New Study Finds Women and Men's Brains Are Hardwired Differently

Posted by Zenphamy 10 years, 3 months ago to Philosophy
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So once again, how do we as Objectivist thinkers accept these differences and their consequences to our lives and governance and derive ways and methods to compensate and correct for skewing towards 'gut feeling' decision making?

"Because the female connections link the left hemisphere, which is associated with logical thinking, with the right, which is linked with intuition, this could help to explain why women tend to do better than men at intuitive tasks, she added.

“Intuition is thinking without thinking. It's what people call gut feelings."
SOURCE URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-hardwired-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-could-explain-why-men-are-better-at-map-reading-8978248.html


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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 10 years, 3 months ago
    I think blarman is on the right track. We should take advantage of each other's strengths. The only question is whether the women are analyzing/exhausting all other data or resorting to a conclusion drawn only upon intuition. If you have no answer to a problem and intuition leads one in a particular direction it may be boom or bust, but it is not static. Sometimes one stumbles upon wonderful things and sometimes they reason their way. The main point is not to give intuition precedence over reason.

    P.S. "The only question is whether the women are analyzing/exhausting all other data or resorting to a conclusion drawn only upon intuition." I would like to point out, so as to avoid undue criticism, that this should be the criteria for all, regardless of sex.
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
    To me, this just says that marriage is a great way to bring both strengths to play. And let's face it - women's superior multi-tasking make them better suited for domestic tasks than men (not to mention the biological aspects). To me, it's just scientific proof of something society has known all along - a man and woman working together are going to complement each other and become more than a sum of the two.
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    • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
      quit
      calling
      me
      a
      woman.
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      • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
        ?????
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        • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
          I can multi-task as well as any female women type estrogen-enhanced person...
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          • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
            Good for you. You're an anomaly. I know I don't hold a candle to my wife on the multi-tasking front. But then she's admitted that she can't stay focused on a single task as well as I can because it is so easy for her to get distracted by multi-tasking. So we work great together.
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            • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
              I wonder if women are more prone to ADHD, then?
              Oh, wait, it's the boys they drug up with ritalin so they'll sit still and... focus...
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              • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                lol. Maybe its that girls are naturally hardwired to handle distractions more easily - categorizing and dealing with them on a subconscious level whereas the boys (lacking such wiring) have to consciously task switch between attractions. So while both genders can get distracted, the differences manifest distinctly differently.

                Another interesting segue is driving, which involves both concentration and dealing with distractions. Why are men (on the whole) better drivers? It would seem that the number of things one must keep track of when driving would tend to fall more in the multi-tasking range of things...

                Ideas?
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                • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                  I would suggest that men are better drivers because they have better spatial skills. They can more accurately judge the interplay between velocity, friction, distance, etc.

                  Conversely, on a statistical basis, women are better drivers. The thing that makes them horrible voters is probably the thing that makes them less inclined to have traffic accidents - risk aversion.

                  BTW, women are better suited for a whole range of tasks that would drive men insane. Sorting, inspecting, assembling on an assembly line. Repetitive tasks of almost any kind. It is a rare man who can stand to do something like electronic assembly or fruit sorting for days on end.

                  Sitting around a camp fire prepping a skin, or sorting grain from chaff, or stitching together a garment may have set the precedent as much as hunting wild animals and defending the home.
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                  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                    Statistically women are better drivers because they're not as territorial, nor as prone to take chances as men while driving... in my opinion.
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  • Posted by DaveM49 10 years, 3 months ago
    I have not read the full results of this study. I am familiar with the results of a number of similar efforts. The results tend to vary depending on whether the researcher(s) are trying to "prove that women are different" or whether the object is to "prove that men and women are the same". Results also seem to vary depending on whether the researcher(s) conducting the experiment are male or female.

    I will note that brain activity and connections between the hemispheres are different in right and left-handed people. There may or may not be a correalation to thinking, behavior, levels of creativity, or yes, "intuition".

    I would actually like to read the complete paper on this study if it is readily available. If indeed it is accurate, it may be an explanation of what has long been deemed "intuition". If it is the result of "brain wiring", it is not a "special power", but rather, the way in which the right hemisphere of the brain communicates what it is receiving from the left. It is entirely possible that "intuition" is reason processed in a "warm fuzzy" manner. It's accuracy would still be dependent on the ability to reason.

    The challenge, if this is indeed the case, would be to distinguish the results of "intuition" processed from reason from those that are merely the results of an endorphin rush or similar (as occurs, for example, in a crisis situation).
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    • Posted by $ Snezzy 10 years, 3 months ago
      I, too, would prefer to read the paper before jumping to conclusions about it. Indeed, if the paper refers to evidence that cannot be observed ("We've got the numbers but we cannot show them to you.") then a skeptical glance is all that is required. If "all the experts agree" but we can't see why, then it's proper to say, "I don't agree. Show me why I should."

      Statistical analysis of raw data often explains why a result looks surprising. Analysis of raw numbers can reveal the "thumb on the scale," or numbers that are cleaned up to look better, or even numbers that are wholly made up. (How? Well, for one thing, people inventing random numbers tend to believe that odd numbers are more "random" than even numbers.)

      If the study was funded by a government grant, we might like to see what agency gave the money and why.

      I wonder if I can get a grant to study the incidence of fraudulent research?
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    • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
      I've noticed that left-handed people tend to be more sinister, while right-handed people tend to be more dextrous.

      More seriously, have you noticed how many hollyweird actors are left-handed?
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      • Posted by DaveM49 10 years, 3 months ago
        Left-handed people are something like 4 times more likely to have workplace accidents, but there is an explanation for this that has nothing to do with brain wiring. Machine tools and other equipment are generally designed with a right-handed user in mind.
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        • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
          My left-handed eldest brother was always severely accident prone. Then again, he's also a sado-masochist, so maybe it was just karma.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's a tougher question because once the research is done, it tends to find its way into the public domain without the researchers being compensated. So the first heart transplant is done, the world finds out how to do it, and the pioneers might get some recognition, but they're not recouping their research costs. That sort of undermines the value of research. It's not like a book or a music recording where someone can claim an intellectual property right and charge a royalty.

    Even new drug development suffers from the ability to reverse-engineer chemical compounds. Say a company comes up with a cure for a certain type of cancer at a cost of $1 billion. Another company takes the drug, analyses it, synthesizes a very similar compound and undercuts the price by a factor of 100 because they don't have a $1 billion debt to pay off. So research in the private sector is a problem because you may not be able to claim intellectual property rights in what you create and you go bankrupt funding the research. Once you've blazed the trail, everyone else just runs over the top of you.

    On the other hand, government-run ANYTHING tends to cost more and be less efficient. Look at NASA, a shining beacon of all the good that government can do… then look at the way outfits like SpaceX are kicking their butts, achieving better results at a fraction of the cost. Contrast that with the utter fiasco that is Obamacare (or the ATF, DEA, IRS, TSA, OSHA, ED, or any of dozens of other government disasters).

    Further complicating everything is the million-pound dead weight known as the FDA, which approves killer drugs and bans drugs that save lives. It's not just government inefficiency, it's insanity. Some of their drug trials require ten thousand subjects and years of testing for approval… and at the end of some trials, the drug is approved, only to find out it's a killer. So why bother? Let the companies develop whatever they want and let the market decide. That's what tort law is for.

    Finally, tech is in some ways outstripping the whole concept of medicine as we know it. We are entering an age where designer drugs can be developed for INDIVIDUALS. Yeah, that one caught me by surprise too. The idea that one can know enough about the genome and the individual and the chemistry to cost-effectively design a drug that works for one person - but not another. For quite a long time we've thought of vaccines for diseases - but what about vaccines for individuals??

    And then there's the ultimate repair kit - genetic manipulation. Ever wonder what it is about a lizard that lets it regrow its tail? Or an octopus that enables it to regrow a tentacle? Why shouldn't a human be able to regrow a hand? A heart? Or a liver? A pancreas? We've already reached the point of being able to grow many of the tissues on "scaffoldings", with the tissue being grafted back onto the human. But what about getting to the point where we just tell the body, "Grow a new heart here" or, "Repair the current heart"?

    But back to your question: I don't know. Certainly everyone will want the benefit of research, but not everyone will want to pay for it, and if we let government run things it will almost certainly take longer, be more wasteful and create a less-effective result.

    Some things make a sort of sense to support through taxes. Roads. Libraries. Courts. At least to the extent we use those things. (Weren't we supposed to have flying cars, computer brain implants and the ultimate socialistic crime-free society by now?)

    What do you think?
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    • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
      >>"But what about getting to the point where we just tell the body, "Grow a new heart here" or, "Repair the current heart"? "<<

      We're there. It's been reported within the last couple of months. The placement of stem cell derived treatment in an in situ heart to repair a valve, (I'm pretty sure. Still searching through old files to find the article)
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      • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
        The files can't be THAT "old"! ;-)

        I don't doubt that it's being done on an experimental basis, but I think we're still a ways out from being able to control the process reliably.

        Still, consider the implications of being able to regrow a severed limb, or grow a working pancreas (goodbye Type 1 diabetes), or repair a heart or a kidney. Human longevity might surge in a way that would rock the world.

        You think there's an overpopulation problem now? You think elder care is a problem now?

        OTOH, if the therapy reaches the point of putting genetic analysis equipment in a vending machine where you stuff in a $20, it analyses your blood and generates the appropriate stem cells (which drop out the slot at the bottom in an easy-to-self-administer syringe), I could see the cost of health care crashing.

        Brave new world.
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        • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
          Found one of the articles for procedure done in Germany at a cost of 7,000 English pounds (couldn't find the symbol).

          http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/articl...

          I agree, it's an amazing time in this type of medicine. Only problem is that I'm at the age where I'm not sure they could do me much good, but for someone in the 40's, maybe even 50's, it's just unbelievable. I can still remember all the foofarah when the first heart transplant was done in S. Africa and how amazing that seemed. But what they're doing now is like magic.

          The longevity, I just don't know about mental functioning though. Yeah, Obamacare just ran into another mathematical impossibility. Think of the impact on some of the retirement pensions.
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          • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
            One of the major causes of brain function decline is reduced blood flow. As the arteries become blocked, the brain essentially starves. Treatments that remove this plaque would not only improve the circulation system overall, but could improve brain function.

