We didn't need dentistry and our life expectancy before the dawn of agriculture. Our teeth were fine and we lived long lives.

You really think it should be illegal to print a book on how to make meth? That goes against so much of freedom of speech and brings you into the realm of book burning. What about a book on how to kill people? What about texts on how to defend yourself? You are far beyond the slippery slope, but it does give an indication into your mentality. By the way, this would make any chemistry textbook and course quite illegal.

How can you prove the intent of the organization? They do not necessarily, as you say, "exist entirely on the premise of facilitating copyright infringement." That is your interpretation, and one that's extremely difficult to prove in court. Nothing like that is ever explicitly stated. This puts you in the credibility realm of the mind reader.

I have a better idea. We can collect plastic ourselves and burn great loads in our fireplaces for heat!

I wonder how much your attitudes would differ if it was the United States that was burying the trash and plastic of the Chinese.

Very few? Remind yourself that teleprompters are a recent invention and most public speakers throughout history have spoken without them. Geez. Talk about not being able to think outside your decade.

Many of our missions to search for life elsewhere in the solar system do double duty. If something can survive in the oceans under the Europan ice of Jupiter, perhaps humanity can carve something out for itself.

It's not getting everyone off. It's getting around fifty people off the planet, or maybe just twenty women with a few hundred packets of sperm. After that it's all about simple multiplication. That's how you ensure not all humanity's eggs are in one basket.

Was just reading some Latour. I'm surprised, really, at how many still think it is dubious that we could radically alter the earth.

Latour, Bruno (2011) Waiting for Gaia - Composing the Common World through Arts and Politics (p. 124)

Let us ponder a minute what is meant by the notion of “anthropocene ”, this amazing lexical invention proposed by geologists to put a label on our present period. We realize that the sublime has evaporated as soon as [] we are no longer taken as those puny humans overpowered by “nature” but, on the contrary, as a collective giant that, in terms of terawatts, has scaled up so much that it has become the main geological force shaping the Earth.

[] In his magnificent book Eating the Sun Oliver Morton provides us with an interesting energy scale. Our global civilization is powered by around thirteen terawatts (TW) while the flux of energy from the centre of the Earth is around forty TW. Yes, we now measure up with plate tectonics. Of course this energy expenditure is nothing compared to the 170,000 TW we receive from the sun, but it is already quite immense when compared with the primary production of the biosphere (130 TW). And if all humans were to be powered at the level of North Americans, we would operate at a hundred TW, that is, with twice the muscle of plate tectonics. That’s quite a feat.

[] we are asked to look again at the same Niagara Falls but now with the nagging feeling that they might stop falling flowing (too bad for Shelley’ Shelley’s waterfalls around it leap forever) ; we are asked to look again at the same everlasting ice , except that we are led to the sinking feeling that they might not last long after all; we are mobilized to look again at the same parched desert , except that we come to feel that it expands inexorably because of our disastrous use of the soil ! Only galaxies and the Milky Way might still be available for the old humbling game of wonder []

The planet needs humanity or it will turn to dust? You sound religious.

We are not the only living beings who have gone to space. Bacteria regularly take trips there encased in their own protective shuttles. Here's an article from a few months ago.

http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/loads-of-bacteria-hiding-out-in-storm-clouds-130124.htm

This presupposes, of course, that the twins are telekinetically linked (which all twins are) and so one cannot for any reason be blind to any actions by the other.

Do you also feel that spam filtering your email is a violation of net neutrality?

Hear hear! Can anyone find images with better res? I'm trying.

Pssst.. the hostility you see is a result of humans' innate (and often unconscious) drive to hear pig jokes. It's a gut reaction of anger that finds it's root in deep, dark sadness.

It's the same number. If your bail is set at 7500, the standard amount you have to pay the bail bondsman to get out is 1/10th of that. So, she'll fork up 750. If she had the full $7500 then that amount could be paid and reclaimed once the trial was over (although once the money gets into the system it's hard to get it out again).