Fish farming, particularly sea cage farming of saltwater species, has plenty of problems itself.
These are all solveable problems. There are a lot of clever people out there. It took a good while to solve the similar problems with agriculture, but got the knack eventually.
What I find to be self evident is that the real issue is simply to[o] many people, not enough planet.
Or, we could just eat less fish and more cows...seeing how we've figured out how to farm cows. I hear wheat and corn and chickens also make good eating.
Buying farm-raised fish is not the answer. To raise such fish, the farmers harvest other fish from the oceans in order to feed the fish on the farms. The end result is still the depletion of the wildlife in the oceans.
Um, actually they feed them CORN. Speaking of which, how come we have 300 million people in this country eating more corn products than is probably even sane, and we haven't depleted the plains of corn yet? Oh, yeah, because it's FARMED!
Over-population reminds me of global warming.
Funny, me too. The ratio of food supply to people has never been greater than it is today, even with 6 billion people. Through 99% of human history, you'd have had a heckuva time convincing people that there could exist such a thing as an "obesity epidemic" or (not to belabor corn) that people would burn dried corn for heat (as many do in the plain states) because it's more plentiful/economical than wood or coal or oil (or electricity).
The complaints about population growth are nonsensical. Besides, the period between ice ages are brief; and when this one is over, the human population will probably quickly get pared back down to a few million, so it will be a moot point. (Not that I'm calous about it, I'd be all for a scientist or two looking into preventing that instead of finding more "effects of global warming")
This is the latest example of the politicization of science -- the production of political scientific predictions that lack actual scientific merit. The "scientists" involved in this one all but openly state that that is what they're doing. There is no science where there is no objectivity.
I don't oppose the politics of taking better care of our fisheries, but I do oppose the science of making crap up that isn't true.
These days the only scientists whose opinions you can trust without thinking twice about it, are those who work in fields that no one cares about. Sooner or later there will be scientific evidence of an actual impending catastrophe, and no one will believe it because of all the global warming and empty ocean crap they've had to put up with.
You think that a population of 300 million people can't produce as many great leaders, statistically, as a population of 3-10 million did? The colonies produced Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Hamilton, and Lincoln. None of these people would ever touch public office now. I can't imagine that there aren't people something like them in modern society, but somehow either none of them are interested in acquiring leadership or they are weeded out of the system.
Modern day Jeffersons and Hamiltons may be willing to serve, but would be unable to. The first generation of American Presidents and Representitives were not politicians and had no politicians to compete with. After the founders died away, the politicians took over, and the weaknesses of the system were revealed. When Lincoln was initial elected he was a politician like the rest. The experiences in his life and in his presidency changed him into something greater. I think the same can be said for our current president. When he was initially elected he was a pure politician. I didn't care for him at all, and voted for Forbes in the primaries. (But I was kind of glad Bush won, because I knew he'd annoy the liberals as much as Clinton had annoyed us concervatives.) But I think the post-9/11 George Bush is something different. He has Lincoln's kind of concern for doing what's right in the bigger picture and resentment of the necessities of politics. (And an unpopular war like Lincoln's, and a post-war mess like Lincoln's, and throngs who despise him like Lincoln, a mocked speaking style like Lincoln, and other uncanny similarities) The man he is now could never get elected if he were running for the first time.
So in today's reality, by reversing abysmally ignorant previous actions, one can actually gain favor.
Well, yes. A company enacts an inane policy, and they lose favor. They reverse the policy and they gain back favor. That way their earned favor stays in line with the value they offer. It's fairly basic logic, and obvious to all but the ideological.
I have seen a number of ppl here who are pushing ID (creationism) and the same ppl are claiming that global warming is a myth. That is a large group of ppl here who ignore logic and science. And I am not convinced that they are a minority.
