So what? If somebody's "good" (say, a moment of affection for one's own children, perhaps - or in whatever form it comes) isn't enough to stop them from dropping nuclear weapons on civilian population centers, then that little bit of goodness is completely meaningless.
Fixed that for you.
If our response to danger is to abandon our ideals (liberty, integrity, justice) then the distinction between us and our enemies ceases to exist.
I see more of the corollary - there's a bit of evil in all of us, and as soon as we're willing to commit atrocities in the pursuit of a "higher good", the distinction between us and the evil we fight becomes theoretical.
Without the religion they'd have nothing to fight to the death over and nothing to motivate them or delude them into such action.
The idea that violence would stop entirely if religion was gone is quite extraordinary. There are a couple of quick ways to check its veracity. You are saying that without religion, people could not be deluded into murdering one another. However, there are many instances of large-scale violence being perpetrated for nonreligious reasons. What's more, there are many highly religious populations that are not at all violent... religion alone does not seem to be sufficient to cause violence in those instances. Additionally, violent terrorist activities certainly seem to be ramping up recently in the Middle East, yet there isn't a corresponding increase in religiosity - these regions have always been highly religious. That suggests an entirely separate cause for the violence. So how do you defend the point?
I think the question of what role religion plays in these violent conflicts is an interesting and important one, but sweeping generalities like yours are inaccurate and smell more of dogma than honest discourse. It would be much more fruitful to consider all the various causes of terrorism, because a solution won't be found unless we're willing to abandon ideology in the interest of understanding the full complexity of the situation.
You're not far left enough that's why. The far left are already falling all over themselves to whine and complain that it stole the spotlight from Mizzou or how it's not really a problem with Islam, but a problem with the west and how if we really weren't racists this wouldn't have happened.
What? Citation, please. I'm legitimately interested, because I haven't heard any of this.
Errr, well, actually it is often the religion that produces the violence. Without the religion they'd have nothing to fight to the death over and nothing to motivate them or delude them into such action.
Actually, you see lots of people willing to fight for reasons entirely separate from religion. See: every war, ever. People don't really murder one another for abstract reasons - they murder one another to defend their 'tribe' and improve conditions for whatever community they belong to.
Let's all just be honest and admit that religion often serves as the vehicle to induce people to do horrific things, things that they otherwise would never dream of doing.
I'd rather be honest and get rid of the ideological grandstanding and look at the REAL roots of large-scale violence - poverty, tribalism, perceived inequality, culture conflicts, etc. People commit horrific acts for all sorts of reasons, and there are much better correlates out there than religion.
There is no atheistic fanatisms. There are only fanatics that happen to be atheists or claim so or kill priests, whatever.
No True Scotsman fallacy. One could as easily claim that there are no religious fanatics - only fanatics who falsely claim association with a religion.
So if fanaticism can occur with a religion, personality, or even a technology (Apple, amirite?) then perhaps the specific focus of the fanaticism is less critical than the social conditions which create it. Namely, dissatisfied and suffering people are susceptible to adopting extremist ideology.
You can try to use terrorist atrocities as an opportunity to get on the anti-religion soapbox, but IMO that is both misguided and futile. Misguided because religion is not strongly correlated with awful human actions - there are lots of atrocities that have been committed apart from religion, and a lot of religious people that have not caused atrocities, so singling it out as the main problem isn't warranted. Secondly, no religious person, ever, has heard some angry rant on the internet and decided to be less religious. I understand wanting to vent your rage, but all the internet vitriol in the world won't make religion go away, so maybe a new strategy is advisable.
Are you being serious right now? This is so far out there that I'm not sure how to begin to reply. For basics: computer science degrees have always been math based, or perhaps an offshoot of the electrical engineering department. The first PHds in computer science were awarded way back in the 60's, and they certainly weren't for word processing.
I'm quite entertained by the escalating absurdity of your answers. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.
The cited article shows the declining numbers of female computer science majors. So your convenient little rationalization is completely irrelevant. Nice work.
