But look at all the prejudices Hollywood is already creating about cyborgs! I mean, its not as bad as their depiction of those "souless" clones, but there is still a tendancy to show even cyborgs with completly human brains as unemotive and logical.
The system here would be a supplament to our current intelligence systems rather than a replacment. If the terrorist cell has been infiltrated, or have their phones tapped it won't turn up on the system. It is a new and very cheap way of detecting, or rather trying to predict, future events - one that admittedly tips its hand when it works. Still, the measures that terrorists would use to spoof this system seem like they would be nearly orthoginal to those with which they could avoid the normal means of detection. I think the bottom line is that we don't have to start trusting this system until it has shown that it can work.
But they won't be actually "bringing" anyone in. There is no guarantee that people who trade in these futures are experts. And you have no way to evaluate what they have to "say" because all you got is a statistical result. You don't know what the source of that result is. You don't know how reliable the source is or who to hold accountable.
Point 1: It doens't matter what the source is, or how reliable the information used is, or anything else so long as the system consistanly produces reliable answers - which can be verified after this has run a few years. You don't have to trust it immediatly, only if it gives results.
Point 2: And just how do you appoint the experts? People in ideological harmony with the current administration? If people make good predictions in an idea market they will have more money to invest, and will have incentive to invest again. If they do badly, they will have less money and disincentive. The market will breed its own experts.
Point 3: Like a deadline the next day, haveing money on the outcome of your decision clarifies your mind wonderfully. Often providing answers pleasing to ones boss is an important consideration in how one reports information. With an anonymous information market there will be almost no social pressure to conform to what those in power want to hear.
Point 4: Even beyond that, markets tend to preform better than even teh best of their members. I don't have the quantitative information to say whether a market of nonexperts could beat a comittee of experts, but it is a substantial imporvemnt.
All in all, I think this is an potentially excellent idea, with a fairly good potential for excellent results, even though it costs little.
Of course Wall Street can't predict the behavior of Wall Street. If buyers could predict the future, their behavior would change and destroy the future they had predicted. What they *can* do is predict which companies are going to do well or poorly, and in the vast majority of cases they get it right.
The terrorists, due to "insider information" already have a much better idea of their success than most other people. If this system brings us to parity, I'd call that an imporvement.
If you load up your bets on a target then you've effectivly given warning that you intend to strike it, and the powers that be will probably be prepared. I mean, if an attack on the Empire State Buiding suddenly reached 90%, don't you think they'd step up security?
Its all about associations. If youlearn something while listening to a certain piece of music, you'll remember it better listening to the same music. If you study something when there is a smell of oranges, the smell of oranges will help you remember it. If you study something while in a caffeine rush, you'll remember it better when in a caffeine rush.
Instincts? Human instincts aren't applicable at thousands of feet up going hundreds of miles an hour in a big metal tube with wings and engines. At the moment it *is* true that only humans are trianed to deal with emerencies, but people are working on computers that can handle those, and I wouldn't be at all suprised if in 5 years a completly automated plane was far safer than a human flown one. I don't expect them to be inplamented, congress won't wnat any pilot govs to be lost, or the FAA will want more testing, or the manufacturers will be worried about liabllity - but I think we might expect to start seeing pilotless planes in about 20 years.
Umm....Exactly how do you threaten a flight computer with a box cutter? I guess they could always shoot the computer, but then again they could always just shoot the fly by wire system, and you'd be in the same situation.
I think half the problem is that it doesn't cost people money to throw away their computers, the government pays to dispose of it all for them. Thus, its not completly free market, and its sort of unfiar to talk about this as some sort of failure of capitalism. Of course, half-assed regulation is often worse than full regulation, and the Japanese solution might very well be a lot better than letting things stand as they are.
I own it, and its worth a read. I do have to say that the author overestimates how much acceleration a human can take by more than an order of magnitude, though.
Re:Yet another for the stack
on
Altered Carbon
·
· Score: 1
Personally, I thought Prey failed to be transparent only where it was inconsistant, and managed to be - and that Criton's attempt to fit nanotechnology into the classical "monster chases protagonists" mode was unrealistic to the point of silliness - but a lot of people like it and who am I to argue. However, if you want a really frightening look at nanotechnology gone bad that ends with real catharsis you should try Wil McCarthy's Bloom.
