#30832
06/18/2001 2:25 PM
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 609
addict
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Bryan
OK, now I see what you mean by "faith" in your original example. One can believe that all persons, no matter how despicable, are worthy of respect. Or one can have faith that, despite evidence to the contrary, there are no people that fall below the line dividing those worthy of respect and those not.
Rod
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#30833
06/18/2001 2:34 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 428
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Two peasants look up as Arthur and his faithful servant "ride" past.
PEASANT 1 (to PEASANT 2): Who d'you think that was?
PEASANT 2: He's the King.
PEASANT 1: How d'you know?
PEASANT 2: He hasn't got sh*t all over him.
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#30834
06/18/2001 2:42 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Beautiful maiden leaning from a castle tower, screaming: "Succour!"
Knight errant, riding to the rescue: " I guess I am."
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#30835
06/18/2001 4:19 PM
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Posts: 4,757
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maverick's jibe
I would love to still believe in this cherubic ideal, but history teaches me otherise. Whenever mankind has moved into a new territory, s/he has always exported all of the current problems too. Jazzo mentioned recently the curious dichotomy of the USA as a 'religious' yet intolerant state in some respects - how much more curious when you consider the impetus behind the drive to that particular new frontier all those generations ago. Can we do better in a vacuum? Hmmm... "This is ground control to Major Tom... the papers want to know whose shirts you wear!"
Edit:BTW, which flag, symbol of nationalism and ownership, now flys on the moon?
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#30836
06/19/2001 11:46 AM
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Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Dr. Bill- I worry a bit about over population-- but more about the modern plagues-- AIDS-- is destroying Africa and other countries-- and BSE (mad cow)-- I think, having followed it for 20 years now-- has the power to devistate most of europe-- It took almost 10 year from the time they started feeded MBM (modified bone meal) feed to cow for the symtoms to develop-- and 10 more years for it to be confirmed in humans.. and all the while the same practices went on. even when the brits stop using the meal for there own cattle feed- they continued to export it to other countries.. almost 30 year ago, i was in england when the "secret bombing of Cambodia" where made public and i was embarrassed to be american.. Now days, i suspect many of the english are embarrassed by what their goverment did re: MBM. I think i worry more about the destructive diseased that are now spread world wide- before we even identify them!
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#30837
06/19/2001 1:11 PM
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Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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Dear of troy: The present alarming growth in the population of the world is related to advances in science, medical being only part of it. All of the losses from disease merely postpone the day when over population catastrophe will arrive. The brutal measures of population control the Chinese have been forced to adopt will have to be employed world wide. How wonderful it would be to have a mass emigration to another planet.But I see no way of its being possible.
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#30838
06/19/2001 1:19 PM
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Dr. Bill comments: How wonderful it would be to have a mass emigration to another planet. But I see no way of its being possible.
Nor do the proponents of science fiction. No one seems to envision our ever having the ability to transport people off this world at a rate that even begins to match the rate at which we are overpopulating it. The answer can only lie in our stemming the latter.
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#30839
06/19/2001 1:24 PM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
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The answer can only lie...
Soooo.. maybe we should be proud of Mad Thatcher Disease, eh Helen?
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#30840
06/19/2001 2:07 PM
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Posts: 13,803
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mav opines that perhaps we should be proud of Mad Thatcher Disease.
We can do it purty or we can do it ugly.
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#30841
06/19/2001 5:19 PM
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 69
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 69 |
Faldage opines: No one [even scifi proponents] seems to envision our ever having the ability to transport people off this world at a rate that even begins to match the rate at which we are overpopulating it. The answer can only lie in our stemming the latter.
If I may differ over a pedantic point. :o Heinlein in his work "Tunnel in the Sky" pictures an extradimensional portal that millions of people at a time can be herded through to another destination. In this small (from a popularity and size standpoint) novel, the Chinese do exactly that.
Now, I can't see it being done *today*. The logistics problems would be enormous, even if you didn't make any provision for the people on the other side. OTOH, any society that had such technology might be able to do something about the logistics problem.
For the future as I see it (and Heinlein too; he did "Tunnel" as a "what if" alternative to the flavor of his other books) is that space travel spells doom for the humans left on Earth. All the really adventurous types leave, aggravating by orders of magnitude the "marching morons" problem.
