All currency exchange points are regulated in a similar manner. The spin here makes it seem like an attack. It's actually an annoucement that the government is going to treat entities that exchange USD/Bitcoin the same as they treat those working with any other foreign currency. It's a good thing all in all. The US government has just declared it is NOT planning to attack Bitcoin. Which is a smart move since they lack any technical means to do so.
That's an amusing thing to post under a story that is about the government doing exactly the opposite. Contrary to the oddball spin this was posted with this is the regulatory branch of the government that oversees the largest economic and military power in the world saying it intends to treat and regulate USD interaction with Bitcoin in the same manner it does Euros. The implication being there is no intention to attack or block bitcoin in any way. In fact they explicitly spell out that decentralized currency exchange and transactions for goods are not regulated.
There is a reason the market went up in response to this announcement.
"Bitcoin's cryptographic tricks provide no protection against this."
This smells of a fundamental misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is.
Quite viable. The price increase initially came as a result of the reward for mining being halved by the network so the supply of Bitcoin was halved. Additionally, ASIC miners are dramatically faster and slow to trickle in. These result in a dramatic increase in mining difficulty. That means the output of most miners dropped dramatically and the prices they must charge to cover their costs goes up. Miners don't just unlock new currency units, they process Bitcoin transactions and assure the coin used is not counterfeit and actually belongs to the sending address. So the value they provide to the Bitcoin economy is a very real market factor.
So most of that is simple supply and demand economics. You can't get a more solid reason than that. Drop the total number of unlocked new coins by half and dramatically increase the cost to get them and that will and should increase the price.
Additionally, this story is spun in a very negative way. The reality is this is nothing more than the US government saying Bitcoin is to be treated like any other foreign currency interacting with the USD. The United States is not only the largest Bitcoin hotspot but the largest and most influential economy in the world. They have just said that rather than engaging in war against this currency that no government controls they will treat it no differently than the Euro. That is a huge win for the long term viability of Bitcoin. This was actually several days ago and the market has responded accordingly.
Further, in recent history something similar happened with a Bitcoin exchange being approved and registered as an EU bank. Only the Euro balances are protected by the EU of course. Bitcoin is not the EU's currency. But it also indicates the EU currently is not viewing Bitcoin as a threat or scam to be stopped but rather as another carrier of value.
Not too far back Bitpay also came into the market and provided an easy gateway for merchants to use to accept Bitcoin without effectively becoming a Bitcoin speculator. This provides an excellent transition mechanism. If many merchants adopt this mechanism it becomes easy for consumers to spend Bitcoin and Bitcoin will be more stable due to trade volume. If merchants distributors begin using this mechanism, merchants no longer have a need for convert directly to fiat because they can both spend Bitcoin as consumers at other merchants and buy their business supplies with it. The same results in manufacturers doing the same. Needless to say this is a very good thing for Bitcoin long term.
No doubt all this positive is going to result in a price bubble and drop when a market correction occurs (people take profit and thereby flood the market with Coin) but for those of us who actually use Bitcoin as a currency for trade it really doesn't matter much what the speculative price is. Currency speculation is highly risky. You are twisting things a bit in your extrapolation. There is no need for Bitcoin to continue to grow at current rate, growth can and will slow and stabilize and I doubt too many investors think otherwise.
But remember Bitcoin is deflationary by design and that deflation isn't backed by any mysterious or unsustainable growth. Bitcoin not only can support say a $100 price per BTC but it SHOULD. We shouldn't be using entire units of BTC for day to day transactions for long. It is only a matter of time before we conduct trade in Bit pennies and Bit mils rather than whole Bitcoins. Fiat currencies grow by inflation, Bitcoin grows by deflation. Either provides more units of value they just create them by moving the decimal in a different direction.
I started this as a reply to someone but it really belongs at top level. This is NOT the government saying it is going to hammer Bitcoin. This is a good thing for Bitcoin.
"BTC are basically just useful by a small number of people that aren't very good at math."
If you think so it would tend to suggest that it is you who isn't very good at math or has a poor understanding of Bitcoin. For instance your disparaging remarks about the fixed supply suggest you think that mathematically it matters if the currency multiplies rather than divides via deflation when in reality either solves the same problem by creating additional value units.
Of course the same poor math skills might lead you to believe that the ever increasing value relative to a fiat currency that is always decreasing in value is some sort of pyramid scheme. In a pyramid value moves in only one direction. Bitcoin has an economy, value moves in circles, with new value added as people produce goods and services. There are billions of dollars worth of goods and services purchasable with Bitcoin already and despite your voice it grows every day. That is why the existing Bitcoin is valued at roughly $700m dollars. You can buy dollars, euros, yen, gold, silver, bonds, stocks, cars, houses, and yes you can buy goods at Amazon. It doesn't really matter if Amazon takes Bitcoin directly, in exchange for x amount of Bitcoin their merchandise arrives at my door. If I can buy a blender for x amount of bitcoin consistently x amount of Bitcoin is worth a blender. If I bought from an European online store with dollars they would be converted to does that mean my dollars weren't worth enough to buy the merchandise?
