I don't understand the 3D hate. Well, I understand it, but can't for the life of me imagine why people whine and complain about it when virtually every 3D movie is also shown in 2D anyway... some people like 3D, what's wrong with having a choice?
Well, 3D tickets are more expensive, so theaters favor the 3D showings over 2D. At my favorite movie theater, the recent Tintin movie was showing in 3D in two of the best projection rooms, at all hours, while the 2D version was only showing at midday, on a smaller screen, with less performant audio. I went to the 3D showing, and had it definitely confirmed I'm one of the people that get sick at 3D - had to leave about midway through the movie, and I probably won't try another 3D show soon.
And the sad part is, I really don't think it 3D adds much to most movies. It does give Lucas a chance to reissue "Phantom menace" in 3D, but I wouldn't count that in its favor:)
There are no good arguments in favor of the truth of sentience (please feel free to provide any, if you can).
I can no more prove I'm sentient than I can prove God's existance , or you can prove his nonexistance.
To tell you the truth, I feel humbled. It's the first time the Chewbacca defense has been used against me. Sentience doesn't have anything to do with our discussion. I agree that's an interesting philosophical problem, and I don't think it's a completely solved one, but introducing it in the here makes as much sense as introducing the Wookie from Endor (and is just as convincing). Do you have any good arguments for the religious point of view (in which case, please post them), or do you concede such arguments don't exist?
Religious people are religious because they had an indescribable religious experience, not because they've been brainwashed or browbeaten
Sorry, this affirmation is falsified by facts. First, I don't believe all religious people are such because they ALL had a religious experience (though I'd be interested in any citations). I believe most of them are religious because they were taught so by their families and societies. Second, if education, (brainwashing, as you so kindly call it) and browbeating wouldn't have any role, religions wouldn't be consistent over social units (family, tribe, nation). The overwhelming majority of believers happen to match the religion of the family, tribe or country of the person. And, even worse for your argument, the vast majority of religious experiences also tend to match the societal norm of wherever the person lives. This proves religion to be a social construct, as opposed to the representation of an objective reality (such as a god).
Note that I don't deny the existence of religious experiences, but those are totally subjective and properly belong in the realm of psychology or even psychiatry, (like all other halucinations).
You misunderstand "faith". It isn't "having faith that God exists, it's "faith" as in being faithful to God and not worshiping another god, such as money or "mother nature" (the Wiccan god).
Sorry, but that's just meaningless verbiage, and the parts that aren't aren't true. If you're a Christian go study the basics of your religion, starting with the Credo. It says so at the very beginning: Credo in unum Deum, "I believe in one God", not "I'm faithful to God". As to the rest of your statement, how exactly could somebody be "faithful to God" without "having faith that God exists"? No, I understand perfectly what I mean, and you're just trying to confuse the issue.
P.S. I'm sorry about that, I don't usually post on grammar issues, but could you please spell the word "athEIsts", and not "athIEsts"? It's not a big deal, but does tend to break my concentration when reading your messages.
Atheists are absolutely not knowledgeable about "many" religions, or even one. Briefly browsing the wikipedia page doesn't count.
I'm sorry, but you're completely and demonstrably wrong. Studies have shown atheists to be the most knowledgeable about religion: see here. Some quick items from the study: atheists top the religious knowledge survey, with an average of 20.9 correct responses out of 32, followed by Jews and Mormons with 20.5 and 20.3 respectively. White mainline protestants only managed 15.8. Atheists score second only to Jews in the knowledge of world religions, and far above white evangelicals. Also, an interesting quote from here:
American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.
"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."
Ok, let's say there may be some pathological cases, atheists that will not accept any argument, no matter how true. Those would be crazy people, but some of them may exist, so I'm happy to replace the "no atheists" in my post with "few atheists".
Now, I notice you don't bring any of the good arguments for religion I invited you to post in my initial message. What you're doing instead is latching into a complete technicality and using it to launch a rant complete with ad-hominem and complaints about moderation. There's nothing to debate, really, in your post - you're doing exactly the things I described in my first message, so don't be surprised at the results - it's just cause and effect.
what are those domains, why are they important, what makes you say they aren't susceptible to the scientific method, and especially, why do you think religions "deal" with those problems?
What's the meaning of life?
Is there absolute good/evil?
Where do we come from, where do we go to? (both on a personal level - soul, death,... - and as a species)
First, I'll note that all those are questions, not "domains". Second, all of those are pretty well answered by science, provided you pause first to define your terms. The thing is, though, many people don't like the answers, so they stick their metaphorical fingers in their ears, going "la, la, la, can't hear you".
Meaning of life: biology answered this: (see Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene"). The meaning of life, in it's simplest expression, is propagation. That's how comes we're here, that's what dictates the vast majority of our lifes. If you examine human behavior and history, you'll see how many of the things we do really boil down to two basic impulses: the conservation of the individual, and the conservation of the species.
Is there absolute good/evil?
First, you should define good and evil; looking at history, a lot of things we consider now "evil" used to be "good"; the reverse is true as well. Genocide, for example, now considered one of the worst possible crimes. In the Bible, however, God orders genocidal warfare of the Canaanites, and the Midianites. And, since it's a godly command, the genocide is, by religious definition, absolutely good.
