"Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution"... "If you understood this to mean ideological reasons then sorry you have misunderstood"
If taking your words at face value is misunderstanding, you cannot be understood. There's a word for that: "unintelligible". And when you are challenged, you respond with new, unrelated, unintelligible BS:
"leaf-bearing" vs. "non-leaf bearing" What cladistic split are you referring to?
"Lots of species lost the ability to carry leaves at various times," Lots eh? Name 3.
"Any 2 animals generally differ in less than 10% of their genes. Any 2 plants differ less than 15-or-so percent"
And the third of your "families" that you don't mention has much more diversity and represents the vast majority of life on earth. But that aside, this paragraph approaches coherence, since all it's claiming is that evolution works. Unfortunately, it's unrelated to your conclusion.
"So in nature you have no choice : you use anything and everything you get your hands on, and you use it as soon as possible."
Humanity must dig fossil fuels out of the Earth as fast as possible and pump as much C02 into the atmosphere as fast as possible, otherwise we'll be supplanted by a species that will? Who do you think it will be? Coal mining bats? (We know they like caves!) Maybe Phytoplankton? (They love CO2!)
100Km is quite high, and many people call it the edge of "space". Any such definition is arbitrary, and 100Km is picked mostly because it's a round number. There is too much atmosphere at 100Km to permit acceleration to orbital speed; you need to go twice as far, to 200Km just to get thin enough atmosphere, and even then you better have a whole lot of fuel left to get up to speed. If you can't orbit, even if you had enough fuel, because there is too much air, I don't call that space.
I'm not sure what the huge difference you see in those pictures is, unless it's the amount of horizon-curvature - but I suspect that's due more to the lens than the altitude - it's a lot more than I'm used to seeing from shuttle shots at another 3 times the altitude.
I find sub-orbital space flight underwhelming; Rutans designs are cool, but they are no part of a program leading to orbit.
"So now I don't have to give an example of genes refusing to do certain actions... but I have to give an example of genes refusing to do something on ideological grounds.
The fact that you even ask the ideological ground behind genetic actions is so strange ? Do you believe in intelligent design ? Without intelligent design, after all, there is no ideological ground behind genes."
No,no, no. I don't claim any ideological purposes behind anything, or care if there are or not. I'm just trying to figure out what you were referring to when you said:
"Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution. What is unheard of, however, is a species surviving such a decision."
That statement is horseshit; Such a thing is in fact unheard of. There is no such species. If there is; if you stand behind the statements you make, please name the species. If you don't stand behind the statements you make, I see little point in reading more of them.
Your continued talk of suimulations, as if they were relevant to anything, or any real part of evolutionary science is somewhat puzzling, but I'm going to resist the digression, and insist on an answer:
Was that statement bullshit, or can you tell me the name of the species that went extinct for ideological reasons?
Once they have built and start operating the ships, the incremental cost of flying more trips will constantly be getting lower. This means they'll have the option of setting a lower price and still flying, if they think that will get them enough more customers that their total profit will be higher.
Anyway, I didn't really mean to get into any formal analysis of market forces involved here. I actually think that's all irrelevant; markets depend on rational actors and that's not what we've got. I expect that the people who have already put down pre-order deposit represent much of the total market that there is. People who wait until the product actually exists to make a decision based on whether the experience offered is worth the money will decide it isn't.
Their competitors (that sell you weightless flight) call their ship a plane, and don't dubiously claim you were in space. Other than that, it looks like the same product to me. Do those differences make it worth 40X as much money? Some people think so, but I suspect they are the same ones who buy flights before the ship exists.
I predict they'll drop the price unless they just go bankrupt too fast to get the chance.
So you think the price will remain strong for a long time... well into the distant uncertain time in the future where they might start actually delivering any product?
Yes, but for a small fraction of 200K, you can experience weightlessness for a similar amount of time with similar scenery as what they are selling. The guy taking your money won't call a plane a spaceship, or the part of the atmosphere you reach "space". But other than that, it will be the same thing for a lot less money.
They were planning to build a spacecraft, now they plan to build five. That's not flat. I assume you mean, they weren't flying any customers, and now they still aren't. That's flat, but it isn't a market.
It's a futures market. They are selling future space flights, so it's the expected future supply that is relevant. As I understand it, expected future supply has increased.
There was no supply whatsoever; and only a very limited supply projected in the future. A significantly larger supply is now forecast. Demand may be strong, but unless it gets stonger, the price ought to drop.
So sayeth Econ 101, which I'm often suspicious of, but pretty much buy here. Assuming the whole thing doesn't fold taking peoples deposits with them, flights will get cheaper to operate the longer they actually own and fly the craft. And I'm dubious they can keep finding customers at 200K for long. You can get a few minutes of weightlessness in an airplane a lot cheaper, and that seems a steep price to do so in what is at best "technically space".
