Michael Bloomberg Defends Science

blonde rser writes "This weeks Scientific American Podcast plays excerpts from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's commencement address at John Hopkins University (text and video can be found online). Once he gets past the standard pomp and circumstance he makes a strong, pro-science speech. It is impressive how he very directly demonizes those that would politicize stem cell research, global warming, Terry Schaivo, and evolution." From the speech: "Hopkins' motto is 'Veritas vos liberabit' - 'the truth shall set you free' - not that 'you shall be free to set the truth!'" Stirring stuff.

Comments

It's good and all

[feyhunde]

But why can't we have a difference of opinion on a complex matter? Terri Shivao is not like the rest. She was a woman in a questionable state. Not a theory that met a wide burden of proof.

Oh well, ignore me. I'm drunk.

Re:It's good and all

[Anonymous Coward]

There was nothing questionable about her state. Her brain had liquified, there was no way for her to recover.

Re:It's good and all

[Watson Ladd]

Because of something called facts. Facts say Terri Schavo was not going to recover. Facts say she gave orders to have her taken off life support in such a state. I like to base my opinon on facts, but you might digress.

Re:It's good and all

[Yvanhoe]

Come on! You know that facts have a strong liberal bias!

Re:It's good and all

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well, ignore me. I'm drunk.

Ok, but next time, put this line at the beginning so we can save some time.

Re:It's good and all

[Distinguished Hero]

The fact that many contemporary liberals have an affinity for incessantly regurgitating slogans and "jokes" (like the one above, by John Stewart, I believe) is one fact which definitely does not have a strong liberal bias. Since your assertion claims that all facts "have a strong liberal bias" (which I define as presenting liberals and positions held by liberals in a positive light), we encounter a contradiction; therefore, your assertion is incorrect. Quod erat demonstrandum.

Re:It's good and all

[BakaHoushi]

Actually, it was a joke from Steven Colbert's speech at the White House's Press Dinner of some kind a few weeks ago. And as such, I'm guessing he was just joking.

Re:It's good and all

[Distinguished Hero]

Actually, it was a joke from Steven Colbert's speech at the White House's Press Dinner of some kind a few weeks ago.
I thought I saw John Stewart use it on his show a while back. I could be mistaken though (I did use the term "I believe" to indicate my less than full confidence in my assertion). Perhaps I confused the two as Colbert used to be on Stewart's show.

And as such, I'm guessing he was just joking.
I acknowledged that it was supposed to be a joke in my original post. :)

Re:It's good and all

[BakaHoushi]

I didn't mean to question what you know. I was just stating the actual source. But it was actually a rather recent event (3 or 4 weeks ago, I believe) so I can see how not everyone would know it. But my main qualm is that if you know he's joking when he states "reality has a well-known liberal bias," then you know he actually KNOWS reality has no liberal bias. However, you apparently have a bias against liberal bias, which means you don't stay in touch with reality, which means you are wrong, which means he wasn't joking and was in fact stating a truth. QED.

(And yes, that was a joke, too. =p Reality has no bias, only fools who think reality is always in their favor)

Re:It's good and all

[Distinguished Hero]

I didn't mean to question what you know. I was just stating the actual source. But it was actually a rather recent event (3 or 4 weeks ago, I believe) so I can see how not everyone would know it.
I understand that Colbert used the joke at that event (coincidentally, I read a transcript of it shortly after it happened); however, I was under the impression that before that (quite a bit before, when I still watched the Daily Show) John Stewart has made a similar (same) joke; of course, at the point, it was a throwaway line, and it does not seem to have been popularised before the media event featuring Colbert. Again, I may be wrong, and my mind may be playing tricks on me.

But my main qualm is that if you know he's joking when he states "reality has a well-known liberal bias," then you know he actually KNOWS reality has no liberal bias.
Sometimes people say jokingly what they believe to be true, but do not have the courage to simply assert.
Frankly though, my complaint was that I had heard that joke too many times. :P

Re:It's good and all

[MightyMartian]

Terry Schiavo's forebrain had been replaced by fluid. Those things which made her what she was had ceased to exist years before. It was a particularly cruel twist of nature that the lower brain was left intact, and could still keep basic autonomic processes running. At issue was a) a family who would say anything to keep what was left alive and b) self-serving politicians trying to score points with what they perceived as a highly religious conservative majority.

What really happened was, of course, that the Schindler's were revealed as slanderers and liars and the politicians were revealed as unethical bastards who had no real interest in the case at all.

Re:It's good and all

[Admiral Ag]

Like most of the memorable things JS says, it's not really a joke.

It just means that where matters of fact are concerned rather than mere opinions, the liberals tend to be right and the conservatives are plain wrong. "Conservative arguments" tend to involve denying the facts and trying to recast them as matters of opinion. This is the case for a wide variety of topics: sex education, economics, evolution, weapons of mass destruction, Hannity being a nutcase, etc.

And that, people, is a fact.

It's weird that the postmodern "philosophies" derided by conservatives are basically being utilized by them in their attempt to recast all uses of language as rhetoric.

Re:It's good and all

[Jett]

I've seen it on the internet for years, I don't think Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert came up with it. I think it may have originally been "reality has a liberal bias", until maybe a year ago that is how it was usually written.

Re:It's good and all

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly though, my complaint was that I had heard that joke too many times. :P

That was clearly demonstrated when you proceeded to analyze it to death. Instead of learning latin, perhaps you should have gone to a few comedy clubs from time to time. Or at least once.

Re:It's good and all

[plunge]

It came up when a Bush official gave an interview when he declared that there was no such thing as reality and that they decided what was true because they define history for the rest of us.

This man is right

[Swizec]

I wholeheartedly agree. It is unacceptable that stem cell research is being outlawed pretty much everywhere. Laws shoudl be made about what is allowed to be done with stem cell research, for instance that you cant' clone whole humans, that seems nasty, but things like organs taht match the one that needs them perfectly should be allowed. I for one would like to have my heart replaced by what is practically my own heart once this one becomes too weak and/or sick.

With stem cell research there is no waiting for organs, no rejection, everything is just perfect. But nooooooo, that would be too wrong to have, hell I can't even think who would be at loss if this were true.

Re:This man is right

[ceeam]

Who would be at loss? Just use your imagination! For once - would you agree to move your retirement age if you start replacing your organs with new one? Would you agree that everyone should be able to do that or only people with money? Since we are dreaming do you really want to see talking (and walking) heads of 200 year old people around? I dunno - maybe they'll have something nice to say or teach but I doubt. Reminds me of some Simpsons episodes....

Anyway - these matters are complex and neither you and me know more than other people. Just notice that even such "harmless" decisions as "1 child per family" program in China have some not-quite-expected consequences where there many, many more boys being born than girls. They are heading to a big social crisis in 15-20 years this way (and they know it). Expect arrival of single horny chinese young men hunting for your daughters wherever you live.

Re:This man is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Stem cell research is not being outlawed "everywhere." Many in America oppose federal funding on the subject, but afaik, you are free to slaughter the innocent little potential babies any time you like so that Michael J Fox can stay in the limelight- as long as you use private money. Talk to Bill G.

Re:This man is right

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how impressed my daugher will be with, um, Mr. Wang.

Re:This man is right

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Just notice that even such "harmless" decisions as "1 child per family" program in China have some not-quite-expected consequences where there many, many more boys being born than girls. They are heading to a big social crisis in 15-20 years this way (and they know it). Expect arrival of single horny chinese young men hunting for your daughters wherever you live.

Not only horny - but economically disenfranchised. "1 Family 1 Child" means that for every 2 retired people there will only be 1 working person. The US has concerns about their social security pyramid scheme collapsing because american families have something like 1.8 kids. China's got it much worse with around 1.05 kids. I would be leaving the country if I were forced into that kind of scheme too - which only makes it worse for the ones who don't leave.

Re:This man is right

[Anonymous Coward]

If a society is ever going to handle shrinking population numbers gracefully, it's during boom times. When the older generation had only half of what their kids have and earn, then it's easier for the younger generation to sustain their parents way of life even if their parents outnumber them.

Re:This man is right

[McDutchie]

Just notice that even such "harmless" decisions as "1 child per family" program in China have some not-quite-expected consequences where there many, many more boys being born than girls.

I think you mean: many more baby girls being murdered than boys.

Re:This man is right

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Laws shoudl be made about what is allowed to be done with stem cell research, for instance that you cant' clone whole humans, that seems nasty,

WTF? What do you base this opinion on? Movies? "That seems nasty"?

Re:This man is right

[Swizec]

Heh, yes you're right, that oppinion isn't based on pretty much anything but my personal view that cloning just doesn't quite seem right.

Re:This man is right

[Swizec]

That's a valuable point, 300 year old people would be kind of a weird thing to have walig about. Perhaps organ replacing should be limited to diseases and aging shoudl be let alone to do it's thing.

It's only logical though that sooner or later that would get abused...

Re:This man is right

[Distinguished Hero]

Just notice that even such "harmless" decisions as "1 child per family" program in China have some not-quite-expected consequences where there many, many more boys being born than girls.
There was nothing unexpected about that. Any moron could have figured out what was going to happen, and I'm sure the people who designed and implemented the policy were fully aware of it. The imbalance is not as large as you probably believe though (especially as the one child policy is enforced selectively (mostly in the cities) and not everyone is willing to murder their children).

They are heading to a big social crisis in 15-20 years this way (and they know it). Expect arrival of single horny chinese young men hunting for your daughters wherever you live.
If only there was something a government like China's could do with a surplus of young men... like send them off to die in some war to expand the borders of the Empire...

Re:This man is right

[balloonhead]

But we can't replace brains, and we can't cure cancer. Even stem cell brain cell regeneration would replace useful neuronal connections with random ones - i.e. not the same person (possibly not even able to d oanything usful). This gives a more likely maximum age of someone to be around 100-120 depending on when the stroke out. Until the brain is gone though, people can enjoy manual labour with those replacement hearts, lungs and kidneys until their 90s!

Re:This man is right

[dalutong]

I see there are already people criticising you. I will not be another one. I will just speak in philosophical terms.

In history human beings have been provided their social and moral guidelines from elsewhere. This included from their government, religious institution, or simply from the environment in which they lived. (After all, an agrarian society can only have so many types of social systems.) As technology has empowered us over the past few decades, we have had the opportunity to shun many of the external, meaning those which had to be adopted, sources of social and moral guidelines. But we haven't taken it upon ourselves to replace the guidelines developed over the ages by philosopher kings and religious leaders with a similarly developed set of our own creation.

This is dangerous when we start to have technologies like stem cell research. Making laws restricting what we can do with stem cells only goes so far. If we don't mature enough as humanity, every wild and repugnant use for stem cells will be found. It's the culture of self-interest and convenience. With as many lazy people as there are today, you don't think that there is going to be a very large market for constant replacement parts (meaning not just when we've had an accident or disease or something, but just because we're too lazy to stop eating french fries)?

This isn't just for stem cells, it's for almost all technologies. In the past, governments were able to control technology. It is becoming less and less true. Instructions on how to build a lot of dangerous things are online, and will always be online (or available universally in some other way.) The only way for us to have any sort of ethical future is for us to start promoting education and this kind of self-determined philosophizing.

An example I like to use is Star Trek (at least TNG.) The ferengi loved the holodeck because they could enjoy endless sexual escapades. That's where we're headed -- to giving up everything that makes us human and just doing the simplistic, animalistic, convenient thing all the time. And the only way I can see to not going down that path is something like the Star Trek way -- where humanity recognizes where that will lead us and each person chooses to instead not go the way of the ferengi.

Re:This man is right

[Distinguished Hero]

It is unacceptable that stem cell research is being outlawed pretty much everywhere.
Stem cell researched is not "being outlawed pretty much everywhere." In the US, there is a ban on federally funding stem cell research (which means the federal government can't spend its tax "revenue" on stem cell research. Individual states, rich people, and venture capitalists are free to fund as much stem cell research as they want.

Laws shoudl be made about what is allowed to be done with stem cell research, for instance that you cant' clone whole humans, that seems nasty
Why? What right do you have to prevent private citizens from playing around with clumps of cells. You are no less authoritarian than those you claim to despise. The government has no right dictating to scientists what avenues of research they can or cannot pursue. I don't see how attempting to produce a full clone is any more morally questionable than people with hereditary diseases procreating (and the government doesn't do anything about that). In the worst case scenario, you just end up with a "broken" human being. There are plenty of those walking around at the moment, and the world has not collapsed yet.

Re:This man is right

[Sj0]

Embryos aren't the only source of stem cells.

But you knew that, right?

Re:This man is right

[MrPerfekt]

Maybe we just need a mandatory carousel at age 100?

RENEW, RENEW, RENEW!

Re:This man is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Society has not grown lazy, it has grown ignorant and selfish. Laziness is not the reason people drive SUVs, nor is it the reason people are afraid of math (yes, I do mean afraid of math, not just disinterested). This trend is welcomed by the government, since it means society can easily be scared (and consequently, easily controlled). The government will discourage stem cell research in favor of religion, just to ensure that nobody becomes too independent or intelligent. Nefarious uses for stem cells are not a reason to discourage research, any more than research into antibiotics should have been discouraged because some people started selling snake oil cures.

Re:This man is right

[70Bang]

(FYI: there's a remake of Logan's Run underway.)

As far as 100 goes, there was a quote on the google/ig page the other day from George Burns to the effect "The key is to reach 100. Very few people die past 100."

<sarcasm>And finally, it was terrific to see Bloomberg had the stones to bring up something for which he's become a proponent: tagging all {illegal|temporary} immigrants with an RFID chip to permit proper identification.</sarcasm> News.Google shows nothing about this subject but www.Google sure as heck does.

Anyone want to bet it's the right hand?

Re:This man is right

[LordOfTheNoobs]

Actually the worst case senario is not a merely "broken" human being. It is what is done with a cloned human being.

• Do clones have rights? Of course not, they're property! We made them!
  
• Sex slaves, your choice of size, sex, measurements, skin color? All right!
  
• Overmuscled slaves for manual labor? All Right!
  
• Beat a slave? Kill it? Who cares? They're yours to kill!
  
• Conscience-free blood sport here we come!
  
• Each of our custom crafted slaves are born with physical tell-tale markers that ensure you can tell the difference between one of these things and one of us, so no worries on that.
  
• Each comes with a ten year lifetime warranty, after which the creature is designed to die a peaceful death of combination stroke and heart attack, to help get rid of old models without a lot of fuss, and keep newer models hitting the marketplace.
  
• A specific protein inhibition stops them from creating proteins they need without access to our patented slave-chow brand feeds, to keep potential runaways under control. After all, how far can one of them run if it suddenly drops into a coma from not eating the right foods, eh?
  
• And don't worry yourselves, each of our lovingly crafted slaves are completely sterile and without hope of spreading their bastard progency throughout the world.
  

Of course, we, as a race of thoughful and kind peoples, would never do that, and mankinds scientists would never engineer something into such a life.
Then, mankind would never have and doesn't currently enslave natural born humans, right?
And scientists never become so involved in their work they'd create something, like say a bomb that can destroy the known world, and only afterwards pause to realize what they've done. And scientists are just never outright immoral either, right?

yes, a nod to MCs JurassicPark on the protien thing
bigger nod to Rifts Manhunter universe though.

Re:This man is right

[zippthorne]

But why is cloning, "not quite right?"

As a person opposed to embryonic stem cell research, I can state unequivocally the reason for my opposition, and unless you're a sociopath, if you accept the premise, you would oppose it as well. I believe that the harvesting of stem cells involves the murder of a person.

Cloning on the other hand does not involve the murder of a person. It's pretty much the opposite of killing in any way. As such, I really don't see any reason to oppose it* other than the potential philosphical implications depending on the source of the cells used in the cloning. But those are reasons to oppose things other than cloning, and not the cloning itself.

*Once it works that is. The physical problems and low success rate exhibited by the animal tests show we have a long way to go before cloning could make sense for humans

Re:This man is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Lisa: What's Santa's Little Helper doing to that dog?
Marge: Uh oh...
Bart: It looks he's trying to jump over her, but he can't quite make it. Come on, boy, you can do it!

Re:This man is right

[samkass]

, you are free to slaughter the innocent little potential babies

This is exactly the type of language that doesn't help anyone. For the most part, the stem cells come from embryos that are going to be destroyed anyway. So it's really the choice between incinerating them or letting them help humanity. And as for potential babies, that's the same argument that's causing the Catholic church to ban condoms which leads to huge increases in HIV and other STDs. So it all depends on how far you want to go with this "potential baby" thing. (In Jesus' day, a baby wasn't considered "viable" until 30 days *after* birth, and I don't recall reading his sermon on that topic.)

As for me, I'd probably go further than most. My current opinion is that I don't see a microscopic bundle of cells at that level as anything higher than an animal. I think if you want to protect innocent human life, you should start with the already-born children's quality of life and education before you go down to the little cells.

Re:This man is right

[blueOneDown]

Stem Cell research has not been outlawed anywhere in the US, perhaps you are talking about another country. Even governmental funding of Stem Cell research is allowed. Federal funding has some limits (limiting research to a few cell lines) but private funding and statefunding is nearly without limits. California is spending seven billion dollars that it doesn't have (it got a loan against future tax dollars) to fund stem cell research. That's a lot of money for a totally unproven technology.

Re:This man is right

[ceoyoyo]

It looks to me like all of your points come from that first one (clones are property) or genetic manipulation, which is a different issue.

So, to address your first point, why would a clone be property? If you have kids you made them. Are they property?

Hey, want a sex slave? Just a second, I'll run out, find someone of the opposite sex and we'll whip you up one.

Need some muscle? Hang on the little lady and I will make you some.

Just one thing -- it'll take a couple of decades to grow to maturity. JUST LIKE A CLONE.

Cloning is just like artificial insemination (which is just like natural insemination except for where it occurs) except that you have to jump through a couple of extra hoops because you only have one parent.

Re:This man is right

[LordOfTheNoobs]

As a different point, should a rich man be able to fashion 10,000 replicas of himself to spread his own genes more rapidly? Does a lump of brain material created through cell manipulation have rights? What if it is tethered into an electronic speaking aparatus and shown to think. It's still not `human', it has no body, organs, normality. Most people would agree that a kidney is without right, what about growing bodies filled with organs purposefully fusing the brain stem to avoid intelligence? Is that human? What if it would have been if they didn't fuse the brain stem. What if you can't tell if it would have been? How does society decide?

My point was that the worst case isn't necessarily a broken model, but the response of the rest of humanity to this new creature. Many will deride it as inhuman. Others will call it an abomination. It will be hated. Cursed. Attacked. Many will definately consider the result of artificially modeling cells into a living organism as property. "Human? Only 72% after subtracting the sections modified. It's a thing, not a person, it just looks like a person for aesthetic reasons."

They take a couple decades to grow, right now. Given an attitude of inhumanity towards the clones, and the willingness to subject them to possibly gruesome experiment, their not being human and all, and you could probably find ways to increase their rate of growth. It is not important they be schooled or useful outside of their grown purpose ( probably the opposite desired ), and any benefits discovered could be retroactively used on real people, instead of just these things! Win-win!

Human cloning will be a Hell for the philosophers. And the clones. Especially the philospher clones.

Re:This man is right

[ceoyoyo]

Your first different point -- I guess if the rich man wants descendants with a high rate of genetic defects then he can go ahead. There's a reason for all the redundancy you get with two parents. Really, the rich guy would be much better off just paying a bunch of women to bear his children. It would be cheaper.

As for (most of) the rest, you're talking about genetic manipulation again. I agree there are ethical concerns and that society needs to make up it's mind about some things. I think people get a bit excited about it though. Particularly in the area of cloning, which I think most people misunderstand. It's a parlour trick with possibly some obscure medium term applications and maybe some interesting long term possibilities. Not a way to make armies.

Re:This man is right

[i_finally_got_an_acc]

Heh. Well, I guess they've got the overpopulation thing solved.

1) If there are as few chinese women as I'm lead to believe, their population is going to dip waaaay more than their government intended.

2) There are going to be a loooot of male chinese virgins.

Re:This man is right

[Idiomatick]

With stem cell research we probably could cure it alot faster. We could force mutation until we found an organ immune to cancer and then duplicate that... wait we've already done that with mice D;

Re:This man is right

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that this is how things will go down, but if it is, sign me up for a few...The big problem I would see is the clones being too good a substitute (ala the Lucy Lee Futurama episode).

Re:This man is right

[DM9290]

Not only horny - but economically disenfranchised. "1 Family 1 Child" means that for every 2 retired people there will only be 1 working person. The US has concerns about their social security pyramid scheme collapsing because american families have something like 1.8 kids. China's got it much worse with around 1.05 kids. I would be leaving the country if I were forced into that kind of scheme too - which only makes it worse for the ones who don't leave.

With advances in technology this is not necessarily a problem. We are presumably more productive, so 1 person now can produce more wealth than 3 people could produce 100 years ago. More over with mass production, the goods we need all should cost less.

There is no universal law of nature which says 1 person can't produce enough for 3.

Re:This man is right

[WhiplashII]

There is no universal law of nature which says 1 person can't produce enough for 3.

There is, however, a universal law of nature that says that the one person will not be happy about this arrangement.

Re:This man is right

[grappler]

There are going to be a loooot of male chinese virgins.

A large population of young males is usually a sign that a country will have some political turmoil. If most of those are virgins, well, better not provoke China...

Re:This man is right

[Zaatxe]

You know, I moved from Brazil to Spain almost a year ago and one of the first things I noticed here is how many chinese girls adopted by spanish couples there are. And they are all girls, I haven't seen a chinese boy adopted by a spanish couple so far. At least these lucky little ones are being "exported" instead of "murdered".

Re:This man is right

[plunge]

"As a person opposed to embryonic stem cell research, I can state unequivocally the reason for my opposition, and unless you're a sociopath, if you accept the premise, you would oppose it as well. I believe that the harvesting of stem cells involves the murder of a person."

I don't except the premise, and in fact I think the premise itself demonstrates a sociopathic failure to understand the whole point of morality. Stem cells and all embryonic cells are essentially recipes for creating persons. But they are in no way functioning in anything approaching the capacity of the beings for which we have all learned to respect and believe require rights and protections (regardless of what their underlying genetic substructure might be). The recipe hasn't been carried out yet, and almost none of the raw materials are even there, much less in place in the proper way. To say that stem cells are persons in the same sense that even the most brain damaged fetus is, is insulting and dehumanizing. It substitutes an extremely strained literal translation of a very particular definition of "human" for the actual experiences and moral reasoning we've developed as to why persons need rights and should not be killed or harmed.

Just consider how silly the claim that a clump of stem cells is a "person" given that it can separate into two, or three, or even four "persons" down the road in the execution of the genetic recipe. Or it can simply never grow into a person but can instead simply live and live as a clump of cells indefinately.

Re:This man is right

[DM9290]

I said: There is no universal law of nature which says 1 person can't produce enough for 3.

you said: There is, however, a universal law of nature that says that the one person will not be happy about this arrangement.

1: No there isn't.
2: Even if there was, the happiness of the other 2 at not being put to death, outweighs the inconvenience of the 1 who must support them.
3: in time the 1 will also grow old and retire, and will in turn be supported by another younger worker (his children and grandchildren). His happiness at recieving this help, will outweigh the many years of inconvenience he previously suffered at supporting his elders.
4: see #1.

Re:This man is right

[WhiplashII]

WHOOSH!!! That sound you may or may not have heard was the sound of a joke flying by over your head...

But if you want it to be serious:
1) They are alway resentfull, unless they have received something from that person in the past (such as life, education, etc.) When the government comes in and informs you that you will provide 2/3 of your work for the sole benefit of people you have never met, it just doesn't go over well!
2) Put to death? You mean they would have to work like the rest of us? That would put them to death? Weird!
3) This is called a pyramid scheme. Please research what happens to pyramid schemes when they run out of suckers, er, workers. The last guy that buys in is left holding the bag - and they are never happy about that.
4) The only reasonable explanation I've seen is the statement "we are not running out of suckers, because the suckers are able to work so much harder than previous suckers". I am unconvinced that this is a winning argument.

Re:This man is right

[DM9290]

1) They are alway resentfull, unless they have received something from that person in the past (such as life, education, etc.)

Who do you think raised you, brought you into the world, and educated you? Your elders.

When the government comes in and informs you that you will provide 2/3 of your work for the sole benefit of people you have never met, it just doesn't go over well!

It will be for the sole benefit of the people who invested in you as a child. You met them. They are your teachers, your parents, your friends parents, the mailman who brought you mail, the fireman who rescued your cat from a tree. It is the entire community which supported and protected you in your early non-productive years. How many millions upon BILLIONS of dollars do we spend in PREPARING our children? Preparing them for what? So they can make profits for their own aggrandizement? No.. so they can carry on the task of living, raising the next generation (and fulfill their obligation to us when we are too old or sick to work anymore).

2) Put to death? You mean they would have to work like the rest of us? That would put them to death? Weird!

A typical 75 year old grandma is lucky if she can walk without assistance. You want her to WORK? I wont ask if you'd hire her, because I know your answer would be : Why would I hire someone and invest all that money in training in an employee who is going to kick the bucket any time, when I can hire a hot college grad in her 20's for less pay, less medical leave and cheaper insurance costs. For that matter.. why hire a 30 year old woman.. she'll probably go on maternity leave any time.

3) This is called a pyramid scheme. Please research what happens to pyramid schemes when they run out of suckers, er, workers. The last guy that buys in is left holding the bag - and they are never happy about that.

We are not talking about a pyramid, we are talking about a sustainable terminating condition which is more akin to a QUEUE. 1 working adult supports 3 human lives.

your only argument so far is that the working adult will not agree.

On average to sustain the population, you will have 2 children per couple. thus on average 1 working adult supports 1 parent + 1 child.

4) The only reasonable explanation I've seen is the statement "we are not running out of suckers, because the suckers are able to work so much harder than previous suckers". I am unconvinced that this is a winning argument.

The "suckers" (I call them people) need not work harder than previous generation. They only need work more productively than the babyboomers. And THEY DO. We are more productive today, thanks to technology. End of story. There is nothing to convince you of. It is an observable fact.

Instead of investing this money where it needs to be invested, this money is gobbled up in the form of record corporate profits, but the fact remains.. it is due to increased productivity brought about by technology.

Taking care of the elder generation is a moral duty. Do onto others as you would have be done on to you. Most of us want to be taken care of in our twilight years, and most of us *WILL* not have any qualms about collectively supporting the ones who brought us into the world. Even if it means that, after accounting for all we spend on our kids, and all we spend on our parents, we only have 1/3 left to spend on ourselves. It is a fact of live.

Short of killing off the elderly or putting children to work. it is an unavoidable conclusion, that working adults MUST support (one way or another) on average 2 other non working human beings.

