So stop playing "He started it." If you take issue with the mistreatment of human beings, do something about it, but don't act like just because its pretty minimized in your country that its not worth discussing.
You make a hell of a lot of assumptions here. I do take issue with a lot of things, even when it means I get blasted. And not just on slashdot. And I do take actions that are, at the very least very controversial.
Tell me, do you think the people of the US would live in relative safety without spionage, the army and the fbi ? There are too many places in my country where they don't. A certain mob is attacking a woman who drove into a person while he was stealing her purse (she was behind the wheel). He fell, broke his neck, and died. Right now she's basically being hunted down. Obviously the kid had done nothing wrong, according to said mob.
But let me tell you something about those "hundreds of millions" living in other first world nations. If you mean Europe, I'd think again, come over and take a closer look. Because what you're saying most certainly isn't the whole truth.
It gets worse. Suppose we create a robot that is truly smarter & better than us... then what happens.
Well, Charles Darwin had a certain opinion about that didn't he ? And oh, whether it involves war, like in the movies, or merely... "being outcompeted for resources" (starving)... personally I'd prefer war. It hurts but at least it's interesting. The end result is the same either way.
And to the people who think the matrix is "realistic" : the human body cannot function like a battery in any serious capacity. If "the matrix" happens we will get killed to the last man, not inserted into some magical world where we have superpowers. Furthermore... to create something like those sentinels you're going to need a hell of a battery (and that won't be human based since it won't fit).
In evolution the only thing that matters is to keep the genes going. By killing, or by collaborating or by whatever that works. And nature will not change to reflect your desires and moral issues. Nature is ruthless and unforgiving.
This is wrong. Nature is neither ruthless nor unforgiving. Nevertheless evolution claims it should be. As should be clear from even a basic look around, it is not.
If you disagree please explain how human notions of equal treatment could ever have evolved. The answer is they couldn't. And yet they have. Oops.
About humans... well we got where we are because we were more efficient killers than all the others who competed with us. So it's a little hard to change that.
Again this is what evolution claims. Yet the opposite seems true. The muslims (their prophet's last "orders" were to eradicate all other faiths, these words started a war that would claim over 300 million victims) were ten times as violent as the western europeans they attacked. And they got defeated. In fact they got very badly hammered dozens of times. Nearly always by far inferior numbers (in some instances they had a numerical advantage 200-to-1.
Yet nature (to put it more politely : logistical problems, mostly caused by their treatment of the local population) invariably devastated their armies, when their advance was halted for even a week, their armies crumbled.
Make it that killing makes one far less successful (by negating the possibility to have offspring for killers) and you will see that the killing traits will be less and less prevalent in the population with enough time.
This is why many european nations have introduced conjugal visits for hard time prison inmates. In the netherlands, they can even get hookers. Apparently this is really progressive.
Why don't we ever see comments like yours in the cuba "sneakernet" article ? Or where they point out that radios in north korea can only receive one station ? Or the random arrests in kuwait ? Or the killing of aids patients by the police in egypt ? Or the banning of 128k+ internet speeds as being un-islamic in iran ? About the decision of the oic to not respect human rights in any of their countries (only turkey voted against btw, not that they respect human rights...) ?
One wonders... actually I don't. You just only pick on guys that are guaranteed never to say anything back or hurt you. You are a coward, "making a stand" without risk.
What you're doing is not brave, it's not revolutionary, and it's not even moral at all. It's cowardice.
Look... we understand that you can only have a democratic "lunatic left" ideology if you believe cuba is perfect. Cubans risk their lives to get out of the country... lots and lots of them do.
But no everyone knows mass-extinctions are the result of Bush's refusal to sign... what was the name of the accord signed by all those thousands of private jets that descended upon Bali again ?
Remember, this is slashdot. Political correctness is required. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT state that the Iranian government is an islamic theocracy and is doing exactly what it's religion is asking.
Despite every member of that government stating that this is islam, ie. censorship, gay executions, repression ("islam" in arabic), all are essential tools for living the islamic religion. Ie. doing censorship, genocide on gays, starting wars etc is obviously all part of being a muslim (muslims disagree, allah, however does not (e.g. kuran 2:216), then again allah also says muslims should lie about this)
In short, state censorship, despite being a central tenet of islam, which is long implemented by this islamic government, with islamic punishments for dissent (ie. death), remember all these constant violations of human rights, and basic decency...... obviously has NOTHING AT ALL to do with islam.
(so speak the gods of political correctness, ensuring more people die needlessly every day)
* if you need an excuse, this is all bush's fault, and obviously certainly NOT of the appeasement tactics of the democrat president "carter" in the 70's
Are you crazy? The only thing about evolution is that the ones who have successful offspring are the winners. No killing necessary at all. Your offspring is sterile, or can't have more offspring, you lose. And that's all.
And what exactly does having offspring do, in a situation with limited resources ? (it doesn't matter how much resources, having offspring will obviously make them run out, even if only eventually)
Let's say you have 10 people. You can grow food for 15 people. You have food stores for 50 people for 2 years (or 25 people 4 years...). Each couple has 4 kids. What will happen ? (note that this is how evolution works : competition for resources, either active killing is involved, like the beuk does, or passive killing is involved (by depriving others of the means to live))
Otherwise successful vegetables would be killers. And vegetables evolve too.
