Domain: cambridge.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to cambridge.org.
Comments · 381
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Re:Capitalism again
It's a shame that the market position of Boeing and Airbus has very little to do with capitalism and everything to do with cronyism.
You say that like "cronyism" sprang up all by itself from the vacuum. Cronyism is the expected result of the operation of a capitalist economy without effective and strong oversight, the result of which operation is always and invariably capitalism taking over politics, democratic or otherwise. The economic mechanisms are also well understood by the economic theory: when investing in bribes and government subversion creates better returns than investing in production, a capitalist will invest in bribery and not in production. This case is a perfect illustration of the phenomenon - it was a lot more effective for Boeing to subvert the certification process than to ensure quality aircraft design. Boeing boss even had the temerity to call Trump and ask that grounding of the dangerous planes be delayed for PR reasons.
The result of the right-wing(nut) policies of oversight removal in the US are well known. Corporations have for a long time had a say over politics that the ordinary citizens don't. Even science says so:
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.
The worst part is that US is exporting this model worldwide, damaging and weakening democratic governments all over the place.
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Re:Believing in meritocracy is bad for you
Nepotism is favoring family members, typically in matters of business. Neither the above nor affirmative action are examples of nepotism...
https://www.merriam-webster.co...
https://dictionary.cambridge.o...
http://www.businessdictionary.... -
Re:This pisses me off
Your own source disagrees with you:
"Examples of 'depreciated'
In English, many past and present participles of verbs can be used as adjectives. Some of these examples may show the adjective use.""These estimates do not include capital charges since the applicable scanners currently in use are fully depreciated.
From Cambridge English Corpus" -
Re:This pisses me offFrom here:
In English, many past and present participles of verbs can be used as adjectives.
Several of the examples on the page mentioned given illustrate this usage.
Depreciated, while a past participle, is not an example of such a verb. To say that "X is depreciated" is about as gramatically correct as saying as saying "X is slept" instead of "X is sleepy" or "Y is died" instead of "Y is dead".
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Re:Time for fair play.
Subsidies are a cash grant; only an idiot or liar would claim that a cut in taxes (meaning you pay less, but you still pay) is a subsidy.
well you better go fix wikipedia and some dictionaries! LOL!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Tax subsidy
Government can create the same outcome through selective tax breaks as through cash payment.[3] For example, suppose a government sends monetary assistance that reimburses 15% of all health expenditures to a group that is paying 15% income tax. Exactly the same subsidy is achieved by giving a health tax deduction. Tax subsidies are also known as tax expenditures. Tax subsidies are one of the main explanations for why the American tax code is so complicated.[8]Tax breaks are often considered to be a subsidy. Like other subsidies, they distort the economy; but tax breaks are also less transparent, and are difficult to undo.[9]
https://dictionary.cambridge.o...
tax subsidy
noun [ C or U ] UK US TAX, GOVERNMENT, ECONOMICS
a reduction in tax in order to reduce the cost of producing food, a product, etc. and to help to keep its price low: -
Re: No way
The definition of a parasite is that it provides no benefit to the host.
Dictionary definitions don't seem to agree with you.
(Notably, the alternate definition in each of those, when applied to non-biological parasites, implies a derogatory "without benefiting the host", but the biological definition never includes it.)
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Re:WTF is "skyjacking"?
Skyjacking is a specific term that came into use in the 1960s to describe the rash of airplane hijackings that occurred in the late 60s and 70s. I count 20 skyjackings that involved the United States in just the decade of 1970. It is a specific type of hijacking that involves airplanes, and which typically takes place while the plane is in the sky during flight. Thus the plane is redirected to some other destination because the risk of the threat being real must be taken seriously.
I presume you are in your 20s to have not encountered this word, which is defined in pretty much every English dictionary there is. If you prefer "A hijacking that occurs on an airplane while the plane is in flight" over "skyjacking" then feel free to use the longer phrase in your writings and conversation. However your lack of exposure to this word hardly makes it "tabloid-headline made-up".
