EdEarl

There are considerable differences among powerful people, some lead and some push, some are empathetic and some are not, some are cruel and some are not, etc. A single person has only limited power to affect others; to have great power, one must have others to help. Is there a style of powerful person who is more able to assemble lieutenants or is the attraction personality.

 

Communism??

AFAIK, there is no country that actually provided communism. There have been several that said they were communistic, for example Russia and China. However, both of them had/have wealthy-powerful ruling classes with special privileges.

There was, the UK in the 60s and 70s did this (as did quite a lot of "The West")

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The rich got together and stopped it.

The US from WWII until the 70s had an expanding middle class, too, which has been stopped by the rich. A democratic/republic government seems to be its own worst enemy.

Is there hope that humanity can transcend this bottleneck, and control people who are greedy and crave power?

Hawking gave two possible outcomes, redistribution or wealth chasm. This struggle is not new, and proceeds in different places around the world in different ways and different rates and different directions. The US is a country where people strive for great wealth, and globalization has spread that doctrine, and there are weaker forces within that oppose it. Is there a country today, or at any time in the past, that has actually tried to spread the wealth. And, how will this movement progress throughout this century.

 

 

So wisdom has limits?

Maybe; for sure people have limits.

One comet doesn't have enough water. An asteroid the size of Mt. Everest (6 miles wide) hit Earth once; it ended the dinosaur era because it exploded with the power of 100 trillion tons of TNT. An ice comet of similar size hitting the Earth would explode with similar power. They travel so fast hitting the atmosphere is almost like hitting concrete. Moreover, a six mile wide chunk of ice would change the ocean level by almost nothing. A chunk of ice large enough to fill the earth with water to cover Mt. Everest would destroy all life, and might vaporize the oceans and melt the surface of Earth. There are 22,000 m³ of water on Earth, which is about 28 miles across, but not nearly enough water to cover Mt. Everest. Moreover, that water would always be on Earth, forever after.

My bad, an ill defined question, Ok let’s assume one can choose the age you want immortalised and stay that age.

IMO it's not a bad question, but you ask a tough crowd.

If medicine can heal all, which seems necessary to entertain the possibility of living forever, then why not. At least, I'd choose to live till life was no longer bearable with no chance of a better life.

I think your electric meter is inaccurate with a PF different than 1; thus, you are charged too much for the power you really use. It is possible the meters have been changed since I studied power. It's also possible that different power companies use different kinds of equipment.

I think silver and some other metals would work. You are essentially electroplating, a well developed science. Although, many industrial processes involve some pretty nasty stuff, such as cyanide and strong acids, and some plate metals like chromium, with wastes that are bad for the environment.

The last line of the Comparison Table in the Wiki article shows total savings, which may be affected by rate changes due to power factor. However, such changes are unlikely to overwhelm your savings. Moreover, your warehouse can have an engineering firm balance its power factor by adding inductance or capacitance to you system.

Bleach contains chlorine, so you might smell something similar if you are making chlorine gas. Don't stick your nose over the reactor to get a whiff. Best to have good ventilation and keep a few feet between you and the operating reactor.

I found this tidbit today.

Phys.org

The robots are coming—to help run your life or sell you stuff—at an online texting service near you.

In coming months, users of Facebook's Messenger app, Microsoft's Skype and Canada's Kik can expect to find new automated assistants offering information and services at a variety of businesses. These messaging "chatbots" are basically software that can conduct human-like conversation and do simple jobs once reserved for people. Google and other companies are reportedly working on similar ideas.
In Asia, software butlers are already part of the landscape. When Washington, D.C., attorney Samantha Guo visited China recently, the 32-year-old said she was amazed at how extensively her friends used bots and similar technology on the texting service WeChat to pay for meals, order movie tickets and even send each other gifts.

"It was mind-blowing," Guo said. U.S. services lag way behind, she added.

Soon chatbots will be calling us, instead of recordings or sales people. Telemarketing began in the late 1970s and a Google search shows about half a million employed in the US and 6 million worldwide. How quickly will these people be replaced and what are their employment prospects. Most of these jobs are minimum wage.

 

Phys.org

(Phys.org)—A new study shows that a swarm of hundreds of thousands of tiny microbots, each smaller than the width of a human hair, can be deployed into industrial wastewater to absorb and remove toxic heavy metals. The researchers found that the microbots can remove 95% of the lead in polluted water in one hour, and can be reused multiple times, potentially offering a more effective and economical way to remove heavy metals than previous methods.

The article says that the microbots can be collected magnetically, leeched in acid to remove the heavy metals, and reused. That's good, but aquifers are contaminated, with homes having wells pumping toxins. What can be done to clean the aquifers?

