Think of it this way, all the medicine in the world won't help if we go extinct will it?
I'm all for stem cell research and medicine, I'm all for working to increase the lifespan, but it's just not going to happen. The life expectancy is decreasing and will continue to decrease. The young growing up today most likely will not live to see 60 unless something changes, in fact many will not live to see 40. If we only have a decade or two left, what difference does it make if we have good hospitals? Work on cryogenics and suspended animation if you want to work on something, and maybe work on genetics.
I do not think there will be a such thing as a human in 40 years, I could be wrong, in fact please prove me wrong, but the way the world is currently headed, humans won't exist, and if they do they won't be recognizeable as humans by todays standards.
I'm all for trans-humanism, I see that as the best option our species has to survive. Basically, we will either invent a better human, or there will be no humans, and a better human can be anything. We have computers now, we have the technology to make life better, it's a choice we seem to not want.
This isnt hype, don't you watch the news? Do you actually see whats happening around the world? Are you awake?
We barely avoided the nuclear holocaust, now we might have to deal with nano tech and all these other new weapons we don't even know about yet. Basically, if war never ends, eventually one of our weapons will wipe us out, it's just the odds. How exactly do we protect ourselves from biological or chemical weapons? Thats right, theres no defense for it. When bio or chem weapons get used we are all basically dead. When nano viruses and weapons get introduced we are all basically dead. You have to understand, most of these weapons already exist and it's a miracle we havent used them because we did use the nuclear bomb and every other weapon we have invented even if just to test it. It's a miracle if we make it another 20 years, not because of the technology, but because of the state of world affairs at this moment. I see no end in sight. Tell me, how do you expect this to end? I'm no alarmist, but really if you think we can fight all these wars and survive, well, show me how that is possible. No matter who wins the wars, the environment will be so toxic that it might be a wasteland, so I don't know.
Google, and other corporations already have the entire internet on file somewhere. All human knowledge is already stored. So theres really no point unless the super sized harddrives wear out.
The point is this, if the world is going to end, you or I arent the ones who will decide. Hey I don't look forward to the end of the world, I'm as young as you, but perhaps we were simply born in the wrong era, on the wrong planet. Let's just face it, humans don't care about each other, the species, or value life, so how exactly can the species survive when it doesnt care about itself or even recognize it's own existance or right to exist?
If you didn't know already, this is about energy, and the energy crisis creates a domino effect. Human's have the option to survive, but once again you and I arent the decision makers, we are the actors, we get fed the script from the decision makrs and given a set of rules as to how to act. You obviously arent a decision maker, it's something you are born into, if you are a member of the lucky sperm club then you'll get to make important decisions, and if not then you'll wait until it's your turn. It won't be our turn anytime soon if ever, assuming the world does last another 20 years, then it will be our turn, but thats assuming it can last through the next 20 years and I doubt it. Do you really see technology making things better? Technology will speed up our self destruction.
I'm a technologist too, and no I'm not psychotic, I'm not hopeless, but the forces at work here are so massive that they are beyond our control. We are the peasants here. All we can do is adapt to the situations we are placed into by our leaders. If you want to work on something, figure out a cure to the avian flu. If you want to work on something, figure out how to secure nano technology because it's the next nuclear technology. Ultimately, we barely survived the nuclear age, and if we manage to survive the diseases and natural disasters, we might still be wiped out by nano terrorism. This is the kind of situation where, most people are asleep and don't know whats happening, or people who know don't care, and the few who do care are all in third world countries or just peasants. Face it, unless you are a CEO, and have a lot of support, you arent going to be in a position to make a decision. Sure you can change laws but no one will follow laws that you cannot enforce. Here is some advice, since we all know the world is ending, and we have an idea as to how, the future is very predictable. A wise decision would be to make some investments based on what we do know to take advantage of the chaos ahead. You cannot do much else but turn chaos into oppurtunity and profit. Start a business, or work for one that is starting. Maybe you'll have a better chance of survival if you save some money.
In ancient times you hunted and grew the food yourself. Why would you need to have some complete strangers who don't know you inspecting your food? In ancient times you were personally responsible for your own food because there was no super market.
I honestly think, that if you allow your food to go rotten then you should have salted it first and dried it. You act like ancient people were stupid or something, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how long food will keep before going bad, or how to dry it and store it. Yes people got sick more often from food poisoning and died of it, but people still die of food poisoning now. The only difference now is that theres a slight chance that you can buy food from a store and still get food poisoning and die. There are no food police except you, the only way to inspect food is to inspect it yourself because when complete strangers are doing it, do you know for sure they are doing a good job? You trust big government now?
So many assumptions. First there are MANY theories of aging. Some say it's genetic, some say aging has to do with how many calories you consume, and some say aging has to do with many other factors, but lets assume it's free radicals. Eventually the air and water will age you twice as fast as it does now.
Let's also say, that you are wrong, heart attacks did not exist in the past, so while you are right being obese meant you werent as good of a hunter, you don't have to be a hunter because you are obese. so you are right, most obese werent hunters, but most humans werent hunters, most humans were gathers, and you can see this by looking at our teeth, are our teeth designed to eat mostly meat or mostly whatever we came accross? Seems to me, some of us hunted meat, some of us farmed, some of us gathered, some of us fished, and some of us just stole from other people who did. The point is, there is no absolute model of how tribal humans survived, if we look at native Americans, they hunted, they farmed, they gathered. If we look at Africa, they hunted, farmed and gathered. In China and in Asia, rice was popular, and in Ireland the potatoe was the staple food. In general, obesity during tribal times was a sign of GOOD health, you'd WANT to be obese back then because it meant you'd live longer and wouldnt die of a cold, or of starvation. You might not be a fast hunter or warrior, but lets be realistic, most tribes werent good at war, the tribes that were good at war are ruling the world right now. So the whole physically fit warrior theory, it only applies to select elite hunter tribes.
Most of us here are geeks, with bad eyes, does this mean we'd have died because we wear glasses? Yes, because according to your theory, no matter how much intelligence or tool making ability you have, it's the physical body that keeps you alive?
