bascule

I have no idea; it's hearsay coming from a polysci major I know. Well, for now, feel free to consider that particular statistic as bullshit (I can't find any sources to confirm or deny it with a cursory Googling), but I think it's safe to say that the population of Chinese adolescents and young adults is predominantly male.

Yes, I've read the Blind Watchmaker, along with the Selfish Gene, the Extended Phenotype, and River out of Eden... and just yesterday I finished The Ancestor's Tale.

Well, I guess the thread this guy posted to got deleted and he probably got banned, after I had typed up a whole response at that! So here's what I had to say in reply...

http://www.ad.com/ccortex.asp?id=1

In order for the Internet to be alive you really need two things... Something like BOINC (or from another perspective, a botnet) in which programs can live on the Internet itself (rather than merely accessing the Internet) Intelligent programs utilizing (and hopefully evolving) within this infrastructure.

I think the Paris Commune is as close to Marxism as you're going to get, but unfortunately it was crushed by the Versailles Army before it really had any chance to flourish or wither.

I would say the Internet is teeming with life but is not itself alive yet. Wait until after SAI...

As for me, my ideal government would be post-Singularity anarchosyndicalism using a Markov process to guide collective decision making, and thus the "smart" people would get more of a "vote" than the "stupid" people. There'd be no hierarchical power structure in control; everything would be dynamic and self-organizing, like the "power structure" of the human brain. Everyone would have the option of "voting" on everything if they so desired. For now no system will be perfect but it seems like in the interim it seems there's something of a happy medium between unbridled Laissez Faire Capitalism and Socialism where most countries have ended up (leaning towards one end or another of the spectrum perhaps)

Bottom line: phenomenological objects generated in the cerebral cortex get "peer reviewed" by other parts of the cortex, and that's how their validity is ascertained. http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.CY/0506024

Yeah, you linked me Seth Lloyd before; he's awesome. And thanks for linking arxiv.org again, I just found an awesome paper I plan on linking elsewhere.

When I hear that 80% of China's upcoming generation is male for some reason I just can't keep the words "cannon fodder" out of my head...

Well, I finally finished it. It's a spectacular read and I certainly recommend it to everyone.

Dawkins had this to say regarding mass extinctions: (sorry, this is the summation of a section which is the summation of a book where Dawkins uses a lot of symbolism and references to other themes he's developed, so I don't know how comprehensible it will be out of context)

Well, I finally made it to the last chapter of Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale only to discover that the entire thing was about what I was discussing in this thread! So forgive me if I quote a few relevant sections here. Lots of other great stuff in this chapter... maybe I'll post more if I have time.

Title says it all...

Okay' date=' let's check this guy's credentials: So why should I bother listening to his predictions? Where did he get these figures? His ass? It just seems like he's coming up with unsubstantiated answers to questions asked about his unsubstantiated premise. This is why the peer review process is so important. It gives other specialists in the same field (of course, as a lawyer and polysci major I don't believe he's remotely qualified to be making as specific predictions as he does above, nor do I believe his predictions are remotely on target) the chance to chime in with their thoughts on the matter being addressed. I certainly admit I'm not qualified to provide a point by point deconstruction of this guy's material, but I know a pathological meme when I see it. Anyone screaming "Society is going to collapse!" without some sound methodology behind their thinking is just trying to get attention. It doesn't mean society is going to collapse. As for me, I expect to see the Von Neumann Universal Constructor within my lifetime, at which point all material shortages are irrelevant. Oh, here's another gem of unmitigated stupidity: http://www.hubbertpeak.com/youngquist/altenergy.htm That is another limitation of using electricity for transportation. Psst. Ever heard of hydrogen fuel cells? Ever heard of coal tar? See, you're just looking at the grid all wrong. It's not built out of a bunch of little, irreplacable parts to the point where if you remove one the whole thing comes crashing down. The grid self-assembles itself out of whatever is the most convenient materials available (economically). Run out of one and there are a dozen others that can be used in its stead. Run out of all of those? We'll just invent more... Certainly components can become infrastructural, but the infrastructure can develop in parallel to the point that the older infrastructure is phased out when the advantages of a newer infrastructure give it an economic advantage. None of this is going to change your mind, but you really need to be more critical about your sources. Look for peer reviewed studies, then see what their peers have to say. Because there's no substantiated scientific study which claims that humanity is incapible of transitioning to non-petroleum based energy infrastructures? Because there's nothing to indicate that we won't simply be filling our cars up with ethanol, kerosene, hydrogen, or one of a hundred other potential fuels around which our energy infrastructure can transition to? Of course, it's all a big conspiracy.

