Intelligence is one solution to the problem; a solution that has been used by a lot of species since the first nerve fibers joined together to form a primitive ganglion. But it's hardly the only solution. In sheer biomass, E. coli has all the multicellular animals with brains beat, because its solution to the problem of survival is to reproduce very frequently. In reality, that works really well, which is why most of the life on Earth is in fact prokaryotes. All the eukaryotes are just sort of an icing on the cake, and a rather thin frosting at that.
It happened at least once, which makes it happening other times more likely. When you factor in the sheer number of potentially habitable worlds in the Universe, it's hard to argue that somewhere in those vast stretches of time and space, other worlds haven't produced life, and that a few of those worlds have produced sentient life.
People, even scientists, say lots of rather silly things. Sometimes scientists say silly things to get some attention. Sometimes some idiot science "journalist" greatly overblows a point that a scientist was trying to make. You notice how every time some new hominid fossil is found, the press reports "This could revolutionize evolution!" when, almost always, as interesting as the find may be, it's hardly revolutionary in that it doesn't overthrow any major theoretical work, but usually just refines it.
I think the only contradictions here derive from your assumptions about the nature of the universe. In other words, you have created the issue yourself.
One may argue that we are outside the norm for life on Earth; although i'd argue that there are enough other species that show some degree of sentience; members of genus Corvus, the other great apes, cetaceans, and even elephants, that I'd argue that we are more the most extreme example of a phenomenon found in several lineages, in particular in mammals (though genus Corvus are birds). The differences are more degree. Obviously that matters, because there are no chimps building skyscrapers or writing posts on Slashdot, but it also means that our cognitive abilities are firmly entrenched in evolutionary processes.
There's no reason to imagine that if Earth alone can produce two or three lineages of animals capable of some degree of sentience that there aren't millions of worlds in the vastness of the Universe that haven't produced similar organisms.
Trump's problems are obvious at this point. If he tones down the rhetoric, starts talking like someone seriously interested in the White House, he risks undermining what has been his core constituencies to this point. It's a catch-22, because if he can't convince enough people he was just foolin' around a little bit, and isn't as absurd as he played up at being, and yet still starts to lose support in his base, then his chances of winning go from rather low to all but impossible.
As the poster suggested, there are ways to store energy. Pumped water storage is a pretty interesting one, where the solar or wind energy is used to pump water up, and then more typical hydroelectric generators produce the power. There are solutions out there, some need work, but they sure won't get the investment they need while fossil fuels like coal are subsidized heavily and protected financially from the ill effects they cause.
It's why I believe sociopaths should be blocked from any position of power. We have enough problems with regular people being assholes without allowing people who literally lack any kind of moral compass to have even the smallest bit of influence.
Clearly you are so much smarter than the climatologists. Since you have this killer argument, why don't you publish. Clearly you are a statistical wunderkind, so get to it, publish and destroy AGW...
Unless of course you're talking absolute bullshit, and repeating some talking point you heard somewhere which, with your limited knowledge, you thought "Hey, that's a killer argument." If that's the case, then you're just a witless moron.
But the cure isn't. Many of the technologies exist, but because oil is heavily subsidized and is essentially a protected industry and energy source, they can't get a leg up. Pricing carbon would give the free market a better opportunity to refine alternative technologies.
And just ponder a collapse of marine ecoysystems for a moment. How many millions rely directly or indirectly on those ecosystems. Are you saying curbing CO2 emissions is worse than mass starvation?
Not in Pyongyang. Dying in ditches is strictly prohibited. You must crawl into a cemetery, dig a hole, throw yourself in then bury yourself. Anything less than full obedience will mean your family are shipping off to a forced labor camp.
In places like Dubai, regular summer temperatures could be around 117 degrees in the summer. In places like Kuwait City they could be as high as 140 degrees. That's by 2070.
There was a reason the Romans thought the Huns were representative of the End Times. A civilization can be challenged to its core without all of humanity being threatened. But so far as the Romans were concerned, the threat was existential.
Now imagine millions more people than now are trying to get into Europe using any means they can to get there. If Europe pushes back by closing the borders and using military force to keep the migrants at bay, at some point they're going to get organized, and you may find some ISIL leader becoming the next Attila the Hun. Maybe the West can stop it, but the costs will mount, and one of the victims, apart of hundreds of thousands of people, will be much of what we long thought made the West superior and special.
You distinguish by looking at trend lines. That means you can't definitely say any particular extreme temperature event is caused by climate change, but you can look at the overall frequency and temperatures of such events and correlate them to other data points, and can say, overall, AGW is going to be responsible for many, if not most of them.
The history of mass migrations suggest that even powerful states can be overwhelmed. Rome, Byzantium, Medieval Islamic civilization and China were all unable to prevent massive amounts of migrant peoples, and where the states weren't outright wiped out, they were heavily damaged.
Europe can't even cope with migrants from Syria and North Africa as they are. Now imagine what it would take to prevent many times more than that trying to get into Europe. Could Turkey hold them back? If Turkey fails, could the Balkan states prevent millions of people? And what about the Mediterranean, will the British Royal Navy start laying mines and sinking any boat that tries to get across?
