Sisyphus

I would assume the point is that they weren't burned 65 million years ago and replaced in the intervening time.

Right, but that's not really increasing the sunlight per acre, it's just intercepting the sunlight headed for other areas and concentrating it on a smaller surface, i.e. casting a bigger shadow. You could build a huge wedge shaped hill and get more sunlight per square foot on the southern (or northern if in southern hemisphere) face, but you'd just be casting a proportionately large shadow on the north face, and hill + shaded area would get the same total light per acre. Why not just use that land, instead, and leave it all flat? I suppose in certain circumstances it might make sense (if the northern land is unavailable for agriculture, or if you just want to spite your northern neighbor), but farmland in general just isn't that scarce.

I don't think describing opposing ways of thinking precludes a best of both worlds approach. In fact, I'd say the opposite.

disclaimer: not even remotely a farmer I doubt you could increase yield that way. Farms are basically solar power plants that produce edible calories instead of electricity, and there's only so much sun per acre, no matter what the topography. And if plants are all growing vertically anyway, sloping the land isn't going to let you fit any more in, it's just going to require more space between them.

I read... somewhere recently that there are actually basic differences in the ways liberals vs. conservatives think, as measured by actual psychological evaluation. For example, when liberals think of morality they're thinking about general concepts like fairness and preventing harm, while conservatives are thinking about specific rules, and concepts like honor and tradition. Conservatives also startle more easily, and are more squeamish across the board, being repelled by the smell of urine and the thought of nontraditional relationships alike. One example of a question was, "would you ever be willing to slap your father in the face as a joke, if he was in on it and ok with it." Liberals mostly say yes, conservatives mostly say no. "No harm done" vs. "disrespecting the institution." Conservatives will pursue justice even if no one benefits from it, liberals will seek the overall beneficial solution even if it means some people get away with misdeeds. And on and on. Of course, all of this wildly oversimplifies things. Hardly anyone is entirely defined in this way, and there are of course these tendencies can manifest in lots of different ways. The futurists and the back to nature people are both "liberal" in thinking, despite wanting essentially opposite things. And some ideologies don't quite fit at all. abskebabs mentions libertarians, which don't quite fit but aren't, I don't think, really a "third pole," either. The chart says conservatives support empoyers and liberals support employees. That's generally true, I find. Well what if I support consumers? Is that libertarian?

Contemporary members of its species, that don't possess the same genes. By having those subsequent generations in turn using those passed on traits to improve their chances of having more successful offspring, and so on. Traits that help chances are passed on more often, and so propagate. Traits that hurt chances are passed on less often, and so are minimized. Is that clear enough?

I still think you're underestimating the sheer number of durable artifacts currently around on a planet of 7 billion people, and just how many 7 billion actually is. If you estimate ::reaches in the air:: and average of 10,000 t-rex's alive at a time, or even just per generation, there are still 700,000 times that many humans alive right now. That means every generation of humans has the same order of magnitude of number of individuals as the entire 3 million year history of the t-rex species history. Even if we go extinct extremely quickly (geologically speaking), we can surely expect a whole lot of fossilized remains.

Yes, and perhaps eventually every living member of the species will be descended from both A and B. That's certainly possible. But you're stuck on a dichotomy of descended/not descended, when it's really about a mixture of traits in different proportions. That future population will be substantially more A than B, even though both are direct ancestors for everyone, especially if A's offpsring tend to have more offpsring than B's as a result of the traits A and B passed on. And the mixing (and subsequent mutations) let the individual traits dominate, rather than just proportions of A's and B's genomes.

I expect there's plenty we've made that once buried would remain recognizable indefinitely, in fossilized form or otherwise, barring geological events (which wouldn't be everywhere). You mentioned spearpoints above. Well, there's a whole lot more than spearpoints around. And a peak population of at least 7 billion, and you're not expecting any fossilized remains?

I don't doubt that an intelligent species could vanish without a trace, I doubt an intelligent species that would cause a mass extinction would. Neanderthals were intelligent, but it's humans that would be the analog.

Is it unlikely, though? This wouldn't just be any old species, it would be the cause of a mass extinction event. Presumably it would be extremely numerous and spread all over the world. If ~30 tyrannosaurs have been found, then surely we would have found at least one specimen of the extinction causer by now, right? 65 million years from now, there might be no substantial evidence that chimps existed, but how could there not be fossilized humans?

I don't know enough about paleontology to refute it, but it seems like a species as ubiquitous and environment-changing enough to cause a mass extinction would leave lots of traces behind. Are there fossils that suddenly show up in large numbers all over the world at the time of the mass extinction? Also, if that is the cause, then the dominant theories have to be wrong, and that has to be demonstrated too. Is all the evidence for a major impact event flawed? Or was there a massive impact, but it just happened coincidentally?

