The only way for humans to get to another star is to learn how to live in space. It is not so daunting a task as most believe. The most important fact is that space is not empty. There are more resources in the asteroid belt then currently exist on Earth and the vast distances between the stars are filled with resources that dwarf the already immense asteroid belt.
It is all out there waiting for us. With the current rate of innovation, I would expect that we are only a few generations away from taking our first real steps into conquering our solar system. After that, it will be only a few more generations until we start spreading out into the beyond. We are really only missing a few key ingredients to take those first steps, most importantly we lack the political/social will to explore space.
It will not be cheap to move into space, but the upside is supercalifragalistic (seriously, couldn't think of a better word). It will mark the beginning of our post-scarcity existence.
If we don't move into space, we will continue to mark time until the end of our existence.
Why bother even arguing with a person who doesn't think their genes should be passed on? They have failed Darwin 101 and life in general. I'd respect the arguments of a hedonist more then a defeatist, though not much more.
When microbes first appeared on this planet, when life first made the jump to land and back again, through snow ball earth and numerous species destroying catastrophes, from the time the first ape climbed down from the trees and started walking upright, through countless wars and conflicts, your ancestors survived and reproduced. Congratulations, you are the first to fail at that task.
My 5 year old has played just about every educational game you can think of. The best ones have a significant game portion that requires passing the educational parts. However, we aren't expecting the games to teach her anything, that's our job. If the games motivate her to learn, that's great. Her 2 favorite games have very little learning content, but even mastering those games requires focus, thought and patience.
She started school last month and if she does not behave well (green or blue mark), she loses access to the computer. If she misbehaves (red, orange, yellow), she loses all, 1/2 or a 1/4 of her toys. She now knows what a quarter of her toys looks like.
The most amazing thing to me is how much she knows about computers. I almost have her turning in QA style bug reports for her computer. "Well the screen froze, but if I push the windows button I can get out of the game, but when I go back it is still frozen." That was a conversation this morning.
You make some valid points, but I think we are talking about different things. Some of your peers in the scientific community have been using the label "peer reviewed" to imply that the contents of the peer reviewed item are true or proven. As you point out, there are bad papers with wrong results that have been peer reviewed, so obviously those scientists who misuse the "peer reviewed" label are wrong to do so.
Peer review is a step towards getting published, nothing more, nothing less. It does not impart truthiness and scientists selling their pet theories in this manner are not going to succeed.
Mob review only occurs when the public has a vested interest. It's not their job to check the work of scientists and they are only going to do so when the work intersects with their lives. Note that I am not saying that the mob is right or that the scientist is wrong.
I'm just pointing out the fact that a scientist can not stop someone who is not a peer from reviewing and criticizing their work.
"a good paper of theirs gets turned down, or when a bad paper they disagree with gets published"
This basically says it all. No one ever submits a bad paper, in their own opinion, and bad papers are limited to the ones that they disagree with.
In case you missed it, peer review is dead. Get over it. Don't be sad, you can still have your journals and pomp and circumstances. You can drag out the rotted corpse and parade around with your scientist friends. It just carries no weight with the public. We've seen how twisted it can get.
That is why mob review has supplanted peer review. You can call it crowd sourcing or whatever, but it is not going to go away. Any paper that makes it thru peer review now has to make it past the non-peer reviewers, that is, everyone else. If you thought your peers were tough reviewers, then you are going to really hate mob review.
Using a model? Guess what, there are people who love to dissect models. Using statistics, lots of statisticians running around that are going to poke at yours.
My advice, don't fight it. The majority of people just want to get to the truth.
I always thought it was "I could care less, but my indifference prevents me from doing so".
Saying "I couldn't care less" implies that you have examined your position and have reached a conclusion, which also implies that you at one time cared enough about the issue to have spent some time thinking about it.
You might want to check your facts. From wikipedia...
"The Soon and Baliunas paper had been sent to four reviewers during publication, none of whom recommended rejecting it."
The big question is how a handful of climate researchers managed to hide the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. I'm not talking about methods, those are easily understood and refuted. No, I'm talking about how all the other climate researchers allowed them to do it. They signed off on the previous IPCC reports that clearly show the MWP and LIA, then they signed off on the latest IPCC that removed them.
At this point, it is a matter of trust and climate scientists have lost that trust. They can continue to wage their losing PR war or they can return to doing real science.
The paper was peer reviewed. How else could these 'scientists' have known about it and fought it against publication if it wasn't? These 'scientists' didn't like the results. They really, really didn't like their own research being used against them. They probably thought that the researchers got to pick their reviewers because that's how they roll.
