That part about "dangerously often" is controversial. If the SSD balances its wear, it should last for a long time, according to http://clumpc.com/?p=21
Isn't it convenient though, to title your argument with the name of the fallacy you are defending? It would be great if politicians did the same; "Now I'm going to beg the question. Blah blah blah blah. Then I shall engage in shameless ad hominem attacks. Blah blah blah. And now listen as I deliver this delightful non sequitur to destroy the straw man I previously created. Blah blah."
"Honestly, it's not as if some robot is paintaing abstract art or writing poetry here."
You picked a couple of interesting examples; I'm sure robots could paint abstract art and write poetry that would match some of today's offerings by human beings. Anyway, I have no idea how complex it is to program a robot to play air hockey, and whether it involves only strength and precision, but there was an idea I read in a book by Douglas Hofstadter that I find amusing: artificial intelligence is always defined as whatever a machine cannot do yet.
I knew it. It pays to have a blog where you register these things:
"The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement, will naturally suffer most. And we have seen in the chapter on the Struggle for Existence that it is the most closely-allied forms, - varieties of the same species, and species of the same genus or related genera, - which, from having nearly the same structure, constitution and habits, generally come into the severest competition with each other. Consequently, each new variety or species, during the progress of its formation, will generally press hardest on its nearest kindred, and tend to exterminate them. We see the same process of extermination among our domesticated productions, through the selection of improved forms by man. Many curious instances could be given showing how quickly new breeds of cattle, sheep and other animals, and varieties of flowers, take the place of older and inferior kinds. In Yorkshire, it is historically known that the ancient black cattle were displaced by the long-horns, and that these "were swept away by the short-horns" (I quote the words of an agricultural writer) "as if by some murderous pestilence."
I think the best answer we have so far is that competition for resources is brutal, and has been brutal throughout the history of the planet. Many species have become extinct and you only know about them because it was recently enough, and they were complex enough, so they left traces of their existence. The earliest organisms thrived in an environment full of nutrients and lacking competition and predators, but as life evolved and became more efficient, they couldn't compete. Actually, I think Charles Darwin mentions that idea in the Origin of Species.
Just as an aside, that probability you mention would only be 4^582970 if Mycoplasma genitalium's genome was the one combination of 582970 bases that could sustain life (even then the probability would not be exactly that, since not all individual Mycoplasma genitalium organisms will have exactly the same genome), which is almost certainly not the case. Anyway, of course that doesn't counter your argument.
So it was a really dumb idea for a certain company to make their motto "do no evil"...
Not necessarily, because it depends on the context. Saying you're not cutting someone into bits is a tad extreme, but let's think of another example. If you go to a girl who has never had a boyfriend and tell her "Trust me, I'm not a jerk", she may be suspicious, but if you go to a girl who you know has had several boyfriends who were jerks and hurt her, your assurance doesn't sound so bad. I guess in this case Microsoft would be the jerk.
Incidentally, I'm not a little grammar Nazi, but I think the debate about begging the question is totally unrelated to grammar.
A little clarification would be good. IMDB shows lots of different runtimes, depending on the release. I watched the German version a few years ago, and I'm pretty sure it was longer than 2 1/2 hours (I even slept a bit through it, even though I loved the movie). IMDB says that version is 210 minutes long. So is it just because of playing speed, or are there differences between the versions? Has anyone else watched any of the versions referenced in IMDB?
That's true, but you can think of it as directed marketing. Companies spend millions in ads, hoping they will sway customers, and there you don't even have an explicit transaction whereby one ad equals x purchases of your product. If this were allowed, the people buying votes would probably be happy if a certain percentage of the sellers actually voted for them. Of course the uncertainty would bring the price down, so no one would pay you a million dollars for one vote.
"You don't solicit the opinions of plumbers and druggies when your child is sick, do you?"
Well, you don't solicit the opinion of doctors and biologists when you remodel your apartment, so why should you let the votes of these people matter when it comes to legislating construction policies?
In practice, democracy is not about voting for whom you think will be a better president, but for the one who will best represent your positions. A bum has the same right as a PhD to have his own positions, and that's why they get one vote each. The problem is that people can be manipulated and fooled into voting for someone who will not represent their interests, but if you want to prevent that in an objective manner (if that's even possible) you will need to take into account a lot more than education. Many uneducated older people will be more intelligent than college graduates when it comes to understanding what politicians and political campaigns are all about, and even life and society in general.
