Ohh no, not this fallacious argument again.....please read this comment of mine and explain why is it better to have 20 billion fungi eaters on earth rather than 3 billion meat eaters.

http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

and also read this http://slashdot.org/comments.p... and tell me why do you think there is not enough food NOW for all people [there actually is].

Well, the censorship goes for the paper versions as well...I guess it is easier to do it in electronic format. My reply is off-topic but I just could not let this comment pass. The book market, being in the hands of corporations suffers from two issues at least:

- General censorship - only authors that are not "too controversial" are published. It is those corporations that decide which author deserves publicity, so you can have excellent books that no-one ever heard of. I have read very serious articles from all kinds of scholars on the subject [publishers, authors, journalists, ect.] and they all agree that our very culture [music, literature, cinema] is steered by corporations. It's a bit like the google echo-chamber where over time you get only the hits that you "like".

- Particular censorship - I have encountered two examples myself. One is the recent, rather popular book called "the Martian". A friend of mine downloaded somehow the last draft just before publishing. We found out that paragraphs and in some cases whole pages are missing in the officially published version. And the cut out parts were all biting, sarcastic comments on the state of humanity [very insightful observations actually]. The other censored book is also an excellent read from a modern Russian author [V. Pelevin]. In his book "Generation P" entitled in the US as "Babylon" 2 pages are missing from the first chapter because....hold on to your chair...it discusses in a very humorous way why only Pepsi was available in the USSR but not Coke, whereas in the the US Coke is bigger than Pepsi. Can you imagine the lengths at which this people will go - to censor a book that would have been read by no more than a few thousand Americans? I know the corporations did it, cause I have a friend whose job is to monitor the entire media [including Internet] of my motherland for mentions of corporations and she reports every single day to them so they can take action if they deem it necessary....they are interest what is written about them in a obscure blog in an insignificant country!!! Disgusting...

Good points!

I'd add that thinking over alien invasion is, IMO, more straightforward than speculating about AI. Ironically, if I remember correctly, it was prof. Hawking that was against looking for aliens because "they will steal our resources"

Which resources? you mean things like....I don't know...water, sand, metals, hydrocarbons.....stuff in general. Stuff, that can be found in vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly enormous quantities EVERYWHERE else but on planet Earth for example. You mean those aliens who would have the technology to cross the interstellar distances won't have the option to mine asteroids or take resources from the unimaginably huge quantities of cosmic debris; from planets [the vast majority] that would never harbor life; are they gonna burn OIL in their FTL engines? And even if they do they'd come for our oil rather than look around for their local version of Titan!?

This is soooo nuts that I am afraid I lost my trust in the man altogether.

It is proven that you need rest time to be highly efficient during the working hours. Take a look at productivity per hour work. You'd find that the countries with the lowest working hours per week score the highest. I work 8 hrs per day but when I was int he US some honest people from my profession told me whispering that they'd dilute their effort because it is simply an utopia to expect the same level of intensity when you pull 12hrs per day rather than 8.

Rest, spending time with family and friends, having enough to support yourself means dignity, means lower stress and from there [much] lower health costs [include here the better food that you can afford], lower crime [lower cost of security], lower suicide rate....the benefits for SOCIETY are enormous. I am sorry but anyone who argues against this is not living in reality and is bringing more water for the mill of evil..

I am sick of that evil game where business privatazes the profit and socializes the losses....

Funny....today at work some colleagues with kids were discussing an article stating that you think better and remember better when you write by hand because it is more difficult in general [and slower] than typing. Broad analogy would be taking a photo with digital camera or an analogue one. When you can make hundreds of photo with minimal effort and cost you produce way more bad photos than when you know you just have 32 frames and that's that.

The discussion started because I quoted a statement from a book that poets need to carve in stone - then they WILL learn to say a lot with few words, which is what poetry is...

Horay for another wave of dumbing down of our kids and grand kids in the name of profit!

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is just one man; I think you'd do better to read the actual history of Russia. During the darkest times of their feudal totalitarian system [before the revolution] the Russians were extremely religious. And it was a hell-hole [Russia]. If you think that the communist totalitarian regime made them atheists you are wrong. At the moment Russia is as nuts as the US on religion. They are VERY religious. Now, how come that after 75 years of atheism you have such explosion of religion? Who taught the new generation?

I am from Bulgaria which was considered one of the most fateful supporters of the USSR among the communist countries. We had churches and we performed all the rituals. No-one was imprisoned or killed for believing. It was not allowed to year religious symbols that are visible in school. ALL religious symbols not just Christian. Some secular modern countries of today also have similar laws.

I consider myself extremely lucky. The communist stiffed all ideology which was competing with theirs. They did it simply by removing the political and monetary power of the competition [thus religion, for instance, could still propagate in families but won't be able to spread propaganda via governmental channels, media and so on...]. So I grew up safely, not subjected to any propaganda except the communists. But their propaganda was ineffective for anyone with 2 brain cells or more because the gap between words and deeds was too large. Very quickly one realizes that those were no communists but simply power hungry criminals hiding behind a label [how different from the great US, eh:)]. Thus at the end most people from my generation [I can speak only for them] grew up with completely free minds - free of ANY bulshit ideology. The natural state of man is secular humanist [stems from biology]. The rest is BS.

