Surely, if a huge wedge was driving towards a human, he can find numerous ways to defend himself.
You've never been hit by a car, or even a go kart, have you? Besides, a well designed wedge, or possibly dome, with some form of weapon and self-righting system, will always beat a bipedal form, given the same level of intelligent control and a flat playing surface. Think of all the battlebot designs with a dome shape and a whirling lawnmower blade on top. Any of those would cut the legs out from under a bipedal form instantly. To give the bipedal form enough strength in skin and joints to survive a hit, or enough strength, agility, and balance ability to jump out of the way, you would have to go well above the equivalent weight class for a wedge/dome.
Bipedal-ism is an incredibly inefficient fighting platform. The center of gravity is way too high, the cost of maintaining balance while maneuvering is huge computationally, especially while trying to use any kind of weapon. The only advantages an upright bipedal stance gives you is the ability to see farther so you can detect enemies farther away, giving you a chance to run or hide. A form with limbs, rather than wheels, also gives an advantage on rough terrain.
We humans are attached to our bipedal forms, and love to anthropomorphize our toys. But when it comes to designing truly effective and efficient mechanicals to perform specific tasks, we need to design to those tasks. Even in a situation where specialized designs are too restrictive, and a generalized more versatile design is required, surely we can do better than just copying the human form.
NewsFlash!!! RF radiation produces a current in an electrical conductor! Wha...??? You mean that's the point of AM radio broadcasts?
Why do people keep bringing this up? The fact that a current is induced in metal has absolutly no bearing on whether or not there is an measurable, let alone significant, change in biological tissue. Not to mention the numerous studies that show no change in biological tissue when it is exposed to RF at the levels and distances currently in use around the world.
When you can drive a loudspeaker by hooking it up to your friends nipples, get back to me.
because in a lot of places their is nothing else to do.
Because God forbid anyone should actually go to the free public libraries that my tax dollars pay for, just to educate themselves and thier children so they can escape poverty, instead of living off the handouts also paid for by my tax dollars.
I would gladly double what I pay in taxes, if I could guarantee that all of it went to fund libraries, schools, and basic research grants, and not one dime went to food stamps.
This is bad because the copyright weasel will undoubtably be teaching our children that eternal copyrights held by corporate "individuals" and heirs of dead creative geniuses are a good thing. When, in fact, I would rather my children learn that a much more intelligent and socially responsible copyright term was originally put into law, before media conglomerates started buying corruptpoliticians.
I would also rather have my children learn that it is much better to make sure that the artists are directly compensated, by supporting local and independant musicians, rather than lining the pockects of corrupt business monopolies.
Well, do you hate them both equally? If not, you could (on probability) improve your position by voting for the candidate most likely to prevent the election of the one you hate more.
This is a great fallacy that gets repeated over and over. It would be true if, when you cast your vote, you could split it amoungst candidates based on how close they were to your views, i.e. 42% Democrat, 38% Republican, 20% Libertarian. This might end up causing each party to change its platform and actions to get as much margin as possible.
Instead your one, whole vote is counted by each party as unequivocal support, even a mandate, in support of thier entire platform. This increasingly leads each party to see each vote as an endorsement of the most radical end of thier political ideals.
I used to believe in "voting for the lesser of two evils" until this election. This election, for the first time, I agree with far less than 50% of the views supported by either of the major candidates. I have participated in six presidential elections, and researched how I would have voted in the ten previous to those, and have concluded that voting for the lesser weevil only encourages that party to deviate even farther from my views, than they were previously.
I do not, in any way, support not voting. That just removes your voice from being heard completely, and is, once again, in the best interests of fanatics on both ends of the spectrum. I have come to believe that any vote for someone that doesn't represent at least the majority of your opinions is the only wasted vote. So far, I have not been faced with an election where there wasn't at least one marginal candidate on a presidential ballot, that I could agree with at least 51% of what he said. If I ever am, I'm honestly not sure how my views will change at that point. If there are not enough Americans, that believe the way I do, to even field a candidate, then there will be something very wrong with me, them, or the system.
