We still don't know how life got its start on this planet alone. Not to mention other planets. We have a good working theory, but its just a theory. Who really knows.
I'm not sure if you're up-to-date on the latest thinking, but we have reached the point of widespread consensus around the origins of life - alkaline hydrothermal ocean vents. A good popular account of this current model is conveyed in Nick Lane's book, The Vital Question.
There are still gaping holes in our understanding, as you may expect, but this current model does provide a framework for explaining many of the idiosyncrasies of the common biochemistry of all life on earth.
This is true. You were simply born into a system where such contracts and obligations form the very structure of society and government.
So what are you going to do about it?
How do you propose we fund roads, education, parks, etc.? Ok, great, work towards setting up those systems.
This is directly analogous to the environmentalists who spend all day criticizing fossil fuels instead of focusing their attention on developing viable alternatives. The best way to beat a system is to make it obsolete.
Just because other cultures do it, does that make it ok?
In the US, we have a very, very different relationship with race than most places in the world, mostly due to the history of slavery, which was instituted along the lines of race. Yes, slavery existed before, but the US was a pioneer in constructing a system of perpetual, inherited slavery based upon race.
This historical pattern absolutely impacts *how* we have come to understand and talk about race in the US, and it is hard to compare the US to other countries in this regard.
So, from your post, am I to understand that you think we should allow something akin to "total free speech"? Can you think of any case where we would be justified in gathering together to tell some asshole to STFU? Or is that not okay in all circumstances?
Where do you draw the line? Should there be a line?
I had a similar experience as yours with Hyperion, but I found that on the whole the sequel held together much better, including tying together all those apparently unrelated stories. If possible, just get it from the library. That way, low risk.
Earlier this month, I read Thomas Berry's book The Sacred Universe.
It encompasses about 30 years of thought from Berry, who is a priest interested in trying to find a new moral and ethical framework based upon our understanding of the universe through science. He outlines what he sees as several of the key stories provided by the world's historical religions and shows how we can recast many of these stories in light of our modern understanding of the physical world.
The book also discusses some of the contexts for the enormous mass-extinction event we are living through and offers a framework for using science to understand the connectedness humanity shares with the rest of the planet to promote a more global well-being.
It is not a light book, but it has radically changed how I view the relationship between science and religion.
I don't disagree, but let's not pretend that when a storm like Harvey pops up, there isn't a knee-jerk reaction in the other direction.
Agreed. Ignorance and jerking knees knows no political bounds.
Here's NOAA's statement on the topic...
Is this a pre- or post- Trump statement? I ask since one of his early actions was to scrub government websites that talked about climate change. In other words, given the political atmosphere, I no longer trust gov't sites to reflect actual scientific views.
the relative drought in them for the last decade or so is pretty embarrassing for the people trying to pretend otherwise.
What drought of hurricanes? Seems like we've had plenty. Yes, there has not been the huge uptick of category 4 storms, but casting this as a "drought" is disingenuous at best.
Climate is complex. Nobody disputes that. The trouble is that when best-guess efforts turn out to be wrong, there seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to leap to the conclusion that all of climate science and measures of climate change must be wrong.
One way or another there is a societal problem. I can't say if it's whitey holding the black man down, or the black man holding himself back through poor social mores. Either way it's a societal problem.
... and any good AI, if fed a large enough dataset, will latch onto any correlated traits instead of the more intelligent causative traits. The machine is just doing what it is supposed to do - find a set of transformations that can find outputs based upon inputs. From the machine learning perspective, it only knows correlation. It is up to the designer (aka, "human") who is feeding the machine data to be careful about feeding the beast.
Your argument makes sense, but you neglect the importance of historical context.
The U.S. history is firmly rooted in the race-based slavery system that still has lingering effects today. There are many people still alive who lived through the Jim Crow/segregation era where non-whites were systematically and legally divided into a lower class.
The effects of these policies are still very present today, where minorities have lower income, life expectancy, wages, etc. Furthermore, it is a common occurrence in the lives of a minority to be treated as inferior, automatically assumed to be a criminal, be less likely to get called for a job interview if they have a "black" name, etc., etc.
While intent is important, you must also recognize that there are still vast discrepancies in race in the U.S. and that these contexts matter a great deal.
So there are reasons to be against it even if you think gay marriage BY ITSELF is no big deal and should be legal.
