That is $14.15. The average Joe here makes less than half that. That wage would be excellent for a book keeper or average for a computer technician.
'No, she doesn't drive, though she does have a license.'
That is a scary thought. You can't manage to get the licenses out of the hands of the elderly and dangerous where you are either? My mother-in-law is 87 and we finally managed get rid of her license after she crashed (at about 15mph) into the median between toll booths.
There really should be a driven requirement every couple years for anyone over 65. Discrimination be damned, your reflexes and reaction times diminish with age.
'Electrochemical reactions at a much higher level of scale.'
Bingo. Ultimately the assumption is that size is the requirement for intelligence. But is that perception because emergence can only result from interactions at that scale? Again, DNA and even some of the nanobots we have created in the lab show us that interactions of the complexity to result in emergence behavior could be much much smaller.
I'm not saying that Ant Einstein will blow us up with his particle accelerator any day now. I'm only saying that intelligence in creatures like insects is within the realm of reason and that we tend to dismiss the possibility too easily in lifeforms less like our own.
'Most of the chemical reactions in a neuron have to do with cell physiology and keeping it alive than its contribution to intelligence.'
The timely death of cells may well be as critical to the functioning of our intelligence as the interconnects of the synapses.
'The elderly population is increasing while birthrate continues to fall. This means that while the number of people dependent on healthcare keeps growing the number of people contributing to the system, via taxes continues to shrink. Simply put, there's too much money coming out of the system and not enough going in.'
The same problem would exist without socialized medicine. Unless of course you are suggesting that these people could go without care. Without the national system cost of care would be higher to start with, increasing the burden and since only the elderly and their families would have to pay the bills the number of people who share the costs of the care would be even lower than it is with the reduced population.
Ultimately, the only ones who benefit from privatized medicine are those with high incomes and/or no health problems/elderly to care for. If you make enough, it will cost less to pay your own bills than to pay the taxes and as an added benefit you will encounter shorter wait times because very few people can afford the care.
I might have supported this if we had an economy in the US akin to what we saw in the 50's. Back then, anyone who was willing to work hard could make enough money to support their family and pay for the basic bills if they managed their money well. That is not true today, couples each working three jobs can barely afford to transportation and household expenses let alone to pay for healthcare, elderly care, or retirement. That is, if they can find that many jobs, even lousy jobs are hard to come by.
I am a computer technician. 10 years ago I had no trouble finding work. Put out 2 or 3 resumes and bam, job. A few years later no such luck, after about 6 months of living off my reserves I finally gave up looking for a position and went into business for myself. That was fine until last year, since then there hasn't been enough business out there to survive. Since I only needed an income to supplement I applied anywhere and everywhere, restaurants, gas stations, book stores, retail establishments. I remember as a teen I would get this type of job just by going down the street in the commercial district on foot and applying everywhere. Two to three stops later I'd have a job. Today I haven't been able to find even the lowest type of position after 9 months of searching. Today, a student who maintained a 4.0 GPA in college can't get a job at McDonalds.
'I believe he's referring to Japan's very low birth rate in the past two decades, leading to a disproportionately old population retiring from the workforce comparing to the number of youth entering it, which in turn results in lower than projected revenue and higher than projected spending on social programs for the elderly.'
Which is a bit of a straw man. Japan would have a disproportionate number of elderly and need to bear the expense of caring for them regardless of whether they have a national health care system or not.
A few years is one thing, but these people are living senile and miserable (they are rarely happy with anything) for 10-20yrs. I don't know many loving parents who wish for their kids to throw away 25% of their own life to care for them.
'Household income is a measure of current private income commonly used by the United States government and private institutions. To measure the income of a household, the pre-tax money receipts of all residents over the age of 15 over a single year are combined.'
He said the median working family income. Which would be the after tax number and wouldn't include the income of Donald Trump.
Since almost all of the wealth in this country rests with the top 10% who are not working families by any reasonable measure I think you'll find that both you and the parent are far too high. $26,000 is probably closer but might require excluding individual incomes and only count two working adults to get it that high.
