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Can't turn on the sound right now, but visually it was hilarious, reminded me a bit of Monty Python.

not going to watch, that looks like a panic attack condensed into viral format for me.

Please tell me that aired on TV in Britain. It would officially make the U.K the best place in the world. To watch TV.

Meh, ummm...spaghetti sauce. Whos hungry?

That would never make it onto channels here in Britain in the first place as an advert. Even after the watershed. Too graphic, and a graphic scene involving children. I'd be surprised if it does show up, and if it does, I'll be waiting for the Daily Mail parade to complain.

By the way YOU DON'T BLOW UP DANA SCULLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's quite an amusing advert actually.

That is so funny, I just about busted a gut.

that you get a score 10 points out of 10 if you run about blowing people up who are polluting the earth, might as well wipe all humans out then

This bloke deals with the problem very well imo

eScDfYzMEEw

They're completely pointless and are totally useless at getting the message across but they are pretty funny. David Ginola should've been blown up a long time ago anyway.

They're certainly nowhere near as sick or effective as those Canadian safety board ads from a few years ago.

Originally posted by jaden101

They're certainly nowhere near as sick or effective as those Canadian safety board ads from a few years ago.

Were these adds about drink driving by any chance, there were some sick ones on that subject in the UK a while back as far as I can remember.

Originally posted by jaden101
They're certainly nowhere near as sick or effective as those Canadian safety board ads from a few years ago.

must not have been too effective, as I have no idea what you are talking about

Originally posted by inimalist
must not have been too effective, as I have no idea what you are talking about
Edit:

Copy/paste not working, but it's titled "Explicit Canadian workplace safety ads pulled from TV due to Christmas season" in Wiki.

Video was more humorous than message instilling.


Originally posted by Bicnarok
eScDfYzMEEw


HOLY SHIT! George Carlin was such a BADASS standup comic! I mean, he was busting out those lines bam bam bam! Helluva speaker...Daaaay uhm!


I don't think I've ever been more impressed with public speaking than after I watched that clip.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Video was more humorous than message instilling.

HOLY SHIT! George Carlin was such a BADASS standup comic! I mean, he was busting out those lines bam bam bam! Helluva speaker...Daaaay uhm!


I don't think I've ever been more impressed with public speaking than after I watched that clip.

Yep he was brilliant, you should see his one on religion

Haha, neat. It's like Scanners in commercial form.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
Were these adds about drink driving by any chance, there were some sick ones on that subject in the UK a while back as far as I can remember.

They all had different themes.



Take it you must know about everything that happens everywhere?

Anyway.

MwCyVku1HvI

I loved Gillian Anderson's cameo at the end.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
that you get a score 10 points out of 10 if you run about blowing people up who are polluting the earth, might as well wipe all humans out then

This bloke deals with the problem very well imo

eScDfYzMEEw

He has some good points but I'm not sure if I entirely agree with some of those point. I'm sure even if human beings didn't exist species would still cease to exist but I woud think theres still alot of evidence that human actvity is wiping out species. Some of those species help regulate the ecosystem so we should defintely be worried. Anyway I think his point really was that people go overboard.

Provding we don't wipe ourselves out we may actually be here longer than the planet. If we start to have a greater understanding of time and space we could become gods. To an extent we really should take ourselves that serioulsy.

Originally posted by Deadline
He has some good points but I'm not sure if I entirely agree with some of those point. I'm sure even if human beings didn't exist species would still cease to exist but I woud think theres still alot of evidence that human actvity is wiping out species. Some of those species help regulate the ecosystem so we should defintely be worried. Anyway I think his point really was that people go overboard.

Provding we don't wipe ourselves out we may actually be here longer than the planet. If we start to have a greater understanding of time and space we could become gods. To an extent we really should take ourselves that serioulsy. The problem is the extinction rate, which we accelrated far beyond what occurs naturally.

I doubt we'll outlive the planet, in fact, I think it's essentially impossible for us to reach the average lifespan of a mammal species our size, which is about 1 millions years. We're 100 thousand years old now and I'm skeptical we'll make through another thousand years.

Originally posted by 753
The problem is the extinction rate, which we accelrated far beyond what occurs naturally.

Yeah so I don't know what hes banging on about to an extent.

Originally posted by 753

I doubt we'll outlive the planet, in fact, I think it's essentially impossible for us to reach the average lifespan of a mammal species our size, which is about 1 millions years. We're 100 thousand years old now and I'm skeptical we'll make through another thousand years.

I do. Cyborgs actually exist now, crap ones but they do exist. Human beings could potentially evolve into cybernetic organisms. In that case human beings potentially could live 'forever'.

Originally posted by Deadline
Yeah so I don't know what hes banging on about to an extent.



