If you mean FTL, that's probably impossible. If it weren't I'd expect that someone would have shown up around here.
The standard space-barm answer to this is that while (obviously) you can travel FTL, you can't have too high a velocity, because that would be unrealistic. Or something.
Considering that we have almost no idea if a deflector type device is even possible for this application, I decided to leave the science fiction out of the equation.
Well Arthur C. Clarke wrote a sci-fi book about a ship using a shield for this problem; I think the book was "Songs of Distant Earth". The shield was just a giant block of ice. Do you think that's beyond our technology? The ice tray in my freezer says no.
What's the time dilation like at warp? I doubt we'll be worrying about speeds slower than light if we're ever traveling between stars (and the presumption that our knowledge of physics, with our not-even-500-years-of-electric lights infant knowledge, is absolutely correct and 50,000 or 200,000 years from now we won't have found a solution, is laughable on its face).
Yes, but in less than a hundred years we will no doubt have discovered the secrets of time travel, cold fusion, free unlimited energy and instantaneous matter relocation, so we can just basically do whatever we want anyway.
You make an example out of them with your vastly superior firepower. Galt's Gulch wasn't just a bunch of rich dudes hiding out, but also the greatest technology center in the world along with a very competent military force. Thus is the power of science fiction.
You do know the meaning of the last word in that paragraph, right?
40 years ago, Pong was first released on home console. And now I'm using a device with orders of magnitude more computational power than all of the pong consoles ever created combined. I just asked this device where I should go for lunch. It gave me a few suggestions and helpfully drew me a map.
Am I the only one who finds this less than awesome, in the scheme of things?
If I'd been working forty years ago, I'd have talked to a colleague, or read a newspaper or just walked down the street or something, and found a place to go for lunch.
Mobile phones are cool, but they aren't curing cancer.
Should one of these guys succeed, half the denigrating posters in this thread will immediately demand the government seize the technology and roll it out to the masses.
Yes, I'm sure "these guys" are both funding and performing all the scientific research into ageing themselves. They own all the research hospitals in the world, as well as all the universities doing practical and theoretical research.
If they will succeed, it will be a singlehanded piece of brilliance by one of these Randian supermen.
But I suspect there actually is a simple magic bullet somewhere - something to stop us getting old. I doubt it will happen in my lifetime, but I think at some point a switch will be found to turn off aging.
Hmmm, do you also believe we'll have cold fusion in less than twenty years' time? Maybe time travel in another ten?
A lot of people on slashdot seem to look at the computer industry in the last 50 years and extrapolate from this that everything gets exponentially better.
The most fundamental right, upon which all other rights are based, is the right to life.
And that right only exists because human beings have developed civilisation and society and, gasp, government and the rule of law.
A gazelle on the African plains doesn't have a right to life, at least in any meaningful sense. If a lion catches and eats it, there's nothing wrong with that.
From the right to life derives the right to voluntarily trade for the goods that make life worth living, and real estate is also among those goods.
The ability to "own" a piece of land rests entirely on an artificial concept with the force of the law behind it (as opposed to the simple ability of the individual to defend it). Again, lions don't "own" the land they hunt on, they're just able to fight off other lions who want to be there too.
That doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's no more a natural right than my right to own an iPhone.
Too often, "social contract" is a verbal fog that sneaks in hidden restrictions against the life of an insufficiently careful thinker.
The term "social contract" is used to emphasise that human society is something other than everyone doing what they want, that there is give and take, mutual responsibilities and so on. The term "social compact" is perhaps more accurate, since as you say, a contract is voluntary.
As in any agreement, yes there are restrictions involved. In a rational human society, I am not free to murder you. If we were lions, I would be entirely free to try to kill you, and if I succeeded there would be no repercussions.
I strongly disapprove of equating anarchists with Libertarians. Although there are issues with anarchism, it is a serious political philosophy, unlike Libertarianism which is just an excuse for rich fucks to get richer and not have to bother with a conscience.
