"The extent to which we've removed humans from the battlefield is really starting to disturb me."
Then you don't know much about war, or have the idea it should be "sporting" for some reason. If you favor casualty parity, do volunteer to be one.:)
Pilots were already in lofty isolation from much of the battlefield in World War 1, as were long-range artillerists. A tiny number of remote operators doesn't isolate the tens of thousands of infantry needed for modern warfare.
"Don't worry, nobody is forcing you to buy one, besides only a thousand will be sold in the US anyway, I am sure this Ferrari of a video card will find it's buyer."
May it find MANY buyers, and become inexpensive as do other vidcards over time! I love early adopters, I don't give a shit what they spend because I"M not spending it, and may they continue to pay for betterfaster stuffs for me.
This is All Good. No likee expensive vidcard? Don't buy one, but don't discourage anyone else.
"good luck with modifying a car nowadays. At the very least your insurance will be invalidated. On the rare occasion something goes wrong, scrap and replace or call a specialist."
The car modding folks are still thriving, but mods are often done differently. There are MANY more sophisticated aftermarket components available than when I was young. Shade-tree mechanics are still just as common in many parts of the US.
People are brainwashed that they can't learn to work on newer vehicles. I work on both, and call bullshit on that nonsense! (The vo-tech class at the community college where I work is full of eager students, many not "sophisticated" or "academically inclined".)
"We live in a society that does not value intelligence, full of people who do not value an education any where near as much as they value good grades and a diploma, even if they are neither earned nor deserved."
Education is evil. Educated people question religion.
"If some evil mad scientist were to undertake building a device to systematically destroy creative thinking in humans, I doubt he could do better than the TV programming of this past decade."
Popular TV has always been a stupidity pump. It's the nature of the beast. It sucked in the 1960s too.
"So..I started doing similar, all the way to getting into trouble for disassembling the lawnmower, etc, building forts, etc with saws and hammer and nails. Kids today..are they really doing that, or mostly just..dunno..playing video games? Being a tool user means you need to use tools, then getting creative with that."
Their adults don't value those skills, so they raise fewer offspring with general skills. The pursuit of such skills isn't valued, which amuses me when "over-specialized" adults don't know what to do when their Special job goes away!
"to now you need to be an extreme specialist in just one subject to even think about it."
Bad popular misconception! Generalists are much better able to learn as they go.
I trained plenty of avionics weenies, engine mechs, and crew chiefs in my USAF service. The folks who got it quickest were generally farm boys/girls or others who had an old school background. Their parents weren't afraid to put them in a go-cart, on a dirt bike, or helping fix the house or car.
They learned HOW to learn, and internalized that mechanical and electrical PRINCIPLES apply to everything from a toaster to an F-16.
There is ample case for retaining nuclear weapons.
They are the ultimate weapon, and let's remember atmospheric testing demonstrated that (modest) nuclear conflicts are a practical proposition. (Not a "nice" proposition, that's different.)
It makes no military sense to get rid of them and instantly cede nation-state wars to countries with much larger populations who can take vast conventional casualties. The AssUmption that the Cold War is over forever and there will be nothing like it is silly, while there are plenty of examples of disarmament weakening nations which had to rearm at the last minute.
Just because we are currently hamstrung by law and custom doesn't mean we will never again need to destroy another country. It just raises the bar to action, which is fine. Germany and Japan proved that one has to burn some folks world down around their ears before they get the hint to play nice.
Nukes are the only remaining viable response to (outlawed) biological and chemical warfare. No nukes? Enjoy the mass casualties from WEARING chem suits (ever worn one on a hot day for twelve hours? Real world wouldn't have work-rest cycles!) and even more massive casualties from the chems. The North Koreans could, for example, have smegged Seoul with nerve agent with impunity if we hadn't kept them in their box with tactical nukes. They almost pushed the UN forces into the Yellow Sea without chems. Their threat is no joke.
Moral examples are nothing to people smart enough to ignore them when expedient. Some people wont be deterred by any threat, so one must be able to kill all or most of them if necessary. When they stop breathing they can't fight. History teaches that peace is temporary, that being prepared is better than losing, and that Auschwitz and the Soviet Gulag were full of idealists who couldn't fight back.
