Old story, so no one will probably read this, but...
"When these guys build new houses for themselves they create jobs. When they hire help to maintain those big homes they create jobs. When they buy new cars they create jobs. When they invest their money they create jobs."
True, but such a tiny amount compared to the masses, that it might as well be zero jobs. The top 1% is...you guessed it.....one friggin percent. The personal expenditures of millionaires (homes, cars, etc..) creates basically zero stimulus and zero jobs when compared with the 99% of Americans' spending power.
Stewart never worried about being reasonable before the Tea Parties and the other wingnuts took control of one of our major political parties; during the Bush era, it was moderate Right vs extreme Right. Nowadays it's starting to look more like moderate Right vs batshit crazy.
Now what's important is not so much to bring the discussion over to the left, but to bring the discussion back to reality.
I'm not sure that it's moderate right vs crazy right. Between Fox News/Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, the religious right revival, and the the ton of "research groups" putting out largely misleading "studies" on climate change, peak oil, etc... I believe it has pulled the moderate right conservatives closer to the far right then they have ever been.
The window describing the range of acceptable political viewpoints has shifted right. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Extreme defensive driving is right, because other motorists' perceptions come into play too. For instance, like every other driver on the road, I follow at distances where, if their car is able to slow down faster than mine, or I'm fiddling with the radio, I'm going to rear-end them. Before the banshees come out, hey, I'd avoid it if I could, but the fact is that when I do leave a space that would allow me to stop if they went from 60-0 in 1 second, another car passes and gets in that gap. There's no way to stop the behavior short of driving 30 in a 60mph zone,
http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html
After watching this, and then experimenting a bit with my travel times, I found that leaving a sizable gap is 1) less stressful, 2) adds next to zero additional time to my trip (think of the split seconds it takes you to travel a car length at 30 mph, even 100 cars passing you adds very little time to a trip), and 3) actually smooths out the ride for all the cars behind me.
Averaging titanium's cost to be 16 dollars per pound, and assuming the frame is say...550 lbs of the cars total 800, thats 8,800 dollars for the frame.
Carbon fiber looks to be even cheaper, at 8.50 per pound.
Maybe the end cost of carbon fiber and titanium products is very expensive just because so few people work with those materials so that each job is basically a custom process, labor intensive, etc..
More than just a lack of ethics training, engineers (and most 'hard' degrees) are not exposed to the very diverse views of different people and cultures, when compared with the liberal arts type degrees. A philosophy major, history, anthropology, etc.. are taught to examine issues from many different perspectives, and from the eyes of people who think very differently than they do.
That leads to a person who is much more comfortable letting foreign ideas into their world view. Someone who can think it terms of shades of grey, rather than an engineer's (likely) black and white mindset.
Maybe is because Engineers have a more technical & logical mind and once they set their sights on a goal are more likely to finish it ?
I don't think any Politicians/Lawyers would be able to do the same. They will just stage a theatrical act out of which they can escape untouched or just switch sides.
I wouldn't include lawyers as an example of a profession that does not get results. We might not like how they achieve results from time to time.....but that's another issue:)
I also found the funny mod inappropriate, having major'd in anthropology/philosophy, yet working the last 10 years as an analyst (5 years system analysis in healthcare, 5 years web analysis in education).
Being able to think outside the box logically, and being able to learn rapidly, has served me quite well in my jobs. Computers and software change rapidly, as do the models governing how information is delivered and interacted with by its consumers.
The task killer "TaskPanel" works on my htc incredible running 2.2. I still use it from time to time, as its the fastest way to restart many applications. Browser bogged down by too much flash for example.
It is indicative of those people's ability and willingness to learn. They find one way, or are taught one way to do something, or to believe something, and it never changes.
I was listening to a radio talk show a few weeds ago. Forget which one, a Tom Hartman type. At any rate, a caller was trying to convince the host that we are at war with Islam.
It seems to me, that people would both be more accurate, and less inflammatory, if they described the US actions as a war against extremists who have, or are training to, actually cause physical harm.
The fact that they happen to be using a form of radical extremist Islam as the method by which they justify their actions, is irrelevant. The US condemns acts of terrorism, cruelty to women, ethnic cleansing, etc... regardless of what religion is behind it.
