If you only played through a single instance or did a single quest once ever this would make sense for an MMO, but thats just not the way it works. You're going to do the same instances over and over and if you've already been there you probably wont want to hear the story segments again.
This has the added negative effect of making the game inaccessible for people who join later. If you start playing 3 months in everyone is going to insist on skipping all of the cut-scenes in instances because they're sick of them, so you won't be able to get any of the group story that Bioware is claiming is so great.
Yes, lets just pay all of our workers 3 times as much, give everyone free healthcare, stop having wars or using oil, and then cry about how awful we are. That'll fix things in a jiffy! Why didn't I think of that?
No, actually it looks like there are a ton of people just as ill-informed about nuclear power as you, based on the moderation for your post and its better informed responses.
That the biggest indicator of slashdot's downfall is that every single article posted is immediately met by a claim that the inclusion of said article indicates the site's downfall.
Religion made pre-marital sex a no-no because before effective contraceptives lots of anonymous sex really was a bad thing. In 1532 if a woman was pregnant and she wasn't sure who the father was, well, there was a pretty good chance that if she survived the childbirth she and the child would starve to death over the winter.
The reason that they still make an issue of it is also simple, it takes a really long time for religions to adjust their policies.
There is no conspiracy against fun here, this is a relic public health policy that most religions are going to take a while to do away with. Not because they hate fun, but because they're religions.
The biggest problem with trailers is the people inside of them. If you park a double-wide on a nice piece of land somewhere, well, your neighbors wont appreciate it and its a bit of an eyesore, but its not the end of the world. If you live in a trailer park... I hope you like watching "Cops".
Have they been successful in transforming the world?
Anti-intellectualism, anti-science, or anti-whatever-else has been prevalent in at least the United States for a very, very long time. And it starts when you're very young.
I remember being in school, in first grade. I was smarter than a lot of other kids in my class, and because of that I was ostracized. I wasn't allowed to be an intellectual; stupidity was celebrated. Acts of buffoonery were promoted and lauded.
Is it any coincidence why the most socially-outgoing people, in the history of K-12, are typically *not* the intellectuals? The "nerds" and "geeks" are always kept from ever rising above the "jocks" on the social ladder.
When you make it to college/university, it doesn't change very much. The nerds are at least not the brunt of jokes, and they're allowed to sit in the science and engineering buildings well into the night, silently doing their nerdy sciency and engineery things.
But the loud ones -- in sports, and poli-sci -- are still the non-intellectuals of the high school years. And these are the ones who grow up to be politicians.
So when articles like this act surprised that the majority of the government is filled with anti-elitist and anti-intellectuals, I have to wonder – were they paying attention any, growing up? This sort of conditioning –letting people know that being smart is NOT COOL – starts from a very young age.
But these people became successful? So they must be smart, right? Oh, if only. It's not about what you know, but rather about who you know. Nerds don't really socialize; we focus on our work, because that makes us happy. The others schmooze and network like crazy, with like-minded anti-science colleagues, who later become leaders, while we're the ones left wondering where the world is heading.
They become rich and powerful, and spread their ideas to the next generation. Of course, not all of them are successful. Many of them are not. Many of them remained dumb because they didn't realize the importance of knowledge, since it was ingrained to them from a very early age to think that knowledge and intellect are ELITIST and UNCOOL. And so they raise their kids that same way.
And we're back to square one.
I've experienced this first hand, and I am sure many have here as well.
It sucks; it's terrible. It shouldn't be like this. But it is. And I really have no idea what to do to stop it, but the article is right about one thing – it's terribly dangerous.
I wasn't addressing AGW at all actually, I was describing the politicization process through an abstract example. You could replace "Global Warming" in my post with "Witches" and it have the same point.
Yea, its oversimplified a little bit, there is usually money to be made on both sides and there is usually an actual correct stance on the issue, but from a political standpoint all that matters is that you can scare people into voting for you.
I didn't say it doesn't I just just responding to the quantities you listed to try to give an idea of scale. There were massive, poison, clouds of smoke in London in the 1800s due to too much burning coal and too many cooking fires, yet there wasn't a measured global impact that I'm aware of. Now, when every single city is right on that line of causing a billowing cloud of poison, that's when we're probably causing something global.
