Im willing to state that your opinions on the matter has about as much influence on the actual facts of the case as does mine; that is, none whatsoever.
The fact is that he is being tried for involuntary intercourse, which is being termed rape. Whether or not you think the law is reasonable is irrelevant, especially when it comes to his extradition. If Assange can show that he attempted to comply with the woman's wishes, that would be a matter for the actual trial; at the moment the fight is over whether he will go peacefully to a trial or make a spectacle out of this entire thing.
(aside from the fact that thats an exaggeration-- incandescents are still cheaper)--Of the Costco ones I bought, 1 or two of them failed within a few weeks of installation. Thats not a terribly impressive record.
It will be nice when LED lamps finally come down in price.
ext you'll be saying that the U.S. would be willing to frame someone for a sex crime just to put a pro-U.S. puppet in charge of the IMF and ensure the reelection of their pro-U.S. puppet in France.
Thats a brilliant theory! How is the Strauss Kahn case going anyways?
Whats that, charges likely to be dropped, Strauss Kahn likely to run for the presidency still?
Oh, ok. Guess thats part of the secret illuminati plan as well?
Yes, and the CIA is doing a bang-up job with Strauss Kahn. Whats that? Their defense and primary witness' credibility is heavily in question? Wow, wonder how the CIA screwed that up.
All the information is pointing to a maid who was trying to extort a ton of money out of Strauss Kahn, and he has already been released from house arrest. Theyre currently trying to figure out whether they even have a case left. CIA secret op, indeed.
Possibly a different definition of one as well. This isnt "gun to the head violent rape", this is "Swedish-law-consent-was-withdrawn" rape, if the accusations are correct.
Undisputed....Assange had consensual sex with the first woman.....when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police.
Its not undisputed, it is in fact the primary dispute of the case-- whether the sex was consensual, or simply started that way and consent was withdrawn during the act.
Rest assured I will do the courtesy of reading your whole post, but I will leave my answer at this...
This whole set of posts of yours is just you changing the subject and me shamefully going along with it.
That is not how I percieve it. It seemed from the start that you were dragging someone elses statements into the conversation as if they were relevant, and I was thus finding myself arguing against both of your positions simultaneously. You cannot drag countertrolling's opinion in to the discussion by saying "and isnt it interesting what this guy says", and then renounce any responsibility for what he said-- either it is relevant to the discussion and you are making a point with his statements, or it needs to be left out entirely.
So if it seemed I was going off on tangents, that is because you kept bringing in a 3rd opinion as if it were yours, to which I thought it necessary to offer refutations. You do remark that you were simultaneously defending 3 viewpoints, which seems a marvelous way to avoid being pinned down on any one argument-- I could no sooner note a flaw in one argument than you could offer a weak defense and move to another point. If you intend to have a discussion on what you believe, then you need to be clear on what your beliefs are so that they can be properly discussed.
EDIT: I really cannot let this pass...
No, such polls would accurately reflect that Christians don't know what their religion teaches.
Which makes absolutely no sense. How can one claim to follow christ if you know nothing of what the man says, what he did, or who he was? How could I be buddhist if I didnt know who Buddah was? Anyone with a remote familiarity christianity, and with its modern popular form, sees right away that they are fundamentally incompatible. If christ claimed that there is such a thing as absolute truth and ethics, and that he is God; and if the popular conception is directly OPPOSED to that (moral relativism, relative truth, god as a "senile grandfather in heaven" to quote Lewis); then it does not take a biblical scholar to see that the two cannot be reconciled and that one cannot follow christ while denying all of his teachings.
Rest assured I will do the courtesy of reading your whole post, but I will leave my answer at this...
This whole set of posts of yours is just you changing the subject and me shamefully going along with it.
That is not how I percieve it. It seemed from the start that you were dragging someone elses statements into the conversation as if they were relevant, and I was thus finding myself arguing against both of your positions simultaneously. You cannot drag countertrolling's opinion in to the discussion by saying "and isnt it interesting what this guy says", and then renounce any responsibility for what he said-- either it is relevant to the discussion and you are making a point with his statements, or it needs to be left out entirely.
So if it seemed I was going off on tangents, that is because you kept bringing in a 3rd opinion as if it were yours, to which I thought it necessary to offer refutations.
