I can already tell you it's not a convincing proof because it's not a proof. A huge gaping flaw is the absence of a measure by which we can compute likelihood. It may not only be missing, it may be mathematically impossible to compute likelihood (say if number of universes with sentient life exceeds the cardinality of the real numbers).
Basically, if you accept the proposition that humans will continue to exist long into the future, and you accept that future humans have just as much interest in simulating their ancestors as we have in simulating our ancestors, then we are almost certainly living in a simulation.
No, it doesn't follow. You still don't know how many universes have humans naturally appear in them in the first place. You also implicitly assume that the only means for sentience to create new universes is via a particular form of simulation.
Such assertions can never be right or wrong, much less "proved", until we know a lot more about what could be and the origins of our universe than we do.
Yes, because the ancient concepts of "money" and "economy" will survive the coming years...
They may be ancient, but they're also state of the art.
We don't use stone knives anymore, why do we still use antiquated concepts like money and scarcity?
Scarcity won't go away, not even in the so-called "post-scarcity" world. And money is a huge algorithmic improvement over anything else that has been proposed as a system of trade.
I think it's telling that critics of such things have no alternatives that are not money or economies in disguise.
For example, someone has recently been pushing some concept which is labeled "technocracy". It claims to do away with notions of money and scarcity, but a cursory reading indicates that they create a new energy-based currency (though they do horribly break the currency so that it functions worse than normal currencies do) and a variety of places where implicit assumptions of scarcity are made (particularly with respect to energy).
In other words, the economic models didn't actually change, they just threw a layer of ideology over everything so that they can't think straight about what they proposed. I have yet to see a serious alternative to modern economics systems proposed which doesn't do that.
Why would you think that? Reaganomics can't explain suicide rate increases from 1999 to 2014.
Looking at figure 1 from this article (which actually has suicide rates covering 1970 to 2002) indicates that suicide rates peaked for the age 65+ cohort in 1987 and stayed in modest decline for the age 45-64 (which peaked around 1975). By the end of Reagan's second term, overall suicide rates would have been in decline.
Your theory seems unlikely because suicide rates improved significantly since the end of Reagan's second term.
high unemployment, deregulation causing massive harm on many levels, low wages, eviscerated unions, corporate oligarchy running roughshod over actual people...
In other words, labor competition from the developing world. It may just be coincidence, but the period of low suicide rates also correspond to a period of relatively low labor competition from the developing world and significant economic growth for the US. Japan's economy had grown to first world status in the 1980s and braked hard in the 1990-91 recession. Meanwhile China was years away from becoming a serious industrial competitor.
People think that computers are going to get more and more powerful. They won't. In fact, computers today are hardly faster than the ones five years ago.
Speed is not power. And contrary to your assertion, computers are still increasing rapidly in speed though IMHO that won't be enough to make AI. I guess it's time to kick things up to the next level.
Putting in a general notice such as "limits may exist in your part of the world, look them up before flying this thing"
What would the point of such a notice be? US firms do that for liability protection not for any serious purpose of warning the customer. The businesses in question have no risk of that and hence no reason for a warning that doesn't do anything.
Which is a strong indication it does not bioaccumulate in humans. Another is that they use this chemical as a drug. A drug which bioaccumulates would quickly become a poison (eg, using mercury to treat syphilis) and would for one shot attempts at fixing illnesses not a long term medication for treating epileptic conditions.
Now the human body is relatively good at dealing with toxins, so it may be that cows and whatnot might bioaccumulate this while humans do not. But I doubt that's happening.
Unless the NK positions are completely airtight at the time of the blast
Ok. I bet NK has done that already as part of their preparations for nuclear attack.
And, even if they survived, there's a good chance that the side effects of the experience would have rendered them unable to work the guns, as happened to the crews of some of the German gun emplacements defending the beaches on D-Day.
They seem to have a lot of artillery and a lot of people.
My view on this is that once again, this is a situation where the effectiveness of an air platform weapon is exaggerated while the survivability of ground locations against the air platform have been understated. There's plenty of evidence that hardened military positions can survive substantial bombardment from the worst including nuclear and fuel-air weapons.
Studies are not evidence. For example, the energy policies of Germany and Denmark have resulted in electricity prices almost double that of their neighbor, France. The carbon emission credit markets all have the serious flaw of hard caps (fixed amount of credits traded). That means that there is a swift transition from a very elastic market to a very inelastic market once the demand exceeds the caps (demand here includes speculators trying to drive up the price of credits by hoarding them).
