But there's the basic problem that if they have no problem with taking resources from another civilization, what problem do they have with taking resources from each other?
You are making the fundamental assumption that any random group of aliens would view us as "people". Given, as an example, the number of species we recognize as "people" currently, that's quite a stretch.
In any case, Slashdot generally likes government regulation, as can be seen by opinions on articles ranging from the FCC to the FTC to the FDA to the NRC.
Slashdot like government regulation, so long as the regulation agrees with their prejudices. Just like everyone else does.
it would have the added benefit of providing actual communication with an alien intelligence (assuming a strong AI powered probe) verses shouting at each other and waiting 50 or more years for a response.
Shouting and waiting 50+ years for a response is "actual communication" also. It's just SLOW actual communication. If we can't handle the idea of taking centuries or millenia to accomplish something worthwhile, we're never going to be ready to be an interstellar civilization...
Re:infringement is "imminent,"
on
ACTA Treaty Released
·
· Score: 2, Informative
As I understand it, you can only get an ASBO *after* you've engaged in delinquency. So if you keep doing lots of stupid little things that won't always result in prosecution, they can sort of lump them all together and then slap you with an ASBO. It's retroactive punishment for minor offenses, with the intent of reducing further offenses. More like probation than pre-crime.
From Wikipedia:
An Anti-Social Behaviour Order ASBO (pronounced/æzbo/) is a civil order made against a person who has been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland [1]. The orders, designed originally by Tony Blair in 1998[2], were designed to be imposed after minor incidents that would not ordinarily warrant prosecution[3]. The orders then restrict behavior in some way, by prohibiting a return to a certain area or shop, or by restricting public behavior such as swearing or drinking. As the ASBO is a civil order, the defendant has no right to evidence that might disprove the assertions of the plaintiff, though violating an ASBO can incur up to five years imprisonment.
So, you can't present evidence in your defense, and you can get 5 years for a violation. And the original offense didn't warrant prosecution.
Sounds more like pre-crime than probation to me....
Have you ever tried to survive a 10 hour car ride as a kid? Unless you have entertainment (and no, talking to your parents doesn't count for more than 15 minutes), you will get extremely bored before you're even halfway through.
Once upon a time, many years ago when I was a kid, we used to use books for our in-car entertainment. Worked quite well, really.
We just GIVE the FCC the power to regulate (bitchslap) troublemaker isps like comcast.
We don't have to. The FCC can do that part itself.
The only thing that this ruling really says is that the current FCC regulations don't allow the FCC to do net neutrality. But since the FCC writes its own regulations, all it has to do is issue a new set (using the procedures required by itself (public comment periods, that sort of thing)) and they can then do net neutrality to their hearts' content.
How many CEOs do you know who would choose the same amount of productivity for less employee time (maybe less employee cost), over more productivity? Growth is the only metric that counts, it seems.
Productivity is measured per man-hour. If we made the same stuff in fewer hours, our productivity would go up.
How may workers do you know who would campaign for a four-day week at the same pay over a five-day week for more pay?
Based on the people I know who prefer the 9-80 work schedule to the conventional 5-40, I'd guess that quite a lot of people would prefer to have a four-day workweek.
Note, by the way, that your arguments are essentially the same as those that opposed the five-day workweek, back when six days was the norm.
Personally, I don't expect to see a four-day workweek within ten years. I'll be surprised if I don't see one within twnety, though.
Who knows, possibilities are endless, but very few of them seem to be positive.
Interesting that you assume the aliens would be nice guys, and we'd be the villains. It's really not all that likely that they're going to be any less tribal than we are, or that they'll automagically be more morally evolved than we are.
such is not impossible in the really real world, either, only unlikely.
Indeed? And how would you know that it's unlikely, other than by basing your decision as to its likelihood on your own (ignorant) prejudices.
At this point, we have not a clue about life off Earth. When we find some elsewhere, we can start making some educated guesses, but right now we're still at the stage of WAG'ing it.
Military flexes muscle, says they will respond with force, what's new?
Actually, what he said is that he'd respond to attacks in cyberspace by counterattacking in cyberspace. No suggestion at all that we'd respond to cyber attacks with bombs/missiles/guns....
This is a nice follow up to the earlier "Armstrong criticizes Obama" article.
Actually, this is Obama's response to meatbag astronauts complaining about budget cuts.
Actually, it seems to be a response to midterm elections in Florida, Alabama, and Texas. None of those states is going to be especially happy if NASA doesn't keep bringing home the bacon, and Obama doesn't need any easy Republican wins in the House races in those states.
