To describe a phenomena, without bothering to investigate cause(s), implications, possible or even likely outcomes, etc. is ignorant. To make policy decisions on such information is mentally deficient. So why are so many foreign nationals cranking out vital University Patents? Wouldn't perhaps be related to the fact that so many universities in the U.S. are strongly favoring foreign students because they can charge twice the tuition and they're great for the bottom line? Could it possibly have something to do with the disgrace that Public Education in this country is today, I mean Louisiana is teaching kids that the Loch Ness Monster proves that Jesus is your God and savior and that the Flintstones was a documentary. Is it even possible that its an indication that we've been so screwing the middle class for so long, combined with cutting educational resources into virtual nonexistence, that the average person can no longer afford to attend a decent engineering or technical school, leaving only foreign students who are in the top percent of a percent from their large countries and being supported by sometimes entire villages to fill the ranks of said institution of higher learning.
Don't get me wrong, I applaud the plucky lad from one of the eastern slums of Mumbai, getting all the way to an American University on grit and intelligence. He's earned his right to be here. Its just that we've abandoned our own children on the side of the road and if there's a disproportionate number of emigres cranking out useful inventions its because we've failed our own. This isn't a call for letting more kids from China and India and the Africa into our schools (and I'm fine with that too.) This is a call for our legislators to pull their collective heads out of their posteriors and begin investing in our own future while we still have one worth getting to.
Actually our society doesn't give a damn about "People"... now dollars, they matter, and in the conversation regarding "Person A", a billion dollar company and "Person B" a schmuck off the street, Person A wins every time. Washington D.C. approves this message.
And service providers must jump through the hoops and requirements of the governments inside of which they operate. So move that phone ownership up another notch to the legal entities that can authorize all manner of nastiness with the signing of a single legal document.
Because there are 2,000 drones and 2,000,000,000 phones. If you think I can't use a phone to kill you, you do not understand the power and complexity of the information society we've created. Yes, it is more subtle. Yes, you won't see the body fall. But the drone won't enslave you, the drone won't wipe out your bank account, or be used by a foreign governments or their agents to perform atrocities in your name. Because greedy corporations and governments have designed these devices to give them huge abilities to invade every dimension of your life and manipulate and control you, they have inadvertently given those very same capabilities to dangerous and unscrupulous individuals and organizations. That is the problem with the system as it stands and I know it won't make the evening news or youtube, but you bet your sweet behind that you and/or your freedom are in mortal danger.
The oversight in the first law of robotics is that it saw the possibility of autonomous intelligent agents turning on their masters, but not the possibility that greedy monkeys would use the power and amplifying force of intelligent agents to turn them against the common citizen. It managed the Frankensteins but left Orwellian monsters free to roam the countryside.
At all turns we are hoisted on the petard of our own humanity. Our greedy, nasty little monkey impulses to acquire and control. I would like nothing better than a strong AI, programmed to "SUGGEST" the wisest and most humane way to deal with all us monkeys. Perhaps with a near infinitely wise observer, with neither an axe to grind, nor a stake in the pot, to "HELP" our leaders not be such inflamed rectums, we might yet survive the adolescence of our species.
I for one think it would be very cool to bring a number of species forward with us. On the short list I would include several primates (Gorillas, Chimps, Bonobos and possibly Orangs), Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), Birds (Crows and Macaws, perhaps a parrot or two... no Norwegian blues), Cephalopods (Octopi and Cuttlefish, perhaps squids) and Pigs. Dogs and cats though lovely critter would need serious reengineering to produce a brain capable of abstraction and true sentience. All the creatures I mentioned here have demonstrated basic math skills, symbolic reference, tool use and a strong sense of identity verging on full sentience. Many have excellent language skills some even communication in multiple channels simultaneously.
Might I suggest a seat in the viewers balcony on the Congressional Floor... bring some reading and perhaps crossword puzzles. Lots and lots of crossword puzzles.
Prescient observations. I'm guessing human beings will head in one or more of several directions.
