"seems sad"? Did you even read what I wrote? I gave two separate and specific contexts where extinction is a clear loss to humanity: scientific loss in all cases, and cultural loss in more limited cases. Both go well beyond "seems sad".

Along with climate changes, desertification, habitat destruction, food chain collapse,...

Nobody is arguing that point. A meter striking a major city would be totally natural too. "Natural" is hardly a reason to simply let it happen if we see it coming.

It's still a scientific loss. And its a valuable species; all the Galapagos are particularly valuable to science due to their extended isolation and resultant independent evolution.

The question I'm asking is not whether its natural or not, its whether its better or not in the long run for us not to have access to this species to study?

Its hard to make the argument that we gain any advantage from it being extinct.

We have actual scientists who have an actual scientific basis for being concerned about this species status... but you, without any grounds, studies, or special knowledge of the situation, suspect it will be just fine. So ... lets go with that instead. /facepalm

Yes. And?

Can't have what both ways? The premise is that things going extinct is universally bad. Yes, even when its entirely due to natural causes its still in our bests interests to preserve it. Biodiversity is objectively valuable; because we can learn from it.

Letting a species go extinct is like shredding the last copy of a book. The more interesting and unique the species the greater the loss to science.

Finally, and perhaps tangentially, its also rational to put higher value on the larger / famous species -- the extinction of some obscure spider or toad is perhaps just as much a loss as the extinction of tigers scientifically. But tigers are culturally significant in addition to being scientifically significant. So the extra awareness and priority to them is warranted.

Oh no, we can -- and should -- speculate. Consider everything we can think of. Consider.

What we should NOT do is create a self-fulfilling prophecy by taking the verbal fecal output of doom-criers as the inevitable or even as the likely.

Since you mention cats, would you like an AI treating you like you treat the cats?

Frankly, that would be awesome.

Except that the opinion of people like Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk is definitely worth more than any "majority" thinking differently.

Nosense. That's just hero worship mentality. Very much like listening to Barbara Streisand quack about her favorite obsessions.

Bill Gates' opinion is worth more than the average person's when it comes to running Microsoft. Elon Musk's opinion is worth more than the average person's when building Teslas and the like. Neither one of them (nor anyone else, for that matter) has anything but the known behavior of the only high intelligence we've ever met to go on (that's us, of course.) So it's purest guesswork, completely blind specuation. It definitely isn't a careful, measured evaluation. Because there's nothing to evaluate!

And while I'm not inclined to draw a conclusion from this, it is interesting that we've had quite a few very high intelligences in our society over time. None of them have posed an "existential crisis" for the the planet, the the human race, or my cats. Smart people tend ot have better things to do than annoy others... also, they can anticipate consequences. Will this apply to "very smart machines"? Your guess (might be) as good as mine. It's almost certainly better than Musk's or Gates', since we know they were clueless enough to speak out definitively on a subject they don't (can't) know anything about. Hawking likewise, didn't mean to leave him out.

Within the context of our recorded history, it's not the really smart ones that usually cause us trouble. It's the moderately intelligent fucktards who gravitate to power. [stares off in the general direction of Washington] (I know, I've giving some of them more credit than they deserve.)

I find it a bit strange Guiness Records only examined the footage before granting the record.

Wait, seriously? The Guinness endorsement was the only thing giving this a shred of credibility in my mind. If they really only saw the video then shame on them. They've been suckered.

Wish I knew for sure. This bit from the CBC site is the only thing I've seen which suggests that all the Guinness Book people saw was a video:

"Duru had been working on a prototype for about five years and last August filmed himself flying his new machine over the lake, which is about 130 kilometres north of Montreal, before contacting Guinness.

"Guinness verified the footage and announced the record on its website Friday."

You are crazy. Here is an example of the democratic process working, yet you desperately have to search for some conspiracy theory to continue your irrational hatred of the USA.

No. It's an example of a republic not working. What history books tend to call "decline and fall" when it's happened in the past. It is what happens when governments completely lose sight of, and concern with, and respect for, the principles that brought them into being.

This is real life, not a Tom Clancy novel.

Oh, we know. In Clancy's works the US TLAs are the good guys. That's not been the case for decades now.

It's deep, but it's dry. And it has a sharp rock floor at about the 100 foot level.

1) How will replacing the voting system result in faster or more informed decisions by the voters? That's like suggesting making high tech toilets will get people to make better choices about what they eat.

