Not torn at all here. They utilize the resources of a stable society then they have to provide their services to all their members without basis of discrimination. The other way of looking at it is this. Do gays and lesbians have the option to avoid paying taxes on this business owner's benefits? Ie., he probably went to public school, his water bills are artificially low, the roads that are serviced so people can get to his place, the police provided to protect and prevent crime in his area, etc.

If gays and lesbians can opt out of paying taxes for anyone who could potentially deny them services (ie, as of right now everyone) then they wouldn't have a problem.

Sure, farmers have it rough. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/farm-subsidies-blatant-transfer-of-cash-to-rich

(though to be fair, the protests are mostly targeting cut-throat market practices by the supermarkets... I just have a dim view of the artificially sustained, overproducing food market in Europe)

You folks and your artificial distinction between porn and engineering. It's the fucking same.

No, don't overthink it. It's not some deep complicated reaction to artificial gender\comedy\social issues you read about in blogs, it's just stale humor to me. I'm sure many find her deadpan delivery of facial cream-pie queef soiled panty jokes to be ground-breaking. If Eisenhower was in the White House I'm sure I would think so too but it's been done a billion times.

If you don't laugh at the "why did the chicken cross the road" joke does that make you an animal rights activist?

Your video, U.S. spy plane records China's artificial islands, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 36 Badge!

I guess I was really questioning the title of the post, which calls it a US spy plane.

I'd like to see on a map where these islands are. How far out are the Chinese trying to go? I wouldn't think they could create actual artificial islands far away from land because they wouldn't be anchored to anything (except maybe with a rope).

Artificial islands?!? Are they dumping sand on atolls, destroying reefs, in order to attempt to extend Chinese territory farther out to sea, or something? I thought that was against international law, and had been proven to not work (the sand gets washed away eventually). It's definitely terrible for the ecology.

Also, has 'American military, please go away' ever worked even once?!?

In the field of artificial intelligence, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a search heuristic that mimics the process of natural selection. This heuristic (also sometimes called a metaheuristic) is routinely used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search problems.[1] Genetic algorithms belong to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA), which generate solutions to optimization problems using techniques inspired by natural evolution, such as inheritance, mutation, selection, and crossover.

I direct your attention to the first sentence. In the field of AI, in other words, an artificially created intelligence. Now even if you go to the the idea Turing had that a computer could learn and adapt itself to the point of AI, it is a device that had to be created by an outside designer at some point. It didn't just manifest, it was created and reached AI level, then it could at that point begin to try to 'imitate' natural selection.

It has become clear to me over our last couple of discussions that you are incredibly reluctant to think outside of the box YOU have created for yourself. You believe what you believe and damn the torpedoes with the rest.

You specifically are discussing an artificial intelligence. Why is it artificial? BECAUSE SOMEONE FUCKING CREATED IT. It didn't manifest on it's own or it would be a natural intelligence. So, if I create an AI to create an algorithm, then by default the algorithm is the root product of an intelligent designer.

BTW, your shitty example of a plane design does not even take into account your own example. If it did, it would be a programmer creating an AI to design a plane of some type. The programmer would no longer have input, but he would be the creator of the system that did.

So you can toss out all the fucking examples and insults you like, but you and your little tag along friend are dead wrong.

Oh christ... do I really have to explain this?

@shinyblurry said "...that means it was intelligently designed."

I was specifically refuting that argument.

"intelligent design" means that something was designed on purpose by a designer, i.e. I want a plane, so I sit down and design the aerodynamics, propulsion, control surfaces, etc so that at the end, I have a means to fly from A to B. If the plane doesn't fly, as a designer, I need to work on it until it does.

A genetic algorithm is not "intelligently designed". The system itself creates the end product, often with no fixed goal or purpose. The designer does not have an input.

So, it's entirely possible that the universe is a computer simulation where a fixed set of constraints were set up at compile time and then left to run.

No specific end goal or purpose, merely to see emergent behaviours, which actually gels pretty well with what we know about the formation of the universe and life.

If you'd like to learn more, I recommend reading Artifical Life by Steven Levy as a good primer on the subject.

On the other hand, if you just want to make snide remarks, I suggest you stick to a topic you actually have a fucking clue about.

Your entire theory of the universe is speculation....including your theory on what I'm OK with. Certainly your theory on deities and the after life...complete and total speculation based on belief, not fact.
I find this video's hypothesis terrible. Because a measured physical property is near what they say they expect it might be if we artificially created the universe implies they know what the constraints of a mythical artificial simulated universe are (that's impossible, if it's an artificial creation, there are no constraints other than those programmed in, and they could be ANYTHING if the programmer is writing the laws of the universe/physics).

Therefore, I am NOT OK with the HYPOTHESIS that the universe is a computer program or designed by a designer (other than the 'designer' that is the laws of physics). I find it a silly blind guess about something we can't possibly know about without creating one ourselves, and even then we'll only know about the one way we did it, not the possible ways it could happen.

A programmer would certainly not be a god to me, but I'm not prone to deifying that which I don't understand. It MAY be a mysterious being (or not), that doesn't make it god anymore than I'm god to my dog. Because some dogs are gullible enough to believe their master might be a god does not make him/her one. The same goes for unknown properties of the universe. Some people may believe the unknown is somehow proof of the divine, that simply does not make it true, or even reasonable.

Did you even read that link? Artificial intelligence is still an intelligence and, typically, is programmed by an outside entity.

I swear, sometimes it seems like people here argue just for the sake of arguing.

I'd love to get in on this conversation because this subject really interests me. This video touched on a lot of interesting theories.

@robdot - I don't understand people who think they "know" the answers to the universe. There are unanswered questions in every model. Do you know the answer to what dark matter and energy is? Nobody has yet detected it. Yet, our "universe" is supposedly filled with the stuff.

Let's also define what a universe is. My definition is; it's a place governed by the same set of physical laws.

So we have "our" universe, that we hypothesize about through our observations and measurements. We have theories that say "other" universes exist in some form or another. If their physical laws are different then ours, there would probably be no way to observe them, and therefore no way to prove their existence. Lack of proof is not proof that it doesn't exist.

I could write a book on what i "think" about what our universe is. For simplicity, let me just say that I moved from telecom engineering to software architect. In software, we create programs to run simulations. We create vast game worlds with whatever "physical" attributes we want to program into them. Lets assume we created artificial intelligence. In what context would "it" live? Most everyone assumes it would just be one conscience interacting with us in the form of a robot (Que cheesy Hollywood films).

Let's give it the power of quantum computing. It then decides to understand us (it's creator), it needs to program a simulation that mimics all it knows about our physical world. It wouldn't make one simulation, run it and be done. It would make many simulations, probably simultaneously, tweaking each new one based on the results of the previous ones.

Just imagine where this could lead. This intelligence could figure out how to create a multitude of different, very elegant universes. Its time scale would be different then our time. It's simulation could take seconds on its viewing scale, but appear to be billions of years when observing from within it. We have the power to pause, rewind, replay, tweak our simple creations. Imagine what this super intelligence could do with theirs?

@eric3579 and @eoe
There have been studies that show that eating unwashed fruit and vegetables can be bad for you, even deadly, thanks to pesticides and contaminants.
There are also studies showing that growing them (in the way we do with artificial fertilizers, pesticides, deforestation, and diverted water) is bad for the environment, so indirectly bad for you. That said, meat production is much worse for the environment.
Not disagreeing with you, just sayin'...nothing's perfect. ;-)