I have never understood the assumption that free will means choices cannot be known ahead of time. To me, it seems that the presence of free will can potentially mean that outcomes are *more* constrained than in a strictly physical system, i.e., inspection of the quantum mechanical wave function may not lead to a solid prediction on whether I will or will not kill someone, but if I have chosen to follow a moral prohibition against murder, then it can be known (at least to myself) that I will not kill them.

The subtitle to the document is "Ten Core Beliefs of the Modern-Day Tea Party Movement." I don't think a "core belief" is really where you want to start mentioning decimal points and legislative section numbers.

But I do think the TEA partiers may be on to the whole, "you have to cut programs to cut taxes" bit you point out. Point #3 on the list is eliminate deficit spending, and Point #7 is reduce the overall size of government.

As for what to cut and where, I'm sure there is a confluence of perspectives, but that doesn't mean people aren't willing to cooperatively cede a little ground and support overall spending reduction even against a few of their other interests. I feel this may be one of their major departures with Republicans. Military spending is the traditional Republican's sacred cow, but from what I've seen, the TEA party seems at home with spending cuts there as well.

This will be very interesting if the TEA party tips into a Republican takeover of the Senate like it did the House. Because it's one thing for establishment Republicans to join in on the oppose Obama game and pretend like they're against big government while secretly hoping to not get everything they ask for. It will be another if TEA partiers are demanding massive cuts to pet programs which can actually pass and which the establishment Republicans will have to put their name on.

Let's just assume the tea party is a group of extremist anarchists as you surmise.

What is your plan for defeating them which apparently does not involve "thoughtful debate"?

Because you're talking about a group of people who right now are being legitimately elected, courtesy the sentiments of the American public. That means you must be either (1) of the view that telling people they are at war with civilization and simply unworthy of your cogent rebuttal is a fantastic way to convince them that you are right and they are wrong, or (2) planning something far less charitable for them and/or the democratic process.

Let me illuminate this for you: people have to be treated as people. Being wrongheaded does not merit treating them as less than that, but being a person does merit giving that person's views more consideration and respect than the views themselves instrinsically merit. When people are not accorded that respect, they tend to dig in and become *even more* obstinate in their views. And the discourse becomes poisoned. That is a loss for you and your side in every conceivable way. The only thing you get out of "winning" that kind argument (the other side will of course purport to have "won" as well) is a few extra tally marks on the mental scoreboard you are apparently keeping.

And let's face it, much of the electorate is not keen enough to keep track of who is cleverer than whom on national policy. But they can probably identify who is being a jerk and who isn't. So, if you want to do anything for your side, the next time someone says something really stupid and ridiculous, ask them about it. Make them feel like you value their opinion. When they are done sharing, offer to share your views. You'll be surprised how willing they are to value what you have to say once they are under the impression that you value what they have to say. What you will probably wind up with is a person who, though still in general disagreement with you (though perhaps not!) is now willing to admit their views are not utterly perfect, and your views have some virtues. And someone who sees that there is more than one side is no longer an extremist.

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" -- Abraham Lincoln

"Imagine what might happen in the US if the Democrats and the Republicans couldn't push their agenda on the American people just because they have a slim majority."
For all its flaws, I actually think the present system does a very good job one this one. The country is narrowly divided and the result is Congress is not able to enact an agenda one way or the other.

Working through the primaries is great if you can win the primaries. What it comes down to for the tea party is that the Republican party had abandoned its small government roots and eventually became distant enough for establishment Republicans to lose their base to more ideologically pure candidates. This revolt occurred chiefly in the more populist House and may or may not spread to the Senate.

But if you are a moderate group, or differ with the Democrats/Republicans on different issues from what their base considers core, you will probably not get any traction in the primaries. You are better off participating in the general elections where you can preach to the full American audience and draw in support from the 40% of Americans who identify as independents. Except in rare cases, the principal effect will be influencing the other candidates -- if your views start carrying more weight with the electorate, the major party candidates will be pressured to lean that direction to regain those votes, which, if it happens, achieves your policy goals, but does not gain the third parties any election viability.