You might note that everyone who has been given the full inside information, including the USAF, agrees that it will work as a SSTO.
That's a worthwhile datapoint, but I imagine that there's lots of qualifiers on that. IF they can reach the specified performance from the engines, IF they can get the dry weight as low as their target, IF the thermal protection operates as intended it will work. Saying that you don't see any dealbreakers based on number crunching and design studies is a long way from knowing that none will come up later.
That said, that big chunk of cash is a pretty resounding endorsement of the idea. Not sure how far that is expected to go, but if they can actually get some hardware built that will make them more successful than any other SSTO program in history.
You say "There are no barriers to entry in any job field for women." This is an extraordinary claim, considering the huge disparity in gender participation in different fields. The data referenced above doesn't match your assertion so how about you provide something substantive supporting your position? Your extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence and I haven't seen it.
If you can't provide any factual defense of your claims, then it seems safe to assume that you are yet another internet ideologue with little concern for reality.
But still they lag in Engineering and CS. I don't think it's the case that most ought not or couldn't enjoy it, but clearly they've demonstrated some preferences. So you may have to start asking more uncomfortable questions as to why.
What complete horse shit. There are no barriers to entry in any job field for women.
Citation needed. How do you explain the sudden drop in women in computers starting in the 80's? There was much less of a gender bias prior to that point, so something changed.
Employment doesn't involve "pride", it involves trading our single most valuable asset - time - for the cash to enjoy what few hours remain after work and sleep.
That's exactly my point though. I agree with you about the "nobility of work" thing being problematic. I am only marginally motivated by more money (so maybe I'm a weirdo, but based on the science I think not). Generally speaking, if you are a salaried employee you are at work for 40 or more hours regardless of how hard you do or don't work - I find that I'm much happier when I get to spend those hours doing something challenging that uses the full extent of my skills, and so I try to move myself in directions that give me more opportunity to do that. I just talked to my boss this morning about taking on more projects for that reason - not because I'm trying to impress him or get ahead, but because at the end of the day I'm selfish and would rather work on the challenging and interesting projects myself.
There's research on this: People often think that it would be great doing something really easy - for instance, being a security guard at a museum and just standing there so people don't touch the painting is about as easy as it gets, and on first glance it sounds great to collect a fat paycheck for something so simple. The thing is, though, however much that job appeals to our human predilection for laziness, job satisfaction in positions like that just craters.
So, as you said, we give our most precious asset, time, at work. I will do everything I can to make sure that my working hours are spent doing something I enjoy, and for me that means mentally challenging work that has a high level of importance.
Have you ever done a single thing with robotics? Like, anything? Computer vision is still very rudimentary, reverse kinematics is still a huge problem (how do you get your end effector where you want it? oh, and make sure you dodge all the branches along the way), and integrating sensing data into precise control loops is something that looks really impressive in the lab and still fails miserably in the field more often than not.
If you don't believe me, just watch the recent DARPA challenge with humanoid robotics and you'll see the state of the art. In case you don't want to spend the time: it is a whole bunch of slow, clumsy robots falling over and failing hilariously.
If suddenly that investment doesn't command a premium - Why the hell would I want a difficult job with real responsibilities?
What a sad philosophy. I'm reminded of Teddy Roosevelt: "We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life."
Regardless of pay, isn't it more enjoyable to do something difficult and interesting than something menial and easy?
It's almost as though making careful and informed decisions based on the needs of a specific situation works better than rigidly adhering to dogma... nah.
How does that make distribution via Twitter a better option than email? My point is that Twitter offers few benefits.
That said, where do you get off claiming I don't know what I'm talking about? Getting papers/slides/data from authors is something I do on at least a weekly basis as a standard part of my job, although I will say if there's something available through a journal, my company just pays for it. There are still a lot of things that are either too old to find online, in pre-publication, or only presented at a conference and never actually published such that you need to work directly with the authors to get the information. Twitter would be the last way I would ever try to get that info.
