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Some people need to get over the ridiculous notion that they have some kind of "right" to not be offended.

Which is actually Article II of the Bill of No Rights.

"Morality is not imparted nor defined by the creator." Please explain.

This leads directly to the Euthyphro Problem. The question that needs answering is, "Does the Good conform to God, or does God conform to the Good?"

If God can define 'good' and 'evil' however It likes, then of course there's no problem with God always being 'good' - 'good' is whatever God does by definition. Ordering people to kill babies isn't immoral if God does it (1 Samuel 15:3, Joshua 10:40). But now we simply have the ultimate case of "might makes right". There's no real difference between "Speed Limit 55" and "Thou shalt not kill" except that presumably God enforces Its rules better. In the end, the people who collaborated with the Nazis had the right idea, they just picked the wrong bully to submit to.

This isn't terribly satisfying to me and many others, though apparently some monotheists aren't bothered by it. So far as I can see, in this case the only difference between a 'good' action and an 'evil' one is God's arbitrary whim. Even if you assume that God can't change Its mind now, there's no reason why It couldn't have decided that torturing children was the greatest 'good'. God just didn't happen to have chosen that way.

If one asserts that something besides God's arbitrary whims guided the decision that torturing children is 'evil', then one has to ask, "What might that something be, that even God cannot change?" If some things just are 'good' and 'evil', regardless of God's assent, then 'good' and 'evil' exist apart from God, and are recognized, not created, by God. God conforms to 'good', not vice-versa.

Besides which, you can't claim that a creator has moral rights to a creation without a pre-existing moral foundation. I mean, on what authority does the principle that 'the creator of something owns it' rest? How is that justified? We're back to the Euthyphro Problem. If it's because God says so, we don't have any real authority at all beyond raw power, and God's just the biggest bully around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking

Rent seeking generally implies the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity, such as by gaining control of land and other pre-existing natural resources, or by imposing burdensome regulations or other government decisions that may affect consumers or businesses.

http://www.friesian.com/rent.htm

Because rents are the easiest and most secure kind of income, it is natural for people to want income from rents rather than principally from profits or wages, and to want rents that involve the least risk and labor as enterprises. This motive is called "rent-seeking," and there is nothing wrong with it. Indeed, those who collect rents in an economy serve the valuable function of seeking to maintain and preserve capital assets [1]. It becomes wrong when rent-seeking means trying to collect rents off of capital that is not the rightful possession of the rent-seeker. This can be legally accomplished through the means that secure the rights of property in the first place: politics and the law. Through political influence people can be given ownership of things that are not their property, or should not be anyone's property. The theory of rent-seeking began with the economist Gordon Tullock.

"Theft" of intellectual property is in some situations, the proper, sane and moral response to systematised and institutional abuse of the limited monopoly granted to ideas and expressions for the original intent of fostering creativity and innovation. Once "intellectual property" becomes for intents and purposes indistinguishable from real estate, it represents a form of abusive coercion which misplaces rent-seeking behaviour as the objective of granting patent and copyright - not the incidental incentive for works of interest in common.

No, jury nullification allows the people to tell politicians what is constitutional and what laws are good. John Jay, the first First Chief Justice wrote: "It is presumed, that juries are the best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumed that courts are the best judges of law. But still both objects are within your power of decision... you [juries] have a right to take it upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy".

Thomas Jefferson said: "...it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact." Writing to Thomas Paine he then went on to say "I consider...[trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution...."

Falcon

This is exactly what I would expect in a world where everyone feels they should be able to go through life without being offended. Politicians are just bending to the will of the (dumb) masses.

I think the problem here needs to be solved by maybe revisiting the language of the bill of rights. We need a constitutional convention anyways. Let's throw this one on the heap.

How about a bill of no-rights?

"Dude" caste is a religious concept.

http://www.friesian.com/caste.htm

The point is that india's defenders are lying when they are saying its a peaceful (See kashmir) and secular country (see caste), unlike Pakistan. When it truth both countries are just as bad and will continue to fight wars over Kashmir, and those wars might lead to a nuclear strike. The point is that india and pakistan needs less nukes not more.

Grok?

That's probably why you weren't picked... Not only did you actually want to serve, but you also wanted to make a point! Lawyers can smell that, you know...

