*sigh* Someone doesn't understand the Singularity theory. Based on the title i'm guessing it's the professor, but since i can't actually read the article at work it's possible it's the Slashdot editor who conflated lack of AI with lack of Singularity.

The basic premise of the Singularity is that over historic time periods the rate of knowledge acquisition of the human race has increased at a geometric rate.

The reason this has happened is because acquiring knowledge allows us to develop tools that allows us to build upon the pre-existing knowledge to make new discovers that allow better tools, and so on. (Although it's far from a perfect simulation, anyone who's ever played Civilization or any similar strategy game should know that process by heart.)

There are two possible outcomes to this progression, either we hit some rate limiting factor sometime in the "near" future, or the rate of knowledge acquisition over time will approach a mathematical singularity, at which point we will be discovering things so fast that our current minds can not comprehend what will happen. Obviously proponents of the Singularity believe that it is the second possibility that will happen.

However the theory of the Singularity makes no prescriptions about _how_ we will obtain that rate of knowledge. Certainly Artificial Intelligence is one such way. However direct augmentation of our brains is another possibility. Whether that will be via cybernetic implants, biomedical alterations, genetic tinkering, or something else we haven't, and possibly can't, think of is impossible to say at this point.

Up until now of course tools have allowed us to indirectly augment out brains. Writing lets us record information. The internet lets us retrieve information. Now Watson helps us interpret that information. Yes Watson isn't doing anything, Watson is just a tool we use. But tools that help us accomplish things we couldn't before are exactly what moves us along the path towards the Singularity.

As has been pointed out, there was just recently news about replicating a worm's mind in a mechanical body. Yes it's very interesting, but no, it isn't a perfect recreation of an actual brain. But maybe when that paper gets scanned into Watson 2.0 it will make some connection to some other paper on artificial neurons or some such and Watson will let the authors know that they really ought to talk to each other. And boom, we're suddenly creating real artificial minds. Or maybe something else happens. The whole point is we don't know what the next step will be, we're just observing a trend.

If you want to argue against the Singularity you can't just pick a hole in the prospects for AI. You need to explain why the current trend in knowledge acquisition won't continue.

So sarcasm aside, it sounds like you're annoyed that people got diverted from talking about the science to discuss the politics of a shirt? In fact you were so concerned about the issue you decided to write a post diverting us from talking about the science to discuss the politics of discussing the politics of a shirt. After all, it's of dire importance we raise awareness about people trying to raise awareness about the shirt since none of the people complaining about it were kind enough to complain about it here first where we would be aware of it.

Well speech is free, and it's not like we can't discuss both issues (or all three issues?) And I am glad you care enough about justice in these kinds of social issues to fight for your beliefs!

Sand has a lot of uses but it's non-renewable. There's no way (yet) to manufacture it. If you mine the beaches you ruin the environment and end up with eyesores. The same thing happens if you go to your local desert and mine there. It is possible to strip mine a desert, take all the sand and sandstone, and then put a layer of sand back on top. That leaves the landscape looking mostly the same, albeit a bit lower in elevation than it was before, but it takes a _lot_ of work. I've heard of people doing massive underwater operations to strip mine the seabed of sand so that none of the easily visible above-water environments are damaged.

...wait, we are talking about Minecraft, right?

Saying "if X were [easier/better/safer/whatever] we would already be doing X" is vastly overestimating human intelligence and insightfulness. We often fail to recognize the true value of certain inventions or techniques until well after their invention, and often choose to use non-optimal methods for what seemed like good reasons at the time.

A tongue-in-cheek but still insightful article about the subject (#1 and #3 are particularly relevant to this discussion.)
http://www.cracked.com/article...

I think I had a space heater that looked just like that once.

Let's all share! What do _you_ do with all those left over high-energy electrons you've always got lying around?

"You might think that mice and rats would be basically the same when it comes to these kinds of things" [About training the two species]

It doesn't seem like it makes much sense to believe that rats and mice are different enough for one species to be measurably smarter than the other, but not to also believe that they're different enough to have different behavior patterns and responses to various stimuli.

Please don't take this wrong, but i took a quick look at your comment history and between that and what you've posted here you're sounding an awful lot like a friend i used to know. At first i thought she was just a little odd, but it turned out that she actually had some serious problems and some pretty bad stuff ended up happening because of it. If you really believe the things you're saying i think you should really consider talking to someone. I expect you'd be resistant to the idea of going to a psychiatrist, but perhaps you have friends or family you can discuss these concerns with?

And if i'm just feeding a troll... oh well.

"A new prosthetic system allows amputees to feel familiar sensations and also, somewhat unexpectedly, reduces their phantom pain."

This seems like one of those things that people might very reasonably not think of ahead of time but which seems blindingly obvious in retrospect. It would probably be expected that if you managed to reattach a severed limb that there wouldn't be any phantom pain afterward. ("Real" pain during the healing process yes, and perhaps lingering aches as one might have with any injury, but not phantom pain.) You'd also expect the same to hold true if you managed to grow a new arm and attach it properly.

But a simple prosthetic isn't enough to prevent or cure phantom pain. So one would expect that at _some_ point in the process between no nerve connections with a peg leg (or equivalent) and full connection with a regrown/reattached limb that the phantom pain would disappear. I guess they just encountered that point earlier than they might have expected.