Change the phone....or use Swipe. It is really annoying to read like this - the brain notices and you get a "hick-up" in your reading flow every time when you see those mistakes. LiKE tryINg To ReAD thiS FoR eXAmplE...

You know what made me poor [PhD with good job in NL]? The privatization of the health care system. In other words - libertarianism. For 7 years I was not helped properly and the system always did the minimum to send me home [cutting costs]. The problem grew into disability and I was told [no kidding] "we cannot help you further". Like they helped up to that point?!?

I found a private doctor that could really help. I could not afford it but had no other choice but to patch-up the problem while bankrupting myself. It is only a patch-up mind you. For complete treatment I need an extra 30-50 K Euros. And it is not because the doctor is greedy but because medical services have grown artificially expensive because corporations and insurance companies know the society/government will accept almost any cost for health and cough up, so all the equipment and procedures prices are hugely inflated.

But according to Randoids I am lazy and stupid. Fuck off!!!

It's politics, pure and simple.

Just another case where politics/business brainwashed people there is no problem. Now, because Nature cannot be fooled and laws of Nature cannot be broken, finally the powerful have decided to do something [because they are scared for themselves]. But the public does not buy it after so many years of lies.

So, they are wondering how to sell the facts and they go for the most obvious - don't tell the whole ecosystem is in danger and billions of people already have troubles with water, don't tell about shortage of arable land [the rest being poisoned already by Roundup and the like] and so on [the list goes for weeks].

Instead tell them it is about the most sacred thing in the world - the health of the Americans.

This whole story is revolting. Thinking about the health of the people? After making them one of the sickest first world nations while spending quadrupled amounts of money compared to the rest? Really?

Politicians are prostitutes; businessmen are evil [both facts are result of the system, which filters out such people and promotes them]. It boggles my mind that people actually expect pro active measures from governments and corporations. Those entities never lead; they follow, because the only thing they are concerned about is preserving the status quo [where they are on the top]. There will never be meaningful CHANGE about anything under this system. Get your heads around this fact if you want our civilization to survive and prosper.

I am missing things because of not having Facebook. Specifically communication with the folks back home [immigrant here].

The reason I never subscribed is that I was suspicions from the beginning that it is a trap and once it becomes popular they'd abuse the data they collected. Which of course happened. Otherwise I'd happily participate...

That's all there is, really.

Yhea, right!

And that is why this show is watched by many people who don't even own a car (me, for instance).

Also, do you know who introduced me to the show? My wife! That's right! Somehow, the obnoxious, sexist, racist Clarkson drew the largest female audience of a car show in the world. Meditate on this you should....

People without imagination and scene of humor are always offended by those who do....

I think he is very loved in Eastern Europe too. The online edition of one of the most popular newspapers in my country [BG] runs 7 articles at the moment. The comments are full of exuberant praise for Sir Terry.

As for me, well, he is the first person that I do not know personally, who's death made me cry [came very close to tears for DNA].

His books felt to me like having a delightful conversation with an incredibly smart, knowledgeable, wise and extremely witty humanist, who, at the same time shares with me a certain fury against the state of man. Much like Vimes's fury and willingness to arrest even the gods for not doing it right. What a feast!

Bull. I got a simple Seiko for 400 euro. Ti casing, sapphire window, kinetic, simple and elegant. Booklet says 10 sec per month deviation. I timed it over 6 months - 1.5 seconds. So, how much more accurate the 20k watch would be? Is it worth the extra cost? I don't think so...

I had the very bad luck of dealing with a loved one with 3 suicide attempts provoked by psychosis. The problems followed heavy depression which in turn was provoked by...unemployment.

Once the person recovered, she went on restoring her brain faculties and although some portions of [very few] faculties could not be restored to previous levels. Nevertheless the doctors showed us that she has "dropped" from "extremely smart" to "very smart". Some faculties were better than before because she developed them further with brain games and what's not.

Now guess what happened? 4 years after the recovery there is no job [she is a PhD in physics with good articles and 2 successful post-doc projects]. There is not going to be a job, because noone takes "the risk" of hiring someone with few years interrupted career. It is a vicious cycle....

Meanwhile, the medical system bankrupted me and made me very sick [I've described it in detail for another thread] so we have no money, no job for her [and mine, although being very advance and interesting does not pay that well], debts and destroyed faculties by the medical system of both of us.

We need only one type of help, only one pill. Dignity!!! Which comes from sense of self-respect which comes from being economically sound, i.e. at least have a job [forget the whole discussion about the socioeconomic system, the times are like they are, we need jobs, the star trek future is postponed indefinitely due to greed].

That is what we need -- one "brave" company that wants to benefit tremendously by hiring [likely for less money than usual] someone who is so eager to contribute and restore their place in society....the social system even offers to pay her salary for a few months so that the company gets to evaluate her for free...and still nothing. Unemployment is rising everywhere in Europe, the "crisis" from 2009 will never end, the middle class is shrinking....expect rise in suicide in the whole western world...

So fuck those initiatives. No Facebook, nor anyone else can do squat about it. In fact Facebook, being greedy corporation which fucks its customers left right and centre, is part of the problem...