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Essentially, the education system has told a generation (or two now) that evidence doesna(TM)t matter. You dona(TM)t have to be correct, rigorous or diligent in working out what the hell is going on; you just have to express yourself, be confident in your conviction and never let anyone tell you youa(TM)re wrong.

I think you are looking at history through rose-tinted glasses. It's not like the 1950s, or the Victorian eras were the pinnacles of reason.

The Victorian approach to education for example was to declare "facts" which may or may not have been completely wrong and could well have been based on a fetishisation of Antiquity, then hit you with a stick until you parroted them.

Many of those "facts" survived a long time. Like the "fact" that the wheel is the greatest invention because there's no way that's an opinion or up for debate, and I seem to remember tht was in it's final muted death throes by the 1980s.

So, now we arrive at a position where pseudoscience is running rampant,

Is it more rampant than before? There's always been lots of pseudoscience.

people arena(TM)t equipped with the critical thinking skills to delve deep and discern fact from fiction and relevance from irrelevance, and therea(TM)s an overwhelming attitude of opinion being the gold standard,

I encourage you to read this story: http://central.gutenberg.org/a...

It covers that fairly thoroghly and provides a solid skewing of social media. except it's from 1909. I think we can take it from that that these concerns and so behaviours are not new.

Critical thinking though be core in education, and everyone should be taught to debate.

Critical thinking certainly should yes. Debating well people should be taught about debating, to spot rhetorical tricks certainly. Being able to debate live isn't necessary to be able ot dissect a transcript after and spot the holes. I think the latter is more important than the former.

Killing people is almost never a military objective. It is a consequence of enemy forces trying to prevent you from achieving you military objective.

No they concentrate quite a bit on it. Make no mistake about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

As to the particulars.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook...

tl;dr The art of war is making some other dumb bastard die for his country.

The *reasons* for war are whatever political people or the rich want.

You are trying to justify your view of war with having an unprecidented war machine still assembled and the people that live inside that machine. You have decided it is 'ok' and are trying to make it 'alright in your brain'. Which is fine. But do not lie to yourself what the armed forces do. They splatter people. It is their job. We give them multi million dollar machines to do it with.

Before anyone jumps me. I am not saying one way or the other if I support this. I am correcting a misconception some people like to have.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm#chap11 "Professor," said Captain Nemo, "my electricity is not everybody's. You know what sea-water is composed of. In a thousand grammes are found 96 1/2 per cent. of water, and about 2 2/3 per cent. of chloride of sodium; then, in a smaller quantity, chlorides of magnesium and of potassium, bromide of magnesium, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate and carbonate of lime. You see, then, that chloride of sodium forms a large part of it. So it is this sodium that I extract from the sea-water, and of which I compose my ingredients. I owe all to the ocean; it produces electricity, and electricity gives heat, light, motion, and, in a word, life to the Nautilus."

ShanghaiBill opined:

This is a good thing. We need to stop obsessing about Mars. Once humanity moves off-earth, the dumbest thing we could do is settle onto another planetary surface. We would just be moving from one gravity well to another. The asteroids should be our colonial target.

I could not more heartily agree.

Mars gravity is less than 40% of Earth's - but that's still a pretty major barrier to launching anything (people, for instance) from its surface into orbit, where an actual spaceship (i.e. - one that was built in zero g, and designed to shuttle stuff from orbit around one gravity well to orbit around another, without itself ever actually landing on a planetary surface) can transport it across interplanetary space. By contrast, even Ceres (the largest object in the asteroid belt) has only a sixth the gravity of Luna - not weak enough for a human to be able to achieve orbit by jumping off its surface, but also not strong enough to require enormous amounts of reaction mass for such a spacecraft to reach escape velocity.

C-type asteroids (aka "carbonaceous chondrites") should be excellent sources of organic raw materials for manufacturing plastics, etc. M-types are likely to be rich sources of highly-corrosion-resistant nickel-iron (aka "meteoric iron"), easily transformed into structural material (easy, because it doesn't need to be smelted). And 16 Psyche - to which NASA will be launching a probe in 2022 - may well be lousy with radionuclides and other heavy metals (think "rare earth elements") for reactor fuel and high-tech, microgravity manufacturing.