The mentality of some in the Islamic world is that the US is in fact attacking their (radical) form of Islam. Politicians, news media, and others, propagate this myth, and further create animosity towards the US. I wish more politicians and news organizations would more carefully word their descriptions of what we are attacking by the behavior, and not the religious attributes of those doing the behaving.
The US hasn't bombed any radical clerics who have just talked (at least as far as I know). The US has bombed extremists (who happen to believe in radical Islam) who are planning or have committed acts of terror. See the difference?
It was going to be, "You can be an idiot and make tons of money, the two aren't exclusive. Models, pornstars, people only really good at 1 odd specialty, people brilliant in 1 way yet profoundly retarded in others, etc...".
I don't hear any left/liberal talk show hosts calling him an idiot. Tom Hartman, Randy Rhodes (sp?), acknowledge he's a smart guy. But they also, of course, state that he certainly isn't using that intelligence honestly, or in a way that serves the public interest.
I'm pretty sure you'd have to have some sort of mental problem to espouse such hate, and blatantly lie constantly, possibly knowing full well that you are hurting your country. Sociopath maybe?
Now if he really believes what he says.... well he wouldn't be an idiot. He still has intelligence. But he'd certainly be suffering from some mental conditions due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
The bill does not require you to have insurance. It doesn't force anyone to buy it.
What the bill does is create an incentive by taxing you if you do not have insurance. If you choose to buy insurance, you receive a tax deduction. (at least that was what the bill said the last time I checked).
At the same time, it provides subsidies to help you buy it (depending on income).
I agree with you that competition between health insurance companies would, generally, be a good thing. However, if you've ever worked in health care, you know how complex state health laws and regulations are, and how difficult it would be for a single company to master all 50 states. Possible yes, but that is a ton of overhead cost to maintain. And on the flip side, medical billing is extremely complex. It would place a massive burden on doctor offices and hospitals for them to have to deal with billing 100's or 1000's of insurance companies.
There is so little standardization between insurance companies, and so few standardized ways to look up information, it would cause many problems. For instance, you come in to a hospital with pneumonia. Most insurance companies cover treatments x,y,z and a stay of up to D days. The doctor orders treatment x, and you are well enough to go home in D days. Come to find out, your particular insurance covered only treatment y and D-1 days. Now you're stuck with a huge bill. It might be possible to to get all insurance companies in a huge standardized database, for easier lookups, but who maintains it? Is a doctor required to look up your insurance? Would the patient be expected to know all his coverage and tell the doctor, "no, I want treatment y, and I want to leave 1 day earlier than you say I should...".
But competition does not solve the fundamental problem: profit for insurance companies is not a valid driving force for better health outcomes for the patient. Health insurance companies make their money by providing as little care as possible. Market forces (consumers choosing the best bang for the buck insurance plan) would slightly regulate that, but not by much. In the end, larger health insurance companies would buy up smaller ones, choice would diminish, and in order to increase profits, health insurance companies would lower payments, or lower the covered procedures.
If we didn't have any health insurance companies at all, and patients shopped for the best hospital services, then market forces would work wonderfully. But because complicated emergency medical procedures will likely always be beyond the budget of an average American, insurance is necessary.
I hope work on that technology is progressing (despise the fact that Bush once endorsed it),
See? SEE?! This is what happens when we politicize Science to Hell and back: some unpopular politician endorses it and we assume by default that this is grounds to discredit it. This is Slashdot, people. Evaluating the merits of the technology irrespective of politics should be the rule and not the exception.
Where are our values?
I agree, in general. But if someone is wrong 99 times, should I take the time to investigate the 100th claim?
Regardless, this becomes a none issue if we start listening to scientists about science, and not politicians. But scientists tend to have less public exposure than politicians, and public exposure leads to public policy decisions. And doesn't it seem pretty apparent that the far right gets science wrong way more often than the far left? It isn't unreasonable to totally disregard what a neo-con/tea-party type says in terms of science (and policy in general, but that is another conversation:))
I wasn't sure what a "beacon station" was, so I looked around. I couldn't find the term "beacon station" but did come across "electric beacon" and "radio beacon".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_beacon
So your guess is that the constant buzz is used for navigation? Maybe like a backup for GPS or other ways of navigating?
Sorry, I read your post kinda fast. I was more responding to your comments about the old European fears of the undead, and how prior to the 19th century, is was zombie-like: no concepts of the modern vamp. Slow, dumb, ravenous, disease carrying, etc..
