DescentBB

MD-1118

A lot of the arguments I'm seeing from the anti-vaxxers boil down to "people get sick because they don't practice good hygiene" and "vaccinations are poison, they make you sick by putting the thing you're trying to avoid into your system!", and yet (often in the same breath) they...

MD-1118

I make less than nine thousand dollars a year, and yet I still manage to invest in a few hobbies - gunpla, wall scrolls, computer builds, video games. Once the cost of goods and essentials drops (and the cost will drop, since wageless robots will be doing most or all of the work), things should be ...

MD-1118

Slick is also forgetting that there already was a civil war here in the US. He seems to think that revolution is some nigh-impossible, concept-only thing that has little to no chance of happening because people are such dumb, complacent sheep that they'll just passively allow anyone with so much as ...

MD-1118

Jobs that are based on art and creativity will be the last ones to be automated, I think, and that probably won't happen until true artificial intelligence exists. So there should be jobs that are necessarily human and not robotic for quite some time to come.

MD-1118

actually, that is not historically true. What has happened over the past thousand years or so has been a mix of wholesale change mixed with a retrenchment of the power of the overlords. Ugly situation either way. How often has it been the same overlords? How immediately have the new overlords progr...

MD-1118

Dovetailing with MD's observations on my comment/link about the loss of mid-managers in any new economy, both require SOME human employees to maintain and sort data and the like, but please return to my comment about prevailing GLOBAL wage for that level of expertise. You mean this one? Let's put i...

MD-1118

oh, I'm willing to bet, based on what I've seen so far, they will sit back until it entirely too late. Do I envision massive upheaval? Sure. The only difference in opinion here, I think, is when the reaction occurs, not what the reaction will be. At least we're on the same chapter, if not the same ...

MD-1118

trying to view it as some sort of TV show/Movie world is actually a pretty abyssmal approach. Uncomfortable middle ground? That is your view of a world where about 5% of the population reaps the financial rewards and the other 95% serve the masters? How to you propose to provide for the expenses of...

MD-1118

callmeslick wrote:yup, that is the way it will work. See my addendum to my last post on the inheritance tax thread. Welcome to nouveau serfdom!!!

callmeslick wrote:or, MD, put more succinctly:

[off topic flamebaiting]

I was thinking of something else entirely.

MD-1118

no one ponders where the funds will come from tor this life of leisure.......it isn't like most folks own the capital to reap the rewards of robotic production. You're completely right, Slick. We forgot about all the wages those robots will be making instead of us humans. The wages that big busines...

MD-1118

I'd start a mechanic shop of sorts to design and build robots, vehicles, computers, and machinery. I'd also study more. Sorry but there will be robots to do that work. Which gets to the crux of the problem. If robots do all the work, what will mankind do. Collect a check and pursue hobbies? [I can'...

MD-1118

Where do you see mankind when the machines are doing everything? Star Trek universe. No, really. Machines do all (or at least the vast majority) of the necessary work, humans do what they want instead of what they have to in order to survive. People can pursue interests and hobbies instead of havin...

MD-1118

You could probably say the same thing about a microwave Hey, I know exactly how my microwave works! There's a tiny dwarf inside it with a lump of iron that he heats in a small kiln, releasing radons that cook my meal through thermal frictioning. When I push buttons, a bell inside rings to let him k...

MD-1118

Because, again, even if your way of viewing me is through a 30fps camera, I'm not actually jumping around the universe at 30 frames per second in reality. In reality, I'm moving an infinitesimal amount at a time. If I'm at point X in one frame and point Y in another, then there are infinitely many ...

MD-1118

tunnelcat wrote:God help us.

We passed that point long, long ago.

Try telling everyone you can to consider independent candidates or write-ins. This can be the year people didn't feel bullied, pressured, or trapped into voting bipartisan. It has to be, or we're seriously ****ed.

MD-1118

Well, here goes my idea. Say every person in the future has been genetically mapped and all fatal genetic alterations and disease causes are known. Since many birth defects, aging and many other diseases are caused by genetic alterations from the normal genome, what if this futuristic teleporter/tr...

MD-1118

There existing a shortest measurable unit doesn't imply that the shortest measurable unit is the unit of the universe itself. For instance, if I can't stop my stopwatch faster than 1 plank-second, it doesn't mean that the event I'm watching didn't happen at 0.5 plank-seconds. It also doesn't mean t...

MD-1118

To be fair, we're discussing a hypothetical departure from standard operational procedure of a hypothetical technology. Krom and vision are technically correct, but I think we should cut Jeff some slack since pedantry ignores the actual question he is asking. He even stated in the initial post: We'l...

MD-1118

How have you 'transitioned', though? Solely by merit of the pattern of your consciousness existing at both temporal points? :wink: I think you're still misunderstanding the concept of a planck-second. It doesn't imply that time is discrete. (Or otherwise I don't see where the disagreement could be....