1. Many will disperse off planet if we can perfect space travel.
2. Some will choose to join with technology and evolve off the protein substrate if that's even possible.
3. Some may choose to stay on earth, and hopefully become part of the environment and see what's possible in human evolution in tandem with a more natural evolution of the planet. That is, provided we clean up our mess and move the majority of folks off planet.
Because if we really do shatter the environmental equilibrium, and I mean screw it up so profoundly that it no longer supports human life (and we are pretty good at finding ways to survive), then it goes to reason since we are already in the midst of a human caused mass extinction that the loss of most higher species (including domestic cats) would be statistically probable.
Over the next ten thousand years after human passing, it's going to be microbes, fungi, hardiest plants, rodents, insects and reptiles (on land, the oceans are more complex, but kiss most fish goodbye.) Of course right after the dinosaurs, the only mammals were tiny shrew like critters and they evolved into elephants, wombats, deer, rabbit, whales and tigers. In 30 million years, there'd be species in every niche and the world would be as complex with species as it is today (perhaps even more complex.) The only question would be whether or not there would be a species like primates with the evolutionary motive to evolve sentience. The interesting answer is that a great candidate for such a creature would be the octopus if it survives the catastrophic changes to the ocean after our passing.
Dude, in the United States, over 70% of scientists consider themselves moderately to strongly religious and the vast majority are Christian. They just don't make up silly nonsensical crap and call it reality. That's not religion, that's culturally sanctioned stupidity. There is no Easter Bunny, Santa Claus or Peter Pan, and there is almost certainly no Nessie, and using Nessie to justify a religious position is like trying to prove the validity of your religion on the existence of extraterrestrially made crop circles. That's why people are rolling their eyes and laughing, because its GOOFY, the bovine feces meter is pegged and the stupid sensors are chiming.
Have you seen any new species this week? Would you even know? Have you any clue how many species human being wiped out in the last year? Decade? Century? We are well on our way into the next mass extinction.
Actually you probably have met one or more new species, but it/they were far too small to see. Things with lifespans of seconds might evolve fast enough to be called a new species in human time frames. For the most part however, species take centuries to millennia to evolve into new species for insect, and tens of thousands to millions of years for reptiles, birds and mammals.
You can't possibly predict where environmental pressures will drive a species in a million years. Cats will migrate all over the world. Most will be eaten by raccoons, possums, other wild cats and various canids including the descendants of dogs. The ones that remain will get bigger, meaner, faster, stronger and in some cases smarter. In a million years figuring the average house cat in the wild will live about 5-10 years, you're looking at a couple hundred thousand generations. You can probably squeeze a handful of new species out in that time/generation frame. Large changes in species would require significant changes in environmental pressure. I highly doubt any of the likely environmental pressures would generate a cat capable of performing even grade school math let alone calculus, analytic geometry, etc.
And I want to have his babies!!! Imagine a new race of intelligent, sensible people, who neither eat someone else's crap nor tries to feed the rest of us their's. This my friends is a higher lifeform, and perhaps there is intelligent life on this little dirt ball after all.
Damn skippie!!! When the GM grass hits a drought, it grows tentacle, pulls itself out of the ground and begins eating cows, screw this cyanide silliness!
Yeah, well you forgot some very fancy "Maintenance Scheduling" in California recently, closing multiple refining sited down simultaneously creating artificially high prices in California (and this isn't the first time.) I just get the feeling the Oil industry doesn't like being told what it can or can't do, and if somebody (like California) does, they make certain that there's a little thank you in the bill. Thank you from the Oil Industry:-)
What strikes me as particularly egregious, is that the last time the price of oil got this high, there was suddenly tremendous research into alternative fuels and particularly synthetic fuel from algae growth. Just as it became clear that algae was a viable technology and dozens of researchers were beginning to set up pilot projects to begin producing fuel, the price of oil crashed and wiped them all out.
