April 20, 2009 archive

Crossposted from Antemedius

The Times Online, April 19, 2009

BRITISH scientists have developed the world’s first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years’ time.

The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital.

This week Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical research company, will announce its financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.

The treatment will tackle age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness. It affects more than 500,000 Britons and the number is forecast to increase significantly as people live longer. The disease involves the loss of eye cells.

Under the new treatment, embryonic stem cells are transformed into replicas of the missing cells. They are then placed on an artificial membrane which is inserted in the back of the retina.

The Netstate Project is the creation of a book describing the rise of an Internet-based world government. I am writing this book in installments on Docudharma and cross-posting the text to other blogs. All of the writings of the Netstate Project are in the public domain and may be copied and distributed freely.

1.2 You Can’t Get There From Here: The Argument of Discontinuity

“You can’t get there from here” is the punch-line of an old joke in which a lost traveler asks for directions only to be told that his journey is impossible. I will use it as a plain English simplification of my first argument for explaining why the Netstate will supplant geostates. There is no practical way that a set of territorial states can effectively manage the affairs of a global, electronically-linked society. There is no viable path of evolutionary continuity that will allow geographically organized states to properly manage global affairs on a collaborative basis. It may be argued that a sufficiently detailed and sophisticated set of multilateral agreements could be developed to seamlessly integrate the laws of all nations and enable friction-free global electronic communications and commerce. But how would this outcome differ from the political subordination of geostate law to that of a supervening Netstate?  And how could such a cumbersome, multilateral process possibly keep pace with the rapid natural tempo of development of Internet-based phenomena? There is no practical path toward achieving the great benefits of utility of the Netstate that preserves the existing powers and prerogatives of the geostates. As geostates fail to generate the political structure necessary to sustain a networked world, the resultant political vacuum will contribute to the formation of the Netstate.  

Presented for your…well…just check it out:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what is the responsible way? That’s my question. What is the Republican plan to deal with carbon emissions, which every major scientific organization has said is contributing to climate change?

BOEHNER: George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you’ve got more carbon dioxide. And so I think it’s clear…

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you don’t believe that greenhouse gases are a problem in creating climate change?

BOEHNER: … we’ve had climate change over the last 100 years — listen, it’s clear we’ve had change in our climate. The question is how much does man have to do with it, and what is the proper way to deal with this? We can’t do it alone as one nation. If we got India, China and other industrialized countries not working with us, all we’re going to do is ship millions of American jobs overseas.

link: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek…