Modern medicine and scientific approaches to medicine focus on a pathogen and it's specific cure. The discovery of a pathogen and how to kill it and prevent it's spread probably sparked this paradigm (Louis Pasteur & Rabies), which was reinforced by Koch's Postulates surrounding tuberculosis and anthrax, and cemented by Fleming's discovery of penicillin. This is outlined brilliantly in the book "Microbe Hunters" by Paul de Kruif.
Now we are discovering that we live in a massively interconnected biological system, and we are playing whack-a-mole. Also, should climate change actually warm things up a bit, I suspect we'll discover all sorts of new breeding grounds for microorganisms that won't play well with us.
Sadly, it may be required that we re-engineer much more than greenhouse gasses to preserve our concept of a modern society. Humans have significantly changed many aspects of habitats around the globe, which may cause the evolutionary behavior known as Punctuated Equilibrium to create biological changes faster than we can keep up.
We might want to worry less about losing our job to AI, and start utilizing AI, along with whatever innate intelligence we may think we have, to survive, period.
Stop the current Mars atmospheric loss due to solar winds and atmospheric density and temperature will rise. The Sun provides the significant energy needed to create a runaway greenhouse effect on Mars, which really isn't that far away from an energy standpoint. Mars is, after all, in the habitable zone. The energy needed to power the artificial magnetosphere is not insignificant, but on the scale of existing human ability.
Around 600 BC some folks thought it would be fun to dig a 4 mile long canal across the Isthmus of Corinth. Cost, political intrigue, and superstition got in the way of completing that task for about 2,500 years, but lo and behold, the Corinthian Canal is a thing! A trivial, small, and no longer relevant thing, interesting only to tourists. And historians.
To what fate should humanity resign if not for thinking grand? Pyramids, canals, footprints on the moon, and a cure for the common cold... none of them sober thoughts but the blink of an eye ago.
In the 1930's a young man with naught but a bachelor's degree in physics set about to create a sustainable source of fusion energy - in a rented barn with dirt floors. In this quest he needed a way to visualize the path and behavior of ions in the vacuum tubes he made to create his early version of inertial electro-static confinement, which up until the 1960's, was the only method that could demonstrate any level of fusion. Inspired by the tedium of dragging a plow back and forth through fields, this young man modified the cathode ray tube to raster an electron beam and make a practical oscilloscope to help in his quest. The RCA corporation stole his invention and turned it into 'television'.
Excessive exposure to 'television' has cause mass hysteria and group-think the likes of which humanityt has never before seen. Your lack of ability to think outside the box and see a Martian world of possibilities is a prime example.
If 'sober' people like you are to review plans, we might as well close the patent office to save all that wasted overhead.
Pretty much, yes, Martian atmosphere would appear from the melting of existing CO2 and water ice which would no longer be driven off into space. Global warming would speed the process.
I freely admit to being an optimist.
Our own experiments on Earth with greenhouse gasses and global warming might provide some useful data, although I'd rather experiment on Mars.
This article includes several references on giving Mars an artificial magnetosphere with machine(s) that are within existing human capability to build. With a functional BFR class rocket, we would have the capability to actually deploy such a system.
Once such a machine were turned on the atmospheric pressure and temperature on Mars would rise sufficiently within a handful of years to remove the need to wear a space suit. Liquid water could (and would) exist in lakes, rivers, and rain. The people who deploy such a machine may be able to personally experience the result and take a stroll on Mars wearing nothing but a jacket and an oxygen mask. Doing without oxygen for a few minutes is no big deal for a human, thus greatly simplifying human habitation. If exposed to the vacuum of the current Martian atmosphere you could watch the water boil out of your eyes for the remaining 15 seconds of your consciousness. (goofy Total Recall eyes popping out scene)
I never claimed SpaceX was the first to launch a self-landing rocket, although they are the first to use such a rocket to actually reach orbit and deliver a payload. So please, before God and this vast court of public opinion, please illuminate my lie...
As for your assertion:
Self landing rockets isn't any better than the alternative, which is why no one else continued making them since they were first introduced 40 years ago.
ULA suggests that customers will have much lower insurance and delay costs because of the high Atlas V reliability and schedule certainty, making overall customer costs close to that of using competitors like the SpaceX Falcon 9.
