Most of Africa's current problems are due to very bad government. When your country is run by an immoral, thieving, crazy, gangster, the general population is unlikely to succeed. It is time to stop blaming the very real ills of colonization on the today's issues. There are successful nations in Africa and they all have competent to very good governments,and rule of law.
The best thing the USA and Europe could do for the world's poor is end their farmers subsidies. It's hard to compete with products produced with vast subsidies.
The current Harper government has been in the news quite a bit lately for muzzling scientists. The Harper government seems obsessed with controlling information coming from any government agency.
Why would we even need dedicated stations except for people who want a big quick charge? I would expect charging stations to be everywhere after a while.A charging station is about the size of a parking meter, and a lot of businesses would like to make more money selling electricity to their customers. Stop for coffee, charge the car. Stop at walmart, charge the car. Stop almost anywhere, charge the car.
Or if it isn't carrying high voltage, which reduces the need for current.
I'm pretty sure you have that backwards. Stepping up the voltage reduces the current, and vice a versa. Long range transmission is done with high voltages to reduce resistive losses.
It is possible to build a reliable power grid, and it is possible to upgrade existing grids if required. Much of California's electric power problems are due to the bizarre way the electric market was half deregulated. Retail distribution was regulated, but power production was deregulated, and a semi-breakup was forced on the existing monopoly. This led to a situation where it made no economic sense to build new power generation facilities which after a few years lead to the power crisis of 2000.
Electricity is a commodity that I think makes sense to provide via a well regulate monopoly. The only way to increase profits is to cut corners which leads to reliability problems.
Providing the power required to charge electric cars will not present any technical issues.
By "radical", you mean "traditional". We westerners only consider them radical by our standards. That's perfectly normal to their standards.
Which shows why moral relativism is morally bankrupt. Some cultures are simply evil. Some cultures are actually better than others when judged on criteria like: freedom, health, education, general happiness, and equality. All cultures, ours included, should be striving to improve. Trying to justify an action by authority or tradition just doesn't hold water for any rational person.
And let's set the bar a bit higher than being better than the worst.
Of course I know what metaphysics means, and it does not mean "non-sense". (It also has no hyphen) It is the study of "what is real". It is an interesting subject, with many creative people offering up many interesting ideas. While I find metaphysics interesting, and I'm glad so many people have spent so much effort exploring the subject, most of it has little do do with everyday science or experience. I find a combination of empiricism, realism, and positivism most compelling.
If your metaphysics includes dualism, or other more offbeat beliefs, then of course you will not find my arguments for a simple relation of the brain and mind compelling. But that is because you believe in a supernatural mind, something I reject out of hand.
It is my firm opinion that any metaphysics that includes the supernatural is based on woefully wishful thinking. Such metaphysics are not compatible with science.
There is nothing supernatural. There is nothing special about human minds. Our minds, like everything else in the actual, real, universe, are a product of natural laws that we can study and will one day understand just as well as we understand gravity.
Now, I have made some strong statements here, basically dismissing whole schools of though as fuzzy and mistaken. I am eager to here your defence of a special status of the human mind.
The idea that a luminiferous aether was required to propagate light was not due to metaphysics. It was due to the belief that all waves needed a medium to propagate in. Light behaved like a wave, thus it needed a medium.
All science is done using the same metaphysics: naturalism, empiricism, and realism.
The idea that the mind is a product of the brain is based on a very large set of empirical evidence. None of this evidence is in any way metaphysical. There has been no case, ever, of a person without a brain having a mind. Physical damage to one's brain almost always causes change or damage to that person's mind.
The evidence is very strong for the mind being a product of the brain. I wouldn't call it absolute, but it is very strong.
While it is true that people are hard-wired to see agency in almost anything, it is a giant leap to then claim "magical thinking is good for you". A bit of caution when in a new situation is a good thing. To believe, fervently, fairly tales and then base your actions and morals on those fairy tales often leads to bad things. We now know enough about how the universe really works that we can discard the fairy tales of ancient history. We now have GOOD reasons to believe what we believe. We now have good reasons for our morality. A person that needs a rational reason to act is very unlikely to want to kill their neighbours for wearing the wrong clothes which is exactly the sort of thing "magical thinking" leads to.
