A Personal Statement from Iain Banks • Hacker News Board

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#141

Post by codeulike » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:36 PM UTC

jvzr wrote: post #60

StavrosK wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Banks book should I start with? I was going to start with the Player of Games after your comment, but it turns out it's part of a series, and Consider Phlebas is the first one. Does it matter?

I've read in a Amazon review that it is recommended to start with Consider Phlebas , then The Player of Games and finally Use of Weapons (as a first start into the Culture, that is). I've bought them three myself and will read them in this order.

I wouldn't start with Consider Phlebas.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#142

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:41 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #86

Very sad, of course. He's only 59. I've gotta admit that I'm also a bit angry. The war on cancer is 40 years old and we are still so far away from solving the problem(s). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Cancer The first commercial microprocessor was released in the same year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004 Solutions? Ideas? The list in my mind is starting to get painfully long: Randy Pausch (47), Steve J…

Jobs, more than likely, would have survived if he didn't try "alternative" cancer therapies. Banks did everything by the book and his outcome is poor, but at least he tried properly.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/20/steve-jobs-refused-early-canc...

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#143

Post by adventured » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:45 PM UTC

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #123

bwhite wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting rich and improving the economy is almost certainly the best thing you can do to combat disease, pollution, poverty, etc.

Except diseases like cancer are almost exclusive to "western" society. The more affluent we become, the more cancer and other non-contagious diseases we get. We are killing ourselves and it starts with the stuff our mothers eat, is made worse by what we eat, and is topped of by the environment we live in.

Cancer isn't even remotely exclusive to western society. You don't think there's a cancer cost to the fact that 36% of Japanese men smoke?

In Japan, their cancer rate per 100,000 is 1/4 lower than in the US, but that isn't close to the claimed exclusivity. 220 per 100k in Japan versus 300 per 100k in the US.

In S.Korea, it's 260 per 100k, for a mere 13% variance.

How come the Chinese live seven years less than the supposedly cancerous and diseased French in the west? Shouldn't the eastern lifestyle make the Chinese live a lot longer?

Your claim about exclusivity isn't supported by the data. Affluence doesn't correlate to cancer, in fact it's the exact opposite: on average rich people live a lot longer, live healthier, and get cancer less frequently than poor people. In the west, cancer has a high correlation to both obesity and poverty.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#144

Post by melling » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #142

melling wrote: post #86

Very sad, of course. He's only 59. I've gotta admit that I'm also a bit angry. The war on cancer is 40 years old and we are still so far away from solving the problem(s). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Cancer The first commercial microprocessor was released in the same year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004 Solutions? Ideas? The list in my mind is starting to get painfully long: Randy Pausch (47), Steve J…

Jobs, more than likely, would have survived if he didn't try "alternative" cancer therapies. Banks did everything by the book and his outcome is poor, but at least he tried properly. http://osxdaily.com/2011/10/20/steve-jobs-refused-early-canc...

Jobs delayed his treatment by 6 months several years before he died. Call me crazy but in a better world, that shouldn't have mattered.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#145

Post by nvarsj » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #109

nnq wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't! If someone could freeze at least a small insect brain after it "learned something", unfreeze it and prove that it retained what it learned, I might have at least a grain of faith in this. Even getting an insect ganglia out on a feeder plate with electrodes, training it to respond in a way to a certain sequence of input electrical impulses and proving that after thawing and reanimation it still preserves t…

So your argument is that until it's "proven" that we can cryopreserve and then restore brains, the probability of success is zero? If you agree that the probability is non-zero, then you agree with the cryopreservation advocates. In addition, if you agree that it's non-zero, you must agree that it's better than doing nothing (which clearly has a zero chance of revival). Cryopreservation advocates do not claim that th…

Maybe a good analogy would be intelligent design. Sure, we can't say there is a 0% chance ID is false. But all evidence points to that. It's a fallacious argument to say something is possible because science hasn't proven it completely false.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#146