You don't necessarily need that. If we can figure out how to extend our lives by 15 years, then we've got another 15 years to wait for another advancement. Rinse and repeat.
Yeah, in another 15 years' time, we'll have found the secret of immortality, just like we'll have cold fusion, Artificial Intelligence and time travel.
Guatemala has a "social security" system, which is explicitly not libertarian, and if it is like other SS systems, it is a burden on the poor.
I can only conclude that libertarians read "Alice Through the Looking Glass" on a regular basis, and think of it as a How-To manual rather than a work of fiction.
He can build his floating libertarian paradise. It will suck, just like every other libertarian paradise. Then these dumbass Randians will simply forget it, and their new dream will be to build... A LIBERTARIAN PARADISE IN SPACE! Yeah, that'll work. A system of government that's been an abysmal failure everywhere it's been tried on earth will definitely work out IN SPACE!
Influence has no significance if influence doesn't lead to the use of force against someone. That force only exists in the context of a coercive government, i.e. a non-libertarian government.
So what happens when I ask my rich boss for a pay rise and he sacks me on the spot owing me a month's pay?
Or the factory next door dumps toxic waste into my water supply?
Or gangsters threaten to burn down my shop unless I pay them protection money?
Do you really believe that there is no use of psychological, economic or physical force apart from Teh Evil Government?
As anyone on slashdot should know the words "free" and "freedom" need to be used with care.
It is circular reasoning to say that the closer to free market economics you have, the more freedom you have, and that therefore socialism is anti-freedom.
There are other sorts of freedom than economic freedom. Anyone is free to dine at the Ritz. I am free from worry about falling ill and being given a huge bill to pay. Linux is free even if you buy it. People are free to sleep on the freezing streets at Christmas. And so on.
Socialism is doing just fine in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada and anywhere else it's really been tried, thank you very much.
Fascist dictatorships who borrow socialism's rhetoric to excuse stealing everything for themselves (China, USSR, North Korea) don't work so well, but then again they're not socialist, so it all evens out.
And of course the "no true Scotsman" fallacies immediately follow.
Socialism in particular fails because the only motivation inherent in the system is to improve the lives of others
The idea behind socialism/communism (depending on your point of view" is "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".
You are motivated to do the best you can for yourself, while knowing that you are not letting other people starve or die on the streets.
It is a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist begging of the question to say that socialism is bad because economic self-interest is the primary motivating factor for most people. It clearly isn't, or else everyone would be trying a lot harder to be a billionaire, and they wouldn't be wasting their time and money on enjoying themselves.
Some of us try our best to live up to the standards set by the society we live in without being forced to, because it's in our own best interest.
And sometimes that means you collect your own trash.
Socialism means that the poor old crippled lady who lives next door is denied the freedom of carrying her own trash out to the nearest dump, and is forced to rely on Evil Government employees to demean her by helping.
Socialism has been tried in the "modern era" and it failed
That depends on your definition of "socialism". The USSR is not the same as Sweden or the UK in the 1940s.
-- why are so many people against trying the opposite? (To my knowledge it's never actually been tried in modern times, especially with only people who give a damn.)
I really don't see what is stopping you from trying it, there are already Russian oligarchs who basically live on their yachts and pay no tax anywhere.
If you're a vulture capitalist, you are most certainly dependent on the society you prey on off to support the roads that take the workers to your factories, and so on.
Slashdot Mirror
Virgin Galactic is taking deposits for reservations now.
And half of slashdot is now desperately searching Virgin's website for details, you cruel bastard.
If you mean FTL, that's probably impossible. If it weren't I'd expect that someone would have shown up around here.
The standard space-barm answer to this is that while (obviously) you can travel FTL, you can't have too high a velocity, because that would be unrealistic. Or something.
On the gripping hand
Everyone panic, we have a Motie in our midst!
Who knows what kind of technology we'll have in 300,000 years, though.
The same stuff that other 300,000 year old civilizations in the Universe have. Which is insufficient for them to travel FTL and contact us.
