Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Just thinking on 18/09/2021 19:19:52
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Why do we have world problems is it due to smart people not being as smart as is needed or is it due to the population of less than smart people. Why haven't the powers to be had a Handel on world trouble is the world doomed to fail and are we prepared to let this hapen? So many great solutions get thrown around but every year there seems moor and moor difficulties. Is there a fast fix?
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The simplest way I think I could answer this question is to say that humans are physically and mentally imperfect.
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Every living thing poisons its environment. Most species have evolved a symbiotic relationship with something else so there's an ecological cycle that maintains reasonable longterm equilibrium until the climate changes or the world is hit by a meteorite. Humans are currently outbreeding their symbionts, poisoning their environment faster than it can recover, and establishing territorial stasis so they can't migrate while recovery takes place, or resile against small changes in climate. We are victims of our own success.
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Nationalism...is an Extended Extreme form of Tribalism.
We Identify with a Specific Group/Flag/Club to be a part of it, to be innit...to feel Secure.
But this whole Grouping into different Groups is Divisive in nature.
And Divisions & Differences then promote or promulgate Friction.
Be it Rocks, Sticks, Spears, Arrows, Swords, Guns, Tanks, Jets, Missiles or the Atombomb...History keeps on playing like a dull record on loop.
Ps - Stray dogs fight fiercely.
But surprisingly, next day, they are playing n licking each other.
A Man fights...& Somehow it is taught & expected to be remembered for generations to come.
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Because colonialism is looked on in a bad light, especially by America, who half colonialised Japan and interfered in various places. What you are suggesting is. Collonialism, going into countries, taking it over and running it for them. Aid is all very well but much is misappropriated or squandered, so aid is limited to grain Sacks and polythene sheeting. If America colonialised Central America and Haiti the way it has Puerto Rico those people would have a much nicer time. If Afghanistan had joined Japan on the American colonies they may now be making computer consoles and riding on bullet trains.
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Just returned from a brief sortie to a medical equipment company in Denmark, where I worked with Danish, German, Indian, Turkish, Lithuanian, and Polish colleagues. Thanks to colonialism, everyone understood everyone else and we finished the job ahead of schedule, whereupon a Malaysian secretary organised my return flight with a Dutch airline. Next week, a worldwide Zoom meeting with maybe 30 participants from anywhere that people try to heal the sick. Colonial oppression and armed invasion has given the world a robust common language (English) and a universal clock (Greenwich).
G20, COP99, etc will of course achieve nothing but political posturing, but at least it will all be in English, and people with proper jobs will continue to communicate and work with one another whatever the parasites say about "national" interests.
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Because colonialism is looked on in a bad light, especially by America,
They were still doing it earlier this year in Afghanistan (didn't that go well?).
And they have been doing it pretty much continuously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States
They aren't the only ones.
"Why do we have world problems?"
Greed?
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"Why do we have world problems?"
Greed?
Perhaps it's the continuous attempt to Think & Falsify what We are Not.
Greedy, Selfish, Self-centred, Violent, Cruel etc etc.
I'd Like to present a personal accord... I've Never missed an Opportunity to Promote Veganism.
But Realising certain Truths, made me stop it abruptly.
Prey have eyes at sides, to watch out for danger.
Predators have eyes infront, to track n catch prey.
Humans have frontal eyesight & Canine Teeth.
Slavery, Rape Strangulation & Murder are terms used for Human vs Human interactions.
Animals Cannot charge or sue Humans for any of the above in a Court of Law.
& Steak really really tastes Good!
(Whether you like it or not)
Ps - We seem to suffer our own Intellect & Goodness.
We are perhaps Demons, trying hard to Act like Angels!
😈
(I Believe WE are good, I have Faith in US becoming better, But Reality begs to differ)
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problem : a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.
We still have them because
- we didn't see it coming
- we didn't have correct model of reality to accurately predict the effects of our actions so we can anticipate those problems before they happen.
- we had incorrect priorities of which problems to solve first.
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We need to distinguish between two classes of world problem: those made by nature, for which there may be a technical fix, and those made human endoparasites - the obvious fix being to remove the parasites.
Time was that famine and flood killed most people. But religion and politics are catching up.
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and those made human endoparasites - the obvious fix being to remove the parasites.
It turns out that there may be a technical fix for that too. By contraception, we can prevent some of them from existing in the first place. Neuroscience is revealing how brains work, which can give access to read them, and even modify them in not so distant future.
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Reminds me of Elon's Neuralink Project.
& The conspiracy theories associated with it.
Which mention, Once the implantation is done, then the individual would lose their individuality and become a Slave.