This whole argument is really about restoring the Medieval Warm Period. Mann completely removed it from his proxy reconstructions and others have put forth the argument that it was regional or hemispheric. The study in question showed that the MWP signature appears in multiple sets of data. More recent studies have shown that it did exist and was a global phenomenon.
You would think that the burden of proof is on the side that overturns established theory. The MWP was in previous IPCC reports and was not considered controversial.
This is such a lame argument. If the paper is sooooo baaadd, let it be published and then any one finding fault can reference it and refute it. That is the way of science.
The paper in question was merely an analysis of multiple temperature proxies and argued for -*GASP*- the existence of the Medieval Warm Period as a global phenomenon. Something which is now again and was previously rather uncontroversial. It was the AGWers who had redefined the MWP as a regional or hemispheric temperature increase, when not deleting any trace of it, without really justifying their actions. The raw data that Soon and Baliunas analyzed poked a big hole in the AGW line, but it is difficult to argue against raw data.
This is pure unadulterated bunk. I've lived in Europe and my standard of living did not decrease or change one bit. There is virtually no difference in lifestyle between a European and an American. The only reason the USA appears to consume more resources is because the USA has the largest GDP. We consume more resources, not on a personal level, but on a national level, but that's because we produce more. We squeeze efficiencies out of our free market and because of that our GDP rises faster then our population.
Idiots like you think that is a bad thing. We need more Americans, not less.
Australia is not part of Europe and what does anything you wrote have to do with population reproduction rates? Maybe living at the bottom of the world has addled your beer infused brain or maybe that shrimp on the barbie wasn't throughly cooked.
I can explain. Except for a few very small nations, none of your examples work. There is no requirement for any one to belong to any of those churches and no punishment or penalty for not belonging. Other religions are freely practiced.
As far as rewriting history, it is almost laughable when someone tries to make a case for the founders not being christians. Even today, after decades of decline, christians are the majority in the USA and make up a majority of the government.
I don't know any Buddhists who would point a gun at anyone. If they do, they are not Buddhists. The same applies to Christians. Most just want the government to stay out of their lives and to stop spending money on idiots who put crucifixes in a bottle of urine and idiots who need abortions.
"Every American atheist and Muslim that I know wants the nation they live in to be free from government establishment of or restriction on religion."
That's great. I feel so much better. I guess I can ignore the Koran which espouses that Islam will conquer the world and that it is the duty of every muslim to spread Islam.
"but go ahead and try to get an abortion" That's not difficult to do. Not sure where you live, but abortions are performed at a rate of 2 a minute or more in the god fearing USA.
"marry someone of your own gender" There are 10 states that recognize gay marriage, move to one of them.
"receive government services on a Sunday" The web is 24/7 and the government makes all sort of services available on the web. Not sure what the point is, banks and most people are off on Sunday. Saturday as well, but that doesn't fit your narrow narrative.
There are prominent government employees and elected officials of virtually all faiths, including atheists. Christians make up the majority, but that is a reflection of the population, not some plot to enshrine a national religion. The 'christians' in the USA would never, ever be able to agree on a single version of Christianity to enshrine. One of the tenents of Christianity is the voluntary acceptance of faith. Again, that is in stark contrast to Atheism and Islam, both of which will convert you by force if necessary.
I'm sure most westerners can trace some part of their lineage back to a crusader or some other christian that lived during those times, who no doubtably supported the crusades. Most christians today probably don't feel very proud or supportive of the crusades. So how exactly does bringing up the crusades in this discussion make any kind of sensible point? It is about as insightful as bringing up the inquisition and using it to disparage current christians.
The west, and christianity, turned away from state sponsored religion a long time ago. However, atheists and muslims have in common that they want the state they live in to revolve around their own doctrines.
That is an interesting narative. I'm amazed that the investigators were able to obtain temperature records that the CRU admits that they lost. Or I should say, admitted they lost after numerous FOI requests.
Watchmen literally put me to sleep. I couldn't be bothered to try to watch it again. Amazing, because I thought they had nailed the look of the comic, of which I'm a big fan. Now I think I understand how so many hated '300', a movie I like a lot but had never read the source.
Avatar was a huge disappointment. The story was just lazy and cliched. The humans were all American, how's that for a politically correct faux pas. Star Trek TOS had a multinational crew and that was 40 years ago. No one in America noticed and international audiences didn't care because almost all of the 'Americans' were giant pricks. We manage to cross the immense distances of space, expending unknowable amounts of resources, but only because we want to plant our erect members in your big blue buns. I could go on and on, but what is the point. I didn't even pay to see it, it was a company event.
