An evolutionary thing, I guess -- hunting and fighting vs. household chores and child-rearing.
For 99% of human history there were no "household chores", since there were no households. Humans lived in small nomadic groups.
As for hunting, 80-90% of all nutrition came from fruits and vegetables, depending on location. Only 10-20% came from meat. Humans were, by and large, terrible hunters.
Guess who did most of the gathering of the fruits and vegetables? Women, that's who. So women were the primary 'hunters' of these societies, not men.
If women multitask better than men - and it appears that they do - then it is no way connected to hunting, gathering, or "household chores". It could just be luck of the genetic draw.
I suppose if you define "let's make a check-list and do a Santa" as "abnormal", you may be right.
I'm usually willing to cut the space guys some slack, but seriously - this was just fucking stupid any which way you slice it. "Inconceivably incompetent" is perhaps a better way to sum it up. Even more idiotic than forgetting to make a conversion to metric.
Makes me think the space program is in great hands!
No offense, but do you really think the 250 year old efforts of our ancestors to flesh out a working government is the only practical way of doing things, or that it is even the best?
It's the only legally valid method of doing things in this country. If you want a different method our canny ancestors provided you with the ability to AMEND the Constitution, an effort which you can spearhead at any time.
If you aren't up to it, then obviously the law isn't important enough to change. And I think the 'problem' here is that people know many of the things they want (e.g., gun control) can't be written into the Constitution via an amendment because they'll never gather the support required, so instead they try to do an illegal end-run around the law.
If people want what YOU want, then you'll be able to amend the Constitution. If they don't want what you want, you can either a) suck it up and live with it, or b) remove yourself to another country more to your liking.
Your second point is irrelevent. According to the Constitution copyrights and patents apply to the "respective writings *and discoveries*" of the person in question. Notice that nothing is said about having to create something new; you only have to discover it.
In the United States, the ONLY valid argument for patents and copyrights are defined by the Constitution as: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
So the only question is: do software patents or copyrights "promote the progress of science and useful arts"? Anything else is irrelevent.
anyway, wouldnt all the parallel universes be the same age and thus have reached the same amount of entropy?
I was under the same impression. No matter how different from one another, all parallel universes begin and end (or restart) at the same time. Otherwise they aren't parallel universes, by definition.
From what I remember the observable age of the universe is between 10 and 20 billion years, not a precise 13.7 billion years. Since when did it get nailed down so precisely, and what papers have been published - and accepted - that prove this date?
I think it's because it has the cool factor that lets the companies sell it at whatever price they want.
I didn't buy two LCD monitors because of the 'cool' factor. I bought them for three reasons:
- much, much smaller and easier to move than a 21" monitor. I can pick the thing up with one hand and place it anywhere, including places the enormous CRT monitor can't fit.
- no freakin' glare! This might not bother some people, but it does bother me. CRTs are hard on the eyes.
- no refresh nausea. I'm told that beyond a certain refresh rate the actual refresh can't be detected by the human eye. I say "bullshit". Every CRT I've ever used has that annoying 'flicker', and the more tired I become the more noticeable the flicker is. The more noticeable the flicker, the sooner I start becoming nauseated. This doesn't happen with an LCD.
Fact is, I'd choose an LCD for either the second or third reason alone. I can't begin to tell you how much more pleasant my LCD monitors have been compared to my CRTs (which have since been given away). And I really don't give a damn if my games would look slightly better in a CRT; the payoff in picture quality isn't worth it (at least to this non-fanatic).
Any bum can get a gmail account too, evidenced by the fact that I have one. Actually about a half-dozen, although I don't use them because they still haven't gotten around to fixing the bug that makes it incompatible with Opera.
I actually use MyWay for my 'real' email accounts, and Yahoo for all the crap I don't care about. All the spam goes to Yahoo, everything important to Myway. I might use gmail if it worked in Opera, but frankly I don't care much for the interface (not a proper fanboy).
they always took care of the server problems in the past.
Yeah, by suing people who provide alternative, better server software, for starters. Oh, but we're supposed to give them a free pass because WoW is the next EverCrack. Can't let things like ethics interfere with the drug supply!