However, I the most effective means of *protest* is to vote for the other major party. Elections are decided by the difference in votes, and subtracting one vote from one candidate and adding it to the leading competitor has 2 X the impact on whether he/she gets elected.

As a hypothetical, suppose there is a person, who, life rocked by tragedy and depression, turns to krokodil in his desperation. I intervene, manage to convince him to get checked into rehab and seek medical treatment, he recovers, becomes a productive member of society, has a family, spends weekends volunteering, takes care of his neighbors and friends, etc. Maybe he even gets some tech sector job and is directly or indirectly contributing to the state of human progress.

How does this affect the 'stupid people should die' maxim? Have I done something morally wrong by saving this person, even if there are good effects? Would you consider this particular case a desirable result, but that the value of the outcome is outweighed by the desire for other 'dumb people' to die such that in general it is not worth trying to achieve? Or is this a sufficient counter-example to merit us being compassionate in all cases?

If you can recycle all of your water, you don't need to bring any more with you than it takes to get there. Same for oxygen. Water is in principle easier to recycle than oxygen, in as much as your body does not structurally change all the water molecules it uses, as it does with the oxygen molecules. You piss out water but you exhale CO2.

It may be that more oxygen than water supplementation is required, due to the desire to fill large volumes with it (the astronauts don't just breathe from scuba tanks) and its propensities to leak and react with other things.

But energy is basically the one thing that does not need to be resupplied (nuclear/solar), so anytime you can use energy + environment to produce a resource, even inefficiently, you are probably interested in doing it.

I mostly agree, but there is another aspect to hacking which is not being reflected: limited resources. Hacking is about using your intellect to over come the limitations. Now, you could use your hacking ability to leverage more resources (because they are needed) and that would still be hacking. But it's not hacking if you develop your high-altitude rocket module by hiring Boeing to do it for you. It's not hacking if you gain access to the telecom switchboards by asking your best buddy the CEO to give you the codes. The problem with the hackathon "cheating" is that sometimes it is not a matter of some people being clever enough to see how to game the rules while others are not, it is simply a matter of how dirty some people are willing to get compared to others. What we want is a comparison of skill, not ethics.

Analagously, slashdot loves when tech companies push out a bunch of inspired cutting edge products trying to out do each other. But we hate it when they use patents, monopolistic practices, etc. as their vehicle of "winning." It's the same with the hackathons -- win by being clever, not conniving. (and yes, there is some gray area, but there is some black-and-white area as well. . .)

Which doesn't matter as long as people are willing and the government doesn't step in to protect us from ourselves. I think the fact that it's dangerous has been much more of an impediment to NASA than it would be for private companies. When national pride rides on the mission success you have to attenuate risk to a degree that impedes the rate of progress. In any case, the progress of techology is constantly making all aspects of space travel safer, cheaper, and more feasible, which is why we are finally starting to see private space tech taking off. It could be that designing a robust space vehicle soon becomes as trivial as designing a luxury car.

And potentially very profitable. Huge chunks of valuable metals floating around waiting to be mined. Potential for improved synthesis of high-value products in zero-G, or exploitable power which can be beamed back down to earth. Opportunity and adventure for which rich persons who would otherwise be building $1 billion yachts can pony up the ticket price. Entertainment value for the billions of earthlings watching the space colony reality TV shows. And then all the capitalizable charity and investment from people who just want it to happen.

Present in every undertaking, and the confrontation of which is what is known in economics as "entrepreurship."

I do completely agree that more government funding would be nice. But I think it's a mistake to downplay the promise of private space technology in order to make that case. Especially because doing so is going to chase away investment money, which, unlike the congressional budget, Neil Degrassie can definitely influence. In some ways, I don't think it's good to discuss feasibility at all. Space tech has been all about taking what is not feasible and making it feasible. It was never a given the Apollo missions would make it to the moon. And it's not a given that you and I are going to see someone land on Mars. But I'm willing to support Elon Musk, or NASA, or anyone else who is going to try, and I'm not going suggest they can't do it, because I have to hope they can.

