There aren't too many of us. The Earth can support populations magnitudes larger than we currently have, comfortably.
The entire US population could fit inside Rhode Island somewhat comfortably, and the global population would have difficulty filling part of Australia.
Why not just teach people fiscal responsibility? I mean, you teach them everything else. Why not a little less 'balance the checkbook' class, and a little more focus on what happens after you lose your job and have 50% monthly interest on that credit card of yours?
Tell them exactly how bad the national debt / deficit situation is, how it's only going to get worse, and how they'll be that much worse off with a kid.
Indeed. Brave New World sounds awesome to one's ears, because you read it from the standpoint of an alpha. Try reading it from the viewpoint of a beta, or an epsilon. Would you not be filled with rage that someone, having never met you, injected your fetal brain with alcohol to purposefully destroy your chances at a more intelligent life? What more, for all the alpha's superiority, it was achieved by the sabotaging of their brothers, not by their own merit. They couldn't for all their capability, heal the damage to a single mind brought on by their policies. They could not resurrect people, they could not relay damaged neural connections (undo the damage done by the alcohol, nor fix spinal cord issues), and their genetics, aside from the superficial coating (excellent health when young), were so fucked up that by the end of their lives it was a mercy to die (the Savage's mom, if you need a reference). It would be hell on earth, and the sacrifice that that society asks for is a life, your life.
Finally, as an interesting point, the civilization in that book wasn't growing. It wasn't evolving. Sure, there was science, but it was all primitive. And all of us know what happens to species, based off of fossil records and present day evidence, that do not evolve. They eventually get wiped out. The universe, in its infinite wisdom, does not merely create greater fools to test the patience of the intelligent and mighty, but also engineers situations of long, winding declines and catastrophic, abrupt annihilations. Nature doesn't care how awesome you are, how enlightened your society is, how mighty your warriors are, how sacred your gods, how advanced your science / art, how much you've struggled, how many friends you have, how at peace your society is with its current structure; she's blood-thirsty, her favorite color is that of fresh blood (ask every animal who has been eaten by another, they'll tell you), and when you stop evolving she begins working in earnest to clean the petri dish for something new.
Look at the species who haven't evolved for a few million years. They're not doing too well, most of them just barely hanging on. That'll be how the human species goes -> a long, silent decline, until one day there are only a handful of us left. Then there will be none.
Indeed. But the faulty premise in there is that human beings could not be evolved to not need sub-humans.
Think about it. If you need a bunch of alphas, with nothing but lesser beings underneath, you've essentially recreated an insect hierarchy. Now, I might be biased towards my own species here, but I think human beings would not consider the hierarchy imposed in the insect civilizations to be the pinnacle of evolution.
Hmm. Let's remember, the Nazis got a lot of their ideas from us. The US, at one time, was the largest proponent of eugenics.
Which is why articles like these bother me. It's bad science, and if for no other reason, it needs to quietly die. Love the idea of genetic engineering, think we might (lol) be able to create a better human being, but I am realistic in that the human being has been evolved for many more years than I have been alive. I could study the human gene code for the rest of my life, and still not have unraveled.0001% of its mysteries by the time I've died. The technology just isn't there, the encoding scheme used on DNA is something of some brilliance, and the human mind, even with the use of machines, may not easily have the capacity to do what we want to really do.
I'd settle for annihilating a few known bad genetic diseases.
Only for a given environment. Genetic Engineering isn't magic -> there are trade-offs to every gene you add, delete, or alter.
There's a reason that (natural, soil dwelling) bacteria with antibiotic resistance haven't displaced their antibiotic resistance-free bacteria brethren. The extra work of encoding for resistance takes a metabolic toll on those bacteria, and makes them less fit (for the outdoors, in general).
This is partially why I am not worried about super-bugs among bacteria taking over and destroying the human race. They can only really exist under certain conditions.
Agreed, We seriously don't know enough about the human genome to begin tampering with it like this, and if / when something goes wrong, we probably won't be able to fix it. Only idiots would think screwing with such a poorly understood species as human beings, with caveman level genetic engineering technology, to advance a social agenda is an awesome idea.
This is part of the reason some of the skeptics of climate change want to hold off before REALLY checking that data (because silly people will enforce some poorly designed agenda to save us all, making it involuntary / mandatory, and will end up dooming us all instead). Just for the record, the number of predictions of the end of the world that have been valid to date is exactly zero.
More along the lines of traffic was flowing at 80 MPH (all of it) on a major highway (2,3,4,5 lanes at times), the posted speed limit was 55 MPH, and it was around that time of month that the traffic cops felt the need to rough up the peasantry.
It's especially rich coming from some judges who quote traffic law to you when you're on the stand ("Endangering the safety of others!"), then speed themselves on the way home (with a prescription for eye-glasses that hasn't been updated in years). Just had a judge caught the other day who was dismissing her own tickets (logged into the court system and deleted the summonses).
