1551. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288498 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:40 am
Comment #288495 by JanChan
You know, it doesn't take a super genius to predict what would happen if we applied more liberal economic policies on our countries.
1552. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288494 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:36 am
Comment #288490 by JanChan
Well, obviously something is wrong with the economy and all your liberal economic ideas aren't working.
1553. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288491 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:34 am
Comment #288486 by Laurie Fraser
Funny how we always seem to end up with irony and sarcasm when dealing with right-wing nutters! Perhaps we should call it the "DP effect".
1554. All aboard the atheist bus campaign
Comment #288488 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:32 am
Welcome back brother John.
The whole aim of Christ's life (not myth folks, too well documented
1555. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288482 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:28 am
Comment #288476 by JanChan
Like everything is black and white. What if they aren't? What if what is right for the country is bad for the environment? Nobody even wanted to consider the black and white parts.
1556. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288473 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:18 am
Comment #288468 by JanChan
Things aren't as simple as you seem to be trying to make them. The actions we need to take to deal with global warming and to help conserve endangered species are also good for the economy long term - cut back drastically on use of oil, make industries far more efficient. They are things countries should be doing anyway.
1557. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288467 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:13 am
Comment #288464 by JanChan
You see, to young atheists like me you're all being hypocrites.
1558. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288456 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 1:03 am
Comment #288453 by AtheistJon
Posting a video isn't looking someone in the eye, any more than typing here.
I post here under my own name, and I am happy for anyone to quote what I say (not that I could stop them). I understand why others can't or may not want to do that, but to call me a coward is silly, really.
People have also said that I am pretty much in real life the way I come across here :)
1559. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288452 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:59 am
Comment #288450 by JanChan
Well, speak for yourself.
1560. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288448 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:54 am
Comment #288443 by AtheistJon
Next time you call somebody a name like "dumbo" or "twit". Please do so with a video response... otherwise, you are a coward.
Why is it so hard to try and be polite (even if it's toward the stupidest of "right-wingers")? I used to think that British people were amazingly polite compared to Americans. This illusion has been debunked.
1561. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288438 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:43 am
Comment #288437 by JanChan
For one thing that was my professor's pet sunspot theory, and even he is not as certain as you are about the case.
1562. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288434 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:39 am
JanChan-
Who would your rather trust, a guy who you know will always save his own butt, or some environmentalist?
1563. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288432 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:36 am
Comment #288431 by JanChan
Or to put it bluntly - survival of the fittest.
1564. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288430 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:35 am
JanChan-
A classic chicken and egg problem if you ask me, its almost impossible to manipulate the factors, inability to manipulate the factors give lousy predictions that we cannot see how much an independent factor affects temperature. And all your lovable environmentalists just enjoy simplifying the problem for scientists.
1565. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288426 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:28 am
Comment #288425 by JanChan
Well, excuse me, but I didn't think that Ice Ages were the result of just 1 single event, even Wikipedia lists a few factors. Why shouldn't sunspot activity be one of them?
In fact how can we have any discussion about global warming and its causes without someone calculating all these factors and plotting a suitable graph of temperatures. And how can someone do that if all the factors are still not known?
1566. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288424 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:16 am
SPS-
The evidence may lay in the ground, or across the sea. Maybe you need a shovel and not a telescope.
There is no supposition necessary that would be on par with assuming the existence of the supernatural. To me, the search for alien intelligence is no more an act of blind faith than is the building of the Large Hadron Collider.
An alien race not threatened by its own members, and finding itself the master of all around it, may find no reason, need, or urge to expend any effort to colonize across the galaxy.
1567. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288422 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:13 am
Comment #288420 by JanChan
I beg to differ, the world was once so cold that humans could walk across the English Channel. Something not so consistent with a small cyclical effect.
Of course it's always easier to get landforms from glaciers, evidence of global warming in the past would have been scarce for the single reason that it is more difficult to be recorded on Earth.
1568. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288421 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:09 am
Comment #288318 by Wosret
The parallel with theism is clear, I feel. People see a universe that is exactly what it would look like as if there were no God, so attempt to say God is "invisible", and has stopped performing miracles.
We see a universe which is exactly what it would look like without spacefaring civilizations, so people come up with barely-believable explanations to try and fit superfluous technological civilizations into the picture.