I do. Cyborgs actually exist now, crap ones but they do exist. Human beings could potentially evolve into cybernetic organisms. In that case human beings potentially could live 'forever'. Well, I'm skeptical of the possibilty of this and wouldn't say they'd still be humans then, but even assuming it happens, machines lack the adaptative plasticity of living organisms and the capacity to generate new morpho-physiological varieties through reproduction, they wouldn't survive long in an ever changing environment.

Originally posted by 753
Well, I'm skeptical of the possibilty of this and wouldn't say they'd still be humans then, but even assuming it happens, machines lack the adaptative plasticity of living organisms and the capacity to generate new morpho-physiological varieties through reproduction, they wouldn't survive long in an ever changing environment.

You can be skeptical all you like its started happening already. You are also getting into a semantic debate about what a human is.


Originally posted by 753
but even assuming it happens, machines lack the adaptative plasticity of living organisms and the capacity to generate new morpho-physiological varieties through reproduction, they wouldn't survive long in an ever changing environment.

Absolutely if humans beings advance so far in technology that they can evolve into cyborgs they would'nt be able to adapt to an ever changing envinronment.

Originally posted by Deadline
You can be skeptical all you like its started happening already. You are also getting into a semantic debate about what a human is. No it hasn't, not in the way you're implying and the fact that some interactions between organic tissue and machines are possible now does not mean that humans will ever 'become cyborgs' or upload their minds into robots. It's not semantycs either, you're just reducing what humans are to memory and what we call personality.

Humans will never evolve into cyborgs, you don't seem to know what evolution actually is. Even if we create perfect facsimiles of our neurological networks or 'upload' the working patterns of our brains into machinery, this means nothing from an adaptative viewpoint.

These cyborgs would lack all the characteristics of living cells, that allow them to adapt and perpetuate themselves. Populations of bacteria have far more chance of finding solutions to the problems of an ever changing environment than any supercomputer analyzing whatever inevitably limited data it is fed.

There is no reason to assume a race of cyborgs would be less vulnerable to extinction either, only some environmental factors would be different in assuring their destruction.

Originally posted by 753
No it hasn't, not in the way you're implying and the fact that some interactions between organic tissue and machines are possible now does not mean that humans will ever 'become cyborgs' or upload their minds into robots. It's not semantycs either, you're just reducing what humans are to memory and what we call personality.

Humans will never evolve into cyborgs, you don't seem to know what evolution actually is. Even if we create perfect facsimiles of our neurological networks or 'upload' the working patterns of our brains into machinery, this means nothing from an adaptative viewpoint.

These cyborgs would lack all the characteristics of living cells, that allow them to adapt and perpetuate themselves. Populations of bacteria have far more chance of finding solutions to the problems of an ever changing environment than any supercomputer analyzing whatever inevitably limited data it is fed.

There is no reason to assume a race of cyborgs would be less vulnerable to extinction either, only some environmental factors would be different in assuring their destruction.

facepalm

Originally posted by Deadline
facepalm Facepalm away as you clearly ahve no line of argumentation here and no real way of refuting my points.

Originally posted by 753
Facepalm away as you clearly ahve no line of argumentation here and no real way of refuting my points.

I'll respond to that. I'm not responding to it because I can't refute your points, I'm not responding to it because you are clearly argumentative. Engaging in a discussion with you won't lead anywhere. I've also had a brief experience with you in the comic vs forum.

Originally posted by Deadline
I'll respond to that. I'm not responding to it because I can't refute your points, I'm not responding to it because you are clearly argumentative. Engaging in a discussion with you won't lead anywhere. I've also had a brief experience with you in the comic vs forum. I am arguing indeed as it is the point of this forum. If you can show me something I'm ignoring or prove my points to be false, I'll conced I'm wrong. I would note your posting style is far beligerant and "argumentative" tahn mine though. But you're right, given what I know of you from the vs forum, it's best to drop this.

Originally posted by Deadline
Yes and obvoulsy there are no advantage to being a cyborg. None whatsoever when compared to the plasticity of life.

Originally posted by 753
None whatsoever when compared to the plasticity of life.

Anyone else see how retarded this guy is? Oh and by the way one of my point wasn't just about cyborgs it was that if people were advanced enought to make cyborgs they would obvoulsy be advanced in other forms of science eg biology, nanotechnology etc.

Originally posted by Bicnarok
Well I could do with a cyborg hip, and lower back parts to stop the pain I get EVERY DAY. ...

Oh ya, I could use a new lower back for sure.

Originally posted by Deadline
Anyone else see how retarded this guy is?
You're ignorant, agressive and pedantic. What is worse, your arguments have no basis and are sci-fi speculations of things you clearly don't understand. No wonder you've become a quick joke in the vs forum.

