Hey Look!! Drugs, and how to Make 'em!
on
One for the Kids
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· Score: 2
I found this a couple links away from link in the story.
It's the "Official Word on Drugs."
Anyway, remember when a couple senators tried to pass a law that would make it illegal to have or link to pages that have information on illegal substances? Take a look at the above link.
I wonder if there are any other government web sites or institutions that break laws. Either potential, obscure, or existing laws? Anybody know of some?
Are you joking? You want a government agency to try decide what a fit parent is? Nothing we need like more beauracracy. Please move away and start your own place, those are some seriously scary ideas.
Yes I understand addiction, I also understand Responsibility. That 12-year old won't become an alchoholic until he drinks for a few years. Until his body builds up a resistance to the poison he likes to drink. Then later, the amazing body adjusts and needs that same poison just to function at normal levels. A genetic disposition to this means NOTHING without action taken by a person. It is as much a disease as any other drug addiction, i.e. one that you can only catch my exposing yourself over and over, by choice.
Yes, I think a 10-year old is at fault for drinking, just like I think a 17 year-old is at fault for blowing away a bunch of other kids. You can blame society at large if you want, but I like to keep things simple and blame the people who do the action.
I'm just saying no one (read: major movie studios) seems to think there is a market for really cool animated movies (I'm thinking like HBO's Spawn, i.e. rated R). Because of the Disney factor everyone here thinks animation means cute, fuzzy, and happy. Animation techniques have gotten so amazing I just wish someone would make a Star Wars/Hobbitt type epic. That's what my hope for the FF movie is. And I know Pixar ain't gonna make it.
.. more like family class or small business class. BTW: you got that price wrong by a 0, they sell for about $1,500. Good if you want to run your own server that won't get too much traffic (I haven't seen one of these/.'ed or anything, but I'm trying to get that effect for mine:)
You missed my point. I was not saying people should be euthanized for ADD, I was saying that if someone puts up a criteria for euthanasia it could be misdiagnosed to the degree that ADD is, because of the growing need and sadly, desire for, a Quick Fix to child problems. There is a term for a child born with ZERO change of developing, they are called "stillborn", i.e. dead. The only euthanasia for children I can support is one where machines are unplugged and the child is left to fend for itself. I missed the Singer discussion so if much of this was already covered there, I apologize
Have you seen clips from the Final Fantasy Movie? Absolutely-freakin'-amazing is what I was thinking. Square has some serious talent working for them. Pixar makes baby movies because they are in America where if it says animated no one over 13 could possibly like it.
I've got two qubes, e-mail/web/file servers. They have been very nice and rather easy. The main one has been up for over two months with nary a whisper, set 'em up and forget about it, my kind of servers. I haven't done anything t0o strenuous (no SQL install), but as a basic web server, say for a small company like mine, they work great. I also have it doing NAT, DHCP, filtering, mostly configured through the browser-GUI. Coming with two NICS installed makes it that much easier. I must say I have been impressed, plus they're so dang cute, especially when you turn the lights out. Mmmm, glowing green lights...
Nope, all I'm saying is that each newborn could be either, there's only one way to find out. My point was that if you want to clean the gene pool by aborting what look to be useless lives you will most likely pick off some good ones. Maybe this would only happen in the some cases (Your baby has a 75% chance of being an invalid past the age of 5), but this is a bad door to open. Look at how many kids get diagnosed with ADD nowadays.
Would that disease have shown up in pre-natal screenings or did he get it from a rusty nail?
The problem is opening the door to these types of decisions. I didn't read the Singer article so I might be missing a point somewhere. Killing for convenience should cause most people to feel really really bad, or at least it would me. The only way I think it is justifyable is when the patient asks for it, as a favor. Nature has it's own answer for much of this, you live a life, don't pass on your genes and die. When we think it is our place to step in, we have crossed a very definite line, one that I seriously doubt we are ready to take responsibility for (like my above post, we are still trying to pass off alcoholism as a disease)
Thanks for the article Jon, this one doesn't suck.
I'm not sure how long it will take for society as a whole to realize that we have already created a monster we can't control. A monster that spits out information to whoever happens to click on it. Many more attempts will be made to cage it as powerful people learn to fear an educated (and often miseducated) populace. Rationalizing with such cliches as "ignorance is bliss".
I watched A&E's top 100 people of the millenium the last couple nights. They picked the same #1 as a couple other lists I have seen, Johann Guttenberg (no relation to Steve), and for the same reason. More available information can have HUGE impacts on society as a whole. I couldn't help but laugh to think of the difference in power of a machine that can make paper and ink copies of information, and one that translates magnetic images, over electric line, through an electron gun, lighting up rare earth elements, with information from anywhere in the world. That's pretty impressive.
I love Jesse Ventura. I've been saying this for a while now and not much has changed. You might not agree with his politics and his personal views. But boy does he have balls when expressing them. He'll say stuff that others are scared to, and because he isn't embarassed or guilty about it, he's gained my respect. His potential as a polititian is still debatable, but he does draw attention and focus which is a very political type thing to do.
As far as the Singer stuff goes. When we start doing this, the first person I'm going after is Stephen Hawking. It's obvious from his physical inadequacies that he can offer absolutely no value to society and should therefore be removed for the good of the whole. Dammit people, different does not mean worse, it does not mean less, it means different.
..and finally..
The United States is using medical and other technologies that may result in genetic selection to remove physical, even psychological problems like alcoholism that are increasingly being linked to heredity (see Tuesday's story on Slashdot on gentically engineered kids).
If we start doing gene therapy for alcoholism (a horrible example, Katz) we are truly the laziest, most worthless society to ever have existed. Hey look, i've created a huge problem for myself, anybody got a Quick Fix(tm). Quick Fixes lead to nuclear weapons.
And just because it's on-topic...
I very highly recommend the film "American Beauty". Rarely do films shoot straight for the heart of what it is to be American (if you believe in TV commercials that is). A very well done picture that you won't soon forget.
(*gets off soapbox, takes of rant hat, and gets back to work*)
.. More companies are trying it. Somebody will figure out how to make it work, money wise. It's just a matter of getting enough eyeballs, i.e. distribution.
I would much rather that. It's not popular to say around here but gaming on windoze pretty much kicks ass. Very easy, high compatibility, easy install, quality content. I haven't used WINE, is it close to ready for prime time? A few years away?
What do you think of the current nuclear test-ban treaty? Here, we have a technology that basically everyone agrees shouldn't be used, and will most likely only find a potential use as a terrorist weapon. I'm all for GE and AI, I think they might be great fun, but I also see the danger in tampering with the basics (see: Nagasaki). So far we're 1/1 in controlling technology that can obliterate us all. By the end of the next century I really hope we're 100/100 'cause 99% uptime for sanity just ain't gonna cut it.
A friend of mine just got his master's degree in biological engineering (with an environmental focus). He related to me a study he had seen about the amount of a certain bacteria at a toxic site over the course of 40 years. It seems that the initial tests showed none of this bacteria and the second tests showed median to high-levels. What is significant is that this bacteria happened to be the one that "ate" the toxic waste. Life finds it's niche. I have yet to see a lifeform spring forth from the intelligence of another (your GE + AI), but you never know. Messing with the forces of nature (see: Hurricane) can often leave one wishing one hadn't.
I'm not against these studies (I'm all for 'em), but the application of these technologies should ALWAYS be kept away from scientists, usually they just want to see the bits that are left over, and while Mad Politician might seen likely, Mad Scientist is the more common label.
Are you saying that we are under an ethical obligation to create a superior species? My first problem starts with "ethical obligation" and goes downhill from there.
Anybody notice a similar tone from the PCWeek article and the anti-linux M$ page? Mainly from the skewing things to make one OS look better than the other. Mainly "While any operating system needs patches and updates, there is no central repository for testing or approving patches to the Linux system." which is true, but irrelevent unless,like the above poster mentioned, you roll your own distro. And one thing they didn't mention. Did any of you get to audit the code on SP5 before you added it? Or did you get a sacrificial lamb to test it on?
(Sorry for the anti-M$ sentiments, but today I upgraded a basic win95 install with win98se since the app on that machine was recently upgraded and told us to, and it won't run on NT. The upgrade was fine, no problems, just keep clicking ok. Until the restart, now it blue screens (the "your machine may become unstable" one) and dies automatically after restart. Since I got all those error messages earlier I have tons of info to start troubleshooting. At least everyone else in the office hates M$ now too, subtle mind control on my part.)
Microsoft products have no known security risks. Their track record for fixing security risks is immaterial since they don't exist. Their track record for privacy and respecting the rights of their customers is also squeeky cleen. They 'em good. (Where's Gerald when you need him...)
yea, my post was a bit on the gun-jumping side. I prefer my sarcasm biting and often miss the light-hearted type.
I still think, however, that it will be safer to continue as much as we can with natural selection. Humans tend to stray toward wanting perfection. Perfect doesn't work very well in nature. Long term thinking (beyond our own lives) is also a weak point of humans, but seems to be a stong point for natural processes. Are we ready to take on that responsibility?
Two examples: "Absolutely, somewhere in the next millennium, making babies sexually will be rare," Caplan speculates.
Oh yeah, who would want to have sex to make babies, what a silly thought.
"In a competitive market society, people are going to want to give their kids an edge," says the bioethicist.
Bioethicist? Freak-a-zoid is more like it. Hmmm how many people want to roll dice with their children's psyche? How many of those however many million genes do you have to screw up to get a psychopath? Do we have any idea? All of this stuff is still a long way off.
and finally, if you thought the reporter had some sense.. Who knows? Maybe all this technology will make humans so smart they'll be able to predict the future.
That's just silly. We can already predict the future, for a day or two. Beyond that things get ridiculous. Read some Chaos theory or go outside and feel a breeze or count to 6,000,000,000 (the number of people currently co-creating the future)
Silly article, but it makes for good discussion.:-)
hmm, maybe there will be a use for journalists in the future....
...I would be killed trying to keep it from happening. It will be increasingly difficult to keep people from the truth and voicing their opinions. Any truly repressing thought-controlling type of society would be fought tooth and nail.
Gattaca wasn't all bad, just really cheesy and simplistic. And the acting sucked, but that's a staple of sci-fi. Anyway...
At the end of the movie, remember when they were swimming like when they were kids, and they perfect brother lost to the bad one? Why did that happen? Ever hear a Nature vs. Nurture debate? IMHO, you can't have one without the other. What does it matter if the you have the best genes if you grow up in a box? Or if you're beaten from a young age? What about if you go the natural process and have a full, loving, supporting environment? Who will come out on top? What happens continually to people who think they are better than others and are lazy, when they meet someone "inferior" who works harder? Genes are only a starting place. The best genes in the world won't save you from a Mack truck or a.45 to the temple (o.k. maybe nano-carbon rod reinforced bones....)
Regardless, whatever you call it the human spirit, the soul, desire, will. There is and always will be an intangible part of a being that is as important as the physical part.
Games are going to be tough for Linux. Not only do you have the "if it's not open, it's crrap" mindset, but also a hugely varying array of system setups, both in hardware and software. Open sourcing a normal game would never work (who's going to pay for support) so no income. The more I think about it the more pessimistic I am. Maybe someone will come up with a system that would work, I sure hope so. Wish I didn't love playing games so much...
Slashdot Mirror
I found this a couple links away from link in the story.
It's the "Official Word on Drugs."
Anyway, remember when a couple senators tried to pass a law that would make it illegal to have or link to pages that have information on illegal substances? Take a look at the above link.
I wonder if there are any other government web sites or institutions that break laws. Either potential, obscure, or existing laws? Anybody know of some?
Are you joking? You want a government agency to try decide what a fit parent is? Nothing we need like more beauracracy. Please move away and start your own place, those are some seriously scary ideas.
Yes I understand addiction, I also understand Responsibility. That 12-year old won't become an alchoholic until he drinks for a few years. Until his body builds up a resistance to the poison he likes to drink. Then later, the amazing body adjusts and needs that same poison just to function at normal levels. A genetic disposition to this means NOTHING without action taken by a person. It is as much a disease as any other drug addiction, i.e. one that you can only catch my exposing yourself over and over, by choice.
Yes, I think a 10-year old is at fault for drinking, just like I think a 17 year-old is at fault for blowing away a bunch of other kids. You can blame society at large if you want, but I like to keep things simple and blame the people who do the action.
Both times? :)
I'm just saying no one (read: major movie studios) seems to think there is a market for really cool animated movies (I'm thinking like HBO's Spawn, i.e. rated R). Because of the Disney factor everyone here thinks animation means cute, fuzzy, and happy. Animation techniques have gotten so amazing I just wish someone would make a Star Wars/Hobbitt type epic. That's what my hope for the FF movie is.
And I know Pixar ain't gonna make it.
.. /.'ed or anything, but I'm trying to get that effect for mine:)
more like family class or small business class. BTW: you got that price wrong by a 0, they sell for about $1,500. Good if you want to run your own server that won't get too much traffic (I haven't seen one of these
You missed my point. I was not saying people should be euthanized for ADD, I was saying that if someone puts up a criteria for euthanasia it could be misdiagnosed to the degree that ADD is, because of the growing need and sadly, desire for, a Quick Fix to child problems. There is a term for a child born with ZERO change of developing, they are called "stillborn", i.e. dead.
The only euthanasia for children I can support is one where machines are unplugged and the child is left to fend for itself. I missed the Singer discussion so if much of this was already covered there, I apologize
Have you seen clips from the Final Fantasy Movie? Absolutely-freakin'-amazing is what I was thinking. Square has some serious talent working for them. Pixar makes baby movies because they are in America where if it says animated no one over 13 could possibly like it.
I've got two qubes, e-mail/web/file servers. They have been very nice and rather easy. The main one has been up for over two months with nary a whisper, set 'em up and forget about it, my kind of servers. I haven't done anything t0o strenuous (no SQL install), but as a basic web server, say for a small company like mine, they work great. I also have it doing NAT, DHCP, filtering, mostly configured through the browser-GUI. Coming with two NICS installed makes it that much easier. I must say I have been impressed, plus they're so dang cute, especially when you turn the lights out. Mmmm, glowing green lights...
Would have to be the 80's, or did you mean cola?
Nope, all I'm saying is that each newborn could be either, there's only one way to find out. My point was that if you want to clean the gene pool by aborting what look to be useless lives you will most likely pick off some good ones. Maybe this would only happen in the some cases (Your baby has a 75% chance of being an invalid past the age of 5), but this is a bad door to open. Look at how many kids get diagnosed with ADD nowadays.
7: NT Workstation. Why use 95 or 98? Obviously, NT is the better solution. 98 is for users-- NT is for power-users. That's why it costs so much more.
7.5 NT Server. When three registry settings are worth $500, you know you're getting a deal.
Would that disease have shown up in pre-natal screenings or did he get it from a rusty nail?
The problem is opening the door to these types of decisions. I didn't read the Singer article so I might be missing a point somewhere. Killing for convenience should cause most people to feel really really bad, or at least it would me. The only way I think it is justifyable is when the patient asks for it, as a favor. Nature has it's own answer for much of this, you live a life, don't pass on your genes and die. When we think it is our place to step in, we have crossed a very definite line, one that I seriously doubt we are ready to take responsibility for (like my above post, we are still trying to pass off alcoholism as a disease)
Thanks for the article Jon, this one doesn't suck.
I'm not sure how long it will take for society as a whole to realize that we have already created a monster we can't control. A monster that spits out information to whoever happens to click on it. Many more attempts will be made to cage it as powerful people learn to fear an educated (and often miseducated) populace. Rationalizing with such cliches as "ignorance is bliss".
I watched A&E's top 100 people of the millenium the last couple nights. They picked the same #1 as a couple other lists I have seen, Johann Guttenberg (no relation to Steve), and for the same reason. More available information can have HUGE impacts on society as a whole. I couldn't help but laugh to think of the difference in power of a machine that can make paper and ink copies of information, and one that translates magnetic images, over electric line, through an electron gun, lighting up rare earth elements, with information from anywhere in the world. That's pretty impressive.
I love Jesse Ventura. I've been saying this for a while now and not much has changed. You might not agree with his politics and his personal views. But boy does he have balls when expressing them. He'll say stuff that others are scared to, and because he isn't embarassed or guilty about it, he's gained my respect. His potential as a polititian is still debatable, but he does draw attention and focus which is a very political type thing to do.
As far as the Singer stuff goes. When we start doing this, the first person I'm going after is Stephen Hawking. It's obvious from his physical inadequacies that he can offer absolutely no value to society and should therefore be removed for the good of the whole. Dammit people, different does not mean worse, it does not mean less, it means different.
..and finally..
The United States is using medical and other technologies that may result in genetic selection to remove physical, even psychological problems like alcoholism that are increasingly being linked to heredity (see Tuesday's story on Slashdot on gentically engineered kids).
If we start doing gene therapy for alcoholism (a horrible example, Katz) we are truly the laziest, most worthless society to ever have existed. Hey look, i've created a huge problem for myself, anybody got a Quick Fix(tm). Quick Fixes lead to nuclear weapons.
And just because it's on-topic...
I very highly recommend the film "American Beauty". Rarely do films shoot straight for the heart of what it is to be American (if you believe in TV commercials that is). A very well done picture that you won't soon forget.
(*gets off soapbox, takes of rant hat, and gets back to work*)
..
More companies are trying it. Somebody will figure out how to make it work, money wise. It's just a matter of getting enough eyeballs, i.e. distribution.
I would much rather that. It's not popular to say around here but gaming on windoze pretty much kicks ass. Very easy, high compatibility, easy install, quality content. I haven't used WINE, is it close to ready for prime time? A few years away?
What do you think of the current nuclear test-ban treaty? Here, we have a technology that basically everyone agrees shouldn't be used, and will most likely only find a potential use as a terrorist weapon. I'm all for GE and AI, I think they might be great fun, but I also see the danger in tampering with the basics (see: Nagasaki). So far we're 1/1 in controlling technology that can obliterate us all. By the end of the next century I really hope we're 100/100 'cause 99% uptime for sanity just ain't gonna cut it.
A friend of mine just got his master's degree in biological engineering (with an environmental focus). He related to me a study he had seen about the amount of a certain bacteria at a toxic site over the course of 40 years. It seems that the initial tests showed none of this bacteria and the second tests showed median to high-levels. What is significant is that this bacteria happened to be the one that "ate" the toxic waste. Life finds it's niche. I have yet to see a lifeform spring forth from the intelligence of another (your GE + AI), but you never know. Messing with the forces of nature (see: Hurricane) can often leave one wishing one hadn't.
I'm not against these studies (I'm all for 'em), but the application of these technologies should ALWAYS be kept away from scientists, usually they just want to see the bits that are left over, and while Mad Politician might seen likely, Mad Scientist is the more common label.
see my point.
um, no. ?
Are you saying that we are under an ethical obligation to create a superior species? My first problem starts with "ethical obligation" and goes downhill from there.
Anybody notice a similar tone from the PCWeek article and the anti-linux M$ page? Mainly from the skewing things to make one OS look better than the other. ,like the above poster mentioned, you roll your own distro.
Mainly "While any operating system needs patches and updates, there is no central repository for testing or approving patches to the Linux system." which is true, but irrelevent unless
And one thing they didn't mention. Did any of you get to audit the code on SP5 before you added it? Or did you get a sacrificial lamb to test it on?
(Sorry for the anti-M$ sentiments, but today I upgraded a basic win95 install with win98se since the app on that machine was recently upgraded and told us to, and it won't run on NT. The upgrade was fine, no problems, just keep clicking ok. Until the restart, now it blue screens (the "your machine may become unstable" one) and dies automatically after restart. Since I got all those error messages earlier I have tons of info to start troubleshooting. At least everyone else in the office hates M$ now too, subtle mind control on my part.)
My current credit card company has very good anti-fraud policies. What's the point of adding a second layer of cost and complexity?
um, money? Save two minutes, pay two dollars.
Microsoft products have no known security risks. Their track record for fixing security risks is immaterial since they don't exist. Their track record for privacy and respecting the rights of their customers is also squeeky cleen. They 'em good.
(Where's Gerald when you need him...)
yea, my post was a bit on the gun-jumping side. I prefer my sarcasm biting and often miss the light-hearted type.
I still think, however, that it will be safer to continue as much as we can with natural selection. Humans tend to stray toward wanting perfection. Perfect doesn't work very well in nature. Long term thinking (beyond our own lives) is also a weak point of humans, but seems to be a stong point for natural processes. Are we ready to take on that responsibility?
Two examples:
"Absolutely, somewhere in the next millennium, making babies sexually will be rare," Caplan speculates.
Oh yeah, who would want to have sex to make babies, what a silly thought.
"In a competitive market society, people are going to want to give their kids an edge," says the bioethicist.
Bioethicist? Freak-a-zoid is more like it. Hmmm how many people want to roll dice with their children's psyche? How many of those however many million genes do you have to screw up to get a psychopath? Do we have any idea? All of this stuff is still a long way off.
and finally, if you thought the reporter had some sense..
Who knows? Maybe all this technology will make humans so smart they'll be able to predict the future.
That's just silly. We can already predict the future, for a day or two. Beyond that things get ridiculous. Read some Chaos theory or go outside and feel a breeze or count to 6,000,000,000 (the number of people currently co-creating the future)
Silly article, but it makes for good discussion.:-)
hmm, maybe there will be a use for journalists in the future....
...I would be killed trying to keep it from happening. It will be increasingly difficult to keep people from the truth and voicing their opinions. Any truly repressing thought-controlling type of society would be fought tooth and nail.
(Warning: spoiler for a crappy movie)
.45 to the temple (o.k. maybe nano-carbon rod reinforced bones....)
Gattaca wasn't all bad, just really cheesy and simplistic. And the acting sucked, but that's a staple of sci-fi. Anyway...
At the end of the movie, remember when they were swimming like when they were kids, and they perfect brother lost to the bad one? Why did that happen?
Ever hear a Nature vs. Nurture debate? IMHO, you can't have one without the other. What does it matter if the you have the best genes if you grow up in a box? Or if you're beaten from a young age? What about if you go the natural process and have a full, loving, supporting environment? Who will come out on top? What happens continually to people who think they are better than others and are lazy, when they meet someone "inferior" who works harder?
Genes are only a starting place. The best genes in the world won't save you from a Mack truck or a
Regardless, whatever you call it the human spirit, the soul, desire, will. There is and always will be an intangible part of a being that is as important as the physical part.
Games are going to be tough for Linux. Not only do you have the "if it's not open, it's crrap" mindset, but also a hugely varying array of system setups, both in hardware and software. Open sourcing a normal game would never work (who's going to pay for support) so no income. The more I think about it the more pessimistic I am. Maybe someone will come up with a system that would work, I sure hope so. Wish I didn't love playing games so much...
..that's the cash he would lose if he switched professions. Maybe that's why it's gone up so much.whatever.