Cheers,
Bryan
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
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#30842
06/19/2001 7:14 PM
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Wasn't the "marching moron's" problem addressed in Hitch hikers? an advanced team sent out to prepare a planet for habitation-- and the advance team was all decoraters, hair dressers, ad writers, agents, middle managers.. etc? (i didn't actualy read the book--i only saw the tv Series.. but i am sure Max can give more details..)
and if the idea of a brain drain where really a problem-- every one in europe would be an idiot-- and that is not the case.. 1 -- even idiots can have smart children.. 2-- incredible gifted people can have compelling reasons for staying put-- physical difficulties, close family relationships, etc.
In some ways, both US and Oz where populated not with "brains" but with "cranks" and crooks. certainly people who where on the outs with the society they left-- either for relegious or legal reasons-- maybe they were adventurous.. or maybe slightly crack pot!
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#30843
06/19/2001 7:29 PM
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Marching Morons is from a story by the same name by C.M. Kornbluth. The premise was that a 20th century man was zapped forward in time by the Pooh-Bahs of a future society to solve a problem they had. The 20th century man, upon being introduced to the problem decided that the Pooh-Bahs were enslaving the common man, but in truth, the common man so outnumbered the Pooh-Bahs and were so incapable of running things themselves that the Pooh-BAhs were being run ragged trying to keep society running. Things had gotten so out of hand because the intelligent people of the 20th and 21st centuries had practiced sensible birth control procedures but the dummies had bred out of control. Thus, the intelligent people were such a small minority that they essentially had no power at all. They had zapped the 20th guy because they didn't have the ruthlessness to handle the problem they ownse'fs
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#30844
06/19/2001 9:11 PM
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Posts: 13,858
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So NASA should duplicate Star Trek's capability of "beaming" people from one point to another, and populate Mars with our surplus.
One thing that has always puzzled me is why brilliant persons so infrequently have brilliant offspring. And I'm not sure that dummies necessarily have children who are dummies, except where a genetic defect is involved.
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#30845
06/19/2001 9:33 PM
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 387
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2001
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an advanced team sent out to prepare a planet for habitation-- and the advance team was all decoraters, hair dressers, ad writers, agents, middle managers.. etc? (i didn't actualy read the book--i only saw the tv Series.. but i am sure Max can give more details..)
Yes, basically it. They got rid of a useless third of the population, and started the human race. That's why Arthur didn't actually have the Question in his head, just a very warped version. The human/aliens drove the semi-intelligent cavemen (they aren't cavemen!!!!!!) to extinction, and the people back home died because of an unsanitised telephone.
ha ha ha, Max
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#30846
06/20/2001 12:24 PM
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 69
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 69 |
I think this is a perception rather than statistical issue. People notice a streetlight going out when they walk under it, but don't notice the thousands of times they've walked under other lights and had nothing happens. Contrariwise, I'd say most of the kids who attend my child's gifted school have one or more parents of better than average ability. They are engineers, Master's degrees, Ph.D's, successful small business owners, corporate executives. Sure, you don't have to be a *genius* to do any of those things, but you need drive and above-average intelligence. Those parents I've met who are in skilled labor jobs or service industry aren't dumb either. I've not met a single below-average parent of one of these gifted kids.
Intelligence is a matter of genetics+environment. While a genius can be born to the stupid, it isn't as often as people would like to think, and the reverse happens just about as often.
Cheers,
Bryan
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
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#30847
06/20/2001 4:27 PM
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I agree that bright parents usually have bright children. What I should have said was that the children of geniuses seldom match their parents' intellectual level. If you think of the great men and women of the past, they seldom had offspring of equal ability.
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#30848
06/20/2001 4:35 PM
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Posts: 5,400
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and many a genius has well educated parents-- but they are not geniuses..
like red hair, or albinoism, or other rare traits, superior ability just springs up.. (actually, red hair is like blue eyes-- a known process- it just that blue eyes are controlled by one set of genes--say "eye color", and red hair is controlled by 2 genetic markers.. making it a double resessive.)
