The lineage of homo sapiens is a progression towards homo sapiens. This is a fact. If someone wants to see the lineage of modern humans, the iconic picture is fine representation of this.
You are somewhat missing the point. Yes, you can create a progression going back through your ancestors but that is using the word in a different sense to the idea that there is an end-point and start-point with an inevitable journey from one to the other, that is to say it has a presumption that humans had to evolve that some of the creationist rhetoric likes to engage in.
For example, if you take my ancestors over the last 20,000,000 years there has been an average upward trend in brain size. It may have had ups and downs, but there is an undeniable trend.
This underlies my point - YES, there has been an upward trend in brain sizes but that IS not because evolution was working in some goal based sense towards big brains. If you examine the whole tree a different picture emerges where bigger brains doesn't look like an inevitable end point, merely one possible future solution in one that includes ancestors with brains that are not progressing in that way (as with any other property one may care to examine).
It doesn't mean anything to say X is more evolved than Y or evolving more. It is a meaningless statement. Talking about the 'speed' of evolution doesn't mean anything unless you've got a predefined goal in mind and evolution most certainly does not - no matter what your Star Trek DVDs tell you.
It reinforces the mistaken view that evolution is a progression towards a goal - the true picture of evolution is tree-like.
So, you get a whole load of species radiating off a single branch, some branches producing further branching, others being cropped and ending that particular evolutionary pathway.
Essentially the process should be viewed as such:
G encodes the information for a genome. The replication of G introduces mutations into that genome into the successors. This is mutation. If we take a simple asexual reproductive organism O1 then:
O1 is the parent with genome G1
O2 and O3 are the offspring with G2 and G3
O4 - O7 are the offspring with G4 - G7
And so on... we rapidly try out a whole range of G, some of which will be branches that lead to dead-ends (i.e. solutions that produce organisms that are poorly adapted), some will lead to better solutions and eventually some of these solutions will incorporate significant phenotypical changes.
So there was no 'progression' towards homo sapiens, we're just an end point of a huge exploration of a genetic search space.
And you've completely missed the topic of this Slashdot discussion. The submitter is whining "why isn't sci-fi taken seriously?" and I replied that hey, it's full of goofy-looking aliens, lasers, and teleporters. A lot of people don't take that stuff seriously because they're laughing too hard at it.
I see. So sci-fi action movies are infact comedy movies.
At best your contention can only be that modern audiences find old-TV shows lacking in presentation - WHICH IS TRUE IRRELEVANT OF GENRE - but since the new Doctor Who series is highly popular and no-one seems to be laughing about goofy aliens, lasers or teleporters (WTF? Seriously, I'm not entirely sure why you think that one is automatic chuckles).
What is the point here? Shallow people only interested in the shiny don't take things seriously? I frankly fail to see the connect between 'serious' and 'shiny'.
I don't understand the underlying argument - there's a lot of people who are never going to see anything beyond an aspect of pure entertainment.
If you paid close attention you would notice that the various alien species tend to have certain aspects of the human condition emphasised: Klingons : warriors/honour. Vulcan : logical/scientific. Ferengi : capitalistic/greedy.
And a teleporter?
Plot device that avoids unnecessary endless scenes of transporting vehicles - it is essentially a quick way into the actual story.
And aliens that speak in monotone and have tubes and such coming out of them (the Borg)?
Hive mentality, interested only in expansion and assimilation of other technologies and cultures. As such a culture that presents a moral aspect of interaction the Federation had never had to consider before - where the high ideals meat the stark reality of people who don't share them messing it up.
And a pasty, gay android?
Numerous explorations of what it means to be alive, sentient, conscious and such.
Also no sense in which the android was gay, did infact have several relations with females. [blockquote]With spaceships and goofy-looking aliens? 'Goofy' looking is subjective. I fail to see what is so particularly goofy for one thing. Secondly I fail to see how the involvement or not of spacecraft affects the fact that Babylon 5 was the first TV series designed from the outset to have a complete overarching story of 5 seasons (hence Babylon 5).
With goofy-looking salt shaker robots?
Since most of the Doctor Who series takes place sometime in the past where technology was not sufficiently advanced I find your objections without merit.
