Beware of fortune tellers and computer models.
on
When Google Got Flu Wrong
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Computer modeling is a powerful technology that should not be underestimated.
However, it should also not be overestimated.
When the "real world" has millions of convergent factors responsible for an event, computer models can sometimes capture a few thousand. Based on those, a simulation is created that suggests a certain outcome. But it may be using less than 1% of the necessary data.
This is like making architectural models out of child's blocks and then being surprised when the building falls down after it is eventually made. There are issues of scale in addition to data that can reveal periodistic or epicyclic patterns that cannot be modeled in a linear method.
So the burn rate isn't increasing, big fucking deal. We're still not remotely at a break even point for water consumption so, guess what, there's still a huge problem.
I agree with you.
Here's what fuzzy is parroting:
Moreover, the poor, highly fertile countries that once churned out immigrants by the boatload are now experiencing birthrate declines of their own. From 1960 to 2009, Mexico’s fertility rate tumbled from 7.3 live births per woman to 2.4, India’s dropped from six to 2.5, and Brazil’s fell from 6.15 to 1.9. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, where the average birthrate remains a relatively blistering 4.66, fertility is projected to fall below replacement level by the 2070s. This change in developing countries will affect not only the U.S. population, of course, but eventually the world’s.
Why is this happening? Scientists who study population dynamics point to a phenomenon called “demographic transition.”
“For hundreds of thousands of years,” explains Warren Sanderson, a professor of economics at Stony Brook University, “in order for humanity to survive things like epidemics and wars and famine, birthrates had to be very high.” Eventually, thanks to technology, death rates started to fall in Europe and in North America, and the population size soared. In time, though, birthrates fell as well, and the population leveled out. The same pattern has repeated in countries around the world. Demographic transition, Sanderson says, “is a shift between two very different long-run states: from high death rates and high birthrates to low death rates and low birthrates.” Not only is the pattern well-documented, it’s well under way: Already, more than half the world’s population is reproducing at below the replacement rate. - Slate.com
This argument, which is not proven science, suggests the following: as technology and wealth improve likelihood of survival, people tend to have fewer children. That which technology does not do, birth control will also.
The main evidence for this, in this article's view, is that in fewer than half of the nations on earth, population growth has declined, and it took us as a whole longer to add the 7th billionth person than it has to add the previous billion.
The article is shoddy science for a number of reasons.
First, the nations that are declining in population tend to be the wealthier ones or ones aided by immigration in becoming so. Related to that is that the nations which are dropping in birth rate are importing large immigrant populations.
Second, the delay in adding the seventh billion may have very little significance. A few tragedies or droughts, some instability or disease, and a delay can happen. That's even assuming our estimates are right, since we're estimating that seven billion and when it occurred.
Finally, the article ignores the path of history. The poorer tend to outproduce the wealthier, which tends to make wealthy nations poorer and less stable, which tends to increase the birth rate as well.
Further, many of our magic cures like antibiotics are no longer guaranteed barriers to disease. In addition, many diseases are mutating. Life expectancy rates of a modern nature may be a blip on the radar.
As you noted, we're already at a stressing point. We don't need to look much farther than the collapse of fish stocks to see that we're trying to feed too many people.
The Slate article is suspect for another reason: Slate tends to pump out these feelgood articles every year or so encouraging us not to think about any problem that contradicts popular notions of fre
You do realize that much of the world has fallen below replacement rates by the simple expedient of making people wealthy enough that they can choose whether to extrude yet another baby or not?
We're at seven billion people now. Do you think that number is going to go down?
I'm assuming you're referring to nuclear warfare here; if wrong, please correct.
Unless they figure out how to make their "supermen" radiation-proof, I suspect it won't make much of a difference as far as the outcome is concerned.
I don't know if any nation at this point intends to use its nukes except if (a) someone else launches first or (b) it is invaded and the invaders are winning.
No one will address the human population issue. Everyone is scared (except China) of having to enforce limits on people's sex organs. Instead they will let it go until things collapse, like a person ignoring their diet until they have a heart attack then they go to their doctor demanding to be fixed.
We have invented modern taboos, such as any restriction on any person wanting to do anything in any place at any time is bad, and not only is it bad, but it's literally Hitler.
So, from restrictive religions' perspective, the behavioral restrictions they place on the former is a means for an end: that of increasing the lat[t]er. It's kind of like metric poetry: by restricting how you express yourself it more or less frees you to become more creative on what you express.
