Leading HIV researchers lost as flight MH17 is downed in Ukraine
telegraph.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
Besides if we got rid of "self-damaging instincts", there'd be other, equally horrible problems we'd hit. Competing, of course, is why evolution works, and thus if life, as a whole, got rid of this "self-damaging instincts" we'd be nothing but simple bacteria, if that.
And the problem with statements like this is that they're not really moral. Neutrality is nothing more than a vote that says the strongest party can do whatever it wants.
The whole point of evolution is that it does not "choose" the best path forward. It tries 9999999999999999999... paths forward (and "fighting" evolution is certainly one such path it is not -at all- opposed to try, just not with "too" many resources) and then kills of all but the, call it 100, best. In reality this force is very much active in today's society, as over 96% of humanity descends from less than 10% of the society that existed 2 generations ago. I would bet that this is a wholly unremarkable value for that has remained pretty constant over history.
This happens in phases. First you create a million experiments. Stir for a while. Then a disaster happens, and most of the experiments die off. GOTO 10. Obviously we are currently close to the end of the "create a million experiments" phase. Loads and loads of things are being "invested" in by evolution. That will stop at some point.
As to why humans live in (small) groups (meaning up to 50 people, no more), simple : redundancy, size, and efficiency. A natural human society is a group of 20-50 individuals (that don't behave all that individual, or let their colleagues do that either). The group has men and women, men being useful and expendable appendages that can be sent out to do useful things, like hunting, or fighting a neighbouring tribe when their location threatens to make the hunting grounds too small. Women that take care of progeny, and are not expendable (because loss of a woman impacts the reproductive speed of a group in a way that loss of a man doesn't, which in the short term can lead to losing a war to a bigger tribe, and the death that follows), and do whatever needs doing in a protected environment. To some extent, the bodies and brains of both kinds of humans have adapted to these roles. Not a very great extent, but it's there. It's nowhere near as specialized as you find in bees, spiders, or bacteria, and more specialized than you'd find in birds or reptiles. I would argue it's pretty similar to the sex differences you see in most mammals.
It is a useful way of organising, that you will find all over nature. There are bacteria that do this (even sexual ones, yes, they do exist, though they tend to be able to switch sex when convenient), there are loads of insects that do this, again you have loads of different forms, from monogamy to hives (with a single woman per society), there are lots of animals that do this ... I don't see the mystery here, I also see serious indications that while all of these forms of living together are obviously superior to solitary lifestyles. There are considerations though : if the hunting/foraging grounds have a certain minimum richness that is, meaning living together clearly makes more sense with what you'd probably term a "better economy", and larger societies need larger, denser economies, but they are also more efficient if such an economy is possible. Below a certain productivity value, solitary lifestyles are the norm (although that tends to be the end of the road for a species).
But the short answer is : why do we have societies ? For the same reason dinosaurs got big : because bigger lifeforms are more efficient. Dinosaurs were a mostly failed experiment in making the individuals bigger to give them economies of scale, without requiring groups, without requiring investment in a brain. Humans working together, or even competing, is a lot more cooperative than some lower lifeforms that we still call multicellular, and a lot more efficient than solitary lifestyles.
So does evolution "decide" the best path forward ? No ! You should. In the same sense that you should be a freelancer and launch your own company, meaning the caveat simply is : you will most likely crash and burn, and die/live in poverty.
TLDR: One human couldn't possibly live of 1 acre of land, but 10 acres will feed 10 people, easily.
There is no chance of that until some Russians who want their country to join the civilized world put a bullet in Putin's head.
Like in most countries (again, including the US) it depends a lot on your political views, gender, exact position (Texas vs north), etc.
Of course it's not Scandinavia, but I feel like which politician you consider evil tends to mostly depends on whose propaganda you get.
I get that certain things are worse and that Russia is poorer and stuff, so that sucks and that they don't care for a lot of rights, but then you look at Afghan and Iraq war, look at Guantanamo, random police violence or the state of lethal punishments and things are put into perspective, seeing that they just have different problems, but not really more.
Also historically Eastern countries tend have been worse at hiding relations between private and political interests, how media is manipulated or how it's always the same kind of politics, regardless of votes. That's true. In Russia censorship is direct, while in the US you have DMCA take downs, national security letters, secret law interpretations, etc.
About democracy/parties: All bigger countries (China, Russia, US, ...) appear to have basically one major party with the same opinion and different branches of opinions in this party. Since they are actually mentioned in media, while opposition is not there is no serious chance for any opposition. This leads political stagnation in all of them. The US has two branches, not agreeing on exact spendings, but both pro-war, pro-capital-punishment, pro-capitalism, pro-neo-liberalism, privatized prisons and against human rights in the sense of international courts, welfare system (basic infrastructure, free/cheap water/education) ... They are very nationalist. Something also unique to super powers.