            In the event of extreme longevity (1000 years) I have doubts that the basic design would hold up. Even in a perfectly functioning brain, there's a process of information sorting and winnowing. We forget. It's an open question whether a 1000-year-old brain would have the capacity to remember more than 100 years of data… and at what fidelity.

            Speaking of Obamacare, the article you referenced contained this future snapshot of what our "health care" system is about to become:

            _____ Unless it was repaired, my heart would steadily worsen,
            _____ until it couldn't function any more. Even though I needed
            _____ the operation straight away, the NHS waiting list was two
            _____ years, which really worried me.

            Thanks for the reference.
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            • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
              You're welcome. I'm doing some more investigation on mental functioning vs. longevity. As for only being able to remember 100 yrs of data, I can think of a lot of the accumulation I've stored up that makes a 'dump' look like a good idea.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You mean like chia pets, the pet rock and "The Clapper"? ;-)

    I'm not aware of any who did so in violation of the laws of physics.
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    • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
      Certainly...the Wright brothers, David Bushnell, Thomas Edison, ... they all violated the laws of physics... as they were known a thousand years ago.

      But, your arrogant ass has the final answer to life the universe and everything, huh?

      How about dazzling us with the unified field equation?
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  • Posted by vandermude 10 years, 3 months ago
    You need to accept reality as it is. If your theories do not match reality, your theories are in error. The next question to ask is: does this difference make a difference? If the difference makes a difference in outcome, and that is observable, and your theory did not take account of it, then your theory has to change.
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  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
    The problem with intuitive "thinking" arises when one relies upon it for a final decision. It can tell one where to look for a potential answer - but it doesn't tell one whether that answer is a good one or not.

    Intuition often occurs when one has many data points that aren't well-connected. Intuition is a good place to BEGIN to think about an idea. But it's a horrible place to stop.

    Edison may have "intuited" that some sort of fiber with a current running through it could be made to produce light. But it took long experimentation to find the right material. Darwin probably reached his theory of evolution through intuition… but without vast numbers of observations proving out the theory, it was pretty much useless.

    In 1989, Pons and Fleischmann got the intuitive idea for Cold Fusion. Unfortunately for them, they let their intuition run away. Believing what they "wanted" to believe, they announced their "discovery" and went from world-respected electro-chemists to laughing stocks of the scientific world.

    Intuition is right often enough to be useful, but not often enough to be reliable. For years the television game show "Let's make a Deal" offered contestants a choice between doors 1, 2, and 3. After choosing an incorrect door, the contestant was then offered the chance to CHANGE their original selection. Intuition is so strong that even today, most people don't believe changing doors makes a difference - but in fact, it does. While it is intuitive that one has a "50-50" chance of picking the right door with just two doors remaining, in fact, the odds of selecting the "winning" door DOUBLE when one changes their selection.

    This is the clash between intuition and reason. The proper role of intuition is to suggest a possible direction for further inquiry.
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  • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 3 months ago
    If i don’t feel comfortable with a plan, all the facts in the world thrown at me is going to make a difference. Bambib was at least right about me in that regard: you could tattoo it into my forehead and I still wouldn’t get it, or more accurately, not want it. My feelings fuel my drive.
    But, if I ‘feel’ right about something, I will invest my time and do the research and find the facts that do support my ‘hunch’ or learn through the process my original premise was wrong. I’m not comfortable with a complete stoic spin on life. Hormones and feelings are part of the mind. In fact, men would not have the upper hand in spatial reasoning if it weren’t for the flooding of testosterones into the brain at puberty. The same type of flooding that often promotes incorrigible and erratic behavior.

    "So once again, how do we as Objectivist thinkers accept these differences and their consequences to our lives and governance and derive ways and methods to compensate and correct for skewing towards 'gut feeling' decision making? “

    Check your premise.
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    • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
      >> If i don’t feel comfortable with a plan, all the facts in the world thrown at me is going to make a difference.

      And that's a problem with most women (and some men). If they don't "like" facts, they don't accept them. So the "fact" that the welfare society promoted and foisted upon the rest of us by women is not sustainable, that it will collapse and cause untold harm and pain to millions of people… is disregarded as a fact they don't "like".

      The FACT that we cannot continue to borrow 25 to 40 cents of every Federal dollar spent, increase our debt and pay an extra (unfunded) $211 trillion over the next 50 years is a mathematical certainty which is not accepted by women because it doesn't "feel" right. (Or more likely, lacking responsibility, they don't wish-think it will affect them personally.)

      The practice of doing research and finding facts that support a hunch is problematic. The process rarely weighs the quality of data. A 10-year peer-reviewed study that is "unliked" has less weight that the "liked" results obtained from a Ouija board. Reason is destroyed. All that is left is the label, misapplied to a process that is not reason at all.

      How many of use would like to be able to fly just by wishing it so? For those who reject fact on the basis of emotional wishing: Gather all the "facts" you can that prove that you can fly just by wishing it to be true. Take your selected "facts" and stand on the edge of a tall cliff. Jump. Wish with all your might that you can fly. Who knows? You might be able to do it.

      Those who base their decisions on whether they "like" facts are not even honest. When the danger is real and personal, even the "wishers" don't follow through. They may "like" to believe that being hit by a bus won't hurt them, but too few are willing to test the hypothesis. But when the danger is more abstract and distant (the economic collapse of the USA), the wishers allow themselves to deny the consequences of their greedy actions ("I want more money from the 'government'"). In short, they "believe" whatever they need to believe to get what they want right now and damn the consequences.

      Mimi, don't think for a second that those of us who value thinking over feeling WANT the disaster that is coming. The difference is that we don't reject truth simply because the truth isn't what we want.
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      • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 3 months ago
        >>>And that’s the problem with most women.

        Okay. I qualified what I said with this: But, if I ‘feel’ right about something, I will invest my time and do the research and find the facts that do support my ‘hunch’ or learn through the process my original premise was wrong. I’m not comfortable with a complete stoic spin on life.”
        I’m not looking to evade facts, but I do question what I am told from time to time. I was thinking more in line of examples like this: I eat egg yolks heartily no matter how much the medical community says it’s not healthy. Can’t help it. I looked at the egg, and the yolk appears to me to be like a nucleus. My inner compass or whatever you want to call it senses the design of an egg is important. (Until it's proven to me otherwise.) Turns out, the yolk of an egg is the highest natural source of choline, a vital mineral for the brain and cell development. Choline levels weren't discussed twenty years ago when they first started promoting through fear mongering to avoid yolks. I eat between two and three eggs a day and my cholesterol levels are ridiculously low, but that’s me. So, anyway...um, that’s the sort of thing I meant I could be stubborn about, acting upon my intuitiveness.
        You must be a hell of a man, Bambi, if the women in your life have been made to feel so safe and secure that they literally think they can stop a bus with their face.
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        • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
          I doubt you reached your decision to eat egg yolks through the process you describe. More likely, you started out with the conclusion, "I want to eat eggs". From there you said, "How can I justify doing this in light of evidence that it might cause my cholesterol to rise?" And from there, the rest is easy.

          And what if your cholesterol had risen? Would you be touting your "intuition"? No. You wouldn't. You'd be quietly trying to ignore the fact that you were a dumbass. Don't worry, there are LOTS of dumbasses in America. The obesity epidemic is proof positive. Being overweight is bad for everything from your knees to your pancreas, from your heart to your brain, from your ability to move to the cost of your medical care, from the length of your life to the quality of your life. There are probably a thousand ways that people justify being big fat slobs… none of them are logical. All of them are "intuitive" to the point of self-delusion.

          There are smokers who do the same thing. Smoking is pretty much universally (though not uniformly) bad for your health. One person might smoke for 60 years and not die of a smoking-related illness. Another might die as a direct result in a period of a couple years.

          But you know what? We will only hear about the former case, the woman who has smoked 60 years and isn't dead from cigarettes. You know why?

          All the ones who have died aren't talking!

          In fact, everyone you know who smokes is still alive… by definition!

          Taken to the final "intuitive" conclusion, cyanide won't hurt you. How do you know? Well, a million people downed supposedly fatal doses yesterday, and the survivor told you personally that it didn't affect her at all.

          Back to eggs for a second. How would you react if your cholesterol were to increase to an unhealthy level?

          Operation of the brain is massively parallel in nature. How we "feel" about something - the "intuition" is (I believe) simply processing data about which we lack the tools to do rational processing. It's sort of like trying to do mathematics without knowing what mathematics is and not understanding any of the axioms, postulates or theorems. Sometimes, you might even get the right answer, but more often, you might only get a sense of the general direction, and because you lack any rules to test the intuitive conclusion, you have no way of knowing whether an answer is correct.

          If you have 2 rocks in your left hand and 3 in your right and someone asks, "How many rocks do you have?" an intuitive answer might be "4" or "5" or "6". You know you have more than 3 because you've got 3 in your right hand. But precisely how many do you have? Intuition won't tell you. (I've read of societies where the entire number system consisted of "none", "1" and "more than 1".)

          As magnitudes, whether quantities or time, get greater, intuition gets less usable. Suppose someone says they walk 2.7 miles per day, and have been doing so for 5 years. Quick: How far have they walked? 1000 miles? 3000? 5000?

          Now let's explore a space where intuition is essentially useless without a rational foundation. What is the square root of negative 1? There isn't any intuition for this. You either know it or you don't. It's an abstract construct that has myriad computational and theoretical applications, but no real existence. This is the sort of area where women are notoriously unable to function… abstraction where intuition cannot work.

          But it's a continuum. If someone hands you a hundred $1 bills, you have a reasonable idea of how much it is. But when someone tells you that the National Debt is $17 trillion dollars do you have any idea what that looks like in $100 bills (assuming you haven't already seen the illustrations)? How big a pile of money is that? As big as a refrigerator? As big as a house? Will it fill a semi-trailer? Two of them? Could you cover a baseball diamond to a depth of 1 foot? 10 feet? How about a football field?
          How much is $211 trillion (the amount of unfunded liabilities facing the US government over the next 50 years)? Is it as big as the moon? Try writing down your assumptions: Expressed as a pile of $100 bills, how much is the Federal deficit? The debt? What does $211 trillion look like?

          This video is a bit dated, but compare it to what you wrote down.
          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nDHUDkpx...