"Suppose we take your criterium "putting genes in the next generation". Then the only thing we can say about genes found to survive is that... they survived."
Oddly, evolutionary biologists find more thatn that to say.
"Now that's something you can program"
Who cares? Whether you can program it (in some simulation I guess?) is irrelevant to whether it is true. You appear to be claiming that how things fit into a structure you made up is some test of truth.
Your story about the cuckoo is lovely, but you claimed examples of "species" that refused to use an energy source "on ideological grounds", and perished as a result. One cuckoo chick is not a species, and I don't believe you know what their ideology is. I singled out your original claim, that there were species that went extinct for ideological reasons, because it is so plainly ridiculous. If you want to talk about science, you need to use precise language to describe things as they are, not just make up whatever sounds good. There is no species that has gone extinct for ideological reasons. There is no broad consensus that anyone but humans *has* ideological reasons.
"In practice it's worse than this. Generally processing 1% less energy than a competing species is found to be more than enough to lead to the extinction of the original species."
There is no possible way you could estimate total energy processed by a species to better than orders of magnitude, much less say anything is "generally" true as if you'd observed such a phenomenon dozens of times. You seem to genuinely believe these things that spring to your mind as if there were any reason too. You throw out the sort of statements people would if they were summarizing an established cannon of solid research ("Generally [whatever] is found to be..."), but you're not.
You seem too dedicated for a troll; I really think you believe it. So I suppose that means delusional, so I should quit engaging, as even my argumentation reinforces the core psychosis that your ideas are worth discussing and relevant to the real world. At least, that's what I remember from psych.
"And there are countless examples like this."
No, there isn't even one, and couldn't possibly be. Measuring the energy use of competing species and controlling for other variables is not a remotely doable thing.
Why do you argue with people about subjects you're entirely ignorant of? Any sentence you start with "Evolution says you should..." is false. Evolution doesn't say you should anything.
"You forgot the actual selection criterium"
Survival of particular genes in the next generation.
"The selection criterium of 'real life' is the efficiency of use of the available resources (amongst which, first and foremost, the energy source). That's of course being very general and assuming that you accept that stuff like "getting eaten" would also not be an efficient use of available resources (not for the one getting eaten at least). But we gladly do so because not doing so would necessitate a great many selection criteria, which have no counterpart in 'real life'."
That's needlessly complex and unhelpful. If one mouse can run faster than the other so the second gets eaten and doen't have children, you want to say "the first mouse used available resources more efficiently"? For gods sake why? How does that help you understand anything?
"But we gladly do so because not doing so would necessitate a great many selection criteria, which have no counterpart in 'real life'."
Huh? Whose this "we" you speak of? Nobody talks about evolution that way. And what do you mean about counterparts in 'real life'? Real life is where the selections happen, and yes there are a great number of selection criteria: anything that kills you before you reproduce.
"There are entire 'kingdoms' whose members depend on taking energy away from other species, on ground where they have the advantage. Like trees, or bushes, or even grass."
Not sure why you use the scare quotes, there are in fact 2 kingdoms (Animals and fungi) that depend on consuming energy converted from other sources by other organisms. The relevance is not clear either... Horses eat grass so it's unreasonable to limit co2 emissions?
"Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution. What is unheard of, however, is a species surviving such a decision."
Really?!? This is fascinating; I never heard about that! Other than humans, I know of no species that has had access to any energy source other than the Sun (for photo-synthesizers), Food (for eaters) or Geothermal heat (for those weird worm things along the Atlantic vents). Please do tell, what species are you referring to that has refused to eat and starved itself into extinction on ideological grounds? (I'm assuming it's an eater we're talking, as photo-synthesizers aren't much for ideological anything, but I guess you never know about the worm-things...)
Anyway, most eager to hear about this philosophically suicidal species you reference! Please enlighten me.
"A basic assumption of evolution is that it's useless trying to prevent change in the environment."
WTF are you talking about? Evolution doesn't have assumptions, basic or otherwise, beyond those of science in general. It describes how populations of organisms change over time. I can't even figure what you could misconstrue or stretch to imply attempting to consciously affect world climate is futile; evolution doesn't even come close to addressing any question in that general ballpark.
"You see if you disadvantage yourself, that will make others, who have zero regard for the environment do it. (and since you, like every American, simply hire Chinese guys to pollute for you, I fail to even see the point)"
The one and only thing I suggested we do is "reduce worldwide carbon emissions", and then I even called out the word "worldwide" for special note. How you get from there to thinking I want to disadvantage my particular tribe vs. others is not clear to me. Obviously, what I say is not relevant; your rebuttal is not based on any attempt understanding what I say. I can only assume your positions on climate change and the rest of the stuff you've conflated with it, are likewise, not based on understanding of any particular topic.
"And even if you're right : Again, things will change, and if you don't adapt, you'll have problems. You might even die.
Deal with it. Or don't. Either way we'll be rid of anyone wining about it."
Absolutely! Turns out, based on our best understanding, it looks like the best way we can see to adapt and deal with it is to do things like reducing worldwide carbon emissions. And doing things like that, what with the whole "worldwide" bit, takes a fair amount of whining about it. Sorry if it bugs you, but we're just trying to adapt and not die, so it seems unlikely we will stop.
"I thought you people believed in Darwin, and that that theory is good (or at least better) ?"
I think Darwin was right (or at least righter), as, implicitly, does anyone who enjoys the fruits of the modern science of Biology (like Medicine). I'm not sure what that has to do with global climate change, unless it's some idea that evolution means we shouldn't try to prevent human suffering and death? I mean, I think Newton was right(er) too, but it doesn't stop me from defying villainous gravity every time I stand up... Scientific theories are not moral codes.
"Err, no. Just conservation of angular momentum in it''s orbit, plus maybe some things about not getting it spinning"
Don't randomly fire big rockets; not sure how they'll screw that up.
"Disassembly will never be simply the opposite of assembly."
Right, it's obviously much easier. You don't have to maneuver big stuff together. You detach it, get it moving apart (even very slowly) and it will just keep doing so. Orbital mechanics are very predictable.
All uses of the words "too big" are jokes about the financial industry, even if there is no direct reference to that at all? That certainly puts certain conversations with my girlfriend in a new light. Bummer.
If you want a lifeboat for a mission to Mars, build one and send it.
The ISS is not at Mars, it is not more than trivially closer to Mars than the ground is, it is not designed to travel. Without constant re-supply and maintenance it doesn't provide anything to troubled mars explorers but a can whose micro-meteor damage they might be able to repair enough to get it sealed. But they've go a sealed environment if they could "jet up" to it in the first place.
If I'm planning to make a trip to the other side of the country, I don't try to work in my broken bicycle just because it's already at the end of my driveway.
So use some small-thrust engine to move the ISS to the moon or mars (for no useful purpose) over a decade or two, sending up hundreds of re-supply missions rather than using that thrust to just go where we want. Why?
Unless what you want is a small human life support environment skimming the atmosphere, the ISS doesn't provide anything that can't be had more cheaply by building the thing you want and sending it.
"I say putting a dollar value on knowledge is ridiculous. To quantify the effect of knowledge gained, based on the money expended to obtain it? By that, penecillin must have been one of the best ROI discoveries ever."
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Obviously knowledge is valuable. Obviously that value is not based on the money expended to obtain it. That's the point. We want to gain the most value of knowledge in exchange for expending the least value of money.
"If the money to keep it running can be found, and they can still think of things to do, then they should continue. If they run out of tasks, experiments, et al, then yes, nix it then."
Money isn't "found". It is taken away from one thing and spent on another. What should we spend it on? Lots of people can think of things to do, and none of them will ever run out of experiments. You are saying "knowledge is priceless" as justification for spending money on something that produces less knowledge, and not spending it on things that produce more.
Alright, I was exaggerating. It produces very little science.
Does it produce enough science to justify the cost? You say "who knows." I say that's ridiculous. We have scores of other NASA missions to compare it to with known costs and results. Comparing scientific results to one another is necessarily somewhat subjective, but that's no reason to throw up our hands and declare rational evaluation of priorities impossible.
Has it produced 30 times the scientific value the Hubble? Has it produced a hundred times as much value as the Mars rovers? I can't see how you'd argue it was even on par with either, let alone ahead by such extreme multipliers.
"Honestly, after all the money we've spent, I don't see them just plopping it into the ocean." Sunk costs. You can't get the money back no matter what you do; that money should be irrelevant to your decision.
"Firstly, if we're going to the moon and mars, the ISS seems like a pretty damn good staging/bailout option."
Why? It's not in a useful orbit for such a purpose. Heck, there was considerable concern about doing the last Hubble mission, because the ISS wasn't usable as a bailout for even that orbit. (Lunar orbit is further, FYI)
"Secondly, we need to start thinking long term about our survival as a species. One of those strategies means long term human space flight. Currently a space station is the only thing that's giving us that."
The space station can't survive a week without constant massive assistance from the ground; it's not a useful part.