In other words, it enhances quality where permissiveness increases quantity. Great definition; thanks for adding it.
Mission creep is a well known phenomenon, and it's both easily historically observable that people's descriptions of political and social commentary they don't like frequently ends up tinged with the same vocabulary of condemnation as that used for porn
You have made a comparison, but not shown a continuity. This is an implementation of slippery slope that most would consider a fallacy.
They use the same language to describe anything they don't like or find disgusting. It does not mean the same mechanism will be applied.
The problem with bans against subsets of speech is not that the actual subsets are considered to be valuable, but because the vagueness of what is considered pornographic means lawyers can just slap it on to anything.
What political speech do you think is going to be categorized as pornography? Even in very conservative jurisdictions in the past, such decisions have been overthrown (I'm thinking of the Ulysses and Naked Lunch cases).
I defend the right of someone to take a shit on a sheet and call it art. I don't get it, and I'm not interested in it, but I'm not going to appoint myself or anybody else to be the arbiter of what we should and shouldn't say. And you have to be prepared to take the good with the bad, or you're setting yourself up for a situation in which one group or another gets to define 'art', 'obscene', and things you're allowed to say.
You are defining art.
You have precluded anyone in this society from raising the standard of art above "anything goes," and initiating the kind of artistic revival movement that happened centuries ago.
"Anything goes" is as limiting as any other definition of art. It's just more permissive, which basically drowns the art world in junk and excludes quality, as history shows us.
However, punishing people for doing things that are illegal for other reasons during the course of producing 'art' is not generally considered to be a restriction on freedom of speech, any more than the illegality of sacrificing babies to satan is considered an infringement on religious freedom...
True; Satanism is not banned, but occult sacrifice of babies is because it's murder (unless they're still in the womb, in which case it's Satanic ritual abortion, which sounds like it would really upset someone). I think the question of speech however is a question of what speech adds to society. Does it contribute new information? Or is it for the purposes of self-gratification and/or profit? If it's the former, I support defending it, because no matter how unpopular it is, we need to hear it. If it's the latter, well, who really cares?
Some interesting responses in this thread. 18 of them. I don't know if I can reply to all of them or even many.
Cybersex IS speech, and porn is art (however far from fine art it is).
What's the reasoning behind this? Cybersex is people typing words, but that doesn't make it speech for the purposes of free speech. Neither is there any reason to support that porn is "art." Porn is a product like a Big Mac, except instead of sugared bread and soya-meat there's dongs.
When you consider how very central sexuality and control of sexuality has been to the political process across the globe, it doesn't make any sense to attempt to cast them as otherwise.
The thing about free speech is, we don't need proof it leads to a better way of life.
Here's more assumptions with no logic behind them.
Control of sexuality and free speech are both contingent upon their effects, like all other policy choices.
If you're going to make a deontological argument, you're going to have to argue for some moral superiority of these things, which in an atheistic pluralism has no inherency.
That leaves you with arguing for their utility, and I await your doing that.
We knew we'd reach this point inevitably. Earth is finite, and humanity keeps reproducing.
Now we've hit the point where resources are limited. By the rules of nature, this means we're going to fight it out and someone's going to hoard the resources. They will then outreproduce others and replace them.
A game changer could be a nanofilter that desalinates water, but that could make the problem worse. If every nation on earth was able to keep overpopulating, the resulting land clashes could be catastrophic.
In the meantime, take careful notice of where you are. You want to be able to tell your grandchildren (or fellow Mars base refugees) where you were when the water wars began.
This is the aim of our Chickenosaurus Project, in which I'm hoping to create a dinosaur like animal from a bird (chicken).
It's interesting how this interview comes full circle, from Jurassic Park to the step right before a Jurassic Park scenario can occur. Proceed with caution!
Hiring a programmer to take care of their software needs would certainly qualify as an operational expense they could justify.
That's a really good and valid point. The salary level depends on the non-profit. Non-profit doesn't mean they don't pay salaries, even good ones. I guess the point I was trying to make was that if you're starting from zero, doing a little free/low-pay work to build a background isn't a bad thing. It can lead to maintenance contracts and other more lucrative pursuits.
Porn isn't speech, bit torrent downloads aren't speech, and cybersex isn't speech.