Meritocracy is a general idea; how would you implement it? I imagine it as being a sum of mini-democracies where each group decides things in their own field, but I'm afraid societies may be too complex and intricately linked for that to work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia#Narrow_time_window_for_geogenesis
Potential source of life could be Mars or Ceres, as you said (I have no idea what the time window would be there). Comparing Intelligent Design with Panspermia is absurd.
"We have a huge window for life"
How do you measure that? As far as I know, you have no grounds for that statement. Current theories are speculative at best, and the strongest argument that exists is that "it must have happened". I do believe geogenesis is still more likely, but I think you fail to apply the same degree of skepticism to geogenesis as you do to panspermia.
I agree with most of that, but I guess from your response you would agree that panspermia is an hypothesis that deserves to be taken seriously, and I would just like to make the following points: that chaining of unlikely coincidences may mean there was more time for the "generation of life coincidence", if it grants life a larger time window to originate than on Earth; even conceding that geogenesis is more likely, there is that idea I heard in the Intelligent Design debate that the probablility of a past event is 1. That may not be a very elegant way to put it, but I suppose you get the idea. For me it makes perfect sense to study both hypotheses and gradually perfect our likelihood estimates for each.
Slashdot Mirror
That part about "dangerously often" is controversial. If the SSD balances its wear, it should last for a long time, according to http://clumpc.com/?p=21
Did anyone else read that as Deep Pocket Inspection?
If our ancestors are sufficiently technologically advanced
Wait, at what point did time travel creep into the conversation?
Hawking is one step ahead though, using an assumed name. Steven. Who's gonna know?
Remember Seinfeld? Elaine tried to fire someone and she ended up promoting him.
Isn't it convenient though, to title your argument with the name of the fallacy you are defending? It would be great if politicians did the same; "Now I'm going to beg the question. Blah blah blah blah. Then I shall engage in shameless ad hominem attacks. Blah blah blah. And now listen as I deliver this delightful non sequitur to destroy the straw man I previously created. Blah blah."
"Honestly, it's not as if some robot is paintaing abstract art or writing poetry here."
You picked a couple of interesting examples; I'm sure robots could paint abstract art and write poetry that would match some of today's offerings by human beings. Anyway, I have no idea how complex it is to program a robot to play air hockey, and whether it involves only strength and precision, but there was an idea I read in a book by Douglas Hofstadter that I find amusing: artificial intelligence is always defined as whatever a machine cannot do yet.
For future reference, if you go to Google and type "269 £ to $", it does the conversion (works with lots of other currencies too)
I knew it. It pays to have a blog where you register these things:
"The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement, will naturally suffer most. And we have seen in the chapter on the Struggle for Existence that it is the most closely-allied forms, - varieties of the same species, and species of the same genus or related genera, - which, from having nearly the same structure, constitution and habits, generally come into the severest competition with each other. Consequently, each new variety or species, during the progress of its formation, will generally press hardest on its nearest kindred, and tend to exterminate them. We see the same process of extermination among our domesticated productions, through the selection of improved forms by man. Many curious instances could be given showing how quickly new breeds of cattle, sheep and other animals, and varieties of flowers, take the place of older and inferior kinds. In Yorkshire, it is historically known that the ancient black cattle were displaced by the long-horns, and that these "were swept away by the short-horns" (I quote the words of an agricultural writer) "as if by some murderous pestilence."
- Charles Darwin, in The Origin of Species
I think the best answer we have so far is that competition for resources is brutal, and has been brutal throughout the history of the planet. Many species have become extinct and you only know about them because it was recently enough, and they were complex enough, so they left traces of their existence. The earliest organisms thrived in an environment full of nutrients and lacking competition and predators, but as life evolved and became more efficient, they couldn't compete. Actually, I think Charles Darwin mentions that idea in the Origin of Species.
Just as an aside, that probability you mention would only be 4^582970 if Mycoplasma genitalium's genome was the one combination of 582970 bases that could sustain life (even then the probability would not be exactly that, since not all individual Mycoplasma genitalium organisms will have exactly the same genome), which is almost certainly not the case. Anyway, of course that doesn't counter your argument.
