Hunger is the sensation of desiring food, it is not something that needs to be solved, it's a good thing. Malnutrition, inadequate nutrition, starvation, are all valid problems worthy of being solved.
Using the word "hunger" instead of a valid choice is a typical evasive and cowardly liberal trick. "Ooh, I've suffered, I've felt hunger, I'm a victim, hunger must be solved." But hunger is a proper function of the human body, and the liberal demand that it be "solved" is a characteristic liberal ploy to drain energy to eliminate something that is inherently impossible to eliminate. Thus a perpetual crusade to steal from the productive, to solve a non-problem.
Heart disease, stroke, and (especially) cancer are closely related to aging, and are among the things that would be cured as the problem of aging is solved.
Very old people show numerous symptoms related to either wear or oxidative stress. As society continues to increase mechanization wear is less of a problem, and oxidative damage is a key factor in current life extension research. We're going to see a lot of people challenging 130 within the next 40 years, as the effects of the automobile age and the last 20 years of gerontology research come into play.
Your lack of vision is appalling. We're very close to being able to artificially create any desired possible human characteristic through direct genetic manipulation, and that includes pollution tolerance, radiation tolerance, arbitrary disease immunity, and much greater intelligence. Why wait 5 or 500 generations when the necessary changes can be made in a year?
Perhaps you've never had the experience of accompanying a person in the last year of Parkinson's or some similar hideous age-related disease; there's no other excuse for the hideous cruelty of calling someone shallow for wanting that to end.
Coming to death need not involve intense suffering, and one way to achieve that is to defeat aging.
Technically, it's neither. "Gift" implies a giver, and nobody gives you aging. And calling aging a disease abuses the meaning of the word "disease". Aging is the normal progression of things. Wearing out of a tire tread isn't the same as a puncture, and aging is no more a disease than a broken leg is.
Aging is the gradual decline of body function and it is in no way a good thing: it causes suffering and decreased productivity, and in some cases poverty. It can be argued that a lifespan limited to (e.g.) 80 years is a good thing (I disagree), but aging is an uncompensated tragedy.
Improved technology can allow higher levels of general wealth without increasing resource consumption. ICs use less material than discrete transistors use less material than tubes for a given electronic function. FRP kayaks use less material than all-plastic or wood kayaks. Composite aircraft weigh less and consume less fuel than older technology.
As the supply/demand of a resource shifts to make it more expensive, alternatives are developed. The belief that enriching poor populations necessarily causes a resource crisis is unjustified, and sounds suspiciously like a conspiracy to keep them miserable.
How deep are the deepest mines, and how much of the earth's area is currently subject to mining activities? How much of the sun's output are we currently utilizing?
We've got a long way to go before resource depletion is an issue worthy of serious consideration. Now, it's just a playground for scaremongers and fools.
You couch your argument in reasonable terms, but consider this: fixing the broken things of civilization requires advancing technology, and advancing technology is extremely likely to extend lifespans. Even absent explicit research into life extension, lifespan is going to rise; and prohibiting life extension research would be an extremely egregious violation of human rights.
Droughts tend to be a less serious problem for nations that are either capable of routine huge food surpluses or that have advanced economies not primarily dependent on food production - they can buy food from places that aren't presently suffering crop failure. How many people are aware of the severe multiyear drought in Georgia (USA) ongoing in 2010? How many people were emigrating from there?
1. Desertification of the middle east and the American southwest are part of climate cycles. Claiming that it was caused by overuse denies the experience of places like New England, where once farming stopped the forests reclaimed the land.
2. Civilizations that flourish and die in areas of lush vegetation tend to leave little evidence (wood rots) and tend to be hidden by resurgent vegetation.
The people who push boundaries are not the bulk of the population, and it's the bulk of the population that determine who gets into elective office.
You conflate "old people" (which currently means people over 65) with adults (people over 20).
There are multiple reasons that people become more conservative as they age (where conservative is taken to mean thinking that it is proper to be responsible for yourself and not burden others.) As one becomes an adult one is no longer cared for by one's parents, and the advantages and moral superiority of that condition become apparent. As a person gains experience, he sees that the fallacies he accepted as a child don't play out well in the real world. The fallacies are generally "liberal" or "progressive" ideologies.
Your conclusion that old people effectively block the acceptance of new ideas is not generally true, and has less validity as the benefits of modern technology become more apparent to more people.
Also, the meme that geniuses only produce early is contradicted by people like Gauss.
Most life extension technology now available to residents of civilized nations is fairly inexpensive, and the 3 most important things have negative cost: don't smoke, don't drink alcohol, don't use mind-degrading drugs. Decreased air and water pollution is available generally at no individual differential cost. Food supplements cost less than the difference between eating at a restaurant and fixing your own food.