So, absolute rights have nothing to do with human morality.
No. That may be countertrolling's claim, but I am unaware of any of his credentials, and his claim contradicts every prior usage of the word rights I have ever seen. It might be more credible if he could show prior philosophers or even writers using the term as he wants it to be used, or even show relevant credentials that would qualify him to make such statements.
Judicial review determines how laws will be interpreted by the government. It doesn't redefine what words actually mean. Otherwise it would make no sense for SCOTUS to issue dissenting opinions--the majority opinion would, according to you, be true by definition.
Dissenting opinions are not precedent. They do not affect the law, only potential future decisions. Precedent on the other hand does carry legal weight. If SCOTUS clarifies what "interstate trade" is, that carries the force of law until it is overturned by a future SCOTUS. This is built into our system, dating back at least to Marbury vs Madison a mere few years after our country's founding.
We're talking about the basis for rights, and yes, the argument I use here can uphold entitlements or privileges.
Which is entirely counter to countertrolling's usage. You are arguing both sides of the coin.
We grant certain rights to the accused so that people will have faith in the rule of law
If they are granted, it seems to me they are by definition not entitlements.
The meaning of the term "rights" doesn't imply anything about the origin of those rights.
You just stated they were granted by the government. Either you are contradicting yourself, or you are equivocating.
in times of war our own government has been prepared to kill hundreds of thousands of civilian non-combatants.
And people have long argued whether hiroshima was justified. This isnt proof one way or the other.
I've seen polls showing Christians even more willing to do violent "for the good of the many" actions than nonbelievers.
And Ive seen pools showing most of the people claiming to be christian not believeing in absolute truth. Such polls about religion can be highly misleading in a culture that has raised millions to claim to be christian without knowing what that religion actually teaches. A strict interpretation of the Bible would lean more towards "strict ethics even at the expense of the war", so perhaps that says more about the poll and its accuracy than it does about what christians believe.
Or best for ancient Israelites, for that matter.
Thats a longer discussion, and hinges on whether you accept what the Bible says as true. If you do, I believe it to be trivial to show that such actions were justified. If you do not, then it is pointless to argue about certain points of the bible when you dont believe it to be true regardless.
No, societies can certainly recognize evil rights--a right to own slaves for example. Like it or not, that is definitely consistent with how the word is used.
And yet, if I remember correctly, the push for abolitionism centered on whether anyone had the RIGHT to own another human being. Certainly many of those abolitionists were christian, so their "absolute standard" is obvious, but the athiest's authority for their claim is less clear-- it seems to indeed be an appeal to ethics.
Of course, this argument isn't over "rights", it's over "natural rights"
Then im not at all clear what youre saying, because you seemed to spend a large portion of your post defending the idea that rights are granted by the government, and then you claim that this entire discussion is over natural rights.... and I am unsure of how to interpret "natural rights" when you claim that they are granted by society.
You're the one talking about "rights in an absolute sense", but that's not the only meaning of the term "rights", and countertrolling made clear that this isn't the meaning he or she is using.
Countertrolling indicated that at least one of the ways he uses "rights" is in the sense that someone has the "right" to obey the law of gravity-- that is, he is compelled and has a tendency to do so. Such a usage is counter to any that I have ever heard, and seems to me to be nonsensical in a discussion about whether a government is violating your rights. Why would the government be any different than gravity, in that it compels you to do something? And if so, would it not be an agent of enforcing your "rights", just as gravity did?
As to whether the rights are absolute or government granted, the problem is that the "contract" that we have with our government partly includes the provision for judicial review and precedent. Precedent seems to indicate that some of the things being decried as "rights violations" are, in fact, in accord with the governmental contract we have. So if he is speaking about rights in the sense of "societally agreed upon protections", then what the court determines is by definition NOT a violation of our rights.
If on the other hand he is speaking of absolute rights (which seems to me the only usage that makes sense), then the discussion about "what is the absolute standard" is absolutely relevant.
As others suggested, respecting certain rights may be more compatible with the success of human endeavors. If capitalism works better than communism, that's not a fact that the powers that be can wish away by sheer force of will.
