I completely agree. I'd also love to see some large federal programs in the US dissolved and passed to the states. Then we would have 50 test grounds to see what works and what doesn't. Unsuccessful states could then adopt programs from the successful states.
I may take some criticism for this, but the first area should be education. The federal government has completely failed the people in this regard. I honestly think the current situation is so bad, its worth creating test programs across the 50 states, guaranteeing some will fail, to find out what really works. Also as an after thought, because someone will ask, success could be measured based on a combination of graduation rates, college enrollment and job placement of recent public education graduates from each state.
Another great area would be healthcare.
Of course now that I've written this down, I realize it would never happen. The federal government would need to willingly relinquish control over something. Then they would need to use empirical evidence to determine the best course of action for the country. Neither of these things I expect to happen without violent protest from one side or another.
What are you smoking? Not believing in something is in itself a belief. You believe the idea that there is no God. Stop trying to alter the English language to suit your fancy.
I think the AC is agnostic, not religious, and you seemed to completely miss his point. The point I got from the AC was that atheism is just as open ended as theism. Both require the belief in something that currently has no evidence to support it. There is no evidence to support a god and lack of evidence doesn't prove non-existence.
Then you go onto assert that it is an active attempt to negate a certain belief
No idea where you got this from.
I do like "No god is more likely than some god, given no evidence" as it clearly shows how atheism makes as much sense as theism.
Matter cannot be created nor destroyed. There is a finite amounts of it. Every human takes away from that finite amount, the energy need to make that human survive comes from that amount, and any additional amount used to make their life better comes from that amount. The more people, the less extra that can be used purely for increased standard of living. At some point you just have a bunch of people and the resources to keep them alive. There is nothing left to make them happy.
Like I said, humans are resources who can create resources.
Immanuel Kant would disagree. People are an end in themselves and not a means to an end. If you do not understand that, I'm not going to take the time to explain it to you.
I didn't provide evidence because your statement was contrary to mine. I said decreasing populations lead to loss in technology. Which is supported by this article and the many referenced within it:
You asked "What knowledge and technology has been lost as a result of regression effects from population growth?" of which I have no supporting evidence. That's why I assumed you misread my initial comment and also provided no citation.
You did, however, catch me in a logical fallacy. I should have stated above the minimum threshold of a sustainable population in where there is no loss of important technical knowledge from generation to generation, the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole for each person added. More to your liking?
I was stating there is a minimum size a population must be to be sustainable and not regress. At that number of people (one), you face entirely different issues as stated in the previous post. So, your argument of killing everyone but one man is irrelevant to the discussion of sustainable population sizes.
My hypothesis is purely about population size, not advances in technology. Without the rapid increase in technological advancements of the 20th century, we wouldn't be able to feed the current worlds population. The real question is, is there a point where our growth will outpace the supporting technologies? I think yes.
Jumping to the extreme of one person left doesn't really help your argument. There is substantial evidence supporting a minimum sustainable population. That is, once we reach a certain minimum size, we as a population regress and actually lose knowledge and technology. There is a healthy population bound on each side, minimum and maximum. To think otherwise is obtuse.
My hypothesis is purely about population size, not density. Density is more about the location of the worlds population not the overall size. Its hard to argue that if everywhere was as dense as New York City we would be better off. We need somewhere to grow food.
What a warped view of reality. For every increase in human population on the Earth the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole, because the finite resources of the Earth are then divvied up among more people. No matter how efficiently resources are used, there is a point were the standard of living afforded to everyone isn't enough to live on.
You may try to argue that the point I'm referring to is way off, but what you'd be failing to take into consideration is that between now and that point would be a continuous decline in the standard of living for everyone everywhere. Before we ever reached such a point there would be mass extinction due to war and fighting over what little was left.
As for space travel, if we reach a population on Earth that requires supplies to be shipped in from other planets, what happens if there is a break in that supply? War, famine and lots of death.
Have you flown in Europe? If you have then you know the US airlines are way overpriced.
As for Razor thin margins, United made $379 million in profit in Q3.
The airline industry already has huge barriers to entry. Airplanes are really expensive, but in the US that is just part of the cost. We also have the exorbitant cost of government regulation that drives up ticket prices. Now I'm not saying all regulation is bad, just that the TSA is a huge waist of space. The combined IQ of all TSA agents almost makes a functional adult.
Because of these added barriers to entry, if all the airlines in the US suck, no other airline can come along and displace them. This has the added benefit that if one airline is in trouble, no new company can fill the void. Thus, we the tax payers have to bail them out or lose large travel areas.
How do you function from day to day with reasoning like this?
Bombs by design are indiscriminately destructive, demolishing everything in every direction. The intent is to destroy. Guns are very focused and have very particular intent. This makes them excellent for self defense, like I want to stop this person from robbing me so I aim and shoot.
