Slashdot Mirror

How come the homeopathic practitioners don't just row out into the sea and throw their goose livers in there? They could cure all diseases overnight. They must be mean capitalists if they're not doing things like that.

Where's the little glass bottles? Where's the shaking? Where's the successive titrations? You're not applying the true principles here, just a ludicrous caricature! That's why what you propse won't work. Not because it's a fundamentally incorrect Victorian era disease hypothesis.

Besides, Bitcoin isn't untraceable. The blockchain means it's rather the opposite, and thus is much less suitable for crime or tax avoidance than its detractors say.

I find that most debunkers and detractors operate out of some kind of emotional offense. They seem to think having strong feelings about a thing excuses them from learning the facts about that thing. What you hear from them is not an accurate representation of reality, but a caricature that has been drawn from a process of demonization that occurs in their minds.

I make no exaggeration when I say: how so many people can do this while congratulating themselves for a job well done is one of the great unsolved problems of civilization. Detractors who attack something while offering no alternatives or constructive solutions have zero credibility until proven otherwise, even if so many soft-minded people continue to believe them.

Emmanuel Goldstein was a proxy for Trotsky - a caricature of a villain on whom the ruling clique blamed everything bad to deflect attention from their own incompetence and violence. Of course Trotsky was utterly powerless once exiled, and in "1984" there's nothing to suggest that Goldstein was any different. Goldstein could just as well have been dead at that point; it was simply convenient for the party to keep him in the popular consciousness.

So, do you have any evidence that the creationist movement is actually some fiction (possibly loosely inspired by real people) foisted upon us by the scientific community to distract us? Because from where I sit, it's quite obvious that creationists are not only a large and loud fraction of the American public, they're winning election to school boards and congressional seats, and attempting to refashion the primary school curriculum to include thinly-disguised proselytizing. (Meanwhile, their co-religionists, who may or may not be Biblical literalists, still account for more than 80% of Americans, if you believe the polls.) But maybe it's all a farce and that Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate was actually staged using a Hollywood character actor, and the real Ken Ham (if he ever existed) is actually living in a mud hut in Patagonia with a handful of peasants calling themselves "Answers in Genesis". And meanwhile, the scientific community, which is apparently powerless to stop federal budget cuts to basic research, nonetheless pulls the strings from behind the scenes...

So, are you just terrible at analogies, or is that what you really believe? Because it's taking conservative paranoia about liberal media control to the point of self-parody.

If you are organizing your labor, you have agreed that the market pressures do not support your payscale. Downward pressure on wages does not happen unless the market is flooded, or your skills are not in demand elsewhere. Don't like it? Get a better skillset and go somewhere else.

If it was really true that wages in the west coast IT sector were purely market-driven, then why would there be a collusion lawsuit against the big tech firms? After all, if it is vain to think that organized labor can affect pay and conditions for workers, why would these large companies think that a 'union of employers' could affect pay and conditions?

Employment is a classic example of when the glibertarian caricature of the free market breaks down. The only significant type of labor that is actually a fully-flexible free market is unskilled hourly labor, where you don't need to know anything about the person other than that they can put boxes in the back of a truck or push a wheelbarrow of bricks. For reasons such as search costs, transaction costs and incomplete contracts almost everyone else is in employment that involves at least a degree of mutual trust in an extended relationship.

> So I have a large family farm.

But what right do these other people have to that money without having to pay a fair tax in it? Just because they might be your children doesn't mean they don't also owe society for all that we have done to keep your farm productive. You owe us. Just like when my father passed away and the family lost his plumbing business, it was the right thing to do because not a one of the eight people that ended-up with a part of it deserved a penny. We sold it at about 30% of what it was actually worth since we had to sell it fast to pay taxes, but that doesn't matter. The buyer now has a business that is very profitable so they're paying taxes. If my family, that doesn't deserve the business, had gotten it, then we would have made smaller profits. That's why the system that blocks inheritance is such a good thing. CONservatives just aren't capable of understanding that.