"Why poor though references"
You talk the talk, but I can see you are relying on the spell checker yourself.
"in order to be a tool the user must have some basic skills"
So now you want the user to be a tool? I don't think that requires any skills.
Well, if the boat captain finds himself at 40 to 100 meters depth, he has other things to worry about.
"I could see it being sent flying across the road like a hockeypuck"
Why do you think they made it bullet-shaped? It would be great to find a few of them on the highway so you can do trickshots. Shotgun!
The intertitles were in German, but now that you mention it, I seem to recall some bits with still photos.
"You should be able to do whatever you want to do with your vote. It should be a crime if you did not use your vote at all."
Hmm, paradox?
So it was a really dumb idea for a certain company to make their motto "do no evil" ...
Not necessarily, because it depends on the context. Saying you're not cutting someone into bits is a tad extreme, but let's think of another example. If you go to a girl who has never had a boyfriend and tell her "Trust me, I'm not a jerk", she may be suspicious, but if you go to a girl who you know has had several boyfriends who were jerks and hurt her, your assurance doesn't sound so bad. I guess in this case Microsoft would be the jerk.
Incidentally, I'm not a little grammar Nazi, but I think the debate about begging the question is totally unrelated to grammar.
A little clarification would be good. IMDB shows lots of different runtimes, depending on the release. I watched the German version a few years ago, and I'm pretty sure it was longer than 2 1/2 hours (I even slept a bit through it, even though I loved the movie). IMDB says that version is 210 minutes long. So is it just because of playing speed, or are there differences between the versions? Has anyone else watched any of the versions referenced in IMDB?
That's true, but you can think of it as directed marketing. Companies spend millions in ads, hoping they will sway customers, and there you don't even have an explicit transaction whereby one ad equals x purchases of your product. If this were allowed, the people buying votes would probably be happy if a certain percentage of the sellers actually voted for them. Of course the uncertainty would bring the price down, so no one would pay you a million dollars for one vote.
"When I was a kid I had the idea of networking every BBS together."
Seriously? I feel so inadequate. I just played with Legos.
Definitely cool. I'm not thinking about Quake though, but rather full-scale reenactments of historical battles.
"You don't solicit the opinions of plumbers and druggies when your child is sick, do you?" Well, you don't solicit the opinion of doctors and biologists when you remodel your apartment, so why should you let the votes of these people matter when it comes to legislating construction policies? In practice, democracy is not about voting for whom you think will be a better president, but for the one who will best represent your positions. A bum has the same right as a PhD to have his own positions, and that's why they get one vote each. The problem is that people can be manipulated and fooled into voting for someone who will not represent their interests, but if you want to prevent that in an objective manner (if that's even possible) you will need to take into account a lot more than education. Many uneducated older people will be more intelligent than college graduates when it comes to understanding what politicians and political campaigns are all about, and even life and society in general. Meritocracy is a general idea; how would you implement it? I imagine it as being a sum of mini-democracies where each group decides things in their own field, but I'm afraid societies may be too complex and intricately linked for that to work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia#Narrow_time_window_for_geogenesis Potential source of life could be Mars or Ceres, as you said (I have no idea what the time window would be there). Comparing Intelligent Design with Panspermia is absurd. "We have a huge window for life" How do you measure that? As far as I know, you have no grounds for that statement. Current theories are speculative at best, and the strongest argument that exists is that "it must have happened". I do believe geogenesis is still more likely, but I think you fail to apply the same degree of skepticism to geogenesis as you do to panspermia.
I agree with most of that, but I guess from your response you would agree that panspermia is an hypothesis that deserves to be taken seriously, and I would just like to make the following points: that chaining of unlikely coincidences may mean there was more time for the "generation of life coincidence", if it grants life a larger time window to originate than on Earth; even conceding that geogenesis is more likely, there is that idea I heard in the Intelligent Design debate that the probablility of a past event is 1. That may not be a very elegant way to put it, but I suppose you get the idea. For me it makes perfect sense to study both hypotheses and gradually perfect our likelihood estimates for each.
I think when you got the memo about blogs being an appropriate medium to post pictures of your cat, you became a little confused.
Must be a mushy atmosphere, where they work. "Hello Darling", "Bye, Darling", "We should add some blood and gore here, Darling".