Alternative? What alternative? You mean the hypothetical scenario of "The US, in the future, will use as-of-yet undeveloped brain control schemes for nefarious purposes?"
Yeah, I considered it. Four reasons why it's stupid to worry about it:
1. Pre-emptive: you're worrying about things which haven't yet been made. Not a good reason by itself but...
2. More pressing concerns: Propaganda is real and is working. Why develop mind control in a pill? The oil companies are convincing gullible people that oil is infinite, no global warming, no security concerns, we don't need alternatives using the second oldest profession: advertising. Voter control? What do you call political campaigns?
You're worrying about little green men abducting you as you are being kidnapped by real humans.
3. Lack of evidence: related to the first two. Proof that this is going on? As nonexistent as a mind control pill.
4. Government incompetence: Pols can't manage to keep their illegal fundraising activities secret, and the US government can't defeat illiterate, ignorant islamic radicals You really believe they're inexplicably competent at developing effective mind control drugs, producing them, deploying them, and KEEPING IT ALL A SECRET?
So let me reivse your statement:
"Considering the hypothetical scenario is just too ridiculous and stupid for you to even consider so you would rather not focus on delusions."
I find interesting parallels between this and computational biology especially on the molecular level. Maybe not parallels so much as reverse. Trying to figure out the folds of a complex protein, RNA mollecule, lipid layers, and especially interactions between two or more very often involves computational modeling. With millions or in some cases, damn near infinity possible permutations, you can't get very far by hand. In a lot of cases, even several computers won't do it. That's the reason for folding @ home.
Needless to say, you can't directly look at the mollecule's structure, and often times you can't look indirectly at it either. The real smoking gun comes when someone manages to purify and crystalize the mollecule in question, and figure out it's structure from X-rays (I think they use X-rays at least sometimes.) However that's apperantly pretty hard to do even in the best of circumstances with only one molecule. I'm not sure, for example, if it's even theoretically possible to crystalize an intact transmembrane protein in a lipid bilayer. I suspect it isn't.
That type of biology is utterly beyond comprehension for me, I have little understanding of the computers and physics behind it. Figuring out the nature of the interaction between two mollecules I can't see is a problem that would make me want to die, yet they manage to not only do it but make real-world applications like drugs based off it.
How about removing the tax credits for ALL forms of energy so we can have an undistorted idea of what the energy costs from each method, hmmmm?
Well right after the energy crisis to end all energy crises, economic depression, subsequent anarchy, looting, and fundamentalist islamic (aka anti-american) revolutions in all middle-eastern countries which are remotely friendly towards us, I'm sure that will ensure the most efficient possible way to power our heaters during the nuclear winter!
I'm not a fan of the current system, but I am a fan of HAVING electricity and the society we've built around it. I'm not a fan of foreign oil dependance and neo-imperialism or whatever the hell it is we're doing in the middle east, but I'm realistic enough to know if we suddenly quit buying oil from certain unsavory types, we'll be dealing with new, angrier unsavory types.
Iraq is only the most prominent example. We messed up, but unfortunately admitting that and forgetting the whole deal altogether is going to make things worse. Well, to be accurate, "they" messed up, I'm still saying "I told you so" and take no credit for the mistakes, but I do accept the responsibility of dealing with it, since those who put us there are incapable of doing anything about it.
Bandaid, shortsighted solutions to our energy needs, and capital interests run amok without postive government guidance got us into this situation to begin with. Government interference isn't always helping and in a lot of cases is hurting, but blanket deregulation is kind of like giving a diabetic a gallon of insulin reguardless of glucose levels.
My gut feeling is that if quick-fixes and free-market forces get us out, it will be completely by chance and will only be to get us into a bigger problem.
Indeed. I'm convinced that if big solar plants are ever going to be worth building, they'll have to be based on a thermal approach rather than PV technology.
I don't think thermal is the only way you can build solar plants. For proof of concept, I point to the fact that most life on earth gets it's energy from the sun without using thermal approaches.
