A large part of the abuse from government now originates in various bureaucracies which are almost beyond the control of either the congress or the president. They persist beyond elections and exist primarily to feather their own nests (Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy). Cleaning up an abusive US government implies a greater change than any new administration in the country's history.
My objective purpose is to cross the street safely, which serves the higher objective purpose getting through this day alive, which serves the higher objective purpose of accomplishing something worthwhile tomorrow, which serves the higher objective purpose... and also serves other purposes, sequential and mundane.
Purposes can have both subjective and objective aspects.
For example, one possibility out of a huge number, an objective and measurable alternative is to live a healthy life, earning one's own keep, contributing to civilization and raising one's children to do the same. All those things are measurable and can be defined and measured objectively, and have the implicit goal and actual result of improving human life now and in the future.
If you actually want to have a life worth living (as opposed to a life that results in the suffering of yourself and others) it is worth contrasting the life I described above with a divinely-ordained meaning of life. Assuming a "divinely ordained" meaning of life is even possible, there are at least two inescapable flaws. One is that the divine ordainer doesn't necessarily have your best interests, or the interests of your kith and kin, or anybody else's, as its goal. (Indeed, Judaism and Christianity insist that the divinity be worshipped. What do you think of people who demand to be worshipped? Do they seem wise to you? Is someone who demands to be worshipped likely to have your best interests in mind, or the best interests of anybody else?) The second flaw is that divinities and their ordinations are perfect and immutable (wouldn't be very divine if it wasn't perfect, would it?) But if it's immutable, it can't adjust to new circumstances. If it is mutable, it isn't perfect.
You appear to use a lot of words without bothering to identify a context ("makes no difference" to whom or to what?) or even understanding the word. "Random" is an epistemological term referring to an event or status not being predictable (in a certain context.) Random does not mean causeless; all things have causes. (except perhaps the existence of the universe as a whole, which is a quibble.)
The obvious implication of his time frame is that he believes mankind will cause its own destruction, because the probability of an extinction-level collision or solar event in any millennium is very small (compared to the "certainty" of 1000 years.) The plausible mechanisms for this are disease or poisoning of all mankind or its food source, war, and some sort of irreversible atmospheric change (either in temperature or composition). None of those, singly or in combination, is likely short of near-ubiquitous human insanity/depravity.
We only have about 150 years of really good technological understanding behind us, and rushing to colonize the rest of the solar system, let alone other star systems, is tremendously premature and a waste of resources if begun in this century..
From what I can estimate from his life, he never would have developed into the great thinker he is without the disease. Not being able to do much physically tends to focus a mind.
The first principle of justice is to get what you pay for and pay for what you get. You are proposing (but are too cowardly to state directly) that you want to take from those who produce and give it to those who don't, without regard to the profoundly immoral theft involved.
The people who control the world's resources (the world limited is redundant, everything is limited. And everybody controls his own actions, which are the most fundamental and important resource.) tend to control those resources because they know how to use them effectively. The average person owning land in Minnesota builds a house on it, the person who uses resources effectively might make an iron ore mine. In Florida, similarly, a bungalow or an orange orchard. Forcibly distributing things, whether they are resources or products, leads to death, not prosperity.
65 years ago people were panicking over the existence of the A-bomb, and many were convinced its existence mandated the construction of an omnipotent one-world government (usually with themselves and their buddies, or people thinking just like them, in charge.) Their self-serving apocalyptic visions remain bogus, just like yours. Muddling through is not an unsophisticated strategy.
who or what would be around to appreciate or hate these self-aware digital entities (us)?
Just for the sake of argument:
If all current humans were instantly transformed to silicon-iron devices, maintaining our memories, mental processes, and such attributes as locomotion and a need for fuel, do we cease being human? We'd still be entities, capable of appreciating each other. Presumably if we made the change it would be because there would be some practical advantage involved: ruggedness, disease resistance, improved lifespan, for examples.
You clearly don't know the difference between a "straw man" and "illustrating absurdity with absurdity". In this case, the absurdity being illustrated is the idea that all linear extrapolations remain valid forever.
2 years ago I had to give up trying to use a PIII-500 because some web pages took several minutes to render. Software designers become careless when too much processing power is available.
Unless you're killing your computers by spilling anhydrous ethanol on them, it's more likely that water and impurities are what's killing your machines when they receive a spill.
Speed of light is already a factor reducing maximum CPU speed. A semiconductor better than silicon will not produce the amazing speedup many think it will. It's also going to need 3D design and a continuation of feature shrink.
A computer used for a sales force or other miscellaneous business uses should not be used for playing games, which is the primary purpose of high end video cards.
Intel video is just fine for business.
Slashdot Mirror
The Seminoles. Most of them live in Oklahoma now, but there are still some in Florida.
If someone did, he'd be wrong. They've been recreated and flown within the last 10 years.
When was the last time a neighborhood dispute involved poison gas, trench warfare and nuclear weapons?
Isn't the satellite view public record, that google just assembled into a convenient form?
