you must see that comparing cars and p2p apps to guns is stretching it a bit?
Perhaps. While it is true (for most ethical systems anyway) that copyright infringment is less egregious a violation than murder, that fact is not relevant to the concept I was illustrating (that people will defend a thing the use of which is primarly unethical (or at least illegal) and not a thing the primary use of which (I propose) is ethical).
p2p apps don't kill. [...] Guns are WEAPONS
P2P apps are designed specifically to allow the user to engage in an activity (duplication of dtat) that may or may not be legal/ethical. This is, IMO, exactly the same as a gun (or blade) manufacturer, who produces a tool that allows the user to engage in an activity that may or may not be legal/ethical.
It was my position that development of these tools is morally equivalent, regardless of the consequences of their misuse, because I was not including a metric for 'potential harm from misuse' in the equavalency test. I see that this is incorrect. This would put Oppenheimer et.al. in the same position, even if they had done something like producing a pocket-sized megaton nuclear device and sold it at Wal-mart for $400. Unfortunately this throws a subjective value into the works (I try to keep subjective values out of stuff as much as possible, kind of a presentation layer/business logic thing).
I absolutely do not accept that 99.999999% of guns are used for target practice
I was speaking more to the proportion of rounds discharged with intent to strike a non-human target to those intended to hit human targets. A single gun can have many purposes, but a single bullet generally has only one (until it is remanfactured, but then its not the same bullet), so I believe it is more accurate to examine individual shots from a weapon.
It would be valid to disagree on the grounds that a soldier takes many practice shots, but the purpose of the weapon is still primarily to kill people. However, I exclude military weapons from the guns debate because there is no question of their intended purpose or how or by whom they will be used. Gun ownershipt discussions are generally in the context of the civilian population, where, I maintan, the vast majority of uses (by which I mean discharges) is not to kill people.
Militia use is kind of a fuzzy border there. Most of the people I have met who would participate in a militia situation are most simply classified as target shooters who would defend their country with whatever skills they had available at the time.
And rockets were not invented to put stuff in orbit, and computers were not invented so people could play Quake.
The primary purpose of a thing has nothing to do with what its creator intended it for. Purpose is determined only by the person using the thing. Nothing else.
Curious that people will defend a P2P app if it has 'substantial non-infringing uses' even if the vast majority of its use is infringing, but still condem guns, the usage of which is probably target shooting to five 9's (99.99999%).
If you'd RTFA you'd know that parts of the US military quit doing EMP protection after the USSR broke up, and much of the military computer equipment is essentially unprotected civilian equipment with a different paintjob.
I would like to note that my freedoms do not come from force of strength, but from rule of law
Bullshit. It is the force of strength that makes rule of law work. Next time you think there is no force of strength behind rule of law, try punching a judge.
Laws only work because we can use physical force to punish anyone who violates them. As a society of mostly civilized people we tend not to have to do so, but only because we are well trained. Its easier and more profitable to fine someone for a voilation, but but in the end, if someone absolutely refuses to submit to more civil means, we will physically drag their ass into a cage and lock them up there until we thing they'll play nice.
True. However, much can be accomplished by killing off those who have both the resources and the bawls to organize lots of other people into actually doing the killing.
Exactly right (except for that part about it being a good system).
Thats why there is lots of noise about 'looser pays' systems and varients. Essentially if you sue someone and loose, you pay all of their legal fees.
Of course, the people who would tend to support such a thing are also the people who tend not to vote or even know that there are electons other than presidental.
It doesn't matter that much anyway, even in a loose pays system it still takes time to defend oneself, and the vast majority of Americans can't afford to take more than a few weeks off of work.
Their best option is to settle for a minimal amount, then either pay in absurdly small incriments, or just never pay (if you don't have any assets they can't really take anything, it costs them money to come around to collect, and they don't get any publicity by harrasing you to actually get the money).
The point is that DU rounds scatter low-level radioactive material around the battlefield, stuff that remains radioactive for long after the battle is over and the field is turned into a school playground or whatever.
From what I've read we need to worry about how long oil will last, but we've got crap-loads of coal lying about. Along with oil shale and other materials that are just barely economically viable right now, we probably have more than enough to last until we get the fusion technology up and running (from what I read research is well funded and progress, while slow, is steady and promising). Particularly if people get on the 'efficent is good' bandwagon.