Ever been to a "beuk" forest ? Those are some serious mass-murdering trees (in these type of forests there is exactly 1 large plant... the beuk. This is because the plant poisons the soil, not allowing any other plants to grow, as a result you get a very organised, open forest that grew naturally)
There are lots of successfull plants that are killers. And all plants are passive killers, they *will* steal resources from eachother, completely disregarding any green party notions of fairness or diversity.
In fact evolutionary speaking poor people are far more successful, simply because they breed more. And I don't see any killing involved there.
You should look at crime stats. Killings, and theft (which is depriving others of resources, in other words passive killing), are seriously overrepresented among... well not the poor, even though you're close.
No there is another way to kill of aids. You hint at it, but don't follow to conclusion. Just infect everybody
Surely this likewise calls for a massive police state? Then again, I suppose you consider this a more effective approach because it does not require the police state to be free of corruption?
As I said, no it doesn't. If the corrupt skip themselves, it won't matter. In short : this tactic will kick in once a certain number of humans is infected. And if the corrupt follow through by fucking a few people from a massively infected population they will get infected as well. In short, the pool of uninfected humans will shrink terminally once a certain number of infections is passed. After which evolution will kill off aids completely. This has already happened (though obviously not deliberately) in the history of the human race dozens of times with dozens of illnesses. Infecting a large number of humans with a disease, while it kills a number of those infected, kills off the disease forever, without killing off the human population. Isn't nature grand ?
But if you leave us vulnerable to aids, and attempt to kill off the virus, obviously a single host left (and some of these people who are untouchable in corrupt states are hosts) would kill the entire effort. Just like today the entire polio eradication effort is at risk from a few (only about 20 or so) imams in Somalia and egypt and their message that vaccinations cause impotency or something like that. And I believe there are a few pakistani imams too that are posing problems.
As a result of these hosts remaining... maybe 4000-5000 children (absolutely the maximum, probably not even 500 children total), the entire belt from somalia to india is liable to experience a massive polio relapse at a moment's notice. Obviously, the WHO is not ready for this to happen. In short : a few people refuse to cooperate and *boom*. Big problem. Your solution has the same problem.
And your aids isolation program will have the same problem. A single, or a few hosts left create a massive risk for a relapse with epidemic proportions.
I'm not saying "let's do this". I'm just saying it would work. I'm fully aware of the moral problems with this approach. It is, however, the ONLY one that we currently know will work. The longer we keep aids at bay with medications, the longer evolution will fight on the side of AIDS. If we at the very least simply stop treating the patients (outside of giving pain medication obviously), evolution will start to fight on our side. It's just the way things work.
I bet every single one of you claims to believe in evolution, and reject this idea as prepostrous. Obviously you can either have both, or neither. If evolution is correct, this will work. If this doesn't work, evolution is wrong. This type of situations is the real reason people like the pope reject evolution. They do not believe God would kill massive numbers of random people to make humans better. Obviously, believers in evolution do (and they'll probably call "God" something else, I've heard them call it DNA, or simply call it evolution. But all these names are equally non-corporial theories, so you might as well go with "God" imho). In short I really dislike the theory of evolution because it paints massive death and massive killing as a positive force. It utterly disgusts me. Not because of anything any book says, but because it predicts that in the end you're either a killer (active or passive) or a dead man, that the only choice you have is who to kill (and you can choose yourself if you want, but the choice is "who" and not "whether") and I'm certainly not ready to accept that. Yet I don't reject evolution. I just wish that it simply doesn't apply to humans for some reason (like a God interfering for example, or because we learn to migrate to other planets and solar systems, or control our own dna, or... that humans are better than this in some way).
Let's also not forget that a *single* person (male or female) who doesn't think much of the consequences of him/her having sex that is infected will be a fatal blow to your "cure". You cannot reliably prevent infections without a massive, completely non-corrupt police state. In other words : it can't be done in america, and it can't be done in any of the police states either (they're too corrupt for this to work).
In other words... your "cure" doesn't stand a chance in the real world. You *are* going to miss infected people and they *are* going to infect others, which will immediately kill any effects you may have accomplished, since you're not testing everyone for infection.
Even if you tested everyone, and kill any positive match, you'd simply select yourself an aidsvirus that doesn't register on the test.
No there is another way to kill of aids. You hint at it, but don't follow to conclusion. Just infect everybody (or simply enough, any serious percentage of infections will probably cause the same result, say 10% of people, geographically spread and random) and let nature take it's course. In short, unleash the full power of the genetic algorithm that builds human bodies upon the problem of "aids". After that is done it will no longer be possible to infect anyone, and humanity itself will be selected out for immunity to aids. *That's* the way to change dna. Once this initial action is taken, every malicious person (or normal person) will simply help the cure to arrive faster by lowering even further the vulnerable pool of humans.
*And* if this fails, humanity would have lost the battle with aids anyway in the long run.
Of course that only works if you accept the massive casualties it will cause (still probably less massive than letting aids exist, but 10% of the deaths that would normally occur over 1000's of years, compressed into 1 year will still seem like a 10000% rise in the number of deaths). But it will drop of *very* quickly after an initial wave.
*sigh* he's saying that this is one thing we might change on the program. A patch for the human code, say.
We only have a small problem... the program is stored in a few trillion copies (all of which need to be changed), of extremely complex molecules (which we can't reliable modify (we can't even reliably read them) even when we have only 1 outside of the body).
