lemur

That's an important point since a 200W electric bicycle doesn't come with an 800W heater but a pedal-powered bicycle does.

I know organic corn is absurdly expensive and GM or other industrially produced corn is cheaper. The irony I mentioned was that this corn is used to make high fructose corn syrup and feed livestock to add value to final products produced from it. Then, because chicken is cheap, loads of it get thrown away by fast food restaurants and other uses that prioritize convenience over waste-prevention. Also, the corn syrup gets used to produce loads of unhealthy hypersweetened products that generate lots of revenue while providing relatively little nutritional value and lucrative health problems and cavities (these are health problems too but I thought they deserved explicit mention). Ironically, if other grains than corn were produced, the complex carbohydrates would generate less revenue/profit but they would provide more people with more sustainable energy levels to accomplish more in their daily lives. I don't eat meat so basically any form of meat that's not raised on forest vegetation seems like a waste of photosynthesis to me. Of course, there are a lot of benefits to dairy so I may not be aware of some important symbiotic relationship between dairy production and beef slaughter. Someone once told me, for example, that without veal there would be no milk because cows have to keep having calves to keep their milk production flowing. It is my understanding, though, that animal-slaughter requires lots more land and water per nutritional unit than plant-based foods.

I wouldn't get too pessimistic (or optimistic depending on what side your on) just yet. Eugenics always seems to backfire, as does social-economic stratification. Intensive consumption lifestyles require higher levels of dependency on people who become increasingly dissatisfied with their end of the bargain. Rebellion rarely happens but recession is a common result when higher classes attempt to maintain economies that employ large numbers of people in service of maintaining privileges that they don't themselves have (much) access to. This is deviating from the OP, though, so suffice to say that cloning, like other kinds of selective breeding will result in unforeseen health problems and those that can only afford to breed the cheap way will be coveted for their genetic health (I suspect).

Fantasies don't exist as subjective phenomena? Is there no difference between describing a dream you really had and one you invented to amuse people? "God" has to do with attribution of authority to something above human (i.e. "worldly") authority. It is the idea that there is authority that goes beyond humans, their institutions, laws, kings, cultures, etc. It is not "objective." It is experienced as true by revelation attributed to divine inspiration. The individual does not simply go by their own interests or reference to texts or other "worldly" sources of authority. People experience (il)legitimacy in their evaluation of worldly sources of authority, including their own personal interests/ego/authority based on "higher" revelation. If one lacks faith/belief in the possibility of such "higher" authority, then one cannot make claims with regard to it or validate claims made with reference to it. That makes sense. "God" could be described as the (subjective) ability to choose faith where such an epistemological or ontological gulf/gap is present. Moses was revealed truths by the burning bush that he experienced as "God" in good faith. Others received his laws and "word" as "the word of God" or not and, supposedly, those that had faith survived the plagues, desert, etc. Often it is when people experience mercy in nature "against all odds," they attribute this to God as well. Then they spend their gratitude attempting to redeem themselves from wrongdoing/sin and attempt to do good in life by searching for a "mission" that they seek to be revealed to them by "God" through "Holy Spirit" etc.

Does the eugenics of any of this cause any red-lights to go on for you? Do you think that some people have the right to engineer life for others according to their own self-attributed cultural superiority? If you were just talking about intervening in other's lives where they become a danger to themselves or others, that would be one thing - but you're talking about subjugating living beings as chattel to projects beyond their ability to be informed and consent. How do you eventually tell a child that they were engineered to be a clone of Einstein and will subsequently spend their whole lives as an object of scientific and academic scrutiny?

I have the idea that they are more similar that might be thought at first. After all, wouldn't the interior pressure of the sun be so high, due to its gravity, that atoms would be compressed beyond their electron shielding? I don't know if that is correct, but I always think that the interior of the sun would have relatively unshielded protons interacting with each other at high energy levels and sometimes fusing as the energy overcomes the level of proton-proton repulsion. So could it not be accurate to describe the sun as an enormous macro-molecule whose protons are in the process of converting into heavier nuclei?

What has yet to gain public consciousness is that much of the demonization of efficiency and cost-cutting is just the result of a public interest in increasing average material wealth by getting lots of people to pay as much as necessary for as many products as possible. This would be lovely if it was 1) sustainable in terms of resource consumption and 2) possible to expand high levels of prosperity to everyone globally. Since it's not, though, this game is really just about raising revenues/incomes of a certain class of people who don't mind enjoying higher levels of material consumption than most other people on the planet regardless of whether doing so contributes to limiting the growth potential of those less fortunate. Yes, it is ironic that by genetically engineering corn, more corn can be produced - but by doing so, the farmers become more dependent on higher revenues to pay for the technologies. This, in turn, requires that the highest possible levels of value-addition are achieved for the various foods created from the corn. This, in turn, promotes the most profitable food-distribution/service practices that waste the most food. So by engineering higher yields for more money, we end up throwing away more and excluding more people from the standards of consumption and convenience provided by food-science advances.

Ok, can you please clarify how relative consensus in morality has anything to do with objectivity?

For "subjective," I use @#3 and for "objective" @#b & #d No, this is a common misconception. There are forms of subjectivity that various individuals conform to with varying degrees of voluntarism. These are referred to as "social facts," a term coined by Durkheim in the 19th century. To me, the concept is dubious since it circumvents the need for empirical observation beyond observation of the social-relations that constitute the fact as if it was objective reality. The biggest social-fact conflict of recent times has been that of "race" which has been argued to be scientifically/biologically bankrupt by physical anthropologists while being studied as a social-cultural practice by other social scientists. I.e. objective facts can conflict with social facts because of the basis of the latter in subjectivism instead of objectivism. No, consensus may occur as a result of objective bases for knowledge but it is empiricism that forms the basis for objective knowledge, not social consensus. If social consensus was sufficient to establish objective knowledge, then the Earth could be flat as long as everyone agreed that it was. Empirical objectivists believe that the Earth was never flat, even when there was consensus that it was. Sorry if this example sounds condescending, but it's just a nice clear one for illustrating the difference between subjective consensus and objective empiricism. Are you saying I shouldn't clarify terminological errors? Are you going to admit, then, that you were stuck in the "social facts" logic of consensual subjectivity as objectivity? You shouldn't be so rude. You are the one who misinterpreted the dictionary definitions, not me.

I don't think it's unfathomable that certain farming practices will continue to use diesel - although it may have to be biodiesel at some point. I have always thought that certain crops can best be farmed on a large scales with tractors/combines like the ones you mention. That doesn't mean, however that other crops, such as vegetables, won't be ultimately more efficiently farmed locally since those contain a lot of water, which doesn't usually need to be shipped. I agree there is a lot of food-terrorism propaganda (to use the harshest possible term I can think of). That doesn't mean, however, that all sorts of industrial processes, including agriculture, can't benefit from making them more "organic" in some ways, where "organic" only refers to saving resources by utilizing more natural processes that don't require additional energy or material inputs. Think of logging by water, for example. It may be more convenient and efficient to cut, transport, and process logs by truck now, but as fossil fuel becomes scarcer, floating them by water to a mill is going to add energy-efficiency, even if it decreases volume or labor-efficiency. I think the hardest part of all this for people to swallow is the fact that labor has to depreciate relative to other forms of energy/power. I think that slowly genetic modification will come to be seen as just another agricultural technology. Certainly I've wondered if there isn't some way to genetically engineer vegetables to grow in my soil with no fertilizer the way the weeds do. I also would like a "salad tree." The thing I dislike most about genetic engineering is that it can be used to exercise even greater economic control over the food supply making people that much more dependent on selling their labor for money. It's not that important to me, but thanks for considering. I've looked online but the seeds are expensive and I have my doubts about how good of seeds they will end up being. Wouldn't want to trade the cow for a giant beanstalk, you know:) I figured they were weeds because of the poison in them. I couldn't just start them in pots and transplant outside when they're big enough? It would be nice to sell starter plants of tobacco, or even the finished product, but I think I would get in trouble with the government. I guess I wouldn't if I would pay all the taxes required but that would ruin the profits of selling leaves for $2/each after drying, grating, and packing them into paper cylinders with filters.