Returning to your question, I guess the closest we can come to building an absolute ethical system should be to build upon the same biological basis I mentioned before. The conservation and propagation of life (yours and others') should be considered a "good" goal, something worth doing. Many already existent ethical norms can be deduced from here: for your self preservation, keep moderation in things, respect of societal norms, avoidance of conflict, good value of a "virtuous" life. For species preservation, care for children (yours and others), the good value of charity, "love thy neighbor", self-sacrifice if it helps others, and many others.
Where do we come from, where do we go to?
As a person, you come from a fertilized cell and end up as worm food. Everything else is wishful thinking. As a species we come from the trees, and, (if we're lucky) we'll end up in space. As life, we don't know (yet) where we come from, but people are looking into it, and good progress is made towards finding up how life first appeared
Of course, many people won't accept those answers. We HAVE to be more than uppity monkeys! There HAS to be more to life. I CAN'T just stop existing! It's this pesky biology again, an impulse deeply rooted into us, built through the ages by the very fact we (as living organisms) are the survivors and the descendents of survivors. In many cases reason (only present in the human species for a few measly millions of years) loses the fight to the billion years old impulse to live - so people fear death, and when confronted with it, often abandon reason and embace fantasies that promise them souls, heaven, eternal life and ultimately assuage the fear.
religions deal with a problem domains which are important but not susceptible to the scientific method.
Ok, I'll bite: what are those domains, why are they important, what makes you say they aren't susceptible to the scientific method, and especially, why do you think religions "deal" with those problems?
As far as I can see, the only problems religion may pretend to solve are convincing people to follow an arbitrary set of social norms, improving social cohesiveness in homogenous societies and providing a psychological crutch to people too weak to (mentally) stand on their own feet (as the man said, religion is the opium of the people). That's sometimes useful, in particular to political, military or religious leaders (since it provides a docile population). It can also be a big problem, when religion is used as a weapon, as we can see now in the Middle East, and have seen before all over the world. Note that nothing above doesn't imply that religion is true, only that it causes the followers to behave a certain way (which is a problem of psychology, not theology).
Maybe I misunderstood your post, and what you mean is that religion is a mental virus (a meme, if you want to use Dawkins' concept); that I'll give you, and agree that current religions are the successful ones, which have managed to survive and propagate. But that doesn't make them true, as survival and propagation of the flu virus doesn't make it worth worshipping.
If you post an argument in favor of religion, it does not get discussed. It gets mocked and downmodded
That's because the argument in question seldom deserves more than mockery. There are no good arguments in favor of the truth of religion (please feel free to provide any, if you can), or there would be no atheists. Even many organized religions are aware of that, which is why they insist so much on faith.
Philosophers have devised, over the years, a number of relatively complex arguments for the existence of God. None of them is unarguably true, and, unfortunately, the usual pro-religion post on Slashdot seldom rises to that intellectual level. The usual pro-religion post is a rant, or is completely and utterly subjective, or is riddled with obvious logical errors (and often all three). When somebody posts such a thing, they shouldn't be surprised so many respond with mockery.
Russia doesn't have the silicon crystal production facilities
If Russia decides some products, like silicon wafers for example, are strategically important and American or other external producers can not be trusted (for security, military or simply business reasons), price becomes a secondary consideration and economies of scale will not matter. Russia can afford to buy the most up to date tools, or they can build their own (maybe not as cheap as others, but that, as I said, wouldn't matter). And I think the Russian leadership still has the courage and political capability to start and finance long term strategic research and development programs, which, unfortunately, the USA leadership seems to have lost lately.
I second the Dresden Files (there are 10 or so books in the universe, and I expect at least another three or more to tie up all the stuff either pending or alluded to). It's well written, funny, with lot of action, and the world is pretty well thought out too. I have to disagree on the Codex Alera though. It's pretty much generic sword and sorcery - totally exchangeable with thousands of others.
You could try some Charles Stross for fun - except for anything in the "Merchant Princes" series. Also, avoid "Saturn's Children" unless you have some interest in fembots, or get aroused thinking of WD-40 or other mineral oils. Try "The Atrocity Archives", or "The Fuller Memorandum" instead.
Try Tim Powers - if you didn't get a chance to read him, he may provide a nice surprise. Start with "The Anubis Gates", continue with "Declare", and maybe "On Stranger Shores" (which, beyond the title, has NOTHING to do with the tragic failure that was the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie)
If you want to go with something more serious, try "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Great book. I've been reading it again and again for more than twenty years now, and it still holds me interested. Or get Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" for a different interpretation on the Satan theme
Gah, all those are top of my mind. I'm sure I can think of dozens more recommendations if I take a few minutes, but, unless you're flying to the moon, you probably won't have time to go through them all:)
People have been poking fun of dictators and monsters for centuries. If you think about it, there's just no good reason to even tolerate these people, but it happens.
Well, as long as it doesn't eclipse the reality of the person or regime's actions, laughter is a good response - moreover, it's the most frustrating reaction dictators of the world can get; any and all of them would much prefer to be a subject of fear or respect in other countries.
The Three Stooges poked merciless fun at Hitler.
For laughter at Hitler's expense, I believe Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" has no equal:).
If, without the encryption key, I can compare two pieces of data to see which plaintext is less than then other, that seems like a huge hole.