US loan guarantees for renewable energy projects have funded a variety of pointless, but expensive projects from Solyndra's follies through to the current failure at Ivanpah. And they have an expected failure rate of 30% built in. I have better standards for multi-hundred million dollar projects.
And of course, the Kyoto treaty which demands a huge amount of belt tightening only from the developed world without resulting in a significant improvement in greenhouse gases emissions in return.
And what of your link? This is what "starting to work" means:
âoeThe new figures confirm last yearâ(TM)s surprising but welcome news: we now have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from economic growth,â said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. âoeComing just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change.â
Unless the "confirmation" is actually for strong El Nino conditions. I notice that there is a weak correlation between Mauna Loa Observatory measurements of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and the presence of El Nino or La Nina conditions (the former positive and the latter, negative in correlation).
Bragging that your policies are working seems to be premature, when you're using a two year record and have strong El Nino conditions in existence (existence of which was the reason I looked in the first place).
Also, the study doesn't consider growth of societies which are heavy fossil fuel users over societies which aren't. It's worth noting that despite the US's many flaws, it still remains an economic leader in terms of economic activity per person with only Norway doing better. I believe a key component of that economic growth is cheap electricity and transportation, both which the US has in considerable advantage over Europe (for example, Texas has electricity prices a quarter that of Germany).
The numbers specified in this report refer to the actual year and are real values of 2002.
Real value is not time value. It just accounts for inflation.
Then you claim (with zero evidence of course) that mitigation funding is a) currently $100B+, b) ineffective, and c) will cost more than what is avoided in damages, while deliberately ignoring the report's findings (with cited evidence) that a real program of mitigation funding started ASAP will save us $12 trillion.
Evidence: Germany and Denmark's electricity policy, carbon emission credit markets in the Eurozone, US loan guarantees, and the Kyoto Treaty. There is a considerable history of ineffective and costly policies here.
How is that not pure denialism based on your own biases? I mean, if you had cited equally strong evidence of your own, that would be more convincing, but it seems your claims are all based on "I think". Opinions are fine, but ignoring evidence to the contrary isn't
Why should a Chinese manufacturer know the rules of operation for your region of the world? It's not the manufacturer's responsibility because they aren't flying your drone for you nor do they know the specific rules or situation of your locale. You are and you should know that.
Are you sure it's not just a fiction to help you feel better about your lack of compassion?
Yes. Do you have any questions that are worth asking?
Particularly in light of the unjustified assumption that the consequences of climate action would be somehow worse (rather, it could save us trillions of dollars).
It could, but I think it won't. We just need to look at the remarkable cost and ineffectiveness of current climate change measures. Glancing at the article you linked, they claim up to 20 trillion USD in cost in 2100. That's just not that much even if we take it at face value. That would be 4 trillion USD in today's dollars using a standard 2% per year GDP growth rate adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile we're misdirecting a hundred billion dollars or more a year of public funding in climate change mitigation now with dismal results. I see us squandering more than 4 trillion now with minimum benefit to that future time. br
And Bangladesh has huge problems from the subsidence of the Ganges delta and occasional large cyclone even in the absence of global warming. My "if" is because I can't perfectly see the future. But I don't see good things for Bangladesh in the future no matter what. It's in an unsustainable position. As a result, I don't think we should be making policy based on what happens to them. After all, there are other people in the world and we shouldn't harm them either.
Also, maybe stop poking holes in the ground and greasing the giant moveable rocks.
Seems to me that there wouldn't be a lot of oil and natural gas collecting where the rocks are moveable. Movement fractures rock and probably would give that stuff an exit to the surface.
Here's an even better satellite photo comparison. What makes it particularly relevant is that it's images of the Korean peninsula in 1992 and 2008 at night. One can see clearly that both South Korea and China to the north grew considerably brighter in these images while North Korea did not. So even if the difference between South and North Korea were "not as dramatic as I've been led to believe", it's a difference which is growing!
Even if it's dug in, fuel-air bombs that either burn them out or make the air unbreathable would likely remove the threat, though it may not be politically feasible to kill that many people.
Unless they're protected well enough that isn't going to get them all. I'm of the view that the North Korean artillery position is based on use of nukes by their foes. That means they're hardened against worse than fuel-air bombs.
