> Is it really that much easier to believe in one > god with multiple personality disorder?
I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying devoted people shouldn't think.
Most die-hard monotheists are stuck in an infinite loop of believing whatever their books and leaders tell them because their books and leaders tell them to believe.
To this guy, if you're not toeing his party's line, you're an infidel. Thanks to guys like this, our country becomes more Soviet every week.
Examples of general agreement do not prove "right and wrong" transcends culture.
You'll convince me "right and wrong" are unrelated to cultural contexts if you show me a deterministic algorithm without cultural inputs. Pseudo-code is fine.
There is a big difference between "I/we prefer you don't do X" and "X is wrong." What is that big difference? That we shouldn't hurt others?
You argue that it's wrong to trip me. Is it okay to trip a puppy and laugh at it? Flip a bug on its back? Put a nail in a tree? Uproot and eat a carrot? Exterminate a nuisance rat? Jail a troubled youth? Execute a murderer? Wage war?
Do you really think there is anything all humans agree on?
everyone feels that certain things are simply wrong... no culture values cowardice and treason and murder The culture I was born into values these things:
cowardice:
"discretion is the better part of valor" treason:
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another... murder: Holy Bible, KJV, Deuternonomy 20, God allows/commands Israelite army to kill every man in a city:
When you march up to attack a city, first offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, all the people to be found in it shall serve you in forced labor. But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead offers you battle, lay siege to it, and when the LORD, your God, delivers it into your hand, put every male in it to the sword; but the women and children and livestock and all else in it that is worth plundering you may take as your booty, and you may use this plunder of your enemies which the LORD, your God, has given you. If you have a timeless, acultural, objective test to distinguish right from wrong, I'd sure like to hear it.
are the ethical questions... actual issues of right and wrong, or are they... my own philosophical prejudices? Great question, but aren't "right and wrong" culturally defined? Or is there some objective cosmic value system we can mathematically derive?
Great points, I think that this is a really important and positive service.
But I'm scared to use it. It's obvious that people will upload vile things. And I really don't want authorities to find (which "is hard, but not impossible") somebody else's trash on my PC. Something tells me that the explanation will sound really lame to DA Tuffoncrime and Judge Hangemhigh.
Had the Bush administration consulted Nance, a trillion dollars and thousands of lives could have been saved in the Iraq debacle. That's a nice thought, but at the time Bush invaded Iraq, there was no evidence of any suicide-bomber/radical muslim sort of terrorist threat from Iraq. Everybody knew that.
But now that Iraq is a terrorist training ground, it sounds like it'd be a good book for the Bush Administration to read. If only this were the kind of Administration that reads.
They should... immediately go out and lift anyone caught doing ANYTHING even remotely illegal... maybe that will put the fear of CCTV into them Wow. Am I reading this right, comrade? You propose arresting and punishing people extra harshly for minor or borderline offenses? With the objective of instilling fear in the citizenry?
I think the whole point of this debate is that our ideas of freedom are turning upside down. In a democracy, the government should fear and serve the people. In a police state, the people serve and fear the government.
The great thing about tyranny is that people really are generally safe.. from each other.
I'm really happy that they were able to clean up this bridge. That's wonderful.
But according to this article, blanketing the nation with CCTV doesn't have the same effect on either the city of London or the country as a whole. Implementing mass surveillance of all Her Majesty's subjects going about their daily business neither reduces crime nor leads to significantly more convictions.
CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure, [but]... It's been an utter fiasco... There's no fear of CCTV. I think I can understand your happiness about having a notoriously dangerous bridge pacified, but this approach doesn't seem to scale well.
> They didn't write a new novel using her characters and setting.
Other people have. Should the fanfict authors be sued?
There are some things I may never understand. This lady has created a fantasy world that millions of people love, and along the way has gone from a single mom trying desperately to survive, to one of the very richest people in all of human history. What's the harm in letting others participate in this fantasy world? What's the harm in letting others profit from their participation?