"I'm sure there will be those people who argue that it takes money away from other projects, but right now it's the only thing NASA is doing."
I'm going to cry. Here's a list of 70-something "current missions": http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html. One of them is the ISS. The rest do science.
It's not a rocket designed to withstand the massive thrust needed for such a move. It's not a lander designed to set down on the Moon. It's not a re-entry vehicle designed to enter that Martian atmosphere.
There is a quite large, continuing cost to keep boosting the things orbit back up. If anyone wants to pay that, I'm sure that's fine with NASA. If nobody pays that, the thing is coming down, it's just a question of how predictably.
"I would really laugh if... the station was now TOO BIG to be safely taken apart, without affecting it's overall stability - and the risk of the whole thing crashing back in one large piece."
What mental model of orbital dynamics are you working with? You think it's going to fall off its sky-hook or something?
The Mars rovers were supposed to to have a very high degree of probability of full functionality for a minimum of 90 days. Warranty jokes aside, you can't design something to work perfectly until it breaks down on day 91. To be really sure it will work for 90 days, you've got to design it probably work for much,much longer. That they have managed to limp along for years is awesome, but not entirely shocking. In terms of the science produced, the fairly small cost (of staff on Earth) to keep the rovers operating is pretty reasonable, since they are already on Mars.
The IIS is a whole different story. It costs insanely more money, and doesn't produce any science. It's mission, and it's end date, are entirely political. With construction complete, it's not quite as good a way for politicians to give aerospace companies money, but there isn't much better until the shuttle-replacement ramps up, so expect great gnashing of teeth about how horrible it will be if we don't have astronauts bravely exploring the inside of a can they built as it skims along barely above the atmosphere.
"Your insistence that Christians must equate 'the literal word of God' with 'infallible transcriptions, every single time a book of the Bible is copied' is just plain wrong. That's not what most Christians believe."
If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. I know Christians that claim to believe in the infallible, literal truth of the King James Bible. There were clearly some transcription errors in the texts used to produce that version, and James' translators clearly introduced more, some of them intentionally. I assume the Christians in question believe these changes were divinely inspired. Hard to say, as they seem oddly uninterested in the origins of their infallible guide.
"Compare that with Uthman Ibn Affan, who decided which copy of the Qur'an would be canonical, then gathered together and burning all other copies that differed from the official version. Christianity has nothing like that."
There are a slew of events just like that, ranging from the Synod of Hippo (393 AD) through the Council of Trent (1546). The difference is that Uthman Ibn Affran was radically more successful. He standardized the text a few years after it was first set down; the total divergence cannot have been anything on the Bible scale, and modern versions are exact copies of his text. I'm neither a Christian nor a Muslim, I've got no horse in this race, but for actually caring about getting the supposed word of God right, Islam wins hands down.
If it didn't involve minors, what he did is look at pictures of attractive naked women. That's your standard for "sick and disgusting"? And you think "most people" agree?
I've heard it suggested that there are heterosexual men who claim they don't look at such pictures, but so far it has not occured to me to believe them.
I'm not in management, but yes, I have a corner office, which is quite nice. It must be because I'm the stupid one. Hope you like your cube.
"The 'Do you really disagree?' was meant to show my amazement at your utter stupidity."
Yeah, I got that, but I chose to answer the question anyway, because, despite your amazement, you are wrong.
In any case, no, I don't think the majority of Windows users are sitting in offices. I believe it is well established that most are sitting in their homes. Even just amongst business users, more than half of the workers in the US work for small businesses (<50 employees), which don't tend to have cube farms. While you apparently work in a cube for someone big enough to have clueless middle management, you are, in this, not in the majority, or anywhere close to it.
I'M STILL NOT OFFENDED YOU USED CAPS, NEVER HAVE BEEN. SEE I CAN DO IT TOO, I JUST THINK IT MAKES WHAT YOU ARE SAYING LOOK STUPID, SO YOUR URGE TO DO IT MIGHT BE A GOOD CLUE TO YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT SAYING ANYTHING WORTHWHILE. If, you know, cutting and pasting the same comment 3 times didn't let you figure that out. Another good sign is calling people stupid, delusional, etc. If I wrong, just say that and explain why. When your response to being questioned is to restate your assertion with ever greater incredulity rather than to offer any sort of rationale, it makes it pretty clear you don't have one.
"you got pissed off and started this waste of time conversation because you were offended that I used caps."
Again, not pissed off, just amused. Particularly, I'm amused that I "started" the conversation by replying to you. A "waste of time" by contrast to your repeatedly cut-and-pasting the same comment.
"Or do you just try to ignore them?" I try but apparently I'm not doing a very good job.
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"Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution" ...
