Actually, many people do in fact 'Get It' on that point. And even in your analogy, people say 'why are you not making with the wind budget?' Yes, the research in embyronic stem celss can be ethically ambigous. However, that does not in most peoples minds mean closing our eyes or turning money away from it.
For many people, the idea of federal money is a win-win. For one thing, at that point we know, or think we know, that the subject is being researched by qualified men and women. (I feel so gullible typing that) Second, we believe that all of the research is being conducted openly and above board. I do not mean that every step is being examined by a ethics committee. I mean that hopefully at the end of the research, knowing that it will all be published later, the researchers have not commuitted any crimes to get fast results. Because they have federal funding and aren't being whipped for fast results by unscrupulous corporate masters.
I suppose the bad thing about federal money is a bloated budget, ethics oversight at every step and general slowness for results to be chewed and re-chewed before they see the light of day.
I can't say I have personal knowledge of any of these things but that is what I think of, in general, when the issue comes up.
Maybe we are mixing quality of life issues with necesities. Shelter is not necesary, judging by the still twitching homeless, but apparently desirable. I do not like using gasoline as a means to power locomotion. I do not like commuting to work. But given the many aspects of my life that I do like, the convenience and necessity of operating a motor vehicle is undeniable. While it may be true that there are benefits to the absence of such vehicles, that simply ignores the progression of technology and the needs that drove those developments.
If you put everyone back on foot, bicycle and horse, don't be certain everything will come up roses.
Calling it an addiction is just inflammatory. It is not an addiction. It is a dependency but if any acceptable, efficient and cost effective alternative were to become available it would be welcome. I guess you would just call it a 'new drug'. That is equivalent to saying I am 'hooked' on breathing the air and always looking for my food 'fix' while 'craving' a place to satisfy my shelter/safety needs. Yay!
Run simulator to determine physical properties of new material for each likely configuration.
Running this process against a large set of theoretical materials and saving those results into a database and allowing data mining on those results would allow materials scientists to perhaps cherry pick their next effort or research direction. Highest tensile strength material with low specific weight? Or some such thing, not to be specific but if the list returned could be then produced in a lab and verified, that would be pretty useful.
It might even lead the discovery of 'unnatural' material configurations. For example, taking a known material and forcing the simulator to run against contrived or non-optimal configurations might yield interesting and perhaps highly desirable results.
I think it was clear in the article that they know how it might have happened. The question is why here, why now, why so much and for how long.
The funny thing for me is that upon reading this I immediately started thinking of ways to 'fix' it. My first idea was to place air pumps on buoys every 100' or so that push air to the sea floor. Then I thought maybe a pipe or cable that pushed air with small leaks at regular intervals. But such interence is usually too costly and generally short-sighted.
Those are good points and I suspect that is exactly why they chose this game. Remember they do not want to create a perfect poker playing bot. That is not the goal at all. Texas Hold Em is just a means to the end, which is, in fact, better AI. And everything you just stated would be good stuff for an AI to *try* to deal with. Is the player bluffing or being tricky or not very good? Or all three? These are things that a good AI *might* be able to answer. And if it can answer those type's of questions it might be able to play the game.
For example, you state that you can't know if a player likes to bluff because an effective bluffer never show's his cards or at least not very often. I would counter that you can tell who the effective bluffer is. They tend to win.
Actually, the (tagging beta) is indicative of just that. Now, if you in turn argue that -1 articles should not be posted? I would disagree and say that they would be threshold viewable just like posts. Some people love a good flame war:)
I'm no expert but it seems to me that in a static system the answer would be yes. Fortunately, we do not live in a static system. Unfortunately, the ultimate consumer has already arrived. Us. We are not just meat eaters nor vegetarians. We consume the Earth itself and our (industrial) waste is far more harmful to the environment than the waste of any other species.
And looking at the modern era we see many examples of people railing against the destruction. Imagine if pollution were never checked? Imagine if species were never protected? I mean, just think for a moment if simply no one cared. I think the planet would be alot uglier. I mean it's a big place but destruction on a massive scale does happen. And if no effort were made to re-plant? Or clean up toxic spills?
Wait a sec? Are you saying that a practictioner of Yoga and self heal better or that a Yogi master can heal anyone? You make it sound like these great 'healers' have been running around curing cancer and closing bullet wounds. I guess we are just to western-biased and technology-oriented to see it?
