Placing a "colony" on Mars would be immoral, unethical, even psychopathic (egocentric, narcissistic, callous, remorseless, conscienceless, manipulating people as mere objects). It would be an obvious tort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort and anyone engaging in "colony" building on Mars or the Moon would be sued into penury. It may even be criminal. Any baby born on Mars would suffer terribly the loss of its genetic right to be born on and live on the Earth. Every human has that fundamental right, a right which gives meaning to all others and on which all others are based. Four billion years of evolution construct us for life on the Earth and life on the Earth only.
Let me repeat: there is no possibility of creating a "colony" on the Moon or Mars. A colony is an expansion into unused resources of water, land, animal, mineral and plant life. The word "colony" was created for life on the Earth and does not belong in space. Branson, stop the nonsense talk before people get hurt.
P.S. Know this: a manufacturing executive responsible for the production of zyclon-B gas crystals used to cause the unimaginable human suffering of the gas chambers of Nazi Germany was hanged for this crime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Tesch
I've been reading recently about psychopaths and I've been struck by the primitiveness of their mental makeup, their personalities. It is almost as if they are more animal than modern human, having less of the intense social motivations that define the modern human and more of the egocentric animal motivations that must have been part of the personalities of our evolutionary precursors. It seems to me that the 1% of the population that is psychopathic is a throwback or a living fossil. It seems as if a human personality from hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of years ago is attached to a modern level of intelligence. I'm wondering if the DNA contribution mentioned in the article in EDGE linked to in this slashdot article may not be somehow responsible for part of the spectrum of human personality and behavior. Recent brain scans (I've read) seem to indicate a weaker connection between the frontal lobes of the human brain and the limbic system responsible for human emotion and even fear. It may be responsible for the lack of empathy and conscience in the psychopath. Is this damage, or is it merely the physical manifestation of an earlier brain contained in our genetic structure? When three out of four children in a family are normal and one is a psychopath are we seeing a genetic combination that creates in part a slightly more primitive brain? Read Dr. Robert Hare Phd. on psychopathy ( "Without Conscience," "Snakes in Suits") for insight into this fascinating "personality disorder." He does not make the point and is not responsible in any way for the point I am making above connecting psychopathy and the genetic contributions of primitive anscestors. Further, I am not an expert in either genetics or psychology.
Women, who now have essentially the ability to get pregnant when they want to, will have to ask a man for permission to become pregnant, maybe even beg for permission to be a mother. Do they actually understand the shift in reproductive power that unthinking feminists have been pushing for for so long? Do they realize they lose control of their own pregancies? No more Tom Brady and Giselle kinda thing. No more babies by philandering pretty-boy candidates. No more rock star accidents. No more (oops) having that second child because you want one and hubby maybe isn't so keen. And can a silly woman who depends on a man to take his pill trust him to do so? No. Think of pregnancy as revenge etc., an act of aggression. Male contraception empowers men in a way that women may not find so "fair." Nobody really knew the society-wide changes female contraception would bring starting in the 1960s. Perhaps we are not really projecting the changes easy male contraception in pill form will bring in the future as its benefits to men become widely perceived by them.
They should put a network of nuclear powered gas stations on Mars so that rovers can move long distances and recharge along the way without depending on solar power or their own internal power. Such stations could be put near interesting phenomenon needing exploration.
Of course we are causing global warming, and so what? It is the natural result of nature's experiment with high intelligence. And nature is finding out that high intelligence is pathological in a species and always results in its self destruction. Peabrained dinosaurs lived for hundreds of millions of years because they conformed to their environment and were killed by it when it wanted them dead. Not so humans. We alter the environment to suit our own survival and increase. We exploit its resources to that end. We spend our lives creating order out of chaos and beltching entropy out the tailpipe. Our behavior is natural, unavoidable, and inevitably fatal. Shrug.
Paul Davies talks about million-year-old civilizations of aliens exploring the universe physically (among other things) in his book "The Eerie Silence." But I don't think that will be the case. And looking for signals from them is an exercise in futility. The only exploration of the universe in any time that satisfies the need to do so will take place in massively complex computer systems based on a much deeper understanding of physics than we now have. That old civilization probably already computer-simulates we are here; it may even computer-simulate that YOU are here. I wonder if they started by simulating ice cream and nuclear explosions.
