People are waiting until they're older to have children, which could select for women (men too, to a lesser degree) who remain fertile for longer. If fertility is correlated with general health, that could cause something like this.
I can certainly confirm this. I activated sky broadband shield, in the hope of blocking porn (kids using internet). A few weeks later I followed a link from slashdot to some "climate change is bunk" website, only to have it blocked as "hate speech". Thanks big brother.
"Inertia is simply the fact that its not possible to transfer energy at an infinite rate."
No it's not. Inertia is the fact the you NEED to transfer energy at an infinite rate to achieve infinite acceleration. You're starting from the assumption of inertia, then pointing out that given that assumption, everything else hangs together. Which is true. However, the question at issue is different - what is the mechanism that causes inertia to be manifest in the universe. Why do objects resist acceleration?
You can say "why wouldn't something stay moving at a constant speed?" but that's just shrugging your shoulders. After all, you could say the same thing about any physical phenomenon, but that won't lead you to any deeper understanding of the universe.
The kinetic energy gained by an object is a result of inertia - so the question is, what mechanism in the universe is it that causes objects that are still to resist acceleration, and causes objects that are moving to stay moving at the same speed. That, no-one knows.
Gopman's first post "my love affair with SF dies a little" seemed ok (although his having "no clue" about why the homeless were there does smack of techie-arrogance). It was the drunk one after that that that did for him.
In times gone by it would've just been shouting in a bar. Afterwards he could've apologised, laughed it off, and put it down to too many beers. Now - it's affected his whole life. For those living their lives online, every utterance is juggling dynamite. It seems to me that this encourages rather a strict, lockstep approach to discourse. No room to blow off a little steam, everything you ever say will be "googled" for evermore. It's a terrifying prospect, in my view.
"So, there's enough real work that desperately needs doing "... "Why are so many people trapped in poverty working in sweatshops producing frivolous luxury items like designer handbags?"
*Jumps up with hand in air* Ooh, ooh, I know! Is it because humans are mostly self-centered, irrational, aggressive large-brained primates?
Why would we expect any other outcome? No-one cares about their fellow man. Plenty of people talk (a lot) about caring, but that's just showing off. If they really cared they'd go and help some poor people in Africa / India etc. But very few people sacrifice their own quality of life to help others, beyond the odd token gesture - which (again) is designed to make themselves feel and look good.
If humans aren't using their muscles, then there must be a machine doing the work. This immediately raises the question - if the machine is doing the work (propelling forward, changing direction, communicating with Earth etc etc) what exactly is the human doing? If, after years of thinking about it, we can't think of ONE thing that humans do in space that isn't easier and cheaper to do with a machine, why does the machine that goes to space and already performs all the actual functions have to cart a human about?
Unless you've time traveled back from the year 3000, your estimates of the capabilities of robots is WAY too high. Did we send a robot up to repair the Hubble space telescope? No. I grant you that robots can be better suited to survival in space, but they are LIMITED in what they can do, in terms of achieving things once they are there.. In a general problem solving situation they cannot hope to match the flexibility of a person,( and remote tele-operation does not solve this). Now granted, that's using today's technology - but I would argue that developing tech. to send a human to mars will be realised MUCH sooner than tech. to develop a robot capable of matching a human/s dexterity, thinking etc.
What function would the human perform on Titan that is not better served by a machine?
People are quite robust - not to the environment of outer space, but in the sense that they can think around problems, and repurpose things. If you're remotely operating some device, you're always at the mercy of your sensors, transmitters, and whatever manipulators you put on the thing. It's a really a brittle setup.
I've already said:But "becoming a interplanetary species" has no objective value. You might believe it does, but the value is based on religious belief.
. Did the Europeans colonising America have "no objective value"? They didn't just send a few robots over to measure some stuff, they went and colonised, and it changed the world. What makes you think that the same wouldn't be the case with another planet (Mars)? Now - you might argue that you could colonise purely with a society of robots - but those are sci-fi robots, nothing like the robots of today. The tech for your fantasy robots is an order of magnitude further away that the tech. for sending a person to Mars. As for your unshakable faith in their performance, well - what was that you were saying about religious belief?
" Insisting that meat bags must, under their own strength travel around space in order for space travel to be valid is faintly embarrassing,"
That would indeed be embarrassing, however it's not remotely what I'm saying. You seem obsessed with the idea of humans doing things using their own muscles. Once again - that is irrelevant, and nothing to do with my point.
As you say, we haven't yet dived into the Jovian atmosphere, or landed on Titan. But that's because it's technically easier to send a specially designed robot to those places, than a person. However, given the requisite technical know how, sending a person is highly desirable.
"Spare us your religious diatribes. You don't decide on our behalf, what constitutes our destiny."
I can only think that you have utterly misunderstood what I have been saying. You seem unaccountably angry, so tell me this. Do you think that humans becoming a multi planetary species is NOT to be desired?
Firstly, whether Everest is a solo achievement or a team effort, achieved using machines or just muscle power, is not relevant, The point is that the utility of sending robots to Mars, even really good ones, is limited to the scientific information they can transmit back to us. This info could be valuable, but it's value is vanishingly insignificant, compared to the value of our becoming a multi planetary species. We may be fleshy meat bags, but we're the ones that do things, and we do them mostly for ourselves.