The only way to ensure the end of nuclear proliferation is to cease development of nuclear technology in ALL FORMS, and destroy any existing nuclear technology.
There are a lot of cool side missions. An achievement for wheelies, they had all the jumps you needed to do, random strangers giving you mini missions. There are 200 pidgeons around the city you can shoot to get prizes. Hidden weapons. Dating.
What you're upset about is that it didn't take the best parts of san andreas (IE the little extras) and replace the parts about that game that sucked (IE the graphics and story.)
I aplaud rockstar for making a sequel rather than a clone.
I don't know about that, but it seems to me that it has already been on the battlefield. You shoot the enemy in the head, you've effectively "interfered with the firing of neurons in the brain."
Well, there's always tinfoil hats. And the fact that someone modded you up for "insightful" is proof that my tinfoil hat buisness should start advertising on/.
Or maybe it's just proof that some people confuse "insightful" with "paranoia parading as wisdom."
First, I do not see how the time spent playing games translates into profit. The only thing that translates to profit is number of games sold.
No, I wasn't saying that they profit from people playing the game all the way through. That point wasn't clear, but the teenage guys who play a lot of games and spend the most read reviews, and don't buy games that suck in the first place. Games like ninjabread man are aimed at people picking up games at random, without so much as asking the clerk if it's worth it.
In other words, the quality of a game doesn't matter for a larger contingent of the wii owning population, which hurts the quality of games coming out on the wii.
The Wii is a highly succesful machine, targeted to a certain audience. To say that they are nannies preventing it from expanding into other markets is simplistic. They sell consoles, they have some of the top games, and if people want violent video games, there are other consoles available.
I didn't say and didn't mean that nintendo was the nannies. They're not censoring, they're not the nannies, the British moral brigade is. On the contrary, I love nintendo! They do two things great, making consoles, and making games that everyone can enjoy. I'm not opposed to games that are non-violent, some of the best games ever are nintendo's. Why they need violent games though is that teenage boy gamers, the target audience in gaming, like violent games.
Giving them what they want in NO way "spoils the wii," I think everyone can agree to that. Putting violent games out for the wii is not mutually exclusive with the other consumers who like the family games. Nintendo is already proving that, there are a few violent games out already. Resident evil 4, no more heroes, Red steel, some generic WW2 game, manhunt. I'm saying it needs to be drummed up for nintendo to maximize what they have.
Rounding up that demographic gets them more 3rd party support and higher quality. A lot of major releases skip the wii because it's seen as a waste of time. You put crap out on the wii because it sells just as well. That's not a universally held opinion of course, and there are various other reasons why a lot of games don't come out on the wii, not the least of which being it's not as grapically powerful as the other ones, but it is a reason.
In the end, the entertainment industry has been decimated by the cult of teen age boys. In fact, society in general has been harmed by the idea that teen aged boys must be coddled to, even at the expense of the rest of society. In many ways life may have been better before that advent of adolescent, when the primary purpose of a teen age boy was to work the field, or in some other way help support the family that took care of him for all the years.
I can see one advantage to teenage boys working in the field: then no one would have to put up with them. I might have turned out better, but I suspect I probably would have just turned out duller. Anyway, the genie is out of the bottle, and not putting out games for the big spenders on the wii isn't going to shut them up. The only thing I see coming from that is the possibility of a crash like was seen with the atari 2600. A flood of low quality games made people simply stop buying games.
And that's my whole argument, really. Catering to the whiners ultimately makes better games. The lineup of games for the 360 or PS3 is much better than the wii, especially when you look at games that were not made by nintendo. Nintendo obvously has an interest in putting out good games reguardless of the demographic. They've put out a lot of good ones, but there's no comparison, the Wii is really hurting in quality titles, because they don't have the key demographic.
That was probably "Red Steel." It was, well, less than stellar. I think it was repetitive and suffered from some problems like the katana was pretty much impossible to use, or maybe there was no point in using the guns instead of the katana. Anyway, the game didn't do well because it got bad reviews.
