This cloning issue is really stupid...Identical Twins have the same DNA and ussually VERY different personalitys, although they share many little, genetic quarks, or heriditary dispositions to disorders.
I'm a twin, and I've been saying this for a long time.
Nobody was expecting the same memories; they were, however, expecting the same behavior patterns.
The scientists were certainly not expecting the clone to have the original's memories, but that's simply not true for many of the peopl wanting to clone their pets.
yes. very true. (sigh) most people have a problem with cloning for all of the wrong reasons. i'm a twin and i'm a clone. gotta problem?
The vast unwashed masses of Americans have no idea how memory actually works (look at the number of "memory transfer posts" in this article, pretty scary).
most people don't, its true. but don't call them unwashed. i don't know what you mean by that. its almost insulting. anyway, i think the idea of memory transfer has some merit...
To hell with cloning, most people have very little knowledge of basic science and have the most outrageous expectations of science. Why? Because they only thing most people know about science is what they see in movies and TV.
very true. genetics is even becoming a focus of a form of mysticism
What do you mean by developmental noise? How is that distinguishable from environment? And do other parts of the genome and its phenotypes constitute an environment for a particular gene?
i'm a little weak on my genetics. (:
"Samuel Lyman Atwood (S. L. A.) Marshall developed a method of analyzing the actions of infantrymen in battle during World War II, and his findings and methodology have become controversial, especially during the past decade. According to Marshall, only about 15 percent of United States infantry soldiers fired their weapons in combat during World War II, and this number never increased to much higher than 25 percent for even the best of American units."
I assume that by infantry you mean those soldiers actually on the battle front? The majority of any army is made up of support staff of various kinds.
The article in the Village Voice says: "Feelings of guilt and regret travel neural pathways in a manner that mimics the tracings of ingrained fear, so a prophylactic against one could guard against the other."
Some thoughts:
1) Is a fearless soldier actually an asset? I'm not so certain that it is. Fear keeps soldiers alive, and keeps them shooting. Fearless soldiers might be scary as hell, but they might just be easy targets too because they aren't cautious. Another possible problem with fearless soldiers is that they might not be afraid to disobey orders, or whatever they feel the hell like doing.
2) Is a guiltless soldier actually an asset? Will the removal of guilt-feelings weaken the bond between soldiers which is essential to their military effectiveness? Will they be more susceptible to infighting?
From my understanding of the article, the scientists were not simply looking for a WTC sedimentary layer to simply confirm that it was there. The scientists involved seem more interested in studying how small particles in air and water spread in that region. And that is interesting and potentially useful.
I thought that this was an interesting article, and I think that it doesn't deserve the (mostly) silly comments so far posted. But the article just doesn't offer to much to talk about.
I think that the situation was fortuitious for scientists who want to study how particles spread, especially in the New York region. It is an interesting study for that reason. But it isn't surprising that there is such a signature showing in the bay.
"America became, in some sense, what it was BECAUSE we had a frontier early in its career. That frontier, and the spirit it developed among its settlers gave America its sense of independence, innovation and a GREAT sense of self-empowerment."
"Unfortunately it also gave Americans their expansive nature and perception of limitless natural resources."
unfortunate but true. i think that a mars society should be indoctrinated with a strong ecological ethic
you make an intersting point. the martian frontier will not be as open as the western frontier. however, I don't think that the open-ness of the frontier is so important as the fact that the colonists would have sufficient isolation to make decisions for themselves in an independent (and fair) manner. The biggest impact i think that this limitation that you speak of will have is that martian society won't be flooded with an uncontrollable influx of colonists. I have no problem with colonists (they are usually seeking a better life) but in the construction of a society, these sort of things must be under control. They are the variables that have the biggest impact on the success of the social engineering. If for example one wanted to reduce violence by education, and there was an influx of violent uneducated (in this particular domain) individuals, then your situations goes to shit. al your work--nothing. Finland, Norway, and Sweden are good examples of societies that generally have it really well, but they are strict on their immigration laws. too large an influx of the poor and needy and the 'good thing going' is overburdened and doesn't work anymore. it is sad that one has to deny another of a chance for the 'good life' in order to preserve one's own 'good life'. ) : in summary, the limitation of settlers might be a boon rather than a bane.
