The use of a 3D printer adds all kind of new possibilities to the equation. At some point you could combine sintered ceramics, with high density resins, and eventually make a gun that in completely nonmetallic and won't show up as a gun under normal scans. This is particularly true if you make the gun as several interlocking components that are disguised as unobtrusive objects like small electric devices or grooming products (brushes... whatever.) Such a gun could easily be smuggled into a court, onto a plane, or into a sensitive meeting. You could do the same thing with other tools, but a 3D printer allows you to create objects that would be very difficult to mill or require milling in many pieces. Having three of four simple interlocking parts, that's elegant. Its also a wee bit scary.
The same reason you need a license to get married, own a dog, drive a car. You have a device capable of killing people, in fact potentially killing a lot of people, like, I dunno, let's say a car. We license people so we know they have the minimum requisite skill to drive that car safely, know the laws and rules by which to function in a civilized nation while driving that vehicle, and in general that if they don't behave in a reasonable fashion that there will be consequences. Even for those of us who were trained to use firearms in a military fashion, know that a device that takes lives (human or other) must be used and maintain with respect, and that people who use these devices need to be completely clear about the implications of dealing death if they are thoughtless or careless.
A license should be part of the process that informs society you've been properly trained NOT TO DO STUPID THINGS WITH YOUR GUN... (as opposed to just tracking folks who own them) of course knowing how to use, doesn't stop idiots from drag racing, and gun licensing won't prevent idiots from pointing guns at people and accidentally killing them. It will however let us know that when you go on trial, you can't say I didn't know it was dangerous... there will be your license and the judge will thank you for sharing right before sentencing.
Guys, this is my weapon and this is my gun, one is for killing the other... whatever it is that makes people feel so potent holding a weapon, please get over it. This is not a means to control your government, so that justification is just silly. Your government has missiles. I don't care what you're packing, you have no meaningful response to your governments ability to inspire you with fire power. If your government wants you dead... they have drones, you won't even see or hear it coming, you'll just be dead. That only leaves the freedom to shoot one another. I can see the allure of wanting to bag your neighbors yapping dog, or plug that pigeon that craps on your car, but face it, the fine for discharging in city limits just isn't worth it. So that leave shooting one another. The only question then becomes shoot someone you know or a stranger. Bag someone you know, then you have to beat the premeditation rap, and all the other things that prosecuting attorneys will gladly bring to your life. Don't shoot people you know, pay the alimony and thank Jebus you're free. So that leaves shooting strangers. You can go "Joker Whacko" like our recent friend in Aurora, and bag the limit. Of course there's that premeditation thing again, and now you have plead crazy, and take a little Thorazine with your breakfast cereal. No, the only strangers you can shoot and hope to walk away from are home intruders, and perhaps the possible street criminal. Which is fine, but you talk to anyone capable of taking another person down, and they'll tell you there are plenty of better ways to take an unwanted guest out of the world than a gun, including an unwanted guest who's holding a gun. Of course, those other techniques demand training and some skill. Then again, knowing how to use your gun in a bad situation also takes skill. FBI statistics say that in the first rush of adrenaline, that your chance of hitting your target is only about 4%. Not good odds. So even with a gun, you need special training to be of any use whatsoever. In a house I can think of about a dozen reasons why a knife is a better weapon. But that's me, if you want to sleep with a loaded gun, by all means, be my guest. I've had three friends in my life killed by accidental discharge two of them died before they were 14. That's a pretty heavy load to carry, both sets of parents never got over it. We all have to find our own way, good luck.
Actually assume a complex curve with potential exponential aspects. The planet has billions of feedback loops that rebalance as you mess with the system... up to a point, then you exceed the systems capacity to rebalance and you have a precipitous state shift to a new system which rebalances. For instance... the system is currently balanced for primarily aerobic bacteria near the surface of water. There are plenty of places where you go down to a certain depth and anerobes take over, and there is a sudden and profound shift in water chemistry, you can actually see the barrier. Those bacteria spew hydrogen sulphide gas. You might ask why I mention this?
Well, you heat the world enough, and you drive the oxygen out of the water. The fish die and go to the bottom. There is an explosion of bacteria, but because the water contains no oxygen we get anerobes growing. Suddenly your beautiful lake turns pea green and begins to spew abundant amounts of a highly toxic gas. You passed the threshold for the lake to rebalance and now it finds a new balance. There are a whole bunch of ways things could go here on earth, and many of them would be really bad for vertebrates (you and me are included... we have backbones, I presume...)
Thankfully doomsday predictions are probably the products of fertile imaginations, nonetheless, we are an apex species and one of the first who will disappear if we foul the global environment. If we are willing to consider self preservation against asteroids, it would seem silly and short sighted not to also look for ways to avoid extincting ourselves because we spoiled the nest. Let's give ourselves a chance to actually get off the planet, eh?
No, first of all ice core have layers, not rings. Next, if you have a lot of layers with clear annulation, and the layers range from an inch let's say to several inches (accounting for variation in annual precipitation, then you have a 20 in uniform layer... guess what, that's a melt. Easy to see. Of course, you're going to lose a few years of data points, but if you have a lot of cores, you may make them up in a different microclimate near by. That's why you take so many samples.
Then you compare the ice cores, and the ocean floor cores, and the plant rings for really old plants, and you can even find interesting stuff in mud flats. All of it contains centuries, and millennia of biological and chemical data. We have great data for a most of the large land masses going back hundreds of thousands of years, and excellent oceanographic data going back even further.
