78stonewobble

I'm no expert, but I highly doubt that ALL aspergers are like that and in areas that are usefull or needed. I also think that no matter how smart a person is, if you're gonna be stuck in a spaceship with other people, the ability to socialise and teamwork might be paramount. Still I see no problem that a socially high functioning aspergers person comes with. A person with an IQ of 60 would be a person, which in the old days, would have been called mentally ******ed. I doubt we would have to take a person like that, allmost no matter how good his/her genes are in other areas. Disagreeing is one thing. Purposefully and knowingly taking an action that leads to the death of 250.000 people is quite another. I've seen the subjective "disgrace to humanity" argument, many places in the history books and they've often been used as rationalisations to kill... From my subjective point of view... To sabotage the ship would be as disgracefull as those other things in our history.

This... But if I remember correctly there are also "puffy" gas giants. Ie. gas giants too close to the star that gets very hot and the atmospheres expand accordingly. So they're "bigger", but less dense.

I think that the dangers of slippery slopes (not the literal ones, those things can kill ya) are somewhat exaggerated. In anything we discuss, when the first person calls out "slippery slope", we all become aware of the need to properly define things and limitations. I'm worried about "slippery slopes", that we are not aware off, not the ones we know of. More on point. It is possible gauge averages for ie. how much a disease will cut a lifespan on average, it's possible to gauge it's average progression. It is possible to gauge pain and suffering and how invalid it leaves a person. Offcourse, it will take quite a bit of debate, to properly define the diseases, that we, as a society, think would be too inhumane to inflict on others, if it can be avoided. I'd love to be able to cure everyone, but that is currently and for the forseeable future, impossible. Til then, I'd like to minimise the suffering brought on people, who has no choice in it.

A decision that kills only 99 percent of the population will allways be morally preferable to one that kills 100 percent of the population. Or turned the other way around it's infinitely more moral to save someone, than to let everyone die. In regards to genetic screening in an abandon earth scenario. I think it's allright for the following: Diseases that gives a relatively high chance of significantly shortened lifespan and/or significantly decreased quality of life. I actually think we should voluntarily screen ourselves nowadays for these kinds of diseases. To me having kids with a disease like that would be like injecting a random stranger with a mixture that gives X percent chance of that person getting the disease. Something which would be allmost universally morally appaling. The only difference is in the "delivery method". What is ok to inflict on me? Is a guideline... Can I accept someone giving me the flu? Sure... Another hair colour? Sure... 20 years of agony or 20 years off my life? Hell naw... It's genetic profiling, but not with the purpose of finding the best of the best (we cannot predict which traits will be good/bad in the future), but instead weeding out the worst of the worst (the biggest killers and the biggest "hurters").

"Bionerd23" here... Has a series of youtube videos about a trip to the chernobyl exclusion zone and the plant. Finding among other things... radioactive ants (they're not giant like in fallout tho).

I'd rather call that "not handling" it. Any odd desert or deep sea trench would do... The waste is irrelevant in the bigger picture. We would have to granulate it into tiny airborne easily absorbable dust particles and spread it with planes over the worlds major cities for it to be a BIG problem on a world wide scale. As far as I know... noone has suggested that kind of solution. Until then, it's a very minor local enviromental problem. Regional, if we set fire to it, though I wonder why anyone would do that.

I have no problem with the profiling in that specific scenario and it would probably be a bit more than just mental diseases. There are some pretty bad genes around for heart disease and cancer. Probably others too.. Getting "rid" of those genes... I think it would only save people from grief in the long term. A little more close to home (much so in my own case). I don't believe in "forced" genetic profiling for offspring, but... If I was deciding upon having kids, I'd take my genes into consideration and the wellbeing of my hypothetical child, outweighs my selfish need to have children. Around here there has been some pretty brazen examples of people really not caring about their kids, they just want them, no matter the cost, or effect on the kids. That I really don't like. Offcourse I wouldn't sabotage a project like that. Even if I was screwed up enough to want to be known as the man who killed off humanity, noone would remember it, if I succeeded. Counter productive *lol*

It's only a problem, if you handle it extremely poorly. It's not like you can pour other toxic things into the groundwater supply or spread over large areas in the air without problems either. And we do use plenty of problematic materials all over the earth, even if they can be huge problems if handled poorly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT F-15 launched anti satelite weapon. If you guys were curious. It's not a whole lotta payload, but apparently enough for that purpose.

Well, imho. we cannot really conclude much from our lack of contact. Other than life is not everywhere and intelligent life is neither everywhere, nor exceedingly "loud". As nibb31 puts it space is big and interstellar travel and communication might be exceedingly hard. I still believe though, that as a civilisation, we should attempt to colonize other planets, even around other stars and if necessary and/or possible... seed them with life. To survive as long as we can, in the best manner we can and if we die out, make sure something else can survive. That should be our imperative. Much more so, if life is rare in the universe. Personally I think that would be a nice combination of our existing biological imperatives (our past) and the ability to actively protect life, that intelligence allows for (the present), to guarantee a future.