> If I know I'm likely to get a certain condition,
> I'll stock up on 'insurance' for it
And when AFLAC sees their profits for Spontaneous Big Toe Combustion Coverage drop, they'll raise the price of the policy. Or find some workaround.
The casino will figure out how to tip the odds to work in their favor. Gaming the system is exactly what insurance companies do for a living, and, one way or another, they'll keep their house advantage.
You know what? You're right. Thanks for pointing that out.
I guess not allowing somebody to bring child porn into the country isn't such a bad thing. I was going to say it's kind of silly to think searching laptops is an effective way to keep digital files out of the country, what with the internet and all, until I remembered that the government is warrantlessly checking voice and data traffic, too
Arnold has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage that the Supreme Court and we have allowed," wrote Justice Diarmuid O'Scannlain. I think we've all forgotten something. The reason "suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage" was initially allowed was to find bombs. I have yet to see a data file so explosive that it can take out an airliner.
> one of the most worrying trends in the computer security
> world was Bruce Schneier's turn from crypto guru
The title of chapter 5 gives away the theme of the book -- Amateurs Study Cryptography -- Professionals Study Economics. In other words, most of our security problems aren't rooted in flawed cryptography, they are based on the flawed allocation of resources and general human fallibility.
Good luck with your studies young man. Perhaps you can fill that hole you think Bruce Schneier has left.
To get good statistics I think you need a statistically significant sample size. And at LAX I believe the entire data set of terrorist activity is some fellow who went berzerk one fourth of July. Perhaps they are using all airport-related terrorist attacks across the USA, which would include I believe the above berzerker, four related incidents on 9/11, and an MIT student with a homemade name badge full of blinkenlights.
1) A wind turbine won't generate enough electricity over its lifetime
to offset grid usage and the manufacture of itself
That could be true in some situations. Depends on the turbine and the location. When pursuing sustainable energy, it's vital to pick the sort of generator that best fits the local environment. Sometimes that's not wind. Sometimes it is.
2) Wind turbine purchases are just conspicuous consumption of a green flavor
Showing off may be the motive for some people, but all the turbine owners I know sincerely are trying to live sustainably (and are often entertained by the logical contortions HEMI fanboys utilize to claim green equality/superiority).
3) Wind turbine owners are suckered by slick salesmen
The owners I know did extensive research, and almost all of them built their own from kits or scratch.
So you can definitely do wind wrong and lose on carbon. You can also do it right. And there are many benefits to wind power. Even if your electricity is more expensive than the grid's, some people are willing to pay more for what they consider a higher quality product. Fossil-fuel electricity can't stay artificially cheap forever. Distributed generation can be more robust than centralized plants (like TCP/IP).
Plus you get free poultry delivered to your backyard.
> So the farmers should be getting all the profits from higher yields As if farmers are making profits. There are huge agri-business entities that are doing well. There are also still a few little guys trying to survive. They don't really have much choice but to milk every last drop out of their land, unless they've been fortunate enough to find a niche market. And it's these little guys that Monsanto attacks.
> the people who designed the crops should be getting a one time payment? Did Monsanto invent corn? It's been genetically modified incrementally for thousands of years. What Monsanto has done is engineered their crops to be less susceptible to RoundUp so that they can sell more RoundUp. And as a free added bonus, their "terminator technology" renders their crops sterile so the farmers have to buy their seeds all over again next season, instead of saving seeds from their crop as farmers have done through the previous millenia.
I'm ok with Monsanto making money off of RoundUp. I'm ok with them making money off their "RoundUp-ready" seeds. I'm really uneasy about this "terminator technology" and general unintended consequences. But this business of suing the little guys is just rubbing salt into their wounds.
I don't think Biochem, Math, and Psych are pushover degrees or ill-payed professions. But your point about Engineering salaries is well taken.
The students this guy envies will have to take consolation that despite their ending up with a career of frying hamburgers, they once earned a Magna Cum Laude in Basket Weaving.
There are two kinds of pain - discipline or regret. Choose one.