Actually most current data points to "Climate Change". A much better explanation for climate change include AVERAGE increase in heat in the system which results in climatic purturbation... that is (if you've studied thermodynamics or have read Prigogine and dissipative structures) you'd understand that as more heat is driven into a system, it reaches a point of purturbation then breaks down into chaos until it finds the next steady state. If you look at the cycles of flood and drought, wild fire, severity of blizzards, changes in temperature range particularly in the higher latitudes, you would find we are smack dab in the middle of predictable perturbation caused by added heat to the global system.
In fact the CEO of Exxon/Mobil recently acknowledged that in fact AGW is a reality. Of course he added "We understand the problem and can mitigate the worst of the climatic consequences..." which I very much hope means he knows about some technology I've not yet heard of (totally possible.) In any case, there are now so many data points from so many divergent fields of study, that only folks with serious religious, political, or philosophical axes to grind debate the issue. We can talk about the global change of seasons, spread of tropical diseases to temperate regions, huge animal migrations away from the equator, rising ocean levels, receding glaciers (admitted uneven, but receding on average nonetheless), increases in cloud density and precipitation (on average), bleaching of global reefs, and growing changes in the chemistry of air, ocean and land. All of these things are predictable changes associated with climate change and human beings are the primary cause. There are some fascinating experiments coming, to see if we can change the climate in the other direction. We will salt the oceans with ferrous sulfate to cause algal blooms to sequester carbon. We will spray sulfur dioxide into the high atmosphere the way volcanoes do, to reflect sunlight away. So just as we engineered ourselves into this hole, we may be able to engineer our way out. Of course moving to carbon free or carbon neutral energy would also help, but that won't happen over night. If anyone can come up with an effective way to turn atmospheric carbon into graphene, besides become ridiculously wealthy, they'll go down as a savior.
By all means include teachers in the process, particularly passionate teachers with amazing results because they have something to say, something to share, and they can shape this thing into a better tool to serve humanity. To those who are concerned that its threatening your turf, get over it, technology hasn't even begun to threaten your turf. You want to shape the future, ride the wave, become a meaningful part of the change. Those of you just putting in time, because its your job, sorry, it may not be your job much longer. There are a ton of great teachers out there who will find a way to use this technology to improve their educational process, and teachers aren't going away any time soon. People like people to people interaction in educating their children, its how human beings are designed.
That said, the only way to transform the vast majority of poor and suffering human beings on the planet is to bring enlightenment, and that takes education. What Khan is doing will change the world. Who cares if someone else designs the curriculum, and another person delivers the classes. The point is that anyone anywhere with an inexpensive tablet will soon be able to take their child from early grade school to college, at their own pace. Can anything be more important on the planet today. Hell, I'd love to have a few folks in D.C. sit through a few of those classes. We might get some sanity.
In fact this pit-bull like attachment to supply-side economics has been a disaster from the start. Simply math, you bring no money in, and spend money... you end up with deficits. You stop taxing wealthy people, and give them huge handouts in the form of corporate welfare, the money ends up in the top and an economic vacuum forms in the bottom. You can actually watch it happening. Money doesn't trickle down, talk to Mitt, it ends up in the Cayman islands. What part of this is rocket science. No money for infrastructure, no money for pensions, no money for vital social services. Blame pensions all you want, we've been paying pensions to government employees forever, its only a problem now when there's no frigging money. Why, because a couple thousand wealthy bastard as sitting on it. Enough of this supply side insanity. It never worked, not ever, not sorta, kinda, maybe. Please cease and desist,
No you don't understand. There are no parties, The noise and fanfare you see in D.C. is undistinguishable from any other scripted reality show, all for the purpose of distracting you while the powerful and wealthy people of this nation rape you and the rest of the middle class blind. You keep snatching at the bait, its called misdirection. WAKE UP.
While at the same time trying expand and enhance an American economy for alternative energy sources. In fact, there have been so many new breakthroughs in solar energy that we will almost pass the $0.50 per watt barrier later this year or early next, making solar power more economical that oil, particularly oil from shale and tar sands. As well huge movement is occurring in Algae based biofuels, and several new bioreactors promise to make the cost of biofuels on a large scale significantly less than current oil. Tell you what, you live near the drilling rig, I'll hang out be the solar farm thanks.
Ah I see your problem, selective memory... Okay, let's try to refresh it... months after the big one, the crater left by one financial implosion after another, the automotive industry goes to D.C. and explains how they're a popcorn fart away from being the next crater. Obama is left with a few choices. Another bail out? No. Cash for clunkers? Yes. Replace smog makers with newer, cleaner, more fuel economic cars, while at the same time stimulating the economy and saving about 8 million jobs. Well played sir. But of course Obama did it so it must be evil and tainted. Tell you what, explain to me how you would have addressed even one of these many things differently and we'll look at your idea is depth. No? I didn't think so.
You know this is so stupid. Obama isn't the problem. Neither is Mitt, I mean, yeah he's all puffed up like a big bad Conservative Machine, but put him in office and he'll revert to a conservative moderate and if you think Obama isn't also a conservative moderate, we can go over his policies and I'll point it all out to you. He came in swinging the Big Liberal stick,,, conservative moderate. So I'm not threatened by either man, except there are real flaming wackos in the halls of Congress. People who think Jebus sent them there his-self. I fear Mitt won't have the strength of character to tell the WooWoos to go away, they can't play with their imaginary friend where the budget or national defense is concerned.