True, I guess if the idea is that you're trying to get any random schmuck to pirate something for you, Twitter makes a certain sort of sense. But that's also, literally, holding up a public sign saying "please help me commit a crime!" It would be trivial for any journal that really cared to gain proof that these people were looking to pirate.
But then again, it seems like Twitter and discretion rarely associate with one another, so I shouldn't be surprised.
This still very much happens, over email, or perhaps LinkedIn. The only case where I can see Twitter being useful is in a specific (bordering on the bizarre) set of circumstances where:
The requester doesn't have the author's email
AND The requester sucks at google too bad to find the author's email OR the author is so obscure/technically backwards that no email is available
AND The requester has a Twitter account despite being technically inept
AND The obscure/technically backwards author happens to have an active Twitter account and be checking periodically for paper requests
I have a really hard time believing that people who need a paper are having more luck on Twitter than anywhere else. The situation where it would be more effective than email for both the requester and the author seems terribly unlikely. But I suppose "circumventing paywalls with social media" is a much better headline than "some people email authors to get preprints".
This is actually a pretty brilliant design, because water is easy to come by on Mars, and easier to work with than regolith or any other local material. The easiest way is to bring hydrogen from Earth, then obtain water via Sabetier reaction, using your hydrogen with CO2 from the martian atmosphere. Oxygen is the heaviest part of water, so a little bit of hydrogen goes a long way if you can get oxygen locally.
So, essentially all you need to do is create liquid water, and then deposit it and let the Martian temperatures solidify it. You don't need to get anything up to very high temperatures. Liquid water is very benign to work with as well, you aren't going to be gumming up printing nozzles, etc. Finally, water is very effective radiation shielding and has the added bonus of being transparent, so your astronauts don't feel stuck living in a cave. A bit of insulation as-needed on the interior will allow a comfortable temperature for the astronauts, and a sub-freezing temperature to be maintained by the ice.
Nonsense. Her point is a stupid example. By her reasoning, I shouldn't say "sex offenders should all be jailed" because if I replaced "sex offenders" with "black people" in that sentence it would sound really bad. Talking about groups of people isn't a bad thing, it is difficult to have any kind of meaningful conversation about society without doing it.
This is just a weak attempt to use political correctness to defend the rich from any kind of moral culpability. Being rich isn't an affliction. It is a state that is maintained solely at the discretion of the participant: give away all your money if you are so burdened. Some people do.
I agree with you, but there is a point where the situation is substantially different. Most of us have to work for a living - we must spend the largest part of our waking hours generating income to provide for ourselves and our families. The truly "rich" are those who have enough financial resources that they can choose to work or not, they can choose to participate in any philanthropic or commercial endeavors that they choose. That has really always been the definition of "rich", regardless of the money actually associated with it, and probably always will be. Those people truly do have a greater ethical burden to contribute to the social good, specifically because their capacity to contribute is far larger than the common person who is busy trying to survive. "From him who has been given much, much will be expected."
If you don't like what I have to say, listen to Teddy: "Wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research—work of the type we most need in this country"
Consider Elon Musk, and Paris Hilton. One of them is using their unique position to improve humanity. Social contribution by the wealthy should be the rule, not the exception.
Assuming that the fundamental premise is correct (the complete personality is represented in the connections among the brain's synapses) I don't see any reason that scaling this process should be that difficult. 1700 is a good start, and we've gotten pretty good at scaling, especially on the small end of things.
The big question is whether the premise is correct. I think not, but I could be mistaken. One thing we can be sure of is that things that seem impossible will be routine 50 years from now, and some things that seem like little more than a short extension of modern technology will still be out of reach. Predicting the future is hard.
Nice reference. But: why the hell didn't they install an automated wiper on the silos? It sounds like maybe 'cleaning' was intended all along as a population control and "release valve" for the silo, but still it's strange that such a possibility never occurred to the silo occupants.
Slashdot Mirror
So what? If somebody's "good" (say, a moment of affection for one's own children, perhaps - or in whatever form it comes) isn't enough to stop them from dropping nuclear weapons on civilian population centers, then that little bit of goodness is completely meaningless.
