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Undetectable? Anyone can goto school for stenography.

http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html

Harrison Bergeron

What a wonderful world that would be. http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html

And additionally, the obnoxious notion of "fairness" further complicates the issue.

When issues like these come up, I'm always reminded of Harrison Bergeron

Try Where Am I. I'm not sure that this is the soul that religious people mean though.

It would seem clear that they have an unfair advantage that cannot be allowed to continue. They need to be hobbled in some way to prevent them from being more creative than their fellow men. Or simply imprisoned. Or killed.

Sorry, it would seem this has already been covered.

Next you'll be telling us that the runner who is faster in a race than everyone else shouldn't be the winner, because its not fair to the slower people.

You mean kinda like this?

Ah, the Harrison Bergeron strategy. A vote for the Handicapper General is a vote against elitism. And remember, you too can earn a recognized governmental position based on work or life experience within 7 days...

Harrison Bergeron

And the solution works from the view of liberal theories of justice, e.g. Rawls, because it is essentially a redistribution of social resources from those who happen to be born with (and hence do not deserve) such resources to those who happen to be dealt a bad hand, through no fault of their own.

Ah Rawls, the perpetrator of the Harrison Bergeron concept of "justice".

Yeah, that'll work -- subordinating individual rights to pander to envy is just so enlightened.

Hint: you are not defined by the hand you are dealt, but by how you play it.

stop it.
Words change.

Get over it.

I am having a comeback overload, so pick your favorite and mod me accordingly:

1)
Second, it is not even "whose" because Pi isn't a person.

Don't tell this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Rixiu
2)
I am reminded of the rule that that all grammar correcting comments will contain at least one error when I ask: should not Grammar Day be capitalized?
3)
All grammar nazis should be required to read this:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html
lazier nazis can be distracted here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3737179

Harrison Bergeron, if you haven't read. /karmawhoring

I think you are thinking of this story: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html Harrison Bergeron

Its the only one I like by Vonnegut.

This may be beyond fair usage but all I can add Harrison Bergeron for those who never met him.

Diana Moon Glampers certainly thought so! (How could this thread go on so long without a reference to Harrison Bergeron?)

Yes

And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

Obligatory Harrison Bergeron link: http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html

Make Net businesses compete on the same level as their brick-and-mortar counterparts.

Yes, wonderful idea! We should also force taxi drivers who know of shortcuts to take the same busy main roads as everyone else. In fact, lets just make sure that everyone with any sort of competitive advantage is thoroughly handicapped. Equality for all, at any price!

"It would be great to see some sort of mechanism that discourages that behaviour."

It's called becoming a social outcast. Both online and in real life. If you know someone who's a griefer, stop associating with them in real life. Wow...consequences for my actions...who'd have thunk it? It's not a total solution, but it's a step.

We need to stop trying to legislate people's morality. Mine is *not* the same as yours and should not be expected or forced to be. Want examples? Two words : Consentual Crimes. http://www.petermcwilliams.org/mirrors/www.mcwilli ams.com/books/books/aint/index6.htm

Eventually either we're going to have a Harrison Burgeron (http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb.html type government or people are going to give up and realize that sometimes, Freedom(TM)means not punishing someone for thinking differently than you do.

(dons Flame(TM)-proof clothing for this and above post.)

Specifically, their children are going to grow up to be as ignorant as their parents; even if they're much smarter than mom and dad, their ignorance will interfere with them becoming valuable contributors to the scientific community. Those smart kids would end up as so much wasted resources, like having Stephen Hawking mopping floors.

And if we don't get enough of them thinking critically, we'll end up in aHarrison Bergeron future.

you should read "Harrison Bereron"

-- This crowd encourages individualism... so long as the individuals conform to what they have decided individuals should be--
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story called "Harrison Bergeron" about what happens in a society where equality is taken to the extreme... you can read it here. I found it a bit disturbing...

A.A

Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

This Federal ID idea is definitely rediculous. I'm glad someone is actively opposing it. I suppose it is good they are trying to push states to actually have good ID cards. Some of them (West Virginia, New Jersey until recently) are rediculously easy to fake. Not that I, ahem, would know anything about that.
But let's not give them too much credit. This is obviously another step toward removing already eroding privacy rights in this country. And of course the convenient excuse "war on terror" will be stamped all over this.

Let's get a run-down of what this will actually mean to the average consumer.
~ By "common machine readable technology", I'm assuming they mean RFID, which we all know has its drawbacks.
~ I doubt this will end up being a substitute for a Driver's License. What if you lose driving privilages and have to turn in your ID? Do you have to get a new "non-driver" card just to go to the bank? Bull shit. Inevitably, this will have to be carried around in addition to a driver's license. Great, another unnecessary card to carry in my wallet. Why don't they just make us all wear collars around our necks. Not like nobody's ever thought of that before.
~ It will obviously be scanned at every point of use. I forsee an amendment in the near future extending this to train/bus travel as well.
~ Inevitably, this will be part of a big government database. We all know those are generally bad ideas. I wouldn't be surprised if they link this up to your EZ-Pass so they can see where your car is going too. Remember (FTA) this is an $83 billion project. It is going to be BIG. ~ What if you lose this thing? It's bad enough getting the state to replace an ID... who do I complain to now? The FBI? Dept of Homeland Security?

