Area54

11 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

Sorry Area54 but your excess credulity that technological progress will overcome all obstacles is naive. We will hit hard limits for what technology is possible, along with economic ones where great things are possible but unaffordable. Some grand space dreams, like Mars colonies, are - I believe - possible, but unaffordable; orders of magnitude too expensive. Hypothesising a high tech solution to every problem isn't going to do it and sometimes throwing more money at a problem just wastes money.

My remark about what the humans are for if the mission is run and done by AI and robots may have been flippant but any small, artificially raised population will not be in a position to step up, take charge and expect to be able to sustain tech levels that are currently far beyond our global civilisation. They will be dependent on - dependants of - tech they do not understand. Using tech we don't understand may appear quite normal but somewhere there are people who understand it - who design and refine and engineer the tech us users take for granted. It sounds like a recipe for a bunch of artificially raised kids to end up in an intractable bind, where the predicted success and growth - the awesome opportunities - are never achieved.

The level of living, working expertise needed to sustain a high tech civilisation - including a crucial lot of rare, genuine geniuses -  across thousands of disciplines and subdisciplines is something only large, healthy and wealthy populations - and the economic demand they create - can achieve and support. AI, robotics are another layer of complexity, no matter that from the end user viewpoint it appears to make things easier; the costs and complexities are just elsewhere, ie Earth. 

Like a library, those supports can aid people but no matter if I have the full specs on how to build nuclear power plants or mining robots I won't be able to do it. Not without the economy and infrastructure and population with skills and experience - and the current setup we have is wobbly; assuming it goes on for millennia and all the time getting more technologically advanced is no more than a correlation; there is nothing inevitable about it.

An argument from incredulity is never persuasive. I shall ponder whether or not to invest the time to respond in detail. In the meantime, I would ask what makes you feel your intellect is superior to that of von Neumann? Or do you think his proposal for autonomous, self replicating probes was entirely a lighthearted excursion into SF?

14 minutes ago, drumbo said:

I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with using the word model as your sword and shield, it will not save your nonsensical position.

Using an appropriate vocabulary for a productive discussion is not an obsession, but a prerequisite for advancing that discussion. Why are you so afraid of the word?

I haven't taken a position. I've simply challenged you to elucidate yours - something you seem unable to do.

17 minutes ago, drumbo said:

Rejecting each example is trivial since it suffices to consider a realistic scenario. Let's consider a riot, very similar to the ones we've been seeing in the US over these past few months. The rioters are destroying property. In order to maximize the protection of property you must increase the police presence otherwise the rioters will trash the city, physical safeguards can always be bypassed. Increasing the police presence will result in more injuries and life ruining criminal records for the rioters. Sending in social workers or psychologists will do jack to protect property and it certainly won't completely mitigate the harm to the protestors,  and thus the potential for rehabilitation has not been maximized.

And yet we saw the example where, a police chief in the US, prior to the riot beginning, defused the situation by offering to walk with the protestors. As you say, a thesis can easily be disposed of by a single, contrary example.

20 minutes ago, drumbo said:

I am very grateful for you teaching me about your innovative way of arguing, I think I will use it now. Please describe an example where the protection of property is maximized while harmful interactions with suspects are simultaneously minimized. Unless you are able to do so your argument is refuted.

Done and dusted. If you can make the request without the misapplication of emotive adjectives, I shall be happy to track down a link to the example mentioned above.

Note: looking through your posts it seems you have an inclination to be disagreeable. IF you continue with that attitude with me then my side of the conversation is at an end.

2 minutes ago, drumbo said:

There is no model here, just an abject truth that maximizing the protection of property almost certainly requires the deployment of more police officers than we would like if we wanted to minimize harmful interactions with suspects.

If you genuinely have no model then you are just farting into the wind and your comments may be disregarded. However, i think you do have a model, it is just over-simplified. I suggest you reflect on the meaning of the word 'model' in a scientific context. You should then, readily, recognise that you do have a model.

I say your model is over-simplified since you fail to consider, for example, having police deployed with 'social workers', or psychologists. Or having improved physical safeguards for the protection of property. Or adjusting the training of officers to reduce or eliminate harmful interactions. And those are just some of the options that are ignored in your simple model, or, as you call it, your "abject truth".

So, I should like to understand on what basis you reject these (and similar) examples. Unless you are able to do so your argument is refuted.

5 hours ago, drumbo said:

I originally claimed that it was not possible to maximize both the protection of property and the potential to rehabilitate criminals,

Could you review the justification for this claim please. It appears valid if, and only if, one has a closed system with two goals, yet that is not a sound model of the real world. Your argument then becomes analgous with the Creationists who assert evolution is prevented by the second law of thermodynamics. Perhaps I am missing something and you can point me to it.