It is indeed possible that martian society would be even more corporate than our own. or more rigid, or less free. but i personally doubt it would last for long. why? because as soon as Mars became sufficiently independent and can produce most or all of the goods necessary then mars will no longer be dependent and can afford to declare its freedom while the states on earth could not afford to provide sufficient force enforce a subjugated people. but i admit, i haven't thought this aspect too clearly yet; it is an interesting one, open to lots of speculation.
and sometimes i wonder if the martian population won't be addicted to VH1 and MTV?
lol ) :
*visit http://www.marssociety.com
and sign the petition
I understand how resilient life can be. I am also quite aware at how fragile our viable place is inside it. Life in general may be resilient, but life in general might end up only including microscopic organisms if we are not careful. For my part, I would like to help ensure the future fitness of the human species, and I also understand that a well-informed and responsible stewardship of the biosphere (along with the lithosphere and atmosphere i might add) is integral to this goal.
You say, "I see no reason to artificially prop up an inferior genetic code." This is an interesting statement. Since fitness is a function of phenotypic interaction with the environment, changes of environment can change fitness. Ok. So a meteor comes tearing through space, hits earth, and obliterates all life. The environment has changed, the fitness levels have changed dramatically for the worst. but we shouldn't care. I anticipate your objection: i care about my own fitness, so I would be concerned about that meteor. But lets break it down a little more. By your same arguement we should feel no obligation to say help starving people in Somalia or even the victims of the atomic bomb if their survival or lack of survival didn't impact negatively your own fitness. This is all hogwash!
Rousseau once said, "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." Mars is the opportunity to break these chains, and regain what freedom we may.
Mars is our destiny. That is, outward. The possibilities for new expressions of freedom and humanity, and economic systems, lie in building new civilizations. On earth there is a gigantic infrastructure of economic powers that RESIST change. The best ideas are not readily implemented, or are practically impossible to implement.
America became, in some sense, what it was BECAUSE we had a frontier early in its career. That frontier, and the spirit it developed among its settlers gave America its sense of independence, innovation and a GREAT sense of self-empowerment.
To the point, a paucity of western infrastructure westward of this expanding America better empowered the formation of a culture radically different than its predecessors. Not wholly, of course, as old money still existed.
But now, America has few or no frontiers within its borders. America's infrastructure has become stiff in every corner. The people at Slashdot.org know this. Microsoft's infrastructure is outstanding. Oil industries pull our strings. We cannot fundamentally change what America is, how it conducts its economics, without a fight. The root is dug in and will not give up its space as long as it lives.
Mars has no infrastructure and therefore new social, economic, and political ideas implemented by colonists there are more apt to emerge into their natural designs undistorted by the effects of competing institutions.
Like the original colonists of America, cultural artifacts, physical and ideational, brought over to the frontier will be freely reinterpreted without undue outside influence. However, the opportunity of social self-determination on Mars is unparalleled by any in history, for none has had at its disposal the vast library of knowledge and technology available today. The coupling of knowledge and self-reliance will allow the best ideas to flourish. The culture of the second and third Martian generations has the potential of being truer to the ideals of social justice, equality, and:) free software.:) Than has ever existed before.
This is to append what I said previously about the interconnectedness and complexity of ecosystems and why we should be concerned about rapid shifts in shark populations. although this is a rather different example, i think it well illustrates my point.
Emiliania huxleyi is a unicellular algae living in the oceans. These algae impact weather patterns.
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/daisy.htm
the discussion of the algae is in section 3.
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/
a great site to learn a lot about earth's ecological/geological history.
It doesn't surprise me that wings couldappear and disappear. It would be surprising, i suppose, if you looked at biological evolution purely at the phenotypic level, but I don't. When something disappears, phenotypically, that doesn't mean that all of the coding for the phenotypic feature has also disappeared. Likely, it is just the bit of genetic code that kicks the process of growing wings off.
btw phenotypic thinking, i believe, is partially behind this misguided notion of missing-links.
-If an animal goes extinct for any reason, doesn't -that just mean it wasn't "fittest"
I know this was modded as flamebait, because, well...it is flamebait. But it does raise an interesting issue.