If you want to complain about shallowness of sci-fi complaining about the fucking look ain't going to cut it is it?
I think you've missed the point that sci-fi should scrap the goofy aliens and spaceships and focus on the "human condition" if it wants to be taken seriously.
And I think you've missed the point of where so-called goofy aliens, whatever magicaly criteron you have for that is, and the settings and so-forth are merely backdrop. The emphasis on the morality aspects in Star Trek is so fucking obvious it's like you haven't even watched it.
You clearly were too busy complaining about the visuals to pay attention to what you were watching. Which makes your entire complain rather amusing.
[blockquote]With Klingons?[/blockquote]
If you paid close attention you would notice that the various alien species tend to have certain aspects of the human condition emphasised:
Klingons : warriors/honour.
Vulcan : logical/scientific.
Ferengi : capitalistic/greedy.
[blockquote]And a teleporter?[/blockquote]
Plot device that avoids unnecessary endless scenes of transporting vehicles - it is essentially a quick way into the actual story.
[blockquote]And aliens that speak in monotone and have tubes and such coming out of them (the Borg)?[/blockquote]
Hive mentality, interested only in expansion and assimilation of other technologies and cultures. As such a culture that presents a moral aspect of interaction the Federation had never had to consider before - where the high ideals meat the stark reality of people who don't share them messing it up.
[blockquote]And a pasty, gay android?[/blockquote]
Numerous explorations of what it means to be alive, sentient, conscious and such.
Also no sense in which the android was gay, did infact have several relations with females.
[blockquote]With spaceships and goofy-looking aliens?[/blockquote]
'Goofy' looking is subjective. I fail to see what is so particularly goofy for one thing. Secondly I fail to see how the involvement or not of spacecraft affects the fact that Babylon 5 was the first TV series designed from the outset to have a complete overarching story of 5 seasons (hence Babylon 5).
[blockquote]With goofy-looking salt shaker robots?[/blockquote]
Since most of the Doctor Who series takes place sometime in the past where technology was not sufficiently advanced I find your objections without merit.
If you want to complain about shallowness of sci-fi complaining about the fucking look ain't going to cut it is it?
I think you've missed the point that sci-fi should scrap the goofy aliens and spaceships and focus on the "human condition" if it wants to be taken seriously.
And I think you've missed the point of where so-called goofy aliens, whatever magicaly criteron you have for that is, and the settings and so-forth are merely backdrop. The emphasis on the morality aspects in Star Trek is so fucking obvious it's like you haven't even watched it.
You clearly were too busy complaining about the visuals to pay attention to what you were watching. Which makes your entire complain rather amusing.
Well of course, but this is hardly a new phenomena. Back in the days before TV was popular it was even more like this - since people went to the cinema *A LOT* more than they do today.
I think it's slightly unreasonable to expect any situtation to deviate that much from a normal distribution though.
Frankly you are more likely to be killed by poor driving, drunk driving and such than from random smoke.
People place disproportionate emphasis on the risks in their lives.
Why can't we build completely special purpose machines?
1. We do - but one does not build special purpose for generic work.
2. Abstraction is fundamental to manage complexity. Our machines are several orders more complicated than they started out with. If we were still doing everything with assembler we would have little hope in hell of getting much done with them.
Not to imply that it is unnecessarily wise to engage in these activities but if someone wants to take that risk I say clog those arteries, harden that liver and phlegm those lungs.
Fuck it - you're only going to live once.
Are you equally incensed about Gilette razor blades only fitting Gilette razors?
No. But then this is not analogous. Gilette razors have a finite lifespan and there is no possible advantage I might gain by wanting interchangeable parts between brands.
Ford cars requiring Ford parts?
Actually this is more analogous since Ford does tend to rape people on their spares prices and the lifetime of a car is significantly more than a razor. Still, I don't generally expect to be able to take the various parts of a vehicle and mix and match them.
DirecTV only offering certain stations that you can't get elsewhere?
Broadcast media isn't the same as purchased media. You're not buying the channels, you're buying the opportunity to view them. This is the least analogous.
This isn't like someone FORCING you to do something.
No, there is no gun pointed at my, or anyone else's head - I am not being forced in that sense. This is about market pressure - as such it is more subtle.