"If you understood this to mean ideological reasons then sorry you have misunderstood"
If taking your words at face value is misunderstanding, you cannot be understood. There's a word for that: "unintelligible". And when you are challenged, you respond with new, unrelated, unintelligible BS:
"leaf-bearing" vs. "non-leaf bearing"
What cladistic split are you referring to?
"Lots of species lost the ability to carry leaves at various times,"
Lots eh? Name 3.
"Any 2 animals generally differ in less than 10% of their genes. Any 2 plants differ less than 15-or-so percent"
And the third of your "families" that you don't mention has much more diversity and represents the vast majority of life on earth. But that aside, this paragraph approaches coherence, since all it's claiming is that evolution works. Unfortunately, it's unrelated to your conclusion.
"So in nature you have no choice : you use anything and everything you get your hands on, and you use it as soon as possible."
Humanity must dig fossil fuels out of the Earth as fast as possible and pump as much C02 into the atmosphere as fast as possible, otherwise we'll be supplanted by a species that will? Who do you think it will be? Coal mining bats? (We know they like caves!) Maybe Phytoplankton? (They love CO2!)
100Km is quite high, and many people call it the edge of "space". Any such definition is arbitrary, and 100Km is picked mostly because it's a round number. There is too much atmosphere at 100Km to permit acceleration to orbital speed; you need to go twice as far, to 200Km just to get thin enough atmosphere, and even then you better have a whole lot of fuel left to get up to speed. If you can't orbit, even if you had enough fuel, because there is too much air, I don't call that space.
I'm not sure what the huge difference you see in those pictures is, unless it's the amount of horizon-curvature - but I suspect that's due more to the lens than the altitude - it's a lot more than I'm used to seeing from shuttle shots at another 3 times the altitude.
I find sub-orbital space flight underwhelming; Rutans designs are cool, but they are no part of a program leading to orbit.
"So now I don't have to give an example of genes refusing to do certain actions ... but I have to give an example of genes refusing to do something on ideological grounds.
The fact that you even ask the ideological ground behind genetic actions is so strange ? Do you believe in intelligent design ? Without intelligent design, after all, there is no ideological ground behind genes."
No,no, no. I don't claim any ideological purposes behind anything, or care if there are or not. I'm just trying to figure out what you were referring to when you said:
"Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution. What is unheard of, however, is a species surviving such a decision."
That statement is horseshit; Such a thing is in fact unheard of. There is no such species. If there is; if you stand behind the statements you make, please name the species. If you don't stand behind the statements you make, I see little point in reading more of them.
Your continued talk of suimulations, as if they were relevant to anything, or any real part of evolutionary science is somewhat puzzling, but I'm going to resist the digression, and insist on an answer:
Was that statement bullshit, or can you tell me the name of the species that went extinct for ideological reasons?
Once they have built and start operating the ships, the incremental cost of flying more trips will constantly be getting lower. This means they'll have the option of setting a lower price and still flying, if they think that will get them enough more customers that their total profit will be higher.
Anyway, I didn't really mean to get into any formal analysis of market forces involved here. I actually think that's all irrelevant; markets depend on rational actors and that's not what we've got. I expect that the people who have already put down pre-order deposit represent much of the total market that there is. People who wait until the product actually exists to make a decision based on whether the experience offered is worth the money will decide it isn't.
Their competitors (that sell you weightless flight) call their ship a plane, and don't dubiously claim you were in space. Other than that, it looks like the same product to me. Do those differences make it worth 40X as much money? Some people think so, but I suspect they are the same ones who buy flights before the ship exists.
I predict they'll drop the price unless they just go bankrupt too fast to get the chance.
So you think the price will remain strong for a long time... well into the distant uncertain time in the future where they might start actually delivering any product?
Yes, but for a small fraction of 200K, you can experience weightlessness for a similar amount of time with similar scenery as what they are selling. The guy taking your money won't call a plane a spaceship, or the part of the atmosphere you reach "space". But other than that, it will be the same thing for a lot less money.
They were planning to build a spacecraft, now they plan to build five. That's not flat. I assume you mean, they weren't flying any customers, and now they still aren't. That's flat, but it isn't a market.
It's a futures market. They are selling future space flights, so it's the expected future supply that is relevant. As I understand it, expected future supply has increased.
There was no supply whatsoever; and only a very limited supply projected in the future. A significantly larger supply is now forecast.
Demand may be strong, but unless it gets stonger, the price ought to drop.
So sayeth Econ 101, which I'm often suspicious of, but pretty much buy here. Assuming the whole thing doesn't fold taking peoples deposits with them, flights will get cheaper to operate the longer they actually own and fly the craft. And I'm dubious they can keep finding customers at 200K for long. You can get a few minutes of weightlessness in an airplane a lot cheaper, and that seems a steep price to do so in what is at best "technically space".