Re:This man is right

[Luscious868]

I wholeheartedly agree. It is unacceptable that stem cell research is being outlawed pretty much everywhere

Except it hasn't been outlawed pretty much anywhere. Get the facts straight. The President has banned federal funds from being used for stem cell reaseach except for research performed on the lines that existed before the ban was put into place. I'm not defending that stupid policy, mearly pointing out that banning federal funding is hardly equivalent to making something illegal. Privately funded research is happening as we speak. Several states are funding research as well.

Re:This man is right

[WhiplashII]

To be honest, I don't have a problem with anything that you said - and if that was what the government did, I would have no problem with it. (As it stands, I am obviously not revolting against the government anyway, even though they take about 58% of my salary. On top of that, I donate another 10% to charity, and donate as much of my time as possible.)

My real beef is that most of the money spent by the government is spent on welfare - but that the several trillion spent so far has not really helped people. If the government controls the redistribution of wealth, only people that a politically important get anything. If they let individuals make welfare decisions instead we might actually see some progress on poverty.

I have seen both sides of this - I currently make enough that the government takes 58%, but I also lived by myself a few years on a 4 figure anual salary because I couldn't walk (my family was overseas, and didn't exactly have any money they could send me anyway) AND WAS DENIED GOVERNMENT AID! I could not afford a doctor, I was legally disabled, I had no way to earn money except for ad hoc programming jobs (which I did from my bed). I talked to a social worker to see if they could help me, and was turned down...

Of course, knowing what I know now I should have talked to his supervisor and made a big stink. But that is a little hard to do from a bed, and besides, I think the real source of poverty is situations like that where if you only had a little bit more information you could get yourself out. I'm not bitter, I've done well - but it really annoys me when people ask me to give more money to a government that kicked me when I was down. Really, government help is not the answer to poverty.

Re:This man is right

[zippthorne]

I think you're missing the forest for the trees. I said IF you accept the premise that the embryo is a person, then haresting its stem cells is murder, and therefore should be opposed. I accept that you don't accept the premise, and that there might be some room to debate the matter, but that is less relevant to the topic at hand:

What kind of society can think harvesting embryonic stem cells is ok, but cloning isn't? That's totally bass-ackwards. I could understanding thinking both are bad, or thinking the stem cells are the line, or thinking both ok, but it baffles me how people can support embryonic stem cell harvesting, but oppose cloning.

Re:This man is right

[DM9290]

You seem to be upset that the people who need the aid aren't getting it. And that is a completely legitimate issue. It must be addressed and something must be done to accomplish it. But the solution must not appear to be self aggrandizing. That kind of solution is typically advocated by those with an ulterior motive. I.e... the solution to the wealth getting to the wrong people is NOT that the wealth should be left with you. That is simply substituting 1 group of wrong people for another group. perhaps the 2nd group is more worthy of misappropriation of funds, but the funds are still not getting to the right people (the elderly and the needy and the disabled), and you have NOT solved the problem you are purporting to be concerned about.

You want to insure that wealth is distributed according to need and utility rather than according to political connection.

I totally support such a goal. And I propose democratic reform as the solution. Government should be structured in a way to insure the government has no incentive or ability to assist others merely on the basis of political connection (or to make political connection a prerequisite for such aid).

There should be many more politicians over all, especially in the executive branch, which is practically a monarchy.

why can't you have a VP of Education, who has a specific budget has all the powers of the current president in regards to education, no power over anything else. Why must the same person who decides how to wage war in Iraq also decide how to administer the education of the nation?

Isn't that absurd?

Why not a VP of Health, a VP of Education, a VP of Environment, a VP of Economy, a VP of Defence, VP of Justice.. etc etc... and no president whatsoever?

The VP's can cooperate if they want to, but in the end that is up to them (they are executives afterall). Why invest all executive powers in a single person?

Likewise.. why not have a hierarchical congress? With 30,000 members across the country? say 500 congresses of 600 members each? Each sub-congress decides yeah or nea to any particular bill. And once the majority have voted yeh then the law is passed. Laws can be proposed by a sub-congress to congress as a whole, once it has passed locally. Imagine how expensive it would be to bribe enough congressmen in such a scenario. Imagine how powerless individual congressmen would actually be?

thats just an idea I came up with off the top of my head. They are many other possible solutions.

Your beef however is not primarily that welfare costs too much. Your beef is that the ones who get most of it are already very wealthy. That's a seperate problem.

The government is unrepresentative, and effective only at furthering the needs of the politically connected.
The government must be made truly REPRESENTATIVE of the people and must be made effective at meeting their wishes.

The government is not a living being with a soul. Whatever it did wrong in the past, you can't punish it. (like a hammer (which is a murder weapon) can't be punished). You can only adjust it so it does good from here on in. As much as people like to refer to tax as some kind of cash grab by the government. the government does NOT accumulate wealth. (in fact it does the opposite).. the problem is (as you have identified) that the government is no longer controlled by the People.

There are people who are in a lot worse straits than you were in. They need help, and large entities called corporations who now control over 50% (and growing) of all wealth are forbidden by law from performing any altruistic act without an ulterior profit motive. Some acts of altruism have no possibility of a payoff. The free market mandates only that you APPEAR to be good. It doesn't require bonafide goodness, and corporations are excellent at lying (in part because they can hire naive spokepeople who are clueless and have no idea they are telling lies when they say corporation X actually gives a damn about anything ot

Re:This man is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a good scenario...for a movie

Re:This man is right

[WhiplashII]

Well, I guess we just differ in what we see as possible governments. As you said, I was in need, so I try to give to others. I just do not believe it is possible to design a government where politics doesn't carry more weight than correctness - such a government would be quickly converted to a political one because those that worked the political angle instead of the correct angle would by definition end up with more power. That is the central problem with government - darwinism, the unseen hand, whatever leads to politics deciding issues - not what is most correct.

So given that a government cannot do the job, I would propose that corporations stand in. My favorite idea is to make donations to acreditted charities come off the top of your taxes, up to half your tax bill. For example, if your taxes are $50,000 you can pay $25,000 to the government and $25,000 to the charity. Yes, it would probably be abused somewhat - but so is the government system now!

Making government larger is not the answer, because a government will always have political darwinism at work. You say it is silly that the Commander in Chief and the Schools are run by the same guy. I agree, but that is not really how it works. The President's job is not to actually do any one thing. His job is to force his underlings to do a good job. Although he anounces foriegn policy, he doesn't really make it. Although he anounces school policy, he doesn't really make it. What he does is to say, "Here is what I think is important" and then to make sure that the things he really considers important are done. As to why that is necessary: who decides which is more important, schools or the armed forces? In the end, a decision must be made by a single person when timing is short. Most decisions are made by Congress - or rather aren't made, because they fight too much. This is good - laws should be few. But enforcing those laws needs to be timely, and that is supposedly what the president does. A decision to send the military to aid in a natural disaster should never be made in committee.

Your ideas are interesting. I can't remember anyone recommending a larger, more beaurocratic government before as a solution to pretty much anything. It might even work if there was some external agency that existed to dilute power to counteract the natural tendancy of power to accumulate. Maybe another branch of government? Of course, you'd have to do a cost/benefit analysis to be sure.

Re:This man is right

[plunge]

If I except the premise that wallowing in the mud is flying, then pigs can fly. The premise is ridiculous.

I agree with your other conclusion.

Re:This man is right

[DM9290]

Your proposal for the means to support the elderly is that CHARITY should provide for them?

How is this sustainable? Your original argument is that a working adult would be unhappy to give up 2/3 of his income to support others, and now you are arguing that he would do it voluntarily?

You seem to agree that adults MUST sacrifice 2/3 of their income (or approximately that amount) for the benefits of the younger and older generation. That is to say, you have not refuted my claim that this is true.

When I originally said that there is no universal law which says that 1 person can't produce enough to support 3, you said there was a universal law which said 1 person would not be happy about it.

I am confused about what your position is. You've lost me completely.

So given that a government cannot do the job, I would propose that corporations stand in.

All the flaws with government you have complained about are directly attributable to undue influence by corporations. The solution to the problem of corporations is to put corporations in charge?

Why would a corporation give a shit about you? It would LITERALLY sell its own mother if it could.

Re:This man is right

[Emetophobe]

but things like organs taht match the one that needs them perfectly should be allowed.

I agree, considering there are some bad consequences when getting an organ transplant. Some transplant patients have to take drugs for the rest of their life to prevent their body from rejecting the implant. If they could make organs from peoples own cells, there would be no organ rejection and no need for all the drugs.

i've voted democratic my entire life

[circletimessquare]

except once

michael bloomberg in 2001

Re:i've voted democratic my entire life

[agent dero]

Presumably you can only really vote democratic.. ;)

since it's the democratic proce... oh nevermind :)

Re:i've voted democratic my entire life

[Anonymous Coward]

"i've voted democratic my entire life"

A truely democratic country should understand that its foundation is in the proper education and reasoning of its people.

Re:i've voted democratic my entire life

[Quantum Fizz]

Bloomberg is pretty liberal in his policies, and rumor has it that when he ran for mayor of NYC, he ran Republican because there were a number of decent Democratic candidates that he didn't think he'd make it past the primary.

You can also see this effect by how Giuliani never endorsed Bloomberg for mayor until only a few weeks before the actual election.

Re:i've voted democratic my entire life

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Bloomberg is a moderate Democrat who saw the Republican side of the race open and switched to ride Guiliani's coattails.

Puzzling.

[killjoe]

While I applaud Mr. Bloombergs speech to me he represents a rather puzzling person. Why is this guy a repulican. Not just him but also people like arnold schwarzenegger, Andrew Sullivan etc. I mean if you are not against gay marriage, if you don't think pre-emptive war is a good idea, if you are pro life then why are you are republican. Before anybody says anything about fiscal responsibility or smaller government I will ask you to go look up the track record of republican presidents regarding those items.

I am especially puzzled about Andrew Sullivan. This guy is gay, the republican party tried to pass a platform saying that homosexuality was a disease!. They are trying their best to deny him the right to marry, to serve his govt, live wherever he chooses etc and yet he is still a republican. Can anything be more important to you then having the same rights as everybody else in the country?

Weird.

Re:Puzzling.

[pintomp3]

well, he may be liberal on some fronts like gun control and science. but bloomberg is very much about control and telling people what's good for them. from banning smoking indoors to this cell phone ban in schools. he's the decider. that's the hallmark of a good republican. he knows what's best for you and will bully his way. here's a pretty funny take: http://www.newyorkmetro.com/news/intelligencer/170 76/index.html

Re:Puzzling.

[Omkar]

If he's the same sort of Republican I am, he's a Reagan conservative/classical liberal who's disgusted by what the Republican party has become. Remember Goldwater and Reagan? The Republicans were once associated with sunbelt conservatism, not the southern-fried kind.

So why haven't I jumped ship? In a way, I have, but to cynicism, not the Democrats. I once asked Richard Epstein where classical liberals and Reagan conservatives could turn to defend our rights. His response, though obvious, sums things up nicely: "There's nowhere to go. The Republicans pay lip service, and the Democrats have sold you out."

Re:Puzzling.

[lxs]

Denial is a powerful force. In the 1940s and '50s communism was a fashionable political stance in Europe and Stalin was hailed as a hero. When under Chrustjev accounts of the crimes commited during the Stalin era were published, it took many intelligent people years or even decades to accept that their political stance supported a murderous totalitarian regime.

It will take traditional conservatives at least as long to realize that they are supporting a criminal regime.

Re:Puzzling.

[cyber-vandal]

Possibly because communism is a political concept that has very little to do with totalitarianism which can be allied to any economic philosophy.

Re:Puzzling.

[Detritus]

I'm not happy with everything the current administration does, but comparing Bush to Stalin is outrageous and deeply insulting to the victims of Stalinism.

Re:Puzzling.

[blonde rser]

I think the thing that you are missing is the Republican theory of economics. No, I'm not referring to fiscal conservatism or even tax cuts for the public. I'm referring to the fact that one of the major distinctions between democrats and republicans is their support for large corporations. Democrats (as a terrible over generalization) tend to see corporations as these large entities with lots of money and no mouths to feed, that are oppressing those that are working for them. Where as Republicans (similar terrible generalization) tend to see large corporations as the number one employer of Americans, and representing a huge amount of American wealth. Schwarzenegger and Bloomberg seem to fall into being this sort of republican.

As for Sullivan, I think comments like those made in your second paragraph is precisely what pushed him towards Republicans. I tend to think he's the sort of guy who rails against people who say "well you're gay so you have to be liberal (or at least anti-republican)." I like to think of myself as a pretty cool headed guy but I think I would get pretty ticked if someone suggested how I was born absolutely determined what side of a debate I was always on. In a sense you are absolutely correct when you say "Can anything be more important to you then having the same rights as everybody else in the country?" Isn't he just declaring his right to determine his own political perspective and not having it dictated to him by his sexuality?

Re:Puzzling.

[lxs]

First off, my grandfather and several of my uncles have spent time in Siberia, so I'm not underestimating the extent of the crimes committed by Stalin. He was second only to Hitler in cruelty in the 20th century.

But I'm talking about human nature, and I'm just taking an extreme example to illustrate my point.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

but bloomberg is very much about control and telling people what's good for them

Interesting that you associate this with Republicans. From a Western European standpoint I very much associate this with social-democrat/socialist parties/rule. And my impressions lately is that the similarities between them and current "big government" Republicans are growing and sometimes seems bigger than the differences on specific issues.

If it matters I define myself as liberal, both politically and moral, and since this means different things to different people this definition was the closest I could find quickly on Wikipedia). I include it because I have this impression that quite a lot of people leans in this direction, but very few political parties for some reason..)

Re:Puzzling.

[lxs]

your comment shows that some people, like you , are still in denial and think that the problem lies with the people implementing the system and not with the system.

Communism has been tried in many different countries all over the world, and it has always resulted in totalitarianism. Things didn't go wrong because Stalin was a particularly evil man, but because it is the natural conclusion of the system. If you or I try to implement the system, we too will be capable of atrocities in the name of the common good.

But me saying that will not sway your opinion, which more or less is the point I was making in the first place.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Read his wikipedia entry. He was a Democrat until the mayoral election, when he switched so he didn't have to deal with tough primaries.

Re:Puzzling.

[Ruie]

While I applaud Mr. Bloombergs speech to me he represents a rather puzzling person. Why is this guy a repulican. Not just him but also people like arnold schwarzenegger, Andrew Sullivan etc. I mean if you are not against gay marriage, if you don't think pre-emptive war is a good idea, if you are pro life then why are you are republican. Before anybody says anything about fiscal responsibility or smaller government I will ask you to go look up the track record of republican presidents regarding those items.

I am especially puzzled about Andrew Sullivan. This guy is gay, the republican party tried to pass a platform saying that homosexuality was a disease!. They are trying their best to deny him the right to marry, to serve his govt, live wherever he chooses etc and yet he is still a republican. Can anything be more important to you then having the same rights as everybody else in the country?

A person who regularly votes Republican, told me that people who are actually more active in the party are often of extreem (and sometimes cooky) type, in particular this happens when Presidential candidates are decided on.

So instead of people like Bloomberg or Guiliamo, we get Bush.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant "pro choice" as opposed to "pro life".

Re:Puzzling.

[Mignon]

Why is [Bloomberg] a republican?

Can't speak for the other ones, but in Bloomberg's case, one of the reasons was simple - the Republican primary was easier to win than the Democratic one, which also damaged his eventual rival, Mark Green. So this put him in the "main event" in much better shape than his opponent who had been through the NYC Democratic meat grinder.

There was probably a fair amount of state and national Republican support as he was following Giuliani, a Republican. Also the governor and of course the President are Republicans. I think at the time both House and Senate had Republican majorities too. NYC administrations have a history of being at odds with both the state (which is mainly Republican) and the Federal governments, I guess mainly over funding, so any state/national support would have suggested Bloomberg could bring in the dollars.

Re:Puzzling.

[Watson Ladd]

It's like a Jew becoming a Nazi because they like big corperations.

Re:Puzzling.

[Fafner]

How do you rank the extend of evilness? Was Hitler more evil because the jew-extermination was part of an ideology? I mean plenty of ethnic minorities were persecuted in the Soviet simply because they were perceived to be a threat?

Based on numbers of people killed under the different dictatorships in the world, Nazi Germany ranks no more than 3rd after Mao's China and Stalin's Soviet.

In my opinion it makes very little sense to rank human cruelty.

Re:Puzzling.

[cyber-vandal]

I'm not in denial I'm merely pointing out that totalitarianism and communism are two separate things. Up until the last 250 years or so just about everywhere was a totalitarian dictatorship, it's the nature of some humans to want control over others, and not a flaw in one system over another. Russia was a dictatorship before communism and although nominally democratic now Putin is still a lot more authoritarian than any of the western leaders. I personally think that pure communism can't work but then I also think pure capitalism can't work either.

Re:Puzzling.

[sco08y]

I'm not happy with everything the current administration does, but comparing Bush to Stalin is outrageous and deeply insulting to the victims of Stalinism.

It's also lame. I've seen propositions for a Bush corollary to Godwin's law. (Though there should have been one for Clinton too.)

Re:Puzzling.

[unamiccia]

Six years ago, Bloomberg was a bored billionaire who wanted to run for mayor. The race for the Democratic nomination was crowded with experienced candidates and the Republican race wasn't. Though Bloomberg had identified as a Democrat during most of his career, he switched parties to run for the Republican nomination.

The combination of a brutal Democratic primary, 9/11, and Bloomberg's amazing spending (he self-financed his campaign) got him elected in 2001. That year he only spent $70 per vote received -- that increased to $100 per vote when he ran for reelection last year. His was the most expensive non-presidential campaign in U.S. (therefore world) history.

I'm not sure what Bloomberg wants to do when he leaves office in 2009, but he sure as hell doesn't want to hang out with Republicans. He's been distancing himself ever since he was reelected.

Re:Puzzling.

[Distinguished Hero]

Possibly because communism is a political concept that has very little to do with totalitarianism which can be allied to any economic philosophy.

Communism requires totalitarian control of the economy (and a big, powerful government to do it). Once you go down that path, well, we all know where it seems to end up... (historically speaking).

P.S. If anyone wants to reply with how the big, totalitarian government is only a transitory requirement which can be dismanteled once the communist utopia has been established, well, we all know how historically acurate that theory has proven itself to be...

Re:Puzzling.

[Distinguished Hero]

Was Hitler more evil because the jew-extermination was part of an ideology?

Stalin was quite the Jew hater and murderer himself. See this, this, this, and this. If Stalin didn't murder as many Jews as Hitler, it was only because Stalin died earlier than he planned.

Re:Puzzling.

[lxs]

You're absolutely right. It was a figure of speech, a silly one at that, I'll try to choose my words even more carefully in future.

Re:Puzzling.

[killjoe]

I remember Reagan. He spent the economy into insane debt that took till clinton to come out of. He instituted zero tolerance of drug laws so that having a seed meant you ended up in jail. What's worse I remember how people were having their houses confiscated because their renters smoked dope. Reagan started the war on drugs. I also remember him funding death squads in central america with arms sales to iran. I remember him falling asleep in front of the pope. I remember him confusing real life with movies. I remember nancy whispering his lines to him. I remember Lee Atwater who I believed was an actual demon roaming the earth eating souls as he went along.

Yes I remember Reagan. Bush reminds me a lot of him. I am sure he would take that as a compliment.

Re:Puzzling.

[RealGrouchy]

Why is this guy a repulican[?]

Because in the US, politics are inherited. Here's how it works:

The dominant Republican gene (though it's name has changed over the years) pushes the carrier to use fear, hatred, "patriotism", and idols (including religious, political, and American Idols) to further their agenda, and propogate those who carry the Republican gene.

Occasionally, two Republicans who both carry the recessive democratic allele will breed, and a political albino will be created.

Scientists have been tracking Ross Perot for many years, trying to identify the source of the mysterious Fringe gene.

This is why Bloomberg, a republican, is so supportive of Science: he wants Science (which he uses rhetorically as an "idol", see above) to learn more about his political opponents, and design them intelligently out of the political ecosystem.

- RG>

Re:Puzzling.

[dalutong]

Mr. Bloomberg isn't a republican. He switched to the republican party right before running for mayor in New York.

Re:Puzzling.

[Distinguished Hero]

Up until the last 250 years or so just about everywhere was a totalitarian dictatorship

Do you even know what totalitarian means? Please read this. Until the 20th century, most states lacked both the resources and the desire to "regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior." Statist communism, on the other hand, required by definition that "nearly every aspect of public and private behavior" is regulated to ensure an equal outcome for all.

Re:Puzzling.

[lxs]

The flaw I see in the system is that it doesn't take into account this aspect of human nature, apart from that, I agree fully with your post. Every ideology when raised to the status of dogma is a recipe for disaster.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this guy a repulican.

Infiltration. It is the only way to defeat them. Attack from within.

Join the winning team, then proceed with your own agenda, it is the only sucessful modern political strategy.

Re:Puzzling.

[dalutong]

I am big on the-institutional-infrastructure-determines-the-fu ture-of-the-system school of thought. That is why our system of winner-take-all elections will necessarily require that we are a predominantly two party democratic system (talking about America here.) I think that government ownership of all industry, etc, without simple (Paine-like) accountability inevitably leads to corruption and to some form of abuse/oppression.

But that doesn't mean that all of communisms manifestations are doomed. Socialism, which has been exceptionally popular aruond the world, has been one implementation of communist ideas that has been very successful. But they have only been successful because they have had reasonably accountable governments and institutionalized transparency.

Also, communism has failed as much for historical reasons as for any others, just as democracy has. Countries are only ready for certain types of government when their populations are ready for those types of government too. Democracy (at least as we think of it) isn't going to work in a feudal state where there is no private class of politically ambitious people. I'd say that communist-like governments are only possible when the same conditions that make democracy possible are there and the people demand it. So the transition is really more totalitarianism->democracy->communism. If you don't have the economic/population/etc circumstances in line, any government change will return to totalitarianism. Look at the world's democracies over history -- most have become dictatorships.

But that isn't necessarily bad. Look at China. I'd argue that the guo ming dang (which, remember, were "democratic" dictators in Taiwan after their defeat until 1988) would have served the Chinese people VERY poorly. They were the aristocrats with no concern for anyone but themselves. (Note: this isn't as true for Sun YatSen, but it was true for Chaing KaiShek.) Mao made some terrible decisions, but he also made some fabulous ones: he unbound women's feet, he unified the dozens and dozens of dialects to strengthen the concept of China being one country, and he ruled with the interest of keeping the country together as paramount (just as Lincoln did -- he believed there was no point following the letter of constitutional law if that would be like signing a suicide pact.)

But China isn't an example to follow. It was one place where just the right people were in charge at just the right time, and they weren't there because of the way the institution was set up. But they are opening up, which demonstrates that it is only possible when the population is ready. There are ways to facilitate this readiness, but there is no point trying to advocate democracy when it isn't there.

Sorry for the poor writing. I am sick with slashdotanitis and went straight from bed to my computer and to typing this comment.

Re:Puzzling.

[vandan]

Communism has been tried in many different countries all over the world, and it has always resulted in totalitarianism.

The same could be said for capitalism. And communism hasn't been tried in 'many countries the world over'. There was a failed startup in Russia. It was remarkably successful while it lasted. There is some interesting stuff happening in South America, and it is interesting to note that Emperor Dubya considers Chavez a 'terrorist' and an 'enemy of the free world'.

The arguement that communism has been tried 'the world over' is growing very tired. Capitalism has been tried the world over, and despite morons like you who consider it a blazing success, it is in fact a pathetic disaster, and a display of all of the worst aspects of humanity ... in particular greed. A large majority of the world considers capitalism and US imperialism as their enemy. The fact that a nation of sickly patriotic Yanks disagree doesn't change the 'facts on the ground'. For most people, those facts are living in obsolute poverty and under an oppressive regime that the US supports because it's in their 'economic interests'.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Communism has to the best of my knowledge never been tried anywhere. Socialism on the other side, has been tried by some totalitarian regimes, which in most cases have been forced upon the people by either another state or a revolution, led by those who would later become the totalitarian leaders. Wake me up when communism is implemented somewhere by way of a proper democratic election, i'd really like to see if that deteriorates into a totalitarian regime.

Re:Puzzling.

[vandan]

Communism requires totalitarian control of the economy

That's exactly what capitalism does - hands control of the economy to a totalitarian regime. Communism is a response to this, and puts the economy back under democratic control, where it belongs.

(and a big, powerful government to do it)

You mean like the US government? Your criticisms of communism apply just as well to your favourite 'leaders of the free world'.

What you are missing is that in a democracy, the people actually decide how the resources are used. This requires removing capitalist control of the means of production and placing that control back into the hands of the people. Exactly how that is done should of course be left up to the people. You say that coure only outcome of an attempt at such a reorganisation is a totalitarian regime. I call bullshit! You can't possibly say that this is the only outcome. You need to put your brain into gear before engaging in discussions.

Re:Puzzling.

[vandan]

Bloomberg is a republican if I've ever heard of one. He's disgustingly rich. Some people will accuse me of having tall popply syndrome, and I accuse them of being morons. There comes a point where you have to say "Perhaps some of your wealth could be put to better use by other people who desperately need some wealth of their own".

Bloomberg was most recently in the news ( that I noticed anyway, here in Australia ) when the New York transport workers' union was out on strike for a day. Bloomberg was, of course, absolutely furious, and was cursing at the 'greedy' workers ( kettle black ? ) who were 'thugs' and 'terrorists' for daring to ask for a pay rise that would still keep their income at about 0.1% of his income.

As for his objections to stuff like pre-emptive invasions, I would say that he would change his tune somewhat if he were running the country instead of just New York.

Rest assured, Bloomberg is a republican to the bone.

Re:Puzzling.

[Zedrick]

Communism hasn't been tried anywhere, unless you count isolated tribes in the Amazonas. Please don't confuse Communism with some kind of Socialism (which can be anything from Swedish democratic socialism of the 50's and 60's, to Stalins dicatorship). Communism in a Marxist sense is far ahead in the future, and for many communists just an ideal, if not science fiction (a communist party wants socialism, not communism).

(Chrustjev said in the 60's that the Soviet Union would be reached in 20-30 years... which would have been wildly optimistic even if the Soviet Union had been a democratic state and disregarding the cold war.)

Re:Puzzling.

[Distinguished Hero]

That's exactly what capitalism does - hands control of the economy to a totalitarian regime.
Great, more slogans. Perhaps if you tried to substantiate your baseless assumptions with some sort of supporting evidence, I could debate the matter with you...

Communism is a response to this
So you admit that communism is reactionary? Interesting.

and puts the economy back under democratic control
Out of an immense number of communist revolutions and regimes, how many times has this happened? 0.

where it belongs.
Please prove your assertions.

