Do you have a better term for people who continue to vociferously claim that warming is not happening? They're not just doubters or skeptics or merely asking questions. Personally, I think denial is the most accurate term for these people, but I'm open to other suggestions.
When Arrhenius predicted global warming over 100 years ago, he was not looking at past data. He began with a reasoned hypothesis (burning fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, therefore burning fossil fuels will cause warming), made his prediction, and we've observed the warming which proves the prediction correct. It's a slam dunk as far as I'm concerned.
Whether global warming is happening and what the effects will be is a scientific issue. But what we need to do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to change energy policies, so that is a political issue. It's just the same as with CFCs eating away the ozone layer and sufur emissions causing acid rain. If no political action had been taken, those would still be problems.
Ironically, most of the people who argue against the science of global warming are opposed to what to do about it. They argue we should not destroy the economy and go back to an agrarian lifestyle. But using LED light bulbs (and doing other things to use energy more efficiently) and generating power from solar, wind, and nuclear are the actual proposed solutions, not lifestyle changes. In effect they're taking a politcal issue and trying to argue it in the scientific arena, which will never work.
Where's the alarmism in calmly stating a true fact? I think many people who react this way add a silent "...and we're all gonna die!" that is neither stated nor implied. I suppose you see what you're looking for everywhere, if you're looking hard enough.
This study says that about 35% of all cancer is caused by carcinogens, so in fact it confirms that carcinogens cause a significant proportion of cancer.
I can assure you it was not pleasant to live through the extinction events that caused major evolutionary changes. When the dinosaurs died off, mammals also had it very rough. That's why we're trying to avoid a large, rapid rise in temperature -- it's going to be unpleasant to live through. It reminds me of the ancient Chinese curse May you live in interesting times.
It's not even a matter of whether a particular substance is a "pollutant" or "toxic". Many necessary substances can be harmful if present in high concentrations. You can die just by drinking too much water. That doesn't mean that water's a pollutant, even though too much can kill you. The argument that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant because plants need it is similarly confused -- too much of a good thing can be harmful.
Yes, exactly! I would say that the AI programs we hear so much about: Watson, Google's self-driving cars, deep-learning neural networks, and so on will never reach general artificial intelligence. It's like climbing a tree and expecting to reach the moon. All those programs use simple algorithms geared towards just one purpose. You present those programs with any task other than the specific one they were designed for, and they fail miserably. General artificial intelligence, the ability to handle a wide variety of tasks autonomously, is a different beast altogether.
So when will these chess playing programs attain general artificial intelligence on par with a human? With each improved player, we must surely be getting closer...
Well, if you have the idea of a rocket, yes you can put the parts together and make a rocket. But no one has an idea of how to make a working general artificial intelligence. That's the leap. What are the parts we need? How do we put them together? No one has a clue! If you know how to do it, write it up in a thesis, collect your PhD, and make billions.
There's a tremendous gap between the "AI" that researchers are working on and and artificial general intelligence. The algorithms used in AI systems are almost always very simple. These algorithms are simply not going to make this leap and become what we would consider intelligent. It's like expecting Google search to suddenly gain sentience. My favorite quote about this is "Believing that writing these types of programs will bring us closer to real artificial intelligence is like believing that someone climbing a tree is making progress toward reaching the moon."
Not for quite a while. As someone who has worked in robotics, I would say the scenario for the next several decades would resemble XKCD's What-If on the robot apocalypse.
A scientist, like any person, can say anything they want. You shouldn't believe something a scientist says just because they say it. They have opinions and can be wrong just like everyone can. I'm sure some scientists say ghosts exist and others say they don't.
Science, on the other hand, can find no evidence of ghosts. That doesn't mean they don't exist, however. Science makes no statement one way or the other on the subject of ghosts. They have never been observed, as far as we know, but could still exist.
Where do you get this "end of the world" thing? As for the claim of "alarmism", do you not remember the flu strain several years ago that tended to kill healthy people in the prime of their life, rather than "immunocompromised hosts"?
It's not that the reports are "alarmist". It's (1) you're not understanding the actual risk, and (2) you're pretending that the reports are predicting the end of the world.
The birthday paradox would mean that even if planets with intelligent life are an average of thousands of light years from the nearest alien planet with intelligent life, the likelihood of one pair of planets with intelligent life existing much closer together than that is high. Those two planets would be like the two people who share a birthday in the paradox. That's a completely different idea than this article is about.
Good point. Maybe he could be considered mentally incompetent and placed in a non-jail institution. I think a zoo could be nice, but if he's considered a legal person, that's probably considered cruelty. If he's considered a person, we also wouldn't able to let him live in the wild, I think. Casting a person out into the wild would be considered cruel, too. I'm all for treating animals nicely, but granting legal personhood doesn't seem like the way to go about it. I think it would be more productive to treat mentally ill and mentally defective people better instead. And maybe also allow people who are suffering to end their lives the way they wish.
I would say that any site that allows downloads of executable content also needs HTTPS. Otherwise, a middleman could install malware in your downloads nearly as easily as they could see your passwords.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you have a better term for people who continue to vociferously claim that warming is not happening? They're not just doubters or skeptics or merely asking questions. Personally, I think denial is the most accurate term for these people, but I'm open to other suggestions.
I haven't heard floppy drives for a while. Also, dot matrix printers. And the sound of rotary telephones as you're dialing them. Actually, Mental Floss had an article about this.
