Even that too might not be fully preventable. Humanity has pumped a vast amount of carbon into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution began. Chances are, that atmospheric carbon is going to be lowering oceanic pH for a long time to come.
It certainty of the data depends on the question you're trying to answer. Is the earth warming? Absolutely. We have numerous bits of evidence from ice cores, tree rings, and soil samples that confirm that the earth's climate is warmer now than it was before. Is mankind causing this warming? There is more uncertainty here, but signs are increasingly pointing towards the affirmative.
The real question is, "Does the cost of adaptation outweigh the cost of going carbon free?" Humanity is the most adaptable species on the planet. It may very well be the case that the cost of adapting to climate change outweighs the cost of stopping climate change.
Besides, even if prevention is conclusively proven to be more cost efficient, I'm not sure that we have a choice anymore. Most climate scientists say that the Earth is headed for a 4 C rise in temperature, regardless of what humans do at this point. To put that into context, 4 C was the worst case scenario being considered during the 1990s. So, even while the scientists argue about what's causing global warming, I think its worthwhile that we as a nation figure out how to deal with global warming. There will be significant changes in rainfall and temperature patterns. If we do some advance planning now (like not subsidizing building in low lying areas, or encouraging agriculture in places that are going to dry out), we can make the future significantly more comfortable, regardless of whether global warming is our fault or not.
Racing is very male dominated. While there aren't any rules (anymore) preventing female drivers from competing, there just hasn't been a lot of female participation in auto racing of any sort.
Really? Why don't we look at the previous generation? The same boomers that participated in Woodstock ended up voting for Reagan and Bush. So you can't expect that sort of attitude to remain
And now we have the same sort of crap at Microsoft. Exhibit A [for today], is LINQ vs other ORM efforts that Microsoft is working on in C#. LINQ is what, wildly popular, and it is also killed, largely because LINQ didn't come from the Visual Studio group, but from the SQL Server group.
Really? LINQ is being killed off? Got a source for that? As far as I can tell, LINQ is alive and well in the latest versions of.NET.
You don't need competition to prevent shoddiness and poor performance, I don't compete with my family, and yet I still do my best for them.
Cooperation at that level only works for small groups, like families and tribes. That model of cooperation breaks down when society grows to the point where people can't know (however vaguely) all of the other members of the group.
That's very true. I mean, look at the Singularity micro-kernel based OS that was developed there. It received some good press when Microsoft Research unveiled it years ago, but what of it after that? Nothing. Its as if the entire project was sucked into a black hole. I don't see anything in the latest versions of Windows (Vista and 7) that looks like it was inspired by Singularity.
I'm not sure I agree with you. To me, its all about the corporate culture, rather than the size of the company. There are large firms that manage to innovate - look at Apple, or Nintendo. And, more tellingly, there are many small and medium sized firms that become bound up with infighting. The difference is that these firms are not prominent enough to make the news when they falter and fail.
At the same time, you have to admit that Wal*Mart is posting the highest retail growth numbers in the country, despite having annual sales that are greater than next four companies combined. The fact that they've been able to maintain this growth for such a long time means that they're doing something right.
While there may be less physical violence, there's a fair amount of psychological bullying in private schools. Private schools tend to be ethnically and culturally much more homogeneous than public schools. Therefore, if you're not a WASP, then you're likely to be frozen out from social activities and have nasty rumors spread about you behind your back.
I'm not saying that private schools are as bad as public schools (especially where physical violence is concerned). I'm saying that its a fallacy to pretend that private schools are some kind of bully free zone.
That's precisely what I've heard as well. The school doesn't get any money from the state, and is dependent on the parents for its functioning. Therefore, the school has to keep the parents happy. Unless you have a number of parents complaining about a kid that is bullying, the school will go to extremes to keep both kids at the same school (in order to keep collecting tuition from the parents).
Some of the studies were pretty simple, graphing autism rates compared to when the MMR vaccine was introduced.
