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Will humans ever achieve intersteller travel?
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 8:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Ah, marvelous! Very Happy

And so we come to a meeting of the minds: agreeing on the facts, and differing only on the opinions.

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 12:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was just re-reading the posts on Day the Earth Stood Still and it occured to me that tha whole "Gort" thing echoed some of this discussion.

Klatuu"s race came to somewhat the same point of singularity where cyber replaced biological elements at the core of their society.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 12:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Hey, good point. I mentioned in my earlier post that we'd no longer need manual laborers in the far future, because robots would replace them, and Wayne supported the point handsomely with his chilling comments about present day factory workers receiving pink slips when robots replaced them.

So, Klaatu's society replaced all the police and the military with robots, removing the need for living beings to perform those duties.

That's a big part of my belief that all citizens in the far future you described will receive the advanced medical benefits (including genetic enhancements before birth), because only super-humans will be worth keeping around!

Turning everybody into brilliant, healthy, strong, long-lived homo superiors makes them all capable of taking care of themselves. No expensive government programs that support sick, jobless, homeless people, and they'll be able to contribute much more to society.

Wayne continues to feel that only rich people will receive the benefits of the advanced medicine and genetic engineering, but what he fails to consider is that poor people are damned expensive! They're a drain on society's resources, and they don't contribute as much to the economy or the public good.

Ebeneezer Scrooge said that when poor people die it "reduces the surplus population". He felt they were useless and a burden to the rest of the population. But a better way to solve the problem of useless people who are a burden is to turn them into useful people who contribute to the prosperity of all citizens.

Rich people might only be interested in gaining more wealth, but they are not interested in keeping people poor if that means they have to pay higher taxes to fund government programs that assist low income people! Smart rich people clearly see the advantage of making citizens healthy, intelligent, and self-sufficient, so that they require no financial support from the government.

And the natural extension of this common sense (and financially shrewd) attitude is to encourage and support the scientific advances that eventually turn homo sapiens into homo superiors — just as you described in your initial post, Gord! Very Happy

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 1:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
No expensive government programs that support sick, jobless, homeless people...

...poor people are damned expensive! They're a drain on society's resources, and they don't contribute as much to the economy or the public good.

Rich people might only be interested in gaining more wealth, but they are not interested in keeping people poor if that means they have to pay higher taxes to fund government programs that assist low income people! Smart rich people clearly see the advantage of making citizens health[y], intelligent, and self-sufficient, so that they require no financial support from the government.

This confirms to me that you're living on another planet, Bud.

On what world are there expensive government programs to support sick, jobless, homeless people? Where can I go to find rich people who pay high taxes? Where is it that the government (which is directed by the wealthy) feels obliged to care for the disadvantaged?

If what you describe is such a beneficial arrangement, why doesn't it exist already, ever since the rich took over this planet? Where I live, the rich aren't participating in the same economy I am. They've managed to accumulate 99% of the wealth without giving a drip about the "public good". Why would they want to mess up a good thing, when they can just wall off the unpleasantness and ignore it?

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

orzel-w wrote:
This confirms to me that you're living on another planet, Bud.

On what world are there expensive government programs to support sick, jobless, homeless people? Where can I go to find rich people who pay high taxes? Where is it that the government (which is directed by the wealthy) feels obliged to care for the disadvantaged?

Wayne, I can't thank you enough for giving me all these opportunities to expand my knowledge concerning real-world issues and global economics. I'll confess I didn't really know how right I was until I went looking for the facts I needed to prove just how wrong you are. Cool

Read 'em and weep, my friend. Who's living on another planet, now, Brother Wayne?
Laughing

Federal Spending by the Numbers, 2014

___________________________________

In FY 2012, the total cost of federal and state means-tested welfare programs reached nearly $950 billion, an all-time high. Welfare spending has increased 16-fold since the federal government began the "War on Poverty" in the 1960s and is projected only to increase. This does not include spending on Social Security or Medicare.

Today, there are roughly 80 federal means-tested welfare programs, including major programs like Medicaid, food stamps, the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit, public housing, Supplemental Security Income, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Federal spending on health care programs will more than double over the next decade, growing by $1 trillion — from $962 billion in 2014 to $1.9 TRILLION in 2024.

