Another possibility, stemming from a rather long, and unfortunately heated, debate I had on this during a philosophy and ethics discussion:
As a society, we constantly strive to define what it is to be alive and human. Early definitions were broad, but sufficient. With each new leap in technology, we can create things that mimic this definition, or we discover something existing that already does. When that happens, we redefine ourselves. Currently, our definitions are devoid of "flesh and bones" things, since our science long ago proved that these things are far from what makes you who you are. Instead, we keep to less tangible things, like thought, reason, and emotion.
Now, even those places are being invaded by increasingly cunning programmers and robotics experts. When the machines look like us, think like us, and feel like us, what is it that really seperates them from us? Morally and Ethically, can we turn them off? That's a line in the sand that few are willing to blur.
Currently, robots have become our modern slave labor. The perfect worker, that never complains or asks for vacation, and will gladly work itself clear to 'death' if you ask it to. The idea of these machines become 'intelligent' enough to consider what it is that they are being asked to do, and possibly refuse, is unsettling to most.
I think our fear of the machines is both simplier, and more complicated, than a simple lack of familiarity. I see this issue more as to the age of introduction, not the time of exposure.
As we grow older, we become less accepting of new ideas. While my peers tend to fear "home use" robotics, people my grandparents age (yes, they're still kicking, sort of) are scared to death of a simple home computer. My god daughter, on the other hand, is proficient and comfortable with a computer, and readily accepting of products such as the Asimo. The idea and precursers where there throughout her early childhood, so it's not even something she considers odd now.
Kids, if introduced young enough, will accept just about anything. As far as they know, this is how the whole world is. Unless someone starts showing them old robot/end of the world movies, they have no reason to fear robots, and in most cases they won't.
As for the small minority that are going to fear robots, keep this in mind: there are also young children afraid of flushing toilets.
You also have to take into consideration when the Cassini was launched, October 12th, 1997, whereas the Mars rovers were launched in the summer of 2003. They put the best ideas and instruments available for the job on the probe at the time. 6 years of additional technology, and better climates on Mars, are the reason for their successes.
Another issue has to do with launch vehicles. At the time Cassini was put up, we didn't have the same delivery vehicles (aka, rockets) that we do today, and thus the overall system was constrained in weight and size to a greater extent than the Mars rovers were.
Regardless, the probe is there, and it's alive, unlike some other probes I recall (Beagle 1 and 2) attempting to fly through their intended targets, rather than land on them. I'll be interested to see what we can assertain from this little outing, and whether or not it spurs more numerous probes in the future.
Theoretically, yes, but at the same time, if the loss of a single '>' is the cause for this, then there is reason to believe that an additional '' could cause just as much of an issue, though not the exact problem for obvious reasons. Clearly, someone is not validating inputs on the SMTP side of things, as the original server was built with a web interface and thus there was no need for such a thing. Google tends to stay pretty well on the ball, so I'm sure this will be resolved soon enough, if not already. You know at least half their staff are avid/.ers.
Anyway, you're using a free mail server, so just encrypt everything and assume anyone can get a copy at will of anythingthing you send. Unless you somehow come to own the internet in it's entirety, that assumption is a lot closer to the truth than you think...
Maybe I'll make a new site called email-is-too-creepy.com just for you. If you think the service you're using now is any better, then you're likely in for quite a surpise. Email has never been a secure method of communication. Ever.
Someone else said this already, so I'll quote (loosely): "Plaintext [aka, unencryped emails] are as secure as sending the same information on a postcard."
Yeah, I noticed that one too. You'd think that at Google, of all companies, they'd be looking for the stupid crap the end user might do with their product before even considering daily use, but that's just me. Regardless, the hole that was found, though having large implications, is minor at the worst.
If an SMTP server is stopping you from READING email, than we have bigger problems. The SMTP only handles your outgoing, not your incoming... If the POP server was down, then you wouldn't be able to read your email.
As it were, though, GMail in general was down for a while.
Yeah, protecting life on earth is a fine goal. I for one have no desire to be vaporized by an international pissing contest gone awry. Though I completely agree with this part of your argument, I just see this as tragically short sighted.
Why protect life on this planet if you have no intention of protecting it beyond? It is a fact, that no matter how much we protect, repair, and monitor, Earth will not always be habitable for humans or anything else. Overlooking global weather and environment changes, comets, astroids, plagues, starvation, or general death due to war, we still have the inevitable death of our sun, during which the earth will be consumed. Good thing we kept it clean and friendly, huh?
One way or another, a lot of people will die when this planet has it's last breath (at least we assume, unless transportation on a massive scale comes to pass before), but that is no reason to allow the entire race to die out with it.
