Re:Too many problems
on
Interstellar Ark
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
Generation 1 would have to be very carefully selected. Generations 2+ would have the benefit of on-ark education which would need to feature REAL courses in rationality, critical thinking, math, science, teamwork, etc, rather than the drivel that is taught in public schools today. It would probably help to have the on-ark language be Lojban http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban or some such, just in case there is any truth to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir%E2%80%93Whorf_h ypothesis.
WHAT!?!? Of course there is a conflict! Between members of party A who claim that the world works in manner X and members of party B who claim it works in manner Y there is certainly conflict where X!=Y.
If 'A' claims that the Earth is round and revolves around the center of mass of the Earth/Sun system and 'B' claims that the Earth is flat and that the Sun revolves around it then one is right and the other is wrong.
If 'B' claims that your immortal soul is what makes you, you. And 'A' claims that you are essentially software running on a meat computer and there is no soul then at least one of them is wrong and it is the tolerance of viewpoints vastly removed from reality that has allowed the country/world to get to this point. If, when one of the relatively small minority of young earthers started spouting nonsense the majority said, "Hah! How foolish." Then it would die out rather quickly, but for some reason, religion gets this magical "Don't question me." card that allows all manner of ridiculous tripe to be discussed as if it were "gospel" and somehow gets otherwise intelligent people such as yourself to start claiming that the tripe is "harmless" and "can't we all just get along?"
PLEASE LEAVE THE INTERNET ALONE. You will only screw it up, if you start messing with it.
Thanks,
Concerned Voters
So how much would it cost for some billboards in major metropolitan areas with this exact message on it along with a web address for further information?
I'd throw money into the pot (Firefox NY Times ad style)
so unless there are some SERIOUSLY large factions under the radar of the common man among us plotting an overthrow of the government, there is no justification for any of it.
I'm going to venture out on a short limb and say that these factions get a bit larger every time one of these governmental coverups gets exposed. I reference the post calling for impeachment above as exhibit A.
I would point out that lack of proof is not proof of lack
As a side note, for a Bayesian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_probability, absence of evidence IS in fact evidence of absence. If you go your whole life and never see a white raven then your belief that there are no white ravens SHOULD increase each passing day. If you want to be a rational thinker that is. If you don't care whether your thinking is strictly rational, then may I suggest religion?
This is an interesting but almost completely incorrect point. While evolution itself does not preclude the possibility of the existence of a higher power (read: god, advanced aliens, pantheon, superintelligent AI, etc. ..), science DOES in fact have a great deal to say about the folly of the worship of such an untestable entity. From the small, but non-zero possibility that such an ungrounded belief will cause people to fly airplanes into buildings, strap bombs to themselves, or engage in the mental and physical abuse of gays, to the negative correlation between religion and intelligence, to the positive correlation between religion and the breakdown of society, science has much evidence pointing to religion being a rather horrible proposition to undertake based on no evidence at all. The very notion of science itself is incompatible with religion. Science takes as it's central premise that nothing should escape testing or questioning. Religion immediately places several key, defining aspects out of reach of testing or questioning and does so arbitrarily. For no better reason than that over time, man has become able to account for many of the claims which were once only attributable to god and so slowly god has been removed (by religion) into a thing which was once mighty and powerful, but is now impotent and hidden. When was the last time we had a good miracle in full view of the public? So, while it is true that nothing in science specifically disproves the god hypothesis (primarily because it makes no predictions which can be tested) it does show us a universe which has no need of such an idea for it's existence. Evolution further shows that WE have no need for such a ridiculous construct either. If you choose to believe that the flying spaghetti monster created all things in a spasm of saucy inspiration then that is of course your perogative, deranged though it may be, but the minute you claim that said entity still has ANY effect on the physical world it becomes a proposition which is testable by science and further, it becomes falsifiable by science and to my knowledge, not one single miracle has withstood scientific testing in the past 50 years. So either your god stuck around long enough for us to get our hands on science and then left, or possibly he was a construct of man the entire time. I leave it for you to decide.