The average American is making a Wal-Mart level $5-7/hr salary. Let's not forget that large companies no longer allow their employees to work full time so that is 15-30hrs a week. At the high end, that works out to $10,920 a year before tax. Of course they will have to spend that money, and that means a minimum of 6% of whatever isn't taken in income taxes goes to the state Now we are down to $10,265.
'To be mobile, something to generate that power has to be carried along.'
Minor correction:
To be mobile, something to store that power has to be carried along.
The power can be generated by existing power infrastructure. The bot just needs to store it. And while generator technology may not be making leaps and bounds rechargeable battery technology has major advances around the corner.
'Genetic complexity...' has nothing to do with what I just said.
I was referring to the data storage capabilities demonstrated in DNA. What happens to be stored in DNA is beside the point. The point is that complex structures and the massive amounts of data required for intelligence to work could easily be contained within a structure that is physically as small as or smaller than DNA.
'but that has to do with coordinating extremely complex chemical reaction sequences and has nothing to do with any reasonable definition of intelligence one might come up with.'
Although it isn't what I was referring to you make an amusing statement. Our current understanding of intelligence is that it is nothing more than a series of complex chemical reaction sequences or rather is the collective result of billions of simple chemcial reaction sequences.
'If that's the case, then please explain why they're (a) so rare, (b) often come from families that are neither wealthy or well-educated, and were therefore only at best partially educated themselves (e.g. Isaac Newton), and (c) why the best educated and wealthiest people who send their children to the best schools and universities don't regularly churn them out.'
a. Genius on the level of Einstein or Newton is rare enough that nobody can really accurate comment on it. There is pretty wide margin between genius and Einstein though. There are millions of genius level individuals in the world.
b. Here you make a few assumptions. The first is that newton and his circumstances would be typical of what produces genius. The second is that either wealth or academia encourage the development of intelligence.
If intelligence were merely the sum of acquired knowledge you may be right, but it is not. A love of learning, independence that usually leads to poor academic performance, and an inquisitive mind are the characteristics that are more often seen. It is through social relations that an individual is more likely to adopt these traits than formal education. The wealth and formal education tend to instill the opposite.
c. is already answered by my answer to b.
Of course I am not pulling my opinions on intelligence out of my arse. Current research supports me showing that often white matter rather than gray matter plays the bigger role in intelligence.
It's not about having the biggest brain, its about having the most efficient brain, and the brain's efficiency comes from the chains of neurons you build and revise through input throughout your life. The longer and more complex a chain the less likely it is to be changed in a fundamental way, so early development plays a critical role and the old really are 'closed minded' and 'set in their ways'.
'But intelligence isn't, otherwise we'd be able to produce environments that turned every child into a genius (note here that I'm referring to true geniuses such as Newton and Einstein, not those who fall into an arbitrary statistical IQ region).'
Intelligence can be and is affected by environment. Intelligence is not a raw potential, its a form of utilizing raw potential. Almost all humans have the raw capability to achieve what we would call genius.
As for life expectency what you say is true about infant mortality. However it is a misrepresentation as well. Far fewer people reached 70 or 80 in the days gone by because almost all wounds and illnesses were fatal. An inflamed appendix was certain death.
It also flies in the face of fact. Males breed at older ages in modern society, mostly because they didn't previously live very long. Prior to the modern day reproduction typically occurred as soon as it was physically possible.
'People are still constrained by this idea that a large brain is required for human level or greater intelligence'
The sheer volume of data contained within a single strand of DNA flies in the face of the idea that something the size of an ant can't have a complex form of intelligence.
Some actual rudimentary understanding of intelligence would help in making a determination of that sort in the first place. Let's start there.
Spammers are consistently evading some of the brighter technical minds who are constantly trying to trace and/or filter their crap. They are unethical, greedy, and overall evil but they are hardly stupid.
After receiving my first unsolicited spam from the McCain campaign I used the unsubscribe link. Sure enough, the next spam arrived a couple weeks later.
To date I have received four unsolicited mails. I have used the unsubscribe process with each and every one and have even sent an email to the campaign through the contact form all to no avail.
I can't be the only one out there is experiencing this problem?