To totally beat this point to death, here are some various dictionary entries.
https://www.merriam-webster.co...
https://dictionary.cambridge.o...
https://en.oxforddictionaries....
https://www.dictionary.com/bro...
https://www.thefreedictionary....
https://www.macmillandictionar...I also note that the Chome spellchecker knows this word by default as well.
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Re:Should we be optimistic, or what?
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Re:Workers opposing unethical projects is bullying
As Unethical means morally wrong and evil I would say that the laws are pretty clear on that.
So the answer to your question is: the laws.Nice try to divert from the real issue.
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Re:VirtualBox is open source
As you apparently don't know the definition of the word forbidding:
https://dictionary.cambridge.o... -
Re:Maybe citizens will soon learn...
Yes, there does need to be more separation between business and state. Even Eisenhower noticed how the MICC was becoming much too powerful, and that was before Citizen's United allowed the "campaign finance reform" law that two people, otherwise "traitors" to their parties stated platforms sponsored. Now they don't even have to hide the fact that they buy laws - you know, like "you have to read it to find out (what the insurance companies put) in it. That's pretty blatant, but it's just an example. For the 5 or so decades I've been a grownup, it's only gotten worse and worse for any but big money - see the Gini coefficient for one example. Laws have added to the natural advantage big money already has, the network advantage it already has, and even what were once innovators now clamor for more regulation that they easily satisfy out of their pocket change, but which locks out any upstart. Even tax laws. Those double sandwiches are just as legal for me or you as the big firms - but you have to have an office in a couple countries, and it can't be just a PO box, you have to pay someone. Nothing to them, more than I make to me. When you can't see the line between oligarchy and government, that's the very definition of Fascism (which is these days used to mean totalitarianism by the ignorant of history and, well, the English language). And here we are - we have a government that doesn't respond to the will of the people beyond trying to push the will of the people to accept what it's going to do anyway. And studies about it are pretty obviously true - gross, but true. Until people recognize this, and stop the partisan bullshit, realize that it's all of them that are corrupted, we won't move ahead - other than the old fashioned way, watering that tree... There's more than one of these out there - and while you might not like the source (I don't care) - truth is truth no matter who speaks it. You basically cannot refute we live in a place that has the best laws money can buy - and it's been that way a long time now. https://www.cambridge.org/core...
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Re: Cool...
Oh jesus christ. Your bullshit is astounding. All your doing is refuting given definitions. Let me show you.
https://www.merriam-webster.co...
"or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas"https://dictionary.cambridge.o...
"and economic methods""https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=DFzPW_zQGuS70PEPyMC9wAo&q=imperialism+definition&oq=imperialism&gs_l=psy-ab.1.1.0i131l10.7085.7085..9611...1.0..0.92.243.3......0....1j2..gws-wiz.....0.hSdjwZqWRg0"
Well this is the one I originally used and it's pretty clear with "influence through diplomacy or ...."https://www.collinsdictionary....
"...or a desire for control over other countries."
"the policy and practice of seeking to dominate the economic or political affairs of underdeveloped areas or weaker countries""https://www.britannica.com/topic/imperialism"
"... or by gaining political and economic control of other areas"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"or by gaining political and economic control of other areas"
"...or other means."I know you want to be correct here so bad but literally every definition here proves you wrong.
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Re: Cool...
What's your definition source? I ask because here are six that don't require direct conquest.
https://www.merriam-webster.co...
https://dictionary.cambridge.o...
https://www.google.com/search?... (no idea where google gets its definitions but there it is)
https://www.collinsdictionary....
https://www.britannica.com/top...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.oxforddictionaries.... -
Re:It's in Iraq
Uranus is not pronounced that way.
It's " Your an us."
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Re:Seriously?
You have confused average with median.
While pedants love to counter with this, you're wrong. In colloquial English, the word "average" means "typical", not necessarily the arithmetic mean. A few sources (from the first three dictionaries that popped up on google):
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/average?s=t
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/averageFurthermore, the statement assumes that it makes sense to measure intelligence on a single scale; and by far the most common scale to do that is using IQ. IQ tests are designed to result in a normal distribution, which means that both the median and the mean are the same, and so we expect right about 50% of people to have an IQ less than the mean.