That's like saying that if you whip a dog often enough, it's still the dog's choice if it cringes the next time you approach it.
There is a logical follow on to that analogy. Pets aren't expected to fend for themselves. So if these people can't do basic functions in society, then that looks an awful lot like a pet without a master.
even though the difference between a dead insect and a dead arachnid is insignificant
The mosquito can't poison you with its death throes.
They have withdrawn so far from the world, in self-defense... they wish they weren't that way, but they have no control over it.
Well, there you go. They choose to withdraw from the world. Saying they didn't have control over it is in error. The choice can be very hard to make, but it is still there.
"We have have 3 major nuclear incidents in none of them have millions died."
So why aren't they able to get any insurance company to cover them?
First, because there's only been four, not three major nuclear accidents. Insurance companies don't gamble on low probability events with considerable downside and few examples. Second, because human societies are completely retarded about risk management. This results the primary unknown in how costly a nuclear accident turns out, namely, how much costly theater the plant operator is forced to go through following an accident.
Using the same analysis, the US ran out of oil around 1981. Glancing at Wikipedia, I see that in 1970, the ratio of production to proven reserves was 11 years. That is, US oil producers were pumping enough oil out of the ground that in 11 years it would match the estimated economically accessible oil in the ground. I'll leave it as an exercise to figure out why the US is still pumping about two thirds the rate of oil now as it was in 1970 despite having used up virtually all of the proven reserves that were present in 1970.
Even if humanity decides never to recycle a fuel rod or use a breeder reactor on depleted uranium or thorium (either which would vastly extend the amount of available fissionables for nuclear reactor fuel, there's still a lot of uranium to mine. It's not going to run out in ten years.
Finally, should we apply this same methodology to rare earths as they are used in solar and wind power? How many decades before we "run out" of that?
Slashdot Mirror
You can't really solve the problem of an ageing population by saving more.
And you have a reason you say this?
You also need young people to do the work,
No, you don't. Much has already been made of the growing productivity of workers. And older workers who don't choose to save enough can still work.
Basically, if you accept the proposition that humans will continue to exist long into the future, and you accept that future humans have just as much interest in simulating their ancestors as we have in simulating our ancestors, then we are almost certainly living in a simulation.
No, it doesn't follow. You still don't know how many universes have humans naturally appear in them in the first place. You also implicitly assume that the only means for sentience to create new universes is via a particular form of simulation.
Such assertions can never be right or wrong, much less "proved", until we know a lot more about what could be and the origins of our universe than we do.
Outliving retirement funds will be a serious problem for most people in the future.
A problem easily solved by saving or working more.
Yes, because the ancient concepts of "money" and "economy" will survive the coming years...
They may be ancient, but they're also state of the art.
We don't use stone knives anymore, why do we still use antiquated concepts like money and scarcity?
Scarcity won't go away, not even in the so-called "post-scarcity" world. And money is a huge algorithmic improvement over anything else that has been proposed as a system of trade.
I think it's telling that critics of such things have no alternatives that are not money or economies in disguise.
For example, someone has recently been pushing some concept which is labeled "technocracy". It claims to do away with notions of money and scarcity, but a cursory reading indicates that they create a new energy-based currency (though they do horribly break the currency so that it functions worse than normal currencies do) and a variety of places where implicit assumptions of scarcity are made (particularly with respect to energy).
In other words, the economic models didn't actually change, they just threw a layer of ideology over everything so that they can't think straight about what they proposed. I have yet to see a serious alternative to modern economics systems proposed which doesn't do that.
notably one that says odds are we are likely in a simulation that came out about ten years ago (along with he proof).
Remind me, what does "proof" mean again in philosophy?
Sounds like the legacy of Reaganomics
Why would you think that? Reaganomics can't explain suicide rate increases from 1999 to 2014.
Looking at figure 1 from this article (which actually has suicide rates covering 1970 to 2002) indicates that suicide rates peaked for the age 65+ cohort in 1987 and stayed in modest decline for the age 45-64 (which peaked around 1975). By the end of Reagan's second term, overall suicide rates would have been in decline.
Your theory seems unlikely because suicide rates improved significantly since the end of Reagan's second term.
high unemployment, deregulation causing massive harm on many levels, low wages, eviscerated unions, corporate oligarchy running roughshod over actual people...
