Brave "New" World

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by Servant_, May 14, 2012.

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  1. Gravage Registered Senior Member

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    Merely hypotheses, nothing concrete.

    I don't know where do you actually pick up this stuff, but it isn't true, people are not happier or healthier than they used to be, food from my own garden, without pesticides or anything else chemical is the helathiest you can get, gm food chemical fertilizers they all are questionable quality, not to mention chemical fertilizers pollute water.


    I'm talking about today's world where you can afford this, however there are less and less places where you can "hide".

    If people want to smoke let them do it, but clean air is a much greater problem, yesterday I read in newspaper that Europeans live shorter for 2 years (that was great study) because of the polluted air, just how much than Americans live shorter?

    Yes, we do. For you who are successful and everything is as it should be (no health problems, no food problem no torturing on the work and etc...) there is no problem, but to those who are poorer than you, life is actually bitter.

    And all of these organization have proven to be a waste of money and time, not to mention WHO said, my god swine flu has the potential to kill millions of people, yeah right...


    And new diseases arrive from time to time, stress food pollution and etc., you cannot beat mortality that's one thing which is 100% sure, you die one way or another, you've been utopistic here.

    I fully support on what you're saying but the question remains will oil and gas industry actually allow this, I watched electric cars on Viasat explorer, than on hydrogen and etc. that's all ok, but we will see how the things will go. However, it must be noted that CO2 that is in the atmosphere will stay there for 200 years in the atmosphere before it gets absorbed in the ocean or something like that.

    Personally, I think there should be control growth of population, but science and technology do have practical limits despite what you say. Everything has limits, even science and technology.


    Which is worse to live lazy in polluted air, water, unemployment or live with fresh air, food, water and be free whatever you do?
    The only thing that should be kept are research in health and medicine.
    Cheers.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    How do you measure happiness? A lot of people have been looking for a way to do this, so if you have figured it out, you should definitely share your methodology. Until then, you're just blowing smoke.

    As for "healthier," we actually do have a way to measure that. It's called longevity. The average lifespan has been increasing steadily since the end of the 19th century, due primarily to four new practices that were discovered by science, and implemented by technology:
    • 1. Public health measures. Covering sewers so the sewage wasn't sloshing in the streets and on the sidewalks. Wrapping food for sale so that it wasn't touching the fixtures in the store, everyone wasn't putting their hands on it, and dirt from the air and people's clothes wasn't landing on it.
    • 2. Indoor plumbing. I don't think this needs much explanation.
    • 3. The automobile. In 1900, the streets of our big cities were literally ankle-deep in horse manure. The municipal authorities sent guys out with shovels who piled it up in wagons (horse-drawn wagons, hardly an efficient process), but it was a long drive to any place where that much manure could be dumped.
    • 4. Modern scientific medicine. The invention of the microscope allowed biologists to see bacteria and other pathogens for the first time. The twin medical technologies of antibiotics and vaccines were developed in tandem.
    At the end of the 19th century, even in a prosperous country like the USA, infant mortality was still around 80%, just as in the Stone Age. The life expectancy of an adult who had survived childhood was in the 40s. Today infant mortality is so low that most Americans don't know anyone who has suffered the unbearable tragedy of losing a preadolescent son or daughter. Now we calculate life expectancy from birth instead of the end of adolescence, and it's in the 70s.

    We are far, far healthier than our ancestors. Please accept these facts and stop spouting Greenie Luddite rubbish. No one will take you seriously if you keep posting preposterous crap like this.

    Yes, many of the chemicals used in food production and processing have a negative statistical effect on health and longevity. But modern industrial farming and food preparation, for the first time in history, produce enough food so that no one has to starve to death. Statistically, that more than compensates for its negative aspects.

    In other posts I have noted that the malnutrition problem in the Third World has nothing to do with an inability to feed everyone. The sparsely-populated Western Hemisphere has enough agricultural land to make every human being on earth morbidly obese. We ship tons of food to poor countries as simple acts of charity. Their leaders confiscate it and sell it on the black market, and the profits serve their own selfish purposes.

    As for genetic modification, I think the Greenies and Luddites are at it again. They make every problem seem simple because they don't bother analyzing it. Some modifications have unhealthy effects, but others don't.

    Actually the biggest scare these days is the medications that we take. They pass through our bodies and their metabolites (or in many cases some of the original chemicals that were not broken down metabolically) go into our sewage. Water treatment plants are supposed to remove this stuff, but they're only built to identify and remove molecules that occur in parts per million. These new polluting chemicals occur in parts per billion, and no existing water treatment technology is that sensitive.

    As a result of all the hormone supplements in our urine passing undetected through the treatment facilities, our rivers are full of them. Hermaphrodite fish have been discovered in the Potomac River, my own watershed. Now before you run out and start yelling "Fraggle Rocker says you all have to stop taking hormone supplements because you're polluting my water," you'd better buy a helmet, a bullet-proof vest, a taser, and a very fast SUV. Because every menopausal and post-menopausal woman in America will want to kill you.

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    It's an issue of quality of life. I had to live with a mother who went through menopause without any medications--the screaming, the crying, the threats, the utterly irrational behavior. It was horrible for both of us. It's worth a few health risks, for children and their mothers to never have to go through that again.

    Shorter than what? As I keep reminding you, human life expectancy is longer than at any time in history or prehistory. In Japan, where everyone is legally required to smoke

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    , it's up in the 80s.

    We've made enormous strides against pollution. The "London fog" that was so famous 120 years ago turned out to be smog, not fog. Today it's gone.

    When I first moved to Los Angeles to attend university in 1960, there was a 13-story limit on buildings. On many days you couldn't see the top floors of the buildings. Since the invention of earthquake gimbals, L.A. now has many buildings with more than forty stories, and you can see their roofs every day. Most days you can even see the mountains north of the city; I didn't even know there were mountains there 50 years ago.

    Of course the biggest step toward curbing pollution is telecommuting, which was made possible by technology.

    You sure make a lot of ridiculous assumptions. At 69 I have quite a few health problems.

