[CP5670]

Yeah, that's kind of the situation as I see it as well. Also, Musharraf is in a sort of no-win situation here. He obviously wants to avoid war as he will probably lose such a conflict, but he is under intense pressure from the extreme right (both the religious terrorist groups and elements within his regime) to instigate the war himself by launching several nukes. If he does this, Pakistan will lose such a war and he will consequently be thrown out of power. If he decides to maintain the peace and try to silence the right-wing extremists with whatever portion of the army is still under his control, they will waste no time in taking his life and gaining control of the whole nation. The only reason they have not done so yet is because he has probably promised them that he will cooperate if they do not try anything against him, but then he has also promised the US to cooperate with them, so he is balanced on the tip of a sword, so to speak.

[WMCoolmon]

Ugh. I wrote some more in reply to your topic, but then I accidentally opened a link in the window...so I'll just cut to the meat of the topc

Originally posted by CP5670

Yes, you can. Remember that we are talking about averages here. Some of those men may be the next great scientists, political leaders, criminals, whatever, but the thing is that 99.9999% of the people will be just more of the usual masses that constitute most of humanity. So yeah, one group of 17 million is indeed roughly equal to another. We cannot say with any certainty that one man is equal to another, but that is no longer the case for large groups. (heck, that's how sociology works)

Let's say I take the top 17 million influential people in the world, while you take the 17 million least influential people in the world. Those groups are very likely not equal by any means except for physical properties. This is, however, assuming that there is a way to calculate those 17 million people. One of those least influential, simply by intuition, could suddenly beat all of my group of people by intuition. Certainly, it's not likely, but the probability is there.
The odds are in favor of having roughly equal groups if the groups of people are randomly chosen, but it's impossible to calculate the precise value of those people compared to another. It's comparable to having two groups of 17 million random integers. There isn't any way to say they're "roughly equal to each other"

EDIT:

Hey, if you want to argue with me, come on over to the religion thread! I want to see if we can get it pass 1000 posts. We can continue this over there.

No, I doubt that will be time spent productively, anywa-hey, wait a minute, is that anticipation I see? Isn't that an emotion?
And you might want to check out Star Trek...something tells me you'd like the Vulcans

[Dark_4ce]

Originally posted by CP5670
Okay, I thought you were quite a reasonable guy until that last post, and even people that do not have the same viewpoint as I do will agree that the post was completely illogical and therefore unsuited for any sort of argument.



I haven't seen a single episode of Star Trek in my life. And looking at the world as individual people is exactly what has kept us down for so long. Almost every stupid action of human experience can be explained by this lack of a universal perspective and going by the foolish common sense instead. And there is nothing logical about the world? Where did that statement come from? If that is true, why do the laws of science work with such accuracy today?

In fact, intuition is the brain's way of fooling itself and limiting itself to an extremely narrow perspective, because while logic is something that all humans can agree on, intuition is completely dependent on life conditions and therefore varies from person to person.

Also, we not only think by logic, but also argue by logic, so in other words, you are essentially trying to mask the fact that your stance cannot stand up to an argument.



The first part of that is just silly; it is just like something from the religion thread. People ARE equal to numbers. It is Fact. It is Truth. Trying to believe that people are anything but numbers is just a way to disassociate oneself from the truth.

And the entire concept of "horror" has no meaning outside the individual. Bin Laden did not find his recent act horrifying at all - in fact, he said that it was the work of god - while most of the world despised it. Therefore, this is concept is to subjective at least to some extent. The universe can be said to operate on indifference.



I can look at them as sentient individuals for the purposes of daily life, but when dealing with higher issues that require logical thought, they certainly are just parts of a much larger machine, and since there are so many of them, they can be numbered for easier computations. You need to carefully observe them and look much more deeply at how they live, and then you too will be able to form a set of logical rules for explaining their affairs. And why is one death so horrible anyway, considering that people are dying every second? (and others are being born to take their place)

Think of the cells in your body, for example. Each cell obviously has some level of sentience, but it cannot quite match the capabilities of the body as a whole. Similarly, the entire human civilization can be thought of as a great organism in itself of which humans form the constituent parts, and one that is much more powerful than the individuals.



That is really nonsense; just ask anyone who is in the field of science or math right now. Instinct is exactly what people should avoid at all costs, as it frequently turns out to be wrong, and people can base just about any crazy actions on this "instinct." The reason that this intuition exists is that every human grows up under different conditions and has a different perspective of his or her surroundings, and the system of knowledge assimilation has its subtle effect on the thinking processes. Where do you think Hitler came up with some of his ideas?

