Basically, parent post is nothing more than a straw man argument. I do think we need to do more to ensure we have good teachers... I've run across a fair number who have no business leading a class. Whether I bitch about prison guards isn't relevant.

As far as parents "not doing their job" that is simply not true. Studies today show that mothers are just as engaged as their parents and grandparents in terms of quality time. Fathers of today are, overall, more engaged than their parents and grandparents.

I personally spend an average of 15 hours a week working with my 8 and 10 year old working on foreign language, computer programming and their normal schoolwork. Even if I did not spend that much time, I'd still be allowed to complain about the quality of a program that my tax dollars support.

Straw man argument. +5 insightful. Gotta love slashdot.

You have an interesting definition of 'vaporware'.

The drake equation does not take into consideration that most civilizations destroy themselves when they achieve the point of being able to communicate

One other point... we have a data set of less than one to work with, ourselves. I do not think that we can extrapolate based on our experience. Can we say with any kind of certainty that other species would follow a similar evolutionary path as ours? Would a smaller planet result in a slower evolutionary process and less global conflict once intelligence does arise? I don't know the answer to that or the thousands of other questions about how intelligent life arises. Regardless, one data point is worthless in trying to extrapolate to a whole universe.

And the reason why I say we have LESS than one example... our data point is still in progress. Perhaps the last few centuries were growing pains and we will finally mature... perhaps you are right and we destroy ourselves.

Actually it does... it is the last variable "L", the length of time that civilizations release detectible signals into space. By your theory, this L is very low.

Agreed. Technology progresses quickly. Society not so fast. In some ways this is good, but it does create face-palm moments.

I can see medical uses for this. Imaging being able to monitor heart rate and other vitals 24/7. I had a father-in-law who could have used something like this...

You may want to work on your logic. Math is based on logic. this does not mean that everything based on logic is math.

I'll give you two answers, feel free to pick the one you like.

1) When you are fighting a less-advanced army, they won't have the technology to implement your suggestions.
2) Defense (haha) contracts are written based on what will sell with congress, not necessarily what is useful

A slight correction. My numbers compared states to Western Europe only. North and South are slightly higher in homicide rates, but still well below US averages and below all but one or two of US states

If you take a tiny handful of small neighborhoods out of the equation (places like Flint, Michigan) the United States is actually an extremely peaceful place

Your statement is completely false. Take a look at the murder rate by state and you will find that the lowest rate state is New Hampshire. Guess what? New Hampshire still has a higher murder rate (barely) than Western, Northern or Southern Europe. 42 of the 50 states have a more than double rate. 37 triple. 28 quadruple. 18 quintuple.

So no, taking a couple ZIP codes out of the equation will not get us to where civilized countries homicide rates are.

Anybody on Slashdot who doesn't know who she is ... get the fuck out, because you're on the wrong website.

You might try wrapping your head around this: obligatory XKCD.

Do you know the difference between a summary and an article?

Nowhere in the article is Gothenburg called the capital of Sweden nor is it the capital. Perhaps the submitter is suffering from Gothenburg Syndrome.

You are splitting hairs

"I would be happy to kill you personally and watch you bleed out. I won't do that, because I fear the consequences."

The only reason he says he wouldn't kill someone who disagreed with his viewpoint is because of the consequences. If he thought he would get away with it, he is saying he would.

At a certain point I realized that folks with a different viewpoint than mine aren't usually out to do me harm and are not evil people but simply have a different viewpoint. The vitriol becomes tiresome to read...