padren

I do think its fair that there are some limits. If a family took specific chemicals while pregnant so their child would grow up to be a megafreak, in order to make money off him at the circus, we'd have a moral problem with that. With cloning, it would be important to know there isn't any increased risk of defects and such, otherwise you'll be messing with that child's life and health for your own personal interests, which is no better than the circus thing. The limits on stem cell research are quite stupid imo. Also, he's only been blowing the crap out of "evil doers" and as he said on national TV once, "they have no soul." That was pretty creepy actually.

I guess we can disagree about what is important. For me, a cluster of cells at the point of conception is undoubtedly not a human, and what is born at birth 9 months later undoubtedly is. If the question was whether we are willing to kill unborn children, then I would be anti-abortion instead of pro-choice. I hope I am not belaboring the point, its just I never saw that side of the debate before. I've always seen the religious arguments that happen to keep morning after pills off the shelves be applied to abortion. I'll have to look into it more.

Well, there will be all the "I wouldn't trust Cheney at a turkey shoot, much less to help run a long protracted major war" sorta statements, but its really not much different than ditching a car bad and injuring the passenger. Still, if the white house wants to talk about everytime Bush has trouble swallowing a pretzel or gets a colonoscopy...I mean if we have to sit through that stuff they could atleast report the other stuff too. Cheney isn't in the white house based on his quail hunting skills, so I really don't think it has any relevance. The points about proper proceedure though are definately sound IMO, and his conduct during a potential crime (which any shooting should be investigated as at least to establish the facts) investigatation is relevant to his job.

The owner of a local newspaper told me that their insurance states they can only print on their website info that is in their regular paper, or they can be liable/sued directly for any inaccuracies, and I would be willing to bet that for insurance reasons "on their site" would be based on what the user sees, more than how the site HTML is linked up. How an image is embedded from another server on a page is pretty invisible to the viewer, so its probably the end generated page result that counts.

I do find that interesting. Is there a cut off point where you feel an abortion is unlawful due to the advancement of the fetus? I don't know where I think that line is myself, but I am sure its there somewhere.

Personally I am pro-choice for other reasons, but while you state no one else has the right to use your organs (I basically agree) if you are responsible for that individual becoming dependant on your organs, and then take deliberate actions causing their death, how could you not be responsible? No one has the right to your property, even say, your inflatable life jacket. However, if a human life becomes dependant on your life jacket because you placed them in the middle of a lake in it, when they can't swim...if you decided to take it back from them and allow them to drown, you would be committing a crime, yes? I am pro-choice, because I don't believe a fetus is a human, and a potential human does not have rights anymore than a potential lawyer can practice law.

Are you trying to say that many pro-life conservatives aren't anti-abortion, they are against one one ruling (R vs W) that supports abortion, and would prefer abortion to be guaranteed by a different law? Did I get that right? It doesn't sound right to me...how can you be "pro-life" if its not about the "life" part?

Just a note about the chicken thing: You are more likely to see posts like that, from people who have heard 1000 arguments as to why such or such could prove intelligent design, including the concept proposed, and that it had been dealt with exhuastively and people were tired of rehashing it. Some simular things that spark the same result: * I can prove math is inconsistent because.... * I have invented a perpetual motion machine just by.... * I invented a machine that can make predictions about the future... * Relatively is wrong because... * Evolution is wrong because... * You can get limitless energy just by... * I can prove God exists by... * I can prove God does not exist by... * I am not racist but since genetics and statistics show that... These sorts of openers tend to rehash old ideas that were already debated, and usually were based on some misconception about the topic. If someone says "no, they evolved" to the chicken question they are usually (and perhaps not so politely) saying "heard it, and no. You should read more so you know why." or something to that effect. I find this board is actually pretty friendly to posts like those, even when you find one or two people react, you find others who will take the time to explain why they feel your concept is wrong. Regarding the "polarization of ideas" I think that is a fair concept and I do think it happens more than it should. If I read it right, you mean something to this effect: Lets say camp A think dinosuars died from a meteor, and camp B says they died from bird flu. Someone in camp A likes an idea of one of the camp B people about dino teeth that is entirely unrelated, but won't support the idea publically because of animosity about the A vs. B division, and because he may be viewed as a traitor by his camp A buddies. If that is the case, I am not sure how much it does happen, but any amount would be a shame. It does seem to happen in politics a good deal, but I don't know about the science community enough to assess that.

