A good point. I would just quibble with your affirmative statement that '... the oldest instance of the practice is almost certainly far older than the oldest preserved instance of the practice.'
It seems to me that whilst it is highly likely the first instance is earlier than the first discovered instance and that this is a perfectly valid conjecture I don't think we have any convincing grounds to state that it is 'almost certainly far older.'
It seems that the article has a simple thesis.
a) climate is hard
b) human activity is affecting it but because it's hard it's tough to know how much
c) hence it's difficult to know what the correct policies should be.
As an economist might say - without clarity on the positive, it's challenging to resolve the normative.
But I am a little puzzled by the failure to discuss outcomes in terms of mathematical expectation. And of course, the author knows more than I ever will about this.
Hence:
If our activity might just trigger a sequence of events leading to human extinction...(in other words such a sequence is conceivable and credible) then even if the risk is low as estimated by our (weak) ability to assess such risk, then the outcome is surely so hideous that if our policies are taking us in a direction that makes such an outcome more likely (even if we are not sure by how much) then there is cause for caution and re-examination of policy.
It seems to me that our situation at present is of this form. Despite our poor understanding and the fact that things aren't 'settled' (as if they ever will be) this unsettled 'knowledge' is all we have and we have to take it seriously, most particularly if the possible outcomes are ghastly. We can't just wait for better science.
You're entitled to your opinion on his crusades against religion. But let's bear in mind that there are those of us who consider religious irrationalism a key challenge of our age, nationally and internationally, and hence that such a crusade is important.
I'm disappointed in Andreessen. It appears that a major part of his concern is the damage done to US firms trying to do business abroad. This damage, apparently, completely outweighs and potential damage to our liberties occasioned by trampling on rights that we won by painful and bloody struggles.
Without wanting to get into parsing the word 'cure' imho this is a cancer cure. The reason the treatment kills the B-cells as well is because that is how it identifies the cancer cells. It is the marker that enables the T cells to recognize the cancer cells. But the fact that it kills the B cells does not mean that it does not successfully treat the cancer cells. It appears that it does. And hence it seems fair to call it a cure.
Learning to program in Javascript is like programming in assembler. That may be unavoidable when there are no high level languages, or when those languages and toolsets are immature. But there are serious experts (and people with a lot of experience with very large js programs) who don't see js as the solution.
"Goaded by Meijer as to whether it is possible to write big programs in JavaScript, Hejlsberg replied, Yes, you can, but you cant maintain them," much to the delight of the crowd that featured several prominent language and tools designers. I think there are some unmet needs there, Hejlsberg added.
Bracha immediately piped in saying, Thats part of why were doing Dart. You can write them [large programs in JavaScript]; its terribly hard and afterward youll be punished. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Application-Development/Is-it-Time-...
I agree. This is getting your panties in a twist because a writer hasn't spelt out his putative conflict of interest in a way that conforms to your norms, when it is certainly plain enough for many readers (I had no problem at all figuring it out and wasn't at all offended by it).
I don't get your point. If a guy is going to advocate for anything presumably it is better if the guy has some practical experience and what is wrong with him sharing that experience? Do you honestly imagine that anyone reading this piece was in any way deceived or confused by his role at Google? It's not like he hid it.
The bizarre states uncovered by quantum mechanics resulted in a million popular works trying to distill quantum reality into a world in which multiple states could coincide even at the macro level. We know that this is true at quantum scale, it has been a little harder to swallow at the level of everyday reality.
Exactly. (just posted same point.) Even those 'dialectical contradictions' are perhaps better described as opposing forces that set in train a dialectical resolution.
It seems to me that whilst it is highly likely the first instance is earlier than the first discovered instance and that this is a perfectly valid conjecture I don't think we have any convincing grounds to state that it is 'almost certainly far older.'