Although the other half of me thinks that if you go out and talk to some people on the street, you'll probably conclude that the majority of people are far dumber than average.
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Busy man
Roberto Viola, the European Commissionâ(TM)s directorate general of communication, networks, content and technology
He can't have much free time if he's an entire department by himself.
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Re:You don't call a JPEG a "Jay-/f/eg"
> have never heard anybody, least of all someone from CompuServe, pronounce GIF with a soft G.
Same. Guess it depends on location: east/west, US vs UK, etc.
> why weren't they being corrected 25 years ago?
Because no one really gives a fuck except the pedantic. A similar argument arose over how "gib" was pronounced in the Quake 1 days:
* Hard G, like "gift" (with near-close front unrounded vowel) (/g_ft/), similar to gibbous; rhymes with "rib",
* Soft G, like "jive" pronounced "jib", (with tailed z,
/d_rb/) a boom used in Crane (machine), Jib (crane), or Cinematography, or Sailing -- a triangular sail that sets ahead of the foremast on sail boat. Ironically, in 1847 "jib" was spelled "gib".Notice how even "b" is getting hijacked: gibibyte is pronounced like gigabyte acording to the Cambridge dictionary.
/Oblg. US vs UK English JokeAn Englishman and an American were on their way to a business meeting on the 3rd floor.
The Englishman said: "Let's take the Lift"
The American said: "Don't you mean the Elevator?"
The englishman said: "Look, we invented the bloody language, and it's called a Lift!"
And the American said: "Yeah, but we invented the Elevator, so it's called an Elevator!"
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Re:You don't call a JPEG a "Jay-/f/eg"
> have never heard anybody, least of all someone from CompuServe, pronounce GIF with a soft G.
Same. Guess it depends on location: east/west, US vs UK, etc.
> why weren't they being corrected 25 years ago?
Because no one really gives a fuck except the pedantic. A similar argument arose over how "gib" was pronounced in the Quake 1 days:
* Hard G, like "gift" (with near-close front unrounded vowel) (/g_ft/), similar to gibbous; rhymes with "rib",
* Soft G, like "jive" pronounced "jib", (with tailed z,
/d_rb/) a boom used in Crane (machine), Jib (crane), or Cinematography, or Sailing -- a triangular sail that sets ahead of the foremast on sail boat. Ironically, in 1847 "jib" was spelled "gib".Notice how even "b" is getting hijacked: gibibyte is pronounced like gigabyte acording to the Cambridge dictionary.
/Oblg. US vs UK English JokeAn Englishman and an American were on their way to a business meeting on the 3rd floor.
The Englishman said: "Let's take the Lift"
The American said: "Don't you mean the Elevator?"
The englishman said: "Look, we invented the bloody language, and it's called a Lift!"
And the American said: "Yeah, but we invented the Elevator, so it's called an Elevator!"
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Re:You don't call a JPEG a "Jay-/f/eg"
> have never heard anybody, least of all someone from CompuServe, pronounce GIF with a soft G.
Same. Guess it depends on location: east/west, US vs UK, etc.
> why weren't they being corrected 25 years ago?
Because no one really gives a fuck except the pedantic. A similar argument arose over how "gib" was pronounced in the Quake 1 days:
* Hard G, like "gift" (with near-close front unrounded vowel) (/g_ft/), similar to gibbous; rhymes with "rib",
* Soft G, like "jive" pronounced "jib", (with tailed z,
/d_rb/) a boom used in Crane (machine), Jib (crane), or Cinematography, or Sailing -- a triangular sail that sets ahead of the foremast on sail boat. Ironically, in 1847 "jib" was spelled "gib".Notice how even "b" is getting hijacked: gibibyte is pronounced like gigabyte acording to the Cambridge dictionary.
/Oblg. US vs UK English JokeAn Englishman and an American were on their way to a business meeting on the 3rd floor.
The Englishman said: "Let's take the Lift"
The American said: "Don't you mean the Elevator?"
The englishman said: "Look, we invented the bloody language, and it's called a Lift!"
And the American said: "Yeah, but we invented the Elevator, so it's called an Elevator!"
