[alancalverd]

I think you have used an abbreviated version of the OED. Where individuals make their own choice of mate (i.e. in most western societies) the result is not considered eugenic.  What you have quoted makes etymological sense but the word has a broader connotation of a dominant third party making the choice.

[alancalverd]

You Don't Know What a Warcrime Actually Is

A war crime is anything defined as a crime by the Geneva Convention. Or, nowadays, anything the State of Israel does to defend itself.

[alancalverd]

Sperm donor who fathered 550 children ordered to stop

There is no rule against him directly inseminating as many women as they choose. So whether the court's decision is legitimate depends on how his product was marketed.

If every customer knew that her offspring would have Jan Smit's genes and be a half-sibling to 549 others, the court has interfered in a voluntary trade agreement with no clear public interest.

If the customers didn't know, it could be argued that the contract was not sufficiently transparent with respect to the origin of the material supplied. But it should be sufficient thenceforward to declare the source, either openly or on request, if the demand continues.

How many offspring are sired by a champion bull? The source is always advertised as it determines the price.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

You Don't Know What a Warcrime Actually Is

A war crime is anything defined as a crime by the Geneva Convention. Or, nowadays, anything the State of Israel does to defend itself.

Has it violated the Geneva Convention?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

State Dept Supervillain Says The Quiet Part Out Loud About Israel | The Kyle Kulinski Show

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

There is no rule against him directly inseminating as many women as they choose. So whether the court's decision is legitimate depends on how his product was marketed.

When genetic engineering is adequately safe, accurate and precise for human reproduction, lineage of individuals won't matter much anymore.

[alancalverd]

Has it violated the Geneva Convention?

Only to the same extent that the Allies did in WWII, and probably to a lesser extent.

Problem is that the Convention followed WWII when civilian casualties ran into the tens of millions (far  more than combatant casualties), so protection of noncombatants plays a significant part in the post-1949 rules of war.

The bleeding hearts now complain about civilian casualties where the enemy's armed forces are embedded in or under civilian establishments, which makes it impossible to project a just retaliation or to eliminate a threat from ground-based missiles without incurring significant noncombatant casualties.

The IDF attempts to minimise civilian casualties by issuing warnings of forthcoming actions but the destruction of infrastructure, and consequent depletion of civilian resources, remains inevitable.

The Convention necessarily acknowledges the right of States to self defence and hot pursuit of those that attack it. So on the basis that some modern warfare does not take place in trenches on open farmland, much of the Convention is irrelevant  and it behoves civilians not to give succour to those who wish harm to another State. 

Sensible response from an ex-CinC of the Lebanese armed forces on TV last week, suggesting that the official army should not interfere in an Israeli ground operation against Hezbollah. If only the general population of countries infected by such filth could see beyond religion and think about civilisation instead. 

[alancalverd]

When genetic engineering is adequately safe, accurate and precise for human reproduction, lineage of individuals won't matter much anymore.

The overall genetic robustness of a species depends on randomness. Engineering is about eliminating randomness.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

When genetic engineering is adequately safe, accurate and precise for human reproduction, lineage of individuals won't matter much anymore.

The overall genetic robustness of a species depends on randomness. Engineering is about eliminating randomness.

Randomness isn't the goal. It's the mean.
Engineering is to make a system more resilient to randomness within a specified set of limits.
For example, finger print detectors need to consider various positions and pressure of the fingers being detected. Designing a bridge needs to consider various environmental conditions, which contains randomness.

[alancalverd]

You can only design for the present and foreseeable future. Eventually, everything you design will turn out to be too heavy or too light for some unforeseen circumstance. A good example is the engine of a F1 car. If it still works after the first race, it was heavier than necessary since its only task was to win one race. If it's too light, it won't survive.

The specified set of limits for homo sapiens involves fresh water. We have now reached the limit of sustainability for most parts of the world, and the supply is, if anything, diminishing. You might redesign the animal but you'd end up with a whole new species, more insect than mammal.