          Here's a fun one: If we took all 7 billion people on earth and stacked them up in coffin-sized spaces, say, 2.5'x1.5'x7' how many cubic miles of space would they take up? 100? 1000? Some other number?How good was your intuition?
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    • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
      AR, and the ladies of this site, are certainly exceptional members of their gender since they've come to the philosophy of Objectivism and a significant representation on this site. AR specifically describes rational thinking and decision making as an ideal of how to address living and acting in this life and further added that it was a necessity to base that on what could be perceived through the senses and analyzed excluding emotional input. But it remains that women in general are not represented on this site (and maybe men as well) and studies such as that referenced point out that the brains and reasoning of men and women are both hardwired differently and genetically expressed differently from each other.

      I completely agree that what seems to cause the differences to develop are the sex hormones, both on the testosterone and estrogen sides, but I'd add to that, the body and brain aren't only flooded during puberty but also at least twice during pregnancy, again in early childhood, and more or less continually during the teen years. The brain doesn't even complete it's wiring in many areas till approximately 25 or so. I'm also fairly certain that each individual is subject to differing levels of this 'flooding' at differing times and are impacted individually by those exposures as is evidenced in transgender and hermaphodite births as well as homo-sexual births (still fought in PC and religious circles).

      I really don't have an interest in discussing or even thinking along lines leading to which is better or worse than the other, except as necessary for descriptions of factual information. I personally feel strongly that the differences compliment each other and jointly have led to our survival as a species. But as many like to mention, the human animal seems to be different from other animals in our abilities to reach such a high level of consciousness and what-if types of imagining. We've also been able to significantly alter our environment to suit our use and to continue to innovate new exploitations and expansions of our environment as well as the other life around and in us.

      As well, we've developed to a degree which permits the artificial (vs. biologically developed) altering of our natural societies, including governance, to ones experimenting with new (or historically different) priorities and controlling parameters. But we've done so without the full inclusion or recognition of our biology in our thinking and development. Many of us believe (not just a feeling) that this last is a dangerous situation threatening our superiority and even continued evolution as a species, much less our societal development. A good example is that of necessity (we've almost outgrown our Earth, and based on the history of the planet we will face an eventual extinction event) we will become a space-faring species. Maybe the first in the Universe, though I personally doubt that.

      Tired now, will add more later.
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      • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
        >> A good example is that of necessity (we've almost outgrown our Earth, and based on the history of the planet we will face an eventual extinction event) we will become a space-faring species.

        Will the Sugar Plum Fairy give us warp drive?

        Be serious. Homo Sapiens will never leave this solar system. It's highly unlikely that we will ever venture in significant numbers (over 10,000) farther than the moon, and in the time it takes to travel to Mars (just the length of the trip, not including any preparation), the earth's population will increase by more than 35 million people.

        The moon is 1.3 light SECONDS away. Mars is 3 light-MINUTES distant. The nearest star is over 4 light-YEARS away. We'll be "space-faring" in the same sense that someone is a "global traveler" after they make a million circuits of the local WalMart parking lot.

        That said, the cost of getting stuff to orbit IS coming down. Costs have dropped from $10,000+ per pound to around $2500/lb and are on track to hit $1000/lb in the near future. I don't doubt that at some point the cost will drop to as little a $100/lb. So local space traffic is probable. I wouldn't be surprised to see a small lunar colony, or extensive asteroid mining. I would expect most of that to involve sending robotic vessels. Life support is simply too expensive for extended travel.

        Species extinction is a lot more likely. The Dinosaurs were around for 250 million years. Homo Sapiens has been here for about 0.04% of that time. In short, we're not yet a proven species.
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        • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 3 months ago
          "Be serious. Homo Sapiens will never leave this solar system." Some other famous prediction...
          «It will be gone by June.»
          Variety, passing judgement on rock 'n roll in 1955.

          «Four or five frigates will do the business without any military force.» -– British prime minister Lord North, on dealing with the rebellious American colonies, 1774.

          «Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop - because women like to get out of the house, like to handle merchandise, like to be able to change their minds.»
          TIME, 1966, in one sentence writing off e-commerce long before anyone had ever heard of it.

          «That virus is a pussycat.» -– Dr. Peter Duesberg, molecular-biology professor at U.C. Berkeley, on HIV, 1988.

          «There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.»
          General Tommy Franks, March 22nd, 2003.

          "Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia."
          Dr Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.

          "Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires as may be done with dots and dashes of Morse code, and that, were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value."
          Unidentified Boston newspaper, 1865

          "It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere."
          Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1895.

          "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"
          H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Bros., 1927.
          Full quote: "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? The music — that's the big plus about this."

          "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
          Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

          "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
          Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

          "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
          Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

          "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy."
          Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

          "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction".
          Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872

          Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.
          Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison's light bulb, 1880.

          Read more: http://www.disclose.tv/forum/incorrect-p...

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          • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
            These are certainly entertaining, but in no example you've given has the entire body of physical science and mathematics been in opposition to the conclusion. Most are merely mistaken assessments of future market conditions, or erroneous projections where the science was still unknown.

            Einstein laid out relativity for us long before we were able to prove its assertions. The GPS system, for example, initially launched with a switch that had two settings, "Relativity is Real" and "Einstein was wrong". Einstein had predicted that time would run slower in a gravity well (or an accelerated frame of reference, which turns out to be the same thing). Since the GPS satellites relied on very precise time-keeping, it was important to know whether the clocks on the satellites would run FASTER because they were much further up the gravity gradient. Einstein's bold prediction turned out to be correct, and the switches remained in the "Relativity is Real" position.

            Einstein's work is validated every day in the LHC at CERN and every minute of every day via mu meson decay.

            Mu mesons decay into electrons in about 2 millionths of a second. They're created in the upper atmosphere by cosmic rays. They typically have a velocity on the order of .2 billion meters/second (.998c). Absent relativistic effects, they would travel just 600 meters before turning into electrons. Applying the Lorentz transforms, it becomes clear why they are able to travel nearly 10 kilometers (~16 times as far) before decay. The explanation is called (depending on frame of reference) length contraction or time dilation. In the latter view, the meson, measured from our frame of reference, exists for nearly 16 times as long as it does in its own frame of reference.

            Another of Einstein's predictions was that mass increases with velocity. Scientists at CERN can observe this fact every time they crash particles together.

            The point is, relativity is well-established, and one consequence of that is that we are restricted to our local stellar neighborhood.

            Just for grins, Assume we want to send 2 50kg humans to the nearest star (4+ light years) in a period of 100 years. They would require an average speed of 1/25 of a light year per year. Neglecting relativity for the moment, that's an average speed of 1/25th of the speed of light, or 26.8 million miles per hour. The fastest vehicle ever launched from earth had a top speed of about 37,000 mph, which would be 730 times too slow at its peak speed (as compared to the Proxima Centauri mission AVERAGE speed). In fact, if they wanted to actually STOP at Proxima Centauri (instead of just whizzing past) they'd need to decelerate for half the trip, which means an average speed closer to 53.6 million miles per hour and assuming constant acceleration, a peak speed of about 107.2E6 mph.

            Enough. SI units from here out.

            Distance: 4.242 light years
            Top speed: 1.72E11 m/s
            Mass: 100 kg (We'll send small people, naked, without a ship!!)
            E (in joules)=1/2mv^2 = 1.488E24 joules

            Now the entire population of the planet uses about 145 petawatt-hours per year. That's 5.22E20 joules. So for the entire mission, we'd need all the energy used by the entire world for a bit more than 5700 years. Turn out the lights! Save energy!

            Of course, we could reduce the amount of energy required by making the mission longer. Lengthen it to 1000 years and the top velocity required drops by a factor of 10, the energy requirement drops by a factor of 100 and we only need the entire earth's energy usage for 57 years!

            Keep in mind that these calculations don't add any weight for fuel, a space ship, food, water, communications gear, power plant... The Apollo 7 capsule weighed 16,520 kg. If our explorers used that spaceship, the energy requirement would increase by a factor of 165. The 1000 year trip would now require the entire energy usage of the planet for just over 9400 years. Bear in mind that all of this assumes CONSTANT acceleration. If you use a staged vehicle (additional mass), the total energy cost goes UP.

            Somebody please check my math. It's been a while since I've done these sorts of calculations and if I've made an error, I'm only too happy to learn of it.

            As for relativity, these speeds aren't really high enough to be much affected because it's such a "short" trip. But say you wanted to get to Proxima Centauri in something like a 4.5 years. That would require an average velocity of .942c. At that velocity, mass would increase by a factor of more than 3. And while a round trip might take just a bit over 4 years for the crew, back on earth, 12+ years would have elapsed.
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            • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
              As matter can neither be created nor destroyed, how is mass "created" with an increase in velocity?

              When you achieve the speed of light (which will be inevitable if you go fast enough, btw), your conditions become identical with those of the singularity of a black hole:

              Your length becomes zero, so your volume becomes zero. Your mass becomes infinite.

              You, effectively, tear a hole in spacetime and fall through. This is the basis for every interstellar drive ever conceived. If you can achieve .942c, you *will* achieve 1.00c very, very quickly.

              I'm surprised no one has suggested "life-ships". Interstellar travel is daunting, because we live out here in the boonies.

              Ocean voyages of exploration in the past often took years to complete.
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              • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                >> how is mass "created" with an increase in velocity?
                That's what relativity is all about. Some more recent writings express the increase in force necessary for acceleration in terms of momentum… but it works out to be to-mae-toe to-mah-toe.

                By the way, your math sucks. ;-)

                F=ma.
                m->∞
                What force is required to increase a?

                You're right about the mass becoming infinite at c, but you don't seem to appreciate what that means. The force necessary to accelerate a nearly infinite mass is… nearly infinite. But it's not a linear relationship.

                In fact, this is where "intuition" breaks down. In the Newtonian universe, mass doesn't change. So if you double the force applied to an object, you double the acceleration. But at relativistic speeds, doubling the force doesn't get you double the acceleration. F still equals ma, but m is changing.

                To accelerate even a particle as small as an electron to the speed of light would require more energy than exists.

                I've done the math for the apparent mass for the a few points in the velocity/mass curve. Note that at .9c, if increasing velocity by .00009c costs one "unit" of force, by the time you reach .9999c, the same increase in velocity costs about 100 "units". The mass increases faster than the velocity.

                0.9 2.29
                0.99 7.09
                0.999 22.37
                0.9999 70.71
                0.99999 223.61
                0.999999 707.11
                0.9999999 2236.07

                Since there isn't enough energy to accelerate any mass to c, you don't have to worry about the rest of your speculation. Length can't go to zero. Volume cannot become zero. You don't become a singularity. Your mass isn't infinite and you don't tear holes in anything.