If it's counterproductive to communication, then it's not skill in writing, is it?

I'm not convinced they do know that, actually. But in any case, they did make some people very rich, at least for a while. There is always going to be someone willing to use ever more complex formulas for better short term profits at the cost of long term chaos in one's own investments and the economy as a whole. And there is always going to be a market to support such people. Humans in general are not rational or future-oriented enough for it to be otherwise, and the humans on wall street self-select for personalities that exaggerate the problem. Not every investor is that way (Warren Buffet is an example of a successful antithesis), but not everyone has to be to ruin it for everyone.

It is apparent that nobody but you seems to think your request is clear. You have seemingly specified what you want, but rejected apparently valid answers. You accuse everyone else of a conspiracy to deliberately misunderstand you. I think it would be reasonable to also consider the possibility that you're not asking a coherent question. Also, you should answer my questions: 1) Is there any type of answer that would be satisfactory? 2) Is this a religious matter for you? 3) If the answer to 2 is yes, why are you here?

Well, it's progress. But reading, it's all full of caveats that pretty much still reserve the right to do whatever they want. As in, you still don't have to be in violation of any state law in order to prosecuted under federal law: So it's not really changing any law, just acting as a "guide to the exercise of investigative and prosecutorial discretion." So they're saying they don't want to be deliberately, bloody-mindedly in opposition to state laws (like we had been previously), but it still doesn't actually stop crusading prosecutors, except possibly as a budget issue.

Trivia: The current world's largest model of wind turbine is the Enercon E-126, which is 198m tall with a rotor diameter of 126m. It is rated at 6 MW, but is expected to usually generate more than 7. It's still in the prototype stage, but they're building some in Germany right now. Cool. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/02/enercon_e126_largest_wind_turbine.php

Our sense of morality is a result of tendencies of biological evolution, shaped and focused by philosophical examination, cultural norms, etc. An AI, if it became "moral," would presumably arrive at it along a different route. Morality depends on finding some situations and actions preferable to others. What would an AI consider preferable? Why? It would depend on how it was created, I suppose.

You actually haven't been clear at all about what you're asking for, CTD. At first I thought it was just a description of the theory of evolution, but several people have provided that (in thread and via links), and you still keep saying "nobody can satisfy this simple request!" What is your simple request, if not a description of the theory of evolution? Is there anything that someone could say that would satisfy it? You also made some nonsequitor comments about the "godless." Can I take this to mean (and I apologize if this is incorrect) that the falseness of evolution is a matter of religious faith for you, unswayable by anything? If so, what are you doing here? Why discuss it (or anything), if the conclusion is foregone?

Yup. Overestimating how much energy homes use and/or underestimating how much is in that big a cross-section of breeze. The circle described by 40 meter turbine blades has an area of about 55,000 square feet. Your typical swivelling fan moves air in a gentle breeze in a cross section of about 1 square foot. And also remember, "1000 homes" is just approximate. If everybody turns everything on in their homes at once and it's only slightly windy, it will only be able to supply fewer.

I should also add that picking untrustworthy/illiberal allies has been the cause of a great portion of America's problems in foreign relations. But I guess much of that was in proxy wars, as with the Taliban, Iraq, etc. Maybe "fighting side by side" would be a good thing, as long as we stop short of funneling resources into the Iranian military. And of course, "terrorism" is such a nebulous concept that I'm sure we can agree on something to shoot at.

Well, it's a freer country than Saudi Arabia, and they're our dearest friends. Of course, Iran is provocative, and Saudi Arabia bends over backwards to please us. And it would be a really hard sell politically, especially for Obama. The half of the country that doesn't distinguish between "Muslim" and "terrorist" and sees the "Islamic world" as one political entity also thinks Obama in particular is a secret agent for "them."

Right. My point is just that hitting the earth with a 0.9999c relativistic velocity 100kg iron cannonball and hitting it with a black hole of the same mass and velocity will have very different effects. The cannonball would collide with the Earth and transfer all of that energy into heat, shockwaves, etc. The black hole would only transfer a small amount its energy to the Earth, via gravitational drag, and nobody would notice. (This is of course ignoring radiation the black hole emits as it decays.) Kind of like firing a stream of neutrinos through your head, vs. punching you in the face.

A collision is not a gravitational reaction, it's an electromagnetic one. Things do not bounce off black holes. That does not violate conservation of momentum.

So I guess "never buy anything you don't understand" is no longer conventional wisdom for investing.