Let's say it's this way. We have a patch for a flaw in your windows. Except it's on paper. And the computers won't boot until the patch is applied, so we need to take out the hard drive and *manually* change the bits on it. We have an electron microscope that *sometimes* has been used to change some random bits on the harddrive, which has once or twice resulted in a "mostly" correct change. Oh yes, and we have a billion computers, all of which still need to be operational after the change.
That's where we are. We know what to change (or so we hope), it's just... "a bit" hard to get to the bits.
Are you suggesting that the italian justice system has no way to hurt wikipedia's (by suing it's contributors for example) ?
If so, you are sadly mistaken. Also they can sue, and if damages are awarded, they can ask america (or no matter what country actually) to extract those damages from wikipedia. Certainly if wikipedia just ignores the trial, this will not be a hard thing.
Not paying after a court order is an offence in every single country that exists. And yes, this is supposing the amount is big enough (I believe there's a 5000 euro or so minimum until these accords can be called into action). If an italian court awards 1 million in damages, wikipedia is screwed.
Welcome to the real world. You cannot just run afoul of countries' laws and expect borders to protect you. It just cannot work that way if you want to have international trade.
I have to disagree. Rome died because of unchecked immigration, not because of lack of energy (they're all good people right ? 10 years later "Oh hmmm I thought Rome was here"), and because of a refusal to defend itself from agressors.
It was not followed by the countries you mention but by "darkness" ie. people who didn't care to write down their history, but lived more in denial of their own history, and what happened isn't clear. 200 years later however the Franks (not the french) were the first to restore order and the rule of law. The greatest desire of basically everyone on the European continent was recreating the Roman empire.
After Rome refused to defend itself, life expectancy of europeans dropped from about 65 years to below 30, and remained below 40 for 1000 years.
Rome's demise had nothing to do with a lack of energy, or even a lack of ability to defend itself. It was conquered because it allowed massive immigration to occur, and presumed these "vandals" (the name had no negative connotations at the time, it was just a name like "the French" is today) would peacefully compete in the existing economic system. They couldn't imagine that people who regularly killed their own children might... lie. In short Rome fell, because of the same reason poland fell so easy to germany in 1939 : hitler said "I want peace", and they forced their military to retreat "to avoid a war". After the war it became clear that the order to invade poland was given 8,5 hours before hitler declared to want peace with poland if only they would retreat. Oops. In fact the german troops had started to move before this "peace" speech was delivered.
If you're wondering why people went along with hitler, it has to do with 1) hitler being extreme-left 2) the rest of europe WANTING to be extreme-left. Hitler was the man that would make every human equal, instead of there being "poor" and "rich" people. It was VERY politically incorrect to go against him until 1941 (which is why it created such a big fuss in England). Obviously the nazis immediately started to kill off people, and mainly their supporters.
The invaders of Rome started on a killing spree to steal the Roman richess (and eachother's richess) and didn't stop killing for over 150 years. Few parts of Europe were spared from these wars. Lots of people, totally dependant on Rome for their own food, started stealing, looting the Roman infrastructure, which, obviously, immediately failed to provide food and sustinence for the locals. In less than 10 years they killed of their main source of food, and instead of stopping and rebuildling they kept killing and killing some more. Every conquest allowed their army to survive maybe 2-3 years, and so after a year they had to attack again. They did not rebuild (kind of like the muslim wars in north africa). Soon they only had eachother to kill though, and so massive numbers of people were lost, a majority of the victims were part of the invading force, and not of the romans.
(much like one of their contemporaries did, except this guy called it a religion)
What he really means is that newtonian physics are completely against his ideology (postmodernism) and therefore must be wrong.
FOR NOW it hasn't been proven that quantummechanics doesn't allow postmodern thought, although it HAS been proven that it's "limit" (ie. when we're not talking about trillionths of a second but about tenths) that it does indeed not allow the many-worlds view of the postmodernists.
This is a necessity to allow for the magic thinking that is required for postmodern interpretations of... well anything. "Every truth is equal". At first glance quantum mechanics allows this, while newtonian physics does not.
This is obviously the real issue Einstein was referring to with his famous "God does not play dice".
Then again, to anyone with an ounce of sense it is clear that the postmodern interpretation of science is bullshit in the extreme. In fact it's worse. Science cannot co-exist with postmodernism, because it's basic premises are the exact reverse :
-> postmodernism : there is more than one truth (and so my truth is a valid one, and taken in the extreme : an electron will move however I think it moves) -> science : there is a singular truth for everyone, and everything (ie. an electron behaves the same, whatever my theory about it's movement)
The problem is that many, many other ideas are absolutely dependant on postmodernism. Multiculturalism, for obvious reasons, is utterly dependant on this (wrong) interpretation. As is anything more atheist than agnosticism.
The real scientific way of thinking about the world is simple : there is one, singular set of laws that define the absolute, unchanging truth. These are completely dogmatic, and utterly independent of any human. There can be no votes about the truth, there can be no changing the truth, it is absolute. AND (and this is where a lot of "radical" people go wrong) we DO NOT know this truth (but we know a hell of a lot about it, and we know a hell of a lot of truths that certainly aren't correct).
Obviously this means that the universe itself has what could be called a "state religion". You'll get your ass kicked, by the proverbial God(s) themselves, unless your ideology/religion matches certain absolute truths.