> once science does figure out the answer, the religious
> should reinterpret their worldview to embrace it.
So suppose I've been raised as a fundamentalist evangelical christian. Say I've been taught that God created the entire universe in just six days for the express purpose of putting humans here to test their mettle, and our world will endure only until humanity degenerates into a bunch of Sodomites. Then some guys come along telling me the human species is an adaptation of a mutant fish who had no particular plan for us, and the Earth's expiration date has little to do with gay marriage. How can I possibly reconcile that to my worldview?
Slashdot Mirror
> Is it really that much easier to believe in one
> god with multiple personality disorder?
I don't think he's saying that. I think he's saying devoted people shouldn't think.
Most die-hard monotheists are stuck in an infinite loop of believing whatever their books and leaders tell them because their books and leaders tell them to believe.
To this guy, if you're not toeing his party's line, you're an infidel. Thanks to guys like this, our country becomes more Soviet every week.
Examples of general agreement do not prove "right and wrong" transcends culture.
You'll convince me "right and wrong" are unrelated to cultural contexts if you show me a deterministic algorithm without cultural inputs. Pseudo-code is fine.
You argue that it's wrong to trip me. Is it okay to trip a puppy and laugh at it? Flip a bug on its back? Put a nail in a tree? Uproot and eat a carrot? Exterminate a nuisance rat? Jail a troubled youth? Execute a murderer? Wage war?
Do you really think there is anything all humans agree on? everyone feels that certain things are simply wrong... no culture values cowardice and treason and murder The culture I was born into values these things:
cowardice: "discretion is the better part of valor" treason: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another... murder: Holy Bible, KJV, Deuternonomy 20, God allows/commands Israelite army to kill every man in a city: When you march up to attack a city, first offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to your terms of peace and opens its gates to you, all the people to be found in it shall serve you in forced labor. But if it refuses to make peace with you and instead offers you battle, lay siege to it, and when the LORD, your God, delivers it into your hand, put every male in it to the sword; but the women and children and livestock and all else in it that is worth plundering you may take as your booty, and you may use this plunder of your enemies which the LORD, your God, has given you. If you have a timeless, acultural, objective test to distinguish right from wrong, I'd sure like to hear it.
Great points, I think that this is a really important and positive service.
But I'm scared to use it. It's obvious that people will upload vile things. And I really don't want authorities to find (which "is hard, but not impossible") somebody else's trash on my PC. Something tells me that the explanation will sound really lame to DA Tuffoncrime and Judge Hangemhigh.
But now that Iraq is a terrorist training ground, it sounds like it'd be a good book for the Bush Administration to read. If only this were the kind of Administration that reads.
I think the whole point of this debate is that our ideas of freedom are turning upside down. In a democracy, the government should fear and serve the people. In a police state, the people serve and fear the government.
The great thing about tyranny is that people really are generally safe.. from each other.
But according to this article, blanketing the nation with CCTV doesn't have the same effect on either the city of London or the country as a whole. Implementing mass surveillance of all Her Majesty's subjects going about their daily business neither reduces crime nor leads to significantly more convictions. CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure, [but]
> They didn't write a new novel using her characters and setting.
Other people have. Should the fanfict authors be sued?
There are some things I may never understand. This lady has created a fantasy world that millions of people love, and along the way has gone from a single mom trying desperately to survive, to one of the very richest people in all of human history. What's the harm in letting others participate in this fantasy world? What's the harm in letting others profit from their participation?
Congratulations on the new addition to your family! That strange object in the sky must have been a stork.
ps - Sorry I didn't make it to the baby shower, but here's a little present for you guys. Hope it helps.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids
What if the Fermi Paradox is broken?
What if "they" do come here? What if there are lots of sightings? What if people who report sightings are dismissed as lunatics?
The RIAA should have known better. In Arizona, you don't mess around. Everybody's packin' iron.
> If I know I'm likely to get a certain condition,
> I'll stock up on 'insurance' for it
And when AFLAC sees their profits for Spontaneous Big Toe Combustion Coverage drop, they'll raise the price of the policy. Or find some workaround.