Again, why do you think your "family" is entitled to be wealthy just because of who their father is? Really, whining about only having $9 million instead of $20 million? You are a caricature of a Republican. That is more than they need so you are simply a disgusting glutton.

Unless you do some research on your own and look at her very real track record of reform in Alaska, then yes she is only a soundbite politician.

It would be more accurate to say she was a working class mother who ran for office and made changes to a state rife with cronyism. Unless you do some research on your own and look at her very real track record of reform in Alaska, then yes she is only a soundbite politician.

She is / was a working class mother who ran for office and made changes to a state rife with cronyism.

But she didn't have the right pedigree, and she had that funny accent, and she presented a threat to the status que, so she had to be portrayed as a caricature that the left felt politically correct to destroy.

Some people bought into the program. 'the image she carefully projected was of the quick-thinking renegade who didn't have the time to actually read any reports or listen to advisers, but instead promised she could run a country on gut instinct and American luck'

It's no wonder we have the Tea Party, and this year (if the IRS is held in check) things will start to change.

Ask yourself this, what is the accepted image of the Tea Party as put forth by the media? Why is that?

Stop lying.

I would have to start first.

You wrote "No. A -ism simply is a discrimination on the principle property in question." That's not a statement about what it means "here".

I do not see how this doesn't apply to racism unless you are saying there is no discrimination based upon the property of race whether or not that property is well defined - which isn't relevant.

Furthermore, you don't get to arbitrarily redefined words and then criticize people for not accepting your redefinitions.

I certainly do when I am clearly donig so for the purposes of hypotheticals in an argument.

I will outline this again for you.

I scare quoted racism - "racism" - since as it is commonly understood has additional baggage not relevant to the basic point as to whether or not acknowledging the existence of differing properties in population groups is a priori a immoral - something you refuse to make a statement on.

If you have such a problem with the word substitute whatever you want in its place that has effective meaning and then get back to what was actually said rather than what you think was said that allows you to have some righteous moral outrage.

it's with your attempt to determine what those differences are based on race and then treat people differently accordingly.

Please quote where I made such an attempt. "Treatment," is such a broad term but I can assume that you only mean that it can be derrogatory. Since I don't know entire phenotypical properties from the first glance of an individual nor since I have no particular yardstick by which to determine if there were any particular actions to take with regard to any individual based upon that other than obvious things like a deaf person isn't going to be able to communicate with me in the same way a hearing person would - a statement you will no doubt find problematic despite its obvious practicality - I have no specific approach to take any such action. You are obviously forming a caricature in your own mind based upon simply what the example is in question which again strikes to the point that you are the one with the problem and cannot take a dispassionate approach to a subject and you are infact the one with the prejudicial problems.

And the fact that lots of people are racists, like you are, is actually a big problem for our society.

Ignoring the fact that you basically don't know what my beliefs are with regard to people of other cultures are since I haven't said anything - although it would be rather problematic if I was the caricature you have formed in your mind for me in certain intimate interpersonal relationships that aren't relevant and you don't have to believe exist, you can simply read what I actually said on the matter rather than what you believe I have.

It doesn't matter that you believe that your racism is positive rather than negative.

Hypothetical question here: is the NBA racist? Is the 100m dash racist? Is the bobsleigh racist?

You keep on asserting I am making proscriptional statements on how one should behave rather than descriptional statements on factual matters.

So please, could you quote me somewhere where I've said we should whack a cracker or lynch darkies? I don't believe I said anything to this effect anywhere. This is all of your imagination and inability to read what is said on a controversial subject without jumping to your predujiced conclusions.

Again, *you* are the problem for "our" (since I probably am not part of it) soceity. Unthinking, emotionally laden, prejudiced moral panickers that would have us all mointored 24/7 for thoughtcrimes.