That may sound like something bad, but it seems to be a necessity to keep big societies at least somewhat stable. History has shown that.
I might be missing something though, so please tell me how Russians suffer more than people in another (non-scandinavian) country.
I agree on the oil part. Gas too. But again compare that with other countries, the US goes on war for oil and gas, pressuring Europe via imports. I agree, Europe being more independent from such things would be a good thing.
It seems that a lot of the bad stuff in countries depends a lot on their age and actual size. China is the oldest and population wise biggest country, requiring the most control for stability, having the most troubles, followed by India with slightly less population, but big age, less control, but therefor way bigger problems, followed by Russia and the US, where the US has a bigger population, but is also way younger than Russia.
Russia is a lot like the US with a big tea party. I guess that's their main problem, but then even with Putin it was just as much of an up and down as with Bush and Obama.
I just really don't think that things will change so quickly, neither in the US, nor in Russia. However, I think they are doing an equally good/bad job in regard to their current circumstances, making the US a better place to live, but maybe not too much. A liberal movement in Russia, pushing Putin into one direction and a stronger tea party with a republican president in the US could change that.
Even though both countries are rivals they don't seem to be that dissimilar, just US having a couple of benefits (world language, winning various wars in the past century, ...). China could take that lead in the next decades, especially when Russia and the US keep fighting like that.
It may make feel better to pretend that the US is as bad as Russia but you probably know you are lying to yourself.
Russia or Soviet Union? The thing is I also know Jews who fled to the US from Europe (Germany, Poland, France, Austria, ...) in WW2 and came back. The same thing happened in the Soviet Union, the DDR, etc.
Things changed since then. I know Russians visiting every now and then. They know all the things that suck about Russia, like I stated. The worst thing currently appears to be the anti-homosexual laws and gangs and people flee because of that.
Anyway, we seem to know different people then. ;)
Speaking about fleeing: There are even Crimean people fleeing to Russia or US citizens, such as Snowden.
> It may make feel better to pretend that the US is as bad as Russia but you probably know you are lying to yourself.
I usually don't quote myself, but... "I get that certain things are worse and that Russia is poorer and stuff, so that sucks "
But again: What makes you think that getting rid of one single person changes that much? There is a whole regime. Yes, we could use other examples, but I think here on HN most people know the US the best. If Obama would get killed lets say by some leftist socialist terrorist or some Islamist, whatever, do you really think the US would become socialist or Islamic? No? Why do you think that killing Putin would then change things?
If you go back in history only a couple of years and look at the DDR: No political action, no big sanctions, cold or hot war changed something. It was more the ordinary people who changed things making nations tremble. Can go really fast.
And why so defensive? Aren't the statements about all these things being really bad true, war and murder, not caring about people in general and spreading hate, disinformation and fear by one nation is just as bad as by another. I know, hardcore nationalist on both sides may never understand that, but I'd think the average Hacker News reader isn't that blinded by propaganda. Come on, you don't really think killing someone really solves a problem. Just means the next person in a row takes a seat there. Doesn't mean that person is better. Look at North Korea or China. Did things really change to the better with switching leaders? Yeah, things sometimes switch but usually it's kinda switched. One thing will be better, but someone else things come up. Russia reduced weapons, pretty much abolished death penalty and wages less war, using gas sanctions, while reducing civil freedoms. Actually that is also a bit like in the US. Civil freedoms (even though stuff like freedom of expression, privacy, protests, ...) reduced and in most states there is no lethal punishment anymore. China still is really bad to any opposition, has the death penalty (with extremely long queues), lots of censorship, harassment of opposition, but has more economic freedoms, a... well, at least for the population living in cities good welfare systems, while reducing other rights.
The problem is that when we always point at the worst spot we will end up being the worst. Instead comparing with the best should be the goal. Scandinavia was just an example, since they really are on top of things currently, but also New Zealand and others seem to be on top of things.
Russians have a cursed capacity for suffering and I don't blame them for being afraid of Putin, but eventually someone should take him out for the sake of the country. The longer the citizens of Russia are denied basic freedoms the more irrelevant Russia becomes. There is no need for this besides Putin's greed.
I kept seeing it appear in new and then on the front page and then it would vanish. I guess admins were deleting it? Is there a policy reason why it isn't something 'good hackers would find interesting' ?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8048083
(doesn't have a reference to MH17, no idea where B772 comes from)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."
For me, the "interesting" thing means a deeper knowledge of some facet of the world, not shallow reporting of breaking news.
The prior article was also administratively removed from the front page, even though it had a really high score https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8049813
A modern airliner getting shot down by a SAM is fairly boring from a tech perspective. Sadly it's not even a particularly unique occurence over the past few decades.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/mh17-pressure-o...