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Re:Wrong. P2P is NOT (at least usually) "piracy"!!
Grand parent is absolutely right. Piracy used to be the unlicensed distribution of unlicensed copyrighted material, while unlicensed copies for private use were just mere infringements. Noone would ever call the creator of mix tapes a pirate, when he only gave them to his friends.
Interestingly, the cambridge dictionary sticks with the old definition, while the RIAA already got to merriam webster
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Re:Why stop there?
It's ok, I don't mind you looking like an idiot.
https://www.collinsdictionary....
https://en.oxforddictionaries....
https://www.dictionary.com/bro...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki...
https://dictionary.cambridge.o...
https://www.thefreedictionary....Me, I speak English.
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Re:Agreed
Not strange at all. FTR, that definition works as well for ancient hardware; eventually even NetBSD will have to drop them.
BTW, did you know that Linux got updated drivers for Rage 128 recently? That's old enough for most people I'd say, without taking anything away from NetBSD's support of "old stuff nobody but hobbyists really uses anymore".
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Squash schmosh
I thought the correct term was to quash a law?
Squash is what you do to bugs & tomatoes.
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Re: How about SCUBA and a winch?
No mention of Ivan at the link.
Nor do I find anything at
https://dictionary.cambridge.o...Maybe my question meant something else in your English-isque language.
PS : In my language, there is a movie with a famous dialogue. There is a bad word in it, which is regretted, but otherwise it fits this situation nicely :
English, Mo-Fo, do you speak it ? -
Re: How about SCUBA and a winch?
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Re:Alarmist much?The Journal of Glaciology published a comment on the NASA paper that you link to.
It's worth noting, because the result is an outlier.
The comment begins:We have significant concerns with a study recently published in the Journal of Glaciology by Zwally and others (2015), hereafter ‘Zwally 2015’. The paper concludes that the Antarctic ice-sheet mass is increasing, a result that is inconsistent with a large body of previously published work.
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Denialist much?
There have been a large number of studies that show Antarctica has been losing ice mass overall - Cazenave et al., 2009; Chen et al., 2009; E et al., 2009; Horwath and Dietrich, 2009; Velicogna, 2009; Wu et al., 2010; Rignot et al., 2011c; Shi et al., 2011; King et al., 2012; Tanget al., 2012, Shepherd et al., 2012, Martin-Español et al., 2017 etc, and now Shepherd et al, 2018.
Yet you chose to second-guess the conclusions of a single one of those (despite lack of expertise in the field) that combines results from dozens of different papers (yes, including the NASA study - reference 74), and instead believe a single outlier study which you hadn't even read (it's here btw). On which I might add the lead author has since said:
When our paper came out, I was very careful to emphasize that this is in no way contradictory to the findings of the IPCC [2013] report or conclusions that climate change is a serious problem that we need to do something about
Can you really claim with a straight face to be concerned about the quality of the science? You're not exactly demonstrating thoroughness or unbiased evaluation yourself.
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Re:Alarmist much?
There have been a large number of studies that show Antarctica has been losing ice mass overall - Cazenave et al., 2009; Chen et al., 2009; E et al., 2009; Horwath and Dietrich, 2009; Velicogna, 2009; Wu et al., 2010; Rignot et al., 2011c; Shi et al., 2011; King et al., 2012; Tanget al., 2012, Shepherd et al., 2012, Martin-Español et al., 2017 etc, and now Shepherd et al, 2018.
Yet you chose to second-guess the conclusions of a single one of those (despite lack of expertise in the field) that combines results from dozens of different papers (yes, including the NASA study - reference 74), and instead believe a single outlier study which you hadn't even read (it's here btw). On which I might add the lead author has since said:
When our paper came out, I was very careful to emphasize that this is in no way contradictory to the findings of the IPCC [2013] report or conclusions that climate change is a serious problem that we need to do something about
Can you really claim with a straight face to be concerned about the quality of the science? You're not exactly demonstrating thoroughness or unbiased evaluation yourself.
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Re:Alarmist much?
Okay, I'll bite.
