@RFlagg - i can't even stomach coming up with a fairer way to rule when the entire system of rulership is owned and run by people who benefit from the way it currently works.

We need a way to make these changes to the system... As of right now, at least in my country, i think a total revolution would be needed before the system changed.

They shredded all the documented evidence of expense account abuses by British MP's so that no investigation or punishment could take place. Various organisations contacted them to get hold of the documents, but they were told that expenses data is only held for 3 years then destroyed(despite the fact that medical records and work records are held for something like 50+ years).

That is pretty much exactly what you were talking about - us challenging their wage packet - and they quite happily did whatever the fuck they liked so that they wouldn't get in trouble.

You could do something like scaling it off the national average wage so that when they really do their job better, make the country more successful and prosperous they earn more. But there is absolutely no way that could be enforced. If their pay and future job prospects are not affected by the quality of the job they do, how can we really expect them to do their best?

Italy's youth unemployment rate hit a record 44.2% in August

Welcome to Europe, where we fuck up the prospects of not one, but two generations of our precious brothers and sisters, all in the name of market fundamentalism and Puritan work ethic.

@Lawdeedaw

If you're studying something like engineering, there is a high likelihood that you will retain employment that will pay off a student loan over the next 10-20 years. Even if it's not your first preference, you will be employed somewhere with a reasonable income with such technical skills.

The government can play a useful role in amortizing your income. There's really no reason to be frugal and Starbucks aside, policy that forces you to work long hours in a dead-end job while studying to make ends meet is counter-productive as it reduces your long-term income. Not being able to even enrol because you're too poor, despite how smart you may be is also hugely destructive. This is why study assistance subsidies are such good policy. Them aside, you still have to clothe, house and feed yourself anyway.

Even if you say that there will be dropouts, fails, people who complete degrees with no job demand, you simply adjust up the interest rate you charge everyone for student debt to account for that loss. Then you have a mandatory contribution from any income you make above X amount that the student has to repay after they conclude their study. This way students can't simply retain a large debt with a low interest rate forever and subsidise everyone else by paying theirs off.

Also to incentivise correct course choice, you subsidise courses with skills in short supply/in demand more than those with good job prospects and a generally high expected income.

This is pretty much what we have in Australia under the HECS system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education_fees_in_Australia#HECS

It would be great if the US had something similar (because designed well it pays for itself), but the cultural obsession much of the country seems to have with total laissez faire, 'pull yourself up by your own bootstraps', even when it's not good policy makes it impossible.

Considering right now US Treasury bond rates (government borrowing rates) are at 60 year lows, it's doubly stupid.

@SDGundamX and addressing the devil's advocate rather than 'you'...

Spiderman's head is also raised (the same angle of their face is shown) and his back is arched, and i think that's clear when they are side by side. If anything i think spiderman's left leg is poorly drawn and his backside does need to be more in the air, whereas spiderwoman is a more human-like natural position for raising a knee over a ledge with your chest close to the ground. Remember that they are different artists bringing their own styles to a particular genre, they both have their own personalities and methods/methodologies. Furthermore, how much of an arch difference is necessary or acceptable and who makes those rules? Surely we must draw men and women differently so that we know whether the character is male or female (do we have too few fem superheroes is another question), and as a species we have different shapes. Surely amongst all these factors we must accept that the spiderwoman is a reasonable artistic recreation of the spiderman pic? If not, why not, taking all of those factors into account (and i can probably list more)? Basically we're asking the question "what is art?" here.

So that's why i think it's impossible for anyone to say the pose is sexual but the creator. No one questioned whether the spiderman pose was overtly sexual until someone drew spiderwoman doing "the same" (for argument's sake) thing. To a bunch of people who do not automatically see women as sexual objects (and i consider myself among that bunch), her pose is not sexual because the context isn't sexual. The question of sexuality arises when someone looks at the pic and goes "Gee, if i were levitating several hundred meters in the air directly behind her and she wasn't wearing any pants, she'd be 'presenting' to me for a split second."

So the ultimate level of 'equality' (or whatever) would be a world in which anything, in its particular context, is legal and absolutely ok. But of course, we can't depict nude youngsters in cinema even in the context of a bath for good reason, which let's generalise to all potentially difficult subjects (like sexism, racism, etc.) and call the "no one's perfect rule" - we can't trust everyone to keep things in context.

Our supposedly greatest form of organisation and problem solving - national governments, the pillars of our society - can't sort their proverbial arses from their proverbial elbows; if they're not perfect, how can we trust all of society to be?

In conclusion - i suppose we need a certain level of sexism or reverse-sexism that hopefully keeps us balanced between short-changing the future prospects of young girls in favour of young boys because of a biased society, and treating other people unfairly because of an over-zealous pursuit of what seems to be impossible.