'the point is, intelligence, as with most complex behaviors, are a form of emergence phenomenon. even human intelligence is simply the result of fairly basic processes. the individual neurons that make up our CNS by themselves cannot demonstrate any kind of intelligence.'
Agreed. I am not disputing that point because it is accurate. What I am disputing is the belief that because insects are small, alien in prioritization, and exhibit predictable macro behaviors that it is safe to assume that they are not intelligent.
'it's been known for a while now that ants communicate using chemical signals, specifically pheromones.'
But there is no particular reason to believe that pheromones are the only thing going on with ants or that the simplistic interpretation of their behavior that Occam's razor leads us to is in fact accurate. To an outside observer with no understanding of our level of intelligence a similar overly simplistic solution might be reached.
'for instance, just by inserting a specific pheromone into the colony entrance at a particular rate, scientists are able to initiate foraging behavior on command.'
Simply by displaying light signals in the course of a human transportation route an observer would be able to initiate stop, go, and speed up behavior upon command. As with the ants, there are exceptions that don't religiously follow these commands but they are statistically insignificant.
Just because predictable macro behaviors are at work does NOT preclude a deeper thought process. 'Foraging behavior' could in fact involve a great deal of reasoning on the part of an ant. Ants don't merely search for food and complete a trail of pheremones when they return with it. They bring back a sample that is distributed to other ants and the ants then choose what food they like best. There is reasoning at work there.
Almost all animals have similar macro behaviors. Sling a rabbit at high speed in front of a cheetah and watch it chase. Have a mating partner with a low cut blouse walk past a gathering of males and watch them all turn and look as she passes. The difference is that the more like us a creature is, the more willing we are to see signs of intelligence.
We see the intelligence of chimps and humans because we expect to find it and seek it out, we accept simiplistic explanations for insect behavior because that is all we expect of insects. In fact, we are so predictable in this regard that I can tell you the intelligence pattern we 'discover'. Human, monkey/ape, mammal, bird, reptile/amphibian, insect. Pay attention and you will discover that as you go down that list man accepts increasingly simplistic behavior explanations in roughly that order.
'but each ant is simply following a very small set of hard coded behaviors, and on its own is quite stupid.'
That is an assumption based upon the fact that ants demonstrate a set of repeatable behaviors. We don't actually know that those behaviors are hard coded or even if they are, if said behaviors are the limit of ant intelligence.
People are still constrained by this idea that a large brain is required for human level or greater intelligence.
'Java is actually playing catch-up with Smalltalk in a lot of ways, so I wouldn't call it "more modern".
The summary tells us that the program is slow and buggy. Smalltalk really isn't.'
Modern can mean many things. IBM PC's are still catching up to Amigas in many ways as well but I doubt you'd find many who would describe the Amiga as 'modern'. You'd probably have an easier time finding skilled Amiga users than skilled smalltalk developers.
'Most open source software is not very good. Either poorly written, poorly documented, poorly maintained, or just junk period. Anybody can write it (and does). Some, of course, rivals closed and commercial.'
Most closed source software is not very good. Either poorly written, poorly documented, poorly maintained, or just junk period. Anybody can write it (and does). Some, of course, rivals open and free.
'GCC was a godsend almost 20 years ago, but once you're in the real world, if people aren't willing to part with a little money for your product, it's because you're writing crap or you're just scratching an itch nobody has.'
I realize you are a troll but I guess I'm biting anyway. The reason to open source a project has nothing to do with whether or not people are willing to part with a little money for what you are writing.
There is crap open source software and there is crap commercial software. Given two comparable projects of equal quality open source is superior by nature because it has at least one major feature the commercial lacks.
Slashdot Mirror
'£8.38'
That is $14.15. The average Joe here makes less than half that. That wage would be excellent for a book keeper or average for a computer technician.
'No, she doesn't drive, though she does have a license.'
That is a scary thought. You can't manage to get the licenses out of the hands of the elderly and dangerous where you are either? My mother-in-law is 87 and we finally managed get rid of her license after she crashed (at about 15mph) into the median between toll booths.
There really should be a driven requirement every couple years for anyone over 65. Discrimination be damned, your reflexes and reaction times diminish with age.