One problem with games aimed at gamers is that they have to be good. You can spend a lot of money on a game, but if it's flawed it won't sell well with that crowd. On the other hand, you can make kids games for a dime that are absolute crap and they'll sell great.
Not only do I want to play games besides nintendo's "Fun for the whole family you don't personally have," but the wii NEEDS to have those games.
On boards dedicated to consoles, theres a lot of whining about "casual" players destroying gaming with the wii. It basically comes down to 13-21 year old boys wanting to kill stuff, it has nothing to do with how serious of a gamer one is. The reason it matters is that they spend the most on games, and I think it's no coincidence that the 3rd party offerings on other systems (IE, games not from microsoft on the XBOX 360) are generally of a higher caliber than the wii.
The wii has a ton of "shovelware." Companies realize that almost anything they put on the wii (no matter how cliche, buggy, or just generally lacking in fun) will be profitable, since the people who own the wii are on average read less reviews, have lower expectations, and complain less about the duds (personal hypothesis there.) Ninjabread man was called by almost anyone who played it the worst game of this generation of consoles, every review article read "do not buy this game for anyone!" But I'm pretty sure they made a profit. They couldn't have spent more than a grand developing it, and enough confused grandparents bought it for their grandchildren who own a wii (or quite possibly another console) that they made their money back.
So the wii is getting a ton of games that should not be played. Since there are no "adult" games on it, you don't get the key demographic of teenage boys buying games for it, you never get any quality games for the system that aren't from nintendo. Anyone who puts time and effort into their game makes only a little bit more profit than if you ported solitare to the wii and sold it for $20.
It's made worse by the fact that apperantly, the moral nannies have decided that since so many kids have the wii, no adult games should come out on the wii ever.
It's really too bad, if the teenage boys could be enticed to the wii, I think you'd see some of the best games ever coming out for it, combining the unique control scheme with innovative new ideas for games and a sufficient budget to make it work. Instead we're going to get a console with a promising controller, some great games from nintendo, and a bunch of crap that will go the way of ET for the atari.
With the light rail, I'm thinking it is just plain lobbyists and or arcane federal regulations. At least that seems to be the case here, but Amtrak is I think federally managed. Anyway, that does suck.
That's interesting about the bike helmets, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's a quick bandaid solution that, while an important safety step, they're forcing in order to give the illusion that they're doing something. To clarify though, I'm certain they've done some analysis, but I'm saying they've never done an analysis that shows how much insurance premiums go down as a result of motorcycle helmet laws.
They're making the argument that they're justified because if I don't wear a helmet and get in an accident, it's going to cost everyone more. I'm saying you need to be able to say how much and compare it to smoking (in the privacy of one's home) or being obsese if you're going to go down that road.
Motorcyclists get into suprisingly few accidents, I don't know why that is exactly, maybe because the bikes are smaller and more maneuverable, because you have a better sense of the environment with a bike, and because you have less distractions... but anyway the accidents are rarer. They are of course more damaging, nearly any accident on a motorcycle is a significant injury. A helmet doesn't make you immune to damage. So there are some serious questions as to how much money this is going to save. On the other hand it's pretty likely that if you smoke or are obsese, you're going to be a bigger drain on society. Why not ban smoking and obesity for the same health insurance reasons?
As far as car seats, 9 does seem pretty old to be riding in a car seat. The situations aren't exactly parallel though, I can make the argument that if I want to risk my brain by doing something dangerous, I should because it only affects me (outside of the insurance issue of course.) The car seat though does affect someone else, the 9 year old kid will probably tell you they're informed enough to make the decision not to be safer in a car seat, but of course isn't.
I don't think that's the best reason for the government to step in and make it a law, but that is a somewhat stronger reason than the insuance thing. The carseat law isn't a "don't poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick" law, it would be a "don't poke your child in the eye with a sharp stick" law, if that makes any sense.