I don't understand your logic. What does death have to do with health if everyone is sick? you seem to think there will be mutants on earth who won't die and who will have lots of kids but the trend is that we all are dying sooner and having less kids, with no real genetic exceptions to this rule. So sure there are selective forces, but it is unclear if anyone gains from them. And why are you confident humans will even exist in 100 years?
People talk about evolution as if we do not control it. Evolution has been a controlled art for a while now, and obviously we are getting it wrong because, well look around you. Sure we could focus on improving our species and our evolution, but it has nothing to do with natural selection, thats ignoring the fact that we have science and brains capable of actually directing our own evolution. Our lack of evolution is due to the fact that we just recently discovered genetics, and even now while we know what genetics is, we rely on religion to tell us how to evolve and live. We are focused a bit too much on appearance and not really focused at all on survival. Read up on transhumanism.
I don't think a protien is responsible for aging. Look, people have been obese since the beginning and werent dying from cancer at these rates. Heart attacks were never this popular, we had kings who lived for 60+ years and they didnt die of heart attacks, simply of old age.
I don't think just because someone dies of a heart attack, or of cancer, that we can automatically assume they would have died that way 100 years ago. The food is not the same, read the ingredients. The water is not the same either, or the air. I mean sure a protien could cause these things, but do you believe this?
It's the chemistry of it. Don't you get it? Processed foods are what cause health reduction, along with the other chemically altered ingredients. Veggies are really no less processed, but if you know a good place we can buy veggies show us a farm we can buy directly from.
I'm trying to be a clean consumer, I'm not really focused on which clean foods people consume. Vegetarianism is good for animals? OF course. If it good for you? Maybe not.
Clean food is food which is healthy for you, if we can have clean vegetarian food, and with our technology it should be possible, we should do this, I'd go vegetarian if I can get a meat equal. Nuts and stuff, seriously, not many people are going to go fully vegetarian, most humans arent designed for it, yes we should eat a lot less meat, but no meat at all? Maybe someday when we have clean healthy food and can universally decide to eat however we want, but most of us eat according to our individual health.
First, solve pesticides and genetic engineering, because as things are right now, the vegetarian eating habits arent much better. I agree, I don't eat certain meats. But seriously, fish is healthy. Omega fatty acids are found in fish, and despite what you might think, humans need fat and calories.
So the question here, or the debate we should be having is how to make food cleaner. We all agree on this that food is dirty, and we want clean food and water. You will not have clean food and water if you are focused on trying to make people all eat like you, food nazism is just not the answer. If you want to do something useful, focus on functional foods, and clean foods. Instead of making fake meats with veggies, invent new foods. Also, stop supporting those processed fake veggie foods, how am I supposed to take vegetarianism seriously when vegetarians are drinking soy milk?! and fake meat?! That stuff is as bad as drinking cows milk and eating the real thing.
Yes vegetarianism is good for health, I absolutely support it, but I don't think you can support vegetarianism by jumping in peoples face with fake health benefits. Clean food is food which is not processed, which has verified chemistry, which passes all the organic genetic tests, and which has no form of pesticides. Most veggies you buy from a store, is genetically modified, filled with pesticides too, and then theres the processing and altered chemistry.
So, first step is to actually have a place people can go to and buy clean food, and have groups to test food and make sure it's clean. Otherwise you arent any healthier as a vegetarian if you arent growing it yourself.
Vegetarianism has health benefits depending on your body type, your gender, and many many other individual based diet observations. In general, sure we should be eating less meat, but to simply demand everyone eat your favorite veggies is not going to work. If you want to promote vegetarianism, the first thing you need to do is focus on cleaning up food in general, because vegetarian food is no healthier with all the pesticides and other issues. A genetically engineered veggie is no healthier or safer than eating the steak, and vegetarians get cancer too.
IF we follow your logic to it's conclusion, the human species is unfit for breeding. Let's see, every human dies, and will die at an earlier and earlier age as pollution decreases lifespan. So according to your own logic, you adocate suicide?!
In nature, the fit are the ones who declare themselves fit. If obese out of shape old men declare themselves more fit than young teenagers in their prime, then they are more fit. Do you see that animals actually have brains and decide among themselves who will be fit and when? Second animals are not rational, mice will decide their individual families are fit even if they arent. A family of fat mice working together might be more fit than a group of independent skinny mice. Lastly, fitness of the individual mouse has nothing to do with fitness of the individual species.
So, we could pick out the most beautiful atheletes, but if they have the smallest brains, well, thats going to limit the overall long term survival of the species.
Logical flaw in your arguement:"Everyone wants to look good, but do you want the species to look good, and be incredibly lazy, eventually to the point of not even bothering to breed anymore."
This is an assumption, and what is the basis? If you view yourself as a physical body, and not a part of an ecosystem, then yes how your body looks matters, but obesity really has nothing to do with fitness as in the right environment being obese will keep you from starving and is physically attractive. The way to survive is intelligent selection, and most humans don't intelligently select. Natural selection isnt always intelligent. Intelligent selection is selecting the human most likely to improve the quality of the species itself, which almost no one does. Geeks get no love, and geniuses often get treated like somethings wrong with them. If the goal is the survival of the human species on a long term basis, it's intelligent selection. If the goal is survival of the fittest by todays standards, at the cost of tomorrow, well then mate with the most physically attractive person you can find, and in the future you will have a physically attractive yet most likely extinct human species. What you have to understand is, the long term survival of a species requires both the obese genes and the skinny genes, it requires both the lazy and hard working, it's the lazy who created the personal computer and increased productivity, otherwise we'd still be using typewriters. It's the lazy who invented the car, the bike and modern transportation. It's the lazy who invented the factory.
It could be that we are far too lazy, I will not say too much lazy is good, but there is a need for lazy. There is a need for hard labor. Most importantly, we have a shortage of intelligent minds, and a massive over supply of simple minds. Many people, are happy to just party through life, and expect life to get better, and then be surprised as each year progressively gets worse. If you want the key to survival of the fittest, mate with the people who make your life and other peoples lives better, you can be sure the offspring will carry that gene, otherwise you'll mate potentially with a person who will make your life and everyone around you miserable, and we already know where this can lead, a divorce perhaps? But it has a much greater impact on the lifespan of yourself as an individual, and on the lifespan of the species itself than people realize.
