Thinking you can "take control" of evolution shows you really don't understand it. Whatever we do is part of it, not controlling it. It's not a religion. It's simply an emergent process of life. If whatever we do "works" we survive and thrive. If not, we don't make it. There is no stepping outside of the process.
As for your comment, I'm really not sure what you are getting at. Others on here have said it better than I. Despite your protests to the contrary, you are basically espousing eugenics which is one thing we could choose to do as a country or species. I personally think it's a dumb idea applied as broadly as you seem to suggest as it will limit our gene pool to what we currently perceive as "good" and leave us with little room for adaptation in unforseen future events.
There must be a philosophy with a name attached to it that puts the same emphasis you do on suffering, but I wouldn't buy it anyway.
I don't want to minimize whatever it is you have been through, but it's presumptuous of you to call everyone else's knee-jerk reactions as if you are the only person who has problems or has dealt with mental or genetic "disorders". You obviously don't have Down's Syndrome, so why do you think everyone with Down's would share your view if they were "normal"?
It sounds like you have setup a false dichotomy in your mind somehow that people are either "human" or not. Evolution has shown us otherwise innumerable times. Today's "disorder" could be tomorrow's critical survival trait.
How incredibly small minded. How do you think the super-genius thinks about your pitiful, semi-intelligent existence? Does that diminish the value you place on your own life?
I admit I don't have evidence and I even said that it was my guess in my post. You however have not posted evidence and said it like it was the truth. I would still bet that you are giving the US spooks the benefit of the doubt when it is not deserved.
Any political system can be corrupted and hijacked for the benefit of the few. Multi-party may be more difficult to corrupt, but by no means impossible. It's more of a matter of degrees. I personally think the US political system and many others are superior to the Chinese system by the measure of the quality of life and opportunity available to citizens.
My point was that your post made the US spooks sound like "the good guys" and the Chinese spooks sound like "the bad guys" when, again, they are really quite similar.
I call heavy bias and rose-tinted glasses on your description of US surveilance activities.
IANAS (I am not a spook) but I bet the stuff the US is looking for are things related to destabilizing the position of power of the US government. Some of those happen to be terrorist acts as I think you were referring to, but I would bet a lot of money that they would not act even on a very solid lead to stop some crimes being committed if they were not connected to the function of US government. Maybe they would pass it on to some other agency, but too much of that and they reveal the extent and limitations of their abilities.
What you talked about being caught in China is more or less the same thing. Except replace "one-party government" with just "government" and it's quite similar.
Speaking about the general level of freedom, and what happens with the spooks' information, I think we probably think the same thing: Americans have a significantly larger set of freedoms than the citizens of China, and have less to fear from the government. However, the spooks in both countries have more or less the same objectives and probably similar methods.
I kind of agree with you, but intelligence ("the best and the brightest" is hard to pin down meaningfully besides saying we all have variations of patterns in our nervous systems that result in different behaviors.
Who is smarter? The guy who understands everything but can't influence the world around him very effectively, or the guy who doesn't really understand why things are the way they are but can shape the world around him? An argument can be made either way and many other ways as well.
That is to say that being good at math and science as the GP said is not necessarily synonymous with being intelligent. It seems natural to me that people who are smart about influencing other people have been able to more or less control ("dump on") people good at other things.
[quote]Nah mate, science and Christianity are NOT compatible, so long as Christianity promotes any kind of belief that is either at odds with provable fact, or is not supported by any direct evidence.[/quote]
I think you are overstating your case/situation. Other people in other fields certainly are "tested" although perhaps in different ways. That's a big part of what an interview is. Your question begs for a blanket answer that won't be able to fit every case.
Perhaps the better questions are: 1) Whether the test is useful or not and 2) Do you care?
1) It all depends on the details and objective of their test. Take the test and if it seems like they were asking relevant and useful questions, then be glad they are screening effectively for good employees who will be your coworkers. If it's a random test of corner-cases, then maybe they have no idea what they are doing. Which leads to..
2) Do you care if they have no idea what they are doing? If so, don't work there. If not, then take the job or be happy when they reject you.
In summary, I suggest you don't let pride or ideology get in the way of taking advantage of the situation.
I more or less agree with you on everything you said. However...
I don't have to have faith or belief in anything to be an atheist.
Related to the subject of this article, science (as the definitive form of observation like you mentioned) is basically a rigorous version of superstition. Real science deals with refutation or the inability to refute hypotheses. There is never "proof" and so we are still in the end either "believing" that what we have discovered is true, or saying "I still am not sure".
It certainly is conceivable that some deities exist in some form or another. Due to the circular nature of all-powerful beings however, no one has been able to think up a way to falsify one.
All that is to say that at it's foundation, atheism is still a "belief". The non-belief alternative is only "I'm not sure". And even that is arguable:)
Pegarding my previous post, I realize you didn't call them small markets specifically, but it seemed implied and I bet there are not many larger markets anyway. Sorry for putting words in your mouth.
I'm not sure you can call Japan a small market. One of the largest economies in the world. Korea is no lightweight either. But yes, it would be even worse from their point of view if it spread to the US.