Live long enough and eventually you become a drain on society no matter what. Not to mention that obese people have higher medical costs and larger carbon footprints. It's about freedom. And as I pointed out above, motorcycle helmet laws were not passed to prevent health insurance premious from going up, they were passed because motorcyclists give less money in campaigns than motorcycle helmet manufacturers, because various government agencies and offices can act like they're saving lives, and because it's not a big issue to anyone outside of maybe hells angels.
I'm not sure where you got that I made any of those choices. I don't smoke, I'm not fat by any stretch of the imagination, I don't own a motorcycle so the helmet thing is not an issue even if I wouldn't wear a helmet.
So, you know, take your unaffordable health care and stick it in a letter to your senator in support of national medical healthcare.
A bigger question: If I find one of these on my car and break it, will I be fined for destruction of public property or arrested for obstruction of justice? If they put it on my car and it gets smashed when I go over a speedbump, will they accuse me of having something to hide?
And another question: since they don't need a warrant, buy these things with taxpayer money, and are being allowed to get away with "you don't need to know about that," when asked about them, are they limiting themselves to known criminals? Do we have any reason to belive they're not putting these on the cars of random people? I guess it wouldn't really be random, it would correlate very closely to the color of your skin.
That's true, but it's also true of any other risky or unhealthy behavior you're free to engage in: unprotected sex, obesity, smoking, drinking too much, suntanning, not wearing a helmet while you walk up and down stairs, living past the age of 30. Yet those should clearly not be outlawed (some combinations maybe, like obesity AND suntaning.)
I'd be pretty suprised if anyone had bothered to a risk analysis of an individual not wearing a helmet while riding and the financial strain that would cause. And that's exactly the type of thing needed to justify outlawing it on those grounds.
The reason those laws are passed is that motorcycle riders don't make up a large or vocal demographic. There's no higher logic other than the DoT or other government agencies wanting the statistics of road fatalities to look like they're doing something.
We don't need to give people another excuse to be concerned about my health, which is a private matter. The government is already too concerned with my health. It would be nice to have big brother as a gym coach, except for the fact that they're much dumber than I am, especially when it comes to my health. Also it's MY health, if I want to ruin it, I will.
We already have LA banning fast food resturaunts due to obesity problems. I don't smoke, but every time another city goes smokeless, I'm tempted to start chewing tobacco and spitting it on the steps of city hall. Motorcycle helmet laws also. Yes yes yes, they save lives. But not wearing a helmet doesn't risk other people's lives. If I want to ride around and feel the wind in my hair, and I'm willing to risk brain damage and death to do so, it's not the smartest decision in the world, but it should be my decision. If I do and I were to crash and become brain damaged, I'd be the first to say I was asking for it (assuming I was capable of that.) It's not like it would kill other people. The department of transportation being proud of fewer fatalities is a stupid reason to take away freedoms, even if they are freedoms no one should want.
That kind of went off topic a little. Anyway, no, the government does not need more motivation to stick it's nose up my ass, we already have too many "don't poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick" laws.
You must be new here. Singling Americans out for normal weaknesses of human nature is one of the easiest ways to get modded up.
It's like I always say, no one ever went broke underestimating american taste, and no one ever got modded down for overstating american stupidity.
But you're right. After all, it's not like we're the only ones with creationists. We aren't the most superstitious people either, although stuff like holistic medicine is around, it's not like we're fueling a black market for rhinocerous horn. Science education is or should be an issue for every country, it's just plain not easy to make scientists and technicians. The public's dim understanding of global warming to me seems more a result of a smear and obfuscation campaign by you-know-who than americans unable to figure out that pollution = bad.
I actually think we're doing better than most in a lot of areas. We're still, I believe, number one in many areas of research, such as biomedical. And this is personal bias, but you don't have the same level of irrational rejection of GM crops. (By that I mean that even if you proved conclusively that a GM food were better for your health than non-GM, some people would still riot rather than see it sold in stores.)
And whatever science ignorance issues we face, I think everyone can agree that they pale in comparison to the problem of people in AIDS ravaged areas thinking it's not caused by unprotected sex and needles.