Oh, I see, it's LOGIC AND SCIENCE that convinces people to buy into global warming hysteria and insist on a form evolution that necessarily happened by a strictly random process. Now I understand. Of course instead of actual science you're talking about an ideology that only accepts things that are incompatible with the existence of God, and instead of actual logic, you're talking about the ideology that everyone who dissagrees with the dogma is necessarily too stupid to argue with, so arguements need not be used.
Only 3% of the genome is genes, the rest is junk DNA...
Based on what? We only JUST mapped out the 3% that encodes protiens (the genes). Science does not know what the rest of the DNA does or does not do. There is certainly no study that I can find that offers proof that it is unused. It's the furthering of the trend of treating ignorance as if it were knowledge. If they had intellectual honesty, instead of proclaiming DNA 97% junk, they'd proclaim themselves 97% ignorant. Labeling of it as "junk," especially in our infancy, or rather fetushood, of understanding DNA, is the absolute pinnacle of scientific arrogance. Maybe next they'll look up at the sky, and seeing clear proof of life around one star, and none around the others, declare all the rest "junk stars."
You're all psychopaths. We have a legal system in this country that is still extremely viable for collecting damages if you have been defrauded. Oh, I forgot, as one person said, the amount of damages aren't worth going to court over, BUT TRYING TO BLOW UP AN INNOCENT PERSON TO ALLAY YOUR FRUSTRATION -- well, sure, that's what bombs are for! You know, there's a terrific country called Iraq that you should consider moving to. There, whenever you get frustrated, either at the government, or the Americans, or the Sunnis or the Shiites, you can just kill people a bunch of random people with a bomb, and it's considered socially acceptable. You'd fit in great!
First, before we follow you into battle against the evil people who work for corporations, I think we need to know what you do for a living, and if you ever put YOUR own paycheck ahead of the needs of YOUR customers.
1. Hard radiation on surface - not good. 2. Virtually zero atmosphere - not that good. 3. No (or little water) - not good. 4. Highly oxidising compounds on surface - very bad.
Each in themselves, not a show-stopper. Two - err... All of them == no life. Well, not as we know it (Jim - sorry).
It's a pretty big leap from "no life as we know it" to "no life," especially since any life on Mars would be, pretty much by definition, "not as we know it." It seems like a bad habit of convenience in science to use ignorance itself almost as if it were evidence of something.
So... They told us a story of a pending cataclysm coming because people are using hair spray and freon, then some well-connected people made 500 gazillion dollars on CFC-free equipment that the rest of us were forced by law to buy, and now that scary hole in the atmosphere is embarrassingly growing bigger than ever and we're embarrassingly still alive. I want to know A) how I can sign up for the class action law suit against these pigs, and B) can we please not do the same thing with global warming?
I am a player of Defcon, and understand that victory can mean less than 100,000 survivors.
Shouldn't be a problem. We probably came out of the last ice age with 100,000. We should be able to get through the next one with that many. Of course it will suck for the 5,999,900,000 who will die miserably. Of course scientists could try to figure out how to interrupt the ice age cycle, but then Al Gore might sneer at them, and they're pretty sensitive about that.
According to Al Gore, a rise of 1 degree at the equator would mean a rise in 12 degrees at the poles
Ah, which means that either A) a rise of 1 degree at the equator would mean a rise of 12 degrees at the poles, or B) Al Gore is the biggest gas bag in the history of the world, and every time he opens his mouth he melts more glaciers with his hot air than all other man-made causes combined. I'm going with........ B.
Ok, what if I want to avoid contact with my peers, and do something that I'll end up spending more time on than I planned? Is there something I can do which they won't call me "ill" for doing, or am I just already ill, and I should just pick an addiction and run with it?;-)
"Humans are undoubtedly the most dominant species the Earth has ever known." Totally incorrect and full of treehugging feel good mush. Any species of ANT impacts the Earth and environment far more then humans ever have.