We've been doing this supply side thing now for 30 years and we were warned by none other than George H.W. Bush, that this was voodoo economics, that others have tried it to their disaster, boom, bust business cycles, bankrupt governments and ultimate social collapse. Please get a clue. This is and has always been about the wealthy sucking the middle class dry. They have nearly succeed and this entire thread is the celebration of that success. If you want to attribute this status to the tooth fairy, or some other mythical cause I certainly can't stop you, all I can say to you is that The Author of the Capitalistic Economic system Adam Smith warned of two things. Beware the concentration of wealth and you MUST maintain a vibrant and healthy middle class. We did not listen and now we reap the wind.
I'm sorry but the Republican Party came up with a virtually identical plan to PPACA in response to the Clinton Health plan, and I'm certain that if y'all had passed that you'd be crowing like you'd laid a golden egg. In fact Mitt Romney passed a nearly identical bill in his home state and its performing magnificently at this very moment. Only he can't talk about it because he's supposed to hate what Obama is doing. You guys, you so crazy!!!
Have you even frigging read the Heath Care bill for the love o Jebus? It says things in it like "Insurance companies can't throw people off the insurance roles at whim, and they can't deny people just because of preexisting conditions..." it talks about mal practice reform, one of the major causes of increasing health cost. It addresses the growing problem of the poor not having affordable health care so they use emergency care which we all have to subsidize. What part of ANY OF THIS ARE YOU AGAINST AND WHY? Mitt Romney instituted virtually an identical bill to ObamaCare in Massachusetts and its working magnificently. Only he can't even talk about his great success, because he has to be AGAINST the thing he created. The thing was created virtually paid for. Its been in effect for about 2 years now, and the only thing that's happened is thousands of people that would have died without affordable health insurance have been save... the HORROR!!! The damn thing was invented by a Republican, and if he'd passed it, you'd all be pointing at it proudly like you just gave birth to the damn thing yourselves. The fact that this half black half Muslim touched it has suddenly changed it into the work of the Devil!!!! Booga booga.
You know, I'm getting really tire of the denial, of the ludicrous inability to separate truth from sheer rat feces, the magical thinking, the lack of logical analysis, and the blind dedication to failed ideologies. I mean this is not a subtle form of insanity. You people honestly won't stop digging this hole until you kill yourselves and everyone around you. Maybe we should give you clowns the middle, like the French got Quebec. You can teach you children that people and dinosaurs played together and that if you give enough money to rich people, they'll give you work. When you're all extinct, We'll move back in, and get on with our business.
The problem is that we've been poisoned. We've been told a bald faced lie. We've been told that taxes are bad, by people who would like to pay no taxes. Who don't need a government because they can afford to build their own roads and hire personal armies to keep the starving masses off their property. You've been sold a bill of goods.
The biggest booms in the American economy in history happened precisely at the same time the the wealthy we being taxed the most. In fact during the WWII economic boom, the wealthiest tax bracket paid over 95% income tax. They didn't stop being wealthy. In fact they made out like bandits because in that exploding economy, their investments also exploded in value.
During the 60s corporate tax accounted for 40% of the total revenue at the Federal level. Today it counts for less than 5%, it was replaces by increases in payroll tax. Put this way, the wealthy have been taxing you even increasingly for the last 50 years, and over the last 30 years, the Republicans have made the rope, slipped it over out heads and pushed us off the ladder with Supply-Side Economics.
The problem isn't now and has never been taxes. The problem is a government that has been hijacked by wealthy interests to the utter destruction of the nation's people. The sooner you get clear where the butt is vs the end that goes boom, the better we'll all be.
As I recall the Republican negotiations included a number of deranged demands that no standing president with an IQ higher that about 5 could agree to. That didn't make Obama inflexible, just sane. One of the greatest conservative (and libertarian) minds of the 20th century had these things to to say about the Republican party of the 21rst century;
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them......
The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.... I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are?... I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
"You are extremists, and you have hurt the Republican Party much more than the Democrats have.”
-- Barry Goldwater
The Republican party is no longer capable of compromise in any meaningful way. The "No Tax" pledge when the nation is literally crashing around us and the wealthy pay nearly nothing. The BLIND adherence of Supply Side Economics which has consistently FAILED to accomplish even one of its promises in 30 years. It tells me the Republicans are religious not only in the spiritual matters but their political as well. They are undeterred by facts, evidence, accounting or even the burning forest and disintegrating economy surrounding them preferring to blame it all on the liberal monster.
Here's a little information, did you know the Karl Marx invented Supply Side Economics? He described it as the means by which the wealthy would bleed the middle class dry instigating a class war. How prophetic. Tell y'all what, go here, read a little, maybe you'll have an original thought that didn't fall out of the mouth of a FOX News commentator.
Oh, and if you think I'm some kind of knee jerk Democrat... wrong again. I'm no happier with Obama and his utter disregard for the Constitution than his predecessor. The fact that he has a minion in his Office representing people who would destroy free information I find reprehensible. I'm just saying that as vile as the Dems are, the Reps make we want to flush D.C. like the toilets its become.