One way of helping this is by very carefully checking the facts, the context and the meaning of what someone says before saying things like "sexist" or "mansplaining" or "racist". Always react as slowly as you may, that way you can be more or less enraged in your response depending on new info!

Edit: Want to add that if i had a pic of myself in that spidey pose, i'd be pretty happy putting it up on an eharmony profile or something - it is a 'sexy' pose, it looks good, he looks lean and strong and fit. I don't like this idea that women don't have sexual urges or that lean, fit men aren't sexy to women. It's possibly sexist to assume that! He's kind of presenting too, from a certain position...

capitalism only really functions well (with regulation) in a world where resources are limited and a lot of manpower is needed to get things done. Thanks to technology, it's only a matter of time before resources are so easy to come by and manufacture into needed things that the supply and demand model will be obsolete.

I suspect that within 100 years, if not sooner, manual labor will be a thing of the past...unless you're an artist or something. Robots will be able to do virtually everything..and better than humans are capable of.

The only people who will still need to have jobs are engineers and maybe technicians, but even then, eventually robots will be able to repair themselves so maybe not even technicians will be needed. Hell, given enough time, nurses and many health care jobs won't be needed anymore because basic healthcare could be delegated to robots.

It's just a matter of time. We're already starting to see the effects of automation in the workforce, we just don't need as many people to get things done. Hell even technical jobs aren't safe because as computers get better and better, They'll be able to analyze certain things better than humans.

The question just becomes what do you do about it? A whole new economic model will be needed. Because we'll eventually be living in the world where unless you're in the academic top tier, you're just not going to be needed in the workforce. At the same time, again, because of technology, we're going to have the ability to feed and clothe AND shelter you for a minimal amount of effort so the prospect of being able to being born, living, and dying without ever NEEDING to work is a real possibility in the not so distant future.

Isn't that what you would call...a utopia? You want freedom? there it is. You'll be able to spend your time doing what you WANT to do instead of what you HAVE to do just to survive. I suspect at some point, there will have to be SOME procreation laws put into place to keep the population growth in check. But hell, even that won't be so bad once we have the ability to colonize other planets.

People will still work, they'll just do it because they want to do it, but they'll be jobs where they're not a necessity or anything. even in an age where a replicator can make all your food, people will still want to cook, or do other artisan style jobs.

But hey, we'll still need defense, gotta blow up or deflect any stray asteroid that comes near us. or just send a bunch of robots up to mine the rock to smitherines so we can use the resources to build our mighty space fleet and our other grand works That Dyson Sphere won't build itself after all

In other words, the human race....has won. isn't that a good thing?

There is no doubt that these people are disgusting, but thankfully they are also rare. Every society has their fringe crazies - the US has Westboro Baptist Church, for instance - and they generally get way more attention than they deserve by being controversial.

This isn't to say that there isn't a problem with Israeli society's attitude toward the Palestinians, it's just to say that I think it is a problem that is far more subtle and widespread. Focusing so much attention on a small percentage of religious fanatics can be important because it does represent a movement and ideology that is problematic, but it has very little direct relevance to the current conflict.

The real problem, in my opinion, is a unique mixture of nationalism and a lopsided insulation from the reality of the conflict that is very common in Israeli society.

Israeli society is uniquely coherent in a particular way that stems from the relatively homogenous cultural identity facilitated by Judaism, and this coherence is also strengthened by the fact that Israeli society was built in the face of and as a direct result of considerable adversity. I think that this does allow for a sort of groupthink that inhibits Israel's ability to treat the Palestinians in a humane manner, but the effect manifests itself through society as a sort of cultural blindness and it manifests through the political process as hawkish policy.

(Also, whether or not you think they had the right to build that society in the first place is beside the point right now, I'm only talking about the existence of the unifying influence of adversity, and the effect it has on policy and the national psyche)

The other component of it is the simple fact that Israelis are extremely insulated from the realities of the Palestinian sufferings.

Even in the heat of a conflict like this, Israelis can pretty much go about their lives unimpeded. It is true that the rocket attacks are disruptive and that there is on a whole an unacceptably high level of danger from external attacks, but Israelis have leveraged a security apparatus that minimizes these realities in day to day life to an astounding degree, all things considered, and this fact is a double edge sword that creates a perfect breeding ground for indifference.

One side of the sword is that these measures are extremely effective at improving the lives of Israelis in the short term. However the other side of the sword is that it obviously makes these measures popular and politically successful. Furthermore, with all the calm and prosperity, it is very easy to forget about the abysmal conditions being imposed on 1.8 million people just thirty kilometers or so from your doorstep. The only time they really have to deal with the issue is when there is an inevitable flareup of violence at which point, naturally, people tend to be less empathetic. The rest of the time, during the lulls, the prospect of empathy is just placed on the back burner.