MD-1118

Perhaps, but look at what we've accomplished in just the last 200 years. We've been to the moon, we can destroy an entire city with one bomb, we can generate power instead with that same technology, we can fly and have faster than sound aircraft travel, we can clone living things, we can build impo...

MD-1118

Krom, do you have a copy(legit, not 'leaked') of any actual document? If not, you sure show quite a bit of certainty about the contents regarding a VERY minor aspect of a large trade agreement. How is 'leaked' info not 'legit', Slick? https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp http://www.exposethetpp.org/TPPIm...

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Oh god, why can't I stop laughing! :lol: I need sleep, I can't take that statement seriously at all Why is it funny? I'm trying to save your guys' lives! :( If Jeff manages to actually save any single one of us from teleporter-related death with his admonishments in this thread, I'll print out a co...

MD-1118

But if someone managed to build one, to the same specs as the Star Trek counterparts, then I would totally go in one. Why? Because by the numbers, the Star Trek transporter would actually be the only method of travel safer than walking. How can it be safer than walking when it murders everyone who ...

MD-1118

I think you're abusing the concept of plank-second here. :P I'm the same person as I was one plank-second prior, even if I'm at a slightly different position, because I have continuously transitioned from the one position to the other during that one plank-second of time. How have you 'transitioned...

MD-1118

I don't see it as "magically leaving" your body or "reentering". I see it as spontaneously ceasing to exist and reemerging, similar to quantum tunneling, I suppose. The 'self' exists because all of the right pieces are in place - it's the pattern, not the parts, and if the parts...

MD-1118

The question is, is the human conscience a separate entity from memories in the brain, a "soul" in other words? [...] There is sparse evidence of reincarnation and residual past memories that might support the idea that our consciences are separate energy forms from our brains[....] On th...

MD-1118

I'm voting yes, of course.

There should be an option for "let someone else go first and see what happens".

MD-1118

Why should it be any different in this case? Because the new creation isn't human. :) It's probably some sort of defense mechanism I have that inhibits my ability to cede empathy to such an object. I worry about the ramifications of AI, so I refuse to confer humanity to it. Too much time spent in t...

MD-1118

I think you're attributing some wildly magical properties to consciousness. :P The way I would analyze the scenario is like this: when the transporter copy is made, your consciousness never magically leaves your body. A duplicate consciousness awakens in the transporter copy. When you are vaporized...

MD-1118

Interesting article on the topic: Link I tend to agree with the majority of the article... do you guys see "sustainability" becoming a dogmatic religion? Nice word salad there. What exactly is the article trying to say? That our educational system is making dumb decisions and it's adverse...

MD-1118

Fair enough, I suppose, although I do wonder why you would make such an arbitrary distinction as 'human by birthright', as it were. I don't really see it as arbitrary. "Human" has a specific definition. Everything else, is, well, else. What is it that causes the consciousness to cease bei...

MD-1118

The question is, is the human conscience a separate entity from memories in the brain, a "soul" in other words? Our memories are made up of constantly changing and growing neural connections over the passage of our lives, which would mean that the conscience would normally die when the br...

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Transferring consciousness from one apparatus to another is akin to immortality. If that consciousness is self aware of the transfer, it is altogether something different from humanity, for human consciousness must contend with mortality. The source is human, mortal. The destination is not. So if a...

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I don't doubt that the other guy will think he's you, but that's not enough for your survival. Then I won't survive, according to your definition of the word. My definition is a little different, though. It looks like a similar scenario but different argument--I wouldn't argue that swampman isn't a...

MD-1118

you're kidding right? it's more like the freak show/frat house that you can't stay in too long without going loopy. :) I'm quite serious, actually. Every other community I've been a part of has fallen apart at some point. People have lives, after all, and theirs seem to lead them away from their re...

MD-1118

This raises an interesting question. If a person is truly this mental data and not their body or anything else, would not a sufficiently advanced AI be a person as well? If you were to somehow transfer this sufficiently advanced AI into a human body, would not they then qualify as a human? An AI re...

MD-1118

I would just like to say for the record that I feel this place is the closest thing to a home that I have, regardless of how horrible you people may be to each other. It's like one big dysfunctional family in here and it's great. :D I'm gonna get some much needed sleep now before I reply to all thos...

MD-1118

Imagine if, at the point when humans developed the capability to split the atom that we also passed a test we will never know about....because that was when the creature that created us, our whole universe in a jar, in his fifth level science class, received a passing grade for his rudimentary life...

MD-1118

Personally, I think a person is, essentially, the collective thoughts, emotions, convictions, and memories within each individual. They are ideas. Concepts. One could argue they are the electrical and chemical signals racing around within the brain, but I don't quite think that's it. I think they a...

MD-1118

you have to view my responses through the lens of my education, which was biochemistry and human physiology. That said, while efforts ARE underway to simulate human development(brain development in this discussion), my guess is that we have a LONG way to go to replicate both the subtlety and the sh...

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