Except to push your analogy a little farther, not only have the SETI people not found a CD with the same mix, they haven't even found anyone else with a CD burner.
Actually, you have hit one what I have thought the real solution to these jokers has been all along. As soon as someone tries to make money off of any of these claims (charging NASA for "parking" on Eros, claiming trespass for missions landing on the moon or mars, etc.), we should see tax law revised to consider these rights as real property taxable in the jurisdiction in which the owner lives. Tell the guy who is trying to charge NASA for parking, sure, here's your $10,000, but we have determined the value of your asteroid at $80B, and you owe back property tax to the tune of the last 3 Federal Budget deficits.
With the history of most government and military contracts to go by, I bet they solve the even more trivial problem of making it not work even for its intended wearer.
Well, since one of my degrees is in Aerospace Engineering, I used to work for NASA, and I am currently licensed and working as a Professional Engineer, I think I have at least some basic understanding of the scientific method, and the purpose of doing experiments. I daresay the odds are that I have calculated far more error bars than you have.
That point aside, we are not talking experimental science in this question. The number of degrees in a circle is far closer to pure mathmatics, or I daresay engineering. I don't give a flip about the theory of how many degrees might be in a circle within experimental error. I'm just trying to get the damn missle designed, plane/bridge/road/building built, etc. There are far, far, far, more jobs out there that require basic common sense and fast, accurate calculation, than there are pie-in-the-sky, ivory tower research science positions where checking to make sure that basic Euclidian math has not changed since the last time someone measured a circle is what you get your paycheck for.
The educational system needs to turn out informed, employable people. Anything less is a disservice to them and to society. However, as one of my favorite sayings goes:
"It is not in the best interest of the sheperd to raise smarter sheep."
Trained, intelligent people coming from a public education system can only be an aberration that quickly gets remedied.
If I ever have an employee look at a circle and tell me he has to measure and add angles to determine it is 360 dgrees around, he'll be flipping burgers the next day. Especially if he comes back and tells me it 365 after measuring.
One of the saddest things about modern education is that we fail to teach people to use logic to solve a problem, instead of relying on formulas to get the answer every time.
Actually, I think you and I would probably agree on a great many things. Minimal government is best, and like minded people can create a peaceful cooperative society. It's just that perhaps I am a bit more cynical than you. There are far too many selfish people, and people willing to take advantage of others to increase thier own wealth, power, self-image, etc., for any peaceful cooperative to succeed for long. Even if a like minded set of people were to find a way to isolate and protect themselves, too many times the children growing up have not shared the dream, and so killed it.
My main point was that as long as there is one selfish person, everyone else will need some protection from that person. It's the classic tragedy of the commons. As soon as a system of protection is instituted (police, army, guards, militia, etc.) and a set of rules for them to enforce is formulated, you have introduced coercive government into the society. Then the problem becomes, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" (Who guards the guardians?)
I just don't have faith that people will ever be able to create a stable society without oppression of a notable portion of the society. The closer you get to the ideal, the more vulnerable everyone is to one bad perpetrator.
(Then again, just check my sig. and I belie myself. I have hope, just not faith.)
You might want to check out my reply to him at the same level as yours, if you are still interested in the thread.
BTW, Norway is one of the best extant examples of a cooperative association in the modern world, but much of the cooperation stems from a strong welfare state supported by oil export money and a very high personal tax rate. While people voluntarily paying thier taxes to be redistibuted to less fortunate may stem from feelings of cooperative association, there are still pretty severe penalties for those "less enlightened" individuals imposed by the coercive state. The central government in Norway is very strong, and there is certainly a coercive and military element that belies the ideal cooperative association as posited by the original poster.