I expect this will be a precise repeat of that exercise. It seems to me that the dog is shaking off the fleas. Perhaps its time for someone to subsidize the production of alternative fuels outside of the price of oil, until we have a product that is capable of competing with oil under any circumstance. Adding to the fact that we can slowly swap synfuel into the economy by taxing regular petroleum, and ultimately have a completely green fuel economy. Of course this presumes having federal legislators that don't own knee-pads or have the ability to whistle Dixie while tying a cherry stem in a knot with their tongues. Too much to ask for?
Do you read the news??? Do you know how often a jilted boyfriend/husband, pissed off teen, psychotic nutbag walks into a mall, place of work, McDonald, or school and promptly dispatches anywhere from 15-50 profoundly surprised spectators? Do you live under a rock? Just because you wouldn't use assault rifles doesn't changed the fact that a WHOLE BUNCH of other people chose precisely that weapon to send significant crowds to the hereafter. I mean if you were looking for a stupendous body count you could improvise a Ricin delivery system or perhaps a dirty bomb, however that would typically require a level of premeditation and intelligence that transcends the average shoot-em-up perpetrator.
The point is, that if they only had a buck knife, most of these folks wouldn't have killed more than 1-3 people and society would be better served if these people didn't have such easy access to high powered weapons, and the whole numbers thing seems kind of stupid looking a 5 year old in the eyes and saying "I know Mr. Whacko killed the rest of your family, but you should be glad he didn't have an explosive on, or he might have hurt and killed a bunch more people."
Ultimately this is about fear. Dealing with a dangerous world. Human being's are notoriously poor at assigning risk. We defend ourselves against things that will never hurt us as we shovel crap down our throats or into our lungs that is guaranteed to kill us. Really silly. So when people argue for the right to be stupid. I guess so, knock yourself out. I'm just not terribly impressed by the argument thanks.
WHOA! You gotta cut back on that caffeine, its making you a little tense. So first off, I have a marksman rating with an M1, M14, M16 and M1911.45 caliber pistol. Since learning how to shoot as a teenager (and though I'm not yet ancient, we'll just say I'm no longer a spring chicken either) I've had a chance to target shoot a variety of pistols through 9mm, rifles (my brother and a number of my friends are collectors), and shotguns (clay pigeons and skeet are a blast... literally.) All the girls in my family got trained in both martial arts and guns.
I respect firearms, have been well taught by exmillitary professionals, and can break all my firearms down and reassemble them blindfolded. Cleaning weapons goes without saying for those who wouldn't even understand why. I don't chose to carry. I don't even chose to own. I can't stop a sniper, and there isn't any situation that makes a difference that a knife won't do a better job than a gun (anyway throwing knives are quiet, effective, and surprising as hell.) I have no sympathy for clowns who don't show proper respect for weapon use, other people's property or basic safety. We have drunk driving laws, but Billy Bob half ripped on beer can stagger around at a makeshift outdoor range endangering lives because the gun lobby says we don't need regulation. You want to carry? By all means, if it makes you warm and fuzzy. You want to keep arms at home to keep the big bad wolf at bay, I will go to wall for you to exercise that right. You want to make it possible for every pin head, mouth breathing, protohominid to own an engine of death without making certain he has the training and the capacity to make rational choices, I gotta draw the line. We license our dogs for Pete sake... I believe in gun licensing. New owners need training. New owners need to be checked for mental illness and history of felony, particularly armed felony. Demonstrate an inability to drive responsibly you lose your license, same should be true of a gun. This is not about taking away your rights, it's about demonstrating responsibility for holding life and death in your hand, and if you can't master the ability to control yourself, you have no right putting other people's lives at risk. Plain and simple.
Slashdot Mirror
If we can get one to take up race car driving and the other to take up medicine, I think we can do a sequel to "Buckaroo Bonzai"!!!!