    Life has always been less comfortable for the poor. Duh? But my wife was a social worker for many years and she can assure you that the people in America who are called "poor" would be considered "wealthy" in many countries. They have a private residence with locking doors, a weatherproof roof, heating and air conditioning; everybody has their own bed, except couples and very young children; they have indoor plumbing to a toilet, a lavatory, a shower and a kitchen sink; they have a stove, a refrigerator with freezer, a microwave oven, and various small appliances such as toasters, blenders, crock pots and coffeemakers; they have a TV and a telephone (these days usually a cellphone even among the poor) and even many low-income people have a computer with an internet connection; almost all of them have a car, except people who live in cities like New York or Washington with excellent public transporation; their children go to school, and when they graduate, if they've worked hard, it's not too difficult for them to enter a university so they'll be richer than their parents; despite their "poverty" they have a modest amount of discretionary income: we routinely advise foreigners who want to see "America's poor" for themselves that the easiest way to find them is to go to McDonald's at dinnertime.

    If you showed a person from Mali or Bangladesh or Uruguay what we call "poverty" in the USA he would immediately volunteer to bring his entire village over here in order to live like that.

    Regular flu killed tens of millions of people a hundred years ago. Smallpox, the Plague, poliomyelitis, whooping cough... there were hundreds of fatal diseases in the old days that we now have cures for, or in many cases simply eradicated them with vaccines. Starvation was also a big killer and we have a cure for that too: a huge food surplus produced by technology.

    You cannot beat mortality but we've sure pushed it back. I'm older than all eight of my great-grandparents when they died around 100 years ago. And I'm still working, singing and dancing.

    Do you deliberately ignore my posts? I must have posted seven times on this website the news that population growth has slowed and will reach zero in 80-90 years. At that point it will begin to decrease. The reason? The most effective contraceptive is prosperity.

    Once again you're just parroting the trash talk of the Greenies and Luddites. Do you have one single shred of evidence to support this ridiculous assertion?

    You must live on some really crazy planet, if those are the only choices you have. Come to America where you can build your own future.

    As for "free," as Oscar Mandel put it so well: "Freedom is merely that particular form of slavery which we happen to enjoy." You want to be a slave to nature. I'd rather be a slave to civilization. It's more fun and I'll outlive you by a factor of two. Oh, and I get to have an electric guitar. That beats anything you've got in your Luddite paradise.

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  5. Gravage Registered Senior Member

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    On some things I can agree however the immortality what Electric Fetus said it just ain't possible, what I think I hope in more peacefully future human lifespan will rise to an upper limit (as much as it can be possible).
    However, I also have to point out I was listening both optimistic and pessimistic scientists, I just recently read books of Joseph Tainter and I was on his lectures, the man has good points, so I wouldn't be too optimistic as you are.
    People still die because a lot in towns, the air gets polluted more and more people in EU are living 2 years shorter than before thanks to polluted air, I don't if any study has been done for USA, but the results could be worse, so basically we have the sword with 2 blades, yes high-tech makes us able to live longer but it is also killing because of its side-effects, like working all day long, trying to pay bills, stress on the job, stress on the street, noise, ending in the hospital air pollution, food pollution, damages to eco-systems and etc., high-tech is more harmful than useful.

    By year 2050. we might lose fish food, if we don't do something to prevent it. I really don't want to eat artificial laboratory food...
    Time will tell if optimists or pessimists are right or wrong.
    None can be sure about these future things.
    Some scientists say the population will grow and other scientists say population will fall, we will se who is right and who is wrong.

    However I must say that people when have little are warmer, and are actually happier, I watched this every time I go in villages, I'm not making this up.
    I'll rather have a clean air, safe food from my garden or hunt than being stuck in the computer right now.
    Unfortunately I'm forced because of science, technology and politics force me to fight for survival, so where is the development in this, I'd rather depend on myself than on others.

    You obviously live in some distant and utopistic planet only doing what you do with computers, this is why you don't see people you see only things. Computer/internet addiction is a serious problem because it cannot be treated, and I think you are have that problem.
    Stress is present in every day, I feel it every day as well as my family does, this is not development I want. Competition is bad because it is stressful, you either end up on the street, or manage to succeed, but when you succeed, you end up in the hospital very often, because of too much stress.
    So, no I really don't know in what world you live, but these are facts, people eat, drink take drugs too much because they are depressed by this kind of life (thanks to your science and technology), and depression rises in cities, while it's better in villages.
    those who are happy in high-tech are only those who actually sell products and make people addict to technology, which is wrong.
    I enjoy being without cell phone and computer, thank goodness I can afford this 2 months a year.

    And what do you have against marihuana, it relaxes people that's why they use it. You obviously don't have peace inside you, otherwise you wouldn't be so much aggressive.

    You say you were in the desert in Arizona and that you were bored, but how can you be bored when you need to find food, plus desert is the most peaceful place on the planet. So you're trying to say that people who live in desert or anywhere else are stupid because they rather like this kind of life, despite its insecurity?
    People when young rush in town, but when they get older, they are trying to escape somewhere in nature to find peace from town's jungle, I bet the same will happen with you.
    Cheers.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2012
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  7. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    Just as hypothetical as everything collapsing and we all dying because we couldn't adapt. The trends so far has been that we have adapted, when iron ores ran out we switch to taconite, right now were seeing the oil industry embrace shale oil and tar sands to replace drying up conventional oil resources, which mind you tar sands are far more polluting but also more expensive which makes alternatives more competitive, Brazil succeeding in production of ethanol fuel, the worlds interest in electrification and electric cars is growing, etc. There is 3.85 x 10^24 W of usable solar energy hitting the earth every second, that is nearly 8000 times the amount of energy humanity uses for everything (electricity, transport, food, everything!) at present. One nickel Iron Asteroid 2 km wide is more metal than humanity has ever mined, and there are hundreds of them that size and larger. The energy and materials is clearly out there its simply a matter of extracting it. Solar energy is already becoming economical, heck I saw African farmers buy panels!