As others have pointed out, torture generally does not lead to useful intelligence. It leads to hearing exactly what the torture victim thinks you want to hear.
The FBI is obviously working on advancing the state of the art of educing information. Effective educing generally does not include torture. A detailed examination of various techniqure is here (pdf).
If the sea bed goes up and down (vertically) a fair distance over a large area you get a big tsunami. If the sea bed move back and forth (horizontally) you don't get a big tsunami. Obviously a lot more water is displaced with an up and down movement.
The bigger problem is convicting the innocent. It is very rare for people who commit serious crimes to get off. It is much more common for the wrong person to be convicted.
The only way to stop it for good, is to destroy the industries that bright it into being. They will never stop, insane psychopathic greed drove them to seek ways to censor and shutdown the peoples version of the internet so they could create an eighties version of mass media on it instead.
Exactly. The problem is that the MPAA, RIAA, etc... have to admit that the current and future state of technology has made their business model as obsolete as a buggy whip maker. It is time to move on. It is time for copyright reform that is based on the actual behaviour of citizens, not the desires of a dying cartel.
I propose 20 year free copyright, 1 time expensive 20 year extension, well defined fair use, well defined right to copy for non-commercial use, copyright cannot be transferred to companies, except for work for hires, but stays with the artist, and a reasonable compulsory royalty rate for copying all works after the first twenty years is up.
You guys did not beat "3000 farmers" because you are too civilised to bomb the whole country into rubble, and it was a lot more than 3000 farmers.
I have no doubt that if the full might of the USA armed forces was unleashed on Afghanistan, without any civilized restraints, the war, well slaughter, would have been over in a year.
Oil based energy is easy to transport and cheap. As it gets more expensive other current technologies will become more attractive. Any number of current technologies for producing and storing electricity can replace oil based energy - they are just more expensive.
You have to keep in mind when "they" talk about population collapse and other bad thing, they mean for POOR people, not us rich 1st world people! If global warming, high oil prices, and an ever growing population lead to food shortages it isn't us rich people who will suffer, we can buy what we want; it is the poor who are now just getting by that will suffer. People living in shanty towns and mud huts will suffer. People who spend 90% of their income on food will suffer.
Google hasn't been order to do anything yet. He has only been given permission to continue his "petition". Hundreds of people are given permission to file silly lawsuits everyday. Given Japanese society's general dislike of lawsuits I doubt the guy will win.
Yes, there are lots of bad drivers, but that is a reason to drive safely, not unsafely.
I do have people cut in front of me on the highway frequently, and yes, I have to slow down momentarily to resume a safe distance. While slightly annoying, I am not going to start driving poorly simply because others do. Kind of like arguing that because my country is still more just than China I shouldn't worry about the erosion of my rights.
If you want the trip take less than a few lifetimes you wants lots of fuel, ideally enough to accelerate at 1g the whole way. That's a lot of fuel even if it is anti-matter.
My guess is that 90% of police traffic/speed enforcement has literally nothing to do with traffic safety but instead is focused on where people are speeding (underutilized highways, in good condition, etc) and how easy it is to catch them (good hiding places, good weather, etc).
Depends on where you live. while not a paradise, in my city almost all traffic policing is done for safety. Safety "blitzes" are generally advertised ahead time and target dangerous behaviours and areas. Ticket revenue goes into the provincial general revenue, not the local city, which may cut down on abuse. We had speed cameras about 30 years ago, but they got voted out as it was seen as a cash grab. We still have red-light cameras, but only at intersections with a history of higher than normal accidents. Yellow light lengths were not shortened. On our local highways you will never get a ticket for simply being 10 kmh over the limit. While I think some highways could have higher speed limits you never see artificially low limits. Changes in speed limits always have signs indicating the change well before the change.
Why is this a troll? This is basic driving 101 that any good driver knows. Besides being dangerous, speeding anywhere in the city generally only gets you to the next red light a bit sooner.
A good driver never tailgates, doesn't speed in the city, doesn't talk on the phone or eat while driving, and knows that on the highway a two second gap is the minimum safe distance.