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#30849
06/20/2001 4:54 PM
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The thing about the great men and women in science that puzzles me most is the factor of motivation. There is a somewhat apocryphal story about Newton's being a mediocre student until a bully made him wnat to surpass the bully scholastically.Newton later commented that '" at the height of his powers" he was able to focus on a problem constantly until the answer came to him. Motivation can enhance the achievement of any man or woman , and lack of it can vitiate any career.
Would that we knew how to instill our children with it.
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#30850
06/20/2001 5:52 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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Well–actually that was one of my parents successes– when ever we kids were critical of something– we were tasked to do it better–
complained about dinner? You just volunteered to cook the next night– think a story in a tv show was dumb? Sit down and write a better story..
By adulthood, I had internalized it (it does tend to make you very competitive)– and learned to not try some things– like sports– my older sister is only 5'4", but in first year of high school she made varsity basket ball– I never even bothered to try– I was never going to do better than her.. So, I took no interest in, or made an effort in, sports.
But it the same "can you do it better? Put up or shut up" attitude help get me back to college. In three years I went from drop out to graduate with a 3.87 gpa (yes, I admit, it is a second rate college, not university, but still, accredited, and not bad a showing.)
And I use the "device"– when I am teaching something, and someone makes an error–no problem– but should an other class participant make fun of the error–they find they are the next volunteer!– or tasked to do the "assignment" better...
In meetings, I set that up as "ground rule" – the person who has been assigned to be a "scribe" and write things down on the ‘easel pad' has no fear of misspelling a word– anyone who publicly ridicules a spelling or even just rudely calls out a correction– is immediately assigned the job of being scribe...(during breaks, any corrections that are needed are added..)
This lead to an interesting occasion.. A meeting addressing employee morale- was mistakenly scribed as employee morals– and our task: improve them!
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#30851
06/20/2001 6:50 PM
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Unfortunately there is a down side to encouraging siblings to compete with each other. It often results in their lacking affection for one another. .
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#30852
06/20/2001 8:12 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
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"Tunnel in the Sky"Great Heinlein, tome, Bryan!...one of my favorites along with "Stranger in a Strange Land" (of course), and "Time Enough for Love."  And I often think of Heinlein's concept as the ultimate answer for space travel whenever the subject comes up. But now, it seems, it may be more than just conjecture. With the new theories of Dark Matter and Anti-Gravity developing (really Einstein's abandoned theory of the "cosmological constant" revisited!), forces so strong that they bend and consume even light (and may be faster than the speed of light!), the glint of plausibility of traversing these vast distances begins to gleam on the horizon. (My brain cells begin to rupture whenever I start to contemplate these magnitudes...you know, what's outside the universe? the Big Bang exploded where?...I have to pull back and grab a handful of soil just for reassurance). So, yes, Bryan, in about 1,000 years or so, hold on to your hat! Who knows, with the help of cryogenics you might still be here, there!, wherever! By the way, there's a good article on this in the current "Time" 6/25. And I'll never forgive Ronald Reagan for drastically cutting NASA's budget, and rolling back the manned space progam (and indirectly causing the Challenger disaster due to the lack of funding). I firmly believed at one time that by 1990 we would have manned flights to Mars, and colonies on (and maybe even vacation flights to) the Moon. But it wasn't to be...it WILL eventually, but how soon now...who knows? 
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#30853
06/21/2001 2:52 PM
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Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 69
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2001
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One of my favorite subjects for speculation. :) Actually, the concepts themselves aren't too brain-rupturing for me. The idea of virtual particles, De Sitter space, anti-gravity, superfluid helium - I can deal with that (at least, the popularizations). It is the true enormity of the whole thing that boggles me. I have on my "computer wallpaper" Hubble Deep Field WFPC2. It shows some galaxies in the foreground as small discs, some as big as a button on your watch. In the background, you see smaller and smaller ones, and eventually you see a set of dots so small and dim they aren't even star sized. They're *all* galaxies. Each galaxy is billions of stars. (shudder) I get a religious awe every time I contemplate it.
As Sagan put it, an awful waste of space if there isn't *something* else out there.
Yeah - Reagan spent so much on SDI (and now Bush will do the same with NMD - same stuff, different name) he killed the space program. (sigh)
I'll check out the article, thanks.
Cheers,
Bryan
Cheers,
Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
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