To describe a phenomena, without bothering to investigate cause(s), implications, possible or even likely outcomes, etc. is ignorant. To make policy decisions on such information is mentally deficient. So why are so many foreign nationals cranking out vital University Patents? Wouldn't perhaps be related to the fact that so many universities in the U.S. are strongly favoring foreign students because they can charge twice the tuition and they're great for the bottom line? Could it possibly have something to do with the disgrace that Public Education in this country is today, I mean Louisiana is teaching kids that the Loch Ness Monster proves that Jesus is your God and savior and that the Flintstones was a documentary. Is it even possible that its an indication that we've been so screwing the middle class for so long, combined with cutting educational resources into virtual nonexistence, that the average person can no longer afford to attend a decent engineering or technical school, leaving only foreign students who are in the top percent of a percent from their large countries and being supported by sometimes entire villages to fill the ranks of said institution of higher learning.
Don't get me wrong, I applaud the plucky lad from one of the eastern slums of Mumbai, getting all the way to an American University on grit and intelligence. He's earned his right to be here. Its just that we've abandoned our own children on the side of the road and if there's a disproportionate number of emigres cranking out useful inventions its because we've failed our own. This isn't a call for letting more kids from China and India and the Africa into our schools (and I'm fine with that too.) This is a call for our legislators to pull their collective heads out of their posteriors and begin investing in our own future while we still have one worth getting to.
Actually our society doesn't give a damn about "People"... now dollars, they matter, and in the conversation regarding "Person A", a billion dollar company and "Person B" a schmuck off the street, Person A wins every time. Washington D.C. approves this message.
And service providers must jump through the hoops and requirements of the governments inside of which they operate. So move that phone ownership up another notch to the legal entities that can authorize all manner of nastiness with the signing of a single legal document.
That's the problem now, the phone knows that the government is its owner and you're screwed.
Let's add a few new commandments;
Thou shall not use the planet as a toilet.
Thou shall not inflict one's ego on the universe, or exercise hubris to the detriment of a society.
Thous shall not put the acquisition of wealth, power or control over the viability of the greater community
Thou shall clean up thy messes
Thou shall not use up the planet and leave a little something for the next generation
Because there are 2,000 drones and 2,000,000,000 phones. If you think I can't use a phone to kill you, you do not understand the power and complexity of the information society we've created. Yes, it is more subtle. Yes, you won't see the body fall. But the drone won't enslave you, the drone won't wipe out your bank account, or be used by a foreign governments or their agents to perform atrocities in your name. Because greedy corporations and governments have designed these devices to give them huge abilities to invade every dimension of your life and manipulate and control you, they have inadvertently given those very same capabilities to dangerous and unscrupulous individuals and organizations. That is the problem with the system as it stands and I know it won't make the evening news or youtube, but you bet your sweet behind that you and/or your freedom are in mortal danger.
The oversight in the first law of robotics is that it saw the possibility of autonomous intelligent agents turning on their masters, but not the possibility that greedy monkeys would use the power and amplifying force of intelligent agents to turn them against the common citizen. It managed the Frankensteins but left Orwellian monsters free to roam the countryside.
At all turns we are hoisted on the petard of our own humanity. Our greedy, nasty little monkey impulses to acquire and control. I would like nothing better than a strong AI, programmed to "SUGGEST" the wisest and most humane way to deal with all us monkeys. Perhaps with a near infinitely wise observer, with neither an axe to grind, nor a stake in the pot, to "HELP" our leaders not be such inflamed rectums, we might yet survive the adolescence of our species.
I for one think it would be very cool to bring a number of species forward with us. On the short list I would include several primates (Gorillas, Chimps, Bonobos and possibly Orangs), Cetaceans (dolphins and whales), Birds (Crows and Macaws, perhaps a parrot or two... no Norwegian blues), Cephalopods (Octopi and Cuttlefish, perhaps squids) and Pigs. Dogs and cats though lovely critter would need serious reengineering to produce a brain capable of abstraction and true sentience. All the creatures I mentioned here have demonstrated basic math skills, symbolic reference, tool use and a strong sense of identity verging on full sentience. Many have excellent language skills some even communication in multiple channels simultaneously.
Are you setting me up for that "Sucks and blows at the same time joke?..."
To happily slosh and splash about in its salty salty ocean way...