What seems to be happening is that the large meat corporations are pressuring the USDA to abuse it's writ as a gamble that the US meat industry's clout will force even large customers to accept their products. It's a typical 800 pound gorilla approach.
The cost of the testing may be relatively small for a high margin specialty meat producer (do those exist??:) but for a large corporation, they tend to exist on thin margins (efficiently or not is another issue) and doing something like this simply cuts into profits.
Giving the large meat companies the benefit of the doubt, maybe all that testing really is pointless? It could be like staying indoors to avoid lightning? It all depends on the risks which I don't know much about.
Any data stored on magnetic media might be degraded by electromagnetic fields generated by certain types of welding. I tried to look up examples but couldn't find anything. Just a warning then to do your homework if you decide to use any magnetic media.
Wow. I can't remember such a bunch of fuzzy assertions, counter-assertions, etc. on Slashdot before! These kind of discussions are the reason I avoided philosophy discussions, classes, and books after reading my first few "classics". To me, it seems to be a bunch of lines of thought chasing their own tales(sic).
I find it interesting that Slashdotters and the posted articles tend to be quite libertarian on many issues, with one of the exceptions being protection of the tech jobs market. Isn't it a bit hypocritical or am I missing something?
I think actually the problems of scale have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with the outdated design of the institutions of our particular democracy (republic, whatever).
For a case in point, look at all the comments in this article about how lawmakers "have" to vote for certain packages of laws. If the institutions and our body of law were scaled with the population, and well maintained that wouldn't be an issue. Each and every piece of law would get time for due dilligence and vote.
What would even be the point of an automated system that "gives the benefit of the doubt" or reproduces human errors? Maybe I missed the point, but it sounds very close to pointless if you do that kind of thing. "It was in, but many people probably think it was out, so... ok it's out."
I would much prefer to see the evidence and the margins of error as they mentioned. It seems smarter to make the rules of the sport incorporate the equipment used and have set decisions about how to handle calls when they are within the range of uncertainty of the mechanism.
Slashdot Mirror
Thinking you can "take control" of evolution shows you really don't understand it. Whatever we do is part of it, not controlling it. It's not a religion. It's simply an emergent process of life. If whatever we do "works" we survive and thrive. If not, we don't make it. There is no stepping outside of the process.
As for your comment, I'm really not sure what you are getting at. Others on here have said it better than I. Despite your protests to the contrary, you are basically espousing eugenics which is one thing we could choose to do as a country or species. I personally think it's a dumb idea applied as broadly as you seem to suggest as it will limit our gene pool to what we currently perceive as "good" and leave us with little room for adaptation in unforseen future events.
There must be a philosophy with a name attached to it that puts the same emphasis you do on suffering, but I wouldn't buy it anyway.
I don't want to minimize whatever it is you have been through, but it's presumptuous of you to call everyone else's knee-jerk reactions as if you are the only person who has problems or has dealt with mental or genetic "disorders". You obviously don't have Down's Syndrome, so why do you think everyone with Down's would share your view if they were "normal"?
It sounds like you have setup a false dichotomy in your mind somehow that people are either "human" or not. Evolution has shown us otherwise innumerable times. Today's "disorder" could be tomorrow's critical survival trait.
Mod parent up please. I can't believe the eugenics trolls are getting higher mod points on slashdot than comments like this. Unbelievable.
How incredibly small minded. How do you think the super-genius thinks about your pitiful, semi-intelligent existence? Does that diminish the value you place on your own life?
I admit I don't have evidence and I even said that it was my guess in my post. You however have not posted evidence and said it like it was the truth. I would still bet that you are giving the US spooks the benefit of the doubt when it is not deserved.
Any political system can be corrupted and hijacked for the benefit of the few. Multi-party may be more difficult to corrupt, but by no means impossible. It's more of a matter of degrees. I personally think the US political system and many others are superior to the Chinese system by the measure of the quality of life and opportunity available to citizens.
My point was that your post made the US spooks sound like "the good guys" and the Chinese spooks sound like "the bad guys" when, again, they are really quite similar.
mod parent up please
I call heavy bias and rose-tinted glasses on your description of US surveilance activities.
IANAS (I am not a spook) but I bet the stuff the US is looking for are things related to destabilizing the position of power of the US government. Some of those happen to be terrorist acts as I think you were referring to, but I would bet a lot of money that they would not act even on a very solid lead to stop some crimes being committed if they were not connected to the function of US government. Maybe they would pass it on to some other agency, but too much of that and they reveal the extent and limitations of their abilities.
What you talked about being caught in China is more or less the same thing. Except replace "one-party government" with just "government" and it's quite similar.
Speaking about the general level of freedom, and what happens with the spooks' information, I think we probably think the same thing: Americans have a significantly larger set of freedoms than the citizens of China, and have less to fear from the government. However, the spooks in both countries have more or less the same objectives and probably similar methods.
I kind of agree with you, but intelligence ("the best and the brightest" is hard to pin down meaningfully besides saying we all have variations of patterns in our nervous systems that result in different behaviors.
