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Friday, December 11, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Google Sidewiki entry by Andy
Awesome! Must watch-- present face video.
in reference to: YouTube - Garfunkel and Oates- Present Face (view on Google Sidewiki)Robinhood on the Gulf of Aden
Seems to me that these pirates are a lot like Robin Hood. Guess what: we're the rich and Somalia is the poor.
Guess this Robinhood keeps a healthy cut for himself...
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Fairness gone universal
In the 1960s there were demonstrations against the Space Program because it was an unfair buget policy.
The pyramids were built on the backs of numerous slaves. No doubt many of them died during the construction and none of them were fairly compensated.
Around the time of the French Revolution, Versailles was built. It is one of the most opulent structures ever built and while the French royalty dined in luxury the French populous starved in squalor.
The production of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was expensive. That money could have been spent closing the disparity of wealth between developing and developed nations. Same goes for the money spent on Astronomy (the Hubble Space Telescope for instance.)
The travesty is that hardship has been visited on individual humans as a consequence of all great achievements (either directly or indirectly). However, the great achievements of humanity have enriched our race as a whole immeasurably. How does one balance the costs to individuals against the gains of humanity? What value must be drawn from a monolithic achievement in order to justify acts judged immoral in our times?
Consider a new task such as the production of a space elevator. If we knew it would cost the lives of 100,000 people would we be justified in going ahead? Would it be different if those lives were given up voluntarily? If they were from a random pool of people? What if they were 'important people' politicians, and businessmen instead of laborers, farmers and the poor?
These decisions were made by the ruling class. Who makes them now? How are they made? In America the various competing factions could never agree on one master work to attain in the next 40 years. There would be too much process and too little progress. In that time we couldn't even pick the project to pursue much less begin implementing it.
The pyramids were built on the backs of numerous slaves. No doubt many of them died during the construction and none of them were fairly compensated.
Around the time of the French Revolution, Versailles was built. It is one of the most opulent structures ever built and while the French royalty dined in luxury the French populous starved in squalor.
The production of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was expensive. That money could have been spent closing the disparity of wealth between developing and developed nations. Same goes for the money spent on Astronomy (the Hubble Space Telescope for instance.)
The travesty is that hardship has been visited on individual humans as a consequence of all great achievements (either directly or indirectly). However, the great achievements of humanity have enriched our race as a whole immeasurably. How does one balance the costs to individuals against the gains of humanity? What value must be drawn from a monolithic achievement in order to justify acts judged immoral in our times?
Consider a new task such as the production of a space elevator. If we knew it would cost the lives of 100,000 people would we be justified in going ahead? Would it be different if those lives were given up voluntarily? If they were from a random pool of people? What if they were 'important people' politicians, and businessmen instead of laborers, farmers and the poor?
These decisions were made by the ruling class. Who makes them now? How are they made? In America the various competing factions could never agree on one master work to attain in the next 40 years. There would be too much process and too little progress. In that time we couldn't even pick the project to pursue much less begin implementing it.
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