Yeah. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson from the failure of capitalism. When will people learn, incentives don't work!
The problem isn't that incentives don't work. It's understanding what you're encouraging. If the kids in this school fail, the teachers get more money. If the kids in this school succeed, the teachers don't get more money.
Hmm, looks to me like you're encouraging the teachers to produce kids who fail (thus producing more money for the teachers).
Alternatively, you can argue that the teachers don't get the extra money, the SCHOOL gets the extra money, for more teachers, etc, etc.
Which encouraged the principals to produce kids who fail, since that builds his little empire....
Neither are they launching an actual Dragon capsule. Just a mockup. This is a rocket test. Still beats that bogus Ares-IX propaganda launch though.
No, it's an actual Dragon. Part of the test will be a heat shield test when the de-orbit the Dragon. It's not equipped with the trunk that supplies the majority of the power and life-support, but the capsule is the prototype Dragon.
Last I heard, it's waiting on approval from the Air Force range safety people. Range Safety has to be satisfied that the launch abort system will work before Falcon-9 can launch.
Once that happens, they can launch whenever there's an appropriate launch window.
Here's hoping the Air Force will get off the dime soon....
Note, however, that Dragon is not man-rated yet. This is purely the cargo version of the vehicle.
If SCOTUS can justify overturning the DC handgun ban without citing precedence or any case law, I can only imagine what kind of consideration this sort of thing will get.
You are aware that SCOTUS is primarily responsible for ensuring the Constitutionality of laws, right?
And that you don't need either case law or precedent to determine the Constitutionality of a law?
And that the DC handgun ban seems to be at odds with that Amendment which ends with "shall not be infringed"?
Or are you one of those who argues that "the people" in the 2nd Amendment refers to the States? If so, does "the People" in the First, Fourth, Fifth (arguably - the 5th uses "person" instead of "people"), and Tenth refer to the States as well? And if it does in each of those cases, why does the Tenth distinguish between "the States" and "the people"?
And if "the People" only means "the States" in the Second Amendment but not in any others, why?
I see you're not counting just "invasions" above. Your privilege. Of course, the other two nations (China and Russia) did a lot of "not-invasions" too.
And no, we haven't "invaded other nations at a higher rate than any other, except perhaps for Nazi Germany".
Fought a lot, yes. That's what happens when you find yourself the "world's policeman". A role I disapprove of, by the by, but it's an important part of history. But invade? The word means something, you know. And it's meaning doesn't include "build a base for the guys you're sending to the back end of nowhere to train the local government's troops."
Note that having military bases in a country isn't actually the same as invading the country. If it were, we'd not have left the Philippines when the local government asked us to go. If those 130 countries all asked us to get out, we'd leave. Mostly they won't, since they mostly want the money associated with those bases (you'd be amazed at how much money an American military base injects into the local economy - witness the effects on the filipino economy when we pulled out of there).
We are the empire. Any whining to the contrary is evidence of a painful amount of historical ignorance.
"The empire"? No. "An empire", perhaps. A curiously ramshackle empire, at that. Note, by the way, that by definition of "occupation against the wills of the locals", China is a bigger empire than we are - more people, more people occupied against their wills.
You seem obsessed with American military bases, as if each of them were the sign of nefarious empire-building. Fact is, most of them are considered rather annoying hardship posts, where they only thing you have to do is count the days till you get to go back to "the world".
Please count the number of countries China has invaded in the last 3000 years
.
Hmm, that's tough. Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, for sure. Possibly Mongolia and the USSR.
And since China hasn't been unified for 3000 years, do we count all the invasions of one country in the area now called China of another country in the area now called China? If so, it would run into the thousands.
Please count the number of countries Russia has invaded in the past 40 years.
I like they way you carefully picked a time period here that you think that Russia has been "peaceful". If you stretch your time period out a bit farther (say, to 80 years), we have pretty much all of Eastern Europe, plus duplicates (Some of Eastern Europe was invaded more than once by the USSR - Poland is a good example), possibly China and Mongolia.
Note that the "possiblies" on both sides include the other. I'm not sure which of these countries invaded the other during that little squabble they had last century. Note that "little squabble" in this case was the largest war since WW2.
Please count the number of countries where we have troops and military bases right now.
And here we get to the "oranges", as in "comparing apples and oranges".