This is exactly what climate scientists are doing but it's not that simple; the climate system is full of nonlinearities.

The correlation you need to be looking for is a logarithmic relationship between brain mass and body mass. Normalized against the rest of simians the human brain is 6 times larger than it's "supposed" to be given our body size.

Umm, talk about spin... Murtha doesn't support an immediate withdrawl of troops either. In fact, if memory serves I think, oh yes, that the House Republicans introduced a resolution calling for an immediate withdrawl of troops from Iraq, and 98% of Democrats voted it down... So, this thread is really much ado about nothing. 98% of House Democrats oppose immediate withdrawl. I thought this was a fairly good deconstruction of the issue: http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8136

Why do you say this? Gravity is exceptionally weak. If gravity were stronger than the electromagnetic force then matter would not exist. The structure of all matter depends on the electromagnetic force being greater (much, much greater) than the force of gravity. Otherwise electrons would be pulled into the atomic nucleus and the structure of all matter would collapse. Look at how easy it is for you to overcome the force of gravity. You can stand up. You can pick objects up. Gravity is weak.

Hey look' date=' a dated article saying ITER is stalled because they can't pick a site. Well guess what, they did. Here's what you're not understanding: right now oil isn't scarce enough for market forces to warrant intense research into moving away from the oil infrastructure. As the price of oil gradually increases, it will exert more pressure on oil consumers to research alternatives. And thus thanks to market forces the system evolves. You and the other peak oil lunatics around here (all possibly the same person) are trying to tell me that the system can't evolve fast enough, an idea I personally find ludicrous, especially as we approach the Singularity and the system begins to evolve at an ever increasing rate. Why is it "too late"? You seem to be making the assumption that the system can't evolve, when in reality the system is evolving at an ever increasing rate. I mean seriously, what you're describing is going to cause a shift in market forces. That hasn't happened yet and that's why the reaction to the problem has been so minimal. There are multiple solutions to this problem. Not all of them need work! Some, such as fusion, will play a more important solution in the future as humanity's insatiable appetite for energy continues to increase. In the meantime there are all sorts of practical replacements for oil which will be bolstered into mainstream production when market forces so dictate. While it may appear the requisite research has not been conducted at this point in time, and while I'm sure you can point to some peak oil nutjob who's written a paper saying that such and such technology won't be "ready in time" (in time for what? We're looking at a continuum here), all of these technologies are going to be used in conjunction to fight a single overall problem. Hey, how about we step up a continual mandate for more and more fuel efficient vehicles each year? These steps will be taken when necessary, I'm certain, and they will be consciously tuned until the problem is resolved. It's pointless to speculate about it now. Making sure we're handling the problem effectively is going to be a heuristic process in which policy and market forces dictate the evolution of our energy infrastructure, and the only way we can realistically see if we're solving the problem is by trying it, by marshalling all the disconnected information related to the problem, something all of your doom and gloom papers simply aren't taking into account. If you're saying "it's already too late" for a combined attempt by governments and industry around the world to solve the problem, then all I have to say to you is: If you're really concerned about the future of humanity, why don't you identify and attempt to raise awareness about existential risks; those things which pose a threat of wiping out all of humanity? Perhaps the biggest example of this right now is the North Korean and Iranian (and all other clandestine) nuclear programs. That ridiculous point aside, are we running out of "fossil fuels" or "oil" here? I don't hear any nutjob raving about "peak coal" yet... Someone peer reviewed, with a name, and credentials, not "experts" as an ambiguous, undefined source. Seriously, this is like Y2K histeria all over again... oh no humanity f***ed up and now we're all doomed! Fear fear fear!

Best not to go mixing folk psychology with cognitive science

I think he's saying you're to the Sun's "right" (relative to... a line drawn through the center of the sun which is parallel to your body, I guess) Not that it matters anyway because it's all