I just wanted to point out that fast, smart, evil, sucking, was around prior to the 19th also:)
"Exponential growth in technology ergo artificial brains isn't optimism, it's a (specific) leap of faith."
I'm curious what aspect of it you consider to be the leap? It seems reasonable to me, that at some point in time, we will be able to scan a brain with such detail, that it can be 100% accurately virtualized inside a computer with sufficient processing power and space. For the sake of argument, say, a person is chosen, and wears a baseball cap that is capable of scanning his brain down to the atom. The baseball cap also is recording all visual, audio, and other stimuli that the person is taking in. Everything. Even fluctuations in magnetism, the feeling of the sun on his skin, etc...
He wears the cap for 2 years. At the end of the two years, that data is copied into a program/virtual brain container that is able to accept visual, audio, and other input, and deliver it to the brain in the ways observed by the super baseball cap.
It doesn't seem like a leap of faith to me, to assume that this extremely detailed copy would at least approximate a real brain when responding to new inputs.
Most people should correctly conclude that the super baseball cap is pretty far off into the future. However, what about the sum of all brain scanning across the world, which is indeed doubling each year, being put together? The scanning isn't down to the atom yet, and there are some (weak) hypothesis that believe that the brain is also using quantum effects so we might needs scans even down to subatomic particles, but scanning will get there someday.
Ray's just arguing that the day might come much quicker than we expect.
While the "Count Dracula" type vampire is certainly pretty modern, the concept of physically and mentally superior undead that suck the life from you is very very old.
So...how do we reverse this and encourage more critical thinking? I fear for our democracy if this silliness continues much longer.
I can't recall the exact quote, but in regards to the poor quality of news, Dan Rather said he remembers exactly when news began to go downhill. The turning point was when 60 minutes began to make money, and TV executives realized that news wasn't just a public service, but a major money maker.
In my opinion, the only way out is to remove money from the news. There are dozens of ways to accomplish that, but as most would require legislation, and politicians are just as bought and paid for by business as news is, I don't have high hopes.
And then of course you'd have the very vocal Fox News viewers screaming bloody murder about their right to speak being trampled. Which it wouldn't be of course. Just without a money incentive, big business would have far less control of news, and so those editorial reporters/spin doctors would slowly leave the system.
One slightly more possible step, instead of mandating that news be a public service without advertisement and/or owned only by non-profit companies, would be to at least breakup the media conglomerates.
"Five out of the six major U.S. motion picture studios in the Motion Picture Association of America control the five major U.S. television news outlets:" http://www.pineight.com/mw/index.php?title=MPAA_news
Another thought I've had in the past, was to broaden the libel and slander laws to include not just people, but also ideas. For instance, if you could prove to a jury that some news anchor willfully ignored fact and mislead millions of viewers over, say, the global climate change issue, then that person could be found guilty of a crime. I haven't run that many test cases through by head though. That sort of expansion might have consequences that I haven't thought about yet.
Let me rephrase then, because you are right that there is a difference:
I highly doubt that you could find any American willing to go to war for oil, given that propaganda is so effective at providing fake reasons for Americans.
Lets pretend that no propaganda existed though. I still doubt that you'd find any sizable portion of the population willing to kill to keep gas prices low. Your claim is pretty bold, and lacking evidence. Unless the American's you are referring to happen to be the past Presidential Administration.
I hope you understand why that plan would be unpopular, is impractical, and no rational politician would actually vote for it.
Think about it: a good number of Americans are willing to go to war to keep gas prices low. Do you think they will appreciate it if gas prices rise double for no reason other than some people (you) don't like their cars? Not to mention there's a good portion of the country where people couldn't ride the train even if they wanted to.
I think you underestimate the power of propaganda. I highly doubt you could find a single, average, American war supporter that believes the wars were over oil.
It's been shown time and time again that urban dwellers have a (significantly) higher carbon footprint because it takes more energy to maintain that way of life. It's been true since the first person grew his first field of corn and realized "hey, I can support a lot of people with this". While people in an urban area are in malls buying things, playing laser tag, eating at a restaurant, and doing whatever it is urban people do, people in rural and remote areas are spending time outdoors, cooking their own food and having simple social pleasures.
