Actually I remain unconvinced of the impossibility of transmitting information faster than light - all the proofs I've seen all rely on assumptions which seem overly conservative to me. Not that I'm expert enough to fully understand the proofs, but I'll trust the experts when they say "these are the assumptions this proof depends on"
What I expect from free will is simple, if difficult to observe conclusively: that I could act in a manner other than I do. That my changing thoughts, aspirations, and ideals can influence my future actions. Or alternately, at the most simple, that my actions could not be perfectly predicted beforehand. Superdeterminism denies that - as every action I will ever make was known with absolute certainty from the first moment of the universe's existence. As such it completely denies the value of consciousness, as it can have no effect on your actions, or upon anything else - we're all simply complex automata and consciousness is an utterly superfluous side effect with no relevance to our existence.
>Bell's theorem says the radar doesn't really work. How do you figure? Bells theorem rules out local hidden variables, which implies that faster-than-light quantum information transfer MUST be included in any quantum theory capable of describing observed phenomena. (barring superdeterminism)
If he's going to pull that off it'll have to be anything but straight - in fact it will have to bend in directions not currently known to man, as all the (hypothetical) ways we know of to build a tunnel between planets would cause both planets to implode shortly thereafter.
If a measurement setting in one location instantaneously modifies the probability distribution that applies at a distant location, then local hidden variables are ruled out.
Basically, Bell's Theorem states that quantum entanglement MUST transmit quantum information faster than light - without that, no theory can describe all observed quantum phenomena (unless the universe is absolutely deterministic with no possibility of free will - a proposition which is pointless to discuss further since the outcome of such a discussion is already predetermined)
Harnessing that fact to transmit classical information faster than light is a completely separate question. But nobody is claiming that is happening here.
I'm intrigued, but waiting for it to stabilize. A language that can't compile code written three years ago is no kind of language for any serious task.
I know it sounds callous, but several tens of millions of people die every year, and nothing we do will ever change that (well, we might invent immortality, but that would likely soon result in billions of people dying). People dying is the natural course of events. Jeopardizing the future viability of the global biosphere to save the lives of a few percent of those is hopelessly reckless.
Actually, not really. It's conceptually horrifying, but would be relatively easy to control. I mean, the original race-targeting virus would not be, but that has nothing to do with gene-drives, and there's not a whole lot of motive to insert a gene-drive rather than just killing or modifying the targeted individuals outright, which is considerably faster and easier. Gene drives only affect your children.
Also, there are no gene sequences present in all members of one race but none of another - the reason scientists say there is no genetic basis for race. Though for such a hypothetical monster, killing 10% of their own race might be an acceptable price to pay to kill 90% of another.
The biggest factors controlling the spread of a gene drive is the speed that the species reproduces, and the generational fan-out. Infect one male corn stalk with a gene drive, and it can have thousands of offspring, including many wild hybrids, and those offspring can have thousands more next season - With a good growing year you could easily be looking at millions, even billions of carriers within a single year. You'll never get that under control again. Infect one mosquito, it can have hundreds of offspring, and with a lifecycle of around 10 days even if only 5 offspring of each clutch survive to reproduce it could easily spread throughout the population in a single year. Humans though - you've got 15-30 years per generation, and only 2-3 offspring. It'd take over 20 generations (300-600 years) to infect half the global population. And we're mostly intelligent beings who would be reasonably easy to screen for treatment or quarantine.
No, you really don't. That makes it more likely to be successful, as it's more likely that at least one of your individuals manage to reproduce before dying in every generation, and that their offspring manage to do so as well, until such time as they have enough descendants that it would be virtually impossible to eliminate them all. But it's not required.
You may be thinking of "traditional GMO" mosquito control strategies, where you're relying on normal genetic dispersion to spread your modifications, but the big difference with gene drives is that 100% of the offspring inherit the drive.
So, a single female mosquito lays 100-300 eggs at a time. If she or her inter-species mate has a gene drive, then 100% of her offspring will as well, lets call it 200 eggs. If 5% of those offspring survive to reproduce, then that one successful hybridization has resulted in 10 hybrids going on to reproduce. After another generation, 100, then 1000, etc. And of course, males have potentially much greater generational fan-out than females, so it would actually happen much faster than that. So long as the drive doesn't impose an individual survival disadvantage, it can spread through the population like wildfire. As is the case, for example, in the gene drive that makes all offspring male - it maximizes generational fan-out, while imposing no individual disadvantages. Spreads like wildfire until virtually everyone has it, and then in the course of a single generation all the females vanish and the species goes extinct.
