I used to think democracy was really great until I slowly became aware that it means that whoever controls the media controls the votes. Reading Noam Chomsky's "manufacturing consent" really opened my eyes to how big the problem really is.
It's a typical case of gigo, if you can not trust the sources for the knowledge that you base your decisions on (and almost no single source available to the general public is without bias) then you will get really lousy decisions.
Correlation may not be equal to causation, but if there is a preponderance of it then it starts to be at least a better guess than pure coincidence. If you don't teach people to think for themselves and evaluate data but simply to 'believe' then you'll find that they become a lot easier to manipulate.
So, it does not need to be an 'atheist rant' to draw a connection between understanding science and 'belief in something beyond understanding'.
To someone that thinks for themselves instead of taking fairy tales for granted 'beyond understanding' equals a challenge to go and find out, to someone with a belief system it equals 'supreme being did it', end of curiosity.
Ok, so let me rephrase that to see if it comes out better: I think that there should be a tangible personal cost attached to the use of the military for those that make policy, so that they will not use it lightly or simply for 'personal gain', in other words they should be sure to lose as much personally as they could potentially gain from deployment. I think that would take quick care of wars for straightforward economic reasons.
(And almost every war that I can think of was for economic reasons)
Actually, yes, I did think about it more than 5 seconds, I spent a good bit of time reading a couple of articles about it. I think it is one of the few positive things that I've read about the 'robot wars', and possibly one of the very few things that will safeguard against the further turning of war into a sort of Enders game like situation.
The big point is that those pilots flying aircraft at least put their lives on the line, the ones flying drones are not personally at risk, and I'm sort of happy to find out that that is not entirely the case.
so, now we only have to get rid of that 'global' keyword and default globally declared variables (variables declared outside the scope of any function) to be globals.
As the personal cost of war for a country decreases the willingness to go to war goes up.
From what I've read elsewhere the other day it seems though that drones have a 'hidden cost' attached to them, the people that control the drones get to see the result of their actions and they are having serious psychological issues as a result of that.
quite probably, but the people who make a living on the dark side are definitely not going to be in attendance in a place where law enforcement would certainly be represented to keep tabs on 'who's who'.
If you're a black hat attending a conference like this would be about as smart as a professional safe cracker attending conference announced to attract everybody who is somebody in the safe cracking business. If I were a safe cracker for real I'd stay very far away from such an event.
So, sure there'll be some people worth their salt but they are most likely white hats, not black hats, and it's black hats that seem to be causing the majority of the trouble.
Anybody that claims he/she is a hacker is most likely not.
These are the 'l33t' script kiddies and such, they couldn't hack their way out of a paper back if someone didn't provide a fill-in-the-blanks kit that they can download.
Anybody that really is a hacker is already in your system, just not bragging about it.
It's like lock picking, if you're really good at it you keep your mouth shut so that if some stuff disappears you're not going to be #1 on everybody's suspect list.
Better yet, they'd completely open up the whole spec, wiring diagrams, software versions and all. Just a couple of pictures of some old gear really don't mean much (and could be disinformation!).
I think I can live with the flat earthers a good bit more than I can with the creationists. They're really out with an agenda. It's no secret that there have always been people with less than optimally functioning critical faculties...
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I used to think democracy was really great until I slowly became aware that it means that whoever controls the media controls the votes. Reading Noam Chomsky's "manufacturing consent" really opened my eyes to how big the problem really is.
It's a typical case of gigo, if you can not trust the sources for the knowledge that you base your decisions on (and almost no single source available to the general public is without bias) then you will get really lousy decisions.
Correlation may not be equal to causation, but if there is a preponderance of it then it starts to be at least a better guess than pure coincidence. If you don't teach people to think for themselves and evaluate data but simply to 'believe' then you'll find that they become a lot easier to manipulate.
So, it does not need to be an 'atheist rant' to draw a connection between understanding science and 'belief in something beyond understanding'.