Yes, there will be plenty of challenges involved in establishing a permanent human presence in the asteroid belt - but the same is absolutely true of Mars, which offers all the disadvantages of colonizing a planet, and (ubiquitously-available sub-surface water aside) very few of the pluses.

As I see it, the major attraction of colonizing Mars is the "romance" (which is to say, "the public's awareness of and interest in") of the destination. Even people who have zero interest in space know it's the prime candidate for an eventually-self-sustaining human colony. By contrast, mention colonizing the asteroid belt, and most people will respond, "Why would you want to do that?" closely followed by "Is that even possible?"

Way back in the 1960's, I read Raymond Z. Gallun's book The Planet Strappers, a young adult novel about a group of teenagers who share the goal of becoming asteroid pioneers. It presupposes relatively-inexpensive launch-to-orbit technology, a permanent, multi-facility human presence on the Moon that provides fuel and resources for the kind of spaceships I mentioned earlier, and a network of orbital facilities, including shipyards and drydocks for them. The protagonist and his friends are able to earn enough money on the Moon to purchase low-cost, personal spacecraft called "bubbs" to then pilot to the asteroid belt (which already has a substantial, permanent human presence) to attempt to make their fortunes and achieve their shared dream. It's a vastly-underappreciated gem of 60's-era "hard" science fiction (which is now in the public domain!) and I heartily recommend it to everyone who isn't an aspiring anti-space-colonization troll.

Full disclosure: in light of the knowledge we now have about conditions in space, Gallun's "bubbs" wouldn't work, of course (not just because each is powered by a pocket nuclear reactor, but because the cosmic ray flux in interplanetary space, outside the protection of Earth's magnetosphere, is too high for humans to survive the long periods of exposure required to reach the asteroid belt in what, essentially, is a plastic bubble), but his book opened my eyes to the advantages in easy access to essential resources that colonizing asteroids, rather than planetary surfaces could provide.

And I still think that's where we ought to be focusing our efforts ...

You kill the family. You leave the perpetrator alive to suffer. You might pulp his hands to prevent him being able to suicide. Keep him around "pour encourager les autres". (page 123)

For a great summary of Das Capital embedded in an engaging story line, "The Iron Heel" by Jack London. His protagonist summarizes Marx during an argument.

https://www.gutenberg.org/eboo...

Having read both, London is *much* more approachable.

Another great foundational text is Proudhon's. "What is property?"

https://www.gutenberg.org/eboo...

For a great summary of Das Capital embedded in an engaging story line, "The Iron Heel" by Jack London. His protagonist summarizes Marx during an argument.

https://www.gutenberg.org/eboo...

Having read both, London is *much* more approachable.

Another great foundational text is Proudhon's. "What is property?"

https://www.gutenberg.org/eboo...

Pretty much done me in as well, not just Wikipedia of course but the whole interactivity of the internet in itis; entirety. Have no read a book in years, only in Doctors office waiting for the appointment I turned up on time for but somehow still end up waiting a very long time. Books were a great escape but I found I no longer need that escape, unless I am trapped bored somewhere and I know I will be trapped bored somewhere. I filled my phone with books from http://www.gutenberg.org/ specifically enjoyed http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook... the writing style takes a little adapting to but once you do it is quite entertaining.

So everyone show http://gutenberg.net.au/ or http://gutenberg.ca/index.html some love or http://www.gutenberg.org/, some love ;). Fill your phone and wish them a merry Christmas (for those who do not do Christmas and want to complain, what can I say but FOff don't be a misery guts, not that I am big on Christmas I certainly ain't but I recognise that others are and am content for them to have their fun).

Pretty much done me in as well, not just Wikipedia of course but the whole interactivity of the internet in itis; entirety. Have no read a book in years, only in Doctors office waiting for the appointment I turned up on time for but somehow still end up waiting a very long time. Books were a great escape but I found I no longer need that escape, unless I am trapped bored somewhere and I know I will be trapped bored somewhere. I filled my phone with books from http://www.gutenberg.org/ specifically enjoyed http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook... the writing style takes a little adapting to but once you do it is quite entertaining.

So everyone show http://gutenberg.net.au/ or http://gutenberg.ca/index.html some love or http://www.gutenberg.org/, some love ;). Fill your phone and wish them a merry Christmas (for those who do not do Christmas and want to complain, what can I say but FOff don't be a misery guts, not that I am big on Christmas I certainly ain't but I recognise that others are and am content for them to have their fun).