    You can look up average lifespans in the WHO, Standard of Living are documented by multiple intergovernmental agencies. Sure there is pollution, but organic standard can't feed 7 billion people or provide them with long health lives, I've seen with my own eyes how well people live on subsistence farming on less than a dollar a day and they live hard painful lives with many children as labors and insurance for the ones that die off before reaching adulthood. As for toxins people living via subsistence have to inhale smoke several hours a day, eat foods with high rates of harmful bacterium and parasites.

    How could we afford it if everyone was to live that way? Who would make the guns, bullets, cloths, everything? I've seen subsistence farmers having to make do with very very little and its not easy.

    Compared to what, how long did Europeans live during the 18's for example? or during the 15's for example. Pollution is a problem and its something that can be fixed without having to do away with modern living, we can switch to cleaner alternatives, we can keep modern medicine and improve modern agriculture, gm perennials could do away with tilling and fertilizer and pesticides and herbicides! But we simply can't do away with all technology or even regress in a even a small degree without having to allow millions of people to die, and die rapidly!

    and for those that live in the bush without modern technology because they can't afford it, its down right horrific living!

    I would not call the curbing of polio, the extinction of small pox, the pushing back and retention of almost every infectious disease as waste of time and money. 'Swine flu' does have the potential to kill millions, why flus have historically killed millions, The Spanish flu killed over 50 million people or 3% of the worlds population in just one year (1918)!

    Nothing is impossible, human existence might be extended indefinitely via cybernetics: a machine does not get disease or need food and could likely remain in storage without any power at all, if the technology ever comes into existence that we can upload our minds into machines than yes mortality will be "cured" and immortality will be achieved. There is no evidence that this is impossible, as long as the human mind is a purely physical construct of this reality than its functions can one day be simulated, emulated and surpassed. Saying otherwise is just a foolish as saying "power manned flight is impossible, if god meant for us to fly he would have given us wings!". As long as we continue to develop technological anything that is possible will one day become achievable. Of course such an outcome is not a utopia, as we will have to give up many human moralities that at present we would find wrong or horrific, nor is this outcome certain, we may very well destroy are selves by nuclear-biological war or an inability to adapt to limiting resources and technological problems as you describe. But in the long term over millions of years humanity will either go extinct or evolve, we won't be able to remain stagnant as your suggesting "living in harmony in natural". What will be better for "nature" is when humanity leaves the earth completely, either by extinction or we literally fly away, in our present form as a more suitable one for outer space.

    The price of natural resources go up as they become more scares and harder to mine, its the reason for the present price (we will never see $1 a gallon again). The Oil and gas industry won't be able to last forever, there energy returns have drop from once 50/1 to now 5/1 and tar sands are as low as 2/1. There is natural gas below are feet everywhere, a virtually infinite supply, but to extract it all would lead to energy returns below 1/1 and thus we would have to spend more energy mining it then we get out of it. We will have to switch and already with the present prices seeing the beginning of a change over.

    Global warming is not cataclysm, we will be able to adapt to it, yes millions will be forced to move, cities will have to be abandon to the oceans over the next centuries, and technology will need to increase the carrying capacity of the planet (either that or we will need to freeze population growth, which is not impossible as population growth in slowing already and we have countries with negative growth even). I'm more worried that oil will give out too rapidly, that would cause a massive and sudden global disaster that can't be adapted too quickly, the present rate of alternative energy hand over will take many decades, and physically can't be done much faster.

    The limits of science and technology are at what is physically impossible. We know for example that it is physically possible to make an analogy neural net processor that weighs only 1.5 kg and take up only 1.15 liters and uses only 30-40 watts of power, and yet is capable of complex thought, language and abstractions. We also know that it is possible to house that processor in a self replicating body that weighs generally less then 90 kg, lasts for 70+ years with good care, and requires about 140 watts and hour. We know that it is possible because one is being born every 15 second! We also know that we can exceed its capabilities in most ways already, we can make things that can move far faster, move more and more efficiently, we can make things that can be repaired completely and last even longer, we can make artificial minds that at present in specific tasks greatly exceed these natural ones, and that these artificial minds are evolving at a pseudo-Lamarckian rate millions of times faster than cruel natural Darwinian evolutions, such that they have gone from the general intelligence of a virus to that of a rodent in only 150 years (nature took 4 billion years to make the same jump), with specific intelligences already exceeding that of any natural mind decades ago. There is no physical limiting reason we know of that we can't make a mind that exceeds these natural ones in general intelligence, even if at first it has to be far larger and far more energy consuming and not self replicating.

    There no physical limiting reason we know of that would prevent us from sustaining and advance present civilization. We already have the photovoltaic technology that is efficient and energy positive enough, its simply a matter of production, to utilize the known ~1000 watts per meter of photon energy that hits the earth. We have had the technology to launch humans into space, have had it for decades, its simply a matter of us investing in it if we had too.

    Science and technology is not what is limiting mankind, mankind is limited by its own mental faults of being hairless apes, driven by emotion rather then logic, driven by ideologies that set upon become emotionally harmful to change, to the point that we even become delisionally fixated on them and lose sight of even basic complications (like sticking to an ideology that will lead to the death of billions simply because its very zen). The things that threaten us aren't resource limitations or technological but are inability to adapt and change are ethics and outlooks, like how capitalism can't change until after the fact and pays billions suppressing regulatory and social system that could change more rapidly. Worse are inability to choose viable philosophies and poor risk management skills, these will lead to our ruin like your "lets return to nature, technology is bad" philosophy. For example Coal power is estimated to shorten lives and kill over 100,000 people a year, more than even Chernobyl has done according to Green Peace, yet people protest nuclear power far more than coal power because they can't make viable risk assessments such that we humans can't emotionally tabulate the much larger amount of death from increase lung disease and respiratory disorders against the rare nuclear meltdown. People cry about the nuclear waste having to be kept entombed for millenia in order to insure its safe disposal when fossil fuel waste is literally killing us all a little and destroying the planet, presently! Had we been willing say from the 1970's to maintain continuous development of nuclear power in replacement of coal more lives would have been saved today despite the occasion meltdown. More advance reactor designs could have been financed and developed that would have reduced weapons production, have passive safety (can't meltdown under laws of physics), produced far less waste and been able to operate off of fuel supplies that can last for millions of years, Oh and global warming would be a non-issue, we would have it lick much more quickly. But partially because of green movement protesting it they have empowered the fossil fuel industry to keep killing us for decades more and to corn us into trying to having to make intermittent renewable sources like solar, wind and wave our primary energy sources in the long run. I'm pretty sure nuclear fusion will be stamped down if it every becomes viable because it has the horribly scary "n" word in the front!

    Pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers have saved far more people then they have killed, they have allowed for billions of people to actually live and not die of famine! GM has only theoretical dangers that are less dangerous then known dangers of present breeding and hybridizing (killer bees weren't made via gene splicing) or of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. But because it not "natural" by what ever assine definition you can somehow call todays productive breeds and species of crops "natural", GMO must be protested against, whole countries that desperately need food must be encourage not to buy it because it has GMOs, despite the fact of the known health effects and increase death and suffering from malnutrition being far greater than hypothetical health concerns of GMOs.

    Fixed. This is what your asking for, we can't support our present population world wide on some kind of hippie (as Norman Borlaug called it "cloud nine") ideal. I'm not against sustainable agriculture, for the poor I worked with in peace corps it was there only best option, but even they would benefit greatly from fertilizers, pesticides (which I witness eating and killing their crops) and GMOs that are drought resistant, pest resistant, more nutritious, someday even self fertilizing or perennial.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2012
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    If they start equipping us with computer prosthetics, who knows? Some day they may be able to back up our personality (including not just the contents of the brain, but also emotions and physical traits) and give us a new body the way they can now give us a new heart.

    Probably no more than 130. Although again, science may change that. Key systems in our bodies start to break down and the normal rejuvenation of our sleep cycle doesn't repair them. This is why we sleep less as we grow older. It's not exactly that we don't need it, but rather than we can't use it. Perhaps we'll find a way to fix that.

    If we live 35 years longer than our ancestors, but the same civilization takes away two of those years, we've still got an extra 33. Sounds like a win to me.

    If we destroy the oceanic ecosystem, the loss of fish from our diet will be the least of our problems.

    The second derivative of population went negative in the early 1980s. It hasn't changed. The first derivative is falling steadily, which means it will go negative eventually. This must be the third time I've explained that to you. Why do you keep forgetting?

    How do you measure happiness? By the frequency of their smiles?

    How nice it is that you live in a rich civilization so you can have that if you want it, even though most of the rest of us are much happier with our computers.

    You think that before the Industrial Revolution people didn't have to fight for survival??? You're not fighting for survival. Assuming that you live in the USA or one of the other social democracies, if you fail in your endeavors you will still have food, shelter and the chance to start over.

    A little stress is necessary for emotional health and sanity. Without stress everything from your body chemistry to your muscle tone to your intellectual acuity starts to degrade.

    A little fair competition is also important for survival. If you don't have to strive for what you want you get lazy both physically and mentally. I think what you're referring to is the current competition between corporations and individuals. You happen to have the bad luck to live during a Paradigm Shift, the transition from the Industrial Era to the Information Age. Things were just as bad during the Industrial Revolution, just read Dickens. But when the paradigm settles down, life will be much better for your children or grandchildren, just as it is for the grandchildren of the people in the Dickens novels.

    Once again I can't help but think you learned that from TV. In real life 99% of the people who eat non-nutritional foods, drink alcohol, and take psychoactive drugs do it for recreation. It's similar to a concert or a play or a book.

    Huh??? People have been drinking alcohol and using recreational drugs since the Stone Age. Of course there was no recreational food because there was not a very large food surplus until the mechanized farm tools of the Industrial Revolution increased food production. Still, the rich people ate food just for fun.

    More Greenie Luddite propaganda. People in cities have a richer vocabulary and are better educated, so they know what depression is and recognize it when they have it, and can talk about it. In villages nobody wants to stand out, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to say because nobody talks about depression there.

    I've never sold technology. Except for a short interlude, I've always worked on government systems.

    I only have a cellphone for emergencies. I keep it in my glove compartment and take it out to charge it every two weeks. Most people my age don't want to talk on the phone while we're driving or on the toilet. But I spend much of my time using my computer. I use it to learn and practice my music. YouTube is a wonderful resource, and I use Excel to create chord charts and MS Word for lyric sheets.

    This may come as a real shock to you, but even in desert towns there are supermarkets. I was bored because I came from Chicago and there was no civilization in Tucson. No museums, art galleries, symphonies, theaters, etc. Yes Tucson is a city now and it has those things, but this was 55 years ago.

    Death is peaceful. But I'm not looking forward to that either.

    No. I say that most people who prefer a simple life don't have what it takes to live a modern life. In many cases it's just bad luck: born without the right skills, having parents that didn't raise them right, etc. But some people are just overwhelmed by civilization. They can't appreciate it because it comes at them too fast and too heavy.

    I'm 69 and I love Washington DC. When will I start to "get older"?
     
  9. Gravage Registered Senior Member

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    I bet with an colleague that this will never be possible, however creating a new heart that would be possible. We know very, very little about brain.

    Yes, but it still won't last forever.

    True.

    If we destroy the oceanic ecosystem, the loss of fish from our diet will be the least of our problems.

    The second derivative of population went negative in the early 1980s. It hasn't changed. The first derivative is falling steadily, which means it will go negative eventually. This must be the third time I've explained that to you. Why do you keep forgetting?

    How do you measure happiness? By the frequency of their smiles?

    How nice it is that you live in a rich civilization so you can have that if you want it, even though most of the rest of us are much happier with our computers.

    Tell that to health insurance policy, it's still matter of survival, everything is about survival.

    I'm talking about too much stress all the time.

    Competition for me is pretty much like kill or be killed.

    and I'm talking about from experience from other people, every time they have stress they are smoking or drinking just to suppress their sadness

    True, but they drank because they felt better after ll that life.