One counterintuitive thing I can think of is that it can be proved that all geometric lines, regardless of their length, have the same number of points on them. Not only that, but all 2D planes, 3D cubes and nD objects in general of any size all have equally as many points as a short line. This sounds kind of strange going by our common sense, but it is mathematically and logically sound. Also, if we go by our intuition alone (which by the way is formed by our life experiences, and not anything that we are born with), both the quantum physics and the general relativity theory would be really nonsensical. Are you telling me that you contest both of these theories simply because they do not fit with your "intuition?"  

Ok, I might have been a bit overboard in disagreeing with you're point of view. So I apologize. I am usually a very agreeable person. But for some reason, I just can't see how some people can think so "plainly".

And come on dude, attacking the integrity of my statement? Bah, there was no need for that. You basically tried to pull it down with you're own oppinion and claiming that other people thought so to. There's no proof of that, so it can't be put into as evidence. Bah, But I guess it's granted. I was harsh, you were harsh in return I suppose...

So let us throw down our pitchforks and Rocket Propelled Grenade Launchers and be happy again!

[an0n]

I have two things to say:

1) Wow. I'm sure troops will make a difference when they start firing nukes.
2) If you're going to do a long quote:
Use the friggin SIZE tags!!!!!

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by CP5670


Yes, the world has never seen any of that, but that does not mean that it will have any major effect of things. Also, the ecosystem will be of no importance in about a century at the latest with the exponential advance of technology, as we will have to begin living on our own creations regardless of whether there is any war or not.

that's just idiotic.  We have already done untold damage to the world by altering our natural surroundings - the destruction of the ozone layer being the major part... everything is balanced...if you kill or alter a massive animal / plant population, it will have a knock on effect.  And as the dominient predators, that will reach us, and hurt us.

Talking about living with our 'own creations' is not likely for many, many decades - we can barely clone an existing animal to a degree of success.  

What you're advocating is a 'dead world', with no life other than us.  If that happens, I'll kill myself rather than live in it.

Well, your argument is that the countries are doing this simply to "get attention" and to gain more territory, so yeah, I can safely say that my thing is a bit better than that, even if it is not wholly accurate.

[/b]

Actually, my argument is that both countries are using Kashmir as a distraction from the crippling poverty large sections of the population live in.

Yes but the same could be said of the histories of any nations in the world, including the ones involved in the US/Afghanistan and Israel/Paestine conflicts today, so that would not be saying much. Also everything is justified and not justified when it comes to international politics. I said this before: nations have their own interests, and the justification thing is of no importance outside these interests. I agree that it would not benefit the world much to use a bunch of nukes, but staging a conventional battle is definitely worth it in the interests of the social machine.

Time for me to go again, but I will be back in six hours to continue with this.

A conventional war will only increase the chances of further war.  Did the 2 Worlds Wars further the 'social machine'?  I doubt it.

[TheCelestialOne]

Originally posted by aldo_14


1).What you're advocating is a 'dead world', with no life other than us.  If that happens, I'll kill myself rather than live in it.

2).A conventional war will only increase the chances of further war.  Did the 2 Worlds Wars further the 'social machine'?  I doubt it.

»»»»:nod:««««

[CP5670]

Let's say I take the top 17 million influential people in the world, while you take the 17 million least influential people in the world. Those groups are very likely not equal by any means except for physical properties. This is, however, assuming that there is a way to calculate those 17 million people. One of those least influential, simply by intuition, could suddenly beat all of my group of people by intuition. Certainly, it's not likely, but the probability is there.
The odds are in favor of having roughly equal groups if the groups of people are randomly chosen, but it's impossible to calculate the precise value of those people compared to another. It's comparable to having two groups of 17 million random integers. There isn't any way to say they're "roughly equal to each other"

Well, we are talking about 17 million randomly selected people. Obviously the rules would fail to apply if you only pick from certain groups. Now, the people were indeed randomly selected, then the probability of them being a mix of influential and non-influential people will be much higher than that of everyone being in either set. And yeah, the probability is there that someone with their "intuition" could invent a whole new science or something, but the probability of more people with Hitler-like views coming up in the world and basing it on their instinct is much higher. It is indeed possible to say that two random sets of integers are equal to each other within a certain margin as long as the integers are randomized with constraints. Suppose that we take one thousand integers randomly selected from 1 to 15. The average sum of these numbers could be estimated to be around 800 without knowing the values of the actual numbers, because while we do not know what any of the individual numbers are, we can still use the rules of probability to estimate the value of a large mass. (there are an equal number of integers from 1 to 8 and 8 to 15) This same principle can be extended to people.

No, I doubt that will be time spent productively, anywa-hey, wait a minute, is that anticipation I see? Isn't that an emotion?  

Okay, you got me there: I am still limited to a human mind and therefore have am susceptible to these emotions if I am not consciously thinking about it, which is frequently the case during daily life affairs. I try to keep the emotions out of any reasoning though, and maybe I will even be able to drop them altogether in the future.