Pretty much done me in as well, not just Wikipedia of course but the whole interactivity of the internet in itis; entirety. Have no read a book in years, only in Doctors office waiting for the appointment I turned up on time for but somehow still end up waiting a very long time. Books were a great escape but I found I no longer need that escape, unless I am trapped bored somewhere and I know I will be trapped bored somewhere. I filled my phone with books from http://www.gutenberg.org/ specifically enjoyed http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook... the writing style takes a little adapting to but once you do it is quite entertaining.

So everyone show http://gutenberg.net.au/ or http://gutenberg.ca/index.html some love or http://www.gutenberg.org/, some love ;). Fill your phone and wish them a merry Christmas (for those who do not do Christmas and want to complain, what can I say but FOff don't be a misery guts, not that I am big on Christmas I certainly ain't but I recognise that others are and am content for them to have their fun).

You are delusional.

Of what use is a newborn baby?

There's good eating on one of those. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook...

St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries is a pretty interesting read as a study on how to form cooperative organizations. It's very heavily drench in medieval European culture, so it's thoroughly and unashamedly Christian.

Worthwhile reading if you think understanding medieval institution is interesting, or to cherry-pick ideas if when you're trying to put together an informal group that needs some structure to stay on the right track.

I think it would have been very easy to edit down the core ideas into a purely secular and modern code, even if one chose to structure it similar to the original. Overall SQLite community's execution of this CoC shows a certain carelessness in verbatim adopting a code for a different kind of organization.

You can find the Rule of St Benedict here, it is not specifically monastic, but rather outlines general Christian ethical ideals of piety, humility, charity, forbearance and chastity.

You could probably omit piety and chastity, but a lot of the rules do make sense for any community: not to nurse a grudge; to bear wrongs and insults patiently, don't be a grumbler or detractor, settle personal disputes quickly and peacefully, avoid mocking or depraved speech, and to keep a sense of perspective (see rule #47, chapter 4).

I was going to cut and paste them, but I couldn't get past the filter.

So here is a link.

If you cut the overt religious and denial of wordly pleasures out of it, it would make a decent CoC.

People are objecting, but is it a bad code of conduct?

It's not bad. Rule 69 (ironic) is to "love the juniors". Which is a little offputting in the modern Catholic Church. But it's right after "respect the seniors" and is clearly trying to set up a mentor/mentee situation.

That said, there's a lot of pro-catholic theology in it that would be pretty offensive if it was explicitly added to a CoC. And it's anti-sexual harassment policy is "love chastity".

It's a really short read. 72 commands that are usually a sentence fragment.

I can't find the text

A public domain religious text? Let me help with that. Note, that's a link directly to chapter 4.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files...

People are objecting, but is it a bad code of conduct?

It's not bad. Rule 69 (ironic) is to "love the juniors". Which is a little offputting in the modern Catholic Church. But it's right after "respect the seniors" and is clearly trying to set up a mentor/mentee situation.

That said, there's a lot of pro-catholic theology in it that would be pretty offensive if it was explicitly added to a CoC. And it's anti-sexual harassment policy is "love chastity".

It's a really short read. 72 commands that are usually a sentence fragment.

I can't find the text

A public domain religious text? Let me help with that. Note, that's a link directly to chapter 4.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files...

> Copying is stealing someone's time and effort, copying and giving it away is no different.

1. You keep using this word "steal". It doesn't mean what you think it does. The original author STILL has their effort.

2. FTFY: Copying is DUPLICATING someone's effort for almost zero time. Whether it is LEGAL or ILLEGAL depends.

3. /sarcasm Who knew that copying Linux was stealing Linus' time ! Oh wait, you meant "illegal copying", because LEGAL COPYING granted by GPL, BSD, Public Domain, etc. is perfectly fine.

4. Furthermore, under certain conditions as provided by section 117 of the Copyright Act., one IS allowed to backup their software until the DMCA hijacked that right.

5. /sarcasm Wait till you find out about Project Gutenberg -- one can read over 57,000 books! /sarcasm Look at ALL that IP theft!

> Intellectual property is no different than anything else.

FALSE

Copyright is an ARTIFICIAL monopoly; it was created BY publishers to stop OTHER publishers from profiting.

> The majority of human civilization feels intellectual property does have value.

