Why shouldn't we allow the creation of a specialized subset of super humans? Besides exercises in due caution, why should be be so adamant in preventing human self-evolution?
If the human species evolves, even by choice, then the new species is by definition no longer human.
Hi, I'm your boss. Here is a bottle of pills to improve your productivity. Take one a day from now on or you're fired. You don't want to? Why should the economy be held back merely so you can have a job?
I'm a coffee addict. I'll freely admit that, and I probably need it to do my job. I like coffee, but I shouldn't be drinking so much, and in the long run it is probably damaging my health.
And coffee is the perfect example showing why other performance enhancing drugs need to be stopped. I don't want to have to take another drug, which may damage my health in the long run, just because expectations were raised by everyone else taking the same drug.
We're not talking about the outliers, we're talking about the average case. Assistant professors, with a very few exceptions, are basically fungible.
Performance enhancing drugs are a classic example of prisoner's dilemma. Someone who takes them is at an advantage, so everyone else can either accept their disadvantage or also take the drugs. The only way out is to ban everyone from taking them.
I'm not so sure we all gain. How about if your boss came to you with a bottle of pills and said, take one daily or you're fired? Would you agree on the basis that the economy will benefit from your increased productivity?
You aren't going to come to any sudden insight you would not otherwise have reached, but it might help you get there faster
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you don't work in modern academia. It's all about quantity. Ideally it's about both quantity and quality, but the only people who can get away with just quality are the very senior professors who already have tenure, who can't get promoted any further, and who are already in the senior ranks of all the academic societies (fellow of the IEEE, etc.). So the idea that a drug would keep your quality the same, while improving your quantity, is incredibly tempting (not to mention making the quantity vs. quality problem worse).
So you would prefer to wait several years for a study to demonstrate that performance enhancing drugs improve performance, and until then there's nothing to worry about.
Also, if there's nothing to worry about, why are large numbers of ostensibly smart scientists spending lots of money (not to mention breaking the law) to do something that doesn't improve performance? According to you, are they all experiencing the placebo effect?
This isn't athletics. The point isn't fairness. The point is advancing the science. I have serious doubts that these drugs are actually helping anybody do research who didn't already have some kind of problem, but it's none of our damn business, either.
It's a problem for the exact same reason it's a problem in sports. Drug abusers are setting the standards for achievement artificially high, so that we may get to the point where one has no choice but to abuse the same drugs in order to get a job. As a scientist myself I find that incredibly disturbing. And it's not as though scientific output was lacking before.
I'm just scarred for life, because my car as a teenager was a Chevrolet Sprint, with a 1.0L 3-cylinder gasoline engine under the hood. It wasn't powerful, fast, or cool in any way, but man was it ever fuel efficient.
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With a 3-cylinder engine, you could pretty much stop it with your outstretched arm.
I wouldn't be surprised if, in the specific case of the iPhone, Apple is perfectly happy to let the hackers hack.
I was at a seminar given by reps from RIM, the Blackberry maker. The guy -- fairly senior -- said there are features that they would love to include on their Blackberrys (blackberries?), which the customers want, but the carriers won't allow them to provide those features because they want to offer their own services and charge customers high rates for them. So, by analogy to RIM, Apple probably needs to provide a veneer of protection to keep its contract with the carrier, but is quite happy when somebody hacks their phone, as it helps them to sell more phones.
I read the website to which you linked, and I was following along and kind of agreeing until the author says:
The problem with his argument is that his understanding of information theory and communications is pre-Shannon - when we begin measuring the utility of the spectrum in terms of its information capacity and options to connect, rather than the number of frequency channels, the scarcity argument does not apply.
This statement is bizarre to me because, according to Shannon, information capacity is directly proportional to bandwidth. So it seems like the scarcity in bandwidth also exists in information capacity. Care to comment?
Yes, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, one of Europe's most prestigious engineering schools, is just another security firm trying to glom on some attention for itself. Also, if you had read the article, you would have read the following:
... the study proved to be such a glowing affirmation of Microsoft's increased focus on security in the past few years that it prompted Cushman to ask Frei, "Did Microsoft fund this research?"
"This is independent academic research," Frei replied.
It's like joining a club where you pay your way and get benefits, but non-members get those same benefits for nothing. So I'm not seeing the incentive for joining the club.
An organization that "eliminates" a few positions is then wealthier, which then makes it more likely to increase its product base, thereby creating more positions.
I generally agree, but it's not obvious that the new positions will be in programming. In fact it's kind of unlikely, if the company is getting its code for free from somewhere else.
Analogy: if universities start sharing research, there will be less research that needs to be done in-house.
Your analogy is flawed, because universities do not consume the research that they produce, and they are (usually) not expected to make a profit.
Also, it says right in the summary that "billions of dollars" are wasted on duplication. One obvious way to save that waste is to fire programmers and freeload off of the code of others. I can't think of a good reason to believe that the distribution of the savings will be equitable.
MacOS is evidence of this principle: Apple understands that people relate to the computer not through the kernel but through the UI, and they put a lot of time and effort into creating a slick UI. Indeed, the UI is the reason most people switch from Windows to Mac, in spite of the learning curve. The reason for switching is not the fancy BSD kernel, for most people.
"Gas" here is in the physical state sense, not the fuel sense.
They're using a gas turbine to generate electricity. A gas turbine is basically a jet engine, where the exhaust gases are collected and redirected to perform useful work (in this case, to turn a fan connected to the rotor in a generator). The gas generator is part of this assembly, and generates the huge volumes of gas needed to turn the fan.
