SH3RL0CK

My analogy with racial discrimination was to illustrate my answer to your question: what is the alternative. To me, the alternative is to take the higher road, to always err on the side of caution regarding all issues involving human rights. I agree that a fetus does temporarily (for 9 months) reduce the freedom of the mother. Certainly that is a consideration; which is why I do not oppose abortion to save the mother's life. I disagree with your statement regarding the RIGHTS of the mother. I don't think rights is the correct word to use...is drinking a right (you shouldn't drink when pregnant)? Is there a right to not have nausea (caused by morning sickness)? Is there a right to not be tired (because you are carrying around the extra weight)? The woman still has the right to vote, the right of free speech, the right to bear arms, etc. and being pregnant doesn't take away these rights. So the question is, at what level of "inconvenience" (I can't think of a better word for what I am trying to say) for the mother is it ethical to have an abortion? And at what stage of pregnancy? I don't have the exact answer (though we could take extremes on either end most people would agree on) and neither does anyone else. I'd rather a woman be "inconvenienced" for a few months than a human die. This is why I beleive we need to be very restrictive when allowing abortions.

And there is the problem which leads to the current abortion debate. I dare say it also led to the holocaust when Jews were defined as inferior. However, I don't beleive we necessarily have to compromise and pick the best of bad options. Is erring on the side of caution as far as possible (which would take the stand that a fetus is human) a bad option to take? When the USA decided that African Americans should have equal rights with Caucasians was this a bad option?

I don't think it is a good idea to determine "humaness" on the basis of conscienceness or mental capacity, it becomes a very slippery slope. For one, these are very difficult to establish with certainty nor is it possible to predict any changes. Also, when lives can be taken based upon an arbitrary value to society, you have a formula for euthenasia (such as after demensia sets in). Allow me to illustrate: when you are 90 and don't clearly know everything happening around you (who really knows how much you truely understand...you have good days and bad days...) why then should you continue to live? Especially as the nursing home is costing the government so much money that could be better spent on "more worthy" people. The budget deficit continues to grow, you know. You've lived a good life, make some room for others with more potential. To bad for you a cure for demensia will be announced next week. Even worse is possible, after all the holocaust was based upon a belief that the Jews were inferior; what if you are determined to be genetically inferior? ================= FYI, my wife and I have adopted babies; so you could say we are living our Pro-Life stance. Many of our friends (who are also pro life) have adopted as well. You should realize this is a very, very difficult thing to do the way we (at least in the US) have set it up...but I won't go into that at the moment. And I'd like to add it doesn't have to be inconsistent for someone to be pro-life yet not adopt...this is a logical fallacy. To Mokeles point; Another way for this to be resolved is for one side or the other to win the vast (95%+) majority. That isn't going to happen anytime soon, especially since there is a variance of opinion on things like partial birth abortion (vastly opposed by most Americans).

Do you have a fundamental problem with this?

I presume that you mean from those who oppose all abortions. As I do not oppose them (in principle); I do not oppose all abortions and therefore you are not asking the PRO-LIFE difficult questions from me, but as you stated earlier, from those who oppose it under all circumstances. We do differ in opinion in regards to when a fetus/baby is alive as well as when it becomes human. As such we would probably differ on what are reasonable restrictions on abortion. This shows the issue is not simply two sided, but that there is a wide range of opinion that people can take. I don't think it is really scientific to cut this issue into simply PRO-LIFE and PRO-CHOICE sides.

I must have missed where you stated that you did not intend this to be a "gotcha" type question, but no matter. I agree with you that the extreme cases (and there are plenty on both sides) must be considered as they do happen. I'd like to see a better discussion on why there are so few reasonable restrictions on abortion. Many firmly pro-choice people (not pointing the finger at anyone here) say they are not pro-abortion; but then support almost no reasonable restrictions on abortion. Is a ban on partial birth abortion reasonable? How about parental notification? How about notification to DCYF (department of children, youth, families) when it appears the girl is being abused by the father; and the abortion is a cover-up attempt? Consider the following: http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4806 Does this current legal push to force doctors who oppose abortion, perform them because this is against the patients right to choice make any sense? Would anyone suggest a doctor should be forced to perform any other procedure he didn't feel comfortable doing?