Definition of "racism" from Collins:

Hold it right there. I have very clearly stated what is meant here and as such the definitions you quote are irrelevant.

Would you like to address the meat of the point now?

The problem here isn't with me,

It is.

you hold racist beliefs, you simply think it's OK because you don't discriminate.

Not as you defined - clearly impossible since I already stated that I perfectly agree that what are referred to as races are a caricature of reality that have little utility. I am simply pointing out the facts here. That I am not concerned with moral panic and trying to make reality fit my prejudices rather than adjusting my perspectives to how the world is what you seem to have a problem with.

I am not going to pretend people aren't different no matter how you are going to define it because someone calls it a "moral issue" to not pretend we're all the same. So if you want to call me racist for that you go right ahead. That really is your problem.

The modern incarnation of tea party groups is basically a lesson in major party co-option and poisoning of a movement to neutralize it. The Democrats certainly don't want to focus on its origins, because those are rooted in an anti-war / anti-coroporate welfare philosophy and Democrats still like to pretend they aren't neo-cons. The GOP certainly didn't want it to spread and disturb its social issue message which it uses to cover its financially wanton behavior.

As for recent history, which has been effectively erased by both parties, there were Ron Paul Tea Party events in 2007 with a major focus on ending the wars in the middle east and protecting civil liberties: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... Check out the tags on the boxes being thrown in the the water for example around 1 minute in: "iraq war" "corporate welfare" "homeland security" etc. Or this video from Nov. 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... which is 80% anti-war (warning, pictures of burned and blown up kids from Iraq or Afghanistan).

Then shortly after Obama's election, Karl Denninger popularized an idea of sending tea bags to Congress. http://market-ticker.org/akcs-... His focus was on the fraud and abuse the Feds winked at during the financial meltdown, and he was livid when the GOP coopted the Tea Party, and turned it into some "Guns, Gays, God" focused BS: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-... Indeed, it took almost no time for the GOP to co-opt the Tea Party: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

And in case you think Denninger is just another Koch brother wannabe, he voted for Obama in 2007: http://voxday.blogspot.com/201...

He also supported the Occupy Movement's focus on banking fraud and interestingly, thought it's lack of centralization good, seeing centralization as the fatal exploitable flaw for tea party groups: http://rt.com/usa/tea-occupy-d...

Anyway, today's Tea Party is a caricature the DNC and GOP created for their own purposes by poisoning the original ideas.

Exactly. And you'll find those posts by the R-mouth breathers interleaved with equally vapid posts by the D-crystal-rubbers. Yet, I know intelligent Dems. Look beyond the caricatures your own side promotes folks, people on all sides are deeper, by and large.

Look, one side thinks America is a pretty spiffy place. The other side thinks it is a genocidal evil empire that can do no good.

You are living in a paranoid delusional fantasy world. I don't think any words can reach you at this point, so I'm going to stop trying after this one last appeal.

You honestly have embraced the idea that anything your side believes is good and anything other side believes is evil and twisted. That right there? That is how nations go mad. When you stop seeing people as *people* and start caricaturing and stereotyping their beliefs as labeling them as evil and stupid, you are just one perilous step removed from declaring that nothing done to these "evil" people can itself be evil. That is where genocides come from. That is where suicide bombers come from. That is where nearly every evil that humans have perpetrated as a group against other humans come from -- from dehumanizing those that are different.

Anyway, liberals don't believe America is an evil empire that can do no good. We just believe it can always be better than it currently is. That American can constantly improve and in fact has done so over the course of history. You see, we don't treat America as some revered ancestor as conservatives do, to always be respected and never be questioned -- as someone to inherit from and to forever stick to the traditions of. We see it as our child. Something we've created together as a people. Something to push to be better and to raise to make us proud. If it does wrong, then that should be acknowledged and not uncomfortably shoved under the rug and forgotten like a grandmother's racism. It should be examined and learned from so that we don't repeat it.