Fixed that for you.
If our response to danger is to abandon our ideals (liberty, integrity, justice) then the distinction between us and our enemies ceases to exist.
I see more of the corollary - there's a bit of evil in all of us, and as soon as we're willing to commit atrocities in the pursuit of a "higher good", the distinction between us and the evil we fight becomes theoretical.
Let's assume this is your main point:
Without the religion they'd have nothing to fight to the death over and nothing to motivate them or delude them into such action.
The idea that violence would stop entirely if religion was gone is quite extraordinary. There are a couple of quick ways to check its veracity. You are saying that without religion, people could not be deluded into murdering one another. However, there are many instances of large-scale violence being perpetrated for nonreligious reasons. What's more, there are many highly religious populations that are not at all violent... religion alone does not seem to be sufficient to cause violence in those instances. Additionally, violent terrorist activities certainly seem to be ramping up recently in the Middle East, yet there isn't a corresponding increase in religiosity - these regions have always been highly religious. That suggests an entirely separate cause for the violence. So how do you defend the point?
I think the question of what role religion plays in these violent conflicts is an interesting and important one, but sweeping generalities like yours are inaccurate and smell more of dogma than honest discourse. It would be much more fruitful to consider all the various causes of terrorism, because a solution won't be found unless we're willing to abandon ideology in the interest of understanding the full complexity of the situation.
You're not far left enough that's why. The far left are already falling all over themselves to whine and complain that it stole the spotlight from Mizzou or how it's not really a problem with Islam, but a problem with the west and how if we really weren't racists this wouldn't have happened.
What? Citation, please. I'm legitimately interested, because I haven't heard any of this.
Errr, well, actually it is often the religion that produces the violence. Without the religion they'd have nothing to fight to the death over and nothing to motivate them or delude them into such action.
Actually, you see lots of people willing to fight for reasons entirely separate from religion. See: every war, ever. People don't really murder one another for abstract reasons - they murder one another to defend their 'tribe' and improve conditions for whatever community they belong to.
Let's all just be honest and admit that religion often serves as the vehicle to induce people to do horrific things, things that they otherwise would never dream of doing.
I'd rather be honest and get rid of the ideological grandstanding and look at the REAL roots of large-scale violence - poverty, tribalism, perceived inequality, culture conflicts, etc. People commit horrific acts for all sorts of reasons, and there are much better correlates out there than religion.
There is no atheistic fanatisms. There are only fanatics that happen to be atheists or claim so or kill priests, whatever.
No True Scotsman fallacy. One could as easily claim that there are no religious fanatics - only fanatics who falsely claim association with a religion.
So if fanaticism can occur with a religion, personality, or even a technology (Apple, amirite?) then perhaps the specific focus of the fanaticism is less critical than the social conditions which create it. Namely, dissatisfied and suffering people are susceptible to adopting extremist ideology.
You can try to use terrorist atrocities as an opportunity to get on the anti-religion soapbox, but IMO that is both misguided and futile. Misguided because religion is not strongly correlated with awful human actions - there are lots of atrocities that have been committed apart from religion, and a lot of religious people that have not caused atrocities, so singling it out as the main problem isn't warranted. Secondly, no religious person, ever, has heard some angry rant on the internet and decided to be less religious. I understand wanting to vent your rage, but all the internet vitriol in the world won't make religion go away, so maybe a new strategy is advisable.
COMPUTER SCIENCE WAS LOTUS 1-2-3 AND WORDPERFECT.
Are you being serious right now? This is so far out there that I'm not sure how to begin to reply. For basics: computer science degrees have always been math based, or perhaps an offshoot of the electrical engineering department. The first PHds in computer science were awarded way back in the 60's, and they certainly weren't for word processing.
I'm quite entertained by the escalating absurdity of your answers. Can't wait to see what you come up with next.
The cited article shows the declining numbers of female computer science majors. So your convenient little rationalization is completely irrelevant. Nice work.