    More Greenie Luddite propaganda. People in cities have a richer vocabulary and are better educated, so they know what depression is and recognize it when they have it, and can talk about it. In villages nobody wants to stand out, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to say because nobody talks about depression there.

    I've never sold technology. Except for a short interlude, I've always worked on government systems.

    I only have a cellphone for emergencies. I keep it in my glove compartment and take it out to charge it every two weeks. Most people my age don't want to talk on the phone while we're driving or on the toilet. But I spend much of my time using my computer. I use it to learn and practice my music. YouTube is a wonderful resource, and I use Excel to create chord charts and MS Word for lyric sheets.

    Interesting, where I go there is absolutely nothing, no supermarket it's basically do it yourself. I didn't like it in the beginning but now I like it more than ever.

    Death is peaceful. But I'm not looking forward to that either.

    No. I say that most people who prefer a simple life don't have what it takes to live a modern life. In many cases it's just bad luck: born without the right skills, having parents that didn't raise them right, etc. But some people are just overwhelmed by civilization. They can't appreciate it because it comes at them too fast and too heavy.

    I'm 69 and I love Washington DC. When will I start to "get older"?[/QUOTE]

    Interesting, but you're wrong when people use alcohols drugs and smoking cigarettes because of recreation, it because they are depressed by this kind of life watch more scientific documentaries about this, I'm not talking about TV and paparazzi as you claim it. You obviously ignore it.
    You said:
    No. I say that most people who prefer a simple life don't have what it takes to live a modern life. In many cases it's just bad luck: born without the right skills, having parents that didn't raise them right, etc. But some people are just overwhelmed by civilization. They can't appreciate it because it comes at them too fast and too heavy.

    So does it mean those people who have no skills at all should be destroyed just because they are not on the same level of intelligence like scientists that just horrible.
    It looks like they are trying to do this:
    http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-look-onethird-of-the-human-race-has-to,27166/

    http://beforeitsnews.com/science-an...ientists-the-human-race-is-dying-2460222.html
    http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/2736/survival-species

    And I'm making this up, you can be ignorant if you want to, that's your right, I have nothing against that.
    And despite this debate, I wish you to live 300 years, actually as long you want.
     
  10. Gravage Registered Senior Member

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    Nothing lasts forever, you're simply not realistic, I wouldn't be surprised arrogancy or unrealistic super-optimism destroys us.

    I don't consider WHO a credible source since pig flu scandal.

    Human race is destined to destroy itself by the way it's heading.

    I'm not talking about 19 century but now.

    and for those that live in the bush without modern technology because they can't afford it, its down right horrific living!



    I would not call the curbing of polio, the extinction of small pox, the pushing back and retention of almost every infectious disease as waste of time and money. 'Swine flu' does have the potential to kill millions, why flus have historically killed millions, The Spanish flu killed over 50 million people or 3% of the worlds population in just one year (1918)!



    You're wrong everything has its limits as well as how much our eco-systems can tolerate us, forget about upload minds in machines and similar stuff, creating human heart is much more realistic. I bet human species will not survive that long as you think.

    Yes, and this gas and oil can kill us all, there are alternatives like hydrogen and electric cars, but it depends on the oil industry.

    I agree that global warming is not cataclysm, but I'm more concerned what would happen after that, because once you disrupt the conveyor belt, we could lose oxygen because planktons will die because the water flow would be disrupted, I read something about this

    Actually we're approaching to a tipping point where high-tech will no longer will be able to go higher, there is a limit, and I'm not talking about physical limit.

    Tell that to ecosystems and oceans and the atmosphere:
    http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-look-onethird-of-the-human-race-has-to,27166/

    You could also read this:
    http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/2736/survival-species

    Ans why would not live in the harmony with nature, than rather destroy it? Science and technology have far more harmful consequences (you just described it) than usefulness, like creating nuclear bombs, who would need that. Yes, science and technology is limiting mankind. Nuclear fusion still stand on the same place, nothing has changed, wasted money.

    I have very, very bad experience with gm food and pesticides, so please, don't tell me what is bad and what is good for me.
    Read this, too:
    http://beforeitsnews.com/science-an...ientists-the-human-race-is-dying-2460222.html

    Read the part about man's sperm. There was also documentary about this I watched it twice, so yes chemical industry is poisoning us.

    I'm not a hippie, one thing is to live and say leave me alone so I can live my life the way I want, not like the market, science and technology wants. That's the main point.
     
  11. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I never said anything would, we will either go extinct or evolve, stagnation is not stable and over time its guaranteed to collapse into one of the other two states (or both since evolution and extinction are not mutually exclusive). I don't see anything optimistic about that: I've clearly stated we will either die off or change into some very different (or both). Those are our futures and there are no other possible futures.

    That rather moronic, that like saying "George W Bush said 2+2=4. He must be mistaken, because of the fact Bush is an idiot, therefor 2+2 does not equal 4."

    Do you have a suggestion for how to change this outcome? If your just spouting pessimism without trying to encourage a solution you might as well get out a sign and run through the street screaming "the end is nie!". Meanwhile the rest of us can go about trying to better the world: whether we are doom or not at least we are trying.

    Right now, people live longer then they have in the past. More children today are making it to adulthood. People are working less hours globally, have more time for leisure then in the past. In the bush people have to work more hours and back breaking work at that to maintain their corps, homes and animals, children have to start working as soon as they can carry any kind of load (including other children!) everything must be made from hand by the individual farmer.

    The planets "ecosystem" has survived much worse extinction events then us, multiple times before. Considering how adaptable humans are its likely we can survive cataclysmic events that even all life on earth couldn't. Consider the giant asteroid/comet is heading for earth catastrophe, if there was no hope in stopping it we have the technology to set up underground colonies capable of self sufficient power for decades, long enough to outlast the global fallout. Certainly the carrying capacity of the earth will fluctuate but it would take a lot to bring all 7 billion of us down. Look at the dark ages where in some parts of Europe nearly half of all people died, yet we got over it, in fact we thrived afterwards with the renaissance and sudden opening of land and riches for the survivors.