I like your reasoning and pretty much agree with it. However, I think your conclusion is a bit too content with your current situation/social station. The way I see it there are 2 different approaches to this future change. Either a few individuals make the leap and guide the rest (who remain stagnant) or we all ascend together.
For the latter: It is not a question of "What will we need it for". The question is "Is it accessible". Here the word 'accessible' is absolutely important and damn near all encompassing. Economically, availability, ergonomically, safely and aesthetically. Trade offs can be made, this for that, but at no time can any one category become fully compromised. Those are the rules of mass production and/or consumption, imho.
For the former: The questions are "Is it possible?" and "Will the leap be high enough to be significant?" Here it doesn't matter if the process is terribly costly. At some point someone is going to try it. And if they succeed in become some man-machine or simply ascend biologically, the question becomes how high have they ascended and what path do they take from there. Looking at history it looks like they exit stage left or self-destruct or lead a bunch of people to ruin.
See that is the singularity. When the person hits the apex, we do not know what they see. Maybe they just see more mountain to climb or perhaps they see a path greatness or ruin. Don't know.
Medically speaking, do you think there is no good reason for everyone on earth to fully record and remember their entire life-span? Even when said life-span is drawn out like a wire to stretch for 100's, perhaps thousands of years? Just to process that much data would require significantly greater mental acuity and speed. Or do you think that regardless of life-span we only really need access to the relevant bits and a rolling memory of 10 years or so?
Here's a question. Let's say somewhere in Europe a young fellow bonks his head rolling cheese down a hillside. When he awakes he is able to levitate things with his mind. 100% pure telekinesis but in a dream he had, while unconscious, Merlin came to him and told him he would be able to do it and showed him how. It's magic. Now this fellow is able to do it and able to teach it to people as well. Would you want to learn it?
Economically: How much is he charging to teach it? Availability: Can the folks he teaches also teach it? Ergonomically: How much effort is required to learn it? Safely: Does he half to crack your skull with the magic chesse wheel? Aesthetically: Do you sweat blood and reek of bile when floating object with the mind?
Well? If the answer to all those questions is: $29.95 Yes, and they charge the same price. It's just hard enough to feel like you earned it. It's safer than getting out of bed in the morning. Nope. No visible change.
Admit it.. you would get yourself some magic. Which is indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology. Or so I read.
LOL, I seriously doubt they allowed a hardness test to be done on the gem. It requires indentations be made and then measured, unless I am mistaken. And while the latest greatest tools might make very small indents the risk would seem to great for a treasure of King Tut. On the other hand, the refraction index and the static charge are more believable tests.
Because in the off chance that it works you will have out-stayed your welcome? Not really and that could easily apply to all medical technology. The difference is that most people accept living our lives in our given time with a pretty set (and arbitrary) life-span expectation. You seek to live your life in both our time and someone elses (aka the future).
Not saying you are wrong but it does cause clutter and use resources. That makes it sticky to me. Plus, if it were applied universally and everyone set aside a cyro-box for themselves for some future date, would we run out of space and resources before we found the imagined cures we hope to see in the future? And if said cures/technology never emerged would we simply have wasted all of those resources?
Well, all that aside, I see no real problem with what people do with their time and money or their hope for the future. I thought the article's reference to sticky ethical issue was refering to the inherent risk of freezing someone to death and them not making it back. The sticky part is the question of: Would they have lived without the freezing? But to me, it's the same with any risky medical procedure: Sometimes you have to take a chance and hope for the best.
I won't disagree with your research since you have perhaps actively dealt with these institutions who would purportedly provide the services. However, I do wonder about this point. The people who seek these treatments are not looking for a soulless droid child. They are people like yourself, seeking a child to love. And underlying the desire for children is the genuine desire to see oneself truly in the child, i.e. biological descendant.
Now, this idea of husbandry of humans! Eugenics, is it? Not sure but I have sometimes wondered where the super clones and genetically superior, super soldiers of the government might be hiding. I mean if one looks back to the science of the 40's and 50's and just the absolutely ruthless methods of those government scientists combined with the desperation of large portions of the population... They really did get away with murder. I suspect there is a very real reason that the government knows how much a zinc (or other trace element) a person needs to live or exactly how much cyanide it takes to kill a man.