Read the GP a bit more carefully (more exactly, the part where it says "The encrypted value of 59,999 is less than the encrypted value of 60,000"). Both the value in the query and the contents of the database are encrypted, and the operator of the database can't read either. The operator can not compare two values without the encryption key - all he sees is an unknown query containing an unknown value, and a number of resulting records, also with unknown values.
I'm not sure whether the query itself is encrypted - but I assume it is, because otherwise it would allow the (untrusted) database operator to run a kind of traffic analysis - in the example, if you ran a number of "where salary > X" queries with different values, the operator will notice that some records are always returned, and some not, and extract some ordering information.
Taking a brutal dictator seriously is exactly the wrong approach. I'd rather remember him as a supporting character in a lowbrow puppet comedy.
That's nice, as long as neither you nor your family or friends can be touched by the ridiculous little man's army or secret police. If you lived in NK though, you'd take him much more seriously.
Please understand - I'm not trying to criticize you; I just personally feel uneasy dismissing Kim with a laugh or a shrug from the safety of the USA, even though sometimes he seemed to make a special effort to build himself into a caricature. But then I remember some footage I saw on the BBC a few years ago, supposedly smuggled from NK, showing the summary executions of a few people from a small village and I don't really feel like laughing anymore.
I would start by allowing free speech, criticism of the government
And you'd be instantly deposed by the second tier of the leadership; the people who made it good during the old regime, and who would be jailed or worse if the regime failed or if it became more democratic.
The first thing you need to do is consolidate your hold on power. Remove the old guard, replace people in key positions with your men. Take special care to ensure control over the armed forces - army, police, people's "militias". Make nice or be sure you control non-governmental leaders of opinion, (like religious figures), if such exist. Keep your people honest enough that they won't have too much of a vested interest in keeping the old society style. Only after that should you start opening your society, maybe during your second or third year or thereabouts.
For a relatively good example see how Gorbachev handled his reforms in the former USSR - he started by calling for changes, but kept specifics rather vague, in the meantime making sure the old apparatchiks were removed from power (for example he replaced the powerful conservative Gromyko with the younger reformist Shervadnadze). About one year later he started with the economic reforms (a.k.a. perestroika), at the same time continuing the consolidation of his position. Only after he was sure of his control, in 1988 (three years after being elected secretary of the communist party), did Gorbatchev introduce the "glasnost" liberalization reforms (greater freedom of speech, greater freedom of the press, less control of criticism of the government, release of a big number of political detainees).
Perestroika didn't work, because Gorbachev, whatever his other qualities, was still a communist at heart, and never pushed the reforms far enough. Glasnost was however quite successful, and, IMHO, was a direct contributor to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and to the subsequent disollution of the USSR.
That's just a right-wing talking point, and not a very good one either. A particular American blind spot is the weird concept that the free unregulated market solves every single problem under the sun. The unexamined application of this idea leads to situations like the health care mess.
Competition in a relatively free market has repeteadely been proven to be the best way to maximize profit. I want to posit that profit maximization is NOT what we want in health care. What we want is HEALTH maximization over the whole population of the country, Applying market rules to health care will not provide the best health; what it will provide instead is maximum profits for the participants that stand to profit. It's easy to see this is true, by comparing the results of the USA system with the situation elsewhere. It's been noted again and again that the USA spends more and gets worse results than most other developed countries. This is a direct result of the fact that the health care system in the USA is geared towards making money, while in other countries it's more focused upon making health.
One good example is the attitude towards prevention: in most cases, prophylaxis is much cheaper than the treatment of the actual disease. In other countries, where regular doctor consultations and preventive treatment are mostly free, lots of people don't develop the disease. In the USA, an uninsured person (and there are tens of millions) may not normally get regular physicals (because they're expensive). Some of them will go on and contract the (preventable) disease, and then be forced to use emergency services. Everybody loses: the patient is now sick, more resources are spent for treatment, emergency care departments (which are mandated by law to accept everybody) are overloaded, and federal and local governments (that is, taxpayers) and the insured (via cost of insurance) end up paying for emergency care at a much higher cost than prophylaxis would have cost.
As usual, the people that profit from this try to twist the system to maximize their gains. They do that by propaganda (as the parent proves), by promoting advantageous legislation, and, in good old corporate tradition, by buying the politicians. See how, during the health care legislation debates, many politicians - most of them Republicans, but a few Democrats as well - objected again and again because some provisions under discussion would cut into the profits of insurance companies. See how they torpedoed single payer because government insurance could use the huge number of subscribers to negociate really good deals from health providers, and private insurers won't be able to compete - if you think for a moment, they really argued the insured shouldn't be given the means to negociate good prices because insurance companies would lose money. NOT ONE of them ever said better health for the population trumps profits. NOT ONE of them realized that their duty is to create legislation to improve people's health, and that insurance companies are not a goal, but just a tool - and maybe not a necessary one at all.
Totally off-topic, but, for your signature I think you should use "Puteulanus fenestra mortis", (blue window of death) not "mortalis" (blue window of mortal).
Free will would mean that the decision is not predictable from the starting conditions, otherwise it isn't free will.
