Oh no, that's actually fine. Many years ago, there were programs based specifically around that very premise. But the Federal government as well as the UN and the IAEA were all involved in these kinds of programs to monitor how the reactors were being used. Commercial/Civilian nuclear power is something that we've tried to get other (usually developing) nations onboard with (though they were not always very interested for varying reasons). But the consensus has always been that the technology cannot just be allowed unsupervised into the wild.
Nuclear technology is one of the few things you cannot "break the law with a new business model." There are still many people in the DOE and DOD whose entire job is to make sure that nuclear material is utilized in very specific, clearly logged ways. This is a little more socio-politically and economically complex than a taxi service. Nobody's used one in a long time, but nuclear weapons still being a thing means that nuclear technology will always be under the very very tight grip of the State.
After having spent an inordinate amount of time research the history of atomic/nuclear power in the United States in the mid-20th century, I cannot help but notice that Mr. Thiel's discussion of the subject (hyper) simplifies the matter. But he was writing for a lay audience; you cannot add the same nuance and detail that you'd use in a journal article in a newspaper article (even if it is The Times. Though you could argue that by making a simplified argument that removes the fine details you do a better job at convincing your audience...especially if you were trying to gain political/economical/social support for your pet project.
That said, he is mostly correct. Though as a card carrying Lefty, I take some small exception to concerns about environmental impact (chiefly in the form of irradiated material but also the waste heat dumped into streams); cultural hegemony (in the form of using land that was, and still is, sacred to the Native Americans as a dumping ground for the aforementioned irradiated material); and contributions to the proliferation and entrenchment of nuclear arms all being boiled down "fear of technology." Neither is there mention that the biggest obstacle in the United States took the form of utilities companies that made a unified effort to completely halt the rollout of commercial nuclear power. Their argument being that, since nuclear power was being heavily subsidized by the Federal government, it would have an unfair advantage in the market making it impossible for the utilities companies to compete. Fun fact: when it was proposed by the utilities companies and their Congressional allies that one way of evening the score would be that the Federal government make nuclear power companies directly liable for any accidents that occurred in or around their facilities, cleanup, etc., the nuclear power companies lost a great deal of interest in being allowed to deploy their technologies commercially.
And on that same note, Mr. Thiel also fails to account for the fact that one of main reasons US reactor design and implementation remained the way it did was because nuclear technology was (and still is to a great extent) the Department of Defense's baby (even when the civilian companies were given "control" of it). Most of our reactor design and research operated around that principle. Now the French, who were never really under those sorts of restrictions, went further with commercial nuclear power than the United States has (and I predict ever will). Not only in terms of reactor designs, but also in commercial implementation and utilization. The French are a clear and excellent demonstration of how commercial nuclear power can be utilized as a safe benefit to society.
But in the face of other options (such as the increasing turn towards more economical renewable tech), even the French began a slow turn away from commercial nuclear power years ago.
I am now really interested to know if there are any kinds of modifications to human behavior and/or physiology as a result of encountering this smell. I mean, without the subject being aware that what is being smelled is "human death." I don't know if that would be considered morbid, but it would be interesting to see if Humans have a subconscious recognition of that smell and its implications.
Any extraterrestrial civilization that has survived into interstellar travel is probably willing to invest a great deal of its time and energy into NOT being discovered by us. What could be more dangerous than a species that has learned some technology yet turns every technological advance into a weapon against others of its own kind? And we've been advertising that aspect of ourselves to the universe ever since we discovered radio waves.
That's only about 80 years worth of advertising. In interstellar distance, that's like posting a really really really small sign on the door of your house. Anyone who cared what the sign had to say would need to notice it first, and only then after having gotten close enough to be aware of its existence. But let us not oversell Human Civilization. I would expect that any extraterrestrial civilization that has managed to break/bypass/generally-work-around the considerable barriers to achieve practical interstellar travel would feel as threatened by us (a species that has barely managed to escape its own gravity well) as much as the pilot of a modern, tactical interceptor would feel threatened by a spear wielding tribesman. Any civilization that has managed to overcome its own destructive urges and harness the almost unthinkable energies to become an interstellar civilization is far beyond our throw weight now and into the foreseeable future.
I should think it's less a question of avoiding us, and more a question of even noticing us to begin with.
It's the one life we know exists, if we find aliens with a totally different physiology or totally different technology that's nice but we have no idea of what to look for. It's unlikely that aliens expect us to tap into their communications, if they are trying to ping us they probably do it using all possible channels. And we know at least one of them, it's unlikely a civilization that can do what he proposes hasn't invented the radio.
Exactly. Some form of the OP argument has come up ever since SETI was initiated (usually around the time funding was being discussed, and some brain trust politician asked "You guys find anything yet?"). What I think is important is the core idea around the argument, which is not: "Just because we haven't found anything, doesn't mean it's not there." The core idea is actually to avoid being caught up in the small-minded trap generated by anthropocentrism, which has as its central premise: "Using only the single method we are aware and capable of, we have not found any evidence of intelligent life. Therefore we are the only intelligent species in this galaxy."
Listen I do not know Bezos as a person, and there's got to be several (dozen) layers of buffer between him and HR. But usually (not always mind you, but usually) when Management makes one of these general announcements to escalate your concerns to HR after publicity like this, that's just a quiet way of trying to find out which muhfuhs snitched to the Press. And anyone who actually falls for the trap is made an example of to the rest of the division/company. Again, I don't know Bezos; he may have actually been honestly trying to solve the problem when he made that statement. But that doesn't mean the rest of the management/command staff is as honest and forgiving as he is.
"We are concerned that there are minuscule gaps in our nearly universal panopticon. Therefore we will require that all devices be accessible by duly appointed authorities. We promise that this power will never be abused."
Their security is deplorable and Apple should be legally responsible for any losses people incur as a result of this!
I'm not sure if that is really funny, really sad, or some kind of crazy, Google astroturf psyop. I'm going to be safe and assume that it is simultaneously all three.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh no, that's actually fine. Many years ago, there were programs based specifically around that very premise. But the Federal government as well as the UN and the IAEA were all involved in these kinds of programs to monitor how the reactors were being used. Commercial/Civilian nuclear power is something that we've tried to get other (usually developing) nations onboard with (though they were not always very interested for varying reasons). But the consensus has always been that the technology cannot just be allowed unsupervised into the wild.
Nuclear technology is one of the few things you cannot "break the law with a new business model." There are still many people in the DOE and DOD whose entire job is to make sure that nuclear material is utilized in very specific, clearly logged ways. This is a little more socio-politically and economically complex than a taxi service. Nobody's used one in a long time, but nuclear weapons still being a thing means that nuclear technology will always be under the very very tight grip of the State.
After having spent an inordinate amount of time research the history of atomic/nuclear power in the United States in the mid-20th century, I cannot help but notice that Mr. Thiel's discussion of the subject (hyper) simplifies the matter. But he was writing for a lay audience; you cannot add the same nuance and detail that you'd use in a journal article in a newspaper article (even if it is The Times. Though you could argue that by making a simplified argument that removes the fine details you do a better job at convincing your audience...especially if you were trying to gain political/economical/social support for your pet project. That said, he is mostly correct. Though as a card carrying Lefty, I take some small exception to concerns about environmental impact (chiefly in the form of irradiated material but also the waste heat dumped into streams); cultural hegemony (in the form of using land that was, and still is, sacred to the Native Americans as a dumping ground for the aforementioned irradiated material); and contributions to the proliferation and entrenchment of nuclear arms all being boiled down "fear of technology." Neither is there mention that the biggest obstacle in the United States took the form of utilities companies that made a unified effort to completely halt the rollout of commercial nuclear power. Their argument being that, since nuclear power was being heavily subsidized by the Federal government, it would have an unfair advantage in the market making it impossible for the utilities companies to compete. Fun fact: when it was proposed by the utilities companies and their Congressional allies that one way of evening the score would be that the Federal government make nuclear power companies directly liable for any accidents that occurred in or around their facilities, cleanup, etc., the nuclear power companies lost a great deal of interest in being allowed to deploy their technologies commercially. And on that same note, Mr. Thiel also fails to account for the fact that one of main reasons US reactor design and implementation remained the way it did was because nuclear technology was (and still is to a great extent) the Department of Defense's baby (even when the civilian companies were given "control" of it). Most of our reactor design and research operated around that principle. Now the French, who were never really under those sorts of restrictions, went further with commercial nuclear power than the United States has (and I predict ever will). Not only in terms of reactor designs, but also in commercial implementation and utilization. The French are a clear and excellent demonstration of how commercial nuclear power can be utilized as a safe benefit to society. But in the face of other options (such as the increasing turn towards more economical renewable tech), even the French began a slow turn away from commercial nuclear power years ago.
I am now really interested to know if there are any kinds of modifications to human behavior and/or physiology as a result of encountering this smell. I mean, without the subject being aware that what is being smelled is "human death." I don't know if that would be considered morbid, but it would be interesting to see if Humans have a subconscious recognition of that smell and its implications.
Any extraterrestrial civilization that has survived into interstellar travel is probably willing to invest a great deal of its time and energy into NOT being discovered by us. What could be more dangerous than a species that has learned some technology yet turns every technological advance into a weapon against others of its own kind? And we've been advertising that aspect of ourselves to the universe ever since we discovered radio waves.
That's only about 80 years worth of advertising. In interstellar distance, that's like posting a really really really small sign on the door of your house. Anyone who cared what the sign had to say would need to notice it first, and only then after having gotten close enough to be aware of its existence. But let us not oversell Human Civilization. I would expect that any extraterrestrial civilization that has managed to break/bypass/generally-work-around the considerable barriers to achieve practical interstellar travel would feel as threatened by us (a species that has barely managed to escape its own gravity well) as much as the pilot of a modern, tactical interceptor would feel threatened by a spear wielding tribesman. Any civilization that has managed to overcome its own destructive urges and harness the almost unthinkable energies to become an interstellar civilization is far beyond our throw weight now and into the foreseeable future.
I should think it's less a question of avoiding us, and more a question of even noticing us to begin with.
It's the one life we know exists, if we find aliens with a totally different physiology or totally different technology that's nice but we have no idea of what to look for. It's unlikely that aliens expect us to tap into their communications, if they are trying to ping us they probably do it using all possible channels. And we know at least one of them, it's unlikely a civilization that can do what he proposes hasn't invented the radio.
Exactly. Some form of the OP argument has come up ever since SETI was initiated (usually around the time funding was being discussed, and some brain trust politician asked "You guys find anything yet?"). What I think is important is the core idea around the argument, which is not: "Just because we haven't found anything, doesn't mean it's not there." The core idea is actually to avoid being caught up in the small-minded trap generated by anthropocentrism, which has as its central premise: "Using only the single method we are aware and capable of, we have not found any evidence of intelligent life. Therefore we are the only intelligent species in this galaxy."
Listen I do not know Bezos as a person, and there's got to be several (dozen) layers of buffer between him and HR. But usually (not always mind you, but usually) when Management makes one of these general announcements to escalate your concerns to HR after publicity like this, that's just a quiet way of trying to find out which muhfuhs snitched to the Press. And anyone who actually falls for the trap is made an example of to the rest of the division/company. Again, I don't know Bezos; he may have actually been honestly trying to solve the problem when he made that statement. But that doesn't mean the rest of the management/command staff is as honest and forgiving as he is.
Soylent Green is made of heavy metals, not people. Though admittedly the latter made for a better movie.
Zecharia Sitchin was right along!
"We are concerned that there are minuscule gaps in our nearly universal panopticon. Therefore we will require that all devices be accessible by duly appointed authorities. We promise that this power will never be abused."
Well, not that *one* time, but we never really talk about that so it doesn't count.
Features Discovered: (2) Krakens; (34) Fish Doin' It; (0) Sunken Cities; (1) VW Microbus
Their security is deplorable and Apple should be legally responsible for any losses people incur as a result of this!
I'm not sure if that is really funny, really sad, or some kind of crazy, Google astroturf psyop. I'm going to be safe and assume that it is simultaneously all three.
Well that's that problem solved. Everybody, that's lunch! Smoke if you got 'em.