"human beings have had millions of years to solve some of the most basic of problems that many of the good nerds(tm) on slashdot know of of not being prejudiced towards others and understanding the importance of subconscious biological processes that determine peoples fates, what they can perceive and even think about."
That this was not done argues no evolutionary pressure to do it.
"If the robotic teaching of basic skills becomes commonplace it will be at the expense of human interaction."
That's not all bad, since human interaction isn't all good by a longshot. More a question of implementation than principle, and robots could be harder to manipulate or overwhelm than a human teacher. A worthy goal, since we need perfected robots.
A lot of human interaction is toxic, and builds the Hellmouth. Learning isn't necessarily "better" with a group. Many people, self included, were dragged down by the group of losers they were incarcerated-I-mean-schooled with. I did much of my early learning alone and would have enjoyed with robot instructors.
"We already have too many people who are dysfunctional in society and lacking in the basic human skills of communications, emotions and compassion."
Who the fuck learns THAT from the Hellmouth? For me that came later, in the much healthier and mutually supportive environment of the military.
About time we quit doing it and get the same benefits by outsourcing to other countries. You don't have to get there first to enjoy the benefits of technology. Consider China, which went from zero to economic miracle since 1948.
The coal plants are far away, like the coal which powers them. Coal-fired power plants have no place in the popular imagination (any more), so public awareness is low.
They don't bother the hippies any more than mountaintop removal mining, which only displaces Red State hicks they despise anyway.
Self-damage by competitors (the one-child policy, etc) IS good, though it's not PC to say that or imply we aren't all Gaia's children.
The low birth rate in what's left of the Soviet Union, and the demographic backfire awaiting the ChiComs are the sort of chickens I like to see come home to roost.
"How do you explain calorie balance, saturated fats and the like to three-year old?"
You don't, you impose (gentle) discipline. They don't get the reasons for the orders they are given until they can understand them. I got to see the results of a wide variety of child-rearing methods among recruits in the USAF and in community college where I work. The key to happily competent SELF-discipline is early, IMPOSED discipline (no, not Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket if you are dealing with a child, though his character didn't do anything unethical when training "adults", such as they were). Lack of ethical impose discipline breeds aimless, unfocused adults. The common examples are from single-parent or no-parent families where the child was barely cared for by whoever bothered to do it. They are not only toxic to themselves, but to other kids who emulate them. It really is OK to tell (calmly, anger is weakness!) a child what to do and save the explanation for later.
"if you don't put those, they'll take their car. The amount of people who'll take a car to go what would have been a few minute walk is staggering."
There is an old, well-proven solution. It's called a streetcar or tram, usually runs on electricity, and before it was nearly eradicated served very well.
"And we will see this pattern occur again, and again, and again, until we learn that the most effective form of military action is motivated people defending their own land against a foreign invader."
Your military illiteracy is showing. That stuff only works against "foreign invaders" who follow the post-Nuremburg laws that outlaw effective war methods against unconventional opponents. It may help, in concert with other means, tire out an opponent in a non-existential police action, but an opponent who is powerful and free of restraint can make a desolation and call it peace.
"If you're outside, you should, you know, be outside, doing outsidey kinds of things."
Such as reading vehicle manuals when I work on them outdoors, ordering parts with the help of online catalogs, looking up welding consumables so I can email the part number and pick them up later...:)
With a display I can read in sunlight, I could comfortably speed up much of the work I do. Even inside, squinting to see detail sucks, and being able to stand back from a screen and read it easily is a plus.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be a cute, decorative nuke of the 4th of July sort.
If you want to crack enemy missile silos and hard targets, bigger warhead + ground burst = way to go.
"The extent to which we've removed humans from the battlefield is really starting to disturb me."
Then you don't know much about war, or have the idea it should be "sporting" for some reason. If you favor casualty parity, do volunteer to be one. :)
Pilots were already in lofty isolation from much of the battlefield in World War 1, as were long-range artillerists. A tiny number of remote operators doesn't isolate the tens of thousands of infantry needed for modern warfare.
Not if the extreme cave... is in your Mom!