The ramifications of massive migrations out of the Middle East and North Africa for Europe are enormous, and judging by the reactions to current migrations, I think we can see how destabilising and dangerous they will be.
Forgetting, of course, the amount of methane trapped in the permafrost in Siberia and Canada, which would greatly accelerate the warming, as methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
Hah! Everyone knows 8-track tapes were used by those of the Ancients known as advertisers and movie and record company promoters, as well as those exalted priests known as Congressmen as a platform for the nasal inhalation of cocaine, while in the presence of courtesans. Their religious ceremony was known as the Holy Rite of Hookers and Blow.
AI Tech Support: I am the Verizon Artificially Intelligent Technical Support Device. Please state your problem.
Customer: Well, I'm...
AI Tech Support: Please reset your cable modem.
Customer: I alread...
AI Tech Support: Please reset your firewall device.
Customer: Look here...
AI Tech Support: Please reboot your computer.
Customer: Like I said, I alread...
AI Tech Support: Have you reset your cable modem, firewall device and computer? If not please do so now...
Customer: Alright, that's it. I want to talk to your manager.
AI Tech Support: One moment please.... One moment please....
AI Manager: I am the Verizon Artificially Intelligent Manager Device. I have been fully apprised of your problem and will send out a Repair Robot to fix your connection problem. Please be available between the hours of 7am and 11pm.
Customer: You don't even know what my problem is!
AI Manager: Thank you for choosing Verizon. Have a nice day. <click>
It requires at least a functional understanding of pressure, hydraulics, gravity, some understanding of metallurgy (although Pex pipe is making sweating fittings rarer), electrical installation (for electric hot water heaters), as well as many plumbers also being gas fitters, so a different, though related set of principles surrounding fluid flow, pressure, and so forth.
Having done my own plumbing, at least rough plumbing (I stop where one has to actually cut a hole in a brand new $500 acrylic tub/shower), I found it reasonably challenging. But plumbing, of course, isn't just about home installations, and many plumbers and gasfitters also work in industrial settings.
Slashdot Mirror
Intelligence is one solution to the problem; a solution that has been used by a lot of species since the first nerve fibers joined together to form a primitive ganglion. But it's hardly the only solution. In sheer biomass, E. coli has all the multicellular animals with brains beat, because its solution to the problem of survival is to reproduce very frequently. In reality, that works really well, which is why most of the life on Earth is in fact prokaryotes. All the eukaryotes are just sort of an icing on the cake, and a rather thin frosting at that.
It happened at least once, which makes it happening other times more likely. When you factor in the sheer number of potentially habitable worlds in the Universe, it's hard to argue that somewhere in those vast stretches of time and space, other worlds haven't produced life, and that a few of those worlds have produced sentient life.
People, even scientists, say lots of rather silly things. Sometimes scientists say silly things to get some attention. Sometimes some idiot science "journalist" greatly overblows a point that a scientist was trying to make. You notice how every time some new hominid fossil is found, the press reports "This could revolutionize evolution!" when, almost always, as interesting as the find may be, it's hardly revolutionary in that it doesn't overthrow any major theoretical work, but usually just refines it.
I think the only contradictions here derive from your assumptions about the nature of the universe. In other words, you have created the issue yourself.
One may argue that we are outside the norm for life on Earth; although i'd argue that there are enough other species that show some degree of sentience; members of genus Corvus, the other great apes, cetaceans, and even elephants, that I'd argue that we are more the most extreme example of a phenomenon found in several lineages, in particular in mammals (though genus Corvus are birds). The differences are more degree. Obviously that matters, because there are no chimps building skyscrapers or writing posts on Slashdot, but it also means that our cognitive abilities are firmly entrenched in evolutionary processes.
There's no reason to imagine that if Earth alone can produce two or three lineages of animals capable of some degree of sentience that there aren't millions of worlds in the vastness of the Universe that haven't produced similar organisms.
Trump's problems are obvious at this point. If he tones down the rhetoric, starts talking like someone seriously interested in the White House, he risks undermining what has been his core constituencies to this point. It's a catch-22, because if he can't convince enough people he was just foolin' around a little bit, and isn't as absurd as he played up at being, and yet still starts to lose support in his base, then his chances of winning go from rather low to all but impossible.
As the poster suggested, there are ways to store energy. Pumped water storage is a pretty interesting one, where the solar or wind energy is used to pump water up, and then more typical hydroelectric generators produce the power. There are solutions out there, some need work, but they sure won't get the investment they need while fossil fuels like coal are subsidized heavily and protected financially from the ill effects they cause.
There's lots of issues with using coal, but somehow that doesn't count in this equation?
This 3% meme has been around for while, but the only evidenxd of such a poll appears to be pro Trump blogs.
Why do you think the GOP is so keen to sideline Trump? It's because he'll do worse than lose, he'll cut the GOP in twom
It's why I believe sociopaths should be blocked from any position of power. We have enough problems with regular people being assholes without allowing people who literally lack any kind of moral compass to have even the smallest bit of influence.
