So by your logic they wouldn't be liable if they hadn't supplied a strap despite the fact that this would have caused [i]more[/i] accidents, not less? In other words, car companies become liable for damages caused by car accidents because they have included seatbelts? Legally, you might have a point in that this indicates Nintendo considering this a potential problem and thus, legamagically, they are liable for said problem, but are you really saying that taking steps to prevent morons with cheeto-covered hands from destroying their TV because of overenthusiasm makes them liable for a TV that is destroyed despite their efforts? Does this mean that I could be charged with battery/murder/criminal charges if I try to help out a guy being beat up on the street, chase the attackers away but still fail to prevent him from dying in the hospital later? Why, exactly, does recognizing that if your customers act like morons and ignore the guidelines you suggest they might cause problems for themselves and making a small effort to prevent some of these problems make you a bad, bad company?
That's true, but to have an opinion about reality you have to understand it. To use a tried and true issue on Slashdot; ID. People who suggest that this should be taught in school as science doesn't understand science at all. Just because they believe in it doesn't make it science. If people knew more about science they'd be able to understand that ID isn't science. This isn't a subjective factor. However, people still vote for teaching it in schools.
My point is that while democracy includes subjective factors like you already said, some factors are objective and needs to be perceived as such. People who don't know enough about reality (in some cases science, in some cases other things) can be misled. Simple as that. Homeopathy, believing that nuclear power plants lets tiny goblins out into the environment to slowly destroy it, misconceptions about genetically modified food... There are lots of things people need to know a bit about science to make an informed decision. The problem is that they don't know enough about it and still form an opinion on it. (I'm not trying to enforce my views on any of these subjects, just point out that misconceptions exist. I know I have plenty of them.)
It's not as much about lazy parenting as it is about the school system being designed to keep everyone mediocre. In Norway we have a law that basically says that all children with special needs has the right to special education. Until relatively recently that law had a caveat stating that this didn't apply to the gifted/brighter children. This essentially meant that if you had difficulties understanding the curriculum you were entitled to special education. Of course this isn't a bad thing, but it also meant that children who could have easily learned far more were (and are) forced to do the same as the rest of the class. Want to spend your time working on your own with advanced stuff? Too bad, you can't, now go do the same as the rest of the class whether you've already learned it or not. This isn't about wanting the school to take on full responsibility for their education. It's more about wanting the school to recognize that the 'high achieving children' also needs some attention if they are to reach as far as they can, just like the 'underachieving children' are already getting tons of attention, special tutoring and whatever they need to catch up.
Mod parent up. I'm also a norwegian and sadly still stuck in the educational system. As parent says, there's no official studies about it, but as the children are basically getting dumber/less educated over time; large parts of the curriculum has been (and are being) removed and taught later and later, which basically equals lowering the bar even further. Instead of getting our children to jump higher and achieve more so they can get over the bar, we're telling them it doesn't really matter how much they achieve as we'll just lower the bar anyway.
Parent is so right it's almost sad. I'm just now finishing my 10 years of mandatory education in Norway, and what he's saying is just as valid in the early years of school if not even more so. Me and my classmates were supposed third and fourth grade learning the multiplication table (not further than 10, mind you) yet we didn't get through it until some time in the fifth grade. Time passed, I'm now in the tenth grade, and we still haven't done anything much more complicated than solving simple equations. Most of us stick to one unknown, but to get a grade of '6' (as far as I know this is pretty much the same as an A in the American system) you have to -gasp- be able to solve a system of linear equations in two (2) variables. The current major reform only makes things worse. The fundamental idea of the Norwegian school system; that if you fall the behind the rest of the class should wait until you catch up (a concept I understand is similar to 'No child left behind' etc etc) doesn't exactly help either. We're just getting dumber and dumber.
It's not exactly a four-dimensional puzzle as much as a representation of a four-dimensional puzzle. Imagine a cube. If you were to cut along the edges you could unfold it into a two-dimensional set of six squares. This puzzle is pretty much a real four-dimensional puzzle that you can twist four-dimensionally (or perhaps three-dimensionally would be more correct here - IANAMathematician) - what we see on the screen is just the three-dimensional representation of that object.
However, there's no way for them to have known that putting her in a situation that's all too common would have resulted in this tragic outcome. There's no intent to cause harm.
I have to disagree with you there. While I agree that we can't exactly equate this with murder, the 'criminal' in question knew perfectly well that Megan was emotionally unstable:
The last message they sent her, "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.", is something I seriously hope people wouldn't send to an emotionally unstable girl who had just been ditched by her boyfriend. Also, there was every intent to cause harm. At least emotional harm. Why else would you, an adult, do your very best to gain an 13-year emotionally unstable old girl's trust and then send her a message like that?
If we give the kids vaccines, they might survive, grow up and spread that creationism thing even more.
But seriously, though, I don't see any good reasons for not using vaccines. I suppose you could argue whether it should be mandatory or not (personally, I think it should be, because sick people waltzing around endanger not only themselves, but everyone around them), but that's all.
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Whoops. Of course that was meant to be 'more' and not '[i]more[/i]', sorry.
So by your logic they wouldn't be liable if they hadn't supplied a strap despite the fact that this would have caused [i]more[/i] accidents, not less? In other words, car companies become liable for damages caused by car accidents because they have included seatbelts? Legally, you might have a point in that this indicates Nintendo considering this a potential problem and thus, legamagically, they are liable for said problem, but are you really saying that taking steps to prevent morons with cheeto-covered hands from destroying their TV because of overenthusiasm makes them liable for a TV that is destroyed despite their efforts? Does this mean that I could be charged with battery/murder/criminal charges if I try to help out a guy being beat up on the street, chase the attackers away but still fail to prevent him from dying in the hospital later? Why, exactly, does recognizing that if your customers act like morons and ignore the guidelines you suggest they might cause problems for themselves and making a small effort to prevent some of these problems make you a bad, bad company?
