The answer to this paradox, IMO, is that war is simply incompatible with civil society.
Problem with this is...not all societies are civil. And if the civil ones give up the means with which to defend themselves, the uncivil ones will destroy them.
Yes yes, Congress is corrupt and our Presidential elections are effectively rigged no matter who wins, since they both cheat. This is news?
Actually, none of this would be important if one thing happened...the US government actually obeyed the US Constitution. Take the Interstate Commerce Clause for example, it's been deliberately misinterpreted, including by our courts, to allow the Federal government free reign to regulate everything and everyone in the USA....since anything, everything, and anyone might sometime, at some point, cross a State border. Never mind that the clause is meant only to give the Federal government the power to regulate interstate trade. Also, actually obeying and enforcing the 2nd Amendment would be nice, along with several sections of the 1st, along with actually noticing that the 10th exists.
But the biggest problem, is the Interstate Commerce Clause...the abuse of which has given the US Federal Government virtually unlimited power. The rest could be dealt with easily. If they weren't trying so damn hard to fuck us over with that one.
No, but perhaps if more money had been pushed into research for for these and other materials with interesting properties, then the progress might have gone faster yes?
Not that I'm a huge fan for government funding of research, but if we are spending taxpayer money...we should fund it decently or not do it to begin with.
So of course, remarks like these get my posts marked "troll."
Rocket launches will never be as cheap as the energy required for lift. Rocket launches cannot (without an absolutely insane level of production....such as with advanced nanotechnology), in my opinion, provide the kind of routine heavy traffic needed by a large spacegoing civilization engaged in large scale space industry, mining, and colonization (unimportant to you I'm sure).
If you want to just launch lots of probes, sats, and maybe have a few space stations....sure, hey rockets are awesome. But if you want to build a large spacefaring civilization you need some real infrastructure. This means megascale engineering projects like a space elevator. There are other possible systems that could be built to get us this...but it looks like the space elevator is the one that's closest to getting done. And the costs don't look to be as expensive, for a "starter elevator" as you are assuming. Private corporations are looking into this, and talking billions, not trillions...
Producable at a rate comparable to commercial wool spinning, the transparent cloth has exceedingly high conductivity, flexibility, has huge surface area to volume ratios, can potentially be made into very effective OLEDs and thin-film photovoltaic cells, and outperforms even our best bulk materials (such as Mylar and Kevlar) at strength normalized to weight.
Super-cheap nanotubes? About fucking time. We've been hearing about nanotubes for years, their possible use in computers, all their various other properties... It certainly took them long enough to discover a cheap way to make them.
Except that overall evolutionary drive is to specialization.
The overall evolutionary drive is to survive and breed, by whatever means necessary. A means that lets you adapt your food supply to suit current conditions, rather than sticking to one specific source that may very easily disappear or go into short supply is a very good evolutionary advantage. Supplies of food are more certain, thus survival is easier, thus breeding more likely.
There are generalists of course,
because they can scratch out a living, so they will.
Which is an advantage over specialists, evolutionarily speaking, as one change in climate, or disease, or competitor can quickly destroy or severely limit food supply. Which can wipe out or nearly wipe out an overly specialized species.
Squirrels are definitely generalists in an urban context.
Perhaps. However, the vast majority of the United States, or even North America in general (thge areas under discussion) are not predominantly urban, not are squirrels mostly found in urban environments here. The vast majority of the country is rural, with a fair amount still even sufficiently "wild." And there are far more squirrels there than in urban settings, and they certainly thrive better in their native habitat...a real woods or forest, than in cities. In this habitat, where the vast majority of this kind of animal exists....they are specialists.
The point was most of your examples were of the same type.
Most of my examples... Deer (specialist), bobcats (big specialist..."small cat" that'll take down large prey, like deer, consistently), mountain lions (another pure predator), bears (ok, a generalist), coyotes (got me here too, they they are mostly predatory), squirrels (specialists in the true wilds but "badly fairing generalists" in urban settings....a wash perhaps?), rabbits (nope), beavers (pretty damn specialist it seems to me), turtles (got me again), and various species of fish (some generalists, some specialists). I don't see this...most you are talking about?
