Mr Skeptic

I do hope you realize that oxygen is extremely toxic.

I'd say advances in DNA sequencing. This has been going on for 30 or so years, but now is reaching the point where it can be done very cheaply. A landmark is the 2001 publishing of a draft sequence of the human genome. The technology and costs for sequencing DNA are constantly and rapidly being improved. According to this, the costs dropped 100 fold between 2004 and 2006. While I can't point to any particular one and say "There -- that one is the greatest advance", this combined with other technology has the potential to completely change our lives.

4 min, would have been less but hadn't noticed that the diagonals had to match too I hope his first act was to fire the people responsible for hiring him.

Basically, what I'm suggesting is that politicians would benefit from a 2 step process: 1) Pass laws and policies whose effect is to concentrate income in the hands of as few as possible. (transfer money from poor to rich) 2) Tax the rich and then give aid to the poor. (transfer money from rich to poor) This would make them needed and appreciated by everyone. So do they do it?

More negative is still dropping.

It is very common to have a progressive taxing system, where the rich are taxed a greater portion of their income. The reasoning being that the rich can afford it, and perhaps also as a balancing device to reduce the gap between rich and poor, and other such reasons. Now, for a given overall revenue, this system would mean that were revenue concentrated into a few hands this would increase the effective taxation rate, compared to if the taxation were divided more equally. Therefore, the government can increase its tax revenue by concentrating income in lieu of raising tax rates. Additionally, concentrating the income also means that the tax rate on the poor could be dropped since tax revenue is increased. The poor will therefore feel good about government because they are taxed less, and usually are also jealous of the rich and so not mind so much that they get taxed more. The poor also tend to need more government services, so increasing the poor makes the government more needed and bigger. Meanwhile, the rich would appreciate all the help even if they do grumble about the taxes. So it seems that with this strategy, everyone will be happy -- rich, poor, and especially the politicians. Of course they would have to do it in such a way that the poor don't figure it out. It seems this would make sense to do, but do they actually do it?

You can't solve poverty by giving people money, if that's what you were suggesting. That would only postpone things a little. But scientific progress is forever, and also can help all peoples.

Some people think not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition

Our dreams are probably to help us process memories, and some seem to be related to problem-solving. Anyhow, remembering your dreams is potentially problematic, since you might forget that memory was from a dream, and then perhaps think you got fired from your job or slept with someone, that a friend did something nasty to you, or something similar that could get you in trouble.

Come to think of it, there was some interesting stuff regarding depression, pharmaceutical companies, and Japan. Basically, Japan didn't regard any mild depression that didn't require hospitalization, as a disease. We changed that. Did Antidepressants Depress Japan? Drug Companies Push Japan To Change View of Depression

Some of that money could go back to job creation which would make it an overall gain in jobs. Incidentally, the way taxes usually work is that there is no big sudden jump, so people earning $250,001 might be affected, yes, but only unnoticeably more than someone unaffected earning $249,999 who would be unaffected, and would furthermore still be better off then them.

All you have to do is allow for diffusion of the water vapor off the clothes. They will dry fine out in the open. Warmth will increase the vapor pressure, airflow will decrease the nearby humidity (faster diffusion if you prefer), both of which will improve drying speed.

Exactly! While when someone says "table" most people conjure up an image of a flat, rectangular wooden object with 4 legs to hold it up, but tables can also be made of wood, stone, glass, metal, plastic, and can have many shapes and sizes. Some types of tables form exclusively naturally. Sometimes a rock or log is used as a table and can during that time be called a table. Some tables are never used for eating on (pool table), some people don't eat at tables, and some objects similar to tables might instead be called a workbench even though they're not for sitting on and their owners seldom work at them. Some objects make better tables than others. Someone would have to carefully define table before they can conclude that tables cannot arise naturally.

Well, that's only a problem for people who do have a definition of life. Personally I think it's a rather arbitrary distinction, and not a binary classification, even though it is usually used as one to signify things going from very alive to very dead.

I still would have preferred if they had burnt their Korans nice and quietly, without the media stirring everything up. The flag burning and chanting of "death to America" happened already, so it doesn't really matter too much that they canceled "our side". A good thing, yes, but overall it was worse for the media attention, I think. Besides, I'm sure someone else will burn a Koran on 9/11 anyways since now it will grab them the spotlight.

OK, so we all agree then. What next? Is there a way to stop manufactured news?

That's an interesting question. Normally, an object smaller than a wave will not obstruct the wave's passage, as the wavefunction of the wave will mostly just go around it. But a black hole... hm. A black hole doesn't really have a size -- the event horizon is just the part of the black hole we will never see without going into it. I'm not really sure how to answer your question. Perhaps ajb, Martin, or Bob_for_short will have a better idea.

:doh:

I too think the Koran burning and Ground Zero Mosque are essentially manufactured controversies. Yes, building the mosque might be seen as a victory for the terrorists, and they might use it for recruitment (hypothetically of course). They would likewise use our forbidding it as proof of our intolerance and use that for recruitment too. As John Stewart said, How about we try a new system where we don't give a $#!* what the terrorists think. And the folks burning the flag in response to the Koran burning, were also chanting "death to America". Just saying.

Oh, oh, I can prove Jesus Christ exists! Just look them up in the phone book, there's lots of them!

I doubt most anyone would have noticed if they did hit earth (except if they read about it). We get hit by very small meteors all the time, most so small they burn up in atmosphere.

My apologies. It just seemed really strange to me that taking apart equipment and selling just one part of it for scrap would be worth more than the whole thing, especially if it was still in the original packaging. But that's no reason to jump to conclusions. I deleted my post. If you'd like, I can also vanish this post and any posts related to the subject.

First of all, a big chuck goes into an investment to make a revenue stream. The investment is my inheritance for my kids and the revenue stream for a new luxurious lifestyle. Said lifestyle would involve top-of-the-line computer, good food, and a maid to do housework, and probably some sport/adventure. The rest of the revenue stream goes to increasing the investment. The other chunk would go to a project (invested until needed of course). I think my project of choice would be space colonization, although space solar would be a good intermediate investment project which would help with the necessary technology.

Even though we could maximize the worth of money by distributing it equally, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. It would mean there is no reward for working [harder] and some reward is needed for most work because it wouldn't be work otherwise. I think the ideal is to eliminate all "stealing", and reward people only with the wealth they themselves generate. To give an example: someone has inherited a billion dollars. They hire a manager, who then does all the investing of that billion earning the owner a nice interest on his money, enough to cover inflation, the manager's wages, and plenty left over for the owner to live a nice life. But the owner has not earned any of that. Anyhow, he dies richer than before and his son inherits the money, does the same, only more so. This is self-perpetuating (if it can beat the inheritance tax) and about as bad as the case of money distributed equally. In this case, wealth is generated but clearly not by the owner -- it's almost like he "stole" it from his workers. However, I can't offer a good method to separate the effects of owning wealth vs generating wealth.

As I recall, Fox News does essentially the same thing. First one of their "non-news" folks starts a rumor, and then their news section comments on the rumor, and finally, the Daily Show mocks them for it. Anyhow, yes, the news is often self-feeding. It is slightly unavoidable, in that things that get reported on become bigger issues and therefore more newsworthy than before they were reported. Kind of like celebrities.