"Don't worry, nobody is forcing you to buy one, besides only a thousand will be sold in the US anyway, I am sure this Ferrari of a video card will find it's buyer."
May it find MANY buyers, and become inexpensive as do other vidcards over time! I love early adopters, I don't give a shit what they spend because I"M not spending it, and may they continue to pay for betterfaster stuffs for me.
This is All Good.
No likee expensive vidcard? Don't buy one, but don't discourage anyone else.
"good luck with modifying a car nowadays. At the very least your insurance will be invalidated. On the rare occasion something goes wrong, scrap and replace or call a specialist."
The car modding folks are still thriving, but mods are often done differently. There are MANY more sophisticated aftermarket components available than when I was young. Shade-tree mechanics are still just as common in many parts of the US.
People are brainwashed that they can't learn to work on newer vehicles. I work on both, and call bullshit on that nonsense! (The vo-tech class at the community college where I work is full of eager students, many not "sophisticated" or "academically inclined".)
"We live in a society that does not value intelligence, full of people who do not value an education any where near as much as they value good grades and a diploma, even if they are neither earned nor deserved."
Education is evil. Educated people question religion.
"If some evil mad scientist were to undertake building a device to systematically destroy creative thinking in humans, I doubt he could do better than the TV programming of this past decade."
Popular TV has always been a stupidity pump. It's the nature of the beast. It sucked in the 1960s too.
"So..I started doing similar, all the way to getting into trouble for disassembling the lawnmower, etc, building forts, etc with saws and hammer and nails. Kids today..are they really doing that, or mostly just..dunno..playing video games? Being a tool user means you need to use tools, then getting creative with that."
Their adults don't value those skills, so they raise fewer offspring with general skills. The pursuit of such skills isn't valued, which amuses me when "over-specialized" adults don't know what to do when their Special job goes away!
"to now you need to be an extreme specialist in just one subject to even think about it."
Bad popular misconception! Generalists are much better able to learn as they go.
I trained plenty of avionics weenies, engine mechs, and crew chiefs in my USAF service. The folks who got it quickest were generally farm boys/girls or others who had an old school background. Their parents weren't afraid to put them in a go-cart, on a dirt bike, or helping fix the house or car.
They learned HOW to learn, and internalized that mechanical and electrical PRINCIPLES apply to everything from a toaster to an F-16.
There is ample case for retaining nuclear weapons.
They are the ultimate weapon, and let's remember atmospheric testing demonstrated that (modest) nuclear conflicts are a practical proposition. (Not a "nice" proposition, that's different.)
It makes no military sense to get rid of them and instantly cede nation-state wars to countries with much larger populations who can take vast conventional casualties. The AssUmption that the Cold War is over forever and there will be nothing like it is silly, while there are plenty of examples of disarmament weakening nations which had to rearm at the last minute.
Just because we are currently hamstrung by law and custom doesn't mean we will never again need to destroy another country. It just raises the bar to action, which is fine. Germany and Japan proved that one has to burn some folks world down around their ears before they get the hint to play nice.
Nukes are the only remaining viable response to (outlawed) biological and chemical warfare. No nukes? Enjoy the mass casualties from WEARING chem suits (ever worn one on a hot day for twelve hours? Real world wouldn't have work-rest cycles!) and even more massive casualties from the chems.
The North Koreans could, for example, have smegged Seoul with nerve agent with impunity if we hadn't kept them in their box with tactical nukes. They almost pushed the UN forces into the Yellow Sea without chems. Their threat is no joke.
Moral examples are nothing to people smart enough to ignore them when expedient. Some people wont be deterred by any threat, so one must be able to kill all or most of them if necessary. When they stop breathing they can't fight. History teaches that peace is temporary, that being prepared is better than losing, and that Auschwitz and the Soviet Gulag were full of idealists who couldn't fight back.
"human beings have had millions of years to solve some of the most basic of problems that many of the good nerds(tm) on slashdot know of of not being prejudiced towards others and understanding the importance of subconscious biological processes that determine peoples fates, what they can perceive and even think about."
That this was not done argues no evolutionary pressure to do it.
"If the robotic teaching of basic skills becomes commonplace it will be at the expense of human interaction."
