Why do people always talk about whether the earth will survive, or whether it has survived something like this before? Who cares about this rock. Global warming won't kill the earth; it'll be here long after humanity has gone. It doesn't matter whether earth has gone through this before, because we're not trying to save the earth. We're trying to save us.
What matters is whether the current population of humans can survive a sudden, drastic temperature increase, not whether the earth can.
Analogies are not straw men. GP didn't say that anyone had the beliefs he came up with. He said "if you believe what you believe, then, using the same logic, the following clearly absurd things could also be said, hence the logic of your beliefs must contain flaws."
Once an asshole, always an asshole, and running Apple has NOT improved his demeanor nor his attitude, not one iota. Wozniak, on the other hand, was a rare spark of true genius.
Are you implying that assholes can't be geniuses? I'm pretty sure the two things are not mutually exclusive. Jobs may be an asshole, but he's definitely also a genius. Your personal feelings of the guy (a guy you presumably don't even personally know, btw) have no bearing on the matter.
Woz is a hell of a smart guy, and it seems he's also a hell of a nice guy. But without Jobs, there would be no Apple. Without him returning to Apple in the 90s, there would be no iPod, no iPhone, and probably no Apple anymore, either.
You misread what I wrote. I did not, in fact, write that individual scientists (or even research groups) don't fabricate research. I wrote that, quoting what you just quoted, "There is no incentive at all for thousands of scientists to be part of some kind of insane global conspiracy that misleads everybody else". Science is a self-correcting endeavor; as you yourself have pointed out, scientists actually investigate stuff like fabricated research themselves. One of the goals of every scientist is to prove another scientist wrong, especially if it's about something that is widely accepted as true.
And yes, a lot of the research into the climate was eventually shown to be wrong, or not precise enough, and a lot of the data we have now will eventually be shown to be imprecise, or even wrong. In fact, that's the whole point: if people wouldn't find flaws in the existing data, they could just stop researching it and call it a day. "Hey, we know everything there is to know about the climate, let's go home and watch some Futurama!"
The fact that there is still a ton of research in this area is because we don't have all the answers, and a lot of the stuff we have is imprecise or possibly wrong. That's science. Today, we know more than we knew yesterday (and no, that doesn't mean that yesterday's predictions are useless, just not as precise as they could have been).
I believe your issue is that you believe scientists you support do not lie.
Again, you don't understand how science works. You don't "support" a bunch of scientists and then believe everything they say (well, you apparently do, but it's not what you're supposed to do).
How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research?
That's the point I was making. Other scientists replicate results, so sooner or later (usually sooner), when scientists falsify results, it always comes out. As you yourself point out, there's even scientific inquiry into how often scientists do this kind of stuff!
Glacial growth is an interruption in the water cycle.
Well, that's true in some ways, but it's not a bad thing. Glaciers grow when plants can't, and they give back the water when plants can grow, so during growth, they ensure a steady stream of water. This is a good thing.
I don't think you understand how science works. You seem to think that some scientist comes up with something, and then it's the law.
No. Science doesn't work that way. Scientists publish their results, and then other scientists look at their data, try to reproduce the results, and generally try to find problems. You know how you become a famous scientist? By disproving something every other scientist believes. This gets you the nobel price. This is the incentive. Find errors. Be smarter than everybody else. Have better data, a better explanation, a better way of predicting things.
There is no incentive at all for thousands of scientists to be part of some kind of insane global conspiracy that misleads everybody else.
The results of global warming won't be just a bit of lacking water, and a bit of infrastructure won't fix it; instead, we will lose a lot of fertile soil within a short amount of time. As a result, almost every required resource will be available in lower quantities. This might very likely cause a widespread destabilisation of political structures, and probably a few decades of global war, until human population goes down to a level that is sustainable again.
Some people seem to think that global warming will mean that they will be able to go bathing in the lake in summer, so yay, more bathing! No. This is not going to be the same world, except a little bit warmer.
You are missing the point. This is not about saving the planet, it's about saving our own asses. Yes, the planet will continue rotating, and will still be here long after we're all dead. But, uh, we won't be here unless we make sure that the planet continues to be able to sustain human life.