The problem is that there have been lots of other changes besides the introduction of the MMR vaccine. I mean you could publish a graph comparing the rate of autism with the introduction of color television, and you'd probably get a similar result.
Generally, the kids in private school actually want to learn and do well in school.
Who told you that? Its not the kids that choose to go to private school. Its their parents that send them there. I've heard of private schools having bullies that were just as bad as those in public schools.
That said, there's nothing saying that you have to work in the games industry if you're a coder. There are plenty of other programming jobs out there that don't have these ridiculous schedules. In fact, this is the reason that I explicitly avoid pitching my CV to game development shops. No matter how attractive the job looks at first, it'll slowly turn into hell on earth as management pushes the coders to skimp on quality and their own health in order to meet a deadline that they themselves have imposed.
Well, that, and the fact they know that their jobs would all be exported to a place where unionization wasn't the norm the moment any significant number of them decided to do so. I mean, look at the manufacturing and automobile industries. The high levels of unionization only worked so long as there were significant barriers between markets. The moment those barriers fell, the unionized shops got beaten by the non-union shops. Even here in the US, auto production has largely moved to southern states which don't have a strong union tradition like the north.
The computer industry never had the benefit of a period of high barriers like the manufacturing industries had. We've known right from the very beginning that our work weighs nothing; that it can be transported around the world for almost no cost and no time. Unionizing the presence of this knowledge is nothing less than a death wish for the industry.
Saying that a bot is no different from a NPC because they're both controlled by computers is like saying that a tank and a bulldozer are identical because they both have caterpillar tracks.
Or, rather than getting outraged, you can go ahead and try to out-bot the botters. Don't get mad, get even. Make a bot-hunter bot that detects and attacks other bots.
Light is light, whether its coming reflected off a sheet of paper or being generated by a computer monitor. Your eyes can't tell the difference between "emitted" and "reflected" light - its all just photons to your rods and cones.
The difference is brightness and directionality. Paper is a fairly rough surface, and tends to scatter light in many different directions. Monitors tend emit the light in a single direction, much like a flashlight. This is the reason that light backgrounds are more comfortable on paper than on computer monitors - the paper scatters much of the light away from your eyes, lowering the apparent brightness of the background.
To see what I mean, try reading a book printed on glossy paper outside, or underneath a bright lamp. You'll find that the sort of eyestrain you get is exactly the same as with staring at a computer monitor for too long.
Its not silly in the context of this discussion. The OP is saying that we have not lost (e.g. given up our civil liberties, accepted significant restrictions on our freedoms, etc.) just because Osama bin Laden has not declared victory. I say that's a false argument: we can lose without our enemies declaring victory.
Rationality in game theory is more concerned with risk avoidance, not gain maximization*
Well, if we're being precise, rationality in game theory is concerned with maximizing the expected return. This may involve making many small, relatively safe bets, or it may involve making a larger, more risky bet. It all depends on the probabilities and expected returns of the various outcomes being considered.
That's why I say that management tends to select against rationality. Most managers I've seen do not make any sort of rational calculation of probabilities and outcomes when making decisions. They leave these things to "gut instincts". Time and again, scientific studies have shown that gut instincts can be quite easily and predictably manipulated.
So, you see no value in trying to prevent a situation where people are trained to do nothing that makes the authority uncomfortable? Even when said authority is violating the rights of others?
I'll accept the proportion of people who are jerks and never accept any authority in exchange for the majority of the population having the ability to become outraged when genuine violations of rights occur.
Teaching may select out that characteristic, but management seems to select for that characteristic.
Really? In my experience, it seems that management selects even more strongly against that trait than teaching. I mean, if managers could rationally analyze their reward matrices, then a lot of corporate fuck ups could have been avoided.
The solution is going to be that eventually kids will get used to the idea that they shouldn't bring things in that scare their administrators, and they'll adapt.
Is that really the sort of adaptation you want? Training people to follow orders and never challenge authority lays the groundwork for tyranny.