Am I missing something here? I was under the impression that anti-abortionists are such because, generally due to religious beliefs, they believe a fetus is a human being. Pro-choice people, are generally so because they feel a fetus is not a human being, but a mass of cells with the potential to become a human being. I always thought this was a bunch of religious zealots trying to say "Since we believe life is this way, we will dictate what you can do with your body." Its the same sort of mentality that bans contraceptives or outlaws oral sex. Yet in the end, they provide no basis for the claims other than the scripture they happen to subscribe to. But did I miss something? Is there anyone that thinks a fetus is a child, but that it should be legal to kill it anyway? Or that a fetus is nothing more than a cluster of cells, but that a woman should be forced to carry it to term? It seems sometimes anti-abortionists paint it as roe vs. wade says the rights of the potential mother are more important than that of the rights of the unborn child, and thus needs to be overturned. But I am pretty sure no (or nearly no) pro-choicers see it that way, but see it as a cluster of cells cannot have rights at all just because a source of scripture claims life starts at conception.

A little off-topic, but I thought of something I am curious about: is there a difference between how "theories" that try to explain what is observed vs. what is predicted? I mean, most holy texts sound like an author was writing while his 6 year old kept asking "why? why? why?" questions constantly, at least when it pertains to why the world is as it is. That's not a jab at religion, but I can't help but to make the observation that more "faith based" theories tend to start with a premise (God created the world, etc) and then proceed to "explain" how it was created in a manner that fits as much of what we know about the world as it can and religious texts. It seems to be trying to piece together a puzzle that explains what we see, instead of a system that can predict where we will find new undiscovered pieces of the puzzle. At the same time, how much of geology is predictive? I know you can crunch the numbers and then do lab tests on soil errosion can make accurate predictions with it. I am just curious if science measures the differences between predictive aspects and "explaining the data we already have found" (solving the puzzle of how some mountains formed etc) in a concrete way.

If anyone was to dare to speculate, how likely is it that any given consciousness in a near-singularity culture would actually be part of a simulation and not part of the physical universe? Or is the premise itself likely to be faulty?

I don't need a plan. IDies will marginalize themselves out of existance all on their own or adapt and cease to be IDies.

If the "other side" is arguing in favor of a flat Earth, a 5000 year old IDed Earth, co-existance of dinos and humans....I'd say then yes. Since you cannot use logic to defeat these arguers (anyone who argues for a flat earth etc has already long since been immunized against logic and rational thought) the best you can do is let them marginalize themselves into oblivion or give up. Most Christian sects gave up on the flat earth model so they could continue to appear relevant, while others marginalized themselves out of existance. In all likelihood they will give up "young IDed earth" too the same way and for the same reasons, given enough time. It won't be logical arguments that do it though, it will be a need to maintain appeal to a base of followers.

Life is extinct on other planets because their scientists were more advanced than our own. - Not sure who, I kinda forget

I would suspect "yes" to the first question, but of course half the fun of saying "post-singularity" is saying a technological level spike beyond our ability to predict what is and is not possible within it. I suppose you could have simulations within simulations, but if the main engineers only make the main simulation for the purpose of probing alternative developmental branches, I don't know if they would benefit from sims in sims, and therefore may not permit it, as it would be burning their real processing resources to run the sim's sim. So I would say you could have as many sims in sims as it is deemed worthwhile and benefitial to the real society running the toplevel sim.

First, I am going to work out some funky variables that should be similar to how Drake's equation works, but for a completely different topic. Then I'll fail to even attempt the math, but its just an interesting idea I have.... basically, it works like this: 1) Post singularity, it would be possible to create not only synthetic consciousness, but by default, entire simulated environments 2) As part of a technology advancing technique, running simulations of near-singularity cultures can develop unexplored branches and tangents If 1 and 2 are fair assertions, then if we could take Drake's equation as a start, modify it to determine both how many near-singularity and how many post-singularity worlds "may" be out there, then multiply the number of post-singularity worlds by the number of simulations any given world is likely to run (maybe its .5, maybe its 20), and compare that by the near-singularity count, we could derive a ratio likelihood that any given consciousness within a near-singularity world would actually be a simulation and not in a real physical world. I am not actually suggesting we live in a simulation, but its an interesting idea.

