No, no, no. You've got it all wrong. We feel that you've selfishly used up too much of the planet's resources. We feel that God doesn't want you to live past a certain age.
Honestly, though, that's the rub: I'm quite content to live forever, but I don't want, say, George Bush to live forever. I don't particularly want that guy down the block who doesn't mow his lawn every week to live forever, either. And now I can't just wait for him to die. Hmmmm. Let's see if those bio-engineers can help his blasted carcass stay around after I get through with it...
People who claim that there isn't a moral diminsion to this are being obtuse. So I want to live forever. And I'd like that opportunity. But not everyone wants everyone else to live forever, do they? I still want to have kids. Great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids that I can bounce on my knees.
And what happens when the global population is 25 billion, and we then figure out how to overcome "natural decrease," or whatever you want to call it? The number of people in the world could grow faster than our ability to support them. You've got to realize, people talk about over-population now, but we still have enough resources to support everyone (that we don't is another argument altogether).
The resources are finite, and as the number of people using those resources increases, we'll get to the point where people will compete, violently, for those resources. You know, like people compete violently for the resource of say, oil.
So you won't die of old age, you'll die from somebody killing you. Yay.
Don't get me wrong though--I'd personally like to have the opporunity to live forever in that world. But it will be interesting. How do people who have a moral compunction against competing violently with others for limited resources deal with a situation like that?
I hate to be political, but I was disturbed by the mention in this article about the use of technology in archaeology of the "War on Terror." Does everything have to be justified by that now? What happened to scientific inquisitiveness? I know that there are practicalities to deal with, but that's ridiculous. Scientists don't need to spend time justifying their research as aid to the war on terror.
I think the real point that he's missing is that every project undertaken on Open Source that's a direct response to something that Microsoft is doing is a step in the direction of eliminating barriers to entry.
Anything that can be done on an Open Source platform that could previously only have been done in a Closed Source environment is a good thing.
Hear, hear! I also recommend reading Farley Mowatt's "Never Cry Wolf." Don't hold against it that it was made into a Disney movie, please. Farley Mowatt was sent into a section of Northern wilderness by the Canadian government to investigate the "wolf problem," as hunters were complaining to the government about the scarcity of Caribou, and how the wolves were killing them all.
His findings, in short: Human beings were responsible for the enormous drop in Caribou numbers by indiscriminate hunting. The number of myths about wolves and lupine behavior that are still around is absoultely inexcusable.
"and it is unbelievably disturbing that people like this are placed in charge of leading efforts..."
They aren't placed in charge. They assume leadership, either through their own inititative, or by default by being the most active, the most vocal, and, for whatever reason, the most well-known.
You need to read "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel Dennett. He explains in there how you can have something like "intelligent design" without an intelligent designer, or even any designer at all.
The net change doesn't even have to be beneficial. It just has to not be selected against. That means there's lots of random mutations floating around that haven't been eliminated from the gene pool.
There's always a way: a d3 for the 100's place (use a d6, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 for 0, 1, 2), a d6 for the 10's place (0-5), and the last place is tough: use a d8 and a d6, add the result, divide by 2, subtract 1. Gives you seven numbers 0-6.
Oh, please save me from geekdom. I can't believe I just did that.
127.0.0.1 is reserved for loopbacks. Class D first octet high order bits are 1110. That means Class D has a first octet decimal range of 224-239. Not 127.
There are a couple of Science Fiction novels that this reminds me of: Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire, and Stephen Donaldson's Gap Series. In Holy Fire, the people who don't take risks are rewarded by the controlling medical/insurance companies of the world with the procedures that allow a longer life. In the Gap Series, one of the characters has figured out a way to live for 150 years, and keep his mother alive as well. She's not happy in the book...
It's an interesting concept. He mentions briefly the idea that living longer has been related to starvation and castration. I think I've read somewhere that a sub-1,000 calorie/day diet is correlated with an increase in longevity.
The questions of bio-ethics are interesting as well. The quote from a genetics researcher who actually admits that we have the tools, but not the wisdom to use them, that was great! I agree wholeheartedly, but I also think that not having the wisdom is not reason enough to stop supporting the research.
