Sisyphus

This has actually been done before, in classical Athens and other democratic Greek city states. Not only were all laws directly voted on by the entire citizenry, but government posts, including bureaucrats, judges, and policemen, were all randomly selected by lot. There were only two exceptions, both of which were appointed by popular election. First, the minister of finance. And second, the generals, of whom there were ten, all equal in status, one from each of the ten clans of Athens. All posts, randomly appointed or elected, were held for a term of one year. As for the "military," there were no professional soldiers. Instead, every single citizen was required to train collectively and supply his own arms, and take his place in the phalanxes or triremes as needed.

Don't they know never to cross the streams?!

No. Since they would be ten times farther apart, and force of gravity varies with the square of the distance between objects, the force would be 1/100th as strong, or (apparently) about 0.00002N. They would start out accelerating 1/100th as quickly.

Ok, first of all, "terrorists" is a disputed term here. It's a civil war, and there have been some pretty repugnant actions on both sides over the years. The Geneva Conventions are not about "taking sides" in conflicts and deciding the rules don't apply to the side you agree with more. Yes, compared with many things going on around the world, it is a "minor transgression," but it's still an obvious transgression, and people almost certainly are going to be hurt over it. And no, we're not obligated to protect aid workers in foreign conflicts. But if we believe in the Geneva Conventions, and I think we should, we can at a minimum publicize and unambiguously condemn blatant violations. Unless we're willing to formally renounce the conventions and stop accepting help from the International Red Cross (which we could do), then we'd be hypocrites not to condemn this kind of thing.

I decided to bring this up after it was (jokingly, I realize) suggested by ParanoiA in another thread that democracy be put aside in favor of drafting our leaders from the "super intelligent," much like jury duty. I thought this was funny, since I have some experience in that area, and was already considering commenting on it here. Even though it was a joke and obviously won't happen, it's still worth talking about in a theoretical way, since it's an idea that in various forms has been proposed since the very beginning of political arguments that didn't involve hitting one another over the head with clubs. Even Plato proposed it in The Republic, which even though I personally think there's no way he meant it literally, enough people have that several groups have tried to "follow his instructions." Aside from the obvious resistance that people would naturally have to leaders they didn't choose, it's still, IMO, a bad idea. Very smart is good. I don't dispute that, and I'm much more willing to vote for someone I think is highly intelligent. But super smart - "child prodigy" smart - could cause all sorts of problems. Namely, they've got a very high rate of emotional problems, have trouble communicating with "ordinary" folk, and tend to be very unambitious in the conventional sense of seeking power or money, so they'd probably just be trying to find a way out of it the whole time (much like jury duty, actually). There are exceptions, certainly, but a "draft" would be disastrous. I cite: *The fact that one of the stated goals of many "high I.Q. societies" has been combining members' talents for the good of humanity, yet apparently the only thing ever agreed upon enough to "combine powers" is that puzzles are fun. This is true, interestingly, from Mensa (98th percentile requirement) all the way up to the Mega Society (99.9999th percentile). * A Short (and Bloody) History of the High IQ Societies, telling many of the sordid details. *And "The Outsiders", a very good article offering a bit of an explanation. One interesting footnote, however, is this very informal (and possibly irrelevant) political survey from 2000 of the American members of the Triple Nine Society. It seems that for those who are interested in politics, a majority are pseudo-libertarians, though not necessarily in agreement with the Libertarian Party. It should be noted, however, that this is a self-selecting group both in membership (which is important, since the society itself is an anti-authoritarian splinter from another society) and in actually taking the survey. Also, entrance requirements in this particular society are "only" 99.9th percentile, or an IQ of roughly 150, which is not yet in "super genius" territory and which a couple hundred thousand Americans could potentially meet. Anyway, I find this stuff interesting, and I suspect several of you will also, even if you don't have anything to add/accuse me of.

So, what? You think we should get rid of the Geneva Conventions? That the mission of the Red Cross is foolish and not worth preserving? You're probably going to accuse me of strawmanning, but I don't see how that isn't implicit in your position. Am I misunderstanding you?