I'm going to guess that the test to get a drivers license is bit harder in Germany than in the USA. I know the driver's test here in BC, Canada is very easy compared to many European states.
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Most of Africa's current problems are due to very bad government. When your country is run by an immoral, thieving, crazy, gangster, the general population is unlikely to succeed. It is time to stop blaming the very real ills of colonization on the today's issues. There are successful nations in Africa and they all have competent to very good governments,and rule of law.
The best thing the USA and Europe could do for the world's poor is end their farmers subsidies. It's hard to compete with products produced with vast subsidies.
The current Harper government has been in the news quite a bit lately for muzzling scientists. The Harper government seems obsessed with controlling information coming from any government agency.
Can't wait until he is turfed out.
Why would we even need dedicated stations except for people who want a big quick charge? I would expect charging stations to be everywhere after a while.A charging station is about the size of a parking meter, and a lot of businesses would like to make more money selling electricity to their customers. Stop for coffee, charge the car. Stop at walmart, charge the car. Stop almost anywhere, charge the car.
I'm pretty sure you have that backwards. Stepping up the voltage reduces the current, and vice a versa. Long range transmission is done with high voltages to reduce resistive losses.
It is possible to build a reliable power grid, and it is possible to upgrade existing grids if required. Much of California's electric power problems are due to the bizarre way the electric market was half deregulated. Retail distribution was regulated, but power production was deregulated, and a semi-breakup was forced on the existing monopoly. This led to a situation where it made no economic sense to build new power generation facilities which after a few years lead to the power crisis of 2000.
Electricity is a commodity that I think makes sense to provide via a well regulate monopoly. The only way to increase profits is to cut corners which leads to reliability problems.
Providing the power required to charge electric cars will not present any technical issues.
Which shows why moral relativism is morally bankrupt. Some cultures are simply evil. Some cultures are actually better than others when judged on criteria like: freedom, health, education, general happiness, and equality. All cultures, ours included, should be striving to improve. Trying to justify an action by authority or tradition just doesn't hold water for any rational person.
And let's set the bar a bit higher than being better than the worst.
Of course I know what metaphysics means, and it does not mean "non-sense". (It also has no hyphen) It is the study of "what is real". It is an interesting subject, with many creative people offering up many interesting ideas. While I find metaphysics interesting, and I'm glad so many people have spent so much effort exploring the subject, most of it has little do do with everyday science or experience. I find a combination of empiricism, realism, and positivism most compelling.
If your metaphysics includes dualism, or other more offbeat beliefs, then of course you will not find my arguments for a simple relation of the brain and mind compelling. But that is because you believe in a supernatural mind, something I reject out of hand.
It is my firm opinion that any metaphysics that includes the supernatural is based on woefully wishful thinking. Such metaphysics are not compatible with science.
There is nothing supernatural. There is nothing special about human minds. Our minds, like everything else in the actual, real, universe, are a product of natural laws that we can study and will one day understand just as well as we understand gravity.
Now, I have made some strong statements here, basically dismissing whole schools of though as fuzzy and mistaken. I am eager to here your defence of a special status of the human mind.
The idea that a luminiferous aether was required to propagate light was not due to metaphysics. It was due to the belief that all waves needed a medium to propagate in. Light behaved like a wave, thus it needed a medium.
All science is done using the same metaphysics: naturalism, empiricism, and realism.
The idea that the mind is a product of the brain is based on a very large set of empirical evidence. None of this evidence is in any way metaphysical. There has been no case, ever, of a person without a brain having a mind. Physical damage to one's brain almost always causes change or damage to that person's mind.
The evidence is very strong for the mind being a product of the brain. I wouldn't call it absolute, but it is very strong.
While it is true that people are hard-wired to see agency in almost anything, it is a giant leap to then claim "magical thinking is good for you". A bit of caution when in a new situation is a good thing. To believe, fervently, fairly tales and then base your actions and morals on those fairy tales often leads to bad things. We now know enough about how the universe really works that we can discard the fairy tales of ancient history. We now have GOOD reasons to believe what we believe. We now have good reasons for our morality. A person that needs a rational reason to act is very unlikely to want to kill their neighbours for wearing the wrong clothes which is exactly the sort of thing "magical thinking" leads to.