Or maybe it is the Ponzi scheme myth? People wrongly think a Ponzi scheme is anything that rewards early investors. Just about everything rewards early investors because they assume the most risk over the longest term. If that were all that was required for a Ponzi scheme Microsoft and IBM would be Ponzi schemes. Early investors have traded (or continue to trade) risk. In this case the primary initial investment was labor to build a platform with no certainly their efforts weren't wasted. Now you can trade Bitcoin for goods or other currencies. Every day they continue to hold their investment they are risking the currency value of their holdings in hopes that it will grow in value. This is how all investments work. Risk and Reward. The bank gets money at low risk, loans it to someone willing to assume more risk but hoping for a greater reward from that risk. Anyone who is holding Bitcoins is not merely a symbol of confidence in Bitcoin but also reducing the number of coins readily available and effectively reducing readily available supply without a reduction of demand. The natural result of market pressure is an increase in the price paid for coin. At some point that price is too tempting and they sell some of them off. If they do it slowly they can avoid a market crash but there will be more bitcoin floating around and if demand has remained static the price will drop. This is a normal and healthy market, not a scheme or a scam. The original investors only gain if there is enough sustained demand absorb their holdings.
On Slashdot this story was given a negative spin like the government is slamming down the hammer. This was the complete opposite of that. These rules and regulations are essentially the same as those applied to any other currency interacting with the dollar. Those who change euros to dollars are subject to the same regulations. This is the US Government recognizing Bitcoin as a valid but foreign currency and stating it intends to treat it no differently with no concerted effort to shut it down. This actually happened several days ago and the market response was huge and upward. In the EU another Bitcoin exchange has actually registered as a bank as well.
Traditional banks simply aren't a safe place to keep money anymore. Banks used to protect your funds. Now banks give you some convenience and protect those wh
"From the Ted talk about this though it sounded more of a play on the guilty of we did it so we need to undo it kind of thing."
Sure. Maybe they buy that and maybe not but without a cause you can't enough left wing nuts to back you so you can get past the right wing nuts who think this kind of thing is an affront against God(TM). If we don't come up with excuses to push this technology cloning will never get a chance to develop properly. Makes more sense to study them in captivity but I'm not opposed to hunger games on an island with a few t rex.
The physical bits of DNA would be hybrid but most of the DNA in either species is identical DNA. Since he already has most of the DNA from the carrier pidgin and is using a species with almost the same DNA in all probability he is filling the gaps with the same DNA that was there in the first place. The probability of it being identical becomes drastically better if it works. Or nearly identical... the DNA wasn't identical between the actual passenger pidgins he gathered fragments from but there shouldn't be any more variation than there would be from one member of the species to the next.
He has a pack of orange koolaid and he's got a pitcher of already made red koolaid. When he distills off the water and combines it with his packet of orange koolaid it won't be a modified koolaid but will in fact be orange koolaid. There would likely have been ions that carried over with distillation but they will be less significant than the variations in the source water used to make orange koolaid in the first place.
It would be better than 99% passenger pidgin if he used just the base creatures DNA. The idea is that he most of the passenger pidgin's DNA and it is unlikely any of the missing DNA is different than the original passenger pidgin. In all probability if the result works it will be 100% identical to passenger pidgin's DNA or at least have less variation than there is from one passenger pidgin to the next.
Maybe, maybe not. The DNA the forms the difference between the species is likely to be an extremely tiny portion with the vast majority being identical. If the part that is different is contained within the fragments the result will be the original bird... if not, Frankenbird. Does it really matter? It isn't like the little shit machines are around to disprove our belief that we've resurrected them!
"destroying the trees they nested in and leaving "leavings" an inch thick"
So they removed a giant sun blocker and laid down loads of fertilizer to spawn new growth in the sun. Yeah obvious pests there is no way that could have served a useful function in the ecosystem.
So you are saying ibex is tastier than a Twinkie? Priorities is right, a fresh twinkie is quite (disturbingly) tasty. What does the Pyrenean ibex do for us?
"they might put other "invasive species" or ones that were already part of the ecosystem but grew due to lack of competition at risk as they come back and displace them."
So you are saying it doesn't count because normal selection pressures and evolution could occur afterward? That's silly. Stability in the ecosystem is nothing but an illusion. A natural change triggering it is no better or worse than us doing it.
