"I could easily see a home user trying it for a day or two and finding so many things broken that they just give up and log on as the administrator."
I guess this is why the Windows trolls call Windows "easier to use" than Linux. Wow! I can do anything as administrator! This is so much easier than Linux where I have to have a clue!
Now the Windows trolls blame the developers because Microsoft says an app should run correctly as a normal user, not an administrator.
Has anybody bothered to ask the developers why they insist on running as administrator? Could it be because they can't design their app to run as a normal user for other Windows reasons?
Nero wouldn't burn CDs as a normal user until they created their Windows service. Must have had a reason. I doubt they just upgraded their code from Windows 98 and said, "Well, it will be easier just to run it as Administrator because most users run as Administrator anyway." More likely, they couldn't figure out a way to do it correctly until they figured out the service angle.
Could this be because the OS and its APIs are so complicated nobody can figure out how to do anything on it anymore?
So now we're going to have a more or less complete rewrite called Longhorn so all the developers have to relearn how to design for Windows all over again? And this will be secure how?
"if you're a unix admin you need to be familiar with vi."
No, I don't. If I'm a sys admin, I'll have better tools on the machine or I'm not working there.
I'm well aware that servers don't have GUIs. That's also irrelevant in most instances as you can code anywhere and FTP (or SFTP, of course, which is better) the files. Which is why I like jEdit - with plugin FTP, I can code on Windows (or Linux, since jEdit is Java-based) and transparently save my files to the UNIX server I'm executing on.
Which is my point! Why use crappy tools on a machine when you can use better tools?
People focus on the low-level stuff like keyboard vrs. mouse whereas the real productivity gains are made from higher considerations like what system tools should be available to overcome "missing" stuff.
And how many people run flash card UNIX systems? That's simply irrelevant to the discussion, although vim's small size is obviously important for anyone working on such space-challenged systems.
As for crippled systems, I view any system that gets in my way as crippled, and that's why I switched to jEdit from pico and SQLTools from the crappy Oracle sqlplus on the UNIX server I'm working on. Meanwhile my boss struggles with vi and sqlplus. And I didn't have to spend any significant time learning vi's stupid keymap to do this.
I'm currently coding in SQR, a database report language. jEdit supports syntax highlighting for SQR - that's why I picked it.
I see that vim also supports it which is nice as very few editors do. This doesn't make me want to switch, however.
Most "real" editors have keyboard equivalents for cursor operations. Sometimes this is more efficient, sometimes it isn't.
If you code twelve hours a day, it might be worth it to master the keyboard commands of an editor like vim - which is an ENHANCED vi. It would just be as useful to master the keyboard commands of an editor with even more power than vim or vi - just like the emacs users do. Or
One thing I like about jEdit is built-in (via a plugin) FTP. I was originally using pico to code on a UNIX server from a Windows desktop. Using jEdit's FTP capability, I can code in a better editor on Windows (or Linux) and save the file transparently to the UNIX server. Using SQLTools on Windows also allows me to replace the crappy sqlplus Oracle interface on the server.
I'm sure I can find ways to be even more efficient, but doing the work has to come first. Which is why I have no desire to spend a lot of time learning even all the commands in jEdit until I need them.
I'm perfectly fucking aware that HTML is "plain-text code."
I'm also perfectly fucking aware that it should be formatted for readability - manually or not.
My point was that people who think Notepad is the be-all and end-all of text editors are probably people who write all their HTML on one line. Otherwise they would use an editor with HTML syntax highlighting and features that all easy formatting of the code.
I am also perfectly fucking aware that a lot of HTML generators produce badly formatted HTML. I did not state nor did I imply that computer-generated code is necessarily better than hand-written.
My point was that an adequately featured office suite was being trashed for not having some feature I've never even heard of and which apparently ninety percent of the population probably have never heard of or couldn't care less about.
And this was in response to Dvorak's complaining about features we've all heard of in Microsoft Word. Apparently Dvorak's complaints were illegitimate to these OO critics but theirs were oh so important.