48 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

I don't think anyone should ever do that to any children.

That is an opinion, to which you are fully entitled. I offer my opinion that a sensitively developed and implemented AI, taking advantage of the improved understanding of developmental psychology we might reasonably anticipate over the next couple of centuries, would offer a vastly more human and humane upbringing than is available to many in this century.

48 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Makes me wonder what they will be for if the mission is being undertaken by AI with robots?

The same thing all children are for. The continuance of the human race. The difference would be that, unlike many children born to day, they would be intended, they would have extensive support, and they would have awesome opportunities.

48 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Pets?

I'm quite happy to give you the opportunity to withdraw a remark that is beneath you.

48 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Leave aside how complex the technological capabilities would have to be to and how difficult to sustain in the absolute physical isolation of a multi-generational voyage and distance from the economy that designed and made it.

If you wish to leave it aside why raise it?

48 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

I also don't think it will be possible to know beforehand if any target planet is suitable for being a target planet for occupation and conquest - or even if it is safe to breathe the air... for the humans or for the world at large, exposed to the microbiome humans carry with them.

You will realise that your personal incredulity is not a persuasive argument. Interstellar colonistation, if implemented, will necessarily be a very long term effort. (I suspect that if we are unable to make truly long term plans then our species is doomed anyway.) Do you doubt the ability of purely robotic probes to thorougly investigate potential systems before humans are dispatched? Why do you ignore the possibility of robotic terraforming of barren planets prior to human settlement? Without effort I can imagine a handful of other approaches that address your reservations.

48 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

The Trekkie vision seems to be of worlds with sentient occupants but would we even recognise them unless they use tech that is obvious?

Strawman.

48 minutes ago, Ken Fabian said:

Any marine sentience with simple tech would probably not be visible at all.

Why not? We couldn't, perhaps using von Neumann replicators, investigate a world's oceans in detail? The technological gap between 1520 and 2020 is vast, yet that is only half a millenium. Do you expect the advances to cease, or even reverse in say ten millenia?

1 hour ago, paulsutton said:

Don't frozen embryos need a host to develop? Once we reach the destination.

If we are envisaging a culture capable of constructing a craft delivering interstellar travel and self-repair over a period of centuries, it is not a stretch to consider an artificial womb for the initial physical development of the embryos and robotic/AI 'parents' for the subsequent mental and emotional development of the children.

On 8/2/2020 at 5:44 PM, Strange said:

I assume there are people who think all space missions are faked.

Very likely. I'm never sure whether to be angry at such people for being so foolish, or sad on their behalf for what they are missing out on.

On 8/3/2020 at 12:33 PM, joigus said:

The reason is that people tend to look at the past with the strangest mixture of incredulity and gullibility.

True. Unfortunately this approach can also infect those who ought to know better. It took a century and a half for anthropologists to acknowledge that Neandertals were not necessarilly dumb and brutish.

On 8/6/2020 at 1:25 PM, paulsutton said:

If we can't travel faster than light, would we have to develop ship automation and find a way to put people in stasis so they are asleep for the journey or most of it.  Of course there is no prediction as to what could happen and yes by the time we get there,  humans back on Earth will have moved on technologically.,  

Automation would be essential, in my opinion. Developing it to an adequate level is unlikely to be a challenge given a century or two to develop. (Airline pilots are really only there to deal with emergencies and point out interesting things to see out the right hand window.) In terms of how you get people there, some options:

• Hibernation
• Generation ships
• Frozen embryos

We could update the technology - or at least the knowledge of the technology - via a radio link, but my concern was not technological differences, but cultural and pschological contrasts. It is a cliche that senior citizens are perplexed by i-phones, computers and on-line banking. Amplify that by the changes over a couple of millenia rather than a couple of decades and you have the potential for a move to suicide territory.

On 8/6/2020 at 1:25 PM, paulsutton said:

I think we need to look at having a base of exploration closer to home, learn more about the outer planets, how to extract minerals from Asteroids before we even think about interstellar travel.

Certainly, our ability to explore, exploit and colonise the solar system will be an essential prerequisite to interstellar travel. However, thinking about it is both essential and great fun. Plus, manned exploration will always be preceded by extensive robotic  probes. We can be thinking about those now, and we are:

• https://www.wired.com/story/nasa-is-getting-serious-about-an-interstellar-mission/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot

On 6/20/2020 at 9:46 PM, mathematic said:

Question seems premature.  Exomoons have yet to be discovered.

True, but there are several candidates.

3 hours ago, SergUpstart said:

Biology can simply be explained. All living matter on Earth came from a single RNA molecule that was accidentally formed.

There is such a thing as over-simplification.

Also, assertions made without substantiation require no refutation.