Speech was originally intended to protect political and social commentary. That is of value to society. Porn, piracy and cybersex are not. We can survive just fine without them.
I realize this is an unpopular opinion on the internet, because (a) the internet has a daytime TV audience since September 1996 and (b) people like to believe their lives have meaning when they're crusading for "freedom" of some kind, even though they're just pushing out bytes on a screen on social media sites.
However, I think we need to stop worrying about what they do in other countries. We have no proof that legal porn/cybersex leads to a better way of life. We also have zero proof that banning it leads to banning of actual speech, i.e. political/social commentary.
Unfortunately these debates always become so emotional that soon it's children screaming at anyone who endorses anything but "do whatever you want, wherever and whenever, without consequences."
It's like a religion, but not an interesting or creative one. It's very much about the ego and not at all about the sacred. The sacred might emphasize a purpose in life beyond freedom/porn/cybersex, and it seems most people fear that, even if in non-religious form.
You want money and that's understandable, but one way to get there is to do work for non-profits. Others see what they have and may refer you as a result. You can also then make money maintaining that same system for the non-profit and others.
If this is what they say this is... this is far enough beyond an 'ethical' breach as to be obscene.
True. I sympathize with your statement. At the same time, I think that we should view ethics not as subject to violations, but as something we keep in good standing to be able to practice any number of professions linked to personal responsibility. It's a threshold measurement. A person stays in good standing so long as they are below that threshold, but as soon as they transgress and go beyond it, it doesn't matter whether it's a small or huge violation; they lose the right to have the power conveyed by that profession.
I dunno, there's a lot of risky medical testing that we are currently forced to do on imperfect animal models... Might be the only way that these people could make a positive contribution.
There's a lot of truth in that. I am always tempted because I like bunnies, cats, and other fluffy beings and would prefer they did not suffer testing when we have too many humans, and so few of them worth knowing, that we could easily lose a few to sadistic and disturbing chemical testing.
However, we'd have to follow due process rules, and those would be heightened because of the severity of the punishment (most likely unconstitutional anyway, since it would probably be found to be "cruel and unusual") which means that we would have very expensive test animals. However, bunnies. It is possible also that hardened violent criminals could be used as well, although the aforementioned constitutional bar would still be a problem.
Then again, who would want to do something unethical in pursuit of the unethical? I'm of two minds on this. Mind #1 (left side) says who cares if the method is ethical so long as the result is good. Mind #2 (right side) says that I'd be a hypocrite, I'd be signaling acceptance of their methods, and worst of all possibly, I'd be making myself more like them. Reminds me of that great Nietzsche quotation:
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Good for this judge. If someone is systematically benefiting from unethical behavior, we don't want them in our legal, political, medical or other professional systems. Lawyers, doctors, etc. get paid the big bucks for good work, and also for behaving at a level above the norm. When they don't, it's a clear sign they need "another career."
When the internet was non-profit, it was a community where people contributed things to be spread around. The idea was that this facilitated the growth of knowledge.
However, once you introduce commercial information to the picture, it needs to be defended because people need to get paid or they'll stop producing it and you'll be left with less powerful alternatives. One reason that we have industries is so that we can concentrate talent and reward the best, thus producing the best products.
At this point, I think it makes sense to start talking about a neo-Internet ("new internet") where all content is GPL licensed and designed to be shared. This would not be a Utopia. A lot of content (porn, entertainment, shopping) would probably not belong there.
But for those who just want to swap code and information, it would be great.
Slashdot Mirror
Computer modeling is a powerful technology that should not be underestimated.
However, it should also not be overestimated.
When the "real world" has millions of convergent factors responsible for an event, computer models can sometimes capture a few thousand. Based on those, a simulation is created that suggests a certain outcome. But it may be using less than 1% of the necessary data.
This is like making architectural models out of child's blocks and then being surprised when the building falls down after it is eventually made. There are issues of scale in addition to data that can reveal periodistic or epicyclic patterns that cannot be modeled in a linear method.
I agree with you.
Here's what fuzzy is parroting:
This argument, which is not proven science, suggests the following: as technology and wealth improve likelihood of survival, people tend to have fewer children. That which technology does not do, birth control will also.
The main evidence for this, in this article's view, is that in fewer than half of the nations on earth, population growth has declined, and it took us as a whole longer to add the 7th billionth person than it has to add the previous billion.
The article is shoddy science for a number of reasons.