I'm not so sure that dimensionality is the same thing as "space." E.g. if you travel in a straight line in any direction on a sphere, you eventually end up where you started. If all space worked like this, what would that imply about "space/volume?" Further, if spatial dimensionality on the surface of a sphere can be deconstructed by recognition of the sphere as the dominant reality, who is to say there's not yet another level that is even more dominant, which renders sphericism itself a function of some other "truer form?"

Oh, I assumed it was a critique of some claim about teleportation or dimensions that transcend empirical observability.

To me, objective = related to or based on object relations (i.e. materiality) and subjective = related to or based on subjectivity, consciousness, ideas, language, etc. What you are calling "objective," I would probably call universal subjectivity or ethics. There not actually universal, though, because killing is always allowed (or at least done) under certain legitimations as is rape. It is only recent that marital rape has been declared illegal by some governments, along with sexual harassment, etc. but in my observation consent and respect have not become any more dominant, and perhaps less so. Lots of people just continue to proceed with the culture that sex is just fun and games and it's perfectly legitimate to manipulate women into it because "hey, when they are fighting they really mean 'yes'"(sic). This culture upsets me but I don't know what to do about it because women seem to like the power of being able to forgive and forget when they weren't treated too badly.

That explains it. Rival males saw the fearsome canines of their tough-plant-nourished competitors and subjugated themselves to becoming non-reproductive support staff for the alpha-males.

What makes you confound subjective consensus with objectivity? Just because people widely agree that murder and rape are morally problematic, how does that elevate the judgment to the level of objectivity? You can't "prove" murder or rape "wrong," can you? Objectivity is more than just a status given to ideas on the basis of being widely agreed upon, no?

Don't identical twins use each other as sex surrogates? Wasn't this the premise of the Parent Trap movies (in a quaint, non-chalant way)?

No, I've tried very hard to garden without fertilizer but the results are pathetic. I can't figure out what people did before commercial fertilizer was available. I suppose you can compost, but what could you even compost without powered equipment like a lawnmower to generate lawn clippings? Still, fossil fuel is going to continue to increase in price as it runs out so some sustainable fuel-independent methods of agriculture need to be developed, no? You're doing it again. The point is that "organic" shouldn't refer to a "total model." It should be an adjective that describes techniques that rely on natural processes. Crop rotation is thus "organic" because it doesn't require artificial inputs, per se'. Petrolium-based fertilizer, on the other hand, is "non-organic" because it can't be produced without industrial processing. See my point? It's not that you have to achieve maximum organic agriculture but that the more organic processes you can integrate into your farming, the less dependent you are on suppliers. Less dependence = greater independence and thus greater possibility of replicating your techniques by poor people who may not be able to afford various "non organic" inputs. No, I've tried very hard to garden without fertilizer but the results are pathetic. I can't figure out what people did before commercial fertilizer was available. I suppose you can compost, but what could you even compost without powered equipment like a lawnmower to generate lawn clippings? Still, fossil fuel is going to continue to increase in price as it runs out so some sustainable fuel-independent methods of agriculture need to be developed, no? You're doing it again. The point is that "organic" shouldn't refer to a "total model." It should be an adjective that describes techniques that rely on natural processes. Crop rotation is thus "organic" because it doesn't require artificial inputs, per se'. Petrolium-based fertilizer, on the other hand, is "non-organic" because it can't be produced without industrial processing. See my point? It's not that you have to achieve maximum organic agriculture but that the more organic processes you can integrate into your farming, the less dependent you are on suppliers. Less dependence = greater independence and thus greater possibility of replicating your techniques by poor people who may not be able to afford various "non organic" inputs. btw: can you send me any tobacco seeds legally? I want to grow cigars:)

what about cloning brainless replicants of wealthy people who can afford it for use as body-donors for brain-transplants that facilitate eternal life in a younger version of your own body? Should people do this until they run out of money to afford a new clone-body brain-recipient? blahblah, after seeing your posted photo of a marlin in reference to Marilyn Monroe, I briefly got a mental image of a hybrid marlin-Marylin-Monroe fish-human acting sexy to solicit prostitution. Thanks.