The spammer violated the contractual agreement he had with the ISP. CANSPAM doesn't trump this. He's clearly in the wrong and just fucking over the guy who got his account yanked.
The spammer doesn't have the 'right' to send spam. The only 'rights' he has are those included in his contract with the ISP.
Please - if you're so concerned about the stress being put on the Earth by human beings, I suggest you do Gaia a favor and put a bullet in your head. Every little bit counts!
If everyone's brain worked like a 20-year-old's, the changes of the 50's could have been accomplished in a matter of weeks.
Riiiight. As if being young somehow enables a person to embrace change and *effectively implement it in society* better. Please provide some empirical examples, published in accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journals, to back this claim.
Most religions speak out against premarital sex. And yet the number of people who actually wait to have sex until their married is pretty fucking small.
-Not everybody would want this due to moral, religous, and personal reasons.
Let them die. I won't stop them.
Not everybody would be able to afford this
As if the Earth's population would allow an invention like this to remain in the hands of the rich. If someone made such a treatment and didn't make it available to all, look to widespread violence and government collapse as wholesale populations stand up and say "I don't fucking think so."
But a canny inventor would make the treatment available to everyone - EVERYONE - and allow them to pay it off in installments. After all, they have FOREVER; they'll be productive enough at some point or another to pay off their debt. Most of them, at any rate. And again, just try to refuse this treatment to 90% of the population; watch what happens.
-Even if they got past all of that, whos to say they'd actually live much longer?
With that attitude why not go put a bullet in your head this moment? You don't have any guarantee that you'll be alive tomorrow RIGHT NOW, or haven't you noticed?
Who wants to actually ensure they only way they die is by a disease or through somebody's intervension?
Me, for one. I'm guessing that at least 6 billion or so people will agree with me on this. You're in a tiny minority if that's your objection to being immortal.
If you had this done at age 28 and you looked 28 for as long as you lived and you were 200 years old, what type of credibility would you have?
In a society where everyone looks 28 you no longer get points for 'wisdom' just by having grey hair. Now you have to PROVE it. Which is the way it should work.
You put all of this together and I doubt many people would actually elect to go through with this.
No, only the freaks and loons would forego immortality. And I say again, let them; we'll be better off without their whining, woe-unto-the-world crap anyway.
Now, I'd imagine many of the wise, also, would opt against it.
So, wisdom = suicide. Which is what choosing to die when you could otherwise live is called. If this is your brand of 'wisdom', I'll be happy when all of these people have cleared the way for the rest of us immortals.
Just so long as they don't try to drag the rest of us along with them.
the last thing my generation will do for them is to die and get out of the way so they can fill our shoes.
You go right ahead and do that. Just don't think for a second that you've the moral right to condemn ME to death as well. Do that and you're nothing more than a common murderer.
You don't have to. You can die if you want - no skin off my back. But if you try to prevent *me* from getting access to immortality then there's a good chance you're going to find out first-hand whether or not there's an afterlife.
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of people would see things in the same light, and would use violence (if that's what it takes) to ensure that anyone who wants immortality can have it. And frankly, I'd be cheering them on.
ight now, you retire/get paid when you are 65. What happens an immortality pill becomes available?
Why would there be social security in this scenario? If you're chronologically 65 but biologically 25 (and will be forever) what on God's green earth gives you the idea that you should be getting a free ride in perpetuity?
You're young - FOREVER. Go out and get a fucking job. If you want a break, save up over a decade, quit, and spend a few years being a slacker. I'd imagine that THIS scenario would be the norm in such a society anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
but if you have to settle for one out of two then it's surely better to be a dead legend than a living nobody.
Riiight. I think I'll pass, Achilles. I'd much rather live another 40 years drinking, smoking, and wenching than make it into some git's history text.
Max
An evolutionary thing, I guess -- hunting and fighting vs. household chores and child-rearing.
For 99% of human history there were no "household chores", since there were no households. Humans lived in small nomadic groups.
As for hunting, 80-90% of all nutrition came from fruits and vegetables, depending on location. Only 10-20% came from meat. Humans were, by and large, terrible hunters.