How do you figure? Offhand I can't think of any viruses that splice DNA-editing tools into their hosts reproductive cells in such a way that they're all but guaranteed to spread throughout the entire species.
We *might* get rid of mosquitoes. There've already been a few lab tests in which species have evolved an immunity to "extinction drives", and the odds of that happening go up dramatically when the population numbers in the trillions. In which case we're back to square one, except that now the mosquitoes are all carrying powerful DNA-editing tools in their genes, just waiting for further evolution to put them to use.
I'm sure there's no way that could possibly go badly with a species of blood-feeders that already routinely inject their DNA into their host's bloodstream.
And we risk wiping out vast swaths of harmless nectar feeders (the other 3,000 species of mosquito that *don't* bite humans), with potentially catastrophic domino effects among the plants that rely on them as primary pollinators, the animals and other species that rely on those plants, etc.
And that's before we start talking about the truly scary gene drives being discussed - such as the work the US military has proposed into developing "defensive" gene drives for our staple food crops. "In case of genetic attack on our food supply". Right.
As I said, I approve of responsible genetic engineering.
Gene drives specifically are something else though, and they are being investigated for many non-extinction applications as well - one of the proposed mosquito "low impact" solutions being developed for example is a gene drive that simply makes them immune to the malaria parasite, which actually gives the modified individuals a survival advantage.
As for gene drives that "stop working" being harmless - not so much. Just because the payload stops being delivered, or even if the "target" mutates so that the drive stops spreading except by normal inheritance mechanisms, doesn't mean the drive ceases to exist. It will continue to spread throughout the species, and potentially across species through the occasional hybrid. And every individual with that "harmless" gene drive now has all the genetic tools necessary to perform arbitrary genetic engineering on itself, and potentially its hosts - just waiting for evolution to find a way to put those idle genes to work.
Nowhere did I object to genetic engineering, just to one specific, exceptionally dangerous technology that's completely unrelated to curing genetic-based diseases.
Rare, but not unheard of - it often comes down to the genetic compatibility of the specific individuals involved - and when you're talking about species who number in the trillions, and have 3000 related species, rare events aren't quite so hideously unlikely as you might expect.
Meanwhile, if a species is similar enough to allow fertile hybrids, it seems to me quite likely that the gene drive would work on them as well (also note that I'm not talking just about extinction drives that would interfere with something reproduction related - it holds true for *any* gene drive). Unless it's targetting something species specific - which seems unlikely considering that the vast bulk of DNA will be identical between closely related species. Especially around something as fundamental as reproductive processes.
I agree. Which made the stories of GPS "hacked" drones in the Middle East a few years ago all the more troubling as it suggests gross incompetence amongst the military leadership. The widespread use of GPS-dependent technology promises to severely undermine the usefulness of our military against real threats, no matter how useful it is for stomping on grossly outmatched combatants. Get everyone accustomed to using a tool that's trivial to disable, and it's going to severely undermine their effectiveness when it's inevitably taken away by a credible opponent - just at the moment where their peak performance is needed most.
Why would the bats disappear? Human-feeding mosquitoes are an invasive species that followed humans across the globe. There's no shortage of other mosquito species, nor of other flying insect species. Their sudden extinction might make for a rough year, but other species of fast-breeding pollen-feeders would almost certainly fill the ecological niche almost immediately.
I'm strongly opposed to gene drive technology for reasons listed in my reply to the first post, but if we could safely drive human-feeding mosquitoes to extinction I see no reason not to do so.
Perhaps. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. There's no putting the nuclear weapon genie back in it's bottle either - but that doesn't mean we should stand back and let every arms dealer with the resources make and sell nukes to any wacko with the money.
As someone who tentatively approves of responsible genetic engineering (tentatively, because I see precious little evidence of responsible behavior among GMO creators), I'm still strongly opposed to employing gene drives.
Basically, a gene drive involves installing state-of-the-art genetic engineering tools that we stole from bacteria, and are only beginning to fully understand ourselves, into various organisms in a way in which we'll *never* be able to remove, short of driving the species to extinction (which we've thus far had very little success at doing on purpose). And evolution does so love to find creative ways to put useful genes to work.
There's also the fact that we pretty much have to go on faith that gene drives will remain in the target species - the barriers between species are not nearly as absolute as we often imagine, with occasional individuals successfully cross-breeding with similar species. It's very uncommon, but it happens, and it only takes one such hybridization to spread the gene drive into new species, where its effects will be unpredictable.