Hmm... let's see. Iceland became a republic on 17 June 1944, having been a monarchy prior to that date. Iceland became independent on 1 December 1918. It has a parliamentary form of government. From the official website
First, a track record of only 60 years with no external conflicts, doesn't seem to be a terribly "long term" track record to use to reinforce your arguement. Especially, as it's official "army" is the Icelandic Defense Force, a de facto extension of the U.S. military, manned and paid for by U.S. citizens. In addition, it does seem that Iceland has a fairly strong government and a thriving society based on capitalism, certainly not cooperation by voluntary association as described by the thread.
Second, I have read Kropotkin, and his observations of life in Siberia. Hence, the assertion in my original post that "isolated families massacred as soon as they ran up against the real world" were not acceptable examples. I do not deny that small, isolated communities, especially those under severe environmental conditions, can form mutually beneficial cooperative societies. Another better example, which BTW Kropotkin also uses, is the old "long house" clans of Scandinavia. However, the reason for eliminating Kropotkin's Siberian observations can be directly shown by his own writing
"They still do so in Russia in similar circumstances. And if one of the hirdmen of the armed brotherhoods offered the peasants some cattle for a fresh start, some iron to make a plough, if not the plough itself, his protection from further raids, and a number of years free from all obligations, before they should begin to repay the contracted debt, they settled upon the land. And when, after a hard fight with bad crops, inundations and pestilences, those pioneers began to repay their debts, they fell into servile obligations towards the protector of the territory."
"servile obligations towards the protector," go back and re-read my first post... my description of how coercive government forms out of cooperation seems amazingly similar to the above Kropotkin quote. *gasp* Not to mention what happened to all those idyllic peasants Kropotkin so admired when Stalin "enlightened" them. Rather than slavishly drooling over Kropotkin, or anyone else's writings, maybe you should also spend time reading over thier detractors and determining for yourself what parts stand against the arguements of other intelligent men.
Where I got my education, as pointed out by another poster is immaterial to the discussion. If you, however, research my previous posts, you will find frequent repetitions of one of my favorite sayings regarding government schools:
It is not in the best interest of the sheperd to raise smarter sheep.
Oh, in fiction and fantasy they could certainly be provided. In a perfect world with perfect people, it might possibly happen. Also, I did not imply that government leads to cooperation, I stated, perhaps not clearly enough, that cooperation leads to government. The initial cooperation could have come as easily from anarchy as anywhere else, but the end result in the real world is inevitable. As for your request for evidence, or "beef" as you put it...
My response to all of your questions is the whole of recorded human history. Show me your own evidence of one single example, recorded anywhere, of a successful, long term, society (not some isolated few families that were massacred as soon as they ran up against the real world) brought about by, and based on, voluntary association.
On the other hand, I can pick up any of the world history books in any library, any of the religious texts from religions around the world (each purporting to be a true revelation of the history of mankind) in any library, or any book, magazine, or periodical chronicling current events, and show countless examples of exactly the scenario, scaled up or down, as in my previous post.
There is no objective reason why a service currently achieved through force couldn't be achieved through voluntary participation.
In the real world, there's no such thing as anarchy, and no such society will emerge during our lifetimes. The reason is simple. If a successful (peaceful, prosperous, voluntary) society were to emerge with no government (where the "right" to initiate force does not exist), it would be promptly destroyed by the current world superpower.
Two words, human nature.
Even if a global catastrophy wiped out civilization and all existing governments, the first survivors to get together would sort themselves into a hierarchy. Humans, as a species, look to order our lives. Not everyone wants to spend a large portion of thier time protecting themselves. So they find someone to protect them while they do what they really want to be doing, like growing food. This person they have protecting them wants something in return, like some of the food that is being grown. When they run across someone else who is growing food in a better location, they either cooperate, or the farmer with the biggest protector wins... Thus society, government, and politics are born.
I love the idea of a perfect anarchy as posited by Kropotkiin, but I also like the ideas put forth on the ideal socialist state, the ideal democracy, etc. As a previous poster noted, if you have ideal people, then the form of government, or the lack thereof, is almost immaterial and superflous. Unfotunately, I don't see mankind producing enough "perfect people" in it's entire future to make any such thing possible.