Considering that we have almost no idea if a deflector type device is even possible for this application, I decided to leave the science fiction out of the equation.
Well Arthur C. Clarke wrote a sci-fi book about a ship using a shield for this problem; I think the book was "Songs of Distant Earth". The shield was just a giant block of ice. Do you think that's beyond our technology? The ice tray in my freezer says no.
You can't argue with facts like that.
Don't make universal negatives, they're unprovable.
Yes, we may indeed one day find Bertrand Russell's teapot orbiting the Earth.
What's the time dilation like at warp? I doubt we'll be worrying about speeds slower than light if we're ever traveling between stars (and the presumption that our knowledge of physics, with our not-even-500-years-of-electric lights infant knowledge, is absolutely correct and 50,000 or 200,000 years from now we won't have found a solution, is laughable on its face).
Yes, but in less than a hundred years we will no doubt have discovered the secrets of time travel, cold fusion, free unlimited energy and instantaneous matter relocation, so we can just basically do whatever we want anyway.
Because literally anything is possible.
You can also use cryonic means to extend the crews' lifespans.
I think you mean that you could use cryonic means to extend the crews' lifespans if someone invented a working system of cryonics.
Unless I missed something over the holidays, we don't have working suspended animation yet.
You make an example out of them with your vastly superior firepower. Galt's Gulch wasn't just a bunch of rich dudes hiding out, but also the greatest technology center in the world along with a very competent military force. Thus is the power of science fiction.
You do know the meaning of the last word in that paragraph, right?
40 years ago, Pong was first released on home console. And now I'm using a device with orders of magnitude more computational power than all of the pong consoles ever created combined. I just asked this device where I should go for lunch. It gave me a few suggestions and helpfully drew me a map.
Am I the only one who finds this less than awesome, in the scheme of things?
If I'd been working forty years ago, I'd have talked to a colleague, or read a newspaper or just walked down the street or something, and found a place to go for lunch.
Mobile phones are cool, but they aren't curing cancer.
Should one of these guys succeed, half the denigrating posters in this thread will immediately demand the government seize the technology and roll it out to the masses.
Yes, I'm sure "these guys" are both funding and performing all the scientific research into ageing themselves. They own all the research hospitals in the world, as well as all the universities doing practical and theoretical research.
If they will succeed, it will be a singlehanded piece of brilliance by one of these Randian supermen.
I'm not sure how one can give up sugar and drink red wine?
Duh, only white wine is sweet, don't you know anything?
I think more to the point is what evidence do they have that Paleolithic hunter-gatherers were also wine buffs?
I wouldn't call cutting out a group of cancer cells a cure even though it means you no longer have that cancer.
I would.
It depends for how long. If you simply cut out a group of cancerous cells, and next week you've got a new lot, it's not a cure.
But I suspect there actually is a simple magic bullet somewhere - something to stop us getting old. I doubt it will happen in my lifetime, but I think at some point a switch will be found to turn off aging.
Hmmm, do you also believe we'll have cold fusion in less than twenty years' time? Maybe time travel in another ten?
A lot of people on slashdot seem to look at the computer industry in the last 50 years and extrapolate from this that everything gets exponentially better.
The most fundamental right, upon which all other rights are based, is the right to life.
And that right only exists because human beings have developed civilisation and society and, gasp, government and the rule of law.
A gazelle on the African plains doesn't have a right to life, at least in any meaningful sense. If a lion catches and eats it, there's nothing wrong with that .
From the right to life derives the right to voluntarily trade for the goods that make life worth living, and real estate is also among those goods.
The ability to "own" a piece of land rests entirely on an artificial concept with the force of the law behind it (as opposed to the simple ability of the individual to defend it). Again, lions don't "own" the land they hunt on, they're just able to fight off other lions who want to be there too.
That doesn't mean it's wrong, but it's no more a natural right than my right to own an iPhone.
Too often, "social contract" is a verbal fog that sneaks in hidden restrictions against the life of an insufficiently careful thinker.