Slashdot Mirror
Alternative? What alternative? You mean the hypothetical scenario of "The US, in the future, will use as-of-yet undeveloped brain control schemes for nefarious purposes?"
Yeah, I considered it. Four reasons why it's stupid to worry about it:
1. Pre-emptive: you're worrying about things which haven't yet been made. Not a good reason by itself but...
2. More pressing concerns: Propaganda is real and is working. Why develop mind control in a pill? The oil companies are convincing gullible people that oil is infinite, no global warming, no security concerns, we don't need alternatives using the second oldest profession: advertising. Voter control? What do you call political campaigns?
You're worrying about little green men abducting you as you are being kidnapped by real humans.
3. Lack of evidence: related to the first two. Proof that this is going on? As nonexistent as a mind control pill.
4. Government incompetence: Pols can't manage to keep their illegal fundraising activities secret, and the US government can't defeat illiterate, ignorant islamic radicals You really believe they're inexplicably competent at developing effective mind control drugs, producing them, deploying them, and KEEPING IT ALL A SECRET?
So let me reivse your statement:
"Considering the hypothetical scenario is just too ridiculous and stupid for you to even consider so you would rather not focus on delusions."
Yes, it's true when you put it like that.
I find interesting parallels between this and computational biology especially on the molecular level. Maybe not parallels so much as reverse. Trying to figure out the folds of a complex protein, RNA mollecule, lipid layers, and especially interactions between two or more very often involves computational modeling. With millions or in some cases, damn near infinity possible permutations, you can't get very far by hand. In a lot of cases, even several computers won't do it. That's the reason for folding @ home.
Needless to say, you can't directly look at the mollecule's structure, and often times you can't look indirectly at it either. The real smoking gun comes when someone manages to purify and crystalize the mollecule in question, and figure out it's structure from X-rays (I think they use X-rays at least sometimes.) However that's apperantly pretty hard to do even in the best of circumstances with only one molecule. I'm not sure, for example, if it's even theoretically possible to crystalize an intact transmembrane protein in a lipid bilayer. I suspect it isn't.
That type of biology is utterly beyond comprehension for me, I have little understanding of the computers and physics behind it. Figuring out the nature of the interaction between two mollecules I can't see is a problem that would make me want to die, yet they manage to not only do it but make real-world applications like drugs based off it.
I kind of wish the internet HAD melted. Not only would that have made a cool youtube video, but I waste too much time on the internet.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't have been able to view the youtube video then.
Also come to think of it, I'm wasting time on the internet right now.
Well right after the energy crisis to end all energy crises, economic depression, subsequent anarchy, looting, and fundamentalist islamic (aka anti-american) revolutions in all middle-eastern countries which are remotely friendly towards us, I'm sure that will ensure the most efficient possible way to power our heaters during the nuclear winter!
I'm not a fan of the current system, but I am a fan of HAVING electricity and the society we've built around it. I'm not a fan of foreign oil dependance and neo-imperialism or whatever the hell it is we're doing in the middle east, but I'm realistic enough to know if we suddenly quit buying oil from certain unsavory types, we'll be dealing with new, angrier unsavory types.
Iraq is only the most prominent example. We messed up, but unfortunately admitting that and forgetting the whole deal altogether is going to make things worse. Well, to be accurate, "they" messed up, I'm still saying "I told you so" and take no credit for the mistakes, but I do accept the responsibility of dealing with it, since those who put us there are incapable of doing anything about it.
Bandaid, shortsighted solutions to our energy needs, and capital interests run amok without postive government guidance got us into this situation to begin with. Government interference isn't always helping and in a lot of cases is hurting, but blanket deregulation is kind of like giving a diabetic a gallon of insulin reguardless of glucose levels.
My gut feeling is that if quick-fixes and free-market forces get us out, it will be completely by chance and will only be to get us into a bigger problem.
I don't think thermal is the only way you can build solar plants. For proof of concept, I point to the fact that most life on earth gets it's energy from the sun without using thermal approaches.