Ok, I might have been a bit overboard in disagreeing with you're point of view. So I apologize.  I am usually a very agreeable person. But for some reason, I just can't see how some people can think so "plainly".

Hey, no problem. I have gotten used to it from the religion thread anyway by now. Still, I must thank you for being totally frank with me, as I like to know the true methods of how people react. Remember that when going by intuition, everyone has a different view.

And come on dude, attacking the integrity of my statement? Bah, there was no need for that. You basically tried to pull it down with you're own oppinion and claiming that other people thought so to. There's no proof of that, so it can't be put into as evidence. Bah, But I guess it's granted. I was harsh, you were harsh in return I suppose...

Okay, I admit I may have gone too far there, but the "it is fact, it is truth" bit was really pretty silly. Anyway, we can forget it now, and I too apologize if you were "offended" by any of that.

Although the logical view of things can indeed be proved to be correct (using an elimination procedure), at least partially, and I plan to do that later on.

So let us throw down our pitchforks and Rocket Propelled Grenade Launchers and be happy again!

And instead lets go pick up some Kaysers and Harpoons to blow up some Shivans in FS2!

Okay, time to deal with you now.

that's just idiotic. We have already done untold damage to the world by altering our natural surroundings - the destruction of the ozone layer being the major part... everything is balanced...if you kill or alter a massive animal / plant population, it will have a knock on effect. And as the dominient predators, that will reach us, and hurt us.

We already have the capability to survive on other planets without any ozone layer (i.e. Mars) by simply staying under conditions, and in a couple decades the system become quite feasible. Also, humans are not really a good case of the predator/prey system; this "knock on effect" you speak of only has an application to species for which technology is a non-player, and that cannot be said of humans. Humans depended on their environment far more in the past than they do today because of this technological advance, and besides even today humans have the capability to live more or less artificially. People have been able to grow fruit and vegetable plants that are genetically altered to allow them to thrive in artificial conditions (which also act as oxygen processors), and there is enough water in streams and such to last for a couple more centuries, by which time we will not depend on it so much more. That covers all our basic requirements.

Environmentalism just for its own sake is frankly very stupid; I am an advocate of "saving the Earth" and all that for the moment, but only because we still depend on the environment to some degree. In the long run (beyond 100 or so years) it will be a difficult and pointless task.

Talking about living with our 'own creations' is not likely for many, many decades - we can barely clone an existing animal to a degree of success.

That translates to about to six or seven decades. You think that the entire industrial economy will suddenly collapse when the world's oil runs out around 2050?

And just like every technological advance, cloning is as of yet an imperfect technology because it is very new, but if history is any indicator, that will change with time much more rapidly than you seem to think. The computers back around 1950 were very large, slow and quite unreliable due to constant hardware failures. Once the core system is build together, the components are built up and perfected over time, and there is no reason why the same should not happen with cloning.

What you're advocating is a 'dead world', with no life other than us. If that happens, I'll kill myself rather than live in it.

Effectively, yes. That is what we are headed for if the society progresses at even a fixed rate. It is not a matter of whether individual people "like" it or not anymore, but whether the social machine benefits from it.

Actually, my argument is that both countries are using Kashmir as a distraction from the crippling poverty large sections of the population live in.

eh? What in the world would they have to gain by this "distraction from poverty?"

A conventional war will only increase the chances of further war. Did the 2 Worlds Wars further the 'social machine'? I doubt it.

They certainly did. If the Allies had surrendered immediately simply to avoid a war before WW2 for example, Hitler's empire would be spanning the entire globe to this day. Science would definitely not be where it is today, seeing as the academic world in the Reich outright rejected most of the important theories of modern physics, claiming that it was a plot to spread false ideas or something, making the social machine stagnate. In this campaign, the objective is to disband as many terrorist groups as possible, because as you yourself said earlier, if these guys gets their hands on some nukes, they won't waste a second in launching them on the major cities of today and instituting a reign of terror throughout the world. The 9/11 event is very, very insignificant compared to what they have the potential to do in the future, and look how much that shook up the world. And even if the nukes are disabled first, the threat of countless more 9/11s still remains. (as I said earlier, around 70-80% of terrorist groups in the world are Pakistan-based and more importantly, are backed up the Pakistani government; same thing as what was happening in Afghanistan some months ago)

[Dark_4ce]

Originally posted by CP5670



And instead lets go pick up some Kaysers and Harpoons to blow up some Shivans in FS2!

 

Aye!