Close. Not equal, not less. Just "close".
Thus, SpaceX's re-usable rockets continue to beat ULA in price, despite ULA's best attempts to cut costs and appear to be more competitive. Re-usability is a major factor in SpaceX's superior price.
I do not believe you are intentionally lying, although your very strong opinion against SpaceX seems to have congealed from a very different and likely much older organic stock. To each their own.
Just a few years ago I had the pleasure of being surrounded by crusty old defense contractor types who prattled on about how Elon Musk and his stupid little rockets were literally nothing but a flash-in-the -pan publicity stunt. They insisted that self-landing re-usable rockets were not feasible or we'd already be doing it....
Same argument here. Self driving cars are stupid, they don't work well enough, they'll get people killed, they are years away from being practical, Tesla sucks, blah blah blah.
When machines can think, feel empathy, and express altruism, then perhaps we can discuss the real intent of such a law-based approach to controlling machines: enforced morality.
Until then, don't expect the machines built by humans hell-bent on killing other humans to be any more moral than the killer humans. Any set of rules or logic can and will be twisted into something unexpected.
From the linked DOD directive 3000.09 (emphasis mine):
4. POLICY. It is DoD policy that: a. Autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems shall be designed to allow commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force.
If the DOD wanted to rule out autonomous killing robots, the requirement would have read:
... shall be designed to require commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgement over the use of force.
Then there's the completely open-ended choice of words "...exercise appropriate levels of human judgement".
I'm not making a judgement call, I'm just pointing out the implications of the specific wording chosen. Terminators will be deployed.
This would increase your eye's IR sensitivity in any light condition for objects warmer or cooler than ambient.
Hot things would look green, cold things would look... less green.
Pilots looking at a primary flight display would hate this. Tritium reticles might also get hard to see.
Uniformed personnel, despite all looking identical from a few hundred yards away, sweat very differently based on gender, mostly due to undergarments beneath the uniform. IR reveals things that would be impossible to notice with visible light, in bright daylight or in the dark.
I would never get this nanotech treatment. I'd get distracted and walk into a light pole.
I agree - gene edited humans could be a great benefit overall. But can you imagine some religious group eschewing all technology, living in isolation for generations, and how they'd fare in a world full of gene-enhanced humans? If hey're able to exist safely and humanely, then all the more power to them. But what happens if such groups becomes wards of the state because they have no chance of functioning in a modern society. Are they pets? Or do they become Eloi?
Humanities record of human rights for those deemed 'lesser' isn't exactly stellar. Then again, my dog has been selectively bred to be a loyal servant, and he likes it that way. Or at least that's what I like to tell myself...
No. Stop living in the desert. The "drought areas" are deserts and have been deserts for thousands of years. Diverting water from one place to another makes it worse.
Umm, you don't really mean that....
On your first point, I'll offer something personal: My family homesteaded several generations ago and started farming and ranching in a remote area near the Oklahoma & Kansas border. Family diaries describe the land as fertile and green, with native grasses growing knee-high or higher.
When I was a young child my grandfather and I took walks together in a pasture of native buffalo grass. He pointed out mostly dry mud holes around two to three feet deep that were the size of a back yard swimming pool that he said used to be buffalo wallows - places where the water table was at or near the surface, where native wildlife would congregate and paw away at the top layers of mud until enough water would pool to drink or lay down in. Sometime around 1900 his parents, my great grandparents, dug a 12 foot deep hole and lined it with bricks - this was the original well for the homestead. Years later my grandfather upgraded to a windmill, originally 60 feet deep. Then 90, and the windmill was replaced with an electric pump. Then, when I was a child, it was increased to 120 feet.
By the time my grandfather passed away, that once green pasture of native buffalo grass was rarely green, and no hint of the wallows or muddy spots had been seen for nearly 50 years. A relative had the well re-dug to 460 feet deep in order to find enough water flow to run both a simple water hose (to fill a stock tank for cattle to drink), and run water in a bathtub or shower at the same time. My grandmother used to time loads of laundry around when the cattle would drink out of the stock tanks, so that the washing machine would fill in a reasonable amount of time. We should have kept the windmill's cistern, but it was an expensive maintenance hog and a perpetual risk for contamination...
