A Tripolation

Like what? I dunno, I'm fearing a mod-slap at anytime But I'll try to help in any way I can.

What Sisyphus said, plus it would be a bitch to drive a fully loaded silage wagon across wedge-shaped hills. It would make harvesting that much more time-consuming and difficult.

Others have already addressed this issue quite admirably for not having been a farmer (common sense I suppose ). Erosion would be your major problem here. The very first time you got a heavy rain, it would create ditches and these ditches would not only wash away the plants, but also any fertilizer you happened to apply within the past two weeks. Corn ISN'T as dependent on sunlight as most other crops, so that isn't a primary concern. It is, however, INCREDIBLY prone to losing a good foot in height with a lack of water. Most fertilizer is activated through rain, so a drought hurts it by not allowing it to get rain, and not allowing the fertilizer to act. You can see how sloping corn fields would be kind of a terrible idea. Also, with corn, you really don't want some plants to be higher than others. You want them all to be level, almost every single time. While most farmers don't have advanced degrees in physics and engineering, they do have their occupation down to an exact science. There is little about maximizing growth and yield that they haven't thought of. I'm an Engineering major, and I still feel stupid every time I read my father's "Progressive Farmer" magazine where they talk about crazy new techniques that I can't even begin to comprehend.

I'm in that situation too, and the best thing is to politely listen. Let them believe what they will. Anyone who tells you they don't struggle is either a liar, or only believes in God based on fear, which isn't how it's supposed to be. Well...evolution would undermine God if you took the OT to be literal in every aspect. I just see the OT as written for early man by early man. It would be silly to take it as the absolute truth nowadays. But really, evolution and God aren't even in competition, IMHO.

I agree completely. I mean honestly, is there anyone here who wasn't agreeing a lot with BOTH sides? I think we all want our children to be self-reliant AND open and compassionate, not just one of the two. And I think almost everybody recognizes that diplomacy should most certainly be tried first, and war only used as a last last last resort. And don't we ALL want to be nurturing but strict parents? Basic psychology shows us that neither the authoritarian nor permissive style of parenting works, and that we need a combination which results in the good-style of authoritative parenting. Each side has great points, why not take the best of both worlds?

While the first is mostly true imo, the second one does not make sense to me. From my understanding, evolution mentions nothing of God, nor does it need a God. They are not incompatible, it's just that adding a God would be superfluous and add complexity to a "simple" theory. I may be wrong though, that's just what I think. I struggle with my belief from a day to day basis, but not because of science or evolution or any other facts. Simply because I cannot see him or hear him, and to me, that works against his favor, though I still try my utmost to keep believing. Is that what you meant?

Holy crap, I'm a LIBERAL!!! Ha, I'm not, but that thing is saying I am. It is most definitely one of the more interesting infographics I've seen, nice one bascule. But did they switch the colors on purpose? Hmmm.

That's preposterous, Domo would never eat a kitten!!!

I would second your response, iNow, but then I think I would be accused of somehow knowing the topic of this thread in advance, and collaborating with you and toasty on how to mock it... What the hell, I'll do it anyways. Read iNow's and Sayanora's post, CTD. They answer you definitively.

I suggest you PM one of the Mods or Admins about this. Their names will be in blue and red, respectively. I'm fairly certain they can straighten this out.

iNow, I say me, you, and toasty here have Capn give us this guy's IP location and go have some heathen fun and shove him in a locker.

Well I'll be damned. I yield to iNow's well-referenced post. *Waits to see if CTD will actually address it*

Ohhhhhhhhh. Now I get it. Listen good. We can't SEE evolution occur. It takes time periods far longer than your life for evolution to "occur"...it takes tens of thousands of years, to result in new species. Can you SEE gravity? Can you SEE Earth's magnetic field? Going by your logic, you aren't allowed to believe in the Theory of Gravity or the Dynamo Theory. Quick side note. You want to see evolution happen fast? Called viruses and bacteria. They evolve incredibly fast.

*Crap guys!!! They're onto us!* *Hastily extinguishes torch and throws down pitchfork* I was so not trying to get an angry theist mob started to go burn down Moonatnman's house. I was uh...uh... No, but seriously. We're not that bad.

Dam well put tar. We cannot know. It is foolish to advance so blindly.

So everyone agrees that if we build an AI with an infinite improvement rate, we're screwed? Ok then.

Ummm...I'm quite unaware of the sociopolitical implications of evolution...aside from the theists who hate it because it somehow disproves God, when it seeks to do no such thing. Try and actually address the links people are giving you' date=' then. Ok, you didn't specifically call them Godless. But it was such a strong implication that you might as well have. Such are the rules of comprehending English. I figured an omniscient being would know that. (See how I didn't call you by name, but you took it to say I was calling you omniscient? Semantics is a funny thing.) And tell me, if God did have a guiding hand over how we evolved (I'm deist, so I don't believe he did), then why exactly are we so imperfect as a species? Why do we suffer so much? These are questions that easily falsify a PERFECT God constantly watching over us.

True, but who are we to say that our morality would be similar to an AI's? They might see us as being 62% destructive as a species, so it would be "morally" acceptable to kill the other 38% to get rid of the destructive majority, whereas most humans would see the killing of so many innocent lives to be immoral. We don't know how they will develop, so it's best not to assume the rosy position that AI's will see like we do and think killing is bad. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged If you posit a True AI, one that can make infinite amounts of improvements to itself, then you must see that it will overcome humanity in terms of abilities and intelligence, to the point of being god-like. How could we control our destiny in such a case? Yes, we could try and fight it, but in all probability, we would lose, as it would be more advanced than us. Yeah, backlash AFTER the fact that it started a war. You seem to want to wait and SEE if the AI will be "evil" before trying to stop it. I'm saying that since we can't know, it's best not to go down that path. I think we should research virtual intelligence and not artificial intelligences.

Well, I think mooey was making light of the fact that you cited your source kind of poorly. Not being mean. You don't know how to copy and paste? Really? First thing you do is highlight WHAT you want to copy. This can be done by clicking and HOLDING the left mouse button and then dragging it across the words you want to select. Once you have them, you can let go, right-click WITHIN the words, and then select "Copy". You can then go to another text editor and right-click within it and hit "paste". This will copy what you highlighted earlier to the text editor. Hope this helped.

Whoa CTD. I understand where you're coming from, I'm a theist, but you have no damn right to be calling these people godless. You can't honestly tell me, one religious person to another, that creationism makes any sense...at ALL. I invite you to look at this wonderful thread. Scroll down to the part where it says "Examples of how deism and evolution can be compatible". I'm not certain whether you accept evolution or not...

*raises hand* Seriously, don't **** with her, she'll mess you up.

Even I knew that. But that is a really interesting article. I'd never heard of that before.

I'm arguing that a true AI, which has the means to improve itself, will eventually become almost god-like in it's knowledge. It will recognize the limits imposed on it by looking at its coding, much like we study genetics, and then being able to improve itself, it wil be able to decide which code to follow, and which code to not follow. It only makes sense that the AI's existence would be its own highest priority. It might see humanity as a threat, it might not. I'm saying that since there is a possibility that the AI might not see us as allies, it's not worth the risk.

But that's the point. The AI might not see removing us as bad. Since an AI would be a logistics engine to a great extent, then maybe they would "come to the conclusion" that wiping humanity out would serve some greater purpose, like saving the Earth, or the uninhibited advance of their own "race". They wouldn't see it as "wrong". You can't really ascribe human morality to an AI. Edit: Also, parents DO have a great influence on how we DEVELOP those inherent morals. I was taught to the strictest degree that alcohol is bad, and while I see now that it's not "bad", I still have no desire to consume any alcohol, ever. So yes, the ENVIRONMENT has a great influence over how we develop. Parental rules are a very big part of our early environment.

You're right in that AI's would probably disagree with each other (which is good news for us, should some of them ever revolt). Ha...limited physically. Humans don't have wings, so we can't fly. Humans don't have the respiratory system for breathing water, so we can't stay underwater for very long. We were limited physically, but as our knowledge grew, so did our capacity to overcomethese limitations ie, we have airplanes, submarines, scuba gear, and other things that let us do things we were not previously capable of. The same would apply for AI beings. No, we haven't blown ourselves up. But have you ever heard of MAD? This is an incredibly effective deterrent for the use of nuclear weapons for most of the world. And I would say that 99% of humanity is against nuclear holocaust. This reasoning would not apply to AI's in any way.