Answers in order: I don't know how many less than everyone. Like most people, my activites are a mix of good and bad.Originally Posted by Enoch the Red
Answers in order: I don't know how many less than everyone. Like most people, my activites are a mix of good and bad.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
They're going to die anyway - this is a sacrifice to save the human species. So, what it comes down to is me and mine dying with everyone else or just me and mine dying. Why would I choose to take everyone else with me?
Duh, nothing. This is a juvenile morality thought experiment. I made the only sensible choice and it wasn't particularly difficult to see.What empowers you to make that choice? (Honestly...I'm asking)
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Hello, that was the question I asked and the one you were supposed to answer. I didn't realize I was supposed to ask one thing while expecting the answer to something else. Daft indeed.
What you fail to comprehend is that a gigantic, species destroying catastrophe happens on Earth regularly and if humanity manages to avoid destroying itself with your brand of ideology, it will certainly face one of these catastrophes. It may be possible to deal with them reactively and it may not. And if not, then that will be that for humanity. You can't undo it and try again with better contingency planning.Someone asked whether they taught about spreading risks in Economics - actually more talk is done of "opportunity cost" - that which can not be done because something else was done instead. What is the opportunity cost of investing sufficiently to spread life? What are the benefits of spreading life? What is the risk it will be "necessary"?
I would say in order: Massive, negligible, negligible.
The choice I thought I was given was to sacrifice myself and my family to save all of humanity, not some micro-portion of humanity. Is this another hidden question thing?The sacrificing yourself in order to save mankind is a bad analogy, since virtually 100% of mankind would still get destroyed if Earth was. Would you sactifice yourself and 99.9% of all the rest of mankind to save 1 stranger?
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Ballpark it.
What do you think you've done that is good for the planet, and the species?
I'm lost. What's the point here?
There is no point. He wants me to assign a headcount value to my family. How many people is it worth sacrificing my family to save. I can't give an exact number but it's in the high billions.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
Regularly? Define regularly?Hello, that was the question I asked and the one you were supposed to answer. I didn't realize I was supposed to ask one thing while expecting the answer to something else. Daft indeed.
What you fail to comprehend is that a gigantic, species destroying catastrophe happens on Earth regularly and if humanity manages to avoid destroying itself with your brand of ideology, it will certainly face one of these catastrophes. It may be possible to deal with them reactively and it may not. And if not, then that will be that for humanity. You can't undo it and try again with better contingency planning.
Civilised humanity has existed for 10,000 years and homo sapiens for 195,000 years without being destroyed by such a catastrophe and that is without our advanced technology to attempt to save ourselves.
My brand of ideology does nothing to destroy humanity.
The point is, as LittleFuzzy proved above, even were we to start "spreading life", it would only be a micro-portion of humanity for a very long time.The choice I thought I was given was to sacrifice myself and my family to save all of humanity, not some micro-portion of humanity. Is this another hidden question thing?
If the rationale is the succes and long term survival of the species then it doesn't matter if 99% of humanity remains on Earth as that still means millions of people are living not on Earth (at current population numbers we're talking between 60 and 70 million people.) Even a 0.1 or 0.01 percent would be sufficient as long as there's always a sufficiently sized community living at any one place (a couple 1000 is iirc considered sufficient to propagate the species).
So the "spreading life" rationale is not in contradiction with the bulk of humanity staying put. They're both possible at the same time.
I'm genuinely curious whether or not those who loudly protest about consumption, population control, etc... being the downfall of humanity, are truly willing to change their conventions in order to serve the greater good.
This may or may not apply to Khan specifically, but there were those who thought that RandBlade was the spawn of Cthulhu for putting the needs of the few, (in reality millions upon millions of people) ahead of those of the collective.
There are several ironies here, not the least of which is debating the point on an electronic bulletin board, which is certainly indicative of the height of western consumption and narcissism. How many third world children could be provided for by the costs of running these servers alone, the computers used to access the boards, the energy spent maintaining these networks? Is it only noble to care about humanity collectively in vague abstractions, as opposed to concrete actions? Is it really admirable to get worked up over the insensitivity Randblade displayed by caring about himself, his family, and those closest to him as opposed to some distant absorption about humanity entire?
When it comes down to it, are those championing the 'greater good' actually willing to make the real sacrifices that their beliefs may require of them, for the betterment of humanity as a whole, or is it simply pompous posturing on the interwebs?
For what it's worth, I'd go.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
In general though, I'm leery of these kind of "champagne socialist" retorts. What do they actually mean? They seem to run with this implicit assumption that everything we do, and everything we adhere to, must be perfectly rational, logical and based on a simple set of premises. (Never mind that many of the people championing these arguments are ardent Christians!)
One human gender is pretty systematically being destroyed in about a third of the globe. The global slave trade, today, sells more slaves per annum than in the hey-day of black slavery. But the right-wingers on this forum have told me, several times, that it's not really worth caring about. Who gives a shit? We got ours, technology is up, quality of life is up, we have the Internets and I have my grain alcohol, so shut up and consume?