Guess who did most of the gathering of the fruits and vegetables? Women, that's who. So women were the primary 'hunters' of these societies, not men.
If women multitask better than men - and it appears that they do - then it is no way connected to hunting, gathering, or "household chores". It could just be luck of the genetic draw.
Max
You cannot forsee all abnormal conditions.
I suppose if you define "let's make a check-list and do a Santa" as "abnormal", you may be right.
I'm usually willing to cut the space guys some slack, but seriously - this was just fucking stupid any which way you slice it. "Inconceivably incompetent" is perhaps a better way to sum it up. Even more idiotic than forgetting to make a conversion to metric.
Makes me think the space program is in great hands!
Max
No offense, but do you really think the 250 year old efforts of our ancestors to flesh out a working government is the only practical way of doing things, or that it is even the best?
It's the only legally valid method of doing things in this country. If you want a different method our canny ancestors provided you with the ability to AMEND the Constitution, an effort which you can spearhead at any time.
If you aren't up to it, then obviously the law isn't important enough to change. And I think the 'problem' here is that people know many of the things they want (e.g., gun control) can't be written into the Constitution via an amendment because they'll never gather the support required, so instead they try to do an illegal end-run around the law.
If people want what YOU want, then you'll be able to amend the Constitution. If they don't want what you want, you can either a) suck it up and live with it, or b) remove yourself to another country more to your liking.
Max
Your second point is irrelevent. According to the Constitution copyrights and patents apply to the "respective writings *and discoveries*" of the person in question. Notice that nothing is said about having to create something new; you only have to discover it.
Max
In the United States, the ONLY valid argument for patents and copyrights are defined by the Constitution as: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
So the only question is: do software patents or copyrights "promote the progress of science and useful arts"? Anything else is irrelevent.
Max
Slashdot - the geek's Weekly World News!
Max
There is only one universe, and it is eternal.
How would you know?
Max
anyway, wouldnt all the parallel universes be the same age and thus have reached the same amount of entropy?
I was under the same impression. No matter how different from one another, all parallel universes begin and end (or restart) at the same time. Otherwise they aren't parallel universes, by definition.
Max
From what I remember the observable age of the universe is between 10 and 20 billion years, not a precise 13.7 billion years. Since when did it get nailed down so precisely, and what papers have been published - and accepted - that prove this date?
Max
I think it's because it has the cool factor that lets the companies sell it at whatever price they want.
I didn't buy two LCD monitors because of the 'cool' factor. I bought them for three reasons:
- much, much smaller and easier to move than a 21" monitor. I can pick the thing up with one hand and place it anywhere, including places the enormous CRT monitor can't fit.
- no freakin' glare! This might not bother some people, but it does bother me. CRTs are hard on the eyes.
- no refresh nausea. I'm told that beyond a certain refresh rate the actual refresh can't be detected by the human eye. I say "bullshit". Every CRT I've ever used has that annoying 'flicker', and the more tired I become the more noticeable the flicker is. The more noticeable the flicker, the sooner I start becoming nauseated. This doesn't happen with an LCD.
Fact is, I'd choose an LCD for either the second or third reason alone. I can't begin to tell you how much more pleasant my LCD monitors have been compared to my CRTs (which have since been given away). And I really don't give a damn if my games would look slightly better in a CRT; the payoff in picture quality isn't worth it (at least to this non-fanatic).
I'll never use a CRT again.
Max
Any bum can get a gmail account too, evidenced by the fact that I have one. Actually about a half-dozen, although I don't use them because they still haven't gotten around to fixing the bug that makes it incompatible with Opera.
I actually use MyWay for my 'real' email accounts, and Yahoo for all the crap I don't care about. All the spam goes to Yahoo, everything important to Myway. I might use gmail if it worked in Opera, but frankly I don't care much for the interface (not a proper fanboy).
Max
they always took care of the server problems in the past.
Yeah, by suing people who provide alternative, better server software, for starters. Oh, but we're supposed to give them a free pass because WoW is the next EverCrack. Can't let things like ethics interfere with the drug supply!
Max
The spammer violated the contractual agreement he had with the ISP. CANSPAM doesn't trump this. He's clearly in the wrong and just fucking over the guy who got his account yanked.