For a creature to evolve that can explain how George W. Bush beat Al Gore... I'd still like to know just for giggles...
I'm still waiting for intelligence to evolve....
Might I suggest a seat in the viewers balcony on the Congressional Floor... bring some reading and perhaps crossword puzzles. Lots and lots of crossword puzzles.
It did, but sadly some idiot peasant stepped on the first and only sentient cricket!
Prescient observations. I'm guessing human beings will head in one or more of several directions.
1. Many will disperse off planet if we can perfect space travel.
2. Some will choose to join with technology and evolve off the protein substrate if that's even possible.
3. Some may choose to stay on earth, and hopefully become part of the environment and see what's possible in human evolution in tandem with a more natural evolution of the planet. That is, provided we clean up our mess and move the majority of folks off planet.
Because if we really do shatter the environmental equilibrium, and I mean screw it up so profoundly that it no longer supports human life (and we are pretty good at finding ways to survive), then it goes to reason since we are already in the midst of a human caused mass extinction that the loss of most higher species (including domestic cats) would be statistically probable.
Over the next ten thousand years after human passing, it's going to be microbes, fungi, hardiest plants, rodents, insects and reptiles (on land, the oceans are more complex, but kiss most fish goodbye.) Of course right after the dinosaurs, the only mammals were tiny shrew like critters and they evolved into elephants, wombats, deer, rabbit, whales and tigers. In 30 million years, there'd be species in every niche and the world would be as complex with species as it is today (perhaps even more complex.) The only question would be whether or not there would be a species like primates with the evolutionary motive to evolve sentience. The interesting answer is that a great candidate for such a creature would be the octopus if it survives the catastrophic changes to the ocean after our passing.
Dude, in the United States, over 70% of scientists consider themselves moderately to strongly religious and the vast majority are Christian. They just don't make up silly nonsensical crap and call it reality. That's not religion, that's culturally sanctioned stupidity. There is no Easter Bunny, Santa Claus or Peter Pan, and there is almost certainly no Nessie, and using Nessie to justify a religious position is like trying to prove the validity of your religion on the existence of extraterrestrially made crop circles. That's why people are rolling their eyes and laughing, because its GOOFY, the bovine feces meter is pegged and the stupid sensors are chiming.
Have you seen any new species this week? Would you even know? Have you any clue how many species human being wiped out in the last year? Decade? Century? We are well on our way into the next mass extinction.
Actually you probably have met one or more new species, but it/they were far too small to see. Things with lifespans of seconds might evolve fast enough to be called a new species in human time frames. For the most part however, species take centuries to millennia to evolve into new species for insect, and tens of thousands to millions of years for reptiles, birds and mammals.
You can't possibly predict where environmental pressures will drive a species in a million years. Cats will migrate all over the world. Most will be eaten by raccoons, possums, other wild cats and various canids including the descendants of dogs. The ones that remain will get bigger, meaner, faster, stronger and in some cases smarter. In a million years figuring the average house cat in the wild will live about 5-10 years, you're looking at a couple hundred thousand generations. You can probably squeeze a handful of new species out in that time/generation frame. Large changes in species would require significant changes in environmental pressure. I highly doubt any of the likely environmental pressures would generate a cat capable of performing even grade school math let alone calculus, analytic geometry, etc.
And I want to have his babies!!! Imagine a new race of intelligent, sensible people, who neither eat someone else's crap nor tries to feed the rest of us their's. This my friends is a higher lifeform, and perhaps there is intelligent life on this little dirt ball after all.
Damn skippie!!! When the GM grass hits a drought, it grows tentacle, pulls itself out of the ground and begins eating cows, screw this cyanide silliness!
Yeah, well you forgot some very fancy "Maintenance Scheduling" in California recently, closing multiple refining sited down simultaneously creating artificially high prices in California (and this isn't the first time.) I just get the feeling the Oil industry doesn't like being told what it can or can't do, and if somebody (like California) does, they make certain that there's a little thank you in the bill. Thank you from the Oil Industry :-)
What strikes me as particularly egregious, is that the last time the price of oil got this high, there was suddenly tremendous research into alternative fuels and particularly synthetic fuel from algae growth. Just as it became clear that algae was a viable technology and dozens of researchers were beginning to set up pilot projects to begin producing fuel, the price of oil crashed and wiped them all out.