No, I wasn't even called for questioning. All I did was show up and wait for my name to be called out. Actually as for whether lawyers would want me sitting on a jury, defense lawyers would want me, it's prosecutors who wouldn't. That's because I would vote innocent when I thought a law was bad and shouldn't exist. It's what's called Jury Nullification and was supported by Thomas Jefferson. In Notes on Virginia in 1782 he said "...it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact." Another quote of his was "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

That's probably why you weren't picked... Not only did you actually want to serve, but you also wanted to make a point! Lawyers can smell that, you know...

No, I wasn't even called for questioning. All I did was show up and wait for my name to be called out. Actually as for whether lawyers would want me sitting on a jury, defense lawyers would want me, it's prosecutors who wouldn't. That's because I would vote innocent when I thought a law was bad and shouldn't exist. It's what's called Jury Nullification and was supported by Thomas Jefferson. In Notes on Virginia in 1782 he said "...it is usual for the jurors to decide the fact, and to refer the law arising on it to the decision of the judges. But this division of the subject lies with their discretion only. And if the question relate to any point of public liberty, or if it be one of those in which the judges may be suspected of bias, the jury undertake to decide both law and fact." Another quote of his was "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

You have to take care of people who are sick.

No, you don't. That would be socialism. People who are sick are often capable of planning ahead, regardless of whether they choose to do so. Other people who are sick have family to rely on for support and finances. Others have their church. Others have other people's churches. Others have secular charity. Others have no one and remain sick or die, like the rest of us eventually will do. This isn't supposed to be a commune, it's supposed to be a place where you are secure in your person and property while doing your best to provide for yourself and your loved ones. There's no guarantee of success in that endeavor. See The Bill of No Rights if you remain confused.

http://www.friesian.com/ross/ca40/noright.htm

I am not using "Might makes right", but "creator and controller makes right if it so chooses".

But that is, in itself, a moral principle. And on what foundation does that rest? What makes that moral? Could a god have defined morality in such a way that that principle didn't apply?

What you are suggesting boils down to the proposition that the people who knuckled under to the Nazis had the right idea, they just picked the wrong bully to submit to.

Unless you can show a logical inconsistency necessitated by the idea of a god defining morality (and I sincerely doubt you can do that)

I just did. Or, rather, Socrates did a long time ago.

If there is a god, particularly the variety of god that most Christians would describe to you, then that god defines what is moral.

You have just smashed headlong into the Euthyphro Problem.

For a broader treatment, see here and here.

Consider redesigning the premise of the Federation, taking into account the critique that it's basically a fascist state.

Wow. Just wow. That was just... horrible.

The author of that critique seems to be some kind of religious conservative who takes offense at the fact that the Federation doesn't use money and talk about God all the time. Nevermind the fact that they have replicators and thus there is no scarcity and no need for money OR for communistic redistribution of wealth - just throw your garbage into the recycler and replicate whatever you want. In the Star Trek future, everything is as plentiful and reusable as air, and so there is no more need for any economic system to regulate it than there is to regulate the distribution of air here today. We don't have air banks or air credits because we don't need them, and neither to we strictly ration out the use of air in equal parts, because there's plenty of it and people can just take whatever they want. Economic systems are just a solution to problems of scarcity - where there is no scarcity, economics disappear.

But what really gets me is that the author seems to be somehow offended by the notion that you might have a nontheistic society. Not militantly atheistic - you don't see Federation people ridiculing anyone for their religious beliefs or trying to convince them that God doesn't exist. They just don't seem to have many such beliefs of their own. I'm sure there's still philosophy classes in their academies, and old religious are taught as history... but this whole thing sounds like some old polytheist complaining about our (contemporary, western) society because we don't sacrifice livestock to the local fertility gods. So? What's the problem if we don't? And what's wrong with "explaining away" disembodies entities as "energy beings" or whatnot, if that's a real explanation in the (fictional) science of Star Trek? Should they just ignore their scientific explanations so that there are still some mysteries to "wow" people?

He seems to think that without such mysterious religious doctrine, and without some sort of capitalist economic system, everybody would have nothing better to do than... well... join the military I guess. The series is set on a military ship, of course you're going to see military lifestyles there! But the ordinary people living planetside, in a world of plenty with no scarcity - what, you think they won't have anything interesting to do? What about art or science for it's own sake, not for profit? Taking up some occupation that you enjoy doing for it's own take, like cooking, designing clothes, writing software, etc? In a world of plenty, people don't *need* to be paid to do things - they'll do whatever they enjoy doing, and if something needs doing, someone who needs it done will do it, if someone who enjoys doing it hasn't done it already. Heck, what about just playing games for fun?