That's not all bad, since human interaction isn't all good by a longshot. More a question of implementation than principle, and robots could be harder to manipulate or overwhelm than a human teacher. A worthy goal, since we need perfected robots.
A lot of human interaction is toxic, and builds the Hellmouth. Learning isn't necessarily "better" with a group. Many people, self included, were dragged down by the group of losers they were incarcerated-I-mean-schooled with. I did much of my early learning alone and would have enjoyed with robot instructors.
"We already have too many people who are dysfunctional in society and lacking in the basic human skills of communications, emotions and compassion."
Who the fuck learns THAT from the Hellmouth? For me that came later, in the much healthier and mutually supportive environment of the military.
About time we quit doing it and get the same benefits by outsourcing to other countries. You don't have to get there first to enjoy the benefits of technology. Consider China, which went from zero to economic miracle since 1948.
The coal plants are far away, like the coal which powers them. Coal-fired power plants have no place in the popular imagination (any more), so public awareness is low.
They don't bother the hippies any more than mountaintop removal mining, which only displaces Red State hicks they despise anyway.
Your ignorance is pardonable. Your failure to Google and remedy it is not. :)
Self-damage by competitors (the one-child policy, etc) IS good, though it's not PC to say that or imply we aren't all Gaia's children.
The low birth rate in what's left of the Soviet Union, and the demographic backfire awaiting the ChiComs are the sort of chickens I like to see come home to roost.
"Screw NetApp and their overpriced, underfeatured, patented crap. Really. I mean that."
One might literally screw NetApp, by vocally recommending to all and sundry not to buy their shit. :)
"How do you explain calorie balance, saturated fats and the like to three-year old?"
You don't, you impose (gentle) discipline. They don't get the reasons for the orders they are given until they can understand them. I got to see the results of a wide variety of child-rearing methods among recruits in the USAF and in community college where I work. The key to happily competent SELF-discipline is early, IMPOSED discipline (no, not Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket if you are dealing with a child, though his character didn't do anything unethical when training "adults", such as they were). Lack of ethical impose discipline breeds aimless, unfocused adults. The common examples are from single-parent or no-parent families where the child was barely cared for by whoever bothered to do it. They are not only toxic to themselves, but to other kids who emulate them.
It really is OK to tell (calmly, anger is weakness!) a child what to do and save the explanation for later.
"if you don't put those, they'll take their car. The amount of people who'll take a car to go what would have been a few minute walk is staggering."
There is an old, well-proven solution. It's called a streetcar or tram, usually runs on electricity, and before it was nearly eradicated served very well.
"Honestly: what part of individual freedom demands that people can spit this stuff everywhere?"
That's why I switched to wholesome and bio-degradable chewing tobacco.
"And we will see this pattern occur again, and again, and again, until we learn that the most effective form of military action is motivated people defending their own land against a foreign invader."
Your military illiteracy is showing. That stuff only works against "foreign invaders" who follow the post-Nuremburg laws that outlaw effective war methods against unconventional opponents. It may help, in concert with other means, tire out an opponent in a non-existential police action, but an opponent who is powerful and free of restraint can make a desolation and call it peace.
"If you're outside, you should, you know, be outside, doing outsidey kinds of things."
Such as reading vehicle manuals when I work on them outdoors, ordering parts with the help of online catalogs, looking up welding consumables so I can email the part number and pick them up later... :)
With a display I can read in sunlight, I could comfortably speed up much of the work I do. Even inside, squinting to see detail sucks, and being able to stand back from a screen and read it easily is a plus.
...what is this shit doing here? It belongs in Idle.
"Hope their grandmothers get hacked because they love shouting out vulnerabilities."
My grandmother loves shouting out vulnerabilities, you insensitive clod!
"The point of releasing this information is to prompt the vendor to fix it......"
The safest way expose security flaws without being deemed a cracker or vandal is to anonymously release exploits....to crackers and vandals.
"They can then be exploited by anyone, including the "wonderful" guys over at 4chan, and worse."
Some people need to be hit over the head with a hammer so they will take security seriously. That situation would make a nice (lulzy) "hammer".