You missed the word "implicitly". This guy is explicitly putting his faith in, by trusting his life to, the calculations. Those calculations were derived through the scientific process. Whether or not he knows it, he is putting his faith into the science behind them. He says he doesn't, but his actions show that he implicitly does.
Websites run by critics of the current administration will simply fail to load. From now on the Republican Party is the only party.
The Government just *ELIMINATED* government oversight of the Internet. And you believe that to mean they have taken control of it ?
The Mental Gymnastics are reaching beyond Olympic levels here.
Where did he say anything about government taking control of it? The telecoms already have control of it - without oversight, they'll be free to privilege whatever content suits them. And given that one party thinks this is a good idea and the other doesn't, it should be pretty clear whose content will be privileged.
That pretty much makes it a useless option for the employee. It gives the current employer total veto power, allowing them to continue underpaying or otherwise providing poor working conditions with no redress for the employee. If that veto power is removed, so all that is needed is a new employer, that creates a competitive environment for the visa holder, which in turn means that their presence in the job market is less likely to put downward pressure on wages.
That is why big, massive corporations always... donate tons of money to mainline liberalism and conservatism.
They donate to Democrats and Republicans. Neither is liberal or conservative. The former are centrists, and the latter are the radical right wing.
And they donate to these parties rather than the libertarians not because they don't prefer libertarian ideology, but rather because the libertarians have no power. In their view, it's easier to shift a D or R (and let's be honest: it's mostly Rs) to their position than it is to boost a marginal party to a position of power.
Cooperation isn't about reduction of might. Just the opposite: it's about increasing might by harnessing the combined might of those involved. Daesh isn't mighty by any stretch when compared to the collective might displayed by any number of nations around the world.
It sure does. That is the fundamental law of nature. The way we get around it is to pool our resources and votes to create an entity that is mightiest of all, and (if we don't let the cheating bastards get away with corrupting our process) responsive to the will of the people it represents. That might, and that might alone, is what allows us to overlay our values of what is right an wrong.
Even so, they lost the empire, and saw its folly before we briefly put a man on the moon. Once again, I submit that this is a prerequisite to becoming a starfaring species. As you point out, it was a net drain on resources. If a species can develop the needed technology to make it from inhabitable planet to inhabitable planet, they've developed the accounting theory, financial metrics, and economic understanding necessary to realize the folly of such a course of action.
Well the British needed to develop all those by the time they had an empire, and it didn't make them give it up. Sure it collapsed eventually but as Orwell pointed out 'societies based on slavery have persisted for such period as four thousand of years'
The British Empire had the accounting theory, financial metrics and economic understanding necessary to become a starfaring species before they had an Empire? Seems like a bit of a stretch, given that we haven't figured out that stuff in the US, even after sending men to the moon and probes beyond the solar system.
I think you're forgetting how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big space is. And just how many planets there are out there. If a civilization has mined out all of those planets, their technology is so advanced that they probably already know we're here.
You're assuming the aliens are rational and think the way we do.
No, I'm making the pretty rational argument that rational thought is a prerequisite to become a starfaring species. I have no doubt that a certain percentage of alien life is predatory and irrational. I DO doubt that that life would be able to achieve the advanced technology necessary to make it off their planet.
And, like I say, there are plenty of examples of human civilisations going on a conquering spree of their less advanced neighbours for reasons that weren't really rational from the perspective of the whole civilisation.
None of who had to find a way to achieve escape velocity, near-light propulsion, long-term life support, psychological techniques for dealing with long term space travel, or any of a number of other things necessary for interstellar travel in order to go on their conquering sprees.
E.g. the British Empire was a net drain on national resources.
Another reason why, if it comes down to exploiting resources, it makes so much more sense to go after nearby uninhabited planets rather than to find the needle in a haystack that a planet capable of supporting life.
On the other hand the people who ended up doing the conquering made a fortune out of it, and the invented a justification of national glory and bringing civilisation to the barbarians to keep the people back home supportive.
Same with the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of South America. The people doing it were doing it to get rich.
If they're looking to get rich on exploitation of natural resources, there is literally nothing on, or in, Earth that wouldn't be much cheaper and more plentifully much closer to harvest or produce wherever these hypothetical aliens are.
And in fact Adam Smith argued the UK should give up Empire because it was a net drain on UK resources.... No one listened and it all carried on for a century or more before collapsing because the UK couldn't afford it.
Even so, they lost the empire, and saw its folly before we briefly put a man on the moon. Once again, I submit that this is a prerequisite to becoming a starfaring species. As you point out, it was a net drain on resources. If a species can develop the needed technology to make it from inhabitable planet to inhabitable planet, they've developed the accounting theory, financial metrics, and economic understanding necessary to realize the folly of such a course of action.
The only reason to go after an inhabitable planet is if you intend to inhabit it. If all you're concerned with is stripping it for parts, there are far more uninhabited planets out there available for stripping. And because they're so much more plentiful, they also tend to be much, much closer.