That's because he's a populist. He cannot be for or against any point any of his supporters make. Or his support would crack in two, two sides demanding he agrees with them.
Except... we don't have the energy for doing that. Solar, wind cannot provide it. Nuclear could maybe provide it for a few dozen years, but not indefineately. Fusion could provide it, but is an unsolved problem...
That's the sad truth behind it all : we have nuclear power that could help out for, say, 50 years. Perhaps solar and wind can extend that 50 years to 75 or maybe even 100 years. If, by then, we don't have either trivial access to space to place solar panels in space or have fusion power, then it's over. If we don't start building nuclear plants now, in that case, it's over.
"It's over" means, in case anyone really wants to know this : wars until 95% of the population is dead, then back to the farm (no you do not get to skip the first phase), with no medical care, no unemployment (in fact making a stupid mistake will result in starvation),... in other words, back to the middle ages.
Really ? I'd say the Iranian revolution was an example of the terrorists winning. Please explain to me how the Shah did the terrorist's work for them ? For it seems to me that "socialist" or "progressives" (as in communists who like to point out they're not communists) did the terrorist's work for them.
Not the state. Not the party in power. Populist politicians, who stood for nothing except that they wanted to gain power, did the terrorist's work for them, they did this by adopting extreme-left ideology.
And then they found that fighting against people who won't shoot back (the police force, the army,...) is *slightly* different from fighting people who just cause the maximum number of death around them, without regard for the consequences, even for themselves. In short it's like "kicking the marines out", except it was immediately followed by a terrorist attack. Needless to say, all progressives and socialists caved at the first (or second) shot, and were killed anyway.
Problems do NOT go away when ignored. Certainly "problems" who are just interested in causing as much death as possible will not go away.
If you mean that we must attack the ideology and not play catch-and-release with mass murderers then I fully agree with you. Anybody who believe suicide terrorism is a good thing will not receive any pity from me. As long as we allow them to indoctrinate kids with hate, it will not stop. That doesn't mean we have to kill freedom of religion, but it *does* mean that we have basic demands a religion must follow, and *concrete* consequences for any member of any religion that doesn't follow these demands. And obviously, we need to stop making the idiotic differences between ideologies and religions. There is no real difference between totalitarian "secular" ideologies and some religions.
And I believe those basic demands should be human rights. Any religion/ideology that doesn't advocate these gets article 30 UNHR invoked on it's members.
However, you should make no mistake. The terrorists, they are cowards. Worse, they are the ultimate cowards. It will be done. They will use whatever means they have to hurt people, and they'll keep doing it. It's about purity, you see. And we (you & me & 5 billion others) are the ultimate impurity : we are people who prove their ideology of superiority wrong. They call us "the great satan". And we are, to their ideology. It cannot coexist with us. Not now, not ever.
But first things first. We should stop listen to their idiotic "you are just like us" speach. We're not.
Note that this will happen whether or not America will have "killer robots". Obviously terrorists will use robots, they have already used RC-cars, so as soon as a reliably walking-navigation algorithm is available... boom.
Ever thought just how easy a making walking burqa bomb should be ? Nobody recognizes the robot, nobody dares take off the robe, for fear of being called racist (and sued, I presume). And then - boom.
Same with veils obviously, especially the way muslims use it, would make it trivial to hide a robot beneath them, or at least, make the problem several magnitudes simpler. You don't have to simulate anything except a basic face, which doesn't have to move at all. As a bonus, nobody dares touch them for fear of reprisals, even some police don't dare to do so.
By contrast the way Jews use veils doesn't make the problem of hiding a robot beneath any simpler at all.
What I want to say ? Euhm I don't know. Perhaps this : don't allow any style of clothes that can render anyone unrecognizeable on the streets (ie. I'd also be in favor of limiting makeup to 2 pounds per woman per day:-p)
Think it can't be done ? Check this out. A bit smoother movement and it's all over.
While I (obviously) respect your opinion, this post just looks like a bunch of excuses. Each of them is trivially wrong, and I don't believe that you don't know this.
Would the cost of books go down - yes, and with it the rewards for authors, which would kill the amount of new books being written VERY fast Will books go away ? - no, but they'll just be political or have another clear secondary objective (e.g. they might be religious), since rewarding the author for good research will no longer be a consideration "Author's edition" - you're kidding, right ? Star Trek example - "it was a lot, but not enough", if it wasn't enough, it might as well have not been raised in the first place Budgets go down, but what about venture capital - venture capital is getting your budget for 2-5 years available now, at a large intrest rate
There was never an "industry" for things like books and recorded music for most of history, yet music and writing have existed for thousands of years. Cavemen painted on the walls of their caves. Nobody paid them, but it was still done.
Frankly, I think music in general would be a lot better if there weren't a bunch of corporations making widgets out of it.
Let's keep in mind that in 90% of that period 50 books PER COUNTRY was a lot of books.
You really want to recreate that situation ? If books and arts have no value, they will disappear. Sad, but true.
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So stop playing "He started it." If you take issue with the mistreatment of human beings, do something about it, but don't act like just because its pretty minimized in your country that its not worth discussing.
You make a hell of a lot of assumptions here. I do take issue with a lot of things, even when it means I get blasted. And not just on slashdot. And I do take actions that are, at the very least very controversial.