Yeah, I got it, you think technolgical progress can eventually replace natural processes in regards to adpatation to and survival in a changing environment. It can't. No extant or currently conceivable technology can achieve the level of complexity, plasticty and autonomy of even the simplest living organisms - see my post to bicnarok. Foreseeable technological progress cannot possibly replace the natural variety generation processes of living systems (mutation, recombination, etc) as pools of possible to solutions survival problems presented by the environment either.

Now run along and complain that it's useless to keep debating the ones who don't agree with you like you always do here and in the vs forum.

Originally posted by 753
No they won't, if any transhumanist "improvement" will be applied at a population level, and it probably never will, it'll be genetic engeneering.

Because of the material impossibilties presented so far and the fact that even if you could store memories and make a copy of the brain activity patterns, unless the artifical network had equal complex plasticity it wouldn't be able to reproduce the way the human mind/brain changes over time from that point onwards.

Transhumanists would tend to point out that there is nothing privileged about biological systems. A cyborg or robot wouldn't have to be unable to adapt. Even without nano-tech they have the advantage of being able to swap out parts when the environment changes.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Transhumanists would tend to point out that there is nothing privileged about biological systems. A cyborg or robot wouldn't have to be unable to adapt. Even without nano-tech they have the advantage of being able to swap out parts when the environment changes. No technology that actually exists or can be foressen today would allow that. As for nanotechs, they are overhyped and what people dream of them doing is just imitating what natural complex organic molecules like enzymes can. A living cell could be seen as an ultracomplex system arising from the acoplation of several nanomachines, in this sense if we ever make cell-like systems out of artifical molecules - nanomachines - that can perform the self-manufactoring, adaptative, self-preserving and reproductive functions of a natural cell, then it would simply be an artificial lifeform and not a machine at all - if it can mutate on its own, then it would also fall almost immediatelly outside our controlling capacities like natural life does. I remain skeptical of our capacity to ever engineer this however, and specially skeptical fo it being based on of anything but carbon.

Originally posted by 753
No technology that actually exists or can be foressen today would allow that.

Really? Because my car can do that. So can desktop computers.

In fact I just made use of a similar bit of technology known as the sweat shirt, it took me just a few seconds to adapt to a drop in environmental temperatures. Lets see biology do that.

Originally posted by 753
As for nanotechs, they are overhyped and what people dream of them doing is just imitating what natural complex organic molecules like enzymes can. A living cell could be seen as an ultracomplex system arising from the acoplation of several nanomachines, in this sense if we ever make cell-like systems out of artifical molecules - nanomachines - that can perform the self-manufactoring, adaptative, self-preserving and reproductive functions of a natural cell, then it would simply be an artificial lifeform and not a machine at all - if it can mutate on its own, then it would also fall almost immediatelly outside our controlling capacities like natural life does. I remain skeptical of our capacity to ever engineer this however, and specially skeptical fo it being based on of anything but carbon.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree that the idea of living nano-tech "goo" is a bit silly (at least within the forseeable future). That doesn't mean there aren't great improvements we can make by taking advantage of abiotic systems.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Really? Because my car can do that. So can desktop computers.

In fact I just made use of a similar bit of technology known as the sweat shirt, it took me just a few seconds to adapt to a drop in environmental temperatures. Lets see biology do that. I clearly meant adapt with the level of sophistication that living organisms are capable of. Even a thermostat can regulate room temperature in response to relatively subtle changes in it, but that ain't quite the homeostasis though, is it? It doesn't come close to what the simplest archeobacteria can do.



Never said there aren't.

If you read the discussion from the begining, you'll see the point of contention is whether or not becoming 'cyborgs' or uploading into machines etc. can increase our life expectancy as a species or even allow us to outlive the rest of the life on the planet. The point here is comparing natural living systems to cyborgs and tech when it comes to ensuring long term survival of a lineage in an environment in constant flux and I find it absurd that we'll ever come up with any tech that does a better job at it than living organisms and biological evolution. Other than that, tech refinement can certainly improve the quality of life of individuals and populations.

Originally posted by 753
I clearly meant adapt with the level of sophistication that living organisms are capable of. Even a thermostat can regulate room temperature in response to relatively subtle changes in it, but that ain't quite the homeostasis though, is it? It doesn't come close to what the simplest archeobacteria can do.

They got a 3.5 billion year head start on us

Originally posted by 753
If you read the discussion from the begining, you'll see the point of contention is whether or not becoming 'cyborgs' or uploading into machines etc. can increase our life expectancy as a species or even allow us to outlive the rest of the life on the planet. The point here is comparing natural living systems to cyborgs and tech when it comes to ensuring long term survival of a lineage in an environment in constant flux and I find it absurd that we'll ever come up with any tech that does a better job at it than living organisms and biological evolution. Other than that, tech refinement can certainly improve the quality of life of individuals and populations.

I disagree.

