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Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 334

Any one computer doesn't have to survive longer than a human lifespan if you can transfer files between computers and backup. I have taken many digital pictures in my life, they have been taken with ever increasing quality and the sum total of all pictures has been stored on ever larger and faster laptops. I can afford a new laptop every 2 years, so laptop failures have all been really expected and yet still totally Ok.

Pictures don't constantly change. Humans do.
There are no legal problems in having more than one copy of a picture.
You still haven't had your pictures survive for 90+ years. I have a bunch of e-books I no longer can read, because a company discontinued it. This is your brain on DRM.

Comment Re:Death is necessary for evolution to take place (Score 1) 334

Then you become a cyborg and "evolve" by upgrading. Sounds pretty sweet to me. Probably the easiest route to "immortality" too.

It opens up for a boatload of problems, though. Like the clone problem. Communism likely has to be achieved and property abolished before this is feasible. Otherwise, let's say you upgrade, but leave your old self active. Who owns your assets? And who speaks for "you"? And if killing the old body is the law, when, legally, does you-2.0 become a person? What if the transfer takes place over relativistic distances?

We sure have to change a lot from being greedy self-worshiping apes before this stands a chance.
I don't think it will - human nature being what it is, I think machine hosted humans can be no more than slaves, serving those who can and will exploit being able to possess and inherit.
Time will tell, and I won't be around, as I'm content with having an unpredictably short life span.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 334

Why is transhumanism a fantasy? Our consciousness arises from the functioning of our physical brain and if we can duplicate that functioning in a machine then we can live much, much longer than we live know.

I'm not so sure. Can you find chips that are guaranteed to last as long as a human brain lasts?

Oh, FUTURE technology, I hear the cries. Sorry, no, the direction of technology research goes in the opposite direction, towards faster, smaller and less durable. There is no reason why this should change, given that those who sell want to continue selling replacements as often as they can get away with.
Show me a computer built to last longer than a human lifespan, and I'll lift an eyebrow. Until then, it's merely a fantasy.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 2) 334

Since when has being beyond an evolutionary incentive had anything to do with morality. We vaccinate our children, wash our hands, build sewage treatment plants, etc... all of which subvert evolution.

That's not subverting evolution. Evolution happens whenever there is a way for genetics to pass. If the people who wash their hands and build sewage treatment plants have a higher chance of their offspring reproducing, then they're the evolutionary winners.

If you can make peoples lives better and longer it is right to do so.

That doesn't follow. That's moralism, and assuming that your culture has a monopoly on knowing what's "better". Some might think that a Logan's Run society was better. Others would gladly have traded their 90 year old lifespans for the much shorter lives of, say, Mozart or Jim Morrison.
If you want to live forever, go ahead, and try. But don't for a second assume that everybody is as shit scared of death as you are and should feel happy if given longer lives. It's not for you to say.

Comment Re:Death is necessary for evolution to take place (Score 1) 334

So because death always wins at the end you want others not to try and not to work towards increasing their own lifespan? Yeah, death always wins, as long as we let it, it wins. We will all die, no question about it. What are you going to do about it, just return to the slime you came out of? You won't even try?

Those who will try, do you know what will happen once (not if, once) they succeed? They will be called 'the rich' (and they may as well be, it will be painfully expensive to achieve those results) and the rest will go to WAR to get a piece of that cake, which they did not bake, which the likes of you are spitting upon in its general direction.

Don't pretend you won't be on this or some other forum should this happen within your life time, yelling and screaming that the rich are the bastards that prevent the rest from having something that they have achieved. Your position right now is most likely in direct contradiction to your future position, should that future materialise, where you will be willing to do just about anything, including murder and theft, anything to get a piece of that.

Whoah, what a rant, and all quite misplaced too.
If the "rich" wants a cure that prolongs life, let them have it. It will be the downfall for them in the long run. And if the plebs want to go to war over that, let them.
It will just serve to get rid of both, making those of us who don't feel a need to cheat or cause death have a greater chance of our genes surviving in the long run.