Naw, just prevent candidates from running more than two *consecutive* terms. If they're really popular they can switch between the senate and the house, but otherwise it would serve to shake things up without depriving us of experience. It worked for the Romans for hundreds of years; and it wasn't a failure of this system that led to the fall of the Republic.
As long as the modifications don't cause more than trivialy more pain and suffering than an ordinary animal of that type would have to deal with, I really don't care. On the other hand, if a parent modifies their children to glow in the dark, thats probably grounds for a law suit. But then again, that embarassment *is* a form of suffering, isn't it...
There is a chance that the judgements of those buying SCO, with regards to the outcome of the case, isn't correct. Don't buy unless you think they can win/settle, and I wouldn't bet on either.
You know, if you're willing to let the center of the elevator bulge out a whole amount, you can make it out of relativly weak materials. I don't know all the math to give a good estimate, but does anyone know if the bulge for 21 GPa would be less than the height of the elivator?
For example, if such a system as the above was put in place... a presidential hopeful could run on the promise of moving all of the california power plants outside of the state, and turning arizona into a landfill for CA's garbage, etc.
It seems to me that, given even the current weight of the votes in the two states it could quite easily happen anyways. At least under a more direct system the 10% of Californians who care about Arizona could have their say.
You might want to contact local businesses to see if they want to support you by giving ut free food. Shipyard brewers has been providing Sinusoidal Intellectualism with high quality carbonated, cafinated, corn-syrup laced beverages (soda) for a few years now. It would probably also be good to have people bring down their computers over the course of a few hours. Oh, and have a relativly quite place for peple who want to take a two or four hour nap (maybe they have work on Monday).
Speeking for myself, they would both end up in the trash pretty quickly, and I empty my physical trash more often than my "deleted" emails-for this very reason.
Slashdot Mirror
But look at all the prejudices Hollywood is already creating about cyborgs! I mean, its not as bad as their depiction of those "souless" clones, but there is still a tendancy to show even cyborgs with completly human brains as unemotive and logical.
If each cyborg is designed by a different individual, and those individuals vary randomly, you can have the best of both worlds.
The system here would be a supplament to our current intelligence systems rather than a replacment. If the terrorist cell has been infiltrated, or have their phones tapped it won't turn up on the system. It is a new and very cheap way of detecting, or rather trying to predict, future events - one that admittedly tips its hand when it works. Still, the measures that terrorists would use to spoof this system seem like they would be nearly orthoginal to those with which they could avoid the normal means of detection. I think the bottom line is that we don't have to start trusting this system until it has shown that it can work.
But they won't be actually "bringing" anyone in. There is no guarantee that people who trade in these futures are experts. And you have no way to evaluate what they have to "say" because all you got is a statistical result. You don't know what the source of that result is. You don't know how reliable the source is or who to hold accountable.
Point 1: It doens't matter what the source is, or how reliable the information used is, or anything else so long as the system consistanly produces reliable answers - which can be verified after this has run a few years. You don't have to trust it immediatly, only if it gives results.
Point 2: And just how do you appoint the experts? People in ideological harmony with the current administration? If people make good predictions in an idea market they will have more money to invest, and will have incentive to invest again. If they do badly, they will have less money and disincentive. The market will breed its own experts.
Point 3: Like a deadline the next day, haveing money on the outcome of your decision clarifies your mind wonderfully. Often providing answers pleasing to ones boss is an important consideration in how one reports information. With an anonymous information market there will be almost no social pressure to conform to what those in power want to hear.
Point 4: Even beyond that, markets tend to preform better than even teh best of their members. I don't have the quantitative information to say whether a market of nonexperts could beat a comittee of experts, but it is a substantial imporvemnt.
All in all, I think this is an potentially excellent idea, with a fairly good potential for excellent results, even though it costs little.
Of course Wall Street can't predict the behavior of Wall Street. If buyers could predict the future, their behavior would change and destroy the future they had predicted. What they *can* do is predict which companies are going to do well or poorly, and in the vast majority of cases they get it right.
The terrorists, due to "insider information" already have a much better idea of their success than most other people. If this system brings us to parity, I'd call that an imporvement.