Our legal system is so hopelessly corrupt that part of me wants to flee the country and not look back, and the other half wants to stick around and see just how bad it can really get (For Science!),
Right, the judges in my state do not care. It's about money.
The trooper showed up smirking at everyone who came to fight their tickets (bit of a line). I will remember that in the future when dealing with said troopers, that the courts will schedule things for when he has off and I need to work, and that they know the system has such corruption in their favor that they can willingly mock their victims.
Brah, you gotta learn to take the good with the bad. Sure, you run the risk that the occasional slippery bastard will do and end run around the legal system, but the flip side is sending innocent people to prison. As such, the people involved in the original creation of our system of government decided that erring on the side of the innocent was in everybody's best interest.
I am just so happy that I continually run into people who hold opinions completely contrary to the general idea behind a livable legal system. These are the same people who, upon encountering me, lecture on about the need for stream-lined justice (getting rid of the appeals court), and mouthing off about how they've never had so much as a speeding ticket. Shortly thereafter, they usually receive a speeding ticket, and their opinion begins to change.
Spend some time, involuntarily if you can, at a prison / institution. You'll see something most people in power rarely understand, something you can't get by just 'visiting' some inmates. You'll see what hell looks like, and how all the 'help' you receive is typically nothing but salt in your wounds.
They'll push back, but the quality of service will drop from its already horrible state to something unearthly.
Then you wait. Sooner or later, in their rush to keep up, with pride overflowing (i.e. not taking the hint to back off), they'll attack the wrong person. Remember, it took an attack (accusation of being a witch) on the governor's (of Massachusetts) wife to put an end to the Salem witch trials (something like that).
Trials are about more than money for those who face penalties. It's about their lives, their liberties, and finding out whether or not their "great" country pays more than lip-service to these various ideals they indoctrinate their young with,
I know what you mean. It's a cell operation, with no true leadership elements, and the people / the number of people participating at any moment is in constant flux.
Trying to get that point across to the press is quite trying.
Slashdot Mirror
The average lifespan of a computer is 3 years.
6 months if you're a tech. 7 years if you're a technophobe.
How about we teach people not to thieve others' passwords?
See, the problem is, almost any password setup can be sidestepped by using a keylogger. Tiny device, about the size of a fingernail.
So, perhaps a little more focus on teaching people that it's not in their best interest to use someone else's identity.
Again? Tell the aliens that they can stay, but they have to move their ship out of the way of our view. ;-)
I wanted a copy of this Encyclopedia for my library.
Care to explain this more? It looks interesting.
Let them be the first to be sterilized.
There aren't too many of us. The Earth can support populations magnitudes larger than we currently have, comfortably.
The entire US population could fit inside Rhode Island somewhat comfortably, and the global population would have difficulty filling part of Australia.
Why not just teach people fiscal responsibility? I mean, you teach them everything else. Why not a little less 'balance the checkbook' class, and a little more focus on what happens after you lose your job and have 50% monthly interest on that credit card of yours?
Tell them exactly how bad the national debt / deficit situation is, how it's only going to get worse, and how they'll be that much worse off with a kid.
Indeed. Brave New World sounds awesome to one's ears, because you read it from the standpoint of an alpha. Try reading it from the viewpoint of a beta, or an epsilon. Would you not be filled with rage that someone, having never met you, injected your fetal brain with alcohol to purposefully destroy your chances at a more intelligent life? What more, for all the alpha's superiority, it was achieved by the sabotaging of their brothers, not by their own merit. They couldn't for all their capability, heal the damage to a single mind brought on by their policies. They could not resurrect people, they could not relay damaged neural connections (undo the damage done by the alcohol, nor fix spinal cord issues), and their genetics, aside from the superficial coating (excellent health when young), were so fucked up that by the end of their lives it was a mercy to die (the Savage's mom, if you need a reference). It would be hell on earth, and the sacrifice that that society asks for is a life, your life.
Finally, as an interesting point, the civilization in that book wasn't growing. It wasn't evolving. Sure, there was science, but it was all primitive. And all of us know what happens to species, based off of fossil records and present day evidence, that do not evolve. They eventually get wiped out. The universe, in its infinite wisdom, does not merely create greater fools to test the patience of the intelligent and mighty, but also engineers situations of long, winding declines and catastrophic, abrupt annihilations. Nature doesn't care how awesome you are, how enlightened your society is, how mighty your warriors are, how sacred your gods, how advanced your science / art, how much you've struggled, how many friends you have, how at peace your society is with its current structure; she's blood-thirsty, her favorite color is that of fresh blood (ask every animal who has been eaten by another, they'll tell you), and when you stop evolving she begins working in earnest to clean the petri dish for something new.
Look at the species who haven't evolved for a few million years. They're not doing too well, most of them just barely hanging on. That'll be how the human species goes -> a long, silent decline, until one day there are only a handful of us left. Then there will be none.