"Suppose we take your criterium "putting genes in the next generation". Then the only thing we can say about genes found to survive is that ... they survived."
Oddly, evolutionary biologists find more thatn that to say.
"Now that's something you can program"
Who cares? Whether you can program it (in some simulation I guess?) is irrelevant to whether it is true. You appear to be claiming that how things fit into a structure you made up is some test of truth.
Your story about the cuckoo is lovely, but you claimed examples of "species" that refused to use an energy source "on ideological grounds", and perished as a result. One cuckoo chick is not a species, and I don't believe you know what their ideology is. I singled out your original claim, that there were species that went extinct for ideological reasons, because it is so plainly ridiculous. If you want to talk about science, you need to use precise language to describe things as they are, not just make up whatever sounds good. There is no species that has gone extinct for ideological reasons. There is no broad consensus that anyone but humans *has* ideological reasons.
"In practice it's worse than this. Generally processing 1% less energy than a competing species is found to be more than enough to lead to the extinction of the original species."
There is no possible way you could estimate total energy processed by a species to better than orders of magnitude, much less say anything is "generally" true as if you'd observed such a phenomenon dozens of times. You seem to genuinely believe these things that spring to your mind as if there were any reason too. You throw out the sort of statements people would if they were summarizing an established cannon of solid research ("Generally [whatever] is found to be..."), but you're not.
You seem too dedicated for a troll; I really think you believe it. So I suppose that means delusional, so I should quit engaging, as even my argumentation reinforces the core psychosis that your ideas are worth discussing and relevant to the real world. At least, that's what I remember from psych.
"And there are countless examples like this."
No, there isn't even one, and couldn't possibly be. Measuring the energy use of competing species and controlling for other variables is not a remotely doable thing.
Why do you argue with people about subjects you're entirely ignorant of? Any sentence you start with "Evolution says you should..." is false. Evolution doesn't say you should anything.
"You forgot the actual selection criterium"
Survival of particular genes in the next generation.
"The selection criterium of 'real life' is the efficiency of use of the available resources (amongst which, first and foremost, the energy source). That's of course being very general and assuming that you accept that stuff like "getting eaten" would also not be an efficient use of available resources (not for the one getting eaten at least). But we gladly do so because not doing so would necessitate a great many selection criteria, which have no counterpart in 'real life'."
That's needlessly complex and unhelpful. If one mouse can run faster than the other so the second gets eaten and doen't have children, you want to say "the first mouse used available resources more efficiently"? For gods sake why? How does that help you understand anything?
"But we gladly do so because not doing so would necessitate a great many selection criteria, which have no counterpart in 'real life'."
Huh? Whose this "we" you speak of? Nobody talks about evolution that way. And what do you mean about counterparts in 'real life'? Real life is where the selections happen, and yes there are a great number of selection criteria: anything that kills you before you reproduce.
"There are entire 'kingdoms' whose members depend on taking energy away from other species, on ground where they have the advantage. Like trees, or bushes, or even grass."
Not sure why you use the scare quotes, there are in fact 2 kingdoms (Animals and fungi) that depend on consuming energy converted from other sources by other organisms. The relevance is not clear either... Horses eat grass so it's unreasonable to limit co2 emissions?
"Refusing to use an energy source on ideological grounds is not unheard of in evolution. What is unheard of, however, is a species surviving such a decision."
Really?!? This is fascinating; I never heard about that! Other than humans, I know of no species that has had access to any energy source other than the Sun (for photo-synthesizers), Food (for eaters) or Geothermal heat (for those weird worm things along the Atlantic vents). Please do tell, what species are you referring to that has refused to eat and starved itself into extinction on ideological grounds? (I'm assuming it's an eater we're talking, as photo-synthesizers aren't much for ideological anything, but I guess you never know about the worm-things...)
Anyway, most eager to hear about this philosophically suicidal species you reference! Please enlighten me.
"A basic assumption of evolution is that it's useless trying to prevent change in the environment."
WTF are you talking about? Evolution doesn't have assumptions, basic or otherwise, beyond those of science in general. It describes how populations of organisms change over time. I can't even figure what you could misconstrue or stretch to imply attempting to consciously affect world climate is futile; evolution doesn't even come close to addressing any question in that general ballpark.