The right reason for doing this is because we learn from the process and the resulting creature. It increases our capabilities and further empowers humans. Additionally it amuses us. Humans evolved naturally, everything we do is therefore natural. Introducing a pesticide that draws parasites and causes a natural species to go extinct is no worse than if monkeys flinging feces introduces bacteria to a pool of water and disrupts the ecosystem around it and kills a species. The ecosystem as is isn't a precious thing and species aren't generally a precious thing.
The only logical reason we should exercise caution here is to try to avoid stabbing ourselves in the foot. In this case wiping out this particular variety of pidgin has robbed us of the ability to eat tasty and cheap pidgin. Nothing wrong with bringing back the little buggers so we can enjoy such delicacies again. Also, the more we learn and advance the less likely it is something will come along and find that humans are tasty and plentiful. If something does, we can send our pack of attack pidgins with freaking' laser beams on their heads after them. There is nothing wrong with bringing back the Wooly Mammoth just so we can farm the tusks.
I'm going to disengage from this thread. I've enjoyed a bit of sane and rational debate since it is a rare thing on a topic like this but I think we've both expressed our views by this point and yielded any points we felt appropriate. So for now, lets agree to disagree?
"You seem to be under the impression I have a problem with abortion. I don't." "a parent prepared to abort a foetus (or force someone else to), is unlikely to have any ethical or moral problems with "
You implication that a parent who is prepared to abort a pregnancy is engaging in an unethical and immoral act and therefore would have no issues with other unethical and immoral actions tends to suggest you do have some degree of problem with abortion even if you aren't completely opposed in all circumstances.
"women have "more rights" because they decide whether or not an abortion can proceed"
In simple point of fact they do at least in the legal sense of "right." They have the right to escape parental responsibility without the consent of the man. That is a right, women are granted this right, men are not. Even after the birth of the child the man must get the consent of the woman in order to be absolved of his legal responsibilities as a parent. Men can't avoid the child happening altogether but there is no particular reason they shouldn't be granted the same right to escape legal parental responsibility.
"Pregnancy can easily be life threatening. Raising children is just time consuming."
Pregnancy is life threatening for one person. Raising children is indentured service for two people for life. There is also a lot more involved in raising children than simply time.
"OP was making an argument that women have "more rights" because they can't be forced to carry a child to term, not that fathers can be forced to rear a child they don't want."
OP raised both points. You can't pick and choose for the sake of your argument.
"Blood is drawn in these situations where some evidence of an offense already exists. Not the same at all."
Generally there is evidence of pregnancy before an abortion is considered. In fact pregnancy is generally proven not merely suspected by this stage. What is your point?
"The man has the same high level choices as the woman to avoid pregnancy."
Not really. But the problem isn't the options one has to avoid pregnancy. Having an option here gives men some shared liability for the pregnancy. When pregnancy is 100% curable and the woman refuses the cure men are not liable for the outcome if they've secured a cure.
If I bring the plague home instead of quarantine I might be responsible for her illness but it is wrongly placed blame if I hold myself responsible if she refuses to take antibiotics.
"You need to talk to some women who have had abortions."
The law should be based upon objective consequences, logic, and reason. Not irrational and misplaced emotions. My own mother had an abortion after me. She had another child after that. She had a hysterectomy after that. She cries due to misplaced built about the abortion, she cries because of the hysterectomy, she cries if my younger brother is out too long and she worries. It tears my heart out to see my mother cry but I don't think we should hesitate to utilize hysterectomies, abortions, or allowing my brother to do things that worry my mother when logic dictates they are the appropriate solution. The responsibility for any emotional and hormonal impact of an abortion is the rightfully earned consequence of the females part in the pregnancy.
"If you're a father that wants your child, sure. If you're a father prepared to abort it, or walk away from any responsibility of raising it, then no."
You do realize that makes no sense? You abort a pregnancy not a child.
"Once again, the reality of the situation is that there's always going to be far more men who shirk their child support than women who maliciously get pregnant."
It doesn't really matter. We are at the stage where abortion carries no more health risks than continuing pregnancy. Women are no longer financially dependent on men in modern society. An infant mortality rates are low enough that you no longer need to treat every potential child as a special and rare opportunity. It doesn't matter why you don't want a child. You don't need a good excuse. You don't need to mitigate blame by establishing you took adequate precaution. The male and female are equally responsible for the pregnancy and have an equal responsibility to resolve it. Technically this should mean they split the cost of the abortion but since nature has decreed she has to pay the physical toll and deal with the hormonal impact of a pregnancy of any duration it seems fair enough the male should be on the hook for the full price of the lowest cost legal abortion route available. It is her body and her choice to have a child despite that but there is no reason the male should have any further obligation if she makes that choice. She makes the choice knowing and accepting the consequences. The male only made the choice to risk having to pay the cost of an abortion, not to assume the responsibilities for a child.