                So, if that's the basis for all interstellar drives - we're out of luck.

                We do indeed live in the boonies. But some plan on going to Mars. I found these amusing… tomorrow's Mars explorers… once they finish raising the remaining 98% of their funding.
                http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

                You should sign up now! (Maybe you already have?)


                Ocean voyages have indeed taken years to complete. However, I am unaware of any multi-year voyage without making landfall. Can you think of one?
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                • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                  Either your mass is increasing or it isn't. If your mass is increasing, you are turning into a black hole. Your own gravity will pop you down to a singularity.

                  And it's not just your mass that's increasing; your dimension along the line of travel is decreasing. 0 * X * Y = 0. Your volume approaches zero, your mass approaches infinite, you fall out of the universe.
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            • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 3 months ago
              Will medicine ever figure out how to slow down human aging to the point that death could be postponed for millennia?

              Do wormholes exist?

              Do you know if dark energy can be used to power vehicles?

              Is C really the utmost speed in the universe?
              http://somethingsonmymind.com/darksky.ht...

              Will anti-gravity powered machines be possible?

              Your prediction might be true today. But will it be tomorrow? In a century? In a million years?

              Given what our species have been able to achieve over our short time on Earth, I don't believe your statement, "Be serious. Homo Sapiens will never leave this solar system." is warranted.

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              • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                Possibly. But what's the point? Are you proposing the human brain be slowed down as well - say, to make someone think 1000 times slower? Or are you proposing 1000 years of boredom to get to the nearest star?

                Wormholes? As in Stargate SG-1? No.

                Dark energy hasn't even been detected.

                For particles with mass? Yes. (And the "article" is fluff from someone who doesn't know what he's talking about - and who does not even reason well.)

                Is my prediction true today? Yes. Tomorrow? Yes. In a million years? Homo Sapiens may not even be around in a million years, but if the species isn't extinct, it still won't have left the solar system in significant numbers… unless a rogue planet collides with earth sending the earth (and all the dead bodies) on a trajectory out of the solar system. (The sun exploding is another possibility, but a less likely one.)

                I'd bet on extinction of the species before I'd bet on FTL travel.

                Will anti-gravity powered machines be possible? Probably not. A clearer definition of what you mean is necessary.

                You don't have to believe my statement is "warranted". I don't believe your non-analytical fantasizing is warranted… except perhaps as entertainment. I like science fiction. It's been a great harbinger of success in many fields. But just as one might imagine something one can do, it's also possible to imagine something that cannot be done.
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                • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 3 months ago
                  The point is that you are incapable of accurately predicting the future even though you are immensely intelligent.

                  Dark energy confirmed http://www.space.com/6230-mysterious-dar...

                  What about particles with anti-mass?

                  Will your prediction be true in a million years? Yes or know. Quit this crap about whether or not humans will be extinct. What is your confidence level for 100 years?

                  "but if the species isn't extinct, it still won't have left the solar system in significant numbers…"
                  You original statement was "Be serious. Homo Sapiens will never leave this solar system." Which is it some or none?
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                  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                    I was trying to think of the "every case". Yes, I believe some humans may leave the solar system. It will probably be accidental. They won't have a particular destination. They will likely be dead. But technically, though dead, they are still "homo sapiens". I expect it will happen as a result of some sort of accident. Think in terms of an Apollo 13 malfunction where the crew is killed, misses its target and eventually drifts out of the solar system.

                    However, I don't think of shooting frozen corpses out of the solar system is particularly helpful to any rational endeavor.

                    It took Voyager about 36 years to leave the solar system. There's no life support on board, no cosmic shielding, scarcely any power supply. Its departure is secondary to its primary purpose. If they'd put a corpse on board, then a "homo sapiens" would have left the solar system.

                    That clear things up?

                    Regards, "Dark Energy", it still hasn't been detected. They have an unexplained phenomenon for which they do not have a known cause. They're calling it "dark energy" - but they have no clue what it is. In case you haven't noticed, even science is getting into the "sensationalism" game. A few years back, one of the local news stations announced that scientists had created a "Star Trek warp drive". Turned out they were talking about an ion drive - which isn't even close to the same thing. But that's what you get when science funding is driven by popularity contests. (Same thing with breast cancer research, by the way, which enjoys far more funding than prostate cancer research - though the latter kills more people.)

                    The imbalance in matter anti-matter is one of the mysteries for the "big bang" guys. Formation should have been symmetric. Apparently it wasn't.

                    My confidence level that a live homo sapiens will leave the solar system in the next 100 years? Zero. That man will ever make it to another star (alive)? Zero. That a live human will ever leave the solar system? 1 in a trillion. (I expect the species to go extinct before it is ever accomplished.) Will this be true in a million years? I have serious doubts the species will last that long, but it if does, space flight won't be a top priority.
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                    • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 3 months ago
                      Let me try one last time. In 1900, the world of physics was all Newton. No one of the brightest alive predicted Albert Einstein's Special Theory of Relatively which he penned in 1905. Likewise, no one predicted the development of QED by Rutherford and Bohr.

                      At the following NIH website
                      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article...
                      one finds this quote:
                      "Throughout mammalian and primate evolution, there has been a gradual increase in brain size, superimposed with “spikes” of fast growth such as the tripling in human brain size that occurred about 1.5 million years ago, 4 million years after the human lineage diverged from that of the great apes. “Even in the ape lineage, the brain has been expanding but along the human lineage it has really taken off”, says Lahn."

                      So our ancestor's brain size tripled in the last 1.5 million years. What will happen in the next 1.0 million years?
                      What you are engaged in is not predictive science but, rather, mere speculation born of hubris. If the geniuses of history whose work I revere could not predict a few years to a few decades into the future, what confidence should I have that BambiB is able to do so for the next million years?
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                      • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                        As you point out, I know more about relativity than any human in the world prior to the start of the 20th Century. :-O It's not surprising that someone living in a Newtonian world would expect speed to increase linearly with force. I know better. My predictions are therefore tempered by vastly superior knowledge of relativity, and whether you want to quibble over "hubris", this is a fact - and you know it.

                        In the world of science, new discoveries are not accorded validity at the outset. There follows a period of testing, of counter-theories, of challenges. When the European team "discovered" that neutrinos travel FTL, the scientific community did what it usually does: It tried to replicate the results. That failed and the FTL neutrino was seen to be an error in measurement.

                        Relativity has been under that microscope for more than 100 years and has not required modification. Note that it didn't negate the Newtonian world view. It merely refined it in areas where humans had no prior experience. If you use Newtonian mechanics to compute the amount of force necessary to accelerate a mass for any projectile whose speed could be measured in 1905, the difference between that result and the result with relativity applied would have been impossible to detect. As an example: Suppose one had a gun that could fire a bullet at 50,000 fps (roughly 10x the top speed of a bullet from a rifle). How does the Newtonian prediction differ from the relativistic prediction? Well, 50,000 fps is about 0.00005c. At that velocity, relativity makes a difference of roughly 1 part in a billion - far too small for 1900s technology to measure.

                        So while relativity deepens our knowledge of the physical universe, it doesn't really upend Newton at any velocity with which humans had contact in pre-relativity times. Correspondingly, it's extremely unlikely that any further understanding of the universe is going to invalidate relativity. We may find, for example, that when galactic-scale masses are involved, that the relativistic mass increases at a slightly higher or lower rate That will be very useful information in the event that we need to accelerate a galaxy to near the speed of light, but otherwise, the new theory will be irrelevant to everyday life in much the same way that relativity is (generally) irrelevant. I've already given one example where relativity WAS relevant - the GPS system. But outside the realm of traversing gravity wells or LHC-type experiments, I'm hard pressed to come up with others. Perhaps you can?

                        ironically, relativity may have application on the scale of the very small. The design of the Cray computer (and fast computers since) required rather precise lengths of cabling. Why? Because the data had to arrive at the same "time", and if one cable was longer than another, the data would be "out of synch" and the computer would be degraded or fail. Where or how relativity will apply is not something I've fully considered in this context - but I wouldn't be surprised if it played a role.

                        But on a large scale?

                        Relativity, when you reason it all out, basically says we'll never reach the stars.

                        While brain size is a rough predictor of intelligence, it's not dispositive. Were it otherwise, the Sperm Whale with brains 5x humans and elephants with roughly 3x the brain mass would be the smartest animals on the planet. Of course, the 11% size advantage of male humans over females would tend to support your contention? ;-)



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                        • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
                          Neanderthals had larger brains than Homo. If memory serves, in the area of 1500cc (maybe 1400cc??) to 1300cc. I don't think the physical size of the brain has as much to do with brain ability as does the total surface area reflected in the amount of 'wrinkling' in the human brain.
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                    • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                      There's some physical law why someday a human can't live for, oh, say 600 years? There's a strong possibility that we'll find the genes responsible for aging and be able to turn them off or slow the process, within the next century.

                      There's some physical law why we can't someday send out human genetic material under the care of automatons (computers/robots) which would generate humans at the other end?

                      Some physical law why we can't create multigenerational habitats that are self-sustaining, someday?

                      Some physical law that says these are impossible?

                      You used the magic word "mystery". Case closed. There are things we don't know.

                      Will humans leave the solar system in the next century? I dunno. It's possible, but as *I* said, we got a whole solar system to exploit before we need worry about other stars, especially since we've yet to find any with planets even close to ours.

                      But, now you're putting conditionals on it. Just concede, you're embarrassing yourself.
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                  • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
                    >>"Dark energy confirmed http://www.space.com/6230-mysterious-dar...... "<<

                    Sorry, but that article was from 2008 and not so precise as first indicated. Still based on presumptions of supernatural and magical stuff to try to support a theory that doesn't match observational evidence.
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                    • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 3 months ago
                      "but if the species isn't extinct, it still won't have left the solar system in significant numbers…"

                      You original statement was "Be serious. Homo Sapiens will never leave this solar system."

                      Which is it some or none?

                      You still haven't addressed your own contradictions
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                      • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                        I think I was quite clear.

                        I do believe it's possible that human corpses will leave the solar system… purely by accident or perhaps even by way of some bizarre suicide. We have the technology NOW to send corpses out of the solar system. It may take 30+ years of travel time - but what does a corpse care about that?

                        Setting aside the corpses for a moment and speaking only of live human beings:

                        I don't believe a human will ever leave the solar system. Even by accident. Ever.