"You see if you disadvantage yourself, that will make others, who have zero regard for the environment do it. (and since you, like every American, simply hire Chinese guys to pollute for you, I fail to even see the point)"
The one and only thing I suggested we do is "reduce worldwide carbon emissions", and then I even called out the word "worldwide" for special note. How you get from there to thinking I want to disadvantage my particular tribe vs. others is not clear to me. Obviously, what I say is not relevant; your rebuttal is not based on any attempt understanding what I say. I can only assume your positions on climate change and the rest of the stuff you've conflated with it, are likewise, not based on understanding of any particular topic.
"And even if you're right : Again, things will change, and if you don't adapt, you'll have problems. You might even die.
Deal with it. Or don't. Either way we'll be rid of anyone wining about it."
Absolutely! Turns out, based on our best understanding, it looks like the best way we can see to adapt and deal with it is to do things like reducing worldwide carbon emissions. And doing things like that, what with the whole "worldwide" bit, takes a fair amount of whining about it. Sorry if it bugs you, but we're just trying to adapt and not die, so it seems unlikely we will stop.
"I thought you people believed in Darwin, and that that theory is good (or at least better) ?"
I think Darwin was right (or at least righter), as, implicitly, does anyone who enjoys the fruits of the modern science of Biology (like Medicine). I'm not sure what that has to do with global climate change, unless it's some idea that evolution means we shouldn't try to prevent human suffering and death? I mean, I think Newton was right(er) too, but it doesn't stop me from defying villainous gravity every time I stand up... Scientific theories are not moral codes.
"Err, no. Just conservation of angular momentum in it''s orbit, plus maybe some things about not getting it spinning"
Don't randomly fire big rockets; not sure how they'll screw that up.
"Disassembly will never be simply the opposite of assembly."
Right, it's obviously much easier. You don't have to maneuver big stuff together. You detach it, get it moving apart (even very slowly) and it will just keep doing so. Orbital mechanics are very predictable.
All uses of the words "too big" are jokes about the financial industry, even if there is no direct reference to that at all? That certainly puts certain conversations with my girlfriend in a new light. Bummer.
If you want a lifeboat for a mission to Mars, build one and send it.
The ISS is not at Mars, it is not more than trivially closer to Mars than the ground is, it is not designed to travel. Without constant re-supply and maintenance it doesn't provide anything to troubled mars explorers but a can whose micro-meteor damage they might be able to repair enough to get it sealed. But they've go a sealed environment if they could "jet up" to it in the first place.
If I'm planning to make a trip to the other side of the country, I don't try to work in my broken bicycle just because it's already at the end of my driveway.
So use some small-thrust engine to move the ISS to the moon or mars (for no useful purpose) over a decade or two, sending up hundreds of re-supply missions rather than using that thrust to just go where we want. Why?
Unless what you want is a small human life support environment skimming the atmosphere, the ISS doesn't provide anything that can't be had more cheaply by building the thing you want and sending it.
"I say putting a dollar value on knowledge is ridiculous. To quantify the effect of knowledge gained, based on the money expended to obtain it? By that, penecillin must have been one of the best ROI discoveries ever."
I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Obviously knowledge is valuable. Obviously that value is not based on the money expended to obtain it. That's the point. We want to gain the most value of knowledge in exchange for expending the least value of money.
"If the money to keep it running can be found, and they can still think of things to do, then they should continue. If they run out of tasks, experiments, et al, then yes, nix it then."
Money isn't "found". It is taken away from one thing and spent on another. What should we spend it on? Lots of people can think of things to do, and none of them will ever run out of experiments. You are saying "knowledge is priceless" as justification for spending money on something that produces less knowledge, and not spending it on things that produce more.
Alright, I was exaggerating. It produces very little science.
Does it produce enough science to justify the cost? You say "who knows." I say that's ridiculous. We have scores of other NASA missions to compare it to with known costs and results. Comparing scientific results to one another is necessarily somewhat subjective, but that's no reason to throw up our hands and declare rational evaluation of priorities impossible.
Has it produced 30 times the scientific value the Hubble? Has it produced a hundred times as much value as the Mars rovers? I can't see how you'd argue it was even on par with either, let alone ahead by such extreme multipliers.
"Honestly, after all the money we've spent, I don't see them just plopping it into the ocean."
Sunk costs. You can't get the money back no matter what you do; that money should be irrelevant to your decision.
"Firstly, if we're going to the moon and mars, the ISS seems like a pretty damn good staging/bailout option."
Why? It's not in a useful orbit for such a purpose. Heck, there was considerable concern about doing the last Hubble mission, because the ISS wasn't usable as a bailout for even that orbit. (Lunar orbit is further, FYI)
"Secondly, we need to start thinking long term about our survival as a species. One of those strategies means long term human space flight. Currently a space station is the only thing that's giving us that."