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by CP5670



We already have the capability to survive on other planets without any ozone layer (i.e. Mars) by simply staying under conditions, and in a couple decades the system become quite feasible. Also, humans are not really a good case of the predator/prey system; this "knock on effect" you speak of only has an application to species for which technology is a non-player, and that cannot be said of humans. Humans depended on their environment far more in the past than they do today because of this technological advance, and besides even today humans have the capability to live more or less artificially. People have been able to grow fruit and vegetable plants that are genetically altered to allow them to thrive in artificial conditions (which also act as oxygen processors), and there is enough water in streams and such to last for a couple more centuries, by which time we will not depend on it so much more. That covers all our basic requirements.

In case you hadn;t noticed, water is a fundamental requirement for human life - our very body is 70% water.  We can't grow 'less dependent on it', and more than we can grow less dependent on haemoglobin.

And what technology has been developed that can grow and feed a cow (for example) without some form of natural process - be it grazing, grain feedmeal, etc?  

The principle reason this planet is slowly dying - due to pollution, etc - is because the human race is blinded towards the rest of this planet.  i'm not advocating we go all luvvy-duvvy and become hippie, but we have to recognise we are slowly killing what is, really, a wonderful place to live.

Environmentalism just for its own sake is frankly very stupid; I am an advocate of "saving the Earth" and all that for the moment, but only because we still depend on the environment to some degree. In the long run (beyond 100 or so years) it will be a difficult and pointless task.

It becomes a small step from not cvaring about those thing we don't need, to destroying those we don't want.  If we are willing to destroy the natural world because we don't need it, waht's to stop us exterminating the disabled, or the low-Iq, or the simply average because they do not 'enhance the gene pool'?

hitler believed in social Darwinism, you know.........

That translates to about to six or seven decades. You think that the entire industrial economy will suddenly collapse when the world's oil runs out around 2050?

At the present state, yes.  There has been no real attempt to find & promote an alternate fuel....  instead, the countries that can (i.e. Alaska, Middle Eastern oildfields, etc) just desperately try to gain influence over the oil producers.

And just like every technological advance, cloning is as of yet an imperfect technology because it is very new, but if history is any indicator, that will change with time much more rapidly than you seem to think. The computers back around 1950 were very large, slow and quite unreliable due to constant hardware failures. Once the core system is build together, the components are built up and perfected over time, and there is no reason why the same should not happen with cloning.

Certainly, from a Pc perspective, chips are far from 'perfected'.... they are simply altered for marginal performance and maximum sellibility.

For example, Intel gave the Pentium 4 a 16-stage pipeline.  At this number of stages, there is no benefit from the pipelining - handling hazards actually slows down the Pc so that many more cycles are required per instruction.  But it gives a bigger GHz rating, so Intel went ahead and did it.

Perfection?  i don't think so.

Effectively, yes. That is what we are headed for if the society progresses at even a fixed rate. It is not a matter of whether individual people "like" it or not anymore, but whether the social machine benefits from it.

I'd like to think the human race can rise beyond considering itself parts of a solely self-interested machine, that we can be more than 'parts' in the system.

eh? What in the world would they have to gain by this "distraction from poverty?"

[/b]

Let me think.  Several hundred million people living in abject, squalid conditions.  Billions going into weapons programs.  If it wasn't for the 'evil enemy', what would justify this expenditure?

Give the people a warm and you keep them loyal.  Look at Bush's ratings in the US - skyrocketed after the war in Afgahnistan began, despiute his questionable election and policies.

[Thorn]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Give the people a warm and you keep them loyal.  Look at Bush's ratings in the US - skyrocketed after the war in Afgahnistan began, despiute his questionable election and policies.

The word "lemmings" comes to mind....

[Kellan]

Oooh, another debating topic!

Originally posted by CP5670
If the Allies had surrendered immediately simply to avoid a war before WW2 for example, Hitler's empire would be spanning the entire globe to this day.

Bull. America was desperate as hell to avoid getting involved in World Wra 2 and had Britain fallen sooner, and declaring war on Japan not meant declaring war on Germany, they wouldn't have become physically involved in Europe. America's economic might was bound to crush the Japanese; inevitably they would lose (as Yoshimoto himself acknowledged). In such a situation I doubt that the Americans would have been so willing to help their bosom buddies the Communists. Germany faced an insurmountable hurdle to invasion of the Americas: the sea. No plane could travel across it to bomb it, and beach landings would have been impractical given the distances involved. The US also had an ace up its sleeve: the atom bomb. Events would have developed into stalemate, so although Hitler would have controlled Europe, Africa and East Asia he wouldn't have 'ruled the world'.

By the same token progress would not have stagnated, because the conditions you specify would never have occurred. The presence of great rivalry often tends to push scientific progress forwards (although I have reservations that America would not have found a Nazi regime so disagreeable as a pan-Continental Communist one ).

Originally posted by aldo_14
Actually, my argument is that both countries are using Kashmir as a distraction from the crippling poverty large sections of the population live in.

Agreed; they have much to benefit by focusing the attention of the public and the world on Kashmir.