'Electrochemical reactions at a much higher level of scale.'
Bingo. Ultimately the assumption is that size is the requirement for intelligence. But is that perception because emergence can only result from interactions at that scale? Again, DNA and even some of the nanobots we have created in the lab show us that interactions of the complexity to result in emergence behavior could be much much smaller.
I'm not saying that Ant Einstein will blow us up with his particle accelerator any day now. I'm only saying that intelligence in creatures like insects is within the realm of reason and that we tend to dismiss the possibility too easily in lifeforms less like our own.
'Most of the chemical reactions in a neuron have to do with cell physiology and keeping it alive than its contribution to intelligence.'
The timely death of cells may well be as critical to the functioning of our intelligence as the interconnects of the synapses.
'The elderly population is increasing while birthrate continues to fall. This means that while the number of people dependent on healthcare keeps growing the number of people contributing to the system, via taxes continues to shrink. Simply put, there's too much money coming out of the system and not enough going in.'
The same problem would exist without socialized medicine. Unless of course you are suggesting that these people could go without care. Without the national system cost of care would be higher to start with, increasing the burden and since only the elderly and their families would have to pay the bills the number of people who share the costs of the care would be even lower than it is with the reduced population.
Ultimately, the only ones who benefit from privatized medicine are those with high incomes and/or no health problems/elderly to care for. If you make enough, it will cost less to pay your own bills than to pay the taxes and as an added benefit you will encounter shorter wait times because very few people can afford the care.
I might have supported this if we had an economy in the US akin to what we saw in the 50's. Back then, anyone who was willing to work hard could make enough money to support their family and pay for the basic bills if they managed their money well. That is not true today, couples each working three jobs can barely afford to transportation and household expenses let alone to pay for healthcare, elderly care, or retirement. That is, if they can find that many jobs, even lousy jobs are hard to come by.
I am a computer technician. 10 years ago I had no trouble finding work. Put out 2 or 3 resumes and bam, job. A few years later no such luck, after about 6 months of living off my reserves I finally gave up looking for a position and went into business for myself. That was fine until last year, since then there hasn't been enough business out there to survive. Since I only needed an income to supplement I applied anywhere and everywhere, restaurants, gas stations, book stores, retail establishments. I remember as a teen I would get this type of job just by going down the street in the commercial district on foot and applying everywhere. Two to three stops later I'd have a job. Today I haven't been able to find even the lowest type of position after 9 months of searching. Today, a student who maintained a 4.0 GPA in college can't get a job at McDonalds.
'I believe he's referring to Japan's very low birth rate in the past two decades, leading to a disproportionately old population retiring from the workforce comparing to the number of youth entering it, which in turn results in lower than projected revenue and higher than projected spending on social programs for the elderly.'
Which is a bit of a straw man. Japan would have a disproportionate number of elderly and need to bear the expense of caring for them regardless of whether they have a national health care system or not.
A few years is one thing, but these people are living senile and miserable (they are rarely happy with anything) for 10-20yrs. I don't know many loving parents who wish for their kids to throw away 25% of their own life to care for them.
Your numbers are a little off:
'Household income is a measure of current private income commonly used by the United States government and private institutions. To measure the income of a household, the pre-tax money receipts of all residents over the age of 15 over a single year are combined.'
He said the median working family income. Which would be the after tax number and wouldn't include the income of Donald Trump.
Since almost all of the wealth in this country rests with the top 10% who are not working families by any reasonable measure I think you'll find that both you and the parent are far too high. $26,000 is probably closer but might require excluding individual incomes and only count two working adults to get it that high.
The average American is making a Wal-Mart level $5-7/hr salary. Let's not forget that large companies no longer allow their employees to work full time so that is 15-30hrs a week. At the high end, that works out to $10,920 a year before tax. Of course they will have to spend that money, and that means a minimum of 6% of whatever isn't taken in income taxes goes to the state Now we are down to $10,265.
Mod this up as sad please. It's no coincidence that people can finally retire about the time their bodies are too worn out to be used.
'To be mobile, something to generate that power has to be carried along.'
Minor correction:
To be mobile, something to store that power has to be carried along.