Some examples:
All aliens want to stay at home.
All aliens are very cautious in their use of resources.
No civilization has grown up more than a few million years ago.
There is no way to travel between the stars (we already know of several).
Space is too big (not for robot probes, generation ships, or if you can hibernate)
and on and on come the excuses, which are a form of trying to "fine tune" civilizations to fit the evidence.
1569. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288419 by Steve Zara on November 22, 2008 at 12:00 am
Comment #288337 by AtheistJon
Some right-wing dumbo starts quoting Penn and Teller as an authority, and labels this site a liberal propoganda machine, and you get upset because people call him things like "twit"?
Get a sense of perspective.
1570. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288418 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 11:51 pm
Comment #288410 by JanChan
However it is still not certain whether sunspots causes global warming, partly due to diversion of funding to more "important" stuff, maybe some astronomer would like to help me out here.
1571. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288315 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Comment #288306 by rod-the-farmer
This is even more question-begging, and neglects the exponential expansion of life.
We would not notice the effect of the construction of one Dyson sphere. We would notice the effect of millions or billions.
1572. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288313 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Comment #288310 by decius
The parallelism is entirely appropriate.
In both cases it is an attempt to justify that something exists based on the lack of evidence.
Theists say we can't refute God because he might exist beyond what we see in the universe.
The same argument is used to support alien space-faring civilizations - they might exist beyond what we see in the universe.
1573. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288303 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Comment #288302 by Wosret
That's it? Then I find that an awfully weak reason for dismissing the idea. I think that that is easily accounted for.
That is what theists say when we want evidence for God's intervention in the world.
You propose the idea that there are alien civilizations out there. You need to provide positive evidence. You need to provide the data.
1574. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288299 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Comment #288290 by Wosret
Like what?
1575. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288285 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Comment #288280 by Wosret
We haven't been looking for very long, and we certainly can't see it very well.
Yeah, anything within like sixty light years.
1576. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288281 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Comment #288279 by DarwinsPitbull
Did the government invent oil in the first place?
1577. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288277 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Comment #288273 by Wosret
The argument I put forward is the exact one you did for a multiverse.
We can't examine the galaxy like that
We certainly have left no foot prints in the grass. As far as we know, no one has, that isn't reason to assume we aren't around.
1578. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288270 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Comment #288266 by decius
I agree with you.
1579. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288269 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Comment #288265 by Wosret
Suppose you come across a vast field of grass. The only footprints you see are your own. With your telescopes you can see the grass for miles and miles around. Someone questions if others have been walking around. You see no footprints. And then, the arguments start .... "they have been walking on stilts"... "before they walked, they developed ways to hover above the grass".
That is the level of argument we sometimes see from those who support the idea of alien space-faring life.
1580. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288263 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Comment #288259 by decius
You are a very naughty boy! (certainly not the messiah)
1581. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288261 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Decius-
Yes, that's clear. But why assuming that they must have risen so much earlier than us or that they care to colonise space at all.
Would it even be moral to send people off in a hollow asteroid to end their days inside a fucking rock in the middle of nowhere, and their progeny too? Would you go?
1582. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288255 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Comment #288221 by Quetzalcoatl
Gazing out from our pitifully small rock into the vastness of the cosmos, we have assumed that all that we see has a natural explanation. But perhaps, in some parts of the Universe, the effects of technological tampering can be seen, if only we learn to look properly.
1583. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288210 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:36 am
Comment #288203 by decius
See? There are major benefits. The conservatives will stay at home and the liberals and Marxists will get out there and meet the Kzinti and Daleks (and then we really will be in trouble).
1584. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288209 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:34 am
Comment #288206 by Wosret
No, it really wouldn't. Just try out the mathematics of expansion. The results are amazing. Exponentiation wins over time and distance.
1585. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288208 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:33 am
Comment #288202 by Wosret
Why set yourself to an unnecessary mission that will take multiple generations to complete, and the benefits of are not huge, and success is not reasonable to assume?
1586. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288201 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:25 am
Comment #288197 by Wosret
I don't take it as a given that anyone would spread to other stars. I just find it a rather extreme view to assume that no-one throughout the history of a civilization would ever want to bother.