I don't even want to think about this anymore. Go Maine.

What's next? Students sued because they're more popular than the unpopular students? "Sally only won home coming queen because she's a cheerleader and promiscuous! It's UNFAIR!"

[The ballerinas] weren't really very good - no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in.

The only questions left then are whether the living human being is a person -- which requires some sophistry to deny -- and whether abortion could be justifiable homicide.

And then:

My choice of drawing the line at fertilization is simple: that is the point at which the organism comes into existence. Any other line to be drawn has to assume that "personhood" is attached to one's abilities, which is not easily defensible.

It feels like you're either labelling everything I've said as sophistry or ignoring what I've discussed about the fuzzy boundaries of human life. There's no flashing arrow pointing to the DNA combination step in human development saying "most important". There's no reason to assume there *must* be a crucial step that's more important than the others that are also required. More about this in my other post in this thread.

I apologize and recant. The term "sophistry" was applied too broadly, and you haven't deserved that label.

There is a subtle difference in approaches that one can take here. Your approach, similar to Thomson's approach, talks about the rights of the fetus over against the rights of the mother. That is, IMO, the responsible avenue to pursue. Others approach the issue by trying to cut off the fetus from a claim to rights entirely, by denying personhood to the fetus. In particular, I was recently reading this, which posits that we can draw a line between "person" and "human" in a rather question-begging manner.

I do NOT believe that you have been begging questions, although you haven't answered all of them to my satisfaction (and vice-versa, no doubt). You have flirted with the question of personhood, but my understanding of your argument from the beginning was that you were focusing on rights.

Continuous Partial Attention? Try maintaining any attention when you have this blared out from overhead every three minutes:

Im Selfimportant, you have a call parked on 666. Im Selfimportant, 666 please.

I'm a "knowledge worker." I don't appreciate a voice interrupting my thoughts all the sodding time. I'm scatterbrained enough as it is, but I feel like Harrison Bergeron some days. It's usually a call for someone in Sales or Support anyway; why the fuck not forward the caller to their bloody cell phone, instead of blasting the grating voice of the receptionist to everyone in the building?

The problem: small company and attention needy management.

When working on something complicated, the jefe would phone or email with a "let's pull up the carrots and see how they're doing".

Not good to bother the watchmakers, even if its for "just a quick question".

PTSD favorite moment: Phone call asking me if I got the email he'd just sent. Poppin' Paxil like Pez after two years there.

To net it out: email obsession might healthy for the larger company's ceo. If they're spending all of their time on bs, it at least keeps 'em away from the workers. I say, get 'em a game console too. Maybe a coffee can in the lounge to pay for ceo's adult site subscriptions.

we've got a dumbed-down educational system that would make Harrison Bergeron cringe

Excellent point, and I'm sure you meant Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General. Harrison was the dancer.

(Those of you who don't get the allusion should read the extremely short story by Kurt Vonnegut.)

"Harrison Bergeron"

- The handicap helmet George Bergeron wore in the essay emitted sounds, not electric shocks.

- The helmet was designed to keep George down, i.e. to disrupt his brain/thought patterns, not to resolve any problem he might have had (unlike the device in the article).

One of many places to read Harrison Bergeron in its entirety.

The Handicapper General would like to remind you of your required "equality" education ...

"... "If I tried to get away with it," said George, "then other people'd get away with it and pretty soon we'd be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn't like that, would you?"

"I'd hate it," said Hazel.

"There you are," said George. "The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?"

Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
--http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/hb .html

Right, and fair means at the same cost, or burden to everyone, not the same relative dollar value. Ten percent of a lower middle class income is a huge burden which directly affects their quality of life. Ten percent on an upper middle class income, while more dollars, is hardly any burden. Progressive tax systems allow for a fair burden on everyone, regardless of class.

So you think a fair tax system is one in which you can't earn enough to gain relief from your burdens, because the tax goes up to match? What the hell kind of system is that? What's the point in trying to advance yourself?

Equality-before-the-law is the principle we want to encourage, not equality-in-fact. I mean, look at "Harrison Bergeron".

Or better, look at communism. Nice philosophy, but it didn't work in practice. You say that is because communist governments were corrupt, but I respond that a system where the government forcibly redistributes wealth is easy to corrupt. Heck, you can see that now. Look at all the tax exemptions the article talked about. You can't tell me that's fair!

Now, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be safety nets for the less fortunate. There should be. I am the less fortunate, and I was glad to have a safety net. But the mechanism should be separate from taxes. That way, if it goes wrong, it can be fixed easily. And it can be reasoned about separately.

C'mon, you guys are developers! You know this! Orthogonal functionality should be separated. In this case, the two orthogonal functions are a) government revenue, and b) social safety nets.