But the thought is moot. I don't believe there is other intelligent life in the universe. We are the universe asking itself what it is, and the universe does not have a head full of voices.
A lot of out-of-work theoretical physicists of the standard model and a corresponding increase in the numbers of grocery baggers and taxi drivers. Also, expect to hear the beginning of arguments for a larger, more expensive particle accelerator to find the "we-just-made-it-up" boson.
The small section allowing this is just supporting in law what they already are doing. The Postmaster General of the U.S. in a recent Youtube video mentioned how we could use that data -- which we already collect. It is part of the normal processing of the mail.
Flipping tiles nauseate me. Camera button is right where I hold the phone when making a call. Camera button too sensitive. What genius came up with that? Not everyone is a tourist. I haven't yet figured out how to actually turn off a video. There is just a pause button. Same with music. Definately not intuitive. I constantly run into apps I'd like to have but which do not exist for WP. Calls do not end when the power button is used, so the call goes on and on and on, causing embarrassing voice mail. Put a few apps on the home screen and, as others have pointed out, you have to scroll forever. Tiles too big. I'm not blind. An entire screen column for a single small right arrow at the top right? Black space on right makes the home screen asymmetrical, which is disturbing to the human mind. Beauty in faces has been proven to be a matter of symmetry. News item: Nokia to lay off 10,000. Guess I chose wrong for my first "smart" phone.
Complexity is rising in all things at a frightening rate, not just technology. Over my lifetime the amount of information required to make any decision has become massive. For instance, can your select the "best" cellphone for you today? Which credit card? Car? Checking account? There is a coming "complexity collapse." What it will look like, or what the consequences will be is hard to project, but there cannot be an infinite rise in complexity in our lives without something painful happening eventually. Will people retreat from complexity? Will they just start to chuck technology and pull back from activities we now take as normal? Put their money in a mattress at home and use tin cans to communicate? Probably not. But what will they do to protect their sanity when bombarded by too many unmakeable decisions?
He was also a roommate of Claus Fuchs, the atomic spy, during his association with the Manhattan project -- where Feynman liked playing "jokes" on his fellow scientists by picking the locks on their file cabinets and leaving classified documents on their desks. Ha Ha Ha. Some jokes. He loaned Fuchs his car many times. Not an indication of infamous activity, but, considering his perverse personality, who knows? He may have spied just for the "fun" of it.
The tool, intelligence, must be coupled with an intensely accented motivation array to bring about a "genius." Maybe that accent is mental illness. Maybe not. But something other than pure intelligence must be present for the merely intelligent person to excel. And this guy doesn't have it. If he did, we'd be marvelling at his creations right now, not how quickly he learned the creations of true geniuses. One more "genius" for the "excellent mediocrity" bin of life.
I think you are right. Now, we democratically vote on the safe speed on any particular road in any particular set of circumstances by the speed we choose to accept along with the others travelling the road. And I believe we do a pretty good job. Machines can make no judgements. They will mindlessly follow their programming and that programming will mindlessly follow the law regardless of circumstances. The lack of human ability to come to a consensus about when to break the law will cause great stress in people.
Besides, I believe traffic engineers choose speed limits knowing that people will go over them by a certain safe amount. Machines will not exhibit judgement. They will adhere to the exact speed limit regardless.
What happened to you, that you're so warped as to call what would be man's greatest achievement pathetic. You seem to be a terribly small-minded person.
Robbing the mass of people scrambling to make a living in a declining economy to plant a flag on a desert orb borders on psychopathy. We had a like "achievement" planting a flag on the moon. Have we followed up with anything? No. Because it was an expensive, useless endeavor justified only by the cold war and nothing else.
Slashdot Mirror
Nuclear materials? Antibiotics for anthrax?
Placing a "colony" on Mars would be immoral, unethical, even psychopathic (egocentric, narcissistic, callous, remorseless, conscienceless, manipulating people as mere objects). It would be an obvious tort http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort and anyone engaging in "colony" building on Mars or the Moon would be sued into penury. It may even be criminal. Any baby born on Mars would suffer terribly the loss of its genetic right to be born on and live on the Earth. Every human has that fundamental right, a right which gives meaning to all others and on which all others are based. Four billion years of evolution construct us for life on the Earth and life on the Earth only.