We all love America. It's just that conservatives are proudest of the America that never was, and liberals are proudest of the America that isn't here yet.

>The point about France was regarding the fact that the country has an official regulator for its language. A regulator which has quasi-legal (though thankfully no longer legal) powers to prohibit the use of languages other than French in public communications in France.

an official regulator seems a little abstract. Being vague is one of the major technique to hide fallacy. Let me guess are you talking about the académie française **DRUM** **LAUGH** **APPLAUSE** **LAUGH**. A body composed of near death writers whose the job is creating a dictionary with no legislative nor executive nor juridical power. **DRUM** **LAUGH** **APPLAUSE** **LAUGH**

>The blasphemy laws point has been an active point of debate in many EU countries over the last few years - ever since the mohammed-cartoons controversy.

Still not a single law in Europe. Having a debate is the normal process in a democracy. Any single isolated member of the parliament may propose to vote on any stupid law he tries to force upon the others. BUT these laws where always rejected. These laws are clearly against European Union very foundations, to only cite that : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union giving official weight to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_on_Human_Rights and this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights . All religion being contradictory about what is blasphemous, if any anti-blasphemous went to pass, nobody will be able to practice his religion because anything he will make will be blasphemous for somebody else.

Anyway, Charlie hebdo is still publishing caricature (https://www.google.com/search?q=charlie+hebdo+muhammad&&tbm=isch ), the guignols still cover politicaly incorrect subjects, both are national sport in France. In Sweden, cartoonist still produce this kind of thing http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7712700/Swedish-Mohammed-cartoonist-attacked-during-free-speech-lecture.html . The mileage varies between countries and the culture but in any manner EU is pushing blasphemous laws nor is the opinion of the majority of people/official for.

>The last time Germany had the presidency of the EU in 2007, it used that power to ensure

First of all, presidency in European Union, is not the kind of presidency most people think about. To be accurate we have to say: Presidency of the Council of the European Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_the_Council_of_the_European_Union to not get mixed with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Council ). What's the role (wikipedia) ?

> The presidency's function is to chair meetings of the Council, determine its agendas, set a work programme and facilitate dialogue both at Council meetings and with other EU institutions.

By consequence, the power of the president (abuse of language) is really very very limited. And the treaty of Lisbon still reduced the power of this function.

>it used that power to ensure the Commission (a terrifyingly unaccountable organisation)

To have worked in both National level (Official by now) and European Level (as a contractor), this is totally untrue. The European Institution are by a large extend more accountable than any national body. The transparency is the rule there. Corruption is minimal and everything possible is done when some illegal thing are uncovered. Most of the national institution across Europe are far away from strict policies of EU institutions. European Institutions are far from perfect but nationals institutions are worst.

A lot of National politicians tries to diminish the power the EU institution very precisely because they have not the power to corrupt the system. They accuse EU for anything, too rainy this week, this the fault the EU, and so on. EU is the best thing done in Europe for the last 60 years. EU is on the average far better than any other previous political system across Europe. Imperfect b

Agree with both CheezburgerBrown and MoonlessNights.

I was at a good paying job (for the area), but the work was ossifying into maintenance mode for internal-only apps; in 3-5 years, they wouldn't need anyone who could do put together new or better systems. Being a government contract project (federal level), I figured that 3-5 was about how long before I was on the chopping block or eyeing water towers as a sniper.

(Add to this the fact that the old IT team from 30 years ago was still around working on another part of the facility--it was like getting drug along by the Ghost of IT Departments Future, and I didn't want to become a caricature of myself or them...)

So I started looking around, willing to take a small short-term cut for long term growth and happiness. What I ended up with was more pay, working from home, and an entire industry that was ripe for upgrade and improvement.

You've got a job, so take your time. If the one you're thinking about will make you happy, and has the upward mobility you want, then you'll just have to make the call. If it doesn't pan out (like about 1/2 dozen of my potential jobs did), just keep looking.

