Matus1976

And worse, many of them want to make sure everyone else shrivels up and dies as well.

I met De Grey at Aclor's 2007 conference, fascinating guy for sure. As an advocate of a philosophy which attributes almost all great human advancements to individuals and recognizes the role that individual fortitude plays in changing society, technology, and acquiring wealth, I feel inspired and driven to do everything I can, to acquire as much wealth as possible to directly contribute to this kind of research either through funding or directly through my own work. I would certainly enjoy living a few hundred of a few thousand years as I would hope any adherents of a life loving philosophy would.

It's also important to emphasize that recylcing is about resources, not about energy, and that most recylcing actually takes more energy (and thus contributes more to global warming if you consider that to be a problem) as far as economies of scale go, there is almost no scenario where collecting small amounts of a processed and diffuse resource, bring it all back to a central location, and then processing it again, and then re-distributing it - is going to compete on an energy criteria with starting out with a centralized location of a high concentration of a resource, and then processing and distributing it. In some rare instances it might be worth it, like aluminum, because the initialy bauxite electrolysis process is so energy intensive. Even so, 10% of the earths crust is aluminum, so I wouldnt particular care for 'conserving aluming' as that amounts to some hundreds of billions of tons of aluminum for every person on the planet. Hardly anything we would be running out of anytime soon. And I wonder if those calculations for aluminum include the big diesel garbage trucks that pick up volumnous cans of aluminum that are 99% air and drive them for miles back to a collection center. Usually that part is government mandated and thus subsidized by the refuse collector. I personally do aluminum casting and I don't even find it worthwhile to melt aluminum cans, there is hardly in aluminum, and there is more ink and dye on them then there is aluminum.

I am neither parent nor uncle, yet John comments are thoroughly disgusting. I think his comments here are evidence enough of those 'negative consequences' Would you mind giving us the contact information for this girl's parents so we can warn them about you?

Excellent point, I'm glad this was brought up. Wayne / Batman is using the term 'sacrifice' in the appropriate manner, a prioritization of values, and not the giving up of a higher value for a lesser one. Heck if I had the resources of Wayne, I'd probably do the same thing. He does not like the way Gotham / the world is, and uses his mind and abilities to try to promulgate his values. Or - "The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours. -Ayn Rand" I would also add that this proper prioritization of values is no better concretized then when the Joker forces Wayne to decide between the woman he loves and the person he believes to be the best hope for saving Gotham, without hesistation he chooses the woman he loves. Contrast this with the Spiderman comic scene where the Green Goblin forces parker to choose between a cable car of kids, and the woman he loves, Spiderman chooses the kids, and the woman he loves dies, solidifying a pyschological wedge in his mend between his greatest strengths and abilities, and his highest values, because his abilities are now the means to which he feels obliged to betray his own highest values and thus they are seen as a curse. (This was changed in the movie so that Spiderman saves both) Although I found this a thoroughly good movie, one of the best I've seen for it's intensity and seriousness, I found the 'fall of Dent' entirely unconvincing. It did not seem at all consistent with the charachter Nolan had defined throughout the movie.

Unless these cows are eating previously permanetly sequestered carbon and then releasing it (OIL) then thier total emissions are irrelevant to the notion of 'global warming' from CO2. Cows are eating grass, which is previously temporarily trapped CO2, and releasing it. When the grass grows back, it takes the CO2 back out of the atmosphere. There is no net increase in methane / CO2 / Greenhouse gases from cows eating plants and flatulating. (not that I think anthropogenic global warming is real, just that this is not a valid counter argument)

**spoilers** Within the context of this movie "Faith" is not 'belief without evidence' but is actually a belief based on evidence. Assuming the errors in the loom where not mere statistical fluctuations, as they seem to reliably spell out people's names (curious how the loom's 'binary' language stayed up to date with changes in languages among cultures) this is evidence that some real tangible force is acting and selecting these names. What they chose to do with that information is an entirely different question, but to suggest it is "faith" in the way that some Bishop demanding you kill someone on his word is "faith" is not an accurate comparison. One could build a loom of their own to check the information, and in fact another loom existed. Additionally, the only historical example of checking the name given against evidence of that persons life shown in the movie in fact demonstrates someone who had no only previously tortured and killed many people, but after his name came up would still torture and kill in the future. The only evidence relayed about one of the targets was that he was in fact a murderous bastard, nothing suggests these targets were random nor innocent. Why at the final stand off they were so willing to believe Morgan Freeman characters claim about how every one's names came up when he had an established track record of falsifying names is beyond me. One would think any such system would have multiple people independently read and check the names, and not leave the reading in the hands of a single person, for obvious reasons. Physics wise, bullets spin all the time, it makes them go straighter, not fly in a curved trajectory. I thought from the previews they were swinging their arms rapidly to the side, imparting a small amount of horizontal velocity to the bullet enabling it to hit a target behind an obstacle. Although the concept and visuals made for some interesting movie eye candy. Indeed, especially since the guy saying it was a hitman! As if that makes for the most fulfilling kind of life. Personally I think I'd choose office worker over hitman. Ironic that his father kept him out of that hitman life so he could have a 'normal' life, and yet he despised his 'normal' life and took up the life his father hated.