    No it depends on geology and technology, how much oil is there and how much we can extract economically, at present those numbers are starting to loose to alternative energy sources, and there is nothing the oil industry can do about but adapt and switch out. As if Whalers could have prevent the switch to crude oil, somehow make more whales appear!

    The earth has gone through hotter and colder cycles and still retain enough oxygen for the last 500 million years to support complex life! The possibility that global warming will lead to within the next few hundred years a disruption so great that oxygen partial pressure would go down enough to kill off humanity is extremely implausible. Within the next few decade or certainly within this centuries the technology will exist and likely be implement for humans to survive off world, even if earth was to some how blow up some of us would survive. Even all out nuclear war could not kill us all off, even a full out ice ball earth could not kill us all off, we have the technology even now for small pockets of humanity to survive even those unlikely events.

    What is this limit? Can you show signs of its existences? is the limit mental? fat chance we have already been using computer to augment are mental limits, evolving programs design new technologies for us, search engines allow for us to go over more information faster, computer simulations allow for us to test more faster. The only limitation is money and how much we are willing to invest which is a very serious limitation, its the reason we have not gone back to the moon. Lack of investment may mean dark times ahead with peak oil and all, but humanity will survive and prosper again when it finally does switch over to more renewable energy sources.

    ROLOL! you don't relies what the onion is do you?

    Again living in harmony with nature will mean most of us must die of, the the rest will live barely any better then wild animals, until they too die off like all species do over the eons. Science and technology has allowed for us to prosper which is far more beneficial a consequence then any other negative it could produce. We learn to temper technology, to not use The Bomb, to not make bio-weapons, to create oversite and review boards that must weigh the benefits and determents of every new product and drug. We have improved morally because of science and technology, even to the point of creating delusional people like you who can live lives of ignorance and folly against the very thing that has allowed to exist. Certainly we have much more improving to do, but there is no reason to think we can't, more so we must work to continue improving no matter how likely catastrophic is because to give up to your "pessimism" will guarantee our doom.

    Oh boy a survey of one!

    Sound great to me, humanity going extinct in a few centuries due to low birth rates. Birth rates are going down because people are doing other things then breeding like rodents, only in countries were people live shit lives do people bred like mad, but in developed nations people have time and money and want to spend it on other things than children. Take the Japanese, negative birth rates, good for them their country is incredibly overcrowded, instead of breeding what are they doing: jerking it to anime! In a few decades they will likely have love bots to complete the fantasy, heck its already starting. To die off in bliss is a good death, better then mass famine. A few centuries is also likely enough time to develop strong AI that can replace all human labor, we can all sit back and enjoy our doom then, also that is likely enough time to develop transhuman technologies allowing us to escape our hairless ape bodies and become immortal beings free of all biological limitations. All this is a far FAR better extinction then living naturally: where we will all die off because of the elements or being killed off like Neanderthals. With technology we may be able to evolve beyond all human limits, eradicate all human suffering (and of course humans)! This outcome is not assured but its the best one to work towards, because no matter what we will go extinct, its just extinction by transhuman evolution is the best kind of extinctions and the one in which some of us get to live on forever in ways we can't even imagine at present with are little hairless ape brains!

    For the better

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

    Also this is not a scientific report, its a compilation of claims without citations from who knows! Science works like this \someone makes a discover and other say "that interesting, can we verify it?" others repeat the experiment and verify the discovery, and repeat it over an over until the discover develops enough evidence behind it the be a well understood fact. Now if some bias dick says "GE corn causes obesity" or "Sperm rates are down because of pollution, and not because masturbation is way up" those are interesting results, but not facts to make policy or ideology off of. These results must be replicated repeatedly by others to verify it, which gm products cause obesity, what is causing the low sperm rates, why, how, what is the mechanism, dissect the causative agents, come back to me when you can present a clear and well verified mechanism of action on this.

    Go live like you want, run out naked into the woods and never come back, but if your eating food from a store, wearing cloths, and sitting in front of a computer your already living by the markets, science and technology!
     
  12. Gravage Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,241
    Despite what I said I hope humanity will survive.

    No, it is about trust in the institutions and the system, and science and technology belongs to this system.

    Personally, I would change the approach, it should much more human, if you force people on something, they will refuse it of course, the violent way never had any positive impact, there must be some sort controlling system where you control where all the money goes and how it is spent in science and technology (there should be monthly report on this like in Canada)), it should be for the mankind prosperity, no money for the military, exposal of all weapons (that includes nuclear), that's the first step-but is that what politicians and military scientists want? I don't think so.

    And yet we get more sick with chemical industry, this is why in Europe they rather prefer animal manure instead of pesticides. People get sick from polluted air and water, will the industry really change their approach in manufacturing I don't think so.

    If the large comet/asteroid hits the ground, we MIGHT have chance to survive (and that immensely depends on how large/big an comet/asteroid is), if it hits somewhere in the ocean, forget it. For humans it's not about adaptation, it's about technology we have. But technology also has its own limitations. Planet's ecosystems did not survive much worse extinction events, the planet did. It is the power of recovery that this planet has that is unbelievable. What you're overestimating is humans and their technology, if extinction like planet-size oxygen depletion, basalt eruptions that last for millions of years (both on planet size), than super-eruptions from super-volcanoes, loss of entire atmosphere (that also happened, it need 2 million years to fully recover) your technology can help you to survive a bit longer, but definitely not millions of years, there is also a question of food and clean water that you wouldn't have. your technology will be melt in lava and destroyed by earthquakes, especially since we are talking about underground area, but the biggest problem is food and clean water.

    Can we really, time will tell.

    There is no way you could survive ice ball earth something that lasted for 100s of millions of years and entire planet has been in deep ice, with any kind of technology, forget this. Like I said, it can help you to survive a couple of years, but than after that you're doomed, there is also a problem with food 8but not water). Technology will not exist for planet-size mass extinctions does not exist, forget it.

    Science and technology are the upper limit by themselves explained above.

    ROLOL! you don't relies what the onion is do you?