Technology like blood testing and individual genetic analysis is falling in price rapidly as technology improves and becomes more automated.
Generally, the people who get anti-aging treatment (and it isn't just one treatment, I can choose a few among a multitude of options) are those who choose to do so: those who are paying attention and those who value their own life more than a new car or expensive clothes.
...
Your opinion of successful people is typical of those whose attitude toward the rewards of hard work is jealousy, rather than engaging in hard work. Quit insulting those better than you, and earn your own success.
Your claim that anti-aging technology would be very expensive is based on nothing but your own pessimism, given that at this time we don't even know what such technology would consist of.
There are several lithium chemistries, but most places I've read recommend keeping them 40% to 60% charged: both deep discharge and full charge are hard on them. Running a lithium-battery-powered computer at full charge (with the charger active) all the time shortens battery life dramatically.
If you have access to AC, run the laptop without the battery.
3W / 5% efficiency = 60W equivalent (incandescent). Additionally, the figures you cite are average (including cloud cover, nighttime) and include all solar energy reaching the ground, not just light. There are a host of other factors that should be considered; much more careful analysis should be done.
Electricity companies are very heavily regulated and closely watched by the government, mostly because fools like you are always whining. Try looking at their profit margins and executive compensation before making ignorant and inflammatory posts.
Cute. I have skylights. They're a risk for breakage and leakage, they're expensive, they make the room intolerably hot in the summer and colder in the winter. In short, they suck.
The categories of leader and follower do not together include all people. I consider myself a producer ( a maker of things ), and the hierarchical considerations are superfluous.
Just as the GGP is wrong in saying management/leadership involves doing the right things, you are wrong in applying too many attributes to each.
A leader is a person in advance of others.
A manager is someone who directs others.
There is no quality of rightness, effectiveness, organization, goals, resources, support, commonality of purpose, efficiency, etc., properly attached to these words.
Slashdot Mirror
Hunger is the sensation of desiring food, it is not something that needs to be solved, it's a good thing. Malnutrition, inadequate nutrition, starvation, are all valid problems worthy of being solved.
Using the word "hunger" instead of a valid choice is a typical evasive and cowardly liberal trick. "Ooh, I've suffered, I've felt hunger, I'm a victim, hunger must be solved." But hunger is a proper function of the human body, and the liberal demand that it be "solved" is a characteristic liberal ploy to drain energy to eliminate something that is inherently impossible to eliminate. Thus a perpetual crusade to steal from the productive, to solve a non-problem.
Heart disease, stroke, and (especially) cancer are closely related to aging, and are among the things that would be cured as the problem of aging is solved.
Very old people show numerous symptoms related to either wear or oxidative stress. As society continues to increase mechanization wear is less of a problem, and oxidative damage is a key factor in current life extension research. We're going to see a lot of people challenging 130 within the next 40 years, as the effects of the automobile age and the last 20 years of gerontology research come into play.
Your lack of vision is appalling. We're very close to being able to artificially create any desired possible human characteristic through direct genetic manipulation, and that includes pollution tolerance, radiation tolerance, arbitrary disease immunity, and much greater intelligence. Why wait 5 or 500 generations when the necessary changes can be made in a year?
Perhaps you've never had the experience of accompanying a person in the last year of Parkinson's or some similar hideous age-related disease; there's no other excuse for the hideous cruelty of calling someone shallow for wanting that to end.
Coming to death need not involve intense suffering, and one way to achieve that is to defeat aging.
Just plain not true. Some very simple organisms don't age.
If all people remained vigorous and productive throughout their lives, human life on earth would be immensely better.
Do not confuse aging with inevitable death. Also, human females have only a finite number of eggs, so don't confuse aging with the end of fertility.
Technically, it's neither. "Gift" implies a giver, and nobody gives you aging. And calling aging a disease abuses the meaning of the word "disease". Aging is the normal progression of things. Wearing out of a tire tread isn't the same as a puncture, and aging is no more a disease than a broken leg is.
Aging is the gradual decline of body function and it is in no way a good thing: it causes suffering and decreased productivity, and in some cases poverty. It can be argued that a lifespan limited to (e.g.) 80 years is a good thing (I disagree), but aging is an uncompensated tragedy.
Improved technology can allow higher levels of general wealth without increasing resource consumption. ICs use less material than discrete transistors use less material than tubes for a given electronic function. FRP kayaks use less material than all-plastic or wood kayaks. Composite aircraft weigh less and consume less fuel than older technology.