Appeal to Popularity fallacy. Quantity != Quality.

The majority of human civilization also tolerated slavery, racism, and prohibition at one time. That doesn't imply the majority was right.

e.g. Billions are served at McDonalds; that doesn't imply that McDonalds serves gourmet food. They served cheap, crap food, until recently.

This is the most retarded argument for IP I've seen in a while. You do realize we have ONE concept of imaginary property: delusion thinking. Of course things like language, math and history, that's FIRST private knowledge, then EVENTUALLY becomes public knowledge.

The quote is not a 'fictional quote' that was made up, it was written by a biographer to describe Voltaire's response to a book burning - and is that biographers own words.
The specific excerpt from the book The Friends of Voltaire - is thus

"What a fuss about an omelette!" he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that!
‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now.

Voltaire isn't saying anything in the latter half, it's not a 'quote' but a description of his response (by the biographer) towards the burning of books written by Claude-Adrien Helvétius in 1758.
The Friends of Voltaire, can be found online

Dean Swift wrote the manual for you. There's good eating on one of them.

> Let's face it, if you have someone's IP without paying for it, it's IP theft, and no amount of "but I'm poor" justifies it.

/sarcasm Damn! And here all the gifts I've given/received actually turned out to be "IP theft"! Who knew!

/sarcasm Wait till my family finds out that they are commiting "IP theft" when I buy a DVD / BluRay and they watch it for free !

/sarcasm Who knew that Libraries were part of IP theft !? My friends can rent a book / CD / DVD and we can all enjoy it. OH NO!

/sarcasm Wait till you find out about Project Gutenberg -- one can read over 57,000 books! /sarcasm Look at ALL that IP theft!

On a more serious note, you are out of touch with reality. It is obvious you don't have a clue how the Fashion Industry works. It has no copyright or patent protection and yet it thrives.

Are you against books / movies / games passing into the public domain after X amount of time?

* If so, then WHAT length of time is reasonable ?
* If not, then why do you get to hold culture hostage? What gives you the right to dictate to who I can or can't share it with after you are dead??

> whining about their entitlement to intellectual property

Red Herring Fallacy much?

Disagreeing with the premise and/or the definitions is NOT whining -- it's called having a discussion. Not everyone agrees with:

* Hijacking the term "copyright" to mean "Intellectual Property",
* Extending the duration of copyright to some unreasonable length of time, and
* The delusion of "Imaginary Property" that magically becomes some bullshit "Intellectual Property" because lawyers say so. It is in their best self-serving interest to make copyright as long as possible.

Artists did NOT invent copyright. Copyright was invented by --> Publishers <-- to maintain control by preventing other publishers from making a profit.

"The history of copyright law starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute. Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books."

I suggest reading the History of Copyright Law

Not everyone agrees with the shenanigans of life plus 70 years or 95 or 120 years. The ONLY reason the original 20 year copyright was extended was due to excessive greed by corporations lobbying, er, bribing congress.

Copyright is NOT property. It is a compromise contract:

* Creator gets exclusivity for a certain amount of time, and
* In exchange the Public gets free access to it afterwards.

Most people would, probably, be OK with the original 20 year copyright.

The current 120 years is TOO long.

Even back in 1841 the "dangers" of a long copyright was being discussed by Thomas Babbington Macaulay and the House of Commons.

--
Greed is a cancer that destroys society

Oh, and are you calling Xenophon a liar about Socrates getting paid for his teaching?

You have it exactly backwards. Xenophon stated clearly that Socrates did not accept payment, was not a professional teacher. (In fact he was some sort of stone mason or sculptor) Go now, re-read Xenophon and be free of one of your many idiocies!

Least of all did he tend to make his companions greedy of money. He would not, while restraining passion generally, make capital out of the one passion which attached others to himself; and by this abstinence, he believed, he was best consulting his own freedom; in so much that he stigmatised those who condescended to take wages for their society as vendors of their own persons, because they were compelled to discuss for the benefits of their paymasters. What surprised him was that any one possessing virtue should deign to ask money as its price instead of simply finding his reward in the acquisition of an honest friend, as if the new-fledged soul of honour could forget her debt of gratitude to her greatest benefactor.