[paul cotter]

I normally avoid these long winded discussions that go nowhere. That said, the idea of interfering with the human geneome to "improve" it would be a recipe for disaster.

[alancalverd]

People say altruism is selfish. They?re not wrong

I have a lot of respect for the Salvation Army. They never ask why you are giving them money, or how you made it. Consequently they do a lot of good with it, and don't waste their  time with fautous philosophy and pseudoscience.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

People say altruism is selfish. They?re not wrong

I have a lot of respect for the Salvation Army. They never ask why you are giving them money, or how you made it. Consequently they do a lot of good with it, and don't waste their  time with fautous philosophy and pseudoscience.

Achieving long-term goals reliably requires a sound philosophical framework, which must include effective methods for self correction to build adequately accurate and precise model of how the physical reality works. Otherwise, we will eventually repeat the mistakes made by the likes of the People's Temple, Heavenly Kingdom, Aztecs, Nazis, and other extinct civilizations.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I normally avoid these long winded discussions that go nowhere. That said, the idea of interfering with the human geneome to "improve" it would be a recipe for disaster.

Do you prefer to let nature decide randomly out of our control?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

A good example is the engine of a F1 car. If it still works after the first race, it was heavier than necessary since its only task was to win one race. If it's too light, it won't survive.

That's why we need to specify the minimum requirements and safety factor.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The specified set of limits for homo sapiens involves fresh water. We have now reached the limit of sustainability for most parts of the world, and the supply is, if anything, diminishing.

With enough energy input, we can turn sea water into fresh water. Solar power is now the cheapest to operate, in most circumstances.
The supply chain problem can be solved by improving our system to circular economy.
AI has been already helping in solving problems with organic chemistry and nanotechnology. The supply can still be increased. Although it doesn't mean that additional supply must be consumed right away by increasing the population to maintain the same ratio.

[alancalverd]

With enough energy input, we can turn sea water into fresh water.

Yes, it's called rain. The advantage of rain is that it doesn't need transporting from the coast. All you need to do is limit the population to what can be sustained from natural rivers. Why make life difficult when it can be simple?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

With enough energy input, we can turn sea water into fresh water.

Yes, it's called rain. The advantage of rain is that it doesn't need transporting from the coast. All you need to do is limit the population to what can be sustained from natural rivers. Why make life difficult when it can be simple?

Rain doesn't always come where and when it's needed the most.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Yuval Noah Harari: Free Speech, Institutional Distrust, & Social Order | Making Sense #386

Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about his new book, ?Nexus,? and its application to current crises. They discuss humanity?s capacity for self-destruction, democracy and dictatorship as information networks, the ?naive view of information,? the advantages of fiction over truth, trust in institutions, self-correction in a democracy, truth vs. power, truth vs. order, the suicide of conservatism, fixing social media, algorithms as editorial choices, efficiency vs. inefficiency, threats to democracy, the authoritarian character of Trump?s candidacy, the need for patriotism and nationalism, Israeli politics, the peaceful transfer of power, Putin and the war in Ukraine, the vulnerability of world order, the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, antisemitism and anti-colonialism, religious fanaticism among Israelis, the status of Arabs in Israeli society, biblical and post-biblical Judaism, whether a wider war in the Middle East is necessary, the danger of spirituality without ethics, and other topics.

00:00 Introduction
01:12 Nexus
05:45 Why Having Too Much Information Can Be Dangerous
11:31 Loss of Trust in Institutions
17:53 The Importance of Fiction
24:43 The Ten Commandments vs. The U.S. Constitution
29:28 The Suicide of Conservative Parties
31:31 Free Speech on Social Media
39:21 Democratic Debate
41:41 The 2024 Presidential Election

October 7, 2024

3:00 If you give good people bad information they make bad decisions.
It's basically the same as my signature line: unexpected results come from false assumptions.

[alancalverd]

Rain doesn't always come where and when it's needed the most.

Which is why it is a good idea to farm where the rain falls, save some produce for times when the harvest is poor, and limit your population to what you can feed.