And that's before even considering the modification payload itself, which may or may not succeed in its intended goals. Extinction drives are perhaps one of the safer gene drives possible, provided they don't jump species, as they eliminate themselves from the gene pool going forward, assuming the species doesn't evolve immunity, which there's already some evidence can occur. I trust I'm not alone in being concerned about those qualifiers. It only takes one individual among countless trillions with a mutation that neutralizes the gene drive (or its effect) to spread the neutered gene drive throughout the now rapidly rebounding species.
Indeed - and I would say the nigh-eternal prevalence of the latter groups of laws, make any attempt to use laws as a moral guideline deeply misguided. Laws can, and sometimes do, follow morality, but they do not define it.
Especially since it gets even worse than simple "bought and paid for" laws outlawing behaviors that are inconvenient for some people. There's also the laws that are created to outlaw behavior common among groups that you specifically want to target, for the express purpose of being able to target them with the full power of the legal system. The banning of cannabis was a good example of the combination of both - the lumber and pharmaceutical industries wanted it banned as a competitor, and the politicians in power at the time wanted it banned as a way to persecute hippies and minorities, who were active political opponents.
If soldiers can't navigate with a map, it doesn't much matter what else doesn't work - they'll be useless in any war against an even vaguely symmetric opponent.
I've never seen a commercial emulator that was worth a damned, so I'm not surprised. Pretty much all the good ones are open source - there's just no money to be made in emulators unless you're the copyright owner of vast libraries of content. Without that you've just spent vast amount of effort creating a tool that can mostly only be used by criminals.
And I would venture a guess that the vast majority of emulator users could care less about accuracy beyond playing properly. I've never met an emulator user (in person at least) that hasn't been delighted by such woeful inaccuracies as resolution up-scaling to make games look almost as good as you remember, rather than as bad as they really were.
Also it's not just *YOUR* work - it's a work you built out of bits and pieces of countless other people's work - because that's how culture operates. Every plot twist, character, etc. you create is heavily influenced by the plots and characters you've seen throughout your life, even if you're not consciously aware of it.
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Right. They should have said "super sleezy scum" instead. More accurate that way.
Actually I remain unconvinced of the impossibility of transmitting information faster than light - all the proofs I've seen all rely on assumptions which seem overly conservative to me. Not that I'm expert enough to fully understand the proofs, but I'll trust the experts when they say "these are the assumptions this proof depends on"
What I expect from free will is simple, if difficult to observe conclusively: that I could act in a manner other than I do. That my changing thoughts, aspirations, and ideals can influence my future actions. Or alternately, at the most simple, that my actions could not be perfectly predicted beforehand. Superdeterminism denies that - as every action I will ever make was known with absolute certainty from the first moment of the universe's existence. As such it completely denies the value of consciousness, as it can have no effect on your actions, or upon anything else - we're all simply complex automata and consciousness is an utterly superfluous side effect with no relevance to our existence.
>Bell's theorem says the radar doesn't really work.
How do you figure? Bells theorem rules out local hidden variables, which implies that faster-than-light quantum information transfer MUST be included in any quantum theory capable of describing observed phenomena. (barring superdeterminism)
And contrariwise, just because you DO understand something, doesn't mean that it does actually exist.
If he's going to pull that off it'll have to be anything but straight - in fact it will have to bend in directions not currently known to man, as all the (hypothetical) ways we know of to build a tunnel between planets would cause both planets to implode shortly thereafter.
Actually you've got that exactly backwards.
Bell's theorem:
No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.
with superdeteminism being the notable exception.
From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If a measurement setting in one location instantaneously modifies the probability distribution that applies at a distant location, then local hidden variables are ruled out.
Basically, Bell's Theorem states that quantum entanglement MUST transmit quantum information faster than light - without that, no theory can describe all observed quantum phenomena (unless the universe is absolutely deterministic with no possibility of free will - a proposition which is pointless to discuss further since the outcome of such a discussion is already predetermined)
Harnessing that fact to transmit classical information faster than light is a completely separate question. But nobody is claiming that is happening here.
I'm intrigued, but waiting for it to stabilize. A language that can't compile code written three years ago is no kind of language for any serious task.
That is a decent argument, but I disagree.
I know it sounds callous, but several tens of millions of people die every year, and nothing we do will ever change that (well, we might invent immortality, but that would likely soon result in billions of people dying). People dying is the natural course of events. Jeopardizing the future viability of the global biosphere to save the lives of a few percent of those is hopelessly reckless.