I think you have several warring ideas that you see united and I do not. For example, the notion of building and sustaining a peaceful world. That's a big one and I do not think accepting or declining the use of clinical fertility will push the line on that one way or the other. I am not certain that the material view must lead to destruction. I find that it is the people with nice things that praise order and seek to preserve it.
In fact, there was an article regarding Somalia today which emphasised the establishment of the authority of the Union of Islamic Courts. Guess who pushed hardest for their authority? The merchants, not the muslim faithful. The majority are afraid of the brutality of Islamic law but everyone needs relief from the chaos.
I missed this in the article? Did it imply that a female set of stem cells with form into sperm cells? I did gather that a given set of stems cells with form various cells and that of those some will be of the spermy inclination. I made the assumption (possibly bad) that the stem cells were not fundamentally genderless.
I agree with your purchasing analogy. No matter how well intentioned the agency, once the child changes hands no guarantee can be made to safegard them other than the law of the land and eye of the community in which they are raised.
Fortunately for most adopted children, most parents seeking children are good people and most angencies that place them scare off the obvious predators.
And on the bright side there is evidence of a decreasing population. Although as a parent I have found myself in an intreresting situation you may find amusing. I have a few friends who are essentially confirmed bachelors who intend to remains so. These are good guys, smart, healthy and (without sounding too gay) attractive. So I am hanging out one day and kids come up and they are like 'no thanks' and suddenly it hits me. Wait a sec. These assholes are supposed to be contributing to my kids dating pool. I mean my kids are going to be shortchanged because these guys are making an honest effort to give em a proper selection. Needless to say I chewed em out and told em to get on the job and we all had a good laugh. Still I wonder...
Slashdot Mirror
That's when we will say "There is no wire."
hmm.... in the not so distant future?
;)
'Hey, honey, let's head down to 8th and liberty, put on a show and make a few bucks?'
As long as the commissions pay more than the fines cost
Actually, many people do in fact 'Get It' on that point. And even in your analogy, people say 'why are you not making with the wind budget?' Yes, the research in embyronic stem celss can be ethically ambigous. However, that does not in most peoples minds mean closing our eyes or turning money away from it.
For many people, the idea of federal money is a win-win. For one thing, at that point we know, or think we know, that the subject is being researched by qualified men and women. (I feel so gullible typing that) Second, we believe that all of the research is being conducted openly and above board. I do not mean that every step is being examined by a ethics committee. I mean that hopefully at the end of the research, knowing that it will all be published later, the researchers have not commuitted any crimes to get fast results. Because they have federal funding and aren't being whipped for fast results by unscrupulous corporate masters.
I suppose the bad thing about federal money is a bloated budget, ethics oversight at every step and general slowness for results to be chewed and re-chewed before they see the light of day.
I can't say I have personal knowledge of any of these things but that is what I think of, in general, when the issue comes up.
And why don't you post as non-AC. You obviously care a great deal about the subject.
Maybe we are mixing quality of life issues with necesities. Shelter is not necesary, judging by the still twitching homeless, but apparently desirable. I do not like using gasoline as a means to power locomotion. I do not like commuting to work. But given the many aspects of my life that I do like, the convenience and necessity of operating a motor vehicle is undeniable. While it may be true that there are benefits to the absence of such vehicles, that simply ignores the progression of technology and the needs that drove those developments.
If you put everyone back on foot, bicycle and horse, don't be certain everything will come up roses.
Calling it an addiction is just inflammatory. It is not an addiction. It is a dependency but if any acceptable, efficient and cost effective alternative were to become available it would be welcome. I guess you would just call it a 'new drug'. That is equivalent to saying I am 'hooked' on breathing the air and always looking for my food 'fix' while 'craving' a place to satisfy my shelter/safety needs. Yay!
It's the record profits being reaped on the other side of the transaction.
If I understand this correctly:
Select theoretical material.
Determine subset of likely configurations.
Run simulator to determine physical properties of new material for each likely configuration.
Running this process against a large set of theoretical materials and saving those results into a database and allowing data mining on those results would allow materials scientists to perhaps cherry pick their next effort or research direction. Highest tensile strength material with low specific weight? Or some such thing, not to be specific but if the list returned could be then produced in a lab and verified, that would be pretty useful.