Mind sharing where you get your numbers? I'm checking about a dozen sources including a few conservative sources and I don't see this, or is this just your opinion? Not that you don't have a right to your opinion, just mention that so we can assess whether to laugh at it, or debate the issue. Please explain what you did to come up with this rating? For instance, if you were going to talk about Presidents whose presidency was marred by scandal and illegal behavior, you'd have to mention Harding, Reagan, and most recently G.W. Bush. Assault on the Constitution sadly Mr. O shows up, but only after G.W. If you wanted to talk about simply unpopular, Mr. Carter, George H.W. Bush and G.W would come to mind. Or maybe you might want to go with just full on inept, well Clearly Buchanan belongs, Pierce and there G.W. again. So throw me a bone, explain yourself a little, otherwise we think its all just a brain fart.
Obama is the typical college professor who knows a lot of facts and information and theory, but very little real world knowledge. President Woodrow Wilson had the same flaw. (And also lied that he would not take us to war.)
You know, what you say there might have carried a wee bit more weight had this well known conservative journalist not written this last Sunday "Where Obama Shines". Which isn't to say he didn't walk into the oval office wet behind the ears. I mean he actually expected he could create consensus with the opposing party. Well they straighten his crooked out real fast didn't they.
Yes but claiming to the credit for creating a cake is way easier than saying "I took the initiative to co-author a requisition for the essential flour used in the making of this cake." Anyway its so much more fun to attribute to pure arrogance what can just as easily be described bya simple lapse in memory.
The problem is you don't know anything. We don't know anything about what it means to die. One great big presumption on top of another. Your religion is no more compelling than the one with the big white guy on a throne. Are the ripples of our consciousness part of the signal of space-time, is our consciousness the universe impinging on the meat, and does it stop when the meat does. You presume the signal lives in the meat, my friend, that is purely speculation. You have no idea what our universe is, how it related to other universes, is it a 2D projection on the surface of a black hole, in which case the information of which we're composed never dies and time is an illusion. You don't know anything about any of this with anything resembling certainty and we are all still searching for possible truths. What's apparently so, is that we experience the meat ceasing to be. That's what we can say. Anything else is simple hubris.
I think perhaps we're saying the same thing. I agree that we are heading to the end of what we understand from any past context. The only things of value will be raw materials, energy and Intellectual Property. Since we'll have the power to make anything from that information. Under such a scenario, it would seem that their are two primary outcomes, develop humanity, provide for basic needs while inspiring people to naturally aspire to personal achievement and everything this entails (a StarTrek NG kind of future) and a darker distopian future where those in power remain in power at all cost, and start shrinking humanity though really ugly acts of social engineering. For me, I lean to the first choice, but I not certain I even get a vote.
Our brave new world will have 3 currencies, raw atomic stock, energy and IP. For those of you really bright children, go out now, buy the best very meals you can afford, sushi, Kobe beef Philly Cheese Steak Sandwhiches, whatever floats your boat. Flash freeze them in liquid nitrogen, and keep them on hard ice for a couple decades. By then most of these things will be gone from the world. But once molecular disassemblers come along, you'll be able to bring them back in all their past glory, and owning the IP will make you a trillionaire (counting for some soon to be ugly inflation) over night.
Addressing your post jobs state comment, you can't frame a future condition from a past context, its not only silly, it produces all kinds of screwed up perceptions. Y'all keep living in this weird Puritan Work Ethic mentality. Get over it. The past laughs at you and your quaint notions.
One possible future, if we're lucky enough to get there, is one in which all the basic needs of life are met. We do what we do for no other reason than we choose to. Notice I didn't say want to. That because the well-fare future described above is the "Want to" future, sitting on your ass, watching TV, and screwing between meals. I personally don't ascribe to that forecast.
Try this one instead. Children are raised to respect themselves and others. They have the freedom to actually choose a future that inspires them. They are personally responsible for their own quality of life and that they each have a unique contribution to the fabric of human society. People are appreciated for their contributions. Machines do the BUSINESS of manufacturing, but a person can choose to grow beautiful gardens. Or a person can choose to understand the universe. With the aid of ever improving tools venture deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the universe. Or a person may choose to school children, not as an occupation, but as a joyful celebration of what it means to be human and help shape the future generations of humanity. Liberated from obligation and the struggle of survival, we could actually consider the aspiration of becoming everything we might be. Everything we can be.
Life might become incredibly rich and rewarding. If you weren't saddled with obligations, after that short screw the world phase and lazily kicking back, would you not get bored? Wouldn't you begin looking for ways to exist that didn't leave you feeling like you were simply filling the volume of air you displaced? Y'know the Maslow pyramid? So maybe this could be a blessing. By the way, only the third world and places populated by religious "be fruitful an multiply" goofballs are seeing huge population growth. There are vast regions whose populations are fast shrinking, and the growing concentrations of estrogen like substances in our environment, are rendering males of all species increasingly impotent, so the interesting story, may be that the end of this century see's a human population crash.
That's what I mean by folks being closed minded, past based, ignoring the real issues staring you in the face. Go ahead, put you pretty little plastic ideology in a box, it'll still be there later if you want to go back and play with it, and try reading about a few things beside what Russ Limbaugh thinks under the influence of Oxycontin. Read Diamond Age, find out how much of that is just brain farts and how much is viable future. Read the works of Kurzweil and other futurists (and before you sneer, just remember Ray's been doing this futurist stuff long enough to have a track record and he's been almost on the money now for about 25 years.) Please, all of you, get a clue. We plenty of a lot of things, but not time, we need to get some important shows on the road yesterday. We simply can't wait. And by all means, Wake Up.