I've heard the story about how "Humanity has a pretty nasty record when you get down to it" a million times before, in a million different wordings. Fact of the matter is, we're not any different than anything else on earth. The reason every other species achieves a 'natural balance' with it's environment is because the ones that don't, die. Solves that problem. Because of our technilogical superiority, we've been able to overcome these restrictions, and thus expand our civilization and species. I do think we have a lot to learn about preserving the places we live, but the fact of the matter is that had we always existed in 'balance with nature' we'd have never gotten as far as a species as we did, and you can forget about being the apex predator. For similar reasons, I also think that the other species can and should be bent to our wills, for our own benifit, but that's another flame-baited argument, for another time.
What if the tribes of old decided, "Screw my ancestors, I'm not leaving here" ? One disease, one food shortage, one flood, one war, one whatever in a few isolated regions, and humanity is no more. When it comes down to it, to simply stop expanding and growing is just foolish.
We are what we are, and if we want to continue being that, we need to start thinking about spreading out.
"What solution is this guy proposing that hasn't been proposed elsewhere?"
None, but then again, that wasn't his point. Inhabitting other planets has long been a dream of, among other groups, NASA, but this has always been a "wouldn't it be cool" kind of thing. This guy is saying that it's more along the lines of "If we don't, we will go extinct."
As others have already pointed out, he does hold a very valid point. There have been events in Earth's history, and presumably will be more in the future, that simply are unsurvivable. Besides the repeat of past events, we also know things that will happen, like our sun going nova, which there is NO solution, real or hypothetical, for other than getting the heck out of dodge.
Glad someone said it. The government has tried to use the "if you don't have anything to hide" argument for decades. It was crap then, it's crap now.
SINCE I don't have anything to hide, you should stay the heck out of my business. The US was founded on a strong distrust in everyone, the government included. Just look at the Constitution. With a few exceptions, it primary purpose it to protect the people from the government, and for good reason.
What's worse is the arguement that, since the government already has so much data compiled on me already, that this won't hurt... Are you sure? Don't contribute to or defend the problem just because you feel like you already lost.
Slashdot Mirror
Another possibility, stemming from a rather long, and unfortunately heated, debate I had on this during a philosophy and ethics discussion: As a society, we constantly strive to define what it is to be alive and human. Early definitions were broad, but sufficient. With each new leap in technology, we can create things that mimic this definition, or we discover something existing that already does. When that happens, we redefine ourselves. Currently, our definitions are devoid of "flesh and bones" things, since our science long ago proved that these things are far from what makes you who you are. Instead, we keep to less tangible things, like thought, reason, and emotion. Now, even those places are being invaded by increasingly cunning programmers and robotics experts. When the machines look like us, think like us, and feel like us, what is it that really seperates them from us? Morally and Ethically, can we turn them off? That's a line in the sand that few are willing to blur. Currently, robots have become our modern slave labor. The perfect worker, that never complains or asks for vacation, and will gladly work itself clear to 'death' if you ask it to. The idea of these machines become 'intelligent' enough to consider what it is that they are being asked to do, and possibly refuse, is unsettling to most.
I think our fear of the machines is both simplier, and more complicated, than a simple lack of familiarity. I see this issue more as to the age of introduction, not the time of exposure.
As we grow older, we become less accepting of new ideas. While my peers tend to fear "home use" robotics, people my grandparents age (yes, they're still kicking, sort of) are scared to death of a simple home computer. My god daughter, on the other hand, is proficient and comfortable with a computer, and readily accepting of products such as the Asimo. The idea and precursers where there throughout her early childhood, so it's not even something she considers odd now.
Kids, if introduced young enough, will accept just about anything. As far as they know, this is how the whole world is. Unless someone starts showing them old robot/end of the world movies, they have no reason to fear robots, and in most cases they won't.
As for the small minority that are going to fear robots, keep this in mind: there are also young children afraid of flushing toilets.
You also have to take into consideration when the Cassini was launched, October 12th, 1997, whereas the Mars rovers were launched in the summer of 2003. They put the best ideas and instruments available for the job on the probe at the time. 6 years of additional technology, and better climates on Mars, are the reason for their successes.
Another issue has to do with launch vehicles. At the time Cassini was put up, we didn't have the same delivery vehicles (aka, rockets) that we do today, and thus the overall system was constrained in weight and size to a greater extent than the Mars rovers were.
Regardless, the probe is there, and it's alive, unlike some other probes I recall (Beagle 1 and 2) attempting to fly through their intended targets, rather than land on them. I'll be interested to see what we can assertain from this little outing, and whether or not it spurs more numerous probes in the future.