    Oh, really, so Indians and Aboriginal Australians who survived much, much longer than any other advanced civilization in history to this day thanks to the fact they lived in the harmony with the nature are stupid, forget it friend, you're wrong here, actually the more advanced an civilization was it ended faster.

    Oh boy a survey of one!



    Sure, it sounds great to you, unless you become extinct/terminated. AI will not really happen until we figure it out how the brain fully works, and we're still in the beginning when it comes to understanding human brain. You're too futuristic. Forget about futuristic concepts.

    Actually it is scientific report, it's backed up by scientific discoveries I watched on Discovery, scientists had to really prepared to give their strong arguments. Nitrates from pesticides are polluting both air and water, not to mention they impoverish land this is why Italy and some other countries now have more animal manure than pesticides for example on their fields. And the problem with you scientists is that you always think you're right, and when has other opinions, you consider him less intelligent than your science is. Scientists are becoming and more arrogant, thinking my approach is right yours is wrong, in vast majority of cases, you're right , I'll admit that, but there are cases when you simply wrong, listen to others what they have to say, including other websites.

    Go live like you want, run out naked into the woods and never come back, but if your eating food from a store, wearing cloths, and sitting in front of a computer your already living by the markets, science and technology![/QUOTE]

    Because I'm forced by your science and technology to do that, if I got any opportunity to change this I would, plus I need to take care of my parents and my brother. I cannot just live them and be a trash to them.
    Cheers.
     
  13. Gravage Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,241
    Exactly, Spidergoat, what they it's all hypothetical and futuristic, can we survive that long to actually see it, or this technology will never be possible.
     
  14. Enmos Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    43,184
    :worship:

    The wording may have been a bit awkward but he is right.
     
  15. The Marquis Only want the best for Nigel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,562
    This is actually a very "large" subject.

    The simple answer, and without reading the rest of this thread I'm going to assume that this point has already been made, is that those jobs jobs which are being made redundant are being replaced by others arising from the needs of new technology.
    Future generations are assured; but older generations are being made redundant. There are many whose names are "Smith", or "Cooper", which only hint at times gone by.

    The real question comes about when considering the exponential growth of technology. The human brain is very much geared toward a linear progression; and one which allows the understanding of technology on a generational basis. There are always, from generation to generation, those who will be left behind.
    The real question lies in the capability we will have, come the point where technology advances at a rate our brains are no longer capable of keeping pace with, to cope with the rate of advancement.
     
  16. X-Man2 We're under no illusions. Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    403
  17. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    18,523
    That pretty well states modern singularitarian theory. The only problem is as machines do more and more of what human have done is that our economies will need to change, and I mean completely drop their present ideologies for new ones change! Like how the steam engine and industrialization ended feudalism, capitalism will have the be alterer greatly of dropped altogether. A new system must be created that will convert the labor from completely or nearly completely automated markets into financing and welfare for all the people that no longer work. The transition for one economic system to another is not going to be easy and considering the speed of technological development likely to cause huge amounts of future shock and resistance from people that will cause massive amounts of strife.

    Assuming we have a system of welfare the pays humans well simply for being human, humans will certainly find other things to do: falconry, horse back riding, mountain climbing, sailing, renaissance fairs, cosplay, videogames, sexbot collection, etc, etc, etc, what ever is your kick you will have the chance to do it, life will be one big artistic pursuit with nothing in the way like needing to get the money to have a home, cloths and food. But we would need to give up certain ideas to make such a utopia possible: ideas like employment, capitalism, education requirements, etc. That is going to clash greatly with or present morality. Morality changes over time, but it take generations, humans become hardwired with ideologies as they grow up that become emotionally hard to change, changeling those ideologies often can cause much anger and hate, and it seems likely that if things progresses as they are at present that by the end of this century most if not all labor will be done by machines, that is not long, and the changes could fracture society. We are already seeing it cliche of people with there own share ideologies, the Amish, rugged individuals, doomsday spouters, druggies, etc, many of these people will only take some much change and will break of from the rest of society, in some cases violently!
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Do you ever read your own posts before hitting the POST button? Almost every one of them contains at least one assertion so preposterous that it makes me slap my forehead and ask, "Does this guy live in some completely dysfunctional culture like Turkmenistan?"

    It's rather obvious that we've barely scratched the surface of information technology. We haven't even done that with nanotechnology, and we can barely spell "biotechnology."

    What other technologies are out there that we haven't even discovered yet?

    You must be descended from the guy who saw his first steam locomotive, dropped his jaw in bewilderment, and said, "Well that's certainly as far as we'll ever go."

    Or perhaps the guy a few hundred thousand years earlier who watched someone knock a piece of flint on a rock to start a fire.
     
  19. Gravage Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,241

    And we're talking about HYPOTHETICAL technologies, not today's real technologies, we will yet see if computer experts can increase power, because quantum physicists have spoken that at most 80 years from now we will hit the limit even if you count all the possibilities of information technology.
    http://www.livescience.com/5756-computers-faster-75-years.html

    I also strongly recommend you to watch the documentary, "Surviving progress" to get more realistic picture of today's world:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBmpmHStRoU
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2012
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    Everything is "hypothetical" until it becomes real. Duh? The conversion of chemical energy into kinetic energy was hypothetical until the steam engine was invented. The use of electricity for communication was hypothetical until the telegraph was invented. The recording of real-life images (as opposed to artistic renderings) was hypothetical until photography was invented. Sound recordings were hypothetical until the gramophone was invented. Manipulating data in real time was hypothetical until the computer was invented, and doing so on a large scale was hypothetical until integrated circuits were invented.

    Half the stuff in your house was hypothetical just a few generations ago. And even at that, the biggest problem with technology is often at the human end. My grandfather turned down the opportunity to have a free telephone installed in his pharmacy. He was certain that people would never be comfortable transacting business with someone they couldn't see.

    I can see that you don't work in IT. Speed and power are not our problem anymore. We can transfer, manipulate and store such gigantic volumes of data, so quickly, that we have to keep inventing new prefixes: megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte, exabyte...