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The use of a 3D printer adds all kind of new possibilities to the equation. At some point you could combine sintered ceramics, with high density resins, and eventually make a gun that in completely nonmetallic and won't show up as a gun under normal scans. This is particularly true if you make the gun as several interlocking components that are disguised as unobtrusive objects like small electric devices or grooming products (brushes... whatever.) Such a gun could easily be smuggled into a court, onto a plane, or into a sensitive meeting. You could do the same thing with other tools, but a 3D printer allows you to create objects that would be very difficult to mill or require milling in many pieces. Having three of four simple interlocking parts, that's elegant. Its also a wee bit scary.
The same reason you need a license to get married, own a dog, drive a car. You have a device capable of killing people, in fact potentially killing a lot of people, like, I dunno, let's say a car. We license people so we know they have the minimum requisite skill to drive that car safely, know the laws and rules by which to function in a civilized nation while driving that vehicle, and in general that if they don't behave in a reasonable fashion that there will be consequences. Even for those of us who were trained to use firearms in a military fashion, know that a device that takes lives (human or other) must be used and maintain with respect, and that people who use these devices need to be completely clear about the implications of dealing death if they are thoughtless or careless.
A license should be part of the process that informs society you've been properly trained NOT TO DO STUPID THINGS WITH YOUR GUN... (as opposed to just tracking folks who own them) of course knowing how to use, doesn't stop idiots from drag racing, and gun licensing won't prevent idiots from pointing guns at people and accidentally killing them. It will however let us know that when you go on trial, you can't say I didn't know it was dangerous... there will be your license and the judge will thank you for sharing right before sentencing.
Guys, this is my weapon and this is my gun, one is for killing the other... whatever it is that makes people feel so potent holding a weapon, please get over it. This is not a means to control your government, so that justification is just silly. Your government has missiles. I don't care what you're packing, you have no meaningful response to your governments ability to inspire you with fire power. If your government wants you dead... they have drones, you won't even see or hear it coming, you'll just be dead. That only leaves the freedom to shoot one another. I can see the allure of wanting to bag your neighbors yapping dog, or plug that pigeon that craps on your car, but face it, the fine for discharging in city limits just isn't worth it. So that leave shooting one another. The only question then becomes shoot someone you know or a stranger. Bag someone you know, then you have to beat the premeditation rap, and all the other things that prosecuting attorneys will gladly bring to your life. Don't shoot people you know, pay the alimony and thank Jebus you're free. So that leaves shooting strangers. You can go "Joker Whacko" like our recent friend in Aurora, and bag the limit. Of course there's that premeditation thing again, and now you have plead crazy, and take a little Thorazine with your breakfast cereal. No, the only strangers you can shoot and hope to walk away from are home intruders, and perhaps the possible street criminal. Which is fine, but you talk to anyone capable of taking another person down, and they'll tell you there are plenty of better ways to take an unwanted guest out of the world than a gun, including an unwanted guest who's holding a gun. Of course, those other techniques demand training and some skill. Then again, knowing how to use your gun in a bad situation also takes skill. FBI statistics say that in the first rush of adrenaline, that your chance of hitting your target is only about 4%. Not good odds. So even with a gun, you need special training to be of any use whatsoever. In a house I can think of about a dozen reasons why a knife is a better weapon. But that's me, if you want to sleep with a loaded gun, by all means, be my guest. I've had three friends in my life killed by accidental discharge two of them died before they were 14. That's a pretty heavy load to carry, both sets of parents never got over it. We all have to find our own way, good luck.
Actually assume a complex curve with potential exponential aspects. The planet has billions of feedback loops that rebalance as you mess with the system... up to a point, then you exceed the systems capacity to rebalance and you have a precipitous state shift to a new system which rebalances. For instance... the system is currently balanced for primarily aerobic bacteria near the surface of water. There are plenty of places where you go down to a certain depth and anerobes take over, and there is a sudden and profound shift in water chemistry, you can actually see the barrier. Those bacteria spew hydrogen sulphide gas. You might ask why I mention this?
Well, you heat the world enough, and you drive the oxygen out of the water. The fish die and go to the bottom. There is an explosion of bacteria, but because the water contains no oxygen we get anerobes growing. Suddenly your beautiful lake turns pea green and begins to spew abundant amounts of a highly toxic gas. You passed the threshold for the lake to rebalance and now it finds a new balance. There are a whole bunch of ways things could go here on earth, and many of them would be really bad for vertebrates (you and me are included... we have backbones, I presume...)
Thankfully doomsday predictions are probably the products of fertile imaginations, nonetheless, we are an apex species and one of the first who will disappear if we foul the global environment. If we are willing to consider self preservation against asteroids, it would seem silly and short sighted not to also look for ways to avoid extincting ourselves because we spoiled the nest. Let's give ourselves a chance to actually get off the planet, eh?
No, first of all ice core have layers, not rings. Next, if you have a lot of layers with clear annulation, and the layers range from an inch let's say to several inches (accounting for variation in annual precipitation, then you have a 20 in uniform layer... guess what, that's a melt. Easy to see. Of course, you're going to lose a few years of data points, but if you have a lot of cores, you may make them up in a different microclimate near by. That's why you take so many samples.
Then you compare the ice cores, and the ocean floor cores, and the plant rings for really old plants, and you can even find interesting stuff in mud flats. All of it contains centuries, and millennia of biological and chemical data. We have great data for a most of the large land masses going back hundreds of thousands of years, and excellent oceanographic data going back even further.