Absolutely. And practically any species of bacteria makes ants look like, well, humans, by comparison. As the theme among sane people here has gone, Spiritually and Intellectually humans are of the utmost significans on this planet, biologically and ecologically though, they are about as insignificant as they can be.
And in this day and age, should a government-chosen domain registry be allowed to enforce their own moral code on the public?"
The one and only purpose of government is to enforce a moral code on the public. Too little enforced moral code, and you get a Somalia. Too much moral code, and you get a Taliban or a USSR. Of course, having a GOOD moral code is as important having the right amount of it enforced.
Certain liberals are frequently outraged at the enforced Western moral code because of a simplistic presupposition that violence is bad and sex is good. A more nuanced view would require that violence can be either good or bad, and sex can be either good or bad. Further nuance might require that there is not a one-to-one mapping between good/bad and good-to-publicly-display/bad-to-publicly-display.
My own view is that sex is not only good, but sacred. But however, that public depiction of sex and nudity is a bad thing. When sex stops being a private thing, it stops being a good thing. That dynamic does not exist with violence. Nor does the depiction of violence have anything close to a similar compelling effect on the mind. These things are based on my own philosophy, religion, and experience. Your mileage may vary. Anyway, reasoned arguments are great, but the trite, unreasoned, and one-dimensional arguments that this subject tends to suck out of the woodwork... not so much.
I do not accept that the government has the authority to censor them because the first amendment says they are to make no law abridging the freedom of speech, and telling me I can't say something is precisely that.
I can't accept that the disallowing by the FCC of the three-or-so words that you can't say constitutes an abridgment of the freedom of speech. There are no limits placed by the government on the actual content of speech, with the exception of express calls to an illegal actions, such as murder. (I have yet to hear anyone give an arguement against this exception.)
However, I utterly reject the notion that disallowing by the FCC of visual depictions of nudity or real or simulated acts of sex or violence, constitute an abridgment of the freedom of speech. These things are not speech, are not meant by the First Amendment by speech, and cannot be made so by decree of the Supreme Court. We could, if we wanted to, change the Constitution to allow any visual depiction of anything to be broadcast at any time. The process is clearly defined in the Constitution -- two to choose from, actually. Curriously, the Supreme Court has no role in either process.
That seems reasonable, except that you don't delve far enough into how the public should make that determination. Simple majority vote on every (moral) issue? I think you'd probably agree that it's a little more complicated than that. We need to avoid tyranny by majority.
And tyranny by the majority is what -- that the majority disfavors nudity in public parks? The Constitution solves the problem by putting power in the hands of the majority, but distancing it from them through delegation. Like for example, senators aren't elected directly by the people, but by their representatives in the state legislature... OOOPS looks like we screwed up that safeguard. Well, the FCC chairman isn't elected directly but appointed by the elected President, and who operates under laws established by the elected Congress. But really, the Supreme Court has cleared up this whole confusing mess by usurping all the power for themselves. Now there's no more worring about who votes for whom or what. The Court just hands the decisions, and we do it. SOOOO much easier. THANKS GUYS!!!
In light of the news that Republicans consider sex immoral, I'd like to ask "How do you get republicans?
You misunderstand. It's not sex that's immoral. It's sex between Democrats that's immoral. Personally, I even condone Republican-Democrat sex (if they're married of course), but Democrat-Democrat sex... ewwwwww.;-)
Hardly. If it can be represented by bits, it is speech that must be free.
There's nothing wrong with holding that ludicrous opinion. However, I hope that when you say "must" you mean some imagined moral dictate, and not that the Constitution requires it. Otherwise, since murder can be represented in bits, our murder laws must all be unconstitutional.
People get sent to jail for challenging the accuracy of the Holocaust figures,
Only in neo-fascist countries like Germany.
yet freedom of speech in invoked everytime someone gratuitousely insults the prophet Mohammed and his teachings.