That is an interesting direction of thought. If they are, well we might already have Crutzfeld-Jacob disease. Think of it this way, if we do have it, you cannot tell anyone for the same reason you cannot talk about alien invasions and other weird unlikely events. Sure it's possible, but if we think about every possible unlikely event, we all will go batshit crazy and be wearing tin-foil hats. I don't really think tin-foil hats do much except fry your brain.
Let's see, how long before we can buy the vaccine? Better yet how long before doctors start selling it on the black market?
If this really is just a single protien, well then, it's going to be sold. How do we find it? How much will it cost? If it's going to be a prescribed drug, how can we buy stock? If it's a vaccine, how can we get one?
I don't know, I suppose right now none of this matters because the earth wont last long enough to even make this drug and test it. Chances are, we will die of the flu before we die of heart disease. Chances are will we die of food pollution or water pollution or air pollution.
So, yes if this is the truth, well this is good, but theres a lot of good news that we will only see in 10 years or more, and considering the current state we could be back in the stone age or tribal, who knows. What I do know is that this will be very valueable knowledge.
I see no benefit to an income tax. A sales tax, okay maybe. A negative income tax, okay perhaps. But the current income tax? No.
Taxes arent always bad, the problem with taxes is we arent taxing people based on what they use, we are taxing people in unfair ways. We arent taxing people way too much and then we act surprised when the government is way big and intrusive.
Government is a non physical entity. Government is not physical. Libertarians know that government exists only in the minds of individuals. The Greens on the other hand, seem to believe that government only exists on pieces of paper called laws, or through lawyers.
The Libertarian perception of government takes into account that ultimately, we are the governor of ourselves through corporations and through interaction. Regulation reduces the ability you have to govern yourself and gives this ability to guys in suits who will decide for you what you can and cannot consume, wear, how many hours you work, how much money you make and all these other things. Regulation in the end means reduced freedom which means reduced ability to self govern.
The concerns I have with the Greens is that there is a chance they might be against civil liberties, and I don't mean the constitution, I mean an actual reduce of freedom. I agree that the environment needs to be protected, it's a matter of which methods are the way to protect it. I think first of all, it must be profitable. No one is going to protect something unless it's out of greed. The key to making anything work is understanding psychology, and the science behind it. The Green party wants to alter behavior to protect the environment, but people in general do not take orders from nameless faceless words written on pieces of paper, at least thats not how most people respond. It's carrot and stick, you offer incentives, like increased freedom, the ability to profit, and other incentives, and reducded freedom and ability to profit as the downside. This is proven to work. In general, theres different ways of thinking, and feeling among humans, but you can do a statistical check and see that the people who you want to communicate with, are not going to want to accept regulations. If you are a CEO, you run a big business and are powerful, used to getting what you want, why exactly would you accept regulations from a bunch of lawyers? Regulation is the reason why the Green party is having so much problems. The Green party takes the gamble that people universally care about the environment, or that people care in general. Some people only care about winning, and winning in the moment. The people who care about the future, these people already know what the Green party wants to do and don't need the regulation to begin with. The people who don't care, arent going to respond to the regulation in the way the Green party expects.
This is a difference of psychology, of neuro-economics, and the solution will be a neuro-economic solution. I do not think regulations will solve anything, it's like adding new taxes, it will piss off the people who's behavior you want to change and perhaps cause even more pollution. It's the big daddy government telling it's citizens what they can and cannot do again. If you can find a solution to this problem which does not involve more taxes, more regulations, bigger government, and less rights and freedom, then you'll start to win support among libertarians.
Lower taxes, increase individual freedom, increase economic freedom, but if you actually reduce the ability to profit and trade, or if you try regulations, this is just going to make libertarians respond by asking for tax cuts. No libertarian wants to pay your government to remove their freedom, but they would love to improve the environment in exchange for an increase in freedom and a decrease in regulation. This means, if a corporation or individual can recieve government credits, and recieve a huge reduction in taxes in exchange for protecting the environment, then you'll be on to something. How about a tax reduction? How about a decrease in regulation for the people who protect the environment? I mean give people some privileges. How else do you get selfish people to protect the environment? People want something in return for that. So think up some ways you can buy the support of the selfish man, without money, and that will bring you close to the solution.
libertians arent FOR polution anymore than greens, libertarians believe in a clean free market, of course pollution is a problem, but you need a free market to solve that problem. freedom is a requirement for protecting the environment. i do not think you can protect the environment by creating regulations that big businesses wont follow, but by making the market more free, reducing taxes, and removing some of the restrictions, you can actually protect the environment economically, which protects the environment physically.
Pollution is a huge problem, we all breath air, we all drink water, pesticides kill all living things, and I can understand how you can think that under-regulation will allow these businesses the freedom to pollute, but these businesses already pollute with or without regulations. We have no way to track pollution accurately.
The greens are right on the pollution issue, the libertarians are right on the freedom issue. A clean environment increases freedom for everyone so any libertarian will support clean air, water, skys, solar energy or whatever simply because it's rational and makes economic sense. How many libertarians want to give up free air? It's free now but most libertarians will not want to pay for it.
Libertarianism is not an economic policy. Yes there are many libertarian economic policies, and in the main, libertarians believe that tax cuts are bad. You like taxes?
The free market is good, and it has nothing to do with copyright or monopolies, or the definition of a corporation as a person, libertarians did not create corporate government, it was the Democrats and big government conservatives who created corporate government. Basically, the corporate government is a design, and libertarians did not design it.
You know people in the current or recent cabinet? You are right it is possible to avoid being blackmailed and dirty tricked, but President Clinton couldnt avoid it, and he is brilliant by anyones standards.
You know, maybe you are correct, it's just I see politics are more competitive than I've ever seen it. If you look at the last few elections, you can learn a lot about politics, but I'm also aware that perhaps those last few elections were abnormal in the political context.
If you are interested in politics, and you have friends like Larry Ellison, good luck. I do not know anyone on that level directly, but I do know people who know people. I hope you are correct, maybe you will be a leader.
I do not mean to flame you. I was simply trying to make the point, that poltiics are so serious these days that most of us could run for office if we wanted to.
