Sisyphus

But the Moon orbits around the Earth, and Ceres orbits around the Sun.

I live in large, heavily insulated apartment building, and I walk or take public transit everywhere. As a result I am responsible for the of use about 10% of the fossil fuels of the average American suburbanite.

If you want to be a smartass, just point out that there were things laying eggs long, long before there was anything resembling a chicken. Not chicken eggs, maybe, but the question doesn't specify...

I'm not sure about the strength part (since I've never handled chimps), but it does seem like our excellent fine motor skills require a lot of practice doing intricate things, which in turn requires the intelligence to understand those things. The question of whether our muscles are inherently more suited to precision tasks doesn't seem separable from brain function unless you can show something different about the muscles themselves, and why they favor their respective specialties. BTW, how strong are chimps, pound for pound? Stronger than trained human athletes?

I think the point was more that the burden of proof is on the heretic, not the establishment. And that extraordinary claims (of which this definitely fits) require extraordinary evidence. And that if that heretic makes a claim that ought to be completely verifiable, yet somehow hasn't been, it's rather suspicious.

Yeah, big jaws mean big jaw muscles. Big jaw muscles means a compact, sturdy skull with lots of leverage to attach them. And that means less room for a brain. Also, as a general principle, something which is not actively useful tends to be a drawback, because everything takes resources which could be used elsewhere. Everything is a balance between benefit and cost, and if there is no benefit, even the tiniest cost will eventually win out and change the trait.

Putting all arguments for against the legitimacy of the Iraq war aside, who's going to sign up for "peacekeeping" against the U.S. military? I think one of the problems is that the only way you're going to get any country to obey a resolution is if enough, stronger countries are willing to enforce it. But who polices the police? And I like the anti-terror "police" force thing, except that the UN is a collection of nations, some of whom wildly disagree on the definition of a terrorist. Whose laws are enforced? Is the General Assembly going to act as a legislative body?

That other topic about a "UN Army" got me thinking. The UN is obviously a deeply flawed organization in a lot of ways, but I think that it's also done a whole lot of good in the world, and that the basic concept, a permanent organization where representatives from all nations can meet and work out their common problems in a neutral setting, is a wonderful idea. So I guess I'll just ask two pretty wide open questions that can hopefully generate some good discussion. If you had the power to reform and restructure the United Nations in any way you chose, what you do? Specifically, how would you deal with the more active aspects, where the UN as a whole makes resolutions? How do we muster forces for peacekeeping and the like when not all nations agree to help as they are able? Should the security council have permanent members like it does now, elected members, rotating members, or perhaps automatic membership if certain qualifications are met...? What can relatively responsible, liberalized nations like the United States, Europe, Japan, etc., realistically do to improve the situation?

The problem with that is that there is no single point where the big bang took place, and there are no edges to measure from. We don't know for sure what the "shape" of the universe is yet, but we do know that it is NOT just a simple, 3-dimensional sphere. For one thing, "the universe" includes all space, not just space where there is "stuff." Hence there is no "edge," because an edge means there would be universe on one side and "something else" on the other. But there is no "something else." Also, all our observations show that everything is moving away equally from everything else, not from a single point, and it appears that Big Bang took place everywhere at once. So the center of the universe is everywhere, and its edge is nowhere.

Isn't that how sonar works? EDIT: Haha, 3 replies at once.

Yes, because there's much more of it. In a sphere, in fact, the amount overhead increases with the square of your distance from it, just as the gravity decreases with the square. So the pull is the same from all directions all the time, and it all cancels out.

I agree that cars are a bigger problem, and I don't see how "car culture" could fail to take a major hit. At the very least, I think we'll see a de-suburbanization, with population once more shifting to dense cities with efficient and effective mass transit. The way I see it, we're only dependant on cars because we've allowed ourselves to become so, and this can be undone. Hardly any New Yorkers own cars, for example, because a) everything is close together and you can usually walk, and b)everything is close together, which makes mass transit exponentially more efficient and useful.