Instead of considering places we were invited to build bases (even if we bribed people to invite us) as exactly the same as places we've invaded, let's just look at the places we've invaded.
In the last 40 years, that would be Iraq, twice, and Afghanistan
If we stretch the time period back the same 80 years we used for the USSR, we get the three listed above, plus North Korea (arguable, since we were driving them back as a result of their invasion of South Korea at the time), French North Africa (whatever that area was called back in WW2 when we did it), Italy (WW2), France (in the process of kicking the Germans out of same), Holland (ditto), Germany (WW2), Japan (WW2).
You do realize that corporations can't (legally) contribute to campaigns in the United States, right?
Actually, they can. They weren't even forbidden to do so before McCain-Feingold was largely overturned. They were merely limited in the amounts they could contribute.
Now, of course, they can contribute freely to any campaigns....
Slashdot Mirror
You are making the fundamental assumption that any random group of aliens would view us as "people". Given, as an example, the number of species we recognize as "people" currently, that's quite a stretch.
Slashdot like government regulation, so long as the regulation agrees with their prejudices. Just like everyone else does.
Shouting and waiting 50+ years for a response is "actual communication" also. It's just SLOW actual communication. If we can't handle the idea of taking centuries or millenia to accomplish something worthwhile, we're never going to be ready to be an interstellar civilization...
From Wikipedia:
An Anti-Social Behaviour Order ASBO (pronounced /æzbo/) is a civil order made against a person who has been shown, on the balance of evidence, to have engaged in anti-social behaviour in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland [1]. The orders, designed originally by Tony Blair in 1998[2], were designed to be imposed after minor incidents that would not ordinarily warrant prosecution[3]. The orders then restrict behavior in some way, by prohibiting a return to a certain area or shop, or by restricting public behavior such as swearing or drinking. As the ASBO is a civil order, the defendant has no right to evidence that might disprove the assertions of the plaintiff, though violating an ASBO can incur up to five years imprisonment.
So, you can't present evidence in your defense, and you can get 5 years for a violation. And the original offense didn't warrant prosecution.
Sounds more like pre-crime than probation to me....
I think you answered your own question in the first three words of the question....
Don't the Brits already do something like this? ASBO? Some other acronym that reduces down to "punish you efore you commit a crime"?
Once upon a time, many years ago when I was a kid, we used to use books for our in-car entertainment. Worked quite well, really.
We don't have to. The FCC can do that part itself.
The only thing that this ruling really says is that the current FCC regulations don't allow the FCC to do net neutrality. But since the FCC writes its own regulations, all it has to do is issue a new set (using the procedures required by itself (public comment periods, that sort of thing)) and they can then do net neutrality to their hearts' content.
Productivity is measured per man-hour. If we made the same stuff in fewer hours, our productivity would go up.
Based on the people I know who prefer the 9-80 work schedule to the conventional 5-40, I'd guess that quite a lot of people would prefer to have a four-day workweek.
Note, by the way, that your arguments are essentially the same as those that opposed the five-day workweek, back when six days was the norm.
Personally, I don't expect to see a four-day workweek within ten years. I'll be surprised if I don't see one within twnety, though.
Interesting that you assume the aliens would be nice guys, and we'd be the villains. It's really not all that likely that they're going to be any less tribal than we are, or that they'll automagically be more morally evolved than we are.
Indeed? And how would you know that it's unlikely, other than by basing your decision as to its likelihood on your own (ignorant) prejudices.
At this point, we have not a clue about life off Earth. When we find some elsewhere, we can start making some educated guesses, but right now we're still at the stage of WAG'ing it.
Actually, what he said is that he'd respond to attacks in cyberspace by counterattacking in cyberspace. No suggestion at all that we'd respond to cyber attacks with bombs/missiles/guns....
As I recall, the Americans also captured Toronto (called York at the time), and burned the Parliament building there.
I think that particular bit of chest-thumping was pretty much as a wash.
Which shows something important in itself - that most people don't care all that much about most of what happens on Capitol Hill.
Actually, it seems to be a response to midterm elections in Florida, Alabama, and Texas. None of those states is going to be especially happy if NASA doesn't keep bringing home the bacon, and Obama doesn't need any easy Republican wins in the House races in those states.
The problem isn't that incentives don't work. It's understanding what you're encouraging. If the kids in this school fail, the teachers get more money. If the kids in this school succeed, the teachers don't get more money.
Hmm, looks to me like you're encouraging the teachers to produce kids who fail (thus producing more money for the teachers).