You mean like the US government? Your criticisms of communism apply just as well to your favourite 'leaders of the free world'.
I'm all for reducing the size of the US government (I'm probably willing to go a lot further than you in this regard). I fail to see your point. The US government is just another socialist institution with far too much control over the economy. The fact that there are countries which are even worse does not make me worship the US (which hasn't had the world's freest economy in a long time).

What you are missing is that in a democracy, the people actually decide how the resources are used.
Who decides in capitalism? Magic fairies? If Bill Gates woke up tomorrow and decided take all his money and possessions and build the world's biggest dildo (which I'm assuming nobody would want to buy), he would soon find himself bankrupt.

You say that coure only outcome of an attempt at such a reorganisation is a totalitarian regime.
I "say" that the empirical evidence suggests something. You claim that the empirical evidence is worthless. I'm glad that you took time off from your Flat Earth Society meeting and your Intelligent Design club to share you wisdom with me.

I call bullshit!
Please back up your assertions.

You can't possibly say that this is the only outcome.
I guess you're right. Theoretically speaking, if I drop a rock, I cannot say that it will certainly fall. Certainly I have done this many times, and surely it has fallen before, but it might not the next time. After all, we cannot prove "cause and effect." It is an assumption on which we create our model of the world. Perhaps it is all a coincidence, and "cause and effect" really does not exist.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Grampa: "Dear Mr. President, there are too many states nowadays. Please eliminate three. I am not a crackpot."

Re:Puzzling.

[cnelzie]

Old school Republicans are/were all about science.

    They were the stodgy blue/black suited guys always demanding the research and the science to back up claims before spending a penny on them. That's a big part of how they were fiscally conservative.

    New Republicans are Religious Right sycophants and thus deny science because that is logic/reason, neither of which flies well with their "base".

Re:Puzzling.

[foreverdisillusioned]

Bzzzzt, wrong. Communism does not mandate a dictatorship or oligarchy. It is perfectly possible to have a democratic socialist state--see Sweden, for example (yes I know they're somewhat captialistic, but not *that* much more than the former USSR was.)

Re:Puzzling.

[ajpr]

Two words to prove you wrong:

Fidel Castro.

Re:Puzzling.

[ultranova]

but bloomberg is very much about control and telling people what's good for them

Interesting that you associate this with Republicans. From a Western European standpoint I very much associate this with social-democrat/socialist parties/rule.

Actually, it is the hallmark of an autoritarian government. Social-democratic governments are interested in providing public healthcare and social welfare. Whether they also try to control their subjects lives or not is completely orthogonal matter.

Re:Puzzling.

[ultranova]

I'm not happy with everything the current administration does, but comparing Bush to Stalin is outrageous and deeply insulting to the victims of Stalinism.

Of course Bush can be compared to Stalin. Both are willing to kill people and ignore the rule of law to meet their political goals. Both support ideology, or at least give the impression of believing in it to justify their actions. Both want to rule the world.

The main differences between them are the body count and that Bush has taken a powerfull nation and has mismanaged its politics and resources to the point where it is nearing economic collapse and has very few friends left, while Staling took a backwater agricultural nation in the state of economic and military collapse and made it into a superpower.

There are differences between Stalin and Bush, but I'm sure that everyone who've died in Iraq have trouble seeing them.

Re:Puzzling.

[mrspandex]

Well, apparently democracy sometimes ends in totalitarianism too...

Re:Puzzling.

[jmv]

Communism has been tried in many different countries all over the world, and it has always resulted in totalitarianism.

The sad truth is that there are far more totalitarian regimes than democracies in the world, regardless of the system. The other truth is that revolutions/coups (be they communist or otherwise) also tend to lead to totalitarian regimes. Just see what happens when a democratically-elected communist regime gets overthrown by capitalistic interests.

Re:Puzzling.

[70Bang]

There are lots of shortcuts which I know people are going to claim I'm taking liberties, particularly if I'm providing an overly shortened version of their political viewpoint or if they are politically more astute than I am. But I'm holding the talking stick as I write this. I'm sure someone's going to tell me to go visit Wikipedia or even take a chair to wait my turn to go to Helen Waite, but everyone is permitted to make their own viewpoints known.

For Democrats (or democrats, Liberals, and liberals, it's big gov't supporting those who cannot care for those who cannot care for themselves. They believe in higher taxes, specifically for the rich, because they can afford to do so; e.g., the top 5% of wealthiest people pay 50% of taxes collected. So the question becomes what happens if the top 10% or 15% pay their fair share? They are supposed to look out for the little guy but the size of the gov't tends to become large enough there's more opportunity for corruption and mistakes. One the other hand, being larger means more people can be taken care of: if the umbrella is big enough, more people can get under it & stay dry.

For (Republicans and repulicans), it's big business; i.e., let nature take its course, the rich take richer, and instead of the poorer become poorer, they believe when the tide comes in, all of the boats float [higher]. This is definitely the party line in Supply Side Economics (i.e., Reagan. Anyway, if the fat cats want to prosper, they have to build more (and larger) places to generate revenue, and that requires people to work in these places. Their boats float higher and the jobs boat float higher as well. But one group's income grows geometrically or exponentially and others don't even reach linear increases. (I wonder which is which?)

And finally, there's (Libertarians and libertarian), which has permeated throughout the technical world, particularly online. Best summarized as: "get your *&^%$#%$ hands out of my pocket, off my machine and go away." There's an entire platform dealing with elimination of taxes, yadda, yadda. I think the news|media, et alia believe techies to be [at least] libertarians.

In each of these cases, I believe there are two forms of spelling: Democrat and democrat (or Liberal and liberal), Republicans and republicans, and Libertarians and libertarians; all depending upone how ardently someone endorses a particular viewpoint.

When one hears fiscal conservative, you can place a wager they are a Democrat who is trying to ride two horses at the same time. By & large, Indiana is (r|R)epublican. The Democrats sneak in, which I believe makes things interesting. But when you see signs up for your consideration,, you don't see the elephant unless you are are a conservative. Thos running on the opposite party do not mark their signs.

What really sucks is to hear bipartisan agreement. So many holes have been plugged to prevent another party from making it possible for another party (yes, there are exceptions who have won and are in positions right now), but do you hear of tripartisan or multipartisan agreements?

Is there a reason why? You bet. When it's one opponent, it's a zero sum game. What you do't get, the opponent gets. When their are two or more opponents, it becomes a game of cutthroat as seen racquetball or handball. Yeah, it also creates a risk of a coalition gov't, but it also provides better options for people to choose from. Will it increase voter turnout? Who knows. But when the candidates, and specifically the parties, become an oligopoly, the ability of the parties to outguess each other because an oligopoly is considerably more complex. It can be done (class project from college 20+ years ago), but it's tough enough to keep God busy for awhile.
______________________________
Old, old, old political joke:
If you let me pet your elephant, I'll let you kiss my ass.

Re:Puzzling.

[vijayiyer]

If you follow politics, you will find that there are all sorts of people that have to choose between one of the two parties. I consider myself a classic republican - I believe in states rights. What are my choices? The Republicans, who claim a desire for small government, but won't do it, and a Democratic opposition that complains the government isn't big enough.

There are lots of Republicans who feel the same way as I do. Several are in the House of Representatives, but the current administration and the Senate Republicans are a domineering force. What are those people supposed to do? Become a Democrat, whose spoken platform runs counter to their ideals, or wait it out and hope that the tide turns within the Republican party?

Re:Puzzling.

[mattACK]

A vote for the minority party in the US is a protest vote. Best case scenario is that you have different parties in charge of the legislative and executive branches. This is perfect and creates a government stalemate.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the hypothesis is that a democratic/communist state would work as well as a democratic/capitalist state, if not better. The empirical evidence only targets totalitarian/communist states.

So it's not that you're wrong, it's just that it's a non-sequitir in terms of this particular discussion. It's like talking about the deficiencies of Ford brand motorcars, and then someone start railing on the deficiencies of motorcycles. The data presented may well be true, but that doesn't give it merit.

More specifically:

Many people make the assumption that political/economic systems can be represented by a single axis: from totalitarianism/communism to democracy/capitalism.

Consider, though, that if totalitarianism/capitalism (which you could refer to as 'fascism') is possible, would it not be possible to have democracy/communism?

I personally don't believe in communism, but that doesn't mean it can't, theoretically, exist somewhere.

Unless you can concretely demonstrate that a -democratic- communist society is absolutely doomed to failure, it's still on the table.

Re:Puzzling.

[foniksonik]

Which is what a leader should do. What kind of leadership is it when you sit back and debate the issues forever, long after a good choice has made itself obvious?

That is the republican nature I respect and the lack thereof I find in the Democratic party... who seem to all be armchair quarterbacks... taking credit or placing blame long after the action has been made...

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not clear to me that communism necessarily requires big government.

Would it not be possible for each community to work out a list of their own needs by consensus, and employ market trading systems to acquire the goods they cannot produce themselves?

I'm not a fan of big government, but let's not throw out the socialist baby out with the totalitarian bathwater...

Re:Puzzling.

[MightyMartian]

I think this is a horribly unsophisticated view of what happened to the Republican Party beginning in the 1980s. I don't most Republicans are overt Christianists out to push their particular blend of religion, social reform and politics on a nation that gobbles up porn and Sunday shopping with unbelievable abandon.

What has happened is that a relatively small and socially conservative wing of the party has seized control of all that really counts in politics; the financing. They have demonstrated repeatedly that, with the right candidates, they can raise big dollars, and trample over any opposition (Right or Left). The message that is sent to your average Republican is "play nice and do what we say, or we'll find someone who can".

At the end of the day your average Republican Senator or Representative is like anybody else, and will whore himself or herself to some extent, or at least keep quiet, to keep their job. Each and every one of these people has had a lot of help getting to Washington, and those debts have to paid.

The problem really is that the Republicans have become arrogant and have lost touch. No matter who holds on to power, holding on to it too long isn't healthy for the party or for democracy. The Republicans need to be kicked in the nuts in November, not because I think they're evil Neo-cons out to force Evangelical Christianity on the United States, but because there's nothing like defeat to force a group to reassess themselves and cleanse themselves of those factions most responsible.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberals tend to see corporations - as a class - as enormous, amoral entities with an endless appetite for wealth. They don't see small business as being any different from big business, because many of them get blinded by the word 'corporation'.

Conservatives tend to see corporations - as a class - as the result of hard work and sensible decisions. They don't see big business as being any different from small business, because many of them get blinded by the word 'corporation'.

The fact is that small business acts very differently from big business, and remarkably few people seem to realize it. Many liberals would probably get behind small-to-midrange businesses if they could get past their dogma, while a surprisingly large number of conservatives would probably dislike large businesses for the same reason.

Re:Puzzling.

[TheScreenIsnt]

"Things didn't go wrong because Stalin was a particularly evil man" What? I encourage folks interested in the history of practical communism to read about Stalin (the man). That's all. I wouldn't defend communism except in theory (and who cares about that), but really, come on. All systems of government centralize power somehow and power-hungry folks end up at the top. Few have used a cult of personality so effectively and so murderously.

Re:Puzzling.

[ceoyoyo]

Hitler was stopped rather earlier than he would have preferred though. Neither Stalin nor Mao had world wars arranged to shut them down. How many people would Hitler have killed if he'd won WWII?

All three (and some others) were so bad that ranking them doesn't really have much meaning.

Re:Puzzling.

[Pink Tinkletini]

Point one, Bloomberg's income as mayor is $1 per annum. Point two, his actions were what any mayor of New York, and probably any city, would do in similar circumstances, Democrat or Republican. If you want to criticize Bloomberg, there's plenty out there to criticize, but this isn't one of them.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

>I once asked Richard Epstein where classical liberals and Reagan conservatives could turn to defend our rights. His response, though obvious, sums things up nicely: "There's nowhere to go. The Republicans pay lip service, and the Democrats have sold you out."

The correct response is the Libertarian Party.

Re:Puzzling.

[falloutboy]

Bloomberg was a registered Democrat for many years, up until about 8 months before the general election. Running as a Republican meant he didn't have to run in a primary, and since the Republicans knew they would never win with anyone else, he was pretty much free to write his own ticket. Which he did, and thats why he comes off as a fiscally conservative progressive democrat who occasionally is required to support the Republican party.

Re:Puzzling.

[bogjobber]

But that doesn't mean that all of communisms manifestations are doomed. Socialism, which has been exceptionally popular aruond the world, has been one implementation of communist ideas that has been very successful. But they have only been successful because they have had reasonably accountable governments and institutionalized transparency.

I think what you meant is that communism has been one implementation of socialist ideas that has been very unsuccessful. Socialism is the "ideal" and communism was the "implementation". Socialism as an idea was around much longer than communism, it just happens that the first major socialist revolution in the world picked communism as a political/economic system.

Re:Puzzling.

[Sloppy]

why are you are republican.

He is what he is. That's the Republican Party's problem. If people want to join, the party is just going to have to either deal with it (and accept that their platform will mutate a little) or else they'll have to Just Say No to billionaires and their warchests.

Re:Puzzling.

[evilviper]

Democrats (as a terrible over generalization) tend to see corporations as these large entities with lots of money and no mouths to feed, that are oppressing those that are working for them. Where as Republicans (similar terrible generalization) tend to see large corporations as the number one employer of Americans, and representing a huge amount of American wealth.

I think you can sum this up nicely by saying that Democrats think the people should be protected from corporations (consumer protection laws, environmental laws, etc), and Republicans think corporations should be protected from the people (tort reform*, reducing company taxes, subsudies, etc).

Note: "Tort Reform" is the political code-word for preventing individuals from being able to sue companies for blatantly violating contracts, selling defective products, etc.

Re:Puzzling.

[mOdQuArK!]

Communism does not mandate a dictatorship or oligarchy.

Actually, I believe that Marx said that the "revolutionaries" would have to pass through a totalitarianism form of government on its way to the communist ideal (to have enough power to break down any resistance by the well-resourced capitalists).

Unfortunately, so-called Marxist revolutionaries seem to get stuck once they've got that totalitarianist form of government set up, and never get to the commune part (although they have no problems calling themselves communists).

A more cynical person might suspect that many of those revolutionaries never intended to reach the communist ideal in the first place, and were using Communism as a recruiting tool to trick the "common people" into supporting the revolution.

Re:Puzzling.

[darkmeridian]

The other thing is that the local politics in New York City are controlled by the Party machines, especially the Democrats. Judges are appointed on the basis of connections and not qualifications, etc. As an outsider, Bloomie had no shot at getting onto the Democratic ticket. It was not that he was not a politicians but rather that he did not pay his dues within the Democratic political system. So he went over to the Democratic side, where he could get on the ballot without having to resort to a third-party. Then he went all lefty.

Re:Puzzling.

[A.Gideon]

Today's scary thought: perhaps all governments that survive evolve into totalitarianism.

Re:Puzzling.

[Guido von Guido]

For a counter-example, look at the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Despite their Marxist ideology, they surrendered power peacefully when they lost the elections in 1990. The Sandinistas certainly had control of the country and were in position to implement a totalitarian state if they had wanted.

I'd argue that the problem isn't Communism per se. Rather, all the old institutions were destroyed during the formation of the Communist state. So there were no rganizations capable of effective resistance when the Party consolidated power. Whoever ran the Party could do whatever they wanted--and ruthless sociopaths like Stalin or Mao had an advantage in gaining control over the Party.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is the hallmark of an autoritarian government. Social-democratic governments are interested in providing public healthcare and social welfare. Whether they also try to control their subjects lives or not is completely orthogonal matter.

I'm not so sure it is (I'm the anon you replied to). When the state intervenes and redistributes resources to a very large degree there is a set of value choices inherent in that that becomes the typical "we (the elite) know best for you welfare state". I used to live in a Scandinavian country, one of the "dream welfare states". There, the government decides what is best for you to such a degree that it is frightening (for me at least) and seems to remove people from personal responsibility. Everything is the governments fault or responsibility. The better people on the average live, the more they complain in this direction. You might call the governments autoriatan, but they are among what is supposed to be the star examples of social-democratic governments and countries.

Re:Puzzling.

[Rimbo]

Ah! I see you are one of those who thinks there are ideological differences between the two major American money parties.

I think the real question you need to ask yourself is, since when was there a legitimate difference between Democrats and Republicans?

Re:Puzzling.

[ScrewMaster]

Can anything be more important to you then having the same rights as everybody else in the country?

Specious argument. He already has the same rights as everyone else. Same rights that I have, same rights that you have. If society determines that he doesn't have the right to marry another guy, neither does anyone else. Apparently Mr. Sullivan understands that even if you don't.

Regardless, it's time we stop concerning ourselves about continually granting special "rights" to subsets of the population, and start getting very concerned about the remaining civil liberties that all of us have enjoyed for two hundred plus years, because all those extra "rights" that you refer to flow directly from what the Founding Fathers set down for us. Once those are gone for good, it won't much matter whether a gay person can marry another one, or whether homosexuality is a disease or a choice ... because choice will become a thing of the past. For everyone.

Re:Puzzling.

[fm6]

I mean if you are not against gay marriage, if you don't think pre-emptive war is a good idea, if you are pro life then why are you are republican. Before anybody says anything about fiscal responsibility or smaller government I will ask you to go look up the track record of republican presidents regarding those items.

So because George Bush is a hypocrite about fiscal responsibility, the rest of the Republican party can't even talk about it?

The assumption that the Republican == Right Wing (particulary Religious Right) is a pretty recent one. Through most of its history the Republican Party has actually include a wide range of opinions. The only way the Republicans have been consistently more conservative than the Demos is that the Repulicans are always more supportive of big business.

Right now, the GOP is dominated by a bunch of intolerant neocons and religious zealots who make life hard for any Republican politico who doesn't believe exactly what they do. But that's only been going on since the early 90s, and is beginning to hurt the GOP badly. For somebody like Bloomberg, it makes a lot more sense to stick with the Republican party, where he can find more like-minded folks, than to go back to the Democratic party, where he couldn't even get nominated to run for his current office. And eventually he's going to be one of the folks running the party, once the rank and file tire of the antics of Tom DeLay and similar zealots.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Social-democratic governments are interested in providing public healthcare and social welfare. Whether they also try to control their subjects lives or not is completely orthogonal matter

Providing those things to the extent they seem to want to requires absolute control over many aspects of everyone else's lives (certainly financial control). You cannot provide public healthcare and social welfare to the degree that leftists like doing without being authoritarian.

Re:Puzzling.

[GTMoogle]

Point taken, but...

"I remember him falling asleep in front of the pope."
I really can't fault him for that one. I can't stay awake in church either.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

But they have only been successful because they have had reasonably accountable governments and institutionalized transparency.

Socialism, as practiced in the West, has only been "successful" to the extent that whenever it gets out of hand and starts to kill off its host economy, people are forced to see reason long enough to reign it back in.

Re:Puzzling.

[shutdown -p now]

Communism has been tried in many different countries all over the world, and it has always resulted in totalitarianism.

Maybe because it was not 'tried', but rather brought to those countries from a single source (Soviet Union) which practiced the totalitarian flavour you describe?

So far we have only seen Marxist-Leninist branch and its developments ever having power. There are plenty more Marxist varieties of communism which differ from it, and even quite a few which are not Marxist at all.

Re:Puzzling.

[shutdown -p now]

Communism requires totalitarian control of the economy (and a big, powerful government to do it).

No, according to autonomous, council, and libertarian communists (at least), it doesn't.

Re:Puzzling.

[Chandon Seldon]

I'm not convinced that there has been a valid attempt at implementing "democratic communism".

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be a New York thing.

Why is Joe Lieberman a Democrat?

Re:Puzzling.

[Manhigh]

Can't. I work for NASA. Can't vote for a party that thinks the government has no role in research.

Re:Puzzling.

[vandan]

Great, more slogans. Perhaps if you tried to substantiate your baseless assumptions with some sort of supporting evidence, I could debate the matter with you...

? What slogan. It's simple theory. Read up on it, and then demonstrate you have digested what you have read, and I will debate the matter with you.

So you admit that communism is reactionary? Interesting.

All socialists do. You clearly don't know what you're talking about, do you? Socialism emerged as a response to capitalism. Read up on it, and then demonstrate you have digested what you have read, and I will debate the matter with you.

Out of an immense number of communist revolutions and regimes, how many times has this happened? 0.

Again, read up on it. It's more than 1. Russia was the 1st example.

Please prove your assertions.

I do.

I'm all for reducing the size of the US government (I'm probably willing to go a lot further than you in this regard). I fail to see your point. The US government is just another socialist institution with far too much control over the economy. The fact that there are countries which are even worse does not make me worship the US (which hasn't had the world's freest economy in a long time).

Ah. Now I understand. You DO understand socialist theory ... you're just a neo-con, and spreading FUD about socialism. Your statement that the US government is a socialist institution caused quite a chuckle amongst workmates. Thanks :)

Who decides in capitalism?

Come on now, don't play stupid. Under socialism, the state decides. The state is answerable to the people ( or more accurately, the state IS the people ). Under capitalism, the capitalists ... the top 1% of the population ... decide what gets made, who gets what, and how much we pay for it. The top 1%, by the way, isn't democratically elected. And while some capitalist appologists will then say that the state should legislate to bring the capitalists into line, YOU can't use that arguement, because you are arguing for descreasing the government, and giving free reign to the capitalists. It's YOUR side that is anti-democratic.

I "say" that the empirical evidence suggests something. You claim that the empirical evidence is worthless.

All the evidence proves so far is that every time there is a socialist revolution, the capitalist powers - with the US at the head - make it their number 1 priority to flatten it. Take Chille, 9/11/74. Read up on it, and tell me what you think the US does to socialist nations, and why they are not stable.

Please back up your assertions.

I do.

I guess you're right. Theoretically speaking, if I drop a rock, I cannot say that it will certainly fall. Certainly I have done this many times, and surely it has fallen before, but it might not the next time. After all, we cannot prove "cause and effect." It is an assumption on which we create our model of the world. Perhaps it is all a coincidence, and "cause and effect" really does not exist.

Now look, arsehole. I don't like your condescending attitude. You know full well that your assertion that socialism leads to a totalitarian regime is false, and worse than that, is knowingly false. What happens after a social revolution is left up to the people. There is no 'gravity' in the situation that always points towards totalitarianism, as you are trying so pathetically to suggest.

I suggest you read up on socialist theory - Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. I suggest you read up on the Russian revolution. Only then will you have the sufficient knowledge to discuss the issue further and not look like an ill-informed neo-conservative appologist.

Re:Puzzling.

[vandan]

Point one, Bloomberg's income as mayor is $1 per annum.

I'm not disputing where he gets his money from. People with that much money all get it the same way anyway: screwing the majority of the population out of it.

Point two, his actions were what any mayor of New York, and probably any city, would do in similar circumstances, Democrat or Republican.

Agreed. The Democrats are a fucking joke. It would be even funnier if it wasn't so serious. But you're right, they're all like it.

Re:Puzzling.

[mertzman]

What alot of Americans don't understand about the nature of their own political system is the "big tent" structure of the political parties. As our system favors a bipolar division between two parties, a wide range of ideologies end up getting grouped into each of the major parties. They are often linked by a tenuous agreement on certain ideological points (historically, this has often been economic policy), but otherwise the ideological alignments within political parties can be vastly different. Ideologies can also change drastically over time as party's various wings rises and fall in relative strength.

What probably keeps people like Bloomberg, Schwarzenegger and Sullivan in the party is the traditional orientation towards fiscal conservativism found in the Republican party since the 1950s. Essentially, they are adherents to an ideology that would most closely be aligned with what predominated in the Republican party of Eisenhower's day. That tendency still exists and exerts some influence over the party's politics, but today it's often overshadowed by social conservativism (a.k.a. Christian fundamentalism) and neoconservativism. That doesn't mean that folks like Bloomberg are irrelevant, they just represent a different part of the "big tent" that embraces the full gamut of Republicans.

It's important to remember that American parties are not consistently "right" or "left," but this varies by time, region, individual personalities, etc. For example, the Progressive Party of the early 20th century, perceived as firmly left-wing by today's standards, was an offshoot of the Republican Party. For many decades, the Democrats were seen as the driving force behind very right-wing policies like segregation in the South. At the same time as the "Dixiecrats" were propping up Jim Crow laws, you had other Democrats backing the quasi-socialist New Deal.

If you want to get down to the problem of people ending up in seemingly ideologically bizarre party alignments, the issue is not the parties themselves but the electoral system. In a system based off single-member districts, and "first-past-the-post" simple majority elections, you have a predisposition to having two major parties, and perhaps maybe a third spoiler party that can pick off voters on key issues. In the USA, we have the Democrats and Republicans, and only rarely a credible and variable third-party spoiler... comparable systems would be Canada (Liberals and Conservatives, with the New Democrats as the third player) and England (Labour and Conservative, Liberal Democrats as the third).

In systems using other electoral systems, like the various forms of proportional representation, combined with parliamentary systems that provide for coalition-based government, you tend to have a wider variety of parties since there is a greater statistical probability of more than 2 parties achieving some degree of representation. This allows parties to be more specifically focused, and the inherent conflict of the "big tent" structure is avoided (or at least transposed to coalitions formed after the election).

You could basically say the parties in the USA are sort of a pre-defined coalition of what in other countries could be separate parties... You cannot directly compare our parties to alot of foreign parties, because the Democrats could split into socialists, greens, liberal centrists, etc.; the Republicans could split into economic conservatives, libertarians, religious conservatives, etc. So is Bloomberg really a "Republican?" Sure. But is he secretly really a "Democrat?" Maybe. It all depends on where he feels comfortable, and where he can be a credible participant. Another factor not to be discounted is simple opportunism--if your party allegiance is flexible, and your ideology can fit into either party, you may decide what party to align with simply by which one gives you a better shot at winning (probably a big decisive factor for Schwarzenegger, running against an entrenched Democrat like Gray Davis).

Now here's the big thing t

Re:Puzzling.

[Jeffrey Baker]

Actually, Bloomberg makes his money by selling a very valuable information service to the financial services industry all over the world.

Re:Puzzling.

[teal_]

Bloomberg, a lifelong member of the Democratic party, cleverly ran as a Republican for the simple reason that securing the nomination on that side would be very easy given there were no Republicans in the running, thus avoiding the bloodbath that was the democratic primary election.

As for Andrew Sullivan, the man is a conservative, not a Republican. He voted for John Kerry in 2004. The Republican party used to adhere to conservative principles (small government, fiscal restraint, individual freedom, etc) but it has been hijacked by the religious right and the neo-con establishment. W masqueraded himself as a conservative prior to being elected and has betrayed everyone except his right wing base, which explains his (Rove's) obsession with "protecting" marriage. This serves to get this base fired up so they ignore everything else. The rest of the fools who voted for him buy the whole 911-world-has-changed-everything-and-only-I-can-ke ep-you-safe line.

