Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Same problem here. Small villages in the middle of the desert want their fiber. Does seem to be driving more people into the cities too. Though in Australia, they're trying to encourage people to populate small rural towns so they don't die out - fiber + cheap cost of living would almost be enough for me. If it wasn't in the middle of the damn desert.

That is interesting, hadn't seen it. Not sure of a good solution though? We build huge ungodly expensive series of above ground towers, underground fibers to people literally 600 miles out to get to em. Maybe govt should subsidize their NetFlix. They could also move to Anchorage, or they could practice the remote lifestyle more completely.

The whole issue about calories is a misdirect, there are dozens of other more important reasons why McD's is worse than trash. A couple of examples - the food is loaded with all manner of artificial ingredients, it's lacking in quality fiber, it's highly processed (low nutritional value), and the quality of the macro ingredients is very poor - i.e. the use of trans-fats as @RedSky points out, as well as the use of poor quality sugars (i.e. HFCS) to sweeten the dough.

That's not even to mention the exploitation of their workers, rainforest clearing to raise cattle, wasteful use of plastic packaging etc.

Does this guy think that if he says ONE thing that is correct (or at least sounds correct) that people should believe everything every other thing he says on that topic? It sure seems that way to me.

For example... if you trace back the neurons in the CNS to their origin you get... sensory neurons (often from the peripheral nervous system)! (i.e. the things you see, hear, feel, taste, listen with, as well as get your balance and sense of position etc). Yet he jumps from tracing the origin of neurons to a philosopher who died hundreds of years ago and had no real knowledge of how neurotransmission worked.

And yes of course, not every neuron originates from a typical sensory fiber; there are inter-neurons and various control centers in the brain, however even those are not working in isolation, they are getting input from other parts of the brain (e.g. the hypothalamus).

Descartes believed in dualism, a distinction between mind and body, and people are free to believe in that idea, but it is simply that... a belief - much like religion. I get the feeling that a lot of theory that came out of that time was heavily influenced by the fact you could often get executed for not being a strong member of your church/faith, but that could just be me.

It's kind of weird because Descartes is also known as the man for stripping down philosophy into known truths.

You can print plastic or bio matter, but printing hardened materials like steel or even carbon fiber is not even on the radar yet.

Thinking that you would be able to print anything you need if you only had the materials is likely impossible.

It is like dreaming that everyone could have their own nuclear reactor in their house so that they wouldn't have to pay the electric company for power anymore.

Yes, that was a thing in the 60's when no-one understood much about nuclear energy. Just like that technology, something better and safer will likely come around that will supplant the need for that crazy idea.

hemp fiber please, stop the waste of trees. .. save animals too, great protein source from hemp.

paper companies must dieeee

A tub made from carbon fiber? How does carbon fiber interact with different types of acid?

Just curious, of course. It's not like I would want to dissolve anything in it. Certainly not my neighbour who was up at 5am this morning, sawing wood in his backyard...

It did walk a questionable line between talking down to the audience and introducing a rookie character to their hidden world, but I think this film is one of the greatest works of cinema in the last century. I honestly, sincerely feel like this should be in the top 100 of all time, and I'm only giving that broad of a nomination because I feel like most people would laugh me off the internet if I said how I truly felt.

Regardless, it was a masterwork of scriptwriting and plot, and the only negative aspect to it was how complex the world was which had to be conveyed to film goers. Having every fiber of every characters' being tied into the fabric of the fiction itself every step of the way through the story makes things impossibly complex to understand.

Sorry, I splurged there a bit.

same phenom with Cannabis... its just taking time and the internet now.

i mean, i can type it out: anticancer, neuroprotectants, alt. nontoxic pain relief, antiinflammatory... plant fibers themselves used for many products, cheaply and quickly grown unlike wood... hemp seeds contain all essential amino acids.

quite literally manna from creation. ignorance alone is enough to deny our birthrights!~ /soapbox

good post

The SIGINT side of this all is still completely overlooked. You can copy every bit coming from fibers without anyone noticing it in either end. Hell, you can't see it happening between two closest nodes... All you see is a slight drop in the signal levels as few photons are separated from the original stream and then amplified before it's sent thru the same network as regular traffic.

"If there was a revolutionary power distribution technology, somebody would be building it and profiting by it."

Not necessarily-Yours is a naivete shared by scores of peeps dosed continuously by propaganda while a proper gander would serve much better-

They couldn't make any $$ off a conventional carburetor retrofit that netted100 miles to the gallon back in 76' either, the patents were bought and suppressed. Countless other similar stories lend credence to the notion that knowledge is power. Profit isn't everything, but the consolidation of power in the hands of a few IS.

Why do you imagine we still use copper hard lines for internet when fiber is cheaper and more efficient? Follow the power.

The Tesla motors example is weak as they have only now been able to compete with oil-Had the R&D been forward-thinking with a view to conservation and efficiency in 1950, we'd already see a transition in the industry making a difference.

We don't need to transmit power with overhead lines, but the infrastructure and the power concerns are controlled by those who own them-Combine that with governments available to the highest bidder and you have a technomonopolistic cabal of behind-the-scenes power-mongers.

^ What Mr. Chomsky neglected to mention here was scale & production cost vs payoff.

Yes anyone can grow their own strawberries but how many could you ever hope to produce in the average back garden/greenhouse? Probably not enough to let you eat Strawberries everyday I'd bet, and you certainly would'nt pull much of a profit selling them to people at a domestic scale (the key issue here).