First, the nations that are declining in population tend to be the wealthier ones or ones aided by immigration in becoming so. Related to that is that the nations which are dropping in birth rate are importing large immigrant populations.
Second, the delay in adding the seventh billion may have very little significance. A few tragedies or droughts, some instability or disease, and a delay can happen. That's even assuming our estimates are right, since we're estimating that seven billion and when it occurred.
Finally, the article ignores the path of history. The poorer tend to outproduce the wealthier, which tends to make wealthy nations poorer and less stable, which tends to increase the birth rate as well.
Further, many of our magic cures like antibiotics are no longer guaranteed barriers to disease. In addition, many diseases are mutating. Life expectancy rates of a modern nature may be a blip on the radar.
As you noted, we're already at a stressing point. We don't need to look much farther than the collapse of fish stocks to see that we're trying to feed too many people.
The Slate article is suspect for another reason: Slate tends to pump out these feelgood articles every year or so encouraging us not to think about any problem that contradicts popular notions of fre
We're at seven billion people now. Do you think that number is going to go down?
I'm assuming you're referring to nuclear warfare here; if wrong, please correct.
I don't know if any nation at this point intends to use its nukes except if (a) someone else launches first or (b) it is invaded and the invaders are winning.
It's too unstable to use except as a final act.
I think we're past the days of judges, juries and executioners.
Now after government bureaucrat #2,987,103 puts your name on a watch list, expect to suddenly explode at any time.
The age of judgment by drone has begun.
We have invented modern taboos, such as any restriction on any person wanting to do anything in any place at any time is bad, and not only is it bad, but it's literally Hitler.
China isn't fooled, and so they're not only limiting population, but using eugenics to improve the abilities of their population.
It's going to be interesting when the next war comes about. Chinese supermen versus the obese sofa-bound citizens of Western liberal democracies.
Generally I agree. The exception might be spaceflight cheap enough to displace most of our population to Mars.
I was wondering if someone would walk into this one.
What evidence do you have that free speech and permissiveness are not available resources being used to maintain power?
Ah.
You're telling me what I can and can't do.
According to you, I can't live in a society with any standards.
Thus I'm doomed to ride the river of mediocrity into Idiocracy with fools like yourself who can't tell the difference.
In other words, it enhances quality where permissiveness increases quantity. Great definition; thanks for adding it.
You have made a comparison, but not shown a continuity. This is an implementation of slippery slope that most would consider a fallacy.
They use the same language to describe anything they don't like or find disgusting. It does not mean the same mechanism will be applied.
What political speech do you think is going to be categorized as pornography? Even in very conservative jurisdictions in the past, such decisions have been overthrown (I'm thinking of the Ulysses and Naked Lunch cases).
And yet:
You are defining art.
You have precluded anyone in this society from raising the standard of art above "anything goes," and initiating the kind of artistic revival movement that happened centuries ago.
"Anything goes" is as limiting as any other definition of art. It's just more permissive, which basically drowns the art world in junk and excludes quality, as history shows us.
True; Satanism is not banned, but occult sacrifice of babies is because it's murder (unless they're still in the womb, in which case it's Satanic ritual abortion, which sounds like it would really upset someone). I think the question of speech however is a question of what speech adds to society. Does it contribute new information? Or is it for the purposes of self-gratification and/or profit? If it's the former, I support defending it, because no matter how unpopular it is, we need to hear it. If it's the latter, well, who really cares?
I think art is that which has artistic intent and artistic effect.
Porn is more like a product, in that it's roughly fungible and is consumed without particular regard for message, only a vague notion of "quality."
It communicates nothing.
Some interesting responses in this thread. 18 of them. I don't know if I can reply to all of them or even many.
What's the reasoning behind this? Cybersex is people typing words, but that doesn't make it speech for the purposes of free speech. Neither is there any reason to support that porn is "art." Porn is a product like a Big Mac, except instead of sugared bread and soya-meat there's dongs.
Here's more assumptions with no logic behind them.
Control of sexuality and free speech are both contingent upon their effects, like all other policy choices.
If you're going to make a deontological argument, you're going to have to argue for some moral superiority of these things, which in an atheistic pluralism has no inherency.
That leaves you with arguing for their utility, and I await your doing that.
We knew we'd reach this point inevitably. Earth is finite, and humanity keeps reproducing.