Well, Cthulhu would definitely bring real change, no question. Plus he's got eons of experience. On the other hand, I doubt he wears a flag pin.

Yeah. Napoleon was about 5'7". Hitler was about 5'9". In other words, two average-height guys. The misconception about Napoleon's height is due to mistranslated units, British propaganda, the fact that he surrounded himself with the universally tall Imperial Guard, and his nickname of "le petit caporal," where "petit" doesn't mean literally small, but just down to earth (believe it or not) and chummy with the lowest ranks of the army.

Not only do I think you shouldn't beat yourself up about it, I think you did the right thing, too. The choice wasn't between sacrificing yourself vs. someone else, it was between sacrificing yourself and the other driver vs... probably nothing. It's impossible to say why somebody was driving the wrong way down the highway, but chances are it wasn't attempted suicide/murder. And if it wasn't, they probably got the hell off the road pretty quick.

He didn't actually change his mind about the subject of this thread (a gas tax holiday), but yeah, it's still a reversal. I guess it depends on how much he would release. A "quick fix" to dramatically lower gas prices would do more harm than good in the long run, but releasing just enough to smooth out the spikes, slow the increase and give the economy time to adjust would probably be worth doing, as long as it doesn't let the strategic reserves get too low and/or lack a plan to replace what was lost. Also, the linked article says, "releasing light oil from the emergency oil stockpile now and replacing it later with heavier crude more suited to the country's long-term needs." Does anyone know what the deal is with this sentence? All I can find about light vs. heavy crude is that heavy is more viscous and thus more difficult to refine.

I think that, for a little while at least (maybe a generation), we'll be generally less arrogant in our foreign policy, and rhetoric extolling worldwide democracy at gunpoint won't get much traction with the American people. I think we've lost the taste for nation-building, and are much more open to pragmatic diplomacy and compromise. There are still, and will always be, those who call any such things "appeasement," but I think more of us have a more realistic notion of what that word actually means. I think we may also have learned a bit about over-reacting, since the war never could have happened if we weren't all still in shock over 9/11, and most people seem to realize that. And I think all of this will still be the case even if Iraq magically becomes a successful, stable, self-sufficient, liberally democratic state tomorrow. I also agree with both Pangloss and ParanoiA, though I'm less optimistic than either.

Ok, stop right there. Any wave has a frequency, be it an electromagnetic wave, a gravity wave, a sound wave, an ocean wave, anything. It is not the length of the wave (that would be wavelength) but the number of waves per unit time. Frequency and wavelength are inversely proportional for waves traveling at the same speed. So you see why it's a bit silly to talk about gravity waves as if they're the same thing as EM waves - that's like saying the waves crashing on the beach must be some kind of EM energy just because they are also a kind of wave. The EM spectrum is just the range of possible frequencies of EM radiation. There is nothing fundamentally different about each "kind" of radiation, any more than there is between high-pitched sounds and low-pitched sounds. They're just names we give to different parts of the spectrum. Radio waves are just "low-pitched" light waves, and gamma rays are just "high-pitched" light waves. It's not the medium which is traveling, it's the curvature in the medium. Just like with sound waves: when I'm talking to you, there isn't a 700mph wind coming out of my mouth and towards your ears, but that is nonetheless how fast the sound waves are traveling through the air.

The fact that both exhibit wave-like behavior and travel at the same speed does not mean they are the same thing. In fact, that's about all they have in common. One is the transmission of electromagnetic energy, the other is the curvature of space. You can't put in on the scale because it's a different scale - gravitational waves can exist at any frequency.

I wonder to what degree the problems we see from plastics are caused by lack of recycling. If we recycled every last bit of it, it wouldn't be a problem at all that it takes forever to degrade, right? Quite the contrary! Even plastic packing, about which I generally agree with CaptainPanic, wouldn't really be an issue, I don't think. On the other hand, there already is plastic recycling infrastructure in place in most places, and huge amounts of it are still just thrown away. So I wonder how realistic near-100% recycling actually is. Furthermore, I can't seem to find a straight answer on the economic efficiency of it.

