Thinking in terms of nations is something for peasants. The ruling elites don't care about nations. They care about class war. And they are winning it.

Not all war is class war, only most. Unless you think the ruling elite of, say, Israel and Saudi Arabia are on friendly terms.

It's their victory that they convinced you that they don't want just to squeeze everyone else dry.

I gave my opinion and labelled it as such.

Every WMD program in existence? The apparatus of our surveillance states? Private companies and wealthy individuals would not pusure these things because it would be illegal and also pointless. Only governments want and pursue stuff like this. Of course, plenty of government directed research and government funded research is positive, but the private sector is intertwined with all that (funding and execution) and it's not true to say just because the government funded something it wouldn't have happened otherwise. At the extreme you have states like USSR and North Korea that spend almost everything on ghastly projects.

"Government research leads to all things WMD"

How does your post support this opinion?

I don't now what you mean. Do you deny that WMD programs exist?

No, and I never said or hinted that they don't exist. We are trying to establish how much of the research budget is spend on them.

It's not about the money that is wasted in developing them, it is about the consequences of their existence.

Again, that's not what we're discussing.

Did you think my argument was that when the government directs and funds research, they disproportionately waste it on WMDs? No, my argument was that big government research spending leads to monstrosities that would otherwise not even exist.

I like this Wolfram guy. Blogging about Leibniz and the first sentence is obiously about stuff "he made" that now makes the world a better place.

Yeah yeah, Leibniz, Newton, Einstein and Wolfram. What a team!

I recently read a quote on "Quicksilver" (Stephenson's novel) about his imaginary character "Daniel Waterhouse":

"Daniel was angry with God. God had implanted on him a passion for natural philosophy. He wanted to be one of the greats. But God brought him on earth the same era with individuals like Hooke, Leibniz and Newton. What where the chances?"

At this point in the novel, only Daniel has a clear view on Newton's genius, Hooke was renowned and Leibniz was not into mathematics (he studied to lawyer first, then turned into mathematics according to the novel, but knowing Stephenson I think it's true).

His interactions with Newton are what got me hooked on the book. Brilliantly done.

Or something really classy:

http://www.eterna.ch/de/1948/1948-date

I upvoted him/her. Because parent posted bullshit.

> but seriously, do we hate our government so much that we are willing to cheer when another government subverts it?

Probably not, but your government hates YOU so much that they are willing to spy on you on every occasion.

Uh...no.

To borrow your logic, show me a solid example of the USG using this vast surveillance network to oppress civil rights en masse.

The USG has been able to suppress individual civil rights without any of this stuff. All of the evidence thus far has indicated that they have only ever used this capability to target foreign bad actors.

Just a guess, but probably silver:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_uses_of_silver#Water_pu...

He got so many things wrong, it's hard to even start criticizing him. Well, I won't. I had the same ideas when I was 16. Then I started reading books.

Also: Why in Xolotl's name is this on Hacker News?!?

Religious discussions aside, wtf do you mean with "getting off of this planet"? Whereto? There's nothing around for TRILLIONS of klicks!

First fuck up the planet, then leave, does not appear to be a trait of highly developed civilisations. More one of perishing ones.

I don't think that's what he meant. This planet is great, we should definitely keep it and take care of it. But it is just one single planet, we should try and hedge against problems out of our control (such as big meteorites).

I vote for solving death first, or at least in parallel (we can do both at the same time); I think we could do it faster than setting up a sustainable colony on another world.

No, it's not.