1. The domestic situation will be frozen - opposition to the government seen as inappropriate (see the cessation of suffragette actions in 1914). People will be focused on something else other than their grinding poverty and not bringing down the government.

2. Military action represents a show of force to potential dissidents that they'll be crushed too.

3. The government has someone else to blame for said grinding poverty.

4. They might lose, which would take the problem of the poor out of their hands entirely.

===

Finally, for now...

Rather than replying to CP's comments about 'humans as numbers' via quotes, I'll just post what I believe here. There are too many instances of his...unique...take on humanity to bother quoting.

Human beings are people first. They are numbers second. True, they form numerical units (not in values like mass though). However, really they are being expressed as numbers. They are not the same as numerical values except for purely statistical values. As has been said before, they have lives, potential and so on. You cannot justify killing humans for the 'greater social good' - if that has to be the case, then the social machine itself is faulty. As aldo said, disabled people do not benefit the social machine in ways that able-bodied people do; should we thus kill them?

Have you heard of the concept of empathy? It might help you to understand why one shouldn't kill others, or commit crime. Empathy training is very effective against repeat offending, and should be the true basis for a just society of happy individuals. I'll explain that a little more if you wish but it should explain itself really.

By your definition, a perfect society would consist of indivuals engineered towards efficiency in all 'useful' aspects. You have already spoken of your disdain for emotion and love; they would be out of the door. However, unproductive tasks such as producing art would also be removed by your system - as would unused space, which is unproductive. You would destroy the Earth (or rather transform it) simply because you can, in order to make it more economically and academically productive.

That's monstrous.

CP, I know that you will view this as so quaintly flawed, human and emotionally-dictated, but that's the way I like it.

===

PS. Your randomly selected sample of people isn't ever so random - a nuclear war would target specific areas of value - ie. cities, because they contain not just workforce, but the government and intelligentsia.

[CODEDOG ND]

"I haven't seen a single episode of Star Trek in my life."

Bull****, that's like not paying income tax.

"The first part of that is just silly; it is just like something from the religion thread. People ARE equal to numbers. It is Fact. It is Truth. Trying to believe that people are anything but numbers is just a way to disassociate oneself from the truth. "

Shows your lack of experience in warfare, and shows your lack of maturity.  You don't view yourself as one of these people that would be affected, so you don't know how it is not be threatened by someone.  Not saying I have either, but you have to look at it like that.  It is affecting them, not you.  Lets see you fight in a war, and see if you think differently afterwards.

"Well, we are talking about 17 million randomly selected people. Obviously the rules would fail to apply if you only pick from certain groups. Now, the people were indeed randomly selected, then the probability of them being a mix of influential and non-influential people will be much higher than that of everyone being in either set. And yeah, the probability is there that someone with their "intuition" could invent a whole new science or something, but the probability of more people with Hitler-like views coming up in the world and basing it on their instinct is much higher. It is indeed possible to say that two random sets of integers are equal to each other within a certain margin as long as the integers are randomized with constraints. Suppose that we take one thousand integers randomly selected from 1 to 15. The average sum of these numbers could be estimated to be around 800 without knowing the values of the actual numbers, because while we do not know what any of the individual numbers are, we can still use the rules of probability to estimate the value of a large mass. (there are an equal number of integers from 1 to 8 and 8 to 15) This same principle can be extended to people. "

You still refer to humans as just things.  Would you like it if somebody took a gun and shot you in the head?

"I'm not sure about that, but you could be right. Still, as I said before, India will probably attempt to secretly disarm the weapons first using commando teams due to their generally cautious nature. "

Not Likely, I doubt even British SAS or the American Delta Force could do that.

"Actually, I meant the Indians there; Pakistan has no first-strike policy, and in fact they have officially stated that if their country is on the verge of collapse they will attempt to take down as many people with them as they can. However, as you said, there is a big threat, especially now more than ever, that the terrorist groups (which have many links in the government) will be able to grab a nuke or two regardless of any war, which would be a dream come true for them, and launch it on some place like Washington."

There is no ICBM that has that sort of range.  10,000 is about as far as they can go.

"We already have the capability to survive on other planets without any ozone layer (i.e. Mars) by simply staying under conditions, and in a couple decades the system become quite feasible. Also, humans are not really a good case of the predator/prey system; this "knock on effect" you speak of only has an application to species for which technology is a non-player, and that cannot be said of humans. Humans depended on their environment far more in the past than they do today because of this technological advance, and besides even today humans have the capability to live more or less artificially. People have been able to grow fruit and vegetable plants that are genetically altered to allow them to thrive in artificial conditions (which also act as oxygen processors), and there is enough water in streams and such to last for a couple more centuries, by which time we will not depend on it so much more. That covers all our basic requirements. "

None of this technology is proven.  Especially on a distant planet, and by the way.  How do you plan to get these people there?

[Eternal One]

Originally posted by CP5670
We already have the capability to survive on other planets without any ozone layer (i.e. Mars) by simply staying under conditions, and in a couple decades the system become quite feasible. Also, humans are not really a good case of the predator/prey system; this "knock on effect" you speak of only has an application to species for which technology is a non-player, and that cannot be said of humans. Humans depended on their environment far more in the past than they do today because of this technological advance, and besides even today humans have the capability to live more or less artificially. People have been able to grow fruit and vegetable plants that are genetically altered to allow them to thrive in artificial conditions (which also act as oxygen processors), and there is enough water in streams and such to last for a couple more centuries, by which time we will not depend on it so much more. That covers all our basic requirements.

This is just so utter crap. We do not yet possess technology for any of the things you say we do, atleast not in the scale needed. Just because we can support a dozen astronauts in orbit with a funding of billions of dollars isn't enough. The technology doesn't only need to exists; it also has to be reliable, efficient and cheap enough. These requirements won't be fulfilled before off-Earth missions become profitable.

Back in the 60's they were saying we'd be far off exploring the galaxy by the year 2000, and we all know how it ended up. It simply isn't worth it. Computer technology has developed as far as it has because there's been a viable demand for it. Exactly the same thing happens during wars with military equipment; there's the demand for it. The demand for off-world colonization and mining is off by atleast 50-75 years, if not more. Even then we probably won't have the ability to sustain complete populations.

Environmentalism just for its own sake is frankly very stupid; I am an advocate of "saving the Earth" and all that for the moment, but only because we still depend on the environment to some degree. In the long run (beyond 100 or so years) it will be a difficult and pointless task.

There's nothing stupid in environmentalism. It's one of the best ideologies in the history of mankind. Humans are very adjustable as a species, but we will never be independent of the environment. The fact is that we are just as dependable on the environment as we were 10,000 years ago.

[Bobboau]

envoronmental impact would be neglegable, I mean just how many nuckluar bombs did we set off in the atmosphere just for testing

[CP5670]

Certainly, from a Pc perspective, chips are far from 'perfected'.... they are simply altered for marginal performance and maximum sellibility.

For example, Intel gave the Pentium 4 a 16-stage pipeline. At this number of stages, there is no benefit from the pipelining - handling hazards actually slows down the Pc so that many more cycles are required per instruction. But it gives a bigger GHz rating, so Intel went ahead and did it.

Perfection? i don't think so.

Define perfection. All that matters is the direction we are moving in. You can think of this "perfection" more as a limiting value than a true end, but the fact is, that more and more of the world is becoming dependent on these computers over time, and there is no reason why the same cannot be said of any other technological advance.

In case you hadn;t noticed, water is a fundamental requirement for human life - our very body is 70% water. We can't grow 'less dependent on it', and more than we can grow less dependent on haemoglobin.

And what technology has been developed that can grow and feed a cow (for example) without some form of natural process - be it grazing, grain feedmeal, etc?

The principle reason this planet is slowly dying - due to pollution, etc - is because the human race is blinded towards the rest of this planet. i'm not advocating we go all luvvy-duvvy and become hippie, but we have to recognise we are slowly killing what is, really, a wonderful place to live.

I did mention water in there. By the time we actually run out of fresh water on Earth (which will take a long time) we will have the technology at least to move around in our star system, which is quite abundant in water for our needs. Why would we need cows at all? And a wonderful place? Sure, it's better than some other locations in the universe, but it is really nothing right now compared to what it could be.

I'd like to think the human race can rise beyond considering itself parts of a solely self-interested machine, that we can be more than 'parts' in the system.

Well, you can "like to think" anything, but the ideas need to be backed up by logical proof for use in an argument. When it comes to this level, how indeed are we any different from the cells that make up our bodies? And to rise beyond a "self-interested machine" is to have a large collection of less advanced self-interested machines?

It becomes a small step from not cvaring about those thing we don't need, to destroying those we don't want. If we are willing to destroy the natural world because we don't need it, waht's to stop us exterminating the disabled, or the low-Iq, or the simply average because they do not 'enhance the gene pool'?

hitler believed in social Darwinism, you know.........

Hitler believed in a system of "races" based on birth, and only his random instincts determined which race was "superior." But we are going by thinking capacity and cognitive ability here. Effectively, that's how the world is working even today. People do not have to be physically strong, as the machines are beginning to take over those tasks, but look at the way that the social systems of today operate: the people with the mental ability get to the top, while the people without it stay at the bottom of the social ladder. (this can include many types of capacities, including political acuteness) This is inevitable in any civilization that is made up of components that all have different thinking processes. Still, the average mental capacity of each individual is similar to some extent; it is the core assumptions that differ.