If you load up your bets on a target then you've effectivly given warning that you intend to strike it, and the powers that be will probably be prepared. I mean, if an attack on the Empire State Buiding suddenly reached 90%, don't you think they'd step up security?
Its all about associations. If youlearn something while listening to a certain piece of music, you'll remember it better listening to the same music. If you study something when there is a smell of oranges, the smell of oranges will help you remember it. If you study something while in a caffeine rush, you'll remember it better when in a caffeine rush.
Yeah, an order of magnitude is traditionally a factor of ten.
Instincts? Human instincts aren't applicable at thousands of feet up going hundreds of miles an hour in a big metal tube with wings and engines. At the moment it *is* true that only humans are trianed to deal with emerencies, but people are working on computers that can handle those, and I wouldn't be at all suprised if in 5 years a completly automated plane was far safer than a human flown one. I don't expect them to be inplamented, congress won't wnat any pilot govs to be lost, or the FAA will want more testing, or the manufacturers will be worried about liabllity - but I think we might expect to start seeing pilotless planes in about 20 years.
Umm....Exactly how do you threaten a flight computer with a box cutter? I guess they could always shoot the computer, but then again they could always just shoot the fly by wire system, and you'd be in the same situation.
I think half the problem is that it doesn't cost people money to throw away their computers, the government pays to dispose of it all for them. Thus, its not completly free market, and its sort of unfiar to talk about this as some sort of failure of capitalism. Of course, half-assed regulation is often worse than full regulation, and the Japanese solution might very well be a lot better than letting things stand as they are.
No need to smuggle it onto a plain, just put it near an airport and detonate it when a plane is landing or taking off.
There are plenty of legitimate things you can trade on P2P networks, like fansubs of animes that haven't been liscensed for US distribution.
I own it, and its worth a read. I do have to say that the author overestimates how much acceleration a human can take by more than an order of magnitude, though.
Personally, I thought Prey failed to be transparent only where it was inconsistant, and managed to be - and that Criton's attempt to fit nanotechnology into the classical "monster chases protagonists" mode was unrealistic to the point of silliness - but a lot of people like it and who am I to argue. However, if you want a really frightening look at nanotechnology gone bad that ends with real catharsis you should try Wil McCarthy's Bloom.
Naw, just prevent candidates from running more than two *consecutive* terms. If they're really popular they can switch between the senate and the house, but otherwise it would serve to shake things up without depriving us of experience. It worked for the Romans for hundreds of years; and it wasn't a failure of this system that led to the fall of the Republic.
As long as the modifications don't cause more than trivialy more pain and suffering than an ordinary animal of that type would have to deal with, I really don't care. On the other hand, if a parent modifies their children to glow in the dark, thats probably grounds for a law suit. But then again, that embarassment *is* a form of suffering, isn't it...
Hey, I'd drink it. If I'm not up late working I try not to have more than two caffinated drinks a day, and I like to support genetic engineering.
Luckily, SCO is much, much smaller than Microsoft. Otherwise it *would* be worse.
There is a chance that the judgements of those buying SCO, with regards to the outcome of the case, isn't correct. Don't buy unless you think they can win/settle, and I wouldn't bet on either.
You know, if you're willing to let the center of the elevator bulge out a whole amount, you can make it out of relativly weak materials. I don't know all the math to give a good estimate, but does anyone know if the bulge for 21 GPa would be less than the height of the elivator?
For example, if such a system as the above was put in place... a presidential hopeful could run on the promise of moving all of the california power plants outside of the state, and turning arizona into a landfill for CA's garbage, etc.
It seems to me that, given even the current weight of the votes in the two states it could quite easily happen anyways. At least under a more direct system the 10% of Californians who care about Arizona could have their say.
You might want to contact local businesses to see if they want to support you by giving ut free food. Shipyard brewers has been providing Sinusoidal Intellectualism with high quality carbonated, cafinated, corn-syrup laced beverages (soda) for a few years now. It would probably also be good to have people bring down their computers over the course of a few hours. Oh, and have a relativly quite place for peple who want to take a two or four hour nap (maybe they have work on Monday).
Speeking for myself, they would both end up in the trash pretty quickly, and I empty my physical trash more often than my "deleted" emails-for this very reason.