Some good points there. I think in a stable environmental niche, intelligence would never develop, most of the oldest species have been in such niches as long as they've been around. However that an entire biosphere which remains permanently environmentally stable exists out there is something I find difficult to credit. I mean sure it's possible but the universe is a tumultuous place.

In such changing environments adaptability is king, and intelligence is the best enabler of adaptability.

Because the poster stepped out of a way-back machine and didn't notice ...

Intelligence is the ultimate evolutionary adaption, I believe that life inevitably tends towards higher and higher levels of it. Consider, we're ill suited for anything but temperate climates in our bare skin, and even then we'd make easy prey for predators, being neither fast nor especially strong.

Add a sprinkle of intelligence and suddenly we're wearing animal skins in the cold, building fires at night, and protecting ourselves with spears.

Intelligence is absolutely a survival trait, perhaps the most powerful one.

Power it using lasers - duh.

Technically that is correct, which was the point of this whole topic. But that is the basic intent and they are about as close as it comes.

Just two comments here, though there are many I could make.

First, income inequality is NOT the real issue. Why should you care who is or is not rich? The PROBLEM is poverty.

Second, my whole point was that it is very easy to show that income inequality has become WORSE, the more statist the U.S has become. I'm not saying that correlation proves causation, but the existence of a correlation is indisputable.

Waze wasn't bad about collecting information until it was acquired by Google.

This is a patently ridiculous assertion. A copyright holder can voluntarily place a work in the public domain (that's what GPL and Creative Commons are all about, for example). In fact that's what this whole discussion is ABOUT. Have you read any of it?

Another patently ridiculous assertion. There doesn't have to be a law "allowing" it. That's not how the law works. It would not be possible only if there were a law against it.

The FACT is, not many years ago Congress passed a law that put millions of works that were formerly in the public domain back under copyright. That is the incident that caused EFF to start pushing for a law that would make that no longer possible.

So you are WAY out in left field.

Don't be a jerk. The question is whether all drones should be restricted just because the President is a candy-ass.

A Federal court has already ruled that the FAA does not have authority to regulate drones, except those that enter "navigable airways". REGARDLESS of whether their use is commercial. Their regulatory authority is limited to interstate commerce, which is the basis for the definition of navigable airways.

The solution to the Whitehouse problem is simply to make it illegal to fly drones THERE. Not to regulate them everywhere else.

The FAA has appealed the court's ruling, but based on evidence and precedent it is pretty clear the FAA will lose that appeal.

More generally, Vivaldi wrote more than forty operas. Which, I think is the actual reference - he founded/wrote Opera.

Maybe if they sorted out their own shitty political systems and made their politicians and beaurocracy, public sector, what have you accountable they would be able to enjoy the fruits of modern civilisation along with the rest of us.

Have you ever lived in a developing country? As soon as anyone pokes their head above the crowd there's a queue of plebs with pieces of paper in their hands stretching around the corner looking for bribes, their cut, their piece of the pie, and before too long there's no pie left at all. This is the reality.

Which has already been explained to you three times.

Yes capitalism is harnessed greed and that's a good thing. I rejoice to see corporations battling it out, I weep to see a single clear winner.

I'm none too happy with the banks myself, property bubbles completely loot middle class wealth and that needs to never happen again, but look at all the posters in this story gibbering about equality of income - do they have any understanding of how insane that is? Clearly not.

So they indulge in masturbatory fantasies about the indefinable paradise that awaits humanity after all the bourgeoise are killed off. Or was that the jews. No, wait, the intellectuals. White men?

Better they use their minds instead of parroting the delusions of a nineteenth century habitual drunk.

Suck it youngsters!

I live in Virginia Beach and still have a copper POTS line with Verizon -- my TV and internet are via coax from Cox. Having copper has it's advantages, like (1) still working in an extended power outage, (2) not having to pay for the replacement battery in the eMTA modem and (3) being able to get phone service from third-party provider. Once you switch to FiOS or simply phone over fiber, you're stuck having to use Verizon over that media and they will *not* ever switch you back to copper.

During one of the last bad hurricanes that caused an extended power outage of a few days, copper landlines were of the few working phones (land or wireless) in my neighborhood / area. I've only been w/o phone service *once* here since 1985, when the power when out across the city for over a week after a hurricane, when the Verizon generators finally ran out of fuel.