Only after we fail will we have the wisdom. I'm sure we will fail and people will be harmed and there will be great outcries against genetic research. Many bad things will happen until we get the wisdom to use this properly...
Nahh. I'm being too optimistic. We haven't got the wisdom to use electricity properly yet. Hell, we haven't got the wisdom to use levers, wheels, screws, pulleys, wedges, inclined planes, etc. properly.
I'm too cynical these days, but I still believe we should do this research.
I want to be the world's first 200 year old man. Sign me up!
But a company I used to work for was audited by Microsoft, and had to spend a lot of money getting into compliance. The EULA is not a joke. So yes, someone has been "chastised" and "come under scrutiny" for this. I'm betting lots and lots of people have.
Re:Red Queen is a much earlier book than Genome
on
The Red Queen
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I've read the Red Queen, and The Selfish Gene, so I'll have to check those out. Otherwise, I would also recommend: Desmond Morris: The Naked Ape Daniel Dennett: Darwin's Dangeroous Idea
(Dennett is a philosopher, and thus looks at the logic more than the science, but it is still an excellent work. He has another excellent book, that has much less to do with evolution and genetics: Consciousness Explained.)
It is a nit-picky situation, and I have to say that I'm somewhere in the middle, so I try not to talk about Linux or GNU:-)
But how about if they had written:
"Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, the basis of such operating systems as RedHat, SUSE, Mandrake, and Lindows."
I should have put Debian in there....
Not perfectly accurate, I'll be the first to admit, but I think it's something everyone can be happy with, and isn't that important, sniff-sniff. Honestly, I think it's a succinct way of letting everyone know that Linux is only part of the deal--a major part, granted--and it means that nobody has to kowtow to RMS, if that's your beef.
As someone else mentioned, I wish I could have added you to my friends list. AC sucks man. Forget karma. Forget all that crap. Just post and have a name. We want to congratulate you.
That was funny. Sometimes I think the problem with moderation is that it only happens in a certain time frame, which is much smaller than the lifespan of the thread or article itself. So people like you don't get any mod points for funny (not that you deserve a +5, maybe just a +2 or so), but don't get any.
Then again, starting a thread about the silliness of the mod system is pretty dumb, too, so never mind.
Good post, great original post.
Different Licenses. The BSD's are released under the BSD licence, and the tools they use, in some cases, are older than the GNU foundation itself. Also, Linux the kernel was released under the GPL.
I think someone in an earlier post mentioned how the article could have talked about Linus as the inventor of the Linux kernel, and have been done with that. I agree.
That's not too hard, right? Choosing one's words carefully? Eveyone on slashdot does that so well!!
I agree that RMS is a fanatic in some cases, and that this looks like a case of heavy-handedness and being overly politically correct...
But, I really think that Linux isn't an operating system. To get an OS out of linux, you need a text editor and a compiler. Both of those tools are provided by the GNU. Anyone who claims to be using a Linux distribution without any GNU tools has spent a long, long time choosing very specific tools that aren't from the GNU, or writing their own. Anybody out there writing their own C compilers for the linux kernel? How about shells? Text editors? I can't think of any distributions that weren't built from GNU tools, so you'd have to do it from scratch.
To be honest, I was one of those who didn't like the fanaticism of the "GNU/Linux" campaign. But the more I think about it, the more I think it is important to acknowledge the importance of the GNU tools to Linux development.
Wow, you're informed. Dim, but informed. "Forks" as in forking of software versions, as in the history of Unix. Which dates to about 1970. 33 years. Original post was being funny.
No. And to all the other "funny" posters: no. Microsoft is not recommending a blessed thing. Researchers who work for a Microsoft research firm are. If companies always listened to their researchers, then Xerox wouldn't have let Steve Jobs look at the stuff at PARC in the late 70's. Lots of stuff gets developed at company-funded research institutions that don't directly benefit the company doing the funding. Microsoft research is NOT Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
Honestly, though, that's the rub: I'm quite content to live forever, but I don't want, say, George Bush to live forever. I don't particularly want that guy down the block who doesn't mow his lawn every week to live forever, either. And now I can't just wait for him to die. Hmmmm. Let's see if those bio-engineers can help his blasted carcass stay around after I get through with it...