That is less than satisfying, because that is not how people use the term "rights"-- it is used in a manner similar to "entitlement" or "guarenteed privilege". Further, lets say I could demonstrate conclusively that a benevolent dicatatorship that involved a purge of 10million people was the most beneficial to human endeavors (and in certain scenarios, Im sure that is the case). I have no doubt that many (my self included) would deny that said dictator has the right to implement his plan-- though it may be beneficial to the society.
One could also invoke rationality in a higher-order sense--if you're a human being, it makes sense for you to do what's best for human beings. Depending on your view of group selection, voter's paradox, Newcomb's paradox, etc you might be forced to acknowledge the Golden Rule.
Whats best for human males might therefore be large-scale rape and pillage, and the elimination of competitors. With fewer competitors, more resources are available to each. Surely that would not be defined as a right, even if I could demonstrate the above to be true. And again, that is not consistent with how the word is used.
Call it aesthetics, psychology, or herd instinct, but people want to feel good about themselves. Some people might find pleasure in upholding someone else's rights or pain in violating them. We can choose to ignore such instincts, but we can't choose to not have them
Again, the word "rights" is not the same as "wants"; the two words have distinct usage. It would make no sense to speak of rights as restricting others' actions if rights were simply those things you desired to do. And once more, without that theistic higher standard, by what rationale can you declare this to be a universal truth that all have this "instinct"?
Now you can argue over whether these are "absolute", but the important point is that they are unchosen, at least by the individual
But if they differ from person to person, it makes no sense to object to ANY action on the grounds of "rights violation", because what might be a sacred right to one might not for another.
I am not saying that all ethical judgements are arbitrary by nature, but only that they are arbitrary if they are NOT based on some ultimate standard. The theistic claim (at least in some religions-- obviously my primary example would be christianity) is that God is that standard, not by force (ie as if might makes right), but by nature.
It could be argued that such reasoning is circular (God is the absolute ethical standard because he is perfectly ethical), but in the end no matter what you declare as your ethical standard you will be involving circular reasoning (after all, how can you know what is ethical without such a standard? And how can you know such a standard is perfect if it is not ethical?).
I am not a philosopher, so I cannot resolve this particular difficulty quickly or easily, but I will note that if you do NOT claim to have some superior, higher authority to which you are appealing, you are stuck appealing to what you hope to be a common, shared belief of what constitutes ethical; and if someone else claims to be ignorant of that "shared" belief, then you have no grounds for declaring his actions unethical.
He also said "every patent", so his full statement is that it is likely that EVERY patent is invalid. Once again, it is a lot more than harmless conjecture, its straight up mindless bashing.
2 things-- If the children were dying during childhood, I think it is fair to say that the parents would still feel a need to have another child (so it would not be involuntary-- but then this is wild speculation by both of us); and further that to claim "its not natural" when the alternative in your scenario would be an ever dwindling population doesnt really make sense.
And that "average" is pulling from a single nation in central africa where numbers hit that high. Everywhere else it is significantly lower; about 70+% of the world seems to be 0-2 fertility rates. Anyways, pressing that it is an average is silly, since the average case is what is being discussed when someone makes a claim about the normal state of things.
I wish to clarify something, because I recognize the appeal to "natural law"; but if one were to claim his beliefs that everyone has rights based on their physical power (strength etc), by what higher authority or court of appeals could you gainsay him? At that point it is simply your arbitrary beliefs against his, unless indeed the natural law built into our nature DOES have a higher ethical authority to which it appeals.
I happen to be a theist, and so no, im not wrong-- and I do agree that there are fundamental rights.
However, for one who is atheist, it is trivial to demonstrate that a belief in fundamental rights is intellectually inconsistent, and arbitrary. After all, if there is no higher ethical authority to which one can appeal, on what basis can you claim to have a superior system of rights?
(if you get pushed out of an airplane, you have the absolute right to fall to earth)
You are conflating the terms "right" and "tendency". People have a tendency to kill each other; whether or not they have that right is an entirely different story-- unless you want to redefine "right" to the point where it no longer has any useful, distinct meaning.
or are we savages that can force others to act against their own interests to protect our own?