All of your examples are science fiction stories. Stories need to have protagonists and antagonists. Nature does not.
I assume you meant 0.5 percent of c, not 0.5c, because I don't know of any human tech so far that can hit 0.5c, and I know for a fact that we can't achieve double that with any credible technological improvements on the horizon, unless Einstein is suddenly and completely unexpectedly proven wrong.
Rome is actually a fantastic counter example. They were, from day one of the Roman Kingdom to the fall of the Roman Empire, a highly competitive, ruthless, aggressive civilization. They conquered a lot of territory and people, but they hit a limit where it was impossible for their civilization to expand any further because of those traits. Competition meant that leaders were more concerned with watching their backs than governing. Ruthlessness meant that conquered territory was rarely well integrated, and frequently revolting. Aggression meant that they kept trying to expand, even when they would have been far better served in the long run by consolidating. Eventually, the center could not hold, and their civilization disintegrated.
So, yeah, Rome was pretty successful. But that success had hard limits. I don't see how such limits would not also be in place when talking about intergalactic civilization.
... it is likely that the one that prevails is one that is aggressive, xenophobic, competitive and ruthless, at least towards those that don't belong to their own species.
It seems equally - or more - likely that an agressive, xenophobic, competitive, and ruthless life form would destroy itself before it could travel between the stars, or keep itself in a state of near-constant war that would make interstellar ambitions a perceived waste of resources. The kind of individual who would lead such a civilization would almost certainly have to be so concerned with maintaining their power and privilege that it seems unlikely they would ever become technologically advanced enough to be a threat to other planets.
Foreign students are more likely to not qualify for financial aid, and therefore to pay sticker price for college. That, in a small but real way, subsidizes the cost for US students.
I think his point is that the UK, which is second only to the US in terms of its higher education system, also faces the same increase in costs, while not experiencing a downturn in foreign students. In other words, they are a counterexample to the argument that it's all about cost.
Hmong, for example, has no alphabet of its own. It has adopted the Latin alphabet, but is in no other way related to Latin. Urdu, Farsi and Sanskrit are all MUCH closer to Latin, even though none use the Latin alphabet.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed the word "implicitly". This guy is explicitly putting his faith in, by trusting his life to, the calculations. Those calculations were derived through the scientific process. Whether or not he knows it, he is putting his faith into the science behind them. He says he doesn't, but his actions show that he implicitly does.
What "next democratic administration"?
Websites run by critics of the current administration will simply fail to load. From now on the Republican Party is the only party.
The Government just *ELIMINATED* government oversight of the Internet. And you believe that to mean they have taken control of it ?
The Mental Gymnastics are reaching beyond Olympic levels here.
Where did he say anything about government taking control of it? The telecoms already have control of it - without oversight, they'll be free to privilege whatever content suits them. And given that one party thinks this is a good idea and the other doesn't, it should be pretty clear whose content will be privileged.
My money's on him not understanding what "entitled" means.
The math used by engineers was developed through scientific means. To use it to to implicitly have faith in science.
It's a circle.
That pretty much makes it a useless option for the employee. It gives the current employer total veto power, allowing them to continue underpaying or otherwise providing poor working conditions with no redress for the employee. If that veto power is removed, so all that is needed is a new employer, that creates a competitive environment for the visa holder, which in turn means that their presence in the job market is less likely to put downward pressure on wages.
That is why big, massive corporations always ... donate tons of money to mainline liberalism and conservatism.
They donate to Democrats and Republicans. Neither is liberal or conservative. The former are centrists, and the latter are the radical right wing. And they donate to these parties rather than the libertarians not because they don't prefer libertarian ideology, but rather because the libertarians have no power. In their view, it's easier to shift a D or R (and let's be honest: it's mostly Rs) to their position than it is to boost a marginal party to a position of power.
Cooperation isn't about reduction of might. Just the opposite: it's about increasing might by harnessing the combined might of those involved. Daesh isn't mighty by any stretch when compared to the collective might displayed by any number of nations around the world.
It sure does. That is the fundamental law of nature. The way we get around it is to pool our resources and votes to create an entity that is mightiest of all, and (if we don't let the cheating bastards get away with corrupting our process) responsive to the will of the people it represents. That might, and that might alone, is what allows us to overlay our values of what is right an wrong.
Even so, they lost the empire, and saw its folly before we briefly put a man on the moon. Once again, I submit that this is a prerequisite to becoming a starfaring species. As you point out, it was a net drain on resources. If a species can develop the needed technology to make it from inhabitable planet to inhabitable planet, they've developed the accounting theory, financial metrics, and economic understanding necessary to realize the folly of such a course of action.
Well the British needed to develop all those by the time they had an empire, and it didn't make them give it up. Sure it collapsed eventually but as Orwell pointed out 'societies based on slavery have persisted for such period as four thousand of years'
http://orwell.ru/library/essay...
The British Empire had the accounting theory, financial metrics and economic understanding necessary to become a starfaring species before they had an Empire? Seems like a bit of a stretch, given that we haven't figured out that stuff in the US, even after sending men to the moon and probes beyond the solar system.