If you had RTFA you'd know that the pressure vessel is lined with a rather thick layer of graphite (and also has a large graphite column in the center). Besides that, I doubt a 5cm sphere of even the hardest substance would rub holes in a steel pressure vessel in even large multiples of the entire plant lifetime. And what vibration? These aren't Mexican Nuclear Jumping Beans, the don't move around on their own.
About the only reason for humans to not leave Earth is because fuel to fly us around in reasonable confort and safety is not available. Once we manage to build cheap, ultra-high-impulse engines (nuclear or antimatter perhaps), we'll go where ever we like. And the property laws will probably change very quickly too.
It will cost the same amount of energy today, tomorrow, and a thousand years from now to move large masses millions of miles, escape from planetary gravitation, etc
Correct, however, our ability to collect and apply the amounts of energy required will likely be increased in the future. For example, it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that we could develop autonomous solar collectors that convert solar energy into antimatter (or some other highly compact energy storage form) and ship it off to where it is required.
The possibilities for manned space travel are very good if such highly energetic fuels are available. Spacecraft size can be increased and issues related to our biological incompatibilities with low-gee conditions are eliminated (although I believe that within a few centuries we will have sufficent bio-engineering knowledge to ease these directly).
Additionally, since its also possible that human lifetimes could be enormously extended, project timescales on the order of hundreds of years could be reasonably undertaken.
I agree that extensive terraforming of Mars would probably be very difficult and would be a very long-term project, even with very advanced technology. But I do not think we know enough about the science of terraforming to make useful speculations.
Regarding human bio-engineering: The characteristics must be deliberately and accurately added to the human genome with high a priori confidence that they will have the intended results. [This] is absurd. It implies we know exactly what to do without ever having done it.
I think you underestimate our ability to understand and apply genetic manipulation.
Also note that I didn't imply these changes must be genetic in nature. A bio-engineering solution could be, for example, an engineered symbiotic organism serving as an exoskeleton for normal humans. It could serve to block high-energy particles, compensate for low atmospheric pressure, regulate temperature, provide first-aid measures, and any number of other functions.
ethical objections are probably insurmountable,
The ethical issues of the far future are, IMO, utterly unpredictable. Those issues are for inhabitants of that future to work out.
I disagree regarding manned space travel only in near-space, Earth orbit and the Moon. I think that it would be reasonable to establish a permanent base on the moon, provided it has some use. One only has to watch deep-sea ROVs fumble with the most basic of object manipulations to see that one human is vastly more capable of performing general tasks than an army of general purpose robots. Until propulsion technology is improved by orders of magnitude, I agree that distant places are better explored by machines.
It seems to me that propulsion is the main limiting factor in manned exploration. If we were not constrained by the need to make everything as small and light as possible, and only take what is absolutely necessary, the possibility of manned exploration is much much better.
While we can collect just about as much data as we could want with unmanned missions, I think that the thrill of actually being there, or knowing that 'we' are out there planting flags or snapping pictures with our own flesh-and-blood is vastly more satisfying then knowing we can get a machine out there to do those things. Economicly robots are cheaper and easier, but we don't always want to do things the cheap, easy way.
It could be done, but you'd have to send up a shuttle and a crew of astronaughts to asseble the thing around the HST. If you already had a shuttle there, you might as well just put it in the cargo bay and bring it back that way.
Depends. If I could figure out how to eliminate the US governments property rights on it, sure, I could probably sue them to rebuild my house, and I could still part out the telescope on Ebay. I might send a few mirror fragments to that museum too.
There is *zero* reason why Hubble cannot be brought back by the Shuttle, it was designed to be brought back that way.
Well, Columbia was the only shuttle equipped to do so, and its not available. The other shuttles are set up to dock with the ISS. They'd have to have to be refitted with different equipment to bring back the HST. Certainly possible, but its not like they can just grab any old shuttle and send it up next week to get the HST.
we must eventually leave this world if we are to grow as a species
This popular gem, held by a great many people, is a patently ridiculous assertion
You are correct that it is not a fact of human existance. However, it is true that a large number of people believe that man should expand past this one world. So, at some point some people probably will, providing that some technological and economic conditions are met.
Your arguments about costs are valid, but short-sighted. Technology brings the cost of manufacturing down, eventually it will probably be cost effective for entities with large economies to colonize space for the long term. As the tools are developed, the cost of entry will decrease (presuming political manuvering does not deliberately keep them high to prevent others from colonizing).