And the position of the catholic church, at least last I checked, is that the universe is 14 bn years old, and that evolution is the best model to describe life on earth.
... The really rich dont care. The poor dont care they get benefited. It is the frugal middle who did all the right things, who took sensible size mortgage, squirreled away the money, took less expensive vacations and cheaper cars and did everything your grandma told you to do, are being punished for good behavior. With incentive system so warped, is there any surprise America is on the decline?
This is one of the best descriptions of this problem I've seen lately. The middle class in America is getting laid off and losing their houses in exchange for studying hard and getting a degree then working hard once they got a job. The rich are still rich, and the lower-class, aside from immigrants, is largely made up of people who are content to accept the quality of life that a trailer and a welfare check brings.... This is depressing.
What do you think would happen to Nasa if they hadn't said that?
I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm just saying that if they had posted something from the other side of that issue they would find themselves hurting for funding(moreso) right quick.
Or if we do the right thing, but too much of it, and we harm people in that way. For instance, if we decide to curb carbon emissions completely then we're going to have to stop developing countries from building their infrastructure with the methods they can afford, possibly preventing them from making the upgrades they need to prevent that next famine.
Tons of smoke into the entire atmosphere probably wouldn't be that big a deal, and the ocean is about 1.37 billion km^3, so millions of gallons probably isn't going to do much either.
But as a reply to your question, they believe it because its not a political tool of their opposing political party. Republicans pretty much latched on to religion in this country right? Well, democrats just so happen to have latched onto the issue of global warming. As a result many of the global warming people hate religion, and many of the religion people hate global warming.
This is all the result of politicians who don't care one way or the other about any of this stuff manipulating people in order to get votes.
Oh, and by the way, google the catholic church's position on the age of the earth and global warming. You'll find it interesting, I promise.
Almost every single Democrat and any garbage Science which at the moment is popular (eugenics before WW2, vaccines and autism today).
I could probably find a list of Republicans a mile long that drank Thorium water for their health, practiced Fletcherism, and murdered indians. I could probably also generate a long list of Democrats that were neither eugenicist, nor today accept the Jim Carrey line on vaccines.
I clearly stated in my post that Republicans do it too. You selectively read because you would rather respond to a pro-republican post than an anti-democrat bias post.
You really can't hold people responsible for things their great-grandparent's generation believed, and even if you examine them at the time, there's very little ideologically that binds people back then -- usually they believed in whatever (1) allowed them to make the most money, and (2) allowed their town to stay the same. Same applies now; the ideology and rationale are just a tool used to produce outcomes (1) and (2), by both sides.
But Republicans more:).
Yea, both sides still do this pretty much 100% of the time to this day. Claiming republicans do it more just tells me what kind of bumper stickers you have.
The biggest problem I see is that because this is such a complex and huge issue, politicians have figured out that they can latch onto it. A politician gives a speech and says: "Global Warming will kill us all unless you elect me!" His opponent says one of two things: "No it wont!" if he thinks that will get him elected Or, if the initial claims scared people enough: "I'm the one who will deal with Global Warming if you elect me!" So we either get a political bias attached to some scientific issue that neither the proponents nor the opponents understand, or you get a politically motivated scientific consensus and regardless of who gets elected any opposing scientific research will be attacked and discredited.
And the best part from a political point of view is that you cant be wrong. If nothing happens then you saved everyone by preventing global warming! Any time crops fail, or there's a hurricane, or there's a cold snap, hot summer, invasion of bees, or anything else related to nature your insidious opponents tireless efforts to kill the voting public have succeeded, and they better vote more members of your party into power if they want to survive!
Slashdot Mirror
If you only played through a single instance or did a single quest once ever this would make sense for an MMO, but thats just not the way it works. You're going to do the same instances over and over and if you've already been there you probably wont want to hear the story segments again.
This has the added negative effect of making the game inaccessible for people who join later. If you start playing 3 months in everyone is going to insist on skipping all of the cut-scenes in instances because they're sick of them, so you won't be able to get any of the group story that Bioware is claiming is so great.