                        To leave the solar system, in this context, is to presuppose a place to go. The nearest star is 4.2+ light years away. The massive amount of resources, the long trip, the planning necessary to get a live human out of the solar system all indicate that there should be some purpose to the effort. There is no reason to shoot a human out of the solar system (alive) just for them to die years later in the middle of nowhere.

                        Homo Sapiens will never visit any solar system than this one.
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                        • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 3 months ago
                          We Humans are the animal species who want to see what is on the other side of the mountain just to see what is on the other side of the mountain. Neither death nor deprivation nor naysayers nor loneliness nor thought of failure have ever dissuaded us nor will they ever.
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                          • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                            I give you scientific reality.
                            You give me wishful feeling.
                            Besides, we already know what's "on the other side of the mountain".

                            All "wants" are relative.

                            A human who decides that he "wants" to see what is on the other side of the mountain is free to make the trip.

                            That's not true for someone who "wants" to see what's going on at Proxima Centauri. To go over that "mountain" requires more resources than any one person can command.

                            In case you haven't noticed, half of the population doesn't "want" to go over the mountain at all. They only "want" to sit at home, have someone take care of them and make babies.

                            Look at the funding for NASA. Compare it to the $211 trillion that women have already committed to future social welfare spending. More than half the population would forgo a trip "over the mountain" for a set of new drapes.
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                            • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 3 months ago
                              Oy vvey naysayer. "Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
                              Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
                              All mimsy were ye borogoves;
                              And ye mome raths outgrabe"" Lewis Carroll
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                              • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                                You know, sometimes the correct answer is, "No",,, as in "No, our species will never travel to the stars"… even if you really, really, really, really, really, really, REALLY want the answer to be "yes".

                                You can see the same thing with women's voting patterns. They might really, really… want socialism (and $17T in debt and $211T in unfunded mandates) to work. Sorry. No.
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                                • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                                  The great inventions that make modern civilization possible were created by people who really, really, really, really , really, really, REALLY wanted the answer to be yes.
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                                  • BambiB replied 10 years, 3 months ago
                            • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 3 months ago
                              It makes more sense for someone ‘over there’ would come here first. We are the last outpost. The party is out there. There are planets in habitable zones that are close enough to each other for feasible space-travel within their groupings, providing they are advanced societies.
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                              • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                                What you say is true… as far as it goes. I don't doubt there are/have been/will be other sentient species in the universe. And they may eventually rise to the level of space travel. Local space travel.

                                They still have to deal with physics. So unless 10,000 year life spans are the norm, don't look for them to show up here any time soon.

                                Will we ever detect them? Will they ever detect us? Hard to say. When you think of a million years in context of 4 or 5 billion years (age of earth) it's like one week in a human lifetime. So assuming we're transmitting for a million years before we blow ourselves up, or poison ourselves, run out of resources, or just get dumbed down to the point where we don't know what an electron is anymore, it's still pretty much a crap shoot that an alien species would exist at the same time, and be using similar technology, and be listening and have any clue what it is they're hearing and seeing. Assuming they have ears. And eyes. And that sort of thing.

                                'fraid we're alone after all.
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                • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                  Are you bored now, Bambi? A lifeship would have plenty to do, from harvesting crops to manufacturing goods, to selling health insurance, to making inane youtube videos.
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        • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
          I would be interested to know how you define or constitute a "proven" species. By your comments you imply longevity is the measure. Dinosaurs existed, yes, but despite 250 million years none of them developed fire or the wheel. If that is so, I would rather suggest that longevity is a poor measure for proven, because cockroaches would have everything beat. Value isn't derived from simple existence, but by utility, is it not? If so, then the value of a single human outpaces any other animal on the planet! The opposite is also true - humans also have the largest capability for destruction.

          I think it would also be important to note that value must also be in the eyes of a beholder. So are we valuing humankind in they eyes of other humans (seems a bit of a potential flaw, there) or someone/something else?
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          • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
            Cockroaches have been around for about 350 million years and are most certainly a "proven" species.

            The background extinction rate for species generally is measured in millions of years. The average mammalian species goes extinct in the neighborhood of 1 million years.

            Since our species has barely reached the 10% mark in terms of average longevity, it is not "proven". The ~100,000 year existence of Homo Sapiens is scarcely a blip in evolutionary time. It is as if we sat down to an evolutionary 12-course meal… Homo Sapiens would be the belch at the end.

            As for "value" - no such notion exists in nature. Utility, perhaps. But value is a false notion you impose from your purely parochial viewpoint.
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            • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
              Please don't take offense, but by very definition, the way you use "proven" is to imply worth or value. A comparison can not be in any other terms than relative value. Whether intentional or not, you are most definitely making a value judgment when declaring one species "proven" and another "unproven" because you are comparing them to a standard you have erected - in this case the longevity of the species. (I would also point out that your analogy is hopelessly flawed as dinosaurs in actuality consisted of thousands of species which individually only lasted at best a few million years each. Even cockroaches are not the same as they were 350 million years ago.)

              So my question is this: why do you choose longevity as the standard of value in your species evaluation system? I am curious to know what utility or value does a species' longevity bring? Does the longevity of a dead species still hold value when compared to a living species? From a purely scientific standpoint, if I can extend a human life to immortality, do I then supercede every other species value or worth by my immunity to the passing of time? What if I do NOTHING but just hang around? Does my mere existence make me "proven" - even if I do absolutely nothing but observe?

              I guess what I'm getting at is that the passage of time seems to me to be a rather arbitrary and useless measure of the worth or "proof" of a species. If you wanted to evaluate how much that species affected OTHER species (power/influence), I could see that one. Can you elucidate on your approach?
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              • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                I don't take offense. "Proven" in this context means only that the species is able to sustain itself for a reasonable period of time, "reasonable" being the norm, average, median (your choice) for the class. Most proven mammalian species are good for a million years more or less. If they don't survive that long, they "fail" as a species.

                What? You thought that the purpose of any species was other than to replicate itself? Silly boy! ;-) It's the only thing all the species have in common, they consume resources and reproduce. I suppose you could measure "success" by the mass or volume of resources consumed… in which case insects or plants or some such might be the "most successful".

                How else would you compare species of amoeba or trees to humans or a butterflies? Again, not as individuals, but as SPECIES? More importantly, how could a species possibly be "successful" as a species if it dies out in a short period of time? Something that exists to consume resources and reproduce no longer does either? That's failure.

                It's sort of like auto designs in a way. If Ford sells 10 million of a given model, and the design is basically sound for a dozen years, one might consider that a "proven" design. If it comes out with a model that no one buys, and it goes away after a year or two, one might consider that model a failure, or "unproven". It doesn't mean that the "unproven" model didn't have good points - it only means that it didn't do what it was intended to do - satisfy the demand of the public.

                What other measure would you apply to species to determine whether they are "proven" or not? Remember, it has to be something that ALL species do, else you aren't looking at a SPECIES trait.
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                • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
                  >>"What other measure would you apply to species to determine whether they are "proven" or not? Remember, it has to be something that ALL species do, else you aren't looking at a SPECIES trait"<<

                  I think I would add evolve and adapt. With adaptation and evolution, comparatively short-lived or minor perturbations in the conditions of life, ie. food supply, temperatures, prey animals, etc. can be overcome by the species. Without those two attributes, the species fails, or loses it's place in the biosphere (??), ie. Neanderthals. Though some evidence has surfaced this year that Caucasians (not all) carry some 5% +/- of Neanderthal DNA indicating at least some cross species inter-breeding. Another species has been found and identified in Asia within the last few years, but I don't know how far the identification or DNA determination has progressed.

                  But if consumption and reproduction of a species is the measure of proveness, then homo-sapiens, whether 100,000 years old, or evolved from an older ancestor (satisfying the million year or so criteria) is at the moment, at least, the most proven. The species consumes nearly everything on the planet that could be measured as a resource, not just food. And it manipulates for it's own immediate good, almost every other type of life in one way or the other, more so I think, than any other known of species in the planet's history. Current estimates seem by consensus to be a max population of some 9 to 10 billion within the next 50 years or so based on current technologies and the growth of under-developed areas and populations. That indicates a reasonable success of reproduction.

                  If one looks at life in totality on planet Earth, it would appear that there may be more to it than just consumption and reproduction and a species' life span, though it's hard for me to imagine, identify or describe what that could possibly be. What does the persistence of life through several extinction events on the planet for some 3 billion of the 4.3 billion years of Earth's existence indicate to us? What does the pervasiveness of life throughout and within the surface of the planet indicate? Is life just an infestation on this planet? Are Homo-sapiens the pinnacle of life's evolution or is it a mere step in the evolutionary ladder of life?

                  Or should I just live the little blip of life that I have?
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                  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                    For consumption the units might be tons. For duration, years. What are the units of measure for "evolve and adapt"?

                    If you measure "reproduction" in terms of individuals instead of years, then homo sapiens is vastly "outscored" by ants, termites, and even various types of pond scum… and hopelessly "less proven" than even the newest strain of bacteria.

                    I am of the opinion that our species' best days may well be behind us. A few hundred years ago, there was a place for creative, thinking, adventurous people to go (America). They were tested, and rose to the challenge. But I wonder if life has perhaps become too easy, if too many morons aren't surviving to raise more litters of morons while intelligent people are discouraged from reproducing. Some recent research indicates that the average IQ in the Western world has dropped by 14 points over the past 100 years. Certainly if the SAT test is any indication, America is becoming a Nation of idiots. That test has trended downward since 1972.

                    When it comes to geo-politics, nothing is ever certain. But we now have the means to eradicate most life on earth, and there are more than a few who think that Obama's adventures in Syria may bring that event to fruition.
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                    • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
                      >>"I am of the opinion that our species' best days may well be behind us. A few hundred years ago, there was a place for creative, thinking, adventurous people to go (America). They were tested, and rose to the challenge. But I wonder if life has perhaps become too easy, if too many morons aren't surviving to raise more litters of morons while intelligent people are discouraged from reproducing. Some recent research indicates that the average IQ in the Western world has dropped by 14 points over the past 100 years. Certainly if the SAT test is any indication, America is becoming a Nation of idiots. That test has trended downward since 1972.

                      When it comes to geo-politics, nothing is ever certain. But we now have the means to eradicate most life on earth, and there are more than a few who think that Obama's adventures in Syria may bring that event to fruition"<<

                      Yeah, me too ;(
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                • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                  Another thought I had - "proven" indicates some sort of test, does it not? That being the case, who/what is providing the testing and what is the criteria of the test? Is it simply to see which species can procreate the most amount of times or over the longest course of linear time? To me that's a pretty pointless test.

