overpopulation: Unsolvable, unless you like forced abortions
Overpopulation is already solved. Japan, Western Europe, the US, pretty much anyplace that has a high standard of living is already at zero population growth (not counting immigration). Implementing the solution is a problem, but the solution is already known, and if anything, it's unethical to not implement it.
No, real fighters fight in the real world. "Martial arts" as it's called today is nothing more than a cultural practice. If you even break down the term "martial arts", considering "arts" as meaning "skills or tactics" and "martial" as the term in itself, then today's martial arts are what you learn when you join the military and go through boot camp. Want to learn the martial arts of today? Then learn how to shoot a rifle, make or plant a bomb, and how to apply fire and maneuver. The UFC is a sport that combines kickboxing and wrestling. It is the benchmark for how effective a system is at kickboxing or wrestling--not how effective a system is at war. And war is precisely what martial arts were created for.
If you want it to be seen as a rationally defensible position, rather than just a possibility for a philosophy class or a religious discussion, you're going to need more that just "here's a cool way of looking at things".
Please. Even philosophy class needs more than "here's a cool way of looking at things".
It goes further than that. As a monopoly, AT&T had to constantly ingratiate itself to the federal government. Bell Labs was a part of that. While little of Bell Labs' research had a lot to do with running a telephone system (true, most of the computer systems were invented to replace switchboard operators), a great deal of it had military applications. The Bell monopoly lasted as long as it did because Bell Labs was a bargaining chip.
I didn't really find Quark all that irritating--and while he was used as a comic character, particularly in his conflicts with Odo, there were rare moments when he was used seriously enough. Besides, Quark's presence (among others) establishes that the station is as much a civilian and commercial outpost as it is a military starbase, as well as giving a nod to its having a vast history before Starfleet arrived. Although I still preferred Garak on both those counts (plus, he was funnier.)
Let's set aside the characters for a minute. (Dr. Hologram and Boobs-in-a-Catsuit being the only ones who were even remotely interesting.) The concept of Voyager was horrendously mis-executed. As Ron Moore once said:
I've said this to Brannon for years, because he and I would talk about the show when it was first invented. I just don't understand why it doesn't even believe in itself. Examine the fundamental premise of Voyager. A starship chases a bunch of renegades. Both ships are flung to the opposite side of the galaxy. The renegades are forced to come aboard Voyager. They all have to live together on their way home, which is going to take a century or whatever they set up in the beginning. I thought, This is a good premise. That's interesting. Get them away from all the familiar Star Trek aliens, throw them out into a whole new section of space where anything can happen. Lots of situations for conflict among the crew. The premise has a lot of possibilities. Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and Sternbach and Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn't going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn't going to have all the doodads of the Enterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn't happen. It doesn't happen at all, and it's a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. Voyager is not true. If it were true, the ship would not look spic-and-span every week, after all these battles it goes through. How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience I think takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn't act like this.
TNG had largely the same concept, new characters, and was the first Star Trek series produced in 20 years. It was popular because of the latter, and ultimately became good because of the former. DS9 had a new concept, new characters, and ran the same time as TNG and Voyager. The concept and characters made it the best series of the four, but the timing (as well as, in all likelihood, the unfamiliar concept) made it less popular. Voyager and Enterprise both had new characters and concepts, and failed both in quality and in popularity because of them, as well as the timing.
In retrospect, if Paramount wants commercial success, they should not only wait something on the order of decades between series, but also use at least a familiar concept.
Your second link reads like the Comic Book Guy's attempt at critiquing Star Trek. Sure, there are inconsistencies with the technology, but addressing that as the fundamental flaw of the series is silly.
Having read that pitch, it seems that Straczynski returned the favor (from Ron Moore and the DS9 staff stealing the Babylon 5 premise) and ripped off Ron Moore's BSG reimagining. The document is dated 2004, one year after the BSG miniseries and the same year BSG started running on Sky in the UK, and among other things, it suggests making Scotty a woman!