Its a pity this game looks fucking terrible. That $100M could have been used to make several new Dark Forces games.
All of the residents of the Willis Tower in Chicago were electrocuted to death today, and then the building burned down.
Yes, lets just pay all of our workers 3 times as much, give everyone free healthcare, stop having wars or using oil, and then cry about how awful we are. That'll fix things in a jiffy! Why didn't I think of that?
No, actually it looks like there are a ton of people just as ill-informed about nuclear power as you, based on the moderation for your post and its better informed responses.
What fucking moron modded this troll?
That the biggest indicator of slashdot's downfall is that every single article posted is immediately met by a claim that the inclusion of said article indicates the site's downfall.
...Was when Gary Coleman had to work as a security guard to pay his bills!
Religion made pre-marital sex a no-no because before effective contraceptives lots of anonymous sex really was a bad thing. In 1532 if a woman was pregnant and she wasn't sure who the father was, well, there was a pretty good chance that if she survived the childbirth she and the child would starve to death over the winter.
The reason that they still make an issue of it is also simple, it takes a really long time for religions to adjust their policies.
There is no conspiracy against fun here, this is a relic public health policy that most religions are going to take a while to do away with. Not because they hate fun, but because they're religions.
Damn right I'll get sleep, there won't be anything else to do!
The biggest problem with trailers is the people inside of them. If you park a double-wide on a nice piece of land somewhere, well, your neighbors wont appreciate it and its a bit of an eyesore, but its not the end of the world. If you live in a trailer park... I hope you like watching "Cops".
Have they been successful in transforming the world?
Anti-intellectualism, anti-science, or anti-whatever-else has been prevalent in at least the United States for a very, very long time. And it starts when you're very young.
I remember being in school, in first grade. I was smarter than a lot of other kids in my class, and because of that I was ostracized. I wasn't allowed to be an intellectual; stupidity was celebrated. Acts of buffoonery were promoted and lauded.
Is it any coincidence why the most socially-outgoing people, in the history of K-12, are typically *not* the intellectuals? The "nerds" and "geeks" are always kept from ever rising above the "jocks" on the social ladder.
When you make it to college/university, it doesn't change very much. The nerds are at least not the brunt of jokes, and they're allowed to sit in the science and engineering buildings well into the night, silently doing their nerdy sciency and engineery things.
But the loud ones -- in sports, and poli-sci -- are still the non-intellectuals of the high school years. And these are the ones who grow up to be politicians.
So when articles like this act surprised that the majority of the government is filled with anti-elitist and anti-intellectuals, I have to wonder – were they paying attention any, growing up? This sort of conditioning –letting people know that being smart is NOT COOL – starts from a very young age.
But these people became successful? So they must be smart, right? Oh, if only. It's not about what you know, but rather about who you know. Nerds don't really socialize; we focus on our work, because that makes us happy. The others schmooze and network like crazy, with like-minded anti-science colleagues, who later become leaders, while we're the ones left wondering where the world is heading.
They become rich and powerful, and spread their ideas to the next generation. Of course, not all of them are successful. Many of them are not. Many of them remained dumb because they didn't realize the importance of knowledge, since it was ingrained to them from a very early age to think that knowledge and intellect are ELITIST and UNCOOL. And so they raise their kids that same way.
And we're back to square one.
I've experienced this first hand, and I am sure many have here as well.
It sucks; it's terrible. It shouldn't be like this. But it is. And I really have no idea what to do to stop it, but the article is right about one thing – it's terribly dangerous.
Shut up nerd.
Good point
I wasn't addressing AGW at all actually, I was describing the politicization process through an abstract example. You could replace "Global Warming" in my post with "Witches" and it have the same point.
Yea, its oversimplified a little bit, there is usually money to be made on both sides and there is usually an actual correct stance on the issue, but from a political standpoint all that matters is that you can scare people into voting for you.
I didn't say it doesn't I just just responding to the quantities you listed to try to give an idea of scale. There were massive, poison, clouds of smoke in London in the 1800s due to too much burning coal and too many cooking fires, yet there wasn't a measured global impact that I'm aware of. Now, when every single city is right on that line of causing a billowing cloud of poison, that's when we're probably causing something global.