For himself, without making any such profession, he was content to believe that those who accepted his views would play their parts as good and true friends to himself and one another their lives long. Once more then: how should a man of this character corrupt the young? unless the careful cultivation of virtue be corruption.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files...

Huh, I hadn't heard that one before.

It emerges pretty clearly even just from the narrative in Chapter 1 of the Manifesto,:

The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part. ... The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground ... But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. ... What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers.

So if you assume that late-stage capitalism degrades from frontier entrepreneurship to what is essentially market feudalism where a small handful of companies control sectors of the economy and have walled themselves in with sufficient barriers to entry and regulatory capture, then is it fair to assume that Marx would argue we need a revolution to simply go BACK to captialism? Or would he argue that the wealth is there, so captialism has done it's job, so choo-choo it's socialism time?

Nice question. I'm not. by any means, a scholar of Marx, but I've read a little, so I'll attempt to field it.

Firstly, if you will allow me this platitude, Marx was a man of his time, responding to the world as he found it, so we cannot really know what \ he would have argued had he seen contemporary conditions. He clearly did advocate revolution towards capitalism where it didn't exist! So for example, and this would/does upset our contemporary 'post-colonialist,' he wrote in support of French colonialism in Nth Africa as being an advance over what he saw as the theocratic tribalism of the Barbary coast. (Sorry, I can't recall the reference, I believe it was in a letter he wrote someone). He also, in communication with Russian radicals, dismissed the idea the Russia could stage a Socialist revolution (which led Lenin to revise Marx with his theory of 'Imperialism,' thus Marxism-Leninism), arguing that it was really mainly the US and England who were near enough advanced to accomplish this.

But more directly to your question. I think though we need to be careful of the use of "market feudalism" here. By 'feudalism' we (historians, lawyers and probably Marx) would usually understand, as a kind of idealised model, the social arrangement where land is parcelled out by a superior Lord to his vassal Lords (eg. King -> Baron -> Lords), but otherwise that land is inalienable (cannot be bought or sold) and where the resident population (serfs) are bound to that land, unable simply to leave it (though escape routes like becoming a soldier existed in practice). Similarly in the towns (burghs), the burghers are constrained almost by birth to follow certain vocations, which are tightly restricted in size etc by the guild system (the spillage ending up in monasteries). For (non-aristocratic) women, of course, social position would be even more restricted.

Marx' insight was that each stage of economic development (which then created a particular kind of society and person), at first represented an advance of productive capacity over the previous, but that eventually the very aspects which originally recommended a system because "fetters on production" and thus change would ensue. If you like check out the

Well, that would be no further than my recliner chair, with custom over bed table for the monitor and keyboard and https://www.gutenberg.org/. Largely my book reading days are over, and that is from over the top avid reader. The internet provides me with more reading than possible, split with interactions and moving or still images and of course even books.

Although it would make sense for public libraries to be maintained for tech works et al just in case things fuck up. For me though, the internet is my interactive library, pretty much where ever I go and the best version is the one in my own lounge room.

Oh wait.

First environmentalists caused global warming by blocking CO2 free nuclear power,

Yes, yes, those mighty environmentalists with their multi-billions in profits from fossil fuels and staff of thousands of lobbyists inside the halls of power, regularly bribing politicians to favor polluting sources over any alternatives, are to blame.

then they starve us to death by blocking GMO foods...

Have you noticed how corpulent your God-Emperor Trump is getting? CLEARLY, it's the fault of the emaciated orphans living in the streets that you're not getting enough Big Macs to stuff in your own face.

But wait, wait, what if you can make the orphans useful? Let me show you a sensible proposal.

Sounds like Jordan Peterson should read Lysistrata

Basically the women were sick of the men always waging war so they refused to have sex until they stopped the violence.

The most cited paper in Mathematics is over half a century old.

http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/h...

The most cited work in optics is several centuries old.

https://www.gutenberg.org/file...

Maybe he looks like this?

A prince of a guy!

(People who use this expression seem to never have read The Prince .)

"Imagine, then, a situation where, at one given instant every single traffic light on this congested island turns green and STAYS green." From "To Invade New York....", by Irwin Lewis, in Analog SF 1963. Available at https://www.gutenberg.org/file...

Hand in your geek card. E.E. (Doc) Smith did it first in 1931

But we do not venerate Darwin as the ulitmate word today

I agree fully. Did anyone tell you otherwise ? I even said "You may be dissatisfied with his explanation and prefer the computer simulation ... ".

and a freshman biology student today would learn more today than Darwin every knew.