Whether there is a potential for this research to achieve a positive end for someone is not in dispute. The question is whether we are willing to purposely harm others in order for that someone to reap the benefits. We could just as well be harvesting organs from prisoners, or designating a certain minority group as human test subjects, or any other number of things. Are these all fine if they somehow contribute to curing your loved one's Parkinson's? I'm concerned because the worst atrocities are always premised in dehumanizing the victims. Being a different race or a different sect or a different political affiliation have all been considered substantial enough reasons to start digging mass graves. What about when we can actually grow people who are guaranteed to never protest their rights, to never scream or make pleading looks, just exist as grotesque laboratory creations with human intelligence and free will but none of the opportunity to exercise it. How easily would we consign them to the worst fates so we can benefit?

We should tread very carefully.

Civil rights has always been pioneered by the states. You probably remember the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by the federal government in 1863. But I am willing to bet you forgot that slavery was abolished in Rhode Island almost a hundred years earlier in 1774, Vermont in 1777, Pennsylvania is 1780, Massachusettes in 1781, New Hampshire in 1783, Connecticut in 1784, New York in 1799, and New Jersey in 1804.

Right now, who has passed DOMA, and who has legalized gay marriage? Who has legalized recreational marijuana, and who is sending agents to bust the dispensaries?

The simple fact is that any government is oppressive by definition, some worse than others. But the state system limits the total power of any of its oppressive elements, and reform can happen in one place, achieve meaningful results, and those results can spread elsewhere. At the very least, if you are in a state whose laws don't suit you, you can move to another state (even in an extraordinarily oppressive situation you wind up with things like the Underground Railroad). Relying on a central government does mean that states lagging behind the average are forced to catch up---I'm willing to bet that is the only part you think about when you consider central government vs. federal government---but it also means holding everyone back until that central government is ready to make the move. And which form do you think is more removed from the people it represents, and which has the resources and inertia to lay more heavily upon its citizens?

Everyone wants the federal government to swoop in and pass laws to get all the states on board with their latest agenda. What they forget is that if we actually had a system like that, they would still be occupied trying to undo the laws passed fifty years ago. (probably until they had enough votes to override a fillibuster)

Ostensibly, the same people who decided our nation was to be known as the United States of America.

According to this, the tuition cost of a 2 year grad degree at Georgia Tech would be $54,660 for out-of-state, assuming you have 12 credit our semesters. ($22,468 for in-state) It may be that it is not worth that much, but I don't think the $45k number was invented for comparison purposes.

We are presently experiencing massive and sudden alterations to the human survival conditions due to social and technological advancement in the past couple hundred years. Our biology is not yet caught up with these changes. But traits which significantly impede reproduction are lost from the broader population in short order.

Think of anyone you know who isn't having children. If there are any specific genetic characterics which weighed heavily in that choice, there's a good chance those are characteristics people generations from now are simply not going to have, because the population is going to be descended from those who thought having a dozen kids and living on modest means was a great idea -- even if it wasn't -- not the people who smartly saw they could buy a bigger house if they never had kids at all.

(I sometimes joke with a friend who is very worried about overpopulation that, instead of having only one child, it would be much more effective for him to have a dozen children and raise each of them to share and advocate his views.)

Whether or not my speculation on that is valid, it seems to me that data collected right now is not a good long term indicator. Too much is changing which never had the prospect of changing before.

Mathematically, it does make sense. But the American system is not designed to be the optimum system for incarcerating the guilty, it is designed to provide a maximum protection of rights to all citizens while making the minimum concessions necessary to keep law and order. One feature of the system is "innocent until proven guilty." And this applies to collection of evidence as well, i.e., a warrant based on some substantive reasons is required before searching my property; it can not be done as a matter of intuition and personal suspicion. You can't submit "being " on the warrant, and so you shouldn't be able to use that as the basis of pat down either.

Of course, I think the government may still be performing less-than-constitutional searches even if they are not "racially discriminating" in performing them.