I may be wrong, but if Yahoo.fr is hosting or distributing content that originates within the borders of France, why don't the French go after the French originators instead of Yahoo?
If the content is not originating in France, Yahoo is not the originator nor the distributor in the conventional sense, because the content is coming into France via external data links. Yahoo is merely a "conduit" like a phone line. If someone calls up a Frenchman on the phone from England and yells hate speech, do the French think the English OR French phone services must be shut down or try to control the content?
Not to mention the fact that there is no such thing as "hate speech" except by government fiat.
It seems to me the French government is merely being stupid like most governments.
Of course, the US is nearly in the same state. Try using the term "nigger" on any public media and see what happens - even if the context is perfectly legitimate.
I use pico when I'm editing something simple, as I'm tired of watching my boss mangle the vi commands and I'm far too lazy to learn "CTRL-meta-cokebottle" crap in Emacs and the ludicrously stupid keystrokes in vi. At least pico gives you a nice little menu and does the stuff you need to do when editing a lousy little config file. You want a small editor with better features than pico? Use Joe's with the pico emulation.
If I'm editing anything over a page or two, I use jEdit or some other "real" editor.
It's amazing how many people want to continue to use crappy tools like vi for spurious reasons like "it's the only one you're guaranteed to find on UNIX" (why would I be searching for it in the first place - I don't want to work on crippled systems that don't have better editors) and "you need it if your system crashes" (bullshit - this is why you carry a boot CD.)
You've been reading them for five years, he's been writing them probably three or four times that long.
So you're a little late with your comment.
Not that he would care since he probably makes five times what you do.
HTML in Notepad... If you're going to do that, why bother with Word for documents at all? Use Notepad for that, too. Formatting? What's that? I bet your HTML is all on one line, right?
God forbid I ever "View Source" on one of your pages.
You're correct. Without some form of simulation of human conceptual processing, it's not possible to do good machine translation. "Adequate" might be possible if you consider babelfish "adequate". In narrow, carefully bounded areas of discourse, it might be better than that. But for general discourse, no chance without conceptual processing.
"Yeah, you can't edit this stuff, until I learned how, then you could....this is the typical bs that causes windows programs to get a worse rep then they already deserve."
Which is why Linux is no worse than Windows when it comes to usability.
I hope that's what you meant to say 'cause that's what you actually said...:-)
"Perhaps we form political affiliations by semiconsciously detecting commonalities with other people, commonalities that ultimately reflect a shared pattern of brain function."
I have no political affiliations (even with most anarchists or even most so-called Transhumanists) and few commonalities with other people (other than junk food, movies and babes.)
is the second guy got himself off the list because he ADDED HIS MIDDLE INITIAL to his name!
Think about the stupid programming!
All a terrorist has to do is add something to his name and he drops off the list!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Your tax dollars at work!
If this doesn't prove that the whole thing is purely a) for show and b) to increase the government's ability to harass the citizenry for no reason at all except to prove they can, I don't know what does.
And, yes, some morons say some of the 9/11 terrorists used their own names when they traveled. What does this tell you? They weren't terrorists, that's what. Either that or the names they used weren't actually theirs and the FBI/CIA is too stupid to determine their real names.
Sure, the Kennedy's are drunks and rapists, but I sincerely doubt ol' Teddy is up for molesting stewardesses or trying to crash the plane because he had too many little bottles of booz.
It's irrelevant, anyway. He's on the watch list because his NAME is wrong. (And no doubt because he's a Democrat in a Republican administration of paranoids that make Dick Nixon look sane.)
Since she made a point that lower animals such as crows have the same problem in her "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology."
That's how you fool crows - you send five people into a hunting blind, then have four of them leave. The crow sentry thinks they've all gone, calls in the flock, and they get shot.
Now we find sections of the human race aren't any better at it than birds.
OTOH, presumably these people could be trained to understand the concept of large numbers. Presumably they have the conceptual processing ability in the brain to do so, whereas birds (presumably) don't.
However, it raises issues over just how do you deal with people who are simply incapable of understanding certain - even what everyone else considers "basic" - concepts.