It might even lead the discovery of 'unnatural' material configurations. For example, taking a known material and forcing the simulator to run against contrived or non-optimal configurations might yield interesting and perhaps highly desirable results.
It's a trap!
I think it was clear in the article that they know how it might have happened. The question is why here, why now, why so much and for how long.
The funny thing for me is that upon reading this I immediately started thinking of ways to 'fix' it. My first idea was to place air pumps on buoys every 100' or so that push air to the sea floor. Then I thought maybe a pipe or cable that pushed air with small leaks at regular intervals. But such interence is usually too costly and generally short-sighted.
you forgot the 'whooshing' sound :)
Those are good points and I suspect that is exactly why they chose this game. Remember they do not want to create a perfect poker playing bot. That is not the goal at all. Texas Hold Em is just a means to the end, which is, in fact, better AI. And everything you just stated would be good stuff for an AI to *try* to deal with. Is the player bluffing or being tricky or not very good? Or all three? These are things that a good AI *might* be able to answer. And if it can answer those type's of questions it might be able to play the game.
For example, you state that you can't know if a player likes to bluff because an effective bluffer never show's his cards or at least not very often. I would counter that you can tell who the effective bluffer is. They tend to win.
Does it affect overall energy output?
Actually, the (tagging beta) is indicative of just that. Now, if you in turn argue that -1 articles should not be posted? I would disagree and say that they would be threshold viewable just like posts. Some people love a good flame war :)
I'm no expert but it seems to me that in a static system the answer would be yes. Fortunately, we do not live in a static system. Unfortunately, the ultimate consumer has already arrived. Us. We are not just meat eaters nor vegetarians. We consume the Earth itself and our (industrial) waste is far more harmful to the environment than the waste of any other species.
And looking at the modern era we see many examples of people railing against the destruction. Imagine if pollution were never checked? Imagine if species were never protected? I mean, just think for a moment if simply no one cared. I think the planet would be alot uglier. I mean it's a big place but destruction on a massive scale does happen. And if no effort were made to re-plant? Or clean up toxic spills?
Ha! The palestinians do not want rights. they want Isreal to cease existing. how many Isreali lives are saved by the removal of the state of Isreal?
Wait a sec? Are you saying that a practictioner of Yoga and self heal better or that a Yogi master can heal anyone? You make it sound like these great 'healers' have been running around curing cancer and closing bullet wounds. I guess we are just to western-biased and technology-oriented to see it?
I like your reasoning and pretty much agree with it. However, I think your conclusion is a bit too content with your current situation/social station. The way I see it there are 2 different approaches to this future change. Either a few individuals make the leap and guide the rest (who remain stagnant) or we all ascend together.
For the latter: It is not a question of "What will we need it for". The question is "Is it accessible". Here the word 'accessible' is absolutely important and damn near all encompassing. Economically, availability, ergonomically, safely and aesthetically. Trade offs can be made, this for that, but at no time can any one category become fully compromised. Those are the rules of mass production and/or consumption, imho.
For the former: The questions are "Is it possible?" and "Will the leap be high enough to be significant?" Here it doesn't matter if the process is terribly costly. At some point someone is going to try it. And if they succeed in become some man-machine or simply ascend biologically, the question becomes how high have they ascended and what path do they take from there. Looking at history it looks like they exit stage left or self-destruct or lead a bunch of people to ruin.
See that is the singularity. When the person hits the apex, we do not know what they see. Maybe they just see more mountain to climb or perhaps they see a path greatness or ruin. Don't know.
Medically speaking, do you think there is no good reason for everyone on earth to fully record and remember their entire life-span? Even when said life-span is drawn out like a wire to stretch for 100's, perhaps thousands of years? Just to process that much data would require significantly greater mental acuity and speed. Or do you think that regardless of life-span we only really need access to the relevant bits and a rolling memory of 10 years or so?
Here's a question. Let's say somewhere in Europe a young fellow bonks his head rolling cheese down a hillside. When he awakes he is able to levitate things with his mind. 100% pure telekinesis but in a dream he had, while unconscious, Merlin came to him and told him he would be able to do it and showed him how. It's magic. Now this fellow is able to do it and able to teach it to people as well. Would you want to learn it?
Economically: How much is he charging to teach it?
Availability: Can the folks he teaches also teach it?
