 years. We're more likely to see the efficiency savings from a broad adoption of electric/hybrid car technologies (like regenerative braking, elimination of transmission losses, etc).
Because the software and hardware (and maintenance costs) for a self-driving car is far (FAR) beyond the reach of even above-average wage earners, it will likely be rammed down our throats by insurance companies, and then funded by privacy-invading data collection, and . . . wait, you're not busy paying attention to the ROAD while you're driving? We'll show you ads. And we'll select a route that drives you past billboards, and shopping malls. Oh, you can opt-out of that if you want. For a "small" fee.
Expect lots of lobbyist-driven legislation to support this model.
It was done. Many times, and most recently in the 2010's by Argonne scientists.
Landmines can automatically select a target and fire (though not very intelligently), and they've been around for 100 years.
The existing laws were fine for "rogue extremists".. Treat them as organized crime.
"Pay per shot".
clearly, we need stronger copyright laws and more lawsuits!
better go with the schedule 120 stuff. schedule 40 is too weak, and would rupture under the load.
. . . then in 5 years, the US Safety-Mandated plastic lens cover will turn all cloudy and yellow, rendering it ineffective as a headlight.
Your mere presence in a past time would alter it such it will be forked from our own time line.
What's to say that the "prior" timeline is not erased?
And if so: this shift in time, all that mass, and distance; moving, instantaneously, to wherever else they would have to be. Laws of conservation of momentum and mass? Personally, I think that it's likely that backwards time-travel would result in some cataclysmic energy releases.
Even if it's as simple as ONE person, (say, the time-traveler) - deciding that at a future point in time, he would locate himself or herself somewhere else (perhaps to avoid some traumatic event in his or her life) - the moment at which they travel back, would release the energy from how they moved from point A to point B. If it took them X amount of time to make that physical transition, the energy expended at that point would instantaneously have to go "somewhere" in the "original" timeline. (plus every other person or object which reacted to, or was affected by those changes).
In the biggest earthquake I was ever in, I was about 50 miles from the epicenter of a 6.5. I was standing on a thinly carpeted concrete floor, which was directly on the ground floor (single-story office building). We're next to a busy road, so trucks going by frequently make the ground shake. But as it started, it lasted longer than a normal truck, then it got a little stronger. I stood up, and looked across the room. (cube farm), and I saw the cubes at the far end of the room start to shake violently. And this shaking advanced across the room towards ME. Maybe took 2-3 seconds to go across a 30-40 yard room? I actually felt the wave go under my right-foot, then under my left foot. It was very surreal. I saw my desk bend, in a way that should have broken it to splinters, as the wave passed. I never really figured out if that was real, or imaginary.
After the quake, we all ran out the emergency exit - and we were standing in the parking lot looking at each other. There was no more shaking, but we were all feeling quite seasick for several minutes after. None of us could tell if the ground was actually still moving, or if we were all feeling motion-sickness. That was very weird.
But in relation to your story, I could postulate that as the seismic waves transited your location, you were insulated from the shaking at the ground level. But the energy of things moving in weird directions may have caused some disorientation, and your brain got confused about how it was interpreting what you were seeing+feeling?
That fairy tale stopped existing once companies could buy the laws they need to create barriers to entry.
. . . . like Corporate Charters, for instance.