Every organized society since the dawn of human history-- particularly those that are deemed "civilized"-- have recognized the "right" for a judicial body to do just that-- to punish and restrict bad actors in order to enable society to function. You cannot have a society based on "everyone does whatever they want with no restrictions save those imposed by their physique"-- it will rapidly dissolve into chaos.
If youre not theist, then from whence do you get an objective rule as to what are rights and what are not? Keeping in mind, of course, that no such decision by a group of people can ever be truly objective.
And even if you could have such an objective ruling, it would no longer be "fundamental" or "innate" rights, but arbitrary ones.
That will IMMEDIATELY cause charges of destruction of evidence. Things like that have been tried before, and all they do is tack more charges on to your plate.
You cant play these clever childish games in the court system; a judge will just declare your nonsense to be nonsense and find you in contempt or worse.
I think implying that women are historically expected to be "continuously pregnant" for about 25 years is laughable. You would expect the average family size to be about 12, even allowing 1 year gaps between pregnancies, which isnt the average and Im not sure it ever was.
The highest fertility rates in the world are basically in central africa, with an average of 6-8 children per woman, and theres not many countries which even approach that. Given your starting and ending years of 15 to 40, thats one child every 3-4 years-- this being the most extreme case by a long shot.
My reasoning is based on what seems to be the reality of the situation; I was making factual, not ethical judgements (that is, "how are things now", as opposed to "how should things be").
I thought of that, but I cant imagine any sane jury (then again.....) accepting a passphrase as persuasive in and of itself. It is neither sworn testimony nor is it physical evidence.
Youre playing semantics in a way that isnt helpful. The only time it makes sense to talk of rights in an absolute sense is if one is theist; otherwise youre just playing with concepts (what makes it a right? What is meant by right? Who defines these rights?).
Have a fall and forget your password. What can they do?
I imagine if they ever got wind of you using that encrypted laptop again, theyd bring the hammer down on you for contempt of court, perjury, etc. Again, IANAL, but mightnt that also be cause for bringing the case open again?
Slashdot Mirror
Probably because, even if your scenario were factual, that has nothing whatsoever to do with entrapment.
Im willing to state that your opinions on the matter has about as much influence on the actual facts of the case as does mine; that is, none whatsoever.
The fact is that he is being tried for involuntary intercourse, which is being termed rape. Whether or not you think the law is reasonable is irrelevant, especially when it comes to his extradition. If Assange can show that he attempted to comply with the woman's wishes, that would be a matter for the actual trial; at the moment the fight is over whether he will go peacefully to a trial or make a spectacle out of this entire thing.
(aside from the fact that thats an exaggeration-- incandescents are still cheaper)--Of the Costco ones I bought, 1 or two of them failed within a few weeks of installation. Thats not a terribly impressive record.
It will be nice when LED lamps finally come down in price.
ext you'll be saying that the U.S. would be willing to frame someone for a sex crime just to put a pro-U.S. puppet in charge of the IMF and ensure the reelection of their pro-U.S. puppet in France.
Thats a brilliant theory! How is the Strauss Kahn case going anyways?
Whats that, charges likely to be dropped, Strauss Kahn likely to run for the presidency still?
Oh, ok. Guess thats part of the secret illuminati plan as well?
Yes, and the CIA is doing a bang-up job with Strauss Kahn. Whats that? Their defense and primary witness' credibility is heavily in question? Wow, wonder how the CIA screwed that up.
All the information is pointing to a maid who was trying to extort a ton of money out of Strauss Kahn, and he has already been released from house arrest. Theyre currently trying to figure out whether they even have a case left. CIA secret op, indeed.
Odd behaviour for a rape victim.
Possibly a different definition of one as well. This isnt "gun to the head violent rape", this is "Swedish-law-consent-was-withdrawn" rape, if the accusations are correct.
Undisputed....Assange had consensual sex with the first woman.....when the first woman became aware of this she approached the police.
Its not undisputed, it is in fact the primary dispute of the case-- whether the sex was consensual, or simply started that way and consent was withdrawn during the act.
Rest assured I will do the courtesy of reading your whole post, but I will leave my answer at this...
This whole set of posts of yours is just you changing the subject and me shamefully going along with it.