I have to wonder if this person's vision of heaven is of some job where he gets to work really hard and gets paid lots of money which he can then turn around and give straight to some incomprehensible mysterious God, who he spends all of his free time worshipping. Seems like it must take a serious lack of imagination not to be able to envision enjoying a life of luxury where money isn't needed, where everything is there free for the taking, and nothing is an indecipherable mystery that couldn't be solved with sufficient investigation. Wouldn't that be nice? It's a stretch of the imagination to think that it could practically happen, but in Star Trek the basic premise is that that HAS happened - and look at the awesome society that has followed. How could anyone think that such a society is bad?

It's been proposed that what would make the franchise interesting again is a total reset. Abandon the existing continuity and timeline, and go back to the early exploration of an unknown universe rather than politics and war in a well-settled part of the timeline. Do realistic extrapolation of technology this time, instead of (a) bringing in super-technologies and never mentioning them again and (b) assuming that real technologies like robotics and biotech barely advance over the centuries. Consider redesigning the premise of the Federation, taking into account the critique that it's basically a fascist state. Keep the theme of space exploration and adventure.

You are simply wrong:

From: http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=80

"On March 14, 1794, Whitney received a patent for his gin. Because the American patent system was relatively new and untested -- Whitney's patent was number 72 -- he found it difficult to keep competitors from copying his simple machine. By 1798, in debt and disillusioned, he returned to the North and began a new venture -- mass-producing muskets for the federal government.

Whitney once again recognized a technological need and devised a way to address it. Fearing it was about to face a war with France, the new nation needed arms. Whitney proposed to mass-produce muskets. Firearms had previously been made one at a time by skilled craftsmen who fashioned each part individually. Whitney proposed to create tools that worked like the plates of a printing press, turning out large numbers of exact copies of each part.

Not only did this method allow for faster production, but parts could be interchanged between muskets, so that damaged weapons could easily be repaired. Muskets made of standardized parts produced by machines could be turned out in factories employing semi-skilled laborers rather than skilled craftsmen.

In January of 1801, Whitney traveled to Washington. President John Adams, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, and other notables watched as he laid out the machined parts of prototype gunlocks. He assembled them quickly, demonstrated how the parts could be easily interchanged, and invited his distinguished audience to do the same. The officials were astonished -- and convinced. The government awarded Whitney a contract to produce 15,000 muskets.

The mass production of standardized parts in assembly-line fashion by specialized machines and unskilled labor became known as the "American System." The full flowering of the American System did not occur until the 1840s, 15 years after Whitney's death. "

As far as paying high wages (above and beyond the market value for the worker):

From: http://friesian.com/sayslaw.htm

"
Nearly everything in this country is too high priced. The only thing that should be high priced in this country is the man that works. Wages must not come down, they must not even stay on their present level; they must go up. And even that is not sufficient of itself -- we must see to it that the increased wages are not taken away from the people by increased prices that do not represent increased values.
"

Henry Ford, New York Times, November 22, 1929 (5.0% unemployment)

1,028 Economists Ask Hoover
to Veto Pending Tariff Bill

New York Times headline, about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, May 5, 1930

"In this enlightened age, large manufacturers...will maintain wages...as being the far-sighted and...the constructive thing to do."

Howard ("57 Varieties") Heinz, "Would Keep Scale of Present Wages," New York Times, August 7, 1930 (6.4% unemployment)

"Our leading business concerns have sustained wages.... These measures have maintained higher degrees of consumption than would have otherwise been the case.... They have thus prevented a large measure of unemployment."

Herbert Hoover, Banker's Magazine, November 1930 (11.6% unemployment)

Of course, we know what happened after that...

Moors weren't the only ones thrown out of Spain. Queen Isabela demanded all non believers, Christians, convert or leave "Spain". On top of that the Spain of now isn't and wasn't the Spain of then. Back then the Iberian Peninsula was peopled by many different tribes just as the Americas were. SUCCESSORS OF ROME: THE PERIPHERY OF FRANCIA And some still dream of independence, such as some in Castile. Then there are the Basque, the oldest known people living in Iberia, subjugated by invaders.