I think most people would consider it a relatively trivial matter to choose another mp3 player.
Again, that is not the point. The point is that you are DISCOURAGED from doing so because your music library investment is now no longer transferable.
People's analogies are missing the actual crux of the situation here.
Your music is an investment. You will likely invest far more in it than in your devices you use to hear it. Being artificially tied to one player is bad for that investment.
Apple is compelling everyone to buy iTunes I think you'll find.
As long as the consumer is not somehow compelled or restricted from exercising their right to buy from one vendor or another, it's not anticompetitive.
And praytell, what is iTunes + iPod if not vertically integrated lock-in? No, nothing stops me physically using another music store service or player, but clearly such an action is discouraged when doing so would force me to lose an investment on previously purchased music.
Vertical integration is a pretty powerful tool for perverting the free market to a corporation's ends.
But does iTunes command that much of the online music market? Not by a long shot.
That does not make what they are doing any less wrong.
That's the goddamn point. The goal of any company that is big enough is to pervert the market so that it IS NOT FREE but works towards their ends. That people on/. could be so very ignorant of this whilst the majority seem quite aware of how MS has been doing well at this game is beyond me.
This is what Apple are doing with iPod + iTunes - they are trying their damndest to ensure there is no such thing as a "free" market by locking their customer's investments into their platform. This is market perversion 101.
Capitalism is not a magic bullet. People who think the market will solve all the worlds ills need to wake up and take a good, hard look at reality.
People will do stupid things. People will do stupid things. People will do stupid things.
Trust me, most consumers don't understand now that timebomb they're in for, but they will eventually. Fortunately someone in governance has a little foresight and is DOING THEIR JOB and trying to protect consumer interests even if consumers aren't interested in them.
Since you are almost certainly referring to issues arising with MPEG protocols you are going to have to lay the blame at MPEG's feet. It's all about the patents.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't mean anything to say X is more evolved than Y or evolving more. It is a meaningless statement. Talking about the 'speed' of evolution doesn't mean anything unless you've got a predefined goal in mind and evolution most certainly does not - no matter what your Star Trek DVDs tell you.
So, you get a whole load of species radiating off a single branch, some branches producing further branching, others being cropped and ending that particular evolutionary pathway.
Essentially the process should be viewed as such:
G encodes the information for a genome. The replication of G introduces mutations into that genome into the successors. This is mutation. If we take a simple asexual reproductive organism O1 then:
And so on... we rapidly try out a whole range of G, some of which will be branches that lead to dead-ends (i.e. solutions that produce organisms that are poorly adapted), some will lead to better solutions and eventually some of these solutions will incorporate significant phenotypical changes.
So there was no 'progression' towards homo sapiens, we're just an end point of a huge exploration of a genetic search space.
Some people are absolutely terrified by the fact that they are not special at all in the grand scheme of things.
Unless you're a savant that is.
Even if it requires having a light sensor for each light emitter on a screen it can be done. It is simply an impossible goal.
I wonder how long before we see future's markets in virtual worlds...
At best your contention can only be that modern audiences find old-TV shows lacking in presentation - WHICH IS TRUE IRRELEVANT OF GENRE - but since the new Doctor Who series is highly popular and no-one seems to be laughing about goofy aliens, lasers or teleporters (WTF? Seriously, I'm not entirely sure why you think that one is automatic chuckles).
What is the point here? Shallow people only interested in the shiny don't take things seriously? I frankly fail to see the connect between 'serious' and 'shiny'.
I don't understand the underlying argument - there's a lot of people who are never going to see anything beyond an aspect of pure entertainment.
Klingons : warriors/honour.
Vulcan : logical/scientific.
Ferengi : capitalistic/greedy. Plot device that avoids unnecessary endless scenes of transporting vehicles - it is essentially a quick way into the actual story. Hive mentality, interested only in expansion and assimilation of other technologies and cultures. As such a culture that presents a moral aspect of interaction the Federation had never had to consider before - where the high ideals meat the stark reality of people who don't share them messing it up. Numerous explorations of what it means to be alive, sentient, conscious and such.