The spammer doesn't have the 'right' to send spam. The only 'rights' he has are those included in his contract with the ISP.
Max
Immortal or not, this would just make you a garden-variety psychotic. Nothing special there.
Max
he/she has higher motivations than the weekends paycheck.
"higher" motivations? Yeah, I guess, seeing as how working for a paycheck is so crass and blue-collar....
Max
On the other hand, it may make us think that ESA isn't that advanced as we thought it was.
I think the Beagle mission pretty much nailed this one home.
Max
Oh my! The sky is falling! Humans Are Evil(TM)!
Please - if you're so concerned about the stress being put on the Earth by human beings, I suggest you do Gaia a favor and put a bullet in your head. Every little bit counts!
Max
If everyone's brain worked like a 20-year-old's, the changes of the 50's could have been accomplished in a matter of weeks.
Riiiight. As if being young somehow enables a person to embrace change and *effectively implement it in society* better. Please provide some empirical examples, published in accredited, peer-reviewed scientific journals, to back this claim.
Max
-Most religions will speak out against this.
Most religions speak out against premarital sex. And yet the number of people who actually wait to have sex until their married is pretty fucking small.
-Not everybody would want this due to moral, religous, and personal reasons.
Let them die. I won't stop them.
Not everybody would be able to afford this
As if the Earth's population would allow an invention like this to remain in the hands of the rich. If someone made such a treatment and didn't make it available to all, look to widespread violence and government collapse as wholesale populations stand up and say "I don't fucking think so."
But a canny inventor would make the treatment available to everyone - EVERYONE - and allow them to pay it off in installments. After all, they have FOREVER; they'll be productive enough at some point or another to pay off their debt. Most of them, at any rate. And again, just try to refuse this treatment to 90% of the population; watch what happens.
-Even if they got past all of that, whos to say they'd actually live much longer?
With that attitude why not go put a bullet in your head this moment? You don't have any guarantee that you'll be alive tomorrow RIGHT NOW, or haven't you noticed?
Who wants to actually ensure they only way they die is by a disease or through somebody's intervension?
Me, for one. I'm guessing that at least 6 billion or so people will agree with me on this. You're in a tiny minority if that's your objection to being immortal.
If you had this done at age 28 and you looked 28 for as long as you lived and you were 200 years old, what type of credibility would you have?
In a society where everyone looks 28 you no longer get points for 'wisdom' just by having grey hair. Now you have to PROVE it. Which is the way it should work.
You put all of this together and I doubt many people would actually elect to go through with this.
No, only the freaks and loons would forego immortality. And I say again, let them; we'll be better off without their whining, woe-unto-the-world crap anyway.
Max
Now, I'd imagine many of the wise, also, would opt against it.
So, wisdom = suicide. Which is what choosing to die when you could otherwise live is called. If this is your brand of 'wisdom', I'll be happy when all of these people have cleared the way for the rest of us immortals.
Just so long as they don't try to drag the rest of us along with them.
Max
the last thing my generation will do for them is to die and get out of the way so they can fill our shoes.
You go right ahead and do that. Just don't think for a second that you've the moral right to condemn ME to death as well. Do that and you're nothing more than a common murderer.
Max
Because we can does not mean we should
You don't have to. You can die if you want - no skin off my back. But if you try to prevent *me* from getting access to immortality then there's a good chance you're going to find out first-hand whether or not there's an afterlife.
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of people would see things in the same light, and would use violence (if that's what it takes) to ensure that anyone who wants immortality can have it. And frankly, I'd be cheering them on.
Max
A copy is not the original. If you die and a copy is made of you after the fact, *you're still dead*.
Max
ight now, you retire/get paid when you are 65. What happens an immortality pill becomes available?
Why would there be social security in this scenario? If you're chronologically 65 but biologically 25 (and will be forever) what on God's green earth gives you the idea that you should be getting a free ride in perpetuity?
You're young - FOREVER. Go out and get a fucking job. If you want a break, save up over a decade, quit, and spend a few years being a slacker. I'd imagine that THIS scenario would be the norm in such a society anyway.
Max