Randy McDonald ([info]rfmcdpei) wrote,
@ 2008-05-03 09:11:00
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Entry tags:africa, china, conspiracies, extraterrestrial life, glbt issues, oddities, taiwan

[LINK] Some Saturday Links


  • Via 'Aqoul, al-Qaeda blames the theory that the Israelis perpetrated the September 11th terrorist attacks on Iran.

  • Centauri Dreams discusses the Great Filter that seems to be necessary in order to explain the Fermi paradoxi, "the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations."

  • Aziz Poonawalla at City of Brass examines the motives behind the acceptance of pseudoscience by smart people, starting from the whole nasty IQ debate.

  • Far Outliers quotes at length an analysis of China that blames many human rights violations on the weakness of the national government versus its nominally subordinate provincial and other local governments.

  • Hunting Monsters takes a look at the "shadow countries" of Taiwan and Somaliland.

  • Joe. My. God links to a survey in the United States suggesting that non-heterosexuals make up something in the area of 3% of the population.


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[info]robertprior
2008-05-03 01:56 pm UTC (link)
Interesting article by Fukuyama — thanks for the link. He echoes what I heard from a lot of people in China. Imagine if Canada was run the same way: cities and counties would be an important as provinces. Now imagine these local governments (already the most corrupt in Canada) run by Harper and Flaherty clones with all the transparency and accountability of the OMB…

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[info]miteque
2008-05-03 02:31 pm UTC (link)
non-heterosexuals make up something in the area of 3% of the population.

So little?! Usually they speak of smth. like 6%.

an analysis of China that blames many human rights violations on the weakness of the national government versus its nominally subordinate provincial and other local governments

Surprisingly smart stuff by Fukuyama. And, unfortunately, VERY reminiscent of Russia.

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-05-03 10:09 pm UTC (link)
So little?! Usually they speak of smth. like 6%.

The original figure used in North America was 10%, based on the Kinsey Reports of the mid-20th century which had problematic methodologies, sexual minorities being overrepresented. The 3% figure has been referred to since the early 1990s, so I'm not surprised by it at all.

And, unfortunately, VERY reminiscent of Russia.

Really? I'm aware of some exceptions like Kadyrov's Chechnya and autonomous Tatarstan, but, well, I thought that they were exceptions.

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[info]miteque
2008-05-03 11:28 pm UTC (link)
"The God is too high above, the Tsar is too far away" seems to be provincial bureaucracy's unofficial motto since 18th century.

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[info]darkgeek
2008-05-04 08:37 am UTC (link)
An article that cites Dyson and Tipler's opinions on the probability of extraterrestrial life... ah, this explains why he doesn't understand what's wrong with the physical argument against much space travel.

The fact that we can get into low-earth orbit is remarkable. The fact that we can get something whose power supply hasn't conked out outside the heliopause is simply stupendous. The fact that one might expect signals from light-years away will have a signal-to-noise ratio high enough to detect at our level of technology is just basic physical illiteracy. We could blast out a collimated signal with all power generated by humanity over several centuries, and it would on the scale of the cosmos be just another random fluctuation.

As for colonization, well, again. We do not (any longer, since all the Saturn Vs got turned into museum pieces) currently have the technology to get to the moon, and it's unlikely that we will again have it any time soon. It's just too costly to get done right, given that getting a couple of people to another astronomical body doesn't get anyone elected or re-elected. Also, there's the whole laws-of-physics business to get around...

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[info]darkgeek
2008-05-04 08:38 am UTC (link)
er, "argument for much space travel"

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[info]rfmcdpei
2008-05-04 08:59 pm UTC (link)
There's still a bit of the adolescent who want to go to Mars via the inexpensive Space Shuttle and the highly functional International Space Station in me, I have to admit. As things stand, the arguments advanced by others more operative in that vein than me aren't that convincing.

"We'll terraform Mars!"

Why?

"We ... will terraform Mars!"

Why

"We ... will ... terraform ... Mars!"

(Reply to this)(Parent)

[info]fugney
2008-05-04 01:33 pm UTC (link)
Ummm... about pseudoscience, I think identity-based wankery ("I am Christian, must believe in Bible) and lethargy to do real research might be just as important. I don't think everyone who takes this dashavatar shit seriously is a blithering idiot.

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[info]fugney
2008-05-04 03:46 pm UTC (link)
Which is to say, your average Indian software engineer probably doesn't understand evolution well enough to realise that this idea is nonsense.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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