And the position of the catholic church, at least last I checked, is that the universe is 14 bn years old, and that evolution is the best model to describe life on earth.
So a scaffolding expert is lecturing us on how we designed our skyscraper?
...
The really rich dont care. The poor dont care they get benefited. It is the frugal middle who did all the right things, who took sensible size mortgage, squirreled away the money, took less expensive vacations and cheaper cars and did everything your grandma told you to do, are being punished for good behavior. With incentive system so warped, is there any surprise America is on the decline?
This is one of the best descriptions of this problem I've seen lately. The middle class in America is getting laid off and losing their houses in exchange for studying hard and getting a degree then working hard once they got a job. The rich are still rich, and the lower-class, aside from immigrants, is largely made up of people who are content to accept the quality of life that a trailer and a welfare check brings. ... This is depressing.
That's why you say "we need to restrict [business] from doing [action]" late in the game.
Politics got involved way, way too early.
What do you think would happen to Nasa if they hadn't said that?
I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm just saying that if they had posted something from the other side of that issue they would find themselves hurting for funding(moreso) right quick.
Unless we do the wrong thing.
Or if we do the right thing, but too much of it, and we harm people in that way. For instance, if we decide to curb carbon emissions completely then we're going to have to stop developing countries from building their infrastructure with the methods they can afford, possibly preventing them from making the upgrades they need to prevent that next famine.
Tons of smoke into the entire atmosphere probably wouldn't be that big a deal, and the ocean is about 1.37
billion km^3, so millions of gallons probably isn't going to do much either.
But as a reply to your question, they believe it because its not a political tool of their opposing political party. Republicans pretty much latched on to religion in this country right? Well, democrats just so happen to have latched onto the issue of global warming. As a result many of the global warming people hate religion, and many of the religion people hate global warming.
This is all the result of politicians who don't care one way or the other about any of this stuff manipulating people in order to get votes.
Oh, and by the way, google the catholic church's position on the age of the earth and global warming. You'll find it interesting, I promise.
I could probably find a list of Republicans a mile long that drank Thorium water for their health, practiced Fletcherism, and murdered indians. I could probably also generate a long list of Democrats that were neither eugenicist, nor today accept the Jim Carrey line on vaccines.
I clearly stated in my post that Republicans do it too. You selectively read because you would rather respond to a pro-republican post than an anti-democrat bias post.
You really can't hold people responsible for things their great-grandparent's generation believed, and even if you examine them at the time, there's very little ideologically that binds people back then -- usually they believed in whatever (1) allowed them to make the most money, and (2) allowed their town to stay the same. Same applies now; the ideology and rationale are just a tool used to produce outcomes (1) and (2), by both sides.
But Republicans more :) .
Yea, both sides still do this pretty much 100% of the time to this day. Claiming republicans do it more just tells me what kind of bumper stickers you have.
...
Also, Republicans believe in the biggest junk "science" ever. It's called religion.
Check and mate.
I think the level of smug in this post is single-handedly going to cause global laming.
Do you know the catholic church's position on Evolution and Global Warming? Google it. Go ahead, I'll wait.
The biggest problem I see is that because this is such a complex and huge issue, politicians have figured out that they can latch onto it.
A politician gives a speech and says: "Global Warming will kill us all unless you elect me!"
His opponent says one of two things: "No it wont!" if he thinks that will get him elected
Or, if the initial claims scared people enough: "I'm the one who will deal with Global Warming if you elect me!"
So we either get a political bias attached to some scientific issue that neither the proponents nor the opponents understand, or you get a politically motivated scientific consensus and regardless of who gets elected any opposing scientific research will be attacked and discredited.
And the best part from a political point of view is that you cant be wrong. If nothing happens then you saved everyone by preventing global warming! Any time crops fail, or there's a hurricane, or there's a cold snap, hot summer, invasion of bees, or anything else related to nature your insidious opponents tireless efforts to kill the voting public have succeeded, and they better vote more members of your party into power if they want to survive!
http://healthland.time.com/2010/05/24/doctor-behind-vaccine-autism-link-loses-license/