You haven't done anything wrong if you have sex without contraception and then abort it. There is no blame beyond the financial obligation to pay the cost of the procedure. It is no different than having bad brushing habits and having to pay to fill a cavity. It's fair to say that the intelligent and responsible choice for almost every unintended pregnancy is abortion.
"However, being able to basically blackmail a female into either an abortion or possibly outright poverty still doesn't seem remotely like a fair and balanced law."
But being able to force a man into a lifelong obligation and ruin the life of a child does? A couple months of hormone imbalance the comes from taking an abortion pill is a drop in the bucket compared to the obligation the woman can foist on to both child and father by refusing it. There is no reason is the modern age that risking a pregnancy should be equated with risking a child. A child is not a foregone conclusion of pregnancy, it is a 100% avoidable consequence. The woman is not blameless for the pregnancy. Having to endure the pregnancy or abortion and the hormonal roller coaster that goes with it is her fair share of the burden as decreed by nature, god, fate, etc. Whether you wore a condom or not is beside the point. It isn't something you've done to her or she to you. If she wants to avoid that roller coaster it is her responsibility to take precautions. If you want to avoid the cost of an abortion you in turn have the responsibility to take precautions to avoid that. Both parties have the ability to mitigate the risk. Both parties should own that responsibility and neither has a right to blame the other if a pregnancy occurs anyway (which it can, even if both pill and condom are used). Fair and equitable is for both parties to be able to stop that pregnancy from escalating into greater damage. If technology progresses to the point where all embryos are removed from the mother and incubated artificially there will no longer be a reason not to offer that fair and equitable option. Until then, the best we can do is allow the male to have his choice respected legally and financially.
"In all other cases it was pretty obvious in advance what was going to happen (pregnancy) and both parties have a responsibility in that."
Both parties have a responsibility that extends no further than the minimum required to resolve the pregnancy. If I total my pinto and replace it with a Ferrari the insurance company is only obligated to pay to replace or repair the pinto. Whatever is least. Similarly the man should only be obligated to pay the least amount required to resolve the pregnancy (abortion). It isn't a fair assumption that risking pregnancy is risking a child anymore. There is no reason to legally maintain a scenario where a woman has a right to unreasonably force that upon the male or the child that would result.
If wouldn't merely be better for men or even children but better for society if women didn't keep unwanted pregnancies. The idea of a deadbeat dead is antiquated. Infant mortality is not what it was when these ideas came about. Abortion no longer carries risks as high or higher than pregnancy itself. Getting a woman pregnant no longer amounts to saddling her with a child. Women are financially independent of men.
Physically fertility and pregnancy are opt-out but logically fertility has become opt-in where a woman discontinues birth control when she wants to get pregnant. Since the options for fertility are obvious not perfect (as demonstrated by the bulk of pregnancies being unwanted) and pregnancy can be ended with 100% effectiveness and since doing so carries no more risk or consequence than not; there is no reason pregnancy should not be logically viewed as opt-in as well. The default for pregnancy should be to abort unless one has made a specific choice to opt-in. An intelligent and responsible individual would only do with a WILLING partner and stable financial position. You wouldn't buy a puppy you couldn't afford to care for either financially or in time commitment. Why would you opt to produce a child you can't afford?
"So, what's your advice to women who lose their child before birth?"
There is no such a thing as a child before birth. If you are referring to miscarriages, it is a hormonal response, she doesn't have the option to suck it up. But it is a temporary one. Ultimately, she does have to suck it up. Just like anyone does with any emotional reaction the only difference here is duration.
"After all, if you force her to get an abortion, you only prevent one child. But get a vasectomy and you prevent them all."
It is interesting you suggest an abortion is more reasonable by listing the biggest reason it is not. Not being ready for a child or wanting it with a particular person isn't a problem that is solved with a permanent solutions. Sometimes vasectomies can be reversed but often they cannot. The cost is also much higher. Also, vasectomies aren't very effective at resolving pregnancies that have already happened.
She simply takes a pill, terminates the pregnancy, and if she wants a child she hasn't lost the ability to get knocked up later by someone who shares her desire. It isn't like it is a precious and one of a kind opportunity that is lost she has virtually unlimited such opportunities.
You just provided one simple solution yourself. A simpler one would be to construct your dial of wood and put it in a deep bowl of water. Assuming the bowl is held down it shifts with the boat but the surface of the water remains level. Which is essentially the same thing you do with a compass. It isn't just the rocking of a boat but the improbability that you are holding your hand level. This would be a problem on land as well. Up is still up on a boat.
Slashdot Mirror
All currency exchange points are regulated in a similar manner. The spin here makes it seem like an attack. It's actually an annoucement that the government is going to treat entities that exchange USD/Bitcoin the same as they treat those working with any other foreign currency. It's a good thing all in all. The US government has just declared it is NOT planning to attack Bitcoin. Which is a smart move since they lack any technical means to do so.