When Arrhenius predicted global warming over 100 years ago, he was not looking at past data. He began with a reasoned hypothesis (burning fossil fuels emits carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, therefore burning fossil fuels will cause warming), made his prediction, and we've observed the warming which proves the prediction correct. It's a slam dunk as far as I'm concerned.
Isn't the warming, sea level rise, and melting of ice verification? If not, what evidence could posisbly convince you?
Whether global warming is happening and what the effects will be is a scientific issue. But what we need to do to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to change energy policies, so that is a political issue. It's just the same as with CFCs eating away the ozone layer and sufur emissions causing acid rain. If no political action had been taken, those would still be problems.
Ironically, most of the people who argue against the science of global warming are opposed to what to do about it. They argue we should not destroy the economy and go back to an agrarian lifestyle. But using LED light bulbs (and doing other things to use energy more efficiently) and generating power from solar, wind, and nuclear are the actual proposed solutions, not lifestyle changes. In effect they're taking a politcal issue and trying to argue it in the scientific arena, which will never work.
Don't be silly! They asked to see its ID.
Why do you think something was omitted? Oh, you imagined it because you're looking so hard for it.
Where's the alarmism in calmly stating a true fact? I think many people who react this way add a silent "...and we're all gonna die!" that is neither stated nor implied. I suppose you see what you're looking for everywhere, if you're looking hard enough.
This study says that about 35% of all cancer is caused by carcinogens, so in fact it confirms that carcinogens cause a significant proportion of cancer.
I can assure you it was not pleasant to live through the extinction events that caused major evolutionary changes. When the dinosaurs died off, mammals also had it very rough. That's why we're trying to avoid a large, rapid rise in temperature -- it's going to be unpleasant to live through. It reminds me of the ancient Chinese curse May you live in interesting times.
It's not even a matter of whether a particular substance is a "pollutant" or "toxic". Many necessary substances can be harmful if present in high concentrations. You can die just by drinking too much water. That doesn't mean that water's a pollutant, even though too much can kill you. The argument that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant because plants need it is similarly confused -- too much of a good thing can be harmful.
To get to the heart of the matter, the EPA considers any harmful emission to be a pollutant, even if the substance emitted is necessary for life.
The Florida Keys are experiencing the effects of sea level rise.
This year is likely the warmest year on record with the rate of Antarctic ice loss tripling in the last decade and Greenland's ice loss worse than predicted. But believe whatever you want to believe, no matter what the facts.
Yes, exactly! I would say that the AI programs we hear so much about: Watson, Google's self-driving cars, deep-learning neural networks, and so on will never reach general artificial intelligence. It's like climbing a tree and expecting to reach the moon. All those programs use simple algorithms geared towards just one purpose. You present those programs with any task other than the specific one they were designed for, and they fail miserably. General artificial intelligence, the ability to handle a wide variety of tasks autonomously, is a different beast altogether.
So when will these chess playing programs attain general artificial intelligence on par with a human? With each improved player, we must surely be getting closer...
Well, if you have the idea of a rocket, yes you can put the parts together and make a rocket. But no one has an idea of how to make a working general artificial intelligence. That's the leap. What are the parts we need? How do we put them together? No one has a clue! If you know how to do it, write it up in a thesis, collect your PhD, and make billions.
There's a tremendous gap between the "AI" that researchers are working on and and artificial general intelligence. The algorithms used in AI systems are almost always very simple. These algorithms are simply not going to make this leap and become what we would consider intelligent. It's like expecting Google search to suddenly gain sentience. My favorite quote about this is "Believing that writing these types of programs will bring us closer to real artificial intelligence is like believing that someone climbing a tree is making progress toward reaching the moon."
Not for quite a while. As someone who has worked in robotics, I would say the scenario for the next several decades would resemble XKCD's What-If on the robot apocalypse.
A scientist, like any person, can say anything they want. You shouldn't believe something a scientist says just because they say it. They have opinions and can be wrong just like everyone can. I'm sure some scientists say ghosts exist and others say they don't.
Science, on the other hand, can find no evidence of ghosts. That doesn't mean they don't exist, however. Science makes no statement one way or the other on the subject of ghosts. They have never been observed, as far as we know, but could still exist.
Where do you get this "end of the world" thing? As for the claim of "alarmism", do you not remember the flu strain several years ago that tended to kill healthy people in the prime of their life, rather than "immunocompromised hosts"?
It's not that the reports are "alarmist". It's (1) you're not understanding the actual risk, and (2) you're pretending that the reports are predicting the end of the world.
Fuck beta! Fuck beta!
Well, that's a different way of stating the birthday paradox, but it's still not what the article is about.
The birthday paradox would mean that even if planets with intelligent life are an average of thousands of light years from the nearest alien planet with intelligent life, the likelihood of one pair of planets with intelligent life existing much closer together than that is high. Those two planets would be like the two people who share a birthday in the paradox. That's a completely different idea than this article is about.
Good point. Maybe he could be considered mentally incompetent and placed in a non-jail institution. I think a zoo could be nice, but if he's considered a legal person, that's probably considered cruelty. If he's considered a person, we also wouldn't able to let him live in the wild, I think. Casting a person out into the wild would be considered cruel, too. I'm all for treating animals nicely, but granting legal personhood doesn't seem like the way to go about it. I think it would be more productive to treat mentally ill and mentally defective people better instead. And maybe also allow people who are suffering to end their lives the way they wish.
I would say that any site that allows downloads of executable content also needs HTTPS. Otherwise, a middleman could install malware in your downloads nearly as easily as they could see your passwords.