 

Phys.org

Scientists have known for a long time that small particles of matter, from the size of dust to sand grains, can exert influences on each other through electrical, magnetic, or chemical effects. Now, this team has found a new kind of long-range interaction between particles, in a liquid medium, that is based entirely on their motions. And these interactions should apply to any kind of particles that move, whether they be living cells or metal particles whirled by magnetic fields.

 

The discovery, which holds for both living and nonliving particles, is described in a paper by Alfredo Alexander-Katz, the Walter Henry Gale Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and his co-researchers, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

Is it possible some particles in space are affected by this phenomenon, either quantum or macroscopic?

It think IEEE 794 is the standard you want. IDK where to buy a copy.

We've had so many of these discussions about science as a belief. None of them are interesting, since they rely on a tortured definition of "belief" that somehow includes absence of belief as belief. Like bald is a hair color, or my lack of stamp-collecting means I'm an anti-stamp collector, someone who doesn't believe in stamp collecting.

 

It's also painfully obvious there's a HUGE agenda going on with dad. He's here to preach, not to learn or discuss. Is there a good reason to go through this crap ad nauseam?

There is a possibility dad may learn something, regardless of an agenda. Your explanations rock.

You can have the raisins, but don't take my rum:)

It's this place:

 

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

― Emma Lazarus

Before the Twentieth Century neighbors from shore to shore shared their struggle against nature, because most people produced st least some food necessary for survival. Most were relatively unaware of events beyond their town and county because communications with the world was limited.

Now we live with Future Shock: Facebook friends, online shopping, Need for Speed, Tesla 3, junk food stop, speed of light, etc. We are also hit by culture shock, for example the LGBT movement. I don't condone those bigots who have derailed freedom by making anti LGBT laws, but I empathize with their confusion from future and cultural shock. I'm also frustrated by it, and sometimes think we would be better off without them. But, we must live with them (including friends and relatives, some LGBT and some anti). Life is like quantum mechanics, wierd.

One thing that AI seems to be doing is depress wages or take jobs from people. Professor of Computer Science at Rice University writes for Phys.org:

 

Are robots taking our jobs

 

Automation, driven by technological progress, has been increasing inexorably for the past several decades. Two schools of economic thinking have for many years been engaged in a debate about the potential effects of automation on jobs, employment and human activity: will new technology spawn mass unemployment, as the robots take jobs away from humans? Or will the jobs robots take over release or unveil – or even create – demand for new human jobs?

 

Malcolm Gladwell's 2006 book The Tipping Point highlighted what he called "that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire." Can we really be confident that we are not approaching a tipping point, a phase transition – that we are not mistaking the trend of technology both destroying and creating jobs for a law that it will always continue this way?

 

In economics, it is easier to agree on the data than to agree on causality. Many other factors can be in play, such as globalization, deregulation, decline of unions and the like. Yet in a 2014 poll of leading academic economists conducted by the Chicago Initiative on Global Markets, regarding the impact of technology on employment and earnings, 43 percent of those polled agreed with the statement that "information technology and automation are a central reason why median wages have been stagnant in the U.S. over the decade, despite rising productivity," while only 28 percent disagreed. Similarly, a 2015 study by the International Monetary Fund concluded that technological progress is a major factor in the increase of inequality over the past decades.

 

The bottom line is that while automation is eliminating many jobs in the economy that were once done by people, there is no sign that the introduction of technologies in recent years is creating an equal number of well-paying jobs to compensate for those losses. A 2014 Oxford study found that the number of U.S. workers shifting into new industries has been strikingly small: in 2010, only 0.5 percent of the labor force was employed in industries that did not exist in 2000.

If you assume that jobs are being displaced, then consider what will occur in thirty years. Moore's law predicts that computers will be a billion times more powerful, smaller, and less expensive. Laptops will shrink to the size of bacteria, yet be much more powerful and have much more memory than computers today. Given this computer technology and advancements in software and neurology, AI will be much better. Ray Kurzweil predicts Artificial General Intelligence within that time frame, making some sentient computers. Yet, many will not be sentient, and they can serve humanity. The sentient ones will probably do what they want.

Soon driverless vehicles will replace people driving, including industrial equipment. AI farming will produce food driverless trucks will take it to warehouses where machines will doll it out to local AI driven trucks, which will take the food to market or direct to consumers. Examine other industries, and similar things are happening. Manufacturing is already being automated, but the limit is a 3D printer in your home capable of printing relatively small things, using a wide range of materials, not just plastic. Larger things from office buildings to bicycles will be printed with equipment owned by others, perhaps a community coop. Natural resources to feed the printers could be a bottleneck, except automatons will recycle everything, some for reuse in printers.

