No, being armed simply means you're the one the gunman will shoot first to avoid being shot at. You cannot deter a gunman. That is why America has more than ten times as many as Britain, despite having only four times the population and five tines the guns.
It's also why you see more gunmen in America in places where people are more heavily armed.
It's why have a go heroes either get killed or kill innocent bystanders but rarely ever stop an attack.
If having weapons worked, nobody would fight wars. They'd turn up, count weapons, and the one with the least would go home. Doesn't happen.
Guns don't deter. That's why gun crime in countries that don't have this hero mindset have far lower gun crime, regardless of guns per capita. It is the wild west myth, the heroic gunslinger, that causes people to die.
You do know America's protectionism allowed Hitler to rise to power, as did Europe's attitude after WW1.
If people hadn't been so bloody minded and so bloody stupid, Hitler would never have risen to power.
Lesson #1: If you're not so bloody stupid, then nobody else is likely to become moronic. If you don't create your enemies, you tend not to have any. And then you don't have to fight anyone.
And what did you achieve in Iraq? You single-handedly created Al Qaeda in Iraq, it hadn't existed before the Invasion. Indeed, the only terror cells that existed before then were the ones created and armed by Col. Oliver North.
And bombing them to bits created ISIS, which turned from a bunch of wannabes into a serious invasion force through Blackwater murdering Sunnis for fun.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Iraq government ditched America and allied with Iran. What did anyone expect? Iraq had been looted and plundered by US forces, infrastructure was in ruins and nobody was held accountable.
People aren't loyal to killers and thugs., they are loyal to people who supply stuff they want. Nobody wanted Christian religious fanatics waging what they themselves called a holy war. Nobody held them in any higher regard than any other religious fanatics of any other religion.
The current war in Syria, the war in Iraq, the war with Germany, all caused by bloodymindedness and stupidity on a grand scale. They were all avoidable.
You cannot claim any achievement through winning a war you should never have allowed to arise.
Weapons are expensive to produce. Wars are expensive to fight. As Sun Tzu notes, the best strategy is not to fight.
If you don't produce killer AI but put your resources into out-evolving humans and AIs as individual constructs, you can't be beaten by either and can walk right over those degraded and exhausted by fighting.
1. Democracy, like all systems, must evolve. And that means it will eventually evolve into something not democracy.
2. AIs and humans each have strengths where the other is weak. Just as prokaryotes combined to form the nucleus and mitochondria of more powerful eukyarotes, and these combined with viruses and bacteria to eventually form human cells, AIs and humans can combine to form a composite organism more powerful than either alone. Systems naturally combine, rather than compete.
There's no shortage of fissile material as sludge in the Irish Sea. Getting it without being noticed would be difficult, but unlikely to be impossible.
Extracting the uranium and plutonium from the americium and other elements would be the challenge, and probably beyond garage developers, but the quantities would be easy.
Who said anything about starting? Ethics was invented by scientists, primarily to stop lunatics. It moved into technology in the 19th century.
By the time Theo refused to allow DARPA to influence OpenBSD for military uses, computer software had engaged in ethical and responsible practices for over two decades.
Very good point. What is truthful is that some percent will see enemies with real or imagined weapons as threats to be neutralised, regardless of any real threat.
You cannot deter the insane or psychotic, don't bother, and as some fanatics want to bring about the end of the world, mutually assured destruction is more of a temptation than a threat.
That's an equation scientists have to consider. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. You can't uninvent a weapon.
I agree that guilting is useless, but threatening is worse than useless. Other options are needed.
Why a dome? Perfectly good lava tubes. And unless you're up for 200 mile walks every day, no reason to go outside.
Lack of water? We know there's plenty underground.
Lack of food/air? Biosphere 2, without the mistakes, could supply both.
I respect the guy but these are sixth former mistakes. I never accept second best, and that goes double for those I respect. Those I don't respect, I expect to screw up. Them screwing up is why I don't respect them.