Congratulations Alfa. I also consider myself a 3D artist and have a lot of my work posted in the "My 3D Cities" thread. http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.p...=10907&st=0 I do mostly non-organic modeling so far but I am trying to get into charachter modeling and animation now.

Yup, I do all my work in Lightwave. I'm back working on my Enterprise model! This model is actually more detailed than the ones they used in the movies

The threat posed by asteroid impacts, and indeed Caldera eruptions (like Yellowstone) are very real. I am a staff member of the Lifeboat Foundation, which is an organization whose explicit goal is to identify all the existential threats that humanity faces and work toward implementing reasonable strategies to mitigate those threats. Much of the current emphasis is on the possible consequences of technology like synthetic life, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology. We are not a luddite organization however, and our advisory board includes Ray Kurzweil and Aubrey De Grey, Kurzwiel is one of our largest donors. But natural existential threats are extremely disconcerting and the closest humanity has ever come to extinction was the last super volcano blast in Toba, about 70,000 years ago, which some scientists suggest brought the entire human population down to about 1,000 adults, so a great deal of attention is being paid to these threats as well. A recent informal poll of our 500 some scientific advisory board members, ranked a global pandemic as the biggest short term threat, with major asteroid impact a close second. Global Warming was near the bottom of the list, and beat only alien invasion as a serious threat. We recently met with the Naval War College's Strategic Studies Group and gave a presentation on possible threats we might face in the near future. Tugunska sized impacts seem to occur once per century, be on the lookout! Lifeboat Foundation http://lifeboat.com/ex/main

He would answer "NO, its ZaathhruUus, not ZaAathhruus" which to the interregator would sound exactly the same, thus diffusing the logical trap! (Babylon 5 reference)

Allegedly Nikola Tesla's response to this was "If Edison had a needle to find in a haystack, he would proceed at once with the diligence of the bee to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. I was a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor."

Well that's a quote from the article, certainly not my personal opinion!

Science justifies your opinion here as well. It's clear that pretty much any typical human mind can become an 'expert' at pretty much anything with directed and concentrated effort. The earlier you start, the bigger your advantage becomes, and while anyone may not be better than everyone else in the world at virtually anything (which should not be of concern to individualists anyway) virtually anyone can be a high level expert, even genuis level expert, at virtual anything if they put the time and study into it. Scientific American “The Expert Mind” http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-mind "The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge before the schools. Can educators find ways to encourage students to engage in the kind of effortful study that will improve their reading and math skills?" “What it Takes to be Great” Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/for...91794/index.htm - “Scientific experts are producing remarkably consistent findings across a wide array of fields. Understand that talent doesn't mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It's an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well. British-based researchers Michael J. Howe, Jane W. Davidson and John A. Sluboda conclude in an extensive study, "The evidence we have surveyed ... does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts." “The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters” http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observ...cle.cfm?id=2026 - “The other way to look at precocity is of course to work backward — to look at adult geniuses and see what they were like as kids. A number of studies have taken this approach, Gladwell said, and they find a similar pattern. A study of 200 highly accomplished adults found that just 34 percent had been considered in any way precocious as children. He also read a long list of historical geniuses who had been notably undistinguished as children — a list including Copernicus, Rembrandt, Bach, Newton, Beethoven, Kant, and Leonardo Da Vinci”. A thread on it http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/in...pic=1909&hl

They made a scam - something that plays into every perfect whim of the feeling guilty for their own existence environmentalist in order to bamboozle people out of their money for something could not possibly work, but happens to be exactly what everyone could possibly want.

