Lancaster, CA, where I grew up, was the home base of the Flat Earth Society. When I was a little kid, my grandpa helped me build a couple of Estes rockets and we took them out to the dry lake beds. I would have loved to have taken Charles K Johnson out there and fired off a rocket like this, so he could watch the Earth curve away on the video feed.
A catalyst that could cause this reaction to occur would be the nuclear equivalent of a lever lifting the world. I'm glad Archimedes had some poetry in him, but it's not really possible.
I read a book a year ago, called The Survival Game by David P. Barash. It was a pretty okay explanation of elementary game theory, not exactly a standout. But deep in the middle of the book, there's a paragraph that's an aside, where he opines that people, as a rule, can be separated into two groups: those who generally cooperate, and those who generally defect. That distinction has been popping into my head many times since then.
I can see some parallels between that distinction and the one made in this article about savers and borrowers.
Or look at the culture of the Dwellers in The Algebraist by Iain Banks, or many other examples from SF.
It seems to me like we will use education to get people involved in life, then use XP or kudos to track their performance. The details would be no more crazily complex than CDO traunches or insurance futures.
And a high amount of welfare seems inevitable as long as our education system is not equal opportunity for all and much more highly respected (not to mention exellent STEM). Just set it up so that as long as you are drawing on state support (aside from as a full-time college student living independently), you can't earn any XP/kudos. No judgement.
You realize leveling 1st world countries would just reboot things back into the same right? It's not a solution, just delaying everything.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.- Winston Churchill
Yes, any attempt at reform would fail, probably repeatedly. But would you rather increase education, use of contraceptives, and lifestyles that are more planet-friendly, or just do nothing until we are all at each other's throats over fresh water and space? Or worse?
This is the major reason why I support science and technology. Somehow, we need to 1) make more energy and 2) become more resource efficient or eventually something in the social structure will give. I will grant that this is alarmist in nature, but it makes basic sense to me.
Nah. It's about new ideas. Large swaths of people hear the idea, consider it (however briefly, think of e.g. some new fashion idea), and they are counting who stays. Do you seriously think that the researchers would not have considered your point?
This pertains to new ideas. Most political and religious ideas are old.
This pertains to specific ideas. For example, I think that evolution is a lot of ideas. I mean that you could simplify it by saying something like, "Evolution is the change over time in one or more inherited traits found in populations of organisms" (Wikipedia article 1st sentence), but while those ideas form a sort of 'clade,' they also have to be broken down and discussed to make sense. That sentence has 3 links to other Wikipedia articles (inherited traits, populations, and organisms), and it has a footnote.
To give a (controversial) example of a simple-enough idea: I bet that if 10% of people believed that x company's (or government agency's) thorough plan for getting everyone in America to use electric cars was a completely perfect plan and would do their part to commit to said plan, then it would work.
This reminded me of the story "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon.
The scientist James Kidder made super-rope from bananas:
"He got to messing around with sisal fiber, found Out how to fuse it, and
boomed the banana industry by producing a practically unbreakable cord from the
stuff.
You remember the popularizing demonstration he put on at Niagara, don't you? That
business of running a line of the new cord from bank to bank over the rapids and
suspending a ten-ton truck from the middle of it by razor edges resting on the
cord? That's why ships now moor themselves with what looks like heaving line, no
thicker than a lead pencil, that can be coiled on reels like garden hose."
Also, battery packs need swapping. Each rhino would have a string of drone hives across its range.
It would be better if the drones follow a mow-the-lawn shape, beginning and ending at charge stations. Then it will become a race between hunters hiding in further reaches or creating camouflage, and drones that get better at seeing, hearing, smelling, and scanning for humans, and sweeping out ever more unpredictable paths.
I completely agree. Just reading the post made me feel a little better for a second.
Drones feel like an elegant solution to the problem of poachers. Gas-powered ones might even be useful, although I'd rather have some kind of pie-in-the-sky solar-powered poacher slayer.
And if they start using them on people, make some drapes out of plate iron.
-But cool for relative obscurity:
Evariste Galois!
Invented a new field of mathematics! Political radical! Killed under shadowy circumstances, and "Don't cry for me. I need all my courage to die at twenty."
Maybe not the best role model for a 9 year old, I readily admit...
Math was introduced to me like this: arithmetic (and a little geometry) -> pre-algebra -> algebra -> basic geometry -> basic algebra -> more algebra -> trigonometry -> calculus. I feel like one of the fundamental problems with my education was that it seemed like arithmetic was fundamental, but geometry is just as basic. I think the real heart of the issue to me is logic.
I believe that math and logic are important enough to our education (and increasingly so) that the two should not be conflated, but taught separately.
I think part of the reason that they are mixed together is the apparent difficulty of logic. Most adults don't seem to be able to discuss it, even though they use it constantly. Teaching it to children at a young age seems crucial to me.
I think that kids ought to get a separate logic book. I haven't worked out the particulars, but I'd say that issues like how == works would be covered, maybe as early as... third grade? By 6th or 7th grade, I think most kids could have a handle on types of proofs, the if-then stuff, the rudiments of sets, and AND, OR etc. Obviously, the way that such a class could be 'sold' to parents, educators, politicians etc. would be as a computer class, but I think it would be equally (if not more) important as a foundation for higher math.
I would have much preferred a logic class to the daily worship sessions I got at my tiny private elementaryand middle school.
Too idealistic? Too high of expectations? I feel like for America right now, it's sink or swim.
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Lancaster, CA, where I grew up, was the home base of the Flat Earth Society. When I was a little kid, my grandpa helped me build a couple of Estes rockets and we took them out to the dry lake beds. I would have loved to have taken Charles K Johnson out there and fired off a rocket like this, so he could watch the Earth curve away on the video feed.
