Re: James A. van Allen, 1914-2006

[Medievalbk]

 
In a message dated 8/11/2006 5:51:29 PM US Mountain Standard Time,  
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

That's  really too bad. My father studied under him as a student, and
he seemed  like a neat guy (quite aside from his  accomplishments).

~maru



The correct science fiction tribute would be to go to your favorite space 
port bar and have a belt.
 
Vilyehm
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Re: James A. van Allen, 1914-2006

[maru dubshinki]

On 8/10/06, Ronn!Blankenship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

<>



-- Ronn! :)

"Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever."
-- Konstantin E. Tsiolkovskiy


That's really too bad. My father studied under him as a student, and
he seemed like a neat guy (quite aside from his accomplishments).

~maru
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Re: Question for Charlie

[David Hobby]

Alberto Monteiro wrote:

Richard Baker wrote:
Your answer concentrated on the morality of creating human/chimp  
hybrids in the first place, rather than on their status once 
created.  I specifically crafted the question so that the morality 
of their  creation wasn't the focus of attention, and in fact agree 
that  creating them is a pretty dodgy thing to do morally and 
ethically.  Thus, I don't think you really replied to it, but then 
the flow of  the list swept the topic away and we started talking 
about other things.



Would it be moral to clone a Neanderthal? An australopitecus?

Alberto Monteiro


Cloning ONE, so that it could be the only one of its
kind, and get to appreciate that fact?  No.  Recreating
a breeding population and giving them a place of their
own to live?  Maybe.  What existed once may exist again.

But please don't bring your secret labs on line until we've
talked things through.  : )

---David
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Re: Question for Charlie

[Alberto Monteiro]

Richard Baker wrote:
> 
> Your answer concentrated on the morality of creating human/chimp  
> hybrids in the first place, rather than on their status once 
> created.  I specifically crafted the question so that the morality 
> of their  creation wasn't the focus of attention, and in fact agree 
> that  creating them is a pretty dodgy thing to do morally and 
> ethically.  Thus, I don't think you really replied to it, but then 
> the flow of  the list swept the topic away and we started talking 
> about other things.
> 
Would it be moral to clone a Neanderthal? An australopitecus?

Alberto Monteiro

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Re: Moving to Montana Soon?

[Richard Baker]

JDG said:

> At the end of the day, this chapter seems like a laundry list of
> environmental problems facing Montana.   That's all well and good, but a
> similar list of problems could probably be produced for almost any
> location you care to name.   What doesn't happen is that this list of
> problems isn't really connected to collapse.I think it would be more
> surprising if any civilization did not have any problems, but the
> existence of imperfection hardly implies potential collapse.

My reading of the entire book is that humans have had a substantial
environmental impact wherever and whenever they've settled, and whether
societies thrive or fail comes down in large part to whether they detect
such problems and how (or even if) they try to solve them. I think the
analogy that he was aiming for was between our globalised civilisation
and any of his model cases, rather than merely between a local part of
our civilisation - such as Montana or Australia - and one of those
earlier models.

What really surprised me was how optimistic the book was in the face of
the many problems that Diamond outlines.

Rich
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Re: Moving to Montana Soon?

[jdiebremse]

This first chapter is also of particular interest to me, as I traveled
extensively through the State of Montana two years ago while retracing
the Lewis and Clark Trail - and I'll additionally find myself in the
town of Big Sky, MT next week on business for work.   The chapter
certainly held my interest, and was a good read, but the more I reflect
on it, the more it has left me unsatisifed.   In fairness, we probably
shouldn't expect a steak in the first chapter of a 500-or-so page book,
but I'll see if I can express some of these iniital thoughts.


--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> A similarity to my home town of Morgan Hill, Ca. to the Bitterroot
Valley
> is the contrast in attitudes of the old timers; farmers and ranchers
with
> sizeable land holdings and upper-middle class to upper class
professionals
> with a fondness for the small town atmosphere in close proximity to a
> major metropolitan area. Morgan Hill has a slow-growth policy that
allows
> a limited number of new housing units per year. This is frustrating to
> landowners because there is a huge demand for housing in the area.


It seems to me that this policy is a boon for existing landholders in
Morgan Hill, due to the artificially limited supply of housing.   The
big losers are anyone who wants to move to Morgan Hill, as they will
find the price of housing there artificially inflated.


> One interesting conundrum he discusses is the conflict between
businesses
> that exist to make money and "moral obligations" to clean up after
> themselves. Is this a good argument against the preeminence of a free
> market economy or can we have both a strong economy and a clean
> environment?