You originally said "And children tend to do much better with two parents actively involved in raising them to adulthood, everything else equal." and "I would suggest that children should be a choice made by a man, and a woman together in mutual agreement whenever possible."

When it was pointed out that two women or two men could be the two parents who are actively involved in raising the children, your argument gradually morphed into "Lesbians have no ability to relate to male children in a way a dad can. Gay dads have no ability to relate to girls on their period for the first time."

This is called "moving the goalposts."

(And as an aside, you also said "THIS is sociological issues, and while not unique to Gay / Lesbian couples, affects all of them." Which is entirely untrue. Some gay couples have only male children, and some lesbian couples have only female children. And given the way in which such couples have children it is even pretty trivial to choose the genders of their children if they wish. I'm not saying they should, just that your argument that it affects "all of them" is totally unfounded.")

However to address those shifty goalposts, as far as i can tell you are basing this argument entirely on personal experience. I'm sorry if you felt your childhood was less than ideal because you didn't have a male role model, but that doesn't apply to everyone else.

I'm male and i definitely related far more closely to my mother than i did to my father, perhaps because my dad spent so much time at work. (He spent plenty of time with us during the periods when he was home so it's not like we felt neglected. I was quite happy with my childhood and as far as i know the same is true of my sister. However there's no denying that having to work to support your family means spending less time with that family.) My sister on the other hand was always arguing with my mom (and our mom told us that she always argued with her mom, and her mom told her that...) so it always seemed to me that she related much more to our dad.

Meanwhile i can't really tell any substantive differences between the son of my lesbian friends and the son of my heterosexual sister and brother-in-law. The first likes sports and video games. The second, last i checked, was into monster trucks and princesses. They're both _far_ more rambunctious than i remember being as a child (though clearly there could be some bias/rose colored glasses there) and both seem quite happy and well adjusted.

Maybe some differences will appear once they reach puberty, but i never had the "birds and the bees" talk with either of my parents. I learned all that stuff from sex ed classes at school and the internet, so i don't see why having a parent of the "appropriate" gender really matters. I honestly don't think it would have made a difference if both my parents had been women. Perhaps a girl would feel differently about having two male parents, but i can't really say anything in regards to that.

You say you think children deserve what's "best". How is not being born at all better than being born to parents of the "wrong" gender? Do you think any woman in a same-sex relationship who gets pregnant ought to immediately go get in abortion?

In short, everything i've observed has shown me that actual children of actual same sex couples can be just as happy and well adjusted as the actual children of actual heterosexual couples. That certainly isn't "proof", but it seems to me that it is a far more compelling argument than your theoretical opinions about people that you don't seem to have any actual experience with.

You seem very concerned about the "biologic process". Please explain why this is so important to you. Which do you feel is more important, the biologic process or the social contract? You seem to be trying to switch tacks but you can't have it both ways.

If the biologic process is what is most important, then a single woman who decides to get pregnant by sperm donation, from a man who you've argued above was involved in the decision making process by the choice to donate sperm, will provide just as good an environment for the child as a married heterosexual couple. Because it's the biologic process that matters, not the social situation.

If the social situation is what's important, then please provide your argument as to why a same-sex couple is inferior to a heterosexual couple. And it better be a good argument because i have living proof that a same-sex couple can successfully raise children in a healthy manner just as well as a heterosexual couple while all you've done so far is state that it's "silly" to believe that.

In particular be sure to detail how a same-sex couple that can't (currently) have children without someone else supplying one or more of the gametes in inferior to an infertile heterosexual couple who can't (currently) have children without someone else supplying one or more of the gametes. Do you believe that heterosexual couples in which one or both members are infertile should not choose to have children?

If the spouse hadn't agreed then they would not have had the children. How do you argue that she wasn't part of the decision making process?

Your original argument is that children are better off with two parents raising them. That is a matter of sociology, not biology. The "biology of 'choice'", whatever that is, is not relevant at all. The man consented to donate sperm. He was not involved at all in the social decision by the women to have and raise children as a couple.

He was not involved in the decision making process that this couple made about having children. His choice to donate sperm was indeed a choice, but not a choice in the context in which you originally phrased the question: "I would suggest that children should be a choice made by a man, and a woman together in mutual agreement whenever possible."

The man was not there for the discussion. Yes he also made a decision prior to that and you could "technically" say he was therefore involved. However the grandparents also made the decision to have the kids who would become the parents, so you could technically say they were involved. And friends made the decision to introduce the couple to each other, so you could technically say they were involved. And if you keep extending the chain of causality to people who made a decision at some point that impacted the final decision to have the kids then technically the entire planet was involved.

So i would argue your "technically" argument is incorrect, and even if i'm incorrect about its incorrectness, it's still entirely beside the point.

That's funny, i know a lesbian couple that got married and then had two kids. No man was involved in the decision making process. (Yes, a man donated sperm in each case, but if that man hadn't been willing there were plenty of others who would be, and those men weren't part of the decision making process. And pretty soon such families won't even need a sperm donor anymore.) It's a two income family (as most families around here are, regardless of whether they're hetrosexual or homosexual) but the parents spend as much time with the kids as they can and the kids seem to be doing pretty well.

So while i agree with some parts of your argument your foundation is built on quicksand.

Let's see if we can sum up this thread.

And so we have come full circle to why we can't just have one method of doing things, and thus why we can't have nice things.

Also, obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/927/