Thanks for clarifying, although we still disagree on the "alive part"...but this is not important to the discussion at hand. I will state first of all, I have a strong PRO-LIFE position, just so it is clear where I am coming from. I don't usually like to play "gotcha" type questions but since you asked and because this thread has not (yet) degenerated into a worthless waste of electrons, I will state my opinion that an abortion might be acceptable to me under conditions 2 and 3 as the end result (death of the fetus/baby) doesn't change and might be improved (mother lives). Of course, when comparing certain death with potential death, what are the odds??? FYI, abortions are not 100% effective and even with an attempted abortion to save the mothers life, she could still die from whatever medical issue was not addressed due to the abortion not being accomplished. And there is a small chance the abortion itself kills her (it is a surgical procedure after all). We are dealing with probabilities, not certainties after all. The first question is really a tough question for me. IF it were me, I would elect to have the baby rather than kill it. I would support anyone in this position as best I could as well. I will go so far as to say it is not the best solution, why should the crime of rape also result in a death? Granted, I cannot imagine the emotional problems the woman would have, but my advice to anyone going through this would be to keep the baby. As far as condemning someone who opted to abort in this situation...well I absolutely would NOT condemn them for it. It is a hard case. I will not, at this time be submitting my own "gotcha" questions on the pro life side. As the saying goes "there are none so blind as those who will not see" and people will either consider the facts and form a considered opinion or they will not. "Gotcha" type questions are not going to change this, but are quite likely to degenerate any useful discussion into a wasted thread.

I very much believe a fetus is alive (especially if it were dead there would be not be a discussion on abortion as the fetus would never be born). I suspect you mean a fetus isn't yet human. Please clarify what you mean here if you are actually saying a fetus isn't alive...

True, there will always be hydrogen present (even if very spread out) as long as the proton does not decay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay I think that given the immense timeframes we are discussing here, such hydrogen must be VERY spread out indeed (or it would have collapsed into a star long ago). As such, it would require more energy to gather the hydrogen than is recoverable by fusion; unless you pick the spots where the hydrogen is just then collecting into a cloud and I'm not sure that would be the case after this length of time in an expanding universe. It could be that at some point the negligible gravitational attraction by the hydrogen atoms to each other is not as strong as the force driving the expansion of the universe. At any rate, given a finite number of atoms in the universe and sufficient (near-infinite) time, this fuel source too must eventually run out.

A dead star will cool to its core...eventually. Yes it will take much, much longer than trillions of years, but it will happen. As long as it radiates heat away (and it will do so as long as it is warmer than the surrounding space), it loses energy and therefore cools. Pressure only generates heat when it changes or causes something else to change (think about PV=nRT - although I'm sure we both realize the inside of a star isn't an ideal gas). Once everything stabilizes at a constant Pressure, Volume, and Temperaure (equal to surrounding space, just an iota above absolute zero), there is no more energy to be had out of the star. Unless of couse you can harness the gravity waves generated by the mass of the star; and if this is possible (we don't understand gravity waves so we don't know if this would be possible to do), then the implication is that eventually the star, and in fact all matter which can generate gravity, will dissipate since E=mc2 and a loss of energy must then equal a loss of mass. As far as fusion, where do you propose to get the hydrogen for fusion? And as far as that goes, only very small atomic number elements "fuse" with a surplus of energy. Likewise only very large atomic number elements will produce energy by fission. If you only have iron available (or if nothing is available), you cannot do either.

How large could the convoys become? I would imagine it possible to convoy thousands of ships at a time...so that eventually there would be sufficient Naval vessels for protection. Granted, with this many ships, the perimeter becomes larger and harder to watch and defend. However, it only becomes larger as the radius squared, whereas the number of ships becomes larger as radius to the 3rd power...thus being more efficient to protect overall. At some point, I would think there would be enough naval ships to effectively protect the merchant ships in the middle. But I'd also like to point out that in the vastness of the ocean, a convoy of ships has about the same size as a single ship. By setting up convoys, we also make it much more difficult for the pirates to find the ships (assuming radio silence is also maintained). Instead of thousands of locations for ships, the place where the ships can be found is now reduced to only a few.