Bitcoin has grown progressively in usage since release. Has your shit been progressively turning into gold?
That's an amusing thing to post under a story that is about the government doing exactly the opposite. Contrary to the oddball spin this was posted with this is the regulatory branch of the government that oversees the largest economic and military power in the world saying it intends to treat and regulate USD interaction with Bitcoin in the same manner it does Euros. The implication being there is no intention to attack or block bitcoin in any way. In fact they explicitly spell out that decentralized currency exchange and transactions for goods are not regulated.
There is a reason the market went up in response to this announcement.
"Bitcoin's cryptographic tricks provide no protection against this."
This smells of a fundamental misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is.
Because you know the future right?
Quite viable. The price increase initially came as a result of the reward for mining being halved by the network so the supply of Bitcoin was halved. Additionally, ASIC miners are dramatically faster and slow to trickle in. These result in a dramatic increase in mining difficulty. That means the output of most miners dropped dramatically and the prices they must charge to cover their costs goes up. Miners don't just unlock new currency units, they process Bitcoin transactions and assure the coin used is not counterfeit and actually belongs to the sending address. So the value they provide to the Bitcoin economy is a very real market factor.
So most of that is simple supply and demand economics. You can't get a more solid reason than that. Drop the total number of unlocked new coins by half and dramatically increase the cost to get them and that will and should increase the price.
Additionally, this story is spun in a very negative way. The reality is this is nothing more than the US government saying Bitcoin is to be treated like any other foreign currency interacting with the USD. The United States is not only the largest Bitcoin hotspot but the largest and most influential economy in the world. They have just said that rather than engaging in war against this currency that no government controls they will treat it no differently than the Euro. That is a huge win for the long term viability of Bitcoin. This was actually several days ago and the market has responded accordingly.
Further, in recent history something similar happened with a Bitcoin exchange being approved and registered as an EU bank. Only the Euro balances are protected by the EU of course. Bitcoin is not the EU's currency. But it also indicates the EU currently is not viewing Bitcoin as a threat or scam to be stopped but rather as another carrier of value.
Not too far back Bitpay also came into the market and provided an easy gateway for merchants to use to accept Bitcoin without effectively becoming a Bitcoin speculator. This provides an excellent transition mechanism. If many merchants adopt this mechanism it becomes easy for consumers to spend Bitcoin and Bitcoin will be more stable due to trade volume. If merchants distributors begin using this mechanism, merchants no longer have a need for convert directly to fiat because they can both spend Bitcoin as consumers at other merchants and buy their business supplies with it. The same results in manufacturers doing the same. Needless to say this is a very good thing for Bitcoin long term.
No doubt all this positive is going to result in a price bubble and drop when a market correction occurs (people take profit and thereby flood the market with Coin) but for those of us who actually use Bitcoin as a currency for trade it really doesn't matter much what the speculative price is. Currency speculation is highly risky. You are twisting things a bit in your extrapolation. There is no need for Bitcoin to continue to grow at current rate, growth can and will slow and stabilize and I doubt too many investors think otherwise.
But remember Bitcoin is deflationary by design and that deflation isn't backed by any mysterious or unsustainable growth. Bitcoin not only can support say a $100 price per BTC but it SHOULD. We shouldn't be using entire units of BTC for day to day transactions for long. It is only a matter of time before we conduct trade in Bit pennies and Bit mils rather than whole Bitcoins. Fiat currencies grow by inflation, Bitcoin grows by deflation. Either provides more units of value they just create them by moving the decimal in a different direction.
I started this as a reply to someone but it really belongs at top level. This is NOT the government saying it is going to hammer Bitcoin. This is a good thing for Bitcoin.
"BTC are basically just useful by a small number of people that aren't very good at math."
If you think so it would tend to suggest that it is you who isn't very good at math or has a poor understanding of Bitcoin. For instance your disparaging remarks about the fixed supply suggest you think that mathematically it matters if the currency multiplies rather than divides via deflation when in reality either solves the same problem by creating additional value units.
Of course the same poor math skills might lead you to believe that the ever increasing value relative to a fiat currency that is always decreasing in value is some sort of pyramid scheme. In a pyramid value moves in only one direction. Bitcoin has an economy, value moves in circles, with new value added as people produce goods and services. There are billions of dollars worth of goods and services purchasable with Bitcoin already and despite your voice it grows every day. That is why the existing Bitcoin is valued at roughly $700m dollars. You can buy dollars, euros, yen, gold, silver, bonds, stocks, cars, houses, and yes you can buy goods at Amazon. It doesn't really matter if Amazon takes Bitcoin directly, in exchange for x amount of Bitcoin their merchandise arrives at my door. If I can buy a blender for x amount of bitcoin consistently x amount of Bitcoin is worth a blender. If I bought from an European online store with dollars they would be converted to does that mean my dollars weren't worth enough to buy the merchandise?