Your point about terraforming is also valid. And equally short sighted. Mars is not a friendly place for humans. However, its certainly possible that humans can be adapted to more easily survive the natural conditions there. Extensive bio-engineering could produce radiation hardened people who would not require extensive protection from the environment. Certainly they would live a very different life than us here on Earth, but that is part of the point.
believing that escape from earth is an ultimate solution distracts us from the pressing need to reorganize human life on earth
Leaving Earth is not an escape, and more than the pre-historical expansion of humans across the globe was an escape from Africa. Other than that, you are absolutely correct, our social problems are a huge problem that must be solved in a generally applicable way (we need to know exactly why these problems develop and how to structure society to avoid them in the most permanaent way possible). That does not mean that we should not continue to develop technology and plans for the future. Yes, it will be centuries before humans live their lives off of Earth, and yes, the details are such that we cannot forsee them. That is the nature of long-term planning, and the ultimate goals will be evaluated by our childrens children.
Seems like a bad idea to put into unreachable orbit a device with a power system dependent on a spinning turbine. I know bearings take much less load in microgravity, but it seems that you'd be introducing a source of vibration and it would be much more likely to fail than some nice solar panels.
I doubt the cost difference between the two is enough to effect the decision, and I doubt the thing requires more power than solar panels can provide.
Slashdot Mirror
you must see that comparing cars and p2p apps to guns is stretching it a bit?
Perhaps. While it is true (for most ethical systems anyway) that copyright infringment is less egregious a violation than murder, that fact is not relevant to the concept I was illustrating (that people will defend a thing the use of which is primarly unethical (or at least illegal) and not a thing the primary use of which (I propose) is ethical).
p2p apps don't kill. [...] Guns are WEAPONS
P2P apps are designed specifically to allow the user to engage in an activity (duplication of dtat) that may or may not be legal/ethical. This is, IMO, exactly the same as a gun (or blade) manufacturer, who produces a tool that allows the user to engage in an activity that may or may not be legal/ethical.
It was my position that development of these tools is morally equivalent, regardless of the consequences of their misuse, because I was not including a metric for 'potential harm from misuse' in the equavalency test. I see that this is incorrect. This would put Oppenheimer et.al. in the same position, even if they had done something like producing a pocket-sized megaton nuclear device and sold it at Wal-mart for $400. Unfortunately this throws a subjective value into the works (I try to keep subjective values out of stuff as much as possible, kind of a presentation layer/business logic thing).
I absolutely do not accept that 99.999999% of guns are used for target practice
I was speaking more to the proportion of rounds discharged with intent to strike a non-human target to those intended to hit human targets. A single gun can have many purposes, but a single bullet generally has only one (until it is remanfactured, but then its not the same bullet), so I believe it is more accurate to examine individual shots from a weapon.
It would be valid to disagree on the grounds that a soldier takes many practice shots, but the purpose of the weapon is still primarily to kill people. However, I exclude military weapons from the guns debate because there is no question of their intended purpose or how or by whom they will be used. Gun ownershipt discussions are generally in the context of the civilian population, where, I maintan, the vast majority of uses (by which I mean discharges) is not to kill people.
Militia use is kind of a fuzzy border there. Most of the people I have met who would participate in a militia situation are most simply classified as target shooters who would defend their country with whatever skills they had available at the time.
For all intensive purposes you know what I mean, viruses or viri their both bad
I'm no grammar nazi, I just found this reply highly amusing.
Guns were not invented for target shooting
And rockets were not invented to put stuff in orbit, and computers were not invented so people could play Quake.
The primary purpose of a thing has nothing to do with what its creator intended it for. Purpose is determined only by the person using the thing. Nothing else.
Curious that people will defend a P2P app if it has 'substantial non-infringing uses' even if the vast majority of its use is infringing, but still condem guns, the usage of which is probably target shooting to five 9's (99.99999%).
If you'd RTFA you'd know that parts of the US military quit doing EMP protection after the USSR broke up, and much of the military computer equipment is essentially unprotected civilian equipment with a different paintjob.
John Stuart Mill evidently never studied Buddhism.
I would like to note that my freedoms do not come from force of strength, but from rule of law
Bullshit. It is the force of strength that makes rule of law work. Next time you think there is no force of strength behind rule of law, try punching a judge.