The term "social contract" is used to emphasise that human society is something other than everyone doing what they want, that there is give and take, mutual responsibilities and so on. The term "social compact" is perhaps more accurate, since as you say, a contract is voluntary.
As in any agreement, yes there are restrictions involved. In a rational human society, I am not free to murder you. If we were lions, I would be entirely free to try to kill you, and if I succeeded there would be no repercussions.
I strongly disapprove of equating anarchists with Libertarians. Although there are issues with anarchism, it is a serious political philosophy, unlike Libertarianism which is just an excuse for rich fucks to get richer and not have to bother with a conscience.
You don't necessarily need that. If we can figure out how to extend our lives by 15 years, then we've got another 15 years to wait for another advancement. Rinse and repeat.
Yeah, in another 15 years' time, we'll have found the secret of immortality, just like we'll have cold fusion, Artificial Intelligence and time travel.
Guatemala has a "social security" system, which is explicitly not libertarian, and if it is like other SS systems, it is a burden on the poor.
I can only conclude that libertarians read "Alice Through the Looking Glass" on a regular basis, and think of it as a How-To manual rather than a work of fiction.
He can build his floating libertarian paradise. It will suck, just like every other libertarian paradise. Then these dumbass Randians will simply forget it, and their new dream will be to build... A LIBERTARIAN PARADISE IN SPACE! Yeah, that'll work. A system of government that's been an abysmal failure everywhere it's been tried on earth will definitely work out IN SPACE!
FFS don't encourage the bastards.
Influence has no significance if influence doesn't lead to the use of force against someone. That force only exists in the context of a coercive government, i.e. a non-libertarian government.
So what happens when I ask my rich boss for a pay rise and he sacks me on the spot owing me a month's pay?
Or the factory next door dumps toxic waste into my water supply?
Or gangsters threaten to burn down my shop unless I pay them protection money?
Do you really believe that there is no use of psychological, economic or physical force apart from Teh Evil Government?
It is circular reasoning to say that the closer to free market economics you have, the more freedom you have, and that therefore socialism is anti-freedom.
There are other sorts of freedom than economic freedom. Anyone is free to dine at the Ritz. I am free from worry about falling ill and being given a huge bill to pay. Linux is free even if you buy it. People are free to sleep on the freezing streets at Christmas. And so on.
Socialism is doing just fine in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Canada and anywhere else it's really been tried, thank you very much.
Fascist dictatorships who borrow socialism's rhetoric to excuse stealing everything for themselves (China, USSR, North Korea) don't work so well, but then again they're not socialist, so it all evens out.
And of course the "no true Scotsman" fallacies immediately follow.
Socialism in particular fails because the only motivation inherent in the system is to improve the lives of others
The idea behind socialism/communism (depending on your point of view" is "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".
You are motivated to do the best you can for yourself, while knowing that you are not letting other people starve or die on the streets.
It is a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist begging of the question to say that socialism is bad because economic self-interest is the primary motivating factor for most people. It clearly isn't, or else everyone would be trying a lot harder to be a billionaire, and they wouldn't be wasting their time and money on enjoying themselves.
Some of us try our best to live up to the standards set by the society we live in without being forced to, because it's in our own best interest.
And sometimes that means you collect your own trash.
Socialism means that the poor old crippled lady who lives next door is denied the freedom of carrying her own trash out to the nearest dump, and is forced to rely on Evil Government employees to demean her by helping.
Socialism has been tried in the "modern era" and it failed
That depends on your definition of "socialism". The USSR is not the same as Sweden or the UK in the 1940s.
-- why are so many people against trying the opposite? (To my knowledge it's never actually been tried in modern times, especially with only people who give a damn.)
I really don't see what is stopping you from trying it, there are already Russian oligarchs who basically live on their yachts and pay no tax anywhere.
If you're a vulture capitalist, you are most certainly dependent on the society you prey on off to support the roads that take the workers to your factories, and so on.