Ergonomically: How much effort is required to learn it?
Safely: Does he half to crack your skull with the magic chesse wheel?
Aesthetically: Do you sweat blood and reek of bile when floating object with the mind?
Well? If the answer to all those questions is:
$29.95
Yes, and they charge the same price.
It's just hard enough to feel like you earned it.
It's safer than getting out of bed in the morning.
Nope. No visible change.
Admit it.. you would get yourself some magic. Which is indistinguishable from sufficiently advanced technology. Or so I read.
LOL, I seriously doubt they allowed a hardness test to be done on the gem. It requires indentations be made and then measured, unless I am mistaken. And while the latest greatest tools might make very small indents the risk would seem to great for a treasure of King Tut. On the other hand, the refraction index and the static charge are more believable tests.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockwell_scale
Often scientific curiousity takes a backseat to preservation, as well it should.
It's not really faster. It's taken that one guy over a decade and still no results.
You really do make up the best nick names :)
Joe Mopbuckett lol
Because in the off chance that it works you will have out-stayed your welcome? Not really and that could easily apply to all medical technology. The difference is that most people accept living our lives in our given time with a pretty set (and arbitrary) life-span expectation. You seek to live your life in both our time and someone elses (aka the future).
Not saying you are wrong but it does cause clutter and use resources. That makes it sticky to me. Plus, if it were applied universally and everyone set aside a cyro-box for themselves for some future date, would we run out of space and resources before we found the imagined cures we hope to see in the future? And if said cures/technology never emerged would we simply have wasted all of those resources?
Well, all that aside, I see no real problem with what people do with their time and money or their hope for the future. I thought the article's reference to sticky ethical issue was refering to the inherent risk of freezing someone to death and them not making it back. The sticky part is the question of: Would they have lived without the freezing? But to me, it's the same with any risky medical procedure: Sometimes you have to take a chance and hope for the best.
I won't disagree with your research since you have perhaps actively dealt with these institutions who would purportedly provide the services. However, I do wonder about this point. The people who seek these treatments are not looking for a soulless droid child. They are people like yourself, seeking a child to love. And underlying the desire for children is the genuine desire to see oneself truly in the child, i.e. biological descendant.
Now, this idea of husbandry of humans! Eugenics, is it? Not sure but I have sometimes wondered where the super clones and genetically superior, super soldiers of the government might be hiding. I mean if one looks back to the science of the 40's and 50's and just the absolutely ruthless methods of those government scientists combined with the desperation of large portions of the population... They really did get away with murder. I suspect there is a very real reason that the government knows how much a zinc (or other trace element) a person needs to live or exactly how much cyanide it takes to kill a man.
I think you have several warring ideas that you see united and I do not. For example, the notion of building and sustaining a peaceful world. That's a big one and I do not think accepting or declining the use of clinical fertility will push the line on that one way or the other. I am not certain that the material view must lead to destruction. I find that it is the people with nice things that praise order and seek to preserve it.
In fact, there was an article regarding Somalia today which emphasised the establishment of the authority of the Union of Islamic Courts. Guess who pushed hardest for their authority? The merchants, not the muslim faithful. The majority are afraid of the brutality of Islamic law but everyone needs relief from the chaos.
I missed this in the article? Did it imply that a female set of stem cells with form into sperm cells? I did gather that a given set of stems cells with form various cells and that of those some will be of the spermy inclination. I made the assumption (possibly bad) that the stem cells were not fundamentally genderless.
I agree with your purchasing analogy. No matter how well intentioned the agency, once the child changes hands no guarantee can be made to safegard them other than the law of the land and eye of the community in which they are raised.
Fortunately for most adopted children, most parents seeking children are good people and most angencies that place them scare off the obvious predators.
And on the bright side there is evidence of a decreasing population. Although as a parent I have found myself in an intreresting situation you may find amusing. I have a few friends who are essentially confirmed bachelors who intend to remains so. These are good guys, smart, healthy and (without sounding too gay) attractive. So I am hanging out one day and kids come up and they are like 'no thanks' and suddenly it hits me. Wait a sec. These assholes are supposed to be contributing to my kids dating pool. I mean my kids are going to be shortchanged because these guys are making an honest effort to give em a proper selection. Needless to say I chewed em out and told em to get on the job and we all had a good laugh. Still I wonder...