Tell me, do you think the people of the US would live in relative safety without spionage, the army and the fbi ? There are too many places in my country where they don't. A certain mob is attacking a woman who drove into a person while he was stealing her purse (she was behind the wheel). He fell, broke his neck, and died. Right now she's basically being hunted down. Obviously the kid had done nothing wrong, according to said mob.
But let me tell you something about those "hundreds of millions" living in other first world nations. If you mean Europe, I'd think again, come over and take a closer look. Because what you're saying most certainly isn't the whole truth.
It gets worse. Suppose we create a robot that is truly smarter & better than us ... then what happens.
... "being outcompeted for resources" (starving) ... personally I'd prefer war. It hurts but at least it's interesting. The end result is the same either way.
... to create something like those sentinels you're going to need a hell of a battery (and that won't be human based since it won't fit).
Well, Charles Darwin had a certain opinion about that didn't he ? And oh, whether it involves war, like in the movies, or merely
And to the people who think the matrix is "realistic" : the human body cannot function like a battery in any serious capacity. If "the matrix" happens we will get killed to the last man, not inserted into some magical world where we have superpowers. Furthermore
In evolution the only thing that matters is to keep the genes going. By killing, or by collaborating or by whatever that works. And nature will not change to reflect your desires and moral issues. Nature is ruthless and unforgiving.
This is wrong. Nature is neither ruthless nor unforgiving. Nevertheless evolution claims it should be. As should be clear from even a basic look around, it is not.
If you disagree please explain how human notions of equal treatment could ever have evolved. The answer is they couldn't. And yet they have. Oops.
About humans... well we got where we are because we were more efficient killers than all the others who competed with us. So it's a little hard to change that.
Again this is what evolution claims. Yet the opposite seems true. The muslims (their prophet's last "orders" were to eradicate all other faiths, these words started a war that would claim over 300 million victims) were ten times as violent as the western europeans they attacked. And they got defeated. In fact they got very badly hammered dozens of times. Nearly always by far inferior numbers (in some instances they had a numerical advantage 200-to-1.
Yet nature (to put it more politely : logistical problems, mostly caused by their treatment of the local population) invariably devastated their armies, when their advance was halted for even a week, their armies crumbled.
Make it that killing makes one far less successful (by negating the possibility to have offspring for killers) and you will see that the killing traits will be less and less prevalent in the population with enough time.
This is why many european nations have introduced conjugal visits for hard time prison inmates. In the netherlands, they can even get hookers. Apparently this is really progressive.
Why don't we ever see comments like yours in the cuba "sneakernet" article ? Or where they point out that radios in north korea can only receive one station ? Or the random arrests in kuwait ? Or the killing of aids patients by the police in egypt ? Or the banning of 128k+ internet speeds as being un-islamic in iran ? About the decision of the oic to not respect human rights in any of their countries (only turkey voted against btw, not that they respect human rights ...) ?
... actually I don't. You just only pick on guys that are guaranteed never to say anything back or hurt you. You are a coward, "making a stand" without risk.
One wonders
What you're doing is not brave, it's not revolutionary, and it's not even moral at all. It's cowardice.
Look ... we understand that you can only have a democratic "lunatic left" ideology if you believe cuba is perfect. Cubans risk their lives to get out of the country ... lots and lots of them do.
What more do you really need to know ?
But no everyone knows mass-extinctions are the result of Bush's refusal to sign ... what was the name of the accord signed by all those thousands of private jets that descended upon Bali again ?
Remember, this is slashdot. Political correctness is required. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT state that the Iranian government is an islamic theocracy and is doing exactly what it's religion is asking.
... ... obviously has NOTHING AT ALL to do with islam.
Despite every member of that government stating that this is islam, ie. censorship, gay executions, repression ("islam" in arabic), all are essential tools for living the islamic religion. Ie. doing censorship, genocide on gays, starting wars etc is obviously all part of being a muslim (muslims disagree, allah, however does not (e.g. kuran 2:216), then again allah also says muslims should lie about this)
In short, state censorship, despite being a central tenet of islam, which is long implemented by this islamic government, with islamic punishments for dissent (ie. death), remember all these constant violations of human rights, and basic decency
(so speak the gods of political correctness, ensuring more people die needlessly every day)
* if you need an excuse, this is all bush's fault, and obviously certainly NOT of the appeasement tactics of the democrat president "carter" in the 70's
Are you crazy? The only thing about evolution is that the ones who have successful offspring are the winners. No killing necessary at all. Your offspring is sterile, or can't have more offspring, you lose. And that's all.
...). Each couple has 4 kids. What will happen ? (note that this is how evolution works : competition for resources, either active killing is involved, like the beuk does, or passive killing is involved (by depriving others of the means to live))
... the beuk. This is because the plant poisons the soil, not allowing any other plants to grow, as a result you get a very organised, open forest that grew naturally)
... well not the poor, even though you're close.
And what exactly does having offspring do, in a situation with limited resources ? (it doesn't matter how much resources, having offspring will obviously make them run out, even if only eventually)
Let's say you have 10 people. You can grow food for 15 people. You have food stores for 50 people for 2 years (or 25 people 4 years
Otherwise successful vegetables would be killers. And vegetables evolve too.
Ever been to a "beuk" forest ? Those are some serious mass-murdering trees (in these type of forests there is exactly 1 large plant
There are lots of successfull plants that are killers. And all plants are passive killers, they *will* steal resources from eachother, completely disregarding any green party notions of fairness or diversity.