Actually, not really. It's conceptually horrifying, but would be relatively easy to control. I mean, the original race-targeting virus would not be, but that has nothing to do with gene-drives, and there's not a whole lot of motive to insert a gene-drive rather than just killing or modifying the targeted individuals outright, which is considerably faster and easier. Gene drives only affect your children.
Also, there are no gene sequences present in all members of one race but none of another - the reason scientists say there is no genetic basis for race. Though for such a hypothetical monster, killing 10% of their own race might be an acceptable price to pay to kill 90% of another.
The biggest factors controlling the spread of a gene drive is the speed that the species reproduces, and the generational fan-out. Infect one male corn stalk with a gene drive, and it can have thousands of offspring, including many wild hybrids, and those offspring can have thousands more next season - With a good growing year you could easily be looking at millions, even billions of carriers within a single year. You'll never get that under control again. Infect one mosquito, it can have hundreds of offspring, and with a lifecycle of around 10 days even if only 5 offspring of each clutch survive to reproduce it could easily spread throughout the population in a single year. Humans though - you've got 15-30 years per generation, and only 2-3 offspring. It'd take over 20 generations (300-600 years) to infect half the global population. And we're mostly intelligent beings who would be reasonably easy to screen for treatment or quarantine.
No, you really don't. That makes it more likely to be successful, as it's more likely that at least one of your individuals manage to reproduce before dying in every generation, and that their offspring manage to do so as well, until such time as they have enough descendants that it would be virtually impossible to eliminate them all. But it's not required.
You may be thinking of "traditional GMO" mosquito control strategies, where you're relying on normal genetic dispersion to spread your modifications, but the big difference with gene drives is that 100% of the offspring inherit the drive.
So, a single female mosquito lays 100-300 eggs at a time. If she or her inter-species mate has a gene drive, then 100% of her offspring will as well, lets call it 200 eggs. If 5% of those offspring survive to reproduce, then that one successful hybridization has resulted in 10 hybrids going on to reproduce. After another generation, 100, then 1000, etc. And of course, males have potentially much greater generational fan-out than females, so it would actually happen much faster than that. So long as the drive doesn't impose an individual survival disadvantage, it can spread through the population like wildfire. As is the case, for example, in the gene drive that makes all offspring male - it maximizes generational fan-out, while imposing no individual disadvantages. Spreads like wildfire until virtually everyone has it, and then in the course of a single generation all the females vanish and the species goes extinct.
How do you figure? Offhand I can't think of any viruses that splice DNA-editing tools into their hosts reproductive cells in such a way that they're all but guaranteed to spread throughout the entire species.
Not quite.
We *might* get rid of mosquitoes. There've already been a few lab tests in which species have evolved an immunity to "extinction drives", and the odds of that happening go up dramatically when the population numbers in the trillions. In which case we're back to square one, except that now the mosquitoes are all carrying powerful DNA-editing tools in their genes, just waiting for further evolution to put them to use.
I'm sure there's no way that could possibly go badly with a species of blood-feeders that already routinely inject their DNA into their host's bloodstream.
And we risk wiping out vast swaths of harmless nectar feeders (the other 3,000 species of mosquito that *don't* bite humans), with potentially catastrophic domino effects among the plants that rely on them as primary pollinators, the animals and other species that rely on those plants, etc.
And that's before we start talking about the truly scary gene drives being discussed - such as the work the US military has proposed into developing "defensive" gene drives for our staple food crops. "In case of genetic attack on our food supply". Right.
As I said, I approve of responsible genetic engineering.
Gene drives specifically are something else though, and they are being investigated for many non-extinction applications as well - one of the proposed mosquito "low impact" solutions being developed for example is a gene drive that simply makes them immune to the malaria parasite, which actually gives the modified individuals a survival advantage.
As for gene drives that "stop working" being harmless - not so much. Just because the payload stops being delivered, or even if the "target" mutates so that the drive stops spreading except by normal inheritance mechanisms, doesn't mean the drive ceases to exist. It will continue to spread throughout the species, and potentially across species through the occasional hybrid. And every individual with that "harmless" gene drive now has all the genetic tools necessary to perform arbitrary genetic engineering on itself, and potentially its hosts - just waiting for evolution to find a way to put those idle genes to work.
Nowhere did I object to genetic engineering, just to one specific, exceptionally dangerous technology that's completely unrelated to curing genetic-based diseases.
Rare, but not unheard of - it often comes down to the genetic compatibility of the specific individuals involved - and when you're talking about species who number in the trillions, and have 3000 related species, rare events aren't quite so hideously unlikely as you might expect.