Alternatively, you can argue that the teachers don't get the extra money, the SCHOOL gets the extra money, for more teachers, etc, etc.
Which encouraged the principals to produce kids who fail, since that builds his little empire....
No, it's an actual Dragon. Part of the test will be a heat shield test when the de-orbit the Dragon. It's not equipped with the trunk that supplies the majority of the power and life-support, but the capsule is the prototype Dragon.
Last I heard, it's waiting on approval from the Air Force range safety people. Range Safety has to be satisfied that the launch abort system will work before Falcon-9 can launch.
Once that happens, they can launch whenever there's an appropriate launch window.
Here's hoping the Air Force will get off the dime soon....
Note, however, that Dragon is not man-rated yet. This is purely the cargo version of the vehicle.
Yeah, like that guy who survived both atomic bombings dying of cancer.
This year, at the age of 94....
You are aware that SCOTUS is primarily responsible for ensuring the Constitutionality of laws, right?
And that you don't need either case law or precedent to determine the Constitutionality of a law?
And that the DC handgun ban seems to be at odds with that Amendment which ends with "shall not be infringed"?
Or are you one of those who argues that "the people" in the 2nd Amendment refers to the States? If so, does "the People" in the First, Fourth, Fifth (arguably - the 5th uses "person" instead of "people"), and Tenth refer to the States as well? And if it does in each of those cases, why does the Tenth distinguish between "the States" and "the people"?
And if "the People" only means "the States" in the Second Amendment but not in any others, why?
Whoosh!
What he responded to mentioned "4mW". Which is 4 milliwatts, not 4 megawatts. Hence the comment about less power requirements than an LED....
And no, we haven't "invaded other nations at a higher rate than any other, except perhaps for Nazi Germany".
Fought a lot, yes. That's what happens when you find yourself the "world's policeman". A role I disapprove of, by the by, but it's an important part of history. But invade? The word means something, you know. And it's meaning doesn't include "build a base for the guys you're sending to the back end of nowhere to train the local government's troops."
Note that having military bases in a country isn't actually the same as invading the country. If it were, we'd not have left the Philippines when the local government asked us to go. If those 130 countries all asked us to get out, we'd leave. Mostly they won't, since they mostly want the money associated with those bases (you'd be amazed at how much money an American military base injects into the local economy - witness the effects on the filipino economy when we pulled out of there).
"The empire"? No. "An empire", perhaps. A curiously ramshackle empire, at that. Note, by the way, that by definition of "occupation against the wills of the locals", China is a bigger empire than we are - more people, more people occupied against their wills.
You seem obsessed with American military bases, as if each of them were the sign of nefarious empire-building. Fact is, most of them are considered rather annoying hardship posts, where they only thing you have to do is count the days till you get to go back to "the world".
Yes, that's why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were never rebuilt...Oh, wait....
Note that neither city was depopulated by the atomic bombing, and both were rebuilt at about the same rate as the rest of Japan.
.
Hmm, that's tough. Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, for sure. Possibly Mongolia and the USSR.
And since China hasn't been unified for 3000 years, do we count all the invasions of one country in the area now called China of another country in the area now called China? If so, it would run into the thousands.
I like they way you carefully picked a time period here that you think that Russia has been "peaceful". If you stretch your time period out a bit farther (say, to 80 years), we have pretty much all of Eastern Europe, plus duplicates (Some of Eastern Europe was invaded more than once by the USSR - Poland is a good example), possibly China and Mongolia.
Note that the "possiblies" on both sides include the other. I'm not sure which of these countries invaded the other during that little squabble they had last century. Note that "little squabble" in this case was the largest war since WW2.
And here we get to the "oranges", as in "comparing apples and oranges".
Instead of considering places we were invited to build bases (even if we bribed people to invite us) as exactly the same as places we've invaded, let's just look at the places we've invaded.
In the last 40 years, that would be Iraq, twice, and Afghanistan
If we stretch the time period back the same 80 years we used for the USSR, we get the three listed above, plus North Korea (arguable, since we were driving them back as a result of their invasion of South Korea at the time), French North Africa (whatever that area was called back in WW2 when we did it), Italy (WW2), France (in the process of kicking the Germans out of same), Holland (ditto), Germany (WW2), Japan (WW2).
Actually, they can. They weren't even forbidden to do so before McCain-Feingold was largely overturned. They were merely limited in the amounts they could contribute.
Now, of course, they can contribute freely to any campaigns....