A new conservative party is needed to dethrone these buffoons. The Dems are spinless fools with no ideas and no solutions and do not deserve to win anything, although I'd vote for a ham sandwich to get the current majority government out of power. Somebody like Ross Perot would do very well in 2008.

Re:Puzzling.

[Sargeant Slaughter]

If you are not against gay marriage, if you don't think pre-emptive war is a good idea, and you are pro life; why do you have to be republican?

Dude, why does the republican party have to mean those things?
None of them (besides maybe pre-emptive war) have a place in gov't at all. THe only reason they are part of the party is because dumb ass hippies in the 1960s onward made uber-religious christians the foundation for the republican party.

I don't get it. I am for gay marriage, against pre-emptive war, and pro-choice(!) but I'm a libertarian that usually votes republican. Why?

I want less government! It is inefficient! The problem with republicans is a problem of all government. They always want more power. Because republicans can't spen money on crap like the war on poverty (welfare) due to their political ideology (which I happen to agree with); they waste tax dollars on military and border control to appease their power base (thanks to those god-damn dirty hippies!). If they don't spend money on their political interests they will lose out.

Afterall, who put Bush in office in 2004?
The churches.

Why did they do it?
Bush is pro-life and he is fighting the infedels to avenge 9/11. Kerry might have taken a weaker stance.

Most Americans aren't ready to abandon their faith for reason.

The common perception of a democrat in the United States is not conducive to fundamentalist religious beliefs. This is the fault of the image created by f*cking hippies who I hate because they always have to be be so god-damn politcal when they should just shut the f*ck up.

Re:Puzzling.

[WhiplashII]

Social-democratic governments are interested in providing public healthcare and social welfare.

I've always thought that these two aims (free healthcare and welfare) required an authoritarian government. Why would Doctors and everyone work for the benefit of those that do not benefit themselves? Even if some do, some will choose not to - so in order to achieve free health care and welfare, it is necessary to point guns at people and say "work for them" (or us). That is what tax is, of course - no one is paying taxes because they like it!

Do you really see a method of providing healthcare and welfare that does not involve guns? The only efficient methods I have seen for welfare rely on trust, which does not work for a government (and I imagine you would not like such a system, anyway).

Re:Puzzling.

[rossifer]

Communism has been tried in many different countries all over the world, and it has always resulted in totalitarianism.

My family has always been communal (like most nuclear families in the west). The Shakers and Quakers lived in communal economic enclaves. The modern kibbutz (Israeli communal farm) has been a repeatable success with some failures (actual successes depend highly on the individuals involved).

An important component of a successful communist economy is trust in the social contract (people really are putting in according to their abilities and taking according to their needs), engendered by reliable knowledge. This can only realistically happen in small communities where everyone can know everyone else.

Communism has been tested on a small scale and it works beautifully over and over again. But it doesn't scale beyond about 150 people.

Oh, and there are many roads to totalitarianism. Fascist Germany went straight to totalitarianism with a mostly-capitalist economy churning away the whole time. Not that you disagree, as I agree that large scale communism could only possibly work under a centrally controlled system which precludes personal freedoms. Just that it's not the only way to end up with a centrally controlled system that prohibits personal freedoms.

Regards,
Ross

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Republican and Democrat are very black and white categories that don't exist in the real world - The reality of politicians and politics are that politicians are people with a wide variety of view points and motives. Its the political system that is two sided, not politicians themselves. Politicians, Bloomberg, Schwarzenegger, and even McCain, included unfortunately need to align themselves with one of the two major parties in order to advance their careers and policies. We assume the choice is made solely or primarily based on one's social or idealistic leanings, but these next-generation politicians are thinking past that simplistic view. It is opportunistic, but these three politicians are possibly the most well known nationally today, and are getting things done (whether you agree with the policies or not) while under the constant scrutiny of old politics.

Re:Puzzling.

[vandan]

I know. I've read some of the garbage that he pumps out.

In one editorial, they were actually claiming that unions monopolise labour, therefore should be outlawed under antitrust law. They also make the occasional arguement for abolishing government altogether, dropping taxes to 0 and basking in the light of user-pays society.

I know exactly where Bloomberg makes his money. You're right ... by providing 'valuable' information ( propoganda ) and funding for any politician who will do his bidding.

As I said in the original post, his views aren't very human-friendly ( he considers union members to be terrorists and thugs ).

Re:Puzzling.

[Saunalainen]

He already has the same rights as everyone else. If society determines that he doesn't have the right to marry another guy, neither does anyone else.

Would you say that the Taliban supported equal religious rights, because everyone had the right to be a muslim?

Would you say that `equal rights' for handicapped people does not mandate accessible building design, because everyone has the right to take the stairs?

Re:Puzzling.

[Byzboy]

Friend, my advice to you is get on a plane, any plane and fly to any country in the western world other than the US. You will then find a vast system of public-funded healthcare in many, many countries. And not one of them requiring guns to coerce people. That's right, people doing their job for a proper wage, even health care workers.

Re:Puzzling.

[plunge]

Andrew Sullivan voted for Kerry and has basically said that he's not really a Republican anymore.

Re:Puzzling.

[plunge]

The rich pay most of the taxes because they earn most of the income. As long as the government has to run on money, ANY system of taxation is going to take more from those who have money than those who don't have any to take.

By the way: your writing-style is so confusing and all over the place that I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about or what position you are taking. I'm just commenting on the one tiny bit of your post I could actually make sense of.

Re:Puzzling.

[WhiplashII]

Interestingly enough, I did not grow up in the US...

But besides that, are you saying that if I go to France and figure out a way to make a million Euros, that the government is fine with me keeping it?

Or are you just saying that 1) noone has revolted yet, so the government has not found it neccessary to point guns (just reminds everyone that only the police have them) or 2) all the welfare recipients seem to like the system.

I'm talking about a stable system where the people that want to work in exchange for (things or experiences) of value can, and where other people that don't want to work can just sit there and get (things or experiences) of value (and healthcare).

The problem with healthcare systems outside the US is that it does not atract the capital necessary to create new treatments. Essentially all of the new treatments developed in the last few decades were paid for by the US market. I know of no treatments that were developed and paid for by the systems you seem to think are better. (Of course, if you can have someone else take most of the burden of your healthcare you would be foolish not to do so - but that does not make it a viable system for everyone).

Healthcare is especially tricky, really. Everyone agrees (even in the US) that poor people should not die from lack of treatment. The real problem that arises is how do you allocate resources (brain cancer verses bone cancer, for example). The most efficient allocator of resources we know of is the free market - but that would mess up the first assumption, that poor people should not die from lack of treatment. So in the US we have this system that says that if you can't pay for treatment (and you need it) you still get it, but if you can pay for it (and even if you don't really need it) you get it. Of course, who is paying (typically insurance companies) and who is receiving the benefit are different, so the free market screws up and overpays.

Re:Puzzling.

[Jeffrey Baker]

See, you actually have no idea where Bloomberg makes their money. Hint: it's not the TV, and it's not radio, and it's not newspaper editorials.

http://about.bloomberg.com/about/professional/inde x.html

Re:Puzzling.

[wandering_nomad_101]

My daughter is 1/2 Native American and a fire breathing Republican, even invited to Bush's 1st Inauguration, go figure... The issues are more that American Democracy requires enemies for it to exist. No enemy, no large military. This has been the case since the 13 Colonies were killing Indians to take over the land, nothing has changed. Just consider why it is necessary to have so many bad people that the American Citizens must be protected against. Your rights don't exist, and America is not Free, I realize it has been said so many times before but living outside of the US in the 3rd world where at time you can actually put your life at risk is an eyeopener. Americans don't have a clue what the realities of the world are and the sad thing is that they don't care.

Re:Puzzling.

[FourDegreez]

Sullivan did endorse John Kerry in 2004, you know.

Re:Puzzling.

[aminorex]

Communism requires community control of the economy. Capitalism requires totalitarian oppression of the majority in order to protect capital against the community. Central planning requires nothing more than hubris, and is accomplished in both capitalist and socialist systems.

Re:Puzzling.

[cnelzie]

How much sophistication do you really expect in what amounts to 4 sentences that aren't even arranged in a clear paragraph?

    Besides that, do you even know what sychophant means?

    Your lengthier and windier post simply duplicated my simple and to the point post.

Re:Puzzling.

[Luscious868]

You're in idiot. Congress controls the purse strings in Washington. The President proposes a budget but Congress doesn't have to abide by it. Democrats controlled congress when we took on all of that debt. Get the facts straight before you open your idiotic liberal mouth.

Re:Puzzling.

[Anonymous Coward]

All systems end in that. The difference with Capitalism, is that we blame it on "corporations" instead of the government.

Re:Puzzling.

[vandan]

See, I know exactly what I'm talking about:
http://about.bloomberg.com/about/media/magazines.h tml

Read some of the trash they put out. Markets == God. Workerers == Terrorists. Seriously.

Re:Puzzling.

[fbg111]

I was living in Manhattan when Bloomberg decided to run for Mayor of NYC, and the reason is simply so he could bypass a crowded a Democratic primary field, and ride the coattails of the GOP (who were riding Guiliani's) to a successful election. Which he did, with no competition at all in the primaries, and a Democratic challenger damaged from a harsh Democratic primary competition in the general election. Also, Republicans in NYC are generally more centrist than Republicans elsewhere in the country, as both Guiliani and Bloomberg exemplify.

As for Sullivan, he's a true believer of most core Reaganesque, Libertarian, and fiscal Conservative principles, hence his association with the GOP. Although now that the balance of power in the GOP has shifted to the theocratic, statist, corporatist wing, that may change...

Re:Puzzling.

[fbg111]

Ugh, another rehashed debate over communism. Let me just try and nip it in the bud so we can get on to discussing the actual article...

Nazi's!

There, that should do it. Move along now, nothing left to see here. Next thread please!

Re:Puzzling.

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Most people basically inherit their party allegiance from their family Yes, I vote the opposite way to my father. I am not sure which way my mother votes but at least half of us (once) kids conciously oppose our father, politically.

Machievalli

[midnighttoadstool]

If politics is purely a question of the study of and the wielding of power then Bloomberg may be right and we should all be reading Machievalli's "The Prince" instead of debating the human, moral and ethical dimensions of scientific possibilities.

Its peculiar that Bloomburg should be calling for these matters (stem cell etc) not to be politicised since he, as a politician, has got to be aware that everything has a political dimension somewhere along the line, even if indirectly, which is why politics is so very important and not to be trivialised or dismissed.

Politics at its height is concerned with these profound questions; not just lowely administrative questions of how the rubbish/garbage is to be collected, and the roads maintained.

Re:Machievalli

[Omkar]

I disagree. These profound questions have a habit of being settled by inexorable social and technological forces that often have their roots in garbage collection and road maintenance.

Re:Machievalli

[midnighttoadstool]

How about an example....

Re:Machievalli

[Elemenope]

To generalize from the 'trash collector/highway' mode for deciding all important issues; I daresay that the point being made is that people's lives, in general, are molded far more profoundly by the systems that grind on almost underneath our notice, systems that maintain transportation, or waste removal, but also electricity and other utilities, information, etc.. Now, the political element of these systems that affect our lives so directly are very nearly trivial compared to the technical aspect. The same algorithms for determining the most efficient trash collection route will be the same in a democracy or a fascist state. Likewise, a transistor (and logic gates built from them) work the same in monarchies and in federal republics.

The underlying thrust is that ultimately the maintenance of these systems, and their improvement, are what really drive a society to attempt an answer to questions in the technological, ethical ,and social dimensions. Politicians are a postscript to that process, the ones who codify and write down the decisions that were already made on a practical basis a good amount of time prior. The truth is that vastly more people care that their trash gets picked up, then by what decisions and technologies and moral choices went into the system that allows it to get picked up. (And if you think there are no moral decisions in dealing with trash removal, visit a local landfill.)

Re:Machievalli

[midnighttoadstool]

..well then I would disagree

To continue the analogy : the question of how to dispose of rubbish and whether or not stem cell research is allowable aren't equivalent. There are three big differences that come to mind : firstly the stem cell question is "whether to", not "how to", secondly stem cell is an instrisically moral/ethical question as it deals directly with the nature of man, life, personhood, soul/or-not-soul etc etc, thirdly stem-cell revolves around at least one question that doesn't have an irrefutable answer (unlike your examples) : ie "When does human-life begin?". The answer to that isn't likely to come soon, by science or other natural "processes", and so political or violent resolution is inevitable (possibly more likely with de-politicisation).

The moral/ethical dimension of rubbish collection is incidental not intrinisic. While stem-cell research deals directly with our fundamental nature it would be more than stretching matters to say that that is true of garbage collection.

I also take issue with your claim of the garbage collection (and other relatively trivial processes) have profound effects. In the first place philosophers and logicians would in the main, I think, have difficulty with the notion of something lesser giving birth to something greater (perhaps excepting such unreasonable persons as Hawking, Hume, Mill, Heidegger, Kant etc). At a pinch one might claim "significant effect, maybe worthy of study", but profound?!? I think that word is too weighty for that example. I reckon that profundity is a much higher level concept and not suited to describing the effects of trivial causes. However, in my opinion its unquestionably suited to questions about such things as stem-cell research.

...and I must also take issue with your mixing the word politics and politicians. We are talking about politics not politicians. Politicians may or may not have a profound effect; but that does not take away from the profound importance of politics.

Re:Machievalli

[Elemenope]

Let's go backwards through your response...

I must also take issue with your mixing the word politics and politicians. We are talking about politics not politicians. Politicians may or may not have a profound effect; but that does not take away from the profound importance of politics.

What is politics if it is not the process of deciding social issues (resource distribution, rules of behavior, etc.)? That process has machinery, usually spelled out on paper, and that part of the machine most essential to any political process are the humans engaged in the process, isn't it? I think you are drawing a distinction that is artificial.

I also take issue with your claim of the garbage collection (and other relatively trivial processes) have profound effects. In the first place philosophers and logicians would in the main, I think, have difficulty with the notion of something lesser giving birth to something greater [...]. At a pinch one might claim "significant effect, maybe worthy of study", but profound?

All objects of which we are aware are constituted of smaller discrete objects, which in turn of smaller objects, until (possibly) one arrives at photons, quarks that constitute baryons, and other such entities. You are trying to say, essentially, that it is difficult to imagine that gold, for example, is shiny or dense or conducts electricity well because any of the protons, say, that compose a certain quantity of gold lack any or all of those characteristics (or in fact would be indescribable in those terms at all). What makes gold have those properties? It is not any one lower order component that has any or all of its qualities, rather it is all the lower order components together that in the macroscopic world yield a substance that exhibits properties greater than each part. This is called the Reverse Compositional Fallacy in logic, that a whole necessarily has the same qualities as its parts. Thus, it is in fact quite easy to imagine things that seem trivial on their own having, dare I say it, profound impacts on the larger systems to which they are a part.

The moral/ethical dimension of rubbish collection is incidental not intrinisic. While stem-cell research deals directly with our fundamental nature it would be more than stretching matters to say that that is true of garbage collection.

I disagree with where you draw your lines of distinction. I would say, rather, that the moral issues of both garbage collection and stem-cell research are incidental. After all, what is stem cell research? Biological investigation and experimentation upon a certain class of sample cells. That by itself has little moral weight. What does have weight is how the reseacher obtains those cells, and what is done with the information he or she collects from the research. Similarly the moral issues incidental to garbage collection are not the fact that it is done, but rather in what manner and respectful of what interests is it done, such as where the waste is stored or destroyed. I suppose, in my opinion, the word 'incidental' is too light a word to use to describe the mechanics of an activity; I tend to think of them as equally important as the ideas and values that the process supposedly serves.

To continue the analogy : the question of how to dispose of rubbish and whether or not stem cell research is allowable aren't equivalent. There are three big differences that come to mind : firstly the stem cell question is "whether to", not "how to"...

That strikes me as relatively naive; the question about a technology is never 'whether to'; once it is possible to use a technology, it is already out of the bottle. The question is always 'how to', how best is the technology integrated into our society so that it reflects, or at least does not unduly harm those things we consider important.

...secondly stem cell is an instrisically moral/ethical question as it deals directly with the nature of

Yep, always happens.

[thealsir]

Anyway, Bloomberg is in an odd position - supporting science and yet also supporting this administration. It's not like Bush and company are well known for thier support/funding of scientists...

Re:Yep, always happens.

[bersl2]

Depending on the definition of "science", one could argue that Bush does promote some science---the science of making things go boom.

Machievalli? Machiavelli.

[Paolone]

It's good form, when advising a book, to spell its author name right.
Beside that, I can't see the point between "Il Principe" and this discussion.

Re:Machievalli? Machiavelli.

[midnighttoadstool]

Thank you for the polite correction.

"The Prince" is about power. Politics is about government. If we depoliticise then all we are talking about is power, not government, and so Bloomburg is recommending Machiavelli.

Re:Machievalli? Machiavelli.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Prince is an instruction manual for enlightened despots. The current leadership of the USA isn't particularily enlightened, so I can't really see the parallel.

Re:Machievalli? Machiavelli.

[Paolone]

As far as I can see (I know much better Italian and Eurozone politics than U.S.) your (U.S.) main problem is with detachment from your government. Like, for example, anarchists (both individualist and syndacalist currents), worldwide secessionists et al.
Government is concerned with mantaining, using and cultivating power.
Politics is concerned with community issues.
You can have grassroots politics, not grassroots government.
When you bring good politicians (people concerned in the right way with the right issues) to a place polluted with bad, bad customes of holding to power, usually they get tainted and their focus switches from their agenda (used in a neutral way here) to nurturing power. But sometimes they don't; IMHO It's just a matter of luck. In this regard in Italy in we've been having mixed results with socialdemocratic governments (too many agendas) and really bad luck with center-left ones (usually intent in creating laws to enforce monopolies held by ministers and in creating laws to give them legal immunity). Anyway, we're sliding offtopic. But it's an argument I would like to continue elsewhere. :)

Re:Machievalli? Machiavelli.

[midnighttoadstool]

At variance with your definition I had understood that politics is the science of government, not power.

Pot vs. Kettle

[Detritus]

We disseminate the truth, our opposition politicizes science.

Neither party is willing to let a few inconvenient facts stand in the way of their political agenda.

Re:Pot vs. Kettle

[MrPerfekt]

We disseminate the truth, our opposition politicizes science.

"We" as in "fellow scientists".

Neither party is willing to let a few inconvenient facts stand in the way of their political agenda.

"Neither party" as in "politics from an outside view".

He was giving the speech as neither a Democrat nor Republican but instead as Mayor and fellow graduate with a scientific background.

Um, What?

[philgross]

Dude, Terry Schiavo is not a terribly complex issue, and there was nothing "questionable" about her state. As was clearly documented at the time, her brain was gone. Tragic, but true. Those desperately trying to pretend that she had some higher-order function left were denying science, medicine, and facts. The craven politicians trying to get mileage out of the tragedy were disgusting, even by Washington D.C. standards, with actual-doctor Bill Frist the most egregious and hypocritical.

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

Ok, I'll bite. Yes, she was brain dead. Yes, she wasn't going to recover.

Yet why should she be killed when there were people who were willing to take care of her? This has nothing to do with science, since science cannot answer ethical questions. It had to do with law (who controls another human being since there were no written instructions from her). It had to do with whether we are the kind of people who will dispose of the inconvenient, whether we will choose death over life. It wasn't about Teri, since she couldn't possibly care. It was about us.

Personally, I think we failed miserably.

Re:Um, What?

[Distinguished Hero]

Yet why should she be killed when there were people who were willing to take care of her?
Were they willing to finance her care completely out of their own pockets? If so, I agree with you. Otherwise, resources are finite and precious, and there is no sense wasting the state's resources even more than they are currently being wasted.

Re:Um, What?

[BakaHoushi]

It's really a matter of law. Mrs. Schiavo was married, and the laws state, if I'm not misinformed, (IANAL) a husband has the right to decide on life support. Can we just let ANYONE come along and say they'll take care of her?

Hypothetical situation: I'm married (Crazy enough right there), and my wife is also on life support. I'm in pain just seeing her in such a state, and would rather see her die than suffer in such a way for so long. However, it turns out Bill Gates it's actually my 5th cousin, and he walks in and says he'll pay for the support forever.

Should he have the right to do that? I don't think so. It's not really an ethical issue, because opinions in this case could vary so much. What it comes down to is should he have the legal right to do that?

Re:Um, What?

[Kattana]

And to tie this into the other issues, ignoring the cost in money - what about the energy required for the life support, should fossil fuels be burned indefinetly, adding to global warming to produce the energy to keep a mere piece of flesh alive.
Resources are finite and precious, and waste is another enourmous and still growing problem.

Re:Um, What?

[TheZax]

Yet why should she be killed when there were people who were willing to take care of her?

I'll bite too. Because that was her wish? At least as far as the courts could determine, so that's what they had to go with...

This was a lose/lose situation no matter what.

Re:Um, What?

[yurnotsoeviltwin]

I think there are far more egregious wastes of energy out there than life support for a "piece of flesh." Powering a computer in order to read and post on Slashdot, for example?

Re:Um, What?

[falcon5768]

yes but one can take what they learn or say here and expand on it.

That "piece of flesh" was still going to be one 10 days or 100 years later. She WASNT getting better, and the state was pouring millions in supporting her

Re:Um, What?

[dmnsqrl]

What 'state resources'? There was a trust fund already set up to pay for any expenses related to keeping Terry alive.

Re:Um, What?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Otherwise, resources are finite and precious, and there is no sense wasting the state's resources even more than they are currently being wasted.

To be consistent, we ought to apply that argument to people who have Life without Parole sentences.

Back in the day they used the Gallows for those kinds of folks, avoiding the aforementioned costs.

None of the above is intended as a value judgement.

Re:Um, What?

[mrpeebles]

I think your have good instincts on the subject, but asked the wrong question. I think the English language itself makes it harder to think about the issue, because it makes it harder to talk about it. You ask "why should she be killed when..." You are making the presumptiont that she was alive. To me, she clearly wasn't alive in the sense the usually use the word. Her brain was gone. But she wasn't really dead either, in the usual use of the word. We usually talk about life and death as boolean states- but they are really opposite ends of a continuum. Most of us don't even really have the vocabularly to even talk about it in that way. Possibly it also make it harder in that many Christians think of the soul as in some sense physically leaving the body at true "death", so it seems like you should be able to talk about the moment that happens as the moment of death. I think the question you really have to ask is whether we should have allowed her to finish the process of dying. And also, in what sense do we want the government involved in that decision.

Re:Um, What?

[Registered Coward v2]

Ok, I'll bite. Yes, she was brain dead. Yes, she wasn't going to recover.

Yet why should she be killed when there were people who were willing to take care of her? This has nothing to do with science, since science cannot answer ethical questions. It had to do with law (who controls another human being since there were no written instructions from her). It had to do with whether we are the kind of people who will dispose of the inconvenient, whether we will choose death over life. It wasn't about Teri, since she couldn't possibly care. It was about us.


The question is who has teh right to decide to continue care? If a child is born that can only survive on life support - should the parents be forced to put the baby on life support if they chose not to do so? Does teh state pay, or should only babies born into financial mens be given the choice? Or should the baby be allowed to live on its own until it dies based on the parents wishes?

Is it then not God's choice when to take the baby?

As for the TS case, people discovered a good PR venue - they could advance their cause by "fighting" for a nice, white, middle class woman that would make the evening news; rather than fighting to spend that money providing basic health care for inner city, poor children to lower the infant mortality rate. The case wasn't about us, it was about getting publicity for a cause; and I found that disgusting.

Re:Um, What?

[ultranova]

Hypothetical situation: I'm married (Crazy enough right there), and my wife is also on life support. I'm in pain just seeing her in such a state, and would rather see her die than suffer in such a way for so long.

If your wife is braindead, then she can't suffer - she's dead, after all.

Of course you may - and propably will - suffer from seeing her in such condition, but claiming that she's suffering from it is a false statement. Of course she isn't going to benefit from continuing life support either - she's dead, after all.

When talking about someone who's braindead, it is illogical to do things for their sake, since they're dead and can't be hurt or helped either way. The only ones affected are we who have been left behind.

Re:Um, What?

[Guillaume Laurent]

There's a point beyond which forcibly keeping someone alive is just as egotistic and cruel as getting rid of someone we no longer consider fit to live.

Re:Um, What?

[BakaHoushi]

Ack. That's what I get for not reading my own post before I post it. I meant why should I have to suffer through seeing her in such a state for so long? Indeed, people like this are, for all intents and purposes, dead. They can't see, hear, feel, smell, taste, or think. Just because a machine can keep some electrical signal running through a body to keep the other vital organs from stopping doesn't mean the person is alive.

Re:Um, What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically it WAS about Terri, and allegedly she WOULD have cared. The whole point was that her husband who legally had the right to make the decision, said Terri mentioned that she would never want to be kept alive like that. So he was just following her direction/decision. It is unfortunate she never wrote it down, but I believe science came into this from BOTH sides, the parents saying she could recover, and the other saying no, she couldn't.

Re:Um, What?

[thebiss]

Except Bill Gates DIDN'T step in.

Her own parents did.

Re:Um, What?

[drsquare]

With no brain, it's not a 'she', it's an 'it'. Your question really is, should they keep alive a set of mindless organs and cells, for absolutely no reason?

Re:Um, What?

[Vellmont]

Yet why should she be killed when there were people who were willing to take care of her?

Why should her husband be made to suffer while his wife's body is forced to continue to live when everything that was Teri Sciavo died long ago? You seem to think that existence is just about a breathing and a heartbeat. This isn't about incoveince, it's about a woman who died a long time ago kept alive by her family who couldn't accept that the only thing that survived was the womans body.

Re:Um, What?

[Xenographic]

> Can we just let ANYONE come along and say they'll take care of her?

Yes. Who the hell is going to volunteer to take care of the near-corpse of someone they don't care about?

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

For the record, the husband spent the money earmarked for her care from a lawsuit. Furthermore, the husband was seeing another woman that he wanted to marry. His motives certainly gave the appearance of being tainted.

In any case, should we have the legal right to sentence the innocent to death (which is what you're asking)? I say no.

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

Given that her husband had spent the money from a lawsuit that was supposed to be for her care, and that her husband was seeing another woman, do you really think that was her wish? Was he really less biased than her parents? Given that the situation was so murky, the courts could just have well decided on the side of life.

Our society seems to have decided that death is the solution to (some of) our problems. That's not a viable long-term position.

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

Her parents didn't think that it was for "absolutely no reason."

In any case, how we deal with the unwanted, the inconvenient, the expensive and the otherwise burdensome speaks volumes about us as a people. If survival of the fittest is all there is, then let's stop kidding ourselves and start thinning the herd.

Re:Um, What?

[evilviper]

Yet why should she be killed when there were people who were willing to take care of her?

Because she expressed that was what she wanted.
Here's a better question. Why should someone else's money and wishes be reason to usurp your own wishes?