"The only thing the Danes ever killed anyone with was delicious confectionaries."

They were Vikings you goose!

http://www.friesian.com/germania.htm

Actually, Wessex was not able to absorb all of England, for as it began to do this, the Vikings arrived. This started with the sacking of the Monastery at Lindisfarne, in Bernicia, in 793. Eventually, Northumbria, East Anglia, Essex, and about the north-eastern half of Mercia were overrun and became part of the Danelaw. At first the Vikings raided, sacked, and carried off slaves, or were bought off with "protection" money -- "Danegelt" -- but then Danes and Norwegians began to establish their own Kingdoms. They also passed around to Ireland and the Isle of Man and began encroaching from the west on Wales and England. This finally led to the outright annexation of England to Denmark by King Canute in 1016, though the Danish Kings only lasted until 1042. A fair number of Danish words ended up in English, like "skiff," which is simply the Danish cognate of the English word "ship."

But it is okay to gut the American economy by taking manufacturing and technology jobs, and exporting them overseas?

But this position is criticised as protectionism. Sure, in a world with a limitation of certain resources, let everyone come in and kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, because everyone one wants a goose dinner. sheesh.

Bottom line: Don't kill the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. AKA the Tragedy of the Commons.

This, tied in with things like China's long policy of tying the Yuan to the Dollar,(recently changed), led to a flood of resources out of the USA into China, a fine gift of the American people at their own expense. Heck, the situation even made it as a commentary by JibJab, although from another side of the ledger.

(sigh)

>>>>>>>>

Perfect the system we have here and, as in the case of East and West Berlin, the people will vote with their feet.

Which is why the USA has a border problem with Mexico. Not that they want to go to China. Like anything, it's the lure of the perceived "easy life". And in the USA, there is an alarmingly large section of the population who think they deserve the Paris Hilton LifeStyle(TM). Not that they should work for it, but that they deserve it.

There are lots of things that can be considered human rights, but the Paris Hilton LifeStyle(TM) is not one of them.

But it is okay to gut the American economy by taking manufacturing and technology jobs, and exporting them overseas?

But this position is criticised as protectionism. Sure, in a world with a limitation of certain resources, let everyone come in and kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, because everyone one wants a goose dinner. sheesh.

Bottom line: Don't kill the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. AKA the Tragedy of the Commons.

This, tied in with things like China's long policy of tying the Yuan to the Dollar,(recently changed), led to a flood of resources out of the USA into China, a fine gift of the American people at their own expense. Heck, the situation even made it as a commentary by JibJab, although from another side of the ledger.

(sigh)

>>>>>>>>

Perfect the system we have here and, as in the case of East and West Berlin, the people will vote with their feet.

Which is why the USA has a border problem with Mexico. Not that they want to go to China. Like anything, it's the lure of the perceived "easy life". And in the USA, there is an alarmingly large section of the population who think they deserve the Paris Hilton LifeStyle(TM). Not that they should work for it, but that they deserve it.

There are lots of things that can be considered human rights, but the Paris Hilton LifeStyle(TM) is not one of them.

We call that Rent Seeking in the world of public choice economics.

Everyone is a centrist. It's just the everyone's definition of left or right is left or right of other peoples.

I am a Centrist according to 'standardized' polls like this one. I score dead center.

Businesses in the US are based on the Randian corporate model, and are inherent liars and thieves

I don't know how you can say Ayn Rand supported liars and thieves as she stood against violence, coercion, fraud. What she did believe in were voluntary exchanges.

Falcon

The "center" between Republicans and Democrats, especially when viewed compared to other countries, is right of the actual "center", whereas the LP would be on the true "center", therefore closer to the left. If that makes sense.

Left, right... pfft. That's just one dimension! At least go for two. Or, *spooky music*, three dimensions!

Ayn Rand was a total and absolute asshole who was longing for the caveman days where the one with the biggest stick could beat the shit out of anyone else for no reason whatsoever.

I don't know where you come up with Ayn Rand supporting violence as she opposed violence and the use of force against another.

Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

... She very properly realized that, since the free market is built upon voluntary exchanges, capitalism requires firm moral limits, ruling out violence, coercion, fraud, etc...