The power can be generated by existing power infrastructure. The bot just needs to store it. And while generator technology may not be making leaps and bounds rechargeable battery technology has major advances around the corner.
'an invention that may have far-reaching benefits for the disabled and elderly'
Not for $2200/month it won't.
'Genetic complexity...' has nothing to do with what I just said.
I was referring to the data storage capabilities demonstrated in DNA. What happens to be stored in DNA is beside the point. The point is that complex structures and the massive amounts of data required for intelligence to work could easily be contained within a structure that is physically as small as or smaller than DNA.
'but that has to do with coordinating extremely complex chemical reaction sequences and has nothing to do with any reasonable definition of intelligence one might come up with.'
Although it isn't what I was referring to you make an amusing statement. Our current understanding of intelligence is that it is nothing more than a series of complex chemical reaction sequences or rather is the collective result of billions of simple chemcial reaction sequences.
'If that's the case, then please explain why they're (a) so rare, (b) often come from families that are neither wealthy or well-educated, and were therefore only at best partially educated themselves (e.g. Isaac Newton), and (c) why the best educated and wealthiest people who send their children to the best schools and universities don't regularly churn them out.'
a. Genius on the level of Einstein or Newton is rare enough that nobody can really accurate comment on it. There is pretty wide margin between genius and Einstein though. There are millions of genius level individuals in the world.
b. Here you make a few assumptions. The first is that newton and his circumstances would be typical of what produces genius. The second is that either wealth or academia encourage the development of intelligence.
If intelligence were merely the sum of acquired knowledge you may be right, but it is not. A love of learning, independence that usually leads to poor academic performance, and an inquisitive mind are the characteristics that are more often seen. It is through social relations that an individual is more likely to adopt these traits than formal education. The wealth and formal education tend to instill the opposite.
c. is already answered by my answer to b.
Of course I am not pulling my opinions on intelligence out of my arse. Current research supports me showing that often white matter rather than gray matter plays the bigger role in intelligence.
It's not about having the biggest brain, its about having the most efficient brain, and the brain's efficiency comes from the chains of neurons you build and revise through input throughout your life. The longer and more complex a chain the less likely it is to be changed in a fundamental way, so early development plays a critical role and the old really are 'closed minded' and 'set in their ways'.
'But intelligence isn't, otherwise we'd be able to produce environments that turned every child into a genius (note here that I'm referring to true geniuses such as Newton and Einstein, not those who fall into an arbitrary statistical IQ region).'
Intelligence can be and is affected by environment. Intelligence is not a raw potential, its a form of utilizing raw potential. Almost all humans have the raw capability to achieve what we would call genius.
As for life expectency what you say is true about infant mortality. However it is a misrepresentation as well. Far fewer people reached 70 or 80 in the days gone by because almost all wounds and illnesses were fatal. An inflamed appendix was certain death.
It also flies in the face of fact. Males breed at older ages in modern society, mostly because they didn't previously live very long. Prior to the modern day reproduction typically occurred as soon as it was physically possible.
'The thought that something that happens to have lots of genes must therefore be intelligent is ridiculous.'
Then again, it also has nothing to do with what I said.
From my earlier post:
'People are still constrained by this idea that a large brain is required for human level or greater intelligence'
The sheer volume of data contained within a single strand of DNA flies in the face of the idea that something the size of an ant can't have a complex form of intelligence.
Some actual rudimentary understanding of intelligence would help in making a determination of that sort in the first place. Let's start there.
The links in the summary point to a pdf file and a third party site. Where is the site where you submit your comments to the copyright office?
I was under the impression that these sort of tiny asteroids burned up in our atmosphere all the time and were observed as shooting stars.
Spammers are consistently evading some of the brighter technical minds who are constantly trying to trace and/or filter their crap. They are unethical, greedy, and overall evil but they are hardly stupid.
After receiving my first unsolicited spam from the McCain campaign I used the unsubscribe link. Sure enough, the next spam arrived a couple weeks later.
To date I have received four unsolicited mails. I have used the unsubscribe process with each and every one and have even sent an email to the campaign through the contact form all to no avail.
I can't be the only one out there is experiencing this problem?
'the point is, intelligence, as with most complex behaviors, are a form of emergence phenomenon. even human intelligence is simply the result of fairly basic processes. the individual neurons that make up our CNS by themselves cannot demonstrate any kind of intelligence.'
Agreed. I am not disputing that point because it is accurate. What I am disputing is the belief that because insects are small, alien in prioritization, and exhibit predictable macro behaviors that it is safe to assume that they are not intelligent.
'it's been known for a while now that ants communicate using chemical signals, specifically pheromones.'
But there is no particular reason to believe that pheromones are the only thing going on with ants or that the simplistic interpretation of their behavior that Occam's razor leads us to is in fact accurate. To an outside observer with no understanding of our level of intelligence a similar overly simplistic solution might be reached.
'for instance, just by inserting a specific pheromone into the colony entrance at a particular rate, scientists are able to initiate foraging behavior on command.'
Simply by displaying light signals in the course of a human transportation route an observer would be able to initiate stop, go, and speed up behavior upon command. As with the ants, there are exceptions that don't religiously follow these commands but they are statistically insignificant.
Just because predictable macro behaviors are at work does NOT preclude a deeper thought process. 'Foraging behavior' could in fact involve a great deal of reasoning on the part of an ant. Ants don't merely search for food and complete a trail of pheremones when they return with it. They bring back a sample that is distributed to other ants and the ants then choose what food they like best. There is reasoning at work there.
Almost all animals have similar macro behaviors. Sling a rabbit at high speed in front of a cheetah and watch it chase. Have a mating partner with a low cut blouse walk past a gathering of males and watch them all turn and look as she passes. The difference is that the more like us a creature is, the more willing we are to see signs of intelligence.
We see the intelligence of chimps and humans because we expect to find it and seek it out, we accept simiplistic explanations for insect behavior because that is all we expect of insects. In fact, we are so predictable in this regard that I can tell you the intelligence pattern we 'discover'. Human, monkey/ape, mammal, bird, reptile/amphibian, insect. Pay attention and you will discover that as you go down that list man accepts increasingly simplistic behavior explanations in roughly that order.
'but each ant is simply following a very small set of hard coded behaviors, and on its own is quite stupid.'
That is an assumption based upon the fact that ants demonstrate a set of repeatable behaviors. We don't actually know that those behaviors are hard coded or even if they are, if said behaviors are the limit of ant intelligence.
People are still constrained by this idea that a large brain is required for human level or greater intelligence.
'It only keeps out the MOST casual, lazy, and uninterested snooper.'
In other words, almost everyone attempting to snoop.
'Forging a CA signature on a certificate would be a BIG DEAL.'
No kidding, why do all that work when you can get a cert from a lax CA in 15minutes or less anyway?
'Java is actually playing catch-up with Smalltalk in a lot of ways, so I wouldn't call it "more modern".
The summary tells us that the program is slow and buggy. Smalltalk really isn't.'
Modern can mean many things. IBM PC's are still catching up to Amigas in many ways as well but I doubt you'd find many who would describe the Amiga as 'modern'. You'd probably have an easier time finding skilled Amiga users than skilled smalltalk developers.
'Most open source software is not very good. Either poorly written, poorly documented, poorly maintained, or just junk period. Anybody can write it (and does). Some, of course, rivals closed and commercial.'
Most closed source software is not very good. Either poorly written, poorly documented, poorly maintained, or just junk period. Anybody can write it (and does). Some, of course, rivals open and free.
'GCC was a godsend almost 20 years ago, but once you're in the real world, if people aren't willing to part with a little money for your product, it's because you're writing crap or you're just scratching an itch nobody has.'
I realize you are a troll but I guess I'm biting anyway. The reason to open source a project has nothing to do with whether or not people are willing to part with a little money for what you are writing.
There is crap open source software and there is crap commercial software. Given two comparable projects of equal quality open source is superior by nature because it has at least one major feature the commercial lacks.
'Granted, but is this really enough to do a full rewrite?'
Yes if its impacting development. Even if its not, the fact it is slow and buggy is certainly grounds for a rewrite.