Actually, most Muslims are by no means radical. Quite a few are pissed at the radical asshats who give the whole bunch a bad name. And bluntly, most of the "radicals" don't give a shit about Islam actually. They just noticed that this is how they get us to listen. Just say "I'm gonna bomb your $place" and suddenly the "Westener" shuts up and listens. They found out that this works. Not only that, but that we start apologizing for "insulting" them. So anything we do or say is suddenly an insult.

Fuck it!

If you don't wanna see caricatures of your prophet, you can do what I did because I didn't like "2 girls 1 cup". I simply didn't look. Yes, whoever looks at it is a sicko, or for you, dear Islamist, a heretic but guess what, it's none of your business. I will not apologize for not being like you want me to be. Why? Because in my country where I live I can be the way I want to be! If I come to some country where the Islam is considered the state religion, I will of course heed the laws there and yes, that means that I will certainly not show around caricatures of your Prophet, because that's not allowed there. No problem. Your country, your rules.

But my country, my rules! And it's gonna be a very cold day in HELL before I let some radical, religious idiot rule my country.

(which is, btw, also a reason why I'd rather not move to the US)

There's the default way -- self-absorbed managers deliberately ignoring and not understanding security warnings, wanting to keep earning bonuses for all the money they saved, etc.

Then there's the alternate explanation, IT security people seeing threats without any conclusive proof, wanting to spend a metric ton of money, expand their empire and cause a bunch of disruption that might not even accomplish anything but create chaos and complexity.

I've seen both. It's easy to see how this could be a combination of both with neither side really able to claim they were right. While there were obviously security problems, were these specific vectors the ones the security people saw? Or did they want to go on some kind of fishing expedition with little to show for it or implement a bunch of costly changes "because security"?

While management is easy to caricature as self-serving and incompetent, Target is generally a well-run company and it's hard to see their management purposefully ignoring concrete security weaknesses that could cost them maybe billions.

My guess is its probably a long-term case of all of the above. Too many managers exposed to 3Li73 53CUrI7y who just made things difficult with no concrete improvements or any attempt at usability and too many hard-working IT/security people who put up with managers that cover for weak security simply because they don't understand it and don't want to spend the money to fix it because it will either cost them personally or professionally.

This. In Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" and "Making Comics" books, he talks about how human beings tend to identify more with a character when that character is less realistic in appearance. I can't remember the specifics, but IIRC this may be because the figure we see is overtly representational, so our unconscious is freed up from dealing with fine details and we can project ourselves into the character more easily.

The ultimate examples of this are stick figures and emoticons. We're fine-tuned to read faces, so all we really need to convey a human emotion is this: :-)

Many cartoonists also rely on techniques like caricature and exaggeration of important or distinguishing details. For example, the oversized eyes/mouths/heads in manga don't look wrong, because for human beings these are the most important features to attend to (take a look at many comics, and you'll see that heads and eyes especially are abnormally large when compared to the bodies).

If catering to Western tastes, attractive women are drawn lithe and curvy whereas men are large, stocky and angular, because these are simple exaggerations of the body differences between the sexes.

Which brings us back to your example of Disney and "Frozen". Elsa is beautiful (by Western standards), but a real woman with those facial proportions would look frighteningly wrong walking down the street. She's beautiful in part because (at some level) our brains understand that she's a caricature. But within that context, her face and movements are far more natural than the best CGI simulations of any "realistic" woman I've seen so far.

They can detect the "random" activity, and isolate it

Theoretically, but in reality, anything that looks too suspicious has to be investigated. Otherwise, if someone who actually wanted to build a bomb knew that fake data was discarded, they just run 10,000 random queries in the exact same manor as the few real ones they need and easily hide their intent. Or consider after a terrorism indecent, the report on why some beyond-obvious activity wasn't caught, "Well, they looked too much like terrorists, like they were some caricature perpetrated by someone trying to troll us so we ignored it."

