Sisyphus

It was a campaign commercial. He was riding around in it, wearing an army helmet, looking ridiculous. Think of Bush in the flight suit.

That's not something divided by zero. That's something divided by a quantity which approaches zero (meaning it decreases without limit), which is that it approaches infinity (meaning it increases without limit).

Bettina, I'm sorry, but none of this has anything to do with women's rights. Was the purpose of your bringing it up to explain the source of the bias that makes you incapable of thinking rationally about the Middle East?

Yes, it is. They didn't harm the sailors. They didn't dare turn it in to a "death to the west" situation. They didn't get any meaningful concessions out of Britain - not even an apology. In fact, Britain has maintained through the whole thing that they were essentially kidnapped. Iran, on the other hand, backed down to the point where the only spin they could still manage was that "the British made a 'mistake', which they should really apologize for but haven't, but we're going to be nice to them anyway." That the crazy fiery rhetoric was cowed into reconciliation and "gift-giving" is a HUGE act of backing down. The UK comes out looking strong and reasonable, and Iran comes out looking weak, petty, and irresolute. Yes, you're missing something. Hardly. The UK didn't cower - they did. What the hell would you consider "not backing down" on the Brits' part? Seriously, I want to know. Full-scale invasion? That's ridiculous. Strength is revealed in not having to use it.

Wow. That's a huge relief. Also, kind of surreal. It was handled well. Iran backed down, everybody is safe, and neither side apologized or admitted any wrongdoing. Britain continues to call it like it is without sabre-rattling or getting rhetorically ridiculous about it (as I'm sure Bush would have), and Iran has backed down to calling British actions "an accident that they won't admit." Just goes to show you that not immediately shooting stuff up is NOT the same as a "concession" or an "appeasement" or whatever else you want to call it. Nice to see things de-escalating once in a while. Most likely it was related to the envoy getting access to the Iranian prisoners of the US in Iraq, true, but that's not much of a concession. That's a courtesy I would expect in any case. They weren't actually released, were they?

Wasn't he specifically not saying that Iran is acting better? I actually agree with that post for the most part. Justifying one's actions by comparing them favorably to a crazy, aggressive, oppressive theocracy isn't really worth much. "You're better than Iran. Congrats!" And the fact that they use the same justifications for their crazy stuff that we do for ours should give us pause. And even if we do, as is quite possible, convince ourselves that we are completely in the right and they are completely in the wrong, it is naive to think that that is all that matters. It DOES matter how it looks to everyone else. In fact, in the long run, that might be what matters most of all. And how has Tony Blair caved? They haven't apologized. They've condemned it unambiguously. Yet they're still trying to diffuse the situation, as they obviously should. Seriously, how would starting an unnecessary war prove their moral superiority?

The trouble is with space junk is that even the small stuff is dangerous, because the relative velocities are so large. One screw doesn't seem like much, but when it's moving several times faster than the fastest bullet, it can be quite dangerous, indeed.

I guess you have to ask yourself what's worse: A) For political reasons (getting the base riled up, villainizing the opponents), exaggerating and creating fear about something which is probably actually true, anyway, and probably actually does need be acted upon? OR B) For political reasons (saving your contributors money in the short term, ridiculing your opponents), ignoring/stifling scientific consensus through borderline censorship and manufacturing false controversy and doubt, probably at the cost of enormous long-term economic and environmental damage? Let's not be one-sided about this...

I don't think it would replace the need for satellites. A space elevator is an enormous engineering project and continuuing investment, bigger even than the ISS. A satellite launched via that elevator is a lot cheaper than even the cheapest sattelites now. If anything, there will be a lot MORE of them once we have functioning space elevators.

Yeah. I notice you said that a sea platform would reduce the problem of satellites. How do you mean? I've heard people talk before about the whole thing being mobile, to dodge the bigger junk. That doesn't seem like it would be all that feasible, though. I mean, the thing could move, but it seems like the delay in moving a 30 thousand mile long rope would be a long time, so you'd have to know well, well in advance that a collision would take place.

My major concern be space junk, small meteorites, etc. The "cable" (most likely a wide, thin strip of nanotubes or something similar) is basically a thousand mile long target which will most likely be bombarded constantly. It needs to be able to survive a lot of holes, and have a way of repairing them quickly and often.

I'm not really a fan of the change from "Politics" to "Current Events." To me, the most interesting discussions were not about what just happened in the news, but the more abstract, general threads about political science in general: theories of government, how people form opinions, etc. I don't understand why that should be turned in to a place to bicker about whatever is in the news. Merging the science news topics into it also seems rather out of place.

[quote name=Gypsy Cake;330719 This would mean that just because society's failures have more children that they wouldn't necessarily be more stupid than before. meh. Well' date=' sure, of course. The number of exceptions is vast. But in terms of evolution, you're talking about averages. If 51% of dumb people have lots of kids, and 49% of smart people do, you're still going to see a trend towards the dumb ones. I suspect it's not that close, either. "Keeping up with the Jones'" can mean trying to conform OR trying to distinguish oneself somehow. This is all speculation, though, so we'll have to agree to disagree. Being smart is not sufficient but it is necessary. Hence, all other factors aside, the more smart people you have, the more genius you produce.