People who claim that there isn't a moral diminsion to this are being obtuse. So I want to live forever. And I'd like that opportunity. But not everyone wants everyone else to live forever, do they? I still want to have kids. Great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids that I can bounce on my knees.
And what happens when the global population is 25 billion, and we then figure out how to overcome "natural decrease," or whatever you want to call it? The number of people in the world could grow faster than our ability to support them. You've got to realize, people talk about over-population now, but we still have enough resources to support everyone (that we don't is another argument altogether).
The resources are finite, and as the number of people using those resources increases, we'll get to the point where people will compete, violently, for those resources. You know, like people compete violently for the resource of say, oil.
So you won't die of old age, you'll die from somebody killing you. Yay.
Don't get me wrong though--I'd personally like to have the opporunity to live forever in that world. But it will be interesting. How do people who have a moral compunction against competing violently with others for limited resources deal with a situation like that?
I hate to be political, but I was disturbed by the mention in this article about the use of technology in archaeology of the "War on Terror." Does everything have to be justified by that now? What happened to scientific inquisitiveness? I know that there are practicalities to deal with, but that's ridiculous. Scientists don't need to spend time justifying their research as aid to the war on terror.
You wouldn't happen to be reading Quicksilver now, would you?
I think the real point that he's missing is that every project undertaken on Open Source that's a direct response to something that Microsoft is doing is a step in the direction of eliminating barriers to entry. Anything that can be done on an Open Source platform that could previously only have been done in a Closed Source environment is a good thing.
Hear, hear! I also recommend reading Farley Mowatt's "Never Cry Wolf." Don't hold against it that it was made into a Disney movie, please. Farley Mowatt was sent into a section of Northern wilderness by the Canadian government to investigate the "wolf problem," as hunters were complaining to the government about the scarcity of Caribou, and how the wolves were killing them all.
His findings, in short: Human beings were responsible for the enormous drop in Caribou numbers by indiscriminate hunting. The number of myths about wolves and lupine behavior that are still around is absoultely inexcusable.
Agreed, but
"and it is unbelievably disturbing that people like this are placed in charge of leading efforts..."
They aren't placed in charge. They assume leadership, either through their own inititative, or by default by being the most active, the most vocal, and, for whatever reason, the most well-known.
You need to read "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel Dennett. He explains in there how you can have something like "intelligent design" without an intelligent designer, or even any designer at all.
The net change doesn't even have to be beneficial. It just has to not be selected against. That means there's lots of random mutations floating around that haven't been eliminated from the gene pool.
The Sun is a mass
of incandescent gasses;
A giant nuclear furnace
Where Hydrogen is built into Helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees.
TMGB--the best nerd-band ever!
I'm so sorry I just wasted all my mod points. Good post
There's always a way:
a d3 for the 100's place (use a d6, 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 for 0, 1, 2), a d6 for the 10's place (0-5), and the last place is tough: use a d8 and a d6, add the result, divide by 2, subtract 1. Gives you seven numbers 0-6.
Oh, please save me from geekdom. I can't believe I just did that.
I'm betting on a troll, but oh, hell, I'll bite:
127.0.0.1 is reserved for loopbacks. Class D first octet high order bits are 1110. That means Class D has a first octet decimal range of 224-239. Not 127.
There are a couple of Science Fiction novels that this reminds me of: Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire, and Stephen Donaldson's Gap Series. In Holy Fire, the people who don't take risks are rewarded by the controlling medical/insurance companies of the world with the procedures that allow a longer life. In the Gap Series, one of the characters has figured out a way to live for 150 years, and keep his mother alive as well. She's not happy in the book...
It's an interesting concept. He mentions briefly the idea that living longer has been related to starvation and castration. I think I've read somewhere that a sub-1,000 calorie/day diet is correlated with an increase in longevity.
The questions of bio-ethics are interesting as well. The quote from a genetics researcher who actually admits that we have the tools, but not the wisdom to use them, that was great! I agree wholeheartedly, but I also think that not having the wisdom is not reason enough to stop supporting the research.