Now we've hit the point where resources are limited. By the rules of nature, this means we're going to fight it out and someone's going to hoard the resources. They will then outreproduce others and replace them.
A game changer could be a nanofilter that desalinates water, but that could make the problem worse. If every nation on earth was able to keep overpopulating, the resulting land clashes could be catastrophic.
In the meantime, take careful notice of where you are. You want to be able to tell your grandchildren (or fellow Mars base refugees) where you were when the water wars began.
In other words... (NRSFW)
It's interesting how this interview comes full circle, from Jurassic Park to the step right before a Jurassic Park scenario can occur. Proceed with caution!
That's a really good and valid point. The salary level depends on the non-profit. Non-profit doesn't mean they don't pay salaries, even good ones. I guess the point I was trying to make was that if you're starting from zero, doing a little free/low-pay work to build a background isn't a bad thing. It can lead to maintenance contracts and other more lucrative pursuits.
Porn isn't speech, bit torrent downloads aren't speech, and cybersex isn't speech.
Speech was originally intended to protect political and social commentary. That is of value to society. Porn, piracy and cybersex are not. We can survive just fine without them.
I realize this is an unpopular opinion on the internet, because (a) the internet has a daytime TV audience since September 1996 and (b) people like to believe their lives have meaning when they're crusading for "freedom" of some kind, even though they're just pushing out bytes on a screen on social media sites.
However, I think we need to stop worrying about what they do in other countries. We have no proof that legal porn/cybersex leads to a better way of life. We also have zero proof that banning it leads to banning of actual speech, i.e. political/social commentary.
Unfortunately these debates always become so emotional that soon it's children screaming at anyone who endorses anything but "do whatever you want, wherever and whenever, without consequences."
It's like a religion, but not an interesting or creative one. It's very much about the ego and not at all about the sacred. The sacred might emphasize a purpose in life beyond freedom/porn/cybersex, and it seems most people fear that, even if in non-religious form.
You want money and that's understandable, but one way to get there is to do work for non-profits. Others see what they have and may refer you as a result. You can also then make money maintaining that same system for the non-profit and others.
True. I sympathize with your statement. At the same time, I think that we should view ethics not as subject to violations, but as something we keep in good standing to be able to practice any number of professions linked to personal responsibility. It's a threshold measurement. A person stays in good standing so long as they are below that threshold, but as soon as they transgress and go beyond it, it doesn't matter whether it's a small or huge violation; they lose the right to have the power conveyed by that profession.
Do you think all lawyers are this way?
It seems to me that some are not, just like some humans are not cruel, narcissistic and vain.
That there are very few shouldn't bother us, since most people can't code either but we still let them all use computers.
There's a lot of truth in that. I am always tempted because I like bunnies, cats, and other fluffy beings and would prefer they did not suffer testing when we have too many humans, and so few of them worth knowing, that we could easily lose a few to sadistic and disturbing chemical testing.
However, we'd have to follow due process rules, and those would be heightened because of the severity of the punishment (most likely unconstitutional anyway, since it would probably be found to be "cruel and unusual") which means that we would have very expensive test animals. However, bunnies. It is possible also that hardened violent criminals could be used as well, although the aforementioned constitutional bar would still be a problem.
Then again, who would want to do something unethical in pursuit of the unethical? I'm of two minds on this. Mind #1 (left side) says who cares if the method is ethical so long as the result is good. Mind #2 (right side) says that I'd be a hypocrite, I'd be signaling acceptance of their methods, and worst of all possibly, I'd be making myself more like them. Reminds me of that great Nietzsche quotation:
Good for this judge. If someone is systematically benefiting from unethical behavior, we don't want them in our legal, political, medical or other professional systems. Lawyers, doctors, etc. get paid the big bucks for good work, and also for behaving at a level above the norm. When they don't, it's a clear sign they need "another career."
When the internet was non-profit, it was a community where people contributed things to be spread around. The idea was that this facilitated the growth of knowledge.
However, once you introduce commercial information to the picture, it needs to be defended because people need to get paid or they'll stop producing it and you'll be left with less powerful alternatives. One reason that we have industries is so that we can concentrate talent and reward the best, thus producing the best products.
At this point, I think it makes sense to start talking about a neo-Internet ("new internet") where all content is GPL licensed and designed to be shared. This would not be a Utopia. A lot of content (porn, entertainment, shopping) would probably not belong there.
But for those who just want to swap code and information, it would be great.