The casino will figure out how to tip the odds to work in their favor. Gaming the system is exactly what insurance companies do for a living, and, one way or another, they'll keep their house advantage.
So if we pay "protection" money, our network won't be taken down.
> You mean... you won't make us an offer we... we can't refuse?
Somebody "makes a killing". That's all he's saying.
> You've got two different searches confused.
You know what? You're right. Thanks for pointing that out.
I guess not allowing somebody to bring child porn into the country isn't such a bad thing. I was going to say it's kind of silly to think searching laptops is an effective way to keep digital files out of the country, what with the internet and all, until I remembered that the government is warrantlessly checking voice and data traffic, too
> calculated probabilities of terrorist attacks
To get good statistics I think you need a statistically significant sample size. And at LAX I believe the entire data set of terrorist activity is some fellow who went berzerk one fourth of July. Perhaps they are using all airport-related terrorist attacks across the USA, which would include I believe the above berzerker, four related incidents on 9/11, and an MIT student with a homemade name badge full of blinkenlights.
It sounds like you are saying that:
1) A wind turbine won't generate enough electricity over its lifetime
to offset grid usage and the manufacture of itself
That could be true in some situations. Depends on the turbine and the location. When pursuing sustainable energy, it's vital to pick the sort of generator that best fits the local environment. Sometimes that's not wind. Sometimes it is.
2) Wind turbine purchases are just conspicuous consumption of a green flavor
Showing off may be the motive for some people, but all the turbine owners I know sincerely are trying to live sustainably (and are often entertained by the logical contortions HEMI fanboys utilize to claim green equality/superiority).
3) Wind turbine owners are suckered by slick salesmen
The owners I know did extensive research, and almost all of them built their own from kits or scratch.
So you can definitely do wind wrong and lose on carbon. You can also do it right. And there are many benefits to wind power. Even if your electricity is more expensive than the grid's, some people are willing to pay more for what they consider a higher quality product. Fossil-fuel electricity can't stay artificially cheap forever. Distributed generation can be more robust than centralized plants (like TCP/IP).
Plus you get free poultry delivered to your backyard.
Just don't cross the beams.
> So the farmers should be getting all the profits from higher yields
As if farmers are making profits. There are huge agri-business entities that are doing well. There are also still a few little guys trying to survive. They don't really have much choice but to milk every last drop out of their land, unless they've been fortunate enough to find a niche market. And it's these little guys that Monsanto attacks.
> the people who designed the crops should be getting a one time payment?
Did Monsanto invent corn? It's been genetically modified incrementally for thousands of years. What Monsanto has done is engineered their crops to be less susceptible to RoundUp so that they can sell more RoundUp. And as a free added bonus, their "terminator technology" renders their crops sterile so the farmers have to buy their seeds all over again next season, instead of saving seeds from their crop as farmers have done through the previous millenia.
I'm ok with Monsanto making money off of RoundUp. I'm ok with them making money off their "RoundUp-ready" seeds. I'm really uneasy about this "terminator technology" and general unintended consequences. But this business of suing the little guys is just rubbing salt into their wounds.
I don't think Biochem, Math, and Psych are pushover degrees or ill-payed professions. But your point about Engineering salaries is well taken.
The students this guy envies will have to take consolation that despite their ending up with a career of frying hamburgers, they once earned a Magna Cum Laude in Basket Weaving.
There are two kinds of pain - discipline or regret. Choose one.
> once science does figure out the answer, the religious
> should reinterpret their worldview to embrace it.
So suppose I've been raised as a fundamentalist evangelical christian. Say I've been taught that God created the entire universe in just six days for the express purpose of putting humans here to test their mettle, and our world will endure only until humanity degenerates into a bunch of Sodomites. Then some guys come along telling me the human species is an adaptation of a mutant fish who had no particular plan for us, and the Earth's expiration date has little to do with gay marriage. How can I possibly reconcile that to my worldview?