The best solution would be to convoy these ships with a destroyer or two (or whatever force is necessary) for protection. I don't care what the Somalis have, the world is going to be able to out-gun them at sea. Simply don't let their boats anywhere near the merchant ships. Since the nations with blue-water navies are already there, the additional costs would probably be minimal, the problem of course would be the time lost for the shipping companies. That and we would have to make sure we form up the convoys far enough away (at the Suez canal would be easy, but I'm not sure where the logical convoy formation points would be elsewhere in the Indian ocean).

I think it is now becoming clear, and the anti-Bush crowd may eventually have to agree, that there is not much difference between each political party in terms of actual deeds. One reason for this is that the President (Clinton, Bush, Obama, McCain - had he won, etc.) has to react to the realities of the world. As such, the actions to be taken by said President are constrained to the point where the end result is almost the same regardless of the person in charge. In the case of the AQ terrorists, most methods available with any realistic chance of stopping them involve becoming unethical yourself (such as performing these wiretaps). So Obama, since he cannot afford an AQ attack, will be VERY tempted to push hard for wiretapping and the like in an attempt to stop them. In fact, it could be considered wrong for him to NOT authorize these wiretaps if by doing so he could have prevented another 911.

Considering the mind can remain functional even amongst those who live very long, see for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment , there certainly is potential for a longer lifespan without significant loss of mental functions such as happens with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimers_disease for example. As to how long the brain will remain so is pure speculation as so little is understood. It is my belief that certainly the mind could remain active for considerably longer, possibly even thousands of years but eventually the brain would stop functioning correctly. To extend it to geological timeframes or to forever does not seem possible given the current design.

If people were honorable, there would not be any fights at all (unless agreed to between both sides for their entertainment) now would there? But not everyone has honor. What if the fight picks you? By that, let me give you an example. For some reason, it doesn't matter why, you have a large amount of cash with you. As you walk to the bank to deposit it, this big guy decides he is going to take your money. You are not big enough, or skilled enough to win the fight, so he takes it. What now? You just lost in a "fair" fight after all. I know size doesn't always matter in a fight, but my point is that there are naturally going to be people who are more skilled and some who are less. You can't change that, you simply cannot no matter what. Even the greatest professional fighters get old and eventually lose. Muhammed Ali was quite possibly the greatest boxer of all time; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammed_Ali . In his prime, I'd agree he could beat anyone alive. I'm sure pretty much everyone here could win in a fight against Muhammed Ali today, considering his age and suffering with Parkinsons disease. Not that it would be honorable at all to fight an old, crippled man.

One on one isn't a fair fight if you are 5'6" tall and 145 lbs; but your opponent is 6'10" tall and 270 lbs. Oh, and by the way your opponent lifts weights A LOT and is a karate blackbelt. And he's really messed up in the head after coming back from Iraq where they say he liked killing people... There will always be inequities. That is why we have systems of law so that everyones rights are respected and we don't have to resort to whoever is biggest, or whose got the biggest knife or fastest gun, or who has the biggest posse. With an impartial judge, and the ability of both sides to have trained lawyers "fight" for you, everyone becomes as equal as is possible this side of heaven.