You have 1 source that has a number that is 10 times greater then what the majority is reporting. I would bet that even you don't believe it, but it sounds really neat when you sanctimoniously repeat it to your friends at the coffee klatch.
I don't know how much the war cost and don't care. If in 10 years Iraq is still a functioning democracy, no one else will care about the costs either. And if they are not, I bet you will find a way to blame America.
The Iraqis and almost every other source available disagrees with your numbers. The only sources that do agree with you are based on extrapolating poll numbers, not hard data. Even then, many of those deaths were not caused by the coalition forces. Take a look and you will see that car bombs were the #2 cause of death.
The supreme court in my opinion is the cause of all our problems. They should be the guardians of liberty and equality. They have instead become the diviners of obscure minutiae of trial law.
We, the people, should not have to wait for a law to go into effect before the supreme court acts. Laws that take away liberty like the patriot act should be reviewed after the president signs them. Laws that are inequitable like Obamacare which exempt union members and some states also should be reviewed.
Laws should apply to all people, equally. Not only laws, but also the actions of the government.
A city near where I live bought some foreclosed houses, renovated them and then offered them for sale. Government employees received a 10% discount. A government employee decided to give other government employees a special deal. Every other citizen that lives in that city pays more for not only the house, but also in taxes. Not to mention that their homes were not renovated so their homes are now worth less.
This is why the pension systems in most states are broke. They are not over-funded, they are over-promised. Ask any government employee and they will tell you exactly how many years, months, days they have until they max out their pensions.
It is a sickness and not one that can be treated, but one that needs to be cut out, possibly amputated, burned and disposed of in a deep pit.
Slashdot Mirror
The only way for humans to get to another star is to learn how to live in space. It is not so daunting a task as most believe. The most important fact is that space is not empty. There are more resources in the asteroid belt then currently exist on Earth and the vast distances between the stars are filled with resources that dwarf the already immense asteroid belt.
It is all out there waiting for us. With the current rate of innovation, I would expect that we are only a few generations away from taking our first real steps into conquering our solar system. After that, it will be only a few more generations until we start spreading out into the beyond. We are really only missing a few key ingredients to take those first steps, most importantly we lack the political/social will to explore space.
It will not be cheap to move into space, but the upside is supercalifragalistic (seriously, couldn't think of a better word). It will mark the beginning of our post-scarcity existence.
If we don't move into space, we will continue to mark time until the end of our existence.
tI deruc ym aixelsid!
Why bother even arguing with a person who doesn't think their genes should be passed on? They have failed Darwin 101 and life in general. I'd respect the arguments of a hedonist more then a defeatist, though not much more.
When microbes first appeared on this planet, when life first made the jump to land and back again, through snow ball earth and numerous species destroying catastrophes, from the time the first ape climbed down from the trees and started walking upright, through countless wars and conflicts, your ancestors survived and reproduced. Congratulations, you are the first to fail at that task.
My 5 year old has played just about every educational game you can think of. The best ones have a significant game portion that requires passing the educational parts. However, we aren't expecting the games to teach her anything, that's our job. If the games motivate her to learn, that's great. Her 2 favorite games have very little learning content, but even mastering those games requires focus, thought and patience.
She started school last month and if she does not behave well (green or blue mark), she loses access to the computer. If she misbehaves (red, orange, yellow), she loses all, 1/2 or a 1/4 of her toys. She now knows what a quarter of her toys looks like.
The most amazing thing to me is how much she knows about computers. I almost have her turning in QA style bug reports for her computer. "Well the screen froze, but if I push the windows button I can get out of the game, but when I go back it is still frozen." That was a conversation this morning.
You make some valid points, but I think we are talking about different things. Some of your peers in the scientific community have been using the label "peer reviewed" to imply that the contents of the peer reviewed item are true or proven. As you point out, there are bad papers with wrong results that have been peer reviewed, so obviously those scientists who misuse the "peer reviewed" label are wrong to do so.
Peer review is a step towards getting published, nothing more, nothing less. It does not impart truthiness and scientists selling their pet theories in this manner are not going to succeed.
Mob review only occurs when the public has a vested interest. It's not their job to check the work of scientists and they are only going to do so when the work intersects with their lives. Note that I am not saying that the mob is right or that the scientist is wrong.