That is not how I percieve it. It seemed from the start that you were dragging someone elses statements into the conversation as if they were relevant, and I was thus finding myself arguing against both of your positions simultaneously. You cannot drag countertrolling's opinion in to the discussion by saying "and isnt it interesting what this guy says", and then renounce any responsibility for what he said-- either it is relevant to the discussion and you are making a point with his statements, or it needs to be left out entirely.
So if it seemed I was going off on tangents, that is because you kept bringing in a 3rd opinion as if it were yours, to which I thought it necessary to offer refutations. You do remark that you were simultaneously defending 3 viewpoints, which seems a marvelous way to avoid being pinned down on any one argument-- I could no sooner note a flaw in one argument than you could offer a weak defense and move to another point. If you intend to have a discussion on what you believe, then you need to be clear on what your beliefs are so that they can be properly discussed.
EDIT: I really cannot let this pass...
No, such polls would accurately reflect that Christians don't know what their religion teaches.
Which makes absolutely no sense. How can one claim to follow christ if you know nothing of what the man says, what he did, or who he was? How could I be buddhist if I didnt know who Buddah was?
Anyone with a remote familiarity christianity, and with its modern popular form, sees right away that they are fundamentally incompatible. If christ claimed that there is such a thing as absolute truth and ethics, and that he is God; and if the popular conception is directly OPPOSED to that (moral relativism, relative truth, god as a "senile grandfather in heaven" to quote Lewis); then it does not take a biblical scholar to see that the two cannot be reconciled and that one cannot follow christ while denying all of his teachings.
Rest assured I will do the courtesy of reading your whole post, but I will leave my answer at this...
This whole set of posts of yours is just you changing the subject and me shamefully going along with it.
That is not how I percieve it. It seemed from the start that you were dragging someone elses statements into the conversation as if they were relevant, and I was thus finding myself arguing against both of your positions simultaneously. You cannot drag countertrolling's opinion in to the discussion by saying "and isnt it interesting what this guy says", and then renounce any responsibility for what he said-- either it is relevant to the discussion and you are making a point with his statements, or it needs to be left out entirely.
So if it seemed I was going off on tangents, that is because you kept bringing in a 3rd opinion as if it were yours, to which I thought it necessary to offer refutations.
So, absolute rights have nothing to do with human morality.
No. That may be countertrolling's claim, but I am unaware of any of his credentials, and his claim contradicts every prior usage of the word rights I have ever seen. It might be more credible if he could show prior philosophers or even writers using the term as he wants it to be used, or even show relevant credentials that would qualify him to make such statements.
Judicial review determines how laws will be interpreted by the government. It doesn't redefine what words actually mean. Otherwise it would make no sense for SCOTUS to issue dissenting opinions--the majority opinion would, according to you, be true by definition.
Dissenting opinions are not precedent. They do not affect the law, only potential future decisions. Precedent on the other hand does carry legal weight. If SCOTUS clarifies what "interstate trade" is, that carries the force of law until it is overturned by a future SCOTUS. This is built into our system, dating back at least to Marbury vs Madison a mere few years after our country's founding.
We're talking about the basis for rights, and yes, the argument I use here can uphold entitlements or privileges.
Which is entirely counter to countertrolling's usage. You are arguing both sides of the coin.
We grant certain rights to the accused so that people will have faith in the rule of law
If they are granted, it seems to me they are by definition not entitlements.
The meaning of the term "rights" doesn't imply anything about the origin of those rights.
You just stated they were granted by the government. Either you are contradicting yourself, or you are equivocating.
in times of war our own government has been prepared to kill hundreds of thousands of civilian non-combatants.
And people have long argued whether hiroshima was justified. This isnt proof one way or the other.
I've seen polls showing Christians even more willing to do violent "for the good of the many" actions than nonbelievers.
And Ive seen pools showing most of the people claiming to be christian not believeing in absolute truth. Such polls about religion can be highly misleading in a culture that has raised millions to claim to be christian without knowing what that religion actually teaches. A strict interpretation of the Bible would lean more towards "strict ethics even at the expense of the war", so perhaps that says more about the poll and its accuracy than it does about what christians believe.
Or best for ancient Israelites, for that matter.
Thats a longer discussion, and hinges on whether you accept what the Bible says as true. If you do, I believe it to be trivial to show that such actions were justified. If you do not, then it is pointless to argue about certain points of the bible when you dont believe it to be true regardless.
