I agree that all development in all fields did not grind to a complete halt, but we refer to that period as the dark ages because of what was lost or forgotten during the period. I mean, the book burnings, the witch hunts, the inquisitions, the teaching of religious doctrine as absolute truth, none of these really did much to encourage bright minds to stand up and offer their insight to the known world.
The world has SEEN the internet, and the world WANTS free (or relatively cheap) digital communication. You can't un-invent something, ever. But I guess I'm just an optimist.
Not to call you a revisionist, but there was this period called the dark ages, where pretty much everything cool in continental Europe was 'un-invented' and rediscovered much later.
And why should the maximisation of capital gains be taken to its absolute most absurd end? I would like to hear from the people of Stockholm, if they feel ripped off or grateful for this situation.
I think you should amend your last point. If you organise a religion, and claim tax relief, you should not be able to claim copyright on works related to the religion. I don't give a fuck if some nutjob wants to copyright their cult texts but it becomes a different story when they are receiving government subsidy.
Couple this with the fact that all of us youngin's found a newfound breathe of fresh air and freedom in the internet, but now the government and media are also going through consistently more aggressive means to regulate and control this frontier and what we have is a general feeling of bleak hoplessness conquering us all. Yay!
You took advantage of the freedom like a teenager whose parents left town for the weekend and left the liquor cabinet unlocked. With the mound of beer bottles in the living room, the broken door to the back porch, and the police explaining to your parents why they impounded their car after you spun doughnuts in the grass at the local park... Is it any wonder you're being grounded?
You want to be taken seriously, act like an adult. But don't blame others for treating you like a child when you act like a child.
I suppose you're out there burning books because people use a printing press like children, producing content you don't think is suitable? The internet is far more capable of disseminating information than the printing press could ever have hoped to be. Are you a luddite? Are you jealous of the kids today that haven't known a world without the internet and cellphones? Are you just an ass hole looking for an argument on the internet?
Same here. I've had a PC of some description since 1986 and I've had one mainboard failure, one HDD failure, one 3Dfx Voodoo texture memory failure, and that's it. Most of my PC's over the years have lived into obsolesence and been sold (or in the case of the last one, swapped for a Wii:D)
I think you'll find the relationship between employers and employees is exactly the opposite as you imply. A happy, productive employee benefits the employer, so all of those things that make life better for the employee, flow on to make life better for the employer.
>>>Furthermore defining an MTV video as porn would mean it has to be outlawed off television, and I don't want to live in a fucked-up religious-dictatorship, Puritan society. I have my own morality and I don't need you telling me what I can/can not watch.
You don't need it but you get it. Books, TV, movies, all censored. Much of the censorship is done by the creators before the work is even created! Writers have to keep censors in mind during the creation process of their works.
We actually have a 'living' consitution made up of the Bill of Rights Act, the Treaty of Waitangi and the Constitution Act. It is entrenched law but it is not unalterable.
Um, have you been paying attention? We have been moaning about this for the last year, some of us (me, maybe not you) wrote to our electoral candidates asking what they would do about it, and now the National government has suspended the enactment of the law for review.
Seems like moaning about it is all we can do, but at least it is having an effect!
If one wants to know more about a non-physical thing, the answer may well be best found in a non-physical place. The only such place I have access to is my mind...
My gripe is that how did you decide that this non-physical thing was there to be known about?
It sounds like you have a mild form of schizophrenia? Retreating into your mind to look for answers about the outside world, because there are things you don't understand.
Schizophrenia is a spectrum disorder so it is likely that a good deal of the population is similarly affected, but still able to function in their lives. Religious or spiritual belief in unobservable phenomena are symptoms.
People who aren't at least a little crazy are predictable and boring so I think it's a good thing, with some unfortunate consequences that emerge from large groups of slightly crazy people all sharing the same delusion.
I spent three years in Seattle in the 80's and I couldn't wait to get back to New Zealand. If you think that crippling central and south America, subverting the world economy and fighting wars by proxy are enviable traits for a nation then I have nothing else to say.
Where does the confidence of your conviction come from though? If you are the rational mind you claim to be, how were you convinced to begin with that there is a divine force?
It's not a huge leap of faith to believe that what we see actually is real, because every tool we have created to observe reality suggests that what we see is real. There a few working theories and unexplained phenomena, but on a molecular scale there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. It's a leap of faith to ignore the lack of evidence and entertain your clever matrix analogy.
To believe in an afterlife requires multiple leaps of faith. It is not just 'I believe in an afterlife', because when I start asking you questions about why you believe in an afterlife, and you have no observable evidence, you have to rely on doctrine. Having said that, if the technology can be developed to transfer a human consciousness into a computer, we might just be able to transcend our fragile bodies afterall. This is not an afterlife in the religious sense though, it would be a technological feat, because it would be observable.
I'm not sure that building societies is good either, but we have, and the ones based around religious dogma tend to have poor human rights records, limited personal freedoms and lower standards of living.
The guy that I replied to initially said that non Americans don't know the capital of Florida, so why should he know the capital of other countries. I was making fun of him. You've sucked all the fun out of it now by forcing me to completely deconstruct my statement.