I expect this will be a precise repeat of that exercise. It seems to me that the dog is shaking off the fleas. Perhaps its time for someone to subsidize the production of alternative fuels outside of the price of oil, until we have a product that is capable of competing with oil under any circumstance. Adding to the fact that we can slowly swap synfuel into the economy by taxing regular petroleum, and ultimately have a completely green fuel economy. Of course this presumes having federal legislators that don't own knee-pads or have the ability to whistle Dixie while tying a cherry stem in a knot with their tongues. Too much to ask for?
Do you read the news??? Do you know how often a jilted boyfriend/husband, pissed off teen, psychotic nutbag walks into a mall, place of work, McDonald, or school and promptly dispatches anywhere from 15-50 profoundly surprised spectators? Do you live under a rock? Just because you wouldn't use assault rifles doesn't changed the fact that a WHOLE BUNCH of other people chose precisely that weapon to send significant crowds to the hereafter. I mean if you were looking for a stupendous body count you could improvise a Ricin delivery system or perhaps a dirty bomb, however that would typically require a level of premeditation and intelligence that transcends the average shoot-em-up perpetrator.
The point is, that if they only had a buck knife, most of these folks wouldn't have killed more than 1-3 people and society would be better served if these people didn't have such easy access to high powered weapons, and the whole numbers thing seems kind of stupid looking a 5 year old in the eyes and saying "I know Mr. Whacko killed the rest of your family, but you should be glad he didn't have an explosive on, or he might have hurt and killed a bunch more people."
Ultimately this is about fear. Dealing with a dangerous world. Human being's are notoriously poor at assigning risk. We defend ourselves against things that will never hurt us as we shovel crap down our throats or into our lungs that is guaranteed to kill us. Really silly. So when people argue for the right to be stupid. I guess so, knock yourself out. I'm just not terribly impressed by the argument thanks.
WHOA! You gotta cut back on that caffeine, its making you a little tense. So first off, I have a marksman rating with an M1, M14, M16 and M1911 .45 caliber pistol. Since learning how to shoot as a teenager (and though I'm not yet ancient, we'll just say I'm no longer a spring chicken either) I've had a chance to target shoot a variety of pistols through 9mm, rifles (my brother and a number of my friends are collectors), and shotguns (clay pigeons and skeet are a blast... literally.) All the girls in my family got trained in both martial arts and guns.
I respect firearms, have been well taught by exmillitary professionals, and can break all my firearms down and reassemble them blindfolded. Cleaning weapons goes without saying for those who wouldn't even understand why. I don't chose to carry. I don't even chose to own. I can't stop a sniper, and there isn't any situation that makes a difference that a knife won't do a better job than a gun (anyway throwing knives are quiet, effective, and surprising as hell.) I have no sympathy for clowns who don't show proper respect for weapon use, other people's property or basic safety. We have drunk driving laws, but Billy Bob half ripped on beer can stagger around at a makeshift outdoor range endangering lives because the gun lobby says we don't need regulation. You want to carry? By all means, if it makes you warm and fuzzy. You want to keep arms at home to keep the big bad wolf at bay, I will go to wall for you to exercise that right. You want to make it possible for every pin head, mouth breathing, protohominid to own an engine of death without making certain he has the training and the capacity to make rational choices, I gotta draw the line. We license our dogs for Pete sake... I believe in gun licensing. New owners need training. New owners need to be checked for mental illness and history of felony, particularly armed felony. Demonstrate an inability to drive responsibly you lose your license, same should be true of a gun. This is not about taking away your rights, it's about demonstrating responsibility for holding life and death in your hand, and if you can't master the ability to control yourself, you have no right putting other people's lives at risk. Plain and simple.