What's so bad about being a generalist anyway, last I checked, humans are. And we're the dominant species on this planet right now, and most dangerous predator.
Gee, adaptive species win out over those that cannot adapt to changes in their environment... What is it we call that again? Oh yeah, evolution. Survival of the fittest. Don't like it? Tough.
I don't recall that deer are omnivores though...strict herbavores and a pretty good example of a strong niche species I thought... And I'm pretty sure bobcats and mountain lions aren't generalists either. And they're doing damn fine. Squirrels fill a fairly specific niche too I'm sure, as do rabbits. But hey, what do I know... Sure most of the successful wild animals in North America are generalists....but most of them have pretty much always been generalists.
And none of this "generalist" BS applies to the fish species that are common, with the exception of perhaps the Carp and the Catfish, which will eat anything edible....and there are plenty of fish species around other than Carp and Catfish. All the members of the Sunfish family for example (such as the Bluegill, very tasty fish), and the Bass, which are purely predator species. And numerous others.
They are not the only species of bear. Some States have significant populations of black bears.
Wolves are having major problems.
Maybe they aren't as common as they several hundred years ago...however their niches are hardly unfilled. Coyotes are absolutely booming in population. And there have been significant increases in other predator species like mountain lions and bobcats.
And though off topic, our smaller wildlife, fish, and marine species, are going in the crapper faster than we can count.
Then why is it that my grandfather remembers when he was a boy, wildlife meant "squirrels and rabbits" and they were relatively hard to find, having to go fairly deep into the woods. He never saw a deer as a child, and racoons and opossum were basically unheard of. These days these animals are everywhere...considered pests. I saw 3 racoons just the other day, raiding pet food.
And as for our fish and marine life...perhaps a species or two, but as someone who not only enjoys fishing, but fishes not just for sport but for food, I can call bullshit here. Coming from Illinois I can say the biggest problems here are the mercury in the fish...which isn't hurting the fish but isn't helping us...and the drought, which has caused some problems with oxygen levels in the waters of some lakes, due to how low the water's gotten. There's plenty of fish though. The waters absolutely abound with them. Big catfish, panfish of all sorts, crayfish (huge crayfish around here I should say) , turtles (in the marine life category, lots of huge turtles...hate the suckers, they eat my fish). I've seen beaver before around here....certainly fits the "marine life" category right? They are an aquatic mammal. Seems to be plenty of them around here.
And Illinois isn't one of the most "wilderness" of States...although we do have our fair share. So I think, from personal experience and observation, that you likely don't know much of what you're talking about. No "first hand" experience as it were.
They seem to think there are no large mammals in North America. There are large populations (booming even) of large prey animals like deer, elk, and moose (ok, deer tend to be much more successful than the others I think). And we certainly have no lack of large, native predators that are doing well...wolves, coyotes, mountain lions (a "big cat"...which for some odd reason they seem to think doesn't exist in North America...), bears (also doing well). And non mammal species like alligators are doing very well too, from near extinction to very strong comeback. They are certainly large too.
I don't get it, where is this lack of megafauna they are talking about? And for all the talk of "reintroducing species" it seems more like they want to introduce species completely non-native to N. America...like the cheetah. That's just asking for a pest-species problem.
If these guys are so hot about reintroducing species, why aren't they talking about reintroducing megafauna to Europe? There used to be Lions in Europe until the Romans killed them all for religious reasons, yet I don't hear anyone suggesting that they reintroduce the Lion to Europe. Although...everyone knows that Europe could use a rebuilding of it's wild lands, America on the other hand, has plenty!
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Yes yes, Congress is corrupt and our Presidential elections are effectively rigged no matter who wins, since they both cheat. This is news?
Actually, none of this would be important if one thing happened...the US government actually obeyed the US Constitution. Take the Interstate Commerce Clause for example, it's been deliberately misinterpreted, including by our courts, to allow the Federal government free reign to regulate everything and everyone in the USA....since anything, everything, and anyone might sometime, at some point, cross a State border. Never mind that the clause is meant only to give the Federal government the power to regulate interstate trade. Also, actually obeying and enforcing the 2nd Amendment would be nice, along with several sections of the 1st, along with actually noticing that the 10th exists.