Spending on Social Security, the largest federal program today, will surge by 77 percent, from $845 billion in 2014 to $1.5 trillion in 2024.


_______________________________________


The Rich Pay More than Their Fair Share of Taxes

Jared Meyer

The Tax Foundation recently released its annual analysis of federal income taxes, based on data from the Internal Revenue Service. The report, authored by Kyle Pomerleau and Andrew Lundeen, finds that in 2012, the top five percent of income earners paid a majority (59 percent) of federal income taxes and earned 37 percent of total adjusted gross income. The effective tax rate for this group was 21 percent.
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A debate is like a fencing match. You don't have to win to get a good workout. Wink

~ Bud Brewster

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sat Mar 17, 2018 1:42 pm; edited 1 time in total
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The figures on Federal Spending by the Numbers would be more enlightening to see based on per capita of those receiving assistance, and adjusted for inflation.

Jared Meyer's article relies on total adjusted gross income, which is total income after it's passed through the IRS tax shelter filters. I seriously doubt that the top 5% of income earners are filing by TurboTax on their home computers.

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 5:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I guess I contend that in this far future there will effectively be NO "poor people".

Life extension and the cybernation/cyborgization of society on a planetary scale would lead to the eventual extinction of a great deal of unskilled, "unsuitable" segments of that society. I'm not saying that this is a good or desirable thing but an inevitable thing.

By the way, I just love the way this discussion is delving into the elements of the issues! Great job everyone!

Gord
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 5:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
Well, I guess I contend that in this far future there will effectively be NO "poor people".

Life extension and the cybernation/cyborgization of society on a planetary scale would lead to the eventual extinction of a great deal of unskilled, "unsuitable" segments of that society. I'm not saying that this is a good or desirable thing but an inevitable thing.

You've definitely convinced me, Gord. And I suspect Wayne just wants to see if my frequent claims to "love a good debate" can stand up to a real challenge.

He's certainly a formidable opponent. I hope he doesn't give up too soon. I'm having a ball! Very Happy

Meanwhile, please share any further thoughts you have on this fascinating subject. We're lovin' the discussion.

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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 3:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
I hope he doesn't give up too soon.

I grow... fatigued. Before I expire, however, let me offer this first-hand observation.

I don't know what kind of retirement plan you got from teaching, Bud, but if it's anything like California's, you're pretty well taken care of.

I worked as an engineer for 35 years at "one" company (which is to say, although I went to work every day at the same place, the company went through three different names over that period). When I started with the company they had a respectable retirement plan and nice health insurance.

Over the course of my employment there we watched the retirement program change from a company-financed pension plan to a 401k (i.e., you put aside your own money in savings to retire on).

Meanwhile, the health insurance premiums grew and grew, while the company contribution grew smaller and smaller; the annual deductible on medical expenses kept increasing, as did the copay for medical services. All the while, of course, the cost itself of medical treatment kept growing, as did prescription prices, some astronomically. To top it off, the big pharmaceutical companies are buying up the generic drug manufacturers and hiking the prices of generic equivalent prescription drugs. But that's only if they can't get a patent extension when their drug patents start to expire. Wanna guess how difficult that is?

Now with Medicare as my insurance, the coverage is even less, although I seldom have to go visit the doctor... yet. But I noticed a change right away in the service from the same doctor. Whereas he would have ordered lab tests and/or X-rays at the drop of a hat before, now I get, "Oh, that's not uncommon; nothing to get worried about right now. Let me know if it gets worse." And then there are all the new supplemental options for Medicare coverage, at additional cost, naturally.

Then I see there's a proposal on the table to shift Medicare's approach to cancer treatment from curative to pain management.

What this all amounts to is that I don't see this society heading anywhere near the direction needed to achieve the utopia you envision, Bud. It would need to turn completely around and head the other way.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

orzel-w wrote:
I don't see this society heading anywhere near the direction needed to achieve the utopia you envision, Bud. It would need to turn completely around and head the other way.

Hell's bell, Wayne, that's exactly what Gord described in his very first post! A drastic, earth-shattering change in the very nature of mankind — no, scratch that — super-mankind, that will completely revolutionize our society because we will have completely revolutionized our own basic nature!