There are two ways to looking at politics, maybe even two levels, the activism level, and the power level. The power level is where all the influence is and where the difficult decisions are made. The activism levels are where ordinary citizens can make their voice heard and influence who gets elected, what words are used in policy and so on and so forth. Ultimately however policy is decided by groups of powerful individual and only the words are influenced by the citizens.
So, even if 99% of citizens wanted Marijuana to be legal, if the 1% decide it should be illegal, it will be illegal, and there will be a war on drugs. I think the best thing to do now is, educate the people who want to truly be involved in politics through training, and to let the activists do charity work and community service. Most of us just arent suited or fit to get into the dirty world of politics. We have friends, family, and want to keep a clear conscience, and this might not always be optional when you take orders from powerful entities to decide policy.
Politics are all about blackmail and dirty tricks. Ask Karl Rove, I mean seriously. If you are this naive, I don't see how you'd ever win an election. You think people are afraid of big oil just because big oil has money? BIG OIL is powerful as hell, the most powerful group of companies in the world basically. The Telcos are right next to them in power.
Politics are about power, if you don't have any, you won't win even a local election, and you won't stand a chance in a federal election. If you think blackmail is something that only happens in the movies, I'm guessing you arent a CEO, you arent a politician, or dealing with millions of dollars. When you deal in millions or billions, and so much money is at stake, it's a completely different league and playing field. Also when you deal with people who have unlimited money, power, and influence, if you have no leverage, you'll be their bitch. It's just like on the streets, in prison, or anywhere else, the rules stay the same, when you are dealing with a lot of money and big deals, anything is possible and you'll have to be paranoid.
I'm not saying that the Democrats couldnt become fiscally conservative, but I cannot imagine Hilary Clinton winning the libertarian vote. I like Hillary Clinton as a person, but at this stage in our countries history I just do not think a female president will be electable. At this point, I think it's not about Democrat or Republican anymore, it's about individuals. I think, a fiscally conservative libertarian candidate can win. I do not think a socialist or new deal Democrat can win. I do not think we will get another far right Republican, I think McCain could win, but overall I think Americans are looking for a libertarian with a conscience.
If Democrats want to have a chance, the best idea I've seen them have is when they start moving in the moral libertarian direction. That is the future of the Democratic party if there will even be a Democratic party in the future. The socially progressive fiscially conservative libertarian would be good for business, good for individual liberties and would do a lot to bring the country together. I do not advocate for socialist policies at this time, there is just too much work to do at this point, perhaps college education is good, but we are at a point now where if we do not make some basic changes, there will not be an earth in 20 years. We at Slashdot know how advanced the technology is, and we know that you cannot regulate technology to make it safe, we also know that terrorism is not something which can be stopped simply by violence. Violence + Violence = double Violence. I do think we need to focus on fighting terrorism, I think the Bush Admin picked the right topic for the nation to focus on, so the question is how do we do it?
1. We need to use our technology to have better surveillance. As much as I love privacy laws, we have to admit finally that privacy does not exist in a high tech world. Most of us here have experience as hackers and know for a fact that privacy never existed. There should be laws to protect peoples identities, and there should be laws to protect people legally and financially, but everything will be tracked, and most of us agree on this.
2. We need to have higher quality connections to each other. We need better ties, and better business and trading partners. One of the major ways which our economic system fuels terrorism is, we have countries which we refuse to trade with for no apparant reason. If we are afraid terrorists might be training in Africa, or we are afraid that there will be problems in the middle east, very similarly to what we did in India and China, we should trade with these so called terrorist states. In most cases, the majority of individuals in any state just want to survive, take care of their familys, and keep a steady job, it's the same everywhere.
3. We need to figure out what causes terrorism, what the profile of a terrorist is, and I don't mean the racial profile. Terrorism is not simply a factor of environment, terrorism is also an emotional issue. Terrorism is not rational, it's always irrational to commit terrorism, and I don't think you can simply blame religion. Religion is the excuse for terrorism just like racism is used as an excuse for certain behavior, but the focus should be on the behavior.
4. We need to remove the environmental causes of terrorism. Why do people give up on life? Because often people arent given the chance to live life in the first place. AIDs is a threat to global security, it creates living dead people, and if a person has AIDS or a disease such as this, it's the type of disease which can make a person unstable enough to commit terrorist acts. Privacy is not so important that we shouldnt have a database with everyone who has a terminal illness in it. I think if you really look at suicide rates, these rates are highest among certain groups of peope, and it has nothing to do with race, gender, country, culture, or religion.
There are perhaps thousands of ideas and things we can be doing to prevent terrorism. Terrorism is a real problem, I don't think anyon
You see, there are at least two types of conservatives. The traditional family, old fashioned type of conservatives, and the neo-conservatives. We know what the traditionalists stand for, strong family, strong community, smaller government, lower taxes, but the main goal of traditional conservatives are to strengthen the family, and this is something I agree with.
Neo-conservatives, I'm still waiting to see what the philosophy is, I understand the foreign policy is more aggressive and less isolationist, and I understand the global economic outlook, but I'm confused and or unsure about the outcome of this agenda. Sure, most of us arent going to complain if we have cheaper oil, but oil prices are going up? Most of us would not complain if policies were explained to us, and I admit that they are doing a better job than they did in the beginning.
At this point, just about all of us know why we are at war, maybe we didnt in the beginning but now we know. We also know that this war is going to be very expensive, and last for a very long time. Most conservatives arent against the war, it's the price of this war, the spending, the expenses of this war that make people question if this war is really worth it.
Does it really have to cost as much as it is costing to do this? As far as the conservatives can't govern theory, thats wrong. Mitt Romney is a good governor, Arnold is doing a decent job, these guys are conservative fiscally, I'm conservative fiscally, because it makes sense. so when you are talking about conservatives you arent talking about ordinary conservatives, you are talking about the federal government. At this stage in the war, we should support our leaders. We are going to have this leadership for another few years, and who knows how many wars we might get into between now and then. It's basically too late to cut and run, we have to at least finish what we've started in Iraq, and we might also have problems in the future with Iran and North Korea, so at this point we need someone like Bush in office.
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Think of it this way, all the medicine in the world won't help if we go extinct will it?
