jkellmd

Schopenhauer had a lot to say, much that is controversial by todays ideas of political correctness, and much that is colored by his strange personal experiences. That said, his work was a springboard for Nietzche (the lineage of ideas is reasonably well-accepted), especially his ideas regarding religion and women. He represents an interesting intellectual turn away from the enlightenment ideals, and was one of most cogent philosophical writers of his age. I especially appreciated the lack of overdense allegory found throughout Nietzche's better works. A nice little tool, but laid on a little thick. Why the obfuscation? Nietzche had little to fear by way of religio-political reprisal. Goethe and Schopenhauer had already fired the opening shots. I've always wondered at the over-reverence of Nietzche. He seems to be the hero of narcissists eveywhere.

The answer to your question is a resounding yes. Godel was the master, we still don't understand him. Einstein never completely did (some here might consider that faint praise, though).

As long as we are, for the sake of argument, disallowing those with genetic defects to procreate, why don't we stop helping people with infertility problems? If their genes are too weak to allow for "natural" conception, pregnancy and birth, are we serving humanity by helping them pass their genes on? Which does more damage to the gene pool: A. The offspring of tens of thousands of successful artificial insemination procedures. B. The rare (even newsworthy) case of mentally handicapped individuals having children that manage to survive into the child bearing years, and then procreate themselves. Again, the rights of the individual versus the interests of the collective. Sticky little buggers, those "reproductive rights." Do we even have a right to reproduce?

Great thread Racoon! It's either the enlightenment or the romantics for me. Jung is the exception.

I wanted to thank (almost) everyone for their (mostly) thoughful responses in the thread. I posted the question with the idea that I might get some recon from people on the ground in africa as to what the situation really is, which schemes seem to be working, and what some new ideas might be. You responded in force, thanks. I feel I must respond personally to J.B.'s intimation that anyone might "feel superior," through discussion of this topic. No, in fact I do not feel superior to africans while discussing the plight of an entire continent and a huge portion of humanity. The last refuge of many species, including the remainder of the great apes (except the orangutan) is at stake, a quarter to a third of the population has HIV, and the ecological destruction taking place are helping to poison the rest of the earth. In a less altruistic vein, I don't personally know anyone in africa, and most likely never will. I even manage to maintain the average emotional distance from archetypal images of Sally Struther's kids, greedy warlords, hungry farmers, etc. - yet the issues bleeding forth from african nations effect me personally now, and will only grow. The U.S. is spending your tax dollars there as well as mine - largely without direction, and without much real impact. If we want to be getting anything for our foreign-aid money, we had better pay attention. If emotional appeals pass you by, perhaps an economic one will hit home.

If I remember correctly, I heard something about it on the diggnation podcast a month ago or so, although I'm not sure which digg.com story it was in reference to. Hazy memory, sorry.

I have a palm, and the Adobe reader is adequate, if I'm in a good mood. However, note that the palmOS is being discontinued, so the windowsOS will take over all palm devices, which is probably not a big deal, unless you have a ton of bootlegged palm software, like many I know. I would probably go with a compact, high end notebook. Internal wifi, decent hard drive, full XP support, etc. Drop zoom player for videos, and your favorite audio software onto that bad boy, and you've got a serious content consumption system going. The models I've seen are pretty sweet. A PSP is also a good option, but I'm not absolutely positive that they support PDF's - check it out.

Agreed. The bright spots are nations like Kenya, with ecotourism industries bringing in foriegn money (not aid), and protecting ecological resources at the same time. Economics improving the world - makes me go ahhhhhhhhh.

As an offshoot of the raging debate on Racoon's thread regarding slavery, I would like to ask the members what they think the future holds for the majority of african nations. Rampant HIV, widespread political instability, outdated and destructive farming practices and environmental deterioration seem to spell unavoidable disaster in the not-too-distant future, it seems. I hear over and over again that farming practices have to change first; however, political stability seems to trump the issue. Food aid isn't a viable answer in the medium or long term (even if it could get to those who need it), and farming education is progressing at too glacial a rate to match erosion and overpopulation. We have seen nationbuilding fail on a large stage in Iraq and Afganistan - it seems that democracy is not for everyone. If people cannot appoint, and keep in power, leaders with at least a few of their best interests in mind, there is no hope in ever improving their standard of living, educational system or agriculture. On the bright side, africans are not the ones creating a new hybrid influenza every year by living, working, eating, sleeping and defacating alongside their pigs, chickens, goats, ducks, geese, dogs, cats and monkeys. Perhaps a topic for another thread...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20060314/hl_hsn/nanotechnologymayrepairdamagedbrains Partial vision has been to restored to rats using nano-sized peptide scaffolds, which provide structure for growth of brain cells. WOW. Superman may walk again, after all. Good news for Dick Clark.