How about the reverse situation? If someone can understand a concept that most other humans can't understand, does that make that someone something other than human?
Does not understanding large numbers make you "subhuman?" Does understanding concepts few others understand make you "superhuman?"
At what point on the Bell Curve do you become something "else?" A moron? A genius? A Transhuman? A "primate?"
Are any of those terms precise enough to even be relevant, in the absence of precise brain function analysis on an individual basis?
As for compassion, I believe there is a theory in Christianity that angels have "ruthless compassion", i.e., they may be compassionate but they will do God's will in any event, even if it means destroying humans or even (supposedly innocent) human children. So the concept of "ruthless compassion" is not unknown. Leary's point was that unless you distance yourself from human emotion, you can't come to rationally understand WHY humans are emotional wrecks and how to deal with that in yourself and others.
My second point was that "biologically human" is an imprecise term. At what percentage point of "human" characteristics do you start or stop being "human"? One could say that if you can reproduce with a female member of a given species, that makes you part of that species. In that sense, I'm perfectly human (not that I've been given the change to prove that in this manner - nor do I have any desire to.) But that's hardly all there is to it.
There was another sci-fi story that used a heavily computer-enhanced person who asked the question, "What is human?" He referenced Count Dracula, Maori tribesmen, Australian Bushmen, African pygmies, and others, but said his computers said that they were all human, but he was not. This illustrates my point.
When you have the tech to make your brain think a million times faster than a normal human's, and the body is heavily modified (possibly doesn't even have arms, legs and a torso), and the influence of the brain's neurochemistry is restricted by one technological means or another, is that entity human? Is it human if it was born as a human, then modified? Is it human if it was cloned, then modified as described?
Secondly, what is a mutation? I referenced the "Gemini Man" book because the question is raised there as to what happens if a brain mutation causes significant behavioral changes in a person - enough to render him the equivalent of a "violent Mr. Spock", say. If that mutation can be transmitted via reproduction (and there is no reason to believe it couldn't), are the offspring human? If the offspring of such a person and someone who is not such a person did not have the trait, one could presumably say that such a person is still human. If the trait bred true, however, does that make them a new species - or subspecies?
"Otherkin" are irrelevant as are those who claim to be "vampyres" because it is easy to prove their is no biological alterations as claimed. It would be much harder to prove that certain behavioral traits are not true mutations.
It has been known for decades that there are certain broad behavioral traits that affect most humans (in fact, most mammals) to one degree or another and to one combination or another. The "alpha" male, the "beta" follower, etc. These characteristics can be pointed out in almost everyone's behavior. At what point does the lack of these behaviors mean the individual is sufficiently different to be considered - if not a new species - than a new "subspecies".
The term "race" itself is today considered to be an unscientific description with no meaning (although I personally find it useful in a cultural linquistic context.) "Race" is not as specific a term as "species". But even here, while conceptually useful, in practice the term "species" may be too fluid to be representative of the true situation.
Insect evolution is proceeding so quickly that entomologists are not sure we will ever be able to categorize the entire insect population since new species come into existence and old ones disappear so quickly. Since reproduction of insects seems to be so fluid and gradual without strict boundaries as we see in higher animals, perhaps the term "species" is no longer sufficiently precise to be useful.
Perhaps whether someone with a particular brain chemistry is a given "species" or not is not even relevant any more. But the difference is still real.
Third, even if Tranhumanists have an emotional response to a concept such as the Singularity, why should they
I generally suggest three scenarios - and a fourth:
1) All humans are transmogrified into Transhumans (whether they want to or not - there won't be any complaints afterward.)
2) All humans are destroyed by Transhumans - because they tried to destroy all Transhumans (Transhumans probably wouldn't bother destroying humans otherwise.)
3) Transhumans go about their business and humans are left to go about theirs. This is your "left behind" scenario.
4) The most likely scenario IMO: some of 1, some of 2, some of 3.