A large part of the abuse from government now originates in various bureaucracies which are almost beyond the control of either the congress or the president. They persist beyond elections and exist primarily to feather their own nests (Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy). Cleaning up an abusive US government implies a greater change than any new administration in the country's history.
My objective purpose is to cross the street safely, which serves the higher objective purpose getting through this day alive, which serves the higher objective purpose of accomplishing something worthwhile tomorrow, which serves the higher objective purpose... and also serves other purposes, sequential and mundane.
Purposes can have both subjective and objective aspects.
For example, one possibility out of a huge number, an objective and measurable alternative is to live a healthy life, earning one's own keep, contributing to civilization and raising one's children to do the same. All those things are measurable and can be defined and measured objectively, and have the implicit goal and actual result of improving human life now and in the future.
If you actually want to have a life worth living (as opposed to a life that results in the suffering of yourself and others) it is worth contrasting the life I described above with a divinely-ordained meaning of life. Assuming a "divinely ordained" meaning of life is even possible, there are at least two inescapable flaws. One is that the divine ordainer doesn't necessarily have your best interests, or the interests of your kith and kin, or anybody else's, as its goal. (Indeed, Judaism and Christianity insist that the divinity be worshipped. What do you think of people who demand to be worshipped? Do they seem wise to you? Is someone who demands to be worshipped likely to have your best interests in mind, or the best interests of anybody else?) The second flaw is that divinities and their ordinations are perfect and immutable (wouldn't be very divine if it wasn't perfect, would it?) But if it's immutable, it can't adjust to new circumstances. If it is mutable, it isn't perfect.
You appear to use a lot of words without bothering to identify a context ("makes no difference" to whom or to what?) or even understanding the word. "Random" is an epistemological term referring to an event or status not being predictable (in a certain context.) Random does not mean causeless; all things have causes. (except perhaps the existence of the universe as a whole, which is a quibble.)
The obvious implication of his time frame is that he believes mankind will cause its own destruction, because the probability of an extinction-level collision or solar event in any millennium is very small (compared to the "certainty" of 1000 years.) The plausible mechanisms for this are disease or poisoning of all mankind or its food source, war, and some sort of irreversible atmospheric change (either in temperature or composition). None of those, singly or in combination, is likely short of near-ubiquitous human insanity/depravity.
We only have about 150 years of really good technological understanding behind us, and rushing to colonize the rest of the solar system, let alone other star systems, is tremendously premature and a waste of resources if begun in this century..
From what I can estimate from his life, he never would have developed into the great thinker he is without the disease. Not being able to do much physically tends to focus a mind.
The first principle of justice is to get what you pay for and pay for what you get. You are proposing (but are too cowardly to state directly) that you want to take from those who produce and give it to those who don't, without regard to the profoundly immoral theft involved.
The people who control the world's resources (the world limited is redundant, everything is limited. And everybody controls his own actions, which are the most fundamental and important resource.) tend to control those resources because they know how to use them effectively. The average person owning land in Minnesota builds a house on it, the person who uses resources effectively might make an iron ore mine. In Florida, similarly, a bungalow or an orange orchard. Forcibly distributing things, whether they are resources or products, leads to death, not prosperity.
Your thinking is on the same level as your command of spelling and grammar.
65 years ago people were panicking over the existence of the A-bomb, and many were convinced its existence mandated the construction of an omnipotent one-world government (usually with themselves and their buddies, or people thinking just like them, in charge.) Their self-serving apocalyptic visions remain bogus, just like yours. Muddling through is not an unsophisticated strategy.
Just for the sake of argument:
If all current humans were instantly transformed to silicon-iron devices, maintaining our memories, mental processes, and such attributes as locomotion and a need for fuel, do we cease being human? We'd still be entities, capable of appreciating each other. Presumably if we made the change it would be because there would be some practical advantage involved: ruggedness, disease resistance, improved lifespan, for examples.
Then he should pick his words more carefully, and not get caught up in popular catastrophic fallacies.
You clearly don't know the difference between a "straw man" and "illustrating absurdity with absurdity". In this case, the absurdity being illustrated is the idea that all linear extrapolations remain valid forever.
Freudian slip?
You win the prize. I have never seen more contradictions packed into three short sentences.
It's a crude tool, but sometimes a hoggish firefox that you don't want to shut down can be curtailed with "cpulimit", if that is available on mac.
No, a hard drive is serial access memory. To get a particular bit requires reading a whole block and picking the bit that comes out at the right time.
2 years ago I had to give up trying to use a PIII-500 because some web pages took several minutes to render. Software designers become careless when too much processing power is available.
Unless you're killing your computers by spilling anhydrous ethanol on them, it's more likely that water and impurities are what's killing your machines when they receive a spill.
Speed of light is already a factor reducing maximum CPU speed. A semiconductor better than silicon will not produce the amazing speedup many think it will. It's also going to need 3D design and a continuation of feature shrink.
A computer used for a sales force or other miscellaneous business uses should not be used for playing games, which is the primary purpose of high end video cards. Intel video is just fine for business.
Thanks, that's a very good comparison set. Just from the graphs, I'd prefer the old Phillips LED lamp to the prize winner.