People tend to invoke freedom of speech whenever they say something unpopular -- why shouldn't they? The only difference with insulting Mohammed, is that when that is done, and it gets publicized in Muslim countries, you get waves of riots, calls for beheadings, and sometimes beheadings. This tends to lead to further (well-deserved) insults.
Israel gets away with a stockpile of nukes but no Arab country could dream of being allowed to develop them.
No country can get away with developing nukes these days -- until they actually develop them. If that's a double standard, it has nothing to do with ethnicity or race or religion. There is much greater specific desire to prevent specific countries, such as Syria and Iran, from developing nukes, but, again, it has nothing to do with ethnicity or race or religion, but rather the fact that amongst the leaderships of those countries the most common hobby is blowing stuff up that doesn't belong to them.
To quote Henry Kissinger: "a people who have been persecuted for 2000 years must be doing something wrong."
That's pretty funny as a joke. As a serious argument, it's just stupid. If it's not stupid, then I guess if we persecute Muslims for 2000 years, and then it will de facto be their fault.
Yes, well, marriage counselors are in the business of marriages. That doesn't make them right about putting children second. Sex, marriage, etc, the whole point of it all is reproduction of the species, aka children. They are the most important aspect, because if you raise them right, you'll benefit society.
That's silly. When was the last time a person had sex because they were worried about the species continuing? Oh, yeah, you're talking about Evolution's Grand Plan for the human race, according to which He gave us our sex drive and inclination towards marriage and children. B.S. We have children for the benefit of those children. That they can enjoy all the wonders of life, and also contribute to society themselves. What is the greatest benefit to those children is a question of philosophy and religion. Based upon my religion, philosophy, and experience, I agree that what is best for them is to see the example of a marriage being put first, and made to work.
but as soon as they enter school, the pressure is off, and you can being to wean them off dependance on you.
At what, age 6? or is it 4 now? Therein lies the disintegration of America. If you have kids, you are responsible for their upbringing. And yes, we homeschool.
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These are all solveable problems. There are a lot of clever people out there. It took a good while to solve the similar problems with agriculture, but got the knack eventually.
Or, we could just eat less fish and more cows
Um, actually they feed them CORN. Speaking of which, how come we have 300 million people in this country eating more corn products than is probably even sane, and we haven't depleted the plains of corn yet? Oh, yeah, because it's FARMED!
Funny, me too. The ratio of food supply to people has never been greater than it is today, even with 6 billion people. Through 99% of human history, you'd have had a heckuva time convincing people that there could exist such a thing as an "obesity epidemic" or (not to belabor corn) that people would burn dried corn for heat (as many do in the plain states) because it's more plentiful/economical than wood or coal or oil (or electricity).
The complaints about population growth are nonsensical. Besides, the period between ice ages are brief; and when this one is over, the human population will probably quickly get pared back down to a few million, so it will be a moot point. (Not that I'm calous about it, I'd be all for a scientist or two looking into preventing that instead of finding more "effects of global warming")
This is the latest example of the politicization of science -- the production of political scientific predictions that lack actual scientific merit. The "scientists" involved in this one all but openly state that that is what they're doing. There is no science where there is no objectivity.
I don't oppose the politics of taking better care of our fisheries, but I do oppose the science of making crap up that isn't true.
These days the only scientists whose opinions you can trust without thinking twice about it, are those who work in fields that no one cares about. Sooner or later there will be scientific evidence of an actual impending catastrophe, and no one will believe it because of all the global warming and empty ocean crap they've had to put up with.