Actually most current data points to "Climate Change". A much better explanation for climate change include AVERAGE increase in heat in the system which results in climatic purturbation... that is (if you've studied thermodynamics or have read Prigogine and dissipative structures) you'd understand that as more heat is driven into a system, it reaches a point of purturbation then breaks down into chaos until it finds the next steady state. If you look at the cycles of flood and drought, wild fire, severity of blizzards, changes in temperature range particularly in the higher latitudes, you would find we are smack dab in the middle of predictable perturbation caused by added heat to the global system.
In fact the CEO of Exxon/Mobil recently acknowledged that in fact AGW is a reality. Of course he added "We understand the problem and can mitigate the worst of the climatic consequences..." which I very much hope means he knows about some technology I've not yet heard of (totally possible.) In any case, there are now so many data points from so many divergent fields of study, that only folks with serious religious, political, or philosophical axes to grind debate the issue. We can talk about the global change of seasons, spread of tropical diseases to temperate regions, huge animal migrations away from the equator, rising ocean levels, receding glaciers (admitted uneven, but receding on average nonetheless), increases in cloud density and precipitation (on average), bleaching of global reefs, and growing changes in the chemistry of air, ocean and land. All of these things are predictable changes associated with climate change and human beings are the primary cause. There are some fascinating experiments coming, to see if we can change the climate in the other direction. We will salt the oceans with ferrous sulfate to cause algal blooms to sequester carbon. We will spray sulfur dioxide into the high atmosphere the way volcanoes do, to reflect sunlight away. So just as we engineered ourselves into this hole, we may be able to engineer our way out. Of course moving to carbon free or carbon neutral energy would also help, but that won't happen over night. If anyone can come up with an effective way to turn atmospheric carbon into graphene, besides become ridiculously wealthy, they'll go down as a savior.
By all means include teachers in the process, particularly passionate teachers with amazing results because they have something to say, something to share, and they can shape this thing into a better tool to serve humanity. To those who are concerned that its threatening your turf, get over it, technology hasn't even begun to threaten your turf. You want to shape the future, ride the wave, become a meaningful part of the change. Those of you just putting in time, because its your job, sorry, it may not be your job much longer. There are a ton of great teachers out there who will find a way to use this technology to improve their educational process, and teachers aren't going away any time soon. People like people to people interaction in educating their children, its how human beings are designed.
That said, the only way to transform the vast majority of poor and suffering human beings on the planet is to bring enlightenment, and that takes education. What Khan is doing will change the world. Who cares if someone else designs the curriculum, and another person delivers the classes. The point is that anyone anywhere with an inexpensive tablet will soon be able to take their child from early grade school to college, at their own pace. Can anything be more important on the planet today. Hell, I'd love to have a few folks in D.C. sit through a few of those classes. We might get some sanity.
In fact this pit-bull like attachment to supply-side economics has been a disaster from the start. Simply math, you bring no money in, and spend money... you end up with deficits. You stop taxing wealthy people, and give them huge handouts in the form of corporate welfare, the money ends up in the top and an economic vacuum forms in the bottom. You can actually watch it happening. Money doesn't trickle down, talk to Mitt, it ends up in the Cayman islands. What part of this is rocket science. No money for infrastructure, no money for pensions, no money for vital social services. Blame pensions all you want, we've been paying pensions to government employees forever, its only a problem now when there's no frigging money. Why, because a couple thousand wealthy bastard as sitting on it. Enough of this supply side insanity. It never worked, not ever, not sorta, kinda, maybe. Please cease and desist,
Will someone please mod this up funny!!!
No you don't understand. There are no parties, The noise and fanfare you see in D.C. is undistinguishable from any other scripted reality show, all for the purpose of distracting you while the powerful and wealthy people of this nation rape you and the rest of the middle class blind. You keep snatching at the bait, its called misdirection. WAKE UP.
While at the same time trying expand and enhance an American economy for alternative energy sources. In fact, there have been so many new breakthroughs in solar energy that we will almost pass the $0.50 per watt barrier later this year or early next, making solar power more economical that oil, particularly oil from shale and tar sands. As well huge movement is occurring in Algae based biofuels, and several new bioreactors promise to make the cost of biofuels on a large scale significantly less than current oil. Tell you what, you live near the drilling rig, I'll hang out be the solar farm thanks.
Ah I see your problem, selective memory... Okay, let's try to refresh it... months after the big one, the crater left by one financial implosion after another, the automotive industry goes to D.C. and explains how they're a popcorn fart away from being the next crater. Obama is left with a few choices. Another bail out? No. Cash for clunkers? Yes. Replace smog makers with newer, cleaner, more fuel economic cars, while at the same time stimulating the economy and saving about 8 million jobs. Well played sir. But of course Obama did it so it must be evil and tainted. Tell you what, explain to me how you would have addressed even one of these many things differently and we'll look at your idea is depth. No? I didn't think so.
You know this is so stupid. Obama isn't the problem. Neither is Mitt, I mean, yeah he's all puffed up like a big bad Conservative Machine, but put him in office and he'll revert to a conservative moderate and if you think Obama isn't also a conservative moderate, we can go over his policies and I'll point it all out to you. He came in swinging the Big Liberal stick,,, conservative moderate. So I'm not threatened by either man, except there are real flaming wackos in the halls of Congress. People who think Jebus sent them there his-self. I fear Mitt won't have the strength of character to tell the WooWoos to go away, they can't play with their imaginary friend where the budget or national defense is concerned.
