Sorry, it's not a "conspiracy theory". The Brookings Report is a *real* study that was conducted by the Brookings Institute at the request of the government.
Basically, what it concluded was that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be so profound that it would disrupt the structure of society as we know it, possibly resulting in its collapse. Because of this, any discoveries of this sort should not be disclosed to the general populace.
Now, am I saying that this has happened? No. You conveniently overlooked my use of the word "IF" in my post. I never said that this is definitively what is happening. I just said that IF the government chose to make the findings of that study a matter of policy, then, well, as a matter of course, they would cover up anything groundbreaking that Seti@Home found.
Exactly correct, as your.sig bears out. There are only two logically correct answers to the "Do aliens/ESP/etc. exist?" question:
1. Yes. 2. I don't know.
There will never be a way to definitively disprove any of this, simply because no one has the ability to observe the *entire* universe. We haven't seen any evidence of life on other worlds, but we have only seen an infinitesimal fraction of those worlds. So, until the correct answer to any of these questions is proven to be "yes", the answer must be "I don't know".
If Seti@Home did actually find anything, do you actually think that the 'powers that be' would let the general public know about it? If the findings of the Brookings Report are being considered, the answer is an unequivocal "no".
Yeah, good for Wal-Mart, bad for just about everyone else. The thought of Wal-Mart running their own music label is truly frightening. They would institute a brand of censorship over their artists...the likes of which the world has never seen.
No, Wal-Mart should stick to selling shotguns and fishing rods.
Gee, it's been unusually hot for a couple of days in April...must mean that the ice caps are on the verge of melting and we're all gonna DIE unless we can stop the "Evil Corporations" from destroying our entire planet...ohmigod...
Yeah, I guess that you're right. It *is* affecting us now. The hysteria, that is.
...I can say that it probably is a decent place to work if you're a programmer. But, (and this is a big "but"), if you want to do anything beside being a programmer and/or aerospace engineer for every waking minute of your life, forget it.
Dining choices? Mostly fried, and mostly catfish.
Music scene? *Abysmal*!
Natural scenic beauty? Well, I have to be fair, that's one thing that Huntsville does have going for it fairly well. But, still, when you're living in Huntsville, you just feel like you are isolated from anything cool that is going on in the world....
Nonono...I wasn't trying to make any judgment on the quality of the player or the music, I was just basically saying that in the generic context, a punk band can usually get away with having gear that's a lot crappier than, say, a jazz combo. But the converse is not necessarily true. If you want to play punk rock with a $3000 Matchless rig and custom-built guitar, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Hell, when it's all said and done, it really just boils down to the talent of the musician(s), anyway.
Go back to GC and trade that Epi in for one of those Santana guitars. They are pretty much PRS knockoffs, and they play and sound great. For a cheap guitar, you can't beat it.
Also, on your next trip down there, try out a few of those $300 Mexican Strats. They are kinda hit-or-miss in the quality department, but I found a good one and, after replacing the admittedly crappy pickups, I've been happy ever since.
Yeah, but you were playing in a punk band:-). No flame meant here, but in a punk setting, all the guitar needs to do is be loud to be "decent sounding". Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Exactly what the hell, in your definition, is a 'labor-based society'? Come to think of it, what (in the logical definition) respectable society, isn't?
Labor is hard, not everyone can do it.
Wrong, wrong, and did I mention, WRONG? Sorry, there, Sherlock, but just about everyone can do "labor". Excepting, of course, the physically incapacitated, understandably. But, no, just about everyone else (as in five 9s) can do 'labor'. The problem seems to rest somewhere in between the meaning of "can do" and the meaning of "is willing to do". And believe me, I've seen enough people who can do, who aren't willing to do.
Just what the hell am I talking about? Well, I'll tell you. I had the pleasure of living in Tucson, AZ, for a year and a half. It's a great place to live, really, all told, but the downside is that the city is inundated with bums...errr...(sorry, retract that, forgot that I have to be PC)..."the homeless", because of the warm climate. These "homeless" people have the resourcefulness to create cute little cardboard signs and sell newspapers that the local fishwrap provides for them at a "reseller discount" (a whole other can of worms that is irrelevant to this discussion), but somehow, they can't seem to land a "real" job. They all seem to function well enough to do so, so what's the problem?