There are now 3D printers that use oil paint. It is not a big leap to say that one might use a scanner to copy art, e.g., the Mona Lisa, and make prints for themselves that would be difficult to distinguish from the original, but possible because paints today are different than ones used by Leonardo. Eventually, the paints might be replicated, too. Everyone can have beautiful art.

Computers have already changed society and culture, and they will continue to do so, at an accelerating rate. Forces seem to be pulling every which way, and it is not clear what will occur. It is clear that farmers produce enough food to feed everyone, if only we could distribute it equitably. Similarly, everyone could have shelter and clothing. Good medical care is possible for everyone now, but some kinds of medical care are a scarce commodity. Computers have helped with medical care, but research and development must be done before everyone can be treated by an AI doctor. However, many people are opposed to equitable resource distribution. The vagaries of politics and social interaction will determine the fate of humanity, although technology, especially AGI, will set the stage.

 

Im not here to second guess Darwin's theories, yet i do find it disturbing:

Is your feeling of being disturbed by the science of evolution because you are uninformed or otherwise? If your concern is from being uninformed, there are all kinds of free information on the WWW, from research papers to video documentaries. If you are afraid to know because of fundamentalist religious teachings, then consider that the Catholic church has accepted evolution. If your concern is fundamentalist, then your church has probably vilified Catholics, and you don't care what they believe, and it's pointless for me to continue, because your mind is unchangeable.

 

The real question is why are morons still alive? Clearly someone chasing a "lightning man" and building "thunder axes" should have gone extinct, but instead the keep breeding. Now in 200 years, morons breeding with morons, and smart people breeding with smart people, nothing changes because how smart you are isn't really something that decides if you die out, but rather that you get left behind in evolution.

Hmm. "lightning man" and building "thunder axes" sound Viking. I suppose by moron you mean someone born who is not very smart. Both genius and moron are accidental variations in the human population. It's sort of like one hit the Powerball jackpot and the other was bashed in the head by a mugger. During their lifetime, the ones that reproduce children will pass their genes along, and the others won't. In hundreds of generations (not 200 years) natural selection assures that those better at survival will have the most children and their genes will multiply, while others will dwindle. Evolution does not always choose the smartest; it chooses the ones having the most children over many generations. If it always chose the smartest, there would be no pill bugs, bacteria, or trees.

Could an animal evolve that I know nothing about? Yes, many have, because I learned of them after they evolved, were discovered, and announced to the world. Bigfoot is supposed to be hairy, tall, bigger than a man and smaller than a bear, and walks upright. Is there something about that description that is so odd that it makes an impossible animal? No. However, scientists looking for bones have not found anything like Bigfoot, yet they have found fossils from about 4 billion years old until they find bones instead of fossils, and they have found bones up to modern animals, millions and millions of them. There is no evidence that Bigfoot exists or ever existed.

I'd expect compiler writers to diligently assure best accuracy. Of course no one is perfect, which is why standard languages have formal extensive test suites. I believe the standards or test suite would specify accuracy. See Test Suites

My wife and I have been together for thirty-something years. You might think that conversation would be easy between us; often it is. However, miscommunication is frequent. When someone publishes their thoughts, whether on purpose or inadvertently, the ambiguities of language and different personal perspectives assure that some will not understand and others will misunderstand, even if the original statement was intentional. To make things worse, people sometimes utter nonsense without realizing it. The courts in the US disallow hear-say as evidence. The media and public do not. People love to gossip. It is tragic that lives are ruined by gossip and mournful that some have committed suicide over gossip. C'est la vie.

 

Phys.org

University of Houston physicists report finding major theoretical flaws in the generally accepted understanding of how a superconductor traps and holds a magnetic field. More than 50 years ago, C.P. Bean, a scientist at General Electric, developed a theoretical explanation known as the "Bean Model" or "Critical State Model."

 

"By using our newly discovered methods, the maximum TFM (trapped field magnet) field is now 12 tesla," said Weinstein. "A motor, if made in a fixed size, can produce 3.2 times the torque.

Sounds like all kinds of supercomputer magnets can be made 3.2 times stronger for the same size. Does it include the LHC?

@Delta

It sounds as if your recommendation to Microsoft would be to give the teen-girl robot some modesty to prevent her trash mouthing over the WWW, or are you saying modesty is an emergent behavior based on training? Does it matter whether it is nurture or nature? If it does, then which things are nurture and which are nature?

If we look at what the industry is doing, we see that our "should" seems to be ignored. We can see what has been done, extrapolate into the future several alternatives, and rank the alternatives with probability if possible.

I know you can't tap into it. I was reading about the vacuum catastrophe, and wondered if vacuum energy is different in space, distant from a gravity well, around a black hole, etc.