Mainframes didn't exist in WW2. IBM sold Germany tabulator machines like they sold to many other countries around the world. What the Germans did with them aren't IBM's responsibility.
Hair-splitting mainframe point aside, that is total bollocks.
Assuming I had any, if I sold nukes to some random terrorist group, do you really think I should be able to say it was nothing to do with me when they wiped out a couple of cities?
Feeding starving people only helps production if they help to produce more than they consume. If they could do that, they wouldn't have been starving in the first place. And consumption without production doesn't help anybody.
Not necessarily - it gives the producers something to do with their surplus production. Apple won't be able to sell iPhones to people who can't even afford to buy rice.
Scarcity is so ingrained in our flawed brain, we create it in the midst of abundance.
I'm not actually sure I'd give us that much credit: when consumption is conspicuous and competitive, the existence of filthy poor people is an important part of feeling well off. Sure, having a big flatscreen TV is nice and all; but can it compete with the satisfaction of knowing that an army of disposable service-class peons have no choice but to choke back whatever irrelevant little feelings they have and pretend that doing your bidding is job satisfaction?
That's why true capitalists don't believe in equality.
No, unfortunately it's a fitness and evolution thing. The minute you bring grain bags to a starving remote village, the hunger goes away and then they immediately start having sex and cranking out more needy humans. You can see this in dependent villages, you'll notice frequency banding in the ages of the children, all conceived at roughly the same time coinciding with aid drops.
Feeding the hungry sounds great, the hungry will multiply until you can't feed them all.
Yes, that's why in rich Western countries we have a massive population explosion because no one is starving. Oh, wait...
Sorry, I forgot, it only applies to poor brown people on different continents.
the mechanism by which the mind optimizes information directly, rather than through simulation
Your entire nervous system is a continuous feedback simulation of body/environment interaction that predicts ~0.25 seconds into the future and adjusts the chemistry of your body to react accordingly. Your mind is the self referential part of that simulation. Everywhere we look in the universe we see systems of enormous complexity emerging from matter and the simple rules of physics, many are also self referential in the sense they display a fractal nature or feedback loops, the human mind is no more or less "miraculous" than those systems.
Animals and plants are also continuous feedback simulations. That does not mean that they are as complex or interesting as a human mind (the word "miraculous" is too loaded) .
I no longer make any charitable donations to left-wing-infiltrated organisations ike Greenpeace or the RSPCA, despite a deeply held beleif in their original charters; they have no interest in the environment or animals, just politics.
Setting aside Greenpeace, the RSPCA's most obvious recent "political" actions have been to oppose the badger cull and support the ban on fox hunting.
In both cases, I really don't see how you can not have a view on them, as you are either for or against them. Also, they both seem to involve cruelty to animals, so I don't see how they can be classed as outwith the Society's concern.
It is a common right wing complaint that issues become "politicized", as though something like being pro-fox hunting is a non political stance.
People who have built on flood plains, the sides of earthen hills and mountains, in the US tornado ridden plains and on the beaches have *always* eventually been fucked.
Something something eventual heat death of the universe something something in the long run we're all dead
If we were to engage in climate engineering, warming things up and adding a little CO2 is exactly what we'd want to do.
So: the AGW, which doesn't exist, and is a conspiracy between communist scientists and the NWO government, or something, is actually quite a good thing anyway. If it's true. Which it isn't.
Short version: we don't have to do anything either way.
Ok, let's do. How much in federal grants has been awarded to scientists wishing to conduct inquiries into why AGW may be wrong? What's the dollar figure? What's dollar figure of the amount awarded to scientists conducting inquiries with intent of supporting AGW?
Do you not think that if some scientist could come up with credible evidence that AGW was rubbish, he wouldn't (a) be sponsored out of his arse by oil companies and (b) win the Nobel Prize for Everything?
The idea that scientists are universally conspiring to fake evidence for AGW makes no sense.
And all the work you do to try and save our asses from rising temparatures will be meaningless when the Yellowstone Supervolcanoe erupts and takes out half the country, which "well established science" said should have erupted close to 20 years ago.
Yeah, and we might be hit by an asteroid tonight so I'm not going to bother buying any cornflakes for breakfast tomorrow.
We should not forget that the most dangerous thing of all would be to have the climate cooling, so to whatever degree man affects the climate, we should try to err on the side of warming. Energy is life, a frozen Earth is death for many.
So, basically, AGW is a load of nonsense and therefore we don't need to do anything about it, but just in case it's not, we'd still be better off ignoring it 'cus a bit of extra heat is better than freezing to death?
Brilliant. "Your honour, my client pleads not guilty to murder on the basis that he wasn't there and doesn't own that particular make of crossbow and didn't know the victim, but that even if was there it was simply for target practice shooting apples off the victim's head, who might in fact have been his wife."