Oh, yeah, it's that whole "willing to do" labor thing. They might have to actually be responsible for their own actions. Call me coldhearted (and I'm sure that there will be no shortage of mindless bleeding-heart/.ers that do just that), but I saw more than my share of these people who were perfectly capable of "labor", but instead, "decided" that they were incapable. I got accosted on the streets more than once by these "poor downtrodden people", who invariably refused to show me their arms when I demanded to see them so that I could inspect them for the requisite needle marks.
<Sarcasm willHeGetIt="doubtful" >But I guess a "labor-based" society would be "evil", now, wouldn't it?</Sarcasm>
Logical reasons? I can't really think of any....oh wait, there's that whole "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" part.
Sure, communism is just great, as long as you can ensure that every person in the society is going to be an active, productive member of said society. That would be a false assumption to make, to say the least. What you instead wind up with is a system where those that do have the abilities to produce have no incentive to do so, since everything is owned by the state and redistributed to those who don't pull their weight, anyway.
Sure, capitalism has its flaws as well, but given the whole, I'll take those flaws over the alternative any day of the week.
Someone *please* mod that up as funny! Yeah, that's right, kids! Everything we have is because of our government! The government gives us everything! Yippee!
Now, back to earth. I'll take being an "idealist" any day over being just another mindless plebe who goes right on believing everything that the government and media tells them. And look how I get scorned for it. So much for individuality.
People like you, who are so willing to follow the herd because it's "cool", or whatever, scare me.
microsecond: The period of time that elapses between the event of a leftist performing the "global warming" routine and another leftist performing the "blame Bush" (or some other non-leftist) routine.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, it's not a "conspiracy theory". The Brookings Report is a *real* study that was conducted by the Brookings Institute at the request of the government.
Basically, what it concluded was that the discovery of extraterrestrial life would be so profound that it would disrupt the structure of society as we know it, possibly resulting in its collapse. Because of this, any discoveries of this sort should not be disclosed to the general populace.
Now, am I saying that this has happened? No. You conveniently overlooked my use of the word "IF" in my post. I never said that this is definitively what is happening. I just said that IF the government chose to make the findings of that study a matter of policy, then, well, as a matter of course, they would cover up anything groundbreaking that Seti@Home found.
So much for your "conspiracy theory".
Exactly correct, as your .sig bears out. There are only two logically correct answers to the "Do aliens/ESP/etc. exist?" question:
1. Yes.
2. I don't know.
There will never be a way to definitively disprove any of this, simply because no one has the ability to observe the *entire* universe. We haven't seen any evidence of life on other worlds, but we have only seen an infinitesimal fraction of those worlds. So, until the correct answer to any of these questions is proven to be "yes", the answer must be "I don't know".
Save "no" for the religious fanatics.
"Eat shit" has been a basic rule since, oh, approximately the time that Bill Gates decided he wanted to get into the computer business.
If Seti@Home did actually find anything, do you actually think that the 'powers that be' would let the general public know about it? If the findings of the Brookings Report are being considered, the answer is an unequivocal "no".
Peoria, AZ, in metro Phoenix. Yeah, tiny little town, that Phoenix.
Yeah, good for Wal-Mart, bad for just about everyone else. The thought of Wal-Mart running their own music label is truly frightening. They would institute a brand of censorship over their artists...the likes of which the world has never seen.
No, Wal-Mart should stick to selling shotguns and fishing rods.
Where the hell is the "Commit NCAA Infraction" key?
Well, it is in this case, anyway.
Gee, it's been unusually hot for a couple of days in April...must mean that the ice caps are on the verge of melting and we're all gonna DIE unless we can stop the "Evil Corporations" from destroying our entire planet...ohmigod...
Yeah, I guess that you're right. It *is* affecting us now. The hysteria, that is.
Amazon is the Napster of the book business and the Guild is the RIAA? Oh, I get it now...
I was kinda afraid to look in the first place.
...I can say that it probably is a decent place to work if you're a programmer. But, (and this is a big "but"), if you want to do anything beside being a programmer and/or aerospace engineer for every waking minute of your life, forget it.
Dining choices? Mostly fried, and mostly catfish.
Music scene? *Abysmal*!