I highly doubt anything you would say I would find insulting. I would first need to respect your qualitative assessment of me, you've given me no reason nor evidence to suggest I should. Your behavior in this thread, including your predilection to overly simplistic psychologizing, such as and ...in fact gives me evidence not to. The only character which you are presenting evidence to other to make a qualitative assessment of is your own from your behavior in this thread. Your comments seem to suggest that your personality profile was merely an effort to figure out who felt compelled to showboat their personalities under thinly veiled excuses, which ultimately was just an effort for you to identify who here was "evading one's own inner state" The fact that few people had any interest in replying showed that this tendency of personality showboating you are so quick to assume is not very common. And so what of themadkat, who responded even without the thinly vieled "hey lets all get to know each other a little better" Has Ifat cleverly revealed to themadkat their own deep psychological evasions? Or perhaps individuals have different complex motivations for things and are not so easily summed up in 30 seconds of pyschologizing. It 'could be' that's pretty much exactly what everyone has been either saying or implying. I personally said "Clearly some people might find a little bit of pleasure in filling this out, and sharing their interests with other people with similar values... but to some this alone might not make it worthwhile enough to fill out. But if they are helping a 'forum friend' derive some useful information which would positively contribute to the world which they also live in, or even, assist someone in doing something positive and productive for it's own sake.." Athena expressed the same sentiment "You are offering us something without giving us the information that we need to consider it's value to us" You acknowledge exactly this "It is one thing when someone is asking for another value to be had by filling it out (like a discussion) since they don't see enough value in filling it out and posting by itself" And yet you essentially respond with "Well, I don't owe any one of you a purpose" Of course not, but the clear implication is that filling this out for it's own sake is not valuable enough for many people to do it, if they shared a common goal with you, or found value in assisting you in doing something productive (like attempting to formulate a much more objective and useful personality test, which is what I thought) they might then find it valuable enough (in combination with the introspection and sharing with other members) to fill out the survey. You act like we're living a 2nd handed life to you merely because you giving us your reason for this survey is what put people over the tipping point of finding it valuable enough to fill out. Why would we care about that? You won't tell us why you wrote it, or what you might use the information for, but you'll tell us 'it took you a long time' (I have no doubt it did, as far as personality surveys go, it's an excellent one) but why would we care?

I find these kinds of personality tests hardly more useful than astrological profiles. For starters, they are full of false dichotomies and very vague identifications (as pointed out in an earlier post ) But more telling is that virtually no characteristic has a 'negative' interpretation. As Pony Girl summarized in the post linked above E - Extraversion - tend to focus on people and things I - Introversion - tend to focus on ideas and impressions Why are both of these universally presented as positive, while both certainly have fully negative degrees, e.g. E - Extraversion - so fundamentally innately boring you are that you feel compelled to perpetually distract yourself from having to be bothered coming up with your own purpose in life, this you achieve by constantly being on the phone, updating social networking sites, going to parties as often as possible, and generally feeling uncomfortable alone I - Introversion - so cynical and jaded you are that you despise the presence of other human beings, feeling either so morally superior to them that you can not be bothered to acknowledge their existence or so morally inferior to them that you feel by recognizing your existence you are inconveniencing them, so you take great pains to avoid at all costs interactions with other human beings. And then, of course, neither of these personality types make any qualitative assessments which can be used to refine one's personality into something they might find more conducive to a more fulfilling life, like a doctor asking only how much you weigh but not discussing the health benefits that come from proper diet and exercise. These tests do nothing but inaccurately capture a dynamic personality in one static moment and give you no direction and I find often serve (like astrology does for most people) to promulgate a self fulfilling 'prophecy' e.g. - I am this type of person, therefore I should be expected to behave in this way, therefore I have no problem behaving this way and disregard any consideration of how I ought to behave. Lastly, they ignore the complex interaction between chance, nature, social indoctrinated habit, and fully informed volitional choices have on one's behavior. Where some genetic predispositions might be unhealthy, introspection would reveal this an enable a person to refine their behavior through personal choice to avoid such reactions where inappropriate, but 'personality profiles' like these merely identify and classify, and implicitly suggest that is 'how you are'. All of them seem to be implicitly materialistically deterministic through omission.

If someone felt like filling out this survey was worth while, but did not particularly care of what value it was to you, why would they even post it publicly? If your contention is to provide them with a means of some interesting introspection, is a forum whose typical context is public response the appropriate mechanism for that? Clearly some people might find a little bit of pleasure in filling this out, and sharing their interests with other people with similar values (fellow forum members) but to some this alone might not make it worthwhile enough to fill out. But if they are helping a 'forum friend' derive some useful information which would positively contribute to the world which they also live in, or even, assist someone in doing something positive and productive for it's own sake. As Rand said, charity is fine when you derive real valuable from that which you are assisting someone in achieving, as long as it is not detrimental to you, or as Aristotle suggested, the best kinds of friendships are ones which we want what is best for our friends for their own sake, something I would think most extend here as a common courtesy to all individuals. In short, no one is 'sacrificing' anything by filling this out 'for you' if they fill it out and post it publicly it would likely be a combination of some fun introspection, sharing interests with other forum members, and assisting you in something they would probably find productive and worthwhile. To suggest that if they know your motivation, and that if that motivation plays a part in their decision they must necessarily be sacrificing to you, or using you to find purposes for them, is something I find rather arrogant. To even LOOK at one of your posts AT ALL, would fall under the same category of you providing a 'purpose for them' and providing a reason for this survey is no different than providing the a subject title for a new thread. I don't think the average forum member here on Objectivism online is one prone to bouts of self sacrifice, and we probably don't need hyper vigilance on your part to protect ourselves from it, nor condescension at the notion that one might find joy in assisting a fellow intelligent productive person in an intelligent productive activity.