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I agree that all development in all fields did not grind to a complete halt, but we refer to that period as the dark ages because of what was lost or forgotten during the period. I mean, the book burnings, the witch hunts, the inquisitions, the teaching of religious doctrine as absolute truth, none of these really did much to encourage bright minds to stand up and offer their insight to the known world.
Really? I thought it was a concept invented to describe the effect that 700 years of religious rule had on the development of science and technology.
The world has SEEN the internet, and the world WANTS free (or relatively cheap) digital communication. You can't un-invent something, ever. But I guess I'm just an optimist.
Not to call you a revisionist, but there was this period called the dark ages, where pretty much everything cool in continental Europe was 'un-invented' and rediscovered much later.
And why should the maximisation of capital gains be taken to its absolute most absurd end? I would like to hear from the people of Stockholm, if they feel ripped off or grateful for this situation.
What they did is not actually illegal in Sweden, and this verdict was delivered by the lowest court. Sucks to be you not knowing what 'appeal' means.
I think you should amend your last point. If you organise a religion, and claim tax relief, you should not be able to claim copyright on works related to the religion. I don't give a fuck if some nutjob wants to copyright their cult texts but it becomes a different story when they are receiving government subsidy.
You took advantage of the freedom like a teenager whose parents left town for the weekend and left the liquor cabinet unlocked. With the mound of beer bottles in the living room, the broken door to the back porch, and the police explaining to your parents why they impounded their car after you spun doughnuts in the grass at the local park... Is it any wonder you're being grounded? You want to be taken seriously, act like an adult. But don't blame others for treating you like a child when you act like a child.
I suppose you're out there burning books because people use a printing press like children, producing content you don't think is suitable? The internet is far more capable of disseminating information than the printing press could ever have hoped to be. Are you a luddite? Are you jealous of the kids today that haven't known a world without the internet and cellphones? Are you just an ass hole looking for an argument on the internet?
Mensa is never a good example to use under any circumstance, especially when you are defending stupid 18 year olds.
Same here. I've had a PC of some description since 1986 and I've had one mainboard failure, one HDD failure, one 3Dfx Voodoo texture memory failure, and that's it. Most of my PC's over the years have lived into obsolesence and been sold (or in the case of the last one, swapped for a Wii :D)
I think you'll find the relationship between employers and employees is exactly the opposite as you imply. A happy, productive employee benefits the employer, so all of those things that make life better for the employee, flow on to make life better for the employer.
>>>Furthermore defining an MTV video as porn would mean it has to be outlawed off television, and I don't want to live in a fucked-up religious-dictatorship, Puritan society. I have my own morality and I don't need you telling me what I can/can not watch.
You don't need it but you get it. Books, TV, movies, all censored. Much of the censorship is done by the creators before the work is even created! Writers have to keep censors in mind during the creation process of their works.
We actually have a 'living' consitution made up of the Bill of Rights Act, the Treaty of Waitangi and the Constitution Act. It is entrenched law but it is not unalterable.
Um, have you been paying attention? We have been moaning about this for the last year, some of us (me, maybe not you) wrote to our electoral candidates asking what they would do about it, and now the National government has suspended the enactment of the law for review. Seems like moaning about it is all we can do, but at least it is having an effect!
People with serious money and power have no interest in rocking the boat that they probably own part of.
If one wants to know more about a non-physical thing, the answer may well be best found in a non-physical place. The only such place I have access to is my mind...
My gripe is that how did you decide that this non-physical thing was there to be known about?
Schizophrenia is a spectrum disorder so it is likely that a good deal of the population is similarly affected, but still able to function in their lives. Religious or spiritual belief in unobservable phenomena are symptoms.
People who aren't at least a little crazy are predictable and boring so I think it's a good thing, with some unfortunate consequences that emerge from large groups of slightly crazy people all sharing the same delusion.
I spent three years in Seattle in the 80's and I couldn't wait to get back to New Zealand. If you think that crippling central and south America, subverting the world economy and fighting wars by proxy are enviable traits for a nation then I have nothing else to say.
Where does the confidence of your conviction come from though? If you are the rational mind you claim to be, how were you convinced to begin with that there is a divine force?
I don't have any. But check out Saudi Arabia some day.
Have you seen MGMT's videos? They would get a kick out of this thread.
To believe in an afterlife requires multiple leaps of faith. It is not just 'I believe in an afterlife', because when I start asking you questions about why you believe in an afterlife, and you have no observable evidence, you have to rely on doctrine. Having said that, if the technology can be developed to transfer a human consciousness into a computer, we might just be able to transcend our fragile bodies afterall. This is not an afterlife in the religious sense though, it would be a technological feat, because it would be observable.
I'm not sure that building societies is good either, but we have, and the ones based around religious dogma tend to have poor human rights records, limited personal freedoms and lower standards of living.
The guy that I replied to initially said that non Americans don't know the capital of Florida, so why should he know the capital of other countries. I was making fun of him. You've sucked all the fun out of it now by forcing me to completely deconstruct my statement.
You are not atheistic if you are theistic. Say it with me... A THEIST A-THEIST ATHIEST.
You are no atheistic if you are theistic. Say it with me... A THEIST A-THEIST ATHIEST.