Citation?
The first three links on google when searching for "carbon footprint urban vs rural". Urban uses less: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/environment/May-June-08/Urbanites-Have-Smaller-Carbon-Footprints.html Its about the same: http://www.forumforthefuture.org/greenfutures/articles/CRC Urban uses less: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/urban-or-rural-which-is-more-energy-efficient
"The end result is a brain that is much, much more than simply the sum of the nucleotides that encode a few thousand proteins. He has to simulate all of development from his codebase in order to generate a brain simulator, and he isn't even aware of the magnitude of that problem."
Saying that in order to make a brain simulation you need simulate the growth of the brain is a ridiculous assumption.
Brain scanning tech is getting better and better. At some point, a brain scan is going to be so detailed, that it is entirely reasonable to believe that we can simulate the results of that scan in a computer.
The author goes on an on about genomes and proteins, but the truth is, Ray K. doesn't care at all about those things. He probably should have just kept his mouth shut on the topic. Kurz's basic concept is that eventually we'll be scanning the brain in real time, down to the atom, and copying that to a computer will be trivial. Someday.
That's a perfect solution fallacy - but what you say is, of course, true. The U.S. would never have invaded afghanistan if it wasn't for 9/11. What I say is that they (and the all-too-complacent european states) should have, after the more atrocious dictatorships/splintered genocidal warlord-ruled hellholes had been taken care of.
We'll never know now, but I'm pretty sure that we would have found some reason to invade Afghanistan if 9/11 had never happened. Baker (and others) that devised plans for the pipelines leading to the caspian sea had already made the case for Afghanistan's strategic importance by the early 1990's (I think I have that timeframe correct).
There were/are dozens of atrocities happening all over the world during the years we spent demonizing (I'm not saying they didn't deserve it, but...) and then invading Iraq.
Riwanda, Darfur, etc..
It really isn't a coincidence that that vast majority of conflicts we've engaged in happen to have economic or other strategic interests.
Slashdot Mirror
Old story, so no one will probably read this, but...
"When these guys build new houses for themselves they create jobs. When they hire help to maintain those big homes they create jobs. When they buy new cars they create jobs. When they invest their money they create jobs."
True, but such a tiny amount compared to the masses, that it might as well be zero jobs. The top 1% is...you guessed it.....one friggin percent. The personal expenditures of millionaires (homes, cars, etc..) creates basically zero stimulus and zero jobs when compared with the 99% of Americans' spending power.
Stewart never worried about being reasonable before the Tea Parties and the other wingnuts took control of one of our major political parties; during the Bush era, it was moderate Right vs extreme Right. Nowadays it's starting to look more like moderate Right vs batshit crazy.
Now what's important is not so much to bring the discussion over to the left, but to bring the discussion back to reality.
I'm not sure that it's moderate right vs crazy right. Between Fox News/Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, the religious right revival, and the the ton of "research groups" putting out largely misleading "studies" on climate change, peak oil, etc... I believe it has pulled the moderate right conservatives closer to the far right then they have ever been.
The window describing the range of acceptable political viewpoints has shifted right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Extreme defensive driving is right, because other motorists' perceptions come into play too. For instance, like every other driver on the road, I follow at distances where, if their car is able to slow down faster than mine, or I'm fiddling with the radio, I'm going to rear-end them. Before the banshees come out, hey, I'd avoid it if I could, but the fact is that when I do leave a space that would allow me to stop if they went from 60-0 in 1 second, another car passes and gets in that gap. There's no way to stop the behavior short of driving 30 in a 60mph zone,
http://amasci.com/amateur/traffic/trafexp.html
After watching this, and then experimenting a bit with my travel times, I found that leaving a sizable gap is 1) less stressful, 2) adds next to zero additional time to my trip (think of the split seconds it takes you to travel a car length at 30 mph, even 100 cars passing you adds very little time to a trip), and 3) actually smooths out the ride for all the cars behind me.
I'm not sure if I'm missing a factor, but 20,000 seems reasonable to me, if my quick googling revealed accurate costs.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_titanium_cost_per_pound
Averaging titanium's cost to be 16 dollars per pound, and assuming the frame is say...550 lbs of the cars total 800, thats 8,800 dollars for the frame.
http://news.cnet.com/Here-comes-the-everyday-carbon-fiber-car/2100-1008_3-6114289.html
Carbon fiber looks to be even cheaper, at 8.50 per pound.