I think you're forgetting how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big space is. And just how many planets there are out there. If a civilization has mined out all of those planets, their technology is so advanced that they probably already know we're here.
You're assuming the aliens are rational and think the way we do.
No, I'm making the pretty rational argument that rational thought is a prerequisite to become a starfaring species. I have no doubt that a certain percentage of alien life is predatory and irrational. I DO doubt that that life would be able to achieve the advanced technology necessary to make it off their planet.
And, like I say, there are plenty of examples of human civilisations going on a conquering spree of their less advanced neighbours for reasons that weren't really rational from the perspective of the whole civilisation.
None of who had to find a way to achieve escape velocity, near-light propulsion, long-term life support, psychological techniques for dealing with long term space travel, or any of a number of other things necessary for interstellar travel in order to go on their conquering sprees.
E.g. the British Empire was a net drain on national resources.
Another reason why, if it comes down to exploiting resources, it makes so much more sense to go after nearby uninhabited planets rather than to find the needle in a haystack that a planet capable of supporting life.
On the other hand the people who ended up doing the conquering made a fortune out of it, and the invented a justification of national glory and bringing civilisation to the barbarians to keep the people back home supportive.
Same with the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of South America. The people doing it were doing it to get rich.
If they're looking to get rich on exploitation of natural resources, there is literally nothing on, or in, Earth that wouldn't be much cheaper and more plentifully much closer to harvest or produce wherever these hypothetical aliens are.
And in fact Adam Smith argued the UK should give up Empire because it was a net drain on UK resources. ... No one listened and it all carried on for a century or more before collapsing because the UK couldn't afford it.
Even so, they lost the empire, and saw its folly before we briefly put a man on the moon. Once again, I submit that this is a prerequisite to becoming a starfaring species. As you point out, it was a net drain on resources. If a species can develop the needed technology to make it from inhabitable planet to inhabitable planet, they've developed the accounting theory, financial metrics, and economic understanding necessary to realize the folly of such a course of action.
The only reason to go after an inhabitable planet is if you intend to inhabit it. If all you're concerned with is stripping it for parts, there are far more uninhabited planets out there available for stripping. And because they're so much more plentiful, they also tend to be much, much closer.
All of your examples are science fiction stories. Stories need to have protagonists and antagonists. Nature does not.
You and me, both, brother. You and me both.
I assume you meant 0.5 percent of c, not 0.5c, because I don't know of any human tech so far that can hit 0.5c, and I know for a fact that we can't achieve double that with any credible technological improvements on the horizon, unless Einstein is suddenly and completely unexpectedly proven wrong.
Rome is actually a fantastic counter example. They were, from day one of the Roman Kingdom to the fall of the Roman Empire, a highly competitive, ruthless, aggressive civilization. They conquered a lot of territory and people, but they hit a limit where it was impossible for their civilization to expand any further because of those traits. Competition meant that leaders were more concerned with watching their backs than governing. Ruthlessness meant that conquered territory was rarely well integrated, and frequently revolting. Aggression meant that they kept trying to expand, even when they would have been far better served in the long run by consolidating. Eventually, the center could not hold, and their civilization disintegrated.
So, yeah, Rome was pretty successful. But that success had hard limits. I don't see how such limits would not also be in place when talking about intergalactic civilization.
... it is likely that the one that prevails is one that is aggressive, xenophobic, competitive and ruthless, at least towards those that don't belong to their own species.
It seems equally - or more - likely that an agressive, xenophobic, competitive, and ruthless life form would destroy itself before it could travel between the stars, or keep itself in a state of near-constant war that would make interstellar ambitions a perceived waste of resources. The kind of individual who would lead such a civilization would almost certainly have to be so concerned with maintaining their power and privilege that it seems unlikely they would ever become technologically advanced enough to be a threat to other planets.
Foreign students are more likely to not qualify for financial aid, and therefore to pay sticker price for college. That, in a small but real way, subsidizes the cost for US students.
I think his point is that the UK, which is second only to the US in terms of its higher education system, also faces the same increase in costs, while not experiencing a downturn in foreign students. In other words, they are a counterexample to the argument that it's all about cost.
Here's the funny part - these gents all came in legally under the immigration laws of their respective times, which is actually perfectly cool.
Wouldn't that also be the case with the foreign students discussed in the article, should they choose to attend college here?
Twitter isn't a common carrier.
Alphabet != Language
Hmong, for example, has no alphabet of its own. It has adopted the Latin alphabet, but is in no other way related to Latin. Urdu, Farsi and Sanskrit are all MUCH closer to Latin, even though none use the Latin alphabet.
Why the assumption that pavement has something to do with being paved?
Oh, no reason ...
And worse, someone actually modded him up as insightful.
The Canadian market is to the USA market what the USA market is to the Asian market.
So why the fuck should Apple give even one shit about the small north-american market?
Canada is the #1 trade partner of the US ... So assuming your analogy holds, they would give quite a few shits about the US market.