So, in other words, you think that it is a reasonable argument to deny two people who have lived together for decades the right to visit each other in a hospital on the grounds that you can make a totally irrational extrapolation?
The right can handle diversity of opinion. The left can't. That's why the left always try to censor or murder anyone who disagrees with them.
You have a cartoonish view of the world. There are intolerant, inflexible ideologues all across the political spectrum. More than anything else, your post simply shows how strongly you've signed up for the right-wing team.
If you will change the constitution and will include the healthcare as a right, why don't you throw in free life time education, free housing, free food.
That all sounds like a great idea to me.
My guess is that it would cost a tiny fraction compared to the costs of the US having a larger military than the next several countries combined.
Nope there is just recorded conversations from Sessions and Flynn, along with transcripts. So I guess the recorded conversations came from a magical tool that records someones conversation that isn't a wiretap that doesn't need a court order.
Yes, wiretaps have happened on people around Trump. That is not under discussion right now.
I'm talking specifically about the allegations that Obama personally had Trump himself illegally wiretapped. To date, the only "evidence" presented about that illegal taping is a right-wing radio host making claims that were echoed by Breitbart, which were later translated into a manic tweetfest that followed up a series of serious claims against a former president by griping about some TV show.
Trump is a master of FUD and mis-direction. Keep your eyes on the ball.
What surveillance? No surveillance has been established.
This, right here and now. Trump was just echoing a claim printed by Breitbart which was quoting a right-wing radio host.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE. This is all a distraction to keep people's minds away from the real issues, like how the current administration is basically dismantling decades of regulations and oversights on industry, etc.
But ACTUAL SCIENCE calculates only 1.2C of warming for every doubling of CO2.
I'm not sure where you're getting your science. Your claim presents a logarithmic response of temperature on CO2, which appears to be pulled out of your ass.
Take a look at Figure SPM.5 (b) in the IPCC report. Looks like the effect is a linear increase in temperature as a function of total CO2 emissions.
temperatures going up a few degrees and water levels rising a bit
Sure, if you frame the issue that way, how bad could it be?
Here's another way of thinking about it. Picture in your mind the difficulties involved in the number of refugees currently fleeing into Europe from wars in the Middle East. Now, picture the population of Bangladesh being displaced by rising seas.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure if you're up-to-date on the latest thinking, but we have reached the point of widespread consensus around the origins of life - alkaline hydrothermal ocean vents. A good popular account of this current model is conveyed in Nick Lane's book, The Vital Question.
There are still gaping holes in our understanding, as you may expect, but this current model does provide a framework for explaining many of the idiosyncrasies of the common biochemistry of all life on earth.
Sigh. The trouble in Venezuela has nothing to do with communism vs. socialism vs. capitalism.
Venezuela is an authoritarian government. This is a completely different axis than the economic system.
This is true. You were simply born into a system where such contracts and obligations form the very structure of society and government.
So what are you going to do about it?
How do you propose we fund roads, education, parks, etc.? Ok, great, work towards setting up those systems.
This is directly analogous to the environmentalists who spend all day criticizing fossil fuels instead of focusing their attention on developing viable alternatives. The best way to beat a system is to make it obsolete.
Really? What life would that be?
If you can prove that I think you'll get a Nobel Prize.
It is called an RNA virus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Two things strike me about your line of thinking:
Just because other cultures do it, does that make it ok?
In the US, we have a very, very different relationship with race than most places in the world, mostly due to the history of slavery, which was instituted along the lines of race. Yes, slavery existed before, but the US was a pioneer in constructing a system of perpetual, inherited slavery based upon race.
This historical pattern absolutely impacts *how* we have come to understand and talk about race in the US, and it is hard to compare the US to other countries in this regard.
Also, please note that nobody has ever seen the State of Maine and Lake Superior in the same place! Obviously, something is up!
So, from your post, am I to understand that you think we should allow something akin to "total free speech"? Can you think of any case where we would be justified in gathering together to tell some asshole to STFU? Or is that not okay in all circumstances?
Where do you draw the line? Should there be a line?
I had a similar experience as yours with Hyperion, but I found that on the whole the sequel held together much better, including tying together all those apparently unrelated stories. If possible, just get it from the library. That way, low risk.
Earlier this month, I read Thomas Berry's book The Sacred Universe.