In other words, labor competition from the developing world. It may just be coincidence, but the period of low suicide rates also correspond to a period of relatively low labor competition from the developing world and significant economic growth for the US. Japan's economy had grown to first world status in the 1980s and braked hard in the 1990-91 recession. Meanwhile China was years away from becoming a serious industrial competitor.
People think that computers are going to get more and more powerful. They won't. In fact, computers today are hardly faster than the ones five years ago.
Speed is not power. And contrary to your assertion, computers are still increasing rapidly in speed though IMHO that won't be enough to make AI. I guess it's time to kick things up to the next level.
Putting in a general notice such as "limits may exist in your part of the world, look them up before flying this thing"
What would the point of such a notice be? US firms do that for liability protection not for any serious purpose of warning the customer. The businesses in question have no risk of that and hence no reason for a warning that doesn't do anything.
and discharges into water
Which is a strong indication it does not bioaccumulate in humans. Another is that they use this chemical as a drug. A drug which bioaccumulates would quickly become a poison (eg, using mercury to treat syphilis) and would for one shot attempts at fixing illnesses not a long term medication for treating epileptic conditions.
Now the human body is relatively good at dealing with toxins, so it may be that cows and whatnot might bioaccumulate this while humans do not. But I doubt that's happening.
Unless the NK positions are completely airtight at the time of the blast
Ok. I bet NK has done that already as part of their preparations for nuclear attack.
And, even if they survived, there's a good chance that the side effects of the experience would have rendered them unable to work the guns, as happened to the crews of some of the German gun emplacements defending the beaches on D-Day.
They seem to have a lot of artillery and a lot of people.
My view on this is that once again, this is a situation where the effectiveness of an air platform weapon is exaggerated while the survivability of ground locations against the air platform have been understated. There's plenty of evidence that hardened military positions can survive substantial bombardment from the worst including nuclear and fuel-air weapons.
You're still not citing any actual studies.
Studies are not evidence. For example, the energy policies of Germany and Denmark have resulted in electricity prices almost double that of their neighbor, France. The carbon emission credit markets all have the serious flaw of hard caps (fixed amount of credits traded). That means that there is a swift transition from a very elastic market to a very inelastic market once the demand exceeds the caps (demand here includes speculators trying to drive up the price of credits by hoarding them).
US loan guarantees for renewable energy projects have funded a variety of pointless, but expensive projects from Solyndra's follies through to the current failure at Ivanpah. And they have an expected failure rate of 30% built in. I have better standards for multi-hundred million dollar projects.
And of course, the Kyoto treaty which demands a huge amount of belt tightening only from the developed world without resulting in a significant improvement in greenhouse gases emissions in return.
And what of your link? This is what "starting to work" means:
âoeThe new figures confirm last yearâ(TM)s surprising but welcome news: we now have seen two straight years of greenhouse gas emissions decoupling from economic growth,â said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol. âoeComing just a few months after the landmark COP21 agreement in Paris, this is yet another boost to the global fight against climate change.â
Unless the "confirmation" is actually for strong El Nino conditions. I notice that there is a weak correlation between Mauna Loa Observatory measurements of atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and the presence of El Nino or La Nina conditions (the former positive and the latter, negative in correlation).
Bragging that your policies are working seems to be premature, when you're using a two year record and have strong El Nino conditions in existence (existence of which was the reason I looked in the first place).
Also, the study doesn't consider growth of societies which are heavy fossil fuel users over societies which aren't. It's worth noting that despite the US's many flaws, it still remains an economic leader in terms of economic activity per person with only Norway doing better. I believe a key component of that economic growth is cheap electricity and transportation, both which the US has in considerable advantage over Europe (for example, Texas has electricity prices a quarter that of Germany).
The numbers specified in this report refer to the actual year and are real values of 2002.
Real value is not time value. It just accounts for inflation.
Then you claim (with zero evidence of course) that mitigation funding is a) currently $100B+, b) ineffective, and c) will cost more than what is avoided in damages, while deliberately ignoring the report's findings (with cited evidence) that a real program of mitigation funding started ASAP will save us $12 trillion.
Evidence: Germany and Denmark's electricity policy, carbon emission credit markets in the Eurozone, US loan guarantees, and the Kyoto Treaty. There is a considerable history of ineffective and costly policies here.
How is that not pure denialism based on your own biases? I mean, if you had cited equally strong evidence of your own, that would be more convincing, but it seems your claims are all based on "I think". Opinions are fine, but ignoring evidence to the contrary isn't
Because I have actual evidence?