The idea that we can't change our planet is defeatist bullshit. In the 80s, people thought that overpopulation would cause major world wars within a decade, that we would have revolutions in Europe, and that billions of people would die. It didn't happen. Why? Because of science. We managed to improve resource usage so much that we were able to sustain ever growing populations (and now we're seeing that at some point, human population stop growing naturally in developed nations without being constrained by a lack of resources, so there's a good chance that we might eventually reach a balance that doesn't involve billions of people dying due to a lack of resources).
Humanity is capable of doing awesome, great things, and there is no reason to believe that we can't solve this problem, if we accept that it is a problem and start actually taking it seriously before it is truly too late.
It takes quite a bit of arrogance to believe that humanity can change the Earth's climate that much, that fast
It takes quite a bit of arrogance to believe that a little virus can kill such a big human that quickly.
I'm sorry, but the real world doesn't work the way you imply. Nature doesn't care about your simplistic intuition of what's possible; the climate isn't a stable system that requires a lot of input to change in fundamental ways. It's constantly in flux, and small changes can cause the balance to shift in fundamental ways.
There probably are a few reasonable people who believe that climate change isn't influenced by human behavior, but given the odds, I think it's okay to assume that any given person questioning whether we have contributed to climate change is not, in fact, a reasonable person—or at least simply uninformed.
The only serious actions I know of in regard to global warming are those that will a) make some people some serious money, and b) cause some serious changes in our lifesyles for the worse, i.e. lots of us have to live like peasants
I've seen a lot of proposals that could help against climate change, but I've never seen one that would turn people into peasants; quite the contrary, they usually involve a ton of technological progress. The countries who would mainly lose out are the ones that are basing their economy on oil—and those people are often already mostly peasants.
I don't really understand your reasoning. The patch wouldn't be as bad if it were actual plastic things that one could somehow remove. The fact that the plastic has broken down into small particles is worse than what most people seem to imagine; the way it is now, it can enter into the food chain, and there is no reasonable way to remove it. Your logic seems to be "Wikipedia says it's invisible, so it can't be too bad." How does it being invisible make it any better?
So the stories don't make it sound worse than it is; they make it sound better than it actually is!
The idea that it might make sense to differentiate between "interactive" things and "non-interactive" things and define this line as the line between art and non-art strikes me as odd. There is no non-interactive art. If you read a book, it is your own mind that paints the picture described by the author's word. If you watch a movie, it's your mind that creates the interpretation that gives the work meaning. Art is always interactive; you interact with a piece of art. This is what gives art its meaning. Without interaction, any piece of art would be utterly dead and meaningless.
I think what they mean is that their suspension of disbelief has been destroyed. It's true that realism is not necessary for immersion as a general rule, but some games do rely on realism to achieve immersion, and for those games, items that don't fit into the game's world can indeed destroy the player's immersion.
The other issue is the free riders - those corporations that choose to copy other's inventions and profit from someone else's ideas. This is what the patent system was intended to address
Wait, is there general agreement that his "issue" should be adressed? Because I disagree. Profiting from someone else's idea is not a problem for society, it's how society progresses. Every book written in the history of mankind has profited from the idea of other people. Every movie made in the history of mankind has done so. Every product ever developed has relied on ideas from other people. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this; it's called "progress."
"and even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves 'spiritual.'"
What does the word "even" mean in this sentence? Spirituality is a part of the human psyche. Although we often connect the two, spirituality has little to do with faith. In fact, science is a great source of awe and wonder, feelings that we might call "spiritual" feelings.
Similarly, in my experience, the people who end up in the highest-paying jobs are usually not the most productive or useful workers at a company, but simply the most sociopathic ones. Instead of helping others and improving the system, they optimized for their own success.
There's also the question of whether the damage is cumulative. A little bit ash for a short period of time won't do any damage, but will a little bit of ash for a longer period of time?
As far as I can tell, I have roughly ten fingers. I'm pretty sure one could use some of them and come up with a non-modal user interface for selecting text:-)
I agree that the iPad is largely a content consuming device. My point was not so much that the iPad is a replacement for a Windows computer, but that it is an entirely different thing, specifically geared towards the tablet form factor.
Apple has managed to create a number of utterly unpopular things, the iPod HiFi, the AppleTV and (to a lesser degree) the MacBook Air being three newer examples. The idea that people buy Apple's stuff simply because it has an Apple logo is akin to sticking one's fingers into one's ears while loudly singing "LALALALA". The simple fact is that many people like Apple's products because they work better for them than products from other manufacturers.