No, societies can certainly recognize evil rights--a right to own slaves for example. Like it or not, that is definitely consistent with how the word is used.
And yet, if I remember correctly, the push for abolitionism centered on whether anyone had the RIGHT to own another human being. Certainly many of those abolitionists were christian, so their "absolute standard" is obvious, but the athiest's authority for their claim is less clear-- it seems to indeed be an appeal to ethics.
Of course, this argument isn't over "rights", it's over "natural rights"
Then im not at all clear what youre saying, because you seemed to spend a large portion of your post defending the idea that rights are granted by the government, and then you claim that this entire discussion is over natural rights.... and I am unsure of how to interpret "natural rights" when you claim that they are granted by society.
You're the one talking about "rights in an absolute sense", but that's not the only meaning of the term "rights", and countertrolling made clear that this isn't the meaning he or she is using.
Countertrolling indicated that at least one of the ways he uses "rights" is in the sense that someone has the "right" to obey the law of gravity-- that is, he is compelled and has a tendency to do so. Such a usage is counter to any that I have ever heard, and seems to me to be nonsensical in a discussion about whether a government is violating your rights. Why would the government be any different than gravity, in that it compels you to do something? And if so, would it not be an agent of enforcing your "rights", just as gravity did?
As to whether the rights are absolute or government granted, the problem is that the "contract" that we have with our government partly includes the provision for judicial review and precedent. Precedent seems to indicate that some of the things being decried as "rights violations" are, in fact, in accord with the governmental contract we have. So if he is speaking about rights in the sense of "societally agreed upon protections", then what the court determines is by definition NOT a violation of our rights.
If on the other hand he is speaking of absolute rights (which seems to me the only usage that makes sense), then the discussion about "what is the absolute standard" is absolutely relevant.
As others suggested, respecting certain rights may be more compatible with the success of human endeavors. If capitalism works better than communism, that's not a fact that the powers that be can wish away by sheer force of will.
That is less than satisfying, because that is not how people use the term "rights"-- it is used in a manner similar to "entitlement" or "guarenteed privilege".
Further, lets say I could demonstrate conclusively that a benevolent dicatatorship that involved a purge of 10million people was the most beneficial to human endeavors (and in certain scenarios, Im sure that is the case). I have no doubt that many (my self included) would deny that said dictator has the right to implement his plan-- though it may be beneficial to the society.
One could also invoke rationality in a higher-order sense--if you're a human being, it makes sense for you to do what's best for human beings. Depending on your view of group selection, voter's paradox, Newcomb's paradox, etc you might be forced to acknowledge the Golden Rule.
Whats best for human males might therefore be large-scale rape and pillage, and the elimination of competitors. With fewer competitors, more resources are available to each. Surely that would not be defined as a right, even if I could demonstrate the above to be true. And again, that is not consistent with how the word is used.
Call it aesthetics, psychology, or herd instinct, but people want to feel good about themselves. Some people might find pleasure in upholding someone else's rights or pain in violating them. We can choose to ignore such instincts, but we can't choose to not have them
Again, the word "rights" is not the same as "wants"; the two words have distinct usage. It would make no sense to speak of rights as restricting others' actions if rights were simply those things you desired to do. And once more, without that theistic higher standard, by what rationale can you declare this to be a universal truth that all have this "instinct"?
Now you can argue over whether these are "absolute", but the important point is that they are unchosen, at least by the individual
But if they differ from person to person, it makes no sense to object to ANY action on the grounds of "rights violation", because what might be a sacred right to one might not for another.
I am not saying that all ethical judgements are arbitrary by nature, but only that they are arbitrary if they are NOT based on some ultimate standard. The theistic claim (at least in some religions-- obviously my primary example would be christianity) is that God is that standard, not by force (ie as if might makes right), but by nature.
It could be argued that such reasoning is circular (God is the absolute ethical standard because he is perfectly ethical), but in the end no matter what you declare as your ethical standard you will be involving circular reasoning (after all, how can you know what is ethical without such a standard? And how can you know such a standard is perfect if it is not ethical?).