And don't bother posting any links, cause for every article yo find, I can find one with a dissenting opinion.
Possibly so, in the sense that I can find any number of pro-ISIL or neo-Nazi websites on the internet, so therefore they're just as right as anyone else.
Though the whole planet seems to think that the matter is settled, that's not the case.
Failing to follow the common herd is right if the herd is wrong. Otherwise, it's just being contrarian for the sake of it.
What is unpredictive with "climate change"?
Increase CO2 levels: global temperatures goes up, pretty simple to predict!
Because there is not a huge increase in temperature everywhere across the planet year on year, AGW deniers think this proves that the predictions are wrong.
missed the whole point about the left not meaning what it says, did ya?
A post-scarcity society may not be possible in the short term under communism, but it will certainly never be possible even in the long term under capitalism. Capitalism depends on inequality (or economic diversity if you like weasel words), since there is no point in someone working hard to make money (and therefore get power) if their neighbour gets exactly the same by staying at home dreaming or reading poetry.
greenpeace works exactly like a multinational corporation in gathering funds
I agree with you, multinational corporations should be disbanded, along with charities, and the distribution of resources should be carried out by democratically elected and accountable governments.
I'd trust NASA's experience long before I'd trust some rich guy's wishful thinking.
In case you're wondering why anyone here on slashdot is giving this risible fraud more than a second's thought, it's simple: NASA = government. And government is always wrong.
It's the Ayn Rand school of argument. If it's Some Rich Guy versus The Government, SRG is always right.
There is no evidence Mars One is not sincere in their attempts.
There is no evidence that there is not an invisible, massless teapot orbiting the Earth at twice the speed of light. It's not impossible that all our scientific theories are incomplete.
Slashdot Mirror
That summary reads like the deranged, disjointed ramblings of a psychotic person.
Is regular contributor Bennett Haselton now writing under a pseudonym?
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
To be fair, actively voting in Hitler didn't help.
Mainframes didn't exist in WW2. IBM sold Germany tabulator machines like they sold to many other countries around the world. What the Germans did with them aren't IBM's responsibility.
Hair-splitting mainframe point aside, that is total bollocks.
Assuming I had any, if I sold nukes to some random terrorist group, do you really think I should be able to say it was nothing to do with me when they wiped out a couple of cities?
Feeding starving people only helps production if they help to produce more than they consume. If they could do that, they wouldn't have been starving in the first place. And consumption without production doesn't help anybody.
Not necessarily - it gives the producers something to do with their surplus production. Apple won't be able to sell iPhones to people who can't even afford to buy rice.
Scarcity is so ingrained in our flawed brain, we create it in the midst of abundance.
I'm not actually sure I'd give us that much credit: when consumption is conspicuous and competitive, the existence of filthy poor people is an important part of feeling well off. Sure, having a big flatscreen TV is nice and all; but can it compete with the satisfaction of knowing that an army of disposable service-class peons have no choice but to choke back whatever irrelevant little feelings they have and pretend that doing your bidding is job satisfaction?
That's why true capitalists don't believe in equality.
No, unfortunately it's a fitness and evolution thing. The minute you bring grain bags to a starving remote village, the hunger goes away and then they immediately start having sex and cranking out more needy humans. You can see this in dependent villages, you'll notice frequency banding in the ages of the children, all conceived at roughly the same time coinciding with aid drops. Feeding the hungry sounds great, the hungry will multiply until you can't feed them all.
Yes, that's why in rich Western countries we have a massive population explosion because no one is starving. Oh, wait...
Sorry, I forgot, it only applies to poor brown people on different continents.
the mechanism by which the mind optimizes information directly, rather than through simulation
Your entire nervous system is a continuous feedback simulation of body/environment interaction that predicts ~0.25 seconds into the future and adjusts the chemistry of your body to react accordingly. Your mind is the self referential part of that simulation. Everywhere we look in the universe we see systems of enormous complexity emerging from matter and the simple rules of physics, many are also self referential in the sense they display a fractal nature or feedback loops, the human mind is no more or less "miraculous" than those systems.
Animals and plants are also continuous feedback simulations. That does not mean that they are as complex or interesting as a human mind (the word "miraculous" is too loaded) .
I no longer make any charitable donations to left-wing-infiltrated organisations ike Greenpeace or the RSPCA, despite a deeply held beleif in their original charters; they have no interest in the environment or animals, just politics.
Setting aside Greenpeace, the RSPCA's most obvious recent "political" actions have been to oppose the badger cull and support the ban on fox hunting.
In both cases, I really don't see how you can not have a view on them, as you are either for or against them. Also, they both seem to involve cruelty to animals, so I don't see how they can be classed as outwith the Society's concern.