As the supply/demand of a resource shifts to make it more expensive, alternatives are developed. The belief that enriching poor populations necessarily causes a resource crisis is unjustified, and sounds suspiciously like a conspiracy to keep them miserable.
How deep are the deepest mines, and how much of the earth's area is currently subject to mining activities? How much of the sun's output are we currently utilizing?
We've got a long way to go before resource depletion is an issue worthy of serious consideration. Now, it's just a playground for scaremongers and fools.
You couch your argument in reasonable terms, but consider this: fixing the broken things of civilization requires advancing technology, and advancing technology is extremely likely to extend lifespans. Even absent explicit research into life extension, lifespan is going to rise; and prohibiting life extension research would be an extremely egregious violation of human rights.
Droughts tend to be a less serious problem for nations that are either capable of routine huge food surpluses or that have advanced economies not primarily dependent on food production - they can buy food from places that aren't presently suffering crop failure. How many people are aware of the severe multiyear drought in Georgia (USA) ongoing in 2010? How many people were emigrating from there?
1. Desertification of the middle east and the American southwest are part of climate cycles. Claiming that it was caused by overuse denies the experience of places like New England, where once farming stopped the forests reclaimed the land.
2. Civilizations that flourish and die in areas of lush vegetation tend to leave little evidence (wood rots) and tend to be hidden by resurgent vegetation.
The people who push boundaries are not the bulk of the population, and it's the bulk of the population that determine who gets into elective office.
You conflate "old people" (which currently means people over 65) with adults (people over 20).
There are multiple reasons that people become more conservative as they age (where conservative is taken to mean thinking that it is proper to be responsible for yourself and not burden others.) As one becomes an adult one is no longer cared for by one's parents, and the advantages and moral superiority of that condition become apparent. As a person gains experience, he sees that the fallacies he accepted as a child don't play out well in the real world. The fallacies are generally "liberal" or "progressive" ideologies.
Your conclusion that old people effectively block the acceptance of new ideas is not generally true, and has less validity as the benefits of modern technology become more apparent to more people.
Also, the meme that geniuses only produce early is contradicted by people like Gauss.
Most life extension technology now available to residents of civilized nations is fairly inexpensive, and the 3 most important things have negative cost: don't smoke, don't drink alcohol, don't use mind-degrading drugs. Decreased air and water pollution is available generally at no individual differential cost. Food supplements cost less than the difference between eating at a restaurant and fixing your own food.
Technology like blood testing and individual genetic analysis is falling in price rapidly as technology improves and becomes more automated.
Generally, the people who get anti-aging treatment (and it isn't just one treatment, I can choose a few among a multitude of options) are those who choose to do so: those who are paying attention and those who value their own life more than a new car or expensive clothes.
...
Your opinion of successful people is typical of those whose attitude toward the rewards of hard work is jealousy, rather than engaging in hard work. Quit insulting those better than you, and earn your own success.
The past tense of pay is paid.
And you're the self-important bastard who decides what "wasting time" is.
Your claim that anti-aging technology would be very expensive is based on nothing but your own pessimism, given that at this time we don't even know what such technology would consist of.
Like the flat batteries Polaroid introduced about 40 years ago?
There are several lithium chemistries, but most places I've read recommend keeping them 40% to 60% charged: both deep discharge and full charge are hard on them. Running a lithium-battery-powered computer at full charge (with the charger active) all the time shortens battery life dramatically.
If you have access to AC, run the laptop without the battery.
3W / 5% efficiency = 60W equivalent (incandescent). Additionally, the figures you cite are average (including cloud cover, nighttime) and include all solar energy reaching the ground, not just light. There are a host of other factors that should be considered; much more careful analysis should be done.
Electricity companies are very heavily regulated and closely watched by the government, mostly because fools like you are always whining. Try looking at their profit margins and executive compensation before making ignorant and inflammatory posts.
Cute. I have skylights. They're a risk for breakage and leakage, they're expensive, they make the room intolerably hot in the summer and colder in the winter. In short, they suck.
Well, actually, it does.
Evidently the idea that the root of "news" is "new", is news to you.
Tubes of poly resin are certainly common items in third-world slums. Cost about the same as - the whole rest of the roof.
The categories of leader and follower do not together include all people. I consider myself a producer ( a maker of things ), and the hierarchical considerations are superfluous.
Just as the GGP is wrong in saying management/leadership involves doing the right things, you are wrong in applying too many attributes to each.
A leader is a person in advance of others.
A manager is someone who directs others.
There is no quality of rightness, effectiveness, organization, goals, resources, support, commonality of purpose, efficiency, etc., properly attached to these words.