    Our problem now is figuring out what to do with all that data. AI (artificial intelligence) is certainly one of the tools for solving that dilemma, but the real key lies in natural intelligence--and as far as I know nobody has bothered inventing the abbreviation NI.
     
  21. Gravage Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,241
    And you forget that people like extreme optimists have promised us all kinds of everything in 20th century, and nothing happened the same mistake happens all the time.
    Everything you say might or might not happen at all. Your grandfather may have been wrong about that, but if I was in his place I would optimistic. However, today I'm not that optimistic at all. We're talking about more and more complex science/technology with more and more challenges, how much can we deal with this?
    Soon we will not have enough people born who should be geniuses in these fields if you want to keep up with new technologies, that's another problem.

    Even quantum physicists on this link have shown that there is a limit when it comes to computers, not just physical limit. A prefect/ideal computer would be able to do 10 quadrillion more operations than today's most powerful/fastest super-computer, but the main question would/could this be realized or not? So as you see there is a limit in speed and power from what I've read in this scientific report.

    The main problem is that silicon material won't be able to keep your speed and power, it's very,very close to its final peak, that's how much I do know.
     
  22. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,690
    "Nothing happened"??? You're obviously not a music lover. The Electronic Revolution changed the world for us. In 1901 (the first year of the 20th century if you count right, which most people don't), very few Americans had access to recorded music, and if they did its quality was horrible. The majority of the population could only hear live music by a bored pianist on an out-of-tune piano at the bar on Saturday night (and ladies did not go to bars in those days), by a choir of predominantly amateur singers in church on Sunday morning, and a few times a year when a traveling company came through town. And since more than half of the population were still farmers, and since the fastest local transportation was a horse and buggy, it was difficult for a lot of them to make a trip into town for drinking, worship or professional entertainment. As for the upper class: those lucky souls got to hear Cousin Lobelia's harp recitals.

    Probably the luckiest American music lovers lived in the South, where traveling Afro-American minstrels came through pretty regularly, playing blues and folk songs. Oh but wait. The traveling minstrel was a manifestation of technology! Sears-Roebuck began marketing a steel-string guitar for $4.50 (= about $110 today) and it revolutionized popular music. A portable, sturdy instrument that could play loud or soft, high or low, fast or slow, melody or accompaniment, for virtually any type of music. Previous generations of minstrels with lutes, banjos, fiddles, gut-string guitars, etc., did not have the flexibility to put on a one-man show.

    Notice that my grandfather's pessimism had nothing to do with the technology. He did not believe that the people could adapt to it.

    We see this same kind of narrow-minded thinking today. An entire generation of managers refuse to allow their employees to work at home, even though the internet, cellphones, webcams, and "please-pass-the-mouse" interactive software make it trivial to hold virtual meetings. The problem is not in the technology, the problem is that these guys can't figure out how to manage people they can't see. They pay people for the number of hours they spend sitting dutifully at their desks looking busy, instead of paying them for the work they produce. So we've trained two generations of Americans to be very good at looking busy, instead of actually doing their jobs. And two generations of managers haven't got a clue how to assess the performance of their employees. And we wonder why the U.S. economy is in such bad shape?

    Apparently you don't know any children. They're geniuses with computers. There's no shortage of experts to develop the next generation of software.

    As for your phrase "science/technology", you shouldn't conflate them like that. Science is progressing at the same deliberate speed it always has. It's technology that's moving faster, because we now use computers to develop technology.

    You keep bringing up the same bogus point and I keep refuting it. We don't need more computing speed and power. I don't know of a single organization that's suffering from a throughput bottleneck. Most have so much excess capacity that they'd sell it if anybody needed to buy it.

    What all IT shops are suffering from is a quality problem. Their developers are consistently given assignments to develop or enhance software, with the following handicaps:
    • 1. The requirements have not been adequately reviewed. They invariably lack sufficient detail, conflict with each other, do not reflect what the users actually need, and change the interface to another system which has not been included in the project.
    • 2. They are not given enough time to do a thorough job.
    • 3. They are forced to work overtime, which results in a greater error rate.
    • 4. They have no formal testing methodology, so many errors are left for the users to discover in production.
    And these issues are nothing new, we've been complaining about them since the 1960s.

    The other problem that is universal is security. The confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and software systems is not well-protected. Teenage hackers can get into practically any system, and employees of the Chinese government can crack the ones that manage to lock those guys out.

    Neither quality nor security are primarily technological problems, although the technology that is already available to help is not widely used.

    These are people problems. Our civilization is being managed by people who don't know what they're doing and don't care.
     
  23. Gravage Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,241
    No, I'm not really a music lover, when I do my work, I like silence, I rather like classic music, however I have nothing against hard rock and hard metal, I listen to any kind of music very, very rarely.

    Yes, I agree with this, but work is not the meaning of life there should be time to go on vacation 2 a year, scientists should also have that right, what's the point of working all day and night, if that kills you both physically and emotionally, vast majority of people don't even have a luxury to the job they actually like.

    Regarding kids, kids are not geniuses with computers I have a friend who know how to deal with computers, but there is no way he could know this, until he actually finished college for this. One more example, my sister's children who play games almost all day long are not geniuses they know basic things about computers and play computer games but that's about it. If you want a real example of genius, take my uncle he has suffered 2 heart attacks, managed to recover from them, he is 76 years old and he managed to transform computer all by himself to his own needs, he is a genius in electric engineering, so I'm not surprised.
    Science is obviously not progressing since we cannot beat the quantum world limit, neither we can understand it, in order to understand something more complex we would need ever more powerful super-computers to actually simulate than try to understand it. But like I said can our brain actually understand so much with so much information? Even that has a limit. There are kids with excellent hacker abilities, but they all have some background pre-knowledge from books of programming.

    Oh, really? You didn't refute anything, because you're telling hypotheses, that might or might not realize in the future. Everything has limits, including science and technology. I read an article about biological processes in human body, it said it was so complex that they would need more speed and more processing power for these more complex structures inside human body to resolve it.

    I agree with this.

    The more precise answer is they don't care. Until we evolve mentally we can forget about everything.
     
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