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Even that too might not be fully preventable. Humanity has pumped a vast amount of carbon into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution began. Chances are, that atmospheric carbon is going to be lowering oceanic pH for a long time to come.
If socialism works so well, can you name one non-dictatorial nation-state that has organized its economy on socialist principles?
It certainty of the data depends on the question you're trying to answer. Is the earth warming? Absolutely. We have numerous bits of evidence from ice cores, tree rings, and soil samples that confirm that the earth's climate is warmer now than it was before. Is mankind causing this warming? There is more uncertainty here, but signs are increasingly pointing towards the affirmative.
The real question is, "Does the cost of adaptation outweigh the cost of going carbon free?" Humanity is the most adaptable species on the planet. It may very well be the case that the cost of adapting to climate change outweighs the cost of stopping climate change.
Besides, even if prevention is conclusively proven to be more cost efficient, I'm not sure that we have a choice anymore. Most climate scientists say that the Earth is headed for a 4 C rise in temperature, regardless of what humans do at this point. To put that into context, 4 C was the worst case scenario being considered during the 1990s. So, even while the scientists argue about what's causing global warming, I think its worthwhile that we as a nation figure out how to deal with global warming. There will be significant changes in rainfall and temperature patterns. If we do some advance planning now (like not subsidizing building in low lying areas, or encouraging agriculture in places that are going to dry out), we can make the future significantly more comfortable, regardless of whether global warming is our fault or not.
Racing is very male dominated. While there aren't any rules (anymore) preventing female drivers from competing, there just hasn't been a lot of female participation in auto racing of any sort.
Really? Why don't we look at the previous generation? The same boomers that participated in Woodstock ended up voting for Reagan and Bush. So you can't expect that sort of attitude to remain
And now we have the same sort of crap at Microsoft. Exhibit A [for today], is LINQ vs other ORM efforts that Microsoft is working on in C#. LINQ is what, wildly popular, and it is also killed, largely because LINQ didn't come from the Visual Studio group, but from the SQL Server group.
Really? LINQ is being killed off? Got a source for that? As far as I can tell, LINQ is alive and well in the latest versions of .NET.
You don't need competition to prevent shoddiness and poor performance, I don't compete with my family, and yet I still do my best for them.
Cooperation at that level only works for small groups, like families and tribes. That model of cooperation breaks down when society grows to the point where people can't know (however vaguely) all of the other members of the group.
That's very true. I mean, look at the Singularity micro-kernel based OS that was developed there. It received some good press when Microsoft Research unveiled it years ago, but what of it after that? Nothing. Its as if the entire project was sucked into a black hole. I don't see anything in the latest versions of Windows (Vista and 7) that looks like it was inspired by Singularity.
I'm not sure I agree with you. To me, its all about the corporate culture, rather than the size of the company. There are large firms that manage to innovate - look at Apple, or Nintendo. And, more tellingly, there are many small and medium sized firms that become bound up with infighting. The difference is that these firms are not prominent enough to make the news when they falter and fail.
At the same time, you have to admit that Wal*Mart is posting the highest retail growth numbers in the country, despite having annual sales that are greater than next four companies combined. The fact that they've been able to maintain this growth for such a long time means that they're doing something right.
While there may be less physical violence, there's a fair amount of psychological bullying in private schools. Private schools tend to be ethnically and culturally much more homogeneous than public schools. Therefore, if you're not a WASP, then you're likely to be frozen out from social activities and have nasty rumors spread about you behind your back.
I'm not saying that private schools are as bad as public schools (especially where physical violence is concerned). I'm saying that its a fallacy to pretend that private schools are some kind of bully free zone.
That's precisely what I've heard as well. The school doesn't get any money from the state, and is dependent on the parents for its functioning. Therefore, the school has to keep the parents happy. Unless you have a number of parents complaining about a kid that is bullying, the school will go to extremes to keep both kids at the same school (in order to keep collecting tuition from the parents).
Some of the studies were pretty simple, graphing autism rates compared to when the MMR vaccine was introduced.