Where is superman when you need him?
There are a lot of cool side missions. An achievement for wheelies, they had all the jumps you needed to do, random strangers giving you mini missions. There are 200 pidgeons around the city you can shoot to get prizes. Hidden weapons. Dating.
What you're upset about is that it didn't take the best parts of san andreas (IE the little extras) and replace the parts about that game that sucked (IE the graphics and story.)
I aplaud rockstar for making a sequel rather than a clone.
I don't know about that, but it seems to me that it has already been on the battlefield. You shoot the enemy in the head, you've effectively "interfered with the firing of neurons in the brain."
Well, there's always tinfoil hats. And the fact that someone modded you up for "insightful" is proof that my tinfoil hat buisness should start advertising on /.
Or maybe it's just proof that some people confuse "insightful" with "paranoia parading as wisdom."
Bigstrat's law of bad laws. Useful for making bumper stickers against various laws. Unfortunately, poorly justified at the present time IE a bad law.
Where is the "Whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag? If this article had ANYTHING to do with biology, it would have been up already.
No, I wasn't saying that they profit from people playing the game all the way through. That point wasn't clear, but the teenage guys who play a lot of games and spend the most read reviews, and don't buy games that suck in the first place. Games like ninjabread man are aimed at people picking up games at random, without so much as asking the clerk if it's worth it.
In other words, the quality of a game doesn't matter for a larger contingent of the wii owning population, which hurts the quality of games coming out on the wii.
I didn't say and didn't mean that nintendo was the nannies. They're not censoring, they're not the nannies, the British moral brigade is. On the contrary, I love nintendo! They do two things great, making consoles, and making games that everyone can enjoy. I'm not opposed to games that are non-violent, some of the best games ever are nintendo's. Why they need violent games though is that teenage boy gamers, the target audience in gaming, like violent games.
Giving them what they want in NO way "spoils the wii," I think everyone can agree to that. Putting violent games out for the wii is not mutually exclusive with the other consumers who like the family games. Nintendo is already proving that, there are a few violent games out already. Resident evil 4, no more heroes, Red steel, some generic WW2 game, manhunt. I'm saying it needs to be drummed up for nintendo to maximize what they have.
Rounding up that demographic gets them more 3rd party support and higher quality. A lot of major releases skip the wii because it's seen as a waste of time. You put crap out on the wii because it sells just as well. That's not a universally held opinion of course, and there are various other reasons why a lot of games don't come out on the wii, not the least of which being it's not as grapically powerful as the other ones, but it is a reason.
I can see one advantage to teenage boys working in the field: then no one would have to put up with them. I might have turned out better, but I suspect I probably would have just turned out duller. Anyway, the genie is out of the bottle, and not putting out games for the big spenders on the wii isn't going to shut them up. The only thing I see coming from that is the possibility of a crash like was seen with the atari 2600. A flood of low quality games made people simply stop buying games.
And that's my whole argument, really. Catering to the whiners ultimately makes better games. The lineup of games for the 360 or PS3 is much better than the wii, especially when you look at games that were not made by nintendo. Nintendo obvously has an interest in putting out good games reguardless of the demographic. They've put out a lot of good ones, but there's no comparison, the Wii is really hurting in quality titles, because they don't have the key demographic.
That was probably "Red Steel." It was, well, less than stellar. I think it was repetitive and suffered from some problems like the katana was pretty much impossible to use, or maybe there was no point in using the guns instead of the katana. Anyway, the game didn't do well because it got bad reviews.
One problem with games aimed at gamers is that they have to be good. You can spend a lot of money on a game, but if it's flawed it won't sell well with that crowd. On the other hand, you can make kids games for a dime that are absolute crap and they'll sell great.
Not only do I want to play games besides nintendo's "Fun for the whole family you don't personally have," but the wii NEEDS to have those games.