Fitness is a measure of average reproductive success. If these shark populations are in fact markedly declining then, yes, these sharks do not seem to be very fit. Fitness is a function of environment. You might say that an individual shark has an particular fitness per particular environmental state. When environments (here defined as including other organisms (including us and other sharks)) change, fitness can change.
However, even if this statement might be more or less factual, this statement was used to say something else entirely: that it doesn't matter, ethically or practically, that sharks are dying out...because well its how the natural world works.
But this is a rather weak arguement. First, physical facts, alone, probably do not unambiguously indicate ethical values. This is known as the fact-value distinction. This means that the fact that sharks are not currently fit does not justify our unconcern for their lack of fitness. Still, it does not indicate the contrary either. Personally, I think that it is a very complicated ethical problem. I think we should beware a tendency towards thinking in terms of "presevation" rather than "stewardship." Just because something is natural, doesn't imply that it is the best of possibilities.
Regardless of the ethics of sharks survival or (non-survival), the decline of shark populations should concern us for other, very pragmatic, reasons. The world's ecosystem is vastly dynamic and inter-connected. 9999999 Changes in one component of the system could have complex, unpredictable, and sometimes dramatic global effects. The world is not so simple as we like to believe. It actually doesn't take much to push a system into a positive feed-back loop that reinfoces some tendency...say an ice-age. And for those who pooh pooh this as some kind of paranoid catastrophism need to take a little closer look at the earth's history (or a look at most of the other planets in our solar system). It is not unusual. It happens all the time.
Yeah we do it hear it everyday. And it is a terrible thing to hear. At one end, we feel that the government is ultimately the only institution that can protect us from greedy and unscrupulous corportations, and at the other end we get tired of the government interfering in everything.
The law is becoming more and more important in our society. We are becoming an explicitly codified socieity. there are a lot of reasons this is the case. one of them, though, is that politicians need to get re-elected, and if they aren't passing new laws all the time, they are seen as not doing anything. for my part, i think that education, for example, has been reformed enough for a while. any statistician knows that you can't evaluate the results of some reform without ample time to evaluate it.
>Consumers don't exist. Producers don't exist. >We're both just equal partners accepting one >person's services or products for the bartered >exchange for another.
agreed! except for one thing. we aren't equal in the larger scheme of things. your statement sounds more like a justification of the inequalities of the capitalist system than anything (actually, it sounds like you are saying they don't exist). But I won't say anything more, because I'm not familiar with the Austrian school of Econ. i will certainly go and learn more about it. ( :
as for Real Player? its not illegal, just shady, annoying, and we should write them and tell them that. and boycott. if they hid it in a way that you would have to hack into the program or install it first to see, then that would be illegal (hopefully)
madcapjack
Re:Ummmm -- has anybody considered the posibilitie
on
Visiting the Big Bang
·
· Score: 1
I can't claim to know much about this topic. For that matter, most or all physics sounds like magic to me. guess I'm still just an old fashioned Newtonian. (:
But I am somewhat concerned that physicists might do something that could do things you guys are describing. I have no particular concerns, as i don't have the physics, but I think that in some ways it was unforgivable that we tested the atom bomb when there was believed to be the slim possibility of igniting our atmosphere in a self-sustaining reaction.
I'm reminded of the Fermii Paradox...may it be that the brightest of our minds do us in with their curiosity?
While I think that it is certainly true that the majority of written material is crap, I also think that the majority of published material is crap too. Just, maybe a little less stinky.
They package it real well.
In any case, publishers don't really filter for quality, they filter for $
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a twin, and I've been saying this for a long time.
The scientists were certainly not expecting the clone to have the original's memories, but that's simply not true for many of the peopl wanting to clone their pets.
yes. very true. (sigh) most people have a problem with cloning for all of the wrong reasons. i'm a twin and i'm a clone. gotta problem?
The vast unwashed masses of Americans have no idea how memory actually works (look at the number of "memory transfer posts" in this article, pretty scary).
most people don't, its true. but don't call them unwashed. i don't know what you mean by that. its almost insulting. anyway, i think the idea of memory transfer has some merit...