The two studies do indeed contradict each other. They use different methodologies. The Journal of Glaciology "Antarctica has been gaining mass" presser linked there (here's the paper, I believe) appears to use altimeter measurements alone, while the Nature paper uses a combination of altimeter data, gravimetry, and the "input-output" method which appears to estimate glacier melt and snow accumulation more directly. (You may have paywalls, I'm at a university.) Which paper to trust? I'm not a glaciologist, I can't answer that.
And yeah, the confidence intervals in the Nature paper are kind of wide. Measuring the mass of ice on a sparsely-populated continent is actually pretty hard, I suspect. But an estimate at either end of the CI still means you're losing a bunch of ice. With your engineer... I'd hope your response would depend on what question you were asking. Are 0 and 100 both numbers you can deal with? Is your acceptable range 40 – 60, or -1000 – 1000? Raw numbers are meaningless without context.
The main takeaway from the two papers are kind of similar, though. There's a LOT of ice in Antarctica. Sea levels are, right now, measurably rising — I mean, "FLOODING" is happening in coastal communities now. Dealing with it is really expensive. If Antarctica's ice melts faster, we'll see more flooding, sooner. If your argument is "increased global temperatures will increase Antarctic snowfall enough to more than offset faster melting," sure, make that argument, but the scientist in the NASA press release you linked to says the exact opposite:
If the losses of the Antarctic Peninsula and parts of West Antarctica continue to increase at the same rate they’ve been increasing for the last two decades, the losses will catch up with the long-term gain in East Antarctica in 20 or 30 years -- I don’t think there will be enough snowfall increase to offset these losses.
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Re:The more things change
in 1981 vinyl was more popular than cassette.
Over 1 billion 12" LP's sold, 400 million cassettes. There were still sales of 7" records back then too, but they had already been overtaken by 12"
https://www.cambridge.org/core... -
The Word Organic [Re:Been waiting for this...]
"Organic," in chemistry terms, is the study of all the fun things Carbon does.
"Organic," in the minds of many, means "non-GMO farming."As you can see, there is a lot of difference in the scope and implications of those two categories.
And "organic" in the original sense of the word, "relating to or derived from living matter."
(cf: https://dictionary.cambridge.o...)
I think that this is the confusion here. "Organic" molecules, originally, meant molecules which were derived from living matter. But after 1828, when Friedrich Wöhler first synthesized Urea (an organic molecule), it was realized that the carbon molecules labelled "organic" could also be created by non-biological means. The word continues to have both meanings, chemists using it to mean molecules containing carbon, and non-chemists using it to mean molecules derived from living organisms (and, more recently, foods grown without technological intervention.)
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Re:Move along nothing to see here...
An interesting paper, thanks. I'd say the authors have substantially contributed to our understanding of the long term evolution of ice sheets, and their models will (within boundaries and with significant uncertainties) go some way towards predicting how the northern hemisphere ice sheets will change over the coming decades.
Still, it's worth pointing out that the fact that it was briefly warmer 5000 years ago doesn't contradict either the notions that CO2 traps heat or that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere causes global warming, or the notion that mankind is responsible for rapidly increasing the concentration of atmospheric CO2.
As regards your other nugget:
...which is what led Phil Jones, Director of the CRU of East Anglia and a primary contributor to the IPCC, to agree that
according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical
. So if the heating over those periods - two well before the rapid rise in CO2 - are the same as the "big trigger" that caused the whole IPCC/global warming issue in the first place, then how do we know that it's because of CO2?
That's a good question, and I guess the answer is "We don't, completely". Numerous factors influence the climate, not just levels of CO2. The fact remains though that we are rapidly increasing the levels of atmospheric CO2, whereas we have no control over the other factors.
I feel it's worth pointing out, just in case someone reads your post and doesn't follow the links, a couple of things:
Firstly, unlike your "quote" which is actually the question that was asked (missing the question mark), Phil Jones' response was that "the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other. Ascribing false certainty, as you do, might lead one to question the integrity of your argument.
Secondly, it's also worth pointing out that, since the rates are similar, it also follows that temperatures have been consistently rising, and are continuing to rise. One might think that this alone justifies concern over what will happen as they continue to rise, with regards sea levels, weather patterns and behaviour, and so on.