Hey, I've just been reading about some promising-looking technology for power generation. It basically consists of large underwater "windmills" that can be placed in areas of high tidal flow. They require no dams and, because they are harnessing moving water as opposed to moving air, they can get a lot more power than a similarly sized windmill. The downsides: the technology is expensive (though still in its infancy, so that will surely go down), they can only be placed in limited locations, and they only generate power when the tides are going in or out, and only peak in mid-flow. The first working plant will be an experimental version currently under construction in the East River in New York, of all places (which is not actually a river, but a narrows where large volumes of water are forced through with the tides). It will be mostly a proof of concept design, only producing about 200 killowatts. However, if it proves satisfactory, it will eventually be expanded with more units to a total of 10 megawatt capacity. A drop in the bucket of New York's power consumption, of course, but still a good start. The first one will be operational by the end of September. Even more exciting, though, is the ambitious proposed plan to install 7000 such turbines in the Cook Strait in New Zealand, where the tidal flow is around 3m/s. They would be tethered to the sea floor, and float far enough below the surface to pose no obstacle for shipping. They could easily be pulled up for servicing, or even moved around. This would generate enough electricity for the entire country, and could easily be expanded simply by adding more turbines, for which there is plenty of room. They hope to have the first ones in place by 2008. EDIT: Err, what do you think? Is this as promising as it sounds?

There's no question that oil production will peak, if not as soon as the doomsday people predict than at least within the 21st century. When it does, the world economy will change a great deal, and it will probably be a major economic blow. However, I don't believe in the "collapse of civilization" alarmism. Energy production will shift, there will be more attention paid to renewable sources, and in the meantime there's plenty of coal and nuclear power and the like to act as a safety net. How well civilization survives will depend on how seriously we take preparation now, and the nations that are already trying to ween themselves off oil will be greatly rewarded for it later in this century.

I'll buy the superorganism part, but not the "will" part. If anything, it's more plant than animal.

Where will the soldiers come from? Where will the money come from? Where will the UN military bases be? I don't think such a thing could ever work without some kind of world government, which the UN is not nor was it ever intended to be. The problem is that nations are too independent. Take the United States, which is powerful enough that it's very unlikely such a thing could work without its cooperation. They would never ever commit a portion of their own military to what amounts to permanent, unconditional foreign control. Nor could I imagine foreign recruiting stations being tolerated on U.S. soil...

Nah. As it's flying upwards it's still accelerating downwards. The force of gravity on the ball never wavers.

Well, sort of. A hydroelectric dam indirectly gets its power from water evaporating. And its true that you get a lot less power than it took for the sun to evaporate the water. On the other hand, the "collector" is millions of square miles of oceans, and its easier to build a turbine than a million square mile solar panel...

I hereby offer one thousand dollars to the first person who can reverse the force of gravity.

I agree. I suspect the ratio of intelligent races in the universe to spacefaring intelligent races is very low. All kinds of things have to go right and all kinds of things have to not go wrong (or be doomed from the start). Maybe most of them are destroyed early or destroy themselves. Maybe there are intelligences that are hive minds, and can't travel anywhere without taking the whole hive. Maybe there are intelligences that never develop tool use because they can gain no advantage from it or have nothing to use for materials. Maybe they're just far too physically large, or can't survive out of liquid seas, or spend their whole lives attached to one rock, or just lack our monkey curiosity and never developed the instinct to explore. Maybe they're capable but just can't see any reason to leave their own worlds. Still, despite all that, there's a LONG time frame within which it can happen. If it's remotely common, and interstellar travel is practical beyond the immediate "neighborhood," then it seems like there would have to be some visitation. And yeah, I guess just because there aren't any signs of it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Incidentally, another reason I think intelligent life is very rare is because it's rare here on Earth. There are several species on the verge of complex communication and technology, but there is really only one, out of all the life on Earth, that is actually capable of them. Us. There's also no evidence that there was ever one before us. Although that doesn't prove anything, it should be noted that WE will certainly leave lots of traces for a LONG time. For one thing, all the oil is gone....

Cus who would want them? Also, Israel was founded (both times ) on the idea that you can plunk down an entire people somewhere and found a nation. So it might seem less ridiculous to them.

Indeed. The fact that we're not constantly being visited by alien probes would seem to prove that there is a speed limit of some kind.