                  That's one of the things that to me separates man from beast: our intelligence allows us to even ponder and consider these questions at all. Intelligence and self-awareness to me rate much higher than the simple ability to pro-create. Intelligence allows us to grow, adapt, reason, invent, adjust, and improve - and we can even pass down some of our knowledge to following generations!

                  No, I believe that the test is something more than just living, breathing and dying. I believe in purpose for my life that differs from and is greater than any of the animals simply because I recognize my own existence.
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                  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                    Do you lack imagination enough to take the statement for what it is?

                    Okay - here's the test: If a mammalian species lasts for at least 1 million years, it is "proven". Less than 1 million year, it is not proven. 500,000 years? Not proven. 1,200,000 years? Proven. Don't even try to argue the point - you've asked for a definition - now you have it. Has Homo Sapiens been around for 1 million years? No. Therefore, it is not a proven species. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

                    Now, if you want to coin another term, like say, "fru-fru" to describe whatever your theory is regarding H. Sapiens, and declare that Homo Sapiens is more "fru-fru" than any other species, (indeed, that you are personally the most "fru-fru" H. Sapient who has ever lived)... feel free. But the term "proven" is taken and now explicitly defined. You can't have it. And Homo Sapiens is NOT... proven.

                    WILL Homo Sapiens last 1 million years?

                    Hard to say. I don't think so.

                    Until the late 19th early 20th Century, there was no "defective gene breeding program". But there is now. It's called "socialism" or "welfare" or "food stamps" or "Obamacare" - whatever it is that enables the mentally, physically and most importantly, genetically inferior/defective to survive and reproduce against all the dictates of nature.

                    I do not believe H. Sapiens is still evolving. I believe it is DE-volving, become less capable, less intelligent, less fit as a result of programs which allow the feeble-minded and the physically unfit to reproduce.

                    Homo Sapiens expresses new kinds of stupidity every day. How many other species foul their own "nests"? How many murder their own species? How many wipe out entire species and produce huge wastelands? Name a species other than H. Sapiens that can produce a Three Mile Island, a Fukishima meltdown, a Second World War, or, for that matter, war in any form? Yeah, animals fight, but the higher forms rarely fight to the death. Insects sometimes wage war - especially ants - but against their own species?

                    The irony of war is that we send some of our most capable people off to die, while the detritus of humanity sits fat, dumb and happy at home, oblivious. Overeating. Under-performing. Growing mentally feeble and physically weak. Turning into a gigantic pile of gelatinous poo.

                    More importantly, how many species make a practice of keeping around the genetically inferior versions of their species? Can you imagine other species keeping (and breeding) Downs Syndrome equivalents? Autistics? The mentally or physically retarded? Picture a wolf pack where the least fit breed out of control and the most fit don't breed at all!? Wolves would be chihuahuas. Scrawny, pathetic, stupid - food for other species.

                    Supreme Court Justice Holmes famously commented on the uncontrolled reproduction of the mentally defective saying, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough". But it's been far more than three generations. And now the morons are running the world. Do the research: Stupid women have far more children than intelligent women. The genes of the stupid are being passed down in record numbers. Intelligence (our defining characteristic) is being BRED OUT of H. Sapiens.

                    The most recent research shows a decline in IQ in the Western world of 14 points in the past century. An IQ of 116 is the equivalent of a "B" on standard 10% per grade level test. It's the 85th percentile. 14 IQ points down the scale is 102... which is the 55th percentile. In other words, a difference of 14 IQ points is the difference between a solid "B" and a "D-" or "F".

                    You know who's to blame?

                    Women. Same people who have wrecked our economy are destroying the species.

                    Stupid women are polluting the gene pool. Yeah, some will want to blame the men too - but you know, ladies, unless a woman is raped, she's the one choosing who will be the daddy to her baby, and as all the "I am woman, hear me roar" types will tell you, "My body, my choice". So the bottom line is, stupid women are CHOOSING to have stupid babies and are driving Homo Sapiens to the bottom - and they're doing it very quickly.

                    So much for the mental superiority of H. Sapiens.

                    How does one reverse the trend?

                    I suppose you could offer a reward for every child a woman with a 120+ IQ has (something along the lines of Heinlein's concept for the Long Society - but addressed to intelligence rather than longevity). Or we could have a big war and make sure lots and lots and lots of the fat, dumb, happy cows sitting in front of the TV chomping bon bons get killed. Or we could end any incentive for stupid women to have children (like ending all welfare in all forms - or penalizing people on welfare who have children). But short of something like that, in another 5 ort 10 generations, we could be too stupid as a species to survive, because you know what? Brains and opposable thumbs are all we have going for us. Most of our competitors have bigger muscles, sharper claws, longer teeth, more strength and greater speed than we do.

                    Will Homo Sapiens become a proven species?

                    I doubt it.
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                    • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                      Lack of imagination? Wow. Why lash out simply because I propose an alternative theory? Imagination is precisely what separates me from a bacteria or a dinosaur. That was kind of my line of reasoning. Wiat! There's another one: reason. What about hope? Emotion is also beyond the common animal. Lust, anger, love, sacrifice, despair, kindness, friendship... Animals have none of these. To me, longevity is one of the least imaginative methods of comparison in the universe, as it confines one to a scale of linear time and ignores the very obvious differences in the species. It assumes that every creature fills the same niche in nature rather than being a part of a larger ecosystem, does it not? It also completely avoids the problem of natural dependency - but maybe that is a weakness in your book. If so, however, wouldn't that mean that really what you are measuring is adaptability, and not really longevity at all, as longevity would be an effect rather than a cause?

                      You mention claws, etc., yet man has created their own advantages that outdo everything nature has produced. I find it interesting yet limiting that you seem to treat man as if we are naked primates running around in the wilderness. If survival of the fittest is your criteria, man is king. Man has eliminated more species than all others combined. All it takes is the ingenuity of a bullet or simple urban sprawl to render claw and tooth as obsolete and extinct as the dodo.

                      I also find your argument for selective breeding more than disturbing. I have an uncle with Down's Syndrome. I have a nephew that was born with two club feet. I have a daughter with Type I Diabetes. To say that any of these individuals should be deprived of life because of perceived imperfection is the classical slippery slope problem that created Hitler and his "master race" and fuels worldwide justification of abortion and genocide. It is the path to the dark side in a very real and literal sense. It is also a natural consequence of viewing humans as animals. I would hope that you aren't seriously a proponent of such evil.

                      I believe that even though man has shown the propensity for self-destruction, he has also shown the proclivity for greatness. But maybe that's the primary difference between our views: I believe that man is greater than animal and invested with a purpose of being and intellect that transcends that of animal. To me, the test of life is to see how we choose to use our intellect - for greatness or not.

                      If you want to view species on the scale of time, feel free. In another million years, you will be free to conclude that longevity is all that matters and I will bow to your greatness. Until then, I invite you to consider the alternative as a possibility - even a remote one.
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                      • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                        You weren't proposing an alternative theory. You were quibbling over the definition of the term "proven".

                        There's a difference between breeding for a "master race" and deliberately subsidizing the rat-like breeding conditions of the stupid class at the expense of the more… human… class. If it's intelligence that makes us human, then less intelligent humans must be "less human". That's using your own definitions!

                        We don't need to exterminate the stupid. We just need to stop subsidizing them. Let them die naturally.

                        There are entire regions of the earth that provide examples of human stupidity. Portions of Africa routinely breed out-of-control until the population exceeds the capacity of the land to support them. That's when morons step in with "aid programs" and funnel tons of food in - the better to enable more people to survive, to breed, to produce larger populations that will crash even harder.

                        Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

                        Your uncle with Down's syndrome - is he fully human? How much is spent correcting club feet, and do you advocate passing that trait on to future generations where it will be costly to correct? What is the cost of Type 1 diabetes, and are you taking food off the table of others to treat your daughter? If so, by what right? (If not, then it's your affair. But every dollar of government subsidy is a dollar stolen from someone else.)
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                        • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                          You intentionally twist my words. I did not say that humanity was defined by its level of intelligence, but that humans are the one species that evidences it at all. I would similarly point out that intelligence and its use (wisdom) are entirely different things. What I did say was that I believe that the purpose of life is to see how we would use the intelligence we have.

                          Yes, I was intentionally quibbling over the definition. I did so for all the reasons I mentioned but also to spur the conversation into an exploration of values. I was honestly curious as to why you chose longevity as your paramount virtue. I am frankly quite horrified at the results.

                          To you, everyone is an animal - nothing more, nothing less. There is no such thing as humanity. There is only squabbling over resources; no such thing or value as charity, mercy, love, kindness, friendship, etc. What an ironically short-sighted and pessimistic view of life. No hope. Only despair. No joy, only pain. No purpose whatsoever. How depressing. It is no wonder that you can not see the beauty and majesty in life and would actively choose to destroy that which you deem to be subservient or to have no value. To you, there are no positive gains to be had from the experience of life, only debits in terms of resource costs. It is no wonder you take such a jaundiced view of the future when you can take no joy in the experience of the present.

                          You have chosen the dark side, and I pity you. I would take the brightness and maturity of my 13-year-old daughter over depression and selfishness any day, even if it costs me $500/month in medication/supplies out of my non-government-subsidized paycheck. I would gladly watch football with my uncle (who has held the same paying job now for 25+ years at the local supermarket) any day over despair. And there is no way you could get me to take the joy away from my sister-in-law from watching her little boy grow up and walk. If you can honestly say that you would take away these experiences just because you view them as a waste of resources, you are the animal you want to see in everyone else.

                          I would invite you to try a different set of glasses. Not rose-colored lenses, but at least ones that aren't so covered in soot as to darken the world. There is much in life to celebrate - if one desires such. You may even enjoy it.
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                          • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                            >> If you can honestly say that you would take away these experiences just because you view them as a waste of resources…

                            Not at all.

                            Your hobbies are your own - so long as you're not stealing from other people to subsidize them.

                            As for the rest - there's a lot of projection going on there. Your rose-colored glasses hide the fact that there are real - and difficult - issues that we as a Nation, as a species, are not addressing.