But the biggest problem, is the Interstate Commerce Clause...the abuse of which has given the US Federal Government virtually unlimited power. The rest could be dealt with easily. If they weren't trying so damn hard to fuck us over with that one.
I don't know...I would have thought they'd be using it for virtual bukkake.
No, but perhaps if more money had been pushed into research for for these and other materials with interesting properties, then the progress might have gone faster yes?
Not that I'm a huge fan for government funding of research, but if we are spending taxpayer money...we should fund it decently or not do it to begin with.
So of course, remarks like these get my posts marked "troll."I don't work for Bill Gates.
Rocket launches will never be as cheap as the energy required for lift. Rocket launches cannot (without an absolutely insane level of production....such as with advanced nanotechnology), in my opinion, provide the kind of routine heavy traffic needed by a large spacegoing civilization engaged in large scale space industry, mining, and colonization (unimportant to you I'm sure).
If you want to just launch lots of probes, sats, and maybe have a few space stations....sure, hey rockets are awesome. But if you want to build a large spacefaring civilization you need some real infrastructure. This means megascale engineering projects like a space elevator. There are other possible systems that could be built to get us this...but it looks like the space elevator is the one that's closest to getting done. And the costs don't look to be as expensive, for a "starter elevator" as you are assuming. Private corporations are looking into this, and talking billions, not trillions...Most of my examples... Deer (specialist), bobcats (big specialist..."small cat" that'll take down large prey, like deer, consistently), mountain lions (another pure predator), bears (ok, a generalist), coyotes (got me here too, they they are mostly predatory), squirrels (specialists in the true wilds but "badly fairing generalists" in urban settings....a wash perhaps?), rabbits (nope), beavers (pretty damn specialist it seems to me), turtles (got me again), and various species of fish (some generalists, some specialists). I don't see this...most you are talking about?
What's so bad about being a generalist anyway, last I checked, humans are. And we're the dominant species on this planet right now, and most dangerous predator.
Gee, adaptive species win out over those that cannot adapt to changes in their environment... What is it we call that again? Oh yeah, evolution. Survival of the fittest. Don't like it? Tough.
I don't recall that deer are omnivores though...strict herbavores and a pretty good example of a strong niche species I thought... And I'm pretty sure bobcats and mountain lions aren't generalists either. And they're doing damn fine. Squirrels fill a fairly specific niche too I'm sure, as do rabbits. But hey, what do I know... Sure most of the successful wild animals in North America are generalists....but most of them have pretty much always been generalists.
And none of this "generalist" BS applies to the fish species that are common, with the exception of perhaps the Carp and the Catfish, which will eat anything edible....and there are plenty of fish species around other than Carp and Catfish. All the members of the Sunfish family for example (such as the Bluegill, very tasty fish), and the Bass, which are purely predator species. And numerous others.
Man is an animal, a predator....and thus, a selection pressure. Just as natural as any other.
They are not the only species of bear. Some States have significant populations of black bears.
Maybe they aren't as common as they several hundred years ago...however their niches are hardly unfilled. Coyotes are absolutely booming in population. And there have been significant increases in other predator species like mountain lions and bobcats.
They seem to think there are no large mammals in North America. There are large populations (booming even) of large prey animals like deer, elk, and moose (ok, deer tend to be much more successful than the others I think). And we certainly have no lack of large, native predators that are doing well...wolves, coyotes, mountain lions (a "big cat"...which for some odd reason they seem to think doesn't exist in North America...), bears (also doing well). And non mammal species like alligators are doing very well too, from near extinction to very strong comeback. They are certainly large too.
I don't get it, where is this lack of megafauna they are talking about? And for all the talk of "reintroducing species" it seems more like they want to introduce species completely non-native to N. America...like the cheetah. That's just asking for a pest-species problem.
If these guys are so hot about reintroducing species, why aren't they talking about reintroducing megafauna to Europe? There used to be Lions in Europe until the Romans killed them all for religious reasons, yet I don't hear anyone suggesting that they reintroduce the Lion to Europe. Although...everyone knows that Europe could use a rebuilding of it's wild lands, America on the other hand, has plenty!