Only after we fail will we have the wisdom. I'm sure we will fail and people will be harmed and there will be great outcries against genetic research. Many bad things will happen until we get the wisdom to use this properly...
Nahh. I'm being too optimistic. We haven't got the wisdom to use electricity properly yet. Hell, we haven't got the wisdom to use levers, wheels, screws, pulleys, wedges, inclined planes, etc. properly.
I'm too cynical these days, but I still believe we should do this research.
I want to be the world's first 200 year old man. Sign me up!
Individuals probably don't have to worry...
But a company I used to work for was audited by Microsoft, and had to spend a lot of money getting into compliance. The EULA is not a joke. So yes, someone has been "chastised" and "come under scrutiny" for this. I'm betting lots and lots of people have.
I've read the Red Queen, and The Selfish Gene, so I'll have to check those out.
Otherwise, I would also recommend:
Desmond Morris: The Naked Ape
Daniel Dennett: Darwin's Dangeroous Idea
(Dennett is a philosopher, and thus looks at the logic more than the science, but it is still an excellent work. He has another excellent book, that has much less to do with evolution and genetics: Consciousness Explained.)
No, I don't think it was a troll, as the original poster has responded in this thread.
What problems with evolution? Knock yourself out, go off-topic. We'll forgive you.
It is a nit-picky situation, and I have to say that I'm somewhere in the middle, so I try not to talk about Linux or GNU :-)
But how about if they had written:
"Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, the basis of such operating systems as RedHat, SUSE, Mandrake, and Lindows."
I should have put Debian in there....
Not perfectly accurate, I'll be the first to admit, but I think it's something everyone can be happy with, and isn't that important, sniff-sniff. Honestly, I think it's a succinct way of letting everyone know that Linux is only part of the deal--a major part, granted--and it means that nobody has to kowtow to RMS, if that's your beef.
You're right, though, who does really care.
As someone else mentioned, I wish I could have added you to my friends list. AC sucks man. Forget karma. Forget all that crap. Just post and have a name. We want to congratulate you.
That was funny. Sometimes I think the problem with moderation is that it only happens in a certain time frame, which is much smaller than the lifespan of the thread or article itself. So people like you don't get any mod points for funny (not that you deserve a +5, maybe just a +2 or so), but don't get any. Then again, starting a thread about the silliness of the mod system is pretty dumb, too, so never mind. Good post, great original post.
Different Licenses. The BSD's are released under the BSD licence, and the tools they use, in some cases, are older than the GNU foundation itself. Also, Linux the kernel was released under the GPL.
I think someone in an earlier post mentioned how the article could have talked about Linus as the inventor of the Linux kernel, and have been done with that. I agree.
That's not too hard, right? Choosing one's words carefully? Eveyone on slashdot does that so well!!
I agree that RMS is a fanatic in some cases, and that this looks like a case of heavy-handedness and being overly politically correct...
But, I really think that Linux isn't an operating system. To get an OS out of linux, you need a text editor and a compiler. Both of those tools are provided by the GNU. Anyone who claims to be using a Linux distribution without any GNU tools has spent a long, long time choosing very specific tools that aren't from the GNU, or writing their own. Anybody out there writing their own C compilers for the linux kernel? How about shells? Text editors? I can't think of any distributions that weren't built from GNU tools, so you'd have to do it from scratch.
To be honest, I was one of those who didn't like the fanaticism of the "GNU/Linux" campaign. But the more I think about it, the more I think it is important to acknowledge the importance of the GNU tools to Linux development.
Wow, you're informed. Dim, but informed. "Forks" as in forking of software versions, as in the history of Unix. Which dates to about 1970. 33 years. Original post was being funny.
I don't subscribe to this point of view. It's such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians love their children too.
"When does this happen in the movie?"
"Now."
...
"When does then become now?"
"Soon."
No. And to all the other "funny" posters: no. Microsoft is not recommending a blessed thing. Researchers who work for a Microsoft research firm are. If companies always listened to their researchers, then Xerox wouldn't have let Steve Jobs look at the stuff at PARC in the late 70's. Lots of stuff gets developed at company-funded research institutions that don't directly benefit the company doing the funding. Microsoft research is NOT Microsoft.