Around 11,000 BC, labour was divided. I'm not sure ability had anything to do with it, as brewing was exclusively controlled by women. They're perfectly good brewers, but it's obvious enough ability wasn't the deciding factor.
Feel free to ignore the fact that it took 10,000 years for humans and wolves to come to that arrangement, and another 10,000 to domesticated wolves to the point where that arrangement is bred in.
Tell me how you're doing after you've worked with crows for 20,000 years. Otherwise, the comparison is false. You're not a time lord? Oh, then I guess you'll just need to accept you can't make the comparison.
If no, then a hosted language is not the same as the hosting language.
As for C++, suggest comparing a Visual Studio 6 C++ program or even a VS2015 C++ program with a GCC C++ program, an Intel C++ program or a Green Hills C++ program.
They are not the same. Those five compilers all support stuff that the others cannot run. Porting between them is a serious pain.
Even just porting between VS6 and VS2015 is agony. And what's with this "oh, we deprecated POSIX"?
No, if you don't support POSIX, you're not the same language as is supported on systems that do.
NoSQL is a very old concept. MUMPS has a hierarchical database built into it. DB4 and GDBM are arguably just as NoSQL as Memcached. OODBMS predate Memcached as well.
Web developers don't drive anything, just as change directory developers didn't drive the BBS scene, although those were the most common utility.
But web programmers show no serious interest in either. That could be because of install base, but then that's because of install base and not because the options aren't there.
A language that isn't type safe is inherently going to have a higher defect density unless the programmer is using strict software engineering methodology. It is also less capable of optimizing, as it cannot determine if the constraints necessary are met.
They also have certain limitations. I'd hate to see the NAG or Netlib libraries rewritten in Javascript. Rewriting OpenMPI or HDF5 in Python might be doable, but would the result be useful?
However, if you had access to sufficient libraries for underlying functions and some helper macros, you could program in Python without ever leaving C.
Or you could use a source to source compiler to translate Python into equivalent C.
In either case, you get things done, but then have a single environment rather than many. Every interpreter and every standard library you rely on is a potential source of bugs, so if the machine only ever sees one, you've got a major advantage.
And that's without you, personally, doing anything differently. You'd still write in exactly the same way, it would read to you in exactly the same way, but underneath all of that, your Intel/Green Hills C compiler takes care of it all and generates one set of binaries in a homogeneous environment.
Maybe there's a reason that's not done at your place, but can you see that there's no technical objection to it?
Tcl is important in this debate as it was an early rival to Javascript, being incorporated into a number of web browsers as opposed to merely being something that could be included.
If you're developing a web application, use Java if you want people to know what you're doing. It'll be slow but it'll generally work and it'll be portable.
For faster web apps, you might want to use Wt and C++, but expect it to be hell to maintain.
For robotics, Java was specifically created with that application in mind.
So there are domains where you should use it.
Upgrading us a pain, yes. That's why you put unstable features into a support library. Then you never update the app, you only update the support code.
Well, before C there was B, before which there was BCPL (the language MUD 1 was written in - making BCPL the most important language in the universe). Before that was CPL. And before that, darkness.
Slashdot Mirror
No, being armed simply means you're the one the gunman will shoot first to avoid being shot at. You cannot deter a gunman. That is why America has more than ten times as many as Britain, despite having only four times the population and five tines the guns.
It's also why you see more gunmen in America in places where people are more heavily armed.
It's why have a go heroes either get killed or kill innocent bystanders but rarely ever stop an attack.
If having weapons worked, nobody would fight wars. They'd turn up, count weapons, and the one with the least would go home. Doesn't happen.
Guns don't deter. That's why gun crime in countries that don't have this hero mindset have far lower gun crime, regardless of guns per capita. It is the wild west myth, the heroic gunslinger, that causes people to die.
You do know America's protectionism allowed Hitler to rise to power, as did Europe's attitude after WW1.