Thanks! I'll have to get back to work on this one, It's definately been my favorite so far to work on.

True, but really the only reason we are using so much coal is because Nuclear was pushed into the background by environmentalists. Coal power plants require a trainload of coal per day, a typicall fission nuclear plant might require 1 single truck load of uranium per year I hardly see how left to true market competition coal would be cheaper than nuclear. Additionally, this comparison is based on conventional fission plants which throw out most of their fuel as 'waste' (because, again, environmentalists won't let it be processed) Breeder reactors, by some estimates, might be able to produce 100 times as much power as a typical fission plant AND consume their own waste (i.e. accelerate the radioactive decay of 'waste' elements which while not able to sustain a fission chain reaction never the less produce energy when hit by high energy nuetrons, which nuclear plants happen to produce aplenty) Further, a typical coal burning power plant burns more uranium and releases it as ash than a typical nuclear power plants fissions in a year. It might make the most sense, to start, to mine coal and process the uranium out of it, and 'burn' both. But considering the amount of energy bound up in fissionable heavy elements (roughly 300 milllion times that of chemical reactions) I am hard pressed to see where any chemical source of energy would truly be economically competitive with a nuclear source. All good points, I was not suggesting as premise that crude oil is running out. My point more so is that with a full blown nuclear infrstructure (especially a breeder reactor one) electricity would be so cheap that the production of synthetic fossil fuels might be economically cheaper than drilled, cracked, refined, etc oil.

Hi Volco, I don't have much that is in a rendered final form, it's mostly just alot of plain grey models so far. The only building I made significant progress on was my art deco styled skyscraper Short animated fly in -

Really, no one EVER, will EVER make a similiar kind of technology? A nuclear bomb is easily more important and powerful and destructive than the Hulk is. We all ready have those. I don't see why a couple of Hulks which are friendly to the US would be a bad thing, as long as they are rational. Never mind, as the other doctor pointed out, it could probably cure all disease and ailments that people get.

I quite liked this incarnation of the Hulk as well. I noticed that in the previous film, he was much bigger, much stronger, and seemingly much more impervious (in this film he recieved lacerations from the crashing helicoptor) Anyway, one think I didn't like was Bruch trying to stop the program and over all research which brought about the Hulk because the general wanted to "use it as a weapon" I was like, so? Would you prefer the Soviet Union or North Korea develop a Hulk?

Well, see, you can find something that you can bind hydrogen to which holds it easily in a much denser form. The best binding medium might be something which pulls hydrogen into a liquid at room temperature. If only we had something like that... hmm... oh wait, we do, its called CARBON =P I love how everyone is racing to find these great hydrogen binding storage systems, like rare metal sponges or super pressurized tanks. Hey we all ready got a great hydrogen binding medium in the form of carbon, which makes gasoline. In fact there is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. And no need to change the infrastructure. What I think we'll eventually see is a nuclear powered or solar primary infrastructure, and since liquid hydrocarbons are excellent energy storage mediums, with the lightest liquid at room temperature hydrocarbon manufactured synthetically from cheap electricity from nuclear power plants, this would probably be methanol. Running direct methanol fuel cell it would have a longer range than a conventional gasoline engined car, even with the lower energy density of methanol. We would probably all ready be well on this path if not for the environmentalist whackos which hijacked and derailed the natural technological progression toward nuclear power.

I think you hit the nail on the head at the end, all the problems associated with 'too much choice' stem either from people who do not want the responsibility of thinking, or from an implicit form of platonic idealism. Google "Paradox of Choice" or "Absolute Maximizer" http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=p...amp;btnG=Search and prepare to be dissapointed The person who agonized over which meal to get at a dinner is obsessed with absolutely maximizing their utility, which can stem from nothing but an obsession with the perfect 'ideal' meal. Same for all consumer goods. All the wannabe social tyrants when faced with the pyschological crippling effect of worshipping abstract ideals which demands virtually divine omniscience in making a simple consumer choice, instead of merely pointing out the idea of 'good enough' instead use it as the weakest of all attacks against capitalism and demand of course yet more rules and laws to limit choice. Personally, I've adopted fully a 'good enough' strategy, and when picking out any new consumer good, I alot only a certain amount of time to researching it in proportion to the importance that good plays in my life. Once that time is reached, it's my go / no go time, and I make the purchase.