Give an average person a Windows tablet and an iPad, and see which one they'll use to answer mail, surf the web, and watch movies.
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Why do people always talk about whether the earth will survive, or whether it has survived something like this before? Who cares about this rock. Global warming won't kill the earth; it'll be here long after humanity has gone. It doesn't matter whether earth has gone through this before, because we're not trying to save the earth. We're trying to save us.
What matters is whether the current population of humans can survive a sudden, drastic temperature increase, not whether the earth can.
Analogies are not straw men. GP didn't say that anyone had the beliefs he came up with. He said "if you believe what you believe, then, using the same logic, the following clearly absurd things could also be said, hence the logic of your beliefs must contain flaws."
Are you implying that assholes can't be geniuses? I'm pretty sure the two things are not mutually exclusive. Jobs may be an asshole, but he's definitely also a genius. Your personal feelings of the guy (a guy you presumably don't even personally know, btw) have no bearing on the matter.
Woz is a hell of a smart guy, and it seems he's also a hell of a nice guy. But without Jobs, there would be no Apple. Without him returning to Apple in the 90s, there would be no iPod, no iPhone, and probably no Apple anymore, either.
But that still doesn't explain the sprinkler rainbows.
You misread what I wrote. I did not, in fact, write that individual scientists (or even research groups) don't fabricate research. I wrote that, quoting what you just quoted, "There is no incentive at all for thousands of scientists to be part of some kind of insane global conspiracy that misleads everybody else". Science is a self-correcting endeavor; as you yourself have pointed out, scientists actually investigate stuff like fabricated research themselves. One of the goals of every scientist is to prove another scientist wrong, especially if it's about something that is widely accepted as true.
And yes, a lot of the research into the climate was eventually shown to be wrong, or not precise enough, and a lot of the data we have now will eventually be shown to be imprecise, or even wrong. In fact, that's the whole point: if people wouldn't find flaws in the existing data, they could just stop researching it and call it a day. "Hey, we know everything there is to know about the climate, let's go home and watch some Futurama!"
The fact that there is still a ton of research in this area is because we don't have all the answers, and a lot of the stuff we have is imprecise or possibly wrong. That's science. Today, we know more than we knew yesterday (and no, that doesn't mean that yesterday's predictions are useless, just not as precise as they could have been).
Again, you don't understand how science works. You don't "support" a bunch of scientists and then believe everything they say (well, you apparently do, but it's not what you're supposed to do).
That's the point I was making. Other scientists replicate results, so sooner or later (usually sooner), when scientists falsify results, it always comes out. As you yourself point out, there's even scientific inquiry into how often scientists do this kind of stuff!
Well, that's true in some ways, but it's not a bad thing. Glaciers grow when plants can't, and they give back the water when plants can grow, so during growth, they ensure a steady stream of water. This is a good thing.
I don't think you understand how science works. You seem to think that some scientist comes up with something, and then it's the law.
No. Science doesn't work that way. Scientists publish their results, and then other scientists look at their data, try to reproduce the results, and generally try to find problems. You know how you become a famous scientist? By disproving something every other scientist believes. This gets you the nobel price. This is the incentive. Find errors. Be smarter than everybody else. Have better data, a better explanation, a better way of predicting things.
There is no incentive at all for thousands of scientists to be part of some kind of insane global conspiracy that misleads everybody else.
The results of global warming won't be just a bit of lacking water, and a bit of infrastructure won't fix it; instead, we will lose a lot of fertile soil within a short amount of time. As a result, almost every required resource will be available in lower quantities. This might very likely cause a widespread destabilisation of political structures, and probably a few decades of global war, until human population goes down to a level that is sustainable again.
Some people seem to think that global warming will mean that they will be able to go bathing in the lake in summer, so yay, more bathing! No. This is not going to be the same world, except a little bit warmer.
You are missing the point. This is not about saving the planet, it's about saving our own asses. Yes, the planet will continue rotating, and will still be here long after we're all dead. But, uh, we won't be here unless we make sure that the planet continues to be able to sustain human life.