Modern day Jeffersons and Hamiltons may be willing to serve, but would be unable to. The first generation of American Presidents and Representitives were not politicians and had no politicians to compete with. After the founders died away, the politicians took over, and the weaknesses of the system were revealed. When Lincoln was initial elected he was a politician like the rest. The experiences in his life and in his presidency changed him into something greater. I think the same can be said for our current president. When he was initially elected he was a pure politician. I didn't care for him at all, and voted for Forbes in the primaries. (But I was kind of glad Bush won, because I knew he'd annoy the liberals as much as Clinton had annoyed us concervatives.) But I think the post-9/11 George Bush is something different. He has Lincoln's kind of concern for doing what's right in the bigger picture and resentment of the necessities of politics. (And an unpopular war like Lincoln's, and a post-war mess like Lincoln's, and throngs who despise him like Lincoln, a mocked speaking style like Lincoln, and other uncanny similarities) The man he is now could never get elected if he were running for the first time.
Well, yes. A company enacts an inane policy, and they lose favor. They reverse the policy and they gain back favor. That way their earned favor stays in line with the value they offer. It's fairly basic logic, and obvious to all but the ideological.
Oh, I see, it's LOGIC AND SCIENCE that convinces people to buy into global warming hysteria and insist on a form evolution that necessarily happened by a strictly random process. Now I understand. Of course instead of actual science you're talking about an ideology that only accepts things that are incompatible with the existence of God, and instead of actual logic, you're talking about the ideology that everyone who dissagrees with the dogma is necessarily too stupid to argue with, so arguements need not be used.
Based on what? We only JUST mapped out the 3% that encodes protiens (the genes). Science does not know what the rest of the DNA does or does not do. There is certainly no study that I can find that offers proof that it is unused. It's the furthering of the trend of treating ignorance as if it were knowledge. If they had intellectual honesty, instead of proclaiming DNA 97% junk, they'd proclaim themselves 97% ignorant. Labeling of it as "junk," especially in our infancy, or rather fetushood, of understanding DNA, is the absolute pinnacle of scientific arrogance. Maybe next they'll look up at the sky, and seeing clear proof of life around one star, and none around the others, declare all the rest "junk stars."
You're all psychopaths. We have a legal system in this country that is still extremely viable for collecting damages if you have been defrauded. Oh, I forgot, as one person said, the amount of damages aren't worth going to court over, BUT TRYING TO BLOW UP AN INNOCENT PERSON TO ALLAY YOUR FRUSTRATION -- well, sure, that's what bombs are for! You know, there's a terrific country called Iraq that you should consider moving to. There, whenever you get frustrated, either at the government, or the Americans, or the Sunnis or the Shiites, you can just kill people a bunch of random people with a bomb, and it's considered socially acceptable. You'd fit in great!
First, before we follow you into battle against the evil people who work for corporations, I think we need to know what you do for a living, and if you ever put YOUR own paycheck ahead of the needs of YOUR customers.
It's a pretty big leap from "no life as we know it" to "no life," especially since any life on Mars would be, pretty much by definition, "not as we know it." It seems like a bad habit of convenience in science to use ignorance itself almost as if it were evidence of something.
So... They told us a story of a pending cataclysm coming because people are using hair spray and freon, then some well-connected people made 500 gazillion dollars on CFC-free equipment that the rest of us were forced by law to buy, and now that scary hole in the atmosphere is embarrassingly growing bigger than ever and we're embarrassingly still alive. I want to know A) how I can sign up for the class action law suit against these pigs, and B) can we please not do the same thing with global warming?
Shouldn't be a problem. We probably came out of the last ice age with 100,000. We should be able to get through the next one with that many. Of course it will suck for the 5,999,900,000 who will die miserably. Of course scientists could try to figure out how to interrupt the ice age cycle, but then Al Gore might sneer at them, and they're pretty sensitive about that.
Ah, which means that either A) a rise of 1 degree at the equator would mean a rise of 12 degrees at the poles, or B) Al Gore is the biggest gas bag in the history of the world, and every time he opens his mouth he melts more glaciers with his hot air than all other man-made causes combined. I'm going with........ B.
This guy is like a burgler who wipes his feet before breaking into your house. He is probably seriously separated from moral reality.