But note that that's not enough: indeed, by setting the starting conditions and the choices, you (or "God") limits the possible decisions. This is just as much an infringement on your free will as forcing you to take a certain decision. For example: the government tells you to vote the "right" way and jails you if you don't. If you vote "the right way" was it really your free will to do so?
In truth, there is no such thing as absolutely free will, not really, so the believer's arguments that use this are fundamentally broken. We're always constrained one way or another, even if the constraint is as basic as the laws of physics.
You might be right; a better question might have been "So what is the next President going to spend the money on with an 'Executive Order'?"
Do you even have to ask? Tax cuts, bailouts, incentives or whatever they call now the payback to the corporations or rich individuals that bought, sorry, "contributed" to his campaign.
Eh? While there were a few designs using 8008 and 6800, I don't think any of them was successful; high volume commercially available PCs used Z80s (the TRS-80, the Sinclair ZX-80 and Spectrum, the MSX machines) or 6502s (Apple II, Atari, Commodore). The successor of the 6800, the excellent 6809 was used in the TRS-80 Color Computer; years later, when IBM launched their PC, they used the reduced data bus version of the 8086, that is the 8088.
1) There is a much larger variety of aircraft in an airport than in an assembly line.
Which is where a robot rules: just download the appropriate manual from the cloud and it's a highly trained mechanic for your particular model (download the log, and it also has all the repair history for that particular plane at it's fingertips, as it were)
Assembly is a much easier problem than repair and maintenance. Computers suck at detection of irregularity so far.
True so far, but they will surely get better. Not to mention that they can use a wide variety of sensors and interface directly with the plane's systems to track changes in real time, or almost.
There is a time factor. Maintenance crews hit the plane as soon as it lands. You would have to have everyone disembark and then move the plane to an assembly then move it back into position and then have it load.
True, so I'll note that robots can be moved close to the tarmac, and made small enough to fit through existing spaces, which avoids the need for disassembly, or for human accessible areas. Heck, they can do some maintenance operations while flying, why not? I can see for example robots crawling the outside of the plane and scraping ice off (of course, some mechanism needs to be designed to keep them on the plane at those speeds).
That robot isn't having to deal with complexity. Where there is a problem it just fails.
The robot doesn't have to be fully autonomous, you know: when a robot fails, it can transfer control to a highly trained operator that takes the robot over the bump and then lets it go back to standard operation. This way, a single engineer can oversee manintenance over lots of planes, replacing lots of human mechanics.
That is, while yes old jobs were destroyed, more new jobs were created because of technological advances.
Yes, that's one of the standard answers; I don't think this will be the case this time (or at least in the longer run). Automation is becoming good enough to fill any jobs normally handled by humans, so the newly created jobs will just go to other machines.
Consider physical work: centuries ago, somebody could earn a living using his physical strength - he could be a porter or a runner. With the invention and development of more powerful machines those jobs have mostly disappeared. You could argue that the industrial revolution has created lots more jobs, where humans could use their mental capabilities - they designed, maintained and operated those machines, and that's true. The computer revolution is challenging the human's mental strengths: already, computers have taken over lots of areas previously not accessible to machines, and the process continues. The sad reality is that we're running out of things humans can do and machines can't. Soon the human base model will simply not be good enough anymore.
Maybe everybody who is a citizen should be guaranteed a minimum standard of living (however we define this)
Guaranteed out of what pot of money? Right now the government has to heavily tax those who work to pay those who don't work, for one reason or another.
There are a number of processes that interact here: on one hand, productivity increases, so the cost of maintaining a minimum standard of living decreases. On the other hand, the number of people who can work decreases - as we already established - so the tax burden per working stiff increases. On the gripping hand, given the current society structure, the results of the increased productivity mostly lead to increasing the income inequality; indeed, despite an amazing growth in productivity, the real average income of American households has stagnated over the last few decennia (another factor there being globalization, who pushes towards the equalization of incomes over the participating markets).
The challenge facing us is to find a way to harmonize those processes, and do so without extreme social upheavals. Of course, following their good tradition, no politician has the courage or vision to mention any of those things.
In my personal view we are already getting there. Massive unemployment and permanent lack of employability of a good part of population (felons, ghetto dwellers, older people, younger people, lower IQ people) leads to formation of a large class of permanently unemployed who are doomed to live on government handouts in ever-expanding slums. The scale of this will only increase because no mechanisms are in place to combat it.
Yup, I think you're absolutely right there. The problem should be recognised and handled somehow. Maybe everybody who is a citizen should be guaranteed a minimum standard of living (however we define this); if he has the will and capability, he can get money by working, and he can improve on his guaranteed minimum. This will keep competition alive, allow extraordinary people to succeed and also take care of the unemployables. As productivity grows, the number of people working will shrink, and the minimum standard of living will improve - for readers familiar with Banks's Culture books, that may be a path leading our society in this direction.
It is indeed "Food of the Gods", Clarke's short story; see here. You may be thinking about H. G. Wells's earlier novel, also named "The Food of the Gods"
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I don't understand the 3D hate. Well, I understand it, but can't for the life of me imagine why people whine and complain about it when virtually every 3D movie is also shown in 2D anyway... some people like 3D, what's wrong with having a choice?