I'm all for stem cell research and medicine, I'm all for working to increase the lifespan, but it's just not going to happen. The life expectancy is decreasing and will continue to decrease. The young growing up today most likely will not live to see 60 unless something changes, in fact many will not live to see 40. If we only have a decade or two left, what difference does it make if we have good hospitals? Work on cryogenics and suspended animation if you want to work on something, and maybe work on genetics.
I do not think there will be a such thing as a human in 40 years, I could be wrong, in fact please prove me wrong, but the way the world is currently headed, humans won't exist, and if they do they won't be recognizeable as humans by todays standards.
I'm all for trans-humanism, I see that as the best option our species has to survive. Basically, we will either invent a better human, or there will be no humans, and a better human can be anything. We have computers now, we have the technology to make life better, it's a choice we seem to not want.
This isnt hype, don't you watch the news? Do you actually see whats happening around the world? Are you awake?
We barely avoided the nuclear holocaust, now we might have to deal with nano tech and all these other new weapons we don't even know about yet. Basically, if war never ends, eventually one of our weapons will wipe us out, it's just the odds. How exactly do we protect ourselves from biological or chemical weapons? Thats right, theres no defense for it. When bio or chem weapons get used we are all basically dead. When nano viruses and weapons get introduced we are all basically dead. You have to understand, most of these weapons already exist and it's a miracle we havent used them because we did use the nuclear bomb and every other weapon we have invented even if just to test it. It's a miracle if we make it another 20 years, not because of the technology, but because of the state of world affairs at this moment. I see no end in sight. Tell me, how do you expect this to end? I'm no alarmist, but really if you think we can fight all these wars and survive, well, show me how that is possible. No matter who wins the wars, the environment will be so toxic that it might be a wasteland, so I don't know.
Google, and other corporations already have the entire internet on file somewhere. All human knowledge is already stored. So theres really no point unless the super sized harddrives wear out.
The point is this, if the world is going to end, you or I arent the ones who will decide. Hey I don't look forward to the end of the world, I'm as young as you, but perhaps we were simply born in the wrong era, on the wrong planet. Let's just face it, humans don't care about each other, the species, or value life, so how exactly can the species survive when it doesnt care about itself or even recognize it's own existance or right to exist?
If you didn't know already, this is about energy, and the energy crisis creates a domino effect. Human's have the option to survive, but once again you and I arent the decision makers, we are the actors, we get fed the script from the decision makrs and given a set of rules as to how to act. You obviously arent a decision maker, it's something you are born into, if you are a member of the lucky sperm club then you'll get to make important decisions, and if not then you'll wait until it's your turn. It won't be our turn anytime soon if ever, assuming the world does last another 20 years, then it will be our turn, but thats assuming it can last through the next 20 years and I doubt it. Do you really see technology making things better? Technology will speed up our self destruction.
I'm a technologist too, and no I'm not psychotic, I'm not hopeless, but the forces at work here are so massive that they are beyond our control. We are the peasants here. All we can do is adapt to the situations we are placed into by our leaders. If you want to work on something, figure out a cure to the avian flu. If you want to work on something, figure out how to secure nano technology because it's the next nuclear technology. Ultimately, we barely survived the nuclear age, and if we manage to survive the diseases and natural disasters, we might still be wiped out by nano terrorism. This is the kind of situation where, most people are asleep and don't know whats happening, or people who know don't care, and the few who do care are all in third world countries or just peasants. Face it, unless you are a CEO, and have a lot of support, you arent going to be in a position to make a decision. Sure you can change laws but no one will follow laws that you cannot enforce. Here is some advice, since we all know the world is ending, and we have an idea as to how, the future is very predictable. A wise decision would be to make some investments based on what we do know to take advantage of the chaos ahead. You cannot do much else but turn chaos into oppurtunity and profit. Start a business, or work for one that is starting. Maybe you'll have a better chance of survival if you save some money.
In ancient times you hunted and grew the food yourself. Why would you need to have some complete strangers who don't know you inspecting your food? In ancient times you were personally responsible for your own food because there was no super market.
I honestly think, that if you allow your food to go rotten then you should have salted it first and dried it. You act like ancient people were stupid or something, but it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how long food will keep before going bad, or how to dry it and store it. Yes people got sick more often from food poisoning and died of it, but people still die of food poisoning now. The only difference now is that theres a slight chance that you can buy food from a store and still get food poisoning and die. There are no food police except you, the only way to inspect food is to inspect it yourself because when complete strangers are doing it, do you know for sure they are doing a good job? You trust big government now?
So many assumptions. First there are MANY theories of aging. Some say it's genetic, some say aging has to do with how many calories you consume, and some say aging has to do with many other factors, but lets assume it's free radicals. Eventually the air and water will age you twice as fast as it does now.
Let's also say, that you are wrong, heart attacks did not exist in the past, so while you are right being obese meant you werent as good of a hunter, you don't have to be a hunter because you are obese. so you are right, most obese werent hunters, but most humans werent hunters, most humans were gathers, and you can see this by looking at our teeth, are our teeth designed to eat mostly meat or mostly whatever we came accross? Seems to me, some of us hunted meat, some of us farmed, some of us gathered, some of us fished, and some of us just stole from other people who did. The point is, there is no absolute model of how tribal humans survived, if we look at native Americans, they hunted, they farmed, they gathered. If we look at Africa, they hunted, farmed and gathered. In China and in Asia, rice was popular, and in Ireland the potatoe was the staple food. In general, obesity during tribal times was a sign of GOOD health, you'd WANT to be obese back then because it meant you'd live longer and wouldnt die of a cold, or of starvation. You might not be a fast hunter or warrior, but lets be realistic, most tribes werent good at war, the tribes that were good at war are ruling the world right now. So the whole physically fit warrior theory, it only applies to select elite hunter tribes.
Most of us here are geeks, with bad eyes, does this mean we'd have died because we wear glasses? Yes, because according to your theory, no matter how much intelligence or tool making ability you have, it's the physical body that keeps you alive?
Please explain your hypothesis in detail.
I don't understand your logic. What does death have to do with health if everyone is sick? you seem to think there will be mutants on earth who won't die and who will have lots of kids but the trend is that we all are dying sooner and having less kids, with no real genetic exceptions to this rule. So sure there are selective forces, but it is unclear if anyone gains from them. And why are you confident humans will even exist in 100 years?