Ok, what if I want to avoid contact with my peers, and do something that I'll end up spending more time on than I planned? Is there something I can do which they won't call me "ill" for doing, or am I just already ill, and I should just pick an addiction and run with it? ;-)
Absolutely. And practically any species of bacteria makes ants look like, well, humans, by comparison. As the theme among sane people here has gone, Spiritually and Intellectually humans are of the utmost significans on this planet, biologically and ecologically though, they are about as insignificant as they can be.
The one and only purpose of government is to enforce a moral code on the public. Too little enforced moral code, and you get a Somalia. Too much moral code, and you get a Taliban or a USSR. Of course, having a GOOD moral code is as important having the right amount of it enforced.
Certain liberals are frequently outraged at the enforced Western moral code because of a simplistic presupposition that violence is bad and sex is good. A more nuanced view would require that violence can be either good or bad, and sex can be either good or bad. Further nuance might require that there is not a one-to-one mapping between good/bad and good-to-publicly-display/bad-to-publicly-display.
My own view is that sex is not only good, but sacred. But however, that public depiction of sex and nudity is a bad thing. When sex stops being a private thing, it stops being a good thing. That dynamic does not exist with violence. Nor does the depiction of violence have anything close to a similar compelling effect on the mind. These things are based on my own philosophy, religion, and experience. Your mileage may vary. Anyway, reasoned arguments are great, but the trite, unreasoned, and one-dimensional arguments that this subject tends to suck out of the woodwork... not so much.
I can't accept that the disallowing by the FCC of the three-or-so words that you can't say constitutes an abridgment of the freedom of speech. There are no limits placed by the government on the actual content of speech, with the exception of express calls to an illegal actions, such as murder. (I have yet to hear anyone give an arguement against this exception.)
However, I utterly reject the notion that disallowing by the FCC of visual depictions of nudity or real or simulated acts of sex or violence, constitute an abridgment of the freedom of speech. These things are not speech, are not meant by the First Amendment by speech, and cannot be made so by decree of the Supreme Court. We could, if we wanted to, change the Constitution to allow any visual depiction of anything to be broadcast at any time. The process is clearly defined in the Constitution -- two to choose from, actually. Curriously, the Supreme Court has no role in either process.
And tyranny by the majority is what -- that the majority disfavors nudity in public parks? The Constitution solves the problem by putting power in the hands of the majority, but distancing it from them through delegation. Like for example, senators aren't elected directly by the people, but by their representatives in the state legislature... OOOPS looks like we screwed up that safeguard. Well, the FCC chairman isn't elected directly but appointed by the elected President, and who operates under laws established by the elected Congress. But really, the Supreme Court has cleared up this whole confusing mess by usurping all the power for themselves. Now there's no more worring about who votes for whom or what. The Court just hands the decisions, and we do it. SOOOO much easier. THANKS GUYS!!!
You misunderstand. It's not sex that's immoral. It's sex between Democrats that's immoral. Personally, I even condone Republican-Democrat sex (if they're married of course), but Democrat-Democrat sex... ewwwwww.
What is disgusting is when one person's moral bias calls another person's moral bias "disgusting".
There's nothing wrong with holding that ludicrous opinion. However, I hope that when you say "must" you mean some imagined moral dictate, and not that the Constitution requires it. Otherwise, since murder can be represented in bits, our murder laws must all be unconstitutional.
That's silly. When was the last time a person had sex because they were worried about the species continuing? Oh, yeah, you're talking about Evolution's Grand Plan for the human race, according to which He gave us our sex drive and inclination towards marriage and children. B.S. We have children for the benefit of those children. That they can enjoy all the wonders of life, and also contribute to society themselves. What is the greatest benefit to those children is a question of philosophy and religion. Based upon my religion, philosophy, and experience, I agree that what is best for them is to see the example of a marriage being put first, and made to work.
At what, age 6? or is it 4 now? Therein lies the disintegration of America. If you have kids, you are responsible for their upbringing. And yes, we homeschool.