You might note that everyone who has been given the full inside information, including the USAF, agrees that it will work as a SSTO.
That's a worthwhile datapoint, but I imagine that there's lots of qualifiers on that. IF they can reach the specified performance from the engines, IF they can get the dry weight as low as their target, IF the thermal protection operates as intended it will work. Saying that you don't see any dealbreakers based on number crunching and design studies is a long way from knowing that none will come up later.
That said, that big chunk of cash is a pretty resounding endorsement of the idea. Not sure how far that is expected to go, but if they can actually get some hardware built that will make them more successful than any other SSTO program in history.
There was no "drop" in the 80s with women and computers, facts do not back up this fantasy.
First google hit: When Women Stopped Coding.
You say "There are no barriers to entry in any job field for women." This is an extraordinary claim, considering the huge disparity in gender participation in different fields. The data referenced above doesn't match your assertion so how about you provide something substantive supporting your position? Your extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence and I haven't seen it.
If you can't provide any factual defense of your claims, then it seems safe to assume that you are yet another internet ideologue with little concern for reality.
But still they lag in Engineering and CS. I don't think it's the case that most ought not or couldn't enjoy it, but clearly they've demonstrated some preferences. So you may have to start asking more uncomfortable questions as to why.
What complete horse shit. There are no barriers to entry in any job field for women.
Citation needed. How do you explain the sudden drop in women in computers starting in the 80's? There was much less of a gender bias prior to that point, so something changed.
Employment doesn't involve "pride", it involves trading our single most valuable asset - time - for the cash to enjoy what few hours remain after work and sleep.
That's exactly my point though. I agree with you about the "nobility of work" thing being problematic. I am only marginally motivated by more money (so maybe I'm a weirdo, but based on the science I think not). Generally speaking, if you are a salaried employee you are at work for 40 or more hours regardless of how hard you do or don't work - I find that I'm much happier when I get to spend those hours doing something challenging that uses the full extent of my skills, and so I try to move myself in directions that give me more opportunity to do that. I just talked to my boss this morning about taking on more projects for that reason - not because I'm trying to impress him or get ahead, but because at the end of the day I'm selfish and would rather work on the challenging and interesting projects myself.
There's research on this: People often think that it would be great doing something really easy - for instance, being a security guard at a museum and just standing there so people don't touch the painting is about as easy as it gets, and on first glance it sounds great to collect a fat paycheck for something so simple. The thing is, though, however much that job appeals to our human predilection for laziness, job satisfaction in positions like that just craters.
So, as you said, we give our most precious asset, time, at work. I will do everything I can to make sure that my working hours are spent doing something I enjoy, and for me that means mentally challenging work that has a high level of importance.
Have you ever done a single thing with robotics? Like, anything? Computer vision is still very rudimentary, reverse kinematics is still a huge problem (how do you get your end effector where you want it? oh, and make sure you dodge all the branches along the way), and integrating sensing data into precise control loops is something that looks really impressive in the lab and still fails miserably in the field more often than not.
If you don't believe me, just watch the recent DARPA challenge with humanoid robotics and you'll see the state of the art. In case you don't want to spend the time: it is a whole bunch of slow, clumsy robots falling over and failing hilariously.
If suddenly that investment doesn't command a premium - Why the hell would I want a difficult job with real responsibilities?
What a sad philosophy. I'm reminded of Teddy Roosevelt: "We do not admire the man of timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life."
Regardless of pay, isn't it more enjoyable to do something difficult and interesting than something menial and easy?
It's almost as though making careful and informed decisions based on the needs of a specific situation works better than rigidly adhering to dogma... nah.
Does it run Linux?
Seriously, though - sounds like a great setup for a low power HTPC.
How does that make distribution via Twitter a better option than email? My point is that Twitter offers few benefits.
That said, where do you get off claiming I don't know what I'm talking about? Getting papers/slides/data from authors is something I do on at least a weekly basis as a standard part of my job, although I will say if there's something available through a journal, my company just pays for it. There are still a lot of things that are either too old to find online, in pre-publication, or only presented at a conference and never actually published such that you need to work directly with the authors to get the information. Twitter would be the last way I would ever try to get that info.