Neither the science nor technology is the limiting factor to making an atom bomb. Both are pretty well known and easily accessible (The original a-bombs, fat man and little boy, were built back in the 40's. The technology is archaic). The limiting factor for a nuclear weapon is the pay load. Weapons grade plutonium and Uranium are not easily accessible.
I grew up dirt poor. I know a lot of poor people and I have never met someone making minimum wage that wasn't unambitious.
Example, I know a woman who has worked at minimum wage for 5 years at 39 hours a week. She never asked for a raise and she never tried to be a full time employee. In those five years, she never tried to find a different job, improve herself or learn a valuable skill set. Now she's just had a kid and realizes her job wont pay enough for her and her child.
Since the day I joined the work force at fifteen, I have not made minimum wage. My first job was at McDonalds and when they hired me I told them I want $X.XX, so I wouldn't be making minimum wage. I've worked hard since then and am now comfortably in the upper middle class.
We live in a time where the opportunities afforded to the rich and poor are innumerous. The ubiquitous access to information allows those willing to work hard to move up the social ladder pretty quickly.
First of all, the proles are uneducated. Its easy enough to distribute the plans of these robots and have different groups making different parts. The outer class may be the ones who assemble them and leave it only to the inner class to program them.
Secondly, while the proles are building the robots, they have jobs. Once they are done building the robots, they'll lose their jobs. By then its too late.
What roads do you drive on? Ever since I've been driving, everywhere I go the roads are terrible; they are riddled with pot holes and, in many instances, are more quick patch asphalt than road. In a truck built for off-roading you may not notice, but in a small car on the interstate at 60-70 miles an hour it can crack your suspension. In many cities, the roads might as well not be paved, they are so full of patches. I've driven over smoother dirt roads.
Telecom companies fix phone, cable and fiber lines. You pay for that by paying for cable/phone/internet, not through taxes. Taxes for the telcom industry, like the Universal Service Fund, go to creating new lines, upgrading speeds and lowering costs, not repair.
The streets, highways included, are run down and dilapidated. The bridges and public infrastructure are crumbling. Water and land management is local government and varies heavily across the country. Law enforcement is a bloated war machine complete with riot gear, assault rifles and military vehicles.
I'll support taxes when the government shows me it can spend the money responsibly.
Slashdot Mirror
I completely agree. I'd also love to see some large federal programs in the US dissolved and passed to the states. Then we would have 50 test grounds to see what works and what doesn't. Unsuccessful states could then adopt programs from the successful states.
I may take some criticism for this, but the first area should be education. The federal government has completely failed the people in this regard. I honestly think the current situation is so bad, its worth creating test programs across the 50 states, guaranteeing some will fail, to find out what really works. Also as an after thought, because someone will ask, success could be measured based on a combination of graduation rates, college enrollment and job placement of recent public education graduates from each state.
Another great area would be healthcare.
Of course now that I've written this down, I realize it would never happen. The federal government would need to willingly relinquish control over something. Then they would need to use empirical evidence to determine the best course of action for the country. Neither of these things I expect to happen without violent protest from one side or another.
What are you smoking? Not believing in something is in itself a belief. You believe the idea that there is no God. Stop trying to alter the English language to suit your fancy.
Then you go onto assert that it is an active attempt to negate a certain belief
No idea where you got this from.
I do like "No god is more likely than some god, given no evidence" as it clearly shows how atheism makes as much sense as theism.
Windows still holds over 90% of the market, while OS X has actually lost share so far this year.
Like I said, humans are resources who can create resources.
Immanuel Kant would disagree. People are an end in themselves and not a means to an end. If you do not understand that, I'm not going to take the time to explain it to you.
We are the most valuable resource of all.
Source?
I didn't provide evidence because your statement was contrary to mine. I said decreasing populations lead to loss in technology. Which is supported by this article and the many referenced within it:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublis...
You asked "What knowledge and technology has been lost as a result of regression effects from population growth?" of which I have no supporting evidence. That's why I assumed you misread my initial comment and also provided no citation.
You did, however, catch me in a logical fallacy. I should have stated above the minimum threshold of a sustainable population in where there is no loss of important technical knowledge from generation to generation, the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole for each person added. More to your liking?
once we reach a certain minimum size
I was stating there is a minimum size a population must be to be sustainable and not regress. At that number of people (one), you face entirely different issues as stated in the previous post. So, your argument of killing everyone but one man is irrelevant to the discussion of sustainable population sizes.
Its hard to trust the reports of an organization that said 2013 was the fourth warmest year on record:
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...
While at the same time we had record breaking cold temps and huge growth in the polar ice caps:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Already answered this argument here: http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
My hypothesis is purely about population size, not advances in technology. Without the rapid increase in technological advancements of the 20th century, we wouldn't be able to feed the current worlds population. The real question is, is there a point where our growth will outpace the supporting technologies? I think yes.