I read the wikipedia entry on asteroids after posting this (should have done it before probably). There seem to be some "families" of asteroids that appear to be parts of a fragmented planet(oid) that "hang together" in orbit. These are interesting to me since I wonder to what extent their gravitation unifies like that of a cohesive planet whilst at the same time separating into relatively disjunct gravity wells. I would like to understand if gravitation as a unified body conflicts in some way with gravitation among multiple clumps of matter with vacuum-space in between them.

I would think the canine teeth would have to be replaced by some mutation that immediately gave some advantage to individuals with that adaptation OR the canine teeth would have to cause some problem that prevented individuals with such teeth from reproducing. Otherwise the trait would simply continue to reproduce in subsequent generations regardless of its use or functionality. Species don't evolve to adapt, they adapt through evolution as a result of random mutations. If such random mutations don't occur, they just go extinct.

You still haven't addressed the issue of how poor people are supposed to afford non-organic inputs. Also, as fossil fuels become increasingly scarce, how do you expect farming to evolve as a self-contained local process? Why wouldn't you just say that much of 'non-organic' farming methods are actually organic? Crop-rotation is an organic method, as is remaining accountable to the natural behaviors of the soil, no? I think generally farming could benefit from overcoming the tendency to categorize itself into dichotomous labels like organic vs. non-organic and focus instead of the benefits and drawback of specific activities. Obviously "organic" activities are the most resource-efficient, even when they involve more intensive labor. Yet when 'non-organic' interventions can improve things with little detriment, those should not be demonized because they fit the label "artificial."

Good link. That describes what I was talking about almost to a tee. I guess it fails as a cause of gravity because larger surface areas exhibit more force, so denser objects would always be lighter if gravity worked this way. I hate gravity . . . it's so elusive!

Thanks, and I agree that this is a good post. I'm not trying to move goalposts, but I actually thought of this issue of polarity and I was trying to formulate that gravity somehow emerges from the fact that the electrons have to circulate around the nuclei and thus gravity emerges from the slight imbalance between the charges. I know that any "slight imbalance" would have to be either positive or negative, so what I'm thinking is that this imbalance could oscillate and by doing so cause molecules to come into phase and attract each other accordingly. This sounds similar to the way spin causes magnetic attraction/repulsion but in this case the oscillating charge would get more or less evenly distributed around the perimeter of molecules because the electrons have to circulate around the whole molecule. I'm sure this is still falsifiable. I hope it is, anyway, because I hate feeling like I am a crackpot trying to reach a point where I can insist on validity of my idea just because I've refined it to the point of being beyond logical deductions.

With population growing and industrial efficiency increasing with a need for energy conservation, I would guess that it's going to become increasingly popular for humans to do all sorts of labor like this just to give them something to do while they are consuming the minimum energy possible. It would be as good an excuse as any to migrate around by wind/solar and trawl for trash while en route to an interesting destination. like these or older yet?

For the sake of simplicity, consider a hypothetical situation in which a He atom would have both its electrons concentrate in a narrow band with the hemispheres above and below the band completely unshielded. In that case, wouldn't the positive charge of the protons still be present and other electrons or ions could be attracted into the interior of the atom? Yes, I know this is a bizarre hypothetical since it is completely unfounded, but my point is that the electrons have to distribute their way around the entire sphere of their probability areas to shield the nucleus, right? So if you compare the volume/shape of the He atom to a H2 molecule, wouldn't the H2 be more voluminous than the He, since the protons are not bound by strong force? As such, don't the two electrons have more area to cover despite the fact that they have the same charge as the two electrons in the H2 molecule and their protons do as well? So, I'm guessing the difference between the two configuration lies in the configuration of the protons relative to each other as well as the path the electrons take in circulating among them. I would guess (I know, I'm doing a lot of guessing) that the protons in the H2 are separated by same-charge repulsion of the protons as well as that of electrons as they circulate both between and around the perimeter of the molecule. So doesn't it make any sense to consider the total area of electron motion relative to the charge-balancing/neutralization process? Don't the electrons have to "spread themselves thinner" within the H2 molecule than in the He atom?