The space station can't survive a week without constant massive assistance from the ground; it's not a useful part.
"I'm sure there will be those people who argue that it takes money away from other projects, but right now it's the only thing NASA is doing."
I'm going to cry. Here's a list of 70-something "current missions": http://www.nasa.gov/missions/current/index.html. One of them is the ISS. The rest do science.
It's not a rocket designed to withstand the massive thrust needed for such a move.
It's not a lander designed to set down on the Moon.
It's not a re-entry vehicle designed to enter that Martian atmosphere.
There is a quite large, continuing cost to keep boosting the things orbit back up. If anyone wants to pay that, I'm sure that's fine with NASA. If nobody pays that, the thing is coming down, it's just a question of how predictably.
"I would really laugh if
What mental model of orbital dynamics are you working with? You think it's going to fall off its sky-hook or something?
The Mars rovers were supposed to to have a very high degree of probability of full functionality for a minimum of 90 days. Warranty jokes aside, you can't design something to work perfectly until it breaks down on day 91. To be really sure it will work for 90 days, you've got to design it probably work for much,much longer. That they have managed to limp along for years is awesome, but not entirely shocking. In terms of the science produced, the fairly small cost (of staff on Earth) to keep the rovers operating is pretty reasonable, since they are already on Mars.
The IIS is a whole different story. It costs insanely more money, and doesn't produce any science. It's mission, and it's end date, are entirely political. With construction complete, it's not quite as good a way for politicians to give aerospace companies money, but there isn't much better until the shuttle-replacement ramps up, so expect great gnashing of teeth about how horrible it will be if we don't have astronauts bravely exploring the inside of a can they built as it skims along barely above the atmosphere.
"Your insistence that Christians must equate 'the literal word of God' with 'infallible transcriptions, every single time a book of the Bible is copied' is just plain wrong. That's not what most Christians believe."
If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it. I know Christians that claim to believe in the infallible, literal truth of the King James Bible. There were clearly some transcription errors in the texts used to produce that version, and James' translators clearly introduced more, some of them intentionally. I assume the Christians in question believe these changes were divinely inspired. Hard to say, as they seem oddly uninterested in the origins of their infallible guide.
"Compare that with Uthman Ibn Affan, who decided which copy of the Qur'an would be canonical, then gathered together and burning all other copies that differed from the official version. Christianity has nothing like that."
There are a slew of events just like that, ranging from the Synod of Hippo (393 AD) through the Council of Trent (1546). The difference is that Uthman Ibn Affran was radically more successful. He standardized the text a few years after it was first set down; the total divergence cannot have been anything on the Bible scale, and modern versions are exact copies of his text. I'm neither a Christian nor a Muslim, I've got no horse in this race, but for actually caring about getting the supposed word of God right, Islam wins hands down.
If it didn't involve minors, what he did is look at pictures of attractive naked women. That's your standard for "sick and disgusting"? And you think "most people" agree?
I've heard it suggested that there are heterosexual men who claim they don't look at such pictures, but so far it has not occured to me to believe them.
I'm not in management, but yes, I have a corner office, which is quite nice. It must be because I'm the stupid one. Hope you like your cube.
"The 'Do you really disagree?' was meant to show my amazement at your utter stupidity."
Yeah, I got that, but I chose to answer the question anyway, because, despite your amazement, you are wrong.
In any case, no, I don't think the majority of Windows users are sitting in offices. I believe it is well established that most are sitting in their homes. Even just amongst business users, more than half of the workers in the US work for small businesses (<50 employees), which don't tend to have cube farms. While you apparently work in a cube for someone big enough to have clueless middle management, you are, in this, not in the majority, or anywhere close to it.
I'M STILL NOT OFFENDED YOU USED CAPS, NEVER HAVE BEEN. SEE I CAN DO IT TOO, I JUST THINK IT MAKES WHAT YOU ARE SAYING LOOK STUPID, SO YOUR URGE TO DO IT MIGHT BE A GOOD CLUE TO YOU THAT YOU ARE NOT SAYING ANYTHING WORTHWHILE. If, you know, cutting and pasting the same comment 3 times didn't let you figure that out. Another good sign is calling people stupid, delusional, etc. If I wrong, just say that and explain why. When your response to being questioned is to restate your assertion with ever greater incredulity rather than to offer any sort of rationale, it makes it pretty clear you don't have one.
"you got pissed off and started this waste of time conversation because you were offended that I used caps."
Again, not pissed off, just amused. Particularly, I'm amused that I "started" the conversation by replying to you. A "waste of time" by contrast to your repeatedly cut-and-pasting the same comment.
"Or do you just try to ignore them?"
I try but apparently I'm not doing a very good job.