I am not a philosopher, so I cannot resolve this particular difficulty quickly or easily, but I will note that if you do NOT claim to have some superior, higher authority to which you are appealing, you are stuck appealing to what you hope to be a common, shared belief of what constitutes ethical; and if someone else claims to be ignorant of that "shared" belief, then you have no grounds for declaring his actions unethical.
He also said "every patent", so his full statement is that it is likely that EVERY patent is invalid. Once again, it is a lot more than harmless conjecture, its straight up mindless bashing.
2 things--
If the children were dying during childhood, I think it is fair to say that the parents would still feel a need to have another child (so it would not be involuntary-- but then this is wild speculation by both of us); and further that to claim "its not natural" when the alternative in your scenario would be an ever dwindling population doesnt really make sense.
And that "average" is pulling from a single nation in central africa where numbers hit that high. Everywhere else it is significantly lower; about 70+% of the world seems to be 0-2 fertility rates. Anyways, pressing that it is an average is silly, since the average case is what is being discussed when someone makes a claim about the normal state of things.
Given that every patent Microshit's gotten in the past 20 years has been the result of patent-slamming and abuse of the system?
Surely a statement that bold requires a source.
I wish to clarify something, because I recognize the appeal to "natural law"; but if one were to claim his beliefs that everyone has rights based on their physical power (strength etc), by what higher authority or court of appeals could you gainsay him? At that point it is simply your arbitrary beliefs against his, unless indeed the natural law built into our nature DOES have a higher ethical authority to which it appeals.
I happen to be a theist, and so no, im not wrong-- and I do agree that there are fundamental rights.
However, for one who is atheist, it is trivial to demonstrate that a belief in fundamental rights is intellectually inconsistent, and arbitrary. After all, if there is no higher ethical authority to which one can appeal, on what basis can you claim to have a superior system of rights?
(if you get pushed out of an airplane, you have the absolute right to fall to earth)
You are conflating the terms "right" and "tendency". People have a tendency to kill each other; whether or not they have that right is an entirely different story-- unless you want to redefine "right" to the point where it no longer has any useful, distinct meaning.
or are we savages that can force others to act against their own interests to protect our own?
Every organized society since the dawn of human history-- particularly those that are deemed "civilized"-- have recognized the "right" for a judicial body to do just that-- to punish and restrict bad actors in order to enable society to function. You cannot have a society based on "everyone does whatever they want with no restrictions save those imposed by their physique"-- it will rapidly dissolve into chaos.
If youre not theist, then from whence do you get an objective rule as to what are rights and what are not? Keeping in mind, of course, that no such decision by a group of people can ever be truly objective.
And even if you could have such an objective ruling, it would no longer be "fundamental" or "innate" rights, but arbitrary ones.
That will IMMEDIATELY cause charges of destruction of evidence. Things like that have been tried before, and all they do is tack more charges on to your plate.
You cant play these clever childish games in the court system; a judge will just declare your nonsense to be nonsense and find you in contempt or worse.
I think implying that women are historically expected to be "continuously pregnant" for about 25 years is laughable. You would expect the average family size to be about 12, even allowing 1 year gaps between pregnancies, which isnt the average and Im not sure it ever was.
The highest fertility rates in the world are basically in central africa, with an average of 6-8 children per woman, and theres not many countries which even approach that. Given your starting and ending years of 15 to 40, thats one child every 3-4 years-- this being the most extreme case by a long shot.
Because there was an outcry when it started, and then people stopped caring.
For the record, I never cared that much; if I did, I wouldnt use their free product (referring to google).
My reasoning is based on what seems to be the reality of the situation; I was making factual, not ethical judgements (that is, "how are things now", as opposed to "how should things be").
I thought of that, but I cant imagine any sane jury (then again.....) accepting a passphrase as persuasive in and of itself. It is neither sworn testimony nor is it physical evidence.
Youre playing semantics in a way that isnt helpful. The only time it makes sense to talk of rights in an absolute sense is if one is theist; otherwise youre just playing with concepts (what makes it a right? What is meant by right? Who defines these rights?).
Have a fall and forget your password. What can they do?
I imagine if they ever got wind of you using that encrypted laptop again, theyd bring the hammer down on you for contempt of court, perjury, etc. Again, IANAL, but mightnt that also be cause for bringing the case open again?