Clearly you are so much smarter than the climatologists. Since you have this killer argument, why don't you publish. Clearly you are a statistical wunderkind, so get to it, publish and destroy AGW...
Unless of course you're talking absolute bullshit, and repeating some talking point you heard somewhere which, with your limited knowledge, you thought "Hey, that's a killer argument." If that's the case, then you're just a witless moron.
But the cure isn't. Many of the technologies exist, but because oil is heavily subsidized and is essentially a protected industry and energy source, they can't get a leg up. Pricing carbon would give the free market a better opportunity to refine alternative technologies.
And just ponder a collapse of marine ecoysystems for a moment. How many millions rely directly or indirectly on those ecosystems. Are you saying curbing CO2 emissions is worse than mass starvation?
You do know SOCOM is a video game, right?
Not in Pyongyang. Dying in ditches is strictly prohibited. You must crawl into a cemetery, dig a hole, throw yourself in then bury yourself. Anything less than full obedience will mean your family are shipping off to a forced labor camp.
And please remember, have a nice day!
Signed, Kim Jong Un, the Guy that owns your ass
In places like Dubai, regular summer temperatures could be around 117 degrees in the summer. In places like Kuwait City they could be as high as 140 degrees. That's by 2070.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
I'd say even 117 is pretty fucking hot, and 140 is beyond even the maximums recorded at Death Valley.
There was a reason the Romans thought the Huns were representative of the End Times. A civilization can be challenged to its core without all of humanity being threatened. But so far as the Romans were concerned, the threat was existential.
Now imagine millions more people than now are trying to get into Europe using any means they can to get there. If Europe pushes back by closing the borders and using military force to keep the migrants at bay, at some point they're going to get organized, and you may find some ISIL leader becoming the next Attila the Hun. Maybe the West can stop it, but the costs will mount, and one of the victims, apart of hundreds of thousands of people, will be much of what we long thought made the West superior and special.
There are benefits, but the costs overwhelm the benefits.
A malfunctioning septic system may see your lawn grow greener, but that's usually followed by a sewage smell and a very large bill to fix the problem.
You distinguish by looking at trend lines. That means you can't definitely say any particular extreme temperature event is caused by climate change, but you can look at the overall frequency and temperatures of such events and correlate them to other data points, and can say, overall, AGW is going to be responsible for many, if not most of them.
The history of mass migrations suggest that even powerful states can be overwhelmed. Rome, Byzantium, Medieval Islamic civilization and China were all unable to prevent massive amounts of migrant peoples, and where the states weren't outright wiped out, they were heavily damaged.
Europe can't even cope with migrants from Syria and North Africa as they are. Now imagine what it would take to prevent many times more than that trying to get into Europe. Could Turkey hold them back? If Turkey fails, could the Balkan states prevent millions of people? And what about the Mediterranean, will the British Royal Navy start laying mines and sinking any boat that tries to get across?
The ramifications of massive migrations out of the Middle East and North Africa for Europe are enormous, and judging by the reactions to current migrations, I think we can see how destabilising and dangerous they will be.
Forgetting, of course, the amount of methane trapped in the permafrost in Siberia and Canada, which would greatly accelerate the warming, as methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
Hah! Everyone knows 8-track tapes were used by those of the Ancients known as advertisers and movie and record company promoters, as well as those exalted priests known as Congressmen as a platform for the nasal inhalation of cocaine, while in the presence of courtesans. Their religious ceremony was known as the Holy Rite of Hookers and Blow.
I believe the Ancients used it to listen to music.
Or perhaps it was simply a platter on which to place their protein nutrient powders. The Ancients were very strange.
It can't replace it yet. But I suspect the answer may be very different in a few decades.
And your contempt for your fellow man is noted.
AI Tech Support: I am the Verizon Artificially Intelligent Technical Support Device. Please state your problem.
Customer: Well, I'm...
AI Tech Support: Please reset your cable modem.
Customer: I alread...
AI Tech Support: Please reset your firewall device.
Customer: Look here...
AI Tech Support: Please reboot your computer.
Customer: Like I said, I alread...
AI Tech Support: Have you reset your cable modem, firewall device and computer? If not please do so now...
Customer: Alright, that's it. I want to talk to your manager.
AI Tech Support: One moment please.... One moment please....
AI Manager: I am the Verizon Artificially Intelligent Manager Device. I have been fully apprised of your problem and will send out a Repair Robot to fix your connection problem. Please be available between the hours of 7am and 11pm.
Customer: You don't even know what my problem is!
AI Manager: Thank you for choosing Verizon. Have a nice day. <click>
It requires at least a functional understanding of pressure, hydraulics, gravity, some understanding of metallurgy (although Pex pipe is making sweating fittings rarer), electrical installation (for electric hot water heaters), as well as many plumbers also being gas fitters, so a different, though related set of principles surrounding fluid flow, pressure, and so forth.
Having done my own plumbing, at least rough plumbing (I stop where one has to actually cut a hole in a brand new $500 acrylic tub/shower), I found it reasonably challenging. But plumbing, of course, isn't just about home installations, and many plumbers and gasfitters also work in industrial settings.