Laws only work because we can use physical force to punish anyone who violates them. As a society of mostly civilized people we tend not to have to do so, but only because we are well trained. Its easier and more profitable to fine someone for a voilation, but but in the end, if someone absolutely refuses to submit to more civil means, we will physically drag their ass into a cage and lock them up there until we thing they'll play nice.
Typically it has the opposite effect.
True. However, much can be accomplished by killing off those who have both the resources and the bawls to organize lots of other people into actually doing the killing.
Exactly right (except for that part about it being a good system).
Thats why there is lots of noise about 'looser pays' systems and varients. Essentially if you sue someone and loose, you pay all of their legal fees.
Of course, the people who would tend to support such a thing are also the people who tend not to vote or even know that there are electons other than presidental.
It doesn't matter that much anyway, even in a loose pays system it still takes time to defend oneself, and the vast majority of Americans can't afford to take more than a few weeks off of work.
Their best option is to settle for a minimal amount, then either pay in absurdly small incriments, or just never pay (if you don't have any assets they can't really take anything, it costs them money to come around to collect, and they don't get any publicity by harrasing you to actually get the money).
distribution of Linux iso images is one that springs immediately to mind
I'd say amature porn (of the uncopyrighted, public domain type) is much more frequenly traded material.
Course lots of people will say thats immoral too, but thats not their problem.
Guns are made for killing.
Guns are made for damaging things from a distance.
The user chooses what to hit or kill.
Some bullets are made specificly for killing though.
Cars PRIMARY purpose is to transport people [...]
Guns PRIMARY purpose is to kill
How do you define 'primary purpose'?
Guns are used many orders of magnitude more often to shoot targets recreationally than they are used to shoot people.
I'd say that the primary use of guns is target shooting, followed by hunting.
I'd say their primary purpose is to inflict damage upon a distant object.
The point is that DU rounds scatter low-level radioactive material around the battlefield, stuff that remains radioactive for long after the battle is over and the field is turned into a school playground or whatever.
From what I've read we need to worry about how long oil will last, but we've got crap-loads of coal lying about. Along with oil shale and other materials that are just barely economically viable right now, we probably have more than enough to last until we get the fusion technology up and running (from what I read research is well funded and progress, while slow, is steady and promising). Particularly if people get on the 'efficent is good' bandwagon.
If you had RTFA you'd know that the pressure vessel is lined with a rather thick layer of graphite (and also has a large graphite column in the center). Besides that, I doubt a 5cm sphere of even the hardest substance would rub holes in a steel pressure vessel in even large multiples of the entire plant lifetime. And what vibration? These aren't Mexican Nuclear Jumping Beans, the don't move around on their own.
About the only reason for humans to not leave Earth is because fuel to fly us around in reasonable confort and safety is not available. Once we manage to build cheap, ultra-high-impulse engines (nuclear or antimatter perhaps), we'll go where ever we like. And the property laws will probably change very quickly too.
It will cost the same amount of energy today, tomorrow, and a thousand years from now to move large masses millions of miles, escape from planetary gravitation, etc
Correct, however, our ability to collect and apply the amounts of energy required will likely be increased in the future. For example, it would not be beyond the realm of possibility that we could develop autonomous solar collectors that convert solar energy into antimatter (or some other highly compact energy storage form) and ship it off to where it is required.
The possibilities for manned space travel are very good if such highly energetic fuels are available. Spacecraft size can be increased and issues related to our biological incompatibilities with low-gee conditions are eliminated (although I believe that within a few centuries we will have sufficent bio-engineering knowledge to ease these directly).
Additionally, since its also possible that human lifetimes could be enormously extended, project timescales on the order of hundreds of years could be reasonably undertaken.
I agree that extensive terraforming of Mars would probably be very difficult and would be a very long-term project, even with very advanced technology. But I do not think we know enough about the science of terraforming to make useful speculations.
Regarding human bio-engineering:
The characteristics must be deliberately and accurately added to the human genome with high a priori confidence that they will have the intended results. [This] is absurd. It implies we know exactly what to do without ever having done it.
I think you underestimate our ability to understand and apply genetic manipulation.
Also note that I didn't imply these changes must be genetic in nature. A bio-engineering solution could be, for example, an engineered symbiotic organism serving as an exoskeleton for normal humans. It could serve to block high-energy particles, compensate for low atmospheric pressure, regulate temperature, provide first-aid measures, and any number of other functions.
ethical objections are probably insurmountable,
The ethical issues of the far future are, IMO, utterly unpredictable. Those issues are for inhabitants of that future to work out.