Maybe the end cost of carbon fiber and titanium products is very expensive just because so few people work with those materials so that each job is basically a custom process, labor intensive, etc..
More than just a lack of ethics training, engineers (and most 'hard' degrees) are not exposed to the very diverse views of different people and cultures, when compared with the liberal arts type degrees. A philosophy major, history, anthropology, etc.. are taught to examine issues from many different perspectives, and from the eyes of people who think very differently than they do.
That leads to a person who is much more comfortable letting foreign ideas into their world view. Someone who can think it terms of shades of grey, rather than an engineer's (likely) black and white mindset.
Maybe is because Engineers have a more technical & logical mind and once they set their sights on a goal are more likely to finish it ?
I don't think any Politicians/Lawyers would be able to do the same. They will just stage a theatrical act out of which they can escape untouched or just switch sides.
I wouldn't include lawyers as an example of a profession that does not get results. We might not like how they achieve results from time to time.....but that's another issue:)
I also found the funny mod inappropriate, having major'd in anthropology/philosophy, yet working the last 10 years as an analyst (5 years system analysis in healthcare, 5 years web analysis in education).
Being able to think outside the box logically, and being able to learn rapidly, has served me quite well in my jobs. Computers and software change rapidly, as do the models governing how information is delivered and interacted with by its consumers.
The task killer "TaskPanel" works on my htc incredible running 2.2. I still use it from time to time, as its the fastest way to restart many applications. Browser bogged down by too much flash for example.
It is indicative of those people's ability and willingness to learn. They find one way, or are taught one way to do something, or to believe something, and it never changes.
I was listening to a radio talk show a few weeds ago. Forget which one, a Tom Hartman type. At any rate, a caller was trying to convince the host that we are at war with Islam.
It seems to me, that people would both be more accurate, and less inflammatory, if they described the US actions as a war against extremists who have, or are training to, actually cause physical harm.
The fact that they happen to be using a form of radical extremist Islam as the method by which they justify their actions, is irrelevant. The US condemns acts of terrorism, cruelty to women, ethnic cleansing, etc... regardless of what religion is behind it.
The mentality of some in the Islamic world is that the US is in fact attacking their (radical) form of Islam. Politicians, news media, and others, propagate this myth, and further create animosity towards the US. I wish more politicians and news organizations would more carefully word their descriptions of what we are attacking by the behavior, and not the religious attributes of those doing the behaving.
The US hasn't bombed any radical clerics who have just talked (at least as far as I know). The US has bombed extremists (who happen to believe in radical Islam) who are planning or have committed acts of terror. See the difference?
Darn it, I forgot my last sentence.
It was going to be, "You can be an idiot and make tons of money, the two aren't exclusive. Models, pornstars, people only really good at 1 odd specialty, people brilliant in 1 way yet profoundly retarded in others, etc...".
I don't hear any left/liberal talk show hosts calling him an idiot. Tom Hartman, Randy Rhodes (sp?), acknowledge he's a smart guy. But they also, of course, state that he certainly isn't using that intelligence honestly, or in a way that serves the public interest.
I'm pretty sure you'd have to have some sort of mental problem to espouse such hate, and blatantly lie constantly, possibly knowing full well that you are hurting your country. Sociopath maybe?
Now if he really believes what he says.... well he wouldn't be an idiot. He still has intelligence. But he'd certainly be suffering from some mental conditions due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
The bill does not require you to have insurance. It doesn't force anyone to buy it.
What the bill does is create an incentive by taxing you if you do not have insurance. If you choose to buy insurance, you receive a tax deduction. (at least that was what the bill said the last time I checked).
At the same time, it provides subsidies to help you buy it (depending on income).
I agree with you that competition between health insurance companies would, generally, be a good thing. However, if you've ever worked in health care, you know how complex state health laws and regulations are, and how difficult it would be for a single company to master all 50 states. Possible yes, but that is a ton of overhead cost to maintain. And on the flip side, medical billing is extremely complex. It would place a massive burden on doctor offices and hospitals for them to have to deal with billing 100's or 1000's of insurance companies.