Natural scenic beauty? Well, I have to be fair, that's one thing that Huntsville does have going for it fairly well. But, still, when you're living in Huntsville, you just feel like you are isolated from anything cool that is going on in the world....
Nothing to hack? Hah!
It starts with those beers that you drank at the bar that you're walking home from....
Yeah, the coolest one of all....
Nonono...I wasn't trying to make any judgment on the quality of the player or the music, I was just basically saying that in the generic context, a punk band can usually get away with having gear that's a lot crappier than, say, a jazz combo. But the converse is not necessarily true. If you want to play punk rock with a $3000 Matchless rig and custom-built guitar, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Hell, when it's all said and done, it really just boils down to the talent of the musician(s), anyway.
You wouldn't happen to be related to the late great Danny Gatton, by any chance?
Go back to GC and trade that Epi in for one of those Santana guitars. They are pretty much PRS knockoffs, and they play and sound great. For a cheap guitar, you can't beat it.
Also, on your next trip down there, try out a few of those $300 Mexican Strats. They are kinda hit-or-miss in the quality department, but I found a good one and, after replacing the admittedly crappy pickups, I've been happy ever since.
Yeah, but you were playing in a punk band :-). No flame meant here, but in a punk setting, all the guitar needs to do is be loud to be "decent sounding". Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Capitalism works in a labor based society,
/.ers that do just that), but I saw more than my share of these people who were perfectly capable of "labor", but instead, "decided" that they were incapable. I got accosted on the streets more than once by these "poor downtrodden people", who invariably refused to show me their arms when I demanded to see them so that I could inspect them for the requisite needle marks.
Exactly what the hell, in your definition, is a 'labor-based society'? Come to think of it, what (in the logical definition) respectable society, isn't?
Labor is hard, not everyone can do it.
Wrong, wrong, and did I mention, WRONG? Sorry, there, Sherlock, but just about everyone can do "labor". Excepting, of course, the physically incapacitated, understandably. But, no, just about everyone else (as in five 9s) can do 'labor'. The problem seems to rest somewhere in between the meaning of "can do" and the meaning of "is willing to do". And believe me, I've seen enough people who can do, who aren't willing to do.
Just what the hell am I talking about? Well, I'll tell you. I had the pleasure of living in Tucson, AZ, for a year and a half. It's a great place to live, really, all told, but the downside is that the city is inundated with bums...errr...(sorry, retract that, forgot that I have to be PC)..."the homeless", because of the warm climate. These "homeless" people have the resourcefulness to create cute little cardboard signs and sell newspapers that the local fishwrap provides for them at a "reseller discount" (a whole other can of worms that is irrelevant to this discussion), but somehow, they can't seem to land a "real" job. They all seem to function well enough to do so, so what's the problem?
Oh, yeah, it's that whole "willing to do" labor thing. They might have to actually be responsible for their own actions. Call me coldhearted (and I'm sure that there will be no shortage of mindless bleeding-heart
<Sarcasm willHeGetIt="doubtful" >But I guess a "labor-based" society would be "evil", now, wouldn't it?</Sarcasm>
Logical reasons? I can't really think of any....oh wait, there's that whole "From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" part.
Sure, communism is just great, as long as you can ensure that every person in the society is going to be an active, productive member of said society. That would be a false assumption to make, to say the least. What you instead wind up with is a system where those that do have the abilities to produce have no incentive to do so, since everything is owned by the state and redistributed to those who don't pull their weight, anyway.
Sure, capitalism has its flaws as well, but given the whole, I'll take those flaws over the alternative any day of the week.
I like how, for the average Slashbot, "big corporation" automatically equates to "big evil corporation." So much for objectivity...
...by "agent provocateurs", do you mean "average British soccer fans"?
Maybe he was just factoring in the relativistic effects of travelling at such a high velocity....
Someone *please* mod that up as funny! Yeah, that's right, kids! Everything we have is because of our government! The government gives us everything! Yippee!
Now, back to earth. I'll take being an "idealist" any day over being just another mindless plebe who goes right on believing everything that the government and media tells them. And look how I get scorned for it. So much for individuality.
People like you, who are so willing to follow the herd because it's "cool", or whatever, scare me.
microsecond: The period of time that elapses between the event of a leftist performing the "global warming" routine and another leftist performing the "blame Bush" (or some other non-leftist) routine.
<yawn>