It seems like you've never quite grasp the scope of what Gord described, the monumental changes which will take place. And as Gord stated, we won't be able to resist the temptation to change ourselves in the radical ways he described.

Here's a condensed version of what started this fascinating discussion.


Gord Green wrote:
Should our species remain extant for the next thousand years — meaning we don't kill ourselves with bio-engineered plagues, or Yellowstone doesn't erupt and kill us all, or a KT-like impact doesn't happen — we will eventually cease being "human" in a few centuries.

. . . by the middle of this century, we will have access to our entire genome, nano-technology (or at the very least, micro-robotics) and AI. Those technologies, if we try really hard to extrapolate their logical course, mean that at some point in the next few centuries, there will be no more homo sapiens.

The temptation to enhance with artificial bits — that connect us to instant information, right to the brain — will be overwhelming.

At some point, after sufficient changes, we won't be human any longer. We certainly won't be homo sapiens. We'll be something else . . . .

Wayne, mankind will complete change himself — not just his society-of-the-moment — and the change will be so drastic that we won't even be homo sapiens any more. Given that the change in man's basic nature will be this drastic, how could you possible think that our society will be remotely like it is now?

Based on Gord's remarkable predictions, it will be shockingly different in every way. The wacky fluctuations in our present-day culture and economic structure are totally irrelevant to Gord's far-reaching vision of a future in which the average citizen would look upon you and me as cave men wearing animal skins.

That's why I've been completely baffled by most of your arguments against this proposal. And ironically enough, when you sited examples of workers being laid off because machines replaced them, you weren't proving that the changes Gord suggested were not coming to past, you were proving that they were!


Gord Green wrote:
At some point in time, the advancing technology will unlock self-assembling, self-making robotics that leverage exponential growth that will either be our end or our elevation to the pinnacle of abilities in this cosmos.

That's why I said several times that your rebuttals all pertained to the "intermediate period" between the present and the remarkably different future which Gord described. You just aren't looking past the commonplace concerns of the present, and into the shockingly different world that will emerge as mankind exercises his new-found abilities to literally reinvent himself on the genetic level.

It's important to note that Gord has suggested something revolutionary: all these changes will not be the result of a slow "evolutionary process", and they will not take thousands of years. Mankind's amazing transformation will have nothing to do with the controversial theories of Darwin or the debatable existence of God.

Mankind will be fully responsible for his own transformation.

You said, "I don't see this society heading anywhere near the direction needed to achieve the utopia you envision."

That's not quite true, Wayne. You do see it headed that way, but it has a long way to go. And the real catalyst for the incredible changes Gord described has nothing to do with some lofty concern for improving our society. The reason for these changes will be the relentless and frequently dangerous advances of science.

Scientific advances will allow mankind to drastically change himself — and as Gord pointed out, we won't be able to resist the temptation to do it. Hey, who could say no to the chance to become Superman?

And these supermen of the future will need a very different kind of society than ours. In short, the stupid people in today's society who do the stupid things you described . . . will be gone. Much smarter people will be in charge, and they'll do much smarter things.

Wayne, do you really think that a world which is populated by incredibly intelligent, nearly immortal, genetically enhanced beings — homo superiors — are going to fart around with the kind of trivial crap we have to put up with today?

Seriously?
Shocked
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 1:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You had me at "Seriously?".
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Well, better late than never. Cool

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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I realize that the negative reactions to my post rests in the fact that it predicts the virtual extinction of our species.

Homo Neandertalis, Homo Habilis, even the Australopithicines must have thought of themselves (if they were capable of abstract thought) as the pinnicle of creation: as do we.

Extinction and evolution knows only changes in environment. To this day it has mainly been physical. But what if social and cultural elements also have effect?

The extinction of Passenger Pigeons, even the Dodo and the Auk, was due to human actions, some for cultural reasons (like the desire of their feathers for the adornment of ladies hats!).

Extinction and the manipulation of DNA may be neither "good" or "bad" just an extrapolation of current trends.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 28, 2018 11:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

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"We now return you to our regularly scheduled program, already in progress." Very Happy
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NASA Warp Drive Project - "Speeds" that Could Take a Spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in Two Weeks


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