On boards dedicated to consoles, theres a lot of whining about "casual" players destroying gaming with the wii. It basically comes down to 13-21 year old boys wanting to kill stuff, it has nothing to do with how serious of a gamer one is. The reason it matters is that they spend the most on games, and I think it's no coincidence that the 3rd party offerings on other systems (IE, games not from microsoft on the XBOX 360) are generally of a higher caliber than the wii.
The wii has a ton of "shovelware." Companies realize that almost anything they put on the wii (no matter how cliche, buggy, or just generally lacking in fun) will be profitable, since the people who own the wii are on average read less reviews, have lower expectations, and complain less about the duds (personal hypothesis there.) Ninjabread man was called by almost anyone who played it the worst game of this generation of consoles, every review article read "do not buy this game for anyone!" But I'm pretty sure they made a profit. They couldn't have spent more than a grand developing it, and enough confused grandparents bought it for their grandchildren who own a wii (or quite possibly another console) that they made their money back.
So the wii is getting a ton of games that should not be played. Since there are no "adult" games on it, you don't get the key demographic of teenage boys buying games for it, you never get any quality games for the system that aren't from nintendo. Anyone who puts time and effort into their game makes only a little bit more profit than if you ported solitare to the wii and sold it for $20.
It's made worse by the fact that apperantly, the moral nannies have decided that since so many kids have the wii, no adult games should come out on the wii ever.
It's really too bad, if the teenage boys could be enticed to the wii, I think you'd see some of the best games ever coming out for it, combining the unique control scheme with innovative new ideas for games and a sufficient budget to make it work. Instead we're going to get a console with a promising controller, some great games from nintendo, and a bunch of crap that will go the way of ET for the atari.
If it has Angelina Jolie in it scantily clad, it'll be an awesome movie no matter how crap the rest of the movie is
Fixed that for you
With the light rail, I'm thinking it is just plain lobbyists and or arcane federal regulations. At least that seems to be the case here, but Amtrak is I think federally managed. Anyway, that does suck.
That's interesting about the bike helmets, and that's exactly what I'm talking about. It's a quick bandaid solution that, while an important safety step, they're forcing in order to give the illusion that they're doing something. To clarify though, I'm certain they've done some analysis, but I'm saying they've never done an analysis that shows how much insurance premiums go down as a result of motorcycle helmet laws.
They're making the argument that they're justified because if I don't wear a helmet and get in an accident, it's going to cost everyone more. I'm saying you need to be able to say how much and compare it to smoking (in the privacy of one's home) or being obsese if you're going to go down that road.
Motorcyclists get into suprisingly few accidents, I don't know why that is exactly, maybe because the bikes are smaller and more maneuverable, because you have a better sense of the environment with a bike, and because you have less distractions... but anyway the accidents are rarer. They are of course more damaging, nearly any accident on a motorcycle is a significant injury. A helmet doesn't make you immune to damage. So there are some serious questions as to how much money this is going to save. On the other hand it's pretty likely that if you smoke or are obsese, you're going to be a bigger drain on society. Why not ban smoking and obesity for the same health insurance reasons?
As far as car seats, 9 does seem pretty old to be riding in a car seat. The situations aren't exactly parallel though, I can make the argument that if I want to risk my brain by doing something dangerous, I should because it only affects me (outside of the insurance issue of course.) The car seat though does affect someone else, the 9 year old kid will probably tell you they're informed enough to make the decision not to be safer in a car seat, but of course isn't.
I don't think that's the best reason for the government to step in and make it a law, but that is a somewhat stronger reason than the insuance thing. The carseat law isn't a "don't poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick" law, it would be a "don't poke your child in the eye with a sharp stick" law, if that makes any sense.
Live long enough and eventually you become a drain on society no matter what. Not to mention that obese people have higher medical costs and larger carbon footprints. It's about freedom. And as I pointed out above, motorcycle helmet laws were not passed to prevent health insurance premious from going up, they were passed because motorcyclists give less money in campaigns than motorcycle helmet manufacturers, because various government agencies and offices can act like they're saving lives, and because it's not a big issue to anyone outside of maybe hells angels.