Finally, since you linked to the article, why don't we give Phil's answer to the question "Would it be reasonable looking at the same scientific evidence to take the view that recent warming is not predominantly manmade?". His answer: "No"
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Re:Move along nothing to see here...Here is an interesting one...
The Holocene climatic optimum was a period 8–5 kyr ago when annual mean surface temperatures in Greenland were 2–3C warmer than present-day values... For all the simulated icesheet histories, the ice sheet is approaching a steady state at the end of the 20th century
. So it was considerably warmer back in the time of the Pharaohs, and at least the Greenland ice sheet is approaching a stead state of size at this time. That would imply that things have changed significantly - cooler - over the last 5 to 8K years, no?
There is also this little bit of data which is what led Phil Jones, Director of the CRU of East Anglia and a primary contributor to the IPCC, to agree that:
according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical
. So if the heating over those periods - two well before the rapid rise in CO2 - are the same as the "big trigger" that caused the whole IPCC/global warming issue in the first place, then how do we know that it's because of CO2?
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Re:Gives a whole new meaning: Who's your daddy?
Your post is so full of arrogance and vitriol, and yet so completely and flatly wrong.
I was originally inclined to post something like "you are loved, and help is available," but I don't think such a post is really in line with slashdot conventions, so instead I will post about a deep flaw in all versions of Christianity:
The justification for faith is as follows: Since God is all-knowing, anything God says can be trusted as true, even if it is hard to understand. Since humans are fallible, none of their science or logic or beliefs can be trusted (whenever they contradict something God says). Therefore, it makes sense to believe in God's teachings, even if they seem to contradict the findings of science, or reason.
However...
Everything we know about "God's teachings" comes from the Bible, every single word of which was put to paper by fallible humans. The teaching of divine inspiration of the Bible, that was also written about by humans. The notion that Jesus was both human and God...how do we know this? Because a bunch of fallible humans said so. The stories about miraculous events in which God spoke directly to people? Those stories are all stories told by humans. Fallible humans.
Christians go through amazing mental gymnastics to escape this problem. But there is no escape. All religious teachings come from humans. Furthermore, they are translated by humans, and interpreted by humans. It's humans all the way down.
So, by putting your faith in the Bible, you are putting your faith in all those fallible humans who produced it. Faith in humans is NOT faith in God.
QED.
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Re:Cockroach Milk
Well, dolphins are completely different from us as well, yet nobody has a problem calling them mammals instead of fish.
It all depends on the definition. In fact, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, these cockroaches are definitely mammals. "Mammal, noun, any animal of which the female feeds her young on milk from her own body. "
Yeah but follow it on, from the same site
animal noun something that lives and moves but is not a human, bird, fish, or insect:
So we're back to roaches not being mammals. -
Re:Cockroach Milk
Well, dolphins are completely different from us as well, yet nobody has a problem calling them mammals instead of fish.
It all depends on the definition. In fact, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, these cockroaches are definitely mammals. "Mammal, noun, any animal of which the female feeds her young on milk from her own body. "
The American English version lower on that same page, adds "gives birth to babies. not eggs", so I guess Americans don't consider a platypus to be a mammal, but are still perfectly OK with cockroaches being mammals. At least, according to Cambridge.
Disclaimer: yes, I know, Cambridge apparently sucks at biology.
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Re: Meet minimum standards of human behavior
His claim is that Outreachy is discriminatory because it's mission is to increase visible minority and female participation in open source.
No, Outreachy is discriminatory because it hires interns based on their sex and ancestry.
It's called 'positive discrimination' in the real world.
Yes! Putting 'positive' before is the answer! I can't wait for the next 'positives': - 'Positive vandalism' - 'Positive burglary' - 'Positive corruption' Better: 'positive evil'! Yes...
Maybe an English dictionary can help for your twisted mind?
positive discrimination
noun [ U ] UK
/pz..tv d.skrm.ne.n/ US /p.z.tv d.skrm.ne.n/ ukthe act of giving advantage to those groups in society that are often treated unfairly because of their race, sex, etc.