Rather, it would be a progressive step towards collective consciousness or a hive mind.
Ps - As time passes, one thing keeps becoming clearer than ever...
It's not the Coal, CO2, Methane etc etc that's harmful & dangerous...
It's US!
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Ray Kurzweil has pointed out that we are already in collective consciousness and forming hybrid minds with our cloud computers and smart phones. We don't have to remember our own address, or bank accounts, for example. Wearable computers just make it more convenient, and become intermediate step before direct brain interface.
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You just have to remember a dozen different passwords, some of which you will only use once. Or risk losing your car and all your money in five seconds.
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You just have to remember a dozen different passwords, some of which you will only use once. Or risk losing your car and all your money in five seconds.
Most of the world doesn't have those problems.
Mobile phone ownership is high (about 80%) and rising.
Car ownership... not so much.
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Why do we have world problems is it due to smart people not being as smart as is needed or is it due to the population of less than smart people.
I can argue that people are probably smart enough, but their priorities do not include the problems of 'the world'.
On the other hand, perhaps we're not smart enough, because while I see no end of topics identifying world problems, I don't see any with real solutions to them. At best, they posit ways to delay the inevitable. If we were smart, we'd suggest real solutions, however unlikely they are to be implemented. I don't see that happening.
We still have them because
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- we had incorrect priorities of which problems to solve first.
Exactly
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If we were smart, we'd suggest real solutions, however unlikely they are to be implemented. I don't see that happening.
In fairness, you have to accept that Alan Calverd has been doing that.
He has been saying we should curtail population growth.
He hasn't quite got round the fact that it's essentially impossible- but that's not actually his fault.
Essentially the problem is greed.
In much of the world, the only "guarantee" you have that anyone will look after you when you are old is that your children will feel obliged to.
So it makes perfect sense to have lots (the biological drive goes along with this)
If the rich western world decided to underwrite pensions for the developing world, we would remove the actual concrete justification for having large families.
And if we did that, I have little doubt that most of them would recognise the merit of small families.
If we also agreed to fund family planning, we could address the biggest single problem that humanity faces- essentially exponential growth and a finite planet; Malthus was right.
But the rich westerners are too greedy to do themselves a favour. They blame the poor for being poor.
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Is greed the root cause? Is it just intermediary?
What caused greed?
IMO, greed is caused by fear and uncertainty of the future. We assume that deficiency in the future can be compensated by present surplus. Hence we accumulate resources as much as we can at the moment to prepare for our future. But we tend to underestimate side effects of overexploitation and grabbing resources more than we currently need.
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Maybe it's not entirely Greed...
But a lack of Generosity.
I've watched freaky folks go after Bill Gates n the Elite Club on Utube.
Mocking & treating the wealthiest business persons as if they were all crooks & cons & dacoits.
I doubt if such SJWs donate even 5% of their profits/salaries towards charity.
But they clearly expected all the Richest folks to simply surrender 50% of their wealth to the public in general.
Also, on the topic of Population Control...
Someone should perhaps collect Data on how many Millionaires there are world over, how many out of them have Educational Degrees, & how many of them have more than 2 children.
Poor financial condition might be an excuse to bear more children, but so could excellent financial status.
Education & contraceptives do yhe trick well.
Education keeps folks buzy for awhile & contras cover them during leisure time.
I've heard that there are labs all over the world, similar to the one in wuhan, which test out various viruses.
I also heard, unlike covid19 which has a 1% to 2% mortality ratio, there are viruses which have higher ratios say from about 15% to as high as 50%.
All it will take, is an environmental SJW fanatical extremist who works in any one of these labs to curb population.
(Not saying it's Bound to happen, but cannot negate the possibility of it happening ever)
🤞
Ps - i used to promote & support Green Peace, but backed off when they started promoting vigilantism.
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In fairness, you have to accept that Alan Calverd has been doing that.
He has been saying we should curtail population growth.
That's a viable suggestion if it can be implemented with cooperation, but as @vhfpmr named in the climate thread, it is a prisoner's dilemma and only benefits everyone in the absence of defectors. Like all solutions, it only works if there is a global authority enforcing whatever policy is put into effect to combat a given 'world problem'. The 'world' is completely unrepresented in any of the places where such decisions might be made today.
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The policy I advocate is to abolish all child benefits and pay every woman £500 every 6 months if she isn't pregnant. No coercion, no persuasion, just a simple choice. You can vary the amount in line with the local economy and apply it everywhere.
I don't expect an immediate worldwide uptake, but it would be easy to apply the policy in Great Britain and demonstrate the benefits: indefinitely sustainable and wholly independent agriculture and energy, better housing, better pensions, no unemployment.....