There is so little standardization between insurance companies, and so few standardized ways to look up information, it would cause many problems. For instance, you come in to a hospital with pneumonia. Most insurance companies cover treatments x,y,z and a stay of up to D days. The doctor orders treatment x, and you are well enough to go home in D days. Come to find out, your particular insurance covered only treatment y and D-1 days. Now you're stuck with a huge bill. It might be possible to to get all insurance companies in a huge standardized database, for easier lookups, but who maintains it? Is a doctor required to look up your insurance? Would the patient be expected to know all his coverage and tell the doctor, "no, I want treatment y, and I want to leave 1 day earlier than you say I should...".
But competition does not solve the fundamental problem: profit for insurance companies is not a valid driving force for better health outcomes for the patient. Health insurance companies make their money by providing as little care as possible. Market forces (consumers choosing the best bang for the buck insurance plan) would slightly regulate that, but not by much. In the end, larger health insurance companies would buy up smaller ones, choice would diminish, and in order to increase profits, health insurance companies would lower payments, or lower the covered procedures.
If we didn't have any health insurance companies at all, and patients shopped for the best hospital services, then market forces would work wonderfully. But because complicated emergency medical procedures will likely always be beyond the budget of an average American, insurance is necessary.
See? SEE?! This is what happens when we politicize Science to Hell and back: some unpopular politician endorses it and we assume by default that this is grounds to discredit it. This is Slashdot, people. Evaluating the merits of the technology irrespective of politics should be the rule and not the exception.
Where are our values?
I agree, in general. But if someone is wrong 99 times, should I take the time to investigate the 100th claim?
Regardless, this becomes a none issue if we start listening to scientists about science, and not politicians. But scientists tend to have less public exposure than politicians, and public exposure leads to public policy decisions. And doesn't it seem pretty apparent that the far right gets science wrong way more often than the far left? It isn't unreasonable to totally disregard what a neo-con/tea-party type says in terms of science (and policy in general, but that is another conversation:))
I
I wasn't sure what a "beacon station" was, so I looked around. I couldn't find the term "beacon station" but did come across "electric beacon" and "radio beacon".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_beacon
So your guess is that the constant buzz is used for navigation? Maybe like a backup for GPS or other ways of navigating?
Sorry, I read your post kinda fast. I was more responding to your comments about the old European fears of the undead, and how prior to the 19th century, is was zombie-like: no concepts of the modern vamp. Slow, dumb, ravenous, disease carrying, etc..
I just wanted to point out that fast, smart, evil, sucking, was around prior to the 19th also:)
100% agree that Twilight is faeries though hehe.
"Exponential growth in technology ergo artificial brains isn't optimism, it's a (specific) leap of faith."
I'm curious what aspect of it you consider to be the leap? It seems reasonable to me, that at some point in time, we will be able to scan a brain with such detail, that it can be 100% accurately virtualized inside a computer with sufficient processing power and space. For the sake of argument, say, a person is chosen, and wears a baseball cap that is capable of scanning his brain down to the atom. The baseball cap also is recording all visual, audio, and other stimuli that the person is taking in. Everything. Even fluctuations in magnetism, the feeling of the sun on his skin, etc...
He wears the cap for 2 years. At the end of the two years, that data is copied into a program/virtual brain container that is able to accept visual, audio, and other input, and deliver it to the brain in the ways observed by the super baseball cap.
It doesn't seem like a leap of faith to me, to assume that this extremely detailed copy would at least approximate a real brain when responding to new inputs.
Most people should correctly conclude that the super baseball cap is pretty far off into the future. However, what about the sum of all brain scanning across the world, which is indeed doubling each year, being put together? The scanning isn't down to the atom yet, and there are some (weak) hypothesis that believe that the brain is also using quantum effects so we might needs scans even down to subatomic particles, but scanning will get there someday.
Ray's just arguing that the day might come much quicker than we expect.
While the "Count Dracula" type vampire is certainly pretty modern, the concept of physically and mentally superior undead that suck the life from you is very very old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edimmu
from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A273566
So...how do we reverse this and encourage more critical thinking? I fear for our democracy if this silliness continues much longer.
I can't recall the exact quote, but in regards to the poor quality of news, Dan Rather said he remembers exactly when news began to go downhill. The turning point was when 60 minutes began to make money, and TV executives realized that news wasn't just a public service, but a major money maker.