Who is smarter? The guy who understands everything but can't influence the world around him very effectively, or the guy who doesn't really understand why things are the way they are but can shape the world around him? An argument can be made either way and many other ways as well.
That is to say that being good at math and science as the GP said is not necessarily synonymous with being intelligent. It seems natural to me that people who are smart about influencing other people have been able to more or less control ("dump on") people good at other things.
[quote]Nah mate, science and Christianity are NOT compatible, so long as Christianity promotes any kind of belief that is either at odds with provable fact, or is not supported by any direct evidence.[/quote]
Mod parent up please
I am glad you could say it better than I could, and with good examples to boot!
I think you are overstating your case/situation. Other people in other fields certainly are "tested" although perhaps in different ways. That's a big part of what an interview is. Your question begs for a blanket answer that won't be able to fit every case.
Perhaps the better questions are:
1) Whether the test is useful or not and
2) Do you care?
1) It all depends on the details and objective of their test. Take the test and if it seems like they were asking relevant and useful questions, then be glad they are screening effectively for good employees who will be your coworkers. If it's a random test of corner-cases, then maybe they have no idea what they are doing. Which leads to..
2) Do you care if they have no idea what they are doing? If so, don't work there. If not, then take the job or be happy when they reject you.
In summary, I suggest you don't let pride or ideology get in the way of taking advantage of the situation.
I more or less agree with you on everything you said. However...
I don't have to have faith or belief in anything to be an atheist.
Related to the subject of this article, science (as the definitive form of observation like you mentioned) is basically a rigorous version of superstition. Real science deals with refutation or the inability to refute hypotheses. There is never "proof" and so we are still in the end either "believing" that what we have discovered is true, or saying "I still am not sure".
It certainly is conceivable that some deities exist in some form or another. Due to the circular nature of all-powerful beings however, no one has been able to think up a way to falsify one.
All that is to say that at it's foundation, atheism is still a "belief". The non-belief alternative is only "I'm not sure". And even that is arguable :)
Civilization is extremely fragile. That guy you pass on the street is only refraining from killing you because there would be legal consequences.
Base your morality on reason. There are logical reasons for morality.
I don't have points, so please mod parent up.
Glad to have solid posts like yours. I wanted to give you a bonus +1 funny for this:
Waht arr yoo talkng abowt?
but didn't have any points. Well said.
Pegarding my previous post, I realize you didn't call them small markets specifically, but it seemed implied and I bet there are not many larger markets anyway. Sorry for putting words in your mouth.
I'm not sure you can call Japan a small market. One of the largest economies in the world. Korea is no lightweight either. But yes, it would be even worse from their point of view if it spread to the US.
What seems to be happening is that the large meat corporations are pressuring the USDA to abuse it's writ as a gamble that the US meat industry's clout will force even large customers to accept their products. It's a typical 800 pound gorilla approach.
The cost of the testing may be relatively small for a high margin specialty meat producer (do those exist?? :) but for a large corporation, they tend to exist on thin margins (efficiently or not is another issue) and doing something like this simply cuts into profits.
Giving the large meat companies the benefit of the doubt, maybe all that testing really is pointless? It could be like staying indoors to avoid lightning? It all depends on the risks which I don't know much about.
Any data stored on magnetic media might be degraded by electromagnetic fields generated by certain types of welding. I tried to look up examples but couldn't find anything. Just a warning then to do your homework if you decide to use any magnetic media.
Signed. That was the first thing I thought too. As I was reading it I was thinking, "oh good, that's great, excellent, oh.. no wait.. "
Wow. I can't remember such a bunch of fuzzy assertions, counter-assertions, etc. on Slashdot before! These kind of discussions are the reason I avoided philosophy discussions, classes, and books after reading my first few "classics". To me, it seems to be a bunch of lines of thought chasing their own tales(sic).
I find it interesting that Slashdotters and the posted articles tend to be quite libertarian on many issues, with one of the exceptions being protection of the tech jobs market. Isn't it a bit hypocritical or am I missing something?
"...comes from old wive's tail"
Intentional? I don't know but that was a nice touch either way lol.
For those of you who didn't have the pleasure of playing Rocket Jockey on PC back in the day...
I think actually the problems of scale have nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with the outdated design of the institutions of our particular democracy (republic, whatever).
For a case in point, look at all the comments in this article about how lawmakers "have" to vote for certain packages of laws. If the institutions and our body of law were scaled with the population, and well maintained that wouldn't be an issue. Each and every piece of law would get time for due dilligence and vote.
What would even be the point of an automated system that "gives the benefit of the doubt" or reproduces human errors? Maybe I missed the point, but it sounds very close to pointless if you do that kind of thing. "It was in, but many people probably think it was out, so... ok it's out."
I would much prefer to see the evidence and the margins of error as they mentioned. It seems smarter to make the rules of the sport incorporate the equipment used and have set decisions about how to handle calls when they are within the range of uncertainty of the mechanism.
That was so funny. It's the first thing I thought of as well and then I come on here and find the top 10 or so comments on the same subject.