Post by penny1001 » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #134

melling wrote: post #86

Very sad, of course. He's only 59. I've gotta admit that I'm also a bit angry. The war on cancer is 40 years old and we are still so far away from solving the problem(s). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Cancer The first commercial microprocessor was released in the same year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004 Solutions? Ideas? The list in my mind is starting to get painfully long: Randy Pausch (47), Steve J…

For yourself, the best things you can do today is massively reduce your sugar (and high-fructose corn syrup, which is nearly identical) intake[1] and increase excercise[2]. Reducing sugar will cause you to increase other macro and micro nutrients that are healthier (which may help) and most likely cause you to loose weight if you need to (which will help). Unfortunately, until public policy on diet (which is set by t…

Why don't you link to peer-reviewed studies that definitively prove that corn and sugar cause cancer. It's quite disturbing and outrageous that you're using Iain's cancer to scare the public for political gain.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#147

Post by hyperbovine » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

venus wrote: post #44

This is horrible news. We are all poorer today, all of us. Banks is an inspiration to all who read him - of what could be, what can be, what is to be. Cancer has claimed a terrible toll in my life. Three in my immediate family and counting, the countdown very fast for one of them. And now it seems to have turned its unwelcome gaze to my intellectual treasures. I hate this disease, I despise it so much it's hard to ex…

More money is not what is needed here--we already pour tons of money into cancer research. What's needed are new ideas. If you really want to fight cancer, skip the startup and go to graduate school. Computational and mathematical approaches to understanding and fighting cancer are still in their infancy. There is a lot of scope for smart, motivated people to do good.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#148

Post by locopati » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

aardvark179 wrote: post #128

locopati wrote: post #85

This news puts his last two novels, Surface Detail and Hydrogen Sonata, in an interesting light, the former being about virtual hells and the latter being about a species transcending[1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sublimed

Those aren't his last two books, those would be Stonemouth and the Hydrogen Sonata. I'm not sure what meaning you can draw from that unless you know of a sexual indiscretion that Iain committed at a wedding. :-)

I should have been more specific in the original comment...'his last two Culture books'.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#149

Post by MrBra » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:55 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #131

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except diseases like cancer are almost exclusive to "western" society. The more affluent we become, the more cancer and other non-contagious diseases we get. We are killing ourselves and it starts with the stuff our mothers eat, is made worse by what we eat, and is topped of by the environment we live in.

Err.... no. It's more prevalent in some societies because we live longer and we don't any longer die of preventable infections. Our air is cleaner than it's been for a long time. Decent nutrition has never been cheaper or more widely available. Life expectancy has never been longer. We are not killing ourselves. OK so some are by overeating and doing no exercise, but in general you're talking nonsense.

and we've never ate so many chemical food preservatives, taste modifiers, colourants like we're eating now. we've never been exposed to so much radiations like we are now. mobile phones being the first source. and the list goes on. we definitely are doing something to ourselves.

Re: A Personal Statement from Iain Banks

#150

Post by jellicle » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 2:56 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #70

polyfractal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm...except that cryopreservation is still, as of this point, a complete crock of shit. Trying to find a necromancer would be more productive. As an ex-biologist, I can assure you that horrible cellular damage is being committed to these "preserved" people. I used to flash-freeze all sorts of cells, ranging from bacteria (e. coli) to animal (IMCD3 and MDCK kidney) to human (Human Embryonic Kidney, Primary cortical a…

The cell damage inflicted by the cryo process is readily acknowledged by its proponents. They argue that the neurological damage is not so large that the original brain can't be reconstructed either by scanning it while still frozen or by repairing it with nano-bots. Much like data from a wiped hard drive can still be recovered by digital forensics. As for the problem of outer layers freezing faster than inner layers…

> Now, I'm rather skeptical of the whole process myself, but the crynoics guys understand biology 101.

Actually, they mostly understand Psychology 101, which is that people are willing to pay unlimited amounts of money for the promise of life after death. SEE ALSO: turning lead into gold.