                            Yes, I do feel a measure of despair. While we as a society think nothing of shelling out $50,000 a year to "educate" mentally-defective individuals who will never learn more than not to mess their pants, we virtually ignore those who, given the same resources, might solve the problems of mental retardation. What is $500/month for medications compared to $6000/year for research? If the past three generations had been wiser in allocating resources, we might have solved the problem of Type 1 Diabetes by now. But instead of cures, we create band-aids. It's a policy that's short-sighted and anti-progress.

                            So, nothing against your uncle or daughter or nephew, but do you really prefer to repair problems after they occur? Or solve them before they even happen?

                            Look at the trillions (yes, TRILLIONS) of dollars flushed down the rat hole of welfare. Can you not see that every moron we save, and allow to reproduce, is a room full of morons at a later date? A debt charged against the future with compound interest?

                            Hitler's eugenics programs were an affront to the world because the goal was to establish the Nazis as a "Master Race". But when you put the same argument in the form of, "Eliminating Type 1 Diabetes" or "Eliminating clubbed feet" or "Eliminating imbecility", are you for it? Or against it? In other words, what is your argument for PRESERVING resource sucking, anti-progress, maladies in H. Sapiens?

                            Watson and Crick didn't unravel DNA until 1953. Up until then, we might have been forgiven for preserving human misery through random rolls of the genetic dice. With the cost to sequence the human genome now in the $1000 range, there's no excuse for failing to screen for a wide range of genetic defects.

                            Maybe you think severe mental retardation, type 1 diabetes, gastroschisis, anencephaly, hypo plastic heart defects are all part of the "charity, mercy, love, kindness" of the species.

                            I don't. I view them as abominations that should be eliminated.

                            But I don't have a problem with you perpetrating the defects… so long as you don't ask anyone else to pay for them.
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                            • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                              "Your hobbies are your own - so long as you're not stealing from other people to subsidize them."

                              You paint a pretty broad brush there because you imply that my money should be under your control and my decisions should be subject to your whims. I reject such notions.

                              "What is $500/month for medications compared to $6000/year for research?"

                              You've obviously never met my daughters. There is joy of today. The possibilities of the future. There are all the things that spring from hope rather than cynicism. You make the argument that the price is too high. I rejoin by asking just what is the value of YOUR life? Of your friends? Family? Are you truly so jaded that these mean so little to you? If so, I pity you.

                              "In other words, what is your argument for PRESERVING resource sucking, anti-progress, maladies in H. Sapiens?"

                              I never argued for the preservation of disease - only the afflicted. You mistakenly inferred that for yourself. But until there IS a cure (which by-the-way there was for my nephew), you advocate simply eliminating the afflicted.
                              It reminds me of a Star Trek: TNG episode where they find a planet entirely peopled by healthy specimens but for whom ANY abrogation of the law meant certain death - regardless of how illogical or transient the law may have been. What you are proposing sounds eerily similar - no concept of mercy whatsoever. No thought that the person could reform or be rehabilitated.

                              "Maybe you think severe mental retardation, type 1 diabetes, gastroschisis, anencephaly, hypo plastic heart defects are all part of the "charity, mercy, love, kindness" of the species."

                              Those are infantile comments born of spite and pettiness. That those conditions exist is a fact - just as human emotions are a fact - but one over which neither you nor I have control to wave some magic wand and eliminate. If you wish to continue with a civil discussion, comments like that will cease immediately.

                              I had another daughter that died due a heart defect just before her first birthday and for which my wife and I rejected the government-subsidized heart-transplant being all but pushed down our throats by doctors. So you can take your self-righteous contempt to someone else. Either maintain a civil discussion or it ends right now. Your tone sneers condescension and superiority - not logic. If you are so entirely controlled by your logic and objectivity, such emotions would be beneath you and this conversation.

                              I am not advocating a welfare state. But I will firmly oppose any notion that the progress of humanity is somehow subverted by the variety of challenges which we face and can only be overcome by eliminating the challenged! Rather, the challenges should impel us individually to action - with kindness towards the afflicted, just as we would want others to treat us if our positions were reversed. There is a reason why it is called the "Golden Rule".
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                              • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                                >> You paint a pretty broad brush there because you imply that my money should be under your control and my decisions should be subject to your whims. I reject such notions.

                                Either learn to read or learn to think. Both would be better.

                                I specifically said that if you wanted to perpetuate genetic defects using your own money, go right ahead. Just don't steal from other people (through taxes, for example) to subsidize your fetish.

                                >> Those are infantile comments born of spite and pettiness. That those conditions exist is a fact - just as human emotions are a fact - but one over which neither you nor I have control to wave some magic wand and eliminate.

                                Except, if we can detect them, and even eliminate them, we may not do it via magic wand - but through science. By the way, what's your problem with that?

                                >> If you wish to continue with a civil discussion, comments like that will cease immediately.

                                Bite me.

                                >> Your tone sneers condescension and superiority - not logic.

                                It may seem that way to the emotional cripple - but you left logic long ago.

                                >> Rather, the challenges should impel us individually to action

                                And the challenge is to eliminate the genetic malfunction.

                                Look, I don't know why you're so gung ho to breed defective humans. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't require people to pay for other people's genetic mistakes. If two Down's Syndrome folks want to have a kid - fine. Not... one... taxpayer... penny to subsidize the Frankenstein experiment. If the kid winds up with its brain outside of its body, requiring a million dollars in medical care to "survive", then the parents can pony up the money - or not.

                                I'm not in favor of pouring millions and millions of dollars into such a lost cause. I'd much rather the money be spent on research to prevent the problems from happening in the first place.
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                                • Posted by Rozar 10 years, 3 months ago
                                  Lol I almost hate it when I agree with you Bambi because you're so brutal XD Let me ask you if you think the tax payers should be forced to pay for your research instead of their disabled kid that they chose to have?
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                                  • BambiB replied 10 years, 3 months ago
                          • Posted by 10 years, 3 months ago
                            blarman:
                            >>"To you, everyone is an animal - nothing more, nothing less. There is no such thing as humanity. There is only squabbling over resources; no such thing or value as charity, mercy, love, kindness, friendship, etc. What an ironically short-sighted and pessimistic view of life. No hope. Only despair. No joy, only pain. No purpose whatsoever. How depressing. It is no wonder that you can not see the beauty and majesty in life and would actively choose to destroy that which you deem to be subservient or to have no value. To you, there are no positive gains to be had from the experience of life, only debits in terms of resource costs. It is no wonder you take such a jaundiced view of the future when you can take no joy in the experience of the present."<<

                            I don't mean this as a personal attack, but your arguments are the perfect examples of non-objectivist thinking and rationality. I completely understand the difficulty in applying objectively rational and critical thought to personally involved and individual issues and conditions.

                            But the terms of this thread have been aimed at the species in general and life in total. And when viewed from those levels, it's hard to not see that our current altruistic and socialist approach to the moochers and looters of our species as well as denying and fighting nature's extinction of other species is threatening and damaging to us in general and even all of life.

                            Nature has no altruism, individually or generally. It has no care for value. It is simply a set of conditions and rules. It strikes me that our goal should be to seek understanding and knowledge, not tilt at windmills.
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                            • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                              Thanks for your comments, and I don't view your comment as a personal attack. Your comments are cogent, but I reserve the right to rebuttal.

                              Also, please understand that I do not condone the government welfare state. My comments are NOT an endorsement of what I view as a perversion of the word charity. To me, charity means teaching self-sufficiency while temporarily providing means. Charity is what parents provide for their children as the children grow up. Charity is not economic enslavement to perpetuate power. Real charity is an act of kindness motivated by love and hope for the future welfare of that person. Any computer can allocate resources - only a concerned human can see beyond the physical into the possibility of the future. I don't believe in government-sponsored handouts, but I absolutely believe that humankind is humankind only so far as we treat other humans better than the animals treat each other (though admittedly one wonders about that sometimes...)

                              What I am trying to point out is that the conversation has taken such a turn to the extremes of objectivism that now humanity is becoming a slave to resources rather than the master of them! Perhaps one of the best philosophical movie quotes of all time:
                              "Yeah, but your scientists were so busy thinking about whether or not they COULD, they didn't stop to think if they SHOULD." (Jurassic Park) If we do not consider the HOW and WHY in the approach to solving a problem, we are not even seeing the whole picture. The conversation has lost sight of the greater picture of humanity entirely and focused solely on allocation of resources! If all one considers is the zero-sum game of "if I have something then you don't", we are no better than the animals around us. Trade ceases. Markets cease. Society disintegrates. As thinking, rational beings, we should be concerned with the WHY and HOW of our solutions just as much as the end result. If not, we advocate the bankrupt philosophy that "the ends justify the means".

                              That is why the concept being proffered to just deny medication or treatment is so perverted and inhumane to me that it horrifies me that any sane, logical person would suggest it! That mentality would attempt to justify a slow and painful death without even the mercy of an execution for the sake of a few thousand dollars! It condemns the imperfect to a grisly death solely on the basis of one person's imperfect rationale of resource allocation - because let's face it: hope isn't rational. On the one hand, you would deny hope to the afflicted, yet on the other dole it out to someone with the title of "scientist"? Isn't that a glaring self-contradiction given the ingenuity of man? It further assumes that an imperfect person can not be a benefit to society - even if it is only their immediate family - without even giving them a chance to prove otherwise. That kind of thinking would have destroyed such greats as Ludvig von Beethoven, Hellen Keller, or Stephen Hawking and I'm frankly appalled that objectivism would be painted with such a brush.

                              I can't embrace that kind of objectivism - the kind that reduces humans to binary inputs and outputs. I don't agree with much of how government currently governs. Most are liberal philosophies that are proven false and self-destructive and are perpetuated simply for power's sake. But to claim that this type of extreme objectivism would be a cure is to ignore that it makes the same mistakes that liberalism/progressivism makes: that the fallible and human mind is capable of deciding what is best or right for other human beings. If the heart of objectivism relies on such, it will not find in me a disciple.

                              Liberals are too self-absorbed with power to further society. As evidenced by Detroit, progressivism is ntaurally destructive, not creative. The Rise of the Machines could only come from an objectivist mindset like that being proposed here, because those involved would believe in their own minds that they would be doing the "right" thing - even while looking down the barrel of their own demise.

                              Please tell me that this is not the type of objectivism being advocated here.
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          • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
            Not just utility... adaptability.

            The shark is far older than Man... but let's see how well he survives in Utah. Even if he's a Mormon shark.

            As Heinlein pointed out, once you get to orbit, you're halfway to anywhere. It takes as much delta-v to get to orbit as it takes to get from orbit to the outer planets.