In fact evolutionary speaking poor people are far more successful, simply because they breed more. And I don't see any killing involved there.
You should look at crime stats. Killings, and theft (which is depriving others of resources, in other words passive killing), are seriously overrepresented among
To be sure, Japan also killed it's pacifist consitution ... they now seek to train their army again (they have not done so sine WWII).
No there is another way to kill of aids. You hint at it, but don't follow to conclusion. Just infect everybody
... maybe 4000-5000 children (absolutely the maximum, probably not even 500 children total), the entire belt from somalia to india is liable to experience a massive polio relapse at a moment's notice. Obviously, the WHO is not ready for this to happen. In short : a few people refuse to cooperate and *boom*. Big problem. Your solution has the same problem.
... that humans are better than this in some way).
Surely this likewise calls for a massive police state? Then again, I suppose you consider this a more effective approach because it does not require the police state to be free of corruption?
As I said, no it doesn't. If the corrupt skip themselves, it won't matter. In short : this tactic will kick in once a certain number of humans is infected. And if the corrupt follow through by fucking a few people from a massively infected population they will get infected as well. In short, the pool of uninfected humans will shrink terminally once a certain number of infections is passed. After which evolution will kill off aids completely. This has already happened (though obviously not deliberately) in the history of the human race dozens of times with dozens of illnesses. Infecting a large number of humans with a disease, while it kills a number of those infected, kills off the disease forever, without killing off the human population. Isn't nature grand ?
But if you leave us vulnerable to aids, and attempt to kill off the virus, obviously a single host left (and some of these people who are untouchable in corrupt states are hosts) would kill the entire effort. Just like today the entire polio eradication effort is at risk from a few (only about 20 or so) imams in Somalia and egypt and their message that vaccinations cause impotency or something like that. And I believe there are a few pakistani imams too that are posing problems.
As a result of these hosts remaining
And your aids isolation program will have the same problem. A single, or a few hosts left create a massive risk for a relapse with epidemic proportions.
I'm not saying "let's do this". I'm just saying it would work. I'm fully aware of the moral problems with this approach. It is, however, the ONLY one that we currently know will work. The longer we keep aids at bay with medications, the longer evolution will fight on the side of AIDS. If we at the very least simply stop treating the patients (outside of giving pain medication obviously), evolution will start to fight on our side. It's just the way things work.
I bet every single one of you claims to believe in evolution, and reject this idea as prepostrous. Obviously you can either have both, or neither. If evolution is correct, this will work. If this doesn't work, evolution is wrong. This type of situations is the real reason people like the pope reject evolution. They do not believe God would kill massive numbers of random people to make humans better. Obviously, believers in evolution do (and they'll probably call "God" something else, I've heard them call it DNA, or simply call it evolution. But all these names are equally non-corporial theories, so you might as well go with "God" imho). In short I really dislike the theory of evolution because it paints massive death and massive killing as a positive force. It utterly disgusts me. Not because of anything any book says, but because it predicts that in the end you're either a killer (active or passive) or a dead man, that the only choice you have is who to kill (and you can choose yourself if you want, but the choice is "who" and not "whether") and I'm certainly not ready to accept that. Yet I don't reject evolution. I just wish that it simply doesn't apply to humans for some reason (like a God interfering for example, or because we learn to migrate to other planets and solar systems, or control our own dna, or
Let's also not forget that a *single* person (male or female) who doesn't think much of the consequences of him/her having sex that is infected will be a fatal blow to your "cure". You cannot reliably prevent infections without a massive, completely non-corrupt police state. In other words : it can't be done in america, and it can't be done in any of the police states either (they're too corrupt for this to work).
... your "cure" doesn't stand a chance in the real world. You *are* going to miss infected people and they *are* going to infect others, which will immediately kill any effects you may have accomplished, since you're not testing everyone for infection.
In other words
Even if you tested everyone, and kill any positive match, you'd simply select yourself an aidsvirus that doesn't register on the test.
No there is another way to kill of aids. You hint at it, but don't follow to conclusion. Just infect everybody (or simply enough, any serious percentage of infections will probably cause the same result, say 10% of people, geographically spread and random) and let nature take it's course. In short, unleash the full power of the genetic algorithm that builds human bodies upon the problem of "aids". After that is done it will no longer be possible to infect anyone, and humanity itself will be selected out for immunity to aids. *That's* the way to change dna. Once this initial action is taken, every malicious person (or normal person) will simply help the cure to arrive faster by lowering even further the vulnerable pool of humans.
*And* if this fails, humanity would have lost the battle with aids anyway in the long run.
Of course that only works if you accept the massive casualties it will cause (still probably less massive than letting aids exist, but 10% of the deaths that would normally occur over 1000's of years, compressed into 1 year will still seem like a 10000% rise in the number of deaths). But it will drop of *very* quickly after an initial wave.
*sigh* he's saying that this is one thing we might change on the program. A patch for the human code, say.
... the program is stored in a few trillion copies (all of which need to be changed), of extremely complex molecules (which we can't reliable modify (we can't even reliably read them) even when we have only 1 outside of the body).
... "a bit" hard to get to the bits.