Slashdot Mirror
This:http://www.clipread.com/sbir/vstf_aera_2004.p df (PDF) appears to be the original paper.
Generation 1 would have to be very carefully selected. Generations 2+ would have the benefit of on-ark education which would need to feature REAL courses in rationality, critical thinking, math, science, teamwork, etc, rather than the drivel that is taught in public schools today. It would probably help to have the on-ark language be Lojban http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban or some such, just in case there is any truth to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir%E2%80%93Whorf_h ypothesis.
So you are implying that Direct Connect's image will most likely be improved by it's association with Google?
WHAT!?!? Of course there is a conflict! Between members of party A who claim that the world works in manner X and members of party B who claim it works in manner Y there is certainly conflict where X!=Y.
If 'A' claims that the Earth is round and revolves around the center of mass of the Earth/Sun system and 'B' claims that the Earth is flat and that the Sun revolves around it then one is right and the other is wrong.
If 'B' claims that your immortal soul is what makes you, you. And 'A' claims that you are essentially software running on a meat computer and there is no soul then at least one of them is wrong and it is the tolerance of viewpoints vastly removed from reality that has allowed the country/world to get to this point. If, when one of the relatively small minority of young earthers started spouting nonsense the majority said, "Hah! How foolish." Then it would die out rather quickly, but for some reason, religion gets this magical "Don't question me." card that allows all manner of ridiculous tripe to be discussed as if it were "gospel" and somehow gets otherwise intelligent people such as yourself to start claiming that the tripe is "harmless" and "can't we all just get along?"
X and NOT X cannot both be correct.
So how much would it cost for some billboards in major metropolitan areas with this exact message on it along with a web address for further information? I'd throw money into the pot (Firefox NY Times ad style)
so unless there are some SERIOUSLY large factions under the radar of the common man among us plotting an overthrow of the government, there is no justification for any of it.
I'm going to venture out on a short limb and say that these factions get a bit larger every time one of these governmental coverups gets exposed. I reference the post calling for impeachment above as exhibit A.
This is an interesting but almost completely incorrect point. While evolution itself does not preclude the possibility of the existence of a higher power (read: god, advanced aliens, pantheon, superintelligent AI, etc. . .), science DOES in fact have a great deal to say about the folly of the worship of such an untestable entity. From the small, but non-zero possibility that such an ungrounded belief will cause people to fly airplanes into buildings, strap bombs to themselves, or engage in the mental and physical abuse of gays, to the negative correlation between religion and intelligence, to the positive correlation between religion and the breakdown of society, science has much evidence pointing to religion being a rather horrible proposition to undertake based on no evidence at all. The very notion of science itself is incompatible with religion. Science takes as it's central premise that nothing should escape testing or questioning. Religion immediately places several key, defining aspects out of reach of testing or questioning and does so arbitrarily. For no better reason than that over time, man has become able to account for many of the claims which were once only attributable to god and so slowly god has been removed (by religion) into a thing which was once mighty and powerful, but is now impotent and hidden. When was the last time we had a good miracle in full view of the public? So, while it is true that nothing in science specifically disproves the god hypothesis (primarily because it makes no predictions which can be tested) it does show us a universe which has no need of such an idea for it's existence. Evolution further shows that WE have no need for such a ridiculous construct either. If you choose to believe that the flying spaghetti monster created all things in a spasm of saucy inspiration then that is of course your perogative, deranged though it may be, but the minute you claim that said entity still has ANY effect on the physical world it becomes a proposition which is testable by science and further, it becomes falsifiable by science and to my knowledge, not one single miracle has withstood scientific testing in the past 50 years. So either your god stuck around long enough for us to get our hands on science and then left, or possibly he was a construct of man the entire time. I leave it for you to decide.