Of course we're going to be eclectic about the causes we choose to champion. Dreadnaught met pretty universal bafflement when he got really emotional about taxing inheritance. Minx is worried about brown people, which quite frankly is out of fashion and no one in their right mind (heh) in the West does that. I like science, which thankfully at least has some real-world applications such as smaller iPods, but even so, women are being raped right now. Children, even. And I'm not doing a gods-damned thing about it. So I shouldn't do anything about anything else, either? Thank Cthulhu for this grain alcohol, I suppose.
In the future, the Berlin wall will be a mile high, and made of steel. You too will be made to crawl, to lick children's blood from jackboots. There will be no creativity, only productivity. Instead of love there will be fear and distrust, instead of surrender there will be submission. Contact will be replaced with isolation, and joy with shame. Hope will cease to exist as a concept. The Earth will be covered with steel and concrete. There will be an electronic policeman in every head. Your children will be born in chains, live only to serve, and die in anguish and ignorance.
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
That's not the point I recognized. The point I recognized is that no matter what happens, it will almost certainly be easier for the species to survive/deal with it on Earth than it will be for us to survive/handle extra-terran habitation.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Of course it does. Consumerist capitalism is taking us down the road toward extinction and your personal ideology says do nothing about it.
That's an idiotic reason to do nothing. We'd be still living in caves if ancient humanity was motivated the way you advocate.The point is, as LittleFuzzy proved above, even were we to start "spreading life", it would only be a micro-portion of humanity for a very long time.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
That's a false dichotomy. The building of a space industry, the greening of our energy industry and our global footprint is certain to create enormous opportunity and prosperity for everyone.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
The solution to the problem of an asteroid impact is not to leave Earth. Leaving Earth is the ace in the hole should the efforts to save humanity at home fail. This is no argument against colonizing other worlds.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
I think this discussion is being talked about wrong. It is clear regardless how you frame it that humanity HAS to colonize other worlds in order to survive. It's a matter of when...
Do you not see the inherent contradiction here? You crave the spoils of "consumerist capitalism," but balk at its costs. Why do you think we have the luxury of "green" technologies? Why do you think we were able to afford the early and otherwise prohibitively expensive stages of the space industry?Of course it does. Consumerist capitalism is taking us down the road toward extinction and your personal ideology says do nothing about it.
Actually, there was a really close call, what was it, 100k years ago? Humanity almost went extinct. But I realize that's beside the point.
If it'll take a very long time, we'd better get started right away.The point is, as LittleFuzzy proved above, even were we to start "spreading life", it would only be a micro-portion of humanity for a very long time.
Really, even if you don't buy the 'ensure the survival of the species' argument, the nearly infinite riches right outside our doorstop should be enough to get us going. With current metal demands growing faster than production, those problems could be solved with all the resources just floating around out there. I think most people's time horizons are just too short.
The sun becomes a red giant in five billion years, so that's the absolute upper limit. As for anything sooner, it depends on how optimistic or pessimistic you are about the future pace of technological development, population growth, how many resources can actually be gotten out of earth and the future rate of resource consumption, and how much more we can get out of the arable land on earth with better farming technology. Basically, it's a race between on the one hand, a bunch of unknowns which will shorten the time we can support ourselves just with the Earth, and another bunch of unknowns which will extend it. So, we don't and can't know. All we know is that the point will come sometime.
Citation needed.Resource exhaustion will be avoided by technological progress/recycling/reclamation more than space mining.
Asteroids are full of precious metals. NEAR Shoemaker's study of Eros, 33 km long, found it to be full of about $20,000 billion worth of aluminum, gold, platinum and various other esoteric materials: more than we have ever or could ever extract from the Earth's crust. The asteroid belt has hundreds of thousands of objects of some sort of appreciable size (i.e. not a random space pebble).What resources do you think are able to be mined in our solar system in a serious quantity to be able to assist on earth?
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
I prefer the mindless "technology will solve the problems" religion though.
Not really.
It's even better when it's being used to explain why we shouldn't invest in the technology that will solve the problems.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
"Free markets will solve it."
One of the more ignorant mantras ever, especially considering that most dominant economies in history got there by the government promoting the economy. The most visionary elements of free markets have 3-5 years of vision, very rarely 10.
It is, perhaps, a comment on just how HARD it must necessarily be to create a sustained habitat in a basically lifeless environment.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Citation needed.
Wow, that is easy....
Whoops! BS argument, like the one applied to Al Gore. If somebody is doing something positive (by their lights), it is BS to criticize them for doing enough. That's the "pure ideology" fallacy, i.e. it's only acceptable to make a bold policy statement if you take it to an extreme in personal practice. Since the point is "less consumption" not "no consumption," clearly this is just specious and lazy ad hominem.
An important point, the distinction between needs and wants. For Rand, a widget producer, people having a philosophy of "the more widgets the better" is a no-brainer. Hell, he doesn't care what kind of widget. He just wants people to buy so his own wealth will increase.This may or may not apply to Khan specifically, but there were those who thought that RandBlade was the spawn of Cthulhu for putting the wants of the few, (in reality millions upon millions of people) ahead of those of the collective.
Same BS argument wrt extremes. So nobody should ever push for a more humane/environmentalist/sustainable/whatever approach to things because they can't d it perfectly? Yeah, Chaloobi would be much better of eschewing all technology and going into the African bush to work as a Peace Corps volunteer. Compare the success of that group collectively with those who make systemic changes.There are several ironies here, not the least of which is debating the point on an electronic bulletin board, which is certainly indicative of the height of western consumption and narcissism. How many third world children could be provided for by the costs of running these servers alone, the computers used to access the boards, the energy spent maintaining these networks? Is it only noble to care about humanity collectively in vague abstractions, as opposed to concrete actions? Is it really admirable to get worked up over the insensitivity Randblade displayed by caring about himself, his family, and those closest to him as opposed to some distant absorption about humanity entire?
Sound like a cheap-ass rationalization by those who'd prefer to sit on their asses and ensure that the flow of goodness comes to them. Oops, sucks to be the target of BS knee-jerk slurs, eh?
Yes, far, far better so cynically sit back and hurl insults while nihilistically not giving a fuck, which is really a front for attacking a philosophy that might crimp your personal wank-fest, all because the people suggesting changes don't meet your arbitrary standards of ideological purity.When it comes down to it, are those championing the 'greater good' actually willing to make the real sacrifices that their beliefs may require of them, for the betterment of humanity as a whole, or is it simply pompous posturing on the interwebs?
Why don't you just be honest and say "fuck 'em if they can't get theirs." The faux sanctimony is somewhat nauseating.
Two points made (governments and time frames)
1) I'll cite, well, all of history. Virtually ALL successful economies have been backed by governments that used power to manipulate markets. In many cases, the two were virtually indistinguishable (consider Venice, Florence and Genoa during the Renaissance). As examples that you may recognize, both the UK and then the US used projection of power and trade barriers (the former to remove barriers, the latter to ensure direction of flow of goods) to increase their own wealth, in a positive feedback loop of increasing power. What, you're not familiar with the economic wars of the US? Or the trade barriers before the modern era?
2) Prima facie. Show me markets with vision past ten years. Rare venture capitalists will invest in a project with a yield further than 5 years out. The vast majority are thinking about the next quarter, and strategizing for the 1-3 year range.
okay but tear come on let's be nice, it's not often we get new people around these parts
Apart from that I myself agree with those responses. But if we must get personal I'd like to point out that I try to keep my consumption in check and I'd also be happy to give more of my money towards saving the planet esp. once I begin earning a proper income.
If I were to give up the miniscule portion of the internet's resources that I presently use, why, I think my campaigning would be severely hampered. What do you think?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
There is no contradiction. A space industry, while having large startup costs, will generate gigantic wealth. Re-engineering and replacing our energy infrastructure will do likewise. It's only those with a vested interest in the status quo who shout about the costs while ignoring the dividends.
The Rules
Copper- behave toward others to elicit treatment you would like (the manipulative rule)
Gold- treat others how you would like them to treat you (the self regard rule)
Platinum - treat others the way they would like to be treated (the PC rule)
BS is BS, whether somebody is new or not. Perhaps Enoch will rely more on substance from now on, rather than old and tired boilerplate?okay but tear come on let's be nice, it's not often we get new people around these parts
1) I just get tired of that preposterous argument: "You aren't perfect, therefore you have no right to criticize." Hey, we're all sinners, right? Nobody is perfect. But some people try and others can't be fucking bothered. The "can't be bothered" set pointing out the imperfections of the "try and fall short" set is nauseatingly dishonest. I'm not going to let that slide.Apart from that I myself agree with those responses. But if we must get personal I'd like to point out that I try to keep my consumption in check and I'd also be happy to give more of my money towards saving the planet esp. once I begin earning a proper income.
2) I earn a proper income I suppose (whatever that is), and I don't resent my taxes. I might be irritated that we're giving them to Halliburton to piss away in Iraq, but I also recognize that not all actions of a democracy are not going to suit my little wold view. Whining about "teh gubmint taking away my munny!" is a certain character trait, one I thankfully don't have. It almost always comes across as greed.
Not at all sure what you're saying there.If I were to give up the miniscule portion of the internet's resources that I presently use, why, I think my campaigning would be severely hampered. What do you think?
Well, that's always the case, ain't it? There will always be huge economic inertia from those on top of the heap. It's the biggest problem with the "new" model of governments driving economies (investment in foundational research and infrastructure) as opposed to the "old" (use fiscal policy and military threat/force to control market access). The old method simply said, "well get you markets where you can clean up." The new model, an inevitable consequence of technological complexity, emphasizes change, which will always be anathema to those who have cleaned up using the current paradigm. Historically speaking, in hindsight this may be the worst legacy of the W administration. It was spectacularly bad luck to have two oil men in charge for 8 years at that particular juncture, when the alt energy momentum could easily have been shifted irrevocably to favor the US (as was done with computers/networks). Historical economists will probably view that as more costly than the Iraq war.
I thought Enoch was GhostEnigma.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
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