[...]

Artificial limbs have been around for a long time, but the first using signals from nerves date from the mid 90s according to Wikipedia. Glancing at Wikipedia, Hawking's speech synthesizer was in use since around 1985. Google Glass entered the market this year. Technically, we are already radically altering ourselves over the past few decades.

Unless it doesn't happen that way, of course.

Horse-drawn wagons and chariots created the need for roads, but they aren't on the roads now.

OTOH, if it's not that way, then your argument wouldn't hold.

Many if not most people choose to work more than 40 hours of work a week. They could choose to work less and earn less. Just because someone could choose to be unaugmented, doesn't mean they will choose to do so due to the compromises involved.

Correlation doesn't imply causation. And it's worth noting that Iran hasn't experienced any serious consequences from the US for its alleged Euro-based oil trading since it doesn't sell its oil to the US.

The thing is, it is under control in Guinea with new cases declining. Liberia and Sierra Leone seems to be the true make or break cases, but with some success in the past few weeks. It's still exponential growth, but doubling time has lengthened considerably. Even if they fail to contain Ebola in the end, this buys us some time.

No, they can buy oil in other currencies like Euros. The problem is that there aren't many reliable currencies out there. Despite the inflation of currencies like the dollar or Euro, those still are the best choice for long term contracts.

I'm sure we all share in those kickbacks from the defense contracts, right?

Your "legal process", reconciliation is used for budget change bills not new law.

No real world computer can be Turing complete because it can't have infinite storage.

Unless we're either extinct through our own devices or so heavily modified that we are no longer biologically human.

Unless, of course, you live in the developing world. It is rare to find some societal or global policy no matter how bad that doesn't further someone's interest.

And how many H1-Bs are good quality workers because they are, rather than because the only way they can jump ship is if someone coughs up $5000 and a new job?

This is the sort of situation where one should consider the "ostrich" algorithm: high present day cost to mitigate unknown distant future cost. It doesn't always make sense to anticipate future problems, especially when you can just let those future problems sort themselves out.

For example, we know we're all going to die and it's far more likely to be a very painful way to go, if we don't control how we die. As a result, should you painlessly kill yourself now so you don't have to worry about dying later in a much more painful way? Ostrich algorithm works when you realize you have goals in your life other than avoiding a painful death.

I'm not calling for a complete abandonment of any sort of planning or insuring against future risk. Just be sensible about it and keep those options open. Here, the ostrich strategy continues to grow the global economy. So even if it should turn out that global warming or some other climate change problem is bad, we'll be wealthier and more able to deal with the problem.

Again, you have to adapt the methods to your particular computer. Not all sort algorithms are equal in this regard. It's not that hard to find an O(Nlog(N)) algorithm or hybrid algorithm that works manually.

That turned out to be false as jbolden demonstrated.

Best example of accidental sarcasm I've seen in a while. This little hurdle is why we call H1-Bs indentured servants.