We've been doing this supply side thing now for 30 years and we were warned by none other than George H.W. Bush, that this was voodoo economics, that others have tried it to their disaster, boom, bust business cycles, bankrupt governments and ultimate social collapse. Please get a clue. This is and has always been about the wealthy sucking the middle class dry. They have nearly succeed and this entire thread is the celebration of that success. If you want to attribute this status to the tooth fairy, or some other mythical cause I certainly can't stop you, all I can say to you is that The Author of the Capitalistic Economic system Adam Smith warned of two things. Beware the concentration of wealth and you MUST maintain a vibrant and healthy middle class. We did not listen and now we reap the wind.
I'm sorry but the Republican Party came up with a virtually identical plan to PPACA in response to the Clinton Health plan, and I'm certain that if y'all had passed that you'd be crowing like you'd laid a golden egg. In fact Mitt Romney passed a nearly identical bill in his home state and its performing magnificently at this very moment. Only he can't talk about it because he's supposed to hate what Obama is doing. You guys, you so crazy!!!
Have you even frigging read the Heath Care bill for the love o Jebus? It says things in it like "Insurance companies can't throw people off the insurance roles at whim, and they can't deny people just because of preexisting conditions..." it talks about mal practice reform, one of the major causes of increasing health cost. It addresses the growing problem of the poor not having affordable health care so they use emergency care which we all have to subsidize. What part of ANY OF THIS ARE YOU AGAINST AND WHY? Mitt Romney instituted virtually an identical bill to ObamaCare in Massachusetts and its working magnificently. Only he can't even talk about his great success, because he has to be AGAINST the thing he created. The thing was created virtually paid for. Its been in effect for about 2 years now, and the only thing that's happened is thousands of people that would have died without affordable health insurance have been save... the HORROR!!! The damn thing was invented by a Republican, and if he'd passed it, you'd all be pointing at it proudly like you just gave birth to the damn thing yourselves. The fact that this half black half Muslim touched it has suddenly changed it into the work of the Devil!!!! Booga booga.
You know, I'm getting really tire of the denial, of the ludicrous inability to separate truth from sheer rat feces, the magical thinking, the lack of logical analysis, and the blind dedication to failed ideologies. I mean this is not a subtle form of insanity. You people honestly won't stop digging this hole until you kill yourselves and everyone around you. Maybe we should give you clowns the middle, like the French got Quebec. You can teach you children that people and dinosaurs played together and that if you give enough money to rich people, they'll give you work. When you're all extinct, We'll move back in, and get on with our business.
The problem is that we've been poisoned. We've been told a bald faced lie. We've been told that taxes are bad, by people who would like to pay no taxes. Who don't need a government because they can afford to build their own roads and hire personal armies to keep the starving masses off their property. You've been sold a bill of goods.
The biggest booms in the American economy in history happened precisely at the same time the the wealthy we being taxed the most. In fact during the WWII economic boom, the wealthiest tax bracket paid over 95% income tax. They didn't stop being wealthy. In fact they made out like bandits because in that exploding economy, their investments also exploded in value.
During the 60s corporate tax accounted for 40% of the total revenue at the Federal level. Today it counts for less than 5%, it was replaces by increases in payroll tax. Put this way, the wealthy have been taxing you even increasingly for the last 50 years, and over the last 30 years, the Republicans have made the rope, slipped it over out heads and pushed us off the ladder with Supply-Side Economics.
The problem isn't now and has never been taxes. The problem is a government that has been hijacked by wealthy interests to the utter destruction of the nation's people. The sooner you get clear where the butt is vs the end that goes boom, the better we'll all be.
As I recall the Republican negotiations included a number of deranged demands that no standing president with an IQ higher that about 5 could agree to. That didn't make Obama inflexible, just sane. One of the greatest conservative (and libertarian) minds of the 20th century had these things to to say about the Republican party of the 21rst century;
"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them. .....
The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom.... I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are?... I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism."
"You are extremists, and you have hurt the Republican Party much more than the Democrats have.”
-- Barry Goldwater
The Republican party is no longer capable of compromise in any meaningful way. The "No Tax" pledge when the nation is literally crashing around us and the wealthy pay nearly nothing. The BLIND adherence of Supply Side Economics which has consistently FAILED to accomplish even one of its promises in 30 years. It tells me the Republicans are religious not only in the spiritual matters but their political as well. They are undeterred by facts, evidence, accounting or even the burning forest and disintegrating economy surrounding them preferring to blame it all on the liberal monster.
Here's a little information, did you know the Karl Marx invented Supply Side Economics? He described it as the means by which the wealthy would bleed the middle class dry instigating a class war. How prophetic. Tell y'all what, go here, read a little, maybe you'll have an original thought that didn't fall out of the mouth of a FOX News commentator.
Oh, and if you think I'm some kind of knee jerk Democrat... wrong again. I'm no happier with Obama and his utter disregard for the Constitution than his predecessor. The fact that he has a minion in his Office representing people who would destroy free information I find reprehensible. I'm just saying that as vile as the Dems are, the Reps make we want to flush D.C. like the toilets its become.
Mind sharing where you get your numbers? I'm checking about a dozen sources including a few conservative sources and I don't see this, or is this just your opinion? Not that you don't have a right to your opinion, just mention that so we can assess whether to laugh at it, or debate the issue. Please explain what you did to come up with this rating? For instance, if you were going to talk about Presidents whose presidency was marred by scandal and illegal behavior, you'd have to mention Harding, Reagan, and most recently G.W. Bush. Assault on the Constitution sadly Mr. O shows up, but only after G.W. If you wanted to talk about simply unpopular, Mr. Carter, George H.W. Bush and G.W would come to mind. Or maybe you might want to go with just full on inept, well Clearly Buchanan belongs, Pierce and there G.W. again. So throw me a bone, explain yourself a little, otherwise we think its all just a brain fart.