People talk about evolution as if we do not control it. Evolution has been a controlled art for a while now, and obviously we are getting it wrong because, well look around you. Sure we could focus on improving our species and our evolution, but it has nothing to do with natural selection, thats ignoring the fact that we have science and brains capable of actually directing our own evolution. Our lack of evolution is due to the fact that we just recently discovered genetics, and even now while we know what genetics is, we rely on religion to tell us how to evolve and live. We are focused a bit too much on appearance and not really focused at all on survival. Read up on transhumanism.
I don't think a protien is responsible for aging. Look, people have been obese since the beginning and werent dying from cancer at these rates. Heart attacks were never this popular, we had kings who lived for 60+ years and they didnt die of heart attacks, simply of old age.
I don't think just because someone dies of a heart attack, or of cancer, that we can automatically assume they would have died that way 100 years ago. The food is not the same, read the ingredients. The water is not the same either, or the air. I mean sure a protien could cause these things, but do you believe this?
It's the chemistry of it. Don't you get it? Processed foods are what cause health reduction, along with the other chemically altered ingredients. Veggies are really no less processed, but if you know a good place we can buy veggies show us a farm we can buy directly from.
I'm trying to be a clean consumer, I'm not really focused on which clean foods people consume. Vegetarianism is good for animals? OF course. If it good for you? Maybe not.
Clean food is food which is healthy for you, if we can have clean vegetarian food, and with our technology it should be possible, we should do this, I'd go vegetarian if I can get a meat equal. Nuts and stuff, seriously, not many people are going to go fully vegetarian, most humans arent designed for it, yes we should eat a lot less meat, but no meat at all? Maybe someday when we have clean healthy food and can universally decide to eat however we want, but most of us eat according to our individual health.
First, solve pesticides and genetic engineering, because as things are right now, the vegetarian eating habits arent much better. I agree, I don't eat certain meats. But seriously, fish is healthy. Omega fatty acids are found in fish, and despite what you might think, humans need fat and calories.
So the question here, or the debate we should be having is how to make food cleaner. We all agree on this that food is dirty, and we want clean food and water. You will not have clean food and water if you are focused on trying to make people all eat like you, food nazism is just not the answer. If you want to do something useful, focus on functional foods, and clean foods. Instead of making fake meats with veggies, invent new foods. Also, stop supporting those processed fake veggie foods, how am I supposed to take vegetarianism seriously when vegetarians are drinking soy milk?! and fake meat?! That stuff is as bad as drinking cows milk and eating the real thing.
Yes vegetarianism is good for health, I absolutely support it, but I don't think you can support vegetarianism by jumping in peoples face with fake health benefits. Clean food is food which is not processed, which has verified chemistry, which passes all the organic genetic tests, and which has no form of pesticides. Most veggies you buy from a store, is genetically modified, filled with pesticides too, and then theres the processing and altered chemistry.
So, first step is to actually have a place people can go to and buy clean food, and have groups to test food and make sure it's clean. Otherwise you arent any healthier as a vegetarian if you arent growing it yourself.
Vegetarianism has health benefits depending on your body type, your gender, and many many other individual based diet observations. In general, sure we should be eating less meat, but to simply demand everyone eat your favorite veggies is not going to work. If you want to promote vegetarianism, the first thing you need to do is focus on cleaning up food in general, because vegetarian food is no healthier with all the pesticides and other issues. A genetically engineered veggie is no healthier or safer than eating the steak, and vegetarians get cancer too.
IF we follow your logic to it's conclusion, the human species is unfit for breeding. Let's see, every human dies, and will die at an earlier and earlier age as pollution decreases lifespan. So according to your own logic, you adocate suicide?!
:"Everyone wants to look good, but do you want the species to look good, and be incredibly lazy, eventually to the point of not even bothering to breed anymore."
In nature, the fit are the ones who declare themselves fit. If obese out of shape old men declare themselves more fit than young teenagers in their prime, then they are more fit. Do you see that animals actually have brains and decide among themselves who will be fit and when? Second animals are not rational, mice will decide their individual families are fit even if they arent. A family of fat mice working together might be more fit than a group of independent skinny mice. Lastly, fitness of the individual mouse has nothing to do with fitness of the individual species.
So, we could pick out the most beautiful atheletes, but if they have the smallest brains, well, thats going to limit the overall long term survival of the species.
Logical flaw in your arguement
This is an assumption, and what is the basis? If you view yourself as a physical body, and not a part of an ecosystem, then yes how your body looks matters, but obesity really has nothing to do with fitness as in the right environment being obese will keep you from starving and is physically attractive. The way to survive is intelligent selection, and most humans don't intelligently select. Natural selection isnt always intelligent. Intelligent selection is selecting the human most likely to improve the quality of the species itself, which almost no one does. Geeks get no love, and geniuses often get treated like somethings wrong with them. If the goal is the survival of the human species on a long term basis, it's intelligent selection. If the goal is survival of the fittest by todays standards, at the cost of tomorrow, well then mate with the most physically attractive person you can find, and in the future you will have a physically attractive yet most likely extinct human species. What you have to understand is, the long term survival of a species requires both the obese genes and the skinny genes, it requires both the lazy and hard working, it's the lazy who created the personal computer and increased productivity, otherwise we'd still be using typewriters. It's the lazy who invented the car, the bike and modern transportation. It's the lazy who invented the factory.
It could be that we are far too lazy, I will not say too much lazy is good, but there is a need for lazy. There is a need for hard labor. Most importantly, we have a shortage of intelligent minds, and a massive over supply of simple minds. Many people, are happy to just party through life, and expect life to get better, and then be surprised as each year progressively gets worse. If you want the key to survival of the fittest, mate with the people who make your life and other peoples lives better, you can be sure the offspring will carry that gene, otherwise you'll mate potentially with a person who will make your life and everyone around you miserable, and we already know where this can lead, a divorce perhaps? But it has a much greater impact on the lifespan of yourself as an individual, and on the lifespan of the species itself than people realize.