These are the tendencies that need to be addressed.

However calling Israel the 4th Reich and placing so much focus on youtube videos that give Israel's religious fanatics undue prominence is just as useless and destructive as all the Israelis and Israel sympathizers who insist on viewing Palestinian society as an unchanging, violent monolith that is accurately represented by its extremist elements.

The fact of the matter is that there are significant movements within Israeli society that are in fact attempting to change these trends. The same is true of Palestinian society, however it is more difficult for those movements because of the repressions imposed by Hamas, culture and environment.

If there is to be any hope in this situation, Israel's role as the dominant, occupying force means that they have the first move. They will have to shift from focusing on isolation and self-preservation to one of empathy to the average Palestinian, an empathy that is so strong that they must be willing to take considerable personal risks and let up their stranglehold on Palestinian society and allow them to prosper.

Because only then will the environment be in any way conducive for Palestinians to take considerable personal risks and defy the status quo en masse. Only then will the false succor of violent religious extremism loose its appeal.

Until that happens, we'll the cycle seems to return to square one every two or three years and I expect to have this discussion again sometime around 2017.

Unfortunately, it is going to be a hard and unlikely road because it takes a lot of empathy and effort to rise up and take huge risks during the times of quiet when prosperity and security easily distract from the continuing plight of the Palestinians. These aren't common traits. Humans are a very tribal species and we're not good at this kind of stuff when it concerns someone different who you don't have to interact with. This challenge is hardly unique to the Jews.

Taken to it's logical conclusion (where all road vehicles are automated) things like processing visuals becomes a lot simpler.

Most of the information will be preprocessed data - the road infrastructure, and knowledge of every other vehicle in the system. That's what it becomes - one homogeneous and optimisable system; not a single robot car making it's own decisions. Processing is done by servers in advance, not individual vehicles.

Real time visual processing then only has to be on the look out for things that are out of the ordinary, such as a deer running onto the road, and take caution. Something that is much easier to do when done with well coordinated cooperation with every other vehicle around you. The car behind isn't going to hit you; nor is the oncoming car in the opposite lane.

Even if every car in the situation doesn't have the stopping distance, they will all turn (where possible) in a coordinated manner to avoid or reduce collisions. The situation may be avoided in the first place, because the system knows about dangers specific to this stretch of road and will have limited speed and increase distance between vehicles appropriately.

If there is one thing that humans absolutely suck at, it's unspoken mass cooperation in an emergent system; our roads being the prime example.

People can't even keep the appropriate distance from the car in front to prevent collisions in an emergency stop; let alone leave enough distance to prevent traffic jams. Imagine a red light (real or virtual) turns green, and every car for a mile back accelerates at the same time. There's no queuing (the cause of jams).

Emergency services get a clear, safe and direct path to their destination.

Who knows, maybe the system even knows you have a flight reservation or a business meeting, or if you're just going to the mall or visiting friends and can prioritise intersections accordingly (though that is getting a little Orwell meets Skynet).

The hard part is going to be getting from our current fully manual and emergent system to a fully automated and coordinated system; but I'm really excited by the prospect it might happen in my lifetime.

Haven't even opened the video. Upvoting for the mere prospect of the summary being true.

@RedSky

20 billion was just an arbitrarily large number I chose to demonstrate that I think that the world would survive significant population growth beyond what we'll be dealing with in the near future.

The point of no return I was referring to is simply a point where we won't be able to get back to a place where we can sustain human population levels without significant environmental degradation and territorial disputes, among other challenges I'd prefer not to experience.

I do consider things like global warming, the fact that China is buying up land in Africa to feed its population, US foreign policy's competitive focus on securing cheap oil and the large scale destruction of rainforest to make way for single crop agriculture in Brasil to be symptoms of an imbalance in population vs. resources.

I'm not drawing the line at "everyone and stock up at the grocery store/pumps" type destruction before I take notice and preach caution. I think that defining that as a deadline would be irresponsible.

Again, I agree that we could theoretically mechanize the whole world in a way that grows the supply of resources and shares them equitably amongst an enormous human population, but that goes against the type of world I'd want to live in (excessive mechanization of natural resources) and the way human social systems typically work (equitable sharing).

There are various estimates on how much longer exponential human population growth will last, but it has certainly happened on a scale of centuries or decades - blips like baby boomers are just expected outliers within that trend.

But what's more important is that even if population levels peter off, it is consumption - which is the only statistic that really matters because it is the only negative effect of population increase - that will continue to increase exponentially as a greater proportion of the world's population begins to achieve first world living standards.

This is why free trade alone is not enough to solve problems. While it is likely to bring people out of poverty, raise education levels and increase human rights (all very good things), it will also continue to push our overall imprint on the planet in a more exponential direction than I'm comfortable with (one reason being the argument detailed in this video).