It wasn't about Teri, since she couldn't possibly care.

She did care, and expressed her feelings to her husband, who carried them out, refused 10 million dollars, and stood up to the governments of Florida and the U.S. senate in the process.

Personally, I think we failed miserably.

That's because you're imposing your own beliefs and wishes on someone else, who did not share them. You believe in life, no matter what, over the rule of law, and the wishes of the individual and spouse. I should also point out that your are in a very, very small minority (perhaps 20% at best).

Re:Um, What?

[fm6]

Her parents were in denial. They kept insisting that their daughter was responding to visual stimulus. The experts kept telling them they were seeing no such thing, but they didn't want to hear it. And the experts were right: the autopsy showed no visual cortex left.

These folks were the wrong people to be making decisions on behalf of their daughter. They stated repeatedly that even her express wishes were not relevent. Only their irrational believe that she would recover was important. All the people who made them into heros are idiots.

Re:Um, What?

[BakaHoushi]

I like your use of the word "innocent" to describe her. Appealing to a sense of pity now? The facts are this: Terri Schiavo was dead before the feeding tube was removed. The autopsy later revealed the doctors were right: Her brain was liquified and gone. She couldn't think or feel. For all intents and purposes, she was dead as a doornail.

In fact, the videos they showed of her with slight movements and reactions were dated, as she ceased to do that during the debate.

And the question is not "is the husband a moral person?" The question is, who has legal rights to make that decision? The law clearly states the husband does, not the parents. You can argue about whether or not this law is ETHICAL or not, but it was the case then.

Personally, I feel a little guilt every time this case is brought up, because I'd hate to be a talking point between parties who pretend to care about me. That's the real tragedy here. (That, and the fact that her parents appeared on TV a few months ago claiming there was still a chance to save their daughter, even though they had a doctor there, I believe, who said that there was NOT a chance in Hell. They just can't accept the fact that their daughter died.)

Re:Um, What?

[agent_no.82]

It's actually more expensive to seek the death penalty due to the methodology of our legal system than it is to kill said convicts.

Re:Um, What?

[Anonymous Coward]

When you are married your husband/wife and children become your next of kin and your immedeate family. Your immedeatly family carries the burden of making these decision when legally able to.

Re:Um, What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeb Bush?

http://www.zimp.org/100603ab.pdf

Re:Um, What?

[slashdot_commentator]

To be consistent, we ought to apply that argument to people who have Life without Parole sentences.

Society does not want to expend the tax dollars to give all indigent citizens a reasonably competent defense attorney and his costs. Its pretty obvious that if you're poor, you're much more likely to get railroaded for a murder you didn't commit. Yes, the overwhelming majority of murder convictions probably have the right guy. The question is whether the gov't (and by extention, its citizens) is entitled to "murder" convicted people with a reasonable expectation that some miniscule percentage of them are innocent. Its pretty much the sole reason I'm against the death penalty.

Schaivo is a totally different issue. The question there is: "who has jurisdiction over a spouse's medical care?" How remote a relation can you be in order to override the medical decisions the married partner makes on behalf of their spouse? If its purely an issue of "sanctity of life", how can there be any such thing as DNR orders? They would all be illegal. There would be no reason for family members to have any decision making power on behalf of the incapacitated member. That power would be emplaced by fiat to what the Congress and the Courts decided best fullfilled the "moral" imperative. (Screw the Constitution of the US.) How long before before people be compelled to donate their organs when diagnosed as brain dead? They perpetuate life, and that's the overriding "moral" value...

Re:Um, What?

[slashdot_commentator]

It had to do with law (who controls another human being since there were no written instructions from her).

The law is pretty clear. The spouse has the final say in terms of medical decisions made on behalf of the spouse. The legal responsibilities and power of familial members at both ends pretty much end when the child becomes an adult. Ah, but you believe THEOCRACTIC institutions should ultimately decide who has the right to decide medical decisions.

It had to do with whether we are the kind of people who will dispose of the inconvenient, whether we will choose death over life.

Or what kind of obscene treatment can perpetrated upon a person based on religious beliefs of Cult members.

Personally, I think we failed miserably.

Yes, thank God the Fundamentalist Taliban failed.

Re:Um, What?

[dalutong]

One of the people who responded to you said that if the people who were willing to take care of her would fund it out of their own pockets then he agreed that they should be allowed to. I disaggress emphatically. If I am brain dead I hope my wife will pull the plug. Not only do I not want to be a psychological burden on her, I generally don't believe in the keep-me-alive-for-as-long-as-possible philosophy. I take care of myself so I will live a long life. But if something happens and I have to live as a vegetable, then just kill me.

Re:Um, What?

[CptPicard]

This exchange nicely illustrates the problems and inner conflicts with religious conservatives' ideas. Economically they support a system that systematically prunes out the weak, and I could appreciate them if they were openly Darwinist like their Libertarian brethren... but they don't have the guts.

Instead they make vague appeals to Christ and insist that somehow magically their secular politics will result in a distinctly illogical and contradictory consequence -- that by some Bible-waving things like keeping Schiavo alive will somehow become economically viable and profitable, while in day-to-day politics, still appealing to the very same economic argument but using its other side, it's "bad for the economy"...

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

Then write it down and leave a copy with a lawyer.

Re:Um, What?

[dalutong]

agreed. but if i haven't written something down, it's my wife's job to make those decisions (unless i specify someone other than her in my will.)

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

Absent a written record, what if there is plausible evidence that she is lying in court about what your wishes are?

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

The law is pretty clear. The spouse has the final say in terms of medical decisions made on behalf of the spouse.

And if there is plausible evidence that the spouse is lying?

Ah, but you believe THEOCRACTIC institutions should ultimately decide who has the right to decide medical decisions.

It's obvious you are clueless about what I believe. Decisions, IMO, should be based on truth. If the truth cannot be decided, then life should be favored over death. Again, IMO.

Yes, thank God the Fundamentalist Taliban failed.

The Taliban would have used guns, not the courts.

Re:Um, What?

[spacecowboy420]

Believe it or not, South Park had an insightful take on this matter: Kenny said in his will to NEVER put him on national TV if he was in a vegatative state - respect the patient. The "Save Kenny" people said it was playing God to allow Kenny to die by removing his tube. The "Let Kenny Die" people suggested the doctors were playing God by inserting the tube in the first place.

I personally say screw the loved ones, what about the dignity of the patient? Who cares how much money they have to keep her alive - do you honestly believe she'd want to live this way? There must be a point where the quality of life of the patient overrides the selfish drives of the loved ones. If I get that way, let me die with dignity, not as a drooling politcal pawn.

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

I personally say screw the loved ones, what about the dignity of the patient?

What about it? She was brain dead -- she didn't care about anything.

Who cares how much money they have to keep her alive - do you honestly believe she'd want to live this way?

It isn't about what I think she wanted. Her parents said she did, her husband said she didn't. Her parents were, IMO, acting out of false hope. Her husband was, IMO, acting for selfish gain. Therefore, I conclude that it was impossible to know what her real wishes were. So, if this is so, then I think we should err on the side of life. YMMV.

There must be a point where the quality of life of the patient overrides the selfish drives of the loved ones.

"Quality of life" is an awfully subjective opinion.

If I get that way, let me die with dignity, not as a drooling politcal pawn.

Don't kid yourself -- there is no dignity to death. Nevertheless, write it down, leave a copy with a lawyer.

Re:Um, What?

[dalutong]

IANAL

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

This exchange nicely illustrates the problems and inner conflicts with religious conservatives' ideas.

A potentially interesting comment, let's see if it's supported...

Economically they support a system that systematically prunes out the weak

I'd like to see data for this statement because it runs counter to everything I know. I don't support governmental welfare programs, because a) they are inefficient with regard to resources and b) they don't address the core problems. But government, IMHO, isn't the only solution and I provide support through other channels.

I could appreciate them if they were openly Darwinist like their Libertarian brethren...

If we were "openly Darwinist" (survival of the fittest) then we wouldn't be Christians, would we?

Finally, the appeals to keeping Schiavo had nothing to do with economics; in fact, it was economically pointless to keep her alive.

Re:Um, What?

[Xenographic]

Only after her parents and everyone else intervened, making it a political football. The point still stands that only someone who cared about her would initiate all of that. (Note: I said *initiate*--after her parents got the ball rolling, all sorts of outsiders got involved).

Re:Um, What?

[soundwave106]

Florida law is very clear on this. In the event someone is incapacitated, decisions on medical care fall to the *husband* first. Not the *parents*. Marriage is a big deal because the parents are giving up things like this to the husband, you know.

The only way to get out of this hiearchy is to prove that the guardian is incompetent. The whole point of the Schindler's investigations into Schiavo's life, and massive publicity, IMHO was simply to somehow prove this in regards to Michael Schiavo. In the end the courts decided -- unanimously -- that this was not the case. Repeatedly.

Upon further review, the case started, frankly, solely because of money. Michael Schiavo won a malpractice suit. None of the problems with Schiavo started at that time. I have personally come to the opinion that the Schindlers more greedy than concerned about their daughter's welfare. Draw your own conclusion. After a certain point, it seems it became an issue of stupid pride, with neither side willing to budge.

From a medical perspective, I have found no instance of anyone recovering from a PVS after three years -- let alone *fifteen*. I challenge you to find me that. Even those who recover after a *year* of PVS are often severely debiliated for life. I do not see a lot in Michael Schiavo's actions that makes him that wrong, based on the facts about PVS that I see.

All of this would be a tragic case of a bad family dispute at this point. The *real* insanity is how the nation got involved. Why were so many religious groups rushing to get involved in a *personal family case*? Even in many ways violating their own code of ehtics in doing so? (I mean, do they not believe in the sanctity of marriage?) The Schindlers appealed to these folks, and it worked.

Even worse, why in the heck did the government get involved in what was a clear *family dispute?* This annoys me. Jeb Bush, and later the Congressional Republicans, went out of their way to jump through legal hoops so that the Schindlers could make appeal after appeal. Congressional Republicans, in fact, called an emergency session on this. Is *one PVS dispute* really the *biggest* issue of our nation?

Re:Um, What?

[wrf3]

Florida law is very clear on this. In the event someone is incapacitated, decisions on medical care fall to the *husband* first.
I agree.

The only way to get out of this hiearchy is to prove that the guardian is incompetent.
What if the husband is a scoundrel? What if, for example, he lies about what his wife's intentions really were?

From a medical perspective, I have found no instance of anyone recovering from a PVS after three years -- let alone *fifteen*. I challenge you to find me that.
I don't have to take the challenge, because it isn't relevant. Consider the case if there had been written instructions from her stating that she was to be kept on life support. Then the courts would have so ruled and the money from the malpractice lawsuit would have gone to her care.

Is *one PVS dispute* really the *biggest* issue of our nation?
Something doesn't have to be the biggest in order for it to be important. The reason the nation got involved because it was a case of life vs. death; and America is highly polarized on that point.

Re:Um, What?

[bill_mcgonigle]

The question is whether the gov't (and by extention, its citizens) is entitled to "murder" convicted people with a reasonable expectation that some miniscule percentage of them are innocent. Its pretty much the sole reason I'm against the death penalty.

It ought to be cheaper to buy a defendant a guilded defense, at least on appeal, than to put him up for 60 to 100 years at a Federal Pen. OK, assuming lawyers made reasonable money, so this might not be true.

Re:Um, What?

[WhiplashII]

What about it? She was brain dead -- she didn't care about anything.


Only true if there is no afterlife.

Don't kid yourself -- there is no dignity to death.

Same as above, except that I believe strongly in dignity in death - it effects how your loved ones remember you. Though by all means, write your wishes down (and tell everyone that you have done so!)

Re:Um, What?

[plunge]

First you have to prove that he's a scoundrel and that he lied. But the courts not only ruled, like it or not, that he was telling the truth, but he wasn't even the only person who testified as to her wishes to not be kept in that state. Her parents couldn't offer any credible rebuttal to that, and their experts failed to make their case.

Most of the allegations made against Michael turned out to be pretty silly. For instance, the "other woman" nosnense. It's particularly ironic that Terry's parents tried to use that against him seeing as THEY were the ones who encouraged him to start dating again and "move on" since at that point they admitted Terry was gone. It was only after it seemed like they might lose their little shrine that they started claiming she was still there and that Michael was cheating on her. But, in fact, his new partner spent more time with Terry than her own brother: who himself only showed up when the TV cameras did.

Re:Um, What?

[plunge]

It's worth noting that for most the case, Michael did not have legal standing to make any decisions at all: he willingly gave up claim to them in favor of letting the courts decide. Even if he had decided that he didn't want to take her off the tube, it wouldn't have mattered, because the court had ruled that her wishes were to be taken off. He was an advocate to make sure that happened, but it was a ruling of law, not his wishes, that mandated it.

Re:Um, What?

[plunge]

But it was about Terri. Whether you think there was enough evidence of her wishes, the fact remains that the person's wishes ARE what matters, and the courts thought enough evidence had been presented (not just by her husband, but by other witnesses as well) that her wishes were to be taken off.

People on the "keep her alive" side of the issue were essentially aruging that a bunch of politicians and third-parties can rush in an override the medical directives of individuals, or reverse _factual_ court findings if they don't agree with them.

Re:Um, What?

[plunge]

"For the record, the husband spent the money earmarked for her care from a lawsuit."

Her spent it on defending her rights in court further, as he saw it (and didn't spend it on himself, and even turned down millions in "go-away, Delay needs a good photo-op" money). I don't see how that's wrong in any way. It was approved by the courts. If YOU think its somehow wrong, ok, but there was nothing legally unethical about it.

"Furthermore, the husband was seeing another woman that he wanted to marry. His motives certainly gave the appearance of being tainted."

Smears are smears. First of all, by the time the case hit the media, Michael had long long since ceased to have any legal power over her. The court finding was in effect, and the finding was that her medical directives would have been to be taken off life support. After that point, his opinion ceased to matter, legally.

Second of all, he was seeing another woman... on the advice and approval of Terry's parents, who, before they started squabbling over the money and Terry's treatment, had encouraged him to "move on" and "start seeing new people." And this "other woman" spent copious amounts of time with and caring for Terry's body herself. That sort of changes things, no? It wasn't like he was cheating on Terry on the sly. Everyone at the time agreed that she was gone, including her parents, and thought that he should move on. It was only when the issue of continuing to keep her alive came up tht suddenly he got charged with infidelity and Terry suddenly became the supposed next Awakenings candidate.

Re:Um, What?

[plunge]

"And if there is plausible evidence that the spouse is lying?"

It's nice that YOU think so, but here in America, we have this thing called the court system that rules on issues like this. That way, the people that decide whether someone is lying or not have to go through a process to find that out, hear all the evidence yea or nea, and rule on it. Third-parties who hear some rumor or get only part of the story are not exactly the right people to decide whether something is credible or not.

And regardless, its a misrepresentation to say that Michael simply decided. He gave up his authority to do so in order for the court to adjudicate the matter. And he was not even the only person to testify about her wishes.

"Decisions, IMO, should be based on truth. If the truth cannot be decided, then life should be favored over death. Again, IMO."

But the truth WAS decided in the way we legally rule on truth in his country. In a court. With no errors that any other courts, even her parents could point out.

Now you might think that the court ruled wrongly. You might also think that Michael Jackson should have been convicted. But that is not how our legal system works. "What some random guy on teh intrawebs thinks" is not how we decide legal matters in this country.

Re:Um, What?

[plunge]

"What about it? She was brain dead -- she didn't care about anything."

Again, our legal system has a well-established recognition of the rights of people to have their wishes carried out as per their property and their medical care even when they are incapacitated and can't care about anything. If they were overridden, then sure, SHE wouldn't have cared. But OTHER people seeing this would have to then take all sorts of extreme measures to make sure they have some backup plan for dealing with their wills or medical directives being routinely violated or ignored.

"Her parents were, IMO, acting out of false hope. Her husband was, IMO, acting for selfish gain. Therefore, I conclude that it was impossible to know what her real wishes were."

Maybe in Mongolia "IMO" is a legal standard. Not in America. What about the other witnesses testifying about her state of mind? What about all the medical testimony? Did you sit in court listening to all this stuff, and reading ALL of the evidence and testimony? Even if you had, you STILL wouldn't legally be in a position to decide, but given that I bet you did not, you are being especially silly in concluding this or that.

Re:Um, What?

[Copid]

Absent a written record, what if there is plausible evidence that she is lying in court about what your wishes are?

That would be a very sad thing, but I don't think that we saw any such evidence in this case. I would hope that it would require more than hearsay or some old friend saying, "Oh, I knew her really well and she would never want that!" to abrogate my rights to care for my wife or hers to take care of me. I would also hope to keep quack doctors who make diagnoses based on video footage viewed from their capitol building offices out of it. I would hope to keep it out of the hands of bloodsucking journalists and televangelists.

In short, it should take a lot more than sleazebags cynically using us as a political football, irrational grief-stricken family members, and tabloids dragging us through the mud to break the bond of mutual care and responsibility that we formed both publicly and legally. The "something doesn't smell right and your decision makes me sad" argument should not be enough to insinuate yourself into a private and terribly emotional issue between spouses unless you have some fairly damning evidence against one of us.

That's not quite right.

[goldcd]

"It is unacceptable that stem cell research is being outlawed pretty much everywhere"
It's mainly just been outlawed in the US, and specifically in projects that take funding from your government (as I understand it).


It's a quite bizarre situation. If stem cell research had been banned outright, then it would make more sense as at least it could be looked at as an ethical decision. This ban on funding is an entirely political point - the US science system has been hobbled entirely to make a political point.
Still - when your scientists are phoned and asked which party they vote for, before they get their money (and nobody seems to care)
*shrugs*
You reap what you sow.

Re:That's not quite right.

[plutonium83]

Granted, only government funding has been banned but any research scientist can tell you that agencies like the NSF are the primary contributors in scientific endeavors. By cutting off funding, they are essentially killing the field. I think the research universities outnumber the "old, rich" guys who have millions of dollars to throw.

Not that puzzling

[goldcd]

The US is a very conservative country - and there is genuinely very little to separate the Democrats and Republicans ideologically.
Both parties are broad churches containing members of differing views on pretty much all of the 'issues'
The only persons of interest are those at the extremes - you can probably tell the differece between a right wing republican and a left wing democrat - but between the two it gets a little fuzzy.

It's not peculiar at all.

[goldcd]

He doesn't think stem cell research funding should be denied - yet belongs to a party where the majority of members (and their voters) think it should be.
Whilst it's a political issue - he's got to either help withold the funding (something he doesn't believe is right), or piss off his voters (which he really doesn't want to do).
If it stops becoming a political issue, then the funding decision isn't his to make and if voters demands he withold it, he can just say it's not his problem.

Re:Murder

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut the Fuck Up, Jebus-fellater.

I wonder what his position would be...

[MichaelSmith]

...on the GhostBusters.

Re:I wonder what his position would be...

[Lord Ender]

MAYOR
What do you mean "Biblical?"
Old Testament, Mr. Mayor. "Wrath of
God"-type stuff. The seas could boil, fire
and brimstone falling from the sky ...
STANTZ
(chimes in) ... forty years of darkness, earthquakes,
mass hysteria, human sacrifice ...

MAYOR
Enough! I get the point.
But what if you're wrong?

VENKMAN
If I'm wrong then nothing happens and you
toss us in the can. But if I'm right, and
if we can stop this thing ... well, let's
just say that you could save the lives of a
lot of registered voters.

The Mayor starts nodding affirmatively, clearly convinced by Venkman's
rational assessment.

PECK
(furious)
I don't believe you're seriously considering
listening to these men!

The Mayor takes a long look at Peck.

MAYOR
Get him out of here.
We've got work to do. What do you need
from me?

For information

[Yvanhoe]

This motto is from the Bible: John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Re:For information

[Watson Ladd]

If only my Significant Others could take that passage to heart. I told them about Kinsey, and they said it was wrong because it went against the Bible.

Re:For information

[Yvanhoe]

Well, I used to argue a lot with a Christian friend about morality, science, sex, etc... We used to stall. But recently I have read the Bible. This book is just great! whatever your opinion on any issue, you will find a reference backing you!

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/ is a good tool too.

Re:For information

[ultranova]

But recently I have read the Bible. This book is just great! whatever your opinion on any issue, you will find a reference backing you!

There is a saying here in Finland. I don't know if it you have it in english-speaking countries, but, roughly translated, it goes: "Like the Devil reads the Bible." Ironically enough, the Bible itself also contains examples of such a thing, like the part where the Devil was tempting Jesus.

The point ? It is unwise to take passages out of their context and interpret them literally, especially since those passages were written thousands of years ago in another language and cultural context (cultural context is revelant since it gives background knowledge without which meanings have a nasty tendency to be twisted beyond recognition).

Re:For information

[ceoyoyo]

So what you're saying is that it's a bad idea to take a book compiled from articles written over a period of a thousand years, the youngest more than fifteen hundred years old and let it dictate your actions and the course of your life?

I'm not sure that even WITH cultural context it's a good idea to take the bible too literally. Many of the cultures of the time had some nasty tendencies that I'd prefer not to see make a comeback. Thinking that nailing people to crosses was an acceptable form of execution for example. Believing that execution was a good way of dealing with people who criticize the government for another.

free market economy

[Anonymous Coward]

let those who will profit from it pay for the research. If no one is investing in it it's because they don't feel it is a worthwhile investment. Its not the government's place to fund research so that private companies can profit.

Re:free market economy

[Sj0]

Your arguement is a complete red herring. The government sponsors research. Saying that when it makes exclusions it's ok because they never should have funded research in the first place is fallacious at best.

No moral considerations either?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to politicize, does that mean that you must not have any moral considerations about, for example, stem cell research either?

Re:stem cell research

[blonde rser]

The funny thing is that stem cell research isn't tightly controlled. In fact I'm not sure there are any real limiting restrictions at the moment. There is certainly a ban on federal funding of most stem cell research (a ban to which Bloomberg is referring). However, if some old rich white guy wants to drop a few billion on stem cell research in the hopes of extending his own life, he is completely allowed to do that. And I don't think their is much of a political movement trying to deter him from doing so either.

Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[Anonymous Coward]

Just notice that even such "harmless" decisions as "1 child per family" program in China have some not-quite-expected consequences where there many, many more boys being born than girls.

I think you mean: many more baby girls being murdered than boys.

Umm. This is slashdot. We don't think of it as murdering baby girls. At best this is a simple termination of an unwanted fetus. At worst it is a simple postpartum abortion (i.e. termination of the fetus a few weeks after birth)... And of course if the baby girls are going to be killed anyway it clearly makes sense to get federal funds to make use of those organs, hair, teeth, etc. And another thing, why has the US government outlawed masturbation. They haven't? Oh, I beg to differ. I am pretty sure I can't get federal funding to spank the monkey while surfing the web...Well, maybe in some special conditions.

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[voidphoenix]

At worst it is a simple postpartum abortion (i.e. termination of the fetus a few weeks after birth)

I'm pro-choice, but that is stretching the definition of abortion a bit too far. Those female infants (not fetuses) are beaten to death, drowned or simply left on trashheaps to die of exposure. That's not abortion, that is murder.

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm. This is slashdot. We don't think of it as murdering baby girls. At best this is a simple termination of an unwanted fetus. At worst it is a simple postpartum abortion (i.e. termination of the fetus a few weeks after birth).

Nice troll. I almost bit.

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[Mahou]

that is murder

right, like he said, abortion

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[WilliamSChips]

No, abortion is the termination of a being that doesn't have a functioning nervous system. Once the fetus has a functional nervous system, at that point it's murder.

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[Mahou]

bullshit, you can't just make up arbitrary points at which killing someone is ok. it's murder after the organism begins existence as a complete human cell with 46 chromosomes

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[plunge]

Every cell in my body is complete, human, and has 46 chromosomes, except for my few gametes.

In fact, with the right scientific techniques, any cell in my body could theoretically be used to create a new individuals. So, sorry, you are going to have to define some point at which killing something is okay, and you are going to have to do it based on a present functional capacity of some being, not its mere genetics.

And let me just say that if you've come to the conclusion that killing a zygote is evil but killing a slug is okay, then something has gone horribly wrong, and you need to start over again. You've missed the point of morality.

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[Mahou]

holy fucking shit when did i say anything about slugs? and you've completely missed the point, i'm saying it's not okay to kill humans, and the earliest point you can call something a human is when they first come into existence.

you can't just make up a point at which killing something is okay you psychopathic sicko. i wasn't basing it on genetics but at the point when a human first exists. if it's okay to kill something because you arbitrarily decide it's more stupid than you are, why hasn't someone killed you yet? i really hope someone fucking slits your throat you sick fuck

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[plunge]

"i'm saying it's not okay to kill humans, and the earliest point you can call something a human is when they first come into existence."

There is no point at which a human "comes into existence," when something non-genetically human becomes genetically human, when something not alive becomes alive. Reality isn't so discrete. So you are going to have to determine whether a PARTICULAR sort of thing that happens to have human genes is the sort of being its okay to kill or not. What sort of characteristics must it have to qualify? You can't avoid the question.

"holy fucking shit when did i say anything about slugs?"

You didn't: I pointed out that you seem to demand that we give more moral attention to something that does not even have the ability to feel or care or think and never has done: a slug has more capacity than a zygote. The fact that you care about the non-feeling one over the feeling one is a tell-tale sign that something has gone drastically wrong in your reasoning.

"you can't just make up a point at which killing something is okay you psychopathic sicko."

You're wrong. You are doing so, just as much as I am, and just as much as everyone must.

"i wasn't basing it on genetics"

Of course you were: your whole concept of what it means to be a human being is purely genetic, rather than having to do with any of the qualities ABOUT human beings that makes us think that we should respect their rights.

"but at the point when a human first exists."

I would say that I didn't exist until I at least had a brain. Nothing prior to that has any capacity to be "me." Individual cells without some sort of functional order are merely protoplasm with genetic code in them. They aren't people. They don't have feelings. Caring about whether they live or die is insane. They don't care. They never have. And by the time they are anything that can care, the original cells won't even be around anymore: they just started off the process that LED to the new being.

My skin cells are not separate people (even though they could be induced to grow into separate people under the right conditions, at which point we could say under your confused definition that they "began to exist" the second they formed). When I walk down the street, they die in the millions.

"if it's okay to kill something because you arbitrarily decide it's more stupid than you are, why hasn't someone killed you yet? i really hope someone fucking slits your throat you sick fuck"

It has nothing to do with intelligence: it has to do with functional capacity relevant to the moral rights we are thinking about. If something is cannot feel, then talking it being wrong to causing it pain is nonsensical. We have moral prohibtions against killing people for some very specific reasons relevant to what it means to BE a person and how killing them destroys that. Those reasons do not apply to clumps of cells with no nervous systems, no matter what their genetic makeup.