Parent was correct -- 1000 gallons is roughly 4000 litres (the amount specified in the summary).
To put this into perspective, the fuel capacity of the Boeing 737 is between 4700 and 7800 gallons (18000 to 30000 liters), depending on the model. So compared to the 737's range, you'd burn around 4000 litres flying from, let's say, Los Angeles to Denver.
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It is possible to be coerced by the structure of the problem. See "prisoner's dilemma".
Why shouldn't we allow the creation of a specialized subset of super humans? Besides exercises in due caution, why should be be so adamant in preventing human self-evolution?
If the human species evolves, even by choice, then the new species is by definition no longer human.
Hi, I'm your boss. Here is a bottle of pills to improve your productivity. Take one a day from now on or you're fired. You don't want to? Why should the economy be held back merely so you can have a job?
I'm a coffee addict. I'll freely admit that, and I probably need it to do my job. I like coffee, but I shouldn't be drinking so much, and in the long run it is probably damaging my health.
And coffee is the perfect example showing why other performance enhancing drugs need to be stopped. I don't want to have to take another drug, which may damage my health in the long run, just because expectations were raised by everyone else taking the same drug.
We're not talking about the outliers, we're talking about the average case. Assistant professors, with a very few exceptions, are basically fungible.
Performance enhancing drugs are a classic example of prisoner's dilemma. Someone who takes them is at an advantage, so everyone else can either accept their disadvantage or also take the drugs. The only way out is to ban everyone from taking them.
I'm not so sure we all gain. How about if your boss came to you with a bottle of pills and said, take one daily or you're fired? Would you agree on the basis that the economy will benefit from your increased productivity?
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you don't work in modern academia. It's all about quantity. Ideally it's about both quantity and quality, but the only people who can get away with just quality are the very senior professors who already have tenure, who can't get promoted any further, and who are already in the senior ranks of all the academic societies (fellow of the IEEE, etc.). So the idea that a drug would keep your quality the same, while improving your quantity, is incredibly tempting (not to mention making the quantity vs. quality problem worse).
So you would prefer to wait several years for a study to demonstrate that performance enhancing drugs improve performance, and until then there's nothing to worry about.
Also, if there's nothing to worry about, why are large numbers of ostensibly smart scientists spending lots of money (not to mention breaking the law) to do something that doesn't improve performance? According to you, are they all experiencing the placebo effect?
I'm just scarred for life, because my car as a teenager was a Chevrolet Sprint, with a 1.0L 3-cylinder gasoline engine under the hood. It wasn't powerful, fast, or cool in any way, but man was it ever fuel efficient.
With a 3-cylinder engine, you could pretty much stop it with your outstretched arm.
That book was great the first time I read it, when it was called A Canticle for Leibowitz.
I wouldn't be surprised if, in the specific case of the iPhone, Apple is perfectly happy to let the hackers hack.
I was at a seminar given by reps from RIM, the Blackberry maker. The guy -- fairly senior -- said there are features that they would love to include on their Blackberrys (blackberries?), which the customers want, but the carriers won't allow them to provide those features because they want to offer their own services and charge customers high rates for them. So, by analogy to RIM, Apple probably needs to provide a veneer of protection to keep its contract with the carrier, but is quite happy when somebody hacks their phone, as it helps them to sell more phones.
This statement is bizarre to me because, according to Shannon, information capacity is directly proportional to bandwidth. So it seems like the scarcity in bandwidth also exists in information capacity. Care to comment?
It's like joining a club where you pay your way and get benefits, but non-members get those same benefits for nothing. So I'm not seeing the incentive for joining the club.
I generally agree, but it's not obvious that the new positions will be in programming. In fact it's kind of unlikely, if the company is getting its code for free from somewhere else.
Your analogy is flawed, because universities do not consume the research that they produce, and they are (usually) not expected to make a profit.
Also, it says right in the summary that "billions of dollars" are wasted on duplication. One obvious way to save that waste is to fire programmers and freeload off of the code of others. I can't think of a good reason to believe that the distribution of the savings will be equitable.
"Is that an aibo? Man, I haven't seen one of those since ..." BLAM!
That was easy.
http://www.digra.org:8080/Plone/dl/db/06278.36196.pdf
(It's an earlier version of the work.)
MacOS is evidence of this principle: Apple understands that people relate to the computer not through the kernel but through the UI, and they put a lot of time and effort into creating a slick UI. Indeed, the UI is the reason most people switch from Windows to Mac, in spite of the learning curve. The reason for switching is not the fancy BSD kernel, for most people.
Oh don't you worry, Sunnis know all about the Shia! Remember this?
Wouldn't any planet not our own be an alien planet?
Not if we're the lost 13th colony.
"Gas" here is in the physical state sense, not the fuel sense.
They're using a gas turbine to generate electricity. A gas turbine is basically a jet engine, where the exhaust gases are collected and redirected to perform useful work (in this case, to turn a fan connected to the rotor in a generator). The gas generator is part of this assembly, and generates the huge volumes of gas needed to turn the fan.
Parent was correct -- 1000 gallons is roughly 4000 litres (the amount specified in the summary).
To put this into perspective, the fuel capacity of the Boeing 737 is between 4700 and 7800 gallons (18000 to 30000 liters), depending on the model. So compared to the 737's range, you'd burn around 4000 litres flying from, let's say, Los Angeles to Denver.