On Wednesday, February 7, 2018 at 6:01:06 PM UTC-7, John Clark wrote: > > On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 1:53 PM, Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com > <javascript:>> wrote: > > > >> *It is not hard to see that at this rate we will trash out all forests by >> the end of this century.* >> > > > Things are changing so fast I think its pointless to > try to solve > problems that won't occur for 80 years, it would be like demanding the > > Wright Brothers > > solve the problem of congested airports before they built their first > airplane. >
*Sounds like a braindead republican meme, aka whistling past the graveyard. Obviously, there are some actions we can take NOW which would abate, and possibly avert the worst consequences, some of which might be UNsolvable 80 years hence. Did that ever occur to you?But what can I expect from someone who firmly believes the Joe the Plumber scenario discussed previously? AG* > > >> > >> *The idea of matryoshka machines as planet sized or Dyson sphere powered >> hypercomputers and other things I tend to regard as pure science fiction.* >> > > Well sure but you almost make that sound like a bad thing; it involves > science and Dyson spheres are fiction because they don't exist, at least > not yet. > > > >> *> through my lifetime there have been these problems mounting in the >> world, and from my estimation we really have not solved a damned thing.* >> > > I think we've done rather well at solving problems, read Steven Pinker's " > The Better Angels of Our Nature > ".P > eople love to complain about how bad things are but the facts are that > right now humans are killing each other at a far lower rate than any other > time in history, and they live longer and are better educated.too. > > > >> *> Global warming is probably just the beginning of a host of more >> global environmental problems that face us with the prospect of rendering >> this planet incapable of supporting us 7.5 billion ground apes rampaging >> out of control.* >> > > Life likes warmth. I > n the last billion years it has never been warmer than during the > Carboniferous Era 360 million years ago, > and there has never been more living stuff per square foot on the planet > then > > >> >* * >> *by certain measure the sun is actually more complex [than the Earth]. >> How one partitions things into macrostates is actually a rather subjective >> choice of ordering.* >> > > Entropy isn't always the enemy. Maximum information > > , or at least maximum > information that intelligence finds > interesting > , > seem to be about > > midway between maximum and minimum > > entropy. Put some cream in a glass coffee cup and then very carefully put > some coffee on top of it. For a short time the 2 fluids will remain > segregated and the > > entropy will be low and the information needed to describe it would be low > too, but then tendrils of cream will start to move into the coffee and > all sorts of spirals and other complex > and pretty > patterns will form, the entropy is higher now and the information needed > to describe it is higher > too > , but after that the fluid in the cup will reach a dull uniform color that > is darker than coffee but lighter than cream, the entropy has reached a > maximum but it would take less > interesting > information to describe it. > > Another example is smoke from a cigarette in a room with no air currents, > it starts out as a simple smooth laminar flow but then turbulence kicks in > and very complex patterns form, and after that it diffuses into uniform > featureless > and very dull > fog. > > I like the fact that entropy increases, if we ever get to the point where > that doesn't happen anymore that would mean the universe has reached heat > death. > > > John K Clark > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