To hell with cloning, most people have very little knowledge of basic science and have the most outrageous expectations of science. Why? Because they only thing most people know about science is what they see in movies and TV.
very true. genetics is even becoming a focus of a form of mysticism
What do you mean by developmental noise? How is that distinguishable from environment? And do other parts of the genome and its phenotypes constitute an environment for a particular gene? i'm a little weak on my genetics. ( :
I assume that by infantry you mean those soldiers actually on the battle front? The majority of any army is made up of support staff of various kinds.
This is an interesting point you raise.
Some thoughts:
1) Is a fearless soldier actually an asset? I'm not so certain that it is. Fear keeps soldiers alive, and keeps them shooting. Fearless soldiers might be scary as hell, but they might just be easy targets too because they aren't cautious. Another possible problem with fearless soldiers is that they might not be afraid to disobey orders, or whatever they feel the hell like doing.
2) Is a guiltless soldier actually an asset? Will the removal of guilt-feelings weaken the bond between soldiers which is essential to their military effectiveness? Will they be more susceptible to infighting?
any thoughts, please?
From my understanding of the article, the scientists were not simply looking for a WTC sedimentary layer to simply confirm that it was there. The scientists involved seem more interested in studying how small particles in air and water spread in that region. And that is interesting and potentially useful.
I think that the situation was fortuitious for scientists who want to study how particles spread, especially in the New York region. It is an interesting study for that reason. But it isn't surprising that there is such a signature showing in the bay.
Neil Stephenson: Snow Crash
Tad Williams: Memory Sorrow Thorn
Kim Stanley Robinson: Red Mars; Green Mars; Blue Mars
enjoy the reads!
i've signed it
"Unfortunately it also gave Americans their expansive nature and perception of limitless natural resources."
unfortunate but true. i think that a mars society should be indoctrinated with a strong ecological ethic
It is indeed possible that martian society would be even more corporate than our own. or more rigid, or less free. but i personally doubt it would last for long. why? because as soon as Mars became sufficiently independent and can produce most or all of the goods necessary then mars will no longer be dependent and can afford to declare its freedom while the states on earth could not afford to provide sufficient force enforce a subjugated people. but i admit, i haven't thought this aspect too clearly yet; it is an interesting one, open to lots of speculation.
and sometimes i wonder if the martian population won't be addicted to VH1 and MTV? lol ) :
*visit http://www.marssociety.com and sign the petition
You say, "I see no reason to artificially prop up an inferior genetic code." This is an interesting statement. Since fitness is a function of phenotypic interaction with the environment, changes of environment can change fitness. Ok. So a meteor comes tearing through space, hits earth, and obliterates all life. The environment has changed, the fitness levels have changed dramatically for the worst. but we shouldn't care. I anticipate your objection: i care about my own fitness, so I would be concerned about that meteor. But lets break it down a little more. By your same arguement we should feel no obligation to say help starving people in Somalia or even the victims of the atomic bomb if their survival or lack of survival didn't impact negatively your own fitness. This is all hogwash!
Mars is our destiny. That is, outward. The possibilities for new expressions of freedom and humanity, and economic systems, lie in building new civilizations. On earth there is a gigantic infrastructure of economic powers that RESIST change. The best ideas are not readily implemented, or are practically impossible to implement.
America became, in some sense, what it was BECAUSE we had a frontier early in its career. That frontier, and the spirit it developed among its settlers gave America its sense of independence, innovation and a GREAT sense of self-empowerment.
To the point, a paucity of western infrastructure westward of this expanding America better empowered the formation of a culture radically different than its predecessors. Not wholly, of course, as old money still existed.
But now, America has few or no frontiers within its borders. America's infrastructure has become stiff in every corner. The people at Slashdot.org know this. Microsoft's infrastructure is outstanding. Oil industries pull our strings. We cannot fundamentally change what America is, how it conducts its economics, without a fight. The root is dug in and will not give up its space as long as it lives.
Mars has no infrastructure and therefore new social, economic, and political ideas implemented by colonists there are more apt to emerge into their natural designs undistorted by the effects of competing institutions.
Like the original colonists of America, cultural artifacts, physical and ideational, brought over to the frontier will be freely reinterpreted without undue outside influence. However, the opportunity of social self-determination on Mars is unparalleled by any in history, for none has had at its disposal the vast library of knowledge and technology available today. The coupling of knowledge and self-reliance will allow the best ideas to flourish. The culture of the second and third Martian generations has the potential of being truer to the ideals of social justice, equality, and :) free software. :) Than has ever existed before.
www.marssociety.com sign the petition!
this didn't deserve to be modded down. i think that he is more or less correct
Emiliania huxleyi is a unicellular algae living in the oceans. These algae impact weather patterns.