A catalyst that could cause this reaction to occur would be the nuclear equivalent of a lever lifting the world. I'm glad Archimedes had some poetry in him, but it's not really possible.
uhhhh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DEoOdcYKbc
I read a book a year ago, called The Survival Game by David P. Barash. It was a pretty okay explanation of elementary game theory, not exactly a standout. But deep in the middle of the book, there's a paragraph that's an aside, where he opines that people, as a rule, can be separated into two groups: those who generally cooperate, and those who generally defect. That distinction has been popping into my head many times since then.
I can see some parallels between that distinction and the one made in this article about savers and borrowers.
Take Cassio's lament about his reputation from Othello, and how important your resume is, and how much time people spend gossiping, trying to size people, up, etc. It seems to me that all of these things could be made a lot simpler.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.181750-Professor-Abandons-Grades-for-Experience-Points
Or look at the culture of the Dwellers in The Algebraist by Iain Banks, or many other examples from SF.
It seems to me like we will use education to get people involved in life, then use XP or kudos to track their performance. The details would be no more crazily complex than CDO traunches or insurance futures.
And a high amount of welfare seems inevitable as long as our education system is not equal opportunity for all and much more highly respected (not to mention exellent STEM). Just set it up so that as long as you are drawing on state support (aside from as a full-time college student living independently), you can't earn any XP/kudos. No judgement.
And the real problem there has always been that everyone has been crammed into cities while the rest of the country is considerable more sparse.
I think it is important to note here that research indicates that city-living is far more efficient than industrialized-rural.
You realize leveling 1st world countries would just reboot things back into the same right? It's not a solution, just delaying everything.
Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.- Winston Churchill
Yes, any attempt at reform would fail, probably repeatedly. But would you rather increase education, use of contraceptives, and lifestyles that are more planet-friendly, or just do nothing until we are all at each other's throats over fresh water and space? Or worse?
This is the major reason why I support science and technology. Somehow, we need to
1) make more energy and
2) become more resource efficient
or eventually something in the social structure will give.
I will grant that this is alarmist in nature, but it makes basic sense to me.
Nah. It's about new ideas. Large swaths of people hear the idea, consider it (however briefly, think of e.g. some new fashion idea), and they are counting who stays. Do you seriously think that the researchers would not have considered your point?
This pertains to new ideas. Most political and religious ideas are old. This pertains to specific ideas. For example, I think that evolution is a lot of ideas. I mean that you could simplify it by saying something like, "Evolution is the change over time in one or more inherited traits found in populations of organisms" (Wikipedia article 1st sentence), but while those ideas form a sort of 'clade,' they also have to be broken down and discussed to make sense. That sentence has 3 links to other Wikipedia articles (inherited traits, populations, and organisms), and it has a footnote. To give a (controversial) example of a simple-enough idea: I bet that if 10% of people believed that x company's (or government agency's) thorough plan for getting everyone in America to use electric cars was a completely perfect plan and would do their part to commit to said plan, then it would work.
This reminded me of the story "Microcosmic God" by Theodore Sturgeon. The scientist James Kidder made super-rope from bananas: "He got to messing around with sisal fiber, found Out how to fuse it, and boomed the banana industry by producing a practically unbreakable cord from the stuff. You remember the popularizing demonstration he put on at Niagara, don't you? That business of running a line of the new cord from bank to bank over the rapids and suspending a ten-ton truck from the middle of it by razor edges resting on the cord? That's why ships now moor themselves with what looks like heaving line, no thicker than a lead pencil, that can be coiled on reels like garden hose."
Its presence might just drive some animals crazy.
Also, battery packs need swapping. Each rhino would have a string of drone hives across its range.
It would be better if the drones follow a mow-the-lawn shape, beginning and ending at charge stations. Then it will become a race between hunters hiding in further reaches or creating camouflage, and drones that get better at seeing, hearing, smelling, and scanning for humans, and sweeping out ever more unpredictable paths.
I completely agree. Just reading the post made me feel a little better for a second. Drones feel like an elegant solution to the problem of poachers. Gas-powered ones might even be useful, although I'd rather have some kind of pie-in-the-sky solar-powered poacher slayer. And if they start using them on people, make some drapes out of plate iron.
-But cool for relative obscurity: Evariste Galois! Invented a new field of mathematics! Political radical! Killed under shadowy circumstances, and "Don't cry for me. I need all my courage to die at twenty." Maybe not the best role model for a 9 year old, I readily admit...
Math was introduced to me like this: arithmetic (and a little geometry) -> pre-algebra -> algebra -> basic geometry -> basic algebra -> more algebra -> trigonometry -> calculus. I feel like one of the fundamental problems with my education was that it seemed like arithmetic was fundamental, but geometry is just as basic. I think the real heart of the issue to me is logic. I believe that math and logic are important enough to our education (and increasingly so) that the two should not be conflated, but taught separately. I think part of the reason that they are mixed together is the apparent difficulty of logic. Most adults don't seem to be able to discuss it, even though they use it constantly. Teaching it to children at a young age seems crucial to me. I think that kids ought to get a separate logic book. I haven't worked out the particulars, but I'd say that issues like how == works would be covered, maybe as early as ... third grade? By 6th or 7th grade, I think most kids could have a handle on types of proofs, the if-then stuff, the rudiments of sets, and AND, OR etc. Obviously, the way that such a class could be 'sold' to parents, educators, politicians etc. would be as a computer class, but I think it would be equally (if not more) important as a foundation for higher math.
I would have much preferred a logic class to the daily worship sessions I got at my tiny private elementaryand middle school.
Too idealistic? Too high of expectations? I feel like for America right now, it's sink or swim.