P
Phlip
And the systems to prevent terr'ists from using said weapons to aim a rock
AT the Earth will be...
....uh, programmed in Ruby! Yeah, that's the ticket!!
Only MN is allowed to extinct things. Not us.
And the systems to prevent terr'ists from using said weapons to aim a rock
AT the Earth will be...
....uh, programmed in Ruby! Yeah, that's the ticket!!
Only MN is allowed to extinct things. Not us.
M
Michael Satterwhite
Christophe said:
It was at this point that I rolled my eyes. Question: where did you get
this statistic? A quick Google shows that there is a lot of disagreement
on it - so why did you choose this number to quote as if it were an
established fact.
You then went on to state that there is a scientific consensus on
man-made climate change. Again even a cursory google shows that there is
anything but. Indeed, over 31,000 scientists have gone on record in
disagreeing with this. While Al Gore likes to claim the consensus as
true - but stating a lie repeatedly doesn't make it a truism.
A recent NASA study (I first saw it in December - but it has been
referenced in quite a few news stories since) shows that the earth's
temperature - which was slowly rising up to 1998 - hasn't changed since
then. Some scientists (and I don't give them much credence, either - I'm
an equal opportunity skeptic) are beginning to claim that the earth is
entering a cooling phase.
Now, do I believe the earth's climate is changing? Absolutely. It has
been in a state of flux since the beginning of time - why should it stop
now? Do I think man is the reason? The jury is out on that one. I'll
agree we're part of the ecosystem - therefore have contribution. How
much is another question.
I do believe we should do what we can to clean up the planet, however. A
clean environment is a good thing! We should be doing it for its own
sake, however, not because some alarmists who are afraid to look at all
data on an issue are screaming the sky is falling.
M
Martin DeMello
If Accelerando is to be believed, computing power will then become the
new scarce resource.
martin
M
Martin DeMello
I'd love to read that article, if you can find it again.
martin
P
Phlip
Actually, >95% of all scientists agree the cause is anthropogenic (us).
I tried while posting. Googling for any variation on [climate change] gives
a billion hits, and I don't remember anything specific about the article!
I tried while posting. Googling for any variation on [climate change] gives
a billion hits, and I don't remember anything specific about the article!
M
Michael Satterwhite
Phlip said:
As before ... exactly where does that statistic come from? What is its
source? It's very easy to throw around numbers that have been tossed out
- but many if not most statistics (from both sides) are simply made up.
As I pointed out in the previous post, there are over 30,000 scientists
who signed a statement that they do *NOT* believe that. There is no
comparative list of those who believe that it is. In and of itself, that
doesn't say that it isn't. After all, there was once a vast majority of
scientists who believed the earth was the center of the universe.
This is my main complaint with this type of argument. Those in the
argument - on BOTH sides - seem to be incapable of rational thought.
They hear a statement and don't question it. Worse, they accept - or
reject - facts just because it happens to support their personal bias.
J
Jared Nance
It's worth pointing out that, in point of fact, there is a clear
consensus in the climatology community
as delineated by peer reviewers. In a survey of papers published
between 1993 and 2003 (a sample
size of ~1000), the number of papers published which disagreed with
the anthropogenic model of
climate change was exactly zero - also the number who argued that the
earth's climate is naturally warming.
Here's a citation:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
As to the argument that many 'scientists' have signed a statement to
the effect that climate change is not
caused by humans, I wish to quickly point out that because a person is
a scientist does not make them
an expert on science in general. I am a neutrino physicist, and I
consider myself completely unqualified
to offer an expert opinion on many sub-disciplines within physics -
let alone those entirely outside it. Asking
a generic scientist is the climate is changing based on the data is a
bit like asking an electrical engineer
to evaluate the safety of a building. Right idea, wrong guy.
If you're going to listen to ANYBODY on this argument, you should be
listening to the people who are
publishing scientific and peer-reviewed papers on the topic - and the
consensus there is entirely
unambiguous.
consensus in the climatology community
as delineated by peer reviewers. In a survey of papers published
between 1993 and 2003 (a sample
size of ~1000), the number of papers published which disagreed with
the anthropogenic model of
climate change was exactly zero - also the number who argued that the
earth's climate is naturally warming.
