New Mars Forums

1977 was the year I purchased a Peter Frampton 8-track.

Was that a good year? You all be the judge. 

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As for Cobra's point. Many in my family suffer auto-immune diseases. Arthritis, colitis and the like. I do not, thus far. Fingers crossed. Auto-immune diseases are where the bodies own defenses over-react to theats and the body's own immune system attacks itself.

IMHO, the Patriot Act can be seen as an auto-immune disease, metaphorically speaking. Our over-reaction to 9/11 causes more harm than 9/11 did.

Imagine a team of Islamic hackers sitting in cyber-cafes in the Middle East. Feign some chatter about a new attack, persuade Bush/Ridge/Ashcrfot to raise the terror alert level.

Voila' - - that sound is billions of dollars being drained from the US economy through delays and inconvenience.

bin Laden is engaged in psy-ops. He seeks to manipulate how we react. Since we have already regime changed Iraq and Afghanistan, isn't it NOW a law enforcement matter?

Organized crime task forces (mafia hunters) dont wait for crime to happen, they act pro-actively.

Yup. http://slate.msn.com/id/2105127]Not so cheerful reading from Slate.

General Shineski was spot on. 300,000 troops are needed to stabilize Iraq.

Will Rummy and Bush apologize?

Sistani survived Saddam, right?

He is patient, and shrewd. After all US Marines are fighting the biggest threat to his leadership, a fellow named Sadr.

Edit: Sadr's blood will be on our hands and Sistani is relieved of a major rival. Its win-win for him.

NASA operations are run by the United Space Alliance, correct? Isn't that essentially Boeing and Lock-mart?

I agree with GCNRevenger that a Delta V superheavy or Atlas VI might be cheaper than SDV, but why should we assume EELV+ will escape the crippling overhead paid by STS?

Its the same people who will be running either program.

If Delta IV was an economical system, Boeing would not have bailed out of the commercial launch market.

The Taliban, (who everyone agrees was a state sponsor of al Qaeda and global terrorism) has been eliminated with support from most every nation on Earth. Even France.  :;):

Iraq (maybe and maybe not a sponsor of al Qaeda and global terrorism - lets not argue that here) has been regime changed. 

What other governments need to be changed before the war on al Qaeda become essentially law enforcement or a criminal matter?

Isn't heroin smuggling now one of al Qaeda's biggest money makers? Sounds like crime to me.

Sorry, Mundaka.

I now see your post is more subtle that I first thought. Nah, I NEVER jump to hasty conclusions. Never.  :;):

I think of it like this, in non-zero sum games altruistic cooperation (as commonly understood) is usually the better strategy. In zero sum games, competition or strategic cooperation (alliances) is usually the better strategy.

In the real world, my view of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TANSTAAFL]TANSTAAFL depends on whether life is or is not a zero sum game.

Is it reasonable to assume that markets are inherently efficient absent government interference? I say NO! Market inefficiencies arise from many sources, including government.

I also say we have barely scrached the surface of our ability to remove inefficiencies from the market. What are the hypothetical limits of worker productivity given increasingly advanced technology?

Removing inefficiencies is NOT a zero-sum game.

I agree.

When I first read Snow Crash, I was entranced by his use of language and by his caricatures of American culture. But I agree the plot is very weak, maybe a D- or a D.

But its a fun read, just for the skateboarding and harpooning. And the guy with the H-bomb trigger wired into his brain (hardly a spoiler because this tid-bit doesn't really play into the plot).

Its an "identity" question or a level of observation question - -  who is the player we measure by?

Sports example - Kobe Bryant leads the league in scoring yet the LA Lakers fail to win a ring.

John Wooden's classic knock on Michael Jordan was that he was the most talented/gifted player but he wasn't a team player and therefore would never win an NBA title. Now, MJ is probably one of the most competitive human beings on the planet. It seems that MJ heard about Wooden's criticism and then vowed to become the best damn "team player" he could and the Chicago Bulls won six rings.

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In one game of Prisoner's Dilemma, always "Defect" - - when playing 100 games or 100,000 games in series, learning how to always play "Cooperate" increases everyone's score. What I mean is get in sync with your opponent/partner communciate well and you can both maximize your score.

In high school, I had a really hot social studies teacher (I think she was just a year or two out of college) who tried to teach us this lesson. She divided the class into groups of 4, with two teams of 2 and had us play a variant of Prisoner's Dilemma.

Each table competed with each other until the end of class, when she announced that the goal of the game was to be sitting at a table with the highest score. In other words, we had actually been divided into teams of 4 and were playing "against" the other tables.

She was annoyed with me because I played "Defect" early on and then browbeat the other players into always playing "Cooperate" thereafter. We had one round of "Defect" vs "Cooperate" which gave me an untouchable lead then I established a benign dictatorship (nods to Cobra) and every subsequent round was "Cooperate" vs "Cooperate" and our team score was 5 times as high as any other.

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Asking which is "better" -- competition or cooperation seems to me rather like asking an electrician whether the ( + ) or ( - ) wires are "more important" than the other.

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Another way I look at it, always ask: "What game are we really playing here"?

http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.a … -12-1]Link

Response:

A>   Bait and switch. That is not how the war was sold.

B>   Credibility. In light of A, there is a credibility issue about whether the Administration means what it is saying.

C>   Insufficient means to accomplish A. More money is needed to accomplish the largest nation building projetc ever attempted. As I said 6 - 9 months ago, maybe a trillion dollars of US tax money.

D>   Unilateral. In light of A how can we expect broad consensus in the international community? And, if our goal really is to re-make Iraq in our image then its only natural for France and Russia to object.

I have several internet pals from England who steadfastly deny that Great Britain is "European" - - therefore you and your people are excluded from the criticism.

I suppose Neville Chamberlain was British but I also remember some history about the need to start building Spitfires and Hurricanes before taking on Hitler.

. . . under-paid, under-sexed, under Eisenhower. . .

Why are "they" so ungrateful? Maybe the sons and daughters of those who fought WW2 are themselves different than their parents.

Oh, I forget, can't look in the mirror except to comb one's hair.

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Chirac is corrupt and Putin is ex-KGB. Okay, deal with it.

Civilian pouting and foot stomping about ingratitude strikes me as stunningly naive and ineffectual.