Let me repeat: there is no possibility of creating a "colony" on the Moon or Mars. A colony is an expansion into unused resources of water, land, animal, mineral and plant life. The word "colony" was created for life on the Earth and does not belong in space. Branson, stop the nonsense talk before people get hurt.
P.S. Know this: a manufacturing executive responsible for the production of zyclon-B gas crystals used to cause the unimaginable human suffering of the gas chambers of Nazi Germany was hanged for this crime. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Tesch
I've been reading recently about psychopaths and I've been struck by the primitiveness of their mental makeup, their personalities. It is almost as if they are more animal than modern human, having less of the intense social motivations that define the modern human and more of the egocentric animal motivations that must have been part of the personalities of our evolutionary precursors. It seems to me that the 1% of the population that is psychopathic is a throwback or a living fossil. It seems as if a human personality from hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of years ago is attached to a modern level of intelligence. I'm wondering if the DNA contribution mentioned in the article in EDGE linked to in this slashdot article may not be somehow responsible for part of the spectrum of human personality and behavior. Recent brain scans (I've read) seem to indicate a weaker connection between the frontal lobes of the human brain and the limbic system responsible for human emotion and even fear. It may be responsible for the lack of empathy and conscience in the psychopath. Is this damage, or is it merely the physical manifestation of an earlier brain contained in our genetic structure? When three out of four children in a family are normal and one is a psychopath are we seeing a genetic combination that creates in part a slightly more primitive brain? Read Dr. Robert Hare Phd. on psychopathy ( "Without Conscience," "Snakes in Suits") for insight into this fascinating "personality disorder." He does not make the point and is not responsible in any way for the point I am making above connecting psychopathy and the genetic contributions of primitive anscestors. Further, I am not an expert in either genetics or psychology.
Public money is for public use, not space jaunts. Besides, space "colonies" are just plain murder.
...why you don't have engineers do technician's work. For next time: http://www.ehow.com/how_6387657_remove-loctite-screws.html
...it will be a crash production test. Bad ideas just never seem to die.
I'm trying to decide what I'll have for breakfast.
Women, who now have essentially the ability to get pregnant when they want to, will have to ask a man for permission to become pregnant, maybe even beg for permission to be a mother. Do they actually understand the shift in reproductive power that unthinking feminists have been pushing for for so long? Do they realize they lose control of their own pregancies? No more Tom Brady and Giselle kinda thing. No more babies by philandering pretty-boy candidates. No more rock star accidents. No more (oops) having that second child because you want one and hubby maybe isn't so keen. And can a silly woman who depends on a man to take his pill trust him to do so? No. Think of pregnancy as revenge etc., an act of aggression. Male contraception empowers men in a way that women may not find so "fair." Nobody really knew the society-wide changes female contraception would bring starting in the 1960s. Perhaps we are not really projecting the changes easy male contraception in pill form will bring in the future as its benefits to men become widely perceived by them.
This item sheds light on the root cause of the American Civil War.
When you threaten to do something bad to someone, like give out their phone number, unless you are paid, you are engaging in extortion.
Sooner or later the complexity we create will be too great for human intelligence to deal with. And not just in software.
They should put a network of nuclear powered gas stations on Mars so that rovers can move long distances and recharge along the way without depending on solar power or their own internal power. Such stations could be put near interesting phenomenon needing exploration.
Of course we are causing global warming, and so what? It is the natural result of nature's experiment with high intelligence. And nature is finding out that high intelligence is pathological in a species and always results in its self destruction. Peabrained dinosaurs lived for hundreds of millions of years because they conformed to their environment and were killed by it when it wanted them dead. Not so humans. We alter the environment to suit our own survival and increase. We exploit its resources to that end. We spend our lives creating order out of chaos and beltching entropy out the tailpipe. Our behavior is natural, unavoidable, and inevitably fatal. Shrug.