Well, 3D tickets are more expensive, so theaters favor the 3D showings over 2D. At my favorite movie theater, the recent Tintin movie was showing in 3D in two of the best projection rooms, at all hours, while the 2D version was only showing at midday, on a smaller screen, with less performant audio. I went to the 3D showing, and had it definitely confirmed I'm one of the people that get sick at 3D - had to leave about midway through the movie, and I probably won't try another 3D show soon.
And the sad part is, I really don't think it 3D adds much to most movies. It does give Lucas a chance to reissue "Phantom menace" in 3D, but I wouldn't count that in its favor :)
There are no good arguments in favor of the truth of sentience (please feel free to provide any, if you can).
I can no more prove I'm sentient than I can prove God's existance , or you can prove his nonexistance.
To tell you the truth, I feel humbled. It's the first time the Chewbacca defense has been used against me. Sentience doesn't have anything to do with our discussion. I agree that's an interesting philosophical problem, and I don't think it's a completely solved one, but introducing it in the here makes as much sense as introducing the Wookie from Endor (and is just as convincing). Do you have any good arguments for the religious point of view (in which case, please post them), or do you concede such arguments don't exist?
Religious people are religious because they had an indescribable religious experience, not because they've been brainwashed or browbeaten
Sorry, this affirmation is falsified by facts. First, I don't believe all religious people are such because they ALL had a religious experience (though I'd be interested in any citations). I believe most of them are religious because they were taught so by their families and societies. Second, if education, (brainwashing, as you so kindly call it) and browbeating wouldn't have any role, religions wouldn't be consistent over social units (family, tribe, nation). The overwhelming majority of believers happen to match the religion of the family, tribe or country of the person. And, even worse for your argument, the vast majority of religious experiences also tend to match the societal norm of wherever the person lives. This proves religion to be a social construct, as opposed to the representation of an objective reality (such as a god).
Note that I don't deny the existence of religious experiences, but those are totally subjective and properly belong in the realm of psychology or even psychiatry, (like all other halucinations).
You misunderstand "faith". It isn't "having faith that God exists, it's "faith" as in being faithful to God and not worshiping another god, such as money or "mother nature" (the Wiccan god).
Sorry, but that's just meaningless verbiage, and the parts that aren't aren't true. If you're a Christian go study the basics of your religion, starting with the Credo. It says so at the very beginning: Credo in unum Deum, "I believe in one God", not "I'm faithful to God". As to the rest of your statement, how exactly could somebody be "faithful to God" without "having faith that God exists"? No, I understand perfectly what I mean, and you're just trying to confuse the issue.
P.S. I'm sorry about that, I don't usually post on grammar issues, but could you please spell the word "athEIsts", and not "athIEsts"? It's not a big deal, but does tend to break my concentration when reading your messages.
Atheists are absolutely not knowledgeable about "many" religions, or even one. Briefly browsing the wikipedia page doesn't count.
I'm sorry, but you're completely and demonstrably wrong. Studies have shown atheists to be the most knowledgeable about religion: see here. Some quick items from the study: atheists top the religious knowledge survey, with an average of 20.9 correct responses out of 32, followed by Jews and Mormons with 20.5 and 20.3 respectively. White mainline protestants only managed 15.8. Atheists score second only to Jews in the knowledge of world religions, and far above white evangelicals. Also, an interesting quote from here:
American atheists and agnostics tend to be people who grew up in a religious tradition and consciously gave it up, often after a great deal of reflection and study, said Alan Cooperman, associate director for research at the Pew Forum.
"These are people who thought a lot about religion," he said. "They're not indifferent. They care about it."
Ok, let's say there may be some pathological cases, atheists that will not accept any argument, no matter how true. Those would be crazy people, but some of them may exist, so I'm happy to replace the "no atheists" in my post with "few atheists".
Now, I notice you don't bring any of the good arguments for religion I invited you to post in my initial message. What you're doing instead is latching into a complete technicality and using it to launch a rant complete with ad-hominem and complaints about moderation. There's nothing to debate, really, in your post - you're doing exactly the things I described in my first message, so don't be surprised at the results - it's just cause and effect.
what are those domains, why are they important, what makes you say they aren't susceptible to the scientific method, and especially, why do you think religions "deal" with those problems?
What's the meaning of life?
Is there absolute good/evil?
Where do we come from, where do we go to? (both on a personal level - soul, death, ... - and as a species)
First, I'll note that all those are questions, not "domains". Second, all of those are pretty well answered by science, provided you pause first to define your terms. The thing is, though, many people don't like the answers, so they stick their metaphorical fingers in their ears, going "la, la, la, can't hear you".
Meaning of life: biology answered this: (see Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene"). The meaning of life, in it's simplest expression, is propagation. That's how comes we're here, that's what dictates the vast majority of our lifes. If you examine human behavior and history, you'll see how many of the things we do really boil down to two basic impulses: the conservation of the individual, and the conservation of the species.
Is there absolute good/evil?
First, you should define good and evil; looking at history, a lot of things we consider now "evil" used to be "good"; the reverse is true as well. Genocide, for example, now considered one of the worst possible crimes. In the Bible, however, God orders genocidal warfare of the Canaanites, and the Midianites. And, since it's a godly command, the genocide is, by religious definition, absolutely good.
