Tiede ilmaista, taikuus kallista

Earth Without People - Millainen maailmasta tulee, jos ihmiset katoavat? No, kun asteroidi jonakin päivänä törmää tai Aurinko lopulta laajenee, kaikki eläimet ja kasvit kuolevat kerralla sukupuuttoon. Ilman ihmistä planeetta on tuhoon tuomittu.

Longevity Future Salon: Embracing Science, Ethics, and Life in the Bay Area
Position 1: "I refuse to think seriously about whether defeating aging is feasible, because it is clearly not desirable."
Position 2: "I refuse to think seriously about whether defeating aging is desirable, because it is clearly not feasible."

Two argumentative frameworks tend to be associated with the above two positions, according to de Grey: the "Argument from Superficial Authority", and the "Argument from Personal Incredulity". My impression is that people taking Position 1 most often tend to argue from superficial authority. I would imagine that this includes people who invoke "Nature", the words of conservative bioethicists, or possibly their deity of choice when attempting to explain why seeking to extend the healthy lifespan is a bad idea. People taking Position 2, on the other hand, tend to argue from personal incredulity -- that is, they consider it a foregone conclusion that human lifespan is basically fixed at a particular point, and that our chance of moving this point outward is so small as to be functionally negligible.

Will John Wilbanks Launch the Next Scientific Revolution? - Science Commons - The Neurocommons
In five years, if everything comes out as I hope, you'll have a system that looks like Amazon for the life sciences. You could click on one thing—a relevant cell line, for example—and get recommendations for related research or tools. You could one-click and order that cell line from a third party instead of having to ask another laboratory to stop doing research and manufacture it for you. There'd be management systems that would join data from around the world, and you could use Google Maps API to flag brain images with comments. Scholarly literature would be available for free because the peer-review charges would be paid as part of the cost of research instead of through subscription models, and the annotations or comments that had been made on any given paper would be readily available. The idea is that we would do things in science that we already do everyday in other fields with ease. Science ought to be like this, but it isn't.

Harry Potter: the economics
There are two ways, I think, that one can present magic: as something that can be done, but only at a price; or as a mysterious force that is poorly understood. So in Orson Scott Card's Hart's Hope, women who perform magic must pay the price in blood, their own or that of others. Those prices provide the scarcity needed to drive the plot forward. In the Narnia books and the Lord of the Rings, on the other hand, magical power has no obvious cost. But we don't need to understand the costs of magic, because the main characters can't perform it.

Man to battle machine in poker matchup
But it’s only a matter of time before the machines take a commanding lead in the war for poker supremacy. Just as they already have in backgammon, checkers and chess, computers are expected to surpass even the best human poker players within a decade. They can already beat virtually any amateur player.
--
But game theory has inherent limits. In Nash equilibrium terms, success doesn’t mean winning — it means not losing. -- That’s about where the best poker programs are today. Though the best game theory-based programs can usually hold their own against world-class human poker players, they aren’t good enough to win big consistently.

Muuta muistiin
Aerogel Jewelry - Maailman vähiten tiheintä kiinteää ainetta koruina.
MiniCat - Katamaraani selkärepussa.
Go-Ped - Sähköskootteri.
Magic Wheel - Yksipyöräinen.