            "Warp drive" is nonsense. If there is any 'shortcut" to interstellar travel, it'll be via "gates" such as portrayed in Babylon 5 or the Mote in God's Eye / Falkenberg's Legion books. A hole will have to be punched in spacetime.

            But, imagine us 6,000 years ago, just forming the first civilizations. People want to leap to the stars when there's still so much history to be made here.

            There are asteroids that can be scaled in to Earth and harvested both for their mineral and chemical content, as well as their angular momentum. Titan is a world of petrochemicals to be harvested. Venus and Mars are entire worlds to be Terraformed.

            There is much to do before we worry about heading for the stars.
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            • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
              Terraform VENUS? Are you off your nut?

              Back here on earth, people go into spasms at the idea that the average temperature might increase by 5 degrees. The surface temperature of Venus is 860F. (Lead melts at 621F.) The atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide… filled with clouds of sulphuric acid. Oh yeah… the atmospheric pressure at the surface is well over 1000 psi.

              "Warp Drive" is more likely than terraforming Venus! Mars might be terraformed following a few thousand years of concerted effort by all of humanity, but Venus? A hundred thousand years of space mirrors big enough to eclipse the planet (but not be blown away by the solar wind), enough meteor strikes to get the planet turning and, oh hell, why not just use your psi power to make it all happen?

              Of course, we would greatly increase our chances if we leaked the story that we had ALREADY terraformed Venus and encouraged certain groups to emigrate to the new "land of milk and honey". Maybe we could get the Demoncrats to believe that it was, "First come, first served, FREE government-paid condos on Venus!" (See C.M. Kornbluth's "Marching Morons".) But until we take that first step, there's little chance of Homo Sapiens ever doing anything serious in space. The idiots of society will drag it too far down.
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              • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                It'd actually be easier than Terraforming Mars.
                I read an article on one possible way back in the late 70s, and for the past several years have been working on methods for Terraforming both Mars and Venus for the purposes of fiction stories.

                We have hydrogen bomb technology. This means we can move asteroids and moons, with enough effort and patience. Over a period of a few thousand years, we can bombard Venus with asteroids to both blow off some of its atmosphere, and increase (or reverse) its spin rate. Using icy asteroids and moonlets would introduce much-needed h2o.

                This could be aided by the introduction into orbit around Venus of a moon (I favor Titan, but it may have to go to Mars; Venus may have to settle for Vesta).

                Bio-engineering will permit us to create tiny, oxygen-fixing plants capable of surviving the S2O4 in the atmosphere and pooping the carbon (of the carbon dioxide) out, releasing the oxygen, as they float/fall through the atmosphere. Unlike when Earth developed oxygen-releasing plant life, we can keep pumping fresh new drop plants into Venus' atmosphere.

                Once she's spinning fast enough, with a moon around her to both stir up her core and help generate a stronger magnetic field, she'll be easier to cool.

                Yes, it would take a few thousand years. You got someplace to go?

                your solar mirror idea is interesting. I'm wondering if we couldn't use it to heat selective parts of the atmosphere to separate out gasses and maybe make some of them "outgas" into space.

                There'll be some wild, electrically active storms as we cool Venus; the atmosphere will contract as it cools, and angular momentum should cause tornadoes and "dry hurricanes" that dwarf anything we have on Earth....

                Of course, I'm not laying everything out on the table, cause I want to leave some intrigue for my book(s).
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                • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                  > It'd actually be easier than Terraforming Mars.

                  I disagree. It's generally easier to heat a planet than it is to cool one. To warm Mars to ~20C would "only" require a +65 temperature change. From a thermal standpoint, we could survive on Mars right now. Colder temperatures than Mars have been recorded here on Earth.

                  Venus? You'd have to cool it by 440C… roughly 7 times the change in temperature. Venus masses about 10X what Mars does, so a lot less thermal mass to heat/cool.

                  >Yes, it would take a few thousand years.

                  More like millions of years. Or tens or hundreds of millions.
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                  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                    The temperature's not the only, or even main, issue to be dealt with.

                    For you, it couldn't be done. For normal homo sapiens, a few millennia should do.
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              • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 3 months ago
                ROFL. But, but...never say never. ;)
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                • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                  Of course I'll say, "Never".

                  Not that anyone now alive will ever know.
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                  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                    ::bites tongue::

                    Read the book(s) when I get them written and see... you could be wrong there, too. :)
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                    • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                      One other thought on longevity generally: As our life spans have increased, new maladies have surfaced. From a Darwinian perspective, our design only requires us to be functional long enough to see our offspring reach reproductive age. In other words, everything after the age of 30-40 is gravy.

                      When the average life span was in the ~40-45 range, there were lots of causes of death that rarely manifested themselves. How long has Alzheiner's been around? When did brittle bones start becoming a widespread concern? Cataracts? Arteriosclerosis? In order to get some diseases, you basically have to "outlive" your design. As longevity is increased, I expect we will see new failure modes that we haven't even anticipated. There could be millions of them.

                      Consider for a moment the capacity of the brain. If we lived the equivalent of 200 "normal" human lifetimes (50 years each), what would we remember? Is the data structure sufficiently robust to enable function after the first 300 years? Or does the data degrade and become garbled? The very nature of the brain doesn't lend itself to things like "regeneration" or "transplants". How would you do a "memory upgrade"? Would we still recognize the mind of a 1000 year old human as sentient? Or would it be degraded beyond recognition?
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                    • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                      Will the books be finished before everyone now alive is dead? :-P

                      The research into telomere manipulation probably holds the greatest promise for longevity. Of course, telomeres that don't shorten just open the door for cancers. I'm doubtful that any million year old humans will be knocking around come terraforming time.

                      To achieve the sort of things we've been talking about here would require an end to disease, war, politics and a half-dozen other items that won't likely be resolved in the next 1000 millennia (assuming the species lasts that long).

                      Just for chuckles, it might be interesting to know if the United States is putting more money into developing and manufacturing weapons and spy equipment, or solving health problems like heart disease and Alzheimer's. You know, one side of that balance sheet at least increases the likelihood of a successful species. The other? Not so much.
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                      • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                        "Will the books be finished before everyone now alive is dead? :-P "

                        Hopefully not before some...

                        "...come terraforming time"...

                        come Terraforming time? What do you mean *come* Terraforming time? Terraforming time begins *now*.
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            • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
              Minor technicalities, but the gates in Babylon 5 just granted access to hyperspace - a sub-dimension for which space/time had different meanings and rules. And you had to navigate using the beacons to another gate to get out again - unless you were one of the few ships like the White Stars or other capital ships that could carry a portable generator. You could get lost in Babylon 5's hyperspace.

              Star Wars and Star Trek are slightly different, they just used "hyperspace" or "subspace aka warp space" (respectively) as the medium of travel. The engines engaged (pun intended) and held the ship in this "other" space as well as providing movement, but as soon as the engines disengaged, the ship dropped out of "other" space back into warp space.

              There was a fascinating approach in a novel I'll have to find where there were creatures linked in spacetime to others of their species and through which other matter could pass and instantly be transported to its corollary anywhere - the only trick was that since the two started as pieces of the same whole, you still had to transport one side to the eventual exit!

              I like to think of the Q approach (from Star Trek - TNG) - just change the constants of the universe in the locality! Speed of light in a vacuum is now 300 TRILLION m/s. Zoom!

              Another option is to just jump into the fifth dimension and navigate through til you find the spot in the fourth where you want to pop out. Though at this point it seems highly unlikely, it is alluded to in "Flatland".

              Still another under consideration is to "fold" spacetime and create an access point that creates an artificial bridge between two points allowing instantaneous travel.

              You could also get into quantum teleportation which has been able to teleport subatomic particles from one point to another instantaneously, but hasn't been able to shift a massive particle yet - let alone an atom or molecule.

              Lots of ideas. Still a whole solar system to explore... But then?
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              • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                I used it as an example; I would have used Stargate as the example, but then everyone would think I was talking about portals on planets which would be very difficult and dangerous both.

                In The Mote in God's Eye and the Falkenberg Legion series, ships had to travel to specific points, activate their "jump drives", and then travel to their destination. In Mote, what protected us from the aliens was that the jump point was within the corona of a red giant star.

                "Still another under consideration is to "fold" spacetime and create an access point that creates an artificial bridge between two points allowing instantaneous travel. "

                exactly.
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              • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                Two other science fiction models that come to mind… One in which a "transporter" copies down all the information and "beams" it to a chamber where it's reassembled. The only drawback is that it's not really sending the individual. It's only sending the information on how to construct the individual. When it comes to light that every transport involves making a copy (and killing the original) hilarity ensues.

                Another piece I read recently (written in the late 1940s WOC) involved man's first trip into a "null" space through which it was possible to "tunnel" to distant locations in 3-space. After a couple of trips, aliens lay eggs in the dimension ship.
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                • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 3 months ago
                  If the the universe is actually a small bubble in a cosmic multiverse, then there are millions of me out there. (In theory, of course.) Millions of me that took those different paths in life. I would like to meet my 'selves'. Possible start with a small group of around a hundred. I understand the Holiday Inn does a group package deal for family reunions. We could get a cheap rate. (We, as in not you, but me and others that are also me, but not.)
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                • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                  Sweet. You don't happen to have the titles of those pieces do you?
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                  • Posted by BambiB 10 years, 3 months ago
                    Looking…
                    Hmm. Can't locate the second one at the moment, which is puzzling since I only read it recently. If I come across it, I'll let you know.

                    Came across another story, "Gossamer" by Stephen Baxter that involves wormholes right out of the gate.

                    When you think about it, a whole lot of Sci-Fi stories have to have wormholes, stargazes or FTL ships. Many Sci-Fi stories take place in space - often far from Earth. That raises the question, "How did they get there?" -- and off you go!

                    I recommend "And then there were None" to all residents of the Gulch. (see http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php)

                    And "The Marching Morons" offers a lesson we should consider… ahem.
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                  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 3 months ago
                    I'm trying to remember the title of the story where John Ben Pertin is "teleported" to a ship on a suicide mission, while the real John Pertin (several of them, actually) stays alive and safe and enjoys his honeymoon back home.
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              • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 3 months ago
                Yes, I'm a sci-fi geek. You could also have mentioned the Stargates (from their respective movie/TV series, wormholes (Star Trek - DS9), "Sliders" (TV series), or a host of other phenomenae. Please feel free to chime in with others!
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