Here's a citation:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
As to the argument that many 'scientists' have signed a statement to
the effect that climate change is not
caused by humans, I wish to quickly point out that because a person is
a scientist does not make them
an expert on science in general. I am a neutrino physicist, and I
consider myself completely unqualified
to offer an expert opinion on many sub-disciplines within physics -
let alone those entirely outside it. Asking
a generic scientist is the climate is changing based on the data is a
bit like asking an electrical engineer
to evaluate the safety of a building. Right idea, wrong guy.
If you're going to listen to ANYBODY on this argument, you should be
listening to the people who are
publishing scientific and peer-reviewed papers on the topic - and the
consensus there is entirely
unambiguous.
P
Phlip
As to the argument that many 'scientists' have signed a statement to
Dilbert covered that once. Dogbert hired a consultant to bribe a scientist
and a reporter to generate a headline that pollution was good for toddlers.
Dilbert covered that once. Dogbert hired a consultant to bribe a scientist
and a reporter to generate a headline that pollution was good for toddlers.
J
Jon A. Lambert
This is one of the funniest e-mails I've read on this list.
Thanks.
Thanks.
P
Philip Rhoades
Jon,
Why is it funny? - I mostly agree with everything he said - the only
qualification is that I am skeptical that even a lot of people dropping
out will have any impact on the major problems that he mentions. He is
right, Malthus was right.
BTW, I am a sometime biologist using Ruby to do biological simulations
(population genetics), which, for me, means this discussion is ON topic
and relevant.
Regards,
Phil.
--
Philip Rhoades
GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)
Why is it funny? - I mostly agree with everything he said - the only
qualification is that I am skeptical that even a lot of people dropping
out will have any impact on the major problems that he mentions. He is
right, Malthus was right.
BTW, I am a sometime biologist using Ruby to do biological simulations
(population genetics), which, for me, means this discussion is ON topic
and relevant.
Regards,
Phil.
--
Philip Rhoades
GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)
T
Todd Benson
I'm starting to think that you are talking so loud that I can't hear
what you're saying.
Todd
J
Jon A. Lambert
Philip Rhoades said:
It's funny because it's a sky-is-falling stupid rant.
Since you're a biologist, I'll just ask you on the first point.
Can you name one of the 200 species that became extinct today?
Can you name any of the 6000 that became extinct this month?
M
Martin DeMello
I highly recommend "The Science of Discworld" (a popular-science book
about the history of the scientific method) for a good perspective on
the issue.
martin
C
Christophe Mckeon
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction_event
which by the way is the current extinction event.
"Most biologists believe that we are at this moment at the beginning of
a tremendously accelerated anthropogenic mass extinction. E.O. Wilson of
Harvard, in The Future of Life (2002), estimates that at current rates
of human disruption of the biosphere, one-half of all species of life
will be extinct by 2100. In 1998 the American Museum of Natural History
conducted a poll of biologists that revealed that the vast majority of
biologists believe that we are in the midst of an anthropogenic mass
extinction. Numerous scientific studies since then—such as a 2004 report
from Nature,[4] and those by the 10,000 scientists who contribute to the
IUCN's annual Red List of threatened species—have only strengthened this
consensus."
you can quibble about the exact figures if that's your bag, but that
truly would be stupid.
E
Eleanor McHugh
You haven't had a free market in the USA, any more than we have here
in the UK. And because the market wasn't free, but a pro-monopoly
model based upon the Chicago School belief that price is the
determinant of market efficiency (it isn't) and that lowest price can
be delivered only where there is a strong market monopoly (which is
patently absurd), we're seeing another bubble go pop.
Well I guess that blows the conceit that I'm largely invisible on
here
I have a degree in physics and that leads me to believe that all
phenomena can be reduced to a simplistic representation, if they can
be reduced at all. That's a fundamental tenet of the scientific method
which I apply to both the development of software and to analysis of
everything else.
Actually my belief in truly free markets is an outgrowth of the
analytical skills mentioned above. When I was a teenager I thought
that government could play a useful role in moderating the negative
impacts of individual groups in society (in UK terms I was a Liberal)
but the deeper I studied physics and the more familiar I became with
both non-linear and quantum systems the more convinced I became that
the only way to govern anything well is to embrace the chaos and
decentralise/deregulate. That insight has served me very well in
software development and I see no reason why it shouldn't apply
equally well to economics or politics as well.
I also make no assumptions regarding the good will or rationality of
any participant in a physical system, and that already puts me one
step ahead of those economic theorists who insist on including the
implicate calculus of human motivation into their models.
However someone not only has to want to go to see in the first place,
they also have to convince others that it's a good idea. Cooperative
effort is not something that arises magically just because an idea is
good, it is a consequence of the idea being sold: that's why bad
technology so often predominates commercially, because it has been
sold better. The same applies to politics, where in my experience the
vast majority of legislation is bad because the key element isn't
efficacy but marketability.
Thankfully the larger the market and the smaller the elements within
it, the less overall effect individual bad decisions will have - which
is why a key element of genuine free markets is that they abhor
monopoly. Our ecosystem is a pretty good example of this principle in
practice.
True, the free market didn't defeat the Nazis. Except of course that
the economies which funded the defeat of the Nazis were all built on
free market models. The USSR would not have triumphed in the war were
it not for the huge investment of US resources and the war wouldn't
even have lasted long enough for that to happen if it hadn't been for
the huge investment of British resources. Of course that investment
required political will as well, largely generated as a result of the
incredible marketing skills of Winston Churchill.
As for nuclear technology, much of the point there is that government
invested in weapons research because it was hungry for a super-weapon
which lead to the development of the nuclear reactor as a necessary
prerequisite. However the development of the reactor could just as
easily have been achieved by private enterprise had there been a
perceived need: there was an amusing incident a few years ago with a
boy scout who built a nuclear pile in his garden shed using the radium
from about 7000 old glow-in-the-dark watch-faces to prove that point.
The relative investment of resources to develop nuclear power is also
not dissimilar to the investment required to develop steam power in
the 18th century, and that was largely privately funded because people
saw the benefit it would provide their businesses.
Likewise if there was a perceived need for cybernetics you can bet
that the money would appear to fund it. Look at the truly remarkable
medical achievement of our era, the mapping of the human genome. The
vast majority of that work was funded by private donation to the
Sanger Institute which is a charitable trust. The Welcome Trust
(another charity) is the largest conductor of medical research in the
world.
Ellie
Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
E
Eleanor McHugh
The whole point of Joint Stock Companies in the first place was to
create and maintain legal trade monopolies, and as we see at every
turn any market system which places undue reliance upon them as the
foundation of a "free" market becomes heavily distorted. However even
large corporations are bounded by the laws of thermodynamics and will
eventually fail, which of course is what a bubble crash such as the
current one is supposed to achieve. Unfortunately governments insist
on bailing out failing corporations when they're sufficiently
politically influential and that exacerbates matters in the long term:
just look at the disastrous history of nationalised industries in the
UK...
Ellie
Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
S
Suresh Kk
.
Hello_Earth != " Goodbye Ruby"
Ruby == "more productivity"
more_productivity == "Less Impediments"
less_impedients == "Less or No Tension"
no_tension == "Good Earth"
Hello_Earth != " Goodbye Ruby"
Ruby == "more productivity"
more_productivity == "Less Impediments"
less_impedients == "Less or No Tension"
no_tension == "Good Earth"
E
Eleanor McHugh
If a billion years isn't long enough to Dyson sphere the Sun it's
because we're either a failed evolutionary experiment and no longer
around (more than likely) or our descendants have come up with a
better option.
Ellie
Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net
R
Rimantas Liubertas
Well, getting another degree in sociology or psychology should fix that.
There are no spherical cows. I have degree in physics myself, but
all attempts to remove human factor from equation seem laughable to me.
Regards,
Rimantas
E
Eleanor McHugh
Now that's a statement I can get behind. Likewise I believe we should
be being efficient in our resource consumption because it's good
management: if I can get three times the mileage from a gallon of
petrol, that's three times the number of miles I can travel on it or
one-third as many trips to a garage to fill up. Not that I drive, but
you hopefully see my point
Ellie
Eleanor McHugh
Games With Brains
http://slides.games-with-brains.net