Also, I know for a fact that once you check so many boxes, They have to come do an investigation. My random e-mailer pissed off the secret service right after 9-11*. Though in that case, my service provider passed on the unusual activity when they noticed I got their domain blacklisted by Yahoo for spam email; I wasn't caught by NSA spying.

The question you would be asking anywhere but slashdot would be: "why did you do that?" And the answer would be: in a course I was taking at college, internet monitoring came up, and I single handedly argued against the whole class and teacher that They would not show up for a few emails with the word bomb. So I went home to prove the class wrong and maybe the class was kinda right.

Your idea sounds really cool, kinda like what TOR does but more-so. I just wanted to point out that random activity does get noticed. Your welcome to try your own experiments though!

I think with this whole Beta flap we can all agree on two things.

First, SlashDot Beta sucks. OK - whatever, who gives a shit.

Second, Slashdot is infested with the most annoying, entitled, childish fucking little neckbeard cumstain dweebs on the Internet. Most of you fucking dolts make 4chan users look like Rhodes Scholars.

Technically most of you are stuck in 1978, just completely fucking clueless. You post the same repetitive, boring as _fuck_ "memes" (what a stupid fucking word). Your personal hygiene is atrocious and women don't like you because you're ugly as shit and your personality is terrible. It's not that she's shallow and won't love you because she doesn't know you, it's that you are a sub-par human being. I promise.

I think all the repetitive, boring posts being spammed by you fuckers concerning the beta seals the case. Shut the fuck up already, no serious person gives that much of a fuck. But that's the thing, I guess. None of you are serious people, just caricatures - cardboard cutouts of a stereotype regarding socially inept misfit losers.

I think with this whole Beta flap we can all agree on two things.

First, SlashDot Beta sucks. OK - whatever, who gives a shit.

Second, Slashdot is infested with the most annoying, entitled, childish fucking little neckbeard cumstain dweebs on the Internet. Most of you fucking dolts make 4chan users look like Rhodes Scholars.

Technically most of you are stuck in 1978, just completely fucking clueless. You post the same repetitive, boring as _fuck_ "memes" (what a stupid fucking word). Your personal hygiene is atrocious and women don't like you because you're ugly as shit and your personality is terrible. It's not that she's shallow and won't love you because she doesn't know you, it's that you are a sub-par human being. I promise.

I think all the repetitive, boring posts being spammed by you fuckers concerning the beta seals the case. Shut the fuck up already, no serious person gives that much of a fuck. But that's the thing, I guess. None of you are serious people, just caricatures - cardboard cutouts of a stereotype regarding socially inept misfit losers.

Let's review.

What review? All you did was quote the other AC, and then restate your position. That's not reviewing, that's just repeating the same thing and expecting a different result

Notice in the very words you quoted the word "free" doesn't even show up.

The other AC already gave the context - which you quoted above - to what he meant by not having time: "Life's overhead takes up a great deal of time"

It's not saying the rich has more free time, but that there's less overhead taking up the rich's time.

I'd explain further, but that's already done in my last post. Go read that. I'll take my own advice and not repeat myself.

Among other things, if one wants to maintain that wealth or the means by which that wealth was obtained, then one needs to spend some time personally on that rather than on "doing the research". For example, people who successfully run businesses tend to be pretty hardcore workaholics.

That applies to everyone, not just the rich. The poor has to look after his own finances too, to keep whatever little wealth he has, or to keep his debts from piling up. The poor has to work hard too, what with how America hates paying the minimum wage (blah blah the lowest wage is $0) so they have to work several part time jobs to make ends meet.

Or are you talking about those unemployable welfare leeches who just eat, mate, and sleep and will never pay back their debts? If that's the measure you go by, then we shall reciprocate and focus on the worst of the rich (i.e not those who run successful businesses and are workaholics, but the "born rich" "corporate welfare" caricature used in liberal bash-the-rich campaigns... "you didn't build that!")

Oh, and fuck beta