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[Mahou]

yes there is a point when a being comes into existence. it is when two gametes combine and form a whole. how do you not understand that? i didn't avoid the question, i already said that it's never ok to kill a human.

"The fact that you care about the non-feeling one over the feeling one "
again WHEN THE FUCK DID I SAY ANYTHING ABOUT A SLUG OR ANY OTHER ORGANISM YOU BRAINDEAD IDIOT? the fact that you can see it's wrong to kill a slug but not a human is a tell-tale sign that something has gone drastically wrong in your reasoning.

no i'm not creating an arbitrary point. i am pointing out a logical point that exist regardless of my thoughts

no i am using genetics simply to point out when an organism is created from it's parents, not basing it on genetics, only using them as proof of the living organism's uniqueness from its parents and therefore a unique existence.

just because you say you didn't exist doesn't somehow mean you didn't. what was that mass of cells before it had a brain? a toad? or maybe a rock? fuck you're an idiot. a skin cell is A FUCKING PART OF YOU, and as a part is not considered the whole. a zygote does not have parts, it IS THE WHOLE. i'm not saying a zygote is a human because it is a whole cell containing 46 chromosomes. i'm saying it's human because if you trace the origins of a human the zygote is the farthest you can go with it still being that human being.

another made up argument.. WHEN THE FUCK did i say anything about pain? either killing is wrong or it isn't. and how is intelligence different from "functional capacity". are you saying it's okay to just randomly kill a rabbit, or a dog?
no, some people have moral objections to killing because they find it wrong. others, like you i'm assuming, are just scared of dying and so try to agree with other scared people to not kill hoping that it will possibly prevent you from being randomly killed because you're so afraid of your own mortality that you don't want to have to think about it, and others fighting and killing each other with you being at risk would constantly remind you of it. see you're making an arbitrary destinction that includes you in the "un-killable" group. it's just like someone saying it's ok to kill jews because they're not really people, or blacks, because they're not really people. who says those things? people who aren't jews and people who aren't black. and yes i'm comparing you do the idiocy of racism.

but i can see no matter what i say you will not change your mind, and there is no fucking way you can convince me that killing babies is right so long as they're not "real people", so this conversation is all for naught

Re:Using the wrong terms. Please get it right

[plunge]

"yes there is a point when a being comes into existence. it is when two gametes combine and form a whole. how do you not understand that?"

Because it doesn't make any sense. When two gametes combine, they form a cell. A cell is not a person.

"i didn't avoid the question, i already said that it's never ok to kill a human."

You seem to define "human" purely by genetics, rather than by function. That makes no moral sense whatsoever.

"The fact that you care about the non-feeling one over the feeling one "
again WHEN THE FUCK DID I SAY ANYTHING ABOUT A SLUG OR ANY OTHER ORGANISM YOU BRAINDEAD IDIOT?"

You seem completely unfamiliar with the concept of using examples in arguments. You need not have said anything about it for me to use it as an example. A slug has considerably more moral capacity than a human zygote, which has no nervous system whatosever. A human zygote is functionally equivalent to a skin cell.

"the fact that you can see it's wrong to kill a slug but not a human is a tell-tale sign that something has gone drastically wrong in your reasoning."

nope. You are saying that it's wrong to kill a cell with no nervous system. That's a pretty bizarre view. Simply calling the cell "human" is not an argument. We don't kill humans because of moral reasons that apply to people, not cells.

"no i am using genetics simply to point out when an organism is created from it's parents, not basing it on genetics, only using them as proof of the living organism's uniqueness from its parents and therefore a unique existence."

So it's okay to kill clones then? Or one of a pair of twins? Genetic uniqueness is as irrelevant as genetics itself.

"just because you say you didn't exist doesn't somehow mean you didn't."

But I didn't. Zygotes have no nervous systems. The idea that something without a nervous system is a person whose interests we should protect is absurd.

"what was that mass of cells before it had a brain?"

It was a mass of cells.

"a skin cell is A FUCKING PART OF YOU, and as a part is not considered the whole."

Saying fuck doesn't make lousy arguments stronger. Skin cells are no more or less part of me than any other cell: you can remove one and keep it alive: you can even, with current technology, grow it into a new person! I exist because of a particular conglomeration and functioning of billions of cells, not because of any one of them.

"a zygote does not have parts, it IS THE WHOLE."

The whole what? It's just some cells. Why is it wrong to kill cells? You kill millions of cells all the time. It's only "the whole" in an abstract sense of looking forwards in how it might develop under the right conditions. But it hasn't developed yet.

"i'm not saying a zygote is a human because it is a whole cell containing 46 chromosomes. i'm saying it's human because if you trace the origins of a human the zygote is the farthest you can go with it still being that human being."

Except its not that human being in any functional sense whatsoever. An ant is more like a human being than a zygote. A zygote is almost as different from a human being as something can possibly be and still be alive.

"another made up argument.. WHEN THE FUCK did i say anything about pain?"

It was an example. Perhaps if you stopped thinking that fuck is an argument, you'd realize the purpose of explames in argumentation.

"either killing is wrong or it isn't."

You're right. It's okay to kill cells, no matter what genetic code they have. It's wrong to kill things that have functioning nervous systems, feelings, concerns, awareness, etc.

Zygotes clearly unequivocally do not have any of those things. Saying we should protect them is pure madness.

"and how is intelligence different from "functional capacity". are you saying it's okay to just randomly kill a rabbit, or a dog?"

Nope. Such creatures have, at the very least SOME capacity to feel pain and care about th

Terry pratchett got it right..

[abigsmurf]

When he wrote "The truth shall make ye fret". May have just been a typo in a newspaper but perhaps he was onto something...

Motto

[Wizdumb]

"Facts shall set you free" would seem more appropriate when talking about science, but what the hey.

Re:Motto

[colinrichardday]

But the facts are already there, whether we cognize them or not. It is only in being aware of facts that we become free.

Re:Motto

[Oligonicella]

Webster's:
fact (fakt), n.
1. something that actually exists; reality; truth: Your fears have no basis in fact.

In other words, facts ARE the truth, there is no difference.

Re:Motto

[Wizdumb]

Unfortunately, truth isn't as objective. What you believe to be true will, in effect, be the truth for you. But it is not necessarily a fact. So yes, facts are the truth, but the opposite just ain't so. The worst ennemy of Truth is not a lie; it is certainty. It is in this sense that I was referring to facts rather than truth.

He WAS a Democrat.

[Hackie_Chan]

Why is this guy a repulican.

Wikipedia:
...Bloomberg, a lifelong member of the Democratic Party, decided to run for mayor as a member of the Republican Party, reportedly to avoid the crowded field in the Democratic primary.

That he's a Republican In Name Only makes complete sense. I laud him for this since there simply needs to be more Republicans who speak up for science, intellectual thinking and reason.

Re:Murder

[jacksonj04]

*sigh* I'll bite...

Two words should knock this one down: Evidence please.

I don't know..

[CheechWizz]

Maybe it's just me but I find it very scary that somebody holds a 'pro-science' speech and gets commended for it, the fact science has to be defended in this day and age is bad enough already, that there are so few people with cloud doing it that we can find the time to cheer about individual cases of it happening is even scarier.

Re:I don't know..

[dr_dank]

I was listening to a Bill Hicks routine on Sirius a few weeks ago. He was making fun of the backwards Reagan administration and the ignorant biblethumpers who ignore science in favor of intelligent design superstition.

Sadly, this routine was easily 18 years old but could have been written yesterday.

Even more depressing is the fact that we're over 80 years removed from the Scopes "Monkey Trial" and the same ignorant garbage is being trotted out nearly a century later with regard to the teaching of evolution and its related science.

I see your sentiment, but I think that this is going to get worse before it gets better.

Yay hypocrites!

[Anonymous Coward]

I like how he talks about the importance of rigorous scientific investigation, and then comes out in support of gun control against overwhelming amounts of data to the contrary. "Political science" indeed.

Err, that's...

[Anonymous Coward]

... not John Hopkins University, it's Johns Hopkins University

Re:Err, that's...

[qodfathr]

Actually, it's The Johns Hopkins University. During my undergrad years there, some people took great pleasure in constantly correcting other people with regards to the name.

Okay, yeah, I was one of them. Oh well.

Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is predicated on greed;
Socialism is predicated on envy.

(Choose your sin. I just happen to prefer greed.
Without accountability, either system screws the people.)

Re:Quote

[vandan]

Ah. Wise words from an anonymous coward!

The problem is that I'm not a socialist out of envy. When there are billions of people surviving on less than $US1 per day, and there are billionaires, there is clearly an issue. Do the billions of people in 3rd world countries suffer from 'envy'? Perhaps they do, and rightly so.

You say you choose greed. I believe you. It's people like you that the majority of the world would be better off without. You say that without accountability, the people get screwed. Well that's capitalism for you - capitalists enjoy all the rights and no responsibility. They are not responsbile for any of the troubles they cause. There is no such thing as accountability in capitalism - if the company is making a profit, that's as accountable as things get.

Bloomberg News

[Doc Ruby]

Bloomberg has been one of the biggest fundraisers for Bush, since he "switched parties" from Democrat to Republican to get Giuliani's endorsement in the 2001 NYC mayor election. And for 5 years his news network has ignored Bush's attacks on science, like the rest of the mass media. Now that everyone is hearing how Bush destroys science to please the retards who want to vote down the "brainy" people to their level of medieval slavery, there's a big backlash. Especially in NYC, where being smart is second only to being rich as the ticket to being rich.

Bloomberg is talking science in the public speeches for the media, and raising money for BushCo behind the scenes. Just like Arafat used to talk diplomacy in English on TV, and terror in Arabic through the grapevine.

Re:Bloomberg News

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloomberg has been one of the biggest fundraisers for Bush

Yeah, and look what it got us New Yorkers. Thanks Republicans!

Re:Bloomberg News

[ceoyoyo]

Well, he's rich, right? That's how people GET insanely rich.

Re:Bloomberg News

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. The guy is a joke. He is republican when he wants to, and then he disagrees with them to score some political points. Worse than real, hard core republican.

Get It Right

[dubner]

It's Johns Hopkins, not John Hopkins. Sheesh :-(

Oh, yeah, this is Slashdot -- never mind.

Communism is far from totalitarian

[Steeltoe]

Do you even know what totalitarian means? Please read this. Until the 20th century, most states lacked both the resources and the desire to "regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior." Statist communism, on the other hand, required by definition that "nearly every aspect of public and private behavior" is regulated to ensure an equal outcome for all.

I beg your pardon, but communism was supposed to be ruled in "communes" / communities, that would set its own agenda and its own decisions about local things. Nowhere is it stated that for communism everything had to be centrally organized by a power-hungry and self-serving elite. Soviets in Russia turned into propaganda-machines and pupeteers for the ruling elite, thus negated its own function.

Communism has been functioning well in small communities, indeed, for small native village-societies it is really the most natural way to rule. Everything is shared, maximizing efficiency in a situation where not everybody has everything they need. Native Indians had little or no concept of ownership of land, animals, tools and many other things.

It is inherently connected with a deep sense of community, fellowship and trust. Something which is impossible after a bloody revolution, or just by plotting red areas on a map. Something which is ONLY possible by spiritual means and a common spiritual bond.

You have been brainwashed / misinformed about communism. No religion or ruleset dictates villaneous and predatory behaviour on its own populace, but the ego of man can justify anything to force his own will upon others, either for self-gratification or for misdirected belief in the "greater good". Usually, the ends never justify the means, it's the other way around: The means makes the end.

Unfortunately, people nowadays lack the very foundation to understand that a society can be ruled, not based on fear and force, but through trust, love and compassion.

Re:Communism is far from totalitarian

[Distinguished Hero]

I beg your pardon, but communism was supposed to be ruled in "communes" / communities, that would set its own agenda and its own decisions about local things.
And when I played the lottery, I was supposed to win... Regardless, the "communes" would have acted like tiny states, still "regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior."

Nowhere is it stated that for communism everything had to be centrally organized by a power-hungry and self-serving elite.
And nowhere does it state that when I drop a rock, it has to move toward the ground, and yet, no matter how many times I try, it keeps happening.

Communism has been functioning well in small communities,
Where people engage in it voluntarily and nobody is forced at gunpoint to do anything. If you want to set up your own commune, no one is stopping you. Certainly not capitalism.

Everything is shared, maximizing efficiency in a situation where not everybody has everything they need.
Interesting that not everybody has everything that they need. How many communes have made advancements to science or technology?

Native Indians had little or no concept of ownership of land, animals, tools and many other things.
And look at how much they advanced science, technology, medicine, philosophy, and so on. Furthermore, since they had no concept of ownership of land, I guess they didn't feel all that bad when Europeans started settling land. After all, you can't lose something you don't own to begin with. Interesting that even though they had no concept of ownership (according to you), they still had conflicts.

It is inherently connected with a deep sense of community, fellowship and trust. Something which is impossible after a bloody revolution, or just by plotting red areas on a map. Something which is ONLY possible by spiritual means and a common spiritual bond.
I can agree with you here.

You have been brainwashed / misinformed about communism.
I lived under (statist) communism. I guess it's unfortunate that my first hand experience "brainwashed me".

the ego of man can justify anything to force his own will upon others, either for self-gratification or for misdirected belief in the "greater good
Funny that you should mention that, as that really is how I feel about all the (statist) communists I have come across thus far in my life.

Unfortunately, people nowadays lack the very foundation to understand that a society can be ruled, not based on fear and force, but through trust, love and compassion.
If you and like-minded individuals want to willingly associate with each other and voluntarily attempt to create such a society, then you have my full support. If, however, in the name of "trust, love and compassion," you exert violence or the threat of violence against me, you shall not find me as cooperative.

P.S. If your voluntary non-violent commune really does work out, try to track me down. If I see results, I may be persuaded to join you. :P

Re:Communism is far from totalitarian

[AhtirTano]

Native Indians had little or no concept of ownership of land, animals, tools and many other things.

And look at how much they advanced science, technology, medicine, philosophy, and so on.

Their knowledge of biology and ecology was much more advanced than the Euro-Americans they were in contact with. They had wonderful philosophies. The best discussion of Truth I've ever heard was from a native elder discussing his tribe's traditional views. I've also heard very interesting and insightful comments about the impermanance of everything from such elders. (A Doaist or Buddhist philosopher would have been right at home.) We don't know the full extent of their potential philosophical and religious contributions to the world, because they were brutally suppressed. (Ten years in jail for performing the equivalent of a baptism, groups slaughtered for dancing, etc.)

Furthermore, since they had no concept of ownership of land, I guess they didn't feel all that bad when Europeans started settling land. After all, you can't lose something you don't own to begin with.

They did not feel so bad about Europeans settling on the land. If Europeans had just settled and lived off the land, there would have been much less of a problem (but not "no problem"). But that's not what Europeans did. They slaughtered animals for trade, not just eatting, which desimated the food source for the natives. They built roads through the grazing lands that shattered the local ecological balance, leading to dwindling sizes of buffalo and deer herds. They threw their trash out the side of the wagon, poluting the ground and water. They dug up sacred mountains and poured mercury into rivers in order to find gold.

Oh, and let's not forget the minor point that they rounded the natives up at gunpoint, moved them from the lands they had been living on for generations so that white people could use that land, put them on much smaller tracts of land that were less desirable for white people, and told them to be good or they would be killed. And if somebody found a reason for white people to use the new lands, they kicked the natives off again and put them on even smaller and less desirable tracts of land.

Interesting that even though they had no concept of ownership (according to you), they still had conflicts.

A child at school is playing with one of the class basketballs. Another kid comes over, beats him up, and starts using the ball for kick ball. There's going to be a lot of anger, bitterness, and very likely a physical fight, even though neither child owned the ball. That's closer to the native view of what happened.

And they did have a concept of ownership. They just didn't have personal ownership of community resources, like the land. They thought of trying to own the land like we think of trying to own the air we breathe. We can conceive of it, but it's a stupid idea.

Re:Communism is far from totalitarian

[rossifer]

Native Indians had little or no concept of ownership of land, animals, tools and many other things.

Actually, this is a commonly believed falsehood that needs to be eradicated. For instance, there are two problems with the original "sale" of manhattan for a few beads. First, the settlers did not negotiate with the actual owners of the island. They negotiated with a different tribe that happened to be on Manhattan at the time and was willing to talk to them. Second, what the natives sold the european settlers was hunting and farming rights for one season (which they may have had the right to trade, given that they had a relationship with the actual owners of manhattan).

The refusal of the settlers to acknowledge the claim of the actual owners and the refusal to exit Manhattan upon the expiration of their lease might lead you to believe that either the european settlers were a bloodthirsty, racist lot who felt that "might makes right" or that the natives had a much more sophisticated concept of land ownership that the settlers just couldn't seem to grasp.

The real US history is much more interesting, and a lot less flattering, than the high-school history books let on. Ever wonder why there are so many towns named Springfield? Or <something>field? The settlers didn't arrive and find untamed wilderness, they landed in someone's tilled field, enslaved him, sent him back to europe (or just killed him), and took his land. Ever think about what really happened in the Louisiana purchase? In that enormous marking on a map were about 100 Indian countries that had already sent ambassadors to other north american countries (and some to europe). And yet, somehow, we bought those hundred soverign nations and the land they were on from France. Without ever checking with those hundred separate sovereign nations. Did you know that until the middle of the 20th century, the US broke every treaty ever made with any native tribe? 100%. Not a single treaty was honored. Pretty impressive record if you ask me.

But many Indian tribes had concepts of land and use-rights every bit as sophisticated as we use today. Don't let the "made for Hallmark" history book misinform you as to that point.

Regards,
Ross

Faith-Based Science

[realitybath1]

First practised at Jonestown. Double-blind taste test with an afterlife aftertaste.

Re:Murder

[tddoog]

Embryonic stem cells are harvested from left over in-vitro fertilization eggs. The IVF eggs would be thrown away otherwise.

Some people (most notably the catholic church) are against In-Vitro fertilization because of the "waste" of fertilized eggs, although society has deemed it acceptable. The same should be done for embryonic stem cell research.

Listen closely and tell your friends, "Embryonic stem cells do not come from aborted fetuses."

MOD PARENT UP!!!

[ultranova]

If talking about Reagan's politics in a positive light is Interesting, then talking about them in negative light can't very well be Offtopic, now can it ? Or is the Ministry of Truth on mod duty again ?

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!!

[mikeisme77]

I agree with that, especially since everything he said about Reagan was true. Reagan is on my list of worst US Presidents right up there with Dubya (although Dubya takes the prize). Carter is up there too as while he's a great selfless guy, he wasn't a very good president and lacked backbone (big time).

On another note, John McCain is a great mix of qualities from both parties while being independent enough to avoid the sheep speak of the parties--minus right now (as he's campaigning for the primaries and doesn't want to lose the primaries again). I wish he would take the strong science approach that Bloomberg did, but at least he did speak up against the Republicans catering to the conservative Christians (although, again, during the primary season he's playing nicely with that group).

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!!

[mOdQuArK!]

John McCain is a great mix of qualities from both parties while being independent enough to avoid the sheep speak of the parties--minus right now (as he's campaigning for the primaries and doesn't want to lose the primaries again)

McCain has sold his soul to the neo-cons. He might've been somebody to respect once, but if you trust him for anything now, you're making just as big a mistake as voting for Dubya the second time.

Re:MOD PARENT UP!!!

[killjoe]

I used to think highly of McCain. Not anymore though. He is toeing the line lately and has learned to shut up and sit down.

Re:Murder

[tuqqer]

And here, we break into song. Everybody now: "Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great. If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate."

As to the science vs. religion

[roman_mir]

As for science vs. religion I'm issuing a restraining order. Science should stay 500 yards from religion at all times.

(Lisa the Skeptic)

Re:As to the science vs. religion

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

I'm issuing a restraining order. Science should stay 500 yards from religion at all times.

We keep trying, but Religion keeps showing up on our front porch at 3:00am, drunk with power and demanding to come in to "talk" about the "controversy".

Re:Murder

[aphexddb]

Sigh, I'll bite as well...

I bow to the great Flying Spaghetti Monster! For without his grace life would be impossible. Oh yeah, the lack of pirates is responsible for global warming!

Whoa, ain't he the pot calling the kettle black!

[Anonymous Coward]

'You can see "political science" at work when it comes to "global warming". Despite near unanimity in the science community there's now a movement - driven by ideology and short-term economics - to ignore the evidence and discredit the reality of climate change.' -BloomBerg

"Global Warming". "Unanimity". "Evidence". . .
These are buzzwords used by politicians to politicize climate cycles. LOL -- nice going, Mayor.

Yes, climate change is real.

It's 2007...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...and it's news that the mayor of some city has made a pro-science speech? What kind of just-crawling-out-from-the-dark-ages country are we talking about?

Re:It's 2007...

[DylanQuixote]

Dude, you're from the future?

Re:It's 2007...

[galdosdi]

You do make a good point; it's unfortunate this speech has a need to be made at all. But "some mayor of some city?" Mike Bloomberg ain't some mayor and New York City ain't some city. The position of Mayor of New York City is widely considered to be the #2 most taxing executive government position in the United States, probably since New York is by far the largest U.S. city, and administering a city government is more involved than administering the state business for an equal area of responsibility, since the municipalities take care of many more direct issues. And for that matter, even if you consider governorships of states larger than New York City to be more important positions than the mayorship of New York City, there ain't that many. New York City is larger than fourty of the fifty United States of America. And the Mayor has much more responsibility over New York City as a whole than the Governor of Georgia (approximately the same population as NYC) has over Georgia. So don't think that the Mayor of New York saying something is akin to the Mayor of YOUR Podunk little town saying something. That's just ignorant.

Re:It's 2007...

[Dirtside]

It's 2007...

Oh sure, Mr. Time Traveller from the future insults our scientific progress. Jerk!

Re:It's 2007...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its been 2007 for a few months, it won't be long til 2008 vehicles start coming off the production lines!

Re:It's 2007...

[Copid]

He's not from the future. He's a car salesman. Duh.

Re:stem cell research

[TofuDog]

You've hit the nail on the head. What you have aptly described is exactly what the Bush administration is promoting, that is, the removal of federal funding for basic scientific research. There will continue to be private interests (e.g., pharmaceutical cos. or your hypothetical benefactor) involved in applied research aimed at producing a lucrative product. The crux of the difference between federal/private funding is the support of the (expensive) basic science required for advancing knowledge (and in turn, the free-market offshoots it produces). This is illustrated by recent cuts to the National Science Foundation (NSF), but with some additional funding provided to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Net result is less funding for basic research on say, evolution, which has application to AIDS and Influenza (bird flu, etc.), while more funds may be available to look at specific treatments for diseases.

This is a consistent pattern the Bush administration has followed of favoring liquidation over building long-term capitol. The pattern is mirrored by promotion of tax cuts at the expense of national debt, oil/mineral development on public lands vs. long-term interests of wildlife/resource conservation, promoting Detroit's inefficient (but profitable) SUVs over supporting CAFE increases and KYOTO adoption. All politicians face pressure to look at the short term, but the current administration's embrace of this approach is unprecedented -and destructive.

He's more Republican than Washington Republicans

[gorbachev]

Republicans used to be about small Government. Bloomberg is doing it. Washington Republicans are doing the exact opposite.

He's fiercely pro-business, so much so that he's essentially running the NYC administration and government as a business. The Washington Republicans are running the country as a huge piggy-bank of favors to The Party supporters.

Bloomberg has done wonders in improving the NYC services. The 311 service is just amazing in how well and inexpensively it does what it does. The Washington Republicans were in charge of the Katrina mess.

When Bloomberg cuts services, as unpopular as that is, he cuts the ones that don't perform. The Washington Republicans cut the services their faith based agenda doesn't accept no matter how efficient they are.

I'd rather have more Bloombergs as Republicans (or Democrats for that matter).

Re:Murder

[buddyglass]

Listen closely and tell your friends, "Embryonic stem cells do not come from aborted fetuses."

No, they come from aborted embryos.

JOHNS

[hoborocks]

it's John S Hopkins

This isn't that hard!

Goddamnit!

Whoop te fuckin doo.

[Anonymous Coward]

How's the horror movie biz, d00d?

In other news

[mapkinase]

NYC mayor made very strong following points while speaking to the Yeshiva university (association of sugar daddies, Trump, Indian parlamentaries...):... (do I need to continue? )

Veritas vos liberabit -- Who says irony is dead

[patio11]

Do you know why this bit of rhetoric is "stirring stuff"? Well, aside from its later day use as the Central Intelligence Agency's motto, its also taken from John 8:32. Its the bit where Jesus charges his disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel despite the world's resistance to the message: "If you hold to my teaching, you are my disciples. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." I absolutely love the irony of using this to castigate religious conservatives vis-a-vis the Schiavo thing: trust me, your honor, they know the whole passage. It doesn't quite lend itself to the reading "Don't worry, Science will light the way".

Re:Veritas vos liberabit -- Who says irony is dead

[iamlucky13]

Dang, who doesn't use this as their motto. It's my alma mater's, too (not Hopkins), and I'm pretty sure I've seen it on at least one other school's literature.

Yeah, politics should stay out of science!

[DoofusOfDeath]

For example, we never should have interfered with Mengele's important work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengele

My point is this: it's nice to know things about the world, but sometimes there's a cost associated with gaining the knowledge. At its best, politics is the expression of the people's will regarding where in that cost/benefit curve we're willing to live.

I'm not saying that the Bush administration is properly representing the people's will, but as Mengele showed us, sometimes the means used to gain scientific knowlege isn't worth it and the scientist must be restrained. In some people's minds, the embryonic stem-cell harvesting is similar to the Mengele behavior. And that's a metaphysical topic of discussion, not a scientific one.

Re:Yeah, politics should stay out of science!

[WilliamSChips]

Wasn't Mengele supported by politics, specifically that of Adolf Hitler?

Re:Yeah, politics should stay out of science!

[monoqlith]

You can hardly call what Mengele did "science" or even an attempt to gain knowledge of any kind. His "experiments" were conceived of as vehicles by which he exercised control and satisfied his sadistic impulses. Comparing him to modern-day scientists is like comparing Bush to Einstein. Yet for some reason people still call him (ironically) Dr. Mengele, even though he forfeited his right to the title of doctor and that token of respect should have been long abandoned with regard to his name. This is another poorly conceived Nazi comparison that not only trivializes the meaning of "Nazis" but also trivializes science.

What we're talking about with stem cell research involves no cost to humanity whatsoever, besides the "cost" of funding it, which entails the benefit of saving millions of adult human lives that will otherwise be lost. The equation is pretty simple: Saving the lives of demonstrably sentient beings(child/adult humans) in favor of saving non-sentient beings(embryos) which will be destroyed anyway, without any benefits to humanity or to them.