Because you ignore certain things... To make renewable energy seem more attractive. You throw out a set of large numbers that supposedly shows how expensive certain things about nuclear power is. I'm saying, that if we put in a little solar power here and a little windpower here, without replacing the large coal/oil/other fossilized sources of energyproduction (both electrical and heat). Which is all that everyone has been doing sofar. This will have a hidden cost of 12.500.000.000.000 $ (12.500 $ billion) over 125.000.000 lives lost (actually too late to do anything about that). That is the cost of not going nuclear so far. Depending on which statistics you use it's from tens of times worse to thousands of time worse than having picked nuclear energy. That number up there, does not include any construction, infrastructure, space and removal of anything. If we scale up your windenergy suggestion for 11 million people in japan. Then the cost of providing ie. 2 billion people with windenergy is 10.545.000.000.000 $ (10.545 billion $), which presumably does not include any of the costs necessary for guaranteeing energy on those pesky non-windy days or weeks. Those large numbers against nuclear power... hundreds of billions, in the absolutely worst case. Are small... compaired to the tens of thousands of billions, it will cost to do little or everything. Btw. you could make the same argument against windmills near cities. Some places in the world that isn't a problem, due the much smaller population growth. I'm glad that you say it's silly to stop using nuclear powerplants. Unfortunately, there are no renewable energy solutions that let us replace our coal and other fossil fuel burning powerplants, so in essence you are arguing to do nothing.

@AngelLestat Wow, thats cheap... Setting a human life to just a 100.000 $, then the cost of solar plus wind and doing little to nothing to replace coal/oil and other co2 releasing sources is: 12.500.000.000.000 $ (53 chernobyl accidents worth) In human costs alone. Add to that the cost of production, infrastructure and getting rid of hundreds of thousands of windmills and thousands of square kilometers worth of solar panels when at their end of life. -..- Another thing nuclear power has against it... It potentially kills people in close to us, people we identify with. The other route, kills many more people, but noone ever cared about the faceless masses in the third world anyway.

Hmm... A perfect and complete copy of me, would be as much me as I am me. IMHO. But in the instant it is made, it will become someone else, since we cannot possibly be similar from that point onwards. ... If I teleport to madrid. I'll have the experience of going to madrid. If I try to teleport to madrid and encounters a malfunction and cannot go. I'll have an experience of you won't be going anywhere today. Potentially both could happen. One of which would be me going to madrid and another would still be me, but complaining at the transport checkin.

To the last part... If we can completely copy a being, then we can presumably also test whether it is a complete copy.

Uhm... .... Uhm... First off, twins are not identical copies. The complexity of a human being goes far beyond mere genes. Our thoughts and memories are the results of not only electrochemical states in the brain, but also the shape of the physical pathways in the brain. These pathways are shaped, not only through genetics, but also enviromental factors and experiences throughout life. It might even be dependent on an incredibly huge number of quantum states. To me it's mostly a philosphical question. Car 3096 of the assembly line is pretty much the same as 3097, but not quite, after all we atleast put a distinct numer on them. The copy is close, but not quite there. If we look at software instead. We can make a perfect copy of everything that defines it. The copy literally is everything the original was. My oppinion is as follows and is... well... mostly a response of practicality. If I teleport Johnny Boy and does not destroy him in the process. Then I will have created Johnny Boy #2 an identical being, but from here on out his own and separate being (he will from this point on become unique). With the same rights that a being as the original Johnny Boy would have had. If I teleport Johnny Boy and does destroy him in one of the places. I will, for the sake of practicality, call it transporting him. Before the action, the world had him in it and after the the world still had him in it. ... It's a fun question though and I certainly wouldn't wanna be the first one to step into a "transporter". I also find it highly doubtfull that it will ever be possible. A limited replicator for industrial and manufacturing purposes? Now that might be possible.

1. No, they were glossed over and ignored. The lives one, has it's basis in a who report's future predictions, which doesn't seem to be a problem for you, since your own arguments have sometimes been based upon predicting. ie. future taxation for many years ahead. The thing about actually managing to provide a secure electrical and heat supply purely by solar, wind, geothermal or wave production for an entire industrialised nation is a problem that has not been solved anywhere. And it certainly IS a fact that the Onagawa nuclear power plant successfully withstood both the earthquake and tsunami, even if it was closer to the earthquake than the Fukushima Daiichi plant. 2. Define super safe... As in safer than most other things? Then nuclear power is very safe. But you're right nothing is completely safe and I've never claimed nuclear power was completely safe, but neither is solar-, wind-, geothermal- or wave-power. Again with the radioactivity and the "big" numbers. People get blinded by "big" numbers. Here is one for you. Staying our course and only slightly augmenting our power supplies, not replacing them, with token amounts of renewable energy sources is continuing a policy that will indirectly kill 125.000.000 people over 25 years. In that comparison, nuclear power is allmost thousands of times safer. If we look at direct deaths: "Does any energy source kill a significant number of people? In a post from last year, we discussed human fatalities by energy source, and how coal is the biggest killer in U.S. energy at 15,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced, while nuclear is the least at zero. Wind energy kills a mere 100 people or so per trillion kWhrs, the majority from falls during maintenance activities. We in the United States actually care more about this kind of thing than most other countries, so our numbers are the lowest in the world. The global averages in energy-related deaths are significantly higher than in America, with coal at 100,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs (China is the worst), natural gas at 4,000 deaths, biomass at 24,000, solar at 440, and wind at 150. Using the worst-case scenarios from Chernobyl and Fukushima brings nuclear up to a whopping 90 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced, still the lowest of any energy source." 3. If a natural disaster is just a natural disaster and we can do nothing about it, then the fukushima accident doesn't even count. We should also stop earthquake proofing buildings in earthquake regions and cancel the pacific tsunami warnings. Now, we don't even have to resettle an tsunami or flood unsafe city (which actually would be a good thing).