Part of the national mentality is that "a dollar in hand is more powerful than two in the bank" so to speak: the idea with a dollar in hand, you can build a better mouse trap or become a realestate mogel, etc. We believe the borrowing will pay off in being a richer and stronger nation in the long run than if we tighten our belts and live within our means. Unfortunately not much attention is placed in seeing that the over spending has this desired effect, and ends up being very wastefull.

I don't know if this is the sort of thing one could (or should) consider in a "little experiment" but for what its worth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_power_transmission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer

I personally think it should get at least the same funding now % wise of the budget as it did during the apollo program. It got us to the moon in under a decade, and it spurred many other technologies that helped the nation get ahead. It would be nice to have something worthy of national pride again in my lifetime.

I think bascule's idea is pretty cool, even though I wouldn't try it myself. One thought, is nano-bots could probably repair brain tissue that gets old, if it is desired to maintain the biological brain. Imagine if we had these sorts of things that replaced pathway by pathway in the brain with something that could handle the same functions, but be capable of more, and not depend on biology to keep it alive. Of course, would it replace you, or enhance you....since I have no rational way to understand what makes my consciousness my consciousness, I'll let myself be ruled by irrational fears of what may make me loose it.

I think many muslims are as sensitive about Islam being portrayed as an inherently violent religion as jewish people are about the holocaust. I don't see the difference between mocking the holocaust, mocking child abuse in the catholic church, or mocking Mohammad. There is a special danger though I guess in those portrayals of Mohammad. Everytime western culture and the world in general absorbs one more "islam is thrives on bombs" meme the millions of peaceful muslims in areas like Indonesia and elsewhere loose a little of their hold on their religion to militant muslims. Here you have militant islam trying to take over the faith, and here are western cultures completely happy to say as far as we are concerned, they already have won. There more we accept the Fawells and Robertsons as representative of Christiantity in the US and believe we have to deal with those types to deal with christians in America, the more marginalized moderate christians become. So I guess, having thought about it, I can see the danger in allowing oneself to generalize (memes are infectious) about a group, but I am at more appalled by people killing over insults, which is even more destructive.

I appreciate your zeal, but you have to understand that anything that happens, has to go through a rather rigiourous phase of critical criticism, several generally, since the mechanical physical world is rather harshly unforgiving. First, I just want to point out that should we be in dire straights with the melting of the ice caps, I would consider any attempt to just take 500 or so people and leave as the worst possible example of calous abandonment ever concieved. That would be the same as saying...instead of helping 6 billion people not die horribly, we are going to um, spend our time researching how to just ditch them. All that aside: One major flaw I see, is that if we started sending out ships to the nearest star say, I am pretty certain a ship would get no more than 5% the distance, before being passed by another ship with way better engines, launched even a few decades later. By the time that ship got 10% of the way, it too would be obsolete and probably passed by yet another. Another factor, is technology. I think there is a "sweet spot" of sorts, where we pushed technology by funding projects that need it, which in turn produces new discoveries that are worth more than the investment. Spend too little as a nation, and you move very slowly. Spend too much though, you build things badly, because money itself does not create innovation. Spending too much would be like trying to build a giant ship during the wood-ship days that is horribly over priced and frail because its as big as an aircraft carrier made of wood. Try a little less, and you get decent sized ships, and more innovation that leads eventually to steel hulls. I think the Apollo days are closer to that "sweet spot" than today's NASA, but I don't have any evidence to back it up. (its just a feeling). On the zero-point stuff, there are a lot of brilliant people trying to solve the energy problems of the world, and feel free to join them, but don't expect answers to be easy. Also, that patent doesn't look like anything that is really functional...sorry, maybe someone else can see something I can't but it can't generate more power than it would take to actually make a piece of magnetic metal, and thats assuming it both functions and has a high effeciency. Anyway, I would love to see a far more fast space program, and I appreciate what you feel. I agree we can do a lot more than we are, if we just want to. Still, money isn't just paper, its a measure of finite human labor, and those humans need to eat and live their lives. I would suggest trying to work in the industries that will eventually further these types of endeavors, and push for more political support for the commitment of resources. One thing I've learned is while its still worth trying to do everything you want to try and do, the laws of physics are uncompromising and full of limits that take amazing amounts of effort to overcome. The more you work towards something of this scale the more you'll respect what we've managed to do.