True, I guess if the idea is that you're trying to get any random schmuck to pirate something for you, Twitter makes a certain sort of sense. But that's also, literally, holding up a public sign saying "please help me commit a crime!" It would be trivial for any journal that really cared to gain proof that these people were looking to pirate.
But then again, it seems like Twitter and discretion rarely associate with one another, so I shouldn't be surprised.
This still very much happens, over email, or perhaps LinkedIn. The only case where I can see Twitter being useful is in a specific (bordering on the bizarre) set of circumstances where:
The requester doesn't have the author's email
AND The requester sucks at google too bad to find the author's email OR the author is so obscure/technically backwards that no email is available
AND The requester has a Twitter account despite being technically inept
AND The obscure/technically backwards author happens to have an active Twitter account and be checking periodically for paper requests
I have a really hard time believing that people who need a paper are having more luck on Twitter than anywhere else. The situation where it would be more effective than email for both the requester and the author seems terribly unlikely. But I suppose "circumventing paywalls with social media" is a much better headline than "some people email authors to get preprints".
This is actually a pretty brilliant design, because water is easy to come by on Mars, and easier to work with than regolith or any other local material. The easiest way is to bring hydrogen from Earth, then obtain water via Sabetier reaction, using your hydrogen with CO2 from the martian atmosphere. Oxygen is the heaviest part of water, so a little bit of hydrogen goes a long way if you can get oxygen locally.
So, essentially all you need to do is create liquid water, and then deposit it and let the Martian temperatures solidify it. You don't need to get anything up to very high temperatures. Liquid water is very benign to work with as well, you aren't going to be gumming up printing nozzles, etc. Finally, water is very effective radiation shielding and has the added bonus of being transparent, so your astronauts don't feel stuck living in a cave. A bit of insulation as-needed on the interior will allow a comfortable temperature for the astronauts, and a sub-freezing temperature to be maintained by the ice.
Nonsense. Her point is a stupid example. By her reasoning, I shouldn't say "sex offenders should all be jailed" because if I replaced "sex offenders" with "black people" in that sentence it would sound really bad. Talking about groups of people isn't a bad thing, it is difficult to have any kind of meaningful conversation about society without doing it.
This is just a weak attempt to use political correctness to defend the rich from any kind of moral culpability. Being rich isn't an affliction. It is a state that is maintained solely at the discretion of the participant: give away all your money if you are so burdened. Some people do.
I agree with you, but there is a point where the situation is substantially different. Most of us have to work for a living - we must spend the largest part of our waking hours generating income to provide for ourselves and our families. The truly "rich" are those who have enough financial resources that they can choose to work or not, they can choose to participate in any philanthropic or commercial endeavors that they choose. That has really always been the definition of "rich", regardless of the money actually associated with it, and probably always will be. Those people truly do have a greater ethical burden to contribute to the social good, specifically because their capacity to contribute is far larger than the common person who is busy trying to survive. "From him who has been given much, much will be expected."
If you don't like what I have to say, listen to Teddy: "Wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research—work of the type we most need in this country"
Consider Elon Musk, and Paris Hilton. One of them is using their unique position to improve humanity. Social contribution by the wealthy should be the rule, not the exception.
Assuming that the fundamental premise is correct (the complete personality is represented in the connections among the brain's synapses) I don't see any reason that scaling this process should be that difficult. 1700 is a good start, and we've gotten pretty good at scaling, especially on the small end of things.
The big question is whether the premise is correct. I think not, but I could be mistaken. One thing we can be sure of is that things that seem impossible will be routine 50 years from now, and some things that seem like little more than a short extension of modern technology will still be out of reach. Predicting the future is hard.
Nice reference. But: why the hell didn't they install an automated wiper on the silos? It sounds like maybe 'cleaning' was intended all along as a population control and "release valve" for the silo, but still it's strange that such a possibility never occurred to the silo occupants.