While I do think that sounds very cool... But isn't using plants for electrical use, exactly what we do when we burn them in our powerplants and release co2? Coal is fossilized plants and/or sunflower oil...

All we need now to power the world is 8.400.000.000 tonnes of the stuff... o.O ... Offcourse we can power the earth with solar power alone. The question is whether it's worth the effort and magnitude required to do so. We're talking mega scale engineering to go completely solar power for most of the world and international expense and cooperation on an unprecedented scale and I just don't see that happening.

I know that... Have you decided whether you want to replace the burning of fossil fuels (for electricity AND warming) with distributable renewable energy or not? Ie. If I heat my house in denmark with a local solar heat panel... And it isn't up to the job in the winter, no amount of overproduction in sweden, norway, germany is gonna help me out, nor is any installed windpower capacity. Unless: A: We have a contineltal sized district heating grid, that I'm connected to. B: My heating is electrical, which is somewhat easier to export, meaning we will allmost all of us have to use electrical heating. Or put in another way... We can't remove the need for coal for electrical production and we don't want to replace the need for coal for heat production. So what exactly are we doing to cut down on coal? ... The stuff that directly kills around 24.000 people in just the US every year and perhaps upto a million globally annually, not to mention it's indirect effects via global warming.

As the old x-files taglines went: "Trust no one" and "Deceive Inveigle Obfuscate" I miss that show... Allways made me around 10 percent more paranoid than usually

Yeah, because when it's winter and we need extra energy for heating, then magically the waterpower plants in sweden and norway (also having winter) will provide extra energy to not only their own increased need, but also ie. germany (also having winter). I am as uninterested in lowering my energy usage as I am in stopping to breathe to save on the co2. I rarely buy new things, eat meat once a week, don't buy fruit imported from far away, don't drive, won't have kids, exceedingly rarely fly and I'd vote yes to nuclear power relatively nearby... That put's me in the top of people actually sacrificing things against global warming (though that's not why I do it).

Uhm... Well... As far as I understand it... White surfaces reflect the most energy (heat) some of which will be trapped in the atmosphere no matter what, but some will escape. Black surfaces will absorb much more energy (heat) locally and thus "keep" it in the atmosphere, even though a proportion (though less than a white surface) will still be reflected and some of that reflected out of the atmosphere. The math and modelling of that is way beyond me though... And I wouldn't venture a guess on how significant it would be. But I didn't start that one up. PS: Uhm, if we suppose that we wanted enough solar panels to allow for Danish levels of electricity usage for 7 billion people... We're talking about 67.000 square kilometers. Between the size of west virginia and south carolina. Whether that's enough I don't know.

Hmm... Presumably you will need the following: Solar energy, enough capacity to power the country completely and put energy into storage as backup. Wind energy, enough capacity to power the country completely (minus whatever solar energy can produce on the worst days for that) and put energy into storage as backup. Backup = enough to keep the country running for atleast the amount of time the longest period of worst possible conditions of wind and solar power. In Denmarks case (5,2 mio. people), and only for electrical usage (80 percent of the population also has district heating here): Over 1000 5 mw. windmills (one of our largest offshore park has 72 2,3 mw windmills). Over 50 square kilometers of solar power panels alone. Extrapolated to around 733 million people in europe, that yields over 141.000 5 mw. windmills across maybe 35.250 square kilometers (around 14,5 percent of the UK) and over 7048 square kilometers of solar panels (around 2,9 percent of the UK). God, knows how many car batteries, hydrogen storage and/or artificial dams we'd need as backup. Pie in the sky, if you ask me.

Hmm... Specialiced processing isn't really that new (one could argue that our pc's do the same thing with ie. graphics cards), neither is higher density = good or that lower latency is good. If they'll be able to take these things to the next level that would be awesome offcourse, but... let's see. Hmm, how does "optronics" significantly cut latency? Over large distances sure, but unless you use optical directly into the processor or memory, you will have some sort of conversion delays? EDIT: Ok, so we have a 6x amount in capacity using 1/80th the amount of power. That's great... however, if you then exponentially increase your need for capacy, then the improvement quickly vanishes or get's used up.

Perhaps akin to projects like seti@home. Atleast, I don't think it will work without legislation requiring it, unless there is a clear economic benefit from doing so, that clearly offsets any wear and tear on your private vehicle.