Replying to "ever knew " :
I wouldn't count on that - but we will be unable to ever prove one way or the other. His knowledge of English writing alone puts him in top 0.01 % of biology freshmen of today's English speaking world. His knowledge of animal husbandry , large parts of which are not in freshman biology, puts Darwin in top 0.001% of today's biology freshmen. Admittedly he had no clue about how to spy on your "friends" using Facebook.

This is not even to say that more advanced aspects of biology that he "knew" are not available for today's biology freshman students to know. But "learn more today than Darwin ever* knew" gives an impression of one learning in a day more than another knowing in a lifetime. There is only one Rajnikant.

Even if you meant that a single freshman student that exists today knows more than Darwin ever knew, I guess I gave enough evidence to refute that conclusively.

Darwin did not offer any theory for the eye

I am not sure about the definition of "theory" you are using. Though https://www.gutenberg.org/file... .

Darwin did not offer any theory for the ... altruism

Altruism is largely not the concept he addressed, but I was explicitly talking about ethics and morality , and
https://www.gutenberg.org/file... read in the context of immediately preceding chapters.

But that is not the point. I still don't see any support for your statement

One of the most difficult challenge for the Theory of Evolution is the emergence of altruism. (Eye? easily explained

If eye is "easily explained", altruism in the form of ethics are morality discussed by Darwin is also easily explained. And an individual person may or may not prefer some explanation over another - so that in itself is no proof that eye is easier to explain than altruism, evolutionarily.

Instead of supporting that one, you are on your way to now maintaining that both altruism and eye were not explained by Darwin. Were you intentionally changing the topic ?

But we do not venerate Darwin as the ulitmate word today

I agree fully. Did anyone tell you otherwise ? I even said "You may be dissatisfied with his explanation and prefer the computer simulation ... ".

and a freshman biology student today would learn more today than Darwin every knew.

Replying to "ever knew " :
I wouldn't count on that - but we will be unable to ever prove one way or the other. His knowledge of English writing alone puts him in top 0.01 % of biology freshmen of today's English speaking world. His knowledge of animal husbandry , large parts of which are not in freshman biology, puts Darwin in top 0.001% of today's biology freshmen. Admittedly he had no clue about how to spy on your "friends" using Facebook.

This is not even to say that more advanced aspects of biology that he "knew" are not available for today's biology freshman students to know. But "learn more today than Darwin ever* knew" gives an impression of one learning in a day more than another knowing in a lifetime. There is only one Rajnikant.

Even if you meant that a single freshman student that exists today knows more than Darwin ever knew, I guess I gave enough evidence to refute that conclusively.

Darwin did not offer any theory for the eye

I am not sure about the definition of "theory" you are using. Though https://www.gutenberg.org/file... .

Darwin did not offer any theory for the ... altruism

Altruism is largely not the concept he addressed, but I was explicitly talking about ethics and morality , and
https://www.gutenberg.org/file... read in the context of immediately preceding chapters.

But that is not the point. I still don't see any support for your statement

One of the most difficult challenge for the Theory of Evolution is the emergence of altruism. (Eye? easily explained

If eye is "easily explained", altruism in the form of ethics are morality discussed by Darwin is also easily explained. And an individual person may or may not prefer some explanation over another - so that in itself is no proof that eye is easier to explain than altruism, evolutionarily.

Instead of supporting that one, you are on your way to now maintaining that both altruism and eye were not explained by Darwin. Were you intentionally changing the topic ?

You are free to do whatever you want.

Anything else is hypocritical bullshit.

That seems to have been the POV of Stephen Paddock (Mandelay Bay shooter) as well. But the philosophy doesn't serve the needs of modern civilization, as Thomas Hobbes and others pointed out at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

You are free to do whatever you want.

Anything else is hypocritical bullshit.

That seems to have been the POV of Stephen Paddock (Mandelay Bay shooter) as well. But the philosophy doesn't serve the needs of modern civilization, as Thomas Hobbes and others pointed out at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

If you want to win a war you need to keep destroying the enemy until they surrender unconditionally. Just look at what happened to Japan and Germany.

You're not very well versed in either History of War or Theory of War, are you? You're taking two examples of 3rd generation warfare and uncritically thinking their example applies to 4th generation warfare, without even knowing there's a difference.

