tuco

It's a dream we share.

Got me interested so I searched and will share: 

Colonization of Venus- https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20030022668.pdf

I'd be surprised if anyone done any math on it, with regards to cost effectivity,  though. 

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Just a side note and no I do not want to derail as such musings belong to politics, perhaps philosophy or psychology. Economics need to be considered ... Well, yes. We could also consider the economics of all other things which do not serve any economic purpose, like I dunno 4th of July fireworks. 

53 minutes ago, iNow said:

Psychology might be a good fit, as in “let’s discuss the psychology of people who buy into astrological silliness despite being otherwise intelligent and rational.”

Indeed, cognitive dissonance and self-fulfilling prophecy. 

11 hours ago, thoughtfuhk said:

The result of pondering whether human life was purposeless or not, lead me to conceive an early hypothesis, somewhat detailed in some earlier threads:

1. Why is the purpose of human life reasonably to create Artificial General Intelligence?
2. Consciousness causes higher entropy compared to unconscious states in the human brain (Relates to thread above)

However, given my hypothesis above, upon discussions, especially atheistic persons tend to confuse teleonomy (purpose in the realm of science/objectivity) for the teleological argument, which is a religious/subjective concept contrary to teleonomy; where my threads concern teleonomy.)

Why aren't concepts such as teleonomy more well known? 

What other hypotheses or theories (based on hard science) are you aware of, concerning where humans may be headed?

1

my bold

On hard science none, but for example: Omega point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point

Let me just note that there is a difference between "purpose" and "heading".

I apologize and take it back. 

20 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I have.

 

You first.

I cannot present something that does not exist.

If you disagree, present method for "measuring taste", in this case, present scientific method which would distinguish funny and unfunny jokes. 

Who cares what makes you laugh? I certainly do not.

Meaning of the phrase: there is no measure to taste, is that it's not possible to objectively determine which taste is good and which is bad, what is funny and whatnot. Why that is is obvious. 

There are two issues here:

1. What kind of influence, if any, morally politically incorrect jokes have? 

2. What is funny?

The answer to the first question is probably not known yet and need further research, as I noted before.

The answer to the second question is: there is no measure to taste. There is only mainstream and fringe, just like with art, music, movies, etc. The debate over what is art and whatnot is thus neverending despite what any experts or authorities might say, simply because they cannot prove their claims ie. this is not art or this is not funny. 

9 hours ago, MattMVS7 said:

First of all, most people would disagree with the idea that our emotions are the perception of value.  Second, I say that our morality, character, and intellect alone cannot allow us to perceive value.  I already explained why that is in my opening post.  It seems you haven't read my entire opening post.

 

This, in my understanding, implies that there are values and we, through various means, as you say perceive them. I disagree with such notion and I like to think that there are no values, in the context we speak of, and we form them.

We can imagine there is not a single person in the universe. I would think that gravity, for example, exists in such universe but good and bad does not. 

Perhaps more research in this area is needed.

More Than “Just a Joke”: The Prejudice-Releasing Function of Sexist Humor - http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167207310022

Personally, I'd like to think that politically and ethically incorrect jokes, which do make me giggle, do not make me view ethically problematic issues more favorably, but what do I know, right? So I think I will sit on fence for the time being, giggling at what makes me giggle. 

I agree with you that banning him was most likely a foul play. I am saying that the biggest problem is that Putin is popular and its in my opinion very hard for people without knowledge of Russia to comprehend how is that possible. I stated one reason, ignorance and disrespect Russians feel from the West, which in turn makes them lets say even more stubborn and supportive of Putin.  That is my interpretation anyway. Its like, how come people voted Trump or Berlusconi or Brexit? Sure, disinformation and lies backed with lots of money. In my opinion that is not the whole, not even the main, story. 

Obviously, we are not the only ones asking the question, for example here: What Makes Putin So Popular at Home? His Reputation Abroad - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/16/opinion/putin-popular-russia-election.html

18 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Or maybe it's because they do information control really well.

In my mind, as I noted when saying its a very complex issue, there are many factors. If it's mostly due to control of information, then I am not worried much simply because it can change relatively easily. It's not like Russians live in same conditions like North Koreans with regards to access to information. Even 30 years ago, when there was no internet, majority people in the former Soviet Blok knew the government was spreading bullshit. Perhaps there is a paradox in a sense that it could be argued that people in the digital age can be deceived easier than ever before, but I do not believe its mostly propaganda what keeps Putin popular, and he is popular. For example, and on a lighter note, sanctions against Russia were in my opinion mostly counterproductive, because you cannot break Russian people, people with syndrome of a great nation as I call it,  with sanctions  

11 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

There are several accusations of fake voting, forced voting, etc.

Additionally, all the main opposition was barred from running.

Indeed. Still, we have no idea how it influenced the result. And same with his biggest rival being disqualified, we have no idea how significant Navalny could have been. 5% or 50%? People did not have to vote for Putin in such numbers they did. Navalny himself called for a boycott and it seemed to have little influence.  

7 hours ago, Silvestru said:

What are your thoughts over this ping-pong of power to get around the two consecutive terms law between  Medvedev and Putin? How democratic is that objectively speaking? 

And what are your thoughts over Putin's win here. (I'm surprised a thread about this has not yet been opened.) 