If people hadn't been so bloody minded and so bloody stupid, Hitler would never have risen to power.
Lesson #1: If you're not so bloody stupid, then nobody else is likely to become moronic. If you don't create your enemies, you tend not to have any. And then you don't have to fight anyone.
And what did you achieve in Iraq? You single-handedly created Al Qaeda in Iraq, it hadn't existed before the Invasion. Indeed, the only terror cells that existed before then were the ones created and armed by Col. Oliver North.
And bombing them to bits created ISIS, which turned from a bunch of wannabes into a serious invasion force through Blackwater murdering Sunnis for fun.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Iraq government ditched America and allied with Iran. What did anyone expect? Iraq had been looted and plundered by US forces, infrastructure was in ruins and nobody was held accountable.
People aren't loyal to killers and thugs., they are loyal to people who supply stuff they want. Nobody wanted Christian religious fanatics waging what they themselves called a holy war. Nobody held them in any higher regard than any other religious fanatics of any other religion.
The current war in Syria, the war in Iraq, the war with Germany, all caused by bloodymindedness and stupidity on a grand scale. They were all avoidable.
You cannot claim any achievement through winning a war you should never have allowed to arise.
The country that sidesteps the problem wins.
Weapons are expensive to produce. Wars are expensive to fight. As Sun Tzu notes, the best strategy is not to fight.
If you don't produce killer AI but put your resources into out-evolving humans and AIs as individual constructs, you can't be beaten by either and can walk right over those degraded and exhausted by fighting.
That's who wins.
Two things.
1. Democracy, like all systems, must evolve. And that means it will eventually evolve into something not democracy.
2. AIs and humans each have strengths where the other is weak. Just as prokaryotes combined to form the nucleus and mitochondria of more powerful eukyarotes, and these combined with viruses and bacteria to eventually form human cells, AIs and humans can combine to form a composite organism more powerful than either alone. Systems naturally combine, rather than compete.
There's no shortage of fissile material as sludge in the Irish Sea. Getting it without being noticed would be difficult, but unlikely to be impossible.
Extracting the uranium and plutonium from the americium and other elements would be the challenge, and probably beyond garage developers, but the quantities would be easy.
Who said anything about starting? Ethics was invented by scientists, primarily to stop lunatics. It moved into technology in the 19th century.
By the time Theo refused to allow DARPA to influence OpenBSD for military uses, computer software had engaged in ethical and responsible practices for over two decades.
Very good point. What is truthful is that some percent will see enemies with real or imagined weapons as threats to be neutralised, regardless of any real threat.
You cannot deter the insane or psychotic, don't bother, and as some fanatics want to bring about the end of the world, mutually assured destruction is more of a temptation than a threat.
That's an equation scientists have to consider. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. You can't uninvent a weapon.
I agree that guilting is useless, but threatening is worse than useless. Other options are needed.
There is only one communal bazaar. Competition is the cathedral model.
Killer robots just mean an arms race where someone will launch a preemptive strike.
The best defence is to not get attacked, rather than to provoke an attack before you can defend.
Guns don't shield you from bullets, killer robots don't shield you from killer robots.
Why a dome? Perfectly good lava tubes. And unless you're up for 200 mile walks every day, no reason to go outside.
Lack of water? We know there's plenty underground.
Lack of food/air? Biosphere 2, without the mistakes, could supply both.
I respect the guy but these are sixth former mistakes. I never accept second best, and that goes double for those I respect. Those I don't respect, I expect to screw up. Them screwing up is why I don't respect them.
Around 11,000 BC, labour was divided. I'm not sure ability had anything to do with it, as brewing was exclusively controlled by women. They're perfectly good brewers, but it's obvious enough ability wasn't the deciding factor.
Feel free to ignore the fact that it took 10,000 years for humans and wolves to come to that arrangement, and another 10,000 to domesticated wolves to the point where that arrangement is bred in.