Let me think. Several hundred million people living in abject, squalid conditions. Billions going into weapons programs. If it wasn't for the 'evil enemy', what would justify this expenditure?

Are you kidding me? The people are poor because the governments are spending money into military affairs? Look into the history of the two nations more closely and you will see that this factor is the least of their problems; India isn't spending all that much on military affairs at all when compared to other things, while Pakistan is, but even if they did spend the money on public welfare it would not amount to much considering the monmental task before their and their dead economy. In fact, the only countries where one could have said this would be Nazi Germany and the USSR, neither of which exist today. But none of this has anything to do with "justification;" why would either country feel the need to justify anything they do in the first place? Remember that there is little overall opposition to the governments (especially the Indian one), and people in the rural villages are quite content with lives despite any poverty.

Moving on to the next person...

Human beings are people first. They are numbers second. True, they form numerical units (not in values like mass though). However, really they are being expressed as numbers. They are not the same as numerical values except for purely statistical values. As has been said before, they have lives, potential and so on. You cannot justify killing humans for the 'greater social good' - if that has to be the case, then the social machine itself is faulty. As aldo said, disabled people do not benefit the social machine in ways that able-bodied people do; should we thus kill them?

Well, biological cells have lives, potential and so on as well, but it cannot really compare to that of the whole. And you can justify killing humans if they are going to disturb the peace of others, which is what the terrorist factions of today are doing. What is a "disabled person?" Do you mean physically or mentally disabled? As I said earlier, physical work is unimportant at this point in time, and if they cannot do mental work, then they are doomed to stay at the bottom of the social ladder anyway. (again, this is a general group rule and cannot be applied to individuals, so don't start giving me examples ) There are enough of them that if we try to get rid of them, they will revolt and just cause us trouble in the end. As long as these masses can coexist with the rest, I say to let them do so, as they will become a dead force in the social machine over long periods of time anyway. (i.e. there are still these groups of tribal savages in various parts of the world, but they have no effect on the world)

Bull. America was desperate as hell to avoid getting involved in World Wra 2 and had Britain fallen sooner, and declaring war on Japan not meant declaring war on Germany, they wouldn't have become physically involved in Europe. America's economic might was bound to crush the Japanese; inevitably they would lose (as Yoshimoto himself acknowledged). In such a situation I doubt that the Americans would have been so willing to help their bosom buddies the Communists. Germany faced an insurmountable hurdle to invasion of the Americas: the sea. No plane could travel across it to bomb it, and beach landings would have been impractical given the distances involved. The US also had an ace up its sleeve: the atom bomb. Events would have developed into stalemate, so although Hitler would have controlled Europe, Africa and East Asia he wouldn't have 'ruled the world'.

Wait, but we are going under the premise here that the nations attempt to avoid war at all costs and peace is the ultimate, and so they would continue with this appeasement policy. You think he would have been "content" with the territory he had in Europe and Africa? He would have told the Soviet Union to surrender or be destroyed, and going by that assumption they too would have surrendered. What would be there to stop him from taking all of Asia and the rest of the world as well?

1. The domestic situation will be frozen - opposition to the government seen as inappropriate (see the cessation of suffragette actions in 1914). People will be focused on something else other than their grinding poverty and not bringing down the government.

Opposition to the government? There is hardly any opposition to the government in India, as most of the people couldn't care less about the outcome of such a conflict, and in Pakistan, the only opposition is coming from the terrorist groups, seeing as anyone else who opposes the government will not be alive the next day. There are very few of these "potential dissidents" in either country; as I said before, the average Indian or Pakistani does not care, and both the intellectual world and the religious fanatics in both countries are heavily pushing for such a war and have been doing so for many years now. Who is to say that anyone is more "childlike" than anyone else here?

By your definition, a perfect society would consist of indivuals engineered towards efficiency in all 'useful' aspects. You have already spoken of your disdain for emotion and love; they would be out of the door. However, unproductive tasks such as producing art would also be removed by your system - as would unused space, which is unproductive. You would destroy the Earth (or rather transform it) simply because you can, in order to make it more economically and academically productive.

Absolutely correct. But I just happen to like this system; if you look at the trends today, it can be seen that this end is inevitable as a part of our advancing civilization. Technological progress is accompanied by social progress whenever dealing with people; we can see that the same was true for even life on Earth. When individual cells started to combine into larger organisms, they created something with far, far more potential than any of the individual units could have accomplished, and the same can be said to be true of human civilizations.

PS. Your randomly selected sample of people isn't ever so random - a nuclear war would target specific areas of value - ie. cities, because they contain not just workforce, but the government and intelligentsia.

Yes, alongside millions of common citizens. The lower and the upper classes would effectively cancel each other out when taking a sum, and the total would be roughly equal to that of any other city.

Next!