I'm just pointing out the fact that a scientist can not stop someone who is not a peer from reviewing and criticizing their work.
"a good paper of theirs gets turned down, or when a bad paper they disagree with gets published"
This basically says it all. No one ever submits a bad paper, in their own opinion, and bad papers are limited to the ones that they disagree with.
In case you missed it, peer review is dead. Get over it. Don't be sad, you can still have your journals and pomp and circumstances. You can drag out the rotted corpse and parade around with your scientist friends. It just carries no weight with the public. We've seen how twisted it can get.
That is why mob review has supplanted peer review. You can call it crowd sourcing or whatever, but it is not going to go away. Any paper that makes it thru peer review now has to make it past the non-peer reviewers, that is, everyone else. If you thought your peers were tough reviewers, then you are going to really hate mob review.
Using a model? Guess what, there are people who love to dissect models. Using statistics, lots of statisticians running around that are going to poke at yours.
My advice, don't fight it. The majority of people just want to get to the truth.
That is an interesting interpretation.
I always thought it was "I could care less, but my indifference prevents me from doing so".
Saying "I couldn't care less" implies that you have examined your position and have reached a conclusion, which also implies that you at one time cared enough about the issue to have spent some time thinking about it.
You might want to check your facts. From wikipedia...
"The Soon and Baliunas paper had been sent to four reviewers during publication, none of whom recommended rejecting it."
The big question is how a handful of climate researchers managed to hide the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. I'm not talking about methods, those are easily understood and refuted. No, I'm talking about how all the other climate researchers allowed them to do it. They signed off on the previous IPCC reports that clearly show the MWP and LIA, then they signed off on the latest IPCC that removed them.
At this point, it is a matter of trust and climate scientists have lost that trust. They can continue to wage their losing PR war or they can return to doing real science.
The paper was peer reviewed. How else could these 'scientists' have known about it and fought it against publication if it wasn't? These 'scientists' didn't like the results. They really, really didn't like their own research being used against them. They probably thought that the researchers got to pick their reviewers because that's how they roll.
This whole argument is really about restoring the Medieval Warm Period. Mann completely removed it from his proxy reconstructions and others have put forth the argument that it was regional or hemispheric. The study in question showed that the MWP signature appears in multiple sets of data. More recent studies have shown that it did exist and was a global phenomenon.
You would think that the burden of proof is on the side that overturns established theory. The MWP was in previous IPCC reports and was not considered controversial.
This is such a lame argument. If the paper is sooooo baaadd, let it be published and then any one finding fault can reference it and refute it. That is the way of science.
The paper in question was merely an analysis of multiple temperature proxies and argued for -*GASP*- the existence of the Medieval Warm Period as a global phenomenon. Something which is now again and was previously rather uncontroversial. It was the AGWers who had redefined the MWP as a regional or hemispheric temperature increase, when not deleting any trace of it, without really justifying their actions. The raw data that Soon and Baliunas analyzed poked a big hole in the AGW line, but it is difficult to argue against raw data.
You are a fool and I will waste no more time with you. If you believe Islam is the religion of peace, then you are a deluded fool.
This is pure unadulterated bunk. I've lived in Europe and my standard of living did not decrease or change one bit. There is virtually no difference in lifestyle between a European and an American. The only reason the USA appears to consume more resources is because the USA has the largest GDP. We consume more resources, not on a personal level, but on a national level, but that's because we produce more. We squeeze efficiencies out of our free market and because of that our GDP rises faster then our population.
Idiots like you think that is a bad thing. We need more Americans, not less.
Australia is not part of Europe and what does anything you wrote have to do with population reproduction rates? Maybe living at the bottom of the world has addled your beer infused brain or maybe that shrimp on the barbie wasn't throughly cooked.
You must be from New South Wales.
I can explain. Except for a few very small nations, none of your examples work. There is no requirement for any one to belong to any of those churches and no punishment or penalty for not belonging. Other religions are freely practiced.
As far as rewriting history, it is almost laughable when someone tries to make a case for the founders not being christians. Even today, after decades of decline, christians are the majority in the USA and make up a majority of the government.
I don't know any Buddhists who would point a gun at anyone. If they do, they are not Buddhists. The same applies to Christians. Most just want the government to stay out of their lives and to stop spending money on idiots who put crucifixes in a bottle of urine and idiots who need abortions.
"Every American atheist and Muslim that I know wants the nation they live in to be free from government establishment of or restriction on religion."
That's great. I feel so much better. I guess I can ignore the Koran which espouses that Islam will conquer the world and that it is the duty of every muslim to spread Islam.