Returning to your question, I guess the closest we can come to building an absolute ethical system should be to build upon the same biological basis I mentioned before. The conservation and propagation of life (yours and others') should be considered a "good" goal, something worth doing. Many already existent ethical norms can be deduced from here: for your self preservation, keep moderation in things, respect of societal norms, avoidance of conflict, good value of a "virtuous" life. For species preservation, care for children (yours and others), the good value of charity, "love thy neighbor", self-sacrifice if it helps others, and many others.
Where do we come from, where do we go to?
As a person, you come from a fertilized cell and end up as worm food. Everything else is wishful thinking. As a species we come from the trees, and, (if we're lucky) we'll end up in space. As life, we don't know (yet) where we come from, but people are looking into it, and good progress is made towards finding up how life first appeared
Of course, many people won't accept those answers. We HAVE to be more than uppity monkeys! There HAS to be more to life. I CAN'T just stop existing! It's this pesky biology again, an impulse deeply rooted into us, built through the ages by the very fact we (as living organisms) are the survivors and the descendents of survivors. In many cases reason (only present in the human species for a few measly millions of years) loses the fight to the billion years old impulse to live - so people fear death, and when confronted with it, often abandon reason and embace fantasies that promise them souls, heaven, eternal life and ultimately assuage the fear.
religions deal with a problem domains which are important but not susceptible to the scientific method.
Ok, I'll bite: what are those domains, why are they important, what makes you say they aren't susceptible to the scientific method, and especially, why do you think religions "deal" with those problems?
As far as I can see, the only problems religion may pretend to solve are convincing people to follow an arbitrary set of social norms, improving social cohesiveness in homogenous societies and providing a psychological crutch to people too weak to (mentally) stand on their own feet (as the man said, religion is the opium of the people). That's sometimes useful, in particular to political, military or religious leaders (since it provides a docile population). It can also be a big problem, when religion is used as a weapon, as we can see now in the Middle East, and have seen before all over the world. Note that nothing above doesn't imply that religion is true, only that it causes the followers to behave a certain way (which is a problem of psychology, not theology).
Maybe I misunderstood your post, and what you mean is that religion is a mental virus (a meme, if you want to use Dawkins' concept); that I'll give you, and agree that current religions are the successful ones, which have managed to survive and propagate. But that doesn't make them true, as survival and propagation of the flu virus doesn't make it worth worshipping.
If you post an argument in favor of religion, it does not get discussed. It gets mocked and downmodded
That's because the argument in question seldom deserves more than mockery. There are no good arguments in favor of the truth of religion (please feel free to provide any, if you can), or there would be no atheists. Even many organized religions are aware of that, which is why they insist so much on faith.
Philosophers have devised, over the years, a number of relatively complex arguments for the existence of God. None of them is unarguably true, and, unfortunately, the usual pro-religion post on Slashdot seldom rises to that intellectual level. The usual pro-religion post is a rant, or is completely and utterly subjective, or is riddled with obvious logical errors (and often all three). When somebody posts such a thing, they shouldn't be surprised so many respond with mockery.
Russia doesn't have the silicon crystal production facilities
If Russia decides some products, like silicon wafers for example, are strategically important and American or other external producers can not be trusted (for security, military or simply business reasons), price becomes a secondary consideration and economies of scale will not matter. Russia can afford to buy the most up to date tools, or they can build their own (maybe not as cheap as others, but that, as I said, wouldn't matter). And I think the Russian leadership still has the courage and political capability to start and finance long term strategic research and development programs, which, unfortunately, the USA leadership seems to have lost lately.
either Dresden Files or Codex Alera
I second the Dresden Files (there are 10 or so books in the universe, and I expect at least another three or more to tie up all the stuff either pending or alluded to). It's well written, funny, with lot of action, and the world is pretty well thought out too. I have to disagree on the Codex Alera though. It's pretty much generic sword and sorcery - totally exchangeable with thousands of others.
You could try some Charles Stross for fun - except for anything in the "Merchant Princes" series. Also, avoid "Saturn's Children" unless you have some interest in fembots, or get aroused thinking of WD-40 or other mineral oils. Try "The Atrocity Archives", or "The Fuller Memorandum" instead.
Try Tim Powers - if you didn't get a chance to read him, he may provide a nice surprise. Start with "The Anubis Gates", continue with "Declare", and maybe "On Stranger Shores" (which, beyond the title, has NOTHING to do with the tragic failure that was the fourth "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie)
If you want to go with something more serious, try "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Great book. I've been reading it again and again for more than twenty years now, and it still holds me interested. Or get Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" for a different interpretation on the Satan theme
Gah, all those are top of my mind. I'm sure I can think of dozens more recommendations if I take a few minutes, but, unless you're flying to the moon, you probably won't have time to go through them all :)
People have been poking fun of dictators and monsters for centuries. If you think about it, there's just no good reason to even tolerate these people, but it happens.
Well, as long as it doesn't eclipse the reality of the person or regime's actions, laughter is a good response - moreover, it's the most frustrating reaction dictators of the world can get; any and all of them would much prefer to be a subject of fear or respect in other countries.
The Three Stooges poked merciless fun at Hitler.
For laughter at Hitler's expense, I believe Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" has no equal
If, without the encryption key, I can compare two pieces of data to see which plaintext is less than then other, that seems like a huge hole.
