> Life arising only once could very well be the more plausible option
Indeed I feel like coming to this conclusion is something that the authors - and most of us rationalist types - do not _want_ to come to.
Because if you accept that hypothesis, then it follows as a consequence that an alternative view of the world makes a lot more sense: what if, rather than living in an emergent, random universe where life sprouts up everywhere, hundreds of billions of times, but somehow _always_ disappears before we can ever observe it outside Earth, we are instead living at the center of a universe where we are the sole intelligent species that ever existed? In that system of the world, the universe is being directed by beings existing outside its bounds - gods. A simulation created and managed by uncaring observers - as hypothesized by the likes of Elon Musk? Or a benevolent God in the Judeo/Christiano/Islamic tradition?
The truth is that this alternative is being rejected a priori, indeed not even acknowledged, by the authors of the article or most people in this thread, because it is an affront to their core beliefs, not through pure logical reasoning.
there is an obvious problem with this assertion, as I'm sure you know: the govt can get a warrant to wire your phone line, or your appartement. but if your unlawful activity is being done online, this is useless. so it is not really new powers they are asking for, but the possibility to do online what they've always been able to do offline.
i'm not saying they should be able to get unfeathered access to your device, but let's be real here.
You are correct, although I would modulate this by adding that techy types like us are likely to undervalue people search compared to the average person.
Conversely, this kind of feature has obvious value for journalists, who are thus likely to overhype its game-changing quality.
At this point, what is the difference between John Gruber and an Apple P.R. flack? He derives all his income from writing stuff glorifying Apple and bashing its competitors.
i'm having a hard time imagining a realistic scenario where political turmoil is strong enough to make all stocks worthless, yet my gold bullions at the bank are still mine. unless you think you could keep a meaningful amount at home, and then how will you protect it?
if the nazis invade, if the bolsheviks take over, if society breaks down and roving bands of cannibals are out there plundering, chances are your gold is either not yours anymore, or there is no society to trade it with.
exactly. all those car-sharing services may become much, much more useful and prevalent when you can use your smartphone to whistle the car to come to you. that would also spell doom to taxis.
perhaps then only the very rich, those who live in remote areas, and true car enthusiasts will want or need to have their own car.
a bit like a 100 years ago, everybody from the middle-class up had a maid, but now only rich people do because machines now do most of the household work for us.
the problem, i think, is that there is a core contradiction at the heart of the euro system:
1) you can't have a currency union, without a fiscal union;
2) you can't have a fiscal union, without a true political union;
3) the euro area is a currency union with neither a fiscal or a political union.
in other words, for a currency union to work well, you need to shuffle money around. but you can't do that without political legitimacy, or if people feel like the money is going to "them", as opposed to "us".
The leaders who created the euro were trying to go about it the other way around: currency union would lead to fiscal union, which would lead to political union. but now, in a recession, with things going bad, they are finding that, in fact, they would need all three for any part to work correctly.
why are the Germans refusing to let the ECB be the lender of last resort? the core reason is that they see, correctly, that this would put them on the hook for the past and likely future mismanagement of the Greeks and Italians. of course, they can't say this publicly, so instead you hear all sorts of nonsense, hyperinflation this and weimar that.
or, to put it another way, would the Germans let this kind of thing happen to other Germans? I don't think so! Greeks and Italians are "them", and in bad times people feel less generous and fall back to the "us".
but at the same time, of course, their refusing to let the ECB, as it were, bail out the Greeks and Italians will inevitably lead to their default, exit from the Euro, and who knows what after that. at the very least, expect nationalist parties everywhere to rise in the polls.
let's just hope that we're not rebooting to the early 20th century.
for now i only use linux server-side, but i'm thinking of maybe swiching from osx to linux for my next laptop. i played a little with both mint and ubuntu in vmware, but i don't think i can make a fair assessment.
personally, i don't care for customization at all, so i was wondering if there were other issues besides that.