Indeed. But the faulty premise in there is that human beings could not be evolved to not need sub-humans.
Think about it. If you need a bunch of alphas, with nothing but lesser beings underneath, you've essentially recreated an insect hierarchy. Now, I might be biased towards my own species here, but I think human beings would not consider the hierarchy imposed in the insect civilizations to be the pinnacle of evolution.
Hmm. Let's remember, the Nazis got a lot of their ideas from us. The US, at one time, was the largest proponent of eugenics.
Which is why articles like these bother me. It's bad science, and if for no other reason, it needs to quietly die. Love the idea of genetic engineering, think we might (lol) be able to create a better human being, but I am realistic in that the human being has been evolved for many more years than I have been alive. I could study the human gene code for the rest of my life, and still not have unraveled .0001% of its mysteries by the time I've died. The technology just isn't there, the encoding scheme used on DNA is something of some brilliance, and the human mind, even with the use of machines, may not easily have the capacity to do what we want to really do.
I'd settle for annihilating a few known bad genetic diseases.
Only for a given environment. Genetic Engineering isn't magic -> there are trade-offs to every gene you add, delete, or alter.
There's a reason that (natural, soil dwelling) bacteria with antibiotic resistance haven't displaced their antibiotic resistance-free bacteria brethren. The extra work of encoding for resistance takes a metabolic toll on those bacteria, and makes them less fit (for the outdoors, in general).
This is partially why I am not worried about super-bugs among bacteria taking over and destroying the human race. They can only really exist under certain conditions.
Agreed, We seriously don't know enough about the human genome to begin tampering with it like this, and if / when something goes wrong, we probably won't be able to fix it. Only idiots would think screwing with such a poorly understood species as human beings, with caveman level genetic engineering technology, to advance a social agenda is an awesome idea.
This is part of the reason some of the skeptics of climate change want to hold off before REALLY checking that data (because silly people will enforce some poorly designed agenda to save us all, making it involuntary / mandatory, and will end up dooming us all instead). Just for the record, the number of predictions of the end of the world that have been valid to date is exactly zero.
More along the lines of traffic was flowing at 80 MPH (all of it) on a major highway (2,3,4,5 lanes at times), the posted speed limit was 55 MPH, and it was around that time of month that the traffic cops felt the need to rough up the peasantry.
It's especially rich coming from some judges who quote traffic law to you when you're on the stand ("Endangering the safety of others!"), then speed themselves on the way home (with a prescription for eye-glasses that hasn't been updated in years). Just had a judge caught the other day who was dismissing her own tickets (logged into the court system and deleted the summonses).
Our legal system is so hopelessly corrupt that part of me wants to flee the country and not look back, and the other half wants to stick around and see just how bad it can really get (For Science!),
On a side note, why do these things need to be constantly calibrated?
Right, the judges in my state do not care. It's about money.
The trooper showed up smirking at everyone who came to fight their tickets (bit of a line). I will remember that in the future when dealing with said troopers, that the courts will schedule things for when he has off and I need to work, and that they know the system has such corruption in their favor that they can willingly mock their victims.
If the people do not wish to stand for justice, how do you expect the courts to enforce it?
Brah, you gotta learn to take the good with the bad. Sure, you run the risk that the occasional slippery bastard will do and end run around the legal system, but the flip side is sending innocent people to prison. As such, the people involved in the original creation of our system of government decided that erring on the side of the innocent was in everybody's best interest.
I am just so happy that I continually run into people who hold opinions completely contrary to the general idea behind a livable legal system. These are the same people who, upon encountering me, lecture on about the need for stream-lined justice (getting rid of the appeals court), and mouthing off about how they've never had so much as a speeding ticket. Shortly thereafter, they usually receive a speeding ticket, and their opinion begins to change.
Spend some time, involuntarily if you can, at a prison / institution. You'll see something most people in power rarely understand, something you can't get by just 'visiting' some inmates. You'll see what hell looks like, and how all the 'help' you receive is typically nothing but salt in your wounds.
They'll push back, but the quality of service will drop from its already horrible state to something unearthly.
Then you wait. Sooner or later, in their rush to keep up, with pride overflowing (i.e. not taking the hint to back off), they'll attack the wrong person.
Remember, it took an attack (accusation of being a witch) on the governor's (of Massachusetts) wife to put an end to the Salem witch trials (something like that).
Had I the $5,000 to spend, yes. There's nothing more fun than sending a striking blow at corruption, especially on an easy target.
Trials are about more than money for those who face penalties. It's about their lives, their liberties, and finding out whether or not their "great" country pays more than lip-service to these various ideals they indoctrinate their young with,
Po-TAY-toes, po-TAH-toes.
You caught me. ;-)
I know what you mean. It's a cell operation, with no true leadership elements, and the people / the number of people participating at any moment is in constant flux.
Trying to get that point across to the press is quite trying.
The law is about maintaining the positions of the people in power. Hence all rebellions and uprisings are illegal.