CIA plot to destroy open source software. Fake accusations will continue to be made by agents who are being paid to do so. Eventually when all the old guard has been removed everything will be corporatized and the GPL will be rescinded on all open source projects converting them to closed source capitalist piggy oink oink projects.
Seriously. Infrastructure is falling apart everywhere. The angry homeowner with the median occupancy of just 13 years is able to halt progress on virtually anything from a train to a homeless shelter. We've locked entire cities into a stasis in terms of development for decades and constrained our housing supply by handing untold power to local, often corrupt city governments, who generally have no interests in listening to the needs of those on the bottom of the local economy who have no money to donate nor time with which to vote. We've allowed wages to stagnate and inequality to surge, all while cost of living has been rising. We've done virtually nothing meaningful on climate change in the past two decades. We've defunded our public schools and closed down our mental hospitals in the country with the worlds largest economy. Yet the stock market is at all time highs in a global pandemic. Could you imagine anything more backwards and bizzare?
> Yet the stock market is at all time highs in a global pandemic. Could you imagine anything more backwards and bizzare?
I'm not sure if you're implying this but the stock market never was an indicator of the economic health of the country. Its an indicator of the economic health of the wealthy (tautologically, since its where most wealthy individuals park their wealth) , and for that its been pretty accurate.
Why do people keep calling this ship the "Ever Given" When in all the photos i've seen so far of it clearly show the name "Evergreen" on the side in HUGE letters..
This comes up a lot. So here we go. This ship is not named "Maersk Line", despite having it in huge letters down the side. It's named Maersk Virginia, as indicated in the traditional position on the bow.
And Maersk Virginia obviously follows a naming convention, just as Ever Given follows Evergreen's naming convention.
I know it's been said before, and it'll be said again, but I think a like-for-like comparison is useful.
This ship is named "Wonder of the Seas", not "Royal Caribbean International". I was thinking an example from a potentially more familiar industry might be useful.
Well, if media is making us aware that scientists are already doing this using mices, you can be pretty sure that by now, at some random place in the world, somebody is already trying it using human fetuses. Oh boy how quickly we are running into the dystopia.
There's nothing unethical about artificial wombs if they work well, it's the whole "just because I can build it doesn't mean it will result in a healthy baby" aspect where the problem lies.
The whole issue is unethical as... For starters, to reach the "work well" status is going to require a ton of failures, at any level of the "pregnancy". Anyway, any possible concern we could express about it doesn't matter at all, somebody is going to do it. Of course it won't be shown in the news.
I'm not sure it really plays out like that. At least the 'monkeys and typewriters' scale setup is not there, I think.
Maybe if you asked me five years ago, I'd have ventured that China will try some out-there genetic stuff with some successes, but we haven't really seen much. And (not to get into politics) but China is not too concerned about traditional Western ethical boundaries, it seems.
We know animals are not as smart as us. That doesn't necessary tell us anything about consciousness. We have no way to measure consciousness so your claim about "human-level consciousness" (whatever that means) is just speculation.
Prove it - we do't understand consciousness enough to make such claims. Or at least have the wisdom to apply the precautionary principle when you don't know.
Proof is a Math thing. I'm comfortable with the weight of evidence from all the tests we devise for this purpose, combined with the fact we actively strive to show the consciousness of animals in a way we never did with slaves. You're free to disagree and consider it hubris, many animal rights activists do.
N.B. I don't believe we fully understand consciousness. Just that factory farm animal consciousness is categorically not at a human level.
Technically I'm not sure it's really true either way. Well, there's some debate that we could get bogged down in, but really I'm just an old Math major having fun with that comment.
What are you talking about?? Only the conscious can feel pain now? Or the misery of being separated from its nursing offspring? Results of all of these things measurably correlate with human hormonal and physiological responses. Again what are you talking about???
It's a science, not a 'math thing'. Yours in an old fashioned conservative retreat into avoiding reason or ethical considerations.
Their first point is one of epistemology. You asked them to prove it but that's outside of the scope of science. Proof is deductive and certain, whereas science (outside of math) is empirical and only asymptotes on certainty as theories remain unrefuted. Scientists have theories that can at best converge on truth and don't think in terms of proof.
This notwithstanding, the ethical concerns seem premature. Shouldn't we wait for information on an actual concrete proposal? Perhaps it can be done with very little of the brain and when coupled with FMRI we can be sure enough that it isn't experiencing conscious states. But all this seems premature and subject to the actual details.
And other people aren’t squeamish about murder or genocide. Just because one person, or you, aren’t squeamish about something doesn’t make it right for society. That’s why we look to history and anticipate possible future consequences and make decisions about current regulations based on the future we want to bring about.
I prefer a future without harvesting humans for the members of dynasties that can afford it, while those with ethics are left behind or destroyed.
This is so trite. How do you feel about artificial legs? Hearts?
There are a lot of women who would love to have children, but have PCOS, hysterectomies, or other problems becoming pregnant naturally. Why is it totally OK for me to wear glasses, half the country to have an artificial hip, but totally 100% unnatural and terrible for women to use an artificial womb?
It's not if it's developed ethically. The price of this research is often paid by the suffering of countless animals. Aa externality that may be slightly less odious if it is at least there to reduce our suffering, not simply cash in on making more humans.
And if its development requires the sacrifice of as many mice as it saves then it only breaks even. Ethically, that case hasn't been made. And what comes out shouldn't suffer.
Trying for a kid with my partner actually. It doesn't mean we're entitled to one or that my child will have more of a right to exist than 100s of some other mammals.
And I think it's clear that I am considering more than just my own life.
A bar set by people, in the interest of people. What we personally believe is subject to biases, in this case speciesism. A human would say what you say, a monkey's claim to superiority might be branch selection skills. What makes your red line inherently stronger?
And it's not like you defined one or attempt to find a rational underpinning to check for your bias. That's the tribal, conservative basis for many of the injustices over immutable differences we see every day (racial, sexual etc.)
We really should though. If we can get this to work it would mean we could save lots of species that are endangered. Elephants and rhinos come to mind.
Because elephants and rhinos are cool and interesting, and their existence doesn't cause substantial harm to us or the planet. Do we really need another reason?
I don’t think there’s an ecosystem left that is free from influence from human activity so you would have to include all of them for that reason alone. Preserving genetic diversity is probably a good enough reason, you never know when that next asteroid is due.
There some less-ethically challenging reasons, explained well in their nature paper, namely that using controlled environment they learn a ton of things about how embryos grow
> The ability to remove a mammalian embryo from the uterine environment and grow it normally in controlled conditions constitutes a powerful tool to characterize the effect of different perturbations on development during the period from gastrulation to organogenesis, that can be combined with genetic modification, chemical screens, tissue manipulation and microscopy methods
Humans aren't going to stop consuming meat any time soon. It makes sense to try create more efficient 'farms' to minimize waste and engineer meat without a central nervous system.
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