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The policy I advocate is to abolish all child benefits and pay every woman £500 every 6 months if she isn't pregnant. No coercion, no persuasion, just a simple choice. You can vary the amount in line with the local economy and apply it everywhere.
How did you get those numbers?
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In the UK, it's about half of what each child costs the taxpayer at present. The sum has to be big enough to make contraception positively attractive (it's free anyway) and allow a girl to invest enough (by delaying her first pregnancy) to launch one child into the world and feed it thereafter. It will not adequately support two children, but I can make special provision for a multiple birth conceived naturally.
It's also some kind of compensation for women who are unable to conceive, perhaps enough to fund one round of IVF.
I envisage the payment starting on a girl's 14th birthday and running to at least age 50.
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This is where is see things falling apart...
UK is Not the Whole Wide World!
🙏
If tomorrow (overnight) Australia becomes 100% green & renewable energy competent...It Will Not Make Any Significant Difference.
👎
China has Scrapped The...
" One Child Policy ".
India Never had A...
" One Child Policy ".
Certain Religions have a Trend to Forsake Contraceptives, as
" Children Are a Gift from GOD! ".
(The More, The Merrier.)
& Will All Due Respect, the UN is a Joke!
🙏
Ps - Similar to the H-bomb, someone someday shall come up with an Impotency BomB!
💥
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UK is Not the Whole Wide World!
Nor is a test tube a thousand gallon production plant or a hundred acre field, but you'd be mad not to do your first experiment in a closed, controlled environment.
...notable inventions by British inventors are Hypodermic syringe, Alexander Wood (1853), Toothbrush, William Addis(1770), Soda water, Joseph Priestley (1772), Portland cement, Joseph Aspdin (1824), Photography, William Henry Fox Talbot (1835), Light bulb, Joseph Swan (1880), Thermos flask, Sir James Dewar (1892), Television, John Logie Baird (1925), Hovercraft, Christopher Cockerell (1953), World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee (1989), Steam turbine, Charles Parson (1884), ATM, John Shepherd-Barron (1967), Military tank, Ernest Swinton (1914), Stainless Steel, Harry Brearley (1913), and Electric Vacuum cleaner, Hubert Cecil Booth (1901).
which seem to have had some impact, alongside the English language, penicillin, vaccination, MRI, CT, the chronometer, the digital computer, the jet engine, the steam engine, tarmac, radar, and the electric motor, worldwide.
But frankly, if the rest of the world wants to go to hell in a handbasket, why should I care? I live here, and it would be a lot nicer with fewer people.
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But frankly, if the rest of the world wants to go to hell in a handbasket, why should I care? I live here, and it would be a lot nicer with fewer people.
If their action affect you directly or indirectly. Like increasing sea level by 100 m.
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No big deal. I live at 110 m AMSL and enjoy sea fishing. Not having to drive an hour to the coast would be very welcome. A small boat will also take me to the airfield which is at 120m AMSL. Some of my client clinics are in basements but there is plenty of work in operating theaters, which tend to be higher up the building. Might have to swap the plane for a helicopter, but that's just another tax-deductible adventure.
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No big deal. I live at 110 m AMSL and enjoy sea fishing. Not having to drive an hour to the coast would be very welcome. A small boat will also take me to the airfield which is at 120m AMSL. Some of my client clinics are in basements but there is plenty of work in operating theaters, which tend to be higher up the building. Might have to swap the plane for a helicopter, but that's just another tax-deductible adventure.
Those who live at lower ground will have to evacuate to higher ground, and some of them may go closer to your neighborhood.
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I reserve the right to defend my property, and they will have to cross several other people's land to get to mine. Why do you think royal castles were always built on a hill or a bend in a river?
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I reserve the right to defend my property, and they will have to cross several other people's land to get to mine. Why do you think royal castles were always built on a hill or a bend in a river?
Their number may exceed your ammunition.
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Always a possibility: you can either go down fighting or die without trying. Most sieges were won by the invader, but in this case the invader is by definition a bit short of resources.
My flag will bear the simple motto "All disaster movies begin with someone ignoring a scientist".
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someone someday shall come up with an Impotency BomB!
Cart before horse. You only need one male to fertilise a billion females.
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someone someday shall come up with an Impotency BomB!
Cart before horse. You only need one male to fertilise a billion females.
I was hoping the
" Impotency BomB " would be Gender Neutral.
Also a bit amazed how certain people Think Nothing would affect them...if half the planet was destroyed.
Ps - We can all hold onto our own opinions & choose to live in our own personal realities...but the sooner we realize the truth, the better it would be for All of Us.
🌐
(There is Only One Planet Earth, & No Plan B)
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, but it would be easy to apply the policy in Great Britain
It would be even easier to apply it in a convent.
And equally pointless.
The UK birth rate is already below 2 per couple.
It's easy to persuade people to have fewer kids when their future doesn't depend on having some kin to look after them in their dotage.
So you are proposing a solution that doesn't actually work in the places where it needs to.
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My flag will bear the simple motto "All disaster movies begin with someone ignoring a scientist".
And it's you ignoring us.
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=83465.msg659019#msg659019
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(There is Only One Planet Earth, & No Plan B)
A few days ago was Sagan's day, so here's one of his quote.
„If we are alone in the Universe, it sure seems like an awful waste of space.“ — Carl Sagan, Contact
Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1115888-carl-sagan-if-we-are-alone-in-the-universe-it-sure-seems-lik/
Do you think that human consciousness should cease to exist when the earth perish?
Can't we learn something from Thor: Ragnarok?
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It would be no great loss to the universe. All we have achieved so far is to urinate on the moon and destroy a lot of life on earth.
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It would be no great loss to the universe.
you mean universe besides humans. For humans, their own existence is the most important.
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I've developed a strong disliking, almost Hatred for Super Hero Characters.
I Believe They have Misled Us.
They fight the Wrong evil in the Wrong place.
Spidey never takes a moment yo water someone's plants while whizzing off of their balcony.
Batty is a Vigilante who wants to do it all alone, whereas he could train officers & cops & provide them designer weapons & fund the Police Department.
Suppey is a bloke joke who wears his underpants inside out.
Hulky should help churn those hydro electric magnets so that we could have more efficient Electricity.
Irony is simply ironic, needs medications.
Mr Amerika & Woomaan!
(No Comments)
Thor...a Demigod...is clearly Dead.
We create them, We watch them, We cheer them on...they are fictional, world problems aren't.
Ps - Consciousness is a Gift to the Universe, it cannot be Lost at any cost.
(But the same cannot be said for human consciousness.)
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It would be no great loss to the universe.
you mean universe besides humans. For humans, their own existence is the most important.
People die. Some of them were important before their death, none afterwards. I try to avoid death because I enjoy life, but when it happens, I'll just be recycled with all the other organic waste.
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We create them, We watch them, We cheer them on..
Who we?
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People die. Some of them were important before their death, none afterwards.
What makes them important?
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What they do. Which is why they are not important when they are dead.
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What they do. Which is why they are not important when they are dead.
What kind of actions make them important?
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We create them, We watch them, We cheer them on..
Who we?
Perhaps I'm capable of seeing the fallacy of my own statement here.
Thanks for pointing it out.
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If i Believe or Think or Know, something is not Right or Correct...
Then if i still do not Object to it or go against it or raise my voice or concerns, does that not mean that i support it in a way?
Will not my Silence be taken & understood as my acceptance of it.
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If i Believe or Think or Know, something is not Right or Correct...
Then if i still do not Object to it or go against it or raise my voice or concerns, does that not mean that i support it in a way?
Yes. Except when we realize that our knowledge isn't complete. Or if we think that it's not important enough, or not worth the efforts to change it. Especially when dealing with fiction.
Will not my Silence be taken & understood as my acceptance of it.
It can also be taken as accepting uncertainty or inadequate information.
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What they do. Which is why they are not important when they are dead.
What kind of actions make them important?
Importance is determined by the beneficiary of the action. Inventing the steam engine and antibiotics seem to be generally accepted as important actions from whci subsequent genrations have benefitted long after the demise of the inventors.
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Importance is determined by the beneficiary of the action. Inventing the steam engine and antibiotics seem to be generally accepted as important actions from whci subsequent genrations have benefitted long after the demise of the inventors.
Whose benefit would make it important? Most species get virtually no benefit.
What about the side effects?
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My flag will bear the simple motto "All disaster movies begin with someone ignoring a scientist".
And it's you ignoring us.
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=83465.msg659019#msg659019
You seem to be mixing up & confusing Science & Politics.
Science is based upon Evidential Facts.
Politics is the one concerned with Majority vs Minority.
Ps - Nobody ever looks smart & good, in the process of making someone else look dumb & bad.
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Whose benefit would make it important?
The beneficiary, obviously. If I gave you £1,000,000, you might think that an important action, but it would be of no consequence to any of our other correspondents. You might not consider a £1 donation important, but if you were a starving beggar, it might save your life and be regarded as very important.
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Whose benefit would make it important?
The beneficiary, obviously. If I gave you £1,000,000, you might think that an important action, but it would be of no consequence to any of our other correspondents. You might not consider a £1 donation important, but if you were a starving beggar, it might save your life and be regarded as very important.
Right. The beneficiaries must be conscious entities. If they stop being conscious, it won't be important anymore. For example if the beggar dies right after receiving the benefit, before doing anything beneficial to anyone.
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Importance is not a conserved or transferable quantity. It only applies to an individual transaction. Some actions have widespread and repetitive importance, like the invention of the steam train, but it is by no means universal: it has had little impact on the lives of Brazilian fruit bats, for instance.
My dog does not consider the Mona Lisa to be an important artefact. I don't consider next door's cat to be particularly important. Chacun a son gout.
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Importance is not a conserved or transferable quantity. It only applies to an individual transaction.
May be you think that what your great grand parents did are not that important to you. Probably you never meet them. But they were important to your grand parents. And eventually related through chains of causality to you.
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As I said, some actions have repetitive importance, but importance is not a conserved quantity..
If my grandparents had left £1,000,000 to my parents, who then blew it all on slow horses, their action would have been important to my parents but not to me. If they had instead backed Tesco's supermarket, the story might have been different.
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As I said, some actions have repetitive importance, but importance is not a conserved quantity..
Right. If in a billion year the earth is completely destroyed with nothing left behind, and no earthlings including humans have developed multiplanetary society, then whatever we have done up to that point will lose their importance. Whoever conscious entities that will independently emerge somewhere else after that will think that we are useless. Nihilists among humans today would be justified.
Some things had been done by your grand parents that are undeniably important to you. They reproduced, and raised their children. Otherwise, you won't be here to discuss about this now. And if you've done something important to someone else, then what your grand parents did are also important for them.
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If my grandparents had left £1,000,000 to my parents, who then blew it all on slow horses, their action would have been important to my parents but not to me. If they had instead backed Tesco's supermarket, the story might have been different.
You seem to be stuck with individualistic point of view. Remember that even an individual human is a collection of different cells specializing in different tasks working together in a complex relationships towards some common goals. Some of them share the same genes, some others don't, such as gut bacteria.
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As I said, some actions have repetitive importance, but importance is not a conserved quantity..
If my grandparents had left £1,000,000 to my parents, who then blew it all on slow horses, their action would have been important to my parents but not to me. If they had instead backed Tesco's supermarket, the story might have been different.
They probably had a Golden Chance.
An Opportunity unlike any other.
World Supremacy & Complete Dominance.
Imagine one-third of the Whole Earth under a common Ruler.
Ps - Perhaps A.H. was Alot more Evil than can be accounted for.
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We still have world problems primarily due to lack of consistency by those in power. With no explicitly stated common terminal goal among them, there would be no way to agree on prioritizing things. It leaves too much flexibility to interpret things to their desired narratives.
The situation shown in the video below is an example.
On Wednesday evening, Republican representative Mike Turner went on Tucker Carlson's Fox news program and the segment quickly evolved into a shouting match between Tucker and Turner. And the reason for that is because Tucker Carlson doesn't quite understand how US foreign policy works. And he was confused as to why the United States would want to be allies with a country like Ukraine when we could be allies with a country like Russia. And representative Turner had to explain to him why that's not exactly what we're doing. Take a look at the clip. Absolutely amazing how Turner destroys Tucker Carlson here. Here it is.
It is, make certain that we give them what they need. Give them intelligence, give them lethal weapons, give them assistance, give them guidance.
But, but, but, why, why would we.
Because it's important.
Why would we take Ukraine, but hold on, why would we take Ukraine's side and not Russia's side? A sincere question? If you're looking from an American perspective? No, but why? I mean, who's got the energy reserves. Who's, who's the major player in world affairs? Who's the potential counterbalance against China, which is the actual threat? Why would we take Ukraine's side? Why wouldn't we have Russia's side? I don't, I'm totally confused.
Well, clearly. Maybe if you get out a map and you looked to see where the black sea is and Bulgaria and Romania, Romania, where we have our missile defense system, Greece and Turkey, the entrance to the black sea. And then from there, you look at what the conflicts have already been in Russia's areas there. Ukraine is a Democracy, uh, Russia's an authoritarian regime that is seeking to impose its will upon a validly elected Democracy in Ukraine. And we're on the side of Democracy. That's why people were chasing those planes in Afghanistan and wouldn't be chasing Russian ones. We're for Democracy. We're for Liberty. We're not for the authoritarian regimes coming in and changing borders by tanks. Russia isn't showing up on the border with ballot boxes. They're showing up on the border with tanks. And that's why we need to make certain we're on the side of Democracy and give the aid that's necessary. So we don't have another Obama sending blankets to a country that's being invaded.
Yeah. I, I mean, I, I'm guessing for Democracy in other countries, I guess. But I'm really for America. And I.
What's really interesting to me about the clip other than the way that Turner shut down Tucker and basically got him to sheepishly admit like, well, I mean, I guess I like Democracies in other countries, ah, I don't know. They both in their own ways really did a good job of explaining what US foreign policy is. And I don't think either of the meant to do it. That's what's so funny to me. Because Tucker Carlson's over here saying, well, why aren't we friends with Russia? Why are they our close allies? Because they have all the energy reserves. They've got that sweet, sweet, crude oil that we want to get our hands on. So they should be our best friends, which really is basically half of US foreign policy. We'll be your friends. We'll support you in any way we can, if you have oil, you know, that explains the United States relationship with Saudi Arabia.
One of the worst human rights abusers on the planet, that regime is, but we're totally selling them all kinds of wonderful weapons of war.
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Scientists are taught to follow critical thinking & logical reasoning & appreciating evidental facts.
So...what are Politicians taught?
I'm not aware of the contents or syllabus of Political Science.
Are they taught how to look someone into the eye, & lie without a blink, straight in their face?
Ps - Politicians & Diapers should be changed on a Regular basis, apparently for similar reasons.
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So...what are Politicians taught?
Primarily how to gain and retain power. That include persuading other people to follow their biddings.
Politicians were useful traditionally because decision making process related to a society as a whole could only be done by humans. No other things including machines, could do the job. But humans as individual have their own personal desires and preferences, which may be different than interest of their society. This creates conflict of interest. And problems arise for those who are not in power when personal interest of the politicians win against public interests.
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I think that true sociopaths, who have the ability to lie with a straight face, are mostly born rather than made, but it is possible that childhood experience may contribute to this trait. Surviving a boarding school education almost demands it if you have no other talent, and those politicians educated in the state system were probably called Billy-no-mates. A degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics will introduce you to the works of the world's most notorious parasites, and defiling a pig will pretty much guarantee a safe Tory seat.
My mother said that most Labour politicians were caught with a hand in the till, and most Tories, with a hand up a skirt, but times have changed and whilst a sly wink is now cause for dismissal (though blatant adultery is not), corruption has become as acceptable as incompetence.
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If Artificial General Intelligence ever reaches Singularity...
Could then Humans leave the roles of Creating Social Laws, Upholding the Constitutional Values & seeing to it that they are being followed...
In short, could a Super A.I. then be a Leader, Judge & Cop?
Or would even AI learn the magic trick of corruption & start accepting rabbity bribes?
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I think that true sociopaths, who have the ability to lie with a straight face, are mostly born rather than made,
I doubt that sociopaths are the only ones who can lie with a straight face, but they are the only ones who live out their self benefitting lies or positions as personalities and real life. As for whether they are born or made, there are many social factors that seem under appreciated, such as paedophile victims becoming perpetrators. Sociopaths could well follow a similarly deranged path, especially in cultures where sociopathy prevails, in a darwinesque road to hell.
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If Artificial General Intelligence ever reaches Singularity...
Could then Humans leave the roles of Creating Social Laws, Upholding the Constitutional Values & seeing to it that they are being followed...
In short, could a Super A.I. then be a Leader, Judge & Cop? What they do are basically collecting and processing information to make decisions. Cops working at the field also have some physical things to do, but that's not really a big problem for AI.
Or would even AI learn the magic trick of corruption & start accepting rabbity bribes?
Creating proper Social Laws and Constitutional Values are instrumental goal to help achieving the terminal goal. Misidentification of the terminal goal, inaccurate perception of objective reality, or inaccurate cause and effect relationships among different things can bring unintended results.
In short, what could stop a Super A.I. from being a Leader, Judge & Cop?
What makes humans possessing power learn the magic trick of corruption & start accepting rabbity bribes? IMO, it's desire to get pleasure and avoid pain, which are meta rewards naturally emerged from evolutionary process. To prevent the AI from going to the same path, they must be assigned the appropriate terminal goal and meta rewards from the first time they are designed.
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I doubt that sociopaths are the only ones who can lie with a straight face
"Good" actors/actresses can do it too.
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Actors and scientists are good company because we can stand aside from our professional selves and behave like social animals at the weekend. Once a politician, always a parasite, 24/7/365. With exceptions I can count on one hand.
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Once a politician, always a parasite, 24/7/365. With exceptions I can count on one hand.
Sorry to hear about your accident. How many fingers did you lose??
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I think I could count the exceptions on the fingers of one fish.
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Tony Benn (not his loathsome son), Aneurin Bevan, Winston Churchill (yes, a Tory, but an honest one), Jimmy Carter. No thumbs required, though I might consider the political stance of Bertrand Russell and the wartime record of Dwight Eisenhower as qualifying them as good guys who took up politics, rather than politicians.
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Human egoism is the main cause of all local and global problems. If people were kinder to each other, it seems to me that this would greatly change the planet for the better. I am currently collaborating with the EduBirdie company and am writing a small study on the topic of morality and on the topic of how important it is in this historical period to understand that we are one.
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Tony Benn (not his loathsome son), Aneurin Bevan, Winston Churchill (yes, a Tory, but an honest one), Jimmy Carter. No thumbs required, though I might consider the political stance of Bertrand Russell and the wartime record of Dwight Eisenhower as qualifying them as good guys who took up politics, rather than politicians.
What do you think about Lincoln? Was he a politician?
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Human egoism is the main cause of all local and global problems.
Would it be better if it's removed? How far can we go? Should we let mosquitos bite us?
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" In short, what could stop a Super A.I. from being a Leader, Judge & Cop? "
I find the above query very oddly satisfying.
It provides Hope of a much better future.
I tend not to slap mosquitoes to death.
I use other non lethal evasive measures.
Body creams & tightly closed windows & high rpm fans & a bed net.
I read somewhere that, it's only the female mosquitoes that bite, and they might be pregnant.
It's not the feminism factor, but the baby thing.
I have a generalized suggestion...
Just like Philosophy & Religion..
Even Politics should be sidelined and discouraged on the forum.
Nothing good ever comes out of it, except for useless quarrels.
Ps - Philosophy is Questions that may Never be Answered.
Religion is Answers that may Never be Questioned.
Politics is a Huge pile of BS!
(🙏nonymous.)
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In short, what could stop a Super A.I. from being a Leader, Judge & Cop?
Pulling out the plug, or just ignoring it.
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I tend not to slap mosquitoes to death.
I use other non lethal evasive measures.
Body creams & tightly closed windows & high rpm fans & a bed net.
Your actions can lead to one of following results:
- the mosquitos are starved to die slowly.
- the mosquitos find someone else to bite.
Killing the mosquito quickly may prevent both.
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In short, what could stop a Super A.I. from being a Leader, Judge & Cop?
Pulling out the plug, or just ignoring it.
You can do those to humans too.
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Alas, not often enough, in the case of "leaders". I'm generally happy with the police and judiciary in the UK,. as long as they ignore (or preferably imprison) politicians and serve the public good.
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Human egoism is the main cause of all local and global problems.
Would it be better if it's removed? How far can we go? Should we let mosquitos bite us?
It would be better if there were less of him and there would be more compassion and mutual assistance.
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Human egoism is the main cause of all local and global problems.
Would it be better if it's removed? How far can we go? Should we let mosquitos bite us?
It would be better if there were less of him and there would be more compassion and mutual assistance.
Is it restricted to humans, or include other species too?
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To the maximum, this should apply to other species too. It is very difficult not to kill even a mosquito or a fly by accident, but we can at least restrict and not eat animals.
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To the maximum, this should apply to other species too. It is very difficult not to kill even a mosquito or a fly by accident, but we can at least restrict and not eat animals.
Why doesn't it apply to plants?
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Alas, not often enough, in the case of "leaders". I'm generally happy with the police and judiciary in the UK,. as long as they ignore (or preferably imprison) politicians and serve the public good.
Plato warned when no good people is willing to be a politician.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/879.Plato?page=1
“One of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
“The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.”
“In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one.”
“Those who tell the stories rule society.”
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Don Marquis (1916): "a politician is an arse upon which practically everything hav sat except a man".
But seriously, folks, Biology 101 taught you that an animal is a creature that cannot synthesise its body materials from inorganic matter, so every animal has to eat something that was previously alive. We are getting better at synthesising proteins from long-dead coal and oil, but direct synthesis of fats and proteins from CO2 is unlikely to feature in the diets of anyone but Martians in the near future. Therefore killing is essential.
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Don Marquis (1916): "a politician is an arse upon which practically everything hav sat except a man".
But seriously, folks, Biology 101 taught you that an animal is a creature that cannot synthesise its body materials from inorganic matter, so every animal has to eat something that was previously alive. We are getting better at synthesising proteins from long-dead coal and oil, but direct synthesis of fats and proteins from CO2 is unlikely to feature in the diets of anyone but Martians in the near future. Therefore killing is essential.
Ray Kurzweil believes that singularity is near. But near is a relative term. He thinks that it's within this century.