That's true, but to have an opinion about reality you have to understand it. To use a tried and true issue on Slashdot; ID. People who suggest that this should be taught in school as science doesn't understand science at all. Just because they believe in it doesn't make it science. If people knew more about science they'd be able to understand that ID isn't science. This isn't a subjective factor. However, people still vote for teaching it in schools. My point is that while democracy includes subjective factors like you already said, some factors are objective and needs to be perceived as such. People who don't know enough about reality (in some cases science, in some cases other things) can be misled. Simple as that. Homeopathy, believing that nuclear power plants lets tiny goblins out into the environment to slowly destroy it, misconceptions about genetically modified food... There are lots of things people need to know a bit about science to make an informed decision. The problem is that they don't know enough about it and still form an opinion on it. (I'm not trying to enforce my views on any of these subjects, just point out that misconceptions exist. I know I have plenty of them.)
It's not as much about lazy parenting as it is about the school system being designed to keep everyone mediocre. In Norway we have a law that basically says that all children with special needs has the right to special education. Until relatively recently that law had a caveat stating that this didn't apply to the gifted/brighter children. This essentially meant that if you had difficulties understanding the curriculum you were entitled to special education. Of course this isn't a bad thing, but it also meant that children who could have easily learned far more were (and are) forced to do the same as the rest of the class. Want to spend your time working on your own with advanced stuff? Too bad, you can't, now go do the same as the rest of the class whether you've already learned it or not. This isn't about wanting the school to take on full responsibility for their education. It's more about wanting the school to recognize that the 'high achieving children' also needs some attention if they are to reach as far as they can, just like the 'underachieving children' are already getting tons of attention, special tutoring and whatever they need to catch up.
Mod parent up. I'm also a norwegian and sadly still stuck in the educational system. As parent says, there's no official studies about it, but as the children are basically getting dumber/less educated over time; large parts of the curriculum has been (and are being) removed and taught later and later, which basically equals lowering the bar even further. Instead of getting our children to jump higher and achieve more so they can get over the bar, we're telling them it doesn't really matter how much they achieve as we'll just lower the bar anyway.
Parent is so right it's almost sad. I'm just now finishing my 10 years of mandatory education in Norway, and what he's saying is just as valid in the early years of school if not even more so. Me and my classmates were supposed third and fourth grade learning the multiplication table (not further than 10, mind you) yet we didn't get through it until some time in the fifth grade. Time passed, I'm now in the tenth grade, and we still haven't done anything much more complicated than solving simple equations. Most of us stick to one unknown, but to get a grade of '6' (as far as I know this is pretty much the same as an A in the American system) you have to -gasp- be able to solve a system of linear equations in two (2) variables. The current major reform only makes things worse. The fundamental idea of the Norwegian school system; that if you fall the behind the rest of the class should wait until you catch up (a concept I understand is similar to 'No child left behind' etc etc) doesn't exactly help either. We're just getting dumber and dumber.
Formula x^0 Who would want to play a game called "Formula One (except if x=0)"?
No, like this.
It's not exactly a four-dimensional puzzle as much as a representation of a four-dimensional puzzle. Imagine a cube. If you were to cut along the edges you could unfold it into a two-dimensional set of six squares. This puzzle is pretty much a real four-dimensional puzzle that you can twist four-dimensionally (or perhaps three-dimensionally would be more correct here - IANAMathematician) - what we see on the screen is just the three-dimensional representation of that object.
Why, yes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.xxx they have.
However, there's no way for them to have known that putting her in a situation that's all too common would have resulted in this tragic outcome. There's no intent to cause harm.
I have to disagree with you there. While I agree that we can't exactly equate this with murder, the 'criminal' in question knew perfectly well that Megan was emotionally unstable:
According to Tina, Megan had gone on vacations with this family. They knew how she struggled with depression, that she took medication. (http://stcharlesjournal.stltoday.com/articles/2007/11/10/news/sj2tn20071110-1111stc_pokin_1.ii1.txt)
The last message they sent her, "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.", is something I seriously hope people wouldn't send to an emotionally unstable girl who had just been ditched by her boyfriend. Also, there was every intent to cause harm. At least emotional harm. Why else would you, an adult, do your very best to gain an 13-year emotionally unstable old girl's trust and then send her a message like that?
gramer n speellin also obslet cuz we hv speel checker lol
All your offices are belong to us.
Then what are you doing on Slashdot?
So apparently 2007 is- err, was- the year of Linux on the desktop- err, the New York Stock Exchange. Anyway, w00t.
Exactly. I suggest strapping chronometers to people's windshields and involving them in accidents without asking them.
Clearly, the time of our lives.
If we give the kids vaccines, they might survive, grow up and spread that creationism thing even more.
But seriously, though, I don't see any good reasons for not using vaccines. I suppose you could argue whether it should be mandatory or not (personally, I think it should be, because sick people waltzing around endanger not only themselves, but everyone around them), but that's all.
Well, with the writers on strike and all, they might just do a reprise.
Touché(d).
I read the first five words of that post and skipped the rest, but reading it again, I have to agree. What he said.
No, God forbid kids should talk to people.
...we all know it was Mr. Green in the Library with the Rope.
...
...damn.
...of course, by the time I finish finding an image the comment becomes kind of redundant. My bad, sorry.
Do not want