Here's a suggestion then: go read some Carl von Clausewitz and, for a more recent take, some William Lind, and come back once you understand war on the strategic rather than merely tactical level, okay?

Hey, stop harshing on good 'ol P.T. His essay on The Art of Money-Getting; Or, Golden Rules for Making Money" is a classic. And no, it's not what you think. One of the soundest essays on business you will ever read, I promise.

> 1) Free Speech from the American perspective isn't a universal perspective. It is unique to our circumstance and our history.

Bullshit. Did you completely fail British history ???

* Political Philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) (British) ; On Liberty is summarized by this On Liberty of Thought and Discussion essay:

Mill laid out his argument for freedom of expression in the second section of On Liberty ('liberty of thought and discussion'). The core of his argument is that censorship prevents us from correcting errors by critical discussion. If a forbidden opinion is true,we lose the opportunity to learn of its truth. If a forbidden opinion is false, we lose the opportunity to remind ourselves why it is false.

* C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) (British) Chronological Snobbery

Lewis defines this chronological snobbery as âoethe uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate of our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that count discredited.â Lewis eventually came to understand the need to ask further questions such as: Why did this idea go out of date? Was it ever refuted? If so, by whom, where, and how conclusively? In other words, you need to determine if an old idea is false before you reject it; we would not want to say that everything believed in an ancient culture was false. Which things are false -- and why -- and which things remain true?

> We can quibble over the details of where the line on free speech should be but you have to address how you plan to control hate groups if you let their rhetoric flow freely.

There IS no line. Either you censor or you don't. PERIOD.

Grow the fuck up, put your big boy pants on and learn that not everyone will agree with what you say. And thats OK. Because the opposite, censorship, is FAR, FAR, worse.

--
"Only Cowards Censor"

...the fact is, Ayn Rand's books make effective arguments against self-destructive altruism,
...

The arguments are good ones and make sense

No, they really don't. You have to learn something about history, economics, philosophy, and anthropology to see it, but Rand makes very weak arguments based on a very simplistic view of how the world works.

I'm still amazed that she took 1000 pages to retell the story of The Little Red Hen (with one major change: the other animals are actively trying to take away the Hen's bread).

The reality is, it is more of an interactive world now and passive content, all though reading is less passive than most, as readers are creating those worlds in their on minds based upon the guidance of the writer, still, writer of books are competing with writers of games. There is a good reason why open world games are so popular, people basically writing their own story through the game add in playing with others online and they are doing it together. On top of that, you are competing with all the new writers with access to self publishing. When it comes to junk reviews, yeah, what was old (junk reviews paid for by advertising dollars in main stream media) is new again (junk reviews paid for by advertising dollars on the internet, which according to the USPTO you should be allowed to patent because internet in the description).

Rather than writing old world novels, you might try writing short stories suitable for incorporating as events in open world games. Keep in mind you are also competing with all the books ever written https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki..., whether in or out of copyright and that will only become much worse, much faster.

Project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/

Or Project Gutenburg
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook...

Trump would be proud of you, supporting the industries that will Make America Great Again.

From Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary

Since the US can not prosecute people in a foreign land and can not protect people in a foreign land.

The United States Diplomatic Corps disagrees with you. As does the United States Marine Corps. Not to mention the International Military Tribunals.

Your claim about universal law fails basic scrutiny.

No such point was made, you must be confused about international law. And it may surprise you, but there are non-citizens in the US military right now.

Your description of the Federalist papers is absolutely false.

It's entirely true. They are propaganda, and not impartial commentary at all.

They are primarily letters between the founders regarding wording and concepts.

Nope. Instead they were published widely and directly addressed to the people (of New York in particular).

Why do you lie so badly? Do you lack Common Sense?

The anti-Federalist papers are the same, and not really anti-Federalism but more concerned with the amount of power the Federal Government was given.

Well, insofar as you already lied about the nature of the Federalist papers, this is another lie here, what with them also being propaganda documents.

About the closest you can come is something in the way of it being true that they were concerned with the amount of power the Federal Government had under the Constitution, but you overstate your case since many of them did oppose any form of "federal" government.

Still, you get dinged severely for your earlier lies.

Remember that bit I said about common sense? Not only did you just flat out lie, but you seem to lack common sense.