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/daisy.htm
the discussion of the algae is in section 3.
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/
a great site to learn a lot about earth's ecological/geological history.
That doesn't make it right.
Why would you ever think that it did?
In any case, nothing can fill that available niche if nothing is left to fill it. Its not like there is an endless supply of biotic material.
Yes, exactly. You said it much more succinctly than I.
btw phenotypic thinking, i believe, is partially behind this misguided notion of missing-links.
I know this was modded as flamebait, because, well...it is flamebait. But it does raise an interesting issue.
Fitness is a measure of average reproductive success. If these shark populations are in fact markedly declining then, yes, these sharks do not seem to be very fit. Fitness is a function of environment. You might say that an individual shark has an particular fitness per particular environmental state. When environments (here defined as including other organisms (including us and other sharks)) change, fitness can change.
However, even if this statement might be more or less factual, this statement was used to say something else entirely: that it doesn't matter, ethically or practically, that sharks are dying out...because well its how the natural world works.
But this is a rather weak arguement. First, physical facts, alone, probably do not unambiguously indicate ethical values. This is known as the fact-value distinction. This means that the fact that sharks are not currently fit does not justify our unconcern for their lack of fitness. Still, it does not indicate the contrary either. Personally, I think that it is a very complicated ethical problem. I think we should beware a tendency towards thinking in terms of "presevation" rather than "stewardship." Just because something is natural, doesn't imply that it is the best of possibilities.
Regardless of the ethics of sharks survival or (non-survival), the decline of shark populations should concern us for other, very pragmatic, reasons. The world's ecosystem is vastly dynamic and inter-connected. 9999999 Changes in one component of the system could have complex, unpredictable, and sometimes dramatic global effects. The world is not so simple as we like to believe. It actually doesn't take much to push a system into a positive feed-back loop that reinfoces some tendency...say an ice-age. And for those who pooh pooh this as some kind of paranoid catastrophism need to take a little closer look at the earth's history (or a look at most of the other planets in our solar system). It is not unusual. It happens all the time.
I must admit, I would like the same thing. I think that this is the question most non-specialists want answered.
But lets put it a yes or no question:
Brian, will it prevent us from operating any software or running any media files? Yes, no?
the crackers will be on one team and the hackers on the other.
Hey what can I say? the shows would have to better with beautiful bodies on beautiful beaches!
Yeah we do it hear it everyday. And it is a terrible thing to hear. At one end, we feel that the government is ultimately the only institution that can protect us from greedy and unscrupulous corportations, and at the other end we get tired of the government interfering in everything.
The law is becoming more and more important in our society. We are becoming an explicitly codified socieity. there are a lot of reasons this is the case. one of them, though, is that politicians need to get re-elected, and if they aren't passing new laws all the time, they are seen as not doing anything. for my part, i think that education, for example, has been reformed enough for a while. any statistician knows that you can't evaluate the results of some reform without ample time to evaluate it.
>Consumers don't exist. Producers don't exist. >We're both just equal partners accepting one >person's services or products for the bartered >exchange for another. agreed! except for one thing. we aren't equal in the larger scheme of things. your statement sounds more like a justification of the inequalities of the capitalist system than anything (actually, it sounds like you are saying they don't exist). But I won't say anything more, because I'm not familiar with the Austrian school of Econ. i will certainly go and learn more about it. ( :
as for Real Player? its not illegal, just shady, annoying, and we should write them and tell them that. and boycott. if they hid it in a way that you would have to hack into the program or install it first to see, then that would be illegal (hopefully)
madcapjack
But I am somewhat concerned that physicists might do something that could do things you guys are describing. I have no particular concerns, as i don't have the physics, but I think that in some ways it was unforgivable that we tested the atom bomb when there was believed to be the slim possibility of igniting our atmosphere in a self-sustaining reaction.
I'm reminded of the Fermii Paradox...may it be that the brightest of our minds do us in with their curiosity?
They package it real well.
In any case, publishers don't really filter for quality, they filter for $