Read the GP a bit more carefully (more exactly, the part where it says "The encrypted value of 59,999 is less than the encrypted value of 60,000"). Both the value in the query and the contents of the database are encrypted, and the operator of the database can't read either. The operator can not compare two values without the encryption key - all he sees is an unknown query containing an unknown value, and a number of resulting records, also with unknown values.
I'm not sure whether the query itself is encrypted - but I assume it is, because otherwise it would allow the (untrusted) database operator to run a kind of traffic analysis - in the example, if you ran a number of "where salary > X" queries with different values, the operator will notice that some records are always returned, and some not, and extract some ordering information.
Taking a brutal dictator seriously is exactly the wrong approach. I'd rather remember him as a supporting character in a lowbrow puppet comedy.
That's nice, as long as neither you nor your family or friends can be touched by the ridiculous little man's army or secret police. If you lived in NK though, you'd take him much more seriously.
Please understand - I'm not trying to criticize you; I just personally feel uneasy dismissing Kim with a laugh or a shrug from the safety of the USA, even though sometimes he seemed to make a special effort to build himself into a caricature. But then I remember some footage I saw on the BBC a few years ago, supposedly smuggled from NK, showing the summary executions of a few people from a small village and I don't really feel like laughing anymore.
An excellent idea. When I am king, you shall be my chief consultant and right-hand man.
Grand Vizier ChatHuant: [*very* dryly] Ecstatic...
I would start by allowing free speech, criticism of the government
And you'd be instantly deposed by the second tier of the leadership; the people who made it good during the old regime, and who would be jailed or worse if the regime failed or if it became more democratic.
The first thing you need to do is consolidate your hold on power. Remove the old guard, replace people in key positions with your men. Take special care to ensure control over the armed forces - army, police, people's "militias". Make nice or be sure you control non-governmental leaders of opinion, (like religious figures), if such exist. Keep your people honest enough that they won't have too much of a vested interest in keeping the old society style. Only after that should you start opening your society, maybe during your second or third year or thereabouts.
For a relatively good example see how Gorbachev handled his reforms in the former USSR - he started by calling for changes, but kept specifics rather vague, in the meantime making sure the old apparatchiks were removed from power (for example he replaced the powerful conservative Gromyko with the younger reformist Shervadnadze). About one year later he started with the economic reforms (a.k.a. perestroika), at the same time continuing the consolidation of his position. Only after he was sure of his control, in 1988 (three years after being elected secretary of the communist party), did Gorbatchev introduce the "glasnost" liberalization reforms (greater freedom of speech, greater freedom of the press, less control of criticism of the government, release of a big number of political detainees).
Perestroika didn't work, because Gorbachev, whatever his other qualities, was still a communist at heart, and never pushed the reforms far enough. Glasnost was however quite successful, and, IMHO, was a direct contributor to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and to the subsequent disollution of the USSR.
Affordable health care is a pipe dream.
So long as you let government control it, yes.
That's just a right-wing talking point, and not a very good one either. A particular American blind spot is the weird concept that the free unregulated market solves every single problem under the sun. The unexamined application of this idea leads to situations like the health care mess.
Competition in a relatively free market has repeteadely been proven to be the best way to maximize profit. I want to posit that profit maximization is NOT what we want in health care. What we want is HEALTH maximization over the whole population of the country, Applying market rules to health care will not provide the best health; what it will provide instead is maximum profits for the participants that stand to profit. It's easy to see this is true, by comparing the results of the USA system with the situation elsewhere. It's been noted again and again that the USA spends more and gets worse results than most other developed countries. This is a direct result of the fact that the health care system in the USA is geared towards making money, while in other countries it's more focused upon making health.
One good example is the attitude towards prevention: in most cases, prophylaxis is much cheaper than the treatment of the actual disease. In other countries, where regular doctor consultations and preventive treatment are mostly free, lots of people don't develop the disease. In the USA, an uninsured person (and there are tens of millions) may not normally get regular physicals (because they're expensive). Some of them will go on and contract the (preventable) disease, and then be forced to use emergency services. Everybody loses: the patient is now sick, more resources are spent for treatment, emergency care departments (which are mandated by law to accept everybody) are overloaded, and federal and local governments (that is, taxpayers) and the insured (via cost of insurance) end up paying for emergency care at a much higher cost than prophylaxis would have cost.
As usual, the people that profit from this try to twist the system to maximize their gains. They do that by propaganda (as the parent proves), by promoting advantageous legislation, and, in good old corporate tradition, by buying the politicians. See how, during the health care legislation debates, many politicians - most of them Republicans, but a few Democrats as well - objected again and again because some provisions under discussion would cut into the profits of insurance companies. See how they torpedoed single payer because government insurance could use the huge number of subscribers to negociate really good deals from health providers, and private insurers won't be able to compete - if you think for a moment, they really argued the insured shouldn't be given the means to negociate good prices because insurance companies would lose money. NOT ONE of them ever said better health for the population trumps profits. NOT ONE of them realized that their duty is to create legislation to improve people's health, and that insurance companies are not a goal, but just a tool - and maybe not a necessary one at all.
Totally off-topic, but, for your signature I think you should use "Puteulanus fenestra mortis", (blue window of death) not "mortalis" (blue window of mortal).