30 minutes ago, paulsutton said:

Surely even if we travel via a spaceship to other worlds or between worlds,  we would need to stop off places for resources etc.   I would assume our desire to explore the universe would include contact with other worlds.

Since, based upon our current understanding of physics, faster-than-light travel will be an impossibility then our visits to other worlds will be for the purpose of colonisation. Perhaps you imagine that the 'compression' of ship-time for near light speed travel would make it feasible to undertake exploration missions. However, by the time the explorers return the social and technological changes on the home planet would have rendered them curiosities.

9 hours ago, iNow said:

In 1933, one man set fire to a building in Germany and Hitler claimed it was the result of communist agitators and he won his election the following week. It became known as the Reichstag Fire and was used as a pretext to pass laws which took away people’s freedoms and to crack down on anyone not completely supportive of the government. 

This spring, white nationalists broke windows and vandalized buildings and businesses to make it look like BLM protests were out of control and that rioting was out of hand. It’s known as a false flag operation and it worked. This was used as justification to send in federal agents to US cities... agents with no identification or badges (what some called secret police) who without warrants picked up citizens from the streets who weren’t breaking any laws and took them away in unmarked vans with no due process. 

Now, Trump claims voting fraud is rampant with mail in voting, a process which is gaining traction this year to drive turnout safely during a global pandemic. People don’t want to stand in lines for hours and touch dirty screens that pass covid to the masses, but mail in voting causes turnout to surge and high turnout tends to mean far fewer republican victories. There is no evidence mail in voting is any more fraudulent than in-person voting, nor that absentee voting is in any relevant way different from mail-in voting (a distinction without a difference that Trump lees making).

Who wants to bet that Trumps henchmen purposefully seed the mail with fake ballots in a few months precisely in a way that they get caught and publicized? The obvious motivation is another false flag operation / Reichstag fire to manipulate people into supporting their own objectives and all just so they can use those planted fake ballots to point to news stories about fraudulent voting activity?

I mean, he’s already defunding the post office and closing locations in key voting districts to slow them down on the system side, even placing his own unqualified campaign donor like a puppet to be in charge of the post office and do his bidding.

Maybe I’m wrong, but you wouldn’t exactly be surprised if evidence came out showing this happening in couple of months, would you?

Over the course of decades I have read a dozen major biographies of Hitler and scores of books on the Third Reich and Germany in the inter-war years in an effort to understand how Hitler achieved and retained power. Despite that study I feel no closer to an answer. I remain as bewildered today by the fascination that Trump seems to exert on a substantial portion of the US population. The brink that the USA seems to be teetering towards is different from the one that ravished Europe almost a century ago, but it may turn out to be no less damaging globally. There is much good sense in America: I set aside my atheism for a moment to pray that it will overcome Trump's cynical narcissism.

4 hours ago, IDoNotCare said:

They acquire these things from resources and garnering willpower or effort. Money is why endangered animals are worth more which gives incentive to hunt them so throwing money at the problem is a joke and a prime example of how counterproductive the whole idea is.

An intelligent conservation program takes a measured approach to the problem, not a blind focus on the endangered species, but one that recognises the needs and wishes of all parties in the issue. That is not a matter of "throwing money at the problem", but of constructively using money to develop and implement a practical solution that provides benefits to all. Your criticism might well apply to some conservation efforts, especially early ones, but your seeming dismissal of all such efforts is ill conceived.

3 hours ago, Markus Hanke said:

Do remember though that ultimately any discussion with adherents of pseudoscience and crackpottery is a waste of time, you aren't going to get anywhere. You simply can't reason someone out of a position that hasn't been arrived at by way of reason in the first place.

However, as long as one recognises this from the outset then the attempt to reason them out of their position can be an effective means of enhancing ones own undestanding of the topic and may serve to prevent other readers from being misled by the, often superficially attractive, nonsense being spouted by the crank.

On 8/3/2020 at 7:57 AM, nec209 said:

Not sure what you mean that the court will look into if the bad guy that raped some one was raped has a kid him self? And if so spend less jail time than bad guy that raped some one that was not raped him self?

Or poor person that does shoplift spend less jail time than some on that is not poor and done shoplift?

I cannot see any connection between the contents of my post and your response to it. I shall, however, respond directly to your post.

• I agree with @dimreepr that speaking of "bad guys" is not helpful.
• I agree with @paulsutton that "Each case should be treated as an individual case", adding that this distinction of treatment should (generally) relate to sentencing, but not to declaration of guilt or innocence.
• I agree with @Markus Hanke that people are " responsible for their actions. Whether or not they should be answerable for them is another matter."
• Your examples, while superficially specific, are actually too general to allow a meaningful answer, other than "it depends".