It encompasses about 30 years of thought from Berry, who is a priest interested in trying to find a new moral and ethical framework based upon our understanding of the universe through science. He outlines what he sees as several of the key stories provided by the world's historical religions and shows how we can recast many of these stories in light of our modern understanding of the physical world.
The book also discusses some of the contexts for the enormous mass-extinction event we are living through and offers a framework for using science to understand the connectedness humanity shares with the rest of the planet to promote a more global well-being.
It is not a light book, but it has radically changed how I view the relationship between science and religion.
At which time, the new processors are likely to be a quantum leap ahead.
Agreed. Ignorance and jerking knees knows no political bounds.
Is this a pre- or post- Trump statement? I ask since one of his early actions was to scrub government websites that talked about climate change. In other words, given the political atmosphere, I no longer trust gov't sites to reflect actual scientific views.
the relative drought in them for the last decade or so is pretty embarrassing for the people trying to pretend otherwise.
What drought of hurricanes? Seems like we've had plenty. Yes, there has not been the huge uptick of category 4 storms, but casting this as a "drought" is disingenuous at best.
Climate is complex. Nobody disputes that. The trouble is that when best-guess efforts turn out to be wrong, there seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to leap to the conclusion that all of climate science and measures of climate change must be wrong.
Meanwhile on Facebook: Turkeydance is now friends with NAMBLA...
What's wrong with the North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes?
Nothing, until they call upon you for a favor...
Your argument makes sense, but you neglect the importance of historical context.
The U.S. history is firmly rooted in the race-based slavery system that still has lingering effects today. There are many people still alive who lived through the Jim Crow/segregation era where non-whites were systematically and legally divided into a lower class.
The effects of these policies are still very present today, where minorities have lower income, life expectancy, wages, etc. Furthermore, it is a common occurrence in the lives of a minority to be treated as inferior, automatically assumed to be a criminal, be less likely to get called for a job interview if they have a "black" name, etc., etc.
While intent is important, you must also recognize that there are still vast discrepancies in race in the U.S. and that these contexts matter a great deal.
So, in other words, you think that it is a reasonable argument to deny two people who have lived together for decades the right to visit each other in a hospital on the grounds that you can make a totally irrational extrapolation?
You have a cartoonish view of the world. There are intolerant, inflexible ideologues all across the political spectrum. More than anything else, your post simply shows how strongly you've signed up for the right-wing team.
That all sounds like a great idea to me.
My guess is that it would cost a tiny fraction compared to the costs of the US having a larger military than the next several countries combined.
Nope there is just recorded conversations from Sessions and Flynn, along with transcripts. So I guess the recorded conversations came from a magical tool that records someones conversation that isn't a wiretap that doesn't need a court order.
Yes, wiretaps have happened on people around Trump. That is not under discussion right now.
I'm talking specifically about the allegations that Obama personally had Trump himself illegally wiretapped. To date, the only "evidence" presented about that illegal taping is a right-wing radio host making claims that were echoed by Breitbart, which were later translated into a manic tweetfest that followed up a series of serious claims against a former president by griping about some TV show.
Trump is a master of FUD and mis-direction. Keep your eyes on the ball.
This, right here and now. Trump was just echoing a claim printed by Breitbart which was quoting a right-wing radio host.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE. This is all a distraction to keep people's minds away from the real issues, like how the current administration is basically dismantling decades of regulations and oversights on industry, etc.
Hence their slogan "Fair and Balanced."
That's not what libertarians seem to believe.
Certain *ahem* governments are dragging their feet doing anything about it
Let me guess, this is somehow Donald Trump's fault?
Got a chip on your shoulder, huh? Where did the post say anything about Trump?
Despite right-wing media claims to the contrary, Trump is not some poor, oppressed victim.
I'm not sure where you're getting your science. Your claim presents a logarithmic response of temperature on CO2, which appears to be pulled out of your ass.
Take a look at Figure SPM.5 (b) in the IPCC report. Looks like the effect is a linear increase in temperature as a function of total CO2 emissions.
Sure, if you frame the issue that way, how bad could it be?
Here's another way of thinking about it. Picture in your mind the difficulties involved in the number of refugees currently fleeing into Europe from wars in the Middle East. Now, picture the population of Bangladesh being displaced by rising seas.