2) What on earth do we need -faster- decisions for? Because having to wait a few hours a few times a decade is the major problem with our system of government?

Better how? Fewer people would know how it works. Therefore Few people should trust it. Doesn't sound "better" to me. Election systems need to be simple enough that everyone can understand them, everyone can see that hasn't been tampered with.

A show of hands is simple but not anoymous.

Physical ballots placed into a physical box. Then removed and counted in full view of everyone is also simple, and you gain anonymity. And a child can understand it and validate it. There is zero reason for an election to ever be more complicated than this.

1) Perhaps you could find some sort of way to carpool or even split a cab... what with the entire district having a reason to go there that same day. Not to mention political parties and volunteer groups all over the place running busses etc.

If only there were some sort of alternative like the ability to mail in a ballot... oh... wait. There is.

2) I agree with you gerrymandering ought to be criminal.

I can't have a serious discussion with you if you believe racist things. No one intellectually honest and capable can have a serious discussion with a racist, because it is only possible to believe in racist things if you are of low intellect. Objectively true. To correlate skin color and intellect is gross prejudice composed of logical fallacies. It is ironic too (you need to be low iq to commit to the fallacies and believe this arbitrary link between skin color and intellect).

I can't have a serious discussion with a creationist or an antivaxxer or a ufo cultist either. Because to firmly believe these things is only possible if you are a person with a serious defect in intellect. I'm being 100% serious and sincere. You are a stupid person. Objectively true based on you having a racist belief. You are not worth the time of anyone serious, and you will never find the "fair" airing of your thoughts that you seek because everyone intelligent has discarded your entire domain. No one intellectually honest is interested in indulging and entertaining an idiot's idea. And that is exactly what racism is: the "thoughts" of the dumb people.

And if you want to improve the gene pool: don't have children. Again, I am completely sincere. You are a dumb person. To have a racist belief is only possible if you are.

You disrespect people based on the color of their skin. Therefore you deserve no respect. You withhold respect for ignorant reasons. You see a skin color, and make a baseless judgment on intellect and character from that. Which, ironically, is proof you are unintelligent and of low character. Because to believe racist thoughts is only possible if you lack cognitive capacity in certain areas of reasoning and social intelligence, and if you have bad intent on society and individuals in general.

You're a disrespectful asshole, so you get nothing but insults and disrespect in return. You get what you give you ignorant douchebag.

Want to improve the gene pool? Don't have children. I mean that sincerely. The quality of your words here belies low intellect and low character on your part, objectively speaking.

No vertical tabs 10 years after widescreen displays started spreading widely?

Yeah, Tree Style Tabs is the killer feature that's keeping me with Firefox. There are a couple of Chrome extensions that kinda-sorta-not-quite do the same thing, but nothing that just moves the damn tabs to the side so I can have a dozen open and still read them. I'm probably stuck with FF until Chrome has a suitable substitute or FF breaks it entirely.

let us say, just for the sake of argument (i don't really believe your ignorance), that skin color and race are correlated somehow

it's a bell curve. you understand that, right?

so, for example, we have on one end one of the most cerebral presidents we've maybe ever had, at least since wilson: barack obama. obviously more intelligent than the vast majority of white people, as well as black people. more intelligent than people of all races, period

what is the value, exactly, of saying that because his skin is brown, that we have to ascribe some sort of negative modifier on how we perceive his intelligence, just because a bunch of other people who are brown are supposedly less intelligent on average?

intelligence is an INDIVIDUAL value. it does no good to class all people according to an arbitrary signifier. if you were interviewing a bunch of people for computer programmer, and disregarded the ones with brown skin because they were "less intelligent," you might have hired a dumb white person and disregarded the black genius. it does no good to you, nevermind black people, to use this shallow useless prejudice, because it doesn't actually help you. an INDIVIDUAL assessment is what matters

for example: most african americans have scottish, irish, english, etc. blood in them, because a lot of their forebearers were raped. therefore, a lot of white people were doing a lot of raping. therefore, according to racist "thinking," we should assume all white people are rapists, because we can prove they rape a lot ( i don't believe this, i'm just demonstrating your ignorance to you)

i'm not really sure this argument is worth having with you though, because i doubt you have enough intellectual capacity to appreciate the argument, since it requires a low iq to believe in racism. by believing in racism, and all of the logical fallacies that come with it, you have objectively proven to me that you are a stupid person. i don't respect you

We get the politicians we deserve.