"but go ahead and try to get an abortion"
That's not difficult to do. Not sure where you live, but abortions are performed at a rate of 2 a minute or more in the god fearing USA.
"marry someone of your own gender"
There are 10 states that recognize gay marriage, move to one of them.
"receive government services on a Sunday"
The web is 24/7 and the government makes all sort of services available on the web. Not sure what the point is, banks and most people are off on Sunday. Saturday as well, but that doesn't fit your narrow narrative.
There are prominent government employees and elected officials of virtually all faiths, including atheists. Christians make up the majority, but that is a reflection of the population, not some plot to enshrine a national religion. The 'christians' in the USA would never, ever be able to agree on a single version of Christianity to enshrine. One of the tenents of Christianity is the voluntary acceptance of faith. Again, that is in stark contrast to Atheism and Islam, both of which will convert you by force if necessary.
Someone thought that was informative. That's pretty sad :(
I've lived in 3 European countries, if you count England as part of Europe. I've been to at least a dozen, more if you count Luxemburg as a country.
I can remember a kid from Texas asking whether we had driven back from Belgium. That's very sad, but also very funny.
I'm sure most westerners can trace some part of their lineage back to a crusader or some other christian that lived during those times, who no doubtably supported the crusades. Most christians today probably don't feel very proud or supportive of the crusades. So how exactly does bringing up the crusades in this discussion make any kind of sensible point? It is about as insightful as bringing up the inquisition and using it to disparage current christians.
The west, and christianity, turned away from state sponsored religion a long time ago. However, atheists and muslims have in common that they want the state they live in to revolve around their own doctrines.
Europe doesn't need growth limits. At their current rate of replacement, there won't be many Europeans left in this world in a few generations.
The US is not over-populated. The world is a different question and one that many 'experts' have been very, very wrong about many, many times.
That is an interesting narative. I'm amazed that the investigators were able to obtain temperature records that the CRU admits that they lost. Or I should say, admitted they lost after numerous FOI requests.
Whitewash? I agree completely.
Pope Benedict? Stay away for them kids...
Watchmen literally put me to sleep. I couldn't be bothered to try to watch it again. Amazing, because I thought they had nailed the look of the comic, of which I'm a big fan. Now I think I understand how so many hated '300', a movie I like a lot but had never read the source.
Avatar was a huge disappointment. The story was just lazy and cliched. The humans were all American, how's that for a politically correct faux pas. Star Trek TOS had a multinational crew and that was 40 years ago. No one in America noticed and international audiences didn't care because almost all of the 'Americans' were giant pricks. We manage to cross the immense distances of space, expending unknowable amounts of resources, but only because we want to plant our erect members in your big blue buns. I could go on and on, but what is the point. I didn't even pay to see it, it was a company event.
You have 1 source that has a number that is 10 times greater then what the majority is reporting. I would bet that even you don't believe it, but it sounds really neat when you sanctimoniously repeat it to your friends at the coffee klatch.
I don't know how much the war cost and don't care. If in 10 years Iraq is still a functioning democracy, no one else will care about the costs either. And if they are not, I bet you will find a way to blame America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
The Iraqis and almost every other source available disagrees with your numbers. The only sources that do agree with you are based on extrapolating poll numbers, not hard data. Even then, many of those deaths were not caused by the coalition forces. Take a look and you will see that car bombs were the #2 cause of death.
The supreme court in my opinion is the cause of all our problems. They should be the guardians of liberty and equality. They have instead become the diviners of obscure minutiae of trial law.
We, the people, should not have to wait for a law to go into effect before the supreme court acts. Laws that take away liberty like the patriot act should be reviewed after the president signs them. Laws that are inequitable like Obamacare which exempt union members and some states also should be reviewed.
Laws should apply to all people, equally. Not only laws, but also the actions of the government.
A city near where I live bought some foreclosed houses, renovated them and then offered them for sale. Government employees received a 10% discount. A government employee decided to give other government employees a special deal. Every other citizen that lives in that city pays more for not only the house, but also in taxes. Not to mention that their homes were not renovated so their homes are now worth less.
This is why the pension systems in most states are broke. They are not over-funded, they are over-promised. Ask any government employee and they will tell you exactly how many years, months, days they have until they max out their pensions.
It is a sickness and not one that can be treated, but one that needs to be cut out, possibly amputated, burned and disposed of in a deep pit.
We should save it for heart shaped balloons and making funny voices at parties?