Evolution may be tried and true but it's also painfully slow and full of inefficiency. Humans didn't wait to evolve longer legs, they tamed horses and built cars. Intelligently directed adaptation is clearly better than evolution.

Just consider that no single species lives in as many different environments as humans do (at least to my knowledge). That isn't because our biological systems are so well developed it's because we built appropriate technology.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
They got a 3.5 billion year head start on us Yes, but I think it has more to do with the characteristics of the process.


If you want to reach a particular objective or convenience like faster travel, then sure, directed aplication of knowledge is faster and more efficient than sitting arround waiting for mutations to pile up. If the goal is simply surviving as a lineage for the longest time possible then evolution really can't be beaten IMO.



Hum... the truly dominant lifeforms, as far as habitat colonization goes, are bacteria and fungi. As a group they dominate every single habitat on earth and even individual lineages like cyanobacteria are more widespread than us. After them, come the insects. A lot of other species like mice and roaches also manage to survive in any habitat we do and many others, they just needed our help getting to some of their current territories.

I get your point and it's not that antagonistic to mine, considering our intelligence and behavioral adaptabilty are biological functions produced by evolution. It's undeniable that our capacity to adjust our behavior to new situations, use tools, come up with solutions to problems and manipulate our environments have allowed us to expand our niche as a species. We can survive in pretty extreme habitats, because we solved the problems of getting food, water and shelter in them - we colonized them thousands of years ago through some pretty low-tech but really effective ways. But just think how smart evolution made us, I can't see us making something as smart as we are. Ever.

The random generation of a huge variety of incredibly plastic and 'smart' (cells are smart for this definition) systems offers a richer, almost infinite (though not in the same species, of course) pool of possible solutions to survival problems and environmental change than the directed application of our tech and limited knowledge in solving the problems and menaces we become aware of.

I recall this experiment in which computer scientists tested 3 ways of creating codes that could 'shield themselves' against codes that ordered their deletion. The deleting codes would change all the time to simulate the environment. One system was a simulation of evolution, random codes were generated and put to the test againt the deleting codes. The others were people and softwares trying to figure out what was going on and deliberately write the codes that would survive the longest. The random generator won. I'll try to find this article and post it here

Smart as we are, we're still too dumb compared to the blind watchmaker

Originally posted by 753
If you want to reach a particular objective or convenience like faster travel, then sure, directed aplication of knowledge is faster and more efficient than sitting arround waiting for mutations to pile up. If the goal is simply surviving as a lineage for the longest time possible then evolution really can't be beaten.

Ah, but the goal isn't "survive for the longest time possible" it's "survive this particular problem facing me", just the same as for evolution.

Originally posted by 753
Hum... the truly dominant lifeforms, as far as habitat colonization goes, are microorganisms. As a group they dominate every single habitat on earth and even individual lineages like cyanobacteria are more widespread than us.

But we're just one species. That's a bit more impressive than a whole domain.

Originally posted by 753
But still, the mechanim of evolution remains supreme in my view. The random generation of a huge variety of incredibly plastic and 'smart' systems offers a richer (almost infinite, though not in the same species, of course) pool of possible solutions to survival problems and environmental change than the directed application of our tech and limited knowledge in solving the problems and menaces we become aware of.

Evolution will just try everything given enough time. In the end all creatures (and indeed most nonliving systems) are subject to the rule that whatever survives, survives. It's sort of tautological.

Originally posted by 753
I recall this experiment in which computer scientists tested 3 ways of creating codes that could 'shield themselves' against codes that ordered their deletion. The deleting codes would change all the time to simulate the environment. One system was a simulation of evolution, random codes were generated and put to the test againt the deleting codes. The others were people and softwares trying to figure out what was going on and deliberately write the codes that would survive the longest. The random generator won. I'll try to find this article and post it here

Sounds interesting. I don't get how random bits of code managed to do anything, though.

Of course this also sort of supports the transhumanist argument. A purpose built factory could try dozens of substantially different variations on a theme every day. Human staff could even analyze what caused the previous day's versions to fail.

Obviously such a factory is a tall order to build, fund and program but I see nothing about it that is particularly impossible. It relies on the principles of evolution, yes, but still seems like an improvement.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Ah, but the goal isn't "survive for the longest time possible" it's "survive this particular problem facing me", just the same as for evolution. Survival for the longest time possible comes from the gradual solving of whatever problem shows up one at a time, sure.

Yes, but there are some species that rival or surpass our dispersion. Notice that many other species could survive everywhere we can, they just never got there.

But that's just the thing, the variety generating mechanisms of which living organisms are capable of are unrivaled and so is their adaptative plasticity. The biota really can try everything, but our tech can't.

If you could make something like that yes, but we would no longer be the ones coming up with the solutions in this scenario, we'd just give it a kickstart.