Corrected on the original post. Thank you.

fair enough, it is my assumption that Iran has a covert nuclear weapons program...though you fail to see my point. My point is, that it is now possible for a rogue regime to develop nuclear weapons (i.e. Pakistan and Israel have nukes; N. Korea might). And having nuclear weapons enables a said regime to exercise considerably more power to do things which might be unpleasant to those around them. If more responsible nations (such as France) do not have sufficient resources to stand up to rouge nations, the evil rulers will be able to do despicable things. I do not believe the US, EU, etc. would be able to counter nuclear threats without having nuclear weapons of their own. I should point what I beleive to be your major assumptions to be fair to you. It seems to me that you believe should the US, Russia, China, Britian, France completely eliminate their nuclear stockpiles, then N. Korea, Iran (?) and any other would-be nations would likewise do so. I strongly disagree. But a very large portion (IIRC, about 50%...I'll try to look up the reference when i get more time) of the worlds military budget is the US forces. And I wouldn't call Great Britian's forces "posturing", nor would I consider them at all insignificant. So having more nations really doesn't add a whole lot here IMO. Now you are making assumptions about how Iran (for example) would play. If we were to send an amphibious invasion to Iran, this force must enter the gulf of Oman...and satellite coverage would not be necessary to monitor this region and nuke an invasion force. Or the US fleet could be nuked when "discovered" by an Iranian fishing vessel at which time the atomic bombing of Tel Aviv would immediately commence. There are lots of other possibilities..you could try to use your imagination here I'd like to point out that the US has not been attacked by another nation (AQ is an exception) in the past 50 years. Certainly both Great Britian and Japan (whom the US has fought wars in the past) have no intention of any military intervention during this time period. Do you really think that Stalin, who and annexed many eastern european nations, or parts of nations, such as Poland and Finland, would have been less aggresive had the US not had nuclear weapons? Or would Stalin have tried for more? Seems like its works pretty good to me. Don't misunderstand me, I'd like there to be a better way. But some ruthless people only understand force and unfortunately they occasionally do rule over others. Hitler, Stalin, and many other evil people who happened to rule over others were never stopped by international condemnation or the like. Not really. We could still retaliate against whoever did this. And this is not the only possible scenario...a single nation with the only nuclear weapons could demand - and get - favorable treaties and trade agreements for example. We have already discussed in this thread how N. Korea uses the threat of developing a nuclear weapon to get foreign aid. Well, the Y2K bug turned out to be insignificant. It seems people did think ahead here and did what they had to do before a crisis occured. We seem to come from a different set of underlying assumptions regarding how people act, so unless we can address these issues, I don't think we will resolve this difference. But nonetheless, it won't matter. Obama is merely posturing for a headline here, I'm sure the US will not become nuclear free.

Agreed. I have no problem with reducing our stockpile of nuclear weapons, for the very reason you state. That, and I'm sure it costs considerable money to maintain these...in fact S. Africa once had nuclear weapons and has since dismantled them as they realized it cost a considerable amount of their money and did not provide them with any meaningful benefit. I beleive Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, however, are different situations. But my main point regarding "winning the arms race" is that there has to be a credible deterent available for us (or anyone) to take a meaningful stand. Completely eliminating our nuclear weapons takes away one of the biggest deterents we have against any other nation with (or striving to acheive) nuclear weapons, and IMO isn't outweighed at all by the negligible "moral standing" we gain by doing so. To Bascule: As far as claims by Iran that they are not trying to develop WMDs, well I supose this could be the case. Its really hard to know for certain now isn't it? After all, Iran could simply have a very long timeframe in mind...develop a "peaceful" nuclear power industry and "satelite" launch capacility. Then transfer this technology over to the military sector once these are in place. But then, Iran isn't the only concern. There are claims of Syria trying to develop nukes for example, and its almost certain Israel has them.

And having to use less mass of fuel means you don't have to carry as much with you in the first place (which further increases the effectiveness of the fuel you are carrying).

Interesting. I think it is important for us to research ways to prevent/mitigate catastrophes such as these. I now see there may be a way to stop a super-volcano (like Yellowstone) from going off. In another post it was discussed how to stop world-wide destruction from an asteroid impact ( http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=38915&highlight=asteroid ) but until now I did not think such was possible for supervolcanos. And we could get cheap energy as a bonus!