Why "slow?" In what way are "positive" traits selected for? I don't think that's an indicator. Science can progress faster the more information it has to begin with, technologies synergize with one another, education is much more widely available, and the population (i.e., the number of thinking minds) has exploded a hundredfold. All of those things would yield an exponentially increasing base of human knowledge even if the average human intelligence was dropping. I don't know that it's had a significant effect as of yet, since the selection pressure has only really been in effect for a dozen or so generations. But it is probably inevitable. It's not just whether to have children. It's how soon and how many. If group A has an average of 4 children starting at age 18, and group B has an average of 2 children starting at age 36, group A is spreading its genes with four times the efficiency of group B. And that's usually how it happens. Most people want children, but there are plenty of incentives to WAIT longer before having them, and to not have a lot of them. Financial concerns are one obvious example - and so the financially prudent are "punished," evolutionarily speaking. Also, people want to be settled down, which obviously takes longer the more education you undergo. So the more educated are punished, as well. I'm not making up the correlation, either. These are things I've read from reputable sources. Right, and as soon as they become no longer special, they become no longer desirable. The human desire to be unique and special is powerful, and the more opportunity we're given to willingly differentiate ourselves, the more different from one another we become. That's why I think there would be an increase in genetic variety, rather than a decrease. (With the exception, as I mentioned before, of obvious birth defects.) Well, this just falls out from the variety thing, mostly. I think the variety of human experience will greatly broaden, not narrow. (And I don't think any of this could stop people hating each other!) But, as you say, we can't really predict these things, so it doesn't have much force either way in the debate. However, the one thing we can predict, a raising of the average intelligence, would yield more "genius."

Why was the philosophy of science forum closed?

Gypsy Cake: Why is "nature taking its course" better? What is "natural" for us right now takes place in a setting, civilization, that is far removed from any environment that would select for tougher, smarter, more capable organisms. It protects the weak and gives incentives for NOT having children that smarter people are more likely to take advantage of. Most of the traits which correlate with more offspring right now are what we would probably call negative - low intelligence being the prime example. Right now, as we speak, the human race is naturally evolving to become dumber. I also don't see why it would lessen variety. If anything, I would expect to see more variety, the more genes could be tailored. The only "varieties" that would disappear would be birth defects and the like. And the "losing geniuses" argument is flawed, as well. If we can't alter intelligence, then we'd gain as many geniuses as we "lost." If we can alter intelligence, we'd gain more than we lost. And finally, what does any of this have to do with free will?

Having the same DNA is not the same as being the same person. Identical twins have the same DNA.

The point about youtube is well taken. It allows us all to endlessly replay whatever awkward moments anyone anywhere manages to catch on film. It will certainly have an effect, as does any instance of the public getting "closer" to candidates. Like the advent of the television, but not nearly that significant (yet). However, I don't think this really qualifies as a "hit." Presidential candidates go on television. They try to look good. They have hair and makeup people. Everybody knows that. The only people who would have a problem with this clip would have to be already irrational with hate for Edwards, anyway. It's nothing like Dukakis in the tank.

I don't really get the the whole protesting thing, here. Iranians protesting at the British embassy in Iran? There are people that angry? That doesn't make sense even if you believe the version of events the Iranian government is telling the world. What the hell are they being told?

Slow connection. Summarize? It says he's fixing his hair. Is that all?

No. Arithmetic operations can never be performed on infinity with meaningful results, because it isn't a number. Infinity /= infinity. To see what is meant by this, consider: Divide the number of integers by the number of even integers. Divide the number of irrational numbers by the number of rational numbers. You see where I'm going with this?

That is not true. The answer would be undefined. EDIT: I think it would be most accurate to say that "infinity" is not a number, or a constant, or even a direction. It is a property of quantities.

How about this question: why aren't more drugs legal? How about just cannabis? I hear reasoned arguments for its legalization all the time, but never any for keeping it illegal. So what's the deal? My guess is it's a matter of momentum. No elected politician wants to "stand up for potheads," which is how his enemies would inevitably portray it. It's an irrational policy, but nobody cares enough to end their carreer over it. BTW, full disclosure: I've tried several of the "softer" illegal drugs (none of which were at all difficult to obtain) a couple times, but didn't really care for any of them, and haven't taken any in over a year. I drink alcohol regularly but quite moderately, since I long ago learned my lessons about lack of moderation, and the standardization means I can always judge exactly what I'm getting. Am I an "abuser," somehow? I don't think so.

I've become somewhat addicted to improving Wikipedia over the last few months, and now have several hundred edit records on my account and have created a handful of new articles. Anyone else?