As for "human" as insult, I'm reminded of Tim Leary who once said it was important to take a coldly logical "posthuman" attitude toward the human race in order to have a compassionate view. In other words, to understand humans you have to distance yourself from them.
I suspect I distance myself partly because that's the way I've been treated by most people since I was a child. Actually, I suspect it goes much deeper than that - I suspect the "average" human actually instinctively detects and rejects people whose basic mental functioning is more logical and less emotion-driven than their own. In other words, certain people are almost from birth - and certainly from childhood - too different from the "average" human to be accepted by them. Well, if you don't accept me, I don't have to accept you.
I'm reminded of a Hamilton sci-fi story where an alien posing as human remarks that he is "99.9 human - and surely that qualifies." I believe there is a spectrum of human brain function over a Bell Curve just like most natural phenomena and that a small - perhaps extremely tiny - percentage of humans are sufficiently different from the "average" human to (almost) constitute a different species. Read Richard Steinberg's "Gemini Man" story for a fictional take on the concept.
In other words, while I may be "human" enough to qualify, I prefer not to be so insulted.
I am aware of the definition. Mine is the same - finding in opposition to the facts of the case means acknowledging the facts of the case but refusing to convict because while the law is clear and the circumstances are clear, it is "unjust" to convict because either the law is itself unjust or the circumstances outweight the law.
Slashdot Mirror
Your cheap t-shirt is not running your company.
"I could easily see a home user trying it for a day or two and finding so many things broken that they just give up and log on as the administrator."
I guess this is why the Windows trolls call Windows "easier to use" than Linux. Wow! I can do anything as administrator! This is so much easier than Linux where I have to have a clue!
Now the Windows trolls blame the developers because Microsoft says an app should run correctly as a normal user, not an administrator.
Has anybody bothered to ask the developers why they insist on running as administrator? Could it be because they can't design their app to run as a normal user for other Windows reasons?
Nero wouldn't burn CDs as a normal user until they created their Windows service. Must have had a reason. I doubt they just upgraded their code from Windows 98 and said, "Well, it will be easier just to run it as Administrator because most users run as Administrator anyway." More likely, they couldn't figure out a way to do it correctly until they figured out the service angle.
Could this be because the OS and its APIs are so complicated nobody can figure out how to do anything on it anymore?
So now we're going to have a more or less complete rewrite called Longhorn so all the developers have to relearn how to design for Windows all over again? And this will be secure how?
Oh, great. XP has it.
But perhaps two thirds of users are running 2000 and 98 (not to mention 95.)
Can you say, "back-port"? Can Microsoft?
How many Linux kernel and application security fixes are back-ported to earlier versions?
How many Microsoft security fixes are back-ported to earlier versions? Oh, no, you've got to upgrade to get those.
"if you're a unix admin you need to be familiar with vi."
No, I don't. If I'm a sys admin, I'll have better tools on the machine or I'm not working there.
I'm well aware that servers don't have GUIs. That's also irrelevant in most instances as you can code anywhere and FTP (or SFTP, of course, which is better) the files. Which is why I like jEdit - with plugin FTP, I can code on Windows (or Linux, since jEdit is Java-based) and transparently save my files to the UNIX server I'm executing on.
Which is my point! Why use crappy tools on a machine when you can use better tools?
People focus on the low-level stuff like keyboard vrs. mouse whereas the real productivity gains are made from higher considerations like what system tools should be available to overcome "missing" stuff.
And how many people run flash card UNIX systems? That's simply irrelevant to the discussion, although vim's small size is obviously important for anyone working on such space-challenged systems.
As for crippled systems, I view any system that gets in my way as crippled, and that's why I switched to jEdit from pico and SQLTools from the crappy Oracle sqlplus on the UNIX server I'm working on. Meanwhile my boss struggles with vi and sqlplus. And I didn't have to spend any significant time learning vi's stupid keymap to do this.
I'm currently coding in SQR, a database report language. jEdit supports syntax highlighting for SQR - that's why I picked it.
I see that vim also supports it which is nice as very few editors do. This doesn't make me want to switch, however.