To someone that thinks for themselves instead of taking fairy tales for granted 'beyond understanding' equals a challenge to go and find out, to someone with a belief system it equals 'supreme being did it', end of curiosity.
you're both right :)
Ok, so let me rephrase that to see if it comes out better: I think that there should be a tangible personal cost attached to the use of the military for those that make policy, so that they will not use it lightly or simply for 'personal gain', in other words they should be sure to lose as much personally as they could potentially gain from deployment. I think that would take quick care of wars for straightforward economic reasons.
(And almost every war that I can think of was for economic reasons)
ah yes, of course :)
my bad, apologies, a wet paper back at that ;)
"it's not idle speculation, I think we'll certainly hit it within the next decade, depending on just how far developers try to push the envelope."
I'm pretty sure that's spot on, and I really wished that there was a mandatory requirement for politicians to serve a tour of duty on the front line.
Really, way to go Microsoft, advertise your incompetence to the whole world in an even bigger setting than that famous keynote.
what a pity you posted that as AC...
Actually, yes, I did think about it more than 5 seconds, I spent a good bit of time reading a couple of articles about it. I think it is one of the few positive things that I've read about the 'robot wars', and possibly one of the very few things that will safeguard against the further turning of war into a sort of Enders game like situation.
The big point is that those pilots flying aircraft at least put their lives on the line, the ones flying drones are not personally at risk, and I'm sort of happy to find out that that is not entirely the case.
So, what's your view?
well, he may be dreaming about that for the rest of his life, but he's arguably a lot better off than the 'insurgents' that he killed.
remote control, cameras + gps provide situational info.
interesting... I can see them being auctioned off on the mechanical turk too. Makes you wonder who is fighting who, it's mostly about $ anyway.
As opposed to 'regular' fighter jocks. The article is here:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/flying-drones-f.html
yes, and like it *doesn't* say in the title.
so, now we only have to get rid of that 'global' keyword and default globally declared variables (variables declared outside the scope of any function) to be globals.
That's my main gripe with PHP.
this is *SOUTH* Korea we are talking about.
As the personal cost of war for a country decreases the willingness to go to war goes up.
From what I've read elsewhere the other day it seems though that drones have a 'hidden cost' attached to them, the people that control the drones get to see the result of their actions and they are having serious psychological issues as a result of that.
met dieven vang je dieven :)
Hehe, ok, you've just made a *lot* of people really nervous :)
quite probably, but the people who make a living on the dark side are definitely not going to be in attendance in a place where law enforcement would certainly be represented to keep tabs on 'who's who'.
If you're a black hat attending a conference like this would be about as smart as a professional safe cracker attending conference announced to attract everybody who is somebody in the safe cracking business. If I were a safe cracker for real I'd stay very far away from such an event.
So, sure there'll be some people worth their salt but they are most likely white hats, not black hats, and it's black hats that seem to be causing the majority of the trouble.
you are living a sheltered life :)
I highly doubt that :)
Anybody that claims he/she is a hacker is most likely not.
These are the 'l33t' script kiddies and such, they couldn't hack their way out of a paper back if someone didn't provide a fill-in-the-blanks kit that they can download.
Anybody that really is a hacker is already in your system, just not bragging about it.
It's like lock picking, if you're really good at it you keep your mouth shut so that if some stuff disappears you're not going to be #1 on everybody's suspect list.
Better yet, they'd completely open up the whole spec, wiring diagrams, software versions and all. Just a couple of pictures of some old gear really don't mean much (and could be disinformation!).
seriously, what is so special about this ?
> Let me guess, you're an anti-US frog.
And you're a moron and so far off base it's not even funny, but hey, you're anonymous so who cares.
I've probably got more friends in the US than I have in Europe.
It's quite easy to separate the concepts of 'country', 'people' and 'government'. But you're apparently not able to do so.
I think I can live with the flat earthers a good bit more than I can with the creationists. They're really out with an agenda. It's no secret that there have always been people with less than optimally functioning critical faculties...