Meanwhile, if a species is similar enough to allow fertile hybrids, it seems to me quite likely that the gene drive would work on them as well (also note that I'm not talking just about extinction drives that would interfere with something reproduction related - it holds true for *any* gene drive). Unless it's targetting something species specific - which seems unlikely considering that the vast bulk of DNA will be identical between closely related species. Especially around something as fundamental as reproductive processes.
I agree. Which made the stories of GPS "hacked" drones in the Middle East a few years ago all the more troubling as it suggests gross incompetence amongst the military leadership. The widespread use of GPS-dependent technology promises to severely undermine the usefulness of our military against real threats, no matter how useful it is for stomping on grossly outmatched combatants. Get everyone accustomed to using a tool that's trivial to disable, and it's going to severely undermine their effectiveness when it's inevitably taken away by a credible opponent - just at the moment where their peak performance is needed most.
Why would the bats disappear? Human-feeding mosquitoes are an invasive species that followed humans across the globe. There's no shortage of other mosquito species, nor of other flying insect species. Their sudden extinction might make for a rough year, but other species of fast-breeding pollen-feeders would almost certainly fill the ecological niche almost immediately.
I'm strongly opposed to gene drive technology for reasons listed in my reply to the first post, but if we could safely drive human-feeding mosquitoes to extinction I see no reason not to do so.
Perhaps. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. There's no putting the nuclear weapon genie back in it's bottle either - but that doesn't mean we should stand back and let every arms dealer with the resources make and sell nukes to any wacko with the money.
As someone who tentatively approves of responsible genetic engineering (tentatively, because I see precious little evidence of responsible behavior among GMO creators), I'm still strongly opposed to employing gene drives.
Basically, a gene drive involves installing state-of-the-art genetic engineering tools that we stole from bacteria, and are only beginning to fully understand ourselves, into various organisms in a way in which we'll *never* be able to remove, short of driving the species to extinction (which we've thus far had very little success at doing on purpose). And evolution does so love to find creative ways to put useful genes to work.
There's also the fact that we pretty much have to go on faith that gene drives will remain in the target species - the barriers between species are not nearly as absolute as we often imagine, with occasional individuals successfully cross-breeding with similar species. It's very uncommon, but it happens, and it only takes one such hybridization to spread the gene drive into new species, where its effects will be unpredictable.
And that's before even considering the modification payload itself, which may or may not succeed in its intended goals. Extinction drives are perhaps one of the safer gene drives possible, provided they don't jump species, as they eliminate themselves from the gene pool going forward, assuming the species doesn't evolve immunity, which there's already some evidence can occur. I trust I'm not alone in being concerned about those qualifiers. It only takes one individual among countless trillions with a mutation that neutralizes the gene drive (or its effect) to spread the neutered gene drive throughout the now rapidly rebounding species.
If you're not willing to bleed for an ideal, it can't actually be very important to you, can it?
Indeed - and I would say the nigh-eternal prevalence of the latter groups of laws, make any attempt to use laws as a moral guideline deeply misguided. Laws can, and sometimes do, follow morality, but they do not define it.
Especially since it gets even worse than simple "bought and paid for" laws outlawing behaviors that are inconvenient for some people. There's also the laws that are created to outlaw behavior common among groups that you specifically want to target, for the express purpose of being able to target them with the full power of the legal system. The banning of cannabis was a good example of the combination of both - the lumber and pharmaceutical industries wanted it banned as a competitor, and the politicians in power at the time wanted it banned as a way to persecute hippies and minorities, who were active political opponents.
If soldiers can't navigate with a map, it doesn't much matter what else doesn't work - they'll be useless in any war against an even vaguely symmetric opponent.
I've never seen a commercial emulator that was worth a damned, so I'm not surprised. Pretty much all the good ones are open source - there's just no money to be made in emulators unless you're the copyright owner of vast libraries of content. Without that you've just spent vast amount of effort creating a tool that can mostly only be used by criminals.
And I would venture a guess that the vast majority of emulator users could care less about accuracy beyond playing properly. I've never met an emulator user (in person at least) that hasn't been delighted by such woeful inaccuracies as resolution up-scaling to make games look almost as good as you remember, rather than as bad as they really were.
Also it's not just *YOUR* work - it's a work you built out of bits and pieces of countless other people's work - because that's how culture operates. Every plot twist, character, etc. you create is heavily influenced by the plots and characters you've seen throughout your life, even if you're not consciously aware of it.