 

My thoughts are that Putin's win, and popularity, is partly (hard to enumerate) due to the West's attitude towards Russia, where such attitude comes partly (hard to enumerate) from ignorance of and disrespect towards Russians. Its - why Russia/Russians is/are the way it is/are? - a very complex issue, however, let me just note that people without relatively deep knowledge of Russian history cant really comprehend it and are left with relatively simple hmm thoughts. 

I believe we are getting off-topic, however, let me note once again, this is a note with a connection to recent "trade wars" between the US and rest of the world(?), how come tax dumping is not covered by anti-dumping?

44 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Google has several reasons to choose Ireland for setting up headquarters there. This company is not only famous for finding information, but also for its brilliant business strategies. The main reason behind choosing Ireland as headquarter is the low tax rate.

Just a side note and do not mind me, but what is brilliant about "abusing tax heaven"? From an ethical point of view, and ethics are a significant part of Google's marketing strategy, and from let's say (can I say scientific?) point of view of exceptionality because every decent accountant can figure out "tax heaven". The problem for every decent accountant is that not every decent business can, in fact, abuse tax heaven from the nature of the business nor every decent business wants to. 

What other brilliant business strategies are we talking about? Brilliant my ass, forgive me my language. 

Debunking the Idea That a Kid's Intelligence Comes Mostly From Mom - https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/248879

"If everyone .." is a communist utopistic assumption so there is no need to worry about everyone becoming vegetarian indeed. However, given various environmental and perhaps even health concerns, having one less meat meal per week is probably good idea as Bender noted. Oh I just rephrased already stated.

Well, there are places, steep hills for example, where growing plants, unlike livestock, is not feasible. 

As for stats, you can find some here for example: Livestock production: recent trends, future prospects - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2935116/

Exactly? Education. Now what exactly is it that distinguishes those who gain education to those who don't? Many factors.

Questions aiming at the state of the community before and after implementation of up/down vote are on the right track in my opinion simply because only data can validate a premise stated in OP or any other argument or hypothesis posted here.

I voted to remove it as based on my own experience I have no reason to believe the premise in OP meets reality and in general, I believe in the carrot rather than the stick. However, I will not argue for removing the downvote at length exactly for the reason stated above - do not have the data, just anecdotes and hypothesis. Personally, I do not think I need a filter or indicator of let's say worthy information or state of the community, at least not on an internet forum and I have reason to believe my neurons are capable firing without me having control and knowledge of such firing, essentially running into risk of not being able to evaluate information without bias. There are possibly 100s perhaps 1000s people reading but only a faction down/upvotes. I am not convinced such fraction is indicative of much. 

So that is about it from me in few words. 

If you allow me a suggestion, NorthonH, there would perhaps be less or no alleged trolling if the topic started with something more than a claim. For example here: Economic impacts from the promotion of renewable energies: The German experience - http://hub.globalccsinstitute.com/sites/default/files/publications/138233/Economic-impacts-promotion-renewable-energies-German-experience.pdf

Either way, do not mind me and carry on. It's an interesting topic and criticism of subsidies can be valid. 

@CharonY I beg to differ or rather depending on how we look at it. Primary is a motivator, that is helping for various reasons, and how such help will be administered is secondary, in a thought process anyway. 

The OP article is about such motivator, conscience, while trying to argue that it's misguided. In my opinion not very successfully because it does not undermine the motivator nor it analyzes the problem in depth and draws conclusions based on distorted premises. 

Yes this is a quite complex topic including historical, geographical, political, social, economic, ethical,  .. well, all kinds of points of view.  If we ask a simple question: Should we help?, I believe it can be answered simply even without considering all those points of view, trying to grasp such complexity.

I have mentioned it in my initial post but if someone is asking and another one feels good about giving, I believe that arguments against such a goodwill ought to be very solid to undermine an unselfish* act of empathy towards another human being. 

*where selfish is defined as: for own benefit, without regards for others

With dogs the nature of the threat is different.  Dogs can harm us but cannot be superior to us. Danger coming from AI, according to some, is that it can find exploits at rate humans cannot achieve. In other words, humans cannot outsmart AI, hence the potential threat. Of course, we are in the realm of sci-fi but we can imagine a number of applications when AI would be in charge, probably the most common is military, it could endanger humans. Here we are back to Asimov Laws and such, philosophy.

Personally, I am optimistic and the sooner AI and robots will overtake mundane human tasks the better because then humans will have time and energy to devote to personal growth, social matters, families or politics for example. However, changes in our society will be enormous, I would say revolutionary, and revolutions tend to carry a certain degree of risk. 

Let's say it's not intrinsically harmful, however, because of its let's say "super-human" capabilities it could become a threat to humans? Let's say the question is: What humans can be better than AI at? I'd say nothing. So in this sense, depending on authority given to AI, it can be viewed as a threat. 

3 hours ago, dimreepr said:

Indeed, so the question becomes what can we expect? 

I would think that nobody knows yet all aspects. One aspect, I consider as a certainty, which comes from full automation as mentioned in the previous post is that society, welfare systems in particular, will have to adapt.

More here:  The robot that takes your job should pay taxes, says Bill Gates - https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/

As a side note, I concur that the topic, in the current format, is probably more suited for philosophy or politics section rather than for computer science. 

How on Earth is it possible humans, and other animals, think of their own? The problem I see here are, as usual, definitions.