How? How would they lose their country? Seriously, if Iran has nukes and a decent delivery system which they are also working on, many nations are going to be VERY hesitant to declare war for fear of retaliation. And its not like Iran wouldn't have allies, particularly in the Middle East (Especially if they destroy Israel). And the world does need their oil, they could probably buy allies (such as China and India), or at least buy neutrality with these nations, with favorable trade arrangements. An arrangement with Russia might also be possible with Iranian influence/help regarding the Russian problems in Chechnya. I'd like to point out a conventional war against them would be exceedingly difficult (think of Iraq times 5). The US was able to oust Saddaam and stablize Iraq to where a new government is now in place, but that took most of our abilities. Could the world muster up 5 times this force to oust the Iranian leaders? I personally doubt it. Add to this that, having nuclear weapons means they could use tactical nukes to defend themselves...they could push one button and the US/Allied Fleet in the Indian Ocean is vaporized... It would be most difficult to win a war by conventional means against nuclear weapons since any stronghold (i.e. naval forces, invasion fleet, ground bases, home cities) could be readily destroyed. I agree the arms race will never end. Which is the better solution: 1) trying to stop it by unilaterally laying down our weapons and expecting/hoping everyone else does likewise or 2) making sure we win/are always winning the arms race? The answer depends, of course, on your philosopy of other people. I would personally prefer a position of strength over a position of weakness.

We do not believe Iran has nuclear weapons. Intelligence can be incomplete or misleading. Either way, it is probably only a matter of time until they do have nuclear weapons and a delivery system for it. I think its a question of when, not if. To Bascule: I don't necessarily agree that Iran would stop with just a small fission bomb, they might indeed proceed with developing large fussion bombs, neutron bombs, etc. And even if they do not, a few fission bombs with a decent delivery system are certainly more than enough to do immense damage, particularly to a small nation like Israel and to provide adequate protection against a military response by the US or EU... disregarding potentially devestating destruction of their civilian populations, tactical nukes could also disable any invading naval or land forces intent on retaliation. If they were the only nation with nukes, I agree with you they would only need to use them once (and then they would essentially rule the world until such time as other nations re-developed nukes). I'm not all convinced the world will necessarily stop Iran (though I suspect Israel feels they must do something). The world certainly did not stop N. Korea, Pakistan, India, Israel, etc. from gaining nuclear weapons. Why should Iranian situation be any different than Pakistan or N. Korea? Please elaborate on what, exactly, the world will do to disable the leadership of Iran before they get nuclear weapons? I also completely agree that

What about Iran? Iran has a very strong, religiously motivated desire to destry Israel. Should only Iran have nukes (not that Israel would ever give them up), I think it possible they would nuke Israel. What would/could the world do then? The west might impose sanctions, which would be tough to enforce as the west needs the Iranian oil. Should sanctions be imposed, I am fairly certain other countries would be more than happy to assist Iran in bypassing them. The world could militarily attack Iran. That would be tough considering Iran would be the only nation with nukes...could Iranian nuclear armed missiles reach Rome? London? Washington? Wouldn't most nations chose to not have their capital destroyed rather than take on Iran and risk being nuked themselves (I would hope the SDI would be working well in this case). Or the west could choose to criticise, but otherwise ignore the attack. This would have the effect of encouraging further actions by Iran...maybe they would retaliate against the Iraqis next for the Iraq-Iran war in the 80's? Maybe they next take over Iraq and Saudi Arabia by force, thus controlling the bulk of the worlds oil? Really, having capitulated once, at what point would the world then be willing to stand up to them? As logn as Israel "exists", I doubt that any actions from the US will be sufficient to cause Iran to stop trying to develop their own. Particularly since Israel probably has nuclear weapons of its own.

How about running it seven times? Run a filter to determine which of these seven times resulted in the largest value. For example, if run # 6 resulted in a 4 (for example) and all other runs were smaller (3 or less) then the answer is 6. Running it again, if the highest value was in run # 1, then the answer is 1. Repeat as desired. If there is a tie, simply do it again until there isn't a tie. As the numbers 1 to 5 will be randomly selected, the highest value in runs# 1 to 7 should also be random. Essentially you are relying on the randomness of the occurance of the highest value, 1 to 5, within a specific set of seven runs to determine whether to pick 1 to 7 as your value.