Thanks for the peaceful advice, gents. You're right, the average "door-knocker" has the best interests of the community at heart, at least in some sense. The possible unspoken motives intrigue me, though. I assume certain advancement oppotunities and rewards are available for high numbers of "conversions" or call-backs. Seems a lot like cold calls, telemarketing, and door-to-door sales. Like Uncle Joe Stalin said, "Opinions can be argued with; beliefs are best shot." Haha.

Welcome, Babar! Do you know Pushto?

Don't be so reticent. I'd like to hear it. You can borrow my faith for a few minutes.

Chicago style. I wish I could get it in New York.

Ignoring the above faux pas, and getting back to the post, I have an anecdote for you, Infinitenow. In the early nineties, I was studying abroad in a small southeast asian country, and was one of about three americans living in a city of 300,000. One day, a friend introduced me to two young mormon lads, fresh off the boat. These young men had questions for me regarding the safe parts of town, safe places to eat, and various other aspects of living as an expatriate. Always priding myself on being a brother, I helped them as best I could, offering my expertise, language mastery, and many native connections to them gratis, and at any reasonable hour. Within a week, they asked me to dinner at their residence - as a way to thank me, it was said - and I accepted. I was promptly cornered for over two hours, and was read the third degree regarding my sinful life (to be fair, I was 18 and living the wild life in a sexual disneyland with widely available drugs and alcohol). After listening to their diatribe, and finally agreeing to accept a copy of the book of mormon, I was allowed to leave. I am native american, by the way, and their patronizing myths enraged me to no end. The taste that this episode left in my mouth is to bitter to be described. I had truly reached out to help them in any way that I could, despite our obvious differences, and was rewarded with deception, high-handedness and an unwanted attempt to seduce me into accepting a pack of obvious crapola. No american received my help after that. I realize that this is more a story about mormonism than it is about Utah itself, but the two concepts seem rather entangled in the extreme. Despite the obvious beauty of the state of Utah, and the great snowboarding, I doubt I could ever live in a place where every dinner invitation held the threat of Gestapo-like reeducation. By the way, I sent that copy of the Book Of Mormon to my mom, as a joke (we are Catholic), and she was so mortified that she called me immeidately, at about 4am my time, to assure herself that I hadn't totally lost my mind.

My implicit opinion is that it's extremely cool. The utility of the program and it's functionality is still to be determined. I am sure that more sets of eyes surveying the surface features of Mars will prove fruitful in the short term future. The kind of research and bookmarking made possible with google earth is pretty mindblowing, if you are interested in exploring the functionality deeper than making fly-overs. I don't personally have time to create brewpub maps of the entire U.S. - but I certainly appreciate those who do.

Interface similar to google maps, in development. Read about at: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=128 Or Visit: mars.google.com

An amateur has identified two new impact craters on google earth. http://www.astroseti.org/impacts.php

Twice in the last two weeks, the news media has reported asteroids which have a decent probability of hitting earth - one as early as July. Since the stories haven't been followed up, I assume these are false threats. Are they scaremongering? http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060301_asteroid_risk.html

Really, the free market should take care of it, rather belatedly, unfortunately. People eventually will start voting with what counts, their money. More hybrid vehicles are being sold, and more are being designed. I just about wet my pants over an image Tormod posted to the gallery a few months ago regarding the air car. In the seventies, improved gas milage was the prime reason Americans switched to Japanese imports, and their sales skyrocketed. When consumers start prioritizing the issue again, the industry will be forced to respond. The technology is already there, automakers just have to divorce their interests from those of the oil conglomerates - if they don't, they won't have enough sales to survive. I worry more about home heating. What are we going to do with our furnaces over the next twenty years?

a. Pressure from big business to keep costs low, and to keep energy profits high. b. Cost of alternative energies, which are not researched due to (a). c. Greed of the average human who feels the need to drive alone to work, and have his precious family ride ten feet of the road in a tank. In this way, the greedy and least thoughtful live the longest, creating yet another negative selection force on the species. d. Laziness. e. Fear of admitting that the government has been wrong about global warming for at least the last fifteen years. Do they share science advisors with Phillip Morris? f. So we can grow pineapples in Alaska (from King of the Hill).

Sorry, I'm just an astronomy nube - but I thought this was pretty interesting. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/24/science/24star.html?ex=1298437200&en=5a1593907c7dfe1e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Check out the following article http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20060223-18281500-bc-us-crohns.xml

What happened to meritocracy? Talent is not distributed equally amongst humanity. Systems can be implemented to allow equal access to education and employment, given reasonably equal qualifications. Constant redistribution of wealth withing a welfare state adds to societal malaise and apathy. Any individual with skills to contribute should be allowed to do so, and to rise to their own level. Simply raising the penalty for discrimination would improve things greatly, although funding for education and training has to be available.

How about the guy who thought up the PCR (polymerase chain reaction)? I remember hearing he was a chemistry grad student, and now is a surfer or something (possibly erroneous). In any case, PCR was a HUGE breakthrough, as you probably know, and forms the backbone of molecular biological research. It realtes to forensics via its use in rapid replication/amplification of genentic samples. Good luck!