Because no one would care. TNG was new and exciting, and DS9 was great for those who got into it, but the popularity and quality of series diminished from then on every time they introduced a new set of characters in a new setting. It's too bad because I would like Star Trek to be more flexible a concept, but in terms of marketability and not sucking, it's best to stick with established settings and characters.
Just because they offered some second-tier science fiction authors the opportunity to have their ideas accept as "extended universe canon" by a subset of adoring fans willing to buy anything with "Star Wars" on the cover doesn't mean Lucas ever had an obligation to take seriously what they wrote or the authority of their books. He took some ideas (the name of Coruscant, for instance) and ignored others. And given the abject silliness much of the EU descended into, it's for the better.
That's an interesting set--but to be fair, anyone since about Descartes or Hume is beyond the level of sophistication of most movies. I don't see any movie seriously tackling Moore's paradox, for instance.
Well, first we have to qualify what we mean by "success". We want a benevolent system of government that lasts for as long as possible. A slightly less benevolent system that lasts much longer is better than a slightly more benevolent system that doesn't last very long at all. If so inclined, you can think of it as an curve of benevolence over time where we are trying to maximize the integral. We also have to define what we mean by "benevolent", but there lies all of social ethics so let's gloss over that point.
An initially benevolent dictatorship will often remain benevolent for the rest of the dictator's natural life before collapsing into despotism, or will sometimes last a few lifetimes before so collapsing. Over the long term the total amount of benevolence will be close to 0 at best, and more likely negative because malevolent dictators outnumber benevolent ones.
A democracy may not be as benevolent as a benevolent dictatorship, but rarely are they as malevolent as a malevolent dictatorship, especially in a constitutional system where it's difficult to get things done. A democracy will not dip as low as a malevolent dictatorship, nor will it reach as high as a benevolent dictatorship, but over time it's better at keeping a positive balance.
Obviously this analysis glosses over democracies that turn into dictatorships, but we can usually regard that as a revolution intended to replace the current system with a different one. Identifying the Nazi dictatorship with the pre-Nazi democratic state is a bit of a fallacy--if we start conflating systems together because one led to another, then there's only one system and the entire discussion is pointless.
Benevolent dictatorships rarely survive the dictator. Even a dictator who intends to be benevolent will often, like Stalin, do evil things in pursuit of good. These two reasons are why benevolent dictatorships are not sustainable, even without corruption and the like. I don't dispute that democracies can be as tyrannical as dictatorships, but that doesn't exonerate benevolent dictatorship as unattainable in the long term.
I don't think that's been a pressing or urgent problem for a long time--it's more common for adminship candidates to be judged based upon the number of Featured Article development pushes they've been involved in than upon edit count, and it has been for months if not years.
it is a sad consequence of ancient cultures not adapting to technology that increases the human life span. many cultures adapted to the unfortunate fact that to keep populations stable one might need to have twice as many kids as there were parents. once technology eliminated alot of childhood diseases the birthrates that sustained humanity before now caused an unsustainable boom in population growth
And once we reached the levels of industrialization, urban life, and wealth as we have now, population growth dropped to below replenishment because the culture changed and people had things to do with their lives other than breed. All the population growth in today's world is in poorer populations. Now, this gives us two possible futures. In one, wealthier and more advanced populations will fail to reproduce themselves and the cultural and technological peaks of our generation will never be matched again. In another, globalization enriches everyone before this happens and world population slowly declines until reaching a comfortable equilibrium.
I don't think there's any proof that a terrorist organization has ever used blackmail as a weapon.
You know, I wouldn't exactly sit around waiting for them to make the first move. Everyone goes apeshit about airline security after they hijack jets, but then they bomb a train while you're looking away. Only defending against a tactic after the enemy uses it is a good way to lose.
Do you mean that to say that supply issues don't affect record prices, or that demand issues don't affect them? While perfect free markets may not exist, I'm not aware of any market that isn't at least somewhat affected by both supply and demand.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. And incidentally, they not only rebuilt the bridge, but just this summer they finished a second one.