Free will would mean that the decision is not predictable from the starting conditions, otherwise it isn't free will.
But note that that's not enough: indeed, by setting the starting conditions and the choices, you (or "God") limits the possible decisions. This is just as much an infringement on your free will as forcing you to take a certain decision. For example: the government tells you to vote the "right" way and jails you if you don't. If you vote "the right way" was it really your free will to do so?
In truth, there is no such thing as absolutely free will, not really, so the believer's arguments that use this are fundamentally broken. We're always constrained one way or another, even if the constraint is as basic as the laws of physics.
You might be right; a better question might have been "So what is the next President going to spend the money on with an 'Executive Order'?"
Do you even have to ask? Tax cuts, bailouts, incentives or whatever they call now the payback to the corporations or rich individuals that bought, sorry, "contributed" to his campaign.
Yeah, well, what if you don't have an email address?
Perhaps closer to reality, what if you don't have any friends?
8008, 6800, and 8086
Eh? While there were a few designs using 8008 and 6800, I don't think any of them was successful; high volume commercially available PCs used Z80s (the TRS-80, the Sinclair ZX-80 and Spectrum, the MSX machines) or 6502s (Apple II, Atari, Commodore). The successor of the 6800, the excellent 6809 was used in the TRS-80 Color Computer; years later, when IBM launched their PC, they used the reduced data bus version of the 8086, that is the 8088.
1) There is a much larger variety of aircraft in an airport than in an assembly line.
Which is where a robot rules: just download the appropriate manual from the cloud and it's a highly trained mechanic for your particular model (download the log, and it also has all the repair history for that particular plane at it's fingertips, as it were)
Assembly is a much easier problem than repair and maintenance. Computers suck at detection of irregularity so far.
True so far, but they will surely get better. Not to mention that they can use a wide variety of sensors and interface directly with the plane's systems to track changes in real time, or almost.
There is a time factor. Maintenance crews hit the plane as soon as it lands. You would have to have everyone disembark and then move the plane to an assembly then move it back into position and then have it load.
True, so I'll note that robots can be moved close to the tarmac, and made small enough to fit through existing spaces, which avoids the need for disassembly, or for human accessible areas. Heck, they can do some maintenance operations while flying, why not? I can see for example robots crawling the outside of the plane and scraping ice off (of course, some mechanism needs to be designed to keep them on the plane at those speeds).
That robot isn't having to deal with complexity. Where there is a problem it just fails.
The robot doesn't have to be fully autonomous, you know: when a robot fails, it can transfer control to a highly trained operator that takes the robot over the bump and then lets it go back to standard operation. This way, a single engineer can oversee manintenance over lots of planes, replacing lots of human mechanics.
That is, while yes old jobs were destroyed, more new jobs were created because of technological advances.
Yes, that's one of the standard answers; I don't think this will be the case this time (or at least in the longer run). Automation is becoming good enough to fill any jobs normally handled by humans, so the newly created jobs will just go to other machines.
Consider physical work: centuries ago, somebody could earn a living using his physical strength - he could be a porter or a runner. With the invention and development of more powerful machines those jobs have mostly disappeared. You could argue that the industrial revolution has created lots more jobs, where humans could use their mental capabilities - they designed, maintained and operated those machines, and that's true. The computer revolution is challenging the human's mental strengths: already, computers have taken over lots of areas previously not accessible to machines, and the process continues. The sad reality is that we're running out of things humans can do and machines can't. Soon the human base model will simply not be good enough anymore.
Maybe everybody who is a citizen should be guaranteed a minimum standard of living (however we define this)
Guaranteed out of what pot of money? Right now the government has to heavily tax those who work to pay those who don't work, for one reason or another.
There are a number of processes that interact here: on one hand, productivity increases, so the cost of maintaining a minimum standard of living decreases. On the other hand, the number of people who can work decreases - as we already established - so the tax burden per working stiff increases. On the gripping hand, given the current society structure, the results of the increased productivity mostly lead to increasing the income inequality; indeed, despite an amazing growth in productivity, the real average income of American households has stagnated over the last few decennia (another factor there being globalization, who pushes towards the equalization of incomes over the participating markets).
The challenge facing us is to find a way to harmonize those processes, and do so without extreme social upheavals. Of course, following their good tradition, no politician has the courage or vision to mention any of those things.
In my personal view we are already getting there. Massive unemployment and permanent lack of employability of a good part of population (felons, ghetto dwellers, older people, younger people, lower IQ people) leads to formation of a large class of permanently unemployed who are doomed to live on government handouts in ever-expanding slums. The scale of this will only increase because no mechanisms are in place to combat it.
Yup, I think you're absolutely right there. The problem should be recognised and handled somehow. Maybe everybody who is a citizen should be guaranteed a minimum standard of living (however we define this); if he has the will and capability, he can get money by working, and he can improve on his guaranteed minimum. This will keep competition alive, allow extraordinary people to succeed and also take care of the unemployables. As productivity grows, the number of people working will shrink, and the minimum standard of living will improve - for readers familiar with Banks's Culture books, that may be a path leading our society in this direction.
Not Food of the Gods.
It is indeed "Food of the Gods", Clarke's short story; see here. You may be thinking about H. G. Wells's earlier novel, also named "The Food of the Gods"