Why should a Chinese manufacturer know the rules of operation for your region of the world? It's not the manufacturer's responsibility because they aren't flying your drone for you nor do they know the specific rules or situation of your locale. You are and you should know that.
Are you sure it's not just a fiction to help you feel better about your lack of compassion?
Yes. Do you have any questions that are worth asking?
Particularly in light of the unjustified assumption that the consequences of climate action would be somehow worse (rather, it could save us trillions of dollars).
It could, but I think it won't. We just need to look at the remarkable cost and ineffectiveness of current climate change measures. Glancing at the article you linked, they claim up to 20 trillion USD in cost in 2100. That's just not that much even if we take it at face value. That would be 4 trillion USD in today's dollars using a standard 2% per year GDP growth rate adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile we're misdirecting a hundred billion dollars or more a year of public funding in climate change mitigation now with dismal results. I see us squandering more than 4 trillion now with minimum benefit to that future time.
br And Bangladesh has huge problems from the subsidence of the Ganges delta and occasional large cyclone even in the absence of global warming. My "if" is because I can't perfectly see the future. But I don't see good things for Bangladesh in the future no matter what. It's in an unsustainable position. As a result, I don't think we should be making policy based on what happens to them. After all, there are other people in the world and we shouldn't harm them either.
Open a hatch, fire, and close it. There only needs to be a hole at the moment of shooting.
More seriously, cities typically are there for a reason. And the reason usually doesn't go away just because there was an earthquake.
Also, maybe stop poking holes in the ground and greasing the giant moveable rocks.
Seems to me that there wouldn't be a lot of oil and natural gas collecting where the rocks are moveable. Movement fractures rock and probably would give that stuff an exit to the surface.
Here's an even better satellite photo comparison. What makes it particularly relevant is that it's images of the Korean peninsula in 1992 and 2008 at night. One can see clearly that both South Korea and China to the north grew considerably brighter in these images while North Korea did not. So even if the difference between South and North Korea were "not as dramatic as I've been led to believe", it's a difference which is growing!
SK is definitely better off, but the difference is not as dramatic as you have been led to believe.
Here's an example of the difference. I think it shows just how false your assertion is.
Even if it's dug in, fuel-air bombs that either burn them out or make the air unbreathable would likely remove the threat, though it may not be politically feasible to kill that many people.
Unless they're protected well enough that isn't going to get them all. I'm of the view that the North Korean artillery position is based on use of nukes by their foes. That means they're hardened against worse than fuel-air bombs.
That's like saying that if you whip a dog often enough, it's still the dog's choice if it cringes the next time you approach it.
There is a logical follow on to that analogy. Pets aren't expected to fend for themselves. So if these people can't do basic functions in society, then that looks an awful lot like a pet without a master.
even though the difference between a dead insect and a dead arachnid is insignificant
The mosquito can't poison you with its death throes.
They have withdrawn so far from the world, in self-defense ... they wish they weren't that way, but they have no control over it.
Well, there you go. They choose to withdraw from the world. Saying they didn't have control over it is in error. The choice can be very hard to make, but it is still there.
"We have have 3 major nuclear incidents in none of them have millions died."
So why aren't they able to get any insurance company to cover them?
First, because there's only been four, not three major nuclear accidents. Insurance companies don't gamble on low probability events with considerable downside and few examples. Second, because human societies are completely retarded about risk management. This results the primary unknown in how costly a nuclear accident turns out, namely, how much costly theater the plant operator is forced to go through following an accident.
Using the same analysis, the US ran out of oil around 1981. Glancing at Wikipedia, I see that in 1970, the ratio of production to proven reserves was 11 years. That is, US oil producers were pumping enough oil out of the ground that in 11 years it would match the estimated economically accessible oil in the ground. I'll leave it as an exercise to figure out why the US is still pumping about two thirds the rate of oil now as it was in 1970 despite having used up virtually all of the proven reserves that were present in 1970.
Even if humanity decides never to recycle a fuel rod or use a breeder reactor on depleted uranium or thorium (either which would vastly extend the amount of available fissionables for nuclear reactor fuel, there's still a lot of uranium to mine. It's not going to run out in ten years.
Finally, should we apply this same methodology to rare earths as they are used in solar and wind power? How many decades before we "run out" of that?
and why we can't have cool things.
If your society functions only if there aren't two idiots in the world, then maybe you ought to fix it before someone trips over the power cord.