That is an interesting direction of thought. If they are, well we might already have Crutzfeld-Jacob disease. Think of it this way, if we do have it, you cannot tell anyone for the same reason you cannot talk about alien invasions and other weird unlikely events. Sure it's possible, but if we think about every possible unlikely event, we all will go batshit crazy and be wearing tin-foil hats. I don't really think tin-foil hats do much except fry your brain.
Let's see, how long before we can buy the vaccine? Better yet how long before doctors start selling it on the black market?
If this really is just a single protien, well then, it's going to be sold. How do we find it? How much will it cost? If it's going to be a prescribed drug, how can we buy stock? If it's a vaccine, how can we get one?
I don't know, I suppose right now none of this matters because the earth wont last long enough to even make this drug and test it. Chances are, we will die of the flu before we die of heart disease. Chances are will we die of food pollution or water pollution or air pollution.
So, yes if this is the truth, well this is good, but theres a lot of good news that we will only see in 10 years or more, and considering the current state we could be back in the stone age or tribal, who knows. What I do know is that this will be very valueable knowledge.
I see no benefit to an income tax. A sales tax, okay maybe. A negative income tax, okay perhaps. But the current income tax? No.
Taxes arent always bad, the problem with taxes is we arent taxing people based on what they use, we are taxing people in unfair ways. We arent taxing people way too much and then we act surprised when the government is way big and intrusive.
Government is a non physical entity. Government is not physical. Libertarians know that government exists only in the minds of individuals. The Greens on the other hand, seem to believe that government only exists on pieces of paper called laws, or through lawyers.
The Libertarian perception of government takes into account that ultimately, we are the governor of ourselves through corporations and through interaction. Regulation reduces the ability you have to govern yourself and gives this ability to guys in suits who will decide for you what you can and cannot consume, wear, how many hours you work, how much money you make and all these other things. Regulation in the end means reduced freedom which means reduced ability to self govern.
The concerns I have with the Greens is that there is a chance they might be against civil liberties, and I don't mean the constitution, I mean an actual reduce of freedom. I agree that the environment needs to be protected, it's a matter of which methods are the way to protect it. I think first of all, it must be profitable. No one is going to protect something unless it's out of greed. The key to making anything work is understanding psychology, and the science behind it. The Green party wants to alter behavior to protect the environment, but people in general do not take orders from nameless faceless words written on pieces of paper, at least thats not how most people respond. It's carrot and stick, you offer incentives, like increased freedom, the ability to profit, and other incentives, and reducded freedom and ability to profit as the downside. This is proven to work. In general, theres different ways of thinking, and feeling among humans, but you can do a statistical check and see that the people who you want to communicate with, are not going to want to accept regulations. If you are a CEO, you run a big business and are powerful, used to getting what you want, why exactly would you accept regulations from a bunch of lawyers? Regulation is the reason why the Green party is having so much problems. The Green party takes the gamble that people universally care about the environment, or that people care in general. Some people only care about winning, and winning in the moment. The people who care about the future, these people already know what the Green party wants to do and don't need the regulation to begin with. The people who don't care, arent going to respond to the regulation in the way the Green party expects.
This is a difference of psychology, of neuro-economics, and the solution will be a neuro-economic solution. I do not think regulations will solve anything, it's like adding new taxes, it will piss off the people who's behavior you want to change and perhaps cause even more pollution. It's the big daddy government telling it's citizens what they can and cannot do again. If you can find a solution to this problem which does not involve more taxes, more regulations, bigger government, and less rights and freedom, then you'll start to win support among libertarians.
Lower taxes, increase individual freedom, increase economic freedom, but if you actually reduce the ability to profit and trade, or if you try regulations, this is just going to make libertarians respond by asking for tax cuts. No libertarian wants to pay your government to remove their freedom, but they would love to improve the environment in exchange for an increase in freedom and a decrease in regulation. This means, if a corporation or individual can recieve government credits, and recieve a huge reduction in taxes in exchange for protecting the environment, then you'll be on to something. How about a tax reduction? How about a decrease in regulation for the people who protect the environment? I mean give people some privileges. How else do you get selfish people to protect the environment? People want something in return for that. So think up some ways you can buy the support of the selfish man, without money, and that will bring you close to the solution.
libertians arent FOR polution anymore than greens, libertarians believe in a clean free market, of course pollution is a problem, but you need a free market to solve that problem. freedom is a requirement for protecting the environment. i do not think you can protect the environment by creating regulations that big businesses wont follow, but by making the market more free, reducing taxes, and removing some of the restrictions, you can actually protect the environment economically, which protects the environment physically.
Pollution is a huge problem, we all breath air, we all drink water, pesticides kill all living things, and I can understand how you can think that under-regulation will allow these businesses the freedom to pollute, but these businesses already pollute with or without regulations. We have no way to track pollution accurately.
The greens are right on the pollution issue, the libertarians are right on the freedom issue. A clean environment increases freedom for everyone so any libertarian will support clean air, water, skys, solar energy or whatever simply because it's rational and makes economic sense. How many libertarians want to give up free air? It's free now but most libertarians will not want to pay for it.
Libertarianism is not an economic policy. Yes there are many libertarian economic policies, and in the main, libertarians believe that tax cuts are bad. You like taxes?
The free market is good, and it has nothing to do with copyright or monopolies, or the definition of a corporation as a person, libertarians did not create corporate government, it was the Democrats and big government conservatives who created corporate government. Basically, the corporate government is a design, and libertarians did not design it.
You know people in the current or recent cabinet? You are right it is possible to avoid being blackmailed and dirty tricked, but President Clinton couldnt avoid it, and he is brilliant by anyones standards.
You know, maybe you are correct, it's just I see politics are more competitive than I've ever seen it. If you look at the last few elections, you can learn a lot about politics, but I'm also aware that perhaps those last few elections were abnormal in the political context.
If you are interested in politics, and you have friends like Larry Ellison, good luck. I do not know anyone on that level directly, but I do know people who know people. I hope you are correct, maybe you will be a leader.
I do not mean to flame you. I was simply trying to make the point, that poltiics are so serious these days that most of us could run for office if we wanted to.