Questions were raised as to why Malaysia Airlines had continued to fly over such a volatile region, where separatists were known to be shooting at aircraft. Qantas, the Australian carrier, said it had been steering clear of the area by 400 nautical miles for several months. Malaysia Airlines said that after the crash it immediately altered its flight paths, while other airlines either did likewise or emphasised they had already been taking alternative routes.
"With immediate effect, all European flights operated by Malaysia Airlines will be taking alternative routes avoiding the usual route," said a statement from the airline. It added: "The usual flight route was earlier declared safe by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. International Air Transportation Association has stated that the airspace the aircraft was traversing was not subject to restrictions."
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/MAS17/history/20140717/10...
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2014/07/17/mh17/4f...
It was a route taken by SQ ,KL and others
EDIT: oops sorry I haven't realized the labels aren't part of the image, I took it from here
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/17/world/europe/m...
Might be weather conditions this particular day pushing all the planes north east. I have zero idea about air traffic, is there an airport doing flight control for the region that would reroute all the planes over the effing war zone because of some rain clouds?
Perhaps I can point you to the link in the comment to which you've replied which plots the courses of flights of Malaysian and other airlines from the past weeks so that you can check?!
It obviously didn't consider the use of dedicated anti-aircraft weapons. But even primitive shoulder-launched MANPADS like the original Strela-2 have been recorded striking easy targets over 24,000 ft ( a Hunter over Oman in the 1970s ).
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted above.
It's also 100 people from a conference of 25,000.
Before anyone says we don't know it was pro Russian rebels. I think it is pretty safe to say it is, we have the rebels admitting on twitter 1-2 weeks ago they stole a medium range anti air craft. Then yesterday just at the plane went down they twitted they get a Ukrainian military cargo plane, The tweets of both the capture of the medium range anti air gun AND the downing on the military jet both go missing, and today a new statement of it was not them.
But what the fuck is anyone going to do, Russia don't care and their people are behind them 100%.
A shift is coming....
If you have a equipment to down planes, it's also your duty to have the proper radar equipment to reliably see what's up there, something that those Rebels did not have. They just stole equipment out of their league, did not know how to handle it and killed 300 innocent travelers.
On October 4, 2001 they accidentally shot down Siberia Airlines Flight 1812, killing 78.[1]
For what it's worth, I do agree with your sentiment.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia_Airlines_Flight_1812
As an aside, the IR655 tragedy was one of the first were data was available to separate fact from fiction.
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/18/opinion/witness-to-iran-fl...
This tragedy, IR655, and KAL007 are all stark reminders that war is often without discretion.
One of: http://i.imgur.com/4XgZCaH.jpg
Just "oh I wonder what this button does"?
As you say, they just got their hands on equipment and had little clue how to handle it. They are also fully responsible for what happened.
If you plan to use such weaponry you have a duty to confirm whatever it is your are shooting at is the right thing. Especially if it is a known flight path for commercial airliners.
I agree with you that they likely didn't intend to shoot down a commercial, rather than military, plane but that doesn't absolve them of responsibility.
- Why are 100 HIV experts on the same plane in the first place? Hasn't somebody realized this is a risk and usually considered 'a bad idea'? - Why are they all flying across the entire world (Amsterdam-Melbourne) to visit a conference? If you have to fly 100 people around the world for just a conference, isn't it a better idea to hold the conference in a location nearby, say Europe (depends on how many are coming from Australia of course)?
Of course, it's absolutely terrible what happened yesterday and the mood here (NL) isn't great. Don't get me wrong on that part.
The International AIDS Conference happens in a different city every two years, each time highlighting the successes and challenges of that particular region of the world in dealing with HIV/AIDS. It's not unusual at all for a large number of delegates to have to fly across the world.
Nobody factors aircraft accidents or intentional shoot-downs for conferences like these, for the very reason that air travel is so ridiculously safe that it is pointless adding the additional logistical cost to do so.
It's horrible what happened, but you can't call it a risk. There's a bigger risk from them taking the bus to the conference.
Heck, there's a bigger risk just all being in the same building.
Also, when I read the article it made it seem like these 100 were the top people in the field, but other replies made it clear that while it's a big loss there are a huge number of people in the conference.
I would say the risk is dramatically higher in that region - clearly - than for your average flight. It's a war zone in which they're now shooting down planes flying at high altitudes.
The risk to an individual attendee of dying in a bus accident on the way to the conference is certainly higher than the risk of dying in an airplane crash on the way to the conference.
However, the risk of 100 of them dying if they all take the same flight is almost certainly higher than the risk of 100 of them dying in bus accidents on the way to the conference (even if they stay together and all travel in the same bus). Even very bad bus accidents in cities in first world countries tend to leave many more survivors than fatalities.
Anecdotally, I was in the organisation of a conf who lost a significant portion of our visitors to a tram collision a few years back. Not really of course, they were just half an hour late :P
That's how the better conferences work.