I don't envy people with long lives. Nor short lives. If they want long lives, let them have it. As long as those attaining it pay for the resources and don't take mine which I use to lead a happy life.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 334

We should probably take away the insulin from the diabetics and the classes and contacts from people who are near-sighted, and undo any laser surgeries we've done on peoples eyes.

You know, to serve as an evolutionary incentive.

In case you were wondering, evolution is not "survival of the fittest", it's "survival of those who successfully reproduce most", or we would have weeded things like near-sightedness out of the genome a long time ago, along with all other recessive traits.

Straw-man, as well as a severely wrong understanding of evolution. Evolution does not cause anything - it describes what happens. And what happens is that those who have viable offspring down the line are the ones whose genes survive. No time limit, no single generation. That you live is an evolutionary plus for the genes of your great-great-geat-grandmother.

As for recessive traits, unless they are severe enough to cause you to lose against competitors without the same trait, they will not be bred out. We still have tail bones and appendices. The disadvantage isn't big enough to make a difference compared to other differences. Same with myopia, which incidentally can also be advantageous for individuals who deal with close things and do not have a need to focus at what's far away. Diabetes? I would think that type 2 isn't going to show a lot of evolutionary disadvantage, given that it mostly hits post-fertile or low-fertility individuals. Depending on where you live, it may have an economic impact that cascades down to younger generations.
Type 1 diabetes is more likely to show a selection favor against it in the long run, and, indeed, the relatively low rate of individuals with type 1 diabetes is likely a sign of this happening.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 334

Indeed, and saying "Death is wrong" is in my view just another form of religion, most of which are based on the fear of death. It may be a good survival trait to have fear of death, but it leads to things like religions, including this new technological one, and prolonging life beyond when it serves an evolutionary incentive.

Death is just the end part of life. Avoid it if you still intend to reproduce or care for young, and otherwise, it's just death. Nothing mystical or something you can or should beat. Unless you want to believe in fairy tales, just accept it. Death is.

Comment Re:Doesn't solve the big problem (Score 1) 413

I don't think he wants to get rid of mastering, but to actually have all the tracks, so the user can> adjust the mix, however subtly or hard he wants to.
If would have a great benefit for karaoke and jamming use if you could completely take out a track.
It would also allow for dynamics to change automatically based on the playback equipment and user preferences. There would no longer be a need to hard limit the mix to the crappiest common platform - OEM car stereos.
But most of all, there would be more freedom in how the music should sound. Which is what recording engineers fear the most.

In my practice room, there's a sign on the wall:
God doesn't believe he's a recording engineer.

Comment Re:Please.... (Score 1) 321

If the intersection by my house had no stop signs, I'd go to the city council and say, "Hey! There's an uncontrolled intersection right next to my house, and I can't let my kid out the door without direct supervision, or he could get hurt. There need to be some stop signs there!" That's the answer, not "pay closer attention to your kid you lazy parent!"

Um, no, that is not the answer. It's your responsibility to not have your kids run over. It's also the responsibility of drivers not to run anyone over, and follow traffic laws like yielding to the right and to pedestrians, but that doesn't absolve you as a parent from taking responsibility.

The benefits of a stop sign to you and others should be weighed against the disadvantages to others. You and your kids isn't the number one priority in the world, for anyone except you.

Comment Re:Please.... (Score 0) 321

Ah yes, the rallying call of the childless. I'm sure that if you ever have kids, you'll have the means and inclination to devote N hours of your own time every day simply to keeping them entertained.

Guess what? I do not have children precisely because I don't have the hours needed to parent them. If you don't have time, and still produce children, isn't that your problem, not Google's?

My parents dedicated time to supervising us whenever we did something that required supervision. Mobile phones didn't exist. And we didn't require them to be entertained. My parents sang with us, played with us, taught us leisure pastimes from their childhood, and watched us when we used knives or saws.

Comment Re:Please.... (Score 0) 321

The recommended action is to just not give the device to a child,

Or not entering your password the first time for an app purchase.
Or only let a child who can't be trusted to do something on his own do it supervised. As in really supervised. The parent paying attention.

I think the real problem is that parents want to use a phone or tablet as a pacifier, so they don't have to parent the tykes.

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