Paul Davies talks about million-year-old civilizations of aliens exploring the universe physically (among other things) in his book "The Eerie Silence." But I don't think that will be the case. And looking for signals from them is an exercise in futility. The only exploration of the universe in any time that satisfies the need to do so will take place in massively complex computer systems based on a much deeper understanding of physics than we now have. That old civilization probably already computer-simulates we are here; it may even computer-simulate that YOU are here. I wonder if they started by simulating ice cream and nuclear explosions.
But the thought is moot. I don't believe there is other intelligent life in the universe. We are the universe asking itself what it is, and the universe does not have a head full of voices.
In time, we will come to love Colossus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(novel)
A lot of out-of-work theoretical physicists of the standard model and a corresponding increase in the numbers of grocery baggers and taxi drivers. Also, expect to hear the beginning of arguments for a larger, more expensive particle accelerator to find the "we-just-made-it-up" boson.
The small section allowing this is just supporting in law what they already are doing. The Postmaster General of the U.S. in a recent Youtube video mentioned how we could use that data -- which we already collect. It is part of the normal processing of the mail.
Flipping tiles nauseate me. Camera button is right where I hold the phone when making a call. Camera button too sensitive. What genius came up with that? Not everyone is a tourist. I haven't yet figured out how to actually turn off a video. There is just a pause button. Same with music. Definately not intuitive. I constantly run into apps I'd like to have but which do not exist for WP. Calls do not end when the power button is used, so the call goes on and on and on, causing embarrassing voice mail. Put a few apps on the home screen and, as others have pointed out, you have to scroll forever. Tiles too big. I'm not blind. An entire screen column for a single small right arrow at the top right? Black space on right makes the home screen asymmetrical, which is disturbing to the human mind. Beauty in faces has been proven to be a matter of symmetry. News item: Nokia to lay off 10,000. Guess I chose wrong for my first "smart" phone.
Complexity is rising in all things at a frightening rate, not just technology. Over my lifetime the amount of information required to make any decision has become massive. For instance, can your select the "best" cellphone for you today? Which credit card? Car? Checking account? There is a coming "complexity collapse." What it will look like, or what the consequences will be is hard to project, but there cannot be an infinite rise in complexity in our lives without something painful happening eventually. Will people retreat from complexity? Will they just start to chuck technology and pull back from activities we now take as normal? Put their money in a mattress at home and use tin cans to communicate? Probably not. But what will they do to protect their sanity when bombarded by too many unmakeable decisions?
He was also a roommate of Claus Fuchs, the atomic spy, during his association with the Manhattan project -- where Feynman liked playing "jokes" on his fellow scientists by picking the locks on their file cabinets and leaving classified documents on their desks. Ha Ha Ha. Some jokes. He loaned Fuchs his car many times. Not an indication of infamous activity, but, considering his perverse personality, who knows? He may have spied just for the "fun" of it.
The tool, intelligence, must be coupled with an intensely accented motivation array to bring about a "genius." Maybe that accent is mental illness. Maybe not. But something other than pure intelligence must be present for the merely intelligent person to excel. And this guy doesn't have it. If he did, we'd be marvelling at his creations right now, not how quickly he learned the creations of true geniuses. One more "genius" for the "excellent mediocrity" bin of life.
young'uns are lazy and impatient. A well known phenomenon that moderates with age.
I think you are right. Now, we democratically vote on the safe speed on any particular road in any particular set of circumstances by the speed we choose to accept along with the others travelling the road. And I believe we do a pretty good job. Machines can make no judgements. They will mindlessly follow their programming and that programming will mindlessly follow the law regardless of circumstances. The lack of human ability to come to a consensus about when to break the law will cause great stress in people.
Besides, I believe traffic engineers choose speed limits knowing that people will go over them by a certain safe amount. Machines will not exhibit judgement. They will adhere to the exact speed limit regardless.
I submit that driving is a social activity and would be sorely missed if machines take it over. For that reason, their introduction will fail.
What happened to you, that you're so warped as to call what would be man's greatest achievement pathetic. You seem to be a terribly small-minded person.
Robbing the mass of people scrambling to make a living in a declining economy to plant a flag on a desert orb borders on psychopathy. We had a like "achievement" planting a flag on the moon. Have we followed up with anything? No. Because it was an expensive, useless endeavor justified only by the cold war and nothing else.