Pot however....... even a modest indoor backroom grow can easily net between 30-90oz when dried (alot!). And this can easily be repeated up to 3-4 times a year.

Tobbacco by comparison yields very little for the space and time taken. There's a reason basically no-one home grows tobbaco, you need a huge farm and large scale processing to produce a profitable quantity. Hence it being the preserve of big business and thus legal (plutocrats sure know how to lobby!).


For what its worth though, I do think the Hemp fiber thing was probably the bigger factor in legislation, but what Chomsky is alluding to here is also pretty valid I think.
Pot is a massive cash crop that is seemingly always in demand and relatively easy for a consumer to produce in their own garden/backroom.

There would be a profit in industrial production (always going to be plenty lazy people), but combined with the hemp industry and the effect it tends to have on people (makes you think!) I can totally see why the establishment fears it so much.
It'd be slow, but legal Pot would start eroding the very foundations of the elites power as it's much more profitable for the lower and middle class of society than the Plutocrats at the top and the scale is huge.

A more equal distribution of wealth/economic power is bad for Plutocracy!

The one thing he didn't touch on is that marijuana is also illegal because hemp products would have been a competitor with other artificially made fibers. The major producers of those products had more lawyers, lobbyists and deeper pockets, bye bye marijuana.

And when they haul you into court after your little murder spree you can always just tell them it wasn't really you but an evil doppelganger from an alternate universe. They will of course present "evidence" like clothing fibers, hair samples and fingerprints but they couldn't possibly admit those things when they are based on something as flimsy as empirical observations.

Empirical observation is very powerful, and obviously very useful, and I am not casting any doubt on that. Empirical evidence is good enough for most things, but usefulness does not justify it as a standard for truth. If you want to say we must have empirical evidence for everything except for the idea that we need empirical evidence for everything, then this is what is known as special pleading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_pleading

My biggest problem with inductive reasoning argument is that really it's just a simple fuck you response. The sun has risen on this planet again and again for the last 4 billion years or so but because inductive reasoning states that past performance is not a reliable predictor for the future. Holy shit! I'd better get my affairs in order because there's probably not going to be a tomorrow.

The problem of induction is simply pointing out the lack of rationale for why there should be a uniformity in nature (the constancy of natural law). Science has no answer for it; should the problem be ignored in order that the assumption may be justified? Doesn't sound very scientific to me.

By throwing in Inductive Reasoning, you are basically saying that nobody can ever really know anything, that religion and science are all the same, which I suspect is the true intent of the argument. I think some believe that if they can take science and reduce it to being just another "belief system" or "World View" then religion and science will be considered equally valid.

I think you're mistaking my position because I am not trying to equalize science and religion; I don't see any conflict between the two. In my worldview, everything that science does is completely justified. I can explain why there is uniformity in nature, and why empirical observation works and can be trusted. My worldview explains why we can know something to be true, and where our rationality comes from. The naturalistic/atheistic worldview can explain approximately none of these things. My argument, essentially, exposes the gaping holes of that position and the leaps of logic over those holes that must be made to justify it.

Empirical reasoning exists because we need some kind of shared standard for reality. Without that the court would have to acknowledge that your interpretation of reality (and that of your doppelganger) is as real and as valid as any scientifically produced evidence and you'd probably get away with murder.

So now, anytime you feel like you're losing an argument that involves scientific evidence you can just say "Inductive Reasoning" and you automatically win the argument.

Most of what I am called to do as a Christian is predicated in some way upon empirical observation. I am not challenging its usefulness at all; what I am really pointing out in this reply is that the problem of induction is only a problem for the atheist/agnostic and not the Christian.

What you seem to be saying here is that we must have a standard even if we can't explain it. If that is so, or even if it isn't, then I am here to tell you that we already have a standard given to us by the God who created you and me. He told us directly what this standard was when He sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to die for our sins. The standard is Jesus Christ Himself, who said He is the way the truth and the life, and that no one comes to the Father but by Him. What He told us is that we must repent of our sins and believe on Him for forgiveness of our sins and that when we do we will be forgiven and receive eternal life.

And when they haul you into court after your little murder spree you can always just tell them it wasn't really you but an evil doppelganger from an alternate universe. They will of course present "evidence" like clothing fibers, hair samples and fingerprints but they couldn't possibly admit those things when they are based on something as flimsy as empirical observations.

My biggest problem with inductive reasoning argument is that really it's just a simple fuck you response. The sun has risen on this planet again and again for the last 4 billion years or so but because inductive reasoning states that past performance is not a reliable predictor for the future. Holy shit! I'd better get my affairs in order because there's probably not going to be a tomorrow.

By throwing in Inductive Reasoning, you are basically saying that nobody can ever really know anything, that religion and science are all the same, which I suspect is the true intent of the argument. I think some believe that if they can take science and reduce it to being just another "belief system" or "World View" then religion and science will be considered equally valid.

Empirical reasoning exists because we need some kind of shared standard for reality. Without that the court would have to acknowledge that your interpretation of reality (and that of your doppelganger) is as real and as valid as any scientifically produced evidence and you'd probably get away with murder.

So now, anytime you feel like you're losing an argument that involves scientific evidence you can just say "Inductive Reasoning" and you automatically win the argument.