In my opinion, the only way out is to remove money from the news. There are dozens of ways to accomplish that, but as most would require legislation, and politicians are just as bought and paid for by business as news is, I don't have high hopes.
And then of course you'd have the very vocal Fox News viewers screaming bloody murder about their right to speak being trampled. Which it wouldn't be of course. Just without a money incentive, big business would have far less control of news, and so those editorial reporters/spin doctors would slowly leave the system.
One slightly more possible step, instead of mandating that news be a public service without advertisement and/or owned only by non-profit companies, would be to at least breakup the media conglomerates.
"Five out of the six major U.S. motion picture studios in the Motion Picture Association of America control the five major U.S. television news outlets:"
http://www.pineight.com/mw/index.php?title=MPAA_news
Another thought I've had in the past, was to broaden the libel and slander laws to include not just people, but also ideas. For instance, if you could prove to a jury that some news anchor willfully ignored fact and mislead millions of viewers over, say, the global climate change issue, then that person could be found guilty of a crime. I haven't run that many test cases through by head though. That sort of expansion might have consequences that I haven't thought about yet.
Let me rephrase then, because you are right that there is a difference:
I highly doubt that you could find any American willing to go to war for oil, given that propaganda is so effective at providing fake reasons for Americans.
Lets pretend that no propaganda existed though. I still doubt that you'd find any sizable portion of the population willing to kill to keep gas prices low. Your claim is pretty bold, and lacking evidence. Unless the American's you are referring to happen to be the past Presidential Administration.
I hope you understand why that plan would be unpopular, is impractical, and no rational politician would actually vote for it.
Think about it: a good number of Americans are willing to go to war to keep gas prices low. Do you think they will appreciate it if gas prices rise double for no reason other than some people (you) don't like their cars? Not to mention there's a good portion of the country where people couldn't ride the train even if they wanted to.
I think you underestimate the power of propaganda. I highly doubt you could find a single, average, American war supporter that believes the wars were over oil.
It's been shown time and time again that urban dwellers have a (significantly) higher carbon footprint because it takes more energy to maintain that way of life. It's been true since the first person grew his first field of corn and realized "hey, I can support a lot of people with this". While people in an urban area are in malls buying things, playing laser tag, eating at a restaurant, and doing whatever it is urban people do, people in rural and remote areas are spending time outdoors, cooking their own food and having simple social pleasures.
Citation?
The first three links on google when searching for "carbon footprint urban vs rural".
Urban uses less: http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/environment/May-June-08/Urbanites-Have-Smaller-Carbon-Footprints.html
Its about the same: http://www.forumforthefuture.org/greenfutures/articles/CRC
Urban uses less: http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/urban-or-rural-which-is-more-energy-efficient
"The end result is a brain that is much, much more than simply the sum of the nucleotides that encode a few thousand proteins. He has to simulate all of development from his codebase in order to generate a brain simulator, and he isn't even aware of the magnitude of that problem."
Saying that in order to make a brain simulation you need simulate the growth of the brain is a ridiculous assumption.
Brain scanning tech is getting better and better. At some point, a brain scan is going to be so detailed, that it is entirely reasonable to believe that we can simulate the results of that scan in a computer.
The author goes on an on about genomes and proteins, but the truth is, Ray K. doesn't care at all about those things. He probably should have just kept his mouth shut on the topic. Kurz's basic concept is that eventually we'll be scanning the brain in real time, down to the atom, and copying that to a computer will be trivial. Someday.
That's a perfect solution fallacy - but what you say is, of course, true. The U.S. would never have invaded afghanistan if it wasn't for 9/11. What I say is that they (and the all-too-complacent european states) should have, after the more atrocious dictatorships/splintered genocidal warlord-ruled hellholes had been taken care of.
We'll never know now, but I'm pretty sure that we would have found some reason to invade Afghanistan if 9/11 had never happened. Baker (and others) that devised plans for the pipelines leading to the caspian sea had already made the case for Afghanistan's strategic importance by the early 1990's (I think I have that timeframe correct).
That needs to be said over and over again.
There were/are dozens of atrocities happening all over the world during the years we spent demonizing (I'm not saying they didn't deserve it, but...) and then invading Iraq.
Riwanda, Darfur, etc..
It really isn't a coincidence that that vast majority of conflicts we've engaged in happen to have economic or other strategic interests.