Overpopulation is already solved. Japan, Western Europe, the US, pretty much anyplace that has a high standard of living is already at zero population growth (not counting immigration). Implementing the solution is a problem, but the solution is already known, and if anything, it's unethical to not implement it.
No, real fighters fight in the real world. "Martial arts" as it's called today is nothing more than a cultural practice. If you even break down the term "martial arts", considering "arts" as meaning "skills or tactics" and "martial" as the term in itself, then today's martial arts are what you learn when you join the military and go through boot camp. Want to learn the martial arts of today? Then learn how to shoot a rifle, make or plant a bomb, and how to apply fire and maneuver. The UFC is a sport that combines kickboxing and wrestling. It is the benchmark for how effective a system is at kickboxing or wrestling--not how effective a system is at war. And war is precisely what martial arts were created for.
No, it's a redundancy. Tautologies are propositions, not words or concepts.
Please. Even philosophy class needs more than "here's a cool way of looking at things".
It goes further than that. As a monopoly, AT&T had to constantly ingratiate itself to the federal government. Bell Labs was a part of that. While little of Bell Labs' research had a lot to do with running a telephone system (true, most of the computer systems were invented to replace switchboard operators), a great deal of it had military applications. The Bell monopoly lasted as long as it did because Bell Labs was a bargaining chip.
You know, I honestly doubt Paris has even perfected any skills in bed. Experience does not necessarily lead to talent.
I didn't really find Quark all that irritating--and while he was used as a comic character, particularly in his conflicts with Odo, there were rare moments when he was used seriously enough. Besides, Quark's presence (among others) establishes that the station is as much a civilian and commercial outpost as it is a military starbase, as well as giving a nod to its having a vast history before Starfleet arrived. Although I still preferred Garak on both those counts (plus, he was funnier.)
Let's set aside the characters for a minute. (Dr. Hologram and Boobs-in-a-Catsuit being the only ones who were even remotely interesting.) The concept of Voyager was horrendously mis-executed. As Ron Moore once said:
I've said this to Brannon for years, because he and I would talk about the show when it was first invented. I just don't understand why it doesn't even believe in itself. Examine the fundamental premise of Voyager. A starship chases a bunch of renegades. Both ships are flung to the opposite side of the galaxy. The renegades are forced to come aboard Voyager. They all have to live together on their way home, which is going to take a century or whatever they set up in the beginning. I thought, This is a good premise. That's interesting. Get them away from all the familiar Star Trek aliens, throw them out into a whole new section of space where anything can happen. Lots of situations for conflict among the crew. The premise has a lot of possibilities. Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and Sternbach and Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn't going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn't going to have all the doodads of the Enterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn't happen. It doesn't happen at all, and it's a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. Voyager is not true. If it were true, the ship would not look spic-and-span every week, after all these battles it goes through. How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience I think takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn't act like this.Source.
TNG had largely the same concept, new characters, and was the first Star Trek series produced in 20 years. It was popular because of the latter, and ultimately became good because of the former. DS9 had a new concept, new characters, and ran the same time as TNG and Voyager. The concept and characters made it the best series of the four, but the timing (as well as, in all likelihood, the unfamiliar concept) made it less popular. Voyager and Enterprise both had new characters and concepts, and failed both in quality and in popularity because of them, as well as the timing.
In retrospect, if Paramount wants commercial success, they should not only wait something on the order of decades between series, but also use at least a familiar concept.
Your second link reads like the Comic Book Guy's attempt at critiquing Star Trek. Sure, there are inconsistencies with the technology, but addressing that as the fundamental flaw of the series is silly.
Having read that pitch, it seems that Straczynski returned the favor (from Ron Moore and the DS9 staff stealing the Babylon 5 premise) and ripped off Ron Moore's BSG reimagining. The document is dated 2004, one year after the BSG miniseries and the same year BSG started running on Sky in the UK, and among other things, it suggests making Scotty a woman!