Most "real" editors have keyboard equivalents for cursor operations. Sometimes this is more efficient, sometimes it isn't.
If you code twelve hours a day, it might be worth it to master the keyboard commands of an editor like vim - which is an ENHANCED vi. It would just be as useful to master the keyboard commands of an editor with even more power than vim or vi - just like the emacs users do. Or
One thing I like about jEdit is built-in (via a plugin) FTP. I was originally using pico to code on a UNIX server from a Windows desktop. Using jEdit's FTP capability, I can code in a better editor on Windows (or Linux) and save the file transparently to the UNIX server. Using SQLTools on Windows also allows me to replace the crappy sqlplus Oracle interface on the server.
I'm sure I can find ways to be even more efficient, but doing the work has to come first. Which is why I have no desire to spend a lot of time learning even all the commands in jEdit until I need them.
I'm perfectly fucking aware that HTML is "plain-text code."
I'm also perfectly fucking aware that it should be formatted for readability - manually or not.
My point was that people who think Notepad is the be-all and end-all of text editors are probably people who write all their HTML on one line. Otherwise they would use an editor with HTML syntax highlighting and features that all easy formatting of the code.
I am also perfectly fucking aware that a lot of HTML generators produce badly formatted HTML. I did not state nor did I imply that computer-generated code is necessarily better than hand-written.
My point was that an adequately featured office suite was being trashed for not having some feature I've never even heard of and which apparently ninety percent of the population probably have never heard of or couldn't care less about.
And this was in response to Dvorak's complaining about features we've all heard of in Microsoft Word. Apparently Dvorak's complaints were illegitimate to these OO critics but theirs were oh so important.
So what's wrong with this picture?
I'll tell you - Windows trolls.
MPAA sues sand for contributing to silicon chips used for piracy!
Supoenas served in Death Valley, the Gobi Desert, and the Sahara. None were served in Iraq for obvious reasons of security.
I may be wrong, but if Yahoo.fr is hosting or distributing content that originates within the borders of France, why don't the French go after the French originators instead of Yahoo?
If the content is not originating in France, Yahoo is not the originator nor the distributor in the conventional sense, because the content is coming into France via external data links. Yahoo is merely a "conduit" like a phone line. If someone calls up a Frenchman on the phone from England and yells hate speech, do the French think the English OR French phone services must be shut down or try to control the content?
Not to mention the fact that there is no such thing as "hate speech" except by government fiat.
It seems to me the French government is merely being stupid like most governments.
Of course, the US is nearly in the same state. Try using the term "nigger" on any public media and see what happens - even if the context is perfectly legitimate.
I use pico when I'm editing something simple, as I'm tired of watching my boss mangle the vi commands and I'm far too lazy to learn "CTRL-meta-cokebottle" crap in Emacs and the ludicrously stupid keystrokes in vi. At least pico gives you a nice little menu and does the stuff you need to do when editing a lousy little config file. You want a small editor with better features than pico? Use Joe's with the pico emulation.
If I'm editing anything over a page or two, I use jEdit or some other "real" editor.
It's amazing how many people want to continue to use crappy tools like vi for spurious reasons like "it's the only one you're guaranteed to find on UNIX" (why would I be searching for it in the first place - I don't want to work on crippled systems that don't have better editors) and "you need it if your system crashes" (bullshit - this is why you carry a boot CD.)
You've been reading them for five years, he's been writing them probably three or four times that long.
So you're a little late with your comment.
Not that he would care since he probably makes five times what you do.
HTML in Notepad... If you're going to do that, why bother with Word for documents at all? Use Notepad for that, too. Formatting? What's that? I bet your HTML is all on one line, right?
God forbid I ever "View Source" on one of your pages.
You're correct. Without some form of simulation of human conceptual processing, it's not possible to do good machine translation. "Adequate" might be possible if you consider babelfish "adequate".
In narrow, carefully bounded areas of discourse, it might be better than that. But for general discourse, no chance without conceptual processing.
You've never heard of John Dvorak?
How old are you two guys? 10?
Can you read the document on the LCD screen without going blind or getting severe eye strain?