The idea that we can't change our planet is defeatist bullshit. In the 80s, people thought that overpopulation would cause major world wars within a decade, that we would have revolutions in Europe, and that billions of people would die. It didn't happen. Why? Because of science. We managed to improve resource usage so much that we were able to sustain ever growing populations (and now we're seeing that at some point, human population stop growing naturally in developed nations without being constrained by a lack of resources, so there's a good chance that we might eventually reach a balance that doesn't involve billions of people dying due to a lack of resources).
Humanity is capable of doing awesome, great things, and there is no reason to believe that we can't solve this problem, if we accept that it is a problem and start actually taking it seriously before it is truly too late.
It takes quite a bit of arrogance to believe that a little virus can kill such a big human that quickly.
I'm sorry, but the real world doesn't work the way you imply. Nature doesn't care about your simplistic intuition of what's possible; the climate isn't a stable system that requires a lot of input to change in fundamental ways. It's constantly in flux, and small changes can cause the balance to shift in fundamental ways.
There probably are a few reasonable people who believe that climate change isn't influenced by human behavior, but given the odds, I think it's okay to assume that any given person questioning whether we have contributed to climate change is not, in fact, a reasonable person—or at least simply uninformed.
I've seen a lot of proposals that could help against climate change, but I've never seen one that would turn people into peasants; quite the contrary, they usually involve a ton of technological progress. The countries who would mainly lose out are the ones that are basing their economy on oil—and those people are often already mostly peasants.
I don't really understand your reasoning. The patch wouldn't be as bad if it were actual plastic things that one could somehow remove. The fact that the plastic has broken down into small particles is worse than what most people seem to imagine; the way it is now, it can enter into the food chain, and there is no reasonable way to remove it. Your logic seems to be "Wikipedia says it's invisible, so it can't be too bad." How does it being invisible make it any better?
So the stories don't make it sound worse than it is; they make it sound better than it actually is!
Why should a game not be art merely because it depicts destruction and is part of a popular genre of games?
It's not about favourites. It's about discarding an entire genre of art.
The idea that it might make sense to differentiate between "interactive" things and "non-interactive" things and define this line as the line between art and non-art strikes me as odd. There is no non-interactive art. If you read a book, it is your own mind that paints the picture described by the author's word. If you watch a movie, it's your mind that creates the interpretation that gives the work meaning. Art is always interactive; you interact with a piece of art. This is what gives art its meaning. Without interaction, any piece of art would be utterly dead and meaningless.
I think what they mean is that their suspension of disbelief has been destroyed. It's true that realism is not necessary for immersion as a general rule, but some games do rely on realism to achieve immersion, and for those games, items that don't fit into the game's world can indeed destroy the player's immersion.
Wait, is there general agreement that his "issue" should be adressed? Because I disagree. Profiting from someone else's idea is not a problem for society, it's how society progresses. Every book written in the history of mankind has profited from the idea of other people. Every movie made in the history of mankind has done so. Every product ever developed has relied on ideas from other people. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this; it's called "progress."
"and even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves 'spiritual.'"
What does the word "even" mean in this sentence? Spirituality is a part of the human psyche. Although we often connect the two, spirituality has little to do with faith. In fact, science is a great source of awe and wonder, feelings that we might call "spiritual" feelings.
Similarly, in my experience, the people who end up in the highest-paying jobs are usually not the most productive or useful workers at a company, but simply the most sociopathic ones. Instead of helping others and improving the system, they optimized for their own success.
There's also the question of whether the damage is cumulative. A little bit ash for a short period of time won't do any damage, but will a little bit of ash for a longer period of time?
As far as I can tell, I have roughly ten fingers. I'm pretty sure one could use some of them and come up with a non-modal user interface for selecting text :-)
I agree that the iPad is largely a content consuming device. My point was not so much that the iPad is a replacement for a Windows computer, but that it is an entirely different thing, specifically geared towards the tablet form factor.
Apple has managed to create a number of utterly unpopular things, the iPod HiFi, the AppleTV and (to a lesser degree) the MacBook Air being three newer examples. The idea that people buy Apple's stuff simply because it has an Apple logo is akin to sticking one's fingers into one's ears while loudly singing "LALALALA". The simple fact is that many people like Apple's products because they work better for them than products from other manufacturers.
Give an average person a Windows tablet and an iPad, and see which one they'll use to answer mail, surf the web, and watch movies.
Yeah, because Apple using the old artificial scarcity ploy makes it sooo successful.
We really need that irony mark, I can't tell whether you're serious.