Not only has the Ogallala aquifer gone dry, but the rainfall seems to have changed a bit during the last century. So what was once a green and fertile area has since become a desert. Tough luck, eh?
If we didn't move water around from one place to another, you city dwelling people would have a rather hard time watering your lawns, now wouldn't you?
Here's an alternate idea: stop watering grass for ornamental lawns. Everywhere. And, stop eating non-sustainable foods like irrigated corn and beef. I hear cricket protein bars are both tasty and nutritious.
Not only am I trolling you, I am now directly implying that you are a marginally competent pilot, based on all the above. A well implemented ADS-B system presents traffic almost identically to TCAS - which is very good at "making the vehicle sending the data visible" - at least visible enough to avoid a collision. TCAS has been around a very long time.
Your glass panel is likely a G1000 that you barely know how to use, resulting in your head always being down in the cockpit, unable to efficiently translate all that data into useful situational awareness.
Cockpit clutter devices - usually things that pilots carry into the cockpit such as phones, tablets, and ADS-B "in" devices - but also includes glass panel cockpits themselves, depending on how they are used.
Go spend some time at the AOPA tent in Oshkosh next time you fly in to the airshow. You'll notice their new fleet of 'reimagined' trainers have steam gauges - because training with a glass panel is incredibly inefficient and leads to pilots with real skill 'gaps', and glass panels needlessly add great cost and many hours to obtain a rating.
I'll fly whatever, but I don't see the glass panels as all that much of a cockpit enhancement. The AHRS that usually go along with glass panels are a nice way to ditch crappy vacuum pumps and all the associated maintenance, and they seem to be comforting to the current generation of touch-screen addicted youngsters.
You'll likely have some issues with the above and are on the verge of popping a vessel, so here's a nice airplane picture to help you calm down. Notice the nice panel:
ADS-B transponder broadcasts include very accurate position and altitude data. along with aircraft registration and embarrassing pilot biometric data, so if you are unable 'see' where a contact is located and how well endowed the pilot may or may not be, then you have an 'out' only transponder, and likely, a cockpit full of ADS-B 'in' clutter devices to compensate.
There are surgical treatments that can help. Visit your nearest avionics shop for an appropriate cockpit enhancement.
No, this is not what the FAA or anyone else that loves aviation, myself included, intend.
ADS-B transponders for non-certified aircraft, including drones, are available and getting cheaper by the day.
The ADS-B mandate for all aircraft, including (eventually) drones is not harsh. You have to have a driver's license to operate a car on public roads. Why should your drone that shares the sky with a flying public be any less regulated?
Slashdot Mirror
The shuttles may have also stoked Russian fears of attack on their satellites. They did arm some of their satellites with guns and missles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Follow the link. I agree with you, we shouldn't be allowing policy to be set as they currently are.
So how is holism going to save us ?
The same way holism has been allowing humans to develop more interconnected social structures and technologies for many thousands of years:
First, we don't defecate in our drinking water, it spreads disease.
Second, we don't procreate with our children or siblings, it causes significant genetic problems that last for generations. Fear not, Rednecks, an occasional kissing cousin might be fine.
Third, and please try to keep up here, we don't allow psychopathic individuals or organizations to make or enforce policies.
Modern medicine and scientific approaches to medicine focus on a pathogen and it's specific cure. The discovery of a pathogen and how to kill it and prevent it's spread probably sparked this paradigm (Louis Pasteur & Rabies), which was reinforced by Koch's Postulates surrounding tuberculosis and anthrax, and cemented by Fleming's discovery of penicillin. This is outlined brilliantly in the book "Microbe Hunters" by Paul de Kruif.
Now we are discovering that we live in a massively interconnected biological system, and we are playing whack-a-mole. Also, should climate change actually warm things up a bit, I suspect we'll discover all sorts of new breeding grounds for microorganisms that won't play well with us.
Sadly, it may be required that we re-engineer much more than greenhouse gasses to preserve our concept of a modern society. Humans have significantly changed many aspects of habitats around the globe, which may cause the evolutionary behavior known as Punctuated Equilibrium to create biological changes faster than we can keep up.