The Potowmack Institute
If a society provided no organized protection against force, it would compel every citizen to go about armed, to turn his home into a fortress, to shoot any strangers approaching his door-- or to join a protective gang of citizens who would fight other gangs, formed for the same purpose, and thus bring about the degeneration of that society into the chaos of gang-rule, i.e., rule by brute force, into perpetual tribal warfare of prehistoric savages.

The use of force-- even its retaliatory use-- cannot be left at the discretion of individual citizens. Peaceful co-existence is impossible if a man has to live under the constant threat of force to be unleashed against him by any of his neighbors at any moment. Whether his neighbor's intentions are good or bad, whether their judgement is rational or irrational, whether they are motivated by a sense of justice or by ignorance or by prejudice or by malice-- the use of force against one man cannot be left to the arbitrary decision of another.

One thing that would help a lot would be for more people to be aware of Jury Nullification. While the laws would still exist, unjust laws would be ignored.

There are some good links on this subject at:

• http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/z enger/nullification.html
• http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/p/jph13/Jury Nullification.html
• http://www.greenmac.com/eagle/ISSUES/ISSUE23-9/07J uryNullification.html
• http://www.friesian.com/nullif.htm
• http://www.november.org/razorwire/rzold/04/0412.ht ml

As the saying goes There are four boxes to be used in defending our freedom: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Use them in that order.

It's a joke.

It used to be said that the sun never sets on the British Empire, as in they had territory all over the world, and therefore it was always daytime somewhere in the British empire. The US has bases all over the world, in Japan, Germany, Cuba, the Middle East, and many other countries as the DoD PDF indicates, therefore, it is always daytime in some US base, and thus the sun never sets in the American Empire.

Has been quite a while ago already by
Cavalli-Sforza.

Here 's a link

The biggest key to Schroedinger's equation is the description as a wave function. The wave function contains information of all states until the wave function is collapsed. So it is both pissed off and calm at the same time. If it's anything like my roomate's cat, when you collapse the wave function it will be pissed.

Because, of course, racism is not a problem anywhere else.

The problem isn't just distinctions based on skin color, ancestry, religion, or anything else.

The problem is that people want to hate each other, and they will find any necessary excuse to do so. Skin color is just extremely convenient, because you can tell what color someone's skin is by looking at them. Even if you make it unacceptable to discriminate based on skin color, the root problem still exists. People want to hate. And they do.

The reason our country still has a problem with racism is because our people still want to hate. And instead of solving the root problem (hate), we're putting bandages on it by trying to eliminate the symptoms (racism, discrimination) with laws and manipulation.

I agree with your main point, but your statement about racism is just plain wrong. Racism isn't a disease you can cure with some sort of vaccine or magic treatment. People truly, deeply hate each other.

Khan is actually a title used in many asian languages, sort of like "sir" in English. Here's a definition.

The "kh" has a special pronunciation, as per this page: 'occurs in Hebrew and Arabic, in the German pronunciation of Nacht, or in the Scottish pronunciation of "Loch" (a voiceless velar fricative).' or the Dutch pronunciation of G in Gronigen.

But as is unfortunately the case too often, this is all lost on the average American.

-hadohk

They still haven't come up with a good explanation of how space can have 0 curvature yet still be finite and unbounded.

You might be interested in checking out this book, The War Against Boys.

Some thoughts on the book and the author can be found here

Their system of language is based on ideograms where one ideogram represents a word or part of a word. It's the same with

• Korean
  Nope. Korean used to be written in Chinese characters, but now all writing in North Korea and almost all writing in South Korea is alphabetic. (Chinese characters are occasionally scattered into highbrow writing in South Korea, but it's still mostly alphabetic.) Korean writing arranges the letters into syllables in such a way that the syllables sort of look like Chinese characters, though -- quite pretty. (Link with examples)
• Japanese
  Japanese writing is a mix of phonetic and ideographic writing (with the ideograms borrowed from Chinese; they're called kanji, which is just Japanese-borrowed-from-Chinese for "Chinese characters").
• Mayan
  Unless there's recent news I've missed, Mayan hieroglyphs haven't been deciphered yet. (I guess people could still have an idea whether they're likely to be phonetic or likely to be ideographic based on the variety and distribution of symbols, though -- I don't know much about them.)
• Egyptian
  Egyptian is a fascinating mix of ideographic and phonetic writing. There are symbols that are used only for their sound, and symbols that are used only for their meaning, and lots of symbols that can be used rebus-like for either. I found a neat page about it at http://www.friesian.com/egypt.htm .