Sending a robot ahead, to prepare the ground, build some infrastructure - now that's a good idea, but it's only a precursor to people making the trip.
Humans aren't particularly well suited to the summit of Mount Everest either. Instead of trying to climb it, we should just send an ice climbing robot to reach the summit. It can chemically analyse the ice, and tell us how cold it is - mission accomplished!
Imagine trying to train a large group of chimps not to perform any of their mating displays, not to attempt to mate and to generally ignore the opposite sex. This is what is being attempted with us - we're just naked apes, with bigger brains, granted - but still utterly in thrall to our evolution. Men and Women are simultaneously infuriated and fascinated by each other, which is no recipe for a quiet life, and it's not going to change any time soon.
You make a good distinction. I should have been clearer that I was considering men and women statistically as a group. (Also that I was talking about heterosexual people).
Given the above, then as you say, there is certainly enormous variation within a random collection of men. What there isn't however, is any sexual tension between members of that group. My claim is that it is this extra ingredient that causes so much of the trouble between men and women.
I don't think men and women are ever meant to see eye to eye. Each sex finds the other intoxicating and infuriating in equal amount. However I do think this perpetual turbulence must help us thrive as a species somehow.
Or maybe we're just the Gods' reality show, and the producers made us this way to "stir up some trouble", and make it more interesting.:-)
Mike McCulloch's MiHsC is a theory that makes some good predictions for things of this sort. It predicts a variety of anomalies quite successfully, without any tunable parameters needing adjustment. Mike McCulloch is a lecturer at Plymouth University in the UK, and he writes about his theory on this site, quite interesting stuff.
I suppose that's the point I was making. The grandparent quoted Occam's Razor - but I don't think it really applies when you don't really know what the other available possibilities are.
"Whether God, if such a thing exists, would play silly games just to piss around with its creation seems far-fetched."
Of course not - I'm sure god would NEVER play around with his simulation, yanking our chains just to see what we'll do. That doesn't sound plausible at all..
Slashdot Mirror
"A most courageous decision, if I may say so Minister"
"Oh god no - it's not is it?"
People are waiting until they're older to have children, which could select for women (men too, to a lesser degree) who remain fertile for longer. If fertility is correlated with general health, that could cause something like this.
Maybe Satya Nadella's new AI can work out how to get people to install Windows 10.
It means they get to levy yet another tax on business, so from their point of view it makes perfect sense.
I can certainly confirm this. I activated sky broadband shield, in the hope of blocking porn (kids using internet). A few weeks later I followed a link from slashdot to some "climate change is bunk" website, only to have it blocked as "hate speech". Thanks big brother.
Is one of the scientists, by any chance, a grandmother who dermatologists all HATE?
"Inertia is simply the fact that its not possible to transfer energy at an infinite rate."
No it's not. Inertia is the fact the you NEED to transfer energy at an infinite rate to achieve infinite acceleration. You're starting from the assumption of inertia, then pointing out that given that assumption, everything else hangs together. Which is true. However, the question at issue is different - what is the mechanism that causes inertia to be manifest in the universe. Why do objects resist acceleration?
You can say "why wouldn't something stay moving at a constant speed?" but that's just shrugging your shoulders. After all, you could say the same thing about any physical phenomenon, but that won't lead you to any deeper understanding of the universe.
The kinetic energy gained by an object is a result of inertia - so the question is, what mechanism in the universe is it that causes objects that are still to resist acceleration, and causes objects that are moving to stay moving at the same speed. That, no-one knows.
Given you're willing to test fly a jetpack, your maniac credentials are firmly established. Doing it without a helmet seems almost par for the course.
Gopman's first post "my love affair with SF dies a little" seemed ok (although his having "no clue" about why the homeless were there does smack of techie-arrogance). It was the drunk one after that that that did for him.
In times gone by it would've just been shouting in a bar. Afterwards he could've apologised, laughed it off, and put it down to too many beers. Now - it's affected his whole life. For those living their lives online, every utterance is juggling dynamite. It seems to me that this encourages rather a strict, lockstep approach to discourse. No room to blow off a little steam, everything you ever say will be "googled" for evermore. It's a terrifying prospect, in my view.
"So, there's enough real work that desperately needs doing " ...
"Why are so many people trapped in poverty working in sweatshops producing frivolous luxury items like designer handbags?"
*Jumps up with hand in air* Ooh, ooh, I know! Is it because humans are mostly self-centered, irrational, aggressive large-brained primates?
Why would we expect any other outcome? No-one cares about their fellow man. Plenty of people talk (a lot) about caring, but that's just showing off. If they really cared they'd go and help some poor people in Africa / India etc. But very few people sacrifice their own quality of life to help others, beyond the odd token gesture - which (again) is designed to make themselves feel and look good.
Doesn't make it wrong either. It certainly seems highly alien to our modern way of thinking, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work.
The fact that his computer model denies Earth's existence, doesn't give him pause? I've never been that confident a programmer.
If humans aren't using their muscles, then there must be a machine doing the work. This immediately raises the question - if the machine is doing the work (propelling forward, changing direction, communicating with Earth etc etc) what exactly is the human doing? If, after years of thinking about it, we can't think of ONE thing that humans do in space that isn't easier and cheaper to do with a machine, why does the machine that goes to space and already performs all the actual functions have to cart a human about?
Unless you've time traveled back from the year 3000, your estimates of the capabilities of robots is WAY too high. Did we send a robot up to repair the Hubble space telescope? No. I grant you that robots can be better suited to survival in space, but they are LIMITED in what they can do, in terms of achieving things once they are there.. In a general problem solving situation they cannot hope to match the flexibility of a person,( and remote tele-operation does not solve this). Now granted, that's using today's technology - but I would argue that developing tech. to send a human to mars will be realised MUCH sooner than tech. to develop a robot capable of matching a human/s dexterity, thinking etc.
What function would the human perform on Titan that is not better served by a machine?
People are quite robust - not to the environment of outer space, but in the sense that they can think around problems, and repurpose things. If you're remotely operating some device, you're always at the mercy of your sensors, transmitters, and whatever manipulators you put on the thing. It's a really a brittle setup.
I've already said:But "becoming a interplanetary species" has no objective value. You might believe it does, but the value is based on religious belief.
. Did the Europeans colonising America have "no objective value"? They didn't just send a few robots over to measure some stuff, they went and colonised, and it changed the world. What makes you think that the same wouldn't be the case with another planet (Mars)? Now - you might argue that you could colonise purely with a society of robots - but those are sci-fi robots, nothing like the robots of today. The tech for your fantasy robots is an order of magnitude further away that the tech. for sending a person to Mars. As for your unshakable faith in their performance, well - what was that you were saying about religious belief?
" Insisting that meat bags must, under their own strength travel around space in order for space travel to be valid is faintly embarrassing,"
That would indeed be embarrassing, however it's not remotely what I'm saying. You seem obsessed with the idea of humans doing things using their own muscles. Once again - that is irrelevant, and nothing to do with my point.
As you say, we haven't yet dived into the Jovian atmosphere, or landed on Titan. But that's because it's technically easier to send a specially designed robot to those places, than a person. However, given the requisite technical know how, sending a person is highly desirable.
"Spare us your religious diatribes. You don't decide on our behalf, what constitutes our destiny."
I can only think that you have utterly misunderstood what I have been saying. You seem unaccountably angry, so tell me this. Do you think that humans becoming a multi planetary species is NOT to be desired?
Firstly, whether Everest is a solo achievement or a team effort, achieved using machines or just muscle power, is not relevant, The point is that the utility of sending robots to Mars, even really good ones, is limited to the scientific information they can transmit back to us. This info could be valuable, but it's value is vanishingly insignificant, compared to the value of our becoming a multi planetary species. We may be fleshy meat bags, but we're the ones that do things, and we do them mostly for ourselves.
Sending a robot ahead, to prepare the ground, build some infrastructure - now that's a good idea, but it's only a precursor to people making the trip.
Humans aren't particularly well suited to the summit of Mount Everest either. Instead of trying to climb it, we should just send an ice climbing robot to reach the summit. It can chemically analyse the ice, and tell us how cold it is - mission accomplished!
This would be much better - count syllables and enforce a 5-7-5 structure on all tweets.
Imagine trying to train a large group of chimps not to perform any of their mating displays, not to attempt to mate and to generally ignore the opposite sex. This is what is being attempted with us - we're just naked apes, with bigger brains, granted - but still utterly in thrall to our evolution. Men and Women are simultaneously infuriated and fascinated by each other, which is no recipe for a quiet life, and it's not going to change any time soon.
I'd put the exhaust port leading to the heart of the reactor in the coil's trench. I've a feeling that will be pretty secure.
You make a good distinction. I should have been clearer that I was considering men and women statistically as a group. (Also that I was talking about heterosexual people).
Given the above, then as you say, there is certainly enormous variation within a random collection of men. What there isn't however, is any sexual tension between members of that group. My claim is that it is this extra ingredient that causes so much of the trouble between men and women.
I don't think men and women are ever meant to see eye to eye. Each sex finds the other intoxicating and infuriating in equal amount. However I do think this perpetual turbulence must help us thrive as a species somehow.
Or maybe we're just the Gods' reality show, and the producers made us this way to "stir up some trouble", and make it more interesting. :-)
Mike McCulloch's MiHsC is a theory that makes some good predictions for things of this sort. It predicts a variety of anomalies quite successfully, without any tunable parameters needing adjustment. Mike McCulloch is a lecturer at Plymouth University in the UK, and he writes about his theory on this site, quite interesting stuff.
http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.co.uk/
I suppose that's the point I was making. The grandparent quoted Occam's Razor - but I don't think it really applies when you don't really know what the other available possibilities are.
"Whether God, if such a thing exists, would play silly games just to piss around with its creation seems far-fetched."
Of course not - I'm sure god would NEVER play around with his simulation, yanking our chains just to see what we'll do. That doesn't sound plausible at all..