Also no sense in which the android was gay, did infact have several relations with females. [blockquote]With spaceships and goofy-looking aliens? 'Goofy' looking is subjective. I fail to see what is so particularly goofy for one thing. Secondly I fail to see how the involvement or not of spacecraft affects the fact that Babylon 5 was the first TV series designed from the outset to have a complete overarching story of 5 seasons (hence Babylon 5). Since most of the Doctor Who series takes place sometime in the past where technology was not sufficiently advanced I find your objections without merit.
If you want to complain about shallowness of sci-fi complaining about the fucking look ain't going to cut it is it? And I think you've missed the point of where so-called goofy aliens, whatever magicaly criteron you have for that is, and the settings and so-forth are merely backdrop. The emphasis on the morality aspects in Star Trek is so fucking obvious it's like you haven't even watched it.
You clearly were too busy complaining about the visuals to pay attention to what you were watching. Which makes your entire complain rather amusing.
Also no sense in which the android was gay, did infact have several relations with females. [blockquote]With spaceships and goofy-looking aliens?[/blockquote] 'Goofy' looking is subjective. I fail to see what is so particularly goofy for one thing. Secondly I fail to see how the involvement or not of spacecraft affects the fact that Babylon 5 was the first TV series designed from the outset to have a complete overarching story of 5 seasons (hence Babylon 5). [blockquote]With goofy-looking salt shaker robots?[/blockquote] Since most of the Doctor Who series takes place sometime in the past where technology was not sufficiently advanced I find your objections without merit.
If you want to complain about shallowness of sci-fi complaining about the fucking look ain't going to cut it is it?
And I think you've missed the point of where so-called goofy aliens, whatever magicaly criteron you have for that is, and the settings and so-forth are merely backdrop. The emphasis on the morality aspects in Star Trek is so fucking obvious it's like you haven't even watched it.
You clearly were too busy complaining about the visuals to pay attention to what you were watching. Which makes your entire complain rather amusing.
Star Trek = morality play in space
Babylon 5 = first novelised TV show
Doctor Who = wildy varied
These are not the best examples.
Well of course, but this is hardly a new phenomena. Back in the days before TV was popular it was even more like this - since people went to the cinema *A LOT* more than they do today.
I think it's slightly unreasonable to expect any situtation to deviate that much from a normal distribution though.
Frankly you are more likely to be killed by poor driving, drunk driving and such than from random smoke.
People place disproportionate emphasis on the risks in their lives.
1. We do - but one does not build special purpose for generic work.
2. Abstraction is fundamental to manage complexity. Our machines are several orders more complicated than they started out with. If we were still doing everything with assembler we would have little hope in hell of getting much done with them.
Not to imply that it is unnecessarily wise to engage in these activities but if someone wants to take that risk I say clog those arteries, harden that liver and phlegm those lungs. Fuck it - you're only going to live once.
An even better argument for not trusting a single damn thing you can't compile yourself.
People's analogies are missing the actual crux of the situation here.
Your music is an investment. You will likely invest far more in it than in your devices you use to hear it. Being artificially tied to one player is bad for that investment.
Vertical integration is a pretty powerful tool for perverting the free market to a corporation's ends. That does not make what they are doing any less wrong.
... is not free.
/. could be so very ignorant of this whilst the majority seem quite aware of how MS has been doing well at this game is beyond me.
That's the goddamn point. The goal of any company that is big enough is to pervert the market so that it IS NOT FREE but works towards their ends. That people on
This is what Apple are doing with iPod + iTunes - they are trying their damndest to ensure there is no such thing as a "free" market by locking their customer's investments into their platform. This is market perversion 101.
Capitalism is not a magic bullet. People who think the market will solve all the worlds ills need to wake up and take a good, hard look at reality.
People will do stupid things. People will do stupid things. People will do stupid things. Trust me, most consumers don't understand now that timebomb they're in for, but they will eventually. Fortunately someone in governance has a little foresight and is DOING THEIR JOB and trying to protect consumer interests even if consumers aren't interested in them.
That would seem to be a very good argument for open source drivers.
Are device drivers a big source of malware? Doesn't seem like it to me.
Not much point in having a government if it's just going to act like a corporation.
Since you are almost certainly referring to issues arising with MPEG protocols you are going to have to lay the blame at MPEG's feet. It's all about the patents.