I disagree regarding manned space travel only in near-space, Earth orbit and the Moon. I think that it would be reasonable to establish a permanent base on the moon, provided it has some use. One only has to watch deep-sea ROVs fumble with the most basic of object manipulations to see that one human is vastly more capable of performing general tasks than an army of general purpose robots. Until propulsion technology is improved by orders of magnitude, I agree that distant places are better explored by machines.
It seems to me that propulsion is the main limiting factor in manned exploration. If we were not constrained by the need to make everything as small and light as possible, and only take what is absolutely necessary, the possibility of manned exploration is much much better.
While we can collect just about as much data as we could want with unmanned missions, I think that the thrill of actually being there, or knowing that 'we' are out there planting flags or snapping pictures with our own flesh-and-blood is vastly more satisfying then knowing we can get a machine out there to do those things. Economicly robots are cheaper and easier, but we don't always want to do things the cheap, easy way.
Have we become a population with such a short attention span that we can no longer appreciate the value of long-term research?
Huh? Sorry, what was that you were talking about?
It could be done, but you'd have to send up a shuttle and a crew of astronaughts to asseble the thing around the HST. If you already had a shuttle there, you might as well just put it in the cargo bay and bring it back that way.
Do you want a 12 tons falling on your house?
Depends. If I could figure out how to eliminate the US governments property rights on it, sure, I could probably sue them to rebuild my house, and I could still part out the telescope on Ebay. I might send a few mirror fragments to that museum too.
Heck, saving billions of barrels of oil from a demented murderer is worth at least a couple hundred billion.
Unless you want to get some of those people over here to push my car around.
There is *zero* reason why Hubble cannot be brought back by the Shuttle, it was designed to be brought back that way.
Well, Columbia was the only shuttle equipped to do so, and its not available. The other shuttles are set up to dock with the ISS. They'd have to have to be refitted with different equipment to bring back the HST. Certainly possible, but its not like they can just grab any old shuttle and send it up next week to get the HST.
we must eventually leave this world if we are to grow as a species
This popular gem, held by a great many people, is a patently ridiculous assertion
You are correct that it is not a fact of human existance. However, it is true that a large number of people believe that man should expand past this one world. So, at some point some people probably will, providing that some technological and economic conditions are met.
Your arguments about costs are valid, but short-sighted. Technology brings the cost of manufacturing down, eventually it will probably be cost effective for entities with large economies to colonize space for the long term. As the tools are developed, the cost of entry will decrease (presuming political manuvering does not deliberately keep them high to prevent others from colonizing).
Your point about terraforming is also valid. And equally short sighted. Mars is not a friendly place for humans. However, its certainly possible that humans can be adapted to more easily survive the natural conditions there. Extensive bio-engineering could produce radiation hardened people who would not require extensive protection from the environment. Certainly they would live a very different life than us here on Earth, but that is part of the point.
believing that escape from earth is an ultimate solution distracts us from the pressing need to reorganize human life on earth
Leaving Earth is not an escape, and more than the pre-historical expansion of humans across the globe was an escape from Africa. Other than that, you are absolutely correct, our social problems are a huge problem that must be solved in a generally applicable way (we need to know exactly why these problems develop and how to structure society to avoid them in the most permanaent way possible). That does not mean that we should not continue to develop technology and plans for the future. Yes, it will be centuries before humans live their lives off of Earth, and yes, the details are such that we cannot forsee them. That is the nature of long-term planning, and the ultimate goals will be evaluated by our childrens children.
Seems like a bad idea to put into unreachable orbit a device with a power system dependent on a spinning turbine. I know bearings take much less load in microgravity, but it seems that you'd be introducing a source of vibration and it would be much more likely to fail than some nice solar panels.
I doubt the cost difference between the two is enough to effect the decision, and I doubt the thing requires more power than solar panels can provide.
Rename it Old Yeller. Dad'll put it down, while you weep into your dusty wool shirt.
Actually, you have to put it down yourself, cuz your the man while dad isn't there.
I am aware that money does not directly buy scientific breakthroughs
Yeah, we need to buy a few dozen more Feynman's and install them as instructors at the best technical colleges.
At this rate I'm never going to make it to the Singularity, lets invest in some more life-extending medical research.