I don't think so.

First, I think that Diamond unwittingly expresses some bias by using
business as his primary example.   I think a strong case could be made
that it is simply a human tendency to avoid wanting to clean up after
onesself.   For example, one need only drive through West Virginia and
see the instances of household trash being dumped on public lands by
those who don't want to have to pay for trash removal.   Likewise,
Diamond's examples of householders who are unwilling to pay for the
removal of decrepit dams located on their property also indicates that
this phenomenon is hardly limited to businesses.

Secondly, I think it is important to distinguish from a laissez-faire
economy and a free market economy.Only the most strident
anarcho-libertarians truly believe that government should have no role
in the economy.   Instead, I would say that at a minimum, most believers
in the free market believe that the government has a role in enforcing
property rights in the free market.  In particular, this would include
either prohibiting persons and businesses from dumping waste in a way
that negatively affects the property of others, or at least requiring
persons and businesses who do so to compesnate those who are affected
for those negative effects.


> Another interesting point that he raises is the fact that while native
> Montanan's are extremely suspicious of government and especially
> Washington, they are heavily subsidized by the federal government; "If
> Montana were an isolated island, as Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean
was
> in Polynesian times before European arrival, its present first world
> economy would already have collapsed, nor could it have developed that
> economy in the first place." Is it hypocritical of Montana’s
people to be
> unsupportive of the Federal Government while they have their hand in
the
> till?


This was one of the bigger objections I had to this chapter.   Although
I don't recall the exact quote you have cited, this is certainly a theme
of the chapter.   In the setion on forest fires, for example, he
contrasts Montanans desiring the US Forest Service to put out any fire
that threatens any home - or even any view from a home with some
Montanan's "rabidly anti-government attitudes that don't want to pay
taxes towards the cost of fire-fighting."

The problem here is that Diamond is mixing anecdotal and statistical
evidence.   For example, in the 2004 Presidential election, John Kerry
still received nearly 40% of the vote in the State. I'd argue that
this is evidence that it is entirely possible for separate significant
groups of Montanans to hold all of the views that Diamond described -
without there necessarily being a group of Montanans that hold
paradoxical or hypocritical views.

Thinking more about the quote you provide from Diamond, I'm not sure
that Diamond really does establish that Montanan civilization would
never have developed without subsidy from the federal government, nor
that Montanan civilization would collapse if this subsidy was removed.
Certainly, if Montana were an isolated island, it might never have
developed its current civilization - but given that we don't really
understand what produces economic development in the first place, that
is hardly surpr

Re: Collapse

[Jim Sharkey]

Doug Pensinger wrote:
>Unfortunately I've been very busy and haven't had a chance to do 
>Chapter 2 yet.

Ditto.  Work's been treating me like a baby treats a diaper, so I've
been glad to see I'm not falling behind.  :)

Jim

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Re: Collapse

[Richard Baker]

JDG saidL

> To the best of my understanding, this is not simply an NPS thing, but
> really does represent the professional consensus of historians.
> Again, while I tend to be a "brontosaurus" person, there definitely is
> something to be said for not defining a culture as an "enemy", and I
> don't think it requires hyper-sensitivity to bein PC to understand
> that.

On a related note, "welsh" means "foreigner", but that hasn't stopped
the Welsh using that name to refer to themselves.

Rich


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Re: Collapse

[jdiebremse]

--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Doug Pensinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>  > One of the things the National Park Service
> > emphasized is that the term "Ancestral Puebloan" is preferred for
> > this civilization over the term "Anasazi." The term "Anasazi" is
> > linked to a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemy." Additionally, most
> > historians now agree that the ancestors of the modern-day Puebloan
> > people in Arizona and New Mexico are, in fact, the same people who
> > constructed the ruins that had been termed "Anasazi" in origin.
> > Although I am generally a "brontosaurus" person, preferring the use
> > of popular terms, I can also definitely sympathize with the
> > arguments in favor of not defining a culture as an "enemy." Thus,
> > Diamond's choice of the term "Anasazi" instead of "Ancestral
> > Puebloan" immediately perks my interest - hopefully it is explained
> > later on.
>
> Could it be that the NPS is necessarily PC to the extreme?


To the best of my understanding, this is not simply an NPS thing, but
really does represent the professional consensus of historians.
Again, while I tend to be a "brontosaurus" person, there definitely is
something to be said for not defining a culture as an "enemy", and I
don't think it requires hyper-sensitivity to bein PC to understand that.

JDG





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