Or maybe it is the Ponzi scheme myth? People wrongly think a Ponzi scheme is anything that rewards early investors. Just about everything rewards early investors because they assume the most risk over the longest term. If that were all that was required for a Ponzi scheme Microsoft and IBM would be Ponzi schemes. Early investors have traded (or continue to trade) risk. In this case the primary initial investment was labor to build a platform with no certainly their efforts weren't wasted. Now you can trade Bitcoin for goods or other currencies. Every day they continue to hold their investment they are risking the currency value of their holdings in hopes that it will grow in value. This is how all investments work. Risk and Reward. The bank gets money at low risk, loans it to someone willing to assume more risk but hoping for a greater reward from that risk. Anyone who is holding Bitcoins is not merely a symbol of confidence in Bitcoin but also reducing the number of coins readily available and effectively reducing readily available supply without a reduction of demand. The natural result of market pressure is an increase in the price paid for coin. At some point that price is too tempting and they sell some of them off. If they do it slowly they can avoid a market crash but there will be more bitcoin floating around and if demand has remained static the price will drop. This is a normal and healthy market, not a scheme or a scam. The original investors only gain if there is enough sustained demand absorb their holdings.
On Slashdot this story was given a negative spin like the government is slamming down the hammer. This was the complete opposite of that. These rules and regulations are essentially the same as those applied to any other currency interacting with the dollar. Those who change euros to dollars are subject to the same regulations. This is the US Government recognizing Bitcoin as a valid but foreign currency and stating it intends to treat it no differently with no concerted effort to shut it down. This actually happened several days ago and the market response was huge and upward. In the EU another Bitcoin exchange has actually registered as a bank as well.
Traditional banks simply aren't a safe place to keep money anymore. Banks used to protect your funds. Now banks give you some convenience and protect those wh
Today.
"From the Ted talk about this though it sounded more of a play on the guilty of we did it so we need to undo it kind of thing."
Sure. Maybe they buy that and maybe not but without a cause you can't enough left wing nuts to back you so you can get past the right wing nuts who think this kind of thing is an affront against God(TM). If we don't come up with excuses to push this technology cloning will never get a chance to develop properly. Makes more sense to study them in captivity but I'm not opposed to hunger games on an island with a few t rex.
"to create a hybrid with a modern species"
The physical bits of DNA would be hybrid but most of the DNA in either species is identical DNA. Since he already has most of the DNA from the carrier pidgin and is using a species with almost the same DNA in all probability he is filling the gaps with the same DNA that was there in the first place. The probability of it being identical becomes drastically better if it works. Or nearly identical... the DNA wasn't identical between the actual passenger pidgins he gathered fragments from but there shouldn't be any more variation than there would be from one member of the species to the next.
He has a pack of orange koolaid and he's got a pitcher of already made red koolaid. When he distills off the water and combines it with his packet of orange koolaid it won't be a modified koolaid but will in fact be orange koolaid. There would likely have been ions that carried over with distillation but they will be less significant than the variations in the source water used to make orange koolaid in the first place.
It would be better than 99% passenger pidgin if he used just the base creatures DNA. The idea is that he most of the passenger pidgin's DNA and it is unlikely any of the missing DNA is different than the original passenger pidgin. In all probability if the result works it will be 100% identical to passenger pidgin's DNA or at least have less variation than there is from one passenger pidgin to the next.
Maybe, maybe not. The DNA the forms the difference between the species is likely to be an extremely tiny portion with the vast majority being identical. If the part that is different is contained within the fragments the result will be the original bird... if not, Frankenbird. Does it really matter? It isn't like the little shit machines are around to disprove our belief that we've resurrected them!
"destroying the trees they nested in and leaving "leavings" an inch thick"
So they removed a giant sun blocker and laid down loads of fertilizer to spawn new growth in the sun. Yeah obvious pests there is no way that could have served a useful function in the ecosystem.
They're being made. They are calling them something else though.
So you are saying ibex is tastier than a Twinkie? Priorities is right, a fresh twinkie is quite (disturbingly) tasty. What does the Pyrenean ibex do for us?
"they might put other "invasive species" or ones that were already part of the ecosystem but grew due to lack of competition at risk as they come back and displace them."
So you are saying it doesn't count because normal selection pressures and evolution could occur afterward? That's silly. Stability in the ecosystem is nothing but an illusion. A natural change triggering it is no better or worse than us doing it.
The right reason for doing this is because we learn from the process and the resulting creature. It increases our capabilities and further empowers humans. Additionally it amuses us. Humans evolved naturally, everything we do is therefore natural. Introducing a pesticide that draws parasites and causes a natural species to go extinct is no worse than if monkeys flinging feces introduces bacteria to a pool of water and disrupts the ecosystem around it and kills a species. The ecosystem as is isn't a precious thing and species aren't generally a precious thing.