Obama is the typical college professor who knows a lot of facts and information and theory, but very little real world knowledge. President Woodrow Wilson had the same flaw. (And also lied that he would not take us to war.)
You know, what you say there might have carried a wee bit more weight had this well known conservative journalist not written this last Sunday "Where Obama Shines". Which isn't to say he didn't walk into the oval office wet behind the ears. I mean he actually expected he could create consensus with the opposing party. Well they straighten his crooked out real fast didn't they.
Because "twisted bush" sounds too much like a feminine hygiene problem.
Yes but claiming to the credit for creating a cake is way easier than saying "I took the initiative to co-author a requisition for the essential flour used in the making of this cake." Anyway its so much more fun to attribute to pure arrogance what can just as easily be described bya simple lapse in memory.
The problem is you don't know anything. We don't know anything about what it means to die. One great big presumption on top of another. Your religion is no more compelling than the one with the big white guy on a throne. Are the ripples of our consciousness part of the signal of space-time, is our consciousness the universe impinging on the meat, and does it stop when the meat does. You presume the signal lives in the meat, my friend, that is purely speculation. You have no idea what our universe is, how it related to other universes, is it a 2D projection on the surface of a black hole, in which case the information of which we're composed never dies and time is an illusion. You don't know anything about any of this with anything resembling certainty and we are all still searching for possible truths. What's apparently so, is that we experience the meat ceasing to be. That's what we can say. Anything else is simple hubris.
Or everyone could read the following quote from Good Will Hunting.
I mean really, show me a hacker that doesn't want to listen to every phone call on the planet... it's like meeting your Bizarro self...
I think perhaps we're saying the same thing. I agree that we are heading to the end of what we understand from any past context. The only things of value will be raw materials, energy and Intellectual Property. Since we'll have the power to make anything from that information. Under such a scenario, it would seem that their are two primary outcomes, develop humanity, provide for basic needs while inspiring people to naturally aspire to personal achievement and everything this entails (a StarTrek NG kind of future) and a darker distopian future where those in power remain in power at all cost, and start shrinking humanity though really ugly acts of social engineering. For me, I lean to the first choice, but I not certain I even get a vote.
Our brave new world will have 3 currencies, raw atomic stock, energy and IP. For those of you really bright children, go out now, buy the best very meals you can afford, sushi, Kobe beef Philly Cheese Steak Sandwhiches, whatever floats your boat. Flash freeze them in liquid nitrogen, and keep them on hard ice for a couple decades. By then most of these things will be gone from the world. But once molecular disassemblers come along, you'll be able to bring them back in all their past glory, and owning the IP will make you a trillionaire (counting for some soon to be ugly inflation) over night.
Addressing your post jobs state comment, you can't frame a future condition from a past context, its not only silly, it produces all kinds of screwed up perceptions. Y'all keep living in this weird Puritan Work Ethic mentality. Get over it. The past laughs at you and your quaint notions.
One possible future, if we're lucky enough to get there, is one in which all the basic needs of life are met. We do what we do for no other reason than we choose to. Notice I didn't say want to. That because the well-fare future described above is the "Want to" future, sitting on your ass, watching TV, and screwing between meals. I personally don't ascribe to that forecast.
Try this one instead. Children are raised to respect themselves and others. They have the freedom to actually choose a future that inspires them. They are personally responsible for their own quality of life and that they each have a unique contribution to the fabric of human society. People are appreciated for their contributions. Machines do the BUSINESS of manufacturing, but a person can choose to grow beautiful gardens. Or a person can choose to understand the universe. With the aid of ever improving tools venture deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the universe. Or a person may choose to school children, not as an occupation, but as a joyful celebration of what it means to be human and help shape the future generations of humanity. Liberated from obligation and the struggle of survival, we could actually consider the aspiration of becoming everything we might be. Everything we can be.
Life might become incredibly rich and rewarding. If you weren't saddled with obligations, after that short screw the world phase and lazily kicking back, would you not get bored? Wouldn't you begin looking for ways to exist that didn't leave you feeling like you were simply filling the volume of air you displaced? Y'know the Maslow pyramid? So maybe this could be a blessing. By the way, only the third world and places populated by religious "be fruitful an multiply" goofballs are seeing huge population growth. There are vast regions whose populations are fast shrinking, and the growing concentrations of estrogen like substances in our environment, are rendering males of all species increasingly impotent, so the interesting story, may be that the end of this century see's a human population crash.
That's what I mean by folks being closed minded, past based, ignoring the real issues staring you in the face. Go ahead, put you pretty little plastic ideology in a box, it'll still be there later if you want to go back and play with it, and try reading about a few things beside what Russ Limbaugh thinks under the influence of Oxycontin. Read Diamond Age, find out how much of that is just brain farts and how much is viable future. Read the works of Kurzweil and other futurists (and before you sneer, just remember Ray's been doing this futurist stuff long enough to have a track record and he's been almost on the money now for about 25 years.) Please, all of you, get a clue. We plenty of a lot of things, but not time, we need to get some important shows on the road yesterday. We simply can't wait. And by all means, Wake Up.