But of course I'm also uncomfortable with the prospect of any sort of forced population reduction mechanism, and I'm also uncomfortable with the notion of not raising people out of poverty.

So as I see it the only thing left to mitigate my fears is to place a primary emphasis on Education.

There's a million and one ways to do this: Everything from broad, effectual efforts like getting the Pope to get with the program and endorse contraceptives, to nearly insignificant efforts like arguing with people on the internet in hopes that you contribute some small part to a culture that places some significant emphasis on educating people about the importance of self control and restraint in every type of consumption - family size included.

Your video, Prospect - The Best Low Budget SciFi Shortfilm I've Seen, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Glad to see fewer and fewer 'NRA bad (cue chimpanzee sounds)' comments here as well VoodooV. I would also point-out that the 'new west, cops and robbers' scenario is much more frightening a prospect considering that it's the intentional breeding grounds for absurd levels of criminal activity that is the systemic result of the insanity of a once prosperous country's hijacking by political/totalitarian criminals since the 60's 'hippies' sold-out and became corporate lackeys and lawyers of and for, the criminally insane.

"NRA soundbite of "buy a gun! pew pew pew! bad guys dead, live happily ever after!" would be one interpretation of the NRA's message, another would be, "Hey dumbass? Arm yourselves against being one of the first to go when the government fails you and the future you thought you had disappears overnight."

@Sundamx-He won, he's alive and the bad guys are dead. Five people dead IS a win if those 5 people still walked the planet the broken, unrepentant, criminal thugs that they were destined to remain.

You're ill-informed if you think that 'no amount of training will stop a bullet' besides, that sounds like a sound bite from an idiot and all-to-vocal fringe of semi-conscious do-nothings.

Not so much dumb luck in this scenario when you crunch the outcome and consider the body count.

Jocosity bordering on delirium?

The glorious leader Karimov is slowly fading-out with his crew of personal soldiers and his own family members vying to hold on to the absolute(ish) power over their little criminal empire with the formidable SNB and their jack-booted thug national security arm wanting to rape the place into a massive police-state private party....Hard to imagine a more protracted scenario of a complete clusterfuck.

Can they oust every cadre there who keeps the place so wound-tight? Prospects look grim seeing as how the model for their little microcosmic experiment in dictatorship and total control over resources is but a reflection of how in macro, the entire world is being run.

@Sotto_The issue is the power and influence one corporation has over the world's food supply and those who would use their influence in the Department of Agriculture and the Supreme court to implement sweeping legislation or hinder the free will of the small, medium, large or other farmers who would have nothing to do with Monsanto's seeds or who wish only to use sumbunall of their products, not whether a farmer is given their rice for free in an ethical fashion to grow some proprietary rice (ever try to grow rice? S'pretty dependent on climate and seasons, rainfall and other environmental conditions, not to mention the hectares it requires to cultivate) as opposed to say leafy greens of all kinds, sweet potatoes, squash, all of which are much more easily cultivated AND, have shorter seed to fruit times as well as requiring much less space AND, are chock-full of Vitamin A.
We don't even mention here Paprika, Red Pepper, Cayenne, Chili Powder, which are WAY higher in Vitamin A and pretty much grow like weeds when cultivated by morons.

Shaky and hollow point your study cited as well, to support what is obviously a fishy prospect providing this option to poorer countries when you consider the back-door dealing that a corporation like M practices and their track-record of driving small farmers out of business with endless litigation and an army of lah-yahs, investigators, all petty thugs and criminals on their payroll.

A no-brainer? Yeah, if you spout the party-line and din't use your brain but instead cited an "official' study from a 'recognized', 'expert's' journal.

Again, loaded language in your closing with the assumption that most opponents and vocal activists of GMO crops are science deniers. Broad, brush-strokes my friend.
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I for one want these motherfucker's labs under extreme scrutiny and their science tested and re-tested by those not on their payrolls or whose interests do not include stocks in their concerns. I also want heirloom seeds, regardless of yields, whose fruits produce fertile seeds.

MOST GMO crop's fruited seeds are as sterile as your argument, the genetic markers tweaked similarly to insure that the market on common-sense and centuries-honored methods be cornered and rendered inadequate.

Nothing I've seen in 40 years of working and playing with computers has given me the slightest interest in letting someone run software directly in -my- brain. The prospect gives a whole new meaning to "Blue screen of death".

The question is: how long did it take to render? Is it hours or even days on large render farm for each clip? That might limit the practicality, certainly for sports broadcasts at least.

On the other hand, I hope in 10 or 15 years, I can watch sports and put the camera wherever I want in real time or put on my VR headset and watch as though I were standing next to the pitcher or sitting on the wing of a race car. That probably will happen and that is an AWESOME prospect.