Tell me how you're doing after you've worked with crows for 20,000 years. Otherwise, the comparison is false. You're not a time lord? Oh, then I guess you'll just need to accept you can't make the comparison.
Is Jython the same language as Java?
If no, then a hosted language is not the same as the hosting language.
As for C++, suggest comparing a Visual Studio 6 C++ program or even a VS2015 C++ program with a GCC C++ program, an Intel C++ program or a Green Hills C++ program.
They are not the same. Those five compilers all support stuff that the others cannot run. Porting between them is a serious pain.
Even just porting between VS6 and VS2015 is agony. And what's with this "oh, we deprecated POSIX"?
No, if you don't support POSIX, you're not the same language as is supported on systems that do.
Whether or not that's true, you agree that it's a new language albeit hosted.
You must also consider age and stability.
If a program is mostly stable, large numbers of forks are unlikely.
If a program is very old, it's more likely to be still in a Perforce, Arch, Hg, CVS or SVN repo.
There are other sites (sourceforge, gforge, bitbucket, gitlab, and so on), which older source is unlikely to migrate from unless there's obvious need.
And then there's the Microsoft Take-over.
NoSQL is a very old concept. MUMPS has a hierarchical database built into it. DB4 and GDBM are arguably just as NoSQL as Memcached. OODBMS predate Memcached as well.
Web developers don't drive anything, just as change directory developers didn't drive the BBS scene, although those were the most common utility.
Any browser that supports plugins could theoretically support other languages.
https://www.tcl.tk/software/pl...
Such as this one.
https://webperl.zero-g.net/
Or this one.
But web programmers show no serious interest in either. That could be because of install base, but then that's because of install base and not because the options aren't there.
Not really. I just see some impressive circles.
Python is just BASIC with libraries, just as BASIC is Fortran without libraries.
Everything old is new again. That's why it's called a revolution.
Not necessarily.
A language that isn't type safe is inherently going to have a higher defect density unless the programmer is using strict software engineering methodology. It is also less capable of optimizing, as it cannot determine if the constraints necessary are met.
They also have certain limitations. I'd hate to see the NAG or Netlib libraries rewritten in Javascript. Rewriting OpenMPI or HDF5 in Python might be doable, but would the result be useful?
However, if you had access to sufficient libraries for underlying functions and some helper macros, you could program in Python without ever leaving C.
Or you could use a source to source compiler to translate Python into equivalent C.
In either case, you get things done, but then have a single environment rather than many. Every interpreter and every standard library you rely on is a potential source of bugs, so if the machine only ever sees one, you've got a major advantage.
And that's without you, personally, doing anything differently. You'd still write in exactly the same way, it would read to you in exactly the same way, but underneath all of that, your Intel/Green Hills C compiler takes care of it all and generates one set of binaries in a homogeneous environment.
Maybe there's a reason that's not done at your place, but can you see that there's no technical objection to it?
proc gcdE {a b} {expr {$b==0? $a: [gcdE $b [expr {$a%$b}]]}}
Tcl is important in this debate as it was an early rival to Javascript, being incorporated into a number of web browsers as opposed to merely being something that could be included.
If you're developing a web application, use Java if you want people to know what you're doing. It'll be slow but it'll generally work and it'll be portable.
For faster web apps, you might want to use Wt and C++, but expect it to be hell to maintain.
For robotics, Java was specifically created with that application in mind.
So there are domains where you should use it.
Upgrading us a pain, yes. That's why you put unstable features into a support library. Then you never update the app, you only update the support code.
Well, before C there was B, before which there was BCPL (the language MUD 1 was written in - making BCPL the most important language in the universe). Before that was CPL. And before that, darkness.
I'd probably not have used quite such coarse language, but ultimately you're correct. A scripting tool is not a language, it is a scripting tool.
But then all the other languages for people who don't know how to program are doing well.