Theoretically, yes, but at the same time, if the loss of a single '>' is the cause for this, then there is reason to believe that an additional '' could cause just as much of an issue, though not the exact problem for obvious reasons. Clearly, someone is not validating inputs on the SMTP side of things, as the original server was built with a web interface and thus there was no need for such a thing. Google tends to stay pretty well on the ball, so I'm sure this will be resolved soon enough, if not already. You know at least half their staff are avid /.ers.
Anyway, you're using a free mail server, so just encrypt everything and assume anyone can get a copy at will of anythingthing you send. Unless you somehow come to own the internet in it's entirety, that assumption is a lot closer to the truth than you think...
Maybe I'll make a new site called email-is-too-creepy.com just for you. If you think the service you're using now is any better, then you're likely in for quite a surpise. Email has never been a secure method of communication. Ever. Someone else said this already, so I'll quote (loosely): "Plaintext [aka, unencryped emails] are as secure as sending the same information on a postcard."
Yeah, I noticed that one too. You'd think that at Google, of all companies, they'd be looking for the stupid crap the end user might do with their product before even considering daily use, but that's just me. Regardless, the hole that was found, though having large implications, is minor at the worst.
If an SMTP server is stopping you from READING email, than we have bigger problems. The SMTP only handles your outgoing, not your incoming... If the POP server was down, then you wouldn't be able to read your email. As it were, though, GMail in general was down for a while.
I could be wrong (it happens a lot), but just in case...
Google's GMail doesn't use a port 25 SMTP due to the fact that a lot of ISPs block it. Try port 465.
Well, it's up now, but for future reference at least.
But no one cares we'll go extinct because when it happens it's the problem of our descendants.
It depresses me how right you are...
Yeah, protecting life on earth is a fine goal. I for one have no desire to be vaporized by an international pissing contest gone awry. Though I completely agree with this part of your argument, I just see this as tragically short sighted.
Why protect life on this planet if you have no intention of protecting it beyond? It is a fact, that no matter how much we protect, repair, and monitor, Earth will not always be habitable for humans or anything else. Overlooking global weather and environment changes, comets, astroids, plagues, starvation, or general death due to war, we still have the inevitable death of our sun, during which the earth will be consumed. Good thing we kept it clean and friendly, huh?
One way or another, a lot of people will die when this planet has it's last breath (at least we assume, unless transportation on a massive scale comes to pass before), but that is no reason to allow the entire race to die out with it.
I've heard the story about how "Humanity has a pretty nasty record when you get down to it" a million times before, in a million different wordings. Fact of the matter is, we're not any different than anything else on earth. The reason every other species achieves a 'natural balance' with it's environment is because the ones that don't, die. Solves that problem. Because of our technilogical superiority, we've been able to overcome these restrictions, and thus expand our civilization and species. I do think we have a lot to learn about preserving the places we live, but the fact of the matter is that had we always existed in 'balance with nature' we'd have never gotten as far as a species as we did, and you can forget about being the apex predator. For similar reasons, I also think that the other species can and should be bent to our wills, for our own benifit, but that's another flame-baited argument, for another time.
What if the tribes of old decided, "Screw my ancestors, I'm not leaving here" ? One disease, one food shortage, one flood, one war, one whatever in a few isolated regions, and humanity is no more. When it comes down to it, to simply stop expanding and growing is just foolish. We are what we are, and if we want to continue being that, we need to start thinking about spreading out.
"What solution is this guy proposing that hasn't been proposed elsewhere?"
None, but then again, that wasn't his point. Inhabitting other planets has long been a dream of, among other groups, NASA, but this has always been a "wouldn't it be cool" kind of thing. This guy is saying that it's more along the lines of "If we don't, we will go extinct."
As others have already pointed out, he does hold a very valid point. There have been events in Earth's history, and presumably will be more in the future, that simply are unsurvivable. Besides the repeat of past events, we also know things that will happen, like our sun going nova, which there is NO solution, real or hypothetical, for other than getting the heck out of dodge.
Glad someone said it. The government has tried to use the "if you don't have anything to hide" argument for decades. It was crap then, it's crap now.
SINCE I don't have anything to hide, you should stay the heck out of my business. The US was founded on a strong distrust in everyone, the government included. Just look at the Constitution. With a few exceptions, it primary purpose it to protect the people from the government, and for good reason.
What's worse is the arguement that, since the government already has so much data compiled on me already, that this won't hurt... Are you sure? Don't contribute to or defend the problem just because you feel like you already lost.
I want my angy mobs in the street, dammit...