The only logical reason we should exercise caution here is to try to avoid stabbing ourselves in the foot. In this case wiping out this particular variety of pidgin has robbed us of the ability to eat tasty and cheap pidgin. Nothing wrong with bringing back the little buggers so we can enjoy such delicacies again. Also, the more we learn and advance the less likely it is something will come along and find that humans are tasty and plentiful. If something does, we can send our pack of attack pidgins with freaking' laser beams on their heads after them. There is nothing wrong with bringing back the Wooly Mammoth just so we can farm the tusks.
This isn't a genetically modified organism. He is producing a faithful reproduction of a natural organism not modifying the genetics of one.
Fines are intended to punish so the total isn't as significant as the amount relative to the means of the fined.
I'm going to disengage from this thread. I've enjoyed a bit of sane and rational debate since it is a rare thing on a topic like this but I think we've both expressed our views by this point and yielded any points we felt appropriate. So for now, lets agree to disagree?
"You seem to be under the impression I have a problem with abortion. I don't."
"a parent prepared to abort a foetus (or force someone else to), is unlikely to have any ethical or moral problems with "
You implication that a parent who is prepared to abort a pregnancy is engaging in an unethical and immoral act and therefore would have no issues with other unethical and immoral actions tends to suggest you do have some degree of problem with abortion even if you aren't completely opposed in all circumstances.
"women have "more rights" because they decide whether or not an abortion can proceed"
In simple point of fact they do at least in the legal sense of "right." They have the right to escape parental responsibility without the consent of the man. That is a right, women are granted this right, men are not. Even after the birth of the child the man must get the consent of the woman in order to be absolved of his legal responsibilities as a parent. Men can't avoid the child happening altogether but there is no particular reason they shouldn't be granted the same right to escape legal parental responsibility.
"Pregnancy can easily be life threatening. Raising children is just time consuming."
Pregnancy is life threatening for one person. Raising children is indentured service for two people for life. There is also a lot more involved in raising children than simply time.
"OP was making an argument that women have "more rights" because they can't be forced to carry a child to term, not that fathers can be forced to rear a child they don't want."
OP raised both points. You can't pick and choose for the sake of your argument.
"Blood is drawn in these situations where some evidence of an offense already exists. Not the same at all."
Generally there is evidence of pregnancy before an abortion is considered. In fact pregnancy is generally proven not merely suspected by this stage. What is your point?
"The man has the same high level choices as the woman to avoid pregnancy."
Not really. But the problem isn't the options one has to avoid pregnancy. Having an option here gives men some shared liability for the pregnancy. When pregnancy is 100% curable and the woman refuses the cure men are not liable for the outcome if they've secured a cure.
If I bring the plague home instead of quarantine I might be responsible for her illness but it is wrongly placed blame if I hold myself responsible if she refuses to take antibiotics.
"You need to talk to some women who have had abortions."
The law should be based upon objective consequences, logic, and reason. Not irrational and misplaced emotions. My own mother had an abortion after me. She had another child after that. She had a hysterectomy after that. She cries due to misplaced built about the abortion, she cries because of the hysterectomy, she cries if my younger brother is out too long and she worries. It tears my heart out to see my mother cry but I don't think we should hesitate to utilize hysterectomies, abortions, or allowing my brother to do things that worry my mother when logic dictates they are the appropriate solution. The responsibility for any emotional and hormonal impact of an abortion is the rightfully earned consequence of the females part in the pregnancy.
"If you're a father that wants your child, sure. If you're a father prepared to abort it, or walk away from any responsibility of raising it, then no."
You do realize that makes no sense? You abort a pregnancy not a child.
"Once again, the reality of the situation is that there's always going to be far more men who shirk their child support than women who maliciously get pregnant."
It doesn't really matter. We are at the stage where abortion carries no more health risks than continuing pregnancy. Women are no longer financially dependent on men in modern society. An infant mortality rates are low enough that you no longer need to treat every potential child as a special and rare opportunity. It doesn't matter why you don't want a child. You don't need a good excuse. You don't need to mitigate blame by establishing you took adequate precaution. The male and female are equally responsible for the pregnancy and have an equal responsibility to resolve it. Technically this should mean they split the cost of the abortion but since nature has decreed she has to pay the physical toll and deal with the hormonal impact of a pregnancy of any duration it seems fair enough the male should be on the hook for the full price of the lowest cost legal abortion route available. It is her body and her choice to have a child despite that but there is no reason the male should have any further obligation if she makes that choice. She makes the choice knowing and accepting the consequences. The male only made the choice to risk having to pay the cost of an abortion, not to assume the responsibilities for a child.