Jumping to the extreme of one person left doesn't really help your argument. There is substantial evidence supporting a minimum sustainable population. That is, once we reach a certain minimum size, we as a population regress and actually lose knowledge and technology. There is a healthy population bound on each side, minimum and maximum. To think otherwise is obtuse.
My hypothesis is purely about population size, not density. Density is more about the location of the worlds population not the overall size. Its hard to argue that if everywhere was as dense as New York City we would be better off. We need somewhere to grow food.
What a warped view of reality. For every increase in human population on the Earth the standard of living goes down for humanity as a whole, because the finite resources of the Earth are then divvied up among more people. No matter how efficiently resources are used, there is a point were the standard of living afforded to everyone isn't enough to live on.
You may try to argue that the point I'm referring to is way off, but what you'd be failing to take into consideration is that between now and that point would be a continuous decline in the standard of living for everyone everywhere. Before we ever reached such a point there would be mass extinction due to war and fighting over what little was left.
As for space travel, if we reach a population on Earth that requires supplies to be shipped in from other planets, what happens if there is a break in that supply? War, famine and lots of death.
Have you flown in Europe? If you have then you know the US airlines are way overpriced.
As for Razor thin margins, United made $379 million in profit in Q3.
The airline industry already has huge barriers to entry. Airplanes are really expensive, but in the US that is just part of the cost. We also have the exorbitant cost of government regulation that drives up ticket prices. Now I'm not saying all regulation is bad, just that the TSA is a huge waist of space. The combined IQ of all TSA agents almost makes a functional adult.
Because of these added barriers to entry, if all the airlines in the US suck, no other airline can come along and displace them. This has the added benefit that if one airline is in trouble, no new company can fill the void. Thus, we the tax payers have to bail them out or lose large travel areas.
black licorice
How do you function from day to day with reasoning like this?
Bombs by design are indiscriminately destructive, demolishing everything in every direction. The intent is to destroy. Guns are very focused and have very particular intent. This makes them excellent for self defense, like I want to stop this person from robbing me so I aim and shoot.
Neither the science nor technology is the limiting factor to making an atom bomb. Both are pretty well known and easily accessible (The original a-bombs, fat man and little boy, were built back in the 40's. The technology is archaic). The limiting factor for a nuclear weapon is the pay load. Weapons grade plutonium and Uranium are not easily accessible.
I grew up dirt poor. I know a lot of poor people and I have never met someone making minimum wage that wasn't unambitious.
Example, I know a woman who has worked at minimum wage for 5 years at 39 hours a week. She never asked for a raise and she never tried to be a full time employee. In those five years, she never tried to find a different job, improve herself or learn a valuable skill set. Now she's just had a kid and realizes her job wont pay enough for her and her child.
Since the day I joined the work force at fifteen, I have not made minimum wage. My first job was at McDonalds and when they hired me I told them I want $X.XX, so I wouldn't be making minimum wage. I've worked hard since then and am now comfortably in the upper middle class.
We live in a time where the opportunities afforded to the rich and poor are innumerous. The ubiquitous access to information allows those willing to work hard to move up the social ladder pretty quickly.
The poor are unambitious.
So do farms, the telcom industry, and the long list of other industries receiving subsidies.
First of all, the proles are uneducated. Its easy enough to distribute the plans of these robots and have different groups making different parts. The outer class may be the ones who assemble them and leave it only to the inner class to program them.
Secondly, while the proles are building the robots, they have jobs. Once they are done building the robots, they'll lose their jobs. By then its too late.
No its because we spend it on the wrong things.
discretionary spending, This is 29% of all spending: https://static.nationalpriorit...
mandatory spending This is 65% of all spending: https://static.nationalpriorit...
A tiny, tiny bit of our spending goes to infrastructure. Most is wasted on areas with a less then 1:1 return on investment.
Not in Massachusetts: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
What roads do you drive on? Ever since I've been driving, everywhere I go the roads are terrible; they are riddled with pot holes and, in many instances, are more quick patch asphalt than road. In a truck built for off-roading you may not notice, but in a small car on the interstate at 60-70 miles an hour it can crack your suspension. In many cities, the roads might as well not be paved, they are so full of patches. I've driven over smoother dirt roads.
Telecom companies fix phone, cable and fiber lines. You pay for that by paying for cable/phone/internet, not through taxes. Taxes for the telcom industry, like the Universal Service Fund, go to creating new lines, upgrading speeds and lowering costs, not repair.
Power lines are the same for the power company.
The streets, highways included, are run down and dilapidated. The bridges and public infrastructure are crumbling. Water and land management is local government and varies heavily across the country. Law enforcement is a bloated war machine complete with riot gear, assault rifles and military vehicles.
I'll support taxes when the government shows me it can spend the money responsibly.