As others have pointed out, torture generally does not lead to useful intelligence. It leads to hearing exactly what the torture victim thinks you want to hear.
The FBI is obviously working on advancing the state of the art of educing information. Effective educing generally does not include torture. A detailed examination of various techniqure is here (pdf).
If the sea bed goes up and down (vertically) a fair distance over a large area you get a big tsunami. If the sea bed move back and forth (horizontally) you don't get a big tsunami. Obviously a lot more water is displaced with an up and down movement.
The bigger problem is convicting the innocent. It is very rare for people who commit serious crimes to get off. It is much more common for the wrong person to be convicted.
Exactly. The problem is that the MPAA, RIAA, etc... have to admit that the current and future state of technology has made their business model as obsolete as a buggy whip maker. It is time to move on. It is time for copyright reform that is based on the actual behaviour of citizens, not the desires of a dying cartel.
I propose 20 year free copyright, 1 time expensive 20 year extension, well defined fair use, well defined right to copy for non-commercial use, copyright cannot be transferred to companies, except for work for hires, but stays with the artist, and a reasonable compulsory royalty rate for copying all works after the first twenty years is up.
You guys did not beat "3000 farmers" because you are too civilised to bomb the whole country into rubble, and it was a lot more than 3000 farmers.
I have no doubt that if the full might of the USA armed forces was unleashed on Afghanistan, without any civilized restraints, the war, well slaughter, would have been over in a year.
This is a good thing.
Oil based energy is easy to transport and cheap. As it gets more expensive other current technologies will become more attractive. Any number of current technologies for producing and storing electricity can replace oil based energy - they are just more expensive.
You have to keep in mind when "they" talk about population collapse and other bad thing, they mean for POOR people, not us rich 1st world people! If global warming, high oil prices, and an ever growing population lead to food shortages it isn't us rich people who will suffer, we can buy what we want; it is the poor who are now just getting by that will suffer. People living in shanty towns and mud huts will suffer. People who spend 90% of their income on food will suffer.
We'll have to cut back on lattes.
Google hasn't been order to do anything yet. He has only been given permission to continue his "petition". Hundreds of people are given permission to file silly lawsuits everyday. Given Japanese society's general dislike of lawsuits I doubt the guy will win.
That is so ignorant I laughed out loud when I read it.
Yes, there are lots of bad drivers, but that is a reason to drive safely, not unsafely.
I do have people cut in front of me on the highway frequently, and yes, I have to slow down momentarily to resume a safe distance. While slightly annoying, I am not going to start driving poorly simply because others do. Kind of like arguing that because my country is still more just than China I shouldn't worry about the erosion of my rights.
If you want the trip take less than a few lifetimes you wants lots of fuel, ideally enough to accelerate at 1g the whole way. That's a lot of fuel even if it is anti-matter.
Depends on where you live. while not a paradise, in my city almost all traffic policing is done for safety. Safety "blitzes" are generally advertised ahead time and target dangerous behaviours and areas. Ticket revenue goes into the provincial general revenue, not the local city, which may cut down on abuse. We had speed cameras about 30 years ago, but they got voted out as it was seen as a cash grab. We still have red-light cameras, but only at intersections with a history of higher than normal accidents. Yellow light lengths were not shortened. On our local highways you will never get a ticket for simply being 10 kmh over the limit. While I think some highways could have higher speed limits you never see artificially low limits. Changes in speed limits always have signs indicating the change well before the change.
Why is this a troll? This is basic driving 101 that any good driver knows. Besides being dangerous, speeding anywhere in the city generally only gets you to the next red light a bit sooner.
A good driver never tailgates, doesn't speed in the city, doesn't talk on the phone or eat while driving, and knows that on the highway a two second gap is the minimum safe distance.
I'm going to guess that the test to get a drivers license is bit harder in Germany than in the USA. I know the driver's test here in BC, Canada is very easy compared to many European states.
What is wrong is that it is wrong.
And generally, a corrupt process is not the best process for either cost or quality.