You haven't done anything wrong if you have sex without contraception and then abort it. There is no blame beyond the financial obligation to pay the cost of the procedure. It is no different than having bad brushing habits and having to pay to fill a cavity. It's fair to say that the intelligent and responsible choice for almost every unintended pregnancy is abortion.
"However, being able to basically blackmail a female into either an abortion or possibly outright poverty still doesn't seem remotely like a fair and balanced law."
But being able to force a man into a lifelong obligation and ruin the life of a child does? A couple months of hormone imbalance the comes from taking an abortion pill is a drop in the bucket compared to the obligation the woman can foist on to both child and father by refusing it. There is no reason is the modern age that risking a pregnancy should be equated with risking a child. A child is not a foregone conclusion of pregnancy, it is a 100% avoidable consequence. The woman is not blameless for the pregnancy. Having to endure the pregnancy or abortion and the hormonal roller coaster that goes with it is her fair share of the burden as decreed by nature, god, fate, etc. Whether you wore a condom or not is beside the point. It isn't something you've done to her or she to you. If she wants to avoid that roller coaster it is her responsibility to take precautions. If you want to avoid the cost of an abortion you in turn have the responsibility to take precautions to avoid that. Both parties have the ability to mitigate the risk. Both parties should own that responsibility and neither has a right to blame the other if a pregnancy occurs anyway (which it can, even if both pill and condom are used). Fair and equitable is for both parties to be able to stop that pregnancy from escalating into greater damage. If technology progresses to the point where all embryos are removed from the mother and incubated artificially there will no longer be a reason not to offer that fair and equitable option. Until then, the best we can do is allow the male to have his choice respected legally and financially.
"In all other cases it was pretty obvious in advance what was going to happen (pregnancy) and both parties have a responsibility in that."
Both parties have a responsibility that extends no further than the minimum required to resolve the pregnancy. If I total my pinto and replace it with a Ferrari the insurance company is only obligated to pay to replace or repair the pinto. Whatever is least. Similarly the man should only be obligated to pay the least amount required to resolve the pregnancy (abortion). It isn't a fair assumption that risking pregnancy is risking a child anymore. There is no reason to legally maintain a scenario where a woman has a right to unreasonably force that upon the male or the child that would result.
If wouldn't merely be better for men or even children but better for society if women didn't keep unwanted pregnancies. The idea of a deadbeat dead is antiquated. Infant mortality is not what it was when these ideas came about. Abortion no longer carries risks as high or higher than pregnancy itself. Getting a woman pregnant no longer amounts to saddling her with a child. Women are financially independent of men.
Physically fertility and pregnancy are opt-out but logically fertility has become opt-in where a woman discontinues birth control when she wants to get pregnant. Since the options for fertility are obvious not perfect (as demonstrated by the bulk of pregnancies being unwanted) and pregnancy can be ended with 100% effectiveness and since doing so carries no more risk or consequence than not; there is no reason pregnancy should not be logically viewed as opt-in as well. The default for pregnancy should be to abort unless one has made a specific choice to opt-in. An intelligent and responsible individual would only do with a WILLING partner and stable financial position. You wouldn't buy a puppy you couldn't afford to care for either financially or in time commitment. Why would you opt to produce a child you can't afford?
"So, what's your advice to women who lose their child before birth?"
There is no such a thing as a child before birth. If you are referring to miscarriages, it is a hormonal response, she doesn't have the option to suck it up. But it is a temporary one. Ultimately, she does have to suck it up. Just like anyone does with any emotional reaction the only difference here is duration.
"After all, if you force her to get an abortion, you only prevent one child. But get a vasectomy and you prevent them all."
It is interesting you suggest an abortion is more reasonable by listing the biggest reason it is not. Not being ready for a child or wanting it with a particular person isn't a problem that is solved with a permanent solutions. Sometimes vasectomies can be reversed but often they cannot. The cost is also much higher. Also, vasectomies aren't very effective at resolving pregnancies that have already happened.
She simply takes a pill, terminates the pregnancy, and if she wants a child she hasn't lost the ability to get knocked up later by someone who shares her desire. It isn't like it is a precious and one of a kind opportunity that is lost she has virtually unlimited such opportunities.
What part of what I wrote "requires" an abortion or allows the state to determine what the woman does with her body?
"Do I really need to sketch out what an oppressive state will do to dissident pregnant females with your law?"
Yes. Because nothing in my proposal creates any form of potential dissident pregnant female.
You just provided one simple solution yourself. A simpler one would be to construct your dial of wood and put it in a deep bowl of water. Assuming the bowl is held down it shifts with the boat but the surface of the water remains level. Which is essentially the same thing you do with a compass. It isn't just the rocking of a boat but the improbability that you are holding your hand level. This would be a problem on land as well. Up is still up on a boat.