There is no debate on whether stem-cell research is ethical, let alone Mengele-esque. It is unethical not to allow stem-cell research when the possibility is open to us.

A Fetus does not have a soul.

[FatSean]

Therefore, it is not murder. Humans have souls, Chimps don't have souls. It's easy to tell the difference. Prove that a fetus has a soul, or go dive onto a pike with your pro-life supersticions.

Re:A Fetus does not have a soul.

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans have souls, Chimps don't have souls. It's easy to tell the difference. Prove that a fetus has a soul, or go dive onto a pike with your pro-life supersticions.

Prove that you have a soul, moron. Yeah, I didn't think so.

Re:A Fetus does not have a soul.

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans have souls

Humans have what now? What's a soul? And why do only humans have it?

Re:A Fetus does not have a soul.

[rossifer]

Humans have souls, Chimps don't have souls. It's easy to tell the difference. Prove that a fetus has a soul, or go dive onto a pike with your pro-life supersticions.

First, I'll ask you to define what a soul is. Then I'll ask you to substantiate your assertion that a human has a soul. No need for proof here, just one piece of reliable evidence that there might be more than just complex chemistry going on. Back to you: you seem to be equating the presence of a soul with "worthy of protection"... when does the soul appear in this equation and how are you so certain of that?* You're pro-choice, as am I, but your argument is preposterous.

Personally, I believe that conciousness is a fully embodied emergent property of a sufficiently sophisticated biological control system. When you die, your conciousness fades out and that's the end of it.** I can't prove any of that, or disprove the existence of a soul, but an embodied mind requires many fewer complications than the whole "soul" concept. Occam's razor and all that.

Regards,
Ross

* we can't define the word "life" adequately, so why would we agree upon when life starts? It's this disagreement that is the real core of the debate and is the reason why the pro-choice group is superior: they'll let you make up your own mind about when life begins for yourself and your children. The pro-life group refuses to do this, pretending that the definition is black and white (and has always been black and white), when there's really a huge band of grey (and what was black and what was white was different in times past).

** Corollary: this is the only existence you've likely got. Conclusion: you should stop wasting the time you've got and start living a joyful life (easier said than done, but it could probably start with less time at the office).

Probably a typo, but it's not John s but Johns

[spineboy]

Yeah, I went there, and it's a reflex.

You Win!

[FatSean]

I don't have a soul, nobody has a soul. It is all bullshit made up by mystical savages to explain the big scary world.

If the baby is in the belly, the mother gets to excise it if she wishes.

Re:You Win!

[localman]

I agree there's no soul. Should we allow the killing of any dependent? I can't think of an airtight reason why not. Still, there's something missing from that argument.

Cheers.

Re:You Win!

[evilviper]

If the baby is in the belly, the mother gets to excise it if she wishes.

If the baby is under 5 years old, the mother gets to "excise" it if she wishes.

Re:You Win!

[Anonymous Coward]

very very fallable logic dude. THINK: while the baby is in the belly, as he said, the mother and child DO NOT REPRESENT DIFFRENT ORGANISMS. period. their circulatory and immune and every other system are pretty much as one. If a mother wishes to excise the fetus, it's no different then having a kidney removed.

When the baby is outside of the mother, this is no longer the case (save for some good immunization factors in breast milk) and thus it's a completely different thing.

yeah thought doesn't come easy to you types, i know, sorry to have to do that to you.

Re:You Win!

[McDutchie]

If the baby is in the belly, the mother gets to excise it if she wishes.

Er, I meant baby girls murdered after birth. I wasn't going to get into the whole abortion debate.

But what the heck, I'll bite. If you think the fact that humans have no souls is an argument for allowing "excision" of babies from mother's bellies, at least then be consistent and advocate for legalizing killing humans of any age. The mere fact that it lives off of its mother's body doesn't make it any less human; they are still sentient beings (from just a few weeks after conception, in fact).

Re:You Win!

[bumptehjambox]

at least then be consistent and advocate for legalizing killing humans of any age

I wonder if there will ever be a day when both liberals and right-wing-neo-cons cease to base their beliefs and arguments on clever catch phrases made for bumper stickers and T-shirts.

How about this for 'biting'... There are nearly seven thousand children born each year with AIDS in the United States. I dont think I have to tell you how much worse AIDS can get in many other countries. So these children's short and completely pointless lives will consist of what you could call "hell on earth." Great, a few years/months/weeks/days and thousands of dollars to keep a diseased infant crying like hell 20 hours a day up until the inevitable. To me thats just sick. Then they agure "there is adoption." As if there is any reason why we would need to ADD to that system. Adopted children are more likely to be sexually assualted, have problems with mental health, and well, turn out to be fuck-ups. And there's crack babies, thats always fun too.

Lets be real here. bringing an unwanted child into this world results in drug problems, violence, molestation/rape, big-time mental health costs(if anyone bothers), future prisoners, murderers, over-population etc. There is a time and a place for abortion, one can not write it off as "all wrong." Unless, of course, they'd like to bring in religion.

they are still sentient beings
Or could be ticking time-bombs.

Think of it as the pre-emptive action to future terror, based on truth, fact, and common sense. Very much like fighting terrorism abroad, so we don't have to in America. And if that doesn't sound good enough for you, live in one of those new Christian-communes and you'll never again have to deal with the uncertainty of making decisions for yourself in a free world. Its not like a woman has to register her unborn baby, no one knows, so if you dont want it you WILL get rid of it and no one will ever know to charge you with 'murder', why not make it a bit more civilized. Use every resource you can to keep hospital bed-ridden retards playing with balloons (and of course televising it), crack babies hemmorraging to death before they leave the hospitals, AIDS babies doing the only thing they can do- keep steadily dying, and making sure our prison system grows steadily by bringing unwanted children into their hopelessly doomed lives. Its either what keeps our world working, or part of what will destroy it, or both. Much praise be due to Jesus.

Re:You Win!

[mrpeebles]

You may not have an immortal soul in the western Christian tradition since Descartes, but if you are going to say that you don't believe you have a soul, you should probably leave the word "I" out of your statement. Whatever a "soul" is, exactly, it must be intimately connected with whatever you mean by the phrase "I", and vice versa.

Re:You Win!

[msuarezalvarez]

Whatever a "soul" is, exactly, it must be intimately connected with whatever you mean by the phrase "I", and vice versa.

Hmm. No.

"I" stands for a systematic set of observable phenomena, ranging from physical perception to awareness of the separation from the environment; yes, that is a very bad and imprecise way of describing it, but it is a very difficult subject. Whetever the "soul" is defined to be, it is defined to be either something "more" than that set of observable, physical phenomena, or "different in an essential (methaphysical) way" from that set of observable, physical phenomena. In particular, after a few millenia of debating the nature of the soul, no one has been able to come up with a procedural definition of the soul.

You are very mistaken if you think that the position that there is no soul implies the negation of individuality.

Re:You Win!

[mrpeebles]

I'm no philosopher. I can only go on my memory of "Critique of Pure Reason", which I read about 10 years ago, and which I probably misunderstood quite a bit. But I do remember Kant talking about "I" as that which refers to whatever defines me as being me, continuous through time, and he thought it was inherently metaphysical. Of course my belief that there is some "I" that exists continually through time is presumably motivated by a particular systematic set of observable phnomena, but the notion of a "soul" can be similarly motivated. However, I am not going to directly observe "I" any more than I can directly observe, say, causation. And while "I" is clearly a useful construct in society, it is not at all clear to me (though this is not my field) that "I" is going to turn out to be particularly motivated by nature. Consider, for example, Terri Schiavo. Part of the whole problem is that in this particular case, it is not at all clear that the term "I" could be applied to Schiavo after suffering such brain trauma. Was that still Terri laying there in bed. Or had the "I" that was Terri gone? Or perhaps whether or not it was Terri is not even a reasonable question, because in this case, nature doesn't really admit "I" as concept or description that makes sense.

I don't really know what a "procedural definition" is. Is it related to instrumentalism, where, to quote wikipedia, "the concepts of our scientific theories are merely instruments whose worth is not by whether the concepts and theories are true or false (or correctly depict reality), but by how effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena?" If you believe in "I" in that sense, then I really don't know to what extent "I" remains metaphysical. However, it seems to me you gut a lot of what people mean by "I". Honestly, I'm not even sure how to think that way.

Re:You Win!

[msuarezalvarez]

Using Kant as a source is problematic because he assumed the existence of God, of souls and a wide variety of other stuff on no other grounds but his own disposition.

However, I am not going to directly observe "I" any more than I can directly observe, say, causation.

Sure. But you are neither going to directly observe "I" any less that causation. While causation can be problematic in some instances, it is quite difficult to argue against causation without leaving the domain of reasonable discourse.

By procedural definition I mean an operational definition (that's the correct term, I guess): a definition that allows you to know a soul when you see one, and tell it apart from things which are not souls. That is, a definition which introduces a concept you can work with non-vacuously. (In particular, this is independent fromm intrumentalism)

Non-operational definitions abound in contexts where people want to provide a definition of God, for example; most of their attempts are purely methaphysical ("God is omnipotent", "God is omniscient", etc) conditions, which are by their very nature non-verifiable (nor falsifiable, under the hypothesis of "God has mysterious ways"...) Non-operational definitions tend to "define" things which have the following funny characteristic: if these things did not exist, nothing would change.

The principle of parsimony, the principle of minimum entropy, Occam's razor, and plain old common sense reject non-operationally defined concepts.

I really don't know to what extent "I" remains metaphysical

There is no need for "I" to be metaphysical. Being metaphisical rarely provided any information on anything.

Re:You Win!

[evilviper]

THINK: while the baby is in the belly, as he said, the mother and child DO NOT REPRESENT DIFFRENT ORGANISMS. period.

Oh, I see. So siamese twins can "excise" each other. Just wondering which one gets priority to "excise" the other one. Is it the biggest of the two, or perhaps the one on the right???

When the baby is outside of the mother, this is no longer the case

The baby is just as dependant on it's parents the first few years after it is born, so you need something more to back-up the claim that this is somehow a radically different situation.

yeah thought doesn't come easy to you types, i know, sorry to have to do that to you.

I'm the one trying to bring some logic to this discussion, not shouting baseless assertions and insults as you are. Who's the ignorant fool here?

Re:You Win!

[mrpeebles]

Using Kant as a source is problematic because he assumed the existence of God, of souls and a wide variety of other stuff on no other grounds but his own disposition.
Again, I'm no philosopher, but I always thought the whole point of Kant was that we can never know if God or "I" exists. All that we can know (or argue that) is these sorts of concepts are necessary for us to even have a dialogue about pure or practical reason. Now Kant wasn't completely right on everything, of course, but I still think his criticism of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" argument as being faulty because we have no way to know that "I" exists as a continuous entity through time is pretty convincing.

While causation can be problematic in some instances, it is quite difficult to argue against causation without leaving the domain of reasonable discourse.
I don't claim that it isn't reasonable to believe in causation isn't reasonable. But this isn't the same as saying whether or not causation is metaphysical. Many rules of logic and mathematics can't be argued with either. I still don't consider these things to be empirically justified (although I guess some people do, so you might.)

By procedural definition I mean an operational definition (that's the correct term, I guess): a definition that allows you to know a soul when you see one, and tell it apart from things which are not souls. That is, a definition which introduces a concept you can work with non-vacuously.
I'm personally not sure this is a very natural way to talk about all scientific concepts. What about a quantum wave function? I don't know how much you know about quantum physics, but in case you don't know, you will never see a quantum wave function. It is, in principle, impossible. In fact, we can think of the quantum wave function as, by definition, describing what happens to the physical system between observations. Yet as a practical matter, to do quantum physics, you have to talk about it as if it exists, and a fair number of physicists, I think, would say they believe it exists in some sense.

There is no need for "I" to be metaphysical. Being metaphisical rarely provided any information on anything.
I suppose that I am no longer at all convinced that there is a clear dividing line between what is and what is not metaphysical. Einstein saw the theoretical physicist essentially as a sort of metaphysician. At the very least if you want scientific knowledge to affect your life after you walk outside of your laboratory, then to grapple with science you basically have to also grapple with metaphysics and ethics.

One more thing- as I recall, wasn't "I" and the soul essentially one and the same for Descartes. Now he may have ultimately been wrong, but didn't he forever link the ideas of soul and "I" in the Western mind, at least? Most people mean a more or less Cartesian soul when they refer to a "soul." So if you believe we can come up with some sort of non-metaphysical notion of "I", I don't see why we can't do the same with the notion of "soul". I should have just written that in the first place, I suppose, but my thinking was too fuzzy.

Re:You Win!

[msuarezalvarez]

I don't claim that it isn't reasonable to believe in causation isn't reasonable. But this isn't the same as saying whether or not causation is metaphysical.

"Being metaphysical" means nothing, in my view. I do not have access to non-physical entities and cannot in any way interact with things that do not have physical consequences, and this to such an extent that nothing at all that I can deal with, that has consequences I can see, depends upon those things that do not have physical consequences existing or not. For all purposes, apart from the rather peculiar purpose of discussing their existence, they can be assumed not to exist.

Many rules of logic and mathematics can't be argued with either. I still don't consider these things to be empirically justified (although I guess some people do, so you might.)

There is nothing in logic nor mathematics that cannot be argued with. That stopped being the case after people realized that not everything had been covered and prescribed by Aristotle and friends.

In general, the impression that in mathematics and logic there are things which you cannot argue only can be adscribed to ignorance of modern mathematics and logic. It sort of comes from the conception of "axioms" as undisputable and undisputed things, and so on; that conception was current at the times of Euclid, and it lasted for ages, but it is long gone.

Everything in mathematics and in logic is judged empirically, for appropriate values of "empirical". Even deduction rules in logic; say, there are domains of reasoning that one is interested in modeling in which the "standard" principle of the excluded third is not useful; well, then when modeling those domains of reasoning, we just do not use that principle. Even basic things like the axiomatics of geometry (of which there are many, many, most of them conflicting with each other) or the definitions of concepts, are judged empirically with the very strict measure of how useful they are when modeling phenomena (even if those phenomena are purely of mathematical nature)

Ask any mathematician what is sacred in the definition of group, and you'll get an answer similar to "that it is actually very useful in describing things that are there to begin with".

If you asked me (I am a mathematician) that is exactly what I'd say.

By procedural definition I mean an operational definition (that's the correct term, I guess): [...]

I'm personally not sure this is a very natural way to talk about all scientific concepts. What about a quantum wave function? I don't know how much you know about quantum physics, but in case you don't know, you will never see a quantum wave function. It is, in principle, impossible. In fact, we can think of the quantum wave function as, by definition, describing what happens to the physical system between observations. Yet as a practical matter, to do quantum physics, you have to talk about it as if it exists, and a fair number of physicists, I think, would say they believe it exists in some sense.

The condition of being operational is a mostly standard requirement on "scientific" definitions, in various forms and shapes, of course.

What's important of quantum wave functions is not whether they exist or not (I'd say that that question does not even make sense) but whether the assumption of their existance allows you to model the world coherently, to predict things correctly, and what not. Quantum theory is a model of the world. There is no requirement for Hilbert spaces to exist concretely (whatever that may mean) for the model to be useful. (There is a funny footnote in Eric Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes in which he says something to the point of "What confounds physicists is not whether quarks exist or not, but why it is that they are never alone". That phrase very nicely captures a big part of the spirit.)

From the fact th

Re:You Win!

[mrpeebles]

Ah, a positivist mathematician- I'd heard of them, but never communicated with one :-P. Although I remember reading in college that Gauss thought mathematics to be a sort of semi-empirical science. But most mathematicians I have met are, deep down, really Platonists, I think.

There is nothing in logic nor mathematics that cannot be argued with. That stopped being the case after people realized that not everything had been covered and prescribed by Aristotle and friends.
But once these assumptions are made, it is impossible to argue with. You have to accept that a triangle in a euclidean space, as defined in a high school text book say, has 180 degrees. Now maybe that statement is tautological, but reasoning is still involved in making the connection between your axioms and your conclusions. A person whose ability to think has been impaired, by a brain injury say, might still argue with you. So argument is still possible, just unreasonable. And I would still say this reasoning is not justified by empirical observation. Anyway, that is all getting really tangential :-).

What you describe as a process to come up with with a concept of "soul" that can connect with scientific research is very much how I would imagine one would have to come up with a concept of "I" that can connect with scientific research. And then when this idea of "I" starts to connect with ethics, society, religion, etc, then somewhere in there we start talking about the soul instead of "I". But if I underestand you I guess you would happily define "I" in the same way that I define, say, what my computer is. I have sort of an idea of what constitutes my computer, but if I exchange, say, my CPU for another one, I don't think that it is a particularly interesting question as to whether it is the "same" computer. My concept of my computer's uniqueness doesn't extend that far. I do think, though, if you could exchange my brain with another, nearly identical brain (is the quantum structure of the brain important??), whether that would be the same me is a terribly interesting question. And I would like any sort of scientific concept of "I" to have something interesting to say about that question. So I imagine that difference prevents a simple, operational definition of my concept of "I" as you describe. Anyway, I find your perspective interesting.

Re:You Win!

[msuarezalvarez]

Ah, a positivist mathematician- I'd heard of them, but never communicated with one :-P. Although I remember reading in college that Gauss thought mathematics to be a sort of semi-empirical science. But most mathematicians I have met are, deep down, really Platonists, I think.

Heh. Gauss is not bad company to be thrown with!

You are right about most mathematicians being Platonists. One can argue that Platonism is a very developed stage of a process which starts with people adscribing will and intent to rain and fire, and anthomorphising (?) the sun.

But once these assumptions are made, it is impossible to argue with.

Indeed. But you can argue at the time of making the assumptions. Usually, comments like your original "Many rules of logic and mathematics can't be argued with either" are based on the (mistaken) hypothesis that those assumptions are not made but are "natural".

It is a very subversive idea, that the assumptions are not a given.

reasoning is still involved in making the connection between your axioms and your conclusions. A person whose ability to think has been impaired, by a brain injury say, might still argue with you. So argument is still possible, just unreasonable.

Sure. There are documented instances of what you say and many, many more interesting phenomena. We are amazingly complex things! There is a classic book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat" about the subject and people studying cognitive science (like Papert and friends at MIT in the 70s, for example) wrote breathtakingly interesting stuff.

"Unreasonable argument" is quite a contradition in terms, btw!

I'm not against stem cell research...

[Spy der Mann]

Embryonic stem cell research, on the other hand...

My point is that even while overall stem cell research is still in its infancy, and so much could be learned from say, umbilical chord stem cell research, and other kinds of stem cells, why have to delve into embryonic stem cell research?

And if embryonic stem cell research is so important, why use HUMAN embryonic stem cells? The boundary between research and taboo is blurry with embryonic stem cells, why not take a safer route? There's still much to be learned, why the need to use embryos for that?

Worse, if someone opposes to embryonic stem cell research suddenly he's labelled as fundamentalist and then flames about the Dark Ages start to appear. Who are the intolerants then?

Re:I'm not against stem cell research...

[plunge]

Sorry, but pointing out that someone is intolerant and small-minded and opposing their attempts to force their position on what others do when they don't have legitimate reasons isn't the same thing as being intolerant and small-minded. There's no paradox or hypocrisy there.

And yet, because he's not of their tribe....

[otis wildflower]

... Democrats will shit all over him. He had the temerity to spend his _own_ money (ewww, successful capitalist!) instead of ingratiating himself with Tammany, and therefore owes no obeisance to any municipal labor union or special interest group. That _REALLY_ pisses 'em off no end.

I <3 Bloomberg, even though I disagree with him regarding concealed carry. And now that I live in the outskirts of Philadelphia, I really appreciate what Giuliani time and Bloomberg have done against crime in NYC. Philly is, regarding crime, where NYC was say 1986 or so. They just need a mayor and police chief who will crack down using computers, screw-the-unions accountability, badass tactics, forgive the occasional plunger, and break the back of violent crime by any means necessary. Then that mayor can leave and a new mayor can apologize for the 'excesses' of the previous administration, and by then the citizens will be grateful for the increased peace and security of their neighborhoods.

Gonna flip on both of those...

[YesIAmAScript]

I think Reagan was a very good president. I'm not excited about the deficit, also he started a few too many wars for me (as Republicans seem to do).

But he did some things right, he made the business climate work in this country. If you weren't around in the 70s for 14% interest rates, perhaps you read what he did and misinterpret it. The government was taking too much money from businesses and disincenting people to build businesses, expand the economy and build this country.

He also understood that once elected, you represent the entire country, not just the people who elected you. This is very unlike George W. Bush. When California had problems with his buddy Kenny Lay extorting money from the citizens and turning the lights out, he did nothing except invite his Texas buddies over to figure out how to make it possible to extort better. Cheney said it wasn't a federal government problem, and that "it's classic economics, price caps will neither increase supply nor reduce demand". And yet, months later when price caps were finally put in place, they solved the problem immediately by ending the profiteering immediately. Prices went down, supply returned to 100%. Bush didn't care about what happened to people in California, actually seeming to prefer to extract revenge on them for not voting for him.

And the McCain. I used to be a huge McCain fan. But have you seen him recently? Did you see him on Meet the Press? After Karl Rove push-polled a rumor that McCain fathered a bi-racial baby out of wedlock in 2000, and McCain he could never get past that, that Rove was a bad person. Now he's kissing Rove's ass. He said (correctly) Jerry Falwell was an agent of hate. And now he speaks at Liberty University?

I liked McCain. He stood for something. He stood for inclusion, he stood for conservatism that didn't mean the government telling everyone what to do and not bolstering Southern Christianity as the national religion.

Now he's useless to me. If he'll flip on those things, what will he stand up for?

Re:Gonna flip on both of those...

[mikeisme77]

I'm not saying Reagan did nothing right, but I just think overall (like you said) he started too many wars, fucked around with other nations too much (contras, Iran-Iraq), started the money pit that is Star Wars (although I learned the other day that one research lab actually got this working... and that the software is the real problem with Star Wars because there's no way to test it in real life without missiles being fired), and just increased the defecit to astronomical proportions (something Bush has decided to do again...) It's just my own personal rating system, not necessarily what I think should be the norm (as I'm not a political scientist). Incidentally, FDR was my favorite president and I think he was a dictator (he controlled Congress and tried to get controll of the Supreme Court), but he was a brilliant leader and helped this country through several rough periods.

As for McCain, I agree that recently he has been "flipping" or "selling out" but as he has said in interviews: look at his overall record, not what he's doing during the run up to primaries. In American politics, you sometimes have to sell out for the votes, but after you get those votes you can do whatever the hell you want. I can forgive him a few years of being a dumbass as long as his overall record is good and as long as he returns to those principles after winning the election.

Re:Gonna flip on both of those...

[killjoe]

Interest rates are set and controlled by the central bank. While there may be a little influence from the president he doesn't have much to do with them.

I listed my gripes. Whatever he did for business (presuming you are right and that he is solely responsible) doesn't make up for the fact that he was funding death squads in central america or locking people up for smoking a joint. In fact the war on drugs may have been the single worst policy ever taken by any president till dubya declared a war on a word.

business cycles come and go. War on drugs is still around, the people who got purged during his progrom are still dead.

Re:Gonna flip on both of those...

[ahodgson]

In fact the war on drugs may have been the single worst policy ever taken by any president till dubya declared a war on a word.

Marijuana was effectivly prohibited in 1937. Things escalated in the 1950's (see the 1951 Boggs Act). Nixon declared that drugs were America's number one enemy in 1971, which is generally considered the beginning of the "War on (Some) Drugs".

Carter tried to soften the approach, and it's true that Reagan cranked things back up (by making the Drug Czar a cabinet-level post, amongst many other changes), but it is certainly not true to claim that Reagan started the war on drugs.

Bush senior of course followed suit, he even invaded Panama to try to shut down a major supply route.

Clinton wussed around in his first term, but in his second went after California and Arizona doctors who dared prescribe marijuana, after those states allowed its use, and did a few other things to prove he was tough on drugs.

And, of course, the drug laws themselves come from Congress. The President is tasked with enforcing those laws, but he doesn't write them.

Re:Gonna flip on both of those...

[killjoe]

Of course drugs were illegal for a long time before reagan. Same with jaywalking. I remember one time in the early eighties I was walking down the street with a bong in my hand (ah the folly of youth) and a cop stopped me. He confiscated my bong and took my dope (not much enough to fill a couple of pipes). Dope was illegal but nobody did much about it because the cops knew there were bigger problems in the world to deal with.

Reagan instiguted the zero tolerance policy. That was all him. He drove that. It's all his responsibility. It's too early to try and revise that bit of history. Some of us were around and we still have clear memories.

So yes drugs were illegal back then. Reagan started the war on drugs though. There is a profound difference.

Who knows maybe Dubya will decree a zero tolerance policy for jaywalking and you will end up in jail for a decade because you didn't look both ways.

Anyway, I am trying to talk to somebody who reveres reagan. Why even bother really. Your ability to make sound judgements and think rationally has already been disproved.

Sounds like the Nazi slogan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Work will set you free?

Two-Edged Sword

[MOBE2001]

"Hopkins' motto is 'Veritas vos liberabit' - 'the truth shall set you free' - not that 'you shall be free to set the truth!'" Stirring stuff.

Indeed, but it cuts both ways. We have the materialists/atheists/environmentalists/left-winge rs on one side and the non-materialists/relisious/right-wingers on the other. And they both use the same political means to achieve their goals. I think we need to inject a little honesty in the debates and stop taking sides so much. But I know I'm dreaming. So all I can say is, "may the best/strongest camp survive, but only if they truly have the truth on their side!"

Re:Two-Edged Sword

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, being materialist or religious doesn't say much about your political leanings. It's not like everyone who goes to church hates gays and wants to kill Iraqis.

Re:Murder

[sveinungkv]

As already said here: fertilization eggs = another person. (The time of fertilization is the only time that makes sence to claim a human life begins)

Re:Murder

[sveinungkv]

Sure, here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cells#Embryonic_ stem_cells

Other Commencement Speeches

[SteelV]

This one was from a couple years back. You can read/see other Hopkins commencement speeches at http://www.jhu.edu/commencement/speeches/ including one by Al Gore from last year I believe.

Or, as I described the last presidential election.

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

"We had a choice between a 'tax-and-spend Disneycrat' and a 'don't-tax-but-spend-anyway' Rupertican."

Bloomberg is Probably Running for President

[Xenographic]

> holds a 'pro-science' speech and gets commended for it

I'm far more disturbed that politicians can label their ethical beliefs as "science" and "directly demonize" those who disagree with them as the Slashdot summary said. Dr. Mengele performed a lot of science, but how he did it was flat-out wrong, and I realize that those doing these experiments would never try to be like him. Still, I don't think we should call those who disagree with what he did "anti-science" and I disagree with the use of that phrase to exempt oneself from any ethical considerations while doing experiments, so that they might improperly silence any debate. Just because one disagrees with an arguement doesn't mean that it's stupid (although it certainly could be, one's disagreement with it is not proof of this).

