This argument reminds me of theists asking, "without a god, what is there to keep you from being amoral and running around killing people?"
Humans are capable of and do, in fact, act on more than just one or two simplistic external levers. We have agency, understanding, and drive to have empathy and to create.
Right but the natural state of humanity without real social norms and meta norms is to just form small, violent, relatively unproductive tribes. Civilization doesn't scale without rules.
You say people don't collaborate yet cite no source, so I can only assume you mean you wouldn't be collablrative. I can assure you I would be collaborative.
The idea that people in the wild are uncivilised savages is old racist propaganda.
You wouldn't exist because part of what makes you who you are is the society you've lived in and its social norms. If you had been born into a tribal society, you'd be tribal - or dead if you refused to cooperate with its culture.
Right but what says that culture would be violent and unproductive, rather than kind and productive? That's what I don't get. Runs counter to what I think is my nature and tbose around me, so I'd expect a position that has considered more evidence from your end.
Because a non-violent tribe will be destroyed by any violent neighbors it has. Even if it had a protected group of non-violent members, it would be militarily disadvantaged compared to its enemies with more fighters per population. And what are those non-violent people even doing all day in a world without any technological progress? Don't imagine you'd invent technology because almost nobody did much of that. If it was truly isolated like the Chatham Island Maori then yea, but they were eventually genocided by the mainland New Zealand Maori when they finally got to them.
I think you would be conscripted to fight whether you liked it or not, and inculcated with the belief that it's the right thing to do. Maybe even feeling shame are your unwillingness but forcing yourself to fit in anyway.
You've probably heard it before, but research and progress go hand in hand, and science is not synonymous with unpractical. For example, data from NASA missions that track water over the globe are used by climate scientists, yes, but also farmers, local water management agencies, and the military. These projects that account for less than half a penny of each dollar spent by the US govt. have a wide range of audiences and uses.
But who would have had the idea to make the technology? We don't know what's possible until after we do it. Science research pays dividends in knowledge and technology that we didn't know to look for otherwise.
That's right. NASA's assigned piece was to build a rocket that could fly to the moon. They agreed to do it, and they spent the money. They have not built the rocket and never intended to.
I don't think it's as simple as that. Many strings were attached, many changes were made to work that had already started. It's a mess to be sure, and NASA was not the only cook in the kitchen by a long shot. I'll just leave this here, people can make of it what they will: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System
If NASA can't function in the face of meddling congress critters, it is not fit for purpose. Nothing I said above is incorrect or refuted in that article.
If it were cutting back, I can see your point. This, however, is a gutting. The proposal is a nearly 25% cut in one year to a funding level not seen since 1961. Talent will leave, institutional knowledge will leave, and rapidly. Knowledge transfer will not happen and projects beyond those explicitly cut may falter (people work on multiple projects).
Keep in mind, NASA accounts for ~0.4% of the national budget. We're not saving a ton of money here, just killing expertise and ceding space excellence to other countries
At 25m20s [0] mark he talks about senators protecting the jobs (and the money they get from NASA) in their state, which impedes the general direction of NASA:
Tax cuts aren't what people are waiting for to grow their families. It's parental leave, childcare, affordable healthcare, and the feeling that the system their kids will grow up in isn't getting actively gutted in favor of the rich and religious zealots.
The audiologist I went to said tinnitus is anything you can hear that doesn't have an external source. In his case, he's always been able to hear his own heartbeat.
On that note, I can usually hear my heartbeat after any mild physical effort. Like a short brisk walk or waking up a flight of stairs very quickly. I’m not very athletic or fit, perhaps that could be a contributing factor. Not all the time though - if that is what your audiologist meant, that’s very cool.
There is research I only learned about recently that is showing that some tinnitus can be heard with a microphone (surprisingly), this is showing that some are due to spasms causing actual sound!
I saw one of those billboards on Ventura Blvd. the other day and wondered what kind of PR scam it was. Who pays for those things? Billboards are pretty expensive around here.
There is a lot of handwaving going on here. The below, however, is an egregious misunderstanding of how percentages work. That, or it betrays very sloppy work. Doing it right would actually make the specific case they make stronger.
"There are also potential opportunities to leverage the fact that the speed of light in a vacuum is 35% faster than in a typical glass fiber."
This is just wrong. The speed of light in a fiber is ~2/3 slower than in a vacuum. That means that the speed of light in a vacuum is 50% faster than in a fiber, not 35% (~1/3) faster!
Humans are capable of and do, in fact, act on more than just one or two simplistic external levers. We have agency, understanding, and drive to have empathy and to create.