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Re:Interesting test
Here's a study that sets out the case that America is not really a democracy, and that the elites buy the legislation they want.
In my view the way to tell the US system is not representative is how you have two political parties.
Do 300 million people really agree with each other that much? -
Excised?
"Later that day, Ying excised all his available stock options."
Excise: to remove by cutting
Exercise: an action or actions intended to improve something or make something happen
(both from https://dictionary.cambridge.o...As I understand it, to exercise a stock option would be to pay the option's strike price and take possession of the shares. This would not in itself be of benefit if you expected the share price to fall, but it would be a necessary step prior to selling the shares. To excise stock options means nothing to me, but it might be some jargon I am unaware of.
Here is more context from the ZDNet story:
Jun Ying, who was slated to become the company's next chief information officer, allegedly used confidential information that the company's systems had been hacked to sell his stock before the news was made public.
According to a Justice Department statement, Ying sent a text message to a colleague two weeks before Equifax revealed the hack, in which he said the breach "sounds bad." Three days later, Ying searched the web to research the effect of Experian's 2015 own breach on its stock price.
Later that day, Ying excised all his available stock options.
The former executive made more than $1 million from the sale, according to a federal complaint, avoiding more than $117,000 in losses.
The word "own" in "the effect of Experian's 2015 own breach on its stock price" lends weight to the hypothesis that ZDNet has lousy editing and meant "exercise".
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Re:Corporarocracy
How long until Americans realise their country is slowly becoming a corporarocracy?
I think that ship has sailed, these guys agree with me and did some research into the subject.
Of course your question is a good one, and I don't know the answer because the one thing America does really well is propaganda.
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Re:I can see the CNN headline now
1) Define "tax system for corporations". What is it? Where is it defined? How can I read up on it? Can you provide any citations for it?
Primarily, I'm talking about the US tax code, as it pertains to corporations, basically just excluding Subtitle A, Chapter 1, Subchapter A, although state codes are also relevant, along with the tax codes of other nations, when considering loopholes such as the "double Irish."
2) Define "corporate bribery" as it relates to somehow influencing this so-called "tax system for corporations"?
Contributions to politicians outside of the $2700 limit for individuals for presidential campaigns, and the individual limits for the jurisdictions that an individual lives in. So, for example, the Hillary Victory Fund would be corporate bribery, as would virtually all SuperPACs.
3) Once we know that both of this terms are being used to refer to something real that we all have common understanding of, you need to explicitly connect the two concepts together to substantiate your claim
Sure, US policy does not follow public opinion, outside of the very wealthy and corporate interests.
For funsies, consider this, Corporation A in 1950 lobbies the federal government to get a part of the tax code changed to benefit them. The law remains unchanged to the day. Several corporations including B, C and D that had nothing do with Corporation A's actions use that part of the tax code in filing their version of "Turbo Tax" to lower their effective tax rate. Did Corporations B, C and D do anything wrong?
At the very least, they are complicit. I'm great at multitasking, so I can hate the player and the game.
Applying concepts of personal morality to things on a the scale of international corporations is pointless, so blame is far less of a concern than actually fixing the system. The overwhelming majority of our tax code should be removed, and every exception added should be subject to public scrutiny, ideally with a sunset to ensure repeated scrutiny.
Did you do anything wrong taking the child tax credit as opposed to doing your patriotic duty to pay your taxes for the benefit for everyone else?
I just take the standard deduction and have no children. I'm happy to throw a little shade towards them for their penny ante deductions, though, so long as we throw proportionate blame to the wealthy. If the appropriate punishment for them is a literal slap on the wrist, the appropriate punishment for a CEO would be punching their skull off.
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Re:And yet...
So well researched and reasoned that the authors of the two papers he relies on the most have publicly stated that he didn't understand them, and that his conclusions are wrong.
The basic mistake he makes repeatedly is to assume that the variations the papers discuss have vastly more effect and influence than they actually do.He didn't assume the magnitude and influence of the effect. The difference has been measured for decades in observed data over thousands of studies. If those opposed to Damore could only find two paper authors on the topic who disagreed with him, then that sounds like a pretty strong validation of his claims, not a rebuttal. Heck, I could throw a rock blindfolded and hit two climate change denying studies.