Shows your lack of experience in warfare, and shows your lack of maturity. You don't view yourself as one of these people that would be affected, so you don't know how it is not be threatened by someone. Not saying I have either, but you have to look at it like that. It is affecting them, not you. Lets see you fight in a war, and see if you think differently afterwards.

I bet I will, as my viewpoint will then be skewed further, but this "social machine" as a whole will not change one bit. I have said this numerous times earlier: do not think according to your common sense for this, as it will get you nowhere. And "maturity" is a matter of subjective definition, but it can boil down to having to be yet another member of the common masses, in which case I am quite glad I have at least tried to pursue a different solution and ditched this "maturity." Some of my instincts are telling me to go against this, but I have long since learned not to rely on those at all.

You still refer to humans as just things. Would you like it if somebody took a gun and shot you in the head?

I would not like it, but the society would not care much. This is comparable to asking whether a dying cell in your body "likes it" when you get a cut or something. When we talk in such terms, individuals with their petty ambitions are of little importance.

There is no ICBM that has that sort of range. 10,000 is about as far as they can go.

Terrorist don't need ICBMs; remember, they do not need to employ the same tactics used by governments. The suitcase nuke is still one of the US government's greatest nightmares, and it is probably why they are not putting as much pressure on the nations as they could have been. And although neither of those countries have any, there certainly are ICBMs that can traverse the circumference of the entire planet.

None of this technology is proven. Especially on a distant planet, and by the way. How do you plan to get these people there?

If it was not proven, how did people manage to survive on the moon? Getting the people anywhere else will not be much of a problem when the demand comes up, as that will lower manufacturing costs due to necessity.

And one more coming up...

Back in the 60's they were saying we'd be far off exploring the galaxy by the year 2000, and we all know how it ended up. It simply isn't worth it. Computer technology has developed as far as it has because there's been a viable demand for it. Exactly the same thing happens during wars with military equipment; there's the demand for it. The demand for off-world colonization and mining is off by atleast 50-75 years, if not more. Even then we probably won't have the ability to sustain complete populations.

So, um, what's that supposed to mean? Of course that's true, but the demand does not exist now because there is no need right away. When the need arises, popular demand will increase along with it.

This is just so utter crap. We do not yet possess technology for any of the things you say we do, atleast not in the scale needed. Just because we can support a dozen astronauts in orbit with a funding of billions of dollars isn't enough. The technology doesn't only need to exists; it also has to be reliable, efficient and cheap enough. These requirements won't be fulfilled before off-Earth missions become profitable.

That will change over time. Do you think that the first computers were all inexpensive enough for individuals to buy? This is precisely what people said about the computer about 50 years ago, and look where we are today as far as that goes.

There's nothing stupid in environmentalism. It's one of the best ideologies in the history of mankind. Humans are very adjustable as a species, but we will never be independent of the environment. The fact is that we are just as dependable on the environment as we were 10,000 years ago.

Total nonsense. This is true only as long as we do not have the technology to change ourselves, and that is finally starting to change. Read what I said earlier. You are right that we will never be independent of the environment, but that is the "environment" of the universe as a whole - reality, if you will - and it has little to do with the Earth's biosphere.

envoronmental impact would be neglegable, I mean just how many nuckluar bombs did we set off in the atmosphere just for testing

That's true; there must have been hundreds of tests done by now.

Okay, now let's have some more responses. But remember, it is harder to defend an emotional viewpoint rather than a rationalistic one when it comes to arguments, just as it is easier to accept the emotional one as an assumption. (heck, emotionally, I do somewhat agree with all of you, but once again, I have learned to disregard those completely)

[CODEDOG ND]

"If it was not proven, how did people manage to survive on the moon? Getting the people anywhere else will not be much of a problem when the demand comes up, as that will lower manufacturing costs due to necessity.

And one more coming up... "


Except for the fact that you are talking about long term travel and subjection to severe radiation, and the effects of long term wieghtlessness.  There is a big difference between surviving for a few days on the moon or a few months in a space station that is NEAR Earth, especially when you can return back to Earth when your done, or if something goes wrong.

[CP5670]

Except for the fact that you are talking about long term travel and subjection to severe radiation, and the effects of long term wieghtlessness.  There is a big difference between surviving for a few days on the moon or a few months in a space station that is NEAR Earth, especially when you can return back to Earth when your done, or if something goes wrong.

What does that have to do with anything? All that is needed to show is that the core idea is possible. The various small complications can be dealt with over time, just as they were for every single technological advancement in history.

[CODEDOG ND]

But these small implications can cost you ships and lives.

[CP5670]

Okay, but even the little issues are corrected over time. That has never been a problem in the past in the long run, and there is no reason why it should be in the future. Are computers as prone to failures as they were half a century ago?

[CODEDOG ND]

yes, mine crashes all the time.