Slashdot Mirror
You've never been hit by a car, or even a go kart, have you? Besides, a well designed wedge, or possibly dome, with some form of weapon and self-righting system, will always beat a bipedal form, given the same level of intelligent control and a flat playing surface. Think of all the battlebot designs with a dome shape and a whirling lawnmower blade on top. Any of those would cut the legs out from under a bipedal form instantly. To give the bipedal form enough strength in skin and joints to survive a hit, or enough strength, agility, and balance ability to jump out of the way, you would have to go well above the equivalent weight class for a wedge/dome.
Bipedal-ism is an incredibly inefficient fighting platform. The center of gravity is way too high, the cost of maintaining balance while maneuvering is huge computationally, especially while trying to use any kind of weapon. The only advantages an upright bipedal stance gives you is the ability to see farther so you can detect enemies farther away, giving you a chance to run or hide. A form with limbs, rather than wheels, also gives an advantage on rough terrain.
We humans are attached to our bipedal forms, and love to anthropomorphize our toys. But when it comes to designing truly effective and efficient mechanicals to perform specific tasks, we need to design to those tasks. Even in a situation where specialized designs are too restrictive, and a generalized more versatile design is required, surely we can do better than just copying the human form.
As someone who flies regularly...
Please, please, please God, let this be implemented.
NewsFlash!!! RF radiation produces a current in an electrical conductor! Wha...??? You mean that's the point of AM radio broadcasts?
Why do people keep bringing this up? The fact that a current is induced in metal has absolutly no bearing on whether or not there is an measurable, let alone significant, change in biological tissue. Not to mention the numerous studies that show no change in biological tissue when it is exposed to RF at the levels and distances currently in use around the world.
When you can drive a loudspeaker by hooking it up to your friends nipples, get back to me.
I think this is the single most geeky comment I've ever seen on
And the fact that it's based on a conversation between a geek and his wife boggles my mind.
Because God forbid anyone should actually go to the free public libraries that my tax dollars pay for, just to educate themselves and thier children so they can escape poverty, instead of living off the handouts also paid for by my tax dollars.
I would gladly double what I pay in taxes, if I could guarantee that all of it went to fund libraries, schools, and basic research grants, and not one dime went to food stamps.
"No one with a brain" pretty much describes most of the audiences I end up presenting to. And yes, they like pretty effects and flying text.
Hmm... you just changed my entire perception of you.
Not better or worse, just different.
Except that even ficus plants seem to get girls to talk to them...
This is bad because the copyright weasel will undoubtably be teaching our children that eternal copyrights held by corporate "individuals" and heirs of dead creative geniuses are a good thing. When, in fact, I would rather my children learn that a much more intelligent and socially responsible copyright term was originally put into law, before media conglomerates started buying corrupt politicians.
I would also rather have my children learn that it is much better to make sure that the artists are directly compensated, by supporting local and independant musicians, rather than lining the pockects of corrupt business monopolies.
This is a great fallacy that gets repeated over and over. It would be true if, when you cast your vote, you could split it amoungst candidates based on how close they were to your views, i.e. 42% Democrat, 38% Republican, 20% Libertarian. This might end up causing each party to change its platform and actions to get as much margin as possible.
Instead your one, whole vote is counted by each party as unequivocal support, even a mandate, in support of thier entire platform. This increasingly leads each party to see each vote as an endorsement of the most radical end of thier political ideals.
I used to believe in "voting for the lesser of two evils" until this election. This election, for the first time, I agree with far less than 50% of the views supported by either of the major candidates. I have participated in six presidential elections, and researched how I would have voted in the ten previous to those, and have concluded that voting for the lesser weevil only encourages that party to deviate even farther from my views, than they were previously.
I do not, in any way, support not voting. That just removes your voice from being heard completely, and is, once again, in the best interests of fanatics on both ends of the spectrum. I have come to believe that any vote for someone that doesn't represent at least the majority of your opinions is the only wasted vote. So far, I have not been faced with an election where there wasn't at least one marginal candidate on a presidential ballot, that I could agree with at least 51% of what he said. If I ever am, I'm honestly not sure how my views will change at that point. If there are not enough Americans, that believe the way I do, to even field a candidate, then there will be something very wrong with me, them, or the system.
What GPS/basemap do you use? So far I have not found any basemaps for my Magellen or Garmin that include speed limits on the roads that I drive.
Except to push your analogy a little farther, not only have the SETI people not found a CD with the same mix, they haven't even found anyone else with a CD burner.
Actually, you have hit one what I have thought the real solution to these jokers has been all along. As soon as someone tries to make money off of any of these claims (charging NASA for "parking" on Eros, claiming trespass for missions landing on the moon or mars, etc.), we should see tax law revised to consider these rights as real property taxable in the jurisdiction in which the owner lives. Tell the guy who is trying to charge NASA for parking, sure, here's your $10,000, but we have determined the value of your asteroid at $80B, and you owe back property tax to the tune of the last 3 Federal Budget deficits.
With the history of most government and military contracts to go by, I bet they solve the even more trivial problem of making it not work even for its intended wearer.
Well, since one of my degrees is in Aerospace Engineering, I used to work for NASA, and I am currently licensed and working as a Professional Engineer, I think I have at least some basic understanding of the scientific method, and the purpose of doing experiments. I daresay the odds are that I have calculated far more error bars than you have.
That point aside, we are not talking experimental science in this question. The number of degrees in a circle is far closer to pure mathmatics, or I daresay engineering. I don't give a flip about the theory of how many degrees might be in a circle within experimental error. I'm just trying to get the damn missle designed, plane/bridge/road/building built, etc. There are far, far, far, more jobs out there that require basic common sense and fast, accurate calculation, than there are pie-in-the-sky, ivory tower research science positions where checking to make sure that basic Euclidian math has not changed since the last time someone measured a circle is what you get your paycheck for.
The educational system needs to turn out informed, employable people. Anything less is a disservice to them and to society. However, as one of my favorite sayings goes:
"It is not in the best interest of the sheperd to raise smarter sheep."
Trained, intelligent people coming from a public education system can only be an aberration that quickly gets remedied.
Try this.
If I ever have an employee look at a circle and tell me he has to measure and add angles to determine it is 360 dgrees around, he'll be flipping burgers the next day. Especially if he comes back and tells me it 365 after measuring.
One of the saddest things about modern education is that we fail to teach people to use logic to solve a problem, instead of relying on formulas to get the answer every time.
Actually, I think you and I would probably agree on a great many things. Minimal government is best, and like minded people can create a peaceful cooperative society. It's just that perhaps I am a bit more cynical than you. There are far too many selfish people, and people willing to take advantage of others to increase thier own wealth, power, self-image, etc., for any peaceful cooperative to succeed for long. Even if a like minded set of people were to find a way to isolate and protect themselves, too many times the children growing up have not shared the dream, and so killed it.
My main point was that as long as there is one selfish person, everyone else will need some protection from that person. It's the classic tragedy of the commons. As soon as a system of protection is instituted (police, army, guards, militia, etc.) and a set of rules for them to enforce is formulated, you have introduced coercive government into the society. Then the problem becomes, "Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" (Who guards the guardians?)
I just don't have faith that people will ever be able to create a stable society without oppression of a notable portion of the society. The closer you get to the ideal, the more vulnerable everyone is to one bad perpetrator.
(Then again, just check my sig. and I belie myself. I have hope, just not faith.)
Good comment.
You might want to check out my reply to him at the same level as yours, if you are still interested in the thread.
BTW, Norway is one of the best extant examples of a cooperative association in the modern world, but much of the cooperation stems from a strong welfare state supported by oil export money and a very high personal tax rate. While people voluntarily paying thier taxes to be redistibuted to less fortunate may stem from feelings of cooperative association, there are still pretty severe penalties for those "less enlightened" individuals imposed by the coercive state. The central government in Norway is very strong, and there is certainly a coercive and military element that belies the ideal cooperative association as posited by the original poster.