Why is stating that women have a higher rate of neurosis a fireable offense. But stating that men have a higher rate of schizophrenia is not?
The problem Damore's case shows us is that too many people are judging the merits of these statements based on which group they portray in a negative light. Not upon the objective validity of the statement. If you wanted to counter Damore's statements on neurosis and gender, the logical (quickest and easiest) way to do it would be as I've done above - showing that there are other psychological gender differences which work against men biologically dominating an occupation. Then you can claim that perhaps these effects cancel out so a 50/50 gender distribution really should be expected.
But that's not what Damore's opponents do. They instead try to debunk measurable, objective data that's well-established science. They cannot stand to hear anything negative said about a group they care for (i.e. non-white, non-male, non-conservative, non-religious). So their gut instinct is that the statement that neurosis is more common among women "must be" wrong, and they conclude disproving it will be the quickest route to disproving him. -
Re:Really?
If the leaders of a democracy
Uh, oh, you did it now. You summoned the retards.
Let's just knock them all out in one post:
democracy: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
democracy: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.
democracy: A democracy is a country in which power is held by elected representatives.
democracy: government in which the people hold the ruling power either directly or through elected representatives; rule by the ruled
The word "republic" is a bland word that means nothing more than the government is a public thing subject to laws. There many totalitarian governments that can accurately be described as republics that cannot be called democracies, yet all democracies are necessarily republics. You could make an exception with constitutional monarchies with elected representatives, though without supreme power being in the hands of the people, it runs afoul of most definitions of democracies.
A lot of dumb people have built a weird religion around Federalist #10, which is ironic, considering that these poorly educated conspiracy theorists whipped into a frenzy by populist demagogues are precisely the sort of people Madison was worried about. And for all of that whining about mob rule, it was the electoral college that gave us the stupidest person to ever hold the office of President.
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Re:The U.S.A. is not a monarchy
How is being able to pay for ads having "all the say"?
Paying for the ads is not the problem in the US electoral system, the problem is industry groups and lobbyists funding politicians campaigns, then writing their policies.
You could start here.
Here's a summary
Here's a quote to help:
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.
Let's not pretend you, or any other ordinary US voter has any influence in how your government acts. -
Re:Liberalism
I don't think you quite understand what the word 'liberal' means. Maybe you should consult a dictionary.
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Re:I don't need an Android cellphone...
Hey Creimy-Dumpty crammar, you can't see a phone "in person" because a phone isn't a person you dummy!
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Re:They did explain where he was wrong
He was citing literature on the subject, showing sex-based differences in neuroticism:
https://www.cambridge.org/core...
Can you now be fired for quoting scientific literature?
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Re:One SMART guy
For example, he states that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress. We know that isn't true, because we have studied it in great detail.
You make a claim without substantiating it. From the quick google I see something different. The number of stressors could be a factor or the way the brain operates but either way there is more to it than what you lead on. Also, the links to his original memo were initially stripped out, did you check his sources or are assuming he was making unsubstantiated claims like you?
Considering the guy was fired and the responses in TFS it does sound like people were screeching autistically because someone said something they didn't like.
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Re:Shaming...
He says women are less inclined to negotiate for higher salaries. Studies show that when they do, they are often punished for being "bossy" or "shrill"
Cite, please.
are judged more harshly for putting in long hours that neglect their families and friends.
Do you also find it sexist that men are judged more harshly for *not* putting in long hours, and are expected to neglect their family and friends?
He claims that women are more neurotic and less able to deal with stress.
Now, let's be specific here. He says "women, on average" not "women". And he specifies:
"Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance)."
And, he's right - https://www.cambridge.org/core...
Now, that being said, THANK YOU. Argument is the answer, not name calling, or shaming, or shunning, or deciding that certain topics are off limits.
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Re:it's not "burning cash"
You're right -- it's not "burning cash." Both the headline and summary clearly say "burning through cash," which is a well-known idiom for spending lots of money quickly.
Your straw man has certainly generated a vigorous discussion, though. Well done.