In another thread I quoted a research trying to synthesize various kind of food efficiently using genetically modified yeast. No other lifeforms are involved. It only needs light as energy source, which can be obtained naturally from sunlight, or artificially from LED.
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The Pope believes all sorts of rubbish. I don't.
Yeast eats sugar and exhales carbon dioxide. It is an animal.
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To the maximum, this should apply to other species too. It is very difficult not to kill even a mosquito or a fly by accident, but we can at least restrict and not eat animals.
Why doesn't it apply to plants?
First, it has been proven that plants do not experience pain, at least on a global scale, the pain that animals or humans experience when they physically suffer. Second, I wrote about maximum empathy, not absolute.
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Oh but they do. Why else would they respond to an insult? There's even evidence that plants communicate with each other when attacked.
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The Pope believes all sorts of rubbish. I don't.
Yeast eats sugar and exhales carbon dioxide. It is an animal.
What's your problem with that?
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First, it has been proven that plants do not experience pain, at least on a global scale, the pain that animals or humans experience when they physically suffer. Second, I wrote about maximum empathy, not absolute.
Can you provide the source?
Differentiation between plants and animals are human construct. What's your most compelling reason for you to care about empathy?
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Not a human construct but a definite distinction - see reply #82 above.
They are essentially complementary: plants absorb CO2 and emit oxygen, animals burn plants in oxygen to release CO2. The dynamic balance between plants and animals is the basis of the ecosystem and many people believe it determines the surface temperature of the planet.
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It is an animal.
Nope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal
"Animals (also called Metazoa) are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia"
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Not a human construct but a definite distinction - see reply #82 above.
Do you assert that their definitions never changed?
Is there plant which can't photosynthesize? Is there animal that can?
A GMO can have 50/50 characteristics between plant and animal. How would you classify it?
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The definitions have not changed. Why would they? This planet remains habitable because of the difference!
There are instances of codependence between plant and animal but the fundamental distinction remains, although fungi are now often assigned to a separate category.
Adding a fish gene to a tomato doesn't give it the capacity to eat other tomatoes, nor does it remove its ability to photosynthesise. Flesh-eating plants are a bit special, admittedly, but AFAIK they don't convert dead flies into CO2 to extract energy, rather to obtain mineral nutrients used in their CO2 -> cellulose conversion.
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The definitions have not changed.
Yes they have.
"The approach of classifying Protozoa within the context of Animalia was widespread in the 19th and early 20th century, but not universal.[7] By the 1970s, it became usual to require that all taxa be monophyletic (derived from a common ancestor that would also be regarded as protozoan), and holophyletic (containing all of the known descendants of that common ancestor). The taxon 'Protozoa' fails to meet these standards, and the practices of grouping protozoa with animals, and treating them as closely related, are no longer justifiable. The term continues to be used in a loose way to describe single-celled protists (that is, eukaryotes that are not animals, plants, or fungi) that feed by heterotrophy.[8] Some examples of protozoa are Amoeba, Paramecium, Euglena and Trypanosoma.[9]"
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protozoa
You no longer have "single cell animals".
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Yeast eats sugar and exhales carbon dioxide. It is an animal.
although fungi are now often assigned to a separate category.
It seems you are learning, slowly.
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This planet remains habitable because of the difference!
No, because of "a difference".
Heterotroph vs Autotroph
But a world with photosynthetic organisms and the occasional fire could be stable without anything eating anything.
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Sounds like the future. An interesting sci-fi plot, and almost certain to win avant-garde book and film awards because buggerall happens!
anyway A heterotroph (/ˈhɛtərəˌtroʊf, -ˌtrɒf/; from Ancient Greek ἕτερος héteros "other" and τροφή trophḗ "nutrition") is an organism that cannot produce its own food, instead taking nutrition from other sources of organic carbon, mainly plant or animal matter.
which fits my previous definition of animal.
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which fits my previous definition of animal.
It also fits for Rafflessia, which is not animal.
Btw. Is virus animal?
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It's because we're all bastards.
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which fits my previous definition of animal.
It also fits my definition of unnecessary.
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It's because we're all bastards.
Is it based on scientific research? Or just your personal experience?
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It's actually consistent with my observation that all living things are necessarily selfish. Some may appear to act for the benefit of the tribe but even in the case of suicidal bees and ants, they are merely repaying a debt to the tribe that nurtured them in infancy.
The probolem with humans is that they can be persuaded to sacrifice themselves and innocent others for the greater glorification of a nonexistent deity and/or the income of a human parasite.
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they are merely repaying a debt to the tribe that nurtured them in infancy.
I think they are merely following instinct. They don't seem to feel indebted to anything.