Hmm... let's see. Iceland became a republic on 17 June 1944, having been a monarchy prior to that date. Iceland became independent on 1 December 1918. It has a parliamentary form of government. From the official website
First, a track record of only 60 years with no external conflicts, doesn't seem to be a terribly "long term" track record to use to reinforce your arguement. Especially, as it's official "army" is the Icelandic Defense Force, a de facto extension of the U.S. military, manned and paid for by U.S. citizens. In addition, it does seem that Iceland has a fairly strong government and a thriving society based on capitalism, certainly not cooperation by voluntary association as described by the thread.
Second, I have read Kropotkin, and his observations of life in Siberia. Hence, the assertion in my original post that "isolated families massacred as soon as they ran up against the real world" were not acceptable examples. I do not deny that small, isolated communities, especially those under severe environmental conditions, can form mutually beneficial cooperative societies. Another better example, which BTW Kropotkin also uses, is the old "long house" clans of Scandinavia. However, the reason for eliminating Kropotkin's Siberian observations can be directly shown by his own writing
"They still do so in Russia in similar circumstances. And if one of the hirdmen of the armed brotherhoods offered the peasants some cattle for a fresh start, some iron to make a plough, if not the plough itself, his protection from further raids, and a number of years free from all obligations, before they should begin to repay the contracted debt, they settled upon the land. And when, after a hard fight with bad crops, inundations and pestilences, those pioneers began to repay their debts, they fell into servile obligations towards the protector of the territory."
"servile obligations towards the protector," go back and re-read my first post... my description of how coercive government forms out of cooperation seems amazingly similar to the above Kropotkin quote. *gasp* Not to mention what happened to all those idyllic peasants Kropotkin so admired when Stalin "enlightened" them. Rather than slavishly drooling over Kropotkin, or anyone else's writings, maybe you should also spend time reading over thier detractors and determining for yourself what parts stand against the arguements of other intelligent men.
Where I got my education, as pointed out by another poster is immaterial to the discussion. If you, however, research my previous posts, you will find frequent repetitions of one of my favorite sayings regarding government schools:
Absolutly classic!
Thank you.
I want my Brave New World!
Dammit, now give me my Soma!
Oh, in fiction and fantasy they could certainly be provided. In a perfect world with perfect people, it might possibly happen. Also, I did not imply that government leads to cooperation, I stated, perhaps not clearly enough, that cooperation leads to government. The initial cooperation could have come as easily from anarchy as anywhere else, but the end result in the real world is inevitable. As for your request for evidence, or "beef" as you put it...
My response to all of your questions is the whole of recorded human history. Show me your own evidence of one single example, recorded anywhere, of a successful, long term, society (not some isolated few families that were massacred as soon as they ran up against the real world) brought about by, and based on, voluntary association.
On the other hand, I can pick up any of the world history books in any library, any of the religious texts from religions around the world (each purporting to be a true revelation of the history of mankind) in any library, or any book, magazine, or periodical chronicling current events, and show countless examples of exactly the scenario, scaled up or down, as in my previous post.
Two words, human nature.
Even if a global catastrophy wiped out civilization and all existing governments, the first survivors to get together would sort themselves into a hierarchy. Humans, as a species, look to order our lives. Not everyone wants to spend a large portion of thier time protecting themselves. So they find someone to protect them while they do what they really want to be doing, like growing food. This person they have protecting them wants something in return, like some of the food that is being grown. When they run across someone else who is growing food in a better location, they either cooperate, or the farmer with the biggest protector wins... Thus society, government, and politics are born.
I love the idea of a perfect anarchy as posited by Kropotkiin, but I also like the ideas put forth on the ideal socialist state, the ideal democracy, etc. As a previous poster noted, if you have ideal people, then the form of government, or the lack thereof, is almost immaterial and superflous. Unfotunately, I don't see mankind producing enough "perfect people" in it's entire future to make any such thing possible.
You mean I'm the only one that waves my arms and shouts at my computer while reading