It is a common right wing complaint that issues become "politicized", as though something like being pro-fox hunting is a non political stance.
Whenever I run into someone from Greenpeace protesting technology, they are invariably wearing Nylon and Gore-Tex. It's just sad.
Yes, because there is a simple binary choice between embracing all technologies unconditionally, and living in a cave eating grubs.
People who have built on flood plains, the sides of earthen hills and mountains, in the US tornado ridden plains and on the beaches have *always* eventually been fucked.
Something something eventual heat death of the universe something something in the long run we're all dead
fellow-travelers
The 1950s called and wants its insult back.
If we were to engage in climate engineering, warming things up and adding a little CO2 is exactly what we'd want to do.
So: the AGW, which doesn't exist, and is a conspiracy between communist scientists and the NWO government, or something, is actually quite a good thing anyway. If it's true. Which it isn't.
Short version: we don't have to do anything either way.
Ok, let's do. How much in federal grants has been awarded to scientists wishing to conduct inquiries into why AGW may be wrong? What's the dollar figure? What's dollar figure of the amount awarded to scientists conducting inquiries with intent of supporting AGW?
Do you not think that if some scientist could come up with credible evidence that AGW was rubbish, he wouldn't (a) be sponsored out of his arse by oil companies and (b) win the Nobel Prize for Everything?
The idea that scientists are universally conspiring to fake evidence for AGW makes no sense.
And all the work you do to try and save our asses from rising temparatures will be meaningless when the Yellowstone Supervolcanoe erupts and takes out half the country, which "well established science" said should have erupted close to 20 years ago.
Yeah, and we might be hit by an asteroid tonight so I'm not going to bother buying any cornflakes for breakfast tomorrow.
We should not forget that the most dangerous thing of all would be to have the climate cooling, so to whatever degree man affects the climate, we should try to err on the side of warming. Energy is life, a frozen Earth is death for many.
So, basically, AGW is a load of nonsense and therefore we don't need to do anything about it, but just in case it's not, we'd still be better off ignoring it 'cus a bit of extra heat is better than freezing to death?
Brilliant. "Your honour, my client pleads not guilty to murder on the basis that he wasn't there and doesn't own that particular make of crossbow and didn't know the victim, but that even if was there it was simply for target practice shooting apples off the victim's head, who might in fact have been his wife."
I'm trying to show them that Global Warming is NOT the greatest crisis to face mankind.
Well, no, because you know it's simply not true.
It's all a conspiracy between governments and climate-change stoolpigeon scientists to, um, sell products.
And you're such a believer in this, tell me exactly what you're doing to combay global warming personally in your daily life?
Right, because he's personally responsible for climate change.
And don't bother posting any links, cause for every article yo find, I can find one with a dissenting opinion.
Possibly so, in the sense that I can find any number of pro-ISIL or neo-Nazi websites on the internet, so therefore they're just as right as anyone else.
Though the whole planet seems to think that the matter is settled, that's not the case.
Failing to follow the common herd is right if the herd is wrong. Otherwise, it's just being contrarian for the sake of it.
What is unpredictive with "climate change"? Increase CO2 levels: global temperatures goes up, pretty simple to predict!
Because there is not a huge increase in temperature everywhere across the planet year on year, AGW deniers think this proves that the predictions are wrong.
As if Dr. Curry would even bother dialing the phone to reach you. You think too highly of yourself.
As so often on slashdot, it is hard to know where deadpan humour stops and absolute literal-minded pedanticism begins.
when communism calls for a post-scarcity society
missed the whole point about the left not meaning what it says, did ya?
A post-scarcity society may not be possible in the short term under communism, but it will certainly never be possible even in the long term under capitalism. Capitalism depends on inequality (or economic diversity if you like weasel words), since there is no point in someone working hard to make money (and therefore get power) if their neighbour gets exactly the same by staying at home dreaming or reading poetry.
greenpeace works exactly like a multinational corporation in gathering funds
I agree with you, multinational corporations should be disbanded, along with charities, and the distribution of resources should be carried out by democratically elected and accountable governments.
Or isn't that what you meant?
But couldn't people just not farm in California or other natural deserts?
I'd trust NASA's experience long before I'd trust some rich guy's wishful thinking.
In case you're wondering why anyone here on slashdot is giving this risible fraud more than a second's thought, it's simple: NASA = government. And government is always wrong.
It's the Ayn Rand school of argument. If it's Some Rich Guy versus The Government, SRG is always right.
There is no evidence Mars One is not sincere in their attempts.
There is no evidence that there is not an invisible, massless teapot orbiting the Earth at twice the speed of light. It's not impossible that all our scientific theories are incomplete.