We may anticipate a resumption of manned lunar exploration within the next five or six years. (See, for example, here.) I am curious about the likely response from those who deny that the Apollo landings ever occurred. Given that the deniers seem to be made up of a mix of trolls, the poorly educated, the gullible and the bloody-minded, I would expect a range of reactions. The poll gives you an opportunity to indicate what you think will be the most common response. Please post the reason(s) for your choice and add any related thoughts.

Since this is about the psycholgical response to an engineering approach to pursuing scientific(astronomy & geology), political and economic goals, I was unsure where to place it. Moderators, please move it if you can think of better location.

8 hours ago, Electricblue9969 said:

Is Neuralink a threat to humanity where people will go extinct because they can go full dive in Virtual reality with a brain implant?

So, you are one of those amusing people who think you are not already in a virtual reality. Come on! No conceivable real world could actually produce a Donald Trump as President of the US. It's obvious that we have all subscribed to a third rate farce. I'm thinking of asking for a refund.

Just now, Drakes said:

Duh, do you want cars banned because idiots get drunk and crash?  If there were no cars there would be no drunk drivers

Are you an alcoholic or just a fed doing a stress test on yourself

I would simply like to understand the point you are making. At present it is not clear. Please state your position clearly, because at present I have little or no idea what it is, other than, apparently, being generally disagreeable. You state society is not to blame, but also imply it is to blame.

Also note, I have expressed no position whatsoever on the thread topic. My couple of posts have been directed solely at attempting to understand your position. So please don't assign me imaginary motives conjured out of your own psyche.

29 minutes ago, Drakes said:

Nope society is not to blame because 99 percent of alcohol users do not become addicted.  See all you are focusing on are the problems and not the larger picture, if there was no alcohol idiots would still sniff glue

No, I am focusing on your assertion that "alcoholism arises from a more permanent set of conditions that cause the disease.  This is determined not by the alcoholic but by the vast majority of alcohol users who have no problems with consumption." That reads, to me, that if there were not a large number of people (ergo, society) creating the demand for alcohol, coupled with many others meeting that demand, then alcoholism would not exist. Thus, as you have written it, you are blaming society. Your post has failed to address that ambiguity. Try again.

1 hour ago, Drakes said:

While drunkenness is a temporary condition alcoholism arises from a more permanent set of conditions that cause the disease.  This is determined not by the alcoholic but by the vast majority of alcohol users who have no problems with consumption 

So, you are arguing society is to blame, by providing the alcohol? That seems to run counter to your earlier position. I am confused.

Using the same logic you would appear to agree that responsibility for the use of guns in violent crimes is not down to the gunmen, but to the existence of many responsible gun owners and the gun industry that equips them. That thought would also seem to run counter to your bumper sticker position.

3 hours ago, Hans de Vries said:

Is there neurogenesis in the cortex? Some time ago I came across a paper proving that it does.

It would be helpful if you could cite the paper, or at least give some clue as to date, author or journal.

On 7/23/2020 at 12:34 AM, iNow said:

Well drat. You’re quite right. I was defining median, not average. Oh well. Thanks for the correction. 

I was wrong once before. It was a Tuesday, on a leap year... during a full moon.

However, in my defense, use of average almost certainly means that far more than half of the world will be below the number due to the massive asymmetries in wealth around the globe. So, in that sense the core point I was making in my reply only gets amplified by using average, not diminished. 

Cheers, and thanks again 

You are welcome. I challenged you on it, partly because the thread, which was silly to start with, seemed to have run its course and partly because I think, on a science forum, we should avoid "lay usage" of scientific terminology. The abuse of "theory" is the one that springs easily to mind, but there are others lurking around of which "average" is one.

The average bloke just doesn't seem to  get it.

11 hours ago, lidal said:

The grand question is: why do quantum phenomena point to God in such overwhelming way ? I think this is because God had/has a grand plan. He wants humanity to discover Him not only through religion and faith, but also through nature and science.

I offer you an alternative. The confusion, ambiguity, uncertainty and seeming paradoxes promoted by quantum mechanics are clearly the work of a super intelligent, vindictive genius. Solid evidence for the existence of the Devil, not of God.

On 7/17/2020 at 9:38 PM, iNow said:

He said average. We can safely assume he didn't mean mode and likely not median.

Had he just mentioned average then I would agree, but he stated "by definition". My view is that if one seeks to  impart weight to a post by quoting definitions one had best ensure the definition is accurate. Pedantic? I suggest not.

1 hour ago, iNow said:

By definition, that's half the planet, and always will be

That depends upon whether you are using mean, mode or median. It is only necessarily true for the last.

1 hour ago, Othmane Dahi said:

being rich means that you have more more money than average people

How much more than the average 1%, 20%, 400%? Where you put the boundary is subjective, as @Dord suggests.