Believe it or not, many people aren't against stem cells per se (let alone any other kind of science). They're against certain sources of them (abortion) and have absolutely no problem with adult stem cell research, even if they recognize the problems with the cells having different potential (merely multipotent, instead of pluripotent). Although, one might theorize that being able to use a person's own stem cells would be much more helpful than harvested ones, given that there are fewer potential rejection issues and that you don't want cells that are too able to differentiate--you want them to turn into whatever organ you're trying to regenerate, not some other random bodypart, similar to what happens in benign tumors like teratomas (the cell's ability to form a teratoma is one way to test that the cells are, in fact, pluripotent).

But that doesn't make people as easy to "demonize" so it's no wonder that people ignore such things when they're planning to run for office...

Easy to tell the difference?

[raftpeople]

Humans have souls, Chimps don't have souls. It's easy to tell the difference.

Please educate us, how do we know we have souls, chimps don't have souls and why is this so easy to determine?

Reagan Regrets

[Black-Man]

He picked George H. as his running mate only by circumstances that could be called blackmail. Now George W. in there trashing the republican party reputation. As far as gay marriage goes... what happened to the states rights tenet of republican beliefs? States rights are a CORE platform on the republican party. They can't change their platform based on particular circumstances.

No way: Bloomberg is NOT Reagan

[feranick]

There is no way you can say Reagan was liberal when talking about the role of science in life. It's almost like saying that GW Bush is as liberal as Clinton. Reagan was the first president to specifically present (or should I say represent?) creationism as a "scientifically sound theory". More deeply he started the campaign of "scientifically sound science", which is exactly what Bloomberg is correctly criticizing in his speech. As a reference, have a look at "the republican war on science" by Chris Mooney.

Why?

[Foerstner]

What I don't understand is, why would you rather see embryos incinerated as medical waste, rather than used for research?

(Oh, and, to answer your first question: Embryonic stem cells can become all cell types of the body because they are pluripotent. Adult stem cells are generally limited to differentiating into different cell types of their tissue of origin. However, some evidence suggests that adult stem cell plasticity may exist, increasing the number of cell types a given adult stem cell can become.. (Source: NIH) As for your second question, it's being done, but sometimes you just can't use a mouse; ex. for treatment of diseases that do not occur or are difficult to study in animals.)

Re:Why?

[Spy der Mann]

What I don't understand is, why would you rather see embryos incinerated as medical waste, rather than used for research?

Adoption + embryos =~ artificial insemination = family

On the other hand, what happens to embryos that are "manufactured" SPECIFICALLY for their stem cells?

Re:Why?

[Foerstner]

On the other hand, what happens to embryos that are "manufactured" SPECIFICALLY for their stem cells?

Good question. Who does this manufacturing, anyway?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

what happens to embryos that are "manufactured" SPECIFICALLY for their stem cells?

What if embryos are manufactured specifically for use as sock puppets? Clearly, we need to ban all sock puppets.

This is out of context

[Anonymous Coward]

The prohibition of artificial contraception fits within a larger moral framework and shouldn't be taken alone. If you're having sex in a situation where you could catch an STD, you've already completely missed the point and proven church teachings don't concern you.

The other Catholic ( and generally Christian ) teachings, the ones against fornicating and adultery, handily eliminate the STDs you speak of.

The problem with condoms is that they promise a two-fold security and then don't completely deliver. First, they promise to prevent STDs, especially AIDs. Sadly, they only have 85% effectiveness against AIDs. Secondly, they promise to prevent conception. Again, with typical use, they have 85% effectiveness.

By promising security, condoms promote a more sexually expressive culture, and by failing, they cause that sexually expressive culture all sorts of problems. In light of this, I posit that the teaching against condoms is a good thing, to prevent the 'sexually expressive culture' from forming in the first place.

Re:This is out of context

[yndrd1984]

My church teaches that driving or riding in a motor vehicle is a sin. By avoiding the cause, we completely eliminate the risk of dying in a car crash. And since "no country is able to demonstrate a reduction in road fatalities due to passage of a seat belt law", we treat seat belt laws with the same distain you treat the promotion of condom use. All it does is promote a false sence of security while promoting an activity that kills millions every year.

On top of the sillyness I hope my parody has pointed out, you want us to believe that the Church has been pushing this sex-phobic agenda on people for almost 2 millenia in order to protect us against a disease that didn't exist yet! This is the most blatant example of the post hoc fallacy I've ever seen.

In light of this, I posit that the teaching against condoms is a good thing, to prevent the 'sexually expressive culture' from forming in the first place.

Hey - it's 1917, a great influenza pandemic is coming, and we have a treatment that prevents 17/20 people from catching it. But if we have everyone move out of the cities and keep their families on isolated farms, with little contact with their neighbors, we can prevent the whole thing! And as a side effect, it gets rid of those big cities that I don't like (but, of course, that's not my real reason for advocating this position, oh no, perish the thought!).

I'm sorry, no human society has been able to live under the behavioral prescriptions you describe. Trying to prevent people from using the best protection we have (more than enought to make the difference between a permenant epidemic and an one that dies out) is little different from advocating that the FDA shouldn't regulate pork products because eating pork violates your religious code and then ignoring the people that die as a result.

Wasn't always presented as an ethics question

[snowwrestler]

That's where the abuse of science occurred. I totally agree with you that given an accurate understanding of her medical condition, the question of how to proceed is an ethic and moral question.

However many, including Sen. Frist, deliberately obscurred an accurate understanding of her medical condition by continuing to promote the idea that she had higher brain functions and/or could someday recover from her condition. That is why she is one of the examples above.

In fact in that way all the examples are similar: given a scientific understanding of a set of facts, the question of what we should do next is a human question and therefore has moral and ethical implications to it. The problem is that certain groups deliberately attempt to mis-inform the public about the science certain situations, in order to affect the eventual decisions. That's manipulative and wrong, and in the end, ineffectual. You can fool the masses for a while, but you can't fool mother nature.

erm wtf

[goldcd]

the people who benefit from research are the people who need a treatment. Big pharma collectively makes a very large profit.
They make a profit as people need the treatments they produce (people seem to have deep pockets when faced with death and disease).
The current situation you've created is that the publicly funded scientists have handcuffs applied, that the private sector doesn't have to deal with.
Now assumign those without restraints are going to be more likely to find a profitable cure for something - then maybe (even if you don't like the idea of stem cell research) you might consider that you're not really getting the best bang for your buck - and in the future more likely to be lining the pockets of pharma - rather than receiving the treatment your tax-dollars funded.

not back then they weren't...

[YesIAmAScript]

The Fed adjusted the money supply, not the prime rate back then.

And the prime rate only adjust one thing. Ask anyone who has bought a house. The mortgage rates never dropped as much as prime did, and when prime jumped way up, mortgage rates remained lower.

Interest rates were so high back then because the cost of living was going up rapidly (despite a lack of wage growth).

See below:

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

This is the operative part:
Supply-side economics asserts that the contraction component of stagflation was caused by the inflation induced rise in real tax rates (see bracket creep). In addition certain states in the USA had laws against nominal interest rates being above a certain level and in the midst of inflation this forced real interest rates to be negative. In some places this caused a collapse in finance for business.

Reagan was a 100% supply-side guy (see the trickly-down theory). It became unprofitable for people to invest in the future due to negative real interest rates, partially due to the rate of return being knocked down by high taxes.

His tax cuts freed up a lot of money to invest in starting companies, and that's what happened. Perhaps it was more psycological than anything, or perhaps you even disbelieve it. There's room for both of those theories. But I believe it.

Maybe he was just in the right place at the right time, economically, I dunno. But presided over a long period of economic growth and prosperity and very low antagonism between the two political parties. It's tough not to like that, having lived through it.

I did feel his death was played for far too much Republican gain. Especially letting G.W.B give the eulogy, when they had nothing in common.

And now that you remind me, I am not thrilled about the death squads either. I kinda lumped that in with the wars, but in a way they're even worse.

Re:not back then they weren't...

[killjoe]

"I did feel his death was played for far too much Republican gain. Especially letting G.W.B give the eulogy, when they had nothing in common."

I will quote Jim Morrison.

"Death makes angels of us all.
It puts wings where we had shoulders,
smooth as ravens claws"

Same with Nixon. A guy dies and all of a sudden he is a saint. Never mind the thousands of people that died because of him.

Re:This man is a liberal, and totally wrong.

[msuarezalvarez]

Even as a non-USian, I hope in the name of humanity that you be joking.

Re:stem cell research

[TACNailed]

Bloomberg's point is that the government has a duty to provide funding for things such as stem cell research, as such research has a direct positive effect on the public. We shouldn't NEED some old rich white guy to do what our goverment should be doing.

Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to pay?

[murrdpirate]

I don't think so. Let me just say that I am no fundie; I approach this logically (unlike the majority of people who claim to be proponents of logic). The fetus is alive and a member of the human species. There is no way to deny that. Murder is intentionally killing a member of the human species. It's really that simple.

Arguments for killing the fetus are stupid. You cannot try to guess when consciousness develops. Even if it were true that there is a single point where the fetus becomes conscious (which is probably not true), the burden of proof is on you. Just because something is in your body doesn't mean it is your body. You'd have an argument if it just crawled up inside you, but it's different when you put it there.

Logic is on my side. You're lucky that it's even legal. You want to kill a baby to keep you alive and have me pay for it? That's three times wrong.

Here's one for the philosophers

[Crazy Eight]

Thanks for your post. IIRC, a few years ago some academics at the University of Chicago stumbled upon a correlation between the advent of abortion rights and a reduction in crime. That being said, what the world needs is a political philosopher that could open a path to compromise between the absolutist forces on either side of this issue. Personally, I'm "pro choice", but see no reason why a woman should need nine months to decide on motherhood. Drawing the line at the first or second trimester seems reasonable to me but how could such a principal actually become the law of the land given the vehemence of either side?

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[plunge]

"Even if it were true that there is a single point where the fetus becomes conscious (which is probably not true), the burden of proof is on you."

Ok. The burden is trivially easy to prove when there is no nervous system in the first place. And even after there is, there's copious evidence that a fetus cannot feel pain until very late in its development.

Of course, most abortions at that point are because the fetus is brain-dead anyway. It always boggles my mind that people don't think about WHY partial-birth abortions involve collapsing the skull by vacuuming out fluid. Are doctors being pointlessly cruel? No: they do it in those cases because in those cases the fetus' head has swollen to many many times the normal size, crushing the brain, and delivering it normally is with such a huge hydrocephalitic head (which can be bigger that adult heads) physically impossible unless you do a C-section. So this brain dead baby is either coming out of the vagina somehow, or through surgery. Somehow, which hole in the body a brain-dead, unable to survive more than a few days, baby comes out is not really something I'd think we'd have to have a huge debate over. But apparently, for know-nothing Congress-critters, it is.

What does Terri Shiavo have to do with science?

[maddogsparky]

Disclaimer: I am a pro-life Catholic. That said, I am also a scientist and engineer who has no problem with viewing the biblical creation account as an extremely simplified way to explain the origins of life, the universe and everything to a group of scientifically primitive sheep-herders.

But what does Terri Shiavo have to do with being pro-science? It should be obvious what my feeling are about her final days, but that whole issue was an ethical one, not scientific. Lumping "quality of life" ethics that involves terminating unwanted pregnancies, terminally ill people, etc. together with being "pro-science" makes as much sense as declaring that the sun revolves around the earth!

I'm all for ethics in science, but lets be clear on what it means to be "pro-science". I issues with embrionic stem cell research, but I can understand why some people think my reservations "impede" science. However, end-of-life issues have nothing to do with being pro (or anti) science.

Re:It's 2007 soon...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

OK, so it's worse than I thought. They've only heard about science in the big cities.

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[Copid]

Somehow, which hole in the body a brain-dead, unable to survive more than a few days, baby comes out is not really something I'd think we'd have to have a huge debate over.

That debate would be especially short if Mom & Dad couldn't afford to keep it on life support and the state might have to pay. Once state money for medical care is involved, the "culture of life" inevitably becomes a bit more flexible.

Re:It's 2007 soon...

[galdosdi]

Touche.

Missing word: embryonic

[maddogsparky]

There is not a US ban on funding for stem cell research.

There is a US ban on funding for embryonic stem cell research.

Like many other people, I have no problem with adult stem cell therapy. Cloning and embryonic stem cell research are a related, but separate issue. Most of those who are against cloning and embrionic stem cell research and therapy have no issues with using adult stem cells for therapy. The sticking point in the stem cell debate is what one side defines as a piece of tissue (fit for any use under the sun), the other side defines as a person. Those that think of embryos as people find the use of embryonic stem cells as discusting as a hypothetical situtation where mentally disabled people are used as sources of organs for the more able-minded.

Unfortunately, those who phrase the stem cell debate sometimes ignore the opportunities that already exist for research, such as adult stem cells. They want to force a situtation which allows them to perform research that others equate with murder. So we are stuck with an argument between one group trying to prevent what they see as murder and another group that either believes it is not a person or that the value of one person is more than that of another.

The above paragraphs are factually correct, regardless of one's opinion on stem cell research. No matter what your feelings are on the subject, twisting the facts by ommitting words can significantly change the meaning of a sentence and make it factually incorrect. Once a person does that, they no longer have the facts on their side.

Most people working with embryonic stem cells are aware of problems such as tumours developing when they are injected into a patients and anti-rejection therapies that must be followed. Why not spend that same effort using a less-controversial source of stem cells? Some argue that we have an obligation to try every path that is open to us, but when we don't have enough resources to exhaust the paths we have, why do we need to travel down the more contentious paths?

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[murrdpirate]

Pain has nothing to do with it. Am I allowed to kill you as long as I give you some anesthetic first? Is it ok to kill something if it feels no pain, but then not ok if it feels pain for a fraction of a second before dying?

I think the development of consciousness is a continuous spectrum. You can't just pick an abstract point and say it's ok to end the life. What's the cutoff point? Your definition of human life is different and you can't prove that you're right. Neither can I. It is very unclear, I just prefer to be as prudent as possible. It's questionable that you should even be allowed to do it, but force me to pay for it? Do you really think you have the right to make me pay for something that I legitimately think is wrong?

I will say that I'm not completely sure about the ethics of stem cell research. I do think people on both sides want what is best for humanity. Abortion is what really irritates me. People want to enjoy sex without having to worry about the consequences. I think it's pretty disgusting that so many would rather kill the fetus than spend 9 months incubating it and giving it up for adoption.

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[Anonymous Coward]

You claim to have logic on your side and then proceed to make fallacial arguments. Just because it is difficult to determine the cut-off point of consciousness does not imply that it doesn't exist.

How can you have consciousness with a one-cell organism? Two cells? The exact time consciousness occurs is irrelevant. Certainly reasonable people can agree on some acceptable window of time in which it is not possible that there is a brain, mind, or nervous system.

Your comment about 'Pain has nothing to do with it' is another fallacy. Look up 'Straw Man'. No one is suggesting it's ok to kill you if you can't feel it.

As far as you paying for the procedure, well, I've got news for you buddy, you live in a democracy. I pay for a lot of stuff I don't agree with either. Deal with it. I also get the advantage of stuff that I want but would never be able to pay for, like highways and national parks, and a stable and secure place to live. So yeah, I absolutely have the right to have you pay for stuff you don't believe in.

And just to bring this back to the real-world. Abortion isn't about carefree sex. When my wife and I were trying to conceive our first ( we have 2 sons now ), she had what the doctors called a 'miss'. Embryo was there, development started OK, but it never really 'took hold'. Just a spherical blob of cells with very little differentiation. Now by your definition, it's a person. It had all the genetic material (no genetic defects from the post tests that were done), and it was growing. It would never be what we call a person. We had two options. If we continued the pregnancy, she would abort naturally at some point, but the doctors couldn't tell us when. Or we could have a D+C. Dilation and Cuterrage(sp). In other words, an abortion. We chose the second route.

Two friends of ours had a similar issue at the same time. In their case, there was differentiation, but the heartbeat was abnormal. Much to slow, nonviable pregnancy. The doctors gave them the same choice, they chose option 1 and she naturally aborted the baby about 3 weeks later. We preferred the certain knowledge of an ending and new beginning, they were more uncorfortable with the risks (to the wife)of surgery.

Thankfully we still live in a country where both couples were afforded an option.

However, in both those cases, according to your criteria, an abortion would have been murder. Now, reasonable people would find no fault with an abortion in either case, I suspect. However, legislation based on the principles you've laid out would explicitly deny those options

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[plunge]

Pain is an example of a moral capacity, not the only one.

"I think the development of consciousness is a continuous spectrum. You can't just pick an abstract point and say it's ok to end the life."

Well, in fact, yes you have to pick a point. Not abstractly, but for reasons.

However, that's irrelevant in regards to stem cells. There is no debate about the matter: stem cells do not have any sort of consciousness.

"Abortion is what really irritates me. People want to enjoy sex without having to worry about the consequences."

Is sounds like you just want to punish people who have sex you don't like. Abortion rates in countries with wide access to real birth control and sex education are much much lower than here in the US. If what we cared about was preventing abortion, then real sex education and contraception is clearly effective.

"I think it's pretty disgusting that so many would rather kill the fetus than spend 9 months incubating it and giving it up for adoption."

Easier to say than to do.

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[murrdpirate]

Ok, then what is the cutoff point? Pain has nothing to do with it. Please explain to me why the ability to feel pain should be criteria for having the right to live. "Deal with it." Yeah, great logic there. You can't vote to legalize murder. What has happened is that people have tried to pass things off as not murder by changing definitions. Do you really think you have the right to make everyone pay money for something when nearly half the population considers it murder? By the way, there are private roads and parks that you could can access at even lower costs than the taxes you pay. murder- premeditately ending human life The fetus is alive. The fetus is human. Abortion IS about carefree sex in the majority of cases! It is primarily a method of birth control. Under 10% of abortions are for rape, incest, health of the mother, and health of the baby. I fail to see why you couldn't wait a few weeks to find out.

Yes, the bigger!

[FatSean]

Might makes right, don't you know? If you can make someone do something you believe is proper, should should do your best to force them to do it.

The less parasitic siamese twin gets choice. If they are evenly joined, then either can choose to have the surgery.

The baby, after birth, can be transferred to another care giver and no longer represents a burden on it's parent.

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[Anonymous Coward]

The cutoff point is nebulous, but reasonable people can certainly agree that at some points there is consiousness and at some points THERE AREN'T. For example, there are several hours of each day that are in twilight, being neither light nor dark. But there are certainly many hours that ARE dark and many hours that ARE light. We can waste our time about how hard it is to pin a particular minute or second as to when the day ends and when the night begins precisely, OR we can be logical and say that there is an inderminate time when the crossover happens, when there are aspects of both light and dark, and there are very definite times when we DO KNOW the state of light or dark. The crossover does still happen.

I was just suggesting that resonable people could agree on this definite state of non-conciousness and limit abortions to that time period, and stay away from a large nebulous window, if they wished ( save for life of mother situations. )

My comment about pain was to illustrate that you are making a straw man argument. People do not suggest that the ability to feel pain is the ONLY criteria, and you misrepresent their arguments when you equivocate abortion with killing someone who is under anasthesia.

The actual criteria (for some) is that at certain points in the development of a fetus, it has NO qualities of a person that we can recognize. Those features would include morphology, thought, dreams, nervous system, ability to feel pain, etc. Other people would include 'soul' as one of those defining characteristics, which, if it existed in a one celled organism, would make an argument for preservation at that stage. I don't believe in the concept of a soul, so I find no compelling features of a person in the early development of an embryo.

And yeah, Deal with it. I really can't understand your problem with my logic here. We live in a democracy. We jointly decide what policies we will live with. You're free to disagree with them, and some of the policies are undoubtedly wrong. If so many people agree with you, continue to pressure your legislature and maybe the country will swing your way eventually. You probably are going to say something about activist judges at this point, so fine, go get some like minded judges appointed too. My point was that you don't get to just 'opt out' because you disagree with something( actually you're free to leave the country if you want ). I don't like our President and I don't like the war in Iraq, and I'm mad I have to pay for both of them. But I still pay my taxes, and I work for change. What I don't do is argue that I shouldn't have to pay. In fact, the majority of this country is against the war, so that is another example of the minority of people making everyone pay money for something the majority thing is wrong. Does that minority have that right to make me pay? Temporarily, yes they do, because I believe in the Rule of Law. But I can help change the law, and so can you.

So the logic is pretty clear. We are a society that make laws; The laws can be changed, but everyone is expected to abide by those laws until they are changed. That is, like, the country you live in, so I would expect you to be able to deal with it at this point.

As far as parks go, I've been to a lot of parks, but somehow have missed these wonderful private ones of which you speak. Maybe you mean like Six Flags. If so, you're right, the government probably doesn't do roller coasters very well. As a counter example I would use something like Utah, where 80% of the land is owned by the government (the BLM). I've roamed all over that state, camping and hiking and biking. It is a truly amazing place. The BLM makes the land available to everyones use, so cattle grazing is common as well. This benefits individuals and business. I cannot fathom a private interest operating it as efficiently or openly. What would be their incentive to do so?

Regarding your statistics, I wonder in which category they put my wife's operation? Healt

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[murrdpirate]

Do you disagree that the fetus is alive and human? I believe that human life starts at conception, you believe it starts when more recognizable features emerge. I don't think either one of us can prove that we are right. I just think we should be as prudent as possible and that is when the DNA is formed, creating a unique code that has never been seen before. What attributes do you believe the fetus needs until it has rights?

Yes, we are a democracy. However, there are fundamental laws that cannot be changed by voting. Murder is one of them.

There are private campgrounds and such too. I cannot fathom a business NOT running a large park more efficiently. Their incentive would be to make money if they are a business, or maybe they'd just be a private orgainzation who does it simply because they want to. Even at state parks you usually pay for parking and such, it basically is run as a business, just not as well because they have no incentive.

There was another category marked "other" at about 4%. I guess if you wanted to be specific you could put your wife in "fear of embarrasment" and/or "insufficient funds to clean/replace panties"? You haven't told me enough about the situation to know anything about the outcome.

The pill is admitadly a moral conundrum. I doubt that I would call it murder, maybe manslaughter? It's difficult to say. It would depend on how often the pill causes fertilized eggs to fail to bond. I guess the more it causes this, the more wrong it is.

I'm really not a fundie, at least in the traditional sense. I reject Christianity and all other religions, but I do believe that all life is so incredible that we should have the utmost regard for it. Just in case you were curious.

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you disagree that the fetus is alive and human?

No, I don't disagree, I just don't think those two terms have a well-agreed-upon definition in this discussion. You apparently define them as composed of human DNA and alive(growing), which I can't deny. I just don't think those are the two qualities we should be making our decisions on.

Would a defective fetus without a head or brain be considered by you to be alive and human? It is most likely growing, and it has unique human DNA, just like the single celled organism at conception; it's heart is beating. It will not survive outside the body more than a few days, and can either be delivered at great risk to the mother to die a few days later or be removed from the mother while it is small and manageable. There are many case like this which make your simple definitions unusable for making this kind of important decision.

At least you agree we live in a democracy. I'm not saying we are allowed to vote in atrocities. I'm saying that many people don't consider abortion murder, so I see no problem with legislation that allows it in certain cases. But if you consider abortion murder, you must consider war and the death penalty murder too, right? Same simple logic. Human life that was alive is now not alive. Murder, right?

I don't really think your response about my wife's condition is appropriate. It is definitely not a laughing matter, and your cavalier response is very disrespectful. As I said, the baby was an amorphous blob of tissue. It was no different than a tumor in our eyes at that point. But, it probably still fit your magical definition of life. It would never be a live person. Can you imagine walking around with something like that in you? Knowing at any moment your body might reject it? Imagine that uncertainty. Maybe it would go full term. Six more months of carrying it around inside you. It is a mockery of human life. Not to mention, the desire to start again, so that we COULD deliver a wonderful life to the planet. You think we were concerned about soiled panties!? Public embarrassment!? Have you ever known a woman who had a miscarraige? It is a physically traumatizing experience. If it had to come out, we wanted it done in a safe, controlled, and SCHEDULED environment. And even with that, it was still traumatic. Her mother actually carried a baby after in died in utero for 3 months. Her mother was diabetic and the doctors felt that it was the safest course to let the body reject it naturally. She didn't have an option; luckily we did.

There are private campgrounds and such too. I cannot fathom a business NOT running a large park more efficiently. Their incentive would be to make money if they are a business, or maybe they'd just be a private orgainzation who does it simply because they want to. Even at state parks you usually pay for parking and such, it basically is run as a business, just not as well because they have no incentive.

I would argue that if business could run a large park efficiently, and be able to make a profit, they would be doing it, and this country, as the most capitalistic, corporate country on the planet, they have had the opportunity. So where are these parks? I'm not talking about the rundown park-and-camp places all around. I'm talking about Yosemite level stuff. If Yosemite was owned by a corporation, all that would be there would be large luxury estates and a few pricey resorts. You're right, state and national parks are run as a psuedo business, just as everything in government is. The difference is that ostensibly everyone has _some_ say in government, whereas corporations answer only to the market and shareholders.

'Life' is indeed a wonderful, amazing thing. That's precisely why I hold a higher standard than 'alive and has human DNA'. We cheapen life when we give it such simplistic definitions. I don't value animal and plant life as highly as human life, and it isn't because I got the magic chromosomes. It's about my thoughts, my dreams, my future, my feelings. I'm not sure when all that stuff begins to happen. Maybe it's day 120, or day 180. I'd be willing to give the benefit of the doubt and come down a few weeks, why can't you budge from day 0?

Re:Not only legalizing murder, but forcing me to p

[murrdpirate]

I will grant you that if you know for certain that it will die, it's not murder to end it.

Yes, I do consider the death penalty murder. War can be murder, but ideally it is self defense.

I wouldn't call it physically traumatizing, but nonetheless I was an ass and for that I apologize. If you know for sure that it wouldn't survive, then I guess I have no problem. In my defense, this wasn't made perfectly clear to me (and still hasn't exactly), but with words like "amorphous blob of tissue" and "tumor," I suppose I should take that as 0% survivability.

We could go on about Yosemite for a while if you'd like, but I'm not sure it's on topic. Like you said, I acknowledged we live in a democracy, but I think there are things we can't vote on.

Cheapen life by giving it simplistic definitions? So then are you cheapening life by saying it needs a brain compared to someone who holds even higher standards, such as the ability to speak? I can budge in certain situations. But I see no reason to budge for someone who just wants guaranteed birth control. As far as stem cells, I think more research needs to be done with what we have, find out exactly what we can do, and look further into adult stem cells. Four to six months is awfully high. The neural tube begins forming at 16 days, the brain at 27 days. By six weeks, the brain permits basic movement.