The problem is that there have been lots of other changes besides the introduction of the MMR vaccine. I mean you could publish a graph comparing the rate of autism with the introduction of color television, and you'd probably get a similar result.
Generally, the kids in private school actually want to learn and do well in school.
Who told you that? Its not the kids that choose to go to private school. Its their parents that send them there. I've heard of private schools having bullies that were just as bad as those in public schools.
That said, there's nothing saying that you have to work in the games industry if you're a coder. There are plenty of other programming jobs out there that don't have these ridiculous schedules. In fact, this is the reason that I explicitly avoid pitching my CV to game development shops. No matter how attractive the job looks at first, it'll slowly turn into hell on earth as management pushes the coders to skimp on quality and their own health in order to meet a deadline that they themselves have imposed.
Well, that, and the fact they know that their jobs would all be exported to a place where unionization wasn't the norm the moment any significant number of them decided to do so. I mean, look at the manufacturing and automobile industries. The high levels of unionization only worked so long as there were significant barriers between markets. The moment those barriers fell, the unionized shops got beaten by the non-union shops. Even here in the US, auto production has largely moved to southern states which don't have a strong union tradition like the north.
The computer industry never had the benefit of a period of high barriers like the manufacturing industries had. We've known right from the very beginning that our work weighs nothing; that it can be transported around the world for almost no cost and no time. Unionizing the presence of this knowledge is nothing less than a death wish for the industry.
Saying that a bot is no different from a NPC because they're both controlled by computers is like saying that a tank and a bulldozer are identical because they both have caterpillar tracks.
Or, rather than getting outraged, you can go ahead and try to out-bot the botters. Don't get mad, get even. Make a bot-hunter bot that detects and attacks other bots.
Light is light, whether its coming reflected off a sheet of paper or being generated by a computer monitor. Your eyes can't tell the difference between "emitted" and "reflected" light - its all just photons to your rods and cones.
The difference is brightness and directionality. Paper is a fairly rough surface, and tends to scatter light in many different directions. Monitors tend emit the light in a single direction, much like a flashlight. This is the reason that light backgrounds are more comfortable on paper than on computer monitors - the paper scatters much of the light away from your eyes, lowering the apparent brightness of the background.
To see what I mean, try reading a book printed on glossy paper outside, or underneath a bright lamp. You'll find that the sort of eyestrain you get is exactly the same as with staring at a computer monitor for too long.
Its not silly in the context of this discussion. The OP is saying that we have not lost (e.g. given up our civil liberties, accepted significant restrictions on our freedoms, etc.) just because Osama bin Laden has not declared victory. I say that's a false argument: we can lose without our enemies declaring victory.
Rationality in game theory is more concerned with risk avoidance, not gain maximization*
Well, if we're being precise, rationality in game theory is concerned with maximizing the expected return. This may involve making many small, relatively safe bets, or it may involve making a larger, more risky bet. It all depends on the probabilities and expected returns of the various outcomes being considered.
That's why I say that management tends to select against rationality. Most managers I've seen do not make any sort of rational calculation of probabilities and outcomes when making decisions. They leave these things to "gut instincts". Time and again, scientific studies have shown that gut instincts can be quite easily and predictably manipulated.
So, you see no value in trying to prevent a situation where people are trained to do nothing that makes the authority uncomfortable? Even when said authority is violating the rights of others?
I'll accept the proportion of people who are jerks and never accept any authority in exchange for the majority of the population having the ability to become outraged when genuine violations of rights occur.
The terrorists do not have to win in order for us to lose.
Teaching may select out that characteristic, but management seems to select for that characteristic.
Really? In my experience, it seems that management selects even more strongly against that trait than teaching. I mean, if managers could rationally analyze their reward matrices, then a lot of corporate fuck ups could have been avoided.
The solution is going to be that eventually kids will get used to the idea that they shouldn't bring things in that scare their administrators, and they'll adapt.
Is that really the sort of adaptation you want? Training people to follow orders and never challenge authority lays the groundwork for tyranny.