The only real problem with plastics is that they're petroleum-based, and therefore not sustainable. Being that they're incredibly ubiquitous, we're necessarily going to see a major shift in materials in our daily lives. What I gather you're asking about is materials that can might make this shift painless, i.e. something as cheap and versatile as plastics but also sustainable, correct?

I don't know if it would work without seeing the glasses, but maybe a "splint" or splints of some kind could be incorporated along with the tape, like a section of paper clip. However, your "not looking like an idiot" clause might be too limiting for that method.

If you're so worried about the rotation of the earth, why don't you just curve the tunnel to match the natural path of a falling body? Also, if you make the walls of frictionless unobtanium, you needn't worry about even making it straight down. Just make straight (or not) tunnels between any two points on the surface, and grab a sled. Fastest way to travel most places, and it doesn't even use any energy! Of course, we'll feel awfully silly with all those infinitely strong, vacuum-sealed, frictionless tunnels all over the place once the teleporter networks are up and running.

"Anthropic principle" can mean a few different things, depending on who is saying it. I think foodchain is talking about a different "anthropic principle" than SwansonT and iNow are, I'm guessing the "Anthropic Cosmological Principle" proposed in the book of the same title by Darrow and Tipler. Correct?

Apparently it's true. Touching the plant causes the touched cells to release a powerful hormone, which is transported to nearby cells and causes them to rapidly elongate. The result is bending around the spot which is touched, effectively "grabbing" stuff. ...awesome.

I think that can be done, but it might be tricky. You can definitely have a stable nine-star system (improbable, but nothing fundamentally wrong with it) and put a planet in it, but I'm thinking the requirements for the stable configurations would mean that some stars would be have to be many times farther away than others, and so they wouldn't really all have the same status to someone on the planet. I'm not sure, though, Maybe something with very different stars, from white dwarfs to supergiants, perhaps an extremely unusual "planet" of some kind, depending on how exotic you're willing to get. Sounds like a problem Larry Niven would enjoy.

Well sure. That's what a multiple star system is: stars orbiting one another. Well, sort of. That would be the close to the case with two stars closely orbiting one another, and a planet distantly orbiting them both. It's still the individual stars' gravity, though. I don't see why not. Stars are all different sizes and temperatures, by many orders of magnitude. Why not two half-suns? Or two suns, with the planet farther away? One problem you would have though is temperature variation. Earth doesn't have a very eccentric orbit, and is always pretty close to the same distance from our sun, relatively speaking. With multiple stars, on the other hand, I think it's pretty inevitable that you'd be getting nearer and farther away from each of them much more dramatically. Yup. According to Wikipedia, we've discovered up to six. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_star_system

Is that different from any other politician, though? Is it different from John McCain?

It's possible (they've actually found some), although not in all cases, and the number of orbits it can have is limited. You, can, for example, have planets orbiting just one of the stars in a binary system, or multiple stars at a much greater distance than the stars are from one another, but not like a "figure eight" or something.

Obama is often sarcastically described as "the messiah," "golden boy," "the one," etc., due to his allegedly fanatical support base and media bias. I've been pretty much accepting that description, but it occurs to me that the reason why I've accepted it has a lot more to do with him being described that way than actual direct evidence. Yes, Obama supporters tend to be a lot more enthusiastic than McCain supporters, but a) isn't that more to do with the Republican base distrusting McCain, and b) since when is that a bad thing? Yet commentators can't seem to go two minutes without sarcastically reinforcing the notion of Obama as the object of substance-free "Obamania." Can it really be media bias if I can't turn on the TV or open a newspaper without hearing about media bias? So the question is, has "substance-free celebrity" become the official Republican talking point caricature of Obama for this election cycle? Is it working?

ParanoiA: I was responding to you, yes. You seemed to be implying that your proposal was the "fair" one, and objectively so, to boot. "Equal say, equal vote for an unequal investment equals inequality," you said. That seems like an argument based on a sense of fairness. Not that that's an invalid opinion, mind you. We have to consider what's fair, even if we don't agree on what IS fair.