Dear dumbass,
I'm not sure where you got that I made any of those choices. I don't smoke, I'm not fat by any stretch of the imagination, I don't own a motorcycle so the helmet thing is not an issue even if I wouldn't wear a helmet.
So, you know, take your unaffordable health care and stick it in a letter to your senator in support of national medical healthcare.
A bigger question: If I find one of these on my car and break it, will I be fined for destruction of public property or arrested for obstruction of justice? If they put it on my car and it gets smashed when I go over a speedbump, will they accuse me of having something to hide?
And another question: since they don't need a warrant, buy these things with taxpayer money, and are being allowed to get away with "you don't need to know about that," when asked about them, are they limiting themselves to known criminals? Do we have any reason to belive they're not putting these on the cars of random people? I guess it wouldn't really be random, it would correlate very closely to the color of your skin.
Edit: obesity isn't really an activity, I realize this. Sorry for not catching it before posting.
That's true, but it's also true of any other risky or unhealthy behavior you're free to engage in: unprotected sex, obesity, smoking, drinking too much, suntanning, not wearing a helmet while you walk up and down stairs, living past the age of 30. Yet those should clearly not be outlawed (some combinations maybe, like obesity AND suntaning.)
I'd be pretty suprised if anyone had bothered to a risk analysis of an individual not wearing a helmet while riding and the financial strain that would cause. And that's exactly the type of thing needed to justify outlawing it on those grounds.
The reason those laws are passed is that motorcycle riders don't make up a large or vocal demographic. There's no higher logic other than the DoT or other government agencies wanting the statistics of road fatalities to look like they're doing something.
We don't need to give people another excuse to be concerned about my health, which is a private matter. The government is already too concerned with my health. It would be nice to have big brother as a gym coach, except for the fact that they're much dumber than I am, especially when it comes to my health. Also it's MY health, if I want to ruin it, I will.
We already have LA banning fast food resturaunts due to obesity problems. I don't smoke, but every time another city goes smokeless, I'm tempted to start chewing tobacco and spitting it on the steps of city hall. Motorcycle helmet laws also. Yes yes yes, they save lives. But not wearing a helmet doesn't risk other people's lives. If I want to ride around and feel the wind in my hair, and I'm willing to risk brain damage and death to do so, it's not the smartest decision in the world, but it should be my decision. If I do and I were to crash and become brain damaged, I'd be the first to say I was asking for it (assuming I was capable of that.) It's not like it would kill other people. The department of transportation being proud of fewer fatalities is a stupid reason to take away freedoms, even if they are freedoms no one should want.
That kind of went off topic a little. Anyway, no, the government does not need more motivation to stick it's nose up my ass, we already have too many "don't poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick" laws.
You must be new here. Singling Americans out for normal weaknesses of human nature is one of the easiest ways to get modded up.
It's like I always say, no one ever went broke underestimating american taste, and no one ever got modded down for overstating american stupidity.
But you're right. After all, it's not like we're the only ones with creationists. We aren't the most superstitious people either, although stuff like holistic medicine is around, it's not like we're fueling a black market for rhinocerous horn. Science education is or should be an issue for every country, it's just plain not easy to make scientists and technicians. The public's dim understanding of global warming to me seems more a result of a smear and obfuscation campaign by you-know-who than americans unable to figure out that pollution = bad.
I actually think we're doing better than most in a lot of areas. We're still, I believe, number one in many areas of research, such as biomedical. And this is personal bias, but you don't have the same level of irrational rejection of GM crops. (By that I mean that even if you proved conclusively that a GM food were better for your health than non-GM, some people would still riot rather than see it sold in stores.)
And whatever science ignorance issues we face, I think everyone can agree that they pale in comparison to the problem of people in AIDS ravaged areas thinking it's not caused by unprotected sex and needles.
You think that's bad, you haven't talked to Zeus. He's had mount Olympus for years, and the IOC is constantly sending him cease and desist letters.
Said the guy who doesn't have glaucoma yet.