There are two ways to looking at politics, maybe even two levels, the activism level, and the power level. The power level is where all the influence is and where the difficult decisions are made. The activism levels are where ordinary citizens can make their voice heard and influence who gets elected, what words are used in policy and so on and so forth. Ultimately however policy is decided by groups of powerful individual and only the words are influenced by the citizens.
So, even if 99% of citizens wanted Marijuana to be legal, if the 1% decide it should be illegal, it will be illegal, and there will be a war on drugs. I think the best thing to do now is, educate the people who want to truly be involved in politics through training, and to let the activists do charity work and community service. Most of us just arent suited or fit to get into the dirty world of politics. We have friends, family, and want to keep a clear conscience, and this might not always be optional when you take orders from powerful entities to decide policy.
Politics are all about blackmail and dirty tricks. Ask Karl Rove, I mean seriously. If you are this naive, I don't see how you'd ever win an election. You think people are afraid of big oil just because big oil has money? BIG OIL is powerful as hell, the most powerful group of companies in the world basically. The Telcos are right next to them in power.
Politics are about power, if you don't have any, you won't win even a local election, and you won't stand a chance in a federal election. If you think blackmail is something that only happens in the movies, I'm guessing you arent a CEO, you arent a politician, or dealing with millions of dollars. When you deal in millions or billions, and so much money is at stake, it's a completely different league and playing field. Also when you deal with people who have unlimited money, power, and influence, if you have no leverage, you'll be their bitch. It's just like on the streets, in prison, or anywhere else, the rules stay the same, when you are dealing with a lot of money and big deals, anything is possible and you'll have to be paranoid.
The only difference between the right and left, is will. The right wins because the right wanted to win more than the left.
It's not really about right and left, it's about individuals. The right CAN govern equally as well as the left.
I'm not saying that the Democrats couldnt become fiscally conservative, but I cannot imagine Hilary Clinton winning the libertarian vote. I like Hillary Clinton as a person, but at this stage in our countries history I just do not think a female president will be electable. At this point, I think it's not about Democrat or Republican anymore, it's about individuals. I think, a fiscally conservative libertarian candidate can win. I do not think a socialist or new deal Democrat can win. I do not think we will get another far right Republican, I think McCain could win, but overall I think Americans are looking for a libertarian with a conscience.
If Democrats want to have a chance, the best idea I've seen them have is when they start moving in the moral libertarian direction. That is the future of the Democratic party if there will even be a Democratic party in the future. The socially progressive fiscially conservative libertarian would be good for business, good for individual liberties and would do a lot to bring the country together. I do not advocate for socialist policies at this time, there is just too much work to do at this point, perhaps college education is good, but we are at a point now where if we do not make some basic changes, there will not be an earth in 20 years. We at Slashdot know how advanced the technology is, and we know that you cannot regulate technology to make it safe, we also know that terrorism is not something which can be stopped simply by violence. Violence + Violence = double Violence. I do think we need to focus on fighting terrorism, I think the Bush Admin picked the right topic for the nation to focus on, so the question is how do we do it?
1. We need to use our technology to have better surveillance. As much as I love privacy laws, we have to admit finally that privacy does not exist in a high tech world. Most of us here have experience as hackers and know for a fact that privacy never existed. There should be laws to protect peoples identities, and there should be laws to protect people legally and financially, but everything will be tracked, and most of us agree on this.
2. We need to have higher quality connections to each other. We need better ties, and better business and trading partners. One of the major ways which our economic system fuels terrorism is, we have countries which we refuse to trade with for no apparant reason. If we are afraid terrorists might be training in Africa, or we are afraid that there will be problems in the middle east, very similarly to what we did in India and China, we should trade with these so called terrorist states. In most cases, the majority of individuals in any state just want to survive, take care of their familys, and keep a steady job, it's the same everywhere.
3. We need to figure out what causes terrorism, what the profile of a terrorist is, and I don't mean the racial profile. Terrorism is not simply a factor of environment, terrorism is also an emotional issue. Terrorism is not rational, it's always irrational to commit terrorism, and I don't think you can simply blame religion. Religion is the excuse for terrorism just like racism is used as an excuse for certain behavior, but the focus should be on the behavior.
4. We need to remove the environmental causes of terrorism. Why do people give up on life? Because often people arent given the chance to live life in the first place. AIDs is a threat to global security, it creates living dead people, and if a person has AIDS or a disease such as this, it's the type of disease which can make a person unstable enough to commit terrorist acts. Privacy is not so important that we shouldnt have a database with everyone who has a terminal illness in it. I think if you really look at suicide rates, these rates are highest among certain groups of peope, and it has nothing to do with race, gender, country, culture, or religion.
There are perhaps thousands of ideas and things we can be doing to prevent terrorism. Terrorism is a real problem, I don't think anyon
You see, there are at least two types of conservatives. The traditional family, old fashioned type of conservatives, and the neo-conservatives. We know what the traditionalists stand for, strong family, strong community, smaller government, lower taxes, but the main goal of traditional conservatives are to strengthen the family, and this is something I agree with.
Neo-conservatives, I'm still waiting to see what the philosophy is, I understand the foreign policy is more aggressive and less isolationist, and I understand the global economic outlook, but I'm confused and or unsure about the outcome of this agenda. Sure, most of us arent going to complain if we have cheaper oil, but oil prices are going up? Most of us would not complain if policies were explained to us, and I admit that they are doing a better job than they did in the beginning.
At this point, just about all of us know why we are at war, maybe we didnt in the beginning but now we know. We also know that this war is going to be very expensive, and last for a very long time. Most conservatives arent against the war, it's the price of this war, the spending, the expenses of this war that make people question if this war is really worth it.
Does it really have to cost as much as it is costing to do this? As far as the conservatives can't govern theory, thats wrong. Mitt Romney is a good governor, Arnold is doing a decent job, these guys are conservative fiscally, I'm conservative fiscally, because it makes sense. so when you are talking about conservatives you arent talking about ordinary conservatives, you are talking about the federal government. At this stage in the war, we should support our leaders. We are going to have this leadership for another few years, and who knows how many wars we might get into between now and then. It's basically too late to cut and run, we have to at least finish what we've started in Iraq, and we might also have problems in the future with Iran and North Korea, so at this point we need someone like Bush in office.