Oh wait, you do. Really, s.petry, are you trying to look as bad as Trump who faked Time Magazine covers to promote himself?

What's the point of making shit up, so badly? Do you like living in a fabrication?

Since the US can not prosecute people in a foreign land and can not protect people in a foreign land.

The United States Diplomatic Corps disagrees with you. As does the United States Marine Corps. Not to mention the International Military Tribunals.

Your claim about universal law fails basic scrutiny.

No such point was made, you must be confused about international law. And it may surprise you, but there are non-citizens in the US military right now.

Your description of the Federalist papers is absolutely false.

It's entirely true. They are propaganda, and not impartial commentary at all.

They are primarily letters between the founders regarding wording and concepts.

Nope. Instead they were published widely and directly addressed to the people (of New York in particular).

Why do you lie so badly? Do you lack Common Sense?

The anti-Federalist papers are the same, and not really anti-Federalism but more concerned with the amount of power the Federal Government was given.

Well, insofar as you already lied about the nature of the Federalist papers, this is another lie here, what with them also being propaganda documents.

About the closest you can come is something in the way of it being true that they were concerned with the amount of power the Federal Government had under the Constitution, but you overstate your case since many of them did oppose any form of "federal" government.

Still, you get dinged severely for your earlier lies.

Remember that bit I said about common sense? Not only did you just flat out lie, but you seem to lack common sense.

Oh wait, you do. Really, s.petry, are you trying to look as bad as Trump who faked Time Magazine covers to promote himself?

What's the point of making shit up, so badly? Do you like living in a fabrication?

"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." -- George Santayana

Sorry A/C, but I think I'll take George's warning over your admonitions.

Sorry A/C, but a pithy quote does not an argument make, or understanding demonstrate.

Try to follow the conversation a bit better. You might realize that the point of what I said, was that we bury things, Bluestrat, being your typical gadfly, ignored the meaning of what I said, and like you, tried to make an argument based on rhetoric, rather than attentively comprehend the meaning of my words, which was quite different than this tendentious objection about wiping away history, which has no real basis in what I said.

And do try to quote somebody accurately, George Santayana actually used a different phrase.

You can read the work here. You might actually learn something from reading the whole thing.

Rates for the service I used, as of 1995 were as follows:

        Welcome Plan: 5 hours for $9.95, $2.95 each additional hour
        10 Plan: 10 hours for $19.95, $2.75 each additional hour
        15 Plan: 15 hours for $29.95, $2.50 each additional hour
        25 Plan: 25 hours for $49.95, $2.25 each additional hour
        50 Plan: 50 hours for $99.95, $1.95 each additional hour
        Unlimited Plan: for $129.95

And this was for dial-up at 2400 bps (and possibly 9600?) ref

Back to my original post, it might be inconvenient to do hourly rates for an always-on broadband, so metering is a natural choice.
Also if someone uses your WiFi, you're stuck with a huge bill that you probably deserve for not securing your WiFi network.

Gutenberg.org gathers, scans, proof-reads, and publishes books that they believe to be out of copyright or otherwise in the public domain. They currently list 26 titles by W. Somerset Maugham of the 54,000 titles they offer -

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/126?sort_order=release_date
--
It is better to stand and fight. If you run, youâ(TM)ll only die tired. â" Viking saying

More like The Island of Dr. Moreau.

In case anyone was wondering exactly which books this APK is referring to for the Occult / Conspiracy readers ...

Manley Palmer Hall, Secret Teaching of All Ages, or Kindle edition

Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Since it was originally published in 1871 you can find it on Project Gutenberg

Madame Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine

Annie Besant, The Ancient Wisdom

Personally, I wouldn't bother with any of these except the Manley's P. Hall which is an excellent compendium -- especially the original over-sized print version. The full sub-title is "An Encyclopedic Outline of Masonic, Hermetic, Qabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy Being an Interpretation of the Secret Teachings Concealed Within the Rituals, Allegories and Mysteries of All Ages". LOL. He actually does a decent job summarizing these.

We now return you to your pointless circle-jerk between Microshaft, Crapple, Linsucks, Bitcoin, etc. ...

--
Apostle Paul the Murder, noun, murderer of Stephen, corruptor of The Way, attempted murderer of James. Why do you people listen to his garbage ego again??