We only have a small problem
Let's say it's this way. We have a patch for a flaw in your windows. Except it's on paper. And the computers won't boot until the patch is applied, so we need to take out the hard drive and *manually* change the bits on it. We have an electron microscope that *sometimes* has been used to change some random bits on the harddrive, which has once or twice resulted in a "mostly" correct change. Oh yes, and we have a billion computers, all of which still need to be operational after the change.
That's where we are. We know what to change (or so we hope), it's just
Well, if people want more books, they will pay more - if they don't then they didn't want books.
No they will ask the state to steal more books. After all the decrease in books will be seen as something that was "taken from the people".
This is human nature.
Are you suggesting that the italian justice system has no way to hurt wikipedia's (by suing it's contributors for example) ?
If so, you are sadly mistaken. Also they can sue, and if damages are awarded, they can ask america (or no matter what country actually) to extract those damages from wikipedia. Certainly if wikipedia just ignores the trial, this will not be a hard thing.
Not paying after a court order is an offence in every single country that exists. And yes, this is supposing the amount is big enough (I believe there's a 5000 euro or so minimum until these accords can be called into action). If an italian court awards 1 million in damages, wikipedia is screwed.
Welcome to the real world. You cannot just run afoul of countries' laws and expect borders to protect you. It just cannot work that way if you want to have international trade.
I have to disagree. Rome died because of unchecked immigration, not because of lack of energy (they're all good people right ? 10 years later "Oh hmmm I thought Rome was here"), and because of a refusal to defend itself from agressors.
... lie. In short Rome fell, because of the same reason poland fell so easy to germany in 1939 : hitler said "I want peace", and they forced their military to retreat "to avoid a war". After the war it became clear that the order to invade poland was given 8,5 hours before hitler declared to want peace with poland if only they would retreat. Oops. In fact the german troops had started to move before this "peace" speech was delivered.
It was not followed by the countries you mention but by "darkness" ie. people who didn't care to write down their history, but lived more in denial of their own history, and what happened isn't clear. 200 years later however the Franks (not the french) were the first to restore order and the rule of law. The greatest desire of basically everyone on the European continent was recreating the Roman empire.
After Rome refused to defend itself, life expectancy of europeans dropped from about 65 years to below 30, and remained below 40 for 1000 years.
Rome's demise had nothing to do with a lack of energy, or even a lack of ability to defend itself. It was conquered because it allowed massive immigration to occur, and presumed these "vandals" (the name had no negative connotations at the time, it was just a name like "the French" is today) would peacefully compete in the existing economic system. They couldn't imagine that people who regularly killed their own children might
If you're wondering why people went along with hitler, it has to do with 1) hitler being extreme-left 2) the rest of europe WANTING to be extreme-left. Hitler was the man that would make every human equal, instead of there being "poor" and "rich" people. It was VERY politically incorrect to go against him until 1941 (which is why it created such a big fuss in England). Obviously the nazis immediately started to kill off people, and mainly their supporters.
The invaders of Rome started on a killing spree to steal the Roman richess (and eachother's richess) and didn't stop killing for over 150 years. Few parts of Europe were spared from these wars. Lots of people, totally dependant on Rome for their own food, started stealing, looting the Roman infrastructure, which, obviously, immediately failed to provide food and sustinence for the locals. In less than 10 years they killed of their main source of food, and instead of stopping and rebuildling they kept killing and killing some more. Every conquest allowed their army to survive maybe 2-3 years, and so after a year they had to attack again. They did not rebuild (kind of like the muslim wars in north africa). Soon they only had eachother to kill though, and so massive numbers of people were lost, a majority of the victims were part of the invading force, and not of the romans.
(much like one of their contemporaries did, except this guy called it a religion)
What he really means is that newtonian physics are completely against his ideology (postmodernism) and therefore must be wrong.
... well anything. "Every truth is equal". At first glance quantum mechanics allows this, while newtonian physics does not.
FOR NOW it hasn't been proven that quantummechanics doesn't allow postmodern thought, although it HAS been proven that it's "limit" (ie. when we're not talking about trillionths of a second but about tenths) that it does indeed not allow the many-worlds view of the postmodernists.
This is a necessity to allow for the magic thinking that is required for postmodern interpretations of
This is obviously the real issue Einstein was referring to with his famous "God does not play dice".
Then again, to anyone with an ounce of sense it is clear that the postmodern interpretation of science is bullshit in the extreme. In fact it's worse. Science cannot co-exist with postmodernism, because it's basic premises are the exact reverse :
-> postmodernism : there is more than one truth (and so my truth is a valid one, and taken in the extreme : an electron will move however I think it moves)
-> science : there is a singular truth for everyone, and everything (ie. an electron behaves the same, whatever my theory about it's movement)
The problem is that many, many other ideas are absolutely dependant on postmodernism. Multiculturalism, for obvious reasons, is utterly dependant on this (wrong) interpretation. As is anything more atheist than agnosticism.
The real scientific way of thinking about the world is simple : there is one, singular set of laws that define the absolute, unchanging truth. These are completely dogmatic, and utterly independent of any human. There can be no votes about the truth, there can be no changing the truth, it is absolute. AND (and this is where a lot of "radical" people go wrong) we DO NOT know this truth (but we know a hell of a lot about it, and we know a hell of a lot of truths that certainly aren't correct).
Obviously this means that the universe itself has what could be called a "state religion". You'll get your ass kicked, by the proverbial God(s) themselves, unless your ideology/religion matches certain absolute truths.
That's because he's a populist. He cannot be for or against any point any of his supporters make. Or his support would crack in two, two sides demanding he agrees with them.
Obviously at some point, this *will* happen.
Except ... we don't have the energy for doing that. Solar, wind cannot provide it. Nuclear could maybe provide it for a few dozen years, but not indefineately. Fusion could provide it, but is an unsolved problem ...
... in other words, back to the middle ages.
That's the sad truth behind it all : we have nuclear power that could help out for, say, 50 years. Perhaps solar and wind can extend that 50 years to 75 or maybe even 100 years. If, by then, we don't have either trivial access to space to place solar panels in space or have fusion power, then it's over. If we don't start building nuclear plants now, in that case, it's over.
"It's over" means, in case anyone really wants to know this : wars until 95% of the population is dead, then back to the farm (no you do not get to skip the first phase), with no medical care, no unemployment (in fact making a stupid mistake will result in starvation),
But ITER is so expensive that these guys can't get funding ... and iter is basically a laboratory experiment, nothing more.
Really ? I'd say the Iranian revolution was an example of the terrorists winning. Please explain to me how the Shah did the terrorist's work for them ? For it seems to me that "socialist" or "progressives" (as in communists who like to point out they're not communists) did the terrorist's work for them.
...) is *slightly* different from fighting people who just cause the maximum number of death around them, without regard for the consequences, even for themselves. In short it's like "kicking the marines out", except it was immediately followed by a terrorist attack. Needless to say, all progressives and socialists caved at the first (or second) shot, and were killed anyway.
Not the state. Not the party in power. Populist politicians, who stood for nothing except that they wanted to gain power, did the terrorist's work for them, they did this by adopting extreme-left ideology.
And then they found that fighting against people who won't shoot back (the police force, the army,
Problems do NOT go away when ignored. Certainly "problems" who are just interested in causing as much death as possible will not go away.
If you mean that we must attack the ideology and not play catch-and-release with mass murderers then I fully agree with you. Anybody who believe suicide terrorism is a good thing will not receive any pity from me. As long as we allow them to indoctrinate kids with hate, it will not stop. That doesn't mean we have to kill freedom of religion, but it *does* mean that we have basic demands a religion must follow, and *concrete* consequences for any member of any religion that doesn't follow these demands. And obviously, we need to stop making the idiotic differences between ideologies and religions. There is no real difference between totalitarian "secular" ideologies and some religions.
And I believe those basic demands should be human rights. Any religion/ideology that doesn't advocate these gets article 30 UNHR invoked on it's members.
However, you should make no mistake. The terrorists, they are cowards. Worse, they are the ultimate cowards. It will be done. They will use whatever means they have to hurt people, and they'll keep doing it. It's about purity, you see. And we (you & me & 5 billion others) are the ultimate impurity : we are people who prove their ideology of superiority wrong. They call us "the great satan". And we are, to their ideology. It cannot coexist with us. Not now, not ever.
But first things first. We should stop listen to their idiotic "you are just like us" speach. We're not.
Note that this will happen whether or not America will have "killer robots". Obviously terrorists will use robots, they have already used RC-cars, so as soon as a reliably walking-navigation algorithm is available ... boom.
:-p)
Ever thought just how easy a making walking burqa bomb should be ? Nobody recognizes the robot, nobody dares take off the robe, for fear of being called racist (and sued, I presume). And then - boom.
Same with veils obviously, especially the way muslims use it, would make it trivial to hide a robot beneath them, or at least, make the problem several magnitudes simpler. You don't have to simulate anything except a basic face, which doesn't have to move at all. As a bonus, nobody dares touch them for fear of reprisals, even some police don't dare to do so.
By contrast the way Jews use veils doesn't make the problem of hiding a robot beneath any simpler at all.
What I want to say ? Euhm I don't know. Perhaps this : don't allow any style of clothes that can render anyone unrecognizeable on the streets (ie. I'd also be in favor of limiting makeup to 2 pounds per woman per day
Think it can't be done ? Check this out. A bit smoother movement and it's all over.
While I (obviously) respect your opinion, this post just looks like a bunch of excuses. Each of them is trivially wrong, and I don't believe that you don't know this.
Would the cost of books go down - yes, and with it the rewards for authors, which would kill the amount of new books being written VERY fast
Will books go away ? - no, but they'll just be political or have another clear secondary objective (e.g. they might be religious), since rewarding the author for good research will no longer be a consideration
"Author's edition" - you're kidding, right ?
Star Trek example - "it was a lot, but not enough", if it wasn't enough, it might as well have not been raised in the first place
Budgets go down, but what about venture capital - venture capital is getting your budget for 2-5 years available now, at a large intrest rate
Copyright laws made the commercial distribution of books possible. Resulting in massive increase in books in hands of normal people.
The printing press initially simply resulted in distribution of what basically were political pamphlets, in other words, of spam.
There was never an "industry" for things like books and recorded music for most of history, yet music and writing have existed for thousands of years. Cavemen painted on the walls of their caves. Nobody paid them, but it was still done.
Frankly, I think music in general would be a lot better if there weren't a bunch of corporations making widgets out of it.
Let's keep in mind that in 90% of that period 50 books PER COUNTRY was a lot of books.
You really want to recreate that situation ? If books and arts have no value, they will disappear. Sad, but true.