We can already come up with ways that this can be done, via colony ships.
1587. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288198 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:23 am
Decius-
As we speak, the best thing we have is the Drake equation, far more powerful than any paradox, including Fermi's.
1588. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288195 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:20 am
Comment #288192 by decius
Don't worry. I think Kurzweil is somewhere between very eccentric and a nutcase.
But I think the arguments for the Fermi Paradox are extremely strong.
There are nothing but "fine tuning" and question begging arguments against it. We have to assume that all technological civilizations want to preserve the galaxy, or don't feel like expanding....
Stephen Baxter has dealt with this very well in his book "Deep Future".
1589. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288193 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:16 am
Wosret-
Even if the moment a probe or whatever showed up in a solar system it sent a new one to the closet one, it would still take millions of years to visit them all.
A civilization could have several colonies in every corner of the galaxy by now, but it could not have even come close to visiting every solar system. Not even a fraction of them within the (I think it was) ten billion years since the galaxies birth.
1590. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288191 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 10:13 am
JanChan-
Ozone depletion is a greater threat than Global Warming (so much greater is the threat of ozone depletion that it can only be measured in terms of a logarithm scale) and do anyone give a shit about it nowadays?
1591. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288176 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 9:35 am
Comment #288170 by decius
That is all question-begging. It is trying to come up with special arguments for what we see out there. This is almost always the case when we try and argue against the Fermi Paradox.
Comment #288174 by hungarianelephant
There is an economic difference if you don't have a compelling need for the extra energy.
Even if you did, it might make more sense to harvest a tiny proportion of a number of stars.
1592. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288168 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 9:13 am
Comment #288167 by hungarianelephant
There is little or no economic difference between extracting 10% of a stars radiated energy and, say, 80%. You just need more collectors.
We would easily see the effect of 80% extraction - we would see stars that were emitters of infra-red (waste heat) as against visual light.
1593. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288165 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 9:03 am
Comment #288163 by hungarianelephant
They question always arises - why stop harvesting at a certain point?
To see no mass use of stellar energy, we would have to assume that *all* technological civilizations that arose *always* decided that to use 5 or 10% of a stars energy was enough.
That is too much "fine tuning" of civilizations for me.
1594. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288164 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 9:01 am
Comment #288162 by irate_atheist
As Terry Pratchett says, the only thing that can travel faster than the speed of light is monarchy. When a king dies, his eldest son becomes king *immediately* (by definition). There have been attempts to communicate over long distances by slightly torturing inconsequential monarchs, but as yet with no success.
1595. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288161 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 8:56 am
Comment #288159 by irate_atheist
Ah, but once they have colonised enough space, that can't happen, as not even religion can travel faster than light.
1596. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288160 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 8:51 am
Comment #287879 by Cartomancer
Spookily, today I received a recommendation from Amazon for the following book:
"Cheese: A Visual Guide to 400 Cheeses with 150 Recipes" by Juliet Harbutt
1597. I'm Not One Of Those 'Love Thy Neighbor' Christians
Comment #288157 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 8:46 am
Comment #287999 by decius
We are a technological spacefaring civilisation in its infancy, I see no reason to assume that all others must have started earlier, or if they did, that they should have already completed the exploration of the galaxy. They might have visited prior to our appearance, or to the appearance of life on Earth, or they might have directed their efforts to select areas of the galaxy
Why assuming that harvesting must re-model the stars or alter the appearance of anything, when the energy released by a star through natural processes is so gargantuan? An ultra-efficient unaltering method of harvest is perfectly conceivable.
That's most likely true, but the reasons you mentioned are insufficient to close the case.
1598. Single-Celled Giant Upends Early Evolution
Comment #288154 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 8:31 am
But if the first traces were instead made by G. sphaerica, it would mean the Explosion was real; it must have been a diversification of life on a scale never before seen.
1599. Bush set to relax endangered species rules
Comment #288122 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 7:25 am
Comment #288089 by irate_atheist
The reason why some people get irate is because we have so many master baiters.
1600. Vast stores of water ice surround Martian equator
Comment #288120 by Steve Zara on November 21, 2008 at 7:23 am
Comment #287860 by Titania
Theists don't want to live in this world because in this world they are insignificant, and end up permanently dead.
:)