The Michigan Militia is different. The Founding Fathers meant for the militia to be instead of the police.

Check out this page and read the information under General.

the New Deal did not revive the economy or substantially lower unemployment.

Tech workers need to accept lower pay, employers need to realize that workers will accept lower pay.

Or, the power is already in the hand of the people. Its called trial by jury, a jury of your peers. All they jury has to do is say that these people are innocent, regardless of evidence.

This is called jury nullification. Here's some information on it:
http://www.friesian.com/nullif.htm

Check this out. Disclaimer: I didn't know anything about it, but this is best hit I got on Google. It's a fascinating topic that I knew nothing about.

I don't think that's phrased well. The notion of God "making" the rules runs smack into the Euthyphro Problem I alluded to in another post. If God's rules are arbitrary, then we simply have the case of "might makes right", the biggest bully on the block gets to make the rules.

On the other hand, if there's something about the rules that are inherently good, then that's something that's not under God's control (otherwise we'd be smack dab in the middle of the former case). God recognizes what's good, It doesn't make the good good.

So, which is it? The Golden Rule ("He who has the gold [power] makes the rules"); or, the rules are just out there, independent of God, and "soverignty" doesn't enter into it?

Now, there's still the possibility that God acts as an oracle, perfectly recognizing what's good and relaying it to us, but as I said, "soverignty" isn't relevant. And in the case of your experiment hypothesis, why not create beings that share the same perfect recognition of, and apparently approval for, good? Why wouldn't that be the best course of action?

The real problem is that the left/right model is limited. The Nolan chart model is better and showes how the left-right model is just a projection on to the diagonal. A system could have little economic liberty, and just a little more personal liberty, and be just left of center.

The Nolan model is, of course, also just a projection on to a plane of a larger dimensional piece.

Bible of the 21st century? Some bios

This would be an example of political rent seeking. Here is an interesting paper on it.

Nope. Abbreviated version of a long argument: Consider chess. There is no rule of chess that says that you can't sacrifice your queen early in the game, but it's just about never a good idea if you want to win the game. Analogy time: "rules of chess" -> "physical laws of the universe"; "strategic rules of chess (e.g. avoid sacrificing queen early)" -> "ethical/moral rules (e.g. avoid initiating violence".

If you want to be happy, you're going to need to cooperate with others, just as if you want to win at chess, you shouldn't throw away your queen.

Unless you have a flying carpet handy, I'd say the physical laws of the universe are absolute. I believe that ethical/moral laws follow as strategies given (a) human goals and (b) the constraints the universe places on us.

There is room for disagreement about exactly what strategies are best, but there are a few core rules that virtually all societies have had. (No random murder, no incest, etc.) Perhaps we'll never know exactly what the optimal strategies are. But I think overall we're getting closer, or at least getting less wrong, no unlike science and its gradually-improving models of the physical world.

Besides, a God can't be the ultimate source of morality, anyway. Familiar with the Euthyphro Problem?

Hel-loooooooooooooooooo Protagoras!

Amazing to see you doing so well today, after all these years.

Ever read Penrose's 'The Emperor's New Mind'? It covers the teleportation duality dilemma in some depth. Even more mind-warping is what would happen if the original wasn't destroyed. Which is the real person, the one sent or the one received?

Things are either true or not. The origin of the story does not determine this.

Yeah, and verbal abuse is just sound waves. They don't hurt people! Child porn and is just light reflected from a surface! It doesn't hurt people! Racist graffiti is just paint on a wall! etc, etc.

Exactly correct on all counts. A photograph of rape doesn't hurt the raped person; the rapist already did that. Graffiti hurts the property owner regardless of semantic content. Verbal abuse unsupported by physical restraints can be ignored or escaped rather trivially.

Of course people don't have a right, Deity-granted or otherwise, to expect other people to read the 'any old guff' they spout. But they do get to spout it.

You can say anything you like, but there's no guarantee of an audience.

That word, 'deconstructionalist.' I do not think it means what you think it means: see 'deconstruction' for more.

Taking responsibility for your own reaction to words is the very opposite of deconstructionism, called by reputable philosophers "...a false and horrible view, ripe with the seeds of tyranny."

gomi