Good enough, then.
"Yeah, you can't edit this stuff, until I learned how, then you could....this is the typical bs that causes windows programs to get a worse rep then they already deserve."
Which is why Linux is no worse than Windows when it comes to usability.
I hope that's what you meant to say 'cause that's what you actually said...:-)
"Perhaps we form political affiliations by semiconsciously detecting commonalities with other people, commonalities that ultimately reflect a shared pattern of brain function."
I have no political affiliations (even with most anarchists or even most so-called Transhumanists) and few commonalities with other people (other than junk food, movies and babes.)
is the second guy got himself off the list because he ADDED HIS MIDDLE INITIAL to his name!
Think about the stupid programming!
All a terrorist has to do is add something to his name and he drops off the list!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Your tax dollars at work!
If this doesn't prove that the whole thing is purely a) for show and b) to increase the government's ability to harass the citizenry for no reason at all except to prove they can, I don't know what does.
And, yes, some morons say some of the 9/11 terrorists used their own names when they traveled. What does this tell you? They weren't terrorists, that's what. Either that or the names they used weren't actually theirs and the FBI/CIA is too stupid to determine their real names.
Modded "Insightful"?
By whom, George Bush?
Sure, the Kennedy's are drunks and rapists, but I sincerely doubt ol' Teddy is up for molesting stewardesses or trying to crash the plane because he had too many little bottles of booz.
It's irrelevant, anyway. He's on the watch list because his NAME is wrong. (And no doubt because he's a Democrat in a Republican administration of paranoids that make Dick Nixon look sane.)
Why bother? It's a commercial enterprise which has absolutely nothing to do with the original concept of the Games - which was meaningless then.
What does the Games do that simply reporting the fact that so-and-so just jumped further than anybody else in history in his local gym?
Who cares?
Since she made a point that lower animals such as crows have the same problem in her "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology."
That's how you fool crows - you send five people into a hunting blind, then have four of them leave. The crow sentry thinks they've all gone, calls in the flock, and they get shot.
Now we find sections of the human race aren't any better at it than birds.
OTOH, presumably these people could be trained to understand the concept of large numbers. Presumably they have the conceptual processing ability in the brain to do so, whereas birds (presumably) don't.
However, it raises issues over just how do you deal with people who are simply incapable of understanding certain - even what everyone else considers "basic" - concepts.
How about the reverse situation? If someone can understand a concept that most other humans can't understand, does that make that someone something other than human?
Does not understanding large numbers make you "subhuman?" Does understanding concepts few others understand make you "superhuman?"
At what point on the Bell Curve do you become something "else?" A moron? A genius? A Transhuman? A "primate?"
Are any of those terms precise enough to even be relevant, in the absence of precise brain function analysis on an individual basis?
Interesting questions.
" tolerant of others. ...narcissistic, delusional, self-contradictory...."
Thereby proving the definition and simultaneously establishing the poster is NOT a liberal.
I, OTOH, am NOT a liberal and have no tolerance for morons.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
As for compassion, I believe there is a theory in Christianity that angels have "ruthless compassion", i.e., they may be compassionate but they will do God's will in any event, even if it means destroying humans or even (supposedly innocent) human children. So the concept of "ruthless compassion" is not unknown. Leary's point was that unless you distance yourself from human emotion, you can't come to rationally understand WHY humans are emotional wrecks and how to deal with that in yourself and others.
My second point was that "biologically human" is an imprecise term. At what percentage point of "human" characteristics do you start or stop being "human"? One could say that if you can reproduce with a female member of a given species, that makes you part of that species. In that sense, I'm perfectly human (not that I've been given the change to prove that in this manner - nor do I have any desire to.) But that's hardly all there is to it.
There was another sci-fi story that used a heavily computer-enhanced person who asked the question, "What is human?" He referenced Count Dracula, Maori tribesmen, Australian Bushmen, African pygmies, and others, but said his computers said that they were all human, but he was not. This illustrates my point.
When you have the tech to make your brain think a million times faster than a normal human's, and the body is heavily modified (possibly doesn't even have arms, legs and a torso), and the influence of the brain's neurochemistry is restricted by one technological means or another, is that entity human? Is it human if it was born as a human, then modified? Is it human if it was cloned, then modified as described?
Secondly, what is a mutation? I referenced the "Gemini Man" book because the question is raised there as to what happens if a brain mutation causes significant behavioral changes in a person - enough to render him the equivalent of a "violent Mr. Spock", say. If that mutation can be transmitted via reproduction (and there is no reason to believe it couldn't), are the offspring human? If the offspring of such a person and someone who is not such a person did not have the trait, one could presumably say that such a person is still human. If the trait bred true, however, does that make them a new species - or subspecies?
"Otherkin" are irrelevant as are those who claim to be "vampyres" because it is easy to prove their is no biological alterations as claimed. It would be much harder to prove that certain behavioral traits are not true mutations.
It has been known for decades that there are certain broad behavioral traits that affect most humans (in fact, most mammals) to one degree or another and to one combination or another. The "alpha" male, the "beta" follower, etc. These characteristics can be pointed out in almost everyone's behavior. At what point does the lack of these behaviors mean the individual is sufficiently different to be considered - if not a new species - than a new "subspecies".
The term "race" itself is today considered to be an unscientific description with no meaning (although I personally find it useful in a cultural linquistic context.) "Race" is not as specific a term as "species". But even here, while conceptually useful, in practice the term "species" may be too fluid to be representative of the true situation.
Insect evolution is proceeding so quickly that entomologists are not sure we will ever be able to categorize the entire insect population since new species come into existence and old ones disappear so quickly. Since reproduction of insects seems to be so fluid and gradual without strict boundaries as we see in higher animals, perhaps the term "species" is no longer sufficiently precise to be useful.
Perhaps whether someone with a particular brain chemistry is a given "species" or not is not even relevant any more. But the difference is still real.
Third, even if Tranhumanists have an emotional response to a concept such as the Singularity, why should they
I could deliver with this thing.
Or maybe I could just fly it into somebody's eyeball.
You may be correct as to your first point.
I generally suggest three scenarios - and a fourth:
1) All humans are transmogrified into Transhumans (whether they want to or not - there won't be any complaints afterward.)
2) All humans are destroyed by Transhumans - because they tried to destroy all Transhumans (Transhumans probably wouldn't bother destroying humans otherwise.)
3) Transhumans go about their business and humans are left to go about theirs. This is your "left behind" scenario.
4) The most likely scenario IMO: some of 1, some of 2, some of 3.
As for "human" as insult, I'm reminded of Tim Leary who once said it was important to take a coldly logical "posthuman" attitude toward the human race in order to have a compassionate view. In other words, to understand humans you have to distance yourself from them.
I suspect I distance myself partly because that's the way I've been treated by most people since I was a child. Actually, I suspect it goes much deeper than that - I suspect the "average" human actually instinctively detects and rejects people whose basic mental functioning is more logical and less emotion-driven than their own. In other words, certain people are almost from birth - and certainly from childhood - too different from the "average" human to be accepted by them. Well, if you don't accept me, I don't have to accept you.
I'm reminded of a Hamilton sci-fi story where an alien posing as human remarks that he is "99.9 human - and surely that qualifies." I believe there is a spectrum of human brain function over a Bell Curve just like most natural phenomena and that a small - perhaps extremely tiny - percentage of humans are sufficiently different from the "average" human to (almost) constitute a different species. Read Richard Steinberg's "Gemini Man" story for a fictional take on the concept.
In other words, while I may be "human" enough to qualify, I prefer not to be so insulted.
SMILE when you call me "human", human.
I am aware of the definition. Mine is the same - finding in opposition to the facts of the case means acknowledging the facts of the case but refusing to convict because while the law is clear and the circumstances are clear, it is "unjust" to convict because either the law is itself unjust or the circumstances outweight the law.
My point was that judges do not allow it.
Try it in a courtroom and see what it gets you.