Because no one would care. TNG was new and exciting, and DS9 was great for those who got into it, but the popularity and quality of series diminished from then on every time they introduced a new set of characters in a new setting. It's too bad because I would like Star Trek to be more flexible a concept, but in terms of marketability and not sucking, it's best to stick with established settings and characters.
Boo, squeamishness towards alternate sexualities. Hooray, slash!
Just because they offered some second-tier science fiction authors the opportunity to have their ideas accept as "extended universe canon" by a subset of adoring fans willing to buy anything with "Star Wars" on the cover doesn't mean Lucas ever had an obligation to take seriously what they wrote or the authority of their books. He took some ideas (the name of Coruscant, for instance) and ignored others. And given the abject silliness much of the EU descended into, it's for the better.
That's an interesting set--but to be fair, anyone since about Descartes or Hume is beyond the level of sophistication of most movies. I don't see any movie seriously tackling Moore's paradox, for instance.
Well, first we have to qualify what we mean by "success". We want a benevolent system of government that lasts for as long as possible. A slightly less benevolent system that lasts much longer is better than a slightly more benevolent system that doesn't last very long at all. If so inclined, you can think of it as an curve of benevolence over time where we are trying to maximize the integral. We also have to define what we mean by "benevolent", but there lies all of social ethics so let's gloss over that point.
An initially benevolent dictatorship will often remain benevolent for the rest of the dictator's natural life before collapsing into despotism, or will sometimes last a few lifetimes before so collapsing. Over the long term the total amount of benevolence will be close to 0 at best, and more likely negative because malevolent dictators outnumber benevolent ones.
A democracy may not be as benevolent as a benevolent dictatorship, but rarely are they as malevolent as a malevolent dictatorship, especially in a constitutional system where it's difficult to get things done. A democracy will not dip as low as a malevolent dictatorship, nor will it reach as high as a benevolent dictatorship, but over time it's better at keeping a positive balance.
Obviously this analysis glosses over democracies that turn into dictatorships, but we can usually regard that as a revolution intended to replace the current system with a different one. Identifying the Nazi dictatorship with the pre-Nazi democratic state is a bit of a fallacy--if we start conflating systems together because one led to another, then there's only one system and the entire discussion is pointless.
Benevolent dictatorships rarely survive the dictator. Even a dictator who intends to be benevolent will often, like Stalin, do evil things in pursuit of good. These two reasons are why benevolent dictatorships are not sustainable, even without corruption and the like. I don't dispute that democracies can be as tyrannical as dictatorships, but that doesn't exonerate benevolent dictatorship as unattainable in the long term.
I don't think that's been a pressing or urgent problem for a long time--it's more common for adminship candidates to be judged based upon the number of Featured Article development pushes they've been involved in than upon edit count, and it has been for months if not years.
Think again. I watched Heroes exclusively on NBC's website.
Depends on what you count as a blog. I could easily believe nearly 1/10 people have used the "blog" feature on MySpace.
And once we reached the levels of industrialization, urban life, and wealth as we have now, population growth dropped to below replenishment because the culture changed and people had things to do with their lives other than breed. All the population growth in today's world is in poorer populations. Now, this gives us two possible futures. In one, wealthier and more advanced populations will fail to reproduce themselves and the cultural and technological peaks of our generation will never be matched again. In another, globalization enriches everyone before this happens and world population slowly declines until reaching a comfortable equilibrium.
You know, I wouldn't exactly sit around waiting for them to make the first move. Everyone goes apeshit about airline security after they hijack jets, but then they bomb a train while you're looking away. Only defending against a tactic after the enemy uses it is a good way to lose.
Do you mean that to say that supply issues don't affect record prices, or that demand issues don't affect them? While perfect free markets may not exist, I'm not aware of any market that isn't at least somewhat affected by both supply and demand.
Things are priced based on what people are willing to pay for them, as well as what it costs to produce them. This is common knowledge.