We might want to worry less about losing our job to AI, and start utilizing AI, along with whatever innate intelligence we may think we have, to survive, period.
Evolution is a tough bitch, and Gaia eats her young, and we may have just given her a new condiment.
Stop the current Mars atmospheric loss due to solar winds and atmospheric density and temperature will rise. The Sun provides the significant energy needed to create a runaway greenhouse effect on Mars, which really isn't that far away from an energy standpoint. Mars is, after all, in the habitable zone. The energy needed to power the artificial magnetosphere is not insignificant, but on the scale of existing human ability.
Around 600 BC some folks thought it would be fun to dig a 4 mile long canal across the Isthmus of Corinth. Cost, political intrigue, and superstition got in the way of completing that task for about 2,500 years, but lo and behold, the Corinthian Canal is a thing! A trivial, small, and no longer relevant thing, interesting only to tourists. And historians.
To what fate should humanity resign if not for thinking grand? Pyramids, canals, footprints on the moon, and a cure for the common cold... none of them sober thoughts but the blink of an eye ago.
In the 1930's a young man with naught but a bachelor's degree in physics set about to create a sustainable source of fusion energy - in a rented barn with dirt floors. In this quest he needed a way to visualize the path and behavior of ions in the vacuum tubes he made to create his early version of inertial electro-static confinement, which up until the 1960's, was the only method that could demonstrate any level of fusion. Inspired by the tedium of dragging a plow back and forth through fields, this young man modified the cathode ray tube to raster an electron beam and make a practical oscilloscope to help in his quest. The RCA corporation stole his invention and turned it into 'television'.
Excessive exposure to 'television' has cause mass hysteria and group-think the likes of which humanityt has never before seen. Your lack of ability to think outside the box and see a Martian world of possibilities is a prime example.
If 'sober' people like you are to review plans, we might as well close the patent office to save all that wasted overhead.
Pretty much, yes, Martian atmosphere would appear from the melting of existing CO2 and water ice which would no longer be driven off into space. Global warming would speed the process.
I freely admit to being an optimist.
Our own experiments on Earth with greenhouse gasses and global warming might provide some useful data, although I'd rather experiment on Mars.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
This article includes several references on giving Mars an artificial magnetosphere with machine(s) that are within existing human capability to build. With a functional BFR class rocket, we would have the capability to actually deploy such a system.
Once such a machine were turned on the atmospheric pressure and temperature on Mars would rise sufficiently within a handful of years to remove the need to wear a space suit. Liquid water could (and would) exist in lakes, rivers, and rain. The people who deploy such a machine may be able to personally experience the result and take a stroll on Mars wearing nothing but a jacket and an oxygen mask. Doing without oxygen for a few minutes is no big deal for a human, thus greatly simplifying human habitation. If exposed to the vacuum of the current Martian atmosphere you could watch the water boil out of your eyes for the remaining 15 seconds of your consciousness. (goofy Total Recall eyes popping out scene)
Transforming the composition of the Martian atmosphere to something humans can breathe directly will take a bit longer, but we won't have to spend much money or effort on that, we've got some great organisms that can do the hard work for us.
... perhaps this pathogen can be engineered to infect only politicians.
I never claimed SpaceX was the first to launch a self-landing rocket, although they are the first to use such a rocket to actually reach orbit and deliver a payload. So please, before God and this vast court of public opinion, please illuminate my lie...
As for your assertion:
Self landing rockets isn't any better than the alternative, which is why no one else continued making them since they were first introduced 40 years ago.
Based on this: SpaceX Falcon 9 Capabilities and Services
and this:
ULA Atlas V costs.
ULA's cost summarized (emphasis mine):
ULA suggests that customers will have much lower insurance and delay costs because of the high Atlas V reliability and schedule certainty, making overall customer costs close to that of using competitors like the SpaceX Falcon 9.
Close. Not equal, not less. Just "close".
Thus, SpaceX's re-usable rockets continue to beat ULA in price, despite ULA's best attempts to cut costs and appear to be more competitive. Re-usability is a major factor in SpaceX's superior price.
I do not believe you are intentionally lying, although your very strong opinion against SpaceX seems to have congealed from a very different and likely much older organic stock. To each their own.
Cringly is a familiar old idiot.
Watson & Crick predicted it was going to take 30 years to sequence the human genome. Venter did it in a fraction of that time, because he thought outside the box.
Just a few years ago I had the pleasure of being surrounded by crusty old defense contractor types who prattled on about how Elon Musk and his stupid little rockets were literally nothing but a flash-in-the -pan publicity stunt. They insisted that self-landing re-usable rockets were not feasible or we'd already be doing it....
Same argument here. Self driving cars are stupid, they don't work well enough, they'll get people killed, they are years away from being practical, Tesla sucks, blah blah blah.
Lead a race to the bottom.... might want to check your facts:
Polyus space-based megawatt laser anti-missile weapon system launched by Russia in 1987.
Ironically, much of the engineering that went into this Russian weapon system is now an integral part of the International Space Station.
It's not a race to the bottom until someone pulls the trigger.
Such rules always end up in some sort of unintended logic trap:
I, Robot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
When machines can think, feel empathy, and express altruism, then perhaps we can discuss the real intent of such a law-based approach to controlling machines: enforced morality.
Until then, don't expect the machines built by humans hell-bent on killing other humans to be any more moral than the killer humans. Any set of rules or logic can and will be twisted into something unexpected.
I think you missed Skoskav's dark humor :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
From the linked DOD directive 3000.09 (emphasis mine):
4. POLICY. It is DoD policy that:
a. Autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems shall be designed to allow
commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of
force.
If the DOD wanted to rule out autonomous killing robots, the requirement would have read:
... shall be designed to require commanders and operators to exercise appropriate levels of human judgement over the use of force.
Then there's the completely open-ended choice of words "...exercise appropriate levels of human judgement".
I'm not making a judgement call, I'm just pointing out the implications of the specific wording chosen. Terminators will be deployed.
All correct and I'd mod you up if I could.
Let's hope these nano particles can be tuned.
If realized, this tech is somewhere between a Geordi La Forge visor and a dystopian Neal Stephenson sub plot.
This nanotech treatment could make your eyeballs ITAR restricted items:
https://www.flir.com/support-c...
This would increase your eye's IR sensitivity in any light condition for objects warmer or cooler than ambient.
Hot things would look green, cold things would look... less green.
Pilots looking at a primary flight display would hate this. Tritium reticles might also get hard to see.
Uniformed personnel, despite all looking identical from a few hundred yards away, sweat very differently based on gender, mostly due to undergarments beneath the uniform. IR reveals things that would be impossible to notice with visible light, in bright daylight or in the dark.
I would never get this nanotech treatment. I'd get distracted and walk into a light pole.
After crash: "What the hell happened? All of a sudden this car turned into a cannoli..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I agree - gene edited humans could be a great benefit overall. But can you imagine some religious group eschewing all technology, living in isolation for generations, and how they'd fare in a world full of gene-enhanced humans? If hey're able to exist safely and humanely, then all the more power to them. But what happens if such groups becomes wards of the state because they have no chance of functioning in a modern society. Are they pets? Or do they become Eloi?
Humanities record of human rights for those deemed 'lesser' isn't exactly stellar. Then again, my dog has been selectively bred to be a loyal servant, and he likes it that way. Or at least that's what I like to tell myself...
Health and Life insurance rates based on the presence of good and bad genes.
Highly competitive jobs and university programs only open to those with specific genes.
People with certain genes and abilities have their career paths chosen for them, and are forced to work for the state.
The presence of genes that contribute to violent behavior will be enough to push a jury towards an otherwise questionable verdict.
CRISPR-edited babies, combined with the massive wealth divides of a class-based society, will further stratify humans into Morlocks and Eloi.
Maybe in an upcoming election we'll have the choice of voting for an AI president, instead of other worse & universally poor options....
It isn't a dairy, just grazing cattle. We never invested in irrigation, so the only water we pumped was for drinking.
We were no more entitled to our family farm than you are your front lawn.
We're all in this together.
No. Stop living in the desert. The "drought areas" are deserts and have been deserts for thousands of years. Diverting water from one place to another makes it worse.
Umm, you don't really mean that....
On your first point, I'll offer something personal:
My family homesteaded several generations ago and started farming and ranching in a remote area near the Oklahoma & Kansas border. Family diaries describe the land as fertile and green, with native grasses growing knee-high or higher.
When I was a young child my grandfather and I took walks together in a pasture of native buffalo grass. He pointed out mostly dry mud holes around two to three feet deep that were the size of a back yard swimming pool that he said used to be buffalo wallows - places where the water table was at or near the surface, where native wildlife would congregate and paw away at the top layers of mud until enough water would pool to drink or lay down in. Sometime around 1900 his parents, my great grandparents, dug a 12 foot deep hole and lined it with bricks - this was the original well for the homestead. Years later my grandfather upgraded to a windmill, originally 60 feet deep. Then 90, and the windmill was replaced with an electric pump. Then, when I was a child, it was increased to 120 feet.
By the time my grandfather passed away, that once green pasture of native buffalo grass was rarely green, and no hint of the wallows or muddy spots had been seen for nearly 50 years. A relative had the well re-dug to 460 feet deep in order to find enough water flow to run both a simple water hose (to fill a stock tank for cattle to drink), and run water in a bathtub or shower at the same time. My grandmother used to time loads of laundry around when the cattle would drink out of the stock tanks, so that the washing machine would fill in a reasonable amount of time. We should have kept the windmill's cistern, but it was an expensive maintenance hog and a perpetual risk for contamination...
Not only has the Ogallala aquifer gone dry, but the rainfall seems to have changed a bit during the last century. So what was once a green and fertile area has since become a desert. Tough luck, eh?
As for your second point, history is full of examples of moving water around to build cities and support farm lands.
If we didn't move water around from one place to another, you city dwelling people would have a rather hard time watering your lawns, now wouldn't you?
Here's an alternate idea: stop watering grass for ornamental lawns. Everywhere. And, stop eating non-sustainable foods like irrigated corn and beef. I hear cricket protein bars are both tasty and nutritious.
Not only am I trolling you, I am now directly implying that you are a marginally competent pilot, based on all the above. A well implemented ADS-B system presents traffic almost identically to TCAS - which is very good at "making the vehicle sending the data visible" - at least visible enough to avoid a collision. TCAS has been around a very long time.
Your glass panel is likely a G1000 that you barely know how to use, resulting in your head always being down in the cockpit, unable to efficiently translate all that data into useful situational awareness.
Cockpit clutter devices - usually things that pilots carry into the cockpit such as phones, tablets, and ADS-B "in" devices - but also includes glass panel cockpits themselves, depending on how they are used.
Go spend some time at the AOPA tent in Oshkosh next time you fly in to the airshow. You'll notice their new fleet of 'reimagined' trainers have steam gauges - because training with a glass panel is incredibly inefficient and leads to pilots with real skill 'gaps', and glass panels needlessly add great cost and many hours to obtain a rating.
I'll fly whatever, but I don't see the glass panels as all that much of a cockpit enhancement. The AHRS that usually go along with glass panels are a nice way to ditch crappy vacuum pumps and all the associated maintenance, and they seem to be comforting to the current generation of touch-screen addicted youngsters.
You'll likely have some issues with the above and are on the verge of popping a vessel, so here's a nice airplane picture to help you calm down. Notice the nice panel:
https://www.aopa.org/go-fly/ai...
ADS-B transponder broadcasts include very accurate position and altitude data. along with aircraft registration and embarrassing pilot biometric data, so if you are unable 'see' where a contact is located and how well endowed the pilot may or may not be, then you have an 'out' only transponder, and likely, a cockpit full of ADS-B 'in' clutter devices to compensate.
There are surgical treatments that can help. Visit your nearest avionics shop for an appropriate cockpit enhancement.
No, this is not what the FAA or anyone else that loves aviation, myself included, intend.
ADS-